The Mama Judy and Jill Podcast
Welcome to the place where we, Mama Judy (bonus mom) and Jill (bonus daughter), have conversations all about art and the creative process.
We chat about finding inspiration for artistic expression, conquering the hurdles that hinder creativity, and empowering the creative spirit.
Along the way, we share techniques, tips, and stories from our experiences with fiber arts, mixed media, hand stitching, painting, and MORE!
Our goal is for you, our listener, to walk away inspired to create (whatever creating looks like to you).
Whether a seasoned artist or someone just starting out, we look forward to you tuning into the podcast each week.
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The Mama Judy and Jill Podcast
Episode 24: Art, Instagram, and Inspiration: A Chat with Miniature Book Artist Wanda Katz
Wanda Katz creates the most magical miniature books. She's relatively new as an artist, exercising her creative aptitude daily in her wonderful studio in the UK, after an early retirement of translating for the United Nations (she's fluent in Italian!) at the age of 50.
Wanda has always had an aesthetic eye, but to call herself an "artist" may have felt like a stretch until she began creating art in book form.
Tune in to learn about Wanda's journey from a young girl who loved books to the artist that she is today. We also uncover how Wanda grew an adoring audience quite quickly on Instagram, and all that inspires her as an artist.
Click here to check some of Wanda's beautiful work on Instagram.
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Oh good, you made it. We are so glad you're here. Welcome to the Mama Judy and Jill podcast, an intergenerational chat about life, art and the creative process. I'm your host, jill, and joining me is my wonderful co-host and bonus mom, mama Judy. Let's get started. Welcome back. Today. We have a really exciting guest with us. Her name is once, and I'm going to let her introduce herself in a moment here. But first of all, the topic that we're talking about today is a little bit around social media and using social media as a creative. So that is where we've asked Wanda to come on and speak her experience and all that. But first of all, welcome, wanda, thank you. Thank you for coming and just give us, give our audience, a little idea about where you live, what you do, both creatively as well as if you have an outside job, and just tell us a little bit about your Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I live. Well, I say, at the moment. I've lived in Bath for nearly 10 years. It's a Georgian city in Somerset, an hour and a half from London. But I hail from London originally, so I live here in a little Georgian house overlooking the city of Bath. I see the abbey out of my window and it's a wonderful setup in my studio space and I work pretty much full time as an artist. Can't believe I'm actually saying that, but yes, I would say it's a full time endeavour really. I was lucky to take early retirement, which allows freed up time for me to pursue what is actually quite a new avenue for me. I'm not an I can't sort of give you a story about. Oh, I've been. I came out of the room with a paintbrush in my hand, or glue or a paint box. I came to this creative side of myself actually very, very only in the last year and a half.
Speaker 3:Wow very good. Excellent story.
Speaker 1:Well, and tell me also so you're now professionally like this is what you do as an artist, and so what does that look like? Do people commission you or do you sell things on Etsy or like how does that I?
Speaker 2:could sell a lot. But I'm one of Do you know what? I find it actually really hard to part with things, and I think it's because they're one-offs. I thought that I'd lost a book that I was very fond of and I was so upset the fact that I thought I'd lost it, that and then I was reunited with it. That kind of made me feel like I'm actually not very good at selling anything, but that I mean, if I did, I think that there would be some demand. Because I'm again on social media, I get asked quite often do you sell your work? Will you sell me this book? Could you? Can I commission? So I do get asked that a lot.
Speaker 3:And you know, wanda, that'll come, maybe and maybe not. It'll come when the time is right. And you know what, keep them. If you want to have them buried with you, who cares? It's really about what you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a very it's an odd thing because I, oh, I did a giveaway, though on social media I did, and that was wonderful. I actually really enjoyed that. So I think I'd rather give them away than sort of sell them. You know, I like to do giveaways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wanda on social media is Paper Palace Queen Paper Palace Queen. You can find her on Instagram. If you're not already following her, probably a lot of our listeners are already following you, but tell anyone that's listening. What type of art do you do?
