Women United ART PODCAST

What if the most extraordinary places on Earth could teach us not only how to see landscapes, but how to see ourselves?

In this episode of Women United ART PODCAST, I’m joined by award-winning fine art photographer Sandy Coburn, whose breathtaking work captures the raw beauty, scale, and surreal colour of some of the world’s most remote landscapes. From Patagonia’s iconic marble caves and the mountains of Tibet to UNESCO World Heritage Sites across five continents, Sandy has spent years creating photographs that blur the line between reality and dream.

But this conversation goes far beyond travel or photography. Guided by the principles of Taoism and Buddhism, Sandy shares how mindfulness, patience, and presence have become the foundation of her creative practice. We explore what it means to develop a philosophy of seeing, how to cultivate wonder in an age of constant distraction, and why slowing down is one of the most powerful creative tools we have.

We also dive into the stories behind her internationally acclaimed series Echoes in Sapphire, the emotional experience of photographing fragile ecosystems, and the responsibility artists carry when documenting the natural world.

Whether you’re a photographer, painter, nature lover, or simply someone searching for more intention in your creative life, this episode is an invitation to reconnect with beauty, curiosity, and the art of truly paying attention.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation about creativity, nature, and discovering the extraordinary in the world around us.

SANDY COBURN

www.sandycoburnphotography.com

IG: @sandy_coburn

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

Every artist reaches a moment when technical skill is no longer enough, and the real work becomes discovering a voice that is unmistakably their own.

In this episode of Women United ART PODCAST, Mona Lerch sits down with Courtney Bae, whose thoughtful and deeply personal practice explores identity, memory, perception, and the quiet beauty found in everyday experience. As a 3rd place winner in the Women United ART PRIZE 2025, Courtney has been steadily building a body of work that invites viewers to slow down, look closer, and embrace ambiguity rather than certainty.

Together, they explore Courtney's artistic evolution - from her earliest creative influences to the development of her distinctive visual language, and discuss how curiosity, experimentation, and vulnerability have shaped her practice. Courtney shares insights into balancing intuition with intention, navigating recognition through artistic opportunities, and remaining authentic in an increasingly competitive art world.

The conversation also dives into the realities of building a sustainable career, embracing artistic uncertainty, and trusting that meaningful work develops over time rather than overnight. Courtney offers thoughtful advice for emerging artists on finding confidence in their own voice while resisting the pressure to follow trends or external expectations.

Whether you're an artist searching for your own visual language or simply fascinated by the creative process, this episode is an inspiring reminder that the most compelling art often emerges when we allow ourselves the freedom to evolve.

Tune in for a conversation about artistic growth, resilience, and the lifelong journey of becoming the artist you're meant to be.

COURTNEY BAE

www.courtneybae.com

IG: @courtneybaeartist

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

In this episode of Women United ART PODCAST, Mona sits down with multidisciplinary artist Claudia Fuentealba, whose powerful fiber-based works explore cultural identity, displacement, resilience, and the invisible structures that shape our lives.

Born into a Chilean family and raised in Puerto Rico, Claudia brings a deeply personal perspective to her artistic practice, drawing from experiences of migration, belonging, motherhood, grief, and transformation. Through her acclaimed series Escala, she transforms humble materials such as wool, cotton rope, yarn, leather, and metal into sculptural landscapes that balance softness with strength, tension with healing, and vulnerability with resilience.

In this inspiring conversation, Claudia shares her journey from a successful fifteen-year career in global trade to building a full-time creative practice under the name The Yin to My Yarn. Together, we explore how ancestral craft traditions can become a language for emotional storytelling, how art can help us navigate life's imbalances, and why softness may be one of the most powerful forms of strength.

This episode is a thoughtful reflection on reinvention, creative courage, and the transformative potential of making something meaningful from life's unraveling threads.

Whether you're an artist navigating change, someone exploring questions of identity and belonging, or simply fascinated by the power of material storytelling, Claudia's journey offers wisdom, encouragement, and a beautiful reminder that healing often happens one thread at a time.

