Mind Over Medium
A Podcast for artists who want to make money doing what they love. Each week you will learn how to attract your ideal commissions, approach galleries for representation, have a great online launch of your work and how to do it all with less overwhelm and confusion. You will hear from amazing artists who will share how they have built their successful creative businesses. My hope is to create a space where artists and the creative curious can learn about one of the most important tools creative entrepreneurs need in their tool box, their mindset.
Mind Over Medium
From Poetry to Paint: Shelley Helms Fleischman's Artistic Evolution
What if the key to unlocking your creativity was simply doing nothing? Join us on this artistic journey as we announce an exciting move of our podcast to Substack, a platform that promises to enhance our community connection like never before. We're thrilled to bring you an inspiring conversation with Atlanta-based artist Shelley Helms Fleischman. Shelly, known for her captivating encaustic and mixed media work, takes us through her artistic evolution—from a lover of poetry and a private creator to a celebrated artist. Listen in as Shelly shares the transformative power of a supportive community and a life-changing residency that ignited her creative spark.
Ever wondered how artists balance creativity with the demands of daily life? We unpack the concept of "otium" and its essential role in the artistic process. I share personal routines that fuel my creative energy, from morning walks in pajamas to watching birds and sun salutations. The conversation highlights the often overlooked challenges faced by artists, such as finding a supportive community and the dichotomy between artistic fulfillment and conventional job expectations. We dig deep into how "odium," the luxury of doing nothing, is a crucial part of letting ideas simmer and eventually flourish.
Navigating the art world is no easy feat, and we explore the unique challenges and triumphs of being a professional artist. From the vulnerability of sharing art to balancing creativity with business, we discuss the pressures of maintaining a social media presence and the mental exhaustion that can come with it. I share personal anecdotes about the importance of taking breaks and finding inspiration in nature to combat creative blocks. We also delve into the joy of celebrating wins, not just by achieving personal milestones, but by supporting fellow artists and building a personal art collection. Get ready for an episode that brings the artistic journey to life, offering insights and stories that will resonate with both artists and art lovers alike.
Connect with Shelley Here and Here
Connect with Lea Ann Here
All right, I've got some news folks. I am moving my content over to Substack. I don't know if you hang out there much. I've been hanging out there for a while, honestly, kind of lurking, seeing what it was about, seeing what the vibe was like, and I've decided I like it a lot and I hope you will too. It's a great place for us to connect and create community and there will be a lot more details to come about how to connect with me there and maybe what you can find on Substack that resonates for you. But yeah, I just wanted to put that bug in your ear to let you know to be looking out for my content to be over there on sub stack. Of course, the podcast and everything will be on all the regular podcast players, but it's new home will be over there. So if you have any questions, just let me know.
Lea Ann:Welcome to mind over medium, a podcast for artists who want to make money doing what they love. When you tune in each week, you will learn how to attract your ideal commissions approach galleries for representation, have a great online launch of your work and how to do it all with less overwhelm and confusion. You will have the opportunity to hear from amazing artists who will share how they have built their successful creative businesses. My hope is to create a space where artists and the creative curious can gather to learn about one of the most important tools creative entrepreneurs need in their toolbox their mindset. Thanks so much for tuning in to Mind Over Medium podcast.
Lea Ann:Let's get started Today. I'm excited to share this great conversation with you, with Shelly Helms Fleischman. She is an Atlanta-based artist who I've known for quite some time. We were in a show together a few years ago. Her work's just lovely and I think what we'll come across in this interview is just her calming presence and just a lovely way of being in the world. I hope you have some good takeaways from this and enjoy the episode. Hey friends, I'm excited for today's chat with Shelly Helms-Fleishman. First, let me say thank you for joining me, and why don't you take a minute to introduce yourself?
Shelley:Of course I am very happy to be here. So I am an artist, I'm based out of Marietta, georgia, and I do mostly encaustic and mixed media work. So encaustic is probably my most recent passion, but I've always enjoyed playing with lots of different types of mediums, so hence the mixed media. But yeah, I probably feature mostly nature inspired works birds, plants, bits of our ecology, so very locally sourced motivations.
Lea Ann:How long have you been an artist?
Shelley:That's actually the hardest question, you know, because I, deep in my heart, I like everyone's an artist, um, and we sort of get taught not to be. But I, you know, I grew up. I was kind of an artsy child and we lived right down the street from the local museum and I spent a lot of time there taking classes and exposed to a lot of different types of artists. We actually had a for area, a fairly famous artist who lived a couple of houses down, and I took lessons from her as a kid. But I was. I never felt I was the artist. My brother was actually, is actually, if he still would do it, is a good artist and he's the one that won all the poster awards growing up. And and then I dated another guy in high school who was the artist, so he did all the covers of the school magazines and all that sort of stuff.
Shelley:I never identified as the artist, I just loved art and did a lot of it. But I really would have said I grew up as a writer. I was always interested in poetry and would write on my own and read a lot a big reader and when I kind of got settled and started making money, I went back to school and got my MFA in poetry and used that as my sort of that's the bit everybody knew about. But I was always making art. I was making art for myself and it came out in different ways Making art for my home. I always had some sort of weird project that was scattered all over the house and by the time I got married that just annoyed my husband, who's very type A spreadsheets engineer kind of guy. So by the time we moved to our second or third house we like to move a lot I had a little space unfinished, you know, like one light bulb dangling from the ceiling where the lawnmower was in the corner but I could make messes and they could stay out and I could just let loose.
Shelley:And it's about the time my youngest was going to preschool, so I had more time, and so that's when I kind of really started making more. And and talking about making more, it wasn't my little private joy anymore and that had a lot to do with my community and specifically community of women. That was probably, I don't know 15, almost 15 years ago now, and around that time is when I really started putting my work in shows. You know, started out with small markets, selling to friends, and then it's from there.
Lea Ann:Yeah, that's great. That's I. Like the path that it takes, and I have yet to meet an artist or creative person whose path is not pretty windy. That just seems to be the nature of what we do.
Shelley:Yeah, I think my nature we like to explore right and kind of try things out. And that means you know, I don't know about you, but a lot of my artist friends we've had three or four careers by the time we really settle into yeah.
Lea Ann:Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you for sharing that, but I'm going to back up a little bit, because I forgot to ask you the question that I ask everybody, which is describe a time in your life when you felt the most creative.
Shelley:This one was easy for me because I recently did my first real residency where I went somewhere, and this one was South porch residency, just outside of Charleston, and this historic home run by a couple of guys who, they don't have any requirements for you in terms of, you know, you have to put work in a show or you have to produce pieces like this. They just truly want you to come and explore your art, and so I lived there. It was only a week. I wish I'd done longer but in there with a poet, somebody else who did plain air, another mixed media artist and we just all, and there was another person who was also a mixed media person, but she was truly about art. It's all we talked about.
Shelley:You know, when we would join for dinner, it was all we were thinking about and, yeah, we talked about kids and we talked about a couple of other things, and you know, maybe, what we had done that day, but it was such a gift in terms of me being to devote, being able to devote every little bit of myself to art, whereas, you know, when I'm home, I have a studio in the basement.
Shelley:I can go down there whenever I can. I have a supportive family, but it's not the same as having all those little draws upon you during the day whether it's, you know, having to feed yourself, having to feed other people, you know, go to pick someone up from soccer, you know like it's always something that pulls you away. And this was a time where nothing pulled me away and I was able to start a new series that I just am really personally very proud of, and it's something different that I had never done before, but something that had always been hanging out in the back of my head, and I was able to start it and I think just in that week's period of time I made good progress on like eight pieces. I was just a machine and it was. It was lovely.
Lea Ann:Yeah, that sounds amazing. That was great. That sounds great. Yeah, you're like when can I go back Now, your first creative pursuit being poetry? How does that influence your painting?
Shelley:I've written a couple of essays on this, because I think they are so similar in so many ways, and especially the kind of art that I do and you probably feel this way too because you're putting pieces together and they might feel like they don't go together, but when they're layered together and kind of the amalgamation that makes the whole, makes the whole something so different from these pieces.
Shelley:And poetry is kind of like that. You know you're making illusions, you're creating a pattern and then you disrupt the pattern Illusions, you're creating a pattern and then you disrupt the pattern. You produce like repetitions and sounds, and painting is the same way. You produce repetition and shapes or illusions, and the texture that you're kind of creating with sound versus the texture that you're creating with paint or papers or wax, they're very similar. Paint or papers or wax, they're very similar. So I feel like I'm kind of putting together things that already exist, but just kind of showing people what the connections are in my head, either whether it's in a poem or whether it's in a painting, it's kind of the same.
Lea Ann:Yeah, it makes total sense. I mean, you explained it beautifully. Yeah, it really does. And I like that being able to show people the connections in your head which then they can take for themselves and rearrange and reimagine, for which the beauty of art, right, right, great. Now you like to work with different mediums. Do you bounce back and forth, or do you spend some time with one and then move on together? How does that work? I'm always very interested in this because I do the same thing, so I'm always curious.
Shelley:I bounce around I know not everyone does it kind of is what I'm inspired by at a certain time, what I'm kind of into, and I kind of work in a flurry sometimes. But it also could be in my studio. I have it set up where I almost have stations in the space. So I have a sort of a big easel where I usually paint acrylic and oils and I've got like sort of things on wheels, so my pallets and stuff for acrylic things on wheels, so my pallets and stuff for acrylic, my everything I need for oils. And then I have another long low table over by the encaustic, all the stuff that needs to be plugged in the hot plates, the big cauldron that I use for melting beeswax. Then I have like another station that can be wheeled around again, that's if I need to cut papers or do inks or anything like that. And then all the walls are storage, crazy stuff, and they kind of meld into each other sometimes, like if I'm doing a mixed media piece and I've torn pieces of paper and then I'm like, ooh, that'll go in this encaustic piece and I literally pick stuff off the floor and blow it off and put it in another piece of art and I tell people I kind of have this.
Shelley:You ever watched the show chopped, the cooking show. So I feel like that's kind of how I produce. In a lot of ways I'm given these things you know red cabbage and shrimp and I don't know mushrooms and someone says, make something. And then I just kind of like tear them up and make something. Yeah, so my studio is kind of like that. So I'm inspired by the space a lot. It's kind of like walking through a department store and you have to touch everything Like oh, that's soft, I'll try that on. And then my process is kind of like that. So it's dependent on feels and smells and patterns.
Lea Ann:Sounds very holistic.
Shelley:Kind of, yeah, I think I have a little bit of that in my work and me.
Lea Ann:That's great. Your studio must be quite large, is it? Or are you just efficient with your space? I am not efficient.
Shelley:It's pretty big for a studio, for a home studio. It's one of the reasons we bought this house, because it was a workshop for it and it's not pretty at all. There's no drywall on the ceilings but I added a bunch of lights and it's got an external entry to a nice little patio. So I get lights and plants, but it's big and I can make lots of messes. But it's it's big and I can make lots of messes. That's great.
Lea Ann:That's really great. Tell me about the word OTM Am I saying that correctly, and what it means to you.
Shelley:So you must've read my last newsletter. Yeah, so I don't remember where I heard that first, but I think it was in high school and it was really. It resonated with me because for me, it's that feeling where as an artist, as a person, I need to kind of let things sit. I need to have sort of what we're talking about with the residency. I need to have a little time to process things, to sort of settle into almost like not feeling in order to produce work that I really like.
Shelley:So odium can mean different things and some people read it as sort of the luxury of doing nothing, but for me it means the work of doing nothing, that step in the process that I require and I don't think all artists are like that, but I think a lot are that they need, and it might just be like a breath or two, a walk down to the studio, a drive to the studio, you know yoga, or walk in the woods, whatever it is. That kind of brings them to the point where they're able to kind of be the pathway, I mean.
