Explore every episode of the podcast Authentic Obsessions

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson is a multi-disciplinary artist in San Francisco, CA with a focus in fiber arts, illustrating, and storytelling. Biracial and born in Japan, she creates art to bridge the gap between her two worlds. Inspired by the healing and connective power of humor and play, she creates her wacky, whimsical, and colorful work to process deep emotions in grief and joy, while creating places of belonging and finding ways to stay connected to those we love.

Molly Meng talks to Risa about creating for the experience instead of the object, drilling down big feelings to the essence of their meaning, and and how the work you make often doesn’t make sense when you’re going through grief.

Takeaways

1. Our job as artists is to be the steward to the stories and lessons that have been passed down.
2. Artists are a great bridge for bringing people together.
3. What have you done lately that has scared the shit out of you?
4. You have to get extremely comfortable saying no.
5. Make eye contact with all humans at every opportunity.

Links

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson on Instagram

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson on Tiktok

Artist, teacher, collector, and storyteller Molly Meng is a force for good. Molly is heavily influenced by a scrap of paper, a single word, ​opera, rap, theremins, the thick cotton of an old book page, random sentences, and an overheard statement. Molly exudes optimism and curiosity, and believes we are ALL related and connected to each other. 

Takeaways

1. Just ask.
2. On social media: Follow less, engage more.
3. Same but different.
4. Be here now. Let go.
5. When you want to see beauty somewhere, if you don’t already see it, you have to create it. Make it come about.

Mentioned

Follow Molly on Instagram

Molly’s website

The Traveling Postal Club

Matthew Frederick

French General workshops

Jen Peterson’s Instagram - the pursuit of sunshine

On Being with Krista Tippett podcast

Chanel Miller

Priorities, patriotic quilts, procrastination, studio space evolution, and playing with the tension and finding the edge!

Maura's journey began in 2011 when she followed her dream to merge gardening and quilting. Hailing from a family of quilters and tailors, Maura finds joy and meaning in connecting with her ancestors through her craft and preserving heritage techniques. A pioneer in hand-dyed fabrics and hand-stitched quilts, Maura has inspired an international movement by sharing her plant-based dyeing processes and using those colors in quilt making. Her brand, Folk Fibers, has become a sought-after choice for heirloom quilt collectors. At her home studio and garden sanctuary, Maura immerses herself in color, allowing the transformation from seed to plant, dye, and textile to inform her work. 

She shares her expertise by teaching workshops locally and abroad, emphasizing a balance of technique and play. Maura and her family live on a ten-acre woodland property near the lower Colorado River in Bastrop, TX. Embracing the seasons, Maura's connection to nature and authentic living continues to inspire her creative work.

Takeaways:

1. Once you sit down to work in this slow intentional process of hand sewing there’s a heartbeat, a quiet space, a discipline of being present and reflection, allowing the waters to clear.
2. Artist dates are where creativity blooms.
3. Quilts touch the deepest parts of people’s lives.
4. There are many places in life where we have a need to control, but our art practice is a place where we can let go of that control.
5. The work speaks for itself, it’s told to me in real time.

Maura Ambrose Folk Fibers

Maura Ambrose on Instagram

Maura Ambrose on Facebook

Aurora Silk natural dyes 

Glue & adhesives, rules & parameters, loving the outcome without loving the process (this is where discipline comes in!), purposefully making things that others might not want, and knots all come up in today’s episode with Lisa Solomon.

Lisa Solomon is a studio artist that moonlights as a college professor and illustrator/graphic designer. Profoundly interested in the idea of hybridization (sparked from her Hapa heritage), her mixed-media works and large installations revolve around domesticity, craft, and personal histories. She often fuses "wrong" things together--recontextualizing their original purposes and incorporating materials that question the line between ART and CRAFT. She resides in Oakland, California with her husband, a teenager, two kitties, a three legged pit-bull, a dachshund mutt and many, many spools of thread. She is the author of - A Field Guide To Color, The Color Meditation Deck, a historical book on Crayola crayons, Knot Thread Stitch, and the illustrator for 20 Ways to Draw a Chair and Draw 500 Everyday Things. 

Takeaways

1. When it comes to making art, consider using the word ‘parameters’ instead of ‘rules.’
2. Art is a space where you investigate things.
3. Discipline is integral to everything.
4. It’s not about only making work when you are inspired, it’s about the ACT of making.

You can contribute to Lisa’s Japan Chroma Exhibit by sending material before May 30, 2025 to: PO BOX 99534, Emeryville, CA 94662

Lisa Solomon

Lisa Solomon on Instagram

Lisa Solomon on Bluesky

Lisa Solomon on Pinterest

Lisa Solomon on Amazon

Artists Take Action

This to That

Walter Maciel gallery

Tadao Ando architect

Michael McConnell was born in Michigan, where he used to watch squirrels from the front window. He graduated from Columbus College of Art & Design, with an emphasis in lithography and painting, and landed in the Bay Area soon after, where he still lives. Making art is how Michael makes sense of the world and his forgotten childhood, creating visual narratives that examine the space between memory and nostalgia.

During his conversation with Molly Meng, Michael talks about how falling in love with Joseph Cornell’s work allowed him to excavate his own language of “symbology.” He also reveals how the ropes and strings used in his work are about lineage and connection, symbolizing a narration thread.

Takeaways

1. You can figure out how you want to make something by learning how someone else makes something.
2. Your personal life affects your artwork. If you’re feeling like you don’t have a voice, ask yourself what you want to say with your art. Are people listening?
3. Slow down and let go of the expectation that you should crank the work out.
4. Be careful what you start collecting!  
5. Color becomes an environment for things and is about pushing something and taking it further.
6. “Sometimes you just go into the studio and just sharpen pencils.” The Woodmans documentary

Michael McConnell

Michael McConnell on Instagram

Michael McConnell on Bluesky

Joseph Cornell

Courtney Cerruti

Brian McDonald

The Woodmans documentary

Let the loose thread be dangling! 

Born and raised in New England, Sarah Haskell has a BFA in Textile Design from RISD and a Masters of Art and Healing from Wisdom University.  As a seeker, maker and creative pathfinder her medium is most often thread, investigating the mystery of encoded fabrics and the hidden language of cloth.

Sarah talks about the soothing nature of weaving, the importance of community involvement, how the natural world and its objects (rocks, shells, pinecones) speak to her, and making work that you yourself need to see. Sarah uses embroidery, weaving, and natural dyes to explore personal truth and universal wisdom. I love how she describes her obsession as taking separate objects and putting them together in an organized structure that other people can respond to. She creates a structure from things that are chaotic.

Takeaways:

1. A sketchbook is a repository for your dreams, thoughts and ideas - all of it, everything!
2. Weaving is a full body process.
3. Thread is elemental- almost like DNA.
4. Approach everything with an awareness of all the things we can see and those that we cannot.
5. Make the work you need.
6. Find a way to raise up all the boats in the harbor.
7. Take off the backpack of self-doubt and keep forging ahead.

Sarah Haskell

Sarah Haskell on Instagram

Sarah Haskell on Facebook

Molly Meng

Melissa Guido is a multidisciplinary printmaker and illustrator whose work draws inspiration from fashion and costume design of the 1920’s. Melissa is currently living in Iceland for 9 months under a Student Fulbright Open/Study Research Grant where she is exploring Iceland’s sustainable textile practices and unique plant sources for natural dyeing. 

