Have you ever wondered how the threads of science, nature, and art are woven together? Join us as Sarah Dixon, a UK-based artist with a colorful history stretching from Cyprus to the UAE, shares her enthralling personal journey. Her artistic canvas is rich with the nuances of her scientific exploration and the cultural depth of her mother's Irish Catholic heritage. As we converse, Sarah paints a picture of her creative process, revealing how her art serves as a bridge between introspection and cultural understanding, challenging us to see the world through a kaleidoscopic lens of beauty and thought.
Then, we step into the tapestry of women's untold stories as Sarah Dixon and Sharon Bennett partner with the WAAS to illuminate the narratives of childbirth. The project breathes life into the silent chapters of our history, enshrining them within the walls of museums for a more inclusive retelling of our past. Moreover, we venture into the intimate world of heirloom coaching, guiding listeners through the poignant process of connecting with their lineage. This episode promises to be an odyssey into the heart of our heritage, where every artifact holds a story and every story paves the way to self-discovery and cultural reverence.
Do you dread Mondays? Does the thought of another Monday steal the joy of your weekend? Let me tell you about a product I have found and tried that can do away with the Sunday Scaries. Oddly enough, it’s from a company called Sunday Scaries. I have personally tried their products, gummies and tinctures and I can personally attest to their efficacy. If you go to their website and order any product, use the code Kindness20 to receive a 20% discount on your order.
Do you like good coffee? Are you like me and go to bed in anticipation of a great cup of coffee in the morning (and afternoon, maybe). Then let me introduce you to my newest sponsor, Coffee Bros. They have built their business on the cornerstones of sustainability, quality, consistency, and freshness. From coffee to brewing techniques to coffee and espresso machines, they should be your go-to for all things coffee. And if you order from them, use the code Kind10 to get a 10% discount on your order.
Did you find this episode uplifting, inspiring or motivating? Would you like to support more content like this? Check out our Support The Show Page here.
Have you ever wondered how the threads of science, nature, and art are woven together? Join us as Sarah Dixon, a UK-based artist with a colorful history stretching from Cyprus to the UAE, shares her enthralling personal journey. Her artistic canvas is rich with the nuances of her scientific exploration and the cultural depth of her mother's Irish Catholic heritage. As we converse, Sarah paints a picture of her creative process, revealing how her art serves as a bridge between introspection and cultural understanding, challenging us to see the world through a kaleidoscopic lens of beauty and thought.
Then, we step into the tapestry of women's untold stories as Sarah Dixon and Sharon Bennett partner with the WAAS to illuminate the narratives of childbirth. The project breathes life into the silent chapters of our history, enshrining them within the walls of museums for a more inclusive retelling of our past. Moreover, we venture into the intimate world of heirloom coaching, guiding listeners through the poignant process of connecting with their lineage. This episode promises to be an odyssey into the heart of our heritage, where every artifact holds a story and every story paves the way to self-discovery and cultural reverence.
Do you dread Mondays? Does the thought of another Monday steal the joy of your weekend? Let me tell you about a product I have found and tried that can do away with the Sunday Scaries. Oddly enough, it’s from a company called Sunday Scaries. I have personally tried their products, gummies and tinctures and I can personally attest to their efficacy. If you go to their website and order any product, use the code Kindness20 to receive a 20% discount on your order.
Do you like good coffee? Are you like me and go to bed in anticipation of a great cup of coffee in the morning (and afternoon, maybe). Then let me introduce you to my newest sponsor, Coffee Bros. They have built their business on the cornerstones of sustainability, quality, consistency, and freshness. From coffee to brewing techniques to coffee and espresso machines, they should be your go-to for all things coffee. And if you order from them, use the code Kind10 to get a 10% discount on your order.
Did you find this episode uplifting, inspiring or motivating? Would you like to support more content like this? Check out our Support The Show Page here.
Speaker 1:
This podcast is part of the Deluxe Edition Network. To find other great shows on the network, head over to deluxeeditionnetworkcom. That's deluxeeditionnetworkcom.
