The Gale Hill Radio Hour
Here at The Gale Hill Radio Hour, you’ll find conversations and short essays having to do with the human experience — our purpose, our passions, the stories of our lives, both lighthearted and otherwise. Also, the power of our spiritual selves, whether on our own or when we join with others in understanding, love and light.
I welcome you to join my guests and me in this adventure.
Kate Jones
The Gale Hill Radio Hour
Beautiful Art: Photography & Life's Ephemera
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In the first segment of this episode of The Gale Hill Radio Hour, Kate interviews photographer Inga Smith, who was 8 years old when she and her family walked out the door of their home in Augsburg, Germany, and boarded a train in the dark of night. They would end up in America, but Inga didn't know that at the time. Nor did she know, until much later, how fortunate her family was to get out of Germany when they did. They left in December 1939. Her father was Jewish.
Now 89 and happily settled in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, Inga tells captivating stories — about coming to America and her travels back to Germany as an adult, and through her photography, which became a huge part of her life starting at age 10. She has been to every European country, to Russia twice, China, Tibet, every Caribbean island and all 50 states, and of course she chronicles her travels with her camera.
You can see a sampling of Inga's photos in the fall 2021 issue of the online magazine Reveries & Relevance.
The second segment, which begins at 36 minutes, 45 seconds, stays on the theme of artful living. Kate interviews artist Theresa Wells Stifel, proprietor of Stifel & Capra, an online shop that sells art and vintage accessories, jewelry and home items. The name of the business is a nod to It's a Wonderful Life director Frank Capra. Theresa's tagline is "art & ornament for your wonderful life," which speaks to her twofold mission: to assist other artists in selling their beautiful work and to help her customers lead wonderful lives by selling them delightful things.
Theresa also loves creating custom pieces with items that hold meaning for her customers. She can be reached via her website.
This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to The Gale Hill Radio Hour!
The show is available in Apple and Google Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast directories. Also on Substack and YouTube; Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Artful Living with Inga Smith
SPEAKER_01Setting up stories and insights from our home state of Ohio to wherever you are in force. I'm your host state to the first time. My guest is photographer Incas. I had the opportunity to meet in July 2021 at the Global Gallery in Columbus, Ohio's Central neighborhood. I had already noticed Inga's work at the galleries. And I was trying to decide which of her many artistic posters to buy for myself who lived in the area. Each poster was decorated with the beautiful photos she'd taken. And they all appealed to me. It was a tough decision. Then Inga walked into the gallery to check on her inventory. And to my great delight, Inga agreed to be on my podcast. Here's the interview in which she shares her powerful stories. You can also see a sampling of her photos. They were taken around the world. They appear right now in the fall 2021 issue of the online magazine Reveries and Relevance. The link to the issue is in the podcast description. Inga, it's good to have you on the show.
SPEAKER_02Well, um I'm 89 years old, and I was 10 years old when my father gave me a little brownie box camera for my birthday. And that's how long I've been taking pictures.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I uh you know, first of all, wow that you're 89. I never would have guessed that. And second, uh you must really love what you do. So my question, my first question for you is, why do you love it so?
SPEAKER_02I don't know, there's just a need I have really, I think, to capture when I see something I I have to photograph it. And I was telling a friend of mine a while back we were talking about something like this, and I said, I see the world through a lens. Everything I look at is like would make a picture. But it's also because of my background because um my family left Germany just before World War II began and we left everything behind and um lots of memories.
SPEAKER_01Oh yes. Yes, I um I want to get into that in just a sec. Um right now, um you're living in the Clintonville area of Columbus, Ohio, and you have been there fifty-four years. Yes, in the same house. That's wow. Do you have another wow? Uh do you have family in the area? Yes, I have two sons and two daughters-in-law.
SPEAKER_02My one son and daughter-in-law live at walking distance of my house, and my other son and daughter-in-law, and my two grandsons all live very close in Hilliard and Dublin.
SPEAKER_01Wow. That's and it sounds like you have a very pleasant, settled life in uh America.
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So if you don't mind, would you set the scene when of when your family walked out of the house in Germany?
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I remember it very well. I was eight and uh it was Christmas, and I never knew beforehand what all was going on. I mean how my parents maneuvered all this without me knowing this. I don't know, but they did. I had no clue anything was going on in terms of preparations and that sort of thing. And so we said we were I was told that we were going to visit an aunt in the country, and I had an aunt, and I used to go there. And so we had gone up to the train station, which was in walking distance from our home, and sat on a bench waiting for the train, and it was dark, it was night time, and we were sitting, there were no other people around being a holiday, and the thing I remember so well I was my father started to walk away, I guess to see why the train hadn't come, and I started to call after him, and my mother put her hand over my mouth. Wow. It's not to call attention, and I remember that so clearly. And then when the train came we got on it and went to Holland. Just kept going and you could only stay in Holland for three days and you were emigrating, and if you didn't get out in three days, they sent you back. So fortunately we got out a boat and came to the United States. It took thirty days at sea to get here because of underwater mines, January weather, icebergs, the whole nine yards.