During our conversation Melissa talks about digital art, the magic of Iceland, the collaborative nature of printmaking and some surprising revelations about rulers and paper cutters. Her obsession with pushing boundaries is evident in her printing work –screen printing, letterpress, etching, lithography, and relief printing – as well as her current creative pursuits focused on traditional textile arts, natural dyeing, embroidery, weaving, and knitting.

As the co-founder of Sourwood Press, a design and printing studio established with Brittany Emerson, Melissa leads a female-run business specializing in designing, producing, and selling products such as bandanas, stationery, and tote bags. Sourwood Press also collaborates with designers and businesses to create bespoke printed goods and products. 

Takeaways

1. What is the best possible way to make a piece shine?
2. My skills were built over having lots of mistakes.
3. Stay curious about tactile skills.
4. Don’t ever wish your life away.

Melissa Guido

Melissa Guido on Instagram

Sourwood Press on Etsy

Peter Hristoff on Instagram

Chelsea Cardinal

Larry B Wright

Charles Yoder

Jillian Tamaki graphic novelist

Dafi Kühne on Instagram

Hamilton Wood Type Museum

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film

New York Collage Ensemble

Fulbright Student Fulbright Open/Study Research Grant

Artist, teacher, collector, and storyteller Molly Meng interviews artist and illustrator Elizabeth DeJure Wood for today’s episode. They discuss the authenticity of non-human animals, being fully present, generating ideas and limiting options.

Elizabeth has a creative background in ceramics, graphic design, illustration, and fine art. She loves drawing every day and enjoys developing novel visual solutions for clients. Molly and Elizabeth met in the beautiful coastal town of Portsmouth New Hampshire where they both reside.

Takeaways

1. Animals are inherently authentic.
2. Staring into space is important for your creative life.
3. An extended eye to eye with an eel makes an impact.
4. Being fully present in the moment to moment makes a really great life.
5. Keep your instruments or tools of play in sight so you can express yourself fully whenever you need.
6. Generating ideas often come during the ordinary moments and while moving our bodies.
7. Limiting options in the media you use helps with discipline and getting into a more regular art practice.

Elizabeth DeJure Wood

Elizabeth DeJure Wood on Instagram

Elizabeth DeJure Wood on YouTube

Elizabeth DeJure Wood on LinkedIn

Elizabeth DeJure Wood on Bluesky

Elizabeth DeJure Wood on Pinterest

Molly Meng

SarahPedlow, founder of ThreadWritten, is an artist working with embroidery and cultural preservation through workshops, textile travel tours, and fine art. ThreadWritten supports women artisans, traditional textile practices, and the preservation of heritage through research, education, and the cultivation of a global community of makers.

While participating in an artist’s residency in Budapest, Hungary in 2009, Sarah fell in love with Hungarian embroidery and clothing during a visit to the Ethnographic Museum. The experience led her to seek out women embroidering in the written style in Transylvania, Romania, and start ThreadWritten in 2012, first with artisan-made bags and pillows. Since 2014 she has focused on education, lecturing, and teaching cultural embroidery workshops. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she moved to Amsterdam, NL, in 2019, and to Rotterdam this year.

Takeaways

1. Notice what feels nourishing to you. Keep your antenna up and remain curious and creative.
2. Each part enriches the other part.
3. Keep the channel open – the gist of a longer quote by Martha Graham
4. “A miracle is a shift in perception.” Marianne Williamson

Sarah Pedlow

Sarah Pedlow on Instagram

ThreadWritten

ThreadWritten on Instagram

Tim Ingold

A brush with…podcast

Museum of Ethnography, Budapest

Krista V. Allenstein, Midwest Optimistic Artist, loves neon signs, old buildings, dollhouses and the culinary delights of Kwik Trip. She loves painting things often overlooked as beautiful. Monkeying around with words and phrases makes her especially happy. Krista often wishes she had a camera in her eyeball so she could share how she sees the world. Her paintings attempt to make that wish a reality. 

During our conversation Krista talks about embracing chaos, being uncomfortable with compliments, middle-age anonymity and invisibility, and the crippling nature of looking backwards. Krista is a true Francophile who would move to Paris if she could get away with it. She embraces and reveals all the parts of her authentic self – from her contagious optimism and positivity to her control freak tendencies.

A graduate of the School of Visual Arts (NYC), Krista has had the opportunity to participate in exhibitions at the Lakefront Festival of the Arts (In 2023 as the featured poster artist), Des Moines Arts Festival, Columbus Arts Festival, Oconomowoc Arts Festival, Madison Art Fair On the Square, Cincinnati Artfest, Free Range Art, Frank Juarez Gallery, Gallery 2622, MARN Gallery, 2020 Wisconsin Artist Biennial, and a 2019-2020 ARTservancy and MARN mentor/mentee appointments.

Takeaways

1. See the world not the way it is but the way you prefer it to be.
2. Tightly controlled situations aren't that interesting.
3. You have two choices. You could live your life being scared something terrible is going to happen again, or you could just live your life and assume it's not going to.
4. You’re exactly how you’re supposed to be whether you like it or not.
5. The key to successful art is when people know that you mean exactly what you put out there and you're not trying to be someone else, you’re not trying to say something you don't mean. People respond to that kind of authenticity.

Krista V. Allenstein

Amélie

The Regal Find, Madison, Wisconsin

News in Slow French

Finch  

You're going to hear about fighting for the underdog, discernment, editing, celebrating differences, and relinquishing control through your tools in today's episode with Debbie Taylor-Kerman.

Debbie is a Scottish artist who came to New York City to work as a textile designer in 1991. She fell in love with the city and her husband Elliott, and they moved to Harlem where they raised their two sons and still reside. Her path included the Foundation Course at St Martins School of Art in London, a Printed Textiles degree from Liverpool School of art and 4 consecutive years of Nicholas Wilton’s Creative Visionary Program. During the pandemic Debbie left her successful commercial art career of more than three decades and finally decided to paint fine art full time.

We had a great conversation about her obsession which we ended up calling “equality” – but that doesn’t do it really justice –it’s about fighting for the underdog, for racism and inequality, celebrating diversity and how much we can learn from each other. Debbie strives to normalize the fact that we're all different and we all celebrate different things. She writes: “I need to find hope in this fragile and divided world by creating the beauty of diversity. I believe it's critical for everyone to feel seen and to feel that we can coexist in peace.”

Takeaways

1. The mundane things unite us.
2. We all come from somewhere. We are all a part of the people we have in our lives. 
3. When the desire to do it becomes bigger than the fear, take the leap!
4. Find the most important thing and give it room to breathe.
5. Ask yourself: “where is my heart and what do I want to explore and paint?”

Debbie Taylor-Kerman

Debbie Taylor-Kerman on Instagram

Debbie Taylor-Kerman on Facebook

Art Juice Podcast: Finding purpose in your art with Debbie Taylor-Kerman

Tap Into Your Creativity with Sandra Felemovicius

Jillian Suzanne

Sue Zipkin

Nicholas Wilton’s Creative Visionary Program

Cheeky Wee Pumpkins quilting fabric

Wiser Than Me, Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Mark Rothko

Egon Schiele

Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott

Rachel Davis

Princeton Catalyst wedges and contours 

Siara Berry creates multi-medium sculptures influenced by neighborships, housing systems, and American domestic landscapes. Deeply influenced by her upbringing in the suburban Midwest, her work contends with cultural narratives about place and purpose, property and people. Using a combination of found object and traditional craft processes, Berry deploys a visual language that is equally quotidian and absurd.

