Windowsill Chats

Margo is joined by Ashley Lohr, an artist, educator, and community builder based in Petersburg, Alaska—a small fishing island town where she has taught art for nearly two decades. Working across painting and enamel jewelry, Ashley has built a creative life rooted in place, curiosity, and long-term commitment. From sustaining robust school art programs to teaching workshops far beyond the classroom, her path is a testament to what can unfold when artists design lives that support both their work and their values.

Ashley shares how moving to Alaska at 23 shaped her identity as both a teacher and artist, how she continues to grow her own practice alongside full-time teaching, and what she learned from intentionally stepping away during a self-created sabbatical.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Moving to Petersburg, Alaska for a teaching job—and how place can deeply shape creative alignment
• Teaching art in ways that feel authentic, expansive, and student-centered
• How Ashley builds, sustains, and evolves art programs within a school setting
• Maintaining a personal art practice alongside full-time teaching and family life
• Taking a self-designed sabbatical and what it revealed about community, creativity, and pace
• Teaching outside the classroom: workshops, travel, and non-gallery ways to share work
• Finding and proposing workshop opportunities—locally and farther afield
• Trusting a slow, steady creative path and allowing your work to change over time

Connect with Ashley:

• Website: https://ashleylohrart.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ashleylohrart

Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

Margo is joined by Jill Labieniec, an illustrator, designer, and endlessly curious maker living on Vashon Island in the heart of the Pacific Northwest. Working primarily with watercolor, Jill's whimsical illustrations and patterns have found homes on everything from fabrics and home goods to books, stationery, and editorial projects. Alongside her illustration practice, she has a deep love for working with her hands—sewing dresses, making shoes, and shaping clay—guided by a belief that art should help people create spaces where they can rest, daydream, and grow.

In this episode Jill reflects on her winding creative path—from a homeschooled childhood centered on making, through art school and freelance work, to building a creative career that prioritizes curiosity, balance, and day-to-day happiness over rigid labels or prestige.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Jill's creative beginnings and how family life and early making shaped her career
• Moving through art school, freelance work, and product-focused creative paths
• What it really means to build a sustainable creative career over time
• Letting go of fancy titles and external validation in favor of daily fulfillment
• Balancing freelancing, creative freedom, and personal happiness
• Jill's thoughtful, intuitive approach to social media and sharing work online
• Working both digitally and analog—and the joy of seeing art come to life on physical objects, especially ceramics
• Embracing curiosity, trusting the creative process, and tuning out the noise

Connect with Jill:

• Website: https://www.jill-labieniec.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jill.labieniec/

Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

In this 300th episode of Windowsill Chats, Margo sits down for a special solo conversation—answering thoughtful listener questions that span creativity, confidence, career longevity, leadership, and the magic that keeps artists going.

With over two decades of experience in the creative industry, Margo reflects on how her relationship with art has evolved, what she's learned from running The Foundry, and the advice she returns to again and again when mentoring artists.

Margo shares:

• How she makes space for her own creativity—and what her personal art practice looks like now
• Ways to quiet imposter syndrome and trust decades of lived creative experience
• The artistic work she'd most love to take to marketplace and why
• Her favorite and most challenging parts of creative work and leadership
• How the rise of AI has shifted client interest in traditionally created artwork
• The advice she gives artists most often—and what truly matters day to day
• Lessons from trade shows, licensing, and running The Foundry
• What keeps her going, where she finds creative magic, and why it's never too late to begin

Mentioned in this episode:

Get 50% off your first month of The Foundry: https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/offers/XVKbuygV/checkout

www.homeawaystudio.co

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

Judith Henry joins Margo for a deeply honest and life-affirming conversation about caregiving, creativity, and what can unfold when we stay open to possibility at every age. A writer, artist, and podcaster, Judith shares how caring for her parents in the final chapter of their lives became the unexpected catalyst for an expansive creative journey—one rooted in humor, grit, color, and connection.

