Megan Auman's main focus is her eponymous jewelry line, but as she’s built her business over the years she has learned first hand what it takes to grow a creative business — and she shares that information as an educator through her site Designing an MBA and her classes at CreativeLive.

I wanted to interview Megan, because of her tenacity, clear entrepreneur spirit, and her willingness to share what she's learned with other creative business owners.

Megan has so much wisdom and experience to offer, and she does so willingly. Some of the topics we discuss on today's show are how her parents support helped her to always go after her dreams of making art for a living, the reality of running a handmade business, being honest with your self around your product, and cultivating brand consistency no matter what the size of your business.

My guest today is Katrina Rodabaugh - an artist, writer, and crafter who lives in Oakland CA with her two boys and husband. Katrina explores and examines environmental and social issues through her work: from large-scale mixed media installations, to social practice projects, to small handmade craft objects sold in her Etsy shop.

In today’s show we discuss Katrina’s 3 current projects. The first being Make Thrift Mend, a personal artist’s protest against fast fashion - will delve into why she got started, as well as specific techniques she’s employs within this project like the Japanese stitching and patching methods known as sashiko and boro respectively, as well as the Japanese sensibility Wabi Sabi, 

We also cover about her brand new book The Paper Playhouse, a book with 22 projects for families to enjoy while recycling paper, boxes, and more (Its a beautiful book!). Lastly we get into Range Studio, a public art project she and her husband David Szlasa have developed and built creating micro-residencies in the heart of San Francisco for artists.

And like all of my interviews we touch on a myriad of topics in between!

This week on the show I’m excited to have Courtney Cerruti, maker extraordinare. Courtney is an artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. During the day she works for Creative bug , an online education platform for arts and crafts workshops, as a set designer and during her spare time she paints, makes, writes books, sells antiques, curates shows and community events, teaches workshops and more.

I don’t often use the word prolific to describe someone, but Courtney is just that. Today we’ll talk about all the things she does and how she does it and stays inspires and her own struggles around keeping up.

Show Notes:

Show notes:

3636 show

Jersey Picker's Instagram account

3636 show featured on Instagram

Mad Men's creator Matthew Einer's quote on writing 

Michael McConnell

#SocialSketch

Creative Bug

Rebecca Rinquist

Rebecca's embroidered necklace we refer to (Image from Courtney's Instagram account)

Rebecca Ringquist’s Embroidery Workshops: A Bend-the-Rules Primer

Playing with Surface Design

Strike Away show

#StrikeAwayShow on Instagram

OK, so this week I am so delighted to introduce my guest, author, poet and activist Michelle Tea. Michelle often chronicles her own life while at the same time exploring topics such as queer culture, feminism, race, class, and prostitution. She’s incredibly prolific in so many ways and on today’s show we barely scratch the surface of all she’s done. Michelle and I actually know each other from being teenagers in the punk rock scene here in Boston, we spent a lot of time drinking and doing drugs and although I wasn’t able to include it in today’s show, we’re both amazes we made it out alive. So in many ways it really is a pleasure to sit down with her and discuss her career. On today’s show we discuss growing up, getting sober, reframing success and failure, and so much more. Michelle’s baby Atticus makes a few appearances in the episode today, and because so many of my listeners are mother’s I really thought it was important to actually leave his adorable cooing in. I think it’s a perfect example of how much women get down, and I know many of you will appreciate Michelle both talking about her career while taking care of Atticus at the same time. Let’s take a listen.

On the show today I sit down with Illustrator Vaughn Fender. Vaughn and I have been friends online for roughly 6 or 7 years, and it was great fun to sit down with him and learn more about what brought him from his homeland of Jamaica and his illustration style. Today we talk about his work, what he liked to draw as a kid, and his fascination with words and quotes, and as always much more.

Since 2006 Umar Rashid, also known as Frowhawk Two Feathers, has been recreating and reinterpreting a specific period in world history within his work. Through his paintings and sculptures, over the past 8 - 9 years he has slowly developed and built an epic history that begins in 1658 on a continent known within his work as Frengland, France and England reimagined as one colonial super power. This retelling of history will eventually end in 1880. Today we talk about how Umar Rashid has redefined his own personal identity and how that has fed into his work, race and class both within the history he tells as well as around us, and how working within the museum system has helped him to see his work as less of a commodity and more of an educational tool, and as always much more.

This week I sit down with my good friend Christina Loff. Christina works as Channel Marketing Lead for the Photography, Craft, and Design Channels at CreativeLive. We discuss her own career, being authentic online, marketing your own work, consuming fewer clothes, as well as some of her favorite Creative Live classes, and as always much much more!

In 2006 blogger Victoria Smith uploaded photographs of her home on blogger, which was then known as Blogspot and submitted them to Apartment Therapy for a home tour. Not knowing anything about blogs, or the growing trend Victoria realized that this sort of digital journaling spoke to her as the perfect way to combine many of her interests - writing, photography, and interior design. Almost 10 years later that blog is known as sfgirlbybay.com and it is one of the designated stops online for home decor, style, and design. On today’s show we discuss her upcoming book See San Francisco that was shot almost entirely on her iPhone which really speaks to her eye and skill, her big move to LA,the candy coated curated world of social media and dealing with depression. And as always much more.