On Goingness

Christina Muscatello is the Co-Founder and Director of the Memory Maker Project based in Binghamton, NY. MMP is an arts, culture and advocacy program for people experiencing memory loss and their loved ones. When I learned about this organization, I sent Christina an e-mail out of the blue asking what I could do to be a part of her work, as I had done my college undergraduate thesis on the relationship beyond memory and spent several years researching and writing about these topics. By this time, I'd written a thesis paper and organized a book project that involved over 40 artists of different mediums to interact with a piece of writing written by my grandmother, who at the time was experiencing dementia. I was lucky that Christina called me back and offered me a place as her first artist-in-residence in September 2019.  We worked together for many months and I cannot even begin to explain how much I learned from working with her and how much it humbled me as an artist and human. This is one of many conversations, but I originally interviewed her for my blog project, No Hard Feelings in 2019, which you can check out here. In this episode we chat about what it means to be a creative aging specialist and founder, the I'm Still Here Foundation, balanced business models, aging in place, and paying attention to care partners as much as the ones being cared for. As always, it's about the community and it's about the village. For me, it's sharing these kinds of projects that makes this podcast worthwhile. You can listen to Christina's podcast project, The Memory Maker Radio Hour here. 

Dorothy James is a Brooklyn based puppeteer and maker of tiny things. She has puppeteered for Wakka Wakka (Made in China, 59E59 Theaters, FigurTeatret i Nordland; The Immortal Jellyfish Girl, FigurTeatret), Nick Lehane and Derek Fordjour (SELF MUST DIE: Fly Away, Petzel Gallery), Basil Twist (Hansel & Gretel, Michigan Opera Theatre), Molly Smith (Snow Child, Arena Stage), AchesonWalsh & Radio City (The New York Spectacular…) Unknown Mortal Orchestra (“That Life”), BBC (Moon and Me), Amazon (Patriot), and Apple TV+ (Hello Tomorrow!). As a creator, Dorothy uses table top, shadow, rod, and paper cut puppetry to create otherworldly narratives that meld the grotesque with a sense of innocence. She is the co-creator of Bill’s 44th, a wordless puppet show for adults which was named a New York Times Critic’s Pick and has performed in NYC at Dixon Place and in Chicago at the Chopin Theater as a part of the 2022 Chicago International Puppetry Festival. Her paper cut stop-motion film Lethologica was an official selection of Chicago’s Big Teeth Small Shorts Film Festival and the Upstate NY Horror Festival. 

Andy Manjuck is a Brooklyn-based artist. He is a company member of Wakka Wakka ("Baby Universe," "Saga," "Made in China," "The Immortal Jellyfish Girl"), and has worked with Robin Frohardt ("The Pigeoning," "The Plastic Bag Store"), Nick Lehane ("Chimpanzee," and "Fly Away" – a collaboration with Derek Fordjour's SELF MUST DIE exhibition, Petzel Gallery), Unknown Mortal Orchestra (“That Life,” Double Solitaire), Doug Fitch ("Petrushka" with the NY Philharmonic Orchestra, and Oregon Symphony), Apple TV+ ("Hello Tomorrow!"), BYUtv ("9 Years to Neptune"), and Betty Productions ("4th Islamic Solidarity Games Opening Ceremonies," Baku, Azerbaijan, "48th National Day Celebration," Abu Dhabi, UAE). He co-founded the arts collective Eat Drink Tell Your Friends ("Lectures," "Photo & Supply). He has also designed and taught at the Peabody Institute at John Hopkin's University. Andy's most recent work, "Bills 44th" was named a New York Times Critic's Pick and has performed at Dixon Place, St Ann's Warehouse, and at the Chopin Theater as part of The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival in 2022.

In this episode we chat about landing on puppeteering as a career, valuing your creative family, keeping a creative project going through tough times, Andy and Dorothy's puppet show baby: Bills 44th, and the melding of luck and hard work. 

Maddie Edgar is a maker and teacher who was raised in Massachusetts, lived in Brooklyn, and currently resides just outside of Los Angeles in Topanga Canyon. She graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Communications Design and a focus in Illustration, and now works in many roles including: as a maker of up-cycled apparel, an elementary art school teacher, a botanical illustration teacher, and a freelance designer and illustrator. Capturing the vibrance of the nature around her in her illustrations, creating meaningful and useful pieces from pre-loved textiles, and interacting with her students of all ages are some of Maddie’s favorite aspects of her creative career. Maddie has created work for various animation studios, magazines, newspapers, and fashion designers. Some of her clients include The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Lucky Peach Magazine, Bank of America, Tory Burch, MIT Technology Review, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Eric Clapton. She teaches at the Cotuit Center for the Arts and Brentwood Art Center, and is the founder of On the Wing—a sustainable brand that upcycles goods, made from gems that have fallen by the wayside. In this episode we chat about Maddie's illustration and teaching work, starting a new brand and small business in the pandemic, and building a creative career that aims to be as balanced as it is functional. Find her on instagram here. 

Molly Haynes is a Los Angeles-based weaver working at the intersection of art, craft and design. Her tactile sculptures explore structure and materiality—echoing tensions between humans and the natural world. She utilizes unconventional materials such as salvaged marine ropes, raw plant fiber, and deadstock yarns to construct undulating forms which blur the line between natural and manmade.

