Michele Lockwood is an artist, writer, photographer, clothing designer, mother, activist, and environmental scientist. She grew up in the boroughs of New York City and started sneaking out to hip-hop gigs, house music clubs, and punk shows while in high school. She hung out at the Brooklyn Banks in the late 1980s, and played the character “Kim” in Larry Clark’s 1995 film Kids. The X-girl logo, designed by Mike Mills, was based on her face, which led her to becoming a clothing designer in Tokyo with her own brand, called Material. Lockwood has lived in Australia for the last 20-odd years with her partner, Andrew Kidman, on a rural property in the hills between Byron Bay and the Gold Coast. Recently, Lockwood has started working for a not-for-profit Indigenous organization that helps to build more resilient communities and ecosystems. In her spare time, she studies and publishes papers on a local endangered frog species.

In this episode of Soundings, Lockwood sits down with Jamie Brisick at the Big Sky compound to talk about her teenage years, creativity, fashion, surfing in California, Kids, music, the artistic process, moving to Australia, and the study of frogs.