Shelley:I'm not super like woo, woo about spirituality or whatever. But this is very spiritual in that you almost become just a vessel, like on a good day when you're making something and it's coming out and it is like uh, you're so proud of what you've made, it's like you're not there.
Lea Ann:Those are the best days.
Shelley:Yes, that's kind of it's like playing golf right Like we have all these crappy days. I don't play golf, but I've Like we have all these crappy days.
Lea Ann:I don't play golf but I've heard you have all these crappy days You're just waiting for that one day where it's like yeah and yeah, I had to look the word up after I read your newsletter. I was like, oh, okay, and what you said, the work of doing nothing really resonated for me, because for me that is work. Like that's probably the hardest part for me is quieting my mind, slowing down, like I can just be just so in my head that that is work, but it's really good work to do. I like how you said that yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I'm sorry.
Lea Ann:That hit you, yeah it did and I read I'm sorry that hit you yeah, it did. And I read, I uh came, I got a definition off the internet said a time of quiet, reflection and intellectual pleasure. Yeah, no, but I like your definition better.
Shelley:I'll submit it. Maybe I can get in the urban dictionary or something. Yes, there you go?
Lea Ann:How do you support your creativity? Like I've talked to a lot of artists that meditate or take a walk I mean, maybe we've touched on that a little bit with this word and the work of quiet reflection. Do you have any? I don't want to say systems, but like things that you do regularly to help support your creativity.
Shelley:They're. They're also intertwined with how I just support me. It's almost hard to say, but I mean you can't see, and of course the listeners can't see, but just to the right of me as a chair in the corner of the window and beyond that are all my bird feeders. So I've got the hummingbird feeder and the bird, two bird feeders, and this is off my kitchen. So this is kind of like where I live and I recently quit drinking coffee. But I would sit in the chair and drink my coffee and watch the birds and then go out on my pajamas and scare all the neighbors and putter around in the yard, you know, and pull a couple of weeds and pick a couple of flowers. But that's kind of like my preparation for the day I have.
Shelley:My kids are old enough where they don't need me really in the morning, other to say goodbye, I love you, or I really only have one. So it's not, there's not a demand on me in the morning so much. I just need to be here for a little while and then I can take a few breaths and enjoy this world that we're in. And I make lists a lot, so it's kind of my time to think about what I need to do for the day or the week, and so that's one thing, and I try to do like a couple of sun salutations in the morning, just to kind of breathe a lot, get the blood going. I'm at the age where I'm not sleeping that great, yeah. Yeah, I really need that in the morning, and it almost feels like I'm sort of bathing in fresh oxygen, because it's just so many cobwebs when I'm waking up so that's become more important probably than it used to be. And then just the short little commute down to the studio.
Lea Ann:Yeah, that's great, that's really great. I am also the neighbor in my pajamas in the morning, walking in my backyard, so when? You said that I was like oh, that's me pulling weeds, drinking my coffee, you know and there's always one neighbor, sweet guy, but he comes over.
Shelley:You know, I haven't brushed my teeth. Oh yeah, I may not have a bra on right. I'm like, dude, I can't. I can't talk to you right now.
Lea Ann:I know this is not a neighborly time.
Shelley:Good to see you, but stay eight feet back.
Lea Ann:Yeah, luckily I've got big fences around me, so lucky for my neighbors. What do you find to be the most difficult thing about your creative career, or a creative career?
Shelley:There are a lot of challenges. It's it's it's hard to talk about with people who aren't in it. You know I have a lot of lovely neighbors and friends and they're really supportive in many ways. They come to all my shows and sweet wonderful people but like you know, they all have like real jobs. I'm making air quotes for the people.
Lea Ann:Yeah.
Shelley:You know they're lawyers and they run an HR company and or you know a therapist, whatever, and they can kind of like sit around and talk about their jobs in a way that other people understand. And I I although a lot of times they ask me you, how's the art business going? I really give very short answers because I, whether it's true or not, I feel like it's not the same. So that's a challenge and that's probably my fault more than it is their fault, because they have shown genuine interest. Yeah, but it's, it just doesn't. I don't feel like it translates in the same way as a day job. And we had raccoons in the attic, like a couple of weeks ago and the raccoon guys came and, you know, put out the traps and got the raccoons and and, um, they knocked on the studio door to let me know that they were done and he was like, oh, you having fun, and I just, like part of me just went. This is my job, dude.
Shelley:So, like, even the raccoon guy doesn't feel like it's a real job you know so, and I you also don't want to complain about your art life because it's pretty amazing, yeah, that I get to do this and I absolutely love it. I don't love the business part of it at all, but it's it's sort of the necessary evil of, you know, buying the supplies and doing the marketing and doing the shipping and building the website and taking the pictures and posting the pictures and sending out. You know, the only thing I really love is doing the newsletter and I've been trying to build that up because I actually do really enjoy that, because it's got the writing elements, yeah. But that is really the only time I feel comfortable sharing what my job, this art life, is like. So's that that's challenging. I don't like that.
Shelley:Sharing my art is so closely tied to sharing myself. Like I feel I have to expose so much of who I am and what I think, and I really struggle with that and you can kind of see it like in my Instagram feed. Sometimes I'm, you know, my face is on there and I'm like hi guys, blah, blah, blah, blah what I think, and I really struggled with that, and you can kind of see it like in my Instagram feed. Sometimes I'm, you know, my face is on there and I'm like, hi guys, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then other times I'm just I can't. I just, you know, post the opinion because it's it feels intrusive to finding that OTM.
Lea Ann:I agree and, yeah, I completely understand what you're saying. When you're, when people are like, oh, how was your day, I mean my husband will ask that it's very nice day and I don't say well, I was really excited about this one particular blue, that I got to go against this green and it just really popped Like I don't say those things.
Lea Ann:I mean maybe I should, yeah, and then I completely get the whole um, almost like, not constant vulnerability that's required, but a lot of vulnerability that's required, and sometimes it makes me tired and I just have to take a break from it. And that took time to learn for me, right, did that? Do you have that, do you?
Shelley:Yeah, I have to take breaks because it gets just kind of overwhelming in terms of the time that it requires and sort of that mental energy to be like, oh I have to find something to post today. I don't enjoy that part. I like sharing with people who like it, but I don't feel like I. I don't want to have to sort of artificially put myself out there.
Lea Ann:Yeah, yeah, it's a. It feels like a like, almost like a game of chess that I'm not very good at. It's like a certain game that some people are really good at and another one that I'm like. Like once in a while I'm like, oh, that was a good move, and then I'm like, oh, wait what? I don't know what's happening, so I don't understand the rules.
Shelley:To the game.
Lea Ann:Yes, that's exactly right, and it seems like other people do. Yeah, do you have a lot of ideas and if so, how do you decide on which ones to follow through on?
Shelley:I have a lot of ideas and again, you know like all my stations right now in the studio downstairs are full of stuff that I'm working on and they're all very different from each other. And then I have another section where ideas go to hide and or die. There's one that I've had in the back of my head and I started working on probably in 2020, and I just haven't finished it yet. Part of it because it's so emotional, but I'm not sure I have the best process for determining what I'm going to work on and what I don't that I would want to share with anyone else. It's more sometimes it's just what I think I can do that day. A lot of time I warm up is that day. A lot of time I warm up is painting over old paintings and kind of seeing what those turn into maybe nothing, and then that propels me into whatever I'm working on next. I do kind of tend to go when I'm in the studio. I go for what's easiest first.
Lea Ann:Yeah.
Shelley:And then kind of, if that goes well, then like okay, today's a good day, let's, let's leap.
Lea Ann:Yeah, I think that's a good way of approaching the day. Yeah, how do you deal with creative blocks?
Shelley:I usually go outside. I mean that's, and if it's a long-term creative block which I have not ever had, one that was like super long, disturbingly long I would just take time and go somewhere else. But outside is definitely a big inspiration for me, even if it's just go sit on the deck or putter around in the flowers, and that's the easiest for me putter around in the flowers, and that's the easiest for me. And I'll go take pictures with my phone of different types of plants and leaves, and that usually gets me going.
