Art and Alchemy Lab

Well well well, didn’t I plan this well? Happy 07/07 , my friends—aka July 7th . On that note, here is a little throwback art from my 49th birthday. A tin-can of whoopass: 7x7. What a beautiful and oddly-peaceful summer day it is here in southern California as I publish this episode, knowing there could not be a more numerically perfect time to share this conversation with the lovely artist/writer...

Happy Solstice! This is the time of year with the most light or the most dark, depending on the hemisphere. It’s a perfect day to release this episode on the blackening stage of alchemy. For this very special 50th episode of Art and Alchemy Lab, my esteemed guest is Stuart Semple, a multidisciplinary British artist whose work spans painting, performance, internet art, and installation, and he’s al...

When I discovered this episode’s erudite guest Sophie Cournoyer’s writing about creativity and the occult — I was immediately drawn in. Sophie is the artist behind Aethereal Moods , where she explores the occult dimensions of creativity. In her studio practice she paints surreal yet deeply symbolic portraits. In our conversation we get into the yoga of articulation — the work of finding language f...

Welcome back the the laboratory! My guest this episode is Kirstin Wilson, calling in all the way from Australia. Kirstin is a business empowerment coach who works with women entrepreneurs through intuitive guidance and personal growth strategies, helping them align with who they actually are rather than who they think they should be. In this conversation she shares how tools like Human Design and...

The Architecture of Poetry This episode is a really fun one for me. I only knew my guest Eva Yaa Asantewaa from a handful of interactions on Substack. I always enjoyed the things she wrote or restacked, and I noticed her generous enthusiasm for amplifying other voices. Since Eva does so many things — writer, editor, dance critic, novelist, Tarot guide, animist spirit worker — I wasn’t sure how to...

This episode’s guest is “Curator or Awesomeness,” Scott Erikson (aka Scott the Painter on his popular instagram account.) Scott is an artist, author, and performance speaker, who is passionate about creating a visual vocabulary for spiritual contemplation. He’s the writer and performer of two one-man shows, the author of 5 books, and the illustrator of countless “visual prayers.” We talk about the...

Today’s guest is Claudia Bonnie — a painter based in southwest England, whose artwork conjures mythical heroines, saints, goddesses, and epic animal icons. Her paintings live in that delicious space between mysticism and myth, where superstition is sacred, relics can heal, and a painting can work like medicine. With a background in education and therapy, Claudia is endlessly drawn to what’s happen...

Today’s esteemed guest is Cyril Coetzee, an internationally esteemed lecturer in Art History & Esoteric Science and a renowned portrait artist whose work spans continents and collections. He’s also regarded as the favorite portrait artist of Nelson Mandela (which we talk about a bit in this episode as well.) I discovered Cyril and his ability to teach about mystical creativity through a series of...

My guest, Matthew Ashdown, is joining me from Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia, though he spent much of his early life growing up in Great Britain — a landscape rich with the tradition of Arthurian legend and Tolkien’s magical worlds — and as you’ll hear, those stories have left a lasting impression on the way he thinks and works. I know Matthew through our shared work in the Gene Ke...

Today’s guest has spent her life turning pain into prose — and teaching others to do the same. I am really proud of this episode…I loved chatting with Erika, and I feel honored and inspired to keep championing survivor’s voices. Erika’s voice is especially rich, out loud and on the page. Erika Schickel is a memoirist, teacher, and storyteller whose second book, The Big Hurt , published in 2021 is...

My guest is Katja Swan, a personal embodiment coach in Germany. Katja and I met a few years ago through a Gene Keys course, and when I first heard her origin story, I was fascinated and curious to find out more. We are about the same age, both teenagers during the Cold War, but I’d never met anyone who had grown up in East Germany. Katja and her family fled the GDR when she was just 17, four month...

Hi everyone. I wanted to get this out before the Lunar New Year on Feb 17th, which brings in the Fire Horse of the Chinese zodiac wheel. For the past 12 years, Shannon Nicole, founder of Wild Heart Pilgrimage is my knowledgable and passionate guest. For the past 12 years, Shannon has used Chinese astrology as a transformative self-discovery tool, finding it to be an invaluable guide for understand...