Speaker 2:Well, how did it come about? It's really strange. Well, what I do now is I predominantly work in book form. That's where my passion lies and that stems back to early childhood of having a love all of my life of books, of reading, of handling the object. I was utterly fascinated with that. So it's not a surprise to me that my work takes that form At the moment. It's still quite traditional in a book format, but I am looking at ways of trying to expand under the umbrella of book and what I can produce creatively. So it's. I mean, I'm still a young artist. I mean I'm not young, young, but as far as my artistic side is concerned, it came about through social media. Isn't that extraordinary? I mean, that's how it came about.
Speaker 3:Wow, yeah, okay. So, wanda, I got started in social media way back when I was doing jewelry, and it was Jill that got me started, because I'd never done anything like that. Put yourself out like that. So I'm very curious how you came about, how your art came about through social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, it was in the evenings, you know, trying to find something to relax the last half an hour before you go to sleep, and I would find myself watching. It wasn't Instagram then it was YouTube, and I would kind of watch these videos of people kind of creating not the type of work that I do, because I wasn't seeing that on YouTube, but just playing around with collage, you know, watching people do collage or art videos in general, and I was just happy to watch them for quite some time. It didn't go over to the fact, oh, I must give that a go, because up until that point I never thought I I've got an ascetic eye, I've always had that. But I'm always asked all my life are you an artist? It's the first thing people ask. I think it's the way I dress, the way I look, I don't know. And I would turn around and say to them oh, I can't draw. No, I'm not an artist.
Speaker 2:And I was limiting, limiting art to not being able to paint or draw, or really kind of narrow really. And so I would say, no, I'm not. So it's yeah. I mean, if it wasn't for YouTube or social media, I wouldn't. When I got onto Instagram, that completely blew my mind.
Speaker 1:So what was your, your first post? What made you make that very Well?
Speaker 2:I was. I had been creating every day for about eight, six to eight months before I I never occurred to me to put my work on Instagram at all. I had no social media presence. I don't have Facebook. I mean, I've asked all the time do I have a YouTube channel? I don't have a YouTube channel at the moment and it was family members who saw my work and said you know, why don't you, why don't you put this on Instagram? And when they, they kind of sold it to me on the idea that actually it can be a digital archive, and it's absolutely true that.
Speaker 2:But I must stress that for me, a digital archive is wonderful, but it will never, ever for me, take the place of the original object for me. So it but it's wonderful to look, scroll through your feed and, wow, do I like certain colors? And it's blatantly obvious when I, when I look through and I you know you're not going to see shocking baby pink anywhere soon, no, you know. Or yellow, I mean, it's all very it's, it's where I'm, I'm, I'm just drawn to certain colors. So that's interesting. But I think it's wonderful as a, as an archive. I think that's one of the benefits.
Speaker 2:There are many benefits to Instagram, actually, but I think that that is a good one, so you can have your things there for all time. So God forbid if you lose something but it. For me it's not quite the same as seeing. I don't think it ever is. I think it's maybe, and I have to say that sometimes when I post something, I post the most what I think is the most wonderful thing. It's probably one of my favorites and it doesn't translate. Sometimes a work just doesn't translate to the audience on 2D yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, I'll tell you what I love Like today, the posts that you had out there. The little itty bitty one. What are they? Like? An inch and a half by two, my God, how do you even see those to be able to?
Speaker 2:make. I always work in miniature. I mean, six by four is humongous for me, really. That's. That's quite. Anything bigger than seven by five would be pretty. I have done books at seven by five, but my, there's something about even though they're so small, they're almost dual, like they're almost. Oh, you know, I find the layering techniques much easier for me when they're smaller they are.
Speaker 3:You do a great job of layering Wanda. For anybody listening or even watching, I highly recommend that they follow. I mean, your work is wonderful, your story is wonderful. In fact, your story is touched upon two or three things that in the past we've talked about how you get to become an artist, how you accidentally fall into it. And I have to say I don't know anyone I follow who uses Instagram to the extent that you do Really.
Speaker 2:Well, you use. Oh, I think the problem is I've set myself up for a bit of a. I post daily and the problem with that is that it's a. You know, if I don't I mean I have so much work that I could put on, you know, I'm three or four or five books in advance of what I'm putting on. So it's not as if what you see today is what I've created right at this minute. So I'm not sort of stuck for things to put on. But you know, I do post once a day. I do stories a lot. But yes, you're right, I do post once a day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well then you Well, you use live You've gone live before you use reels you use stories, you make comments in the direct messaging area. So I mean, you really do use Instagram, work it To the fullest.
