The Side Woo

This week, to kick off Pride Month, Liz and Sarah talk with trans artist, Eli Thorne. We talk with Eli about his experience coming out and transitioning as a trans man, dating as a man for the first time on the hellscape known as Tinder (where he ended up finding love), the Faustian bargain of Instagram success, and how he feels about becoming a dad with his long-time partner.

About Eli Thorne

Eli Thorne was b.1986 in Harrogate, England, and raised in the mountains of Santa

Cruz, California. He received his BFA at UC Berkeley. Later received his MFA from Mills

College. As a trans paitnter and sculptor, his art practice aims to reconcile and negotiate

his own sense of and relationship to manhood. His work has been shown in various

spaces in the Bay Area; Mills College Art Museum, Southern Exposure, Root Division,

Gallery 16, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, Royal Nonesuch Gallery, and Et Al. He has given

talks at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and UC Berkeley and was a featured artist in

the KQED Artist series Redefining Pride. Eli currently lives and maintains his art

practice in Upstate, NY.

Show notes

This week Sarah talks with friend of the show, Rachel Dawson. Rachel shares the way her connection to her intuition has evolved throughout her life.

About Rachel Dawson

Rachel Dawson is an artist, educator, and intuitive located in Oakland, CA. She makes connections between her artistic practice and metaphysical processes, seeking to render the invisible visible and to materialize the immaterial. She is interested in how spiritual wellness practices are attached to a “feminine” space, such as the history of witchcraft and its connection to agency, medicines, and

power objects. As an artist, she sees her role as a medium within the feminized space of her intuitive practice and the process of art-making.

Raised in Southern California, she has spent the last two decades in the San Francisco Bay Area. When she is not in the studio making art, she is teaching art to gifted middle school and high school students. She received her MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, after she received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of San Francisco. Her work has been

exhibited in the US, Mexico, and Canada.

Show notes

This week Sarah sits down with Bay Area artist, Rebekah Goldstein. They talk about the way we define success and failures and look back at an ArtForum article, The Loser Thing, which examines a period in the 90s where failure was at the forefront of people's minds. Sarah and Rebekah discuss whether failure, and it's artistic counterpoint, the masterpiece, are useful in terms of how we look at art. Rebekah shares how her experience becoming a mother and how that transformed her painting.

This week on the Side Woo we talk with LA-based artist and former long-time Bay Area resident Kelly Lynn Jones.  I was really inspired by Kelly’s story and asked her to come on to talk about how she in 2018 she made the decision to file for bankruptcy for her store Little Paper Planes, which was a super cute boutique on Valencia Street in the Mission District of SF.  It came as a bit of a shock to those on the outside and I was really impressed by how transparent Kelly was while going through this challenging time that many would look at as a failure. But instead, Kelly saw it as a chance to change her life. She and her family eventually moved back to LA where she grew up, and began recommitting herself to her art practice.  Three years after returning, Kelly’s first solo show in LA sold out affording her the chance to pursue her art more seriously than she had for a decade since graduate school.

BONUS: Listen all the way to the end for some special ghost-related content. Spoiler: it involves ouiji boards. Really people don’t use them.

About Kelly Lynn Jones

Kelly Lynn Jones (b. 1977 Los Angeles, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist. She earned a BFA and MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Jones has shown her work in multiple group exhibitions including The Pit, La Loma Projects, The Lab, Kala Art Institute, The Berkeley Museum, Southern Exposure, Bedford Gallery, NURTUREart, and Charlotte Street Foundation.  Her work has been highlighted in The Wing’s 2020 publication,  San Francisco Chronicle, and Museums Press. Kelly Lynn Jones is represented by The Pit, Los Angeles. 

Show Notes

This week Liz and Sarah talk with Glasgow-based, cosmic-pop musician, performer and magickal practitioner Elisabeth Elektra about her magickal tendencies and prophetic dreams, including one in which she dreamt about the bombing of the Machester Ariana Grande concert the night that it happened. She shares her love and affinity for both Prince and yes, Freddie Mercury, as well as what she sees as the power of performing and music to connect people.

