Authentic Obsessions

Feedback loops in the art world, finding ways to accumulate more moments of joy, the in-between spaces, writing vs. storytelling, not fitting into a box, and the orange couch are all part of Bela Suresh Roongta’s story. Bela is a Milwaukee-based visual artist, writer and storyteller. She has shown in solo & group exhibitions, been featured as a writer & speaker and recognized for innovation and su...

Susan Lerner is  a New York City based contemporary hand-cut collage artist drawn to vintage imagery and maps, evoking a sense of familiarity and nostalgia.  Her work is a reflection of the power of visual storytelling and its ability to connect us to our memories and emotions. Susan’s work has been published in periodicals and books, she’s the co-founder of the New York Collage Ensemble, and she...

The feminine form has returned in Denise Daffara's latest work along with every day familiar objects such as her much loved chairs and cups of tea. Denise is an artist, soulful seeker, wild wonderer, deep listener, sacred space holder, Creativitea Time inspirer & private priestess, Intentional Creativity Guide & Certified Color of Woman Teacher. Denise's art practice is an intuitive, light and col...

The monumental labors of women that often go unnoticed, and the resilience of women under the invisible weight they carry are themes interwoven in the current work of interdisciplinary artist Nirmal Raja.  Nirmal's current solo exhibition at the Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art is titled Grace and Grit, and highlights her current authentic obsession with material intimacy.  Nirmal’s ke...

Stones, learning, confidence, pattern and line, expressing beauty, and promoting your work are just a few topics artist Rena Diana covers today. After retiring from a fulfilling career as an educator in Baltimore, Rena started focusing full time on her artwork. She worked every day in a studio at the Art Students League in New York City, where she began painting abstract landscapes. Rena is fortun...

The challenges of creating on a deadline, having faith and trust in the thing you’re doing, and the feelings that arise when switching from the act of writing to marketing and promotion all come up during our conversation. Nick Petrie is the author of 8 best-selling Peter Ash crime fiction novels, including The Price You Pay, out February 2024. His debut,  The Drifter , won both the ITW Thriller a...

Carol Paik, a New York based artist, is interested in many different media, but really found meaning working with repurposed textiles. After years of buying expensive and often toxic materials for her work, her goal now is to create art exclusively out of the unappreciated, overlooked, landfill-destined stuff she finds around her, of which there is never a shortage. She most enjoys taking somethin...

K. Woodman-Maynard’s obsession with emotional expression comes out not only in her graphic novels but also through anger journaling and diary comics. She loves tree time, cold water swimming, running and cross-country skiing. Katharine is a sequential storyteller and an artist who writes (as opposed to a writer who draws) and loves to mentor other creatives. Her debut, The Great Gatsby: A Graphic...

 From chenille bedspreads & fringe vests to mosaics & ceramics, Andryea Natkin shares her journey as a seeker, always on the lookout for what is truly hers so she can express it. She  was born into a family of artists, which gave her that foundation of permission to trust herself.  Andryea persevered and eventually received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, all along working...

Joanne is an artist and photographer whose work is “based in semi-abstraction, purposefully balanced between representational and the imagined. in my role as an artist, these two elements have become an integral part of my motivation to create, with the ‘doing’ often as important as the outcome. I firmly believe that natural curiosity and creative pursuits are essential to healthy living, regardle...

Weather, layers, inner worlds, thick living and 10,000 folded paper cranes. Brianna’s work is driven by world-building. She’s interested in exploring possible and impossible landscapes that may or may not exist on this planet, in this dimension, in a memory, a dream, or a vision…they may never have existed anywhere — until now. Her creations convey an architectural/organic world which thrives in p...

Rachael is an experimental textile and mixed media artist living in West Yorkshire, England.  She describes her residency at the Nature in Art Museum and Gallery as a “cocoon of delight!” If you listen deeply and look closely, you will see how Rachael’s obsession with stone and stone walls seeps into all her work. Her feelings and experiences and surroundings all contribute to unique and thought-p...

During our chat, Anna talks about receptacles, the Minystery of Consideration, discovering and processing beauty, permission, belonging, and what makes us tick. Takeaways Just do your job. Don't do other people's jobs. It doesn’t get any better or more beautiful than this. It’s all here already. Do what’s real and what’s true, and remember that you don’t always get there while you’re walking uprig...