Listen in as we chat about neighborships, domestic landscapes, construction sites, the lawn, yard signs, and control over nature.

Takeaways

1. Artists should feel creative, comfy, and cared for.
2. Every artist is working in their best interest in what feels right to them, and when it doesn’t feel right it’s a negotiation between the artist and the work.
3. Acknowledge that social media is not the full picture.
4. Neighborships are a collective effort in living a private life.

Siara Berry

Siara Berry on Instagram

John Michael Kohler Arts Center Arts/Industry Residency Program

Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists

The Curious History of Your Home podcast

all photos courtesy of Michael Lagerman.

Rainer is a queer creator, collector, and tinkerer raised in lederhosen with a pet buffalo on a floral farm in rural Pennsylvania by an eccentric immigrant father and a defiantly strong mother. Rainer is a designer leveraging art to explore and document encounters of the human condition. He is a sculptor and a painter who creates interactive installations and experiences that help people feel seen and heard.

During our conversation we talk about documenting the human process, what helps and what hurts, machines, control and letting go, procrastination, and seeing time in yearly spirals.

Takeaways

1. Stand up for what’s right. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
2. Sometimes when you start a project you have no idea how much of an impact you will have.
3. Self-doubt can push you into problem-solving and exploration.
4. Not knowing the rules can give you confidence.
5. Don't forget to keep the other burners of your life alive.
6. We’re so much more similar than we are different.

Rainer Wolter

Rainer Wolter on Instagram

Rainer Wolter on LinkedIn

The Accounting, by EJ Trask (Rainer’s debur in short horror story)

Art Prize

Khadi Papers

Krista Allenstein, Authentic Obsessions Episode 2

Mixed media artist and painter Erica Jane Huntzinger was raised in the western suburbs of Chicago. Her parents hail from Maine and Pennsylvania and they drove back there each year to see family and friends all while absorbing and exploring the landscapes and ground they missed. Her immediate family was centered in questioning, learning and growing. Her mother was a psychologist, her father, a minister and Erica was the sister to an adventurous brother. Erica made her way through creative explorations from hundreds of coloring books, mud, rock and stick scapes into multi-media work through the lens of a painter.

We talk about flow, the importance of play, and demystifying the creative process, including how people make creative decisions in their life and how and where people can affect dynamic change for themselves through creative actions.

Takeaways

1. You can affect dynamic change for yourself through creative actions.
2. Be open to asking yourself: why DON’T you do some of the things you aren’t doing?
3. Play helps get you through difficult feelings, which in turn drives your curiosity.
4. Whatever you make, and it doesn’t matter what kind of artist you are, there's somebody out there that's going to like it.

Erica Jane Huntzinger

Erica Jane Huntzinger on Instagram

Erica Jane Huntzinger’s podcast, In The Act

Erica Jane Huntzinger on YouTube

Creative Quest, Questlove

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Sara Willadsen

Art as Medicine, Creating a Therapy of the Imagination, Shaun McNiff

Marco Polo

Lois Keller

Rachel Weaver Rivera

Whitney Morales

On Writing: A Memoir of Craft, Steven King

Cooper Diers

Glimpses and layers of time, what will remain, walking, beauty, palimpsest, AI art, and clothespins are all on the mind of London-based photographer and writer Duncan Petrie.

Duncan explores nature in the human landscape, and what the world might look like when we are gone. His images, found on long walks, are a sort of synecdoche: from a single frame, a single point of punctum, they construct a world. He seeks simple images in order to strip them of their context, and to allow the viewer to peer at the world between them. He holds a 1st class degree in Marine and Natural History Photography from Falmouth University.

Takeaways

1. Always book the tickets the day before. It’s important to make it easy to fit the creative bits into your life. 
2. Photography is a collaboration with the world.
3. Look! See!
4. The future, the end of history, can be beautiful.
5. Look at this world that we have built and notice what things might outlive us and what things are very temporary.

Duncan Petrie on Instagram

Duncan Petrie on YouTube

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

Beauty in Photography, Robert Adams

This American Life

Ursula Le Guin

The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison

The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

Piranesi, Susanna Clark

Lud-in-the-Midst, Hope Mirrlees

Old books, tight deadlines, the button box, design, and dancing all come up during my conversation with mixed media artist Sue Johnson.

Sue Johnson is a mixed media artist from the UK who loves painted papers, pattern, and repetition. Her working process is quite eclectic but often begins with a colour palette and experimental mark making and various printing and painting techniques. She often works on found surfaces and ephemera such as used envelopes and pages from discarded books destined to be shredded. These provide unique surfaces to paint and print on and the use of collage yields unexpected results. Her printed textiles background informs her composition and process but play, curiosity and intuition lead the way.

Takeaways

1. Push all the boundaries and do something different.
2. Little and often.
3. Notice what you notice.
4. Sometimes the best things come out at the end during the last-minute push.
5. To get unstuck, hold your work up to a mirror to distance yourself and see what needs to be changed.

Sue Johnson

Sue Johnson on Instagram

Sue Johnson on Facebook

Creative Visionary Program with Nicholas Wilton

Bindex UK Link, Bindex US Link

Rex Ray: Art and Design YouTube video 

We Are All connected Art Project, Beatricia Sagar

Art Juice podcast

Articulation, pivoting, sketchbooks, observation, and travel all play a key role in Ethan Keister’s creative life.

Graphic designer, illustrator and art director Ethan was born in Vietnam, grew up in the backwoods of Upstate New York and now calls Milwaukee, Wisconsin his home.

When Ethan isn't ruining his posture at his desk, you can find him snow skiing, water skiing, biking, hiking, traveling, and writing about himself in the third person. 

Takeaways

1. Pivot in a way that allows for more growth and a fresh perspective.
2. Eighty percent of drawing is seeing.
3. When sketching people, be on the lookout for good poses and gestures.
4. “Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.” James Thurber

Ethan Keister

Ethan Keister on Instagram

Ethan Keister on Facebook

Ethan Keister on LinkedIn

Ethan Keister on TikTok

Mark Manson

Paul Noth (episode 92)

Jon Horvath (episode 89)

Idea generation, your brain on cartoons, incongruency & divergent thinking, and how to encourage your creativity are all on the mind of cartoonist, writer and artist Paul Noth.

Paul is a cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine, where his work has appeared regularly since 2004. He created the Emmy-nominated animated series "Pale Force" for Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He has been an animation consultant for Saturday Night Live and developed shows for Cartoon Network Adult Swim and Nickelodeon. Paul is the author of the middle grade novels “How to Sell Your Family to the Aliens,” “How to Properly Dispose of Planet Earth,” and “How to Win the Science Fair When You’re Dead,” all published by Bloomsbury.

Takeaways

1. Embrace the limitations of your art form.
2. Conscious effort impedes the incubation process.
3. The preparatory phase of creative work requires hard work and skill, but it also requires letting go.
4. The idea comes despite the effort not because of it.

