In The Art Scene. Show about artists, their journeys, art business, successes, failures, inspiration

My today's guest Sylvia Becker-Hill is a successful executive coach by trade and an artist by heart. After years of coaching, she realized that creativity is a missing component in helping her clients with their transformation. She successfully incorporated intentional creativity into her coaching practice. What it looks like? Listen to my conversation with Sylvia to learn more.

Fine art photographer Kristina Varaksina has traveled from Russia to California, to New York, and then to London to create an environment and opportunities for pursuing her creative career. Kristina's work is internationally recognized and awarded by professional art and photography organizations. In her portraiture, Kristina is telling vulnerable stories about the personal struggles of her subjects, social injustice, and lack of communication about various issues of our times.

Multimedia artist and former therapist Ingrid Hoffmeister on how the Jungian concept of dreams and active imagination changed the way she creates and took her art to a new level.

Watercolor artist, photographer, and grassroots activist Jena Olson found her passion in non-profit operations and is working hard on making the world a better place one artist at a time. She started as a teaching artist at AjA Project and now is a Director of Operations at WIA (Women in Animation), an organization that helps women-identified folks find jobs in the Animation industry.

Listen to the full episode and learn more!

My guest, an educator, and youth advocate Dr. Michael Bitz is a founder of a Comic Book Project, a literacy and creativity initiative that has engaged young people in planning, writing, designing, and publishing original comic books since 2001! Comic Book Project is one of those rare gems that are not shining on social media but have spread their influence all over the country and abroad and inspired hundreds if not thousands of kids to explore their creativity.

I am a huge fan of Sarah Stieber's colorful art, her vibrant personality, positive attitude, and strong confidence in all the great things. She works hard to make her way as an artist, although it may look on the outside like things are just happening in the best possible way. I'm honored to live in the same town with Sarah! And I really appreciate her time to tell her story and how much it takes to live a truly authentic, integrated art life.

Soon after this episode is out, Sarah is opening a pop-up gallery in the heart of San Diego. So, if you are local or planning to visit at the end of April - May, 2023 I highly encourage you to check out her event page

Keeley Miller is a San Diego based photographer specializing in boudoir portraits for women.

Her studio combines contemporary black and white boudoir photography with an empowering experience that will change the way you see yourself. Her mission as a photographer is more than just photography — it’s about creating an entire self love experience that shows her clients as the works of art that they are, at all ages, all shapes, and all sizes.

Japanese calligraphy artist Rie Takeda who mainly resides in Europe is telling a story of her discovery of the traditional art of Shodo (Japanese calligraphy) when she was just a child and how it transformed her life. Rie is so beautifully describing her relationships with her art, and the way she is bringing it to the new century.

A photographer from California Allison Davis took a leap of faith and traveled the entire Pacific coast by herself in 30 days while documenting everything along the way. She turned her adventure into a stunning art book called "Revealed at the edge". These days, Allison is planning a trip along the East Coast and many other brave things she wants to do as an artist. 

Australian-born multimedia artist Cybele Rowe lives on two and a half acres in Joshua Tree where she feels unconstrained to oursue whatever art ideas she wants. In her words, it's better to invest 100% of your time to strive to make good art than be spending 50% of your time making money for someone else. 

Her abstract work includes scuplture, painting, tufting and many other mediums. She is inspired by the scientific discoveries, litrature on psycology and phisics. 

In this episode, I'm speaking with Canadian artist Amy Friend whose love for photography and history and a passion for family roots exploration is beautifully manifested through her work with vintage photographs and slides. I was fascinated by her stories, her vision of our global connection, and her out-of-the-box experimental processes.

Russian-born artist and designer Masha Kechaeva expresses herself in a multitude of media: from costume and set design to photography and performance. Her ideas are based on dreams, ancient rituals and unconscious memories. And the result is absolutely unique, deeply sensual, and thought-provoking surrealistic work that you have to see for yourself to fully comprehend it.

