Authentic Obsessions

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