Paul Noth on X

Paul Noth on Instagram

Paul Noth on Facebook

Paul Noth on LinkedIn

Paul’s middle grade books

Paul Noth on IMBD

'Midwest nice' cartoonist for The New Yorker is ready for Chicago and the DNC

The New Yorker 

This is Your Brain on Cartoons article by Sarah Larson

Roz Chast

Iain McGilchrist

Photo credits, Camila Guarda, Chicago Sun Times

Rocker chick Paula Hare talks about no longer giving a rip what other people think, New York City, and Wisconsin’s most iconic dessert – the cream puff.

Paula Hare is a life-long artist, designer and creative director, plein air and studio painter. She brings a unique perspective to her work which includes unusual juxtapositions, compositions, and subjects. Paula's keen eye for detail and appreciation for the unconventional allows her to breathe life into scenes that might escape the notice of others. Whether it's the play of light on chrome, the wind-swept landscapes that unfold along the journey, or elements of a back-alley way, Paula captures the essence of the moments they portray and the stories they tell. 

Paula’s obsession with the biker lifestyle (Harley’s, not bicycles!) spills over into all her ventures, including Gearhead Fashion, which features sustainable, repurposed, reinvented, one-of-a-kind apparel and accessories for anyone that wants to look and feel like a rock star.

Takeaways

1. Do cool stuff, paint cool things.
2. You gotta jam 24/7 – suck it up and get to work. You’ve got to make yourself do it. Just put one foot in front of the other and just keep moving forward and not stop.
3. Bundle up all your skills and energy and figure out what’s in you, and then you have a direction. Stick to that path and you’ll be successful.

Paula Hare

Paula Hare on Facebook

Paula Hare on LinkedIn

The Arts Mill on Facebook, and Instagram

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

Deadwood, South Dakota

Original Cream Puffs

Sketchnoting

Gearhead Fashion

Gearhead Fashion on Instagram

Diving deep into your own life to find your voice, the selfish nature of being an artist, the power of observation, and reacting to marks and layers are all considered during my conversation with Victoria McDonnell.

Victoria relocated from Bogota, Colombia – at the age of 28 – to the rural countryside of Norfolk, UK. The cultural change was already overwhelming, but the language barrier added another layer of challenge. It was an act of courage, driven by love, to move to a town of just over 300 people. In response, she turned to the language without words – art – which became her constant companion that has deepened over time.

Victoria offers glimpses of familiarity in her subjects, inviting viewers to engage playfully while allowing ample room for personal exploration. Working across a diverse array of subjects in oils and acrylics, she unifies them through the lens of abstraction.

Victoria’s latest obsession is ‘Chairs,’ a project of exploration, observation, and discovery. Inspired by the simple objects that are central to our daily lives and our personal connections with them, she examines the narratives they embody. Whether it's the chair in the corner that sparks conversation, the kitchen chairs that keep the family united, or the old nursing chair passed through generations, each chair tells a different story.

Takeaways

1. “Not having distractions is my best friend.”
2. The more you put yourself out there, the more comes your way. Little steps give way to little successes and they all add up.
3. “Through her eyes we organized my mind.”
4. Abstraction requires a lot of confidence.
5. Every chair has a story.

Victoria McDonnell

Victoria McDonnell on Instagram

Victoria McDonnell on Facebook

Victoria McDonnell on Pinterest

Victoria McDonnell on TikTok

Victoria McDonnell on LinkedIn

Colombian Rainbow River

Gooderstone Water Gardens

Vejer de la Frontera 

Art and Success Pro Abstract Painting

Norfolk Painting School Studio talk & master classes

Roisin O’Farrell Love to Paint, Learn to Paint

Monumental undertakings through multimedia narrative projects, travel and deep introspection, embracing chance and spontaneity, baseball, and how people define happiness, all come up during my conversation with Milwaukee interdisciplinary artist and writerJon Horvath.

Influenced by his early formal education in creative fiction writing, philosophy, and composing music, Jon's practice has since expanded into the mixed use of photography, video, performance, sculptural objects, and other mediums brought into a combined space. He desires to share open-ended, poetic narratives rooted in an exploration of how we build personal and cultural mythologies as a way to better understand the world around us.

Takeaways

1. The making is driven by intuition.
2. Let go of having to know everything about every choice to allow unexpected moments.
3. Don’t let something that's making you fearful influence choices that you’re making.
4. Some distance from your more regular experience allows you to have permission to entertain other possibilities.
5. Pictures are influenced by that which surrounds them.

Jon Horvath

Jon Horvath on Instagram

This is Bliss

Throughline

Slow Burn

Listen in as Stacy Bogdonoff talks about using verbs as she works on a project, the importance of not putting too much (psychologically) into social media, slowness and control,  living at the intersection of design and art, and why the media & the process – the heart and head of knowing and being known- is her authentic obsession.

Stacy is a mixed media artist who divides her time between her very messy studio in Kent, CT. and her neater tabletop workspace in NYC. Stacy works with textiles, vintage fabric, paper, paint, dyes, and found objects to explore the theme of “Home, Safety, and Shelter”, and how those change as we age and move through life. "My inspiration comes from three directions.  I am deeply drawn to a wide variety of unconventional media, and I love to explore tools and new ways to use them.  I am also equally driven to explore my inner world and understand my feelings."

Takeaways

1. Understanding the context behind the work enhances the experience.
2. You don’t always know. You sometimes find out.
3. Know what you like to do and clear the decks to do it.
4. The phone works both ways.

Stacy Bogdonoff

Stacy Bogdonoff on Instagram

Rick Lowe

Martha Tuttle

El Anatsui

Death of An Artist podcast

Desert Island Discs podcast

Trauma journalism, social activism, igniting and changing conversations, and telling stories in a visual way are all integral part of Amy Putman’s life. Amy is a collagist and mixed media artist with a passion for issues of social justice. She helped create and brand the Million Mom March for Common Sense Gun Laws with her logo and slogan “Looking for a Few Good Moms.” 

Amy says: “I am drawn to texture, materials pattern, and color in their own right. Working with found objects expands my visual vocabulary. These materials, each of which brings its own history and associations, give a deeper and multi-dimensional reading to the work, work I hope will ignite conversation.”

Participating in artist groups, non-profit organizations, art community adds to her depth and breadth of the work she creates. She is a Trustee of the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, SKIP of New York and the Trust for Trauma Journalism, a founding member of the New York Collage Ensemble, and Co-Chair of the Artists and Talent Peer Group for the Impact Guild. Her studio is in Manufacturer’s Village Artists, East Orange, New Jersey.

Key takeaways

1. “I have an obligation to myself to not run away from what I have to say.”
2. You have to fill your puzzle box with all the pieces before you put the puzzle together.
3. Being out there in the world helps you become aware of what’s relevant and is inspirational for the art.
4. Art is an adventure. Keep growing, as a person, and bring those adventures to your art.
5. Art is definitely therapy, whether you know it or not.
6. Know when to say no, but remember to say YES to opportunities!

Amy Putman

Amy Putman on Instagram

The Jealous Creator - Deborah Roberts episode 190, Bisa Butler episode 185

Austin Kleon

Million Mom March

NY Collage Ensemble

The Camp Gallery – The Contemporary Art Modern Project Gallery

Tish Lampert

The effect of knitting during the birthing process, the importance of resting, felting as the wild sister of fiber arts, and the role of felting in community practices and traditions all comes up during my convo with Megan Henderson. And the always impactful practice of letting go and surrendering to the present moment.  Megan is a fiber artist living on a few wooded acres in Central Ohio who is inspired by nature, our connection to it and to each other, myths, lore and symbols, shadow work and the mysteries that lay just beyond our grasp.