Speaker 2:I do, but you know what? There are so many artists that I love that actually, I mean, I don't really get involved in any editing techniques or anything like that, so there's a lot that I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, number one. I think that's great because sometimes when you get into the editing, that's just going to take up more time and sometimes that can be more stressful for a person. But, wanda, I was going to say when Mama Judy was saying how intentional you are about posting and you post every day and you do these different things. One thing you mentioned was that you're not posting what you're working on that time, which I think a lot of artists do. But I work my paid job is for a company that does a lot of digital marketing and online marketing and social media and that sort of thing, so I know what it looks like for people to do it right, and I don't do it right on my own art account because this is more fun for me.
Speaker 1:But one thing that you said that's very helpful for an artist if they did want to be more prolific or just to be able to post more is to use things that you've created in the past, so that you're not feeling that stress of I have to post something. Today. I committed to myself that I want to post. I have to have something. You're in this place where you can just post things that you already have, so it makes it easier on you, naturally, because when you start feeling like it's this big chore to be posting and have to create something for that intention it makes. Yeah, that would be too much.
Speaker 2:I would say that everything I post I love. I would never put anything on for the sake of putting it on. Everything I put on, there's a lot I don't put on because it hasn't quite reached what I, for me, my. If I'm happy with it, then it goes on. So I tell back things and, for example, I think about a week ago I put on a book which has done incredibly well and I sat on it for months because I thought you know what? No, no, no, it just doesn't feel right for me, but I would urge everyone to.
Speaker 2:I think Instagram is one of its pluses. Any negatives that there are out there are far outweighed by the positives, for me for sure. I think initially, at the very early stages of Instagram, I was very hooked on going on a lot and checking how many likes or what was going on and all of that. I mean I don't really do that now, although occasionally I note. I mean, if your audience doesn't like it, you know the likes go down. I mean there's no doubt about that and it always happens on the work. That, I think, is the best. So that's kind of interesting Well but there's also the algorithm.
Speaker 2:There's also an algorithm.
Speaker 1:We can't help and that could be something that just did not appear in people's feeds and you can't help it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the community aspect. I mean I'm in touch with a wonderful artist in Australia. We speak once a week. There's somebody in Germany who I love, so I mean that side has been absolutely amazing. I never thought at all that there would be this sort of back. And the comments I mean the comments are just so wonderful that people take. I mean I'm just so surprised that people take the time to look at your work and then comment on it as well, and some of the comments are just not that I'm trying to beef myself up, but some of the comments are just just really wonderful how they find my work inspirational. Because I'm looking.
Speaker 2:If you, for example, are having a day when you just have no ideas and you just go to your desk and you say, oh, that's just nothing, it's working, I mean all I need to do is go to turn on Instagram and look at maybe some artists I'm following and I'm completely, and then I'm inundating. My mind is just too much, it's gone, it goes the other way. So it's like having your own. It's like going to an art gallery, actually, and you have your own art gallery as well if you want to post. So it's two way street.
Speaker 3:I think it's wonderful. It's a great description.
Speaker 1:It is, and do you all both have? You know how you can save posts. I have like an inspiration file that just certain things that really get to me. I'll, you know, save it and sometimes I will just go back and scroll through those just to get some inspiration on something I'm working on. Do you also do that one day?
Speaker 2:I don't have a specific place where I put them all. I mean I there are certain artists that I follow and and look at their work. I mean there's lots of artists that I love. It's not what I do, but I absolutely love what they do as well, but I know there's so much, there's so much inspiration out there. I mean that the net.
Speaker 2:When I say the negative side of social media, I think it's more. It's not from other people, it's, it's how it's. I think you have to let go of having an expectation of. I think, as long as you're happy with what you've put up and and it's, then you just have to let it go out in the world and if it doesn't get many likes, that's absolutely fine as well. So it's. I think in the early days, I was always a little bit or maybe I'm not, as you know, it's not going but I've given all of that up. Now it's more about. I mean this is an interesting question and I'm not going to say the artists who actually said this to me, but we were talking about the creating and putting posts up and and I said well, if you Didn't post on Instagram, would you still create? I mean, would you still and she actually said no, hmm. So so I think it's I mean, maybe some people, it's the Instagram side, maybe more important.