About Elisabeth Elektra

Glasgow-based musician Elisabeth Elektra (she/they) delivers poignant, deeply melodic art-pop anthems. Elektra released their self-produced debut ‘Mercurial’ in 2020 to widespread critical acclaim. Something spectacular, and something different...that’s the best way of describing the music of Elisabeth Elektra. A songwriter, producer, and performer drawing from the cosmic and the familiar to create pop music that’s as addictive and spine-tingling as the stories we’ve been telling for centuries.

Show Notes

This week we talk with the prolific Carissa Potter. She’s the founder of People I’ve Loved, and the host of the podcast Bad at Keeping Secrets. Carissa’s illustrations are gentle line drawings that tackle big subjects like emotional messiness, boundaries, and the search for meaning in a wild, imperfect world. Her newsletter and podcast interviews get into the nitty gritty of what it means to be alive and exist in a body while embodying the different roles of woman, mother, wife, and artist. We talk about much of this and more in our episode while unpacking the structures and systems we use to try and make sense of it all. About Carissa Potter Carissa Potter is a human longing for connection. She writes books, makes art & public commissions, and hosts the series Bad At Keeping Secrets (one of Substack’s featured newsletters of 2022) where she talks to other humans about the mess of being alive. Carissa is the founder of People I’ve Loved, the author of three books, one of AdAge’s 24 Most Inspiring People of 2021, and one of Cosmo Magazine’s 24 people making the world a better place. She lives in Oakland California with her daughter, partner, dad, and neighborhood cats. Show Notes

In this episode, Patron Saint of The Side Woo, Nikki Nolan shares her story about how she began advocating for patient rights, specifically a requirement for stricter regulations around medical consent. After a traumatic experience with a Bay Area medical facility in which her requests for an all-female staff during an ob-gyn procedure were denied, Nikki began researching how to implement policies that favor the agency of patients within medical institutions. Sarah shares her own traumatic experiences within the medical industry. And Nikki and Sarah discuss the benefits of having an internal locus of control on one's sense of self-worth, and self-efficacy and how patient consent will help to further that in vulnerable populations.

About Nikki Nolan

Nikki Nolan is a conceptual artist, designer, and podcaster based in Oakland, CA. Her thought-provoking work tackles important social issues, exemplified in her two podcasts, "Matter of Life and Debt" and "Disability Bandwidth". Nikki holds a master's degree in art with a specialization in interactive media from Pratt Institute, where she explored the effects of online media on human memory. She also has a bachelor's degree in sculpture and photography and a certificate in web development. Through her passion for art, design, and podcasting, Nikki Nolan inspires others to innovate with her unique perspective.

Show Notes

This week on The Side Woo, we talk with Adobe Books Director, former SECA Coordinator, and long-time Bay Area native Heather Holt.  The conversation looks at what it means to be queen of a scene, and what it was like on the outside after Heather left her former husband for a married man.  Plus, bonus shout out to Valley Girl culture.

About Heather Holt

Heather Holt graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an emphasis in photography and performance. She currently oversees all aspects of Adobe Books organizational systems including volunteer scheduling, operating all aspects of business management, community relations, book scouting, curating, conflict management, grant writing and PR. Heather was formerly the ED of ArtSpan, the producers of SF Open Studios where she reversed a three year budget deficit and launched a strategic planning process with the staff, community served and BOD to strengthen and enrich the impact the organization has on sustaining local and regional California artists. Prior to ArtSpan, Heather worked at the SFMOMA from 2004-2010 as the SECA Coordinator - supporting the museum's art award and exhibition program for local, Bay Area artists. Heather volunteered as a Summer Teachers Assistant at Lilydale Spiritualist Community in Upstate NY and has participated as SEVA for the Spirit Weavers Gathering in Southern Oregon. She enjoys tarot, astral travel, meditation and writing. When she is not working, you will find her dancing midweek at the clubs, cooking and hanging out with her family. She lives part time in San Francisco, Sonoma Valley and Upstate NY.