Key takeaways

1. Pay attention and notice when fear needs to be conquered and when it is our intuition giving us a warning.
2. Don’t beat yourself up when you find yourself going down the path of thinking you’re not doing enough. But if you try and notice when it happens, those feelings might lessen.
3. You don’t have to EARN your rest.
4. “We are not meant to understand it all. We are not meant to grasp it. We are meant to make guesses about it.”

Megan Henderson

Megan Henderson on Instagram

Megan Henderson on Facebook

Nuno felting

Insight Timer meditation app

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman

Rest is Resistance, Tricia Hersey

The Leftovers

ArtHoles, 7 episodes of Frida Kahlo

Pulling the Thread podcast, Knitting Together our Lives (Peggy Orenstein)

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, Susan Cain

Antieau Gallery

Sue Bulmer is an artist, educator, Art Psychotherapist and Inspiration Facilitator. Her expressive, energetic and colourful work is inspired by landscape and seasonal alignment. Sue believes we are all creative souls and is a passionate advocate for the well-being benefits of living a more creative life. ​She has a deep understanding, stemming from personal experience, of the many benefits of living a more creative life and the barriers and beliefs that stop us. We chat about paying attention to when it’s time to rest, confronting the fear that tries to keep you small and safe, being stuck and what happens when you stop fighting it, putting yourself out there even though it can be scary, the payoff is worth it!

Takeaways:

1. Make art just for you.
2. Nature takes a rest during the year. Why don’t we?
3. Categorizing things help us understand things, but they come with rules and those rules can be limiting.
4. It’s in the spaces that the ideas come.
5. “Stress is caused by being here and wanting to be there.”
6. It’s never too late.

Sue Bulmer

Sue Bulmer on Instagram

Sue Bulmer on Facebook

Sustain Your Creativity through Autumn & Winter, A free guide from Sue Bulmer

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, Florence Williams

Environmental Arts Therapy and the Tree of Life, Ian Siddons Heginworth

Rick Rubin on Feel Better Live More

Sue’s Creative Soul Sketchbooks course

Kellee Wynne Conrad, Build it Remarkable

Beltane, Gaelic May Day Festival

Feedback loops in the art world, finding ways to accumulate more moments of joy, the in-between spaces, writing vs. storytelling, not fitting into a box, and the orange couch are all part of Bela Suresh Roongta’s story. Bela is a Milwaukee-based visual artist, writer and storyteller. She has shown in solo & group exhibitions, been featured as a writer & speaker and recognized for innovation and success in art and storytelling. Committed to the rituals of drawing, journaling and traveling, Bela makes art, writes stories and curates experiences that explore identity & place, dance with memory and tradition and tell of the times we live in. Her art and storytelling honors those who came before us, our shared experiences and our differences.

Key Takeaways:

1. The more personal you are, the more personal your work is, and the more universal it becomes.
2. Find the magic in the unknown.
3. Allow yourself to be seen so that others can be seen. The more story we know about you the more connected we feel.
4. Art is a very self forward profession.
5. Find ways to accumulate more moments of joy.

Bela Suresh

Bela Suresh on Instagram

Part 1 | Night Country Origins with Showrunner Issa López and Executive Producer Mari Jo Winkler
The True Detective: Night Country Podcast

Saint Kate Exhibition: Relief — The Stories We Carry by Bela Suresh Roongta

Robin Davisson Episode 69 on Authentic Obsessions

Susan Lerner is  a New York City based contemporary hand-cut collage artist drawn to vintage imagery and maps, evoking a sense of familiarity and nostalgia.  Her work is a reflection of the power of visual storytelling and its ability to connect us to our memories and emotions. Susan’s work has been published in periodicals and books, she’s the co-founder of the New York Collage Ensemble, and she is currently licensed with Jiggy Puzzles and Jiggy Studio. Enjoy our conversation about tag sales, boundaries, trying new things, taking pauses, and challenges of selling your work. 

Takeaways

1. “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” Twyla Tharpe
2. Having too many options can drive you crazy.
3. Moving your body helps with problem solving and artistic creativity.
4. Find different outlets to sell your work.

Links

Susan Lerner

Susan Lerner on Instagram

Jiggy Puzzles, City of Dreams

92NY

Hollie Chastain

Galen Gibson-Cornell

Art and Cocktails podcast

The Jealous Curator, Art for Your Ear podcast

The feminine form has returned in Denise Daffara's latest work along with every day familiar objects such as her much loved chairs and cups of tea. Denise is an artist, soulful seeker, wild wonderer, deep listener, sacred space holder, Creativitea Time inspirer & private priestess, Intentional Creativity Guide & Certified Color of Woman Teacher.

Denise's art practice is an intuitive, light and colour fueled exploration of her life’s journey. Her paintings are filled with Australian and New Zealand botanicals and plenty of tea related moments. You’ll also find Matisse inspired feminine figures visiting her painted interiors and table settings depicted in a non-realistic, contemporary style. Her art expresses the sacred union between beauty and healing for the heart.

Takeaways

1. Creativity can help us hold space for our grief. 
2. Pay attention to the beginning, middle and end energy while you’re creating a piece of work.
3. Share your art journey in an open and honest way.
4. When it's more uncomfortable to NOT do it, creative inspiration shows up.
5. “Your vision is stronger than your fear.” Kylie Slavik

Links

Denise Daffara 
Denise Daffara on Instagram
Little dd on Instagram
Denise Daffara on Facebook
Denise Daffara on Youtube
Insights at the Edge with Tammy Simon podcast: Chip Conley: Midlife: From Crisis to Chrysalis
Gertrude and Alice bookstore and coffee shop

The monumental labors of women that often go unnoticed, and the resilience of women under the invisible weight they carry are themes interwoven in the current work of interdisciplinary artist Nirmal Raja. 

Nirmal's current solo exhibition at the Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art is titled Grace and Grit, and highlights her current authentic obsession with material intimacy.  Nirmal’s keen observations and curiosity during her 3-month Kohler Arts/Industry residency resulted in an inspirational and wide body of work, including works cast in iron and brass, sound recordings and photographs. Nirmal is also part of the Paglees, a feminist collective of artists of South Asian origin living across the United states, currently exhibiting their work at the South Asia institute in Chicago. 

Nirmal collaborates with other artists and strongly believes in investing energy into her immediate community while also considering the global.

Takeaways

1. Despite all the restrictions, I am strong.
2. “Share your excitement for your practice and your own work.” Jason Yi
3. “There is mud and there is the lotus, and you cannot have the lotus without the mud.” Thich Nhat Hanh
4. Push against restrictive boxes we put ourselves in.

Links

Nirmal Raja
Nirmal Raja on Instagram
Nirmal Raja on Linkedin
A Brush With… Cornelia Parker
Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art, Grace and Grit- solo exhibition 
South Asia Institute, The Paglees: Between Reason and Madness
Grace and Grit Catalog
John Michael Kohler Arts Center Arts/Industry Residency Program

Stones, learning, confidence, pattern and line, expressing beauty, and promoting your work are just a few topics artist Rena Diana covers today.

