Ted Audio Collective

You know when people die and the pictures at the funeral are sometimes younger, like once they die they're ateless.

It's perfectly fine to have a picture of her at 20 or 30 or 40.

I understood that of her before she passed that that's how she saw herself and that's how she wanted to be seen.

From the Ted Audio Collective this is Design Matters with Debbie Milman.

For 17 years Debbie Milman has been talking with some of the world's most creative people about what they do,

how they're about to be who they are and what they're thinking about and working on.

And now some of those interviews appear in print in Debbie's brand new book Why Design Matters,

conversations with the world's most creative people.

It's coming out in February of this year.

In anticipation of the book we're releasing interviews from the archives this month.

We thought it would be fun for listeners to hear not only some great interviews but also to hear how the podcast has evolved over the years.

So we've been releasing the oldest ones first and proceeding chronologically.

In September of 2020 Debbie spoke with textile artist Beesa Butler about how making a quilted portrait of her grandmother led to an artistic breakthrough.

I think they could see it and I could feel it too like I got it, I finally got it.

Beesa Butler after the break.

Do you ever feel like your laptop just keeps going but you are completely drained?

I think a lot of us don't realize how much pain we live in because of our interactions with computing.

NPR's Body Electric, a special interactive series investigating how to fix the relationship between our tech and our health.

Listen in the Ted Radio Hour feed wherever you get your podcasts.

I could say Beesa Butler is a fiber artist and I wouldn't be wrong. Her work is made of quilted textiles.

But it's kind of like saying that Jackson Pollock worked in paint.

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