Show Notes

Our guest this week, Dr. Raghu Appasani, an integrative & addiction psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and neuroscientist, is trying to revolutionize mental health from the inside out.  We unpack alternative modes of healing and how can we start to transform the way mental health is diagnosed and treated.  He shares his work serving as the Chief Medical Officer of PYM (Prepare Your Mind), a wellness brand that produces supplements based on amino acids to support mental health, and why they work.  

About Raghu Appasani 

Dr. Raghu Kiran Appasani is an Integrative Psychiatrist, Neuroscientist, and Social Entrepreneur focused on bridging the gap between western and eastern practices to create a wholesome society by taking a proactive approach to health. Currently, he is an Addiction Psychiatry Fellow at the University of California-San Francisco where is also a member of the TrPR (Translational Psychedelic Research Program) team where he is focusing on the treatment of mental illness using psilocybin.  His current interests lie at the intersection of psychodynamic psychotherapy, integrative/nutritional psychiatry, mental health literacy, advocacy, wellness, entrepreneurship, and psychedelics. His alter-ego's life goal is to become a chef integrating farm-to-table experiences in stunning landscapes around the world.

Show Notes 

Sarah and Liz talk with Rachel Howe, an LA-based witch, healer and illustrator of the Small Spells tarot deck about her book Witch Ethics.  They talk astrology, mercury in Pisces and the importance of creating good energetic boundaries between you and the (spirit) world.

Rachel is a Los Angeles-based illustrator, reiki healer, stick and poke tattoo artist, a potter, a tarot card reader, and a writer. 

Show Notes

We invite back photographer and spiritualism scholar Shannon Taggert to tell us her stories about Freddie Mercury from the Spiritualism community.  She tells us celebrity ghost stories about Freddie, Michael Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, and Elvis. Plus, we dish on the idea of sex with ghosts ( first dibs on Sex With Ghosts as a band name).  

About Shannon Taggart 

Shannon Taggart is an artist and author based in St. Paul, MN. In a past life, she contributed to printed publications, including TIME, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Discover, New York, Wall Street Journal, and Reader’s Digest. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized by PDN, Nikon, Magnum Photos + Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography, International Photography Awards, and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace. Her first monograph, SÉANCE (Fulgur Press, 2019), was named ‘One of the Best Photobooks of 2019’ by TIME and will be re-released by Atelier Éditions in December 2022. Currently, Shannon is working on an illustrated book about The Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis (SORRAT), one of the most exotic cases in the history of psychical research. 

Show Notes 

https://www.shannontaggart.com/ 

Elvis Afterlife, the Unusual Psychic Experiences Surrounding The Death of a Superstar by Raymond Moody  

Everything You Need to Know About Ghost Sex via The Cut (paywall) 

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

About Amelia Whitehouse

Hello! I am Amelia of The Carnelian Keep- a Tarot Reader, Dream Interpreter, Events coordinator, Podcaster, Illustrator, Tarot Teacher, Writer, and astrology enthusiast- living and working in sexy Edinburgh, Scotland. I have been reading and studying Tarot cards for over 20 years, reading for friends for 12 years, reading for clients in Edinburgh (and globally) for 7 years and teaching Tarot online for 2 years. During that time I have read cards at countless events, in shops, at hen parties, in cars and, through the magic of technology for people all over the world! Astrology is a part of my practice that I value immensely and is such a vast topic of study and discussion that I am learning more about it all the time. I love learning from other Tarot readers, astrologers, and diviners – my Libra Stellium and I believe that a strong magickal community is key to keeping the craft alive and well.