After retiring from a fulfilling career as an educator in Baltimore, Rena started focusing full time on her artwork. She worked every day in a studio at the Art Students League in New York City, where she began painting abstract landscapes. Rena is fortunate to divide her time between Baltimore and her home on Lake Champlain in Vermont, which is the source of much of her inspiration. 

Rena on art journals and sketching: "Throughout my adult life, I have kept notebooks chronicling my observations and experiences.  Gradually these became art journals, filled with sketches and collages, along with personal narrative and remarks about the creative process. As these notebooks evolved into more formal exercises, I realized that they were distinct art forms in themselves. At that point, I began creating larger, single pieces. These art journals remain a core part of my studio practice."

Takeaways

1. You develop confidence as you learn to trust yourself and the process. Believe in yourself and that what you have to share with other people is valuable.
2. It’s a marathon. A long game.
3. Learning is the best antidepressant.
4. First think about who YOU are before you decide how and where you’re going to promote your work.

Links

Rena Diana

Rena on Instagram

City Arts and Lectures, Ann Patchett

Mary Lynn O’Shea

The Art Students League of New York

Last Light, How Six Great Artists Made Old Age a Time of Triumph, Richard Lacayo

The challenges of creating on a deadline, having faith and trust in the thing you’re doing, and the feelings that arise when switching from the act of writing to marketing and promotion all come up during our conversation.

Nick Petrie is the author of 8 best-selling Peter Ash crime fiction novels, including The Price You Pay, out February 2024. His debut, The Drifter, won both the ITW Thriller award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar and the Hammett Awards. He is also  an excellent husband (mine!) and father (to our son Duncan).

Takeaways

1. Winnow down and lean into the thing that is interesting to you and that you really want to pursue and then let go of the outcome when it gets out into the world.
2. “Keep a clean antenna."
3. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
4. Seamus Heaney on the hardest thing about writing: “Getting started, keeping going and getting started again.” 

Links

Nick Petrie’s website

Follow Nick Petrie on Instagram

Follow Nick Petrie on Facebook

Follow Nick Petrie on X

Your Brain on Art, Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross

Mystery Tribune, The Cleveland Job

Bill Schweigart

Boswell Books

The Poisoned Pen Bookstore

Murder By the Book bookstore

Kaye Publicity

Michael Mann, Blackhat and Collateral

The Great Creators with Guy Raz episode 67 with Andy J Pizza of Creative Pep Talk

Carol Paik, a New York based artist, is interested in many different media, but really found meaning working with repurposed textiles. After years of buying expensive and often toxic materials for her work, her goal now is to create art exclusively out of the unappreciated, overlooked, landfill-destined stuff she finds around her, of which there is never a shortage.
She most enjoys taking something that is overlooked, and looking at it closely. Or, taking something too frequently seen, and looking at it slightly differently. She is interested in the emotions that we bring to the things we discard: nostalgia, guilt, desire, and loss, and her goal is to give these objects--and, by extension, ourselves—new possibilities.

During our chat, Carol talked about the idea of leaving a mark without marring a landscape, specifically in relation to her cairn projects, but it got me thinking of that in a broader sense. And she also assured me that sometimes finishing a project is overrated.

photo by Sharon Schuur

Takeaways

1. Ask yourself: Why do I need to do it THAT way?
2. Keep your eye on the road because wherever you’re looking is where you’ll end up.
3. Take a closer look.
4. If you limit yourself, you’ll look at things in a different way.
5. Look around for things you can reuse for your projects.

Links

Carol Paik
Carol Paik on Instagram
Heidi Parkes
Nina Katchadourian
Natalya Khorover

K. Woodman-Maynard’s obsession with emotional expression comes out not only in her graphic novels but also through anger journaling and diary comics. She loves tree time, cold water swimming, running and cross-country skiing. Katharine is a sequential storyteller and an artist who writes (as opposed to a writer who draws) and loves to mentor other creatives. Her debut, The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation was called, “hugely rewarding” by The Wall Street Journal. 

Takeaways

1. Be present and enjoy yourself.
2. What can I do for social media, not what social media can do for me.
3. Get some tree time.
4. Bring in people for feedback during a long term project.

Links

K. Woodman-Maynard
K. on Instagram
K. on Facebook
K. on Linkedin
K. on Pinterest
Great Gatsby Graphic Novel, K. Woodman-Maynard
The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks
Healing Back Pain, John Sarno
Art Matters, Neil Gaiman

 From chenille bedspreads & fringe vests to mosaics & ceramics, Andryea Natkin shares her journey as a seeker, always on the lookout for what is truly hers so she can express it. She  was born into a family of artists, which gave her that foundation of permission to trust herself.  Andryea persevered and eventually received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, all along working in a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, printmaking, mosaic and ceramics.

Takeways

1. Be wasteful and make ugly things.
2. Make a lot of mistakes.
3. Don’t judge yourself while you’re making.
4. Inspiration comes from my heart, not my head.
5. Turn the fire up. It’s time to get going.

Links

Andryea Natkin  
Andryea on Instagram
Andryea on Facebook
Your Brain on Art, Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
Artery Ink

Joanne is an artist and photographer whose work is “based in semi-abstraction, purposefully balanced between representational and the imagined. in my role as an artist, these two elements have become an integral part of my motivation to create, with the ‘doing’ often as important as the outcome. I firmly believe that natural curiosity and creative pursuits are essential to healthy living, regardless of age or education.” Jo shares her experiences and how they impact her daily life and her long term connections. Her obsession with fragility and delicacy is linked to her fascination with awe and transience, resiliency, and mortality. 

Takeaways

1. If you really listen to people, you hear more. If you really look, you see more. If you care, you get more.
2. A piece is finished when it stops talking to me.
3. Resilience is tolerating emotional discomfort.
4. Ask yourself, “And what’s so bad about that?”
5. Accept limitations that some things just can’t be changed. We can only change our bit.

Links

Joanne Olney
Joanne Olney on Instagram
Joanne Olney on Facebook 
Joanne Olney on Pinterest
AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, Dacher Keltner

Weather, layers, inner worlds, thick living and 10,000 folded paper cranes. Brianna’s work is driven by world-building. She’s interested in exploring possible and impossible landscapes that may or may not exist on this planet, in this dimension, in a memory, a dream, or a vision…they may never have existed anywhere — until now. Her creations convey an architectural/organic world which thrives in paradox and ambiguity; it’s a place that gives voice to so much more than can be articulated with sound or words. Each piece she creates is an earnest translation of the feelings, ideas, images, landscapes, and visions of her inner world — for Brianna, the ultimate goal of her creative life is to ardently impart to your inner world what she can from her own.

Takeaways

1. We are all complicated nuanced onion layers of humans.
2. We are all works in progress.
3. The lessons are everywhere.
4. Sharing of the art is just as important as the creating of the art.
5. There are no mistakes in art. If you think it’s not right, it’s just not done.
6. We are little time tornadoes creating our own weather.

Links

Brianna Martray

Brianna on Instagram

Brianna on Facebook

Brianna’s YouTube Video: "The Making of a Public Art Installation at Denver International Airport" (June 21, 2011)

Tim Hecker

Lee Bontecou 

Rachael is an experimental textile and mixed media artist living in West Yorkshire, England.  She describes her residency at the Nature in Art Museum and Gallery as a “cocoon of delight!” If you listen deeply and look closely, you will see how Rachael’s obsession with stone and stone walls seeps into all her work. Her feelings and experiences and surroundings all contribute to unique and thought-provoking pieces of art. During our chat, she talks about containment and constraint, delicious boredom, and Helen Keller’s keen observations.

Takeaways

1. “Music is the space between the notes.” Claude Debussy
2. Your work teaches you AFTER you've done it.
3. You need other people to notice things in your work that you may not see.
4. Look down and in for creativity and up and out for a sense of well-being.
5. Take time to contemplate and mull, and simply look long enough to see things from a distance.

Links

Rachael Singleton

Rachael on Instagram

Rachael on Facebook

Blue Peter

Kim Thittichai

Nature in Art Artist in Residence program

Do: Pause

Krystyna Pomeroy

Henry Moore, London’s War: The Shelter Drawings of Henry Moore

The Song of the Stone Wall, Helen Keller

Jacob Nordby

During our chat, Anna talks about receptacles, the Minystery of Consideration, discovering and processing beauty, permission, belonging, and what makes us tick.

Takeaways

1. Just do your job.
2. Don't do other people's jobs.
3. It doesn’t get any better or more beautiful than this.
4. It’s all here already.
5. Do what’s real and what’s true, and remember that you don’t always get there while you’re walking upright.

Links

Anna van der Putte
Anna van der Putte on Instagram
Lesley Hilling
Scott Roberts
John T. Upchurch
Alison Jackson-Bass
Office of Collecting
Aja Lund
Hedi Kyle book arts
Stephanie Hüllmann Atelier-Talk podcast
The Secret Life of Lance Letscher
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert

Finding your people, measures of success, optimistic teenagers, and soft pants vs. hard pants with high school English teacher, former professional actor, and author Nicole Kronzer! There’s also some chatter about thinking you’re too weird for the world, and how to fit our weirdness into a greater life.

Takeaways

1. People who read fiction are nicer.
2. “Write with the door closed, edit with the door open.” Stephen King
3. Keep going.
4. It's OK to find the thing that makes your heart sing.
5. Keep your eyes on your own paper.

Mentioned

Nicole Kronzer
Follow Nicole Kronzer on Instagram
The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, Shannon Gibney
The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, K. Woodman-Maynard
Emotion Thesaurus
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King
Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
Story Genius, Lisa Cron
Where You See Yourself, Claire Forrest

Lisa Kellner went through a major transition in her work life, moving from a textile installation artist back to her true love of painting.  Over the course of a few years, she dug deep, got really honest with herself, and saw how all the intangible parts of herself find their way into her work. Lisa uses a reductive language and intuitive approach to make paintings and sculptural constructions about the environment, societal constructs and how we occupy space.

Takeaways

1. Is there urgency?
2. Make sure your roots are strong.
3. Give space between you and your work.
4. Find comfort in the space of not knowing.
5. Don’t discount those parts of yourself that you can’t quantify or measure. 

Links

Lisa Kellner
Lisa on Instagram
Lee Bontecou
Elizabeth Murray

Lisa Kellner’s paintings and sculptural constructions have been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally. Her work can be found in private residences and commercial spaces in the United States, Europe and Japan. Exhibiting institutions include the Bellevue Arts Museum (WA), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (NY), the Brooklyn Arts Council (NY), the Weatherspoon Museum (NC), the Islip Art Museum, Washington Project for the Arts and the Muscarelle Museum of Art (VA), among others. She has created site-responsive installations for institutions including the Cornell Fine Arts Museum (FL), the Bellevue Arts Museum (WA), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space (NY), Brooklyn Arts Council (NY), the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (ME), Lehman College Art Gallery (NY) and the Target Gallery at the Torpedo Factory (VA). Kellner’s work has been reviewed and mentioned in publications including The New York Times, The Boston Globe and Sculpture Magazine in addition to several podcast and interview series. Lisa has received several awards including the New Media Invitational from the Target Gallery, DC and was nominated a Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist semi-finalist. She recently completed an artist residency at Don Pedro Island Preserve; a place dramatically impacted by Hurricane Ian.

Robin shares her life changing week at The Penland School, the importance of doing experiments to get to the truth, and the exhilaration of discovery and curiosity. Robin's lyrical, process-driven work is rooted in eclectic curiosity and the material surprises she discovers working with her finely developed visual vocabulary. 

Takeaways

1. It is important to keep doing experiments so you can get to the truth.

2. Pay attention to your materials and their ability to constantly surprise you.

3. Just make more time for it.

4. The more you learn about the business side of things, the more confident you get in your art making. And the more confident you get in your art making, the more confident you get in running your business.

5. “The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels, that's creative living.” Elizabeth Gilbert

Mentioned

Robin Davisson

Follow Robin Davisson on Instagram

Studio Lab intro

Thomas Gleaner aka Brad Thomas

Penland School of Craft

Emily Mason

Takeaways

1. You can’t say yes to everything or everyone.

2. The more structure you add into your week the more flexibility you have.

3. We make HARD a problem, but it’s just part of life. Without the hard you don’t have the good stuff.

4. It’s just a layer.

5. What’s the next right step?

Mentioned

Lea Ann Slotkin

Follow Lea Ann Slotkin on Instagram

Cy Twombly

Lukas paint

Do You Want to Slow Down? Anna Sale on awe as an antidote to anxiety, on The Science of Happiness podcast

Lea Ann creates bold and colorful mixed media paintings and collages, focusing on the background layers, which gives her work a lot of energy & visual excitement and leaves little hints of magic peeking through to leave space for wonder and reflection about one's own story.  During our conversation we talk about nature, boundaries around our time, and how putting some structure in your week can be pretty freeing. 

Wanderlust, giving ourselves permission to do more than one thing and the inspiring non-fiction books that are holding our interest these days are just a few topics we chat about as we go down the beautiful meandering path of Tina Norén. Tina is an artist and designer, 2nd generation Filipino-American and mother to three school-aged children. Tina has designed and painted several murals, including 3 at elementary schools, as well as the mural in the Art Park at the Santa Paula Art Museum, where she also works part-time. Her art is bold and colorful and is often filled with meditative and therapeutic repetitive lines.

Takeaways

1. Consider saying no without giving an excuse or a reason.

2. Embrace the fact that your creative practice is helping you be a better parent and partner. 

3. If you often have kids or family barging in on you while you’re creating, try to find work that allows you to be interrupted.

4. Don’t say you don’t have enough time to do something just acknowledge that you haven’t prioritized it yet.

Mentioned 

Tina Norén

Follow Tina on Instagram

Follow Tina on Facebook

Ruth Asawa

Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman

Unfollow Your Passion, How to Create a Life That Matters to You, Terri Trespicio

Essentialism, Greg McKeown

Atomic Habits, James Clear

From Strength to Strength, Arthur C. Brooks

Ten Percent Happier, Dan Harris

Takeaways

1. There is no overnight success. Everyone pays their dues, one way or another.

2. Every human being is unreliable in the way they tell stories.

3. Take pleasure in the striving aspect of the process. The fact that you worked really hard and accomplished the goal is the thing.   “It’s not the having, it’s the getting.” Elizabeth Taylor

Mentioned

Samantha Downing

Samantha Downing on Twitter

Samantha Downing on Facebook

Samantha Downing on Instagram

Parasite

I Care A Lot

Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca

Takeaways

1. Take everyone seriously but yourself.
2. Making art is an extreme sport.
3. Do the thing you'd wonder about the most if you didn't do it.
4. If you can’t see a way to solve a problem you have to trust that you’ll figure it out eventually. So don’t walk away, just keep looking.