Lea Ann:Yeah, I went to the botanical gardens this weekend. I love going there and I just I should go more. I'm like why don't I come here more? It's so great, it takes effort. Yeah, drive into.
Shelley:Midtown yeah.
Lea Ann:Right, Right. Yes, but it's so lovely when you're there it is. If you could go back to when you started the creative but not the poetry or writing part of your creative career, but the painting part of your creative career. If you could go back when you started, would you do anything different?
Shelley:I would have liked to have more confidence in what I could do. Yes and no Cause I you know. I look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, I applied to that high-end gallery thinking I was going to get in after I've been like seriously painting for six months, so that there's that embarrassing, yeah, yeah. But also I deep down, I didn't have like a real confidence in what I was doing. I wish I had that, and it was a long time before I would call myself an artist. I would just say I paint, or something like that. But I would just say I paint, or something like that. But I would never say, oh, I'm an artist.
Shelley:That's really common, by the way, having a hard time with that and I talked to another artist this week and he was I've started collecting some woodcuts and prints printmakers and he was commenting on the fact that it looked like I've collected all women, which is not true but close enough.
Shelley:And my thought was, yeah, I want to support women artists A but also male artists and maybe just males in general, I don't know tend to have that confidence that like I am worth asking a lot of money for. You know, like the stuff that I've produced is important and women almost have to ease into that thought about themselves and that work. You know, for the most part not everyone, yeah, but I saw that in the poetry world as well, and it's like they have the gift of I can devote my whole life to this and that's okay, and women or at least when I was in my twenties not so much. You know like it's yeah, so I think that's a difference too. Like these women who are just as talented, just amazing, and I'm producing this amazing print work, but they initially don't ask very much money for their work and I can see their brilliance and I'm like I will absolutely pay that the men jump in and like this is worth three grand right off the bat.
Lea Ann:Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, I know I feel like that is a puzzling part of the world that we live in. Yeah, mm-hmm, it's a piece of the world. Yes, was there a defining moment? Can you remember that moment where you're like, okay, I can call myself an artist. Now Did something happen?
Shelley:I think it was when I first got my first solo show. Okay, yeah, like then, it felt real. It felt like I'd accomplished something.
Lea Ann:Yeah, I know a lot of people that I talk to or work with. Sometimes it's when money actually changes hands, like money from a stranger, not a friend or family.
Shelley:Yeah, that's big too, like when you get three people removed or something. Yeah, oh my gosh, like they don't know me, they just like my stuff.
Lea Ann:Exactly, exactly, practically speaking. How do you manage the business part of your creative career and then the actual creating? Do you have some different days? Do you do like half and half in a day? I tend to block out days for business, slash computer work.
Shelley:You know, if there are days where I have to be out in the world, excuse me, um, you know, delivering work or going to the art supply store, whatever I block those together because I don't make up and be clean. And so, like, yes, I block those together. And then I tend to block my tech days together, like I'll sit down, write the newsletter, update the spreadsheets, you know, put all the new work on the website, you know all that sort of stuff all in one time, and then studio days are just studio days, so that I can kind of be in those different brain spaces.
Lea Ann:Yeah, yeah. It took me an unusually long time to figure out how to balance my those different parts of my work life. I had to try a bunch of different configurations and I think it helped too. Like you know, my children are older, but when you just had that small amount of time between drop off and pickup, it felt like you had to cram everything. Yes, yes, yes. So time is definitely a gift when it comes to managing all that. Yes, it made a huge difference.
Lea Ann:Does the isolation of our work ever get to you and, if so, how do you handle it?
Shelley:A little bit. It's just and I do have some artist friends that we tend to chat about logistics and where do you get your frames? You know best shipping prices. Hey, this show is open, you should apply or you should go see it. And every now and then I'll have coffee with somebody and we talk about.