Show Notes

Erica Wallace Moore is an Usui-trained Reiki Master Instructor. She conducts in-person and Remote Reiki sessions with included intuitive guided conversation. She specializes is providing a safe and welcoming environment to utilize relaxation as a focus to connect with inner being and Spirit. She listens and helps to clear energetic blockages, helps clients to discover the vibrational energetic self, and to focus on intention setting for the life and well-being most desired. 

Show Notes: 

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About Kate Rhoades

Kate Rhoades’ lives and works in Oakland, California. Her videos, paintings and publications probe the ever-mutating art world. Her work has been presented in the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Santa Fe International New Media Festival. Rhoades has participated in exhibitions at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, and various venues, publications, hotel rooms and alleyways across North America and Europe. Since 2014 she has co-hosted the Bay Area's number one arts and culture podcast, Congratulations Pine Tree. Rhoades is also one of the Fleishhacker Foundation's Eureka Fellowship grantees for 2018. 

Show Notes: 

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Tech For Campaigns  

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

About Shannon Taggart 

Shannon Taggart is an artist and author based in St. Paul, MN. In a past life, she contributed to printed publications, including TIME, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Discover, New York, Wall Street Journal, and Reader’s Digest. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized by PDN, Nikon, Magnum Photos + Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography, International Photography Awards, and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace. Her first monograph, SÉANCE (Fulgur Press, 2019), was named ‘One of the Best Photobooks of 2019’ by TIME and will be re-released by Atelier Éditions in December 2022. Currently, Shannon is working on an illustrated book about The Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis (SORRAT), one of the most exotic cases in the history of psychical research. 

Show notes:  

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

About Jesse Bransford 

Jesse Bransford is a New York-based artist whose work is exhibited internationally at venues including The Carnegie Museum of Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center and the CCA Wattis Museum among others. He holds degrees from the New School for Social Research (BA), Parsons School of Design (BFA) and Columbia University (MFA). An associate professor of art at New York University, Bransford's work has been involved with belief and the visual systems it creates since the 1990s. Recent work has focused on the folk magic of the Norse traditions, specifically the talismanic stave spells and the seiðr traditions. Parts of this work are collected in the recently published book from Fulgur Press, “A Book of Staves (Galdrastafabók).” He lectures widely on his work and the topics surrounding his work. He is the co-organizer of the biennial Occult Humanities Conference and an editorial member of the Black Mirror Network. 

Show Partners 

Tech For Campaigns 

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

Michael Scott Moore is a journalist and author of three books. His most celebrated book, The Desert & The Sea recounts the three years he spent captured by Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia.  Once he returned to civilian life, Scott began to unpack his experience, which he writes about in his book.   On this episode of The Side Woo, Moore talks about his long-time love of surfing and how it has helped him cope with PTSD in the years since he returned from Somalia.   What he was interested to discover more is that Surf Therapy, or Ocean Therpay, as it is informally called, is now being used to successfully treat 1000s of veterans and abuse victims around the world.   Sarah continues to unpack her own experiences with PTSD and OCD. The Michael and The Side Woo gals consider how to create a neutral framework for challenging emotions.  

Show Notes  

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Tech For Campaigns 

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound Mixing: Alexey Turanov

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

This week on the show, guest Desiree Holman.  Holman is a former art-star turned Nurse Practitioner-in-training. As the Founder of Face, a radical wellness clinic in Oakland, CA, she is trying to help people cultivate better relationships to their appearance through body-positive, age-positive and gender-affirming wellness services.  During their conversation, Desiree and The Side Woo unpack issues around physical beauty that are both personal and taking place on a larger, socio-political scale.  