Speaker 2:
Kindness, we see it all around us. We see it when someone pays for someone else's coffee or holds the door open for another person. We see it in the smallest of gestures, like a smile or a kind word. But it's different when we turn on the news or social media. Oftentimes what we hear about what outlets are pushing is the opposite of kind. Welcome to the Kindness Matters podcast. Our goal is to give you a place to relax, to revel in stories of people who have received or given kindness, a place to inspire and motivate each and every one of us to practice kindness every day. Hello everybody and welcome to the Kindness Matters podcast. I am your host, mike Rathbun. Before we start the show, a little housekeeping here. Don't forget to go over to deluxeeditionnetworkcom To check out their podcast this month in February.
Speaker 2:
First up is Friends Talking Nerdy, and also Films and Fermentation. One more thing If you know me at all, you know how much I love my coffee. I mean, I go to bed at night and the whole reason I go to bed is so I can get up in the morning and have coffee, and that's why it made sense for me to partner with Coffee Bros. Coffee Bros sources seasonal, award-winning and specialty coffees, focusing on high-scoring and high-quality brands, espresso roasts and single-origin coffees, which are all small batch roasted. You can experience complex taste notes, from fragrant and aromatic bold to rich, and the other thing I like about them is that they are a two-person team, a brother team, hence the name Coffee Bros. They roast all of their coffee in small batches out of their New York City Roastery. So if you go to my website or if you look in the show notes on this episode, you'll find a link. If you go to that link and you buy some coffee, use the promo code KINDNESS10 at checkout and you'll receive a 10% discount. Thanks for checking that out, and now on with the show.
Speaker 2:
Hello everybody, and welcome again to the Kindness Managed podcast. I have the coolest guest today. She is an artist in cultural practice. Yes, did I do that Beautiful? Yes, I nailed it. From the UK. Her name is Sarah Dixon. Welcome to the show, sarah. Thanks, mike, and this is so cool. I really love what you do. You're an artist, you're a creator, you're a designer, you're a ritualist, you call yourself a feminist and you're always examining thought patterns and cultural behaviors in yourself and in society to create new modes of relating, new cultural practices and habits, and I think it's so cool. Let's start at the very beginning, as Dame Julie Andrews would say. Is she, do we call her Dame?
Speaker 1:
We could. I think, yeah, I think that's a thing.
Speaker 2:
Oh, okay, I didn't know if that was an actual title, or what do they call women who have been knighted? I don't know, I mean, you know you have Sir Patrick Stewart and so on and so forth, but I don't remember that they do knight women, right?
Speaker 1:
I think it's. I think it's it could be Dame. Yeah, there's quite a lot of.
Speaker 2:
We'll go with Dame.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Boy. That didn't take long for my little golden retriever mind to just take off on a whole other direction. So now you were born in London.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
And you were raised in Cyprus and the UAE right. Correct, I mean not your entire life, but in your childhood.
Speaker 1:
Yes, we lived in Cyprus when I was quite little and when I was eight we moved to or, just turning eight, moved to Abu Dhabi and then later in Dubai. We were living there.
Speaker 2:
Wow, and your artist self has been around since you were little.
Speaker 1:
I would say yeah.
Speaker 2:
Correct.
Speaker 1:
Definitely.
Speaker 2:
Okay, but you didn't necessarily always know that you were going to be an artist I think I was.
Speaker 1:
So I'm a polymath, so I'm interested in everything and as a child I often I was especially interested in nature. So the joy of growing up in cyprus in particular and being in the middle east, in the united arab Emirates there was a lot of access to seeing snakes and caterpillars and bugs of all kinds and wild animals and we had a lot of freedom to explore that. So I was very nature oriented and I thought of myself doing science and that's actually what I did initially. I did study biology and university once I left school and but the art thing was always there as well and this creativity. So in the end, that's one out.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, nice, I think a lot of times science and art Kind of coming go, don't they?
Speaker 1:
I think that's how it all started, really culturally, you know, that's. That's how there were people who were just it, experimented, let's say, like the vintage is like the obvious, very classic Roll model, for sure, and there was study of anatomy, there was study of the body, you know, to be able to paint well, so this idea of trying to study life, in order to copy life or create some kind of image about life, you have to really examine it and that brings in the science side of it.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. But now a lot of your, a lot of your work revolves around and do I want to save that way? I don't know if I want iconography. Yeah, and that has. That has to do with your experience with the church, correct?
