“It brought up all the things I've never done. All the risks I haven't taken. It was always about trying to be free, you know?”

According to Michael Mathers’s first true love, he was always a romantic. Was the death orchestrated with Petra the ending of a love story he’d been trying to craft all along?

Get early, ad-free access to the entire season of Death of an Artist by subscribing to Pushkin+ on the Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.

&ldquo;It brought up all the things I've never done. All the risks I haven't taken. It was always about trying to be free, you know?&rdquo;
According to Michael Mathers&rsquo;s first true love, he was always a romantic. Was the death orchestrated with Petra the ending of a love story he&rsquo;d been trying to craft all along?
Get early, ad-free access to the entire season of Death of an Artist by subscribing to Pushkin+ on the Apple Podcasts <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/death-of-an-artist/id1628639926">show page</a> or at <a href="https://www.pushkin.fm/join-pushkin">pushkin.fm/plus</a>.

In February 2024, celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they choose to die together? And what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them? 

In season 3 of Death of an Artist, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael’s letters—as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael’s friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers’ deaths and the final words they left behind.

Listen back to season 2, where Katy Hessel offers an inside look at how Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, changed everything about the landscape of modern art. And in season 1, host Helen Molesworth revisits the artist Ana Mendieta’s death and the trial that followed—interrogating both the silence and the protest that have accompanied her story ever since. 

Death of an Artist Season 1 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries, Somethin’ Else, and Sony Music Entertainment.

Death of an Artist Season 2 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries and Samizdat Audio.

In February 2024, celebrated children&rsquo;s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they choose to die together? And what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them?&nbsp;
In season 3 of Death of an Artist, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael&rsquo;s letters&mdash;as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael&rsquo;s friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers&rsquo; deaths and the final words they left behind.
Listen back to season 2, where Katy Hessel offers an inside look at how Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, changed everything about the landscape of modern art. And in season 1, host Helen Molesworth revisits the artist Ana Mendieta&rsquo;s death and the trial that followed&mdash;interrogating both the silence and the protest that have accompanied her story ever since.&nbsp;
Death of an Artist Season 1 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries, Somethin&rsquo; Else, and Sony Music Entertainment.
Death of an Artist Season 2 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries and Samizdat Audio.

Death of an Artist

Episode 4: Bird on a Wire

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/9e62e9c7-0dfa-4691-97ff-b4ad014bba27/transcript

We think you'll like this preview of Bone Valley: The Devil’s Quarry II.

If Season 1 of The Devil’s Quarry was a horror story, Season 2 is a ghost story.

More than 30 years after 17-year-old Robin Murphy vanished from Carmel, New York, investigative journalist Paul Solotaroff and reporter Kathleen Horan plunge into the cold case that has haunted the community for decades. Robin was last seen with a convicted violent predator who was never charged in her disappearance. Now, as the original case file is reopened, new witnesses emerge, old evidence is reconsidered, and the search for Robin enters its most critical chapter. Can the truth finally be uncovered before time runs out? Or will one of New York’s most haunting mysteries remain a ghost story forever?

Award-winning investigative journalist and longtime Rolling Stone Magazine contributor Paul Solotaroff hosts the latest entry in the acclaimed Bone Valley anthology: The Devil's Quarry II.

Search for Bone Valley Season 6 | The Devil's Quarry II wherever you listen to podcasts. Bone Valley Season 6: The Devil’s Quarry II is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

We think you'll like this preview of Bone Valley: The Devil&rsquo;s Quarry II.
If Season 1 of The Devil&rsquo;s Quarry was a horror story, Season 2 is a ghost story.
More than 30 years after 17-year-old Robin Murphy vanished from Carmel, New York, investigative journalist Paul Solotaroff and reporter Kathleen Horan plunge into the cold case that has haunted the community for decades. Robin was last seen with a convicted violent predator who was never charged in her disappearance. Now, as the original case file is reopened, new witnesses emerge, old evidence is reconsidered, and the search for Robin enters its most critical chapter. Can the truth finally be uncovered before time runs out? Or will one of New York&rsquo;s most haunting mysteries remain a ghost story forever?
Award-winning investigative journalist and longtime Rolling Stone Magazine contributor Paul Solotaroff hosts the latest entry in the acclaimed Bone Valley anthology: The Devil's Quarry II.
Search for Bone Valley Season 6 | The Devil's Quarry II wherever you listen to podcasts.&nbsp;Bone Valley Season 6: The Devil&rsquo;s Quarry II is a production of <a href="https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flavaforgood.com%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7CCristinaEverett%40iheartmedia.com%7Ccfd64129d16e421ee99608df18b45ceb%7C122a527e5b714eba878d9810b495b9e3%7C0%7C0%7C639256835059692148%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=5G65E1h1aME%2FaIlkeiloellhlqBVOugrZmH2tsJykVo%3D&amp;reserved=0" data-airgap-id="11">Lava for Good&trade; Podcasts</a> in association with <a href="https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.signalco1.com%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7CCristinaEverett%40iheartmedia.com%7Ccfd64129d16e421ee99608df18b45ceb%7C122a527e5b714eba878d9810b495b9e3%7C0%7C0%7C639256835059737714%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=70fETjzXipzDC7byCiu98giBUBKG6wEWDZmvH3dN1dU%3D&amp;reserved=0" data-airgap-id="12">Signal Co. No1.</a>

Introducing: Bone Valley Season 6 | The Devil’s Quarry II

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/23ba5a04-1c49-480a-b504-b4da01394017/transcript

“Dear Lottie and Herbie, by the time you read this, I will be dead . . . That's why I'm writing this letter. I've had a long and happy life doing what I loved best . . . Now it's time to make room for someone else on this earth.” 

The letters Petra and Michael sent out echo the words of a letter in a children’s book Petra wrote 10 years earlier: the final installment in her beloved series about Lottie the chicken. But it was their relationship – not their work – that Petra and Michael seemed to think of as their most important artistic achievement. Were their deaths, and these letters, their final creative collaboration?

&ldquo;Dear Lottie and Herbie, by the time you read this, I will be dead . . . That's why I'm writing this letter. I've had a long and happy life doing what I loved best . . . Now it's time to make room for someone else on this earth.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The letters Petra and Michael sent out echo the words of a letter in a children&rsquo;s book Petra wrote 10 years earlier: the final installment in her beloved series about Lottie the chicken. But it was their relationship &ndash; not their work &ndash; that Petra and Michael seemed to think of as their most important artistic achievement. Were their deaths, and these letters, their final creative collaboration?

Episode 6: By the Time You Get This Letter

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/30e71000-c17d-4fd8-9088-b4b000f35b28/transcript

“I wrestle with: Was it courage, or was it cowardice?”

This question animates a memorial service for Michael and Petra, held several months after their death. Alice and Leon want to understand it as well: Was Michael and Petra’s suicide a move toward something, or away from something else? To figure it out, they reach out to Michael and Petra’s families, to find out what examples they had from their own parents’ end-of-life experiences that might have led them to this choice.

&ldquo;I wrestle with: Was it courage, or was it cowardice?&rdquo;
This question animates a memorial service for Michael and Petra, held several months after their death. Alice and Leon want to understand it as well: Was Michael and Petra&rsquo;s suicide a move toward something, or away from something else? To figure it out, they reach out to Michael and Petra&rsquo;s families, to find out what examples they had from their own parents&rsquo; end-of-life experiences that might have led them to this choice.

Episode 5: We Are Without Fear

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/4d815e73-f53e-448c-8231-b4b000e8a813/transcript

Episode 4: Bird on a Wire

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Death of an Artist

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