Speaker 1:Accountable. Is that why she said I wouldn't, because I just wouldn't make time for it? Or is it that she? No, it's just more.
Speaker 2:I think it's it's become quite a large part of where, for me, it's I, I mean, I was creating before Instagram, so I would just carry on. You're creating, you know I I mean, if I don't come into the studio on a daily basis, I I feel a little bit you know, I'm not always happy with what I'm doing here, but I have to come in here.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, no, totally understand. Yeah, and I'm with you. You know it wouldn't. I was creating years before there was even Etsy. So I Look at Instagram and social media. I get excited when I do something that I really like, and it's like a little child that you know makes that drawing in the first grade and they want to take it home and share it with everybody because they're so excited about it. That's the way I've always looked at Instagram is just the way to share Whatever. It is good, bad, nuggly.
Speaker 1:Well, and also for you, Mama Judy, while it's not your full-time thing, but you do like to release your things out into the world, and so you have an Etsy store. So that's a little bit different, but it does help on social media because you'll put up something for sale in Etsy and it's sold in an hour or half an hour or whatever I mean a lot of times. So that is a benefit for artists that do want to release their things out into the world, to have that as a Platform where people like people are asking Wanda, when can I get one of your pieces? So the minute you're ready to do that, if you wanted to, that you know your community is right there, ready to be your customers. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, I think.
Speaker 2:I have to get on a different type of hat, because it's a really odd thing. I just some reason I can't seem to let them go. But I, you know, I do like doing the giveaways. I've thought that was such fun, so I'll probably do another one of those.
Speaker 3:Well, and and that's a way of letting one go, wanda and the rest I just happen to have a different viewpoint. When I make something, I get excited For it to find who it belongs to, and I literally even when I did my jewelry that's the way I looked at it was there's somebody I'm creating this for, and so by doing that, I think I only have two of my early journals that I kept, wow, and I look at them periodically and go, oh, are they ready to find a new home? And they always tell me no. So those two will probably stay with me and they're nothing special. I think it was just where I was at the time that I was communicating through my art, and so I was communicating for myself. Now I just put another one out that I finished, and so I can move on, wanda, to one that has our Brungie colors.
Speaker 1:I got rid of the.
Speaker 3:Wanda and I like the same face colors.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I mean. The thing is, though, I need to find a cabinet to house all of these books. This is the other thing. I mean they do take up, I mean, even though they're tiny. I mean, you know, and the thing is that You're right, I mean, once I finished a book, I I have moved on. So, you know and I, they just pile up. For me it is about the process, it's not the end.
Speaker 2:I mean it's all about the process and the space within. You know how that comes about. So once they're finished, I do look at them occasionally, but not really Very often. But yeah, maybe I'll have to have a little think about Letting letting some go I'll see how, see how it goes. I mean, it's all about the process. I have such fun Creating them I really do and just exploring.
Speaker 2:You know and it's like an every artist. I mean, I can't believe I actually say I'm an artist. Now, you know it's such a kind of thing because it's telling you all of this. I've only been on Instagram, let's not forget since January.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of this year, yeah, wow. I do have a couple of specific questions to Instagram, but I also wanted it. It would be kind of neat if you ever wanted to have a show of your books, like you know, if it's locally or even if you did it online. When I know me, I am, I am, oh, you are tell us about it.
Speaker 2:Well, I was invited by the. Well, actually, you know, I think this is more. I'm actually so chuffed about this because it's better that for me it's better than a gallery. They're going to give me some display cases in the public library because for me, that's actually my love of books stemmed as a child, you know, going into the little children's section of my local library and so to have my books on display in various ways, in display cabinets, because they're so tiny, in a public library where you know you're going to get more foot, for you're going to get more people looking at them for a start, and in a kind of a gallery setting where maybe a lot of people feel that's kind of environments not for them anyway. So I mean, I'm just so chuffed about that. I'm just so chuffed about that that's happening next year.
Speaker 1:Oh good, and I hope you'll share that on social media, because that will be fun.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's fun how that goes out.
Speaker 3:Yes, and you know, I'll bet Wanda that if you took a picture of where your little books are housed right now, just that picture of all your little books would be a piece of art.