Speaker 1:
Yes, my mother's irish and she was raised as a catholic, although she wasn't practicing when I was a child. She doesn't practice but she was raised in that culture and so she had quite an affinity to love churches. She really likes that kind of Experience of going into a church and being in Cyprus. The churches there really beautiful and very, you know, it's very powerful experience because you're outside in the hot sun and it's dusty and you know very close and you go into a little church and there's churches all over the island Really ancient ones, you know, really old, and they're like caves, they're like really dark and there's this rich incense and gold everywhere and very, very old paintings. So this is very powerful, immersive experience to go inside a church in Cyprus and I think that left quite a sort of visceral impression for me and later I studied icon painting in greek or from a greek orthodox design perspective and, yeah, that really informed how I understand art, because it's treated in an extremely different way from the way that western culture thinks of art and artists.
Speaker 1:
Oh, really. So we have the idea of the genius art. You know Da Vinci, like wow, a genius is born and then they're just sort of naturally fantastic and then they're famous and they sign everything, and there's this kind of individual in icon painting. You do not sign your name, you always copy what's gone before and those icons are copies that you know. If we think of st Luke being the first person to paint Jesus from life, the icons of Jesus are like 2000 year old copies and they're copied through the practice of humans learning that technique, learning how to embody that image and put it onto a board Over and over and over again for 2000 years, so you get this incredible kind of vertical view into history through those pictures. It's really different, wow, sure.
Speaker 2:
So in your eyes is iconography the same thing is art.
Speaker 1:
The or is it different.
Speaker 2:
So I think there's something about scale.
Speaker 1:
So if we zoom out of the planet, everything that is made out of pigment and and tries to represent something for humans to look at his art. But we can zoom in and say, well, if we look at different cultures, they're going to say very different things about what those images mean and what they're for and what they're called. So the even the word iconography icon is the picture and the icon is like the God image and then graphy graphic is actually writing. So they say they write icons, they don't write them. So already we've got a really different kind of idea of what that is. So I'm not sure if it how translatable it is to say it's all art. Like we can say that from some perspectives but not all, and that's where that's where that's what this idea of like intercultural understanding is about. It's like Some things don't really translate. You have to be in that culture to really understand what that is. Sure, absolutely.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think of like I was. I was also raised Catholic and you know every, every Catholic church has. I don't know every Catholic church has is I don't, I don't know. But along the walls they'll have like the 12 stations of the cross and they'll have little depictions of each step of the way. Is that iconography or is that art?
Speaker 1:
to me, it's all.
Speaker 2:
Okay, all right, and it's all a little different. You know it's not the same. I don't think.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
In the different churches I've been in. They've been different.
Speaker 1:
They are different but they're telling the same story over and over. So there's kind of a motif like a story, and actually we do see that in Western art history there's all these sort of stories that get repainted and retold in different ways by different artists in different times. So there is this kind of echoing and copying and repeating happening. But there's also come in for us the idea of originality and actually trying to show your worth by being different from everyone else and trying to find something new. That's a different kind of way of approaching art.
Speaker 2:
Got it. That makes sense to me, which I mean. That in and of itself is amazing, because it's hard to make sense to me. So let's talk about the work that you do now.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You've got several programs, yes and not. Okay, there goes my brain again. So I was reading on your biography that your work had been on a cyber bus in Moscow. Yeah, how did that come about, and what type of work was it?
Speaker 1:
That was a film that I made and it was filmed on Super 8, which is this very old, like 60s home video. So you get these little.
Speaker 2:
I used to play with Super 8.
Speaker 1:
Did you Great, yes, so you know what I'm talking about. So you have these beautiful little roles, they last about three minutes and it was a festival there's these festivals for Super 8 and you get a role of film and you shoot the film and you don't know what the outcome will be. They just screen it at the festival. And so I made this film. It's called Goblin Market. It's still on YouTube and Vimeo and it's a retelling of the story Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, who's a poet, english poet, and she tells the story of two sisters and they're tempted by goblins with fruits and stuff, and it's quite a slightly gothic story. Anyway, I made this film and then you know, when you make an artwork, sometimes you put it out in the world and then you don't really know what will happen. Like it can kind of go off, and somehow it ended up being selected for some kind of form show in Moscow on a bus, and they called it a cyber bus.
