Something Rather Than Nothing

CLAIRE PAPOULIS has always been interested in the path of holistic healing, forging a personal mission from a very young age to bring wellness and balance to her own life. After discovering the Amma Therapy program at The Wellspring School for Healing Arts, these values began to blossom as a career path. As a therapist, she strives to create a comfortable space in which clients can explore and enhance this path for themselves through education, healing, and relaxation. She continued her training in herbal medicine in the Professional Herbalist program through the East West School for Planetary Herbology. It is her priority to treat each client through a holistic model, addressing all elements of mind and body in unity.

Alongside her career, Claire has always valued the arts, striving to maintain creativity as a presence in her life. Growing up with her father the NYC-based composer Jim Papoulis, she was exposed to music from day one and developed an awe with creative figures and the creative process. Although she has experimented with different mediums, her recent life has brought her back into mentorship under sculptor Greg Steinsieck with whom she is exploring creative expression through visual art. She holds a strong belief in the important interaction that occurs through stimulating different parts of the brain by engaging in a variety of both intellectual and creative mediums.

Something (rather than nothing) Website

CLAIRE PAPOULIS has always been interested in the path of holistic healing, forging a personal mission from a very young age to bring wellness and balance to her own life. After discovering the Amma Therapy program at The Wellspring School for Healing Arts, these values began to blossom as a career path. As a therapist, she strives to create a comfortable space in which clients can explore and enhance this path for themselves through education, healing, and relaxation. She continued her training in herbal medicine in the Professional Herbalist program through the East West School for Planetary Herbology. It is her priority to treat each client through a holistic model, addressing all elements of mind and body in unity.

Alongside her career, Claire has always valued the arts, striving to maintain creativity as a presence in her life. Growing up with her father the NYC-based composer Jim Papoulis, she was exposed to music from day one and developed an awe with creative figures and the creative process. Although she has experimented with different mediums, her recent life has brought her back into mentorship under sculptor Greg Steinsieck with whom she is exploring creative expression through visual art. She holds a strong belief in the important interaction that occurs through stimulating different parts of the brain by engaging in a variety of both intellectual and creative mediums.

Check out the newest episode with poet Bunkong Tuon. We delve into (or at least mention) - Bukowski, The State of Nirvana, Cambodian Genocide and Diaspora, War, Censorship, What to do about Morrissey, The State of Poetry, Something, Nothing, Emily Dickinson, Amherst, Family.

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer, critic, professor, and, most importantly, father. He is the author of Gruel (NYQ Books, 2015), And So I Was Blessed (NYQ Books, 2017), and Dead Tongue (with Joanna C. Valente, from Yes Poetry), as well as a contributor to Cultural Weekly. 

Nominated for the Pushcart numerous times, his poetry recently won the 2019 Nasiona Nonfiction Poetry Prize. He has completed a book of poems about raising his daughter in contemporary America. He is an associate professor of English and Asian Studies at Union College in Schenectady, NY.

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Something Rather Than Nothing

Check out the newest episode with poet Bunkong Tuon. We delve into (or at least mention) - Bukowski, The State of Nirvana, Cambodian Genocide and Diaspora, War, Censorship, What to do about Morrissey, The State of Poetry, Something, Nothing, Emily Dickinson, Amherst, Family.

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer, critic, professor, and, most importantly, father. He is the author of Gruel (NYQ Books, 2015), And So I Was Blessed (NYQ Books, 2017), and Dead Tongue (with Joanna C. Valente, from Yes Poetry), as well as a contributor to Cultural Weekly.

Nominated for the Pushcart numerous times, his poetry recently won the 2019 Nasiona Nonfiction Poetry Prize. He has completed a book of poems about raising his daughter in contemporary America. He is an associate professor of English and Asian Studies at Union College in Schenectady, NY.

I have been lucky to have so many wonderful artists join me in these early episodes, including Nicole J. Georges - a deeply funny and wise soul. 

Here is more about Nicole - 

Nicole J. Georges is a writer, illustrator, podcaster & professor from Portland, OR.

Her Lambda Award winning graphic memoir, Calling Dr. Laura, was called “engrossing, lovable, smart and ultimately poignant” by Rachel Maddow, and “disarming and haunting, hip and sweet, all at once” by Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home. 'Allô, dr Laura?' was an Official Selection at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Nicole’s latest book, Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home, is the recipient of 2 Oregon Book Awards, and a Lambda nomination for best Graphic Novel. It received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and the Library Journal, and was voted a 2018 “Great Graphic Novel for Teens” by ALA. “Nicole Georges makes my favorite art about love and vulnerability”. -Jill Soloway

Nicole won the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Arts Education in 2012. She was the 2013 Fellow at the Center for Cartoon Studies, the 2015/16 Donaldson Writer in Residence at the College of William and Mary, and currently teaches at California College for the Art’s MFA in Comics Program.

She has been publishing her own zines and comics for 20 years, and has toured the country extensively, including two appearances on Michelle Tea’s Sister Spit tour.

Nicole currently splits her time between Portland and Los Angeles with her chomeranian best friend, Ponyo Georges. She is the host of the podcast, Sagittarian Matters.

www.nicolejgeorges.com

Something Rather Than Nothing Website

I have been lucky to have so many wonderful artists join me in these early episodes, including Nicole J. Georges - a deeply funny and wise soul. 