SPEAKER_01Jeez. And and at one point at what point did your parents say that you weren't actually going to see your relative in the country. You were going to another country.
SPEAKER_02You know what? I don't think it ever was spoken. I don't remember it. I just remember we just kept going. I don't know if I thought it we were on vacation or what, but I don't think it was discussed.
SPEAKER_01That's very interesting. So your dad had a lifelong friend in America.
SPEAKER_02Right. It was his high school or his school friend, and they were mischief makers from the stories I heard together. But he, as a young man in the twenties, in the 1920s, decided to um come to America to make his fortune, so to speak, and he did. Ended up being very wealthy, and uh he and my father he arranged everything in the US end for us to come. Otherwise, it would never have happened. So yes because he had a department ready for us, he had a job for my father, and um without that we couldn't have come.
SPEAKER_01Jeez. So your father was born in 1892, your mother in 1897. And you said something to me about how you think of the courage it took for them to close that door to their house.
SPEAKER_02Really, I have thought that so many times in my life because I don't think I could do it. I really don't know that I could do that. And it was a lot of times actually when I leave, I say, Oh, I have such a lovely home, I'm such a nice neighborhood, I can't even imagine if you know, it disappeared. Right. And also the people, the relatives leaving. Yeah, I I'm from a very, very small nuclear family. My father was one of five children, my mother never said how many children were her family, but I knew there were a number of them, but none of them are known to us. But my aunt and uncle and Jeremy never had children, and he had the other two brothers never even married, the fathers brothers. His other sister um had one child. That's our whole family.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02And you and uh everybody left there except my aunt and uncle who stayed and moved into our house. And they were the two who had no children, and they were apothecaries and uh kept uh apothecary in the drugstore going through the whole war.
SPEAKER_01Jeez. So y you had mentioned one time that um w after uh long after you had settled in America, your mother was sometimes asked, Are you going back to Germany? This would be after the war. And and she would answer, Why would I?
SPEAKER_02She'd give them this really look like, Are you kidding? You know, she wouldn't have said that, but it was that kind of look, you know what I mean. Right. And uh no, they bec my parents became totally Americanized, spoke perfect English, were avid readers. My mother had in her bedroom had um a large map of the world. And whenever she heard anything in the news and she didn't know where that place was, she trot off to her bedroom and find it on the map.
SPEAKER_01That's charming. Oh my gosh, she really learned a lot then because there are so many places in the world.
SPEAKER_02And my father saved money. He said he saved money all during the war, but he could, not much because we didn't have much, but to go back to see my aunt and uncle, and they did. They went back um a couple of years after the war ended, and they went back for six weeks and stayed over there, and went back several other times as well over the years.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, it's incredible to me that your family was able to leave Germany at the end of 1939. Your dad was Jewish but not your mom.
SPEAKER_02Right. And she was And that you know, that was why, because um the writing on the wall. Plus, my brother, who was two and a half years older than I, would have had to join Hitler youth in a half a year when he turned eleven.
SPEAKER_01Oh, geez.
SPEAKER_02My father died. He didn't say these words, but it was over my dead body, you know. It was like that's not going to happen.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02There were a lot of things to pressure the move.
SPEAKER_01You and your brother were raised Catholic. That your mom was Catholic all her life, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So And my brother my brother was studying to be a priest. He died when he was twenty-three. He had cerebral hemorrhage and died.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02But he was at Washington University, at Catholic University in Washington, DC, studying to become a priest.
SPEAKER_01My goodness. That's that had to have been a just what a terrible loss that is.
SPEAKER_02Uh my father never quite recovered from that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh my god. So uh that experience uh uh uh um leaving Germany and um not being able to you you know, know even to take something uh valuable for yourself because i you know what well what was most most valuable of course was was your lives all all together. So nothing, no belongings were you know more important than that. Um but that really did shape um how important um photos were to you.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I used to say to my mother, I wish I knew what I looked like when I was little. I don't know why I was important to me, but it was and then after the war when we were able to be in touch with my aunt and uncle again, my aunt did send a few handful of pictures that she just happened to have, you know, and I have them and you know I really treasure them. But uh there was something that has really put the pressure on me, I guess, to for photography. Because I used to tell my children when they were younger, I said, if we have a fire, here's where the photo albums are, grab them.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I thought you can't replace it's something you can't replace. Right, absolutely. And your aunt and uncle did did survive the world.