Speaker 1:You know, they're all just stacked together.
Speaker 2:That does help yeah well, I did put on. I did put a post up showing, I think, nine or 10 in a frame in close up, but you're absolutely oh, yeah, if I piled them all up. I think I've done that several times. I think I have done that. But yeah, I mean, I can always do it. Yeah, I love layers, layers and layers and layers.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, speaking of layers, I have a question about your tools. So, because you work currently in such small pieces, do you have like tweezer type tools or do you just I'm actually holding them, I'm actually holding them. It's just bog standard tweezers. Okay, wow, with a small like that, and are you using those for a lot of what you're doing, those tweezers?
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, I used to use a different type. I prefer these. I don't know where the idea of working so small came about. I have no idea. It just seems to be what I like.
Speaker 3:You know the other thing about Instagram, one that, when you were talking about it being like an archive, it'll also show you the progression in your art as you.
Speaker 2:That's embarrassing, yeah, well, you know, no, well, actually I say that you know what. There was a really famous writer, an American writer, and she writes a novel every 10 years. She's really well known, very petite little birdlike woman. Anyway, she writes a book every 10 years and she was saying that when in her latest novel she wrote about 50,000 words and realized that they were all a mistake. But in order for her to get the book out, what she wanted to get out, she had to write those 50,000 words. So they weren't a mistake, they just didn't end up in the finished piece.
Speaker 2:So when I look at my old work, my very old work, I mean, and I look at it now it's so far removed from even though it's not that long ago. It's so far removed from how I am now. But then I think, well, actually, if it wasn't for that type of work, I wouldn't have been able to progress to where I am now. That's for sure. That's part of their process. Yeah, but I have thought that some of the older posts, I'm not sure how I feel about them anymore really.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel I hope, like me, speaking from my perspective, I'm like I hope those little pieces are honored for those images, because they were like the baby artist of you is coming out, and so I just feel like they have a place of honor, even if you look at them, though, and you're like, ooh, I don't like that anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of artists I mean even I'm sure even Rembrandt didn't like his sketches there was no, I mean I think a lot of artists that they did kind of their early work, they think, ooh, I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, what does your Instagram? What are you? So? You said you post daily. So what does that look like for you? Do you spend like morning time or is it kind of all over the place? Are you more organized about it and do it within an hour? No, I do it first thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, lying in bed when I get up first thing, I know what I'm gonna put on, because I've decided the night before.
Speaker 2:And so I don't want to sort of, you know, early in the morning, think about what I'm gonna put on. I know what I'm putting on and you know there's a little thought process about, oh, should I go this? You know that kind of thing, should I? Would it be better to have it like this? Like the questions I might ask are oh well, that one's a little bit like the one I've just posted the day before. Shall I change it? I mean those kinds of things maybe think about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the night before do you usually only have just the next days, or do you sometimes jot down three or four days in a row? Or are you waking up? No, no, no.
Speaker 2:I mean, sometimes I've been working on something and I'm super excited that I'll actually post that the following day because I love it so much. I don't want to wait. You know not in the queuing system, but I mean it depends what I'm. I mean I've got different styles going on at the moment, so I kind of do a couple of one and then I might do, you know, a couple of the botanical type books, but the one consistency is the color for sure. And the grungy, the grungy, you know, look.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the grungy I mean. I sometimes say to friends oh, I put my books on the back of the car and drive it and just let them dangle on the road. That's the kind of looking for.
Speaker 3:I might try that. Yeah, that's a good idea Run over it for a two or three times.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I'm sure someone's done it, I'm sure they have, you know. But Instagram I mean, even for courses. I remember in one of your older podcasts you mentioned that you've signed up for courses that you actually haven't got round to doing them. But I think that I've done some wonderful courses that have been truly inspiring. And I don't act on them immediately though I don't work like that it goes in and it festers and I think oh, oh, and there's a lot of collating. You know you've got to put things together, so it's, I do love watching them. So on Instagram, you know there's lots of artists who do courses, and so I think Instagram social media is great for artists. I'm trying to think of other, any negatives?
Speaker 3:I you know.
Speaker 2:The only negative that I could think of Wanda is, like you said, if it becomes something that people are more concerned with the outcome, then it can that can be a little bit of a negative, yeah, in my opinion because you change what you do, because if you the thing is, if you have an audience in mind, you're, you know you're, maybe you know you're thinking about pleasing them or they love this, so, oh, I'm going to do more of that Because that's so popular, then that just wouldn't work for me. I mean, I just I do what I do and I post what I post and I'm so grateful that people seem to like it. You know, I never thought that, I never thought I'd have 2000 followers in 10 months, nine months. That never even entered my head, I mean.
Speaker 1:Extraordinary, really. And not only followers, but you have a very engaged following. That's more important than anything.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I do. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right, I do.
Speaker 1:Because I've seen people that have 100,000 following and they don't have as many comments as you do, or even Mama Judy does Sometimes. You both have Mama Judy also as a very engaged audience. But I think you being consistent, your work being so beautiful to look at and the words that you pair up with what you say like all of that together, I know, is helping to push your thing out in the algorithm. I think consistency is a big thing, even if you say you post every day. But even if someone just decides three days a week, I'm going to post to keep consistent. I've heard anyway that the algorithm is going to be that consistent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, consistency is key, maybe consistency is key, but yeah, I mean I'm just so blown away by some of the comments. I mean I remember very briefly, I put this on this was a little box that I produced with little in honor of my grandfather and I put these attribute cards and the comments I got. I must have got 50, 60 comments I don't know how many sort of saying how wonderful that they thought the idea was and they even spoke about my grandfather and I gave some background of my grandfather. I was really moved by that, that people actually took the time not just to look at, you know, because people do. I mean they read what you say. You know when you write they are actually reading it as well, because I often get comments, you know. Oh, and sometimes I hide what I do. Sometimes I like to hide things in my post and I've got some followers who actually like to try and find what I've hidden.
Speaker 1:Oh great, I'm excited to start looking for these things. Okay, do you want to give any hints as to what you're hiding, or is that just for whoever wants to go take a look to figure it out for themselves?
Speaker 2:Well, it just depends on each. In each book I kind of made, I may hide a little rusty safety pin that's just kind of peeking out, or a little face, or I'm obsessed with circles. I always have been obsessed with circles, so there's always a lot of circles and they're a great blaring technique. So I use a lot of circles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, so curious, and you've kind of said some of this as we've got along. But what would you say if someone's listening and they're looking to you and they're saying, okay, I'll try to be consistent. Content is obviously the work that you put out there. If someone doesn't have good content or if they're not spending any time at least putting some sort of thought out there or something, people may not be drawn to them. But are there any other suggestions you would say to someone who is saying, okay, how can I get an engaged following like you have?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you I mean, yeah, you don't have to post every day, for sure, but also be engaged with your followers. I always actually more recently now I actually generally thank everyone who send them a little thank you, because I think, it's just wonderful that they take the time to actually, you know, send a comment.
Speaker 2:So I always sort of say thank you, or if they've asked a question I reply to it. But just I would sort of say, try it, you know, but then don't sort of. It can't be the be all and end all. You know. You've just got to do what you want to do and not be. If you're kind of an artist who's just starting and you're not sure about your work, you know you can't please everybody. So I think what's really important is that you, what you're putting on you're happy with, first and foremost, and if others like it too, you know, that's absolutely wonderful. And I think artists, they're all very supportive of each other. Anyway, in general, yes, yes, sorry yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, although it's wonderful, you don't just get artists who follow. I mean, you get followers of other types of followers as well. You know just artists.
Speaker 3:Yep, and you know, wanda. Going back to what you said about you only post what you like. If you get away from that, if you post for the audience, you are no longer authentic because you're not doing it for yourself. So the way you've done it in your heart is authentic. That's you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I mean, as I said, several books I've put on haven't done as well, who knows why, but I mean, for me I absolutely adore them. They're probably my favorite ones. So it's. And also I'm aware that sometimes you know a piece of art doesn't translate well. Maybe you know the angle's not right or maybe things often, sometimes because you know you're only seeing it's not the same as seeing it in front of you or on the wall. But I think it's great for artists because we can all have our own little gallery. It's like having your own gallery really.
Speaker 3:It is your own tribe. Yeah, exactly, and that's sad, and I know I'll use the word community in case there's somebody who doesn't like the word tribe. But it's a like-minded group and you get support from it and that's wonderful.
