Vulnerability in life and art

This is an episode about feedback, reacting, and learning from what we hear from others.

As you listen to my conversation with gardener Andi Strachan, see if you can look under the covers at what a garden - as art, creation, growth, and development - might mean to you.

Where do you see yourself and your work within this ongoing process of dynamic and ongoing setbacks and bursts; natural individual beauties that develop over hours, days, and years; design through light, colour; sharing knowledge; social pressures and wildness versus cultivation; and 'the relentless emergence of life?'

This really was a walk through life and art as garden.

You can learn more about Andi and her work on instagram @andi.strachan and by watching the amazing work she creates with friend and gardener Helen Lockwood on the Netflix series The Big Flower Fight.

This episode, my conversation with collage artist Duane Toops, got me thinking.

I got caught up in multiple dichotomoies - art versus craft, intuition versus analysis, conduit versus creator. And then, as Duane says, there's the quiet space between things, the unseen. Dichotomies set up false choices.

What are you noticing? What’s coming up for you, ‘when this piece touches this piece?'

You can learn more about Duane and his work here substack.com/@duanetoops and on instagram @duanetoops.

I enjoyed a quickening conversation with poet Rachel McCrum about interpreting the crafts of writing and painting, poetry as a space of ambiguity and uncertainty, and burnout. She shares this beautiful line from Inua Ellams - 'poetry is the cheapest way to be free.'

And the podcast she references is The Blindboy Podcast by Limerick-born musician and author David Chambers, also known as Blindboy Boatclub.

To learn more about Rachel and her work, you can explore rachelmccrumpoetperformer.wordpress.com online and @kicking.paris on instagram.

For sight into another aspect of Rachel's artistic practice, check out her vocals as a member of poetry noise bogrock band Pigs&Wolves at https://youtu.be/r9YRmDUvrzA (their EP 'The Unfortunate Waggle' is due out late October 2024).

Nola McConnan is unapologetically herself in the best ways, determined, self-reliant, and charmingly fierce. She has supported herself as an artist throughout her career, with mentorship and support, despite failing grade 13 French, and she turned a rec room into a room of her own.

Please take note - when she talks about Sheilah, that is one of her older sisters. And due to timing, I wasn't able to include the amazing account of her family's connection with Emily Carr.

Please be sure to check out her website https://merriweatherdesignstudio.com/

This is an admittedly odd little episode about tribes, belonging, support, feedback, inspiration, and propaganda.

It was fun (and somewhat nerve-wracking) to speak with my drawing teacher Corina Kennedy about making art, being a magpie, taking risks, and the story behind a lovely piece of hers called Work Force/Wind Force.

She reminds us of the importance of remembering what it's like to be a beginner and taking the chance to learn something new, allowing our work and ourselves to be seen.

I enjoyed a lovely conversation with Stefan Lorenzutti, poet and co-publisher who runs Bored Wolves with his wife Joanna.

He shares stories about becoming a poet, inspired by Frederick the Mouse, sharing his work with friends after hours spent at the copy shop, moving to Poland and feeling isolated and alone until creating the growing community of poets, artists, and artist-poets whose work is now published by Bored Wolves.

You can learn more about Stefan and Bored Wolves by checking out boredwolves.com and on instagram @boredwolves

I talked with Matthieu Cheminée about his journey to becoming a silversmith, his travels to New Mexico and West Africa gaining inspiration and insight into metalworking techniques and designs, being an artist versus an artisan, and what it meant for him to stop making work to please other people and instead create exactly what he wanted.

Be sure to check out his work at matthieucheminee.com and on instagram @mattieucheminee

There's a theme that runs throughout my conversation with C S McIntire - what it means to be seen and not seen. We talk about his work and life, coming out, balancing the soft with the rough, and deserving to create.

Be sure to check out his work at csmcintire.com and on instagram @csmcintire