Haynes earned her B.F.A. in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design and went on to design for the interior textiles industry, where she gained a deep understanding of fibers and the construction of cloth. After several years, she decided to delve into her personal practice to focus solely on handmade works that are free of utilitarian constraints.

In this episode, we explore weaving as an art form, working in textiles, the wonder of natural vs. manmade materials, and sustaining a thriving arts practice through the years. Click here to see Molly behind-the-scenes at the RISD nature lab, for the making of the Pollack Fabric "Nature Lab". Find her on instagram here. 

Ross McCampbell is an animation artist based in the Pacific Northwest. His abilities as a graphic artist and animator combine to produce magical worlds full of color and motion. In this episode we chat growing up in rural Idaho, switching mediums, the dance between freelance and full-time work (reference "N.Y.C. to L.A. to N.Y.C. to L.A., Ad Infinitum" by Cirocco Dunlap + the reading of it here), persistence vs. talent, and living life inspired by the idea of the gesture drawing. Follow him on insta here. 

Laci Chisholm is a dance educator, community builder, and the founder and CEO of Fit4Dance in New York City. This conversation was recorded about a year after our initial blog interview, which you can find here. Follow Laci's dance studio, Fit4Dance here (+ follow them on insta here)! On a personal note, Fit4Dance gave me a place to go when I was looking for community in the neighborhood and this place could not be any more special and welcoming. As you will hear in the episode, it is so much more for the community than a dance studio. It is a family, a connecting place, a healing place, an empowering place. No matter what happens in your day, this community will hold you up and make you strong and joyful again. You just have to be willing to move and the magic of this space takes you the rest of the way. 

Christian Joy (Christiane Joy Hultquist) is an American fashion designer and artist best known for her stage costume designs for Yeah Yeah Yeahs' lead singer, Karen O. Using found articles and occasionally eschewing thread and print for glue and marker pens, she has influenced contemporary fashion with punk and DIY stylings. She has designed for the likes of Karen O, Childish Gambino, Alabama Shakes, Maggie Rogers, and many others. Her work has been exhibited in The Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The Museum of Art and Design in NYC, the Mode Museum in Hasselt, Belgium and the AVA Gallery in NYC. Her work has been featured across major publications including The New York Times, Time Magazine, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Billboard, Spin, Rolling Stone, DailyMail, Refinery29 and The Huffington Post. 

Born in Marion, Iowa, Joy started designing in Brooklyn in 2000. With no formal training in fashion design, she started creating one-of-a-kind hand-painted/hand-sewn t-shirts and re-designing old prom dresses. She met Karen O in 2001 and the aspiring singer soon became her favorite model. As the Yeah Yeah Yeahs began playing shows, Joy designed a fresh outfit for each occasion. And as the band's fame grew, so did Joy's reputation and international success, enabling her to pursue her designing work full-time.

In this episode, we chat early fashion influences, moving from Iowa to NYC, befriending Karen O, the importance of humor (shrimp in the shoe!!!), and her jumps between painting, fashion design, screen-printing, writing and more. Find her on instagram here. 

Besides being your hosts...

Jenny Morris is a fiber artist and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She loves spending time with her Saori loom and her favorite pup Jo. In addition to weaving, Jenny feels especially passionate towards organizations that help to build social change. In 2019, she became the first artist-in-residence at The Memory Maker Project, an organization that brings art, culture and advocacy to people living with memory loss. The same year, she started the No Hard Feelings Project, an interview series where she talks to artists and creative entrepreneurs alike about work, play and process. Her friend Sofia told her to make it into a podcast, and here we are.

Sofia Pashaei is an illustrator, animation director and multidisciplinary artist, with a focus on stylized graphic imagery. Through the use of paintings and animation, she investigates the perception of modern day life told from the perspective of womanhood and relationships. Sofia aims to create quiet paintings portraying artificial moments and surrealistic films emphasizing the absurdity of our modern day life. She has worked with clients such as Google, Adult Swim and TED Education to name a few and is an AI-AP winner with her shot film for Adult Swim. You can find a selection of her incredible short films here. Follow her painting work here. 

In this episode we tell you a bit about who we are, our processes, our pain points and what we are thinking about right now. 

A serial entrepreneur and performing multimedia artist, Jay Rinsky is the founder and Chief Creative Director of Emmy-nominated Little Cinema / Little Cinema Digital. Through his leadership, Little Cinema has grown to win multiple awards, establish itself as a true pioneer in ‘immersive’ and experiential, and has grown to become the go-to agency for producing Hollywood’s biggest hybrid and virtual events to the likes of Netflix, Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, HBO Max, Amazon Studios, ABC, CBS, & Nat Geo while expanding its reach globally into Europe with its Netflix partnership. Jay’s true talent lies in his ability to creatively connect, direct and bring together a collection of different ideas, talents and technologies into singular spectacular outcomes. In this episode, we chat about risk and naïveté, the critical role of play in the creative process, his collaborative work with House of Yes, and building Little Cinema in the spirit of collaboration, hard work and fun. 

Mick Junco is a painter, illustrator and animator based in Brooklyn, NY. His work merges the mundane and the strange in a combination of still life, landscape and portraiture. It is often as playful as it is quietly provocative. In this episode we chat stick-to-it-iveness, how he made his way from analog painting to animation, and merging professional career and personal creative practice.