Peter has been photographing for several decades, specializing in documentary, portrait, and fine art forms. He has been working with socially oriented non-profit organizations for over 30 years. Some of Peter’s prison arts photography was funded by the California Arts Council, which administers the state’s Arts in Corrections program.

I've known Wendy for a few years but only recently did I learn her story about becoming an artist. Today, she is a successful artist and art teacher. Her work is being featured in TV shows and magazines. We talked about how to live life, teach art and license your artwork (listen till the end to learn more!)

Artist from California Annalise Neil is taking cyanotypes to a whole new level. Her multi-step highly precise process and manual enhancement of every piece result in complex surrealistic artwork full of philosophical meaning and messages about the world around us. 

What do you see when you look into your trash can? Trash? Ruby Silvious sees opportunities. Throughout her career, she painted on eggshells, pistachio shells, acorns, and other stuff, she used fast food wrappers to create bras. But more than anything, she is known for her work with teabags. Not only she has been painting intricate scenes and portraits, but she also used teabags as a medium to create collages and even clothing garments.

What on Earth is a visual anthropologist?.. When I first saw Tatiana's work I thought 'Ooh, this is a very unique multimedia'. But in our conversation, Tatiana uncovered so much more about her project with indigenous women in the Ecuadorian forest. With her work, she truly created a multisensory experience that brings a deeper understanding of the culture and people's concerns with the environmental situation in the region.

Named after her renaissance ancestor, poetess, and muse to Michelangelo Buonarroti, VITTORIA COLONNA carries a strong lineage in the world of art.

A strong advocate for women in the arts globally, Vittoria became a World Women Hour 2020 honouree #Shesmyhero for empowering change through her work in the arts and entertainment.

Vittoria will be part of XIV Florence Biennale 2023

https://www.instagram.com/vittoriacolonnastudio/

https://www.colonnavittoria.com/ 

Cori Derfus, the creator of Fur Beast Forest who you might remember from Season 2, recently came up with a new art enterprise. She is making organic, natural watercolors - and they are beautiful!!! The brand is called Dusty Bee and is available on Etsy. The quantities are limited for obvious reasons. But if you have a chance to get your hands on Dusty Bee paints it is going to make the perfect gift for an artist in your life or for yourself!

Luz Maria Clayton is a digital artist and a small business owner in San Diego, CA. Her tiny art shop in City Heights just turned 2 years old and it's already a landmark of the neighborhood! Luz and her mother create and sell gift items, jewelry, art prints, crocheted hats, aprons, throw blankets -- you name it! The items that will make truly unique gifts from San Diego for any visitor to our city!

Each of Betsy Silverman's collages involves an intensive search for images with the correct value, intensity, and hue, as well as printed words to represent a new photorealist form with layered meanings.

When I first heard Adelina Gonzales's story I immediately knew I gotta get her on the podcast! An artist and a concert industry insider, she figured out how to turn wasted drumheads and trashed vinyl records into artworks. And she didn't stop there.

I have known Judy Salinksy since 2018 when we both were members of the San Dieguito Art Guild. I admired her work as a painter and I watched her explore the world of bronze sculpture for the first time. But little did I know about her personal story, the challenging upbringing as an artist, and victorious battles with lung cancer... Whatever life has thrown her way, she has never given up on herself and her art.

ArtReach San Diego is one of my favorite organizations that I like to support. This is why they are making recurring appearances on ITAS :) And that's for a good reason! ArtReach is helping bring art and art education to schools and community centers that otherwise would have been left out due to lack of budget or other circumstances.

In this episode, I'm happy to introduce you to ArtReach SD mural program and its manager Isabel (Izzy) Halpern. Izzy and I are talking about the ways ArtReach is able to make every mural project a meaningful communal event and the effects this program makes on everyone involved.

I'm very excited to have Nellie Scott, Director of Corita Art Center in LA as my guest for this episode!

