June 29, 2021
Music Hall's roof naked no more after latest restoration
"Cranes are returning several 4-foot-tall finials to the roof line of Music Hall, one of the final elements of the iconic building to be restored to its original Hannaford design."
May 11. 2021
143-year-old Music Hall restoration project underway
"Music Hall is undergoing a facelift. And when you are working to restore pieces of a building that is over a century old, it takes some special skills and precision."
March 4, 2020
ArtsConnect project is turning trash into art
"Payne has a piece at the Cincinnati Art Museum connected to Burning Man, an annual event centered around community and art. Cornell and several students visited Payne and the museum to drum up ideas for the ArtsConnect project this year. Payne said many students keyed in on the Burning Man motto of "leave no trace.""
October 31. 2018
UC wood sculpting students challenged to cut the cord
"We were donated this 200-year-old piece of white oak, a cross cut out of it, and that just seemed to be the perfect shape and size," Payne said.
October 4, 2017
Kitchen Convos Ep. 41
"Luis Laya and James Payne of Fire Lab are the master builders of Cincinnati Food + Wine Classic’s Live Fire Grill Pavilion. Hear their fascinating and unique story of how their desire to build a local community around the tradition of open fire cooking began with a challenge from their colleagues at Rookwood Pottery."
April 21. 2017
How artists can help remake a town
"The grand opening of the Hellmann lumber mill was impossible to miss. After all, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. That day, the fire was built to roast pig, okra, and corn dumplings —on grills hand-forged by Fire Lab for the kind of diverse, dynamic crowd civic organizations strive to attract and very seldom do."