At 61, Judith wrote The Dutiful Daughter's Guide to Caregiving, a practical and compassionate resource born from lived experience. In her late 60s, she picked up her mother's paintbrushes and fell in love with visual art. And at 71, she launched One Mouthy Dame, a podcast empowering women to embrace aging with honesty, gratitude, and good humor. Margo and Judith discuss:

• How caring for aging parents became a powerful (and unexpected) creative catalyst

• The emotional realities of caregiving, including grief, guilt, humor, and deep connection

• Writing The Dutiful Daughter's Guide to Caregiving as both memoir and practical support

• Using humor as a survival tool during difficult seasons

• Transitioning from writing into painting and mixed media later in life

• Letting go of judgment and reclaiming creativity at any age

• Launching a podcast in her 70s to speak honestly about aging, anxiety, and visibility

• Falling in love with Kawandi-style quilting and how stitching, mending, and making can be deeply healing

• Book & Writing: https://www.JudithDHenry.com

• Creative Work: https://www.JudithHenryCreative.com

• Podcast: https://www.JudithHenryCreative.com/One-Mouthy-Dame

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

Margo is joined by Daisy Fancourt—Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology at UCL and a globally recognized leader in understanding how creativity and social connection influence our health. From her early days designing arts programs inside hospitals to directing major WHO initiatives and publishing over 250 papers, Daisy has spent her career documenting the profound, measurable impact of creative engagement on stress, aging, recovery, cognition, and community wellbeing. In a world that often treats the arts as extra or a luxury, Daisy reframes them as essential—showing how even the simplest creative rituals can foster joy, resilience, health and a deeper sense of belonging in our everyday lives.

Margo and Daisy discuss:

• How Daisy's early work in hospitals revealed the power of creativity as a health tool

• What research shows about the arts reducing stress and supporting cognitive resilience

• Why we're conditioned to see creativity as a luxury—and how to reframe it as necessity

• The role of music, movement, and environment in emotional and physical healing

• Innovative approaches like dance for Parkinson's and creative play for children with disabilities

• How small, accessible creative habits can improve daily wellbeing

• Why talent doesn't matter—process is what delivers the benefits

Mentioned in this episode: https://sbbresearch.org/

Connect with Daisy: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/44526-daisy-fancourt Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health

Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

In the first episode of 2026, Margo invites listeners to join her in a conversation about beginning the year with intention—rather than pressure. Inspired by a recent Substack article by writer Suleika Jaouad, Margo reflects on themes of release, gentleness, and honoring the creative process over rigid resolutions and why this approach is so important for creatives. She also shares real responses from the Windowsill Chats community about what they're letting go of this year, from comparison and self-doubt to perfectionism and "shoulds." Margo explores why finite, manageable containers—like daily sketching, journaling, or mindful walks—can create scaffolding for a sustainable and supportive creative life. Mentioned in this episode: The Isolation Journals (Suleika Jaouad's Substack): https://theisolationjournals.substack.com/ Against resolutions - Suleika Jaouad on ritual, repetition, and the fantasy of starting over: https://post.substack.com/cp/182964621 Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

Margo is joined by Sarah Walsh for part two of their heartfelt conversation where they discuss finding inspiration, committing time and energy to yourself, slowing down, and Sarah's Domestika class amongst more. Sarah is an illustrator, painter and designer with home goods, children's books, socially conscious based projects, nature and loves tapping into mystical subject matter as the mainstays of her work. She is also the co-proprietor of the illustrative product based brand Tigersheep Friends. She collects books, new and old, plants, adores folk art and also loves cooking, thrifting, listening to records, haunting coffee shops with her sketchbook and spending time with her favorite humans.