About Desiree Holman 

Hi, I’m Desiree. I adore my clients and the non-invasive well-aging products & services I offer. FACE, my beauty, and wellness business established in 2019, is all about empowering you to fall in love with yourself through art and science. The FACE experience is based on a one-on-one connection. I listen deeply and carefully to ensure that each client feels seen, heard, and understood. From there, I call on the full force of my intelligence, which includes many years of experience, advanced training, and natural artistry, to help achieve the desired results. I only offer services that I can personally attest to and truly believe in because they deliver amazing results. I know because I have extensively tested every single service FACE offers on myself. Before starting FACE, I enjoyed a career as an artist and art professor for over a decade. Creating a business focused on diverse corporal beauty is a natural extension of my lifelong passions and a new way for me to engage my artistry. FACE believes beauty is a natural after-effect of a body, mind, & spirit that are deeply nourished and well cared for. With a focus on self-care, we can step away from a historical & tyrannical beauty standard. Beauty ideals are an extension of the profound truth that our image and our body are our own to do with as we please.  There is no one formula to beauty; there is only what makes you feel good. Join us in creating a well-aging beauty utopia where grey hair, fat bodies, dark skin, gender non-conformity, & the natural process of aging are desirable. 

Show Notes  

Show Partners 

Liz and Sarah talk with Bay Area artist Klea McKenna. Liz fan-girls about Klea's work and the history of photography.  Klea talks about making work as a mom, and how her artwork propelled her through the stress of the pandemic. 

About Klea McKenna

McKenna was born in Freestone, CA in 1980 and received a BA from the University of California in Santa Cruz and an MFA from the California College of the Arts. Recent exhibitions include: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA. Public collections include: The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA; Peabody Essex Museum, MA; and the US Embassy, Republic of Suriname, Art in Embassies, US Department of State. She is the daughter of renegade ethnobotanists, Kathleen Harrison and Terence McKenna. Klea lives in San Francisco with her husband and their young children.

Show Notes

Liz and Sarah sit down with podcast host, art agent, and gallerist Emily McElwreath.  They talk about falling in love at a silent retreat, mental health, challenging authority figures, and how to use anger constructively. 

Show Notes: 

Liz and Sarah talk to another Bay Area duo, photographers and clairvoyants Alice Shaw and Lisa Sze. Alice and Lisa share their psychic awakening stories, talk about their channeling videos on YouTube where they channel universal knowledge on current events, and the group discusses how there is a push towards creative problem-solving as a "we." 

About the Pivot Workshops 

Pivot Workshops teaches people to connect to their inner knowledge. Alice and Lisa do not teach a belief system. They guide their students to trust their own inner wisdom. At the foundational level they teach meditation. Pivot Workshops currently offers three workshops to expand consciousness.  Visit https://www.pivotworkshops.com/ 

Show Partners

This week Sarah and Liz talk with the dazzling professional witch, tarot reader, psychic medium, and writer Sarah Potter who is giving off Big Venus Energy. They talk about marching to the beat of your own drummer, and what exactly is color magic. Finally, Sarah Potter gives them both tarot readings. Liz asks a question about love and Sarah asks about work - which is very on-brand for both of them.  

About Sarah Potter 

Sarah Potter is a professional witch, Tarot Reader and practitioner of Color Magic, a means of using specific hues of the rainbow to conjure different energies and manifest personal transformation. Working with both private and corporate clients, Sarah has shared the magic of color and Tarot with thousands of clients over the years to promote self-empowerment, problem solving, and amplified intuitive skills through lectures, workshops, retreats, and one on one services. 

Show Notes 

Sarah Potter’s ONE AND ONLY Instagram account (Please block and report any imposters.) 

Tarot Column for Cosmopolitan Magazine  

Hilma's Ghost Instagram NYTimes review of Hilma's Ghost booth at The Armory  

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In this episode Liz gets what she wants: more reveal from Sarah.  Sarah shares for the first time publically that she is a practicing witch and medium.  They talk about overcoming fears while building a relationship with the spirit world, past life trauma, and visions Sarah has had about her family members who have passed, including her father who died in May 2021. 