My very first introduction to Corita's art was in December 2019 when I was working on a project based on my series of influential women for a local charity auction. Corita's story, dedication to art and art education, and freedom of her spirit blew my mind! She spent most of her creative years as a Catholic religious sister of the order of Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles, CA. A woman artist (in the 1960s mind you!), an educator, an activist, and a leader - she embodied everything we praise today but unfortunately was almost forgotten by the art community in the last 3 decades. This is why Nellie Scott, an art historian, and Director of Corita Art Center is so passionate about saving Corita's legacy and introducing it to as many people out there as possible!

Some of you may know that I work part-time at a local fine art printing company here in San Diego. In one and a half years, I have learned so much about giclee and other creative ways of reproducing art! And that is thanks to my boss and mentor Mark O'Donnell - an artist, and a fine art printing industry veteran.

In this episode, Mark shares his personal story that led him from the art school to the fine art printing business when it was at the very beginning of its development. What I love about Mark is his openness and desire to educate and help every artist on what they can do take their art to a broader audience with prints.

In this episode, I invited a Netherlands artist Christy de Witt to discuss her highly unusual style of art and talk about her inspiration. Turns out, Christy is a big fan of fairy tails! No, no, not those sugar-coated Disney versions of the fairy tails but the real ones that have deep roots in hundreds and hundreds of years of European culture. Grim, scary, ugly but so... human. This is exactly what Christy's "little monsters" are like - very relatable and true to human nature. 

Ezerd Land was a complete mystery to me... Until we had this interview. Besides being an amazing artist, they turned out to be an absolutely beautiful human being with a shining personality and a whole bunch of crazy stories! It was an hour of joy and laughter. Now you guys can enjoy it too!

Join me while I'm talking to Ezerd. You are in for a treat!

Candice Rodriguez is a returned guest. I did a story about her sun prints when I first started ITAS as a blog. Check it out 

https://intheartscene.com/2020/12/19/art-making-sun-prints/

It's been over a year since we spoke. In the meantime, she's been growing and perfecting her business as a traveling artist. I invited her to share her experience and spread some knowledge about how to be successful attending multiple art fairs all over the country for 9 months out of a year. 

I couldn’t avoid addressing the current situation in Ukraine.

In this last episode of the season, it's going to be just me talking at you. To keep things somewhat entertaining, I'm going to tell you a short story about a homeless artist I met back in 2016 and how this meeting planted the seed of an idea that grew into this podcast. 

Checked this blog post for the photos

This episode is a bit different... First of all, because it has already been posted on another art podcast as a collaborative project, and also because I was interviewed just as much as my guest Caroline Karp. It's hard to say who was who's guest :) Nonetheless, we had a great conversation and got to compare notes not only about our creative journeys but also about our podcast projects.

In this episode, I am talking to Diana Adams, an artist and founder of Sample HAUS. Listen to her story to learn how she came to being a potter, where does the name Sample HAUS come from, and what she does to help other potters of color and young artists, in general, to get noticed. 

During the pandemic, we all have adjusted our life and work situations to be completely virtual. But what if you are a fine art photographer or a model? In this episode, I have both - Wendy Garfinkel, an accomplished fine art photographer, and Astrid Kallsen, a professional model - to talk about the remote studio photoshoots. 

In this episode, I'm talking to Sue Britt about her very unique art, the inspiration behind it, and her creative journey that led her to come up with something I personally have never seen in my life. Her paper tapestries are brilliant, tangible, and very architectural. It is hard to do justice to her artwork, so head out to her website to see the photos. Better yet, if you can find Sue at a live art show because even the best pictures can't translate all the uniqueness of her work! 

I'm chatting with Jenny Jakl, an artist who - like myself -started in a corporate world and left it to pursue art as a lifestyle and business endeavor. Jenny's story is almost a mirror image of my own journey, so I was extremely excited to talk to her about it!

Where to find Jenny and her art: 

In this episode, we are meeting with a great creative tandem of Cori Derfus and Winn Wright who have created a whole world of cute little monsters. A simple idea of making a coloring book turned into a whole journey of production, self-publishing, and lots of other things they had to learn and figure out along the way. 