CLAUDIA FUENTEALBA

www.theyintomyyarn.design

IG: @theyintomyyarn

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

What does it mean to belong—to a place, to a memory, to yourself?

In this deeply thoughtful episode of Women United ART PODCAST, Mona Lerch sits down with artist Eleftheria Easley, whose work explores the emotional terrain of memory, identity, and belonging. Drawing from her multicultural background and lived experience across different geographies, Eleftheria creates poetic visual narratives that examine what it means to exist between worlds—culturally, emotionally, and physically.

Together, they explore how personal history, inherited narratives, and fragments of memory become artistic material; how displacement can shape not only identity but creative language; and how art can help us navigate the invisible threads connecting past and present. Eleftheria also reflects on her journey through the Women United ART MOVEMENT Residency, sharing how the experience supported her evolving practice and deepened her confidence as an artist.

This conversation is an invitation to slow down and reflect on your own emotional geography—the spaces you come from, the ones you inhabit, and the ways we continuously become who we are.

Tune in for a moving conversation about identity, vulnerability, and the transformative power of art.

ELEFTHERIA EASLEY

www.eleftheriaeasley.com

IG: @eleftheriaeasleycreativeexp

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

In this episode of Women United ART PODCAST, we are joined by Kathy Cornwell, a Northern Virginia–based artist whose vibrant and intricate works combine monotype printmaking, collage, and paper cutting into richly layered compositions.

Kathy’s practice is rooted in intuition, repetition, and the exploration of shape as a visual language. Through her distinctive process, she creates dynamic works that invite the viewer to slow down and engage more deeply—discovering hidden relationships, unexpected details, and moments of quiet curiosity within each piece.

With a career spanning decades, Kathy has exhibited widely across the United States and has been recognized through numerous awards, including being a multiple-time finalist and recipient in the Women United ART PRIZE.

In this conversation, we explore Kathy’s artistic journey, her evolution into mixed media, and how she balances structure with spontaneity in her work. We also dive into the role of play, experimentation, and persistence in sustaining a long-term creative practice.

This episode is a reminder that art doesn’t always begin with certainty—but with curiosity, movement, and trust in the process.

Tune in and step into Kathy’s world of rhythm, texture, and intuitive discovery.

KATHY CORNWELL

www.kathycornwell.com

IG: @kathy.cornwell.art

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

Today’s episode is a deeply moving and powerful conversation about love, visibility, and the radical act of painting tenderness into history.

I’m honored to be joined by Joan Cox, a Baltimore-based painter and the second-place winner of the Women United ART PRIZE 2025 in the Painting & Drawing Category. For more than two decades, Joan has been creating vibrant, emotionally rich portraits of lesbian couples—works that reclaim space for queer intimacy, memory, and representation in a canon that has long erased these stories.

Joan’s journey spans opening a gallery in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina, returning to graduate school to fully embrace her LGBTQ+ identity in her work, and building a practice that blends autobiography, historical references, symbolism, and activism. Her paintings are lush, sensual, and layered with meaning—images she wished she could have seen growing up.

In this conversation, we’ll explore how painting became a form of survival, how she reclaims art history through queer narratives, and why tenderness itself is a powerful political gesture.

JOAN COX

www.joancoxart.com

IG: @joancox.artist

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

In this deeply introspective and expansive episode, we welcome Nimea Ariana, a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges painting, sculpture, textiles, writing, and immersive installation to explore the profound connection between art and spirituality.

Nimea’s practice invites us beyond the visible—into a space where consciousness, identity, and cosmic awareness unfold through meditative and transcendental experiences. Her work transforms environments into powerful, sensory journeys, encouraging viewers to step into the unknown and reconnect with their inner world.

Having begun her career in event and exhibit design, Nimea’s path took a transformative turn through a series of life-changing experiences that led her to fully embrace her artistic calling in 2019. Since then, she has exhibited at institutions including the Art Gallery of Ontario and participated in major projects such as The Artist Project and AGO Massive, earning multiple awards for her innovative and deeply resonant work.

In this conversation, we explore Nimea’s journey of self-discovery, the role of spirituality and intuition in her creative process, and how art can become a portal for healing, transformation, and deeper understanding of our place in the universe. We also touch on how personal challenges shaped her path, and how she continues to create from a place of curiosity, resilience, and inner alignment.