Mentioned

Duncan Petrie

Duncan Petrie on Instagram

Birds with Hats on Instagram

Duncan Petrie on YouTube

Brian Eno on Broken Record

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

South West Coast Path

J. R. R. Tolkien

Duncan is a photographer using spare, striking composition and the best natural light to emphasize emotion over the literal image and truth over objectivity, in hopes that he might one day capture how it feels to truly see.

During our conversation Duncan talks about Sudoku and its relationship to being creative; being afraid of doing something poorly; why beginning is the hardest part; fear of stagnation; the relationship between good photography and enthusiasm and the magic of observing the little details that imply so much more than what they actually contain. 

Phoebe Gander is a landscape, abstract and still life painter, inspired by the beautiful ocean, skies and landscape where she lives with her family in Wainui Beach on the east coast of New Zealand. Phoebe started her journey of self-discovery by carving out time for art to help her overcome severe panic attacks and anxiety. Nostalgia, solitude, vulnerability, texture and light are themes that reoccur in her art. During our conversation she talks about the importance of listening to the niggly voices, her love of light and shadow and her insatiable curiosity.

Takeaways

1. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
2. Paint what you see, not what you think you see.
3. Listen to those niggly voices.
4. Reframe the act of creating from outcome-driven to process driven.
5. "If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” Edward Hopper

Mentioned

Phoebe Gander

Phoebe Gander on Instagram

Phoebe Gander on Facebook

Julie Battisti on Instagram

Embracing Neurodiversity with Phoebe Gander podcast with Susan Nethercote podcast

Permission to Paint and Embrace My True Self with Phoebe Gander on The Laura Horn Art podcast

Edward Hopper

Marissa Huber is an artist, connector, and creative instigator for the Carve Out Time for Art community and co-author of “The Motherhood of Art.” She works primarily in water-based mediums like gouache and acrylic, cut paper, and digital mediums and is interested in exploring memory, space, and color in her paintings and surface pattern designs. She creates playful & colorful patterns that aim to bring people a moment of delight, and a bit of sunshine. Marissa is passionate about keeping it real – if you need any evidence of this just check out her reels on Instagram - and encouraging others who are not full-time artists to make the most of their time and circumstances. Her greatest joy (besides her kids) is connecting with kindred spirits over an experience, a funny story, or shared dreams which makes her feel positively lit up. She believes in taking her dreams quite seriously but tries not to take herself too seriously. During our conversation Marissa talks about commute chats, not overthinking, and searching for meaning in the big and the small things.

Takeaways

1. You can do everything, just not at the same time.
2. Don’t overthink everything, this isn’t dating in your 20’s.
3. What you choose to do or what your life looks like is up to you but there's no one right way to have a creative life.
4. When your life is a spaghetti mess just think of that one thing that you can do to nudge yourself along the path. And snacks help.
5. Artists are resilient problem solvers and comfortable in the vague place between the uncomfortableness of not knowing what's next but having the trust that we can figure it out because we've done it so many times.

Mentioned

Marissa Huber

Follow Marissa Huber on Instagram

Follow Marissa Huber on Twitter

Follow Marissa Huber on Facebook

Follow Marissa Huber on Pinterest

Follow Marissa Huber on LinkedIn

Follow Marissa Huber on Tiktok

Carve Out Time for Art

The Motherhood of Art, by Marissa Huber and Heather Kirtland

Heather Kirtland

Range, Why Generalists Triumph In A Specialized World, by David Epstein

Mike East

Artist Mother Podcast

Artist Residency in Motherhood

Mondo Beyondo

Josef Frank

Nancy Gruskin on Savvy Painter

Liz Dexter is a mixed media artist and architect who spends her days finding beauty and joy in the imperfect, unfolding layers of our lives, and discovering awe and wonder in our midst. Liz develops her paintings using many layers of acrylic, collage, plaster, image transfers and glazes – sanding, scraping, and cutting into them along the way to see what is uncovered.  She is inspired by the continually transforming world around us by weather and age - crumbling stucco, rusting metal, peeling paint and vine-covered walls - the built environment being consumed by nature. During our conversation, Liz reveals her thoughts about decay, art pods, and the pain of self-promotion.

Takeaways

1. Your artistic voice is already inside of you
2. Sometimes “ready enough” is the point you where you need to put yourself out there.
3. Just do the next thing in the art that needs to be done.
4. Live your definition of being a good person.
5. Consider creating an art pod.

Mentioned

Liz Dexter

Liz Dexter on Instagram

Liz Dexter on Facebook

Chroma Collective Gallery 

Chroma Collective Gallery on Instagram

Val Hubbard

Barbara Weir

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Poppy Dodge is an abstract painter and a Color Maximalist who delights in creating harmony and balance using all the colors. Her work explores her obsession with stacking color and shapes and is influenced by modern improvisational quilting and abstract collage. Poppy says: "I approach painting intuitively and am entirely process driven.  I like to think of my work as color celebrations; a stacking of playful color conversations joyfully stitching my life experiences together. We talk about newsletters, tea, the “Ladies of Yet,” and why it can be discouraging to make content solely to be seen instead of for

Takeaways

1. It’s got to get ugly before it gets good.
2. Persistence and obsession keep you going forward.
3. Remind yourself that you’re on Instagram for opportunities and take your ego out of it.
4. Add the “YET.” Don’t say I haven’t done that, say I haven’t done that YET.
5. A big studio is great – but if you’re scrappy you can carve out a space anywhere.

Mentioned

Poppy Dodge

Poppy on Instagram

Poppy on Facebook

Poppy on Pinterest

Gee’s Bend quilting retreats

Hand Yoga Club on YouTube with Heidi Parkes

Frankie magazine 

Oruaiti Reserve hike, aka the Kupe Trail

Lynn Giunta

Lisa Congdon

Bisa Butler

Alison Watt has worked as a biologist on seabird colonies, an ecotour guide, has published a novel, a work of non-fiction and a book of poetry. She teaches painting online and in her studio on Protection Island, near Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Alison is interested in where science (especially biology) and art interface and her paintings are informed by landscape and botanical forms. As a self-taught artist who has been painting for over thirty years, Allison relates to both the dream of making the paintings we see in our minds, and the frustrations of mastering the tools, techniques, and mindset to achieving them. Alison is not interested in moral instruction but in illuminating new ways of seeing.

During our conversation, Alison talks about creative destruction, informed intuition, and how freeing it is to paint without brushes. 

Takeaways

1. Paint as if neither your time nor your materials are valuable.
2. “We grow small when we try to be great.” David Hockney
3. Our job is to have an authentic relationship with what we’re making.
4. Take some time to pause and look back at what you have created.
5. Visual imagery can slide underneath language right to the heart.
6. Create a lot of opportunity for unexpected events.
7. Every layer makes it better.

Mentioned

Alison Watt

Alison Watt on Instagram

Alison Watt on YouTube

Artwork Artplay

Alison Watt on Pinterest

Dazzle Patterns, by Alison Watt

Triangle Island, Anne Vallée Triangle Island Ecological Reserve

David Hockney

Joni Mitchell