Episodes

Marin Laukka shows us the importance of staying curious, and why it’s ok to be a quitter. During this conversation, we each share our story behind our use of the word “authentic” and explore a few other concepts that seem to trigger strong emotions in people. Marin is a dancer, coach, speaker, and …

Lisa Woodward’s curiosity, persistence and self-confidence have led to her success as a full-time artist after a first career in international development. Lisa’s obsession with footpaths comes from her strong connections with the semi-wilderness of Ontario, and the rural landscapes of Ireland, Ind…

Jess Pillay is an independent singer/songwriter, pianist, and guitarist from Seattle, Washington. Known for her soulful alto voice and lyrically-driven songwriting style, Jess is a voice for the voiceless, resonating with people who have big life questions and find themselves in those in-between sp…

Patient, purposeful and persistent, high school arts educator and abstract painter Frank Korb is fascinated with building frames, stretching canvases, and preparing his materials. Frank focuses on the formal elements and principles of art and the push and pull of relationships. Frank starts each wo…

Art balls, shadow, light, blood and ants with Flavia Testa!! In life and in art, Flavia challenges people to wonder, be inquisitive, to find meaning in visual communication. She says that art is a force and a fortress that protects and reveals our lives. Flavia’s signature style is raw, visceral a…

Nirmal Raja is an interdisciplinary artist and curator living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She lived in India, South Korea and Hong Kong before immigrating to the United States thirty years ago. She collaborates with other artists and strongly believes in investing energy into her immediate community w…

Painter Nicola Bennett, originally from England, has lived in Okere Falls, New Zealand for the past 20 years. Nicola’s art is deeply connected to her love of food. She believes that they are so intricately linked - in their processes, shared pleasure and transformation. She approaches her work havi…

Brianna Lynn Hernández Baurichter is a Chicana artist, curator, and educator guided by socially engaged practices. Brianna’s current work focuses on the experience of providing end-of-life care and the subsequent grieving process. During our conversation Brianna shares the importance of the mind-bo…

Emma is a queer mixed media artist, teaching artist, and highly sensitive person. She is silly and soulful, tactile and contemplative. Emma reveals her current obsessions with nature, poetry and Buddhist teachings and how they connect to artmaking. From the stillness questions arrive that serve as …

Chelsea Littman is trying to make a good impression with her empire of empties. Her sand cast glass bottle shrines are all about filling the void. Chelsea is a hot shop assistant for Polpelka Trenchard Glass and develops her own artwork, which attempts to transform a moment, a snapshot, into an eve…

Nicole Shaver creates artwork inspired by ideas of place and belonging. She researches different geographical sites and employs them as metaphorical compasses to create landscapes combining reality, fantasy and memory. During our conversation Nicole reveals her “dump-and-dash” process, her experie…

Intuitive, intimately scaled, and imbued with a lighthearted humor, Kassandra Palmer’s work is inspired by melodies from the B-side of human history. Kassandra's drawings are accumulations of touch that blur the boundaries between nature and human nature. Echoes from stories of love, loss, and fo…

Frank Juárez brings decades of art education and arts management experience organizing local and regional art exhibitions, community art events, facilitating presentations, supporting artists through grant programs, and offering professional development workshops. Frank is in the forefront of promo…

What a gift to have Melanie Chadwick and Sandi Hester together in one episode to share their sketchbook practices! They talk about the importance of sketching to sharpen your observational tools, practice drawing skills, and play with new mediums. Mel and Sandi agree that benefits of sketching incl…

Amy Weil is a New York artist creating abstract encaustic paintings that parallel the cycles of nature. By spontaneously inscribing, scraping and adding wax, this process allows exploration of landscape on a deeper level. Amy is interested in how time is circular rather than linear. Her paintings a…

Ginnie Cappaert, known to her friends as the Queen of Play, is a full-time artist and owner of Cappaert Contemporary Gallery in Door County Wisconsin. Ginnie divides her time between Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Listen as we discuss influential books, poetry…

Jenna Freimuth is an illustrator and designer living in Minneapolis, building surface design patterns, stitching abstract embroideries and drawing to decorate and delight. Listen as we talk about newsletters, object permanence, regal felines with personalities, fantastical curiosity, and serendipit…

Amy Jarvis is a painter whose keen sense of color and lighting gives her work a recognized grace and emotion. In addition to commissioned pet portraits, Amy recently completed a series of nine oil paintings of mythical women from across continents and throughout the centuries, weaving fact, fiction…

What do dental scalers, trowels, wooden butter pats, and a toilet brush all have in common? Gill Edwards uses all these tools is her prints and paintings. Along with her obsession with vessel shapes, especially those found in simple elegant vases and rice bowls, Gill is fascinated with shadows, vin…

Paula DeStefanis is an artist, educator, co-founder of the non-profit arts organization North Shore Academy of the Arts, and director of The Arts Mill gallery and arts boutique. Inspired by her travels, Paula divides her time between her studios in the US and UK. Paula shares her thoughts about org…

Melanie Chadwick describes her creative practice as playful, evolving and lively. Melanie talks about having an anchor in your life that grounds you, her love of maps and place, and how her art workshops help businesses and organizations gain confidence and generate ideas. In addition to her illust…

Amy Maricle is inspired by the connections between nature and art and adores patterns, paint, paper cutting, and putting it all together in art journals. Her training as an art therapist taught her the importance of focusing on process over product, and how to use mindfulness to tune into the momen…

Jo York is a contemporary artist inspired by the landscape. She explores layers in the landscape and in paint, especially areas where the margins between land, sky, and sea, shift and merge and change. She lives in the UK in North Yorkshire and is obsessed with walking – and not just strolls along …

Iris Fritschi-Cussens is a London-based mixed media artist and recovering perfectionist. Her passion for art journaling for self-expression and self-discovery is an extension of her wish to get to know herself better and through that find a deeper connection to others. For more Iris, subscribe to h…