Episodes

What a gift to have Melanie Chadwick and Sandi Hester together in one episode to share their sketchbook practices! They talk about the importance of sketching to sharpen your observational tools, practice drawing skills, and play with new mediums. Mel …

Amy Weil is a New York artist creating abstract encaustic paintings that parallel the cycles of nature. By spontaneously inscribing, scraping and adding wax, this process allows exploration of landscape on a deeper level. Amy is interested in how time …

Ginnie Cappaert, known to her friends as the Queen of Play, is a full-time artist and owner of Cappaert Contemporary Gallery in Door County Wisconsin. Ginnie divides her time between Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Santa Fe, New …

Jenna Freimuth is an illustrator and designer living in Minneapolis, building surface design patterns, stitching abstract embroideries and drawing to decorate and delight. Listen as we talk about newsletters, object permanence, regal felines with personalities, fantastical curiosity, and serendipitous connections. …

Amy Jarvis is a painter whose keen sense of color and lighting gives her work a recognized grace and emotion. In addition to commissioned pet portraits, Amy recently completed a series of nine oil paintings of mythical women from across …

What do dental scalers, trowels, wooden butter pats, and a toilet brush all have in common? Gill Edwards uses all these tools is her prints and paintings. Along with her obsession with vessel shapes, especially those found in simple elegant …

Paula DeStefanis is an artist, educator, co-founder of the non-profit arts organization North Shore Academy of the Arts, and director of The Arts Mill gallery and arts boutique. Inspired by her travels, Paula divides her time between her studios in …

Melanie Chadwick describes her creative practice as playful, evolving and lively. Melanie talks about having an anchor in your life that grounds you, her love of maps and place, and how her art workshops help businesses and organizations gain confidence …

Amy Maricle is inspired by the connections between nature and art and adores patterns, paint, paper cutting, and putting it all together in art journals. Her training as an art therapist taught her the importance of focusing on process over …

Jo York is a contemporary artist inspired by the landscape. She explores layers in the landscape and in paint, especially areas where the margins between land, sky, and sea, shift and merge and change. She lives in the UK in …

Iris Fritschi-Cussens is a London-based mixed media artist and recovering perfectionist. Her passion for art journaling for self-expression and self-discovery is an extension of her wish to get to know herself better and through that find a deeper connection to …

Melissa Helene Mason is obsessed with details. She is a full-time scratchboard artist creating black and white, photo-realistic scratchboard wildlife portraits influenced by wild and endangered species from across the world. Melissa is also the founder of Color-Coded Creatives, where …

Caroline Storie, lover of polka dots and stripes, is a Brit living the Canadian life on Vancouver Island. Caroline makes stitched pictures using textiles and collage, adding phrases and words to create playful and relatable art works. During our conversation …

Rachel Ho is an extroverted ceramist from Northern Ireland living in England who has learned to embrace the solitary life of an artist. Her projects explore aspects of the human condition, particularly, grief, loss, healing and renewal. All of her …

Sandi Hester is a painter who shares her unapologetic, creative, messy wholehearted life on her YouTube channel, Bits of An Artist’s Life. During our conversation, Sandi got me fired up about creativity, talking back to that destructive self-talk, and making …

Jo Payne lives on the North Devon coast in the UK surrounded by spectacular beaches, huge skies, and glorious coastal scenery. She is deeply moved by the coastal landscape, the effects from the rhythm of the sea and tides, and …

Sue Asbury grew up in Liverpool and now lives at the edge of the Peak District. Abstract works are built up over many layers and often incorporate collaged elements, while figurative works include local landscapes, with an interest in the …

Suzy Sharpe’s practice includes painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture of landscape, wildlife, and animals with a contemporary twist. She lives in rural west Cornwall, UK, where a variety of non human animals, including livestock, pets and wildlife punctuate her days …

Emma Freeman works in many mediums including fibers, textiles, collage, book making, cyanotype, and drawing. Her art practice is experimental, playful and tactile. Emma is a highly sensitive person who feels deeply connected to animals, nature, textures and colors. During …

Molly Meng is a force for good - she’s an artist, teacher, collector, and storyteller. Molly is heavily influenced by a scrap of paper, a single word, ​opera, rap, theremins, the thick cotton of an old book page, random sentences, …

Julie VonDerVellen is a Professor of design at Carroll College and paper artist who designs and creates paper clothes, shoes, timepieces, school supplies and 2D weavings from 1/8” strips of mulberry paper. Julie talks about the similarities between cooking shows …

Documentary filmmaker Laj Waghray’s keen observation and deep listening skills are evident in her films. She produced and directed Sleepovers, and On Hands, is currently working on Searching for Sparrows and just released the short film, Together Alone. During our …

How do you keep showing up when your insecurities live large? Krissy Stewart forces herself to go to the studio and just sketch or paint and not worry about the results.Get inspired by our conversation as Krissy talks about saying …

Stephanie Huellmann, a self-taught artist from Germany, takes natural materials and found objects and sews them on by hand for her assemblage and mixed media works. Stephanie shares how she gets unstuck, her deep connection to the environment, and how …