SPEAKER_02They did, although they almost starved to death. Uh my aunt was four ten or four nine, she was very small, but I used to say she was as wide as she was tall. She was very healthy, shall we say. And um when we got her, they sent us a picture of themselves after the war, and they were skeletons.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_02They were so thin from not having food, and also being pharmacists, they carried cyanide in their pockets in case they had an encounter with the Nazis.
SPEAKER_01My goodness, what a way to live. You know, to be under that heavy threat all the time.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Right, daily. Yeah, and you never knew c knew, you know, when somebody was coming, throw a brick through your window or drag you out. One of the things I noticed the last time I was in Germany was just a few years ago. I went back for a week um just to do nothing but wander the streets and you know, look at all the places I remembered. Yes, and that's Augsburg, is that how you pronounce it? Augsburg, yes. It's it's um near Munich. It's in Bavaria near Munich. And I noticed on a number of places in the street, or on in the sidewalk embedded into the sidewalk, there were um gold plackets, and it said, in this home live so-and-so and so-and-so. They were tore uh c arrested on such and such a date and died in Auschwitz on such and such a date. And you I mean, you're walking around with a grocery bag or something, and all of a sudden you see that, you know, it really makes you stop in your tracks. No kidding. And they're and you think these were just normal people living their ordinary lives, not bothering anybody, and they were just snatched away.
SPEAKER_01Chilling, absolutely chilling.
SPEAKER_02People don't realize that and when they make jokes about the Nazis or they make jokes about the concentration camps, I just cringe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yes, understandable. Five years ago you went on a group tour that traces the Nazis' activities from Berlin to Munich.
SPEAKER_02Would you Yeah, it's I don't know what possessed me to take that, but I was I went by myself, I signed up with this group, and it was such an eye-opener, I can't tell you, Kate, because it just spelled out in we like we went to Nuremberg and we went to all the places where the Nazis hung out and did their plotting, and it ended up in Munich, and that's of course the main town near where we lived. And I went um into a little museum and they had pictures in in the Munich area. At the end I stayed at the end of the tour in my town, and I went to a little museum, and there were pictures of the square in Augsburg surrounded with Nazi flags and pictures of Hitler on his podium, you know. And then when I saw the date on it, it was January, it was something in 1938, and I thought, I was probably home having breakfast in my little house two weeks I mean two blocks away from that. I mean it was such an eye-opener to realize, and of course my parents would have been terrified about that.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02It was just unbelievable, really. It brought so back memories and things I I f thought I'd forgotten, but I oh I remembered we used to sit here and have I used to go with my mother and my aunt to the square on Sunday afternoon and they'd sit there in the summer and have coffee and cake and they would take me along. And so I sat there and I had coffee and cake at the little places where we used to go and things like that. It was a great trip.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness, yes. Um full of uh full of sweet memories and also some eye-opening information. Wow.
SPEAKER_02It was it was very educational and rewarding too, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So you do a lot of traveling and you chronicle your travels, or you ha you did I should say you did a lot of traveling before not in the last couple years, but I've been in every European country, I've been in Russia twice, I've been uh to China, I've been to Tibet, I've been to uh all fifty say state fifty states.
SPEAKER_02Um where else I've been to Hawaii Caribbean Island. I've been to all the Caribbean islands, I've been to Hawaii every island in Hawaii. Uh places there's still places I want to go. My top thing on the bucket list is I want to go to South the South Pacific to Tahiti and Fiji.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, yes.
SPEAKER_02That's where I want to go.
SPEAKER_01Very good. Uh well you went to Hawaii in January 2020. And so at least you s you know you squeezed a a trip a trip to the Hawaiian Islands.
SPEAKER_02Um in March of 2020 I went to Australia and uh a friend and I, and we got there and we were there two days, and then we got on a cruise ship to go all around New Zealand, and we were at sea a day and a half or so, and the captain came on and announced that New Zealand had closed all its ports and that we were going to turn around and go back to Sydney, which we did, and then we had to wait two days to get a flight back to the United States because everybody was getting home. And uh then we had to quarantine when we got home for two weeks, and that was the beginning of it all. So I've been to Australia, but just barely. Oh, that way. I know. Oh, it was a brutal flight.
SPEAKER_01Yes, no kidding, and then you didn't even get to take that tour of the Sydney Opera House that you wanted to go on.