Welcome, February! Today is Imbolc (the seasonal marker between winter and spring) and the moon is full in the FIRE sign of Leo (That’s MY personal moon, btw!) Coming up later this month is the Lunar New Year, which introduces the elemental animal of the FIRE HORSE. Lots of hot, igniting energy in the collective field—I’m sure you have been feeling it too. Above is a snippet my interview with Shan...

“Grief is the the growing up of the heart that bursts boundaries like an old skin or a finished life.” —adrienne maree brown Today, we’re joined by Paul Bond, an award-winning oil painter whose work exists in that liminal space between dreaming and reality. Drawing from the Latin American tradition of Magic Realism, Paul creates what he calls “fairy tales for adults”—canvases where symbolic and fa...

“Jupiter has no leisure to attend to little things.” — Ovid This week, I’m joined by my friend David Beatty—actor, filmmaker, playwright, and someone who embodies what the alchemists called the Jupiterian spirit: expansive, generous, and unafraid to work across multiple creative realms. We sat down to talk about David’s creative ( spiritual) process and explore the concept of JUPITER in alchemy—th...

I met this week’s guest at a cartoon convention a few months ago—we were set up at neighboring booths, as we are with the same agency, shout out to Celeb Works. I have been wanting to interview a voice over actor on the circuit, so I was so pleased she agreed to join me today! Janie Haddad Tompkins is a brilliant actress and voice artist you’ve heard countless times—she’s the voice of Margaret on...

Today I’m talking with illustrator Ed Hose, calling in from the charming town of Brunswick, Georgia. We’ll explore her creative process, the joyful intention that drives her work, and then we’ll dive into the deep end, literally. We’ll be talking about the element of water and whether it might have a magical consciousness of its own. From there, we wander through bathtub break-ins, the remarkable...

Today’s guest is someone I first met over 30 years ago when we were students at the California Institute of the Arts. I’ve invited Jill on to share the fascinating and meandering path from professional student to professional professor, and give some insights to the archetype of Divine Androgyne, representing the Union of opposites in the alchemical Magnum Opus (or Great Work.) Jillian St. Jacques...

Mariana Tirsa is a singer-songwriter, artist, and somatic wellness coach based between Oaxaca, Mexico and Asheville, NC. Her bilingual work blends heritage, poetry, and modern folk, while her somatic coaching helps creatives transform self-doubt into confident, embodied visions. For many years, she has been creating music under the name “Runaway Horse,” along with other regular musical contributor...

Hi everyone! If you’ve been listening for a while, you may have heard me mention the Gene Keys a few times. As a Gene Keys guide myself, this system has been a profound pathway in my own life and—and today, I’m thrilled to finally dive deep with someone who knows it far better than I do. Our guest today is Elijah Parker, CEO and longtime voyager of the Gene Keys. Elijah weaves years of experience...

Thank you for joining me here in the Art and Alchemy Lab. My guest is Sibel Ozer—a psychotherapist, art-therapist, and spiritual seeker who just returned from an incredible pilgrimage to Turkey. I only recently discovered Sibel’s work, and I was so captivated by her writing that I reached out and asked her to join me here. She responded by sending me this beautiful hardbound book of her intuitive...

Today, we have an extraordinary guest whose career reads like a love letter to wearable art and its power to transform culture. Lisa M. Berman is the Founding Director of WAM—The Wearable Art Museum—in New York City. For over 25 years, she’s been a curator, advocate, and cultural connector, championing studio jewelry artists and guiding their work into major museums worldwide. I had the pleasure o...

Welcome to an episode outside our regular format. Michele Moscone, who happens to be a three-time collector of my artwork, reached out to ask if she could talk about these pieces with me on this podcast. I rarely get an opportunity for feedback from collectors, let alone in this format. I think we both did a good job of explaining where we are/were each coming from in our journeys that connected u...

Ofelia Esparza is a renowned altarista (altar maker) and cultural preservationist, particularly known for her work with Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) traditions. She’s a National Heritage Fellow and has dedicated her life to preserving and teaching the traditional art of creating ofrendas (altars) for the Mexican holiday honoring deceased loved ones. If you saw the movie, COCO, you’ll have...

Today I’m excited to introduce you to Georgena Senior, a Philadelphia-based artist whose work literally stopped me in my tracks. When I saw her recent ceramic pieces paired with a notebook page of sketches, I was so moved that I immediately reached out—and I’m thrilled she agreed to join us today. Georgena beautifully embodies the multifaceted creative life. She’s an artist working in handbuilt ce...