Finding your people, measures of success, optimistic teenagers, and soft pants vs. hard pants with high school English teacher, former professional actor, and author Nicole Kronzer! There’s also some chatter about thinking you’re too weird for the world, and how to fit our weirdness into a greater life. Takeaways People who read fiction are nicer. “Write with the door closed, edit with the door op...

Lisa Kellner went through a major transition in her work life, moving from a textile installation artist back to her true love of painting.  Over the course of a few years, she dug deep, got really honest with herself, and saw how all the intangible parts of herself find their way into her work. Lisa uses a reductive language and intuitive approach to make paintings and sculptural constructions ab...

Robin shares her life changing week at The Penland School, the importance of doing experiments to get to the truth, and the exhilaration of discovery and curiosity. Robin's lyrical, process-driven work is rooted in eclectic curiosity and the material surprises she discovers working with her finely developed visual vocabulary.  Takeaways 1. It is important to keep doing experiments so you can get t...

Takeaways 1. You can’t say yes to everything or everyone. 2. The more structure you add into your week the more flexibility you have. 3. We make HARD a problem, but it’s just part of life. Without the hard you don’t have the good stuff. 4. It’s just a layer. 5. What’s the next right step? Mentioned Lea Ann Slotkin Follow Lea Ann Slotkin on Instagram Cy Twombly Lukas paint Do You Want to Slow Down?...

Wanderlust, giving ourselves permission to do more than one thing and the inspiring non-fiction books that are holding our interest these days are just a few topics we chat about as we go down the beautiful meandering path of Tina Norén. Tina is an artist and designer, 2nd generation Filipino-American and mother to three school-aged children. Tina has designed and painted several murals, includin...

Takeaways 1. There is no overnight success. Everyone pays their dues, one way or another. 2. Every human being is unreliable in the way they tell stories. 3. Take pleasure in the striving aspect of the process. The fact that you worked really hard and accomplished the goal is the thing.   “It’s not the having, it’s the getting.” Elizabeth Taylor Mentioned Samantha Downing Samantha Downing on Twitt...

Takeaways Take everyone seriously but yourself. Making art is an extreme sport. Do the thing you'd wonder about the most if you didn't do it. If you can’t see a way to solve a problem you have to trust that you’ll figure it out eventually. So don’t walk away, just keep looking. Mentioned Duncan Petrie Duncan Petrie on Instagram Birds with Hats on Instagram Duncan Petrie on YouTube Brian Eno on Bro...

Phoebe Gander is a landscape, abstract and still life painter, inspired by the beautiful ocean, skies and landscape where she lives with her family in Wainui Beach on the east coast of New Zealand. Phoebe started her journey of self-discovery by carving out time for art to help her overcome severe panic attacks and anxiety. Nostalgia, solitude, vulnerability, texture and light are themes that reoc...

Marissa Huber is an artist, connector, and creative instigator for the Carve Out Time for Art community and co-author of “The Motherhood of Art.” She works primarily in water-based mediums like gouache and acrylic, cut paper, and digital mediums and is interested in exploring memory, space, and color in her paintings and surface pattern designs. She creates playful & colorful patterns that aim to...

Liz Dexter is a mixed media artist and architect who spends her days finding beauty and joy in the imperfect, unfolding layers of our lives, and discovering awe and wonder in our midst. Liz develops her paintings using many layers of acrylic, collage, plaster, image transfers and glazes – sanding, scraping, and cutting into them along the way to see what is uncovered.  She is inspired by the conti...

Poppy Dodge is an abstract painter and a Color Maximalist who delights in creating harmony and balance using all the colors. Her work explores her obsession with stacking color and shapes and is influenced by modern improvisational quilting and abstract collage. Poppy says: "I approach painting intuitively and am entirely process driven.  I like to think of my work as color celebrations; a stackin...

Alison Watt has worked as a biologist on seabird colonies, an ecotour guide, has published a novel, a work of non-fiction and a book of poetry. She teaches painting online and in her studio on Protection Island, near Nanaimo, British Columbia. Alison is interested in where science (especially biology) and art interface and her paintings are informed by landscape and botanical forms. As a self-taug...