Speaker 2:
Oh, for crying out loud.
Speaker 1:
Early internet and they were excited that they could go on the internet on the bus and show films from all around the world. So it was kind of like a little gem of a moment that happened. That was completely unpredictable. You know from what you make.
Speaker 2:
How incredible. That's so fun. Yeah, I mean, you make these things, this art or what have you, and you put it out in the universe and you never know. Next thing you know you're on a bus in Moscow. Yeah, exactly, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so back to what I was, good Lord. So you have a number of opportunities to work with different artists and different people. Thank you, you have the 100 goddesses project. Brilliant women and girls the women's art activation system. Is that just was? Is that how you pronounce it?
Speaker 1:
We call it was. W-a-a-s yeah that's the one.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and then you have more personal opportunities, the heirloom coaching, which I think is just really cool.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
What is one of the one? What is your list of top 10 things that you would like to accomplish with your artwork?
Speaker 1:
Wow, that's such a good question.
Speaker 2:
And it doesn't have to be a fast 10. I'm just Because it's not just one thing that you're hoping to accomplish.
Speaker 1:
No, that's true. So it took me a long time to understand myself because I was going in so many different ways. I slowly started to make sense of who I am and it's driven underlying it. Bringing it all together is about reducing hierarchies, especially supremacist hierarchies, and trying to create more inclusive culture, and so a lot of my focus is around being female, or women, femme, body, people, because the way that we experience the world we will be right back with my interview with Sarah Dixon after this quick message from one of the newest members of the Deluxe Edition Network.
Speaker 2:
Sorta Kinda Funny. Take it away, lauren and James.
Speaker 3:
Welcome to Sorta Kinda Funny we're Comedy Podcast Brother and sister duo, where we take your guys' embarrassing moments and stories and turn them into humor, because life's about laughing at yourself and we are sure we're going to laugh at ourselves. I am James, I am your main Mac Daddy host and I'm also joined by a loser. Oh, I have to introduce yourself, loser. Go ahead, don't be shy. This is Lauren Give it to them. Absolutely. What are you? What are you going?
Speaker 3:
to say Also, we sing a lot, so if you haven't listened to this episode, I'm sorry. We have new episodes available every Thursday and would love nothing more than to hang out with you. Does that sound too desperate? Yes, okay, check us out. Wherever you listen to your podcast and we'll see you on Thursday and, as always, text me if you want to hang out Bye.
Speaker 1:
There's quite a lot of stuff that goes on that is problematic and basically unfair, and so I like to try and push back against that, and you know. So one project I'm working on, one thing that I would love to have as an impact, you know, in my lifetime, is this project. It's about birth histories, and this is a project with the WAAS, with my partner, sharon Bennett, and the idea is that we start putting the story of birth into museums, so that when you go to a museum you don't. In our local museum where I live in the Cotswolds, we have the history of the lawn mower, because the guy who invented the lawn mower came from here, and we have the history of the woollen mills that created a lot of wealth for the area, and the history of sheep, and we have an author who wrote a book about it, but we don't see what women were doing, you know, and it's like, well, they were having babies, so let's put that in, so. So we've started projects around that and that, for me, if we could start to see that, you know it's the idea of the cultural shift is that we kind of integrate a bit more of a wider perspective on what's important in history and to have to me would just be completely awesomeness Just to allow a more kind of complex understanding of the world, like it isn't just about lawn mowers and wealth, it's also about how did people give birth, how did they, like women, died.
Speaker 1:
We know that story. We all know about, oh, dying in childbirth, that's a thing, or babies dying a lot, but we don't see it actually told. We just hear that tiny little piece of information. If we can grow up going into museums because I don't, I didn't know much about pregnancy or birth until I was actually pregnant and gave birth. So it's like what culture am I growing up in that? I don't know this. You know it's weird, so I want to shift that. That's one example.
Speaker 2:
There is no instruction book for that is there.
