The Harlem-based artist Sanford Biggers talks about the influence that musicians such as Mahalia Jackson, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder have had on his art; why he thinks of himself as a “material polyglot”; and why religious and spiritual works including reliquaries, shrines, and “power objects” are the bedrock of his practice.

The artist, master potter, and author Edmund de Waal, widely known for his best-selling family memoir “The Hare with Amber Eyes,” talks about his infatuation with Japan, his affinity for the life and work of the Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), and the roles of rhythm and breath in his work.

The artist and photographer Trent Davis Bailey talks about what it was like to grow up as an identical twin; his unusual and decidedly dysfunctional upbringing; photography as a device for commemoration; and his deep pictorial explorations of the climates, geographies, and landscapes of the American West.

The prolific theater director and playwright Robert Wilson talks about his personal philosophies around silence and sound, the intersections of architecture and theater, and his enduring legacy as the founder of the Watermill Center.

The Miami-born, Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá talks about his near-death experience with Covid-19; his ongoing activism with the collective Wide Awakes; and how his large-scale murals at locations including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barclays Center, and One World Trade Center trace back to his early days, in the late ’80s and early ’90s, of painting elaborate wall works with aerosol in Miami and Atlanta.

The British designer Tom Dixon talks about how two motorbike accidents transformed his life, his days in the early 1980s as a bass player in the disco-funk band Funkapolitan, why he considers cork a “wonder material,” and the parallels he sees between his design creations and those of a baker.

The historian, scholar, and writer Dr. Jessica B. Harris, author of the book-turned-Netflix series “High on the Hog,” talks about her love of West African markets, her disregard for recipes despite being the author of numerous cookbooks, and the widely unrecognized yet critical differences between yams and sweet potatoes.

The multi-hyphenate British designer, creative director, and artist Samuel Ross, founder of the fashion label A-Cold-Wall and the industrial design studio SR_A, talks about notions of ritual, essence, and alchemy; how his work straddles the line between the organic and the synthetic; and why he always thinks in threes.

Jelani Cobb, a New Yorker staff writer and the dean of Columbia Journalism School, talks about timing and flow in hip-hop, why being a “first Black” leader in any high-profile profession is like “doing a high-wire act without a net,” and his belief that the future of journalism will include greater transparency around how a story gets made.

Artist Marilyn Minter talks about the unrealistic societal and body-image standards young women continue to face, the importance of tolerating complexity and multiplicity in artwork, and the hope she has in the next generation to fight social injustice.

Ari Shapiro, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, talks about his new memoir, “The Best Strangers in the World: Stories From a Life Spent Listening”; why he considers hosting All Things Considered like inheriting an heirloom; embracing one’s identity as a journalistic asset; and the parallels between reading fiction, cooking, and reporting.

Anders Byriel, the CEO of the Danish textile company Kvadrat, talks about why the best design has an artistic edge, the importance of making space for emotion within a corporate environment, and his deep and lifelong passions of poetry and photography.

Photographer Tina Barney talks about what she views as the underlying sources of nostalgia, the fascinating natures of ritual and tradition, and the small miracles that can exist within a single photograph.

Artist Nick Cave talks about his improvisational approach to life and work, how his artwork seeks to find brightness in darkness, and what the world might be like if everyone sat in silence for an hour each day.

From the archive: The late artist, jewelry-maker, and metalsmith Daniel Brush, who died on Nov. 26, 2022, at age 75, talks about memory (and interpretations of memory); his deep, monkish engagement with a wide variety of materials; and some of his most valuable tools—breathing, language, and light.

Chef and restaurateur Ruthie Rogers, who owns and runs the River Cafe in London, talks about her journey in food and cooking; her 35 years at the helm of the Michelin-starred restaurant; and the rigorous culture of kindness and openness, paired with toughness, that she has built there, both in and out of the kitchen.

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen talks about the values of equity he was raised with in Scandinavia, the importance of maintaining rigor and commitment over time, and why doing good and doing business aren’t mutually exclusive.

The artist Hank Willis Thomas, co-founder of the civic-engagement collective For Freedoms, talks about identity as a figment of our imaginations, race as the “most successful advertising campaign” ever, and quilt-stitching as a metaphor for all that he does.

Designer and entrepreneur Tina Roth Eisenberg talks about why she views the idea of time as a farce, her spiritual belief that everything is vibration and energy, and her mantra of leading with a sense of gentleness and what she calls “an extra layer of love.”

Graphic designer and design critic Michael Bierut, a partner at the firm Pentagram since 1990, talks with Andrew about the integral practice of keeping notebooks throughout his life; the deep groundedness of his nearly lifelong relationship with his wife and high-school sweetheart, Dorothy Kresz; and why the “why” of design is far more important to him than the “how.”

Eric Ripert, the chef and co-owner of the New York restaurant Le Bernardin, speaks about his cool-headed leadership style as the three-Michelin-star establishment celebrates its 50th anniversary, his meticulous approach to managing time and technique in the kitchen, the enduring influence of his mother’s cooking, and how practicing Buddhism has transformed his way of being.

The architect Brad Cloepfil, founder of the Portland, Oregon- and Brooklyn-based firm Allied Works, talks with Spencer about his multisensorial approach to design and making; how reading, writing, and poetry have shaped his perspectives on the built world; and why all of his buildings are on some level about “amplifying and elevating the idea of service.”

Choreographer Annie-B Parson, the co-founder of Big Dance Theater, talks about how the pandemic has altered our understanding of the way our bodies relate to one another, why she considers TikTok a new kind of folk dance, and choreography as a means of controlling and testing time.

Poet and writer Saeed Jones, author of the new poetry collection “Alive at the End of the World,” talks about growing up Black and queer in the suburban city of Lewisville, Texas; how the murders of James Byrd, Jr., and Matthew Shepard haunted him throughout his teenage years and still do; and why, “in our culture right now, everything’s a proxy war, everything’s one-upmanship.”

British graphic designer and art director Peter Saville speaks about coming of age in the punk and post-punk worlds, the increasing impossibility of tracking “nowness,” and creating literal signs of the times.