This episode is an invitation—to slow down, to look inward, and to reconnect with your own creative and spiritual essence.

Tune in and step into a conversation that expands both perspective and possibility.

NIMEA ARIANA

www.nimeaariana.com

IG: @nimeaariana

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

In this deeply personal episode of Women United ART PODCAST, we sit down with Midwest-based photographer and educator Paige Young to explore how photography can become a powerful language for grief, memory, and emotional healing.

Paige’s work lives at the intersection of psychology and visual storytelling. With over fifteen years of experience running her photography business and teaching at Kendall College of Art and Design, part of Ferris State University, she has dedicated her career to creating spaces where vulnerability, compassion, and honesty can exist both in front of the camera and in the classroom.

In this conversation, Paige opens up about turning the lens inward after personal loss, documenting her grandfather’s journey with dementia, and confronting the societal discomfort around conversations about grief and mental health. We also dive into her powerful solo exhibition Smell The Flowers, a body of work that explores the complex relationship between medication, emotional experience, and memory through photography and immersive installation.

Together we discuss the nonlinear nature of grief, the quiet distance that can exist between feeling and expression, and the role art can play in helping us process what words often cannot.

This episode is a tender, honest exploration of what it means to remember, to heal, and to hold space for the full spectrum of the human experience.

PAIGE YOUNG

www.apaigephotography.com

IG: @apaigephotography

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

In this bold and timely episode of Women United ART PODCAST, we welcome back artist, writer, and digital rights advocate Emma Shapiro for a powerful conversation about censorship, body politics, and the future of artistic freedom online.

After facing censorship of her own work, Emma transformed personal frustration into global advocacy. As Editor-at-Large of Don’t Delete Art, she now works at the intersection of art and policy, collaborating with major institutions and digital rights organizations to ensure that artists are recognized not just as content creators — but as cultural rights defenders.

We dive into the upcoming 2026 collaboration between Don’t Delete Art and Free the Nipple, unpacking why nipple censorship remains a flashpoint in broader conversations about gender bias, algorithmic moderation, and the suppression of artistic expression. Together, we explore self-censorship, platform power, and what it will take to build a digital landscape where artists can create without fear.

This episode is essential listening for anyone navigating the online art world — and anyone who believes creative freedom is worth protecting.

EMMA SHAPIRO

www.emma-shapiro.com

IG: @exshaps

DON'T DELETE ART

www.dontdelete.art

IG: @dontdelete.art 

DON'T DELETE ART & FREE THE NIPPLE COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

www.dontdelete.art/free-the-nipple-x-dont-delete-art

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine

In this inspiring episode of Women United ART PODCAST, we sit down with Dr. Quahana Hendree — art consultant, theological art historian, and Founder & CEO of Q. Hendree Art Consulting — to explore the powerful intersection of art, faith, and community transformation.

With more than 25 years of experience across art history, theology, curation, and arts management, Dr. Hendree brings a rare and deeply intentional perspective to the role art plays in both public and private spaces. After relaunching her firm in 2020 following a period of personal recovery, she stepped back into the art world with renewed purpose: to help organizations, corporations, and government institutions create environments that don’t just look beautiful — but feel meaningful.

In our conversation, we trace her journey from academic foundations in theological art history to leading strategic art consulting projects that transform corporate and civic spaces. We discuss how spirituality informs her curatorial lens, why representation and storytelling matter in institutional collections, and how art can serve as a bridge to healing, empowerment, and cultural connection.

This episode is a thoughtful exploration of how art, when placed with intention, can shape not only environments — but lives.

Q. HENDREE ART CONSULTING, LLC

www.qhendreeartconsulting.com

IG: @q_hendree_art_consulting

This show is brought to you by Women United ART MOVEMENT, a global platform highlighting women in the arts through a wide range of opportunities such as solo and group exhibits, annual art prize for women artists, and quarterly publication.

www.womenunitedartmovement.com
@womenunited_art_movement
@womenunited_art_magazine