Blissfully Aware

This is a story about the birth of an artist.

It’s a story bucking the art establishment in favor of listening to your inner voice. Status quo says only certain types of media creators are artists. The status quo here in the United States feeds on the idea that resources are scarce.

Swimming in this soup, creatives compete for the attention and dollar of gatekeepers. But what happens if we wake up and see alternatives? What happens when we build our systems and technique from a place of collaboration? When it comes to something as sacred and personal as art and creativity, how do we break from the establishment to nurture it?

Leslie Askew did just that. She IS doing that, every day. It’s a life-long practice. This episode is about her unique creative process. It’s a window into her philosophy and how the art of storytelling has taken her from CNN to independent documentary film.

Inside the Episode

Find Leslie Askew at https://askewpictures.com/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

Dutch photographer Melissa Schriek talks in great detail about her journey from photojournalism to art photography. This is a story about a supremely talented photographer who faced a fork in the road at the start of her career. We dive into how documentary work shaped her vision, the tensions she felt as she was finding her voice, and how she's making art now, during the pandemic.

Her body of work The City is a Choreography has earned her commissions with fashion labels and features in It's Nice That, Ignant, and The Daring Media among other publications.

Inside the Episode

Find Melissa Schriek at https://melissaschriek.cargo.site/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

On the show today, Co-Founder and CEO of Lalaland Brianne Almeida. Her agency represents a selection of the most established and emerging creative talent in the global fashion industry today.

We take a look at the ins and outs of representing creative talent from an agent’s perspective. You’ll hear us talk about nurturing relationships, where things go right (or off-course) in producing shoots, and ways to think about hiring the right talent for the job at hand.

Inside the Episode 

Find Brianne Almeida at http://lalaland-artists.com/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

I am honored to have Justine on the show to talk about building a creative business. Her timely ideas are going to shape how creative entrepreneurs and freelancers position and market for years to come. We dive into the ins and outs of her coaching practice, as well as key principles in creating a business model. Justine’s a business coach, entrepreneur, writer, and speaker with a soaring ability to inspire and strategize.

Inside the Episode

Find Justine Clay at https://justineclay.com/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

Jonathon Kambouris and I recorded this talk shortly before the Coronavirus ramped up and changed everything. It’s striking listening to this conversation now because it's much about shaping up a creative business. Thinking about how these processes might apply today is a great exercise in retuning. Because this feels like a different world, in so many ways.

There are many nuggets from Jonathon’s viewpoint that hold up because he gets to the heart of how art and commerce coalesce. You’ll hear him talk about finding his creative voice and how he brings it to the table when working with art directors and brand marketers. It’s eye-opening insight for creators and brand people alike. If you create visual media for commerce, this episode is for you.

Jonathon is an award-winning commercial still-life photographer and videographer. You may have seen his glossy, saturated images in Wired, The New York Times, in campaigns for Nars, Bobbi Brown, Coach and so much more.

Inside the Episode

Find Jonathon Kambouris at https://jonathonkambouris.com/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

Welcome to an in-depth talk with multi-media artist Daniela Groza. She is a photographer, writer, performance artist, cook, and more. You might know her from Be Kind for Real, her centerpiece project that fosters kindness and acceptance through art. She speaks about how this project came to be, how it’s evolved, and how she’s changed with it.

In this crazy, strange time, let’s talk about creativity. How might we access it? How might we use our creative juices to feed back into the communities and causes we care about? What are some of the tensions we’re experiencing?

You will hear all about Daniela’s adventures driving Uber and getting nurses to work, all the while trying to keep herself and her home safe from the Coronavirus. Masks, plastic gloves, and hand sanitizer are a rarity. She’s on the road with her camera, documenting empty streets and taking notes about her passengers. Amongst all this, Daniela embodies a down to earth humor that completely disarms you and pulls you in. She’s an incredible storyteller, and this conversation is no exception.

Inside the Episode

Find Daniela Groza at https://www.instagram.com/bekindforreal/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

Chantal is a master trainer and owner of Kinespirit, a bicoastal Gyrotonic and Pilates studio. She takes us through the arc of her dance and movement career. We’ll see how one craft led to another and interconnect. We tend to look outward for best practices to move our business forward. Along the way—while we pick up important information about what’s going on in the world—we might lose sight of our particular circumstances: our resources, situation, and audience. How might we fit best practices into our specific context?

I think this is where the power of intuition comes in. Following our nose and steering onward based on informed decisions that FEEL right in our world. No two people are alike, no two companies are alike, and no two situations are alike. So, opening up our channels and listening, intuiting, helps us stay flexible and tweak continually based on what our distinct situation calls for.

I can’t think of a better person to talk about intuition with than Chantal. She’s been a business owner for over 13 years and built teams in New York and Portland. Her clients and her teams stick around for years. You’ll hear all about that too.

Inside the Episode

Find Chantal Deeble at https://www.kinespiritcircle.com/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

Today, we take a closer look at finding the right client base with Christine Blackburne. Christine’s an award-winning still-life photographer and videographer based in New York City, and she’s been in the game for over 15 years. She’s created media for Benefit Cosmetics, Shiseido, Tiffany, Essence, Food and Wine, NY Magazine, the list goes on.

There’s conventional wisdom around finding the right audience, the right client base. We hear "just be yourself" or "co-create with your clients" so much, it's platitudes. What does this mean, day-to-day? What decisions might one make over the years to hone in on the right client? And what does the right client even mean? How might we improve our understanding? We explore how Christine cultivates her creative voice and markets herself. She's continually sharpening her focus and evolving as an artist.

Inside the Episode

Find Christine Blackburne at https://www.christineblackburne.com

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at: https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

In this episode, we discuss sustainability with Jake Thiel, founder, and CEO of Edifice Architectural. Jake collects timeworn arrowheads from the shores of the Potomac River. He appreciates their simplicity. He marvels in their history.

He applies this wonder to the building process. What would it look like for an architecture startup to approach its craft with a multi-generational timeline? What would it mean for a startup to think about adaptive, sustainable growth, not only for itself, but also based on the needs of our communities and our planet? We shed light on these themes today.

Inside the Episode

You can find Jake Thiel at https://www.edificearchitectural.com/

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at: https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co

In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss openness with Luciano Fileti. Luciano is a commercial photographer in the fashion and still life space in New York, and he’s spent more than a decade, sometimes two, developing personal art projects too.

Together, we’re going to take a closer look at how being intentionally receptive leads to experimentation, happy accidents, learning, and a sense of genuine connection with our environment and each other.

Inside the Episode

Luciano's work is at https://fileti.com

Our theme music is by Ben Tyree, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/BenTyree

Follow Blissfully Aware host Ioana Friedman at: https://twitter.com/IoanaFriedman

I want to hear your feedback. Send it to [email protected]

Blissfully Aware is the first podcast series from The Daring. We help organizations of all shapes and sizes cultivate audience affinity through creative strategy, design, and storytelling. Looking for some creative help with your transformation? Visit https://www.thedaring.co