Show Notes

Sarah and Liz talk with Aussie Artist Jaq Grantford about her photorealist paintings, working with models of all shapes and ages, recovering from cancer, and what she's up to next. Sarah gives Jaq a tarot reading. 

About Jaq Grantford

Jaq Grantford is an award-winning portrait artist, with work held in the National Gallery of Victoria, the European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM) Barcelona Spain, and other collections worldwide. Her work is a favourite with gallery-goers often winning the People’s Choice. She has been recognised by Portrait Society of America a number of times, and many other art prizes throughout Australia and internationally. Her portraits are often quirky and looking at the person from an unusual perspective. But she also works more traditionally, especially with corporate portraits, family portraits, and more personal portraits. 

Show notes: 

In the most woo episode yet, Sarah and Liz talk with Spirit Rescue Specialist Amy Major about helping lost souls cross over, the reality of ghosts and the importance of democratizing access to the metaphysical world.

About Amy Major
Amy Major is a top professional Psychic, Medium, Rescue Medium, Channel, Healer, Teacher and Published Author. A successful Medium and healer in the New England area for 25 years, she has both studied and worked at the New Millennium Psychic Center in Derry, NH, and was also the lead medium in the Psychic Ghostbusters Team, conducting many spirit investigations and rescues. Always interested in her development, Amy has studied under some of the best mediums in the area as well as specialized schools focusing on psychic and mediumship abilities.

Her first book, "Toward the Light", (Rescuing Spirits, Trapped Souls, and Earthbound Ghosts) has gained popularity throughout the spiritual and paranormal communities. Amy worked as a consulting medium to CBS Studios to develop a series based on the book "Toward the "Light".  

Amy's second book, "Light the Way", was written as a field guide for mediums looking to pursue rescue mediumship and spirit rescue. Amy now teaches spirit rescue to students throughout the world by Zoom conferences. Her third book, " Release to Light",  is scheduled to be available through her website and Amazon soon.

Show Notes

Sarah and Liz talk with artist Rema Ghuloum about overcoming great loss, and the importance of art in the face of tragedy. Trigger warning: this episode contains some conversation about addiction, mental illness, and self-harming. 

If you or someone you know needs support, the Suicide Hotline number is 800 273 8255.

About Rema Ghuloum 

Rema lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Long Beach in 2007 and her MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2010. Rema has been the recipient of multiple grants including the Davyd Whaley Foundation Artist-Teacher Grant in 2020, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2018, the Esalen Pacifica Prize in 2012, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2010. Rema’s work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Hyperallergic, CARLA, the Los Angeles Times, Fabrik, among others. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues like Emma Gray HQ, Edward Cella Gallery, Et Al. Gallery, Hawthorn Contemporary, the Cue Art Foundation, Torrance Art Museum, and Arka Gallery in Vladivostok, Russia. Her work is included in the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts Works on Paper Collection at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco.

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

Sarah sits down with curator and fellow Scorpio, Robert Cozzolino, to talk about his new exhibition Supernatural America: the Paranormal in American Art which is in its last leg of a three-stop national tour at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

About the Supernatural America exhibition 

America is haunted. Ghosts from its violent history—the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and traumatic wars—are an inescapable and unsettled part of the nation’s heritage. Not merely in the realm of metaphor but present and tangible, urgently calling for contact, these otherworldly visitors have been central to our national identity. Through times of mourning and trauma, artists have been integral to visualizing ghosts, whether national or personal, and in doing so have embraced the uncanny and the inexplicable. This stunning catalog, accompanying the first major exhibition to assess the spectral in American art, explores the numerous ways American artists have made sense of their own experiences of the paranormal and the supernatural, developing a rich visual culture of the intangible.

