Marjorie talks about the importance of not waiting for inspiration and developing a practice.

Marjorie Atwood is a contemporary artist who has been painting and exhibiting her work for the past 20 years.  After graduating from Holland Hall high school in Tulsa, she moved to New York and earned a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College, while also studying at Parson’s School of Design. She has had several solo shows across the United States.

Favorite Artist: Haley Hasler.  Find her work here.

Find Marjorie here -

Website

Instagram

Facebook

Rose Nash is a writer & artist who is a Fellow at Chateau Orquevaux in Orquevaux, France, and also Director of the Kingsley House, a creative production house in Los Angeles.

Rose talks about the importance of connection, being fearless with your work, and the law of attraction.  And learn what life advice she got from Drake!

Favorite Contemporary Woman Artist: Can't settle on just one, she loves them all.  But she listens to a lot of Lana Del Rey right now and will always be a fan of Sylvia Plath.

Find Rose here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/r.o.s.e.n.a.s.h/

Author Faye McCray talks about the importance of self-promotion, giving back to the community, and networking across mediums.  Faye tells us about how she deviated from her first love of writing because there was no clear path to making money from it.   Listen and learn about how she found her way back to her creative self.

Faye McCray is an attorney, author, and playwright whose essays on love, life, and parenting have been featured in a number of popular publications including HuffPost, AARP Magazine, the Little Patuxent Review, AfroPunk, and Black Girl Nerds. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Weemagine.com, a website devoted to celebrating and inspiring creativity in children and young adults. Faye is also the author of White Belt, a collection of horror short stories; Boyfriend, a novel about a troubled college student struggling with love and fidelity; and I am Loved, a collection of positive affirmations for children.

Favorite Artist: Elizabeth Acevedo.  Find out more about this Author at http://www.acevedowrites.com/ Listen to Acevedo talk about The Poet X, getting nervous when she performs, her path to Slam Poetry, and the value of your unique voice here.

Where can you find Faye?

Website: www.fayemccray.com

Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/heyfayemccray/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fayewrites 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyfayemccray/

Alexandra N Sherman talks about the importance of getting out there, finding your working rhythm, and the exquisite balance of that line between ugliness & beauty, as well as pain & delight.  

Alexandra explores the landscape of the mind in her art through watercolor, installations, and collage.

She seeks to give the viewer an intimate experience through small-scale, evocative watercolors and collages

that explore the human existence, our sense of connection, and the responsibility we have to ourselves, others, and the environment.

She has been a curator as well as worked in several frame ateliers learning conservation framing techniques and the French paper art of cartonnage.

Earning her BA in Philosophy of Religion from Elon University, she continued her studies at the Corcoran College of Art.

Alexandra received her MFA in drawing and painting from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has held artist residencies in Washington, DC and Buenos Aires, Argentina and has taught experimental and experiential watercolor and collage classes.

Alexandra’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums, and can be found in private collections and institutions.

Favorite Artist: Kara Walker. Find out more about this artist on Art21.org

She can be found on Instagram @alexandransherman, Facebook @AlexandraNSherman and her website at www.ansherman.com

Pure Fire Creatives talks with artist Toby Penney about the somewhat nomadic lifestyle of an artist, picking the right location for you to put down roots and knowing your Social Media limits. 

Toby is a southern artist working in painting, photography, printmaking & multiple sculpture media.  Penney creates work accepting, even glorifying simple objects & fleeting moments. She is also the founder of Roaming Studio, offering art classes, workshops,  & artist residencies. Toby enjoys developing relationships with other creative people. She exhibits internationally and with several galleries in the U.S. Recent exhibitions include a couple in Australia. And Tennessee. Toby has also been a two-time recipient of the Denis Diderot AIR Grant with corresponding fellowships to Chateau Orquevaux Artist Residency. Her work has been on the cover of Professional Artist Magazine and Hellbent Magazine and has been included in numerous other publications.

A diplomat brat, Kamilah House is a self-taught visual artist and attorney in the DMV. She doodled her way through high school, college and law school until, one day, she found herself with a hunger to learn more about painting. She enrolled in several courses at the Art League School and viola! She began, what she describes as her Visual Emotion Project.  Kamilah blends her own culture with the experiences she picked up all over the world to create works of color.  Through her artwork, she hopes to empower all women who rarely see themselves in the ideals of our society. Through bold-colored paintings and collages, her work seeks to highlight the strength, history, struggle and poetry of the lives of women through her eyes as a third culture black woman of African American and Bahamian ancestry.  

Most recently, she has been working with her friend and Howard Law colleague author Faye McCray on an exhibition to bring awareness to black maternal health issues at the Columbia Arts Center.  This exhibit was postponed due to the Coronavirus and they are now taking the show online.  Follow along at Instagram @dearmama_art.

Find Kamilah and her work on Instagram @Kohouseart

Dana Ray, of Dana Ray Consulting, talks about the Power of Words.  We chat about how she got started and how she ended up helping other creatives hone their words to articulate the ideas and values that underpin their work.  We learn some of her favorite books and why people still dance salsa in Antarctica.  So, be sure to listen to the end!

More details about Dana: 

She builds her services on the assumption that words are action. As a communications consultant, she defines internal messaging for driven creators and founders and the organizations they lead. Dana Ray Consulting helps leaders identify the compelling language for what they do and why it matters. Her process defines the client’s unique and fundamental approach to their work and then translates this narrative into messaging.

Her clients represent diverse industries including fashion, dance, design, visual art, digital media, and activism. They can be found around the world in places like the Bay Area, Chicago, Montreal, Boston, and New York

Dana received a Fulbright to Bulgaria. a Master’s in Literature and Writing from Bucknell University. In 2018, she completed the altMBA program designed by marketing expert, Seth Godin.

Join me for a fireside chat with Super Attractor Reena Friedman Watts, where she talks about "bringing the people to the party" and her role as an Accountability Coach in Cathy Heller's Made To Do This program.  She tells the story of her creative journey from her first jobs at the forefront of Reality TV and the Film Industry, how she took those skills, applied them to the corporate world and ultimately her current creative incarnation in the entrepreneurial space.  She talks about transferable skills, the power of networking and finding that all-important balance.  We also chat about how if it doesn't fit, sometimes you just have to quit.    

Welcome to Pure Fire Creatives!  A podcast about art and the making of it!  In this episode, podcast host Racquel Keller (that's me!) tells you a little bit about herself and the reason behind bringing Pure Fire Creatives to life!  So, come sit by the fire and listen to a little story about a woman and her dream to lift other creative women up by giving them a platform to share their work, why they do it and where we can find it.  Welcome to the party!  You bring the wine...I'll bring the matches!