SPEAKER_02We had my friend had arranged um tickets for a tour of the opera house, and she had gotten tickets for us to see Carmen at that opera house, and we had arrangements made to go to the zoo, which is quite a famous zoo. And of course, all of that went down the tubes immediately.
SPEAKER_01Boy, oh boy. So, yes, that was the end of travel for a while, but you have a lot of photos from your journeys. Would you describe some of your favorite photos?
SPEAKER_02Oh, my favorite photos from travel.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I guess one of my favorite ones is is really a funny picture. I think I spoke to you about it before. Um, I was uh waiting outside a church. I'd come out and my friend was uh still inside, and I was just standing there waiting, and this woman came along with a little dog, uh just one of those tiny little pocket dogs, I guess they're called, and she plopped it down on the plaza there in front of the church and was trying to take its picture. And the dog was not cooperating, and it was just jumping around, and so she and she had a big bag on her back, a black bag, and she sat that down and she propped the dog up against the bag and said stage and then she was inching away from him or it backwards, backwards, until she finally thought, quick, and so she sort of bent over in her rear end, sort of sticking up in the air, and she's taking a picture of this dog, and just as she shot the picture of the dog, I shot a picture of her taking a picture of the dog. And that's just one of my favorite pictures because it's so funny.
SPEAKER_01Yes, very amusing. So what's next in your travel plans?
SPEAKER_02Well, I got brave a few weeks ago and I booked my hotel in Hawaii for next January. Okay depending, of course, on many things. Yes. And uh, but I'm hoping to go. And my friend and I have cru have booked a three-week cruise for the end of March next year, again, tentatively, you know, uh for the Caribbean.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna spend three weeks on the beaches in the So you uh you go on well pre-pandemic, you um you and your friend uh cruise go on a cruise every year. So what is it? Sometimes cruise twice.
SPEAKER_02Actually I have been on forty-five cruises. Oh my god. I'm almost ashamed to say that. But in my life I've been on forty-five cruises. What do you like about cruises? I love being on the water. I love it's it's like you can't you're sort of excused from having to do everything you ever have to do because you're on you're not there. You know, you're not on land, nobody can call you back, nobody can send you, could you come and do this thing message? You're you're gone. You're you're literally gone. Uh-huh. I think that's what I like about it. And everything's taken care of. You can eat when you want, you can sleep, you can read, you know, it's like it's a carefree, totally carefree existence. That's lovely.
SPEAKER_01I like that. So then you come back and and then you do some work. Well, of course, on the cruises you t you must take some pictures then too.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. I uh for example, I took a I've taken a picture of an erupting volcano. Oh wow. The deck of a cruise ship. And um n sunsets of course are biggies. And um just a lot of times they take pictures of fun things that we're doing on the ship. We are always taking pictures of each other, you know. Oh, take my picture here, you know, she'll say, or I'll say, Oh take my picture in front of the stair or something. You know, it's just fun stuff. That's good. So then we of course when we're on cruises we get off too, you know, we go to we go to places to see. And um we went through a cruise two years ago to the Baltic and we went to Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Estonia, and we went got off and saw things at all these places. So it's not just riding around in the sea, but it's you know, when you get there you can see something interesting. It's like a hotel on your back, you know?
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. That's for sure. So let's talk about your work just a bit. You used to be a wedding photographer. Why did you I did?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, why did you stop pre-digital, I have to say, because I would s have nightmares before the pictures got printed, make sure they were decent, you know, because I think I had this nightmare that I had to knock on a bride's door and say to her, I'm sorry, I screwed up your pictures. You don't have any wedding pictures. You know, I mean that would go over well, wouldn't it? Yeah. So I just woke up one morning and I had just done that. And I thought, why am I torturing myself like this? I don't have to do this. And I had, I think, one or two at the most planned at that time. I said, when those two are done, no more. And I never did any more.
SPEAKER_01You made up your mind, and that was that.
SPEAKER_02That's good. Very serious. And people, you'd like you I finally got smart, and in my contract, for example, I would say I would photograph the reception for X amount of time, I'd like two hours or whatever. I didn't used to do that. I sometimes I'd there'd be ten people left at the reception, I'd be there till midnight, you know, because I hadn't said I'd go home at a certain time. So stuff like that I learned.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, make things a little bit easier for yourself. But uh you know, the not having the digital um, you know, and not being able to see what you have. Right. Is um very different from the um you know what's happening now for people who are who take photos. Though I guess they could still ruin them in some way. I don't know. I don't know how that would work.
SPEAKER_02At least you see what like if I take a digital picture, I instantly see if it's saving or not, or whatever, you know. But with film, no, you don't even know if you have film in the camera. I was in Austria one time and I had gone to the Olympic site. Uh ski jumpers, you know, they f shoot off the end and look like they're flying, you know, that whatever that's called. And I thought I wanted to see that. So it was a boiling hot day, and I climbed up and I don't like heights. I don't mind going in a plane or enclosed, but I don't like out open heights. But there was this narrow path up the side of this mountain. I mean narrow, one person with their arms tucked in to get up to this ski jump. But I did it and I'm clicking pictures there away, and then I came down and I they had the um the light there from the l light that they light the symbol, you know, for the Olympics, and I'm taking pictures of that, and all of a sudden I thought, I've taken an awful lot of pictures on this role. I was 36 shots. And I thought, I'm gonna shoot a few more, and it was shooting away, and I thought, oh my god, you know. So I opened up the camera and you guessed it, no film. Oh gosh. I was so mad at myself, I literally, literally physically jumped up and down. There wasn't anybody else in. I just was so mad, I was jumping up and down, and then I thought, how could that happen? And I realized what happened. I had finished a roller film and I was walking to the streetcar to go to this Olympic site, and a woman sat next to me on the streetcar and we started chatting. And what I had planned to do was change the film on the streetcar. When I you know, and we got talking, so I got off at my place and started the hike up the mountain. Never gave another thought to the film.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and you got all excited about the great shots you're getting. Yep. But no.
SPEAKER_02I sat there and I thought, do I have it in me to go back up there a second time? And I thought, no, I can't. It was uh first of all, it was so hot and I had gritted my teeth long enough to get up there the first time, but I well I was so mad at myself.
SPEAKER_01I bet. That's funny. So you you enter competitions with your photography, uh including the fine art competition at the Ohio State Fair. So you want to talk about that?
SPEAKER_02That's a biggie.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So it's got something like fifteen hundred entrants every year?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they get that on the average between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred people from all over the state, and it's a jewelry show. Um they have jewelry for professional artists and they have a jurorist for amateurs. And you're allowed to send in as many pictures as you want. There's a price for every picture you send. You can send a hundred if you want to pay that much, but it wouldn't. And I've gotten in every year with one or more. One year I had three in and all three sold. And I have pretty much gotten in. One year I submitted one picture just because I didn't want to break my record, I guess. But it wasn't a good picture and I had no inten hopes that it would get in, and I was right, it didn't. Um but other than that, every time I've entered I've at least one or more.
SPEAKER_01What in your estimation makes a worthy entry in a into a you know for a a fine art competition in photography?
SPEAKER_02Uh well I think the number one thing I thought about that when you asked me that before. The number one thing I think is the picture has to tell a story. Ah. And and I was looking at some of the pictures that I sent you and and Ben, and um every one of those tells a story. I think it does anyway. Maybe somebody else wouldn't, but to me, uh you could look at that and it makes you maybe wonder what was going on or wanting to know more about what's in the picture. Yes.
SPEAKER_01I think that's that's the number one thing, yes. I that's excellent.
SPEAKER_02That's you know, you um there's a b you can have beautiful sunsets and you can have beautiful um skylines and mountains and all that is and they have their value as well. But I think to get into a conf you hardly ever see pictures like that in a competition. Right. You know, just scenery. You just don't at least I haven't noticed that. They're all I look at pictures and they all tell a story.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. So you do fine art photography, you also create functional art. Coasters, cars. My commercial side. Yes. Magnets, notebooks. Please describe some of your pieces.
SPEAKER_02Well, um, I started with just making magnets, little magnets of Louinville scenes for the a local sale that I participate in every year. And then I branched out into note cards, and then um I started making notebooks where I buy a a notebook, you know, and I I photo on it. And uh then I now my biggest thing I've in the last few years is coasters, and I appreciate the fact that you bought one of my coasters.
SPEAKER_01I did, I love the coasters. And that's how we actually met, isn't it? Yes, I met you at the Global Gallery. It's a popular Clintonville coffee house and gallery, and the the uh gallery has these items made locally and around and around the world. It's a very cool place.
SPEAKER_02And I had just popped in, it was flu uh fluke. I had was just popping in to see you how the inventory was going because they sell I sell a lot of those coasters there. And I just pop in several times through the months, you know, to see if I need to replenish anything. And then I do an actual inventory every month at all my stores. Very good. That's how I I just was popping in to see how the coasters were going there. You were standing there with one in your hand.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it was perfect timing. I so enjoyed meeting you. So your work also is available at the State House gift shop in downtown Columbus.
SPEAKER_02Uh the state yeah, high uh high Columbus, of course, is the capital, and they have a lovely gift shop in the State House, and yes, I have merchandise there. Uh there's a store out at Easton Town Center called Celebrate Local, and as the title indicates, that is all stuff made locally, and I sell a lot of there. They have all my things, they have coasters notebooks, cards, uh, magnets, the whole nine yards there. And then I also the cultural arts center down on the riverfront is a jewel Columbus and one of the best kept secrets in my opinion. Uh it's uh place where artists can take classes and they have two galleries. They have a main gallery, and they have a loft gallery, which is on the third floor. And uh they have a lovely gift shop there, and I have things in that and I've had three or four exhibits over the years up on the loft gallery. So uh that's and then there's one other one. Oh yes, the golden hobby shop, which is uh downtown also. Uh it's right behind uh the topiary garden if anybody goes there. And this is all for people 50 and over.
SPEAKER_01That's the golden. Yeah, that's the golden very good. Well, Inga, you obviously take great joy in capturity and the world through your work. So excuse the play on words, but could you ever picture yourself not taking photographs?
SPEAKER_02I learned a lesson about that. Uh it was after I have some friends in the both of whom have died. Uh, but we used to travel together for three weeks in September every year for about 12 years, we did that. And covered many, many places. And I came back from that trip one time. And this was when I was still having carrying all the lenses around and you know, the big bag of camera stuff. And I was tired of carrying that, and I just ha it just happened I had something going on immediately the weekend following that. So I thought, I'm not gonna take my camera today. I'm tired of carrying this camera around. I almost went crazy that weekend. I couldn't think about anything but that I saw this and I couldn't take a picture of it. I saw that and I couldn't take a picture of it. I said, I'm never doing that again. I could be without the camera. So I think that answers your question.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it absolutely does answer it. Where was this that you were uh waiv I mean, I'm surprised you didn't go buy a camera.
SPEAKER_02I uh you know what? I came right right close to it.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02I was uh with I was invited up by a friend of mine had at that time. She had a a cabin up on the lakes in Johnson. That's where I went. Could you ever think of a better place to take pictures of that one?
SPEAKER_01No kidding.
SPEAKER_02I was just tired and I would just didn't I don't know, it's the only time I've ever done that and I was so sorry.
SPEAKER_01Well that was uh again in the days before digital, when everything's lighter and when with all those heavy lenses and you have to carry bags. Okay. Yeah. So now you you have a lot less of a load to take with you. And you'll never leave home without it again.
SPEAKER_02No, I just even if you don't take a picture, you know you would, you know. Sure.
SPEAKER_01Uh and you probably your your best pictures when they're kind of a surprise.
SPEAKER_02Right, exactly. I did a presentation uh for the Cultural Arts Center a coup uh a month or two ago, and I they asked me to do a photo thing, and I thought, well, I have to have a theme or something. I can't just say, Well, here's this and then here's that. People go to sleep in ten minutes, you know. So I groped grouped it together and I put I had one category called Lucky Shots. Like that woman with the dog, for example, was in that category.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02And then I had another one of um Lucky Shots um photos of interest to me. And then I had my favorites, and they had no there was no criteria for that. This is the picture I like. It's a picture of my grandson when he was ten months old sitting at the piano. You know, just whatever pictures I liked. And it was a huge success, and I've gotten two more presentations out of that. Oh, that's wonderful. I've done the second one. The other one was supposed to be tomorrow night, but they're putting it on hold now because of it being inside with about fifty people, so they're gonna but I'll be doing that.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Well, maybe not until next spring or something. Yeah, or maybe you know. It's you know, it's hard to say what's going on, you know, what will happen. But anyway, Inga, I thank you so much for being on the show.
SPEAKER_02You have a moment for me to just give you one little quote. Sure. Uh, this friend of mine sent me this, and she said, This is for you. And it says, We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone. Oh. Doesn't that say it all? It does. That's beautiful. Oh, that's that sums up everything I said in one sentence.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for sharing that. This is Kate Jones. We'll be right back with more articles.
Artful Living with Theresa Wells Stifel
SPEAKER_01This is Kate again having a conversation with Teresa Wells Difle, the proprietor of Stifle and Capra, an online shop that sells art and vintage accessories, jewelry, and home items. The name of the business is a nod to its wonderful life director, Frank Capra. Teresa's tagline is, quote, Art and Ornament for your wonderful life, unquote, which speaks to her twofold mission, to assist other artists in selling their beautiful work and to help her customers lead wonderful lives by selling them delightful things. I know from experience that those delightful things are delivered with great customer service. Everything I've purchased from Stifle and Capra arrived quickly and was carefully and lovingly wrapped. By the way, this is not a paid ad. I just really enjoyed my experience shopping at Teresa's store, and I wanted to find out more about her. So I reached out to her. And this segment that I recorded with Teresa starts out with Teresa having left her longtime business career. She happened to be, this is amazing for an artist, I think, she was a headhunter for 20 years. But she left this business to become a full-time artist. We'll join the conversation, which took place in July 2021, with Teresa talking about her strong, belligerent women's series. That's her description for it. She created that series with acrylic paints and vintage ephemera, the little things of life, you know, like um uh concert tickets and stuff like that. So, anyway, in this segment, she begins with what prompted her to do the strong, belligerent women's series.
SPEAKER_00What I noticed between looking at vintage and antique uh magazines and uh paperwork and even books, there was a lot of emphasis on a lot of the same things that you see in modern publications, you know, how to be prettier or how to be in shape. And it struck me that for 200 years we've been getting the same messaging. And so I did a series of female paintings that were all very strong personalities and strong women, but they had all these messages incorporated into the artworks themselves. So if you look closely into the paintings, you can see snippets of these antique exhortations on how to be more wonderful.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness. It went to one of the messages was to women 200 years ago, hide your ugly feet.
SPEAKER_00Oh yes. Hide your ugly feet, have a you know tinier waist, don't forget to be lovely inside and out.
SPEAKER_01Right. And none of that advice for men, right? Exactly. So when did you begin thinking of changing careers?
SPEAKER_00Well, one of the things I noticed as a creative was that most artists are absolutely horrific business people. And coming from a business background, it dawned on me that this was something I could do to help my fellow creatives. Um my old neighborhood in Northern Virginia, I had a half a dozen neighbors that were artists, and none of them really were cognizant of how to market themselves or how to run a business. So as a sort of a win-win, I arranged local art shows and coffee shops. Um, and then we were received so well that I decided to open up a small gallery and sold my art, my friend's art. You know, you could call it selfish altruism if you would, but it's a lot easier for me to sell like us than it was to sell just me.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_00And then the gallery grew and we moved into a larger space, and we had this wonderful mix of local artists and vintage goodies and um a rotating cast of visiting artists and craftspeople from all over the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that sounds wonderful. And this was in Falls Church?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it was in Falls Church, Virginia.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And so um how long were you open?
SPEAKER_00Well, we opened the doors of the gallery in 2007, and we started out with a tiny store, it was only 700 square feet, and then we moved in a bigger space down the road. It was a wonderful space right in the center of town on Main Street. It was a two-story Victorian, and we were there for almost 10 years. Um we had a rough season when there was a bunch of construction going on in the neighborhood. It kind of flattened out the store sales, and then my uh landlord decided that uh he was gonna raise the rent by 30%.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So this was around uh two was it 2017 or so?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's about five years ago.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And that just, you know, that just was the beginning of the end of that retail space.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So you decided to close. There was an upside to that, however. What was it?
SPEAKER_00Well, the business closing turned out to be a good thing in many ways. Um we shut down that retail location. We ended up opening an auxiliary retail location um out in Delaware that was received quite well. And my husband and I came across our dream house down in coastal Virginia. So we decided to make the big move and move out of the area that we'd lived in for 25 years. And so the the thought of moving the shop and the house at the same time was a little scary. So we were pretty pleased that it happened in stages, and then that gave me more time to work on my own personal art, and I could still, you know, have the public exposure and ability to sell by doing pop-ups and craft shows and things like that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's great. I love how things come together when it's the right time in one's life. Indeed. Wonderful. So your site is stifleandcapra.com. Would you describe some of what's on there right now?
SPEAKER_00Well, it is definitely an eclectic mix. There is uh housewares, barware, uh vintage clothing, vintage jewelry, uh my art, um mixed media and collage work, just kind of a nice mix of things that you would use to either decorate your house or yourself.
SPEAKER_01That's great. And where do you find these treasures that you you sell online?
SPEAKER_00I do uh corporate buys, like if someone is cleaning out a house, they might call me and say, hey, I know you're interested in these types of things. Things, would you like to come and take a peek at them? Um, a lot of people that are in the vintage business do a lot of estate sale shopping. That's not really my forte. I love to go through little crusty um thrift shops and um flea markets and things like that and just find the proverbial uh needle in the haystack. I think I told you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, there is one you told me about that you you are not putting up for sale, but yeah, please talk about that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it was really fun. I was in a store one day and there was a um a laundry basket full of like baseball caps and it said all hats one dollar. And I reached in and pulled out this quite chic Parisian feather-covered pillbox that dated from the 60s. And when I looked on the inside, there was a uh Parisian atelier uh hand label in there, and you know what? I still wear that one myself. And I'll never give that one up.
SPEAKER_01No, it's a work of art, isn't it? It is indeed. So your inventory on your site brings up a question. What does it mean when items are described as retro, vintage, or antique?
SPEAKER_00Well, most people know that an antique is something that's a hundred years old. Um, and what they may not know, because people tend to overuse the word vintage today, is a vintage is classified as something that's 50 years old. And that makes a retro 25 years old, which terrifying makes retro 1996 and that is terrifying, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yes. No, that's another one. That was a that was like you know, a week ago.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Um, you have always had an online presence, even when you had the physical space. Yes, ma'am. Where are your customers anyway?
SPEAKER_00Well, they are all over the world. It's really fun that the internet kind of brings everyone together. I've shipped to Australia, I've shipped to Russia, I've shipped to Canada and South America, I've shipped to Europe. Um, I was very amused the first couple times I actually shipped to China as we buy so much from China. So that was a special um amusement for me.
SPEAKER_01And and the item wasn't made in China to begin with. It was not. Wouldn't that be kind of strange?
SPEAKER_00It would be funny. I actually used to have a young lady that um would come into my store and buy vintage clothing from me and take it back to China and sell it because it was apparently very trendy to have mid-century American fashion in certain parts of China now.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's very interesting. Well, I mentioned before your great customer service. Why is providing great customer service important to you?
SPEAKER_00Well, mostly because I'm not happy when I don't get it myself. But secondly, I do think it's the cherry on top when you buy something from someone to have it um be presented in a pleasant and complete way.
SPEAKER_01And it doesn't take a whole lot extra to do that. Does it yeah, just a little bit of thought more than anything, probably.
SPEAKER_00Well, and you know, my my studio is full of um vintage goodies, so it's very easy for me to embellish a package with a vintage ribbon or uh vintage twine, and it just makes unwrapping the the box that much more fun.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. That's what delighted me so much, and I also appreciate the little notes you put in and you know, some and I just I I think that personal touch is so important. So anyway, you also do commission work. So would you talk about that?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Um a lot of what goes into my artwork is as I mentioned before, is scraps and ephemera. And um, what's really fun when I can do commissioned art pieces for clients is when they give me their own personal ephemera, and then I can incorporate it into a piece of art for them. Uh Riesa commission I did was for a couple uh as an anniversary gift. They traveled the world for 30 years and she'd given me um photos and brochures and scraps and tickets and all kinds of things, and then I incorporated those into the layers of a mixed media abstract piece.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that sounds wonderful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that was very exciting.
SPEAKER_01And what else have you have you done that for yourself as well?
SPEAKER_00I occasionally I'll do pieces for family members and use their personal ephemera. Um, I sporadically do a self-portrait on my birthday.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And if I do that, then I try to use um pieces of things that have happened over the years and incorporate that into the piece as sort of a scrapbook.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's that's a great way to have a scrapbook. Yes. It's not they're not they're not all tucked into, you know, all these important things that you wanted to keep aren't all, you know, stowed away in some box or something.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And one of the things I learned from running the shop uh for so many years is that we would get pieces from people and they'd say, Oh, here's the good crystal, here's the good linen, here's the good hat. And they were in perfect condition because they were never used. And then that person is no more, and their things are there and they're pristine. And I would rather use the items, you know, even if you break a glass or even if you get a spot on the tablecloth, because that's just evidence of a life well lived, and the fact that you were having fun while you were doing it.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I think that is hugely important in life, you know, to to use things and to and use things you love and to surround yourself with them and um and not save them for other people. Because, you know, why not use it other use them on a regular basis? Oh, absolutely. So, overall, Teresa, what's your motivation for doing what you do?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, when I had the gallery, it was really to help people um find their audience and recognize the fact that they had talent and then there was a venue for them to show it to the world and find customers. When I was a headhunter, it was all about making those connections to help find someone else find their next step. And even now, when I do my custom work, it's to help people recognize that they deserve their own story in their home, and that it's important to surround yourself, like we said before, with items that make you happy and that will give you pleasure when you look on them. I mean, there's so much negative, you know, vibrations in the world today. It's just super important to help someone be positive and create a happier and um more comfortable lives for themselves.
SPEAKER_01That's just beautiful. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for making that your life's work now. And it really has been all along, but now you're doing it with beautiful things. It's a wonderful life. It is a wonderful life. Teresa, it's a pleasure talking with you. Thank you for sharing stories and your enthusiasm for what you do. Look for stifle and capra.com. Uh listeners can also find Teresa on Etsy by searching for Teresa Well Stifle by name. That's S-T-I-F-E-L. This is Kate Jones with the Gail Hill Radio Hour. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Please remember to subscribe, like, and share. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you.