About Robert Cozzolino 

Robert Cozzolino, the Patrick and Aimee Butler Curator of Paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, curates collaboratively, in partnership with artists, colleagues, and broad communities. “Starting where you are” is critical to his practice—knowing the immediate context and deeper history of the place in which he works. It also means working with humility and accepting that there is much yet to learn from others. Dr. Cozzolino is drawn to artists that make work about the full range of human experience, especially those who aspire to visually express the intangible, states of consciousness, and a full range of emotions. Although he has worked on topics from the 19th and 20th centuries, he regularly works with contemporary artists in examining history. Born and raised in Chicago, he studied at UIC before completing graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His publications include Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art (2021), World War I and American Art(2016), Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis (2014), and David Lynch: The Unified Field (2014). First trained as a musician, he has played free-improvised music as a percussionist since 1993.

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

Liz and Sarah talk with the co-hosts of the Beyond The Studio podcast, artist Nicole Mueller and designer Amanda Adams.  They discuss their strong Capricorn energy, how to maintain a spiritual connection to art while having a career and manifesting money. 

About Beyond The Studio  

makersloft.co

Sarah and Liz talk with writer, life coach, and mystic Joanne Menon about the spiritual text A Course in Miracles. How do you let go of your ego in an instant? What do miracles look like in the everyday? Joanne shares her experiences putting ACIM concepts to use in her life and fields questions about the more controversial aspects of the text.

About Joanne Menon

On the first full episode of Season 2 of The Side Woo, Sarah & Liz talk about Liz’s aging mom, woo stuff, watching someone discover Queen for the first time on Youtube and more. Plus, another love tarot reading for Liz.

About Elizabeth Bernstein
Elizabeth Darrow Bernstein, the new co-host of The Side Woo, is an artist, educator, entrepreneur and former gallery director who lives in Oakland, California. She received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2007. In addition to co-founding the Royal NoneSuch Gallery, she was visiting faculty in the photography department at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Sarah talks with guest Mathew Halpin, friend and residency director of Lakkos Art Residency and Ano Asites Residency on the Greek island of Crete.  Mathew talks about living on Crete as an Australian, how he started up his artist residency, and a little about his new book called AIR, now available on Amazon. 

About Mathew Halpin

Mathew is an Australian visual artist/ theatre set designer and new author. His latest projects involved inviting contemporary artists to engage with communities and improve the image of depressed neighborhoods. He currently calls the Greek island of Crete his home where he runs an artist's residency.

Show notes

Sarah starts the episode with a short anecdote about her run-in with some guitar store snobs, and does a mini-tarot reading for the show.  Then Sarah and guest, the dancer, healer, writer, and former Nes Artist Residency Co-Director, Kerryn McMurdo talk about Kerryn's background in contemporary dance, life in a small town at a residency in the north of Iceland, and her recent experiences with fertility challenges. 

About Kerryn McMurdo

Kerryn trained in contemporary dance, improvisation & choreography in New Zealand from 1997 -2000, (graduating with a BPSA degree) and worked as a professional freelance dancer/performer, choreographer, and creative mentor since 2000. Kerryn held a tenured position as a core team member on the contemporary dance degree program, at Unitec New Zealand Performing Arts School, and this is where she developed her teaching and skills in training dancers and performers, leading workshops and improvisations, supervising student choreographies, and curating interdisciplinary programs and performances.

As a freelancer, Kerryn has performed and collaborated with renowned NZ dance companies as well as with independent artists, and created her own solo performances (under the pseudonym Artillery Performance’). Her creative work has lead her to perform throughout NZ as well as in Europe, Australia, USA, India, Japan, Iceland, and Mexico. As a teacher, Kerryn enjoys facilitating spaces where people can explore their own creative processes and body knowledge. Kerryn has been living in Iceland since 2015, in which she co-directed an international artists residency program (Nes Artist Residency) in Skagaströnd for 6 years, and now lives in Reykjavík with her husband and cat. Kerryn is also interested in writing, researching consciousness, practicing healing modalities, meditation, and yoga.