Speaker 2:I mean you could spend all day, just you know. I mean you kind of have to time it because otherwise you could spend so much time looking at that you wouldn't get any work done, you know.
Speaker 3:But I just pop on.
Speaker 2:I'm consistent. I just sort of pop on, maybe for five, 10 minutes, and I you know, and most people post at the same time. I've noticed that people post at the same time. Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think well, you see, there's so many. I mean, there's so many different types of accounts, isn't there on Instagram? So, depending on what type, I just have the box, standard, basic one. So I don't prerecord or set timers. You know, something goes on as and when, but it's generally the same time every day.
Speaker 3:More or less. I didn't even know there were different levels of Instagram. See, that tells you how basic.
Speaker 2:I am, yeah, you could, oh my God. Well, for example, I have an artist friend who posts regularly and she has a different type of account, so I think they call it a content account, a content creator account, and this is really geared up for people who want to know the statistics about who's looking at your work. You go all the through the stats, which I'm not really that interested in because it will take away from the work. I mean, that's a whole nother area that was gonna take up a lot of brain activity and that's not really where you know, trying to get your art out there to even more people. If you want to be a content creator, there's a certain type of account where you can go behind the scenes and seeing what type of people are following you, who is unfollowing you, who is you know all of that.
Speaker 1:When your audience is online, different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's interesting, but it would just take away from doing the work in the first place for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and Mama Judy, I will ask you also, because you have over a couple of thousand people as well, and our newer to Instagram and posting and that type of thing, what do you have any suggestions so you don't do you post every single day? You're pretty close to it, wouldn't?
Speaker 3:you say I'm not as consistent as Wanda is, and actually I have nothing more to add than what Wanda has already said, and one of the biggest things is that she just said just try it and don't get. It is not a popularity contest.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:And if you go down that rabbit hole, you're to me, you're on there for the wrong reasons. Yeah, I like so what Wanda and I are both doing and oh, trust me, trust me 100%. My little ego loves it when somebody likes my work.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I think everybody know, judy, I think I mean everyone likes their work to be validated in some way, to feel that it's. But it comes a point where you have to kind of I think that the I think we are our own harshest critics as well. You know, I think that we are. This is the problem, really. I think I think you have to get back to if you are happy. If you look at the piece of work you've created, you go, oh my god, I mean my heart. It's almost like I've taken a caffeine pill or something.
Speaker 3:I get a high.
Speaker 2:I get a high from a piece of work that I look at and I think, oh my god, I just love this so much. I love it when you get that natural high. I don't know where that comes from, but it's. You know. Sometimes I get that when I really and I look at it, I think I actually do that. How did I do that? I didn't know how it came about.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm going to tell a story on myself which is kind of goes back to what Wanda was talking about. I go to Pinterest for inspiration and I'm looking at this piece of work it's a journal and I just love it and I'm going God, I just love it. I looked down and it was my own.
Speaker 2:So funny. Yeah, you're your biggest fan, why not?
Speaker 3:Oh. So what I did? I made a separate. You know how, on Pinterest you can have a what do they call it? A book or whatever, and you can make some books. So I have one called mixed media and I put everybody else's work. Then I have a sub chapter that's called my journals and, honestly, because I'm like you wanted, there will be times I'll create and it'll be like I was not present while I was creating, because then I'll look at it and go when did that come from? So I put them all out on Pinterest now where, when I need inspiration, I might find some inspiration in some of my former pages that came out of somewhere that I wasn't even aware they were coming out. I'm like you I look at something and go, oh my God, I did that and you get a natural high. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so fun. Well, and isn't it neat to that, wanda and myself to, you've come to being this creative, artistic type person not that long ago in your life and your grown up.
Speaker 2:It's amazing that it came about, jill, at a time when I was able to do it as well. Yes, I mean I it's funny because you often hear about artists who you know sort of, or they've started very early and you know they've, they've always know what they wanted to do. I mean my, my whole kind of life, work, life, has been a completely different genres, so certainly not artistic really, but it's interesting that it came about at a time that I was able to give it attention and it's all come together and I'm just so happy it's in book form because that's where my you know books.