Speaker 1:
Well, there is, we just don't get to hear about it. We're kind of told that it's private, it's personal, something that we don't need to know about. It's not of interest to anyone. Sure Interest to anyone, but it's with the story, is the dominant story, is it's not of interest, and that's what that's.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, anytime you watch a movie or something about times past, it's like, oh, this woman is pregnant and this woman is given birth. Yeah, and there's really not a lot about what goes into it. You know, you hear people say women have been giving birth for 10 generations. They'll be out working in the field and pop out the baby and keep working. But yeah, you're right, there really isn't any kind of Discussion.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, exactly, it's not like and the complexity like so different for so different people. You know, some people can do that and have loads of babies or have a baby and go back to work really fast. Others Absolutely destroys them, you know, and they have such unique, it's so complex and we don't get that in the culture, we just learn it through direct experience.
Speaker 1:
I want to see that much sure awareness around it really, and so that we can just say, oh, this is what it's like to be human. You know, if you're going through a pregnancy, birth thing, yeah, being a human who's got a workshop, which also is nice. But you know there's lots of challenges and we hear a lot about soldiers and that kind of stuff. But you know there's a whole other story that's a bit less available.
Speaker 2:
Right, the men who created the, the woolen mills, but not much about their wives or girlfriends back home, yeah, bearing their heirs to the woolen mill industry. I really love the the other one, and I don't know why I'm so fascinated about this. But can you talk to me about the heirloom coaching, because for some reason that just sticks with me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, this is also connecting to the idea of history and stories and heritage, but on a really personal level, and it also brings in what a big part of my practice, which is about animism, which is the investment into all things Of some kind of meaning, so all objects have some kind of life to them in some way. And If we think of Marie Kondo and the way she practices, that comes from her heritage would be Japanese Shinto animism. You talked to the object, you give it, you, you listen and say, well, how do I actually feel about this thing? You know, do I do I feel connected or do I feel like I just need to bring me joy.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and so the heirloom coaching is something like that. So we have these objects we inherit, sometimes we didn't really want them, or we kind of did, but they don't actually fit with our life. Or perhaps we Got, you know, didn't get something we really wanted, or whatever. Like there's all these kind of ephemera of the of the ancestors, the people who died, who lived before us, and so the heirloom coaching is a space where I offer people a chance to Find an object that maybe is cluttering their space or, you know, has some kind of problem around it or something unfinished, or maybe they don't have an object and they need to create one.
Speaker 1:
So it's it's like forming a better, coming into a good relationship with ancestry, and and a space to listen to the object itself. Oh, excuse me, we listen to the object itself In order to learn, and and it can be quite an emotional process quite often people will listen, the object becomes really heavy in their hand or, you know, they, they, they see it in a different way and speaks to them. Something happens, and Then they either can make a clear decision like I don't want this, or I'm gonna get it remade, or I'm going to burn it, or I'm going to build a treasure box, especially to keep it and put it on a prominent display so they they can really work through through something and come to a better place with that item.
Speaker 2:
That's pretty cool, do you and I were talking, and I, because I have the mind of a something. We were talking about kindness and at one point you said something and I thought it was so true and I I don't think I've ever dealt with it on the show Kindness that can sometimes look unkind. Do you remember us talking about that?
Speaker 1:
Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah. So so that was the idea that kindness is quite a serious matter, I think, and and I think it's easy to confuse it with niceness, which is, I think, more performative. You know, it's more like a show of being kind and true kindness. It's not that it I don't. I'm not really wanting to go to that idea of kindness to cruel, to be kind. I don't, I don't believe in cruelty at all. This is not what I'm saying right.
Speaker 1:
And I think, if cruelty is coming into it, you have to think well, no wait, let's just take us pause here.
Speaker 1:
But true story uncomfortable and and a lot of us may confuse. You know how can you tell if something's just uncomfortable or if it's, it's actually unkind? That's quite a sometimes tricky thing to figure out. But uncomfortable kindness can be uncomfortable, definitely. So you know, it might mean having to confront about something and they're not gonna be comfortable with it. They're not gonna be like great, that's just what I wanted to hear. They're gonna be like what I don't. But that could be you being kind to yourself and causing discomfort for someone else.