Shelley:You know, it's a lonely job in some ways. I am by nature an introvert and I think as I've gotten older I've gotten more introverted. But it is there are difficulties with this kind of work and it it can kind of tap into some deep stuff and you need to be able to talk to somebody about that. So I did go to therapy and as therapist who you know not particularly into art or whatever, so I feel like she's learned a lot. But I think it is important to have someone to talk to you about the sensitivities of being an artist, because it's very nature is that you're drawing things up and drawing things out and illustrating what you see and feel in the world. You know like we're some sort of like weird empath, that you know like we soak it up and then try and put it back out and that's not an easy job and I feel like for a therapist. That's kind of why they require that those people also go to therapy, because it's it's a constant using up of yourself and yeah, it can. That can be challenging.
Lea Ann:Yeah, definitely. How do you celebrate your wins? Yeah, definitely. How do you celebrate your?
Shelley:wins. I celebrate my wins by buying other people's art.
Lea Ann:That's a good one. That's a great way. That's awesome.
Shelley:So I mean literally since I started going pro if you will, I would have a good sale. Then a portion of that sale was put aside for buying someone else's art. I felt sort of it was my obligation to support other artists, and I was a collector long before I was putting my own art out into the world. You know, when I had my first job and I was making absolutely nothing, I still spent money on art. Making absolutely nothing, I still spent money on art. It might've been from junk sales, but you know like I found some really good stuff that's still hanging in the house, so, but I I have that's. That's one big way that I support wins. Um, this is buying other people's art and that makes me very happy.
Lea Ann:Yeah, what a nice way of paying it forward too, and that makes me very happy. Yeah, what a nice way of paying it forward too. That's great. Who like currently like? What artists are you really into?
Shelley:Well, like I said, I've started to collect some printmakers. So I just went to Black Art in America gallery down at East Point and bought two pieces there this weekend. Don't tell my husband. Pieces there this weekend, don't tell my husband. Yeah. So I got one from Jasmine Warnock, who I met her through Muse Gallery. She was working there as an assistant for a while and now she's graduated and is putting her work out into the world.
Shelley:And the other is, I want to say, kim Clark. I'm going gonna have to look that up, though I did not follow her on instagram and I couldn't find her, but I bought a beautiful piece of hers. Then, let's see, I've bought I've bought pieces from jasmine williams as well. That's a block print and who that other person was? I can't think of the other person, but it was a print of Elizabeth Cartlett, who's kind of a pioneer in that medium. And then, let's see, I bought work from regionally, a lot of Green Bowl artists from Art and Light Gallery and stuff, so, and I just recently bought a shelly lewis clark because she's there, but I actually bought it from dk and marietta and then I really love the work of this guy I feel like is going to be a huge up-and-comer and I'm doing a show with him in columb month that he goes by. Let's see. I have to look it up real quick.
Shelley:But I have like three or four pieces of his work that I've bought recently. He's more of a street artist, so there's like a graffiti element to it, but it's also about the movement of time. The movement of time, so it's not. He writes all the times on the pieces and then reworks them, and then writes the times on the pieces and then reworks them. Oh wow, it's really interesting. Sounds like it. It's by Joclavius, huh, and I, you know he's one of those people like I feel like he's gonna be somebody someday.
Shelley:Yeah, that's great, he does these sculptures completely out of cardboard that are amazing. Like a six-foot-tall Coca-Cola can. He just recently did a whole phone booth that lit up and everything. Just very cool, Very cool stuff. Oh wow, it's amazing how creative people can be. It's just amazing. I would not ever think of that.
Lea Ann:But yeah, so cool Astounded. Yeah, that's great. Describe your ideal day.
Shelley:I am. I love laying around and reading books and in the bed that's I mean I do. I try and do a trip by myself at least once a year for a couple of days to just decompress a little bit and usually make a bunch of art, but I spend a lot of time sleeping. I love that helps me. So, yeah, like comfy comforter and a good book, that would be one. And then, yeah, a sunshine and a short walk somewhere, not like anything that requires me to um put forth a whole lot of effort, but somewhere that's real pretty. Yeah, it has a lot of plants and animals and some good food, somewhere that's. That's, that's a good day for me. That sounds perfect.
