Create Art Podcast

Empathy is not the newest X-Man or super mutant power. Empathy is essential to be able to reproduce what you see or experience for your audience in order for them to comprehend what you are creating. Also, you need this skill in order to work more effectively with others when working on projects. When you can convert the feelings that you have to an audience or with your project partners, you have mastered empathy. Today I will talk with my good friend Heather Moon about how she uses empathy not only in her art but in her holistic practice of massage. This is a rebroadcast of my old show and I wanted to make sure you were able to hear this conversation.

• Merriam-Webster: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Do you remember when you were a kid and maybe your parents put your drawings or school art on the fridge? How awesome did you feel when that happened. Now look around your home, where is your artwork? Why aren’t you putting your art around your house? Do you think that perhaps your stuff is no good, or are you suffering from imposter syndrome? Well, there is probably a reason for that, you are being too critical about your work, and maybe that is stopping you from enhancing your living space and creating art for yourself. Today I am going to help you connect with that inner child whose artwork was displayed lovingly on the fridge in a place of prominence in your house.  

• Be proud of your work, you are your first fan

• Why are Kids More Creative Than Adults?

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Have you ever really thought about what inspiration is and how to harness it? This is a rebroadcast from my old podcast during its final season where I talked about terms in the art world and had a conversation with friends. This episode deals with inspiration and how we define it and harness it in our practice. Derwin is a dear friend and mentors to me and his ideas about inspiration are well, inspiring.

• Merriam-Webster: an inspiring agent or influence2a: the quality or state of being inspired b: something that is inspired a scheme that was pure inspiration3: the act of drawing in specifically: the drawing of air into the lungs4a: a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation b: the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions c: the act of influencing or suggesting opinions

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

Who is your hype person, who is telling your story to your audience? When you are not physically next to your artwork and able to answer questions posed by those who enjoy it how can you speak for the work? Today I am talking about telling your story and who better to tell your story than you.

When you go to an art gallery that specializes in work from previous centuries and read the little cards that describe the piece, do you wonder how they got that information? Some of it is combed from the artists' writings or biographers, hopefully, but usually it is by an art historian compiling information from sources that may or may not be primary sources. That is a huge gamble that I don’t want to leave to anyone who barely passed art history or relies on Google or Wikipedia searches.

Another reason why I think it is important to have the last word on your work is that tastes change. What is stylish now, attitudes that are accepted now are not necessarily going to be accepted in the future.

One last point I’d like to make is that telling your story is an artform all itself. Not a lot of people can do themselves justice when telling their audience about how they came about creating their work.

• Artist Statement Guidelines

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

This episode is a rebroadcast from my old show KDOI Podcasting where I took a topic and had conversations with artists from varying disciplines. In my talk with Monsell Carty, we discussed empathy, what it is, and how he uses it in his stand-up comedy art.

• Merriam Webster the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner also: the capacity for this action of understanding being aware of and being sensitive to. the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

And now – our final (but still optional!) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show where every line originated. A cento might seem like a complex undertaking – and one that requires you to have umpteen poetry books at your fingertips for reference – but you don’t have to write a long one. And a good way to jump-start the process is to find an online curation of poems about a particular topic (or in a particular style), and then mine the poems for good lines to string together. You might look at the Poetry Foundation’s collection of love poems, or its collection of poems by British romantic poets, or even its surprisingly expansive collection of poems about (American) football.

Not My Words 

30 April 2022 

1 

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking 

2 

Those who have crossed 

3 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight 

2 

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams 

1 

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming 

2 

Is it like this 

3 

though wise men at their end know dark is right, 

2 

In this last of meeting places 

1 

And everybody knows that it's now or never 

3 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 

2 

Between the desire 

1 

And everybody knows that you're in trouble 

3 

And you, my father, there on the sad height, 

2 

In death's other kingdom 

1 

Everybody knows the war is over 

3 

Do not go gentle into that good night. 

2 

This is the way the world ends 

1. Everybody Knows Leonard Cohen 

1. The Hollow Men T.S. Elliot 

1. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Dylan Thomas 

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

And here’s our prompt (optional, as always). In certain versions of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, various fairies or witches are invited to a princess’s christening, and bring her gifts. One fairy/witch, however, is not invited, and in revenge for the insult, lays a curse on the princess. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a “curse” you’ve lived with (your grandmother’s insistence on giving you a new and completely creepy porcelain doll for every birthday, a bad singing voice, etc.). I hope you find this to be an inspiring avenue for poetic and self-exploration.