Speaker 2:As a young child I had a very difficult upbringing and books was where I could go to escape and to absolutely my very early I mean I it's really strange that when I was very young I had a project on the go I was a young, I mean this days before Internet was none of that and I'd have to send off for things. That was almost a bit like a scrapbook, but it was more than a scrapbook, and so that I was doing layering, I was doing, and it's extraordinary. I thought about it the other day and I think why did this idea come for doing books? And it actually stems back to that very small child who had that.
Speaker 2:I had that project on the go and sort of yeah, I did a project on Italy and then I narrowed it down to Rome and I wanted to learn everything. And I was six and seven, I want to know everything about Rome and I speak Italian, would you believe it went on. I went to live in Italy for 12 years. So you know, it all comes wonderful, it all comes about, but those techniques I think I was actually doing and then they lay dormant for decades.
Speaker 3:You still have that.
Speaker 1:You still have that little book from when you were little one.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately I don't. If I do, you know what? If I could give up everything to see that little book again? Me too, I don't know what happened to that. Great shame. Great shame, there it is. If there was Instagram, then I could have put it on, you see, and I know, I know, you know wonder.
Speaker 3:When I was in the first grade, I used to write my own books. I have a container full of books. You know how. You'd write them in a peachy type of container. They were all about horses, they were. I was always the heroine. When you were talking about doing books and turning it back to your love of books as a child, it, the little aha moment went on and I went. Well, maybe that's why I love these odd books not just mine, but that everybody's doing because I'm like you. Reading was my solace when I was growing up. It's where I could build my imagination, and now that imagination is creating its own form of books, and that's a complete circle. It's a wonderful circle.
Speaker 1:Yes, and like when one of them went to live in Italy, you ended up owning a horse. You know some of the things that also pages.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, books are their companions really. I mean, they really they really are, I mean, and it was also. It was about the smell of books, it was about the, you know, the holding of the object. It was. I mean, I would prefer to hold a book as a child than a teddy bear, really. So they were, they were kind of places you could just escape to, and yeah, I just and.
Speaker 2:I still do. I mean, my house is full of books, but they're all artists, they're all my monographs. Generally I don't really read fiction, but yeah, loads of books everywhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, same here. In fact, I go buy them just to hold them and look at them. Old books.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you need an old bookstore and yes.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I have a library real close to me and I go just sit in the library, even if I want to go read a newspaper or something I just like being in a library to. And mama Jude, they have a library book sale and a couple. I found a couple really old books and send them to mama Judy one point, because she loves them so much and they were just a couple dollars a piece. But boy, I'm sure those went into a lot of your journals and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:Well, I actually took a few pages, but I haven't used them yet because I just want to hold them. I'm kind of a weird obsession.
Speaker 1:Well, wanda is at paper palace queen on Instagram, so please go check her beautiful work out. And, wanda, congratulations on your pieces being displayed in that library next year. That is what a beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tell you I can die happy. I'm really pleased about that. I'm so happy about that. Yeah, and then.
Speaker 3:I will look forward to seeing on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I might do a little video of the display cabinet.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, I would love to see the behind the scenes of how you determine which ones you're going to take, like if I could see like a pile of books and then how you decide, or it'd be interesting to hear how you choose what you choose, oh yeah, yeah, because there are different types of books and being small and in display cabinets it's you know.
Speaker 2:luckily I've got different styles and I can show the cover or maybe show the spine or maybe show, you know, the concertina ones. They can just fan out, so it will look very pleasing in its grungy colors. I'm sure as long as they don't give me a pink organ cloth, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:Bring your spray paint.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1:I have to do something. Yeah, thank you for joining us, wanda. We really appreciate you so much. It's been wonderful, it's been really really wonderful. And thanks for being friends with Wanda.
Speaker 2:Thank you both.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening. We appreciate it. We'd love it if you'd share this podcast episode with people and if you are listening to it, we also have this on YouTube. You'll be able to see part of Wanda's studio, behind her in the background. She did mention beforehand that a lot of what she does is kind of in front of her that we can't see, but you'll probably see that if you follow her on Instagram. So, thank you, and we will talk to you all next week. Thanks so much. Bye. Love you, mama Judy. Love you. Bye, wanda.
Speaker 3:It's so great to see you, thank you, you too.
Speaker 2:You too, I'm looking forward to your new journals, ah.
Speaker 3:I made me one just for energy, oh great.