Authentic Obsessions

Takeaways

1. Use your artwork to quietly talk about things that are important to you.

2. If you’ve never made paper I highly recommend. It’s like magic.

3. ATCs (artist trading cards) are great because: 1) it’s a great way to get unstuck, 2) it’s not a big commitment, and 3) there is no monetary incentive.

4. Take the time to find out what other people think and feel about things. Don’t just keep scrolling.

5. If I agree to do something, I'm not going to do it half assed I'm going to do it whole assed.

6. Being reliable, responsible, and a nice person to be around and matters just as much as the art.

Mentioned in this episode

Follow Mel Kolstad on Instagram

Mel Kolstad’s website

Mel Kostad’s TedX talk - Channeling Your Inner Kid for Your Career

ATCs for All Artist Trading Cards

Themla Sadoff Center for the Arts

The Exquisite Uterus Project

Arnold Grummer’s

United States Postal Service Ruth Asawa stamps

Takeaways

1. Use your artwork to quietly talk about things that are important to you.

2. If you’ve never made paper I highly recommend. It’s like magic.

3. ATCs (artist trading cards) are great because: 1) it’s a great way to get unstuck, 2) it’s not a big commitment, and 3) there is no monetary incentive.

Mentioned in this episode

Follow Mel Kolstad on Instagram

Mel Kolstad’s website

Mel Kostad’s TedX talk - Channeling Your Inner Kid for Your Career

ATCs for All Artist Trading Cards

Themla Sadoff Center for the Arts

The Exquisite Uterus Project

Arnold Grummer’s

Takeaways

1. When you can tap into the honesty and be who you really are without worrying about how other people see you, that's where true self happiness starts.
2. Sometimes you have to change what success looks like depending on the week. But all of it helps the artwork go where it needs to go.
3. You can find magic anywhere.
4. Sewing is an act of repair and an ancient way of brining things together so they can’t come apart again.
5. Objects are just objects.

Mentioned in this episode

Follow Mindy Sue Wittock on Instagram

MIndy Sue Wittock’s website

Wondermakers Collective on Instagram

Wondermakers Collective website

New Kids On The Block

Axl Rose

Stevie Nicks

Takeaways

1. Be more open and generous and accept what is in the world right now.
2. Science and art are great places to learn how to question everything and how to look out for yourself.
3. Sometimes calamity happens and then it just backs away again.
4. All art comes from something you’re expressing. Even if you’re not ready to hear it yourself, it might be time for someone else to receive it.
5. It would be really hard to be the sand reckoner.

Mentioned in this episode

Follow Deb Dila on Instagram

Deb Dila’s website

Var Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

ArtPrize, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Pier Gustafson

Hamlin Lake, Michigan

Takeaways

1. Try everything.
2. Getting started is a new battle every day.
3. Even though we paint for ourselves, we need to know that the notes are not flat when the audience hears them, and that the message is landing.
4. Racism is the concrete manifestation of greed.
5. Self-worth is an inner game, and the feedback you get on social media is about the art, not about you.

Mentioned

Follow Benjamin Seaman on Instagram

Benjamin Seaman’s website

Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Paper FiftyThree

More information about Internal Family Systems

Brooklyn Art Library’s The Sketchbook Project

Delaware Valley Arts Alliance

Follow Sean Frankino on Instagram

Follow Tom Hlas on Instagram

Follow Pete Hocking on Instagram

Follow Joe Mangrum on Instagram

Ben briefly mentions “rapid fire exquisite corpse” and I had to look it up and share this in case you didn’t know about it either! Cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse) is a collaborative drawing approach first used by surrealist artists to create bizarre and intuitive drawings.

Takeaways

1. Live life through loving kindness.
2. Make more garbage art. We need to give people opportunities to fail, to experiment, to prototype.
3. The Napping Wall!!! (you’ll just have to listen…)
4. If you’re stuck: 1) work in series, 2) turn your art upside down, 3) put your art on the napping wall, 4) change what you’re up to.
5. When we take the time to slow down and learn how to tune in to ourselves, our creative practice, and our own work, we create work that is authentically ours.
6. There is a singular subjective perspective of how people remember and experience and create stories of others and themselves.

Mentioned in this Episode

Follow Shannon on Instagram

Shannon’s website

Shannon’s small batch limited editions with Kunst/100 in Berlin, including the Risograph print of Baltic Sea Study

TimeSlips

Takeaways

1. Don’t wait for confidence. You get confidence by doing.
2. Suit up and show up because you never know what's going to happen. Even if it’s a terrible day in the studio, you might just meet someone that really lifts your spirits and makes you think about your work differently.
3. Let go of all the rules that say art has to be this way or that way. Just do it because you want to.
4. The best revolution we could have for the preservation of democracy is to do it yourself.

Mentioned in this Episode

Follow Mary on Instagram

Penny McElroy at the University of Redlands

Mary’s internship in New Jersey pouring bronze casts for different artists led me to research the sculptors she worked with. Check out the trailer for this fascinating documentary “Julian Schnable: A Private Portrait.”

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Ox-Bow School of Art

American Craft Council list of schools with craft workshops and courses

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts Sculpture program

University of Wisconsin Madison Glass Lab

Women’s Caucus for Art 

Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest 

Takeaways

1. The best part of living is embracing the absurd things that happen every day.
2. You can’t put a forcefield around anyone with your worry.
3. You can always put something out in the world that is positive.
4. Take a lesson from Fred Rogers. Be nice, share, treat others the way you’d want to be treated.
5. People respond to truth.

Mentioned in this Episode

Follow Krista on Instagram, Facebook

Krista’s web site - Follow The Signs Painting

Farm Girl Antiques

Takeaways

1. Authenticity is painting what you truly want to paint. Vulnerability is sharing it with other people.
2. It’s all about the process. Freeing yourself of the obligations of the end result lets you create something unique, that is satisfying to the viewer, and enjoyable to make.
3. Advocate for anyone who has an interest in the arts, even if they’re not “gifted.”
4. Experiences and relationships have so much more value than any items.

Mentioned in this Episode

Follow Paula’s Palette on Instagram, Facebook

Follow Paula’s hand painted wearables on Instagram,

Paula DeStefanis Fine Art

Paula’s Etsy shop

The Arts Mill

North Shore Academy of the Arts

Follow John Paul Berry on Instagram

 AuthenticObsessions.com

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