Cynthia Newland is an artist, educator, speaker and wellness consultant. She is the founder of Alible3 – Nourishing the Body, Soul and Spirit, providing educational resources and equipping tools for holistic health. With her work in the area of wellness, she partners with the Health Made Simple community. Cynthia is the founding Director of Feet Speak Dance, a dance company whose mission aims to use dance to teach, inspire and bring a rich art filled experience to all whom they encounter. In this episode, Cynthia talks with Stephen about the importance of physical nourishment, nutrition and general health in the life of the artist.
Social distancing can feel a bit destabilizing. All of our habits and routines and normal ways of functioning are suspended and we have to adopt new daily rhythms, ways of doing life and finding work. For the artist, this can lead to questions about the validity of our work and where art-making and creativity belong in a time of global crisis. But it is vital for our own mental and emotional health that we are formed by a clear narrative and see the true place of art as a needed response. Making art during times of crisis positions the artist to become a protest against despair. The artist pushes against losing our identity and our humanity in the face of war, disease or whatever opposition stands against living an unimpeded, beautiful life. In this episode, Stephen shares about the role of perception, the mischief of God, and the need for art in our current climate of isolation and uncertainty.
Heather Stringer is a therapist, artist, and ritual maker. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Seattle, WA and a Fellow with the Allender Center. She completed her M.A. in Counseling Psychology at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and the Externship Program at The Allender Center. Heather has a practice of creating narrative informed trauma therapy as well as creating rituals for people marking a significant event in their life. Heather believes that when we are intentional about engaging the particularities of our bodies, memories, and stories, an opening for healing and change are possible. In this episode, Stephen Roach talks with Heather about her niche of combining ritual making with performance art in ways that foster healing and inspire a more creative approach to everyday life.
We are calling all creative arts communities, individuals, seekers, believers, skeptics, doubters, craftsmen and bakers, tongue talkers and Quakers, anyone who needs community in the midst of quarantine. Come hang with us this Friday night at 7 pm Eastern time. The communion time will be hosted by our Makers and Mystics creative collective along with Cageless Birds, Justin McRoberts and members of The Breath and the Clay community. Normally, this would be a patron-only event platform but this Friday we are opening it up to everyone! When the world says “don’t gather,” I don’t know, maybe it’s the punk rock left in me from my "angsty" teenage years but I say, let’s outsmart the system and move, not in rebellion, but in the opposite spirit. Communion. Follow the link button to sign up today and join us Friday night. Oh yea, and since it is a virtual table, it is BYOW (bring your own wine and wafer. Haha.)
Vincent van Gogh was a leading postimpressionist painter of the late nineteenth century, known for his thick, swirling brushstrokes and radical use of color. Before he was an artist, though, he was a pastor to a village of destitute coal miners in Belgium, an experience that shaped him deeply. Vincent was full of compassion and wonder, anguish and hope. “Sorrowful yet always rejoicing” was one of his personal mottoes. His art—whether of sunflowers for his friend Paul Gauguin, a peasant family sitting down for dinner, or a starry sky outside his asylum window—highlights the numinous in the day-to-day. This artist profile is guest-hosted by Victoria Emily Jones, a writer on Christianity and the arts. Visit her blog, Art & Theology, and follow her on Twitter @artandtheology or Instagram @art_and_theology.
In this episode, Stephen talks with Producer of Marketing and Distribution for Aspiration Entertainment, Erik Lokkesmoe. The two discuss Erik's vision for individuals, families and churches who want to support artists and the arts. Erik's charge to "democratize patronage" and create local communities of patrons is an important idea for our time. I encourage everyone to listen to this discussion then pass it along to the leaders, patrons and arts advocates in your life.
In this Season opening episode, Stephen talks with singer-songwriter John Mark McMillan about the creative process behind his new album Peopled With Dreams
John Eldredge is a New York Times bestselling author, a counselor, and a teacher. His latest book, Get Your Life Back, examines the breakneck pace at which we force our souls to exist—a pace that far exceeds God’s original design. In his book, John argues that a constant absorption of others’ worries through social media, paired with our own burdens and stresses, has left people overwhelmed and weary. In this season-finale episode, Stephen talks with John about the simple, yet profound spiritual disciplines that can heal our souls and nourish the creative spirit inside of us.
Cinelle Barnes is a memoirist, essayist, and educator from Manila, Philippines, and is the author of MONSOON MANSION: A MEMOIR (Little A, 2018) and MALAYA: ESSAYS ON FREEDOM (Little A, 2019), and the editor of a forthcoming anthology of essays about the American South (Hub City Press, 2020). In this episode, Stephen talks with Cinelle about memoir as an agent of healing and how her process of writing helped navigate the impact of childhood trauma. *Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment with Cinelle outlining practical steps of memoir writing for those of you interested in learning what it takes to get your story from the pen to the page.
Salvador Dali remains one of the most complex and controversial figures within art history. His artistic mediums range from film-making, design, clothing and jewelry making, writing, even what he called an “erotic cookbook” which featured enticing recipes such as Thousand Year Old Eggs and Toffee with Pine Cones. Over the course of his lifelong career as an artist, he collaborated with other well-known figures such as Alfred Hitchcock, Alice Cooper and Walt Disney. The common thread linking all of his artistic creations is the surreal and dream-like imagery that bends our perception of reality and presents the world through a lens of absurd, avant-garde and sometimes disturbing distortions. His paintings depict melting clocks, larger than life horses with exaggerated, giraffe-like legs, contorted faces hovering over vast, deserted landscapes, and daisies bursting out of cracked eggs.