Lea Ann:Are you reading anything good right now?
Shelley:yes, let's see, I um, have just started braiding sweetgrass. I don't know this. It is, um, it's kind of hard to describe, but it's sort of how native americans have used plants, with their, their connection with ecology and obviously very into that. And then actually next month I'm supposed to do another podcast with a friend and we're going to be reading I'll be rereading Janice Ray's Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. You ever read that? I don't know. Love, love. It's amazing. I read that in my Southern Lit class years and years ago and it had a huge impact on me because it sort of taught me how much I was impacted by what's around me, like the physical and biological world. And let's see, I'm reading I don't know if it's sci-fi fantasy a book called Babel that my son and I are going to read together. Oh nice, it's about language, the magic of language. Oh cool, it's most elemental.
Lea Ann:Yeah, that sounds good. I have a couple I'm going to look up and put on my list. I love to read too. I read a lot, so I always like asking people yeah, what are you reading? Gosh, I have to look, I have to have my your bedside stack, yes, the berry pickers.
Lea Ann:Okay, that's quite good, and then, oh my gosh, it's completely escaping me. You know how it feels. I know Exactly. I can't even think. I can see the cover of it, but I can't think of the name of the book, but the Berry Pickers.
Shelley:You'll have to text me later.
Lea Ann:I will for sure. And then I just read the Beasting, which was good, but it was really long. It could have been a tad bit shorter for me, but all good books.
Shelley:And then my attention span is a little shorter than it used to be, oh gosh.
Lea Ann:It's yeah, it's troubling. It feels a little troubling. Well, this has been delightful. Where can people find you? What do you have going on that people can be excited about?
Shelley:Well, let's see, I do have another solo show coming up in October in.
Lea Ann:Atlanta.
Shelley:So it's on the side, with the gallery at Scott and Sons, I think. The opening night is the 26th yes, great, and it's going to be 50 to 60 pieces of work from three main series. They are super nice people. They don't do a lot of shows, I think, so this is kind of new for both them and myself and I'm really looking forward to it. They've been easy to work with and so sweet. That's so great. I'm excited to see it all together. So there's that. There's that, and then, of course, website shfstudionet. If you do com, I think it's like a cabinet maker or somebody.
Lea Ann:All right, I'll be sure to link to all that.
Shelley:And Instagram. I've noticed a lot of my in-process stuff on Instagram.
Lea Ann:I've been really enjoying your birds, thank you, love the birdies, yeah, yeah, I've gotten very into my backyard birding as well.
Shelley:It's kind of how I got started my very first like market, I guess you would call it. I did a lot of birds it's all birds.
Lea Ann:Getting back to my roots, in a way, yeah, and I saw some horses recently too. That were great, yes.
Shelley:That's. I grew up wanting to draw the perfect horse in school and never quite got there. And this has been fun to try it again. And those are for my Blue Ridge.
Lea Ann:Gallery Nice. Oh, I'm sure that. Yeah, that sounds great, that market. Well, thank you so much for joining me. This has been lovely. You have such a nice, calming vibe about you. Do people tell you that a lot? Yes, I feel like my blood pressure came down talking to you.
Shelley:Well, that's wonderful.
Lea Ann:You know if you need to call anytime just let me know. I know definitely, Thank you, I really really appreciate it.
Shelley:Thank you, I enjoyed our talk.
Lea Ann:Me too. Thank you so much for listening to Mind Over Medium podcast today. If you found the episode inspiring, please share it with a friend or post it on social media and tag me on Instagram at Leanne Slotkin, or head to my website, wwwleanneslotkincom. To book a discovery call to find out more about working with me one-on-one. You can also head to my website to get a great tool I've created for you to use when planning your own online launch of your artwork. It's an exercise I've taken many of my coaching clients through and it's been very helpful. It's my way of saying thank you and keep creating.