Connect with Sarah

• www.sarahwalshmakesthings.com
• https://www.etsy.com/shop/Tigersheepfriends
• www.instagram.com/sarahwalshmakesthings

Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

Margo is joined by Sarah Walsh in this two part conversation where they go in-depth on finding motivation, leaning into intuition, how you can work on your true dream project today, by taking ahold of your time, and your yeses. Sarah is an illustrator, painter and designer with home goods, children's books, socially conscious based projects, nature and loves tapping in to mystical subject matter as the mainstays of her work. She is also the co-proprietor of the illustrative product based brand Tigersheep Friends. She collects books, new and old, plants, adores folk art and also loves cooking, thrifting, listening to records, haunting coffee shops with her sketchbook and spending time with her favorite humans.

Margo and Sarah discuss:

• Her creative upbringing and the influence her mom and grandma had on her

• How having a child at a young age impacted her creative journey

• Why creative ruts are actually important to our process and story

• Being led intuitively

• Having compassion for ourselves and giving grace

• How to slow down and learning to say NO

• Social media and self sabotage

• What defines a dream project to Sarah

• Learning what we could accomplish if we treated ourselves like we do our clients

Mentioned in this episode:

I Didn't Do the Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt by Madeleine Dore

I Just Like to Make Things: Learn the Secrets to Making Money while Staying Passionate about your Art and Craft by Lilla Rogers

Connect with Sarah

Www.sarahwalshmakesthings.com

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Tigersheepfriends

www.instagram.com/sarahwalshmakesthings

Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

Margo Tantau is joined by artist, tax expert, and founder of Sunlight Tax, Hannah Cole, for a refreshingly human conversation about money, creativity, and her new book, Taxes for Humans: Simplify Your Taxes and Change the World When You're Self-Employed.

Hannah brings compassion, clarity, and humor to a topic many creatives carry shame, fear, or confusion around—and reframes taxes as something that can actually support creative, mission-driven work rather than stifle it.

Margo and Hannah discuss:

• Why creative work is economically vital and plays a real role in shaping culture
• How the tax system is designed for humans—not perfection—and includes room for forgiveness
• Simple, realistic systems that make taxes easier for self-employed creatives
• Tax incentives that actually exist to support artists and independent workers
• How money shame shows up for creatives, and why it's completely normal
• Why making mistakes with taxes doesn't mean you're "bad at money"
• How compassion and clarity can coexist with practical financial systems

Connect with Hannah:

• Book + Workbook: https://www.sunlighttax.com/book
• Website: https://www.sunlighttax.com
• Instagram / YouTube / LinkedIn: @sunlighttax

Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry

Margo is joined by watercolor landscape artist and muralist Juliene Sinclair, a creative whose passion for color runs as deep as the mountains she paints in. Juliene is dedicated to helping painters finally understand color—why it behaves the way it does, how to mix it with intention, and how mastering it can completely transform artistic confidence. She believes that once you grasp how color truly works, your entire creative world opens up. Juliene lives in the mountains with her husband, son, and two cats, and when she's not painting, she's likely geeking out about color theory or hiking steep trails with bear spray in hand.

Together, they explore the emotional and technical layers of color, the courage it takes to follow your creative curiosity, and why making art—imperfect, vibrant, deeply human art—is essential to feeling whole. Margo & Juliene Discuss:

• Juliene's winding path to watercolor and murals, and how she found her creative voice
• Why color feels intimidating for so many artists—and how to move from confusion to confidence
• The power of intentional mixing and creating palettes that feel authentic to you
• How limiting your palette can actually expand creativity and harmony
• The emotional side of color—self-doubt, breakthroughs, and trusting the process
• Creativity as essential human expression, not just a career path
• Painting with her young son, and what kids teach us about fearless creativity

Submit Your Questions for Margo Tantau & Emily McDowell Connect with Juliene:

• Website: www.julienesinclair.com
• Instagram: @juliene.sinclair
• YouTube: @julienesinclair

Connect with Margo:

• Website: www.windowsillchats.com
• Instagram: @windowsillchats
• www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill
• https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry