Something Rather Than Nothing

Joëlle Jones is an Eisner nominated artist currently living and working in Portland, Oregon. Since attending PNCA in Portland, OR, she has contributed to a wide range of projects and has most recently has worked on Batman for DC comics. She also wrote and drew the series, Lady Killer, published by Dark Horse comics. Jones has also provided the art for fashion designer Prada, and various projects f...

Originally from Istanbul, Özlem Sorlu Thompson now paints in the flat where Piet Mondrian made his art studio in Belsize Park. Her influences include the great expressionist artist Kandinsky and the abstract surrealist Joan Miró.   Özlem’s works have already made their way into the homes of renowned celebrities such as actress Anita Dobson and her husband Brian May, musical theatre star Maria...

Kait Matthews ' formal art training began several years ago, and include The Art Center in Pasadena and The Laguna College of Art and Design, in Laguna Beach, California, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2009 with a degree in Fine Art.  "In my art I enjoy exploring the universal emotions and feelings that are innate in all of us. We are connected when we can look into the eyes of others...

Blackwater Holylight , as the name suggests, is all about contrasts. It’s a fluid convergence of sound that’s heavy, psychedelic, melodic, terrifying and beautiful all at once.  As a heavy band, their songs aren’t anchored to riffs, but rather riffs come and go in waves that surface throughout the band’s meditative, entrancing songs. It’s a hypnotic sound, with orchestral structures that ofte...

Episode 50 is distinguished by the world-adored Australian painter and happiness-peddlar (as well as our first ever return guest . . . )  Vanessa Stockard!  Vanessa was featured in Episode 20 wherein she self-effacingly clarified her stance on particular theoretical issues.  For this episode, we chat about painting metallic balloons, the use of color, her feature in Hi-Fructose maga...

LOREN RHOADS My life changed when I read Dracula at age 10 and then again when I saw Star Wars at 13. Telling true stories came much later, but to me, it’s all interconnected.  My latest book , Tales for the Camp Fire: A Charity Anthology Benefiting Wildfire Relief , came out in May 2019. Northern California’s horror writers came together to raise money for survivors of last year’s devastatin...

HAWKINS balances energetic Rock and Roll mixed with infectious hooky Pop sophistication. The band embraces an ever-more genre-bending Pop Rock aesthetic as they continue to captivate their audience with musical virtuosity in a manner that is reminiscent of their Rock and Roll predecessors. They have performed on countless major stages across the East Coast. Notable performances include Mohegan Sun...

Boston-based artist, Olivia MacDonald is best known for her ink drawings she has been creating every day since the winter of 2018. She holds an extensive collection of thought-provoking and unconventionally playful black and white designs, metaphors for her daily experiences and thoughts. Self-taught, Olivia began creating art as a means of expression and experimentation ever since she was a child...

”My name is Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel . I am Kul Wicasa Lakota and a citizen of Kul Wicasa Oyate/Lower Brule Reservation in South Dakota. I am also Diné (Navajo). I am passionate about many things. However, I want to connect two of those passions that really make life worthwhile: running and activism. I was born to run, but I rejected it for quite some time. My Lala (grandfathe...

With ancestral roots in the Lheidli T’enneh, Cree and Secwépemc Nations, KYM GOUCHIE is fostering change through her music and art. Her music brings awareness to First Nations and women’s issues, promoting reconciliation and community building while reminding us that we are all in this together. Her stories are a testament to the human spirit, weaving together threads of her own journey from perso...

Jessica McDiarmid is a Canadian journalist who has worked across North America and Africa, writing for publications such as the Toronto Star, the Associated Press, Maisonneuve, Canadian Business and the Harvard Review. Highway of Tears is her first book. She lives in British Columbia.  For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch o...

Benjamin Gorman is the author of The Sum of Our Gods (2013, Not a Pipe Publishing), Corporate High School (2015, Not a Pipe Publishing), and The Digital Storm: A Science Fiction Reimagining of William Shakespeare's The Tempest (2017, Not a Pipe Publishing), and Don’t Read This Book (2019, Not a Pipe Publishing). Corporate High School became an Amazon bestseller in 2016, and The Digital Storm was n...

  Interdisciplinary artist avery r. young is a 3Arts Award winning teaching artist, composer and producer with work that spans the genres of music, performance, visual arts and literature.  Examining and celebrating Black American history and culture, his work also focuses in the areas of social justice, equity, queer identity, misogyny, and body consciousness. As a writer, this Cave Can...

Rachel Lally is an actor, writer, model, director, street theatre performer, poet and drama facilitator who trained with Crooked House Theatre Company and Kildare Youth Theatre before going on to obtain her MA in Theatre from The Gaiety School of Acting and NUI Maynooth.  Rachel has toured as an actor (and briefly, folk metal singer with Cruachan ) both nationally and internationally as well...

Great chat this episode with two gifted creators - Paige Henderson and Nicole Murray . Their most recent joint project is the YouTube webseries - Dead Friends. https://youtu.be/LYoeOUXbEio Paige Henderson graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature: Cinema Studies from the University of Washington. Even amongst various film production jobs she spent a year travelling the world. Upo...

New episode of the ‘Something (rather than nothing)’ podcast with Opera Singer Mackenzie Rogers I had a most stimulating conversation with Mackenzie about art’s role in a pandemic, art's role in challenging white supremacy, opera, van Gogh, painting, Cabaret, philosophy and what it feels like to be painted into a painting. Ms. Rogers is a talented actress and performer whose recent credits include...

Mishka Shubaly is writer, musician, runner, comedian, teacher and thinker. We got to chat all about that stuff as well as drinking and not-drinking, art, creation, nothingness and somethingness. His books 'Cold Turkey', 'The Long Run', 'Of Mice and Me', and 'Beat the Devil' and 'Shipwrecked' are intense, raw and honest reads. I deeply appreciated Mishka's talents and his ability to range on some r...

Great new episode with Indigenous artist and musician Sara Billdt !!! We chatted about her music, her graphic art, and her traditional bead work. It was exciting to learn more about her philosophy, her experiences in the heavy metal scene, and finding her remarkable voice. Sara has been involved in the music scene of Eugene, Oregon for over a decade. Starting out as a solo artist, she went on to f...

I chatted with JASON MAYOH , author/director of ‘Tales of Rocky Point Park.’ It was an inspiring and delightful conversation that covered horror, childhood, comics, philosophy, the pandemic, the creative process, Rocky Point and more!!! Many Americans enjoyed amusement parks in their childhood and in non-pandemic summertimes. Rhode Islanders and Southern New Englanders had Rocky Point park with it...

WOW! An interview with GINA GLEASON lead guitarist for the incredible metal band BARONESS. Gina Gleason, a product of Philly, began playing guitar at fourteen and has had a wild journey through Rock&Roll, playing for Misstallica (all female Metallica tribute band) as well as Queen Diamond (all female King Diamond tribute band). She performed as the character 'The Muse' in the world-renowned Ci...

BRAD BALUKJIAN hit the sweet spot of the baseball in his new book WAX PACK. The book is a joy for baseball freaks but also serves as a fantastic memoir on relationships and life. The LA Times Bestselling book is a road trip journey of history and the psyche. Built on the randomness of a fifteen pack of baseball cards with a crisp stick of tongue cutting gum, Brad builds a 10,000 mile adventure int...

Michael Burns is a university teacher, writing coach, film director, labor activist, editor, and storyteller. He has a B.A. from Georgetown University, an M.S. from University of Massachusetts - Amherst, and holds a Ph. D. in documentary film history from the University of Birmingham in the UK.  Burns directed five films for international television and his work has been seen in over twenty c...

Allison C. Meier is an Oklahoma-born, Brooklyn-based writer focused on visual culture, architecture, and overlooked history: she believes in writing about the arts and heritage of our world in an accessible, engaging way. We talked about her recent, haunting Fall 2019 article on the Spanish Flu and the depiction of disease by painters in a Pandemic. I am still thinking about the many topics we dis...

Such an enjoyable conversation with New York Yankees hitting coach RACHEL BALKOVEC ! Rachel is a deep thinker whose ability to both challenge norms and seek deeper truths have served to forge her path. She notes that "by trade I'm a hitting coach, but in reality, I'm a student, athlete, minimalist, feminist and nomad.  Those are things that I resonated with long before my career and will be w...

This episode is pure sci-fi/science geek heaven. Join the Tattooed Scottish-American N7 Slytherin Rebel from Starfleet - Dr. Erin Macdonald. Dr. Macdonald is an astrophysicist, science fiction consultant (currently for the Star Trek franchise), and host of the online series " Dr Erin Explains the Universe ". Her specialty is in general relativity, having previously worked in the LIGO Scientific Co...