Speaker 2:
For example, sure I? I remember when my, my son, was growing up and he was finally getting to that stage where he would have body odor. And you think, well, don't? You know there's two ways. Don't say anything to him, it'll make him feel bad, it'll make him. But on the other hand, you've gotta say something, son. It's time to start using deodorant. Now you're of that age, people are gonna know. And I remember he was totally offended when I said something. But you know, you're trying to do it to make a bigger point about hygiene and cleanliness. And that was the example that came into my head when I thought about being unkind.
Speaker 1:
To be kind, yeah, so it's very uncomfortable to hear something about ourselves that's, you know, doesn't reflect the way we'd like to see ourselves. So but, yes, that does give an opportunity to change and to adjust something. So it's, in a way, it's the way you do it. You know you can approach that with kindness or you can use it as an opportunity to be mean to someone, and so that's where the parenting is an art, isn't?
Speaker 2:
it Son use dainty.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, it's quite a tricky one, and also being willing to take the hit back. You know the backlash of like how dare you? You know the reaction, and that takes strength as well. So there's a kindness in being quite brave to say something difficult to somebody. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely so. Have you got any new projects coming up that we need to know about? I mean, I will have your website. It's sarahdixonstudio. All those links will be in the show notes.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Any new works coming up.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so I'm working on a show that's opening in March in London and it's a show with two other artists and what we've all been doing three of us working with medical researchers and patient groups to make work. My project is with Raimann Hashim, who's a research fellow with UCL and University College London and he makes stomach robots, so he makes models working models of stomachs using silicon, so they're soft robots, so they look quite strange.
Speaker 1:
You know, they're a bit see-through, so they're not quite like a real stomach but, they act like a stomach, and I was paired up with Raimann to make an artwork and I said well, my experience in pregnancy we're going back to that again was of extreme sickness. So this is something a lot of people don't know about. Is that? We all know the classic TV movie thing of, oh, I'm being sick? Therefore I'm pregnant. You know there's a sickness thing, but some people get it so extreme it can actually be life-threatening. In the past it was the leading cause of death in early pregnancy. So it's quite an extreme scenario where you just cannot stop being sick for the whole pregnancy. And actually Kate Middleton has a video Duchess of you know the Williams.
Speaker 2:
Well, that isn't why she was in the hospital recently, though, was it?
Speaker 1:
No, but when she was pregnant she had that, so that got well known because of that. But my projects about that. So we worked with some people who've had that experience and I'm making a film so that will be available online so it can be watched anywhere, and also a kind of installation show in central London at the college where I'm studying. So that's coming out soon.
Speaker 2:
You're very busy, I'm very busy. Yeah Well, it's good to be busy.
Speaker 1:
It is.
Speaker 2:
Oh, it has been such a pleasure, sarah, to have you on. I really, really appreciate your take you have. Your outlook and your work to create a better culture for the world is so appreciated and so admired by me and soon dozens of others. I just you're such a delight to speak to. Thank you, and I really appreciate your time today. Thanks for being on.
Speaker 1:
I've just loved meeting with you, Mike, and chatting with you, and really great to have this opportunity to chat. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
Thanks so much for coming on. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1:
Okay, cheers, Mike.
Speaker 2:
I really love doing what I do because in any other world, in any other situation, I would never have had the opportunity to meet and speak with Sarah Dixon. I always wanted to be an artist, and just talking with her and talking about all of her work and what she's doing is such a great thrill for me. I hope you took away something from this episode. I am very grateful that you've tuned in and listened for a little bit, and that will do it for this episode of the Kindness Matters podcast. Don't forget that if you go into the show notes, you'll find the link for Coffee Bros Coffee. Don't forget also that if you go to their website and choose some coffee, when you go to checkout, use the code KINDNESS10 to get 10% off of your order.
Speaker 2:
I will be back next week with a brand new episode, but in the meantime, be that person who roots for others, who tells a stranger they look amazing and encourages others to believe in themselves and their dreams. You've been listening to the Kindness Matters podcast. I am your host, mike Rathbun. Have a fantastic week.