The Healthy Artist – Details, episodes & analysis

What does it mean to live in line with your values as an artist? How does knowing your personal values shape the work you make and opportunities you aim for? In this episode we interview artist Dan Curtis, and hear his thoughts on aligning your creative practice with your value system. Not comparing your journey to others, as we navigate the many toxic spaces of the creative industries. 

How do I practice being a Healthy Artist? Is it even possible? In our first episode we hear from artist Martha Lamont about what she thinks it means to be a 'Heathy Artist'. We hear about letting go of the illusion of control in your art practice, working from where your nervous system is not on fire, and becoming stable enough to make and think clearly. Maintaining balance against the backdrop of art world challenges, toxic thought processes, and stress about financial success.  

What does it mean to be 'successful' as an artist? We hear so often that being 'full-time', making all our money from our creative work, or each piece being better than the last, is true creative success. But what if we've got that all wrong? In this episode Martha and Dan tackle four 'myths' on what it means to be a successful artist. Deconstructing ideas of perceived wealth, pushing against the toxic frame-works of the art world that limit access for many, and reframing success as an everyday 'habit', not a goal. 

For many creatives navigating the landscape of social media feels totally disorienting. Share work for ourselves or to please the mystical algorithm? Pour hours into creating behind the scenes studio videos, or abandon the whole damn thing all together? In this episode we discuss the joys and sorrows of using social media as an artist, looking at the science and psychology behind compulsive scrolling, and reframing our relationship to social media based on our vales, not the metrics. 

What does it look like to lean into uncertainty in your practice and art career? In this episode we interview Betsy Bradley, an artist whose gorgeous paintings and installations embrace patience and impermanence. Betsy generously shared her journey of navigating being an artist living with chronic illness, and how she has kept on the journey when all seemed impossible.

Our new website thehealthyartist.com is now live! You can see all our episodes here, sign up for our newsletter, and buy us a cup of tea on our ko-fi donation page. Thank you all for listening! M+D

What does it mean to find a place you trust as a creative? How do we allow the studio to be remain a space of experimentation with all the outside noise of capitalism? In this weeks episode we delved into the work and teachings of Sister Corita Kent, sometimes known as the pop art Nun. Sister Corita was an artist, activist and arts educator as well as a practicing Nun. She became the head of the art department at the Immaculate Heart College in California in the 1960's, where in collaboration with her students, she came up with ten rules of the art school, asking them to re-imagine what a learning environment could be. This is a 2 part episode, the second will be released next week. 

Our new website thehealthyartist.com is now live! You can see all our episodes here, sign up for our newsletter, and buy us a cup of tea on our ko-fi donation page. Thank you all for listening! M+D

Part two of delving into the art rules of Sister Corita Kent, sometimes known as the pop art Nun. In collaboration with her students, she came up with the ten rules of the art school, asking them to re-imagine what a learning environment could be.

You can watch a great documentary of Corita's work here
And you can see her work here

Our new website is now live! You can see all our episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and buy us a cup of tea on our ko-fi donation page. Thank you all for listening! M+D

This week we had the absolute privilege of interviewing Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente, known collectively as The White Pube. Together the White Pube have been publishing cutting edge, experimental art and cultural criticism for almost a decade, which has recently culminated in them writing the critically acclaimed full length book: 'Poor Artists'. 

Zarina and Gabrielle’s book, Poor Artists follows aspiring artist Quest Talukdar on her journey into the art world. They blend imaginative storytelling with real life narrative from anonymous interviews and autobiography. Its written that Poor Artists is a powerful testimony to the emotional, existential and financial experience of artists today and we couldn’t agree more. We laughed and we cried — we were so honoured to chat to them today about their journey. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did! 

How do we retain joy and curiosity as artists? In this episode we interview Yolanda Shields aka Milktooth, an artist and educator who generously shares with us their process of dealing with Complex-PSTD through their hands. A few of the things we discussed were the importance of understanding the function of your art as an individual, the barriers that Yolanda has faced as an artist and the important work they do with the community. They were full of wisdom and humour, we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!  

You can see all our episodes on our website thehealthyartist.com, sign up for our newsletter, and buy us a cup of tea on our ko-fi donation page. Thank you all for listening! M+D

Its episode 10! In celebration of this milestone we reached out a bunch of artists to ask them all for the quote that keeps them going when all seems lost. Gathered here is a collection of all those recordings into one episode, something to come back to when your self doubt is high and you need a creative refresh. Enjoy!