Show Notes

This week Sarah talks to guest Bernadette Esposito, a writer and plane crash archivist, who was on residency in Iceland at the time of the interview. They talk about  Bern's long-running obsession with flying and planes that started years before her plane to Paris caught on fire mid-flight.  They discuss aura reading, numerology and the challenges of mining your real life for your writing. Plus, a special shout out to artist Kirk Stoller who would have been 61 on November 25, 2021, the day this episode airs.

About Bernadette Esposito

Bernadette Esposito is an air disaster archivist, writer and yoga instructor. She is writing a book-length meditation on plane crashes. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and have been long-listed in Best Horror Writing. Her essays have appeared in Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, The Normal School, Hotel Amerika, and others. She won The Iowa Review Award for nonfiction and has been awarded fellowships from the Yaddo Corporation, the Ucross Foundation, the Jack Kerouac House, the Santa Fe Art Institute, and others. She holds a certification in air disaster investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board Training Center and an S-212 from Colorado Fire Camp. She teaches writing at Maine College of Art in Portland

Show Notes

Sarah and documentarian Anna Katrine (Kat) Thuesen talk about the challenge of finding the right day job as an artist, red flags to look out for when talking to a new prospective employer, and why everyone should revisit Thuesen's favorite, canonical 80's film, Top Gun, especially the opening sequence.  Bonus content: Kat and Sarah take the quiz, Which Top Gun character are you? The answers may surprise you!

About Kat Thuesen
Anna Katrine Thuesen is the creator of Bella Tola Films. She is an MFA in Film Directing, producer, kitesurfer, ex-telemark skier, photographer, video gamer, mountain lover, and doom scroller. However, first and foremost she is a storyteller. She doesn’t shy away from difficult projects, in fact, she welcomes them.

Show Notes: 

Sarah talks with guest, Gabi Magaly, an artist and educator based in San Antonio, TX.  They discuss their shared love of RuPaul's Drag Race, Gabi's MFA show which opened at the start of the pandemic, her relationship to religion, growing up with strong female role models, and Gabi's most recent body of work - a series of portraits of her Mexican grandmother.  

About Gabi Magaly 

Gabi Magaly is an emerging artist born in Bryan, Texas. Magaly received her BFA in photography at Sam Houston State University in 2015 and received her MFA in Visual Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2020. Magaly has exhibited in solo shows at Satellite Gallery, Huntsville, TX; The Brick, San Antonio, TX; Presa House Gallery, San Antonio, TX; Casa Lu, Mexico City. Her numerous group exhibitions include at Luis Leu Gallery, Karlsruhe, Germany; The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio, TX; Masur Museum in Monroe, Louisiana; Museo De Las Américas in Dever, CO; New Texas Talent XXVII in Dallas, TX. She’s been awarded two CAMMIE awards from Blue Star Contemporary and Luminaria Contemporary Cultural Center during Contemporary Art Month 2020. She is also serving a term on the SPE Board of Directors 2020-2024. She works predominantly in the medium of photography, but also employs other mediums like sculptural installation and embroidery. Magaly currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, and works remotely at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona. To learn more check out her website and her Instagram. 

Show Notes 

On this, the first episode of The Side Woo podcast, host Sarah Thibault and guest Nikki Nolan talk about the connection between money and energy. Why? Because money touches everything, and money is really about energy, and energy is all there is.  

About Nikki Nolan 

Nikki Nolan is a Product Designer. She accrued all of her student debt when she got her MFA in Interactive Media at Pratt Institute. Before studying at Pratt, she was debt-free while earning her BFA in Sculpture and Photography, with a minor in art history and theatrical technical design from Colorado State University. She also has a certificate in web development. She has a Podcast - Matter of Life and Debt and is working on a second podcast about disability. She also spends time in her Westfalia Vanagon, traveling in addition to growing vegetables from seeds in her garden in Berkeley, CA. 

Show Notes 

This is the Trailer for The Side Woo. The first three episodes will be launching 11/11/21! Subscribe to be the first to know.