Katie Loftus is a larger-than-life, bold, in-and-out creative person. An artist, a stylist, a cancer survivor, and a motorcycle rider, she became organizing charity events in San Diego to advocate for women empowerment and women's health awareness 6 years ago. She painted her breast cancer experience and she rides a Frida chopper that she built herself. Her movement Ride To The Warehouse is a uniting force and a loud voice for the SoCal women moto community.

Hello and welcome to Season 2 of our podcast! 

In this episode, we are talking to a young but already accomplished mural artist Rian Kasner who left their mark in the art scene of Utah by supporting the LGBTQ community. 

Who can explain NFT to artists better than an economist married to an artist? Our guest is exactly that! Michal Bacia, a husband of Angelique Bacia who you've met in episode 11, is an international economist and a blockchain specialist whose job is literally to design cryptocurrencies and tokens.

Michal, who helped his wife create and list her first collection of NFTs, has shared his knowledge, dos and don'ts and his thoughts about risks and benefits of NFT for artists and creatives. 

References:

We recap previous artists that inspire us throughout season one of the ITAS podcast. This journey brings us different perspectives and insight on how to enjoy being an artist and what it means to succeed as an artist.

Here are all our guests from season one: 

Cody Esp:

Neville Billimoria is a leader of the Aoinagi Ken Su Kai karate school, a founder of the San Diego Chamber of Purpose, and Ron's karate sensei of nearly 30 years. In this episode, we talked with Neville about how to be an artist of life not only to be happier but to heal the community and, eventually, the world.

Listen to our conversation full of inspiration and wisdom!

We are talking to a wonderful abstract artist Angelique Bacia about becoming an international artist, about her latest creative explorations of  "quiet" art, about our pandemic experiences, injecting positivity into the world, what money means to artists, and how we use Clubhouse. 

Buckle up, folks! This episode is an emotional rollercoaster. Tara Dunbar's story is not a usual one, it's full of pain, mistakes, and consequences. And it is the first time she is telling it in public. In short, her strange art is the means for her to get out of darkness and hopefully shine the way for others to do the same.

There's beauty in every moment of your day no matter how boring or meaningless it might seem at the first sight. This is exactly what Courtney Edgerson is showing in her art, specifically in her series of Mundane Women. And she knows first hand that you can always find time for creativity and for following your dream even when your days are filled with the hustle and bustle of adult life.

In this episode, we are talking to Deidre Szokol, an amazing collage artist from Canada. Her Instagram is full of bold colors and provocative images. A fan of sci-fi movies, a martial artist, an explorer of near and far neighborhoods, she maintains a child-like playful attitude toward everything she's creating. 

To spruce things up a little bit on the podcast, we brought a person who is not your typical artist to talk about his perspective on creativity. Homer Chin is a retired surgeon and a competitive tennis player. A high-achiever and perfectionist, he picked up a brush about 17 years ago and signed up for an oil painting class.

This episode of the ITAS Podcast turned out to be an hour-long conversation with an amazing visual artist Cheryl Ehlers. And it was nothing like we expected because Cheryl has so much energy and enthusiasm that she practically took over the conversation! All we had to do is to give in and enjoy her incredible stories.

In this episode of ITAS Podcast, we are talking to Kibbi, a self-taught psychedelic artist who found a healing process of creating a code of art for her feelings while processing them.

Today, we are talking to Anna Laroque from a local non-profit organization ArtReach San Diego that is making sure that kids are not going to miss out on art programs at school. This is a small team of passionate creatives that is making a huge difference in our community.

In this episode, we are talking to Cody Esp, an amazing watercolor artist from Seatle, Washington. Among her other lines of work, Cody's erotic art really stands out for its vulnerable depiction of very intimate moments. It turned out, not only this art helped her heal from some traumatic experiences but keeps helping other women in their own healing process.

Let's see what Cody has to say about this and other aspects of her work and life as a full-time artist.

Welcome to our new show where we discuss what it means to be an artist! 

In this first episode, we telling you how we came up with the idea for this podcast and what we expect from it.