He Must be Born with It 

29 April 2022 

As I stand in the back of the room 

Fiending for another smoke 

I feel every emotion coming from the poets 

Some of them are younger than my socks 

Others share their experiences that I have no reference to 

Yet I come back week after week 

Like they say to do in the meetings 

Where we just share our first names 

I’ve always been able to empathize with most anyone 

So much so I take on their struggle 

Without being asked 

Or wanted 

Because I’ve felt since day 1 

That I have to be the sacrificial lamb 

Fending for myself 

With parents who would rather drink 

Than take care of their children 

I stand outside, alone 

Flicking ashes to the ground 

Field stripping the butts 

And the young poets come up to me 

Asking how they did 

Asking if I heard their latest piece 

Quizzing me on their content 

Giving them the wisdom that has been bestowed on me 

Through years of searching 

And I pass along to them the torch 

Freshly lit with their energy and inquisitiveness 

Praying they have a better life than what I was given 

Knowing the predators that lurk just around the corner 

I try to protect them and provide them 

With an example of what I have done that works 

And what I have done that doesn’t 

This is all I can give the next generations 

The benefit of my experience 

It’s a precious gift that I wish I had been given 

Or that I would have been open enough to receive 

My spirit will be following up after I release these earthly bonds 

I expect to see 

A better world than what was left to me 

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

Today’s (optional) prompt is to write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. For example, May Swenson’s poem “Women” mimics curves, reinforcing the poem’s references to motion, rocking horses, and even the shape of a woman’s body. George Starbuck’s “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree” is – you guessed it – a sonnet in the shape of a potted Christmas tree. Your concrete poem could be complexly-shaped, but relatively simple strategies can also be “concrete” —  like a poem involving a staircase where the length of the lines grows or shrinks over time, like an ascending (or descending) set of stairs.

Mug of Life 

28 April 2022 

Before everyone wakes up to start their day 

You, my black pot of gold, spit and bubble and 

Steam you way into my ears, I can smell your 

Vapors as they waft from room to room and permeate  

Each and every room in our house, I love the bitter 

Feeling you give as you pour over my tongue washing 

Away the dryness of the night's restorative dreams 

The heft of a full mug of this elixir opens my eyes 

And provides me comfort when I get ready for life 

Sipping away mindlessly and feeling the energy fill me 

Warmth of the liquid makes me smile, my kids know 

Not to ask too much of me before I drain the 

First cup of watery bitter love in my mug, quiet 

Listening to the sounds of the birds and the rustle 

Of the rabbits in the backyard is how I start my day  

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

Last but not least, here’s our (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a “duplex.” A “duplex” is a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown. Here’s one of his first “Duplex” poems, and here is a duplex written by the poet I.S. Jones. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.

Filling The Craters 

27 April 2022 

Looking at all of the possessions I have acquired 

     Which one of these will teach my daughters happiness 

Teaching my daughters happiness 

     Is not an afterschool special 

Afterschool specials no longer teach kids how to read 

     That’s the job of parents who are engaged 

Engaged parents were not the example I had 

     Being taught what not to do is the plan laid out before me 

The plan of what not to do being laid out in front of me 

     I find happiness in what my daughters teach me 

Finding happiness in the lessons of my daughters 

     Their smiles are my goalposts 

Smiling children are the goal 

     Looking at all the possessions I have acquired 

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). A couple of days ago, we played around with hard-boiled similes. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that contains at least one of a different kind of simile – an epic simile. Also known as Homeric similes, these are basically extended similes that develop over multiple lines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have mainly been used in epic poems, typically as decorative elements that emphasize the dramatic nature of the subject (see, by way of illustration, this example from Milton’s Paradise Lost). But you could write a complete poem that is just one lengthy, epic simile, relying on the surprising comparison of unlike things to carry the poem across. And if you’re feeling especially cheeky, you could even write a poem in which the epic simile spends lines heroically and dramatically describing something that turns out to be quite prosaic. Whatever you decide to compare, I hope you have fun extending your simile(s) to epic lengths.

Lost Souls 

26 April 2022 

As rabbits dart from here to there 

The foxes know their movements 

The deer are stunned before they feel the bite of steel 

As the hunters reload for the kill shot 

If the prey could find a way to live in Zootopia 

Then the predators would be unemployed, powerless, their biggest fear 

Even size differences don’t equalize the outcomes 

This even the smallest carnivore knows the numbers game wins 

Very few animals hunt their young 

Almost none eat their progeny 

And those that do, we deem them animalistic 

Our sympathies are nowhere to be found 

There is no rehabilitation, no redemption for these beasts 

And if we can’t consume them, they are laid to waste 

Those who try to protect these species 

Are seen as bleeding hearts 

They are not taken seriously 

We minimize them 

And heaven forbid if their prey is tasty, or found to help our health 

For then we will domesticate and annihilate 

To the brink of extermination 

Only to pat ourselves on the back  

For saving them from our divine right 

Oh how we are so humane  

When dealing with those who act on their animalistic drives  

Those who let the beast out and dine on their young 

Do they not deserve the same disdain 

We reserve for the most barbaric of the animal kingdom 

Our religions tell us to forgive seventy times seven 

Especially when the predator divines the holy to their herds 

To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: [email protected]