Here is more about Nicole - 

Nicole J. Georges is a writer, illustrator, podcaster & professor from Portland, OR.

Her Lambda Award winning graphic memoir, Calling Dr. Laura, was called “engrossing, lovable, smart and ultimately poignant” by Rachel Maddow, and “disarming and haunting, hip and sweet, all at once” by Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home. 'Allô, dr Laura?' was an Official Selection at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Nicole’s latest book, Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home, is the recipient of 2 Oregon Book Awards, and a Lambda nomination for best Graphic Novel. It received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and the Library Journal, and was voted a 2018 “Great Graphic Novel for Teens” by ALA. “Nicole Georges makes my favorite art about love and vulnerability”. -Jill Soloway

Nicole won the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Arts Education in 2012. She was the 2013 Fellow at the Center for Cartoon Studies, the 2015/16 Donaldson Writer in Residence at the College of William and Mary, and currently teaches at California College for the Art’s MFA in Comics Program.

She has been publishing her own zines and comics for 20 years, and has toured the country extensively, including two appearances on Michelle Tea’s Sister Spit tour.

Nicole currently splits her time between Portland and Los Angeles with her chomeranian best friend, Ponyo Georges. She is the host of the podcast, Sagittarian Matters.

www.nicolejgeorges.com

Aunia Kahn is a multi-faceted creative entrepreneur and a globally awarded, collected, and exhibited figurative artist/photographer, published author, instructor, and inspirational speaker. She is also the owner of Rise Visible a full service creative digital marketing agency and Create for Healing.

Her work has been in over 300+ exhibitions in over 10 countries; at places such as San Diego Art Institute, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, iMOCA, St. Louis Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Mitchell Museum, and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. She has also been a guest on podcasts like Entrepreneur on Fire, with 70 million downloads & 1 million monthly listens.

Aunia has curated several internationally recognized books and projects, including Silver Era Tarot, Inspirations for Survivors, Obvious Remote Chaos, Minding the Sea: Inviting the Muses Over for Tea, Avalanche of White Reason, XIII: The Art of Aunia Kahn, Witch’s Oracle and the Witch’s Oracle 2nd Edition, Moon Goddess (Modern Eden Gallery) exhibit, Tarot Under Oath (Last Rites Gallery), Lowbrow Tarot Project (La Luz De Jesus Gallery), etc.

Her forthcoming projects include; An Epidemic of Retrospective, Disintegrating Stars, and the Ethereal Realms Tarot.

She loves Animals, Prussian blue, Psychology, Design, Miracles, Hummingbirds & Life.

https://auniakahn.com/

Something Rather Than Nothing Website

Aunia Kahn is a figurative artist, photographer, author, curator, web/graphic designer, a creative entrepreneur and inspirational speaker. Her artwork is a hybrid art form combining many disciplines which she invariably designs, builds, and executes characters, non-existent places, dreams, illusions, fears and fables into creations melding elements of classical and contemporary art. With the honor of several awards, having been featured in numerous publications, and represented and collected nationally and internationally, along with being a published author has provided her a platform to guest lecture at colleges and universities.

Project driven with community interest prompted Aunia to pursue curating several exhibitions and book projects including the Moon Goddess exhibit, Tarot Under Oath, Lowbrow Tarot Project, etc. which later inspired the launch of Auxilium Haus (Formally: Alexi Era Gallery) a collection of her various projects, publications, and curatorial adventures. It is also the home of the Museum of Rescued Art (MORA) which was established in an effort to rescue discarded and dispossessed art due to a variety of circumstances in which one may never truly know.

She has also published many personal projects include the Silver Era Tarot, Inspirations for Survivors, Obvious Remote Chaos, Minding the Sea: Inviting the Muses Over for Tea, Avalanche of White Reason, XIII: The Art of Aunia Kahn, Witch’s Oracle (Illustrator, Author: Marla Brooks). Her forthcoming books and projects include; An Epidemic of Retrospective, Disintegrating Stars and the Ethereal Realms Tarot. She has also been an avid tarot reader/designer for 16 years and web/graphic designer for 20.

She loves animals, Prussian blue, tarot, miracles, crystals, nature, hummingbirds, and Jeeps.

https://auniakahn.com/

Very excited this month to debut an episode with Hannah Hull - an English artist and musician (check out her TED talk entitled Mad Love!) Two approaches to explain her work - “I make situation-specific art and undertake social research. My practice catalyses dialogue & change for socially-excluded and at-risk groups.  My approach is dynamic and responsive: an open mechanism that allows things to be made, reformed & challenged. The outcome of this process might be an action; it might be an object; or it might be words.” 

Also - about Burning Salt’s music - “Burning Salt is a collaborative music project headed by Hannah Hull, singer-songwriter and artist.  Hull is known for her startlingly honest songs and distinctive low-register voice. Fans have described her unusual vocal style as ‘scraped out of an ashtray somewhere in the early 90s,’ and ‘Friday night meets Sunday morning.’ Poetic, raw and alive, Burning Salt’s sound draws on folk, country and blues. A genre-bending approach in the vein of PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Tom Waits.  Burning Salt is an independent project releasing on Hull’s own label, Lullaby Records.

https://burningsalt.com/about/

Something Rather Than Nothing Website