Lottie Consalvo – Multidisciplinary artist

Multidisciplinary artist Lottie Consalvo lives and works on Awabakal Country in Newcastle, Australia. She works across painting, sculpture, performance art, photography and video.

She is represented by https://dominikmerschgallery.com/ in Sydney and https://www.janmurphygallery.com.au/ in Brisbane.

In this interview, Lottie talks about how she finds agency and autonomy in her studio, how she creates the headspace for little epiphanies, and the people and practices that  sustain her and her international career.

We HEART Lottie Consalvo.

#lottieconsalvo #areyoustillworking

Transcript

Are You Still Working?! 
Lottie Consalvo - Painter
Episode 7
===

[00:00:00] 

Courtney: Hello, gorgeous listeners. Welcome to Are You Still Working? How to take your creative ideas seriously. I'm Courtney Collins, and this is episode seven, an interview with artist Lottie Consalvo. Lottie Consalvo is a multidisciplinary artist living and working on Awabakal country in Newcastle, Australia. She works across painting, sculpture, performance art, photography and video. She's represented by Dominik Mersch Gallery in Sydney and Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane. This conversation includes references to suicide. Listener discretion is advised.

Lottie, we're next door to your amazing studio space. Can you tell me what that space means to you and how you ended up there?

Lottie: We'd been looking for a space to live and work for a very long time, which we've just been able to get, but it's, the studio is a very large [00:01:00] space and I actually like much smaller enclosed studios, even though my work's often very large. So I have tried to kind of box myself into a corner in a way, also to create almost like a separate head space. And it's only been the last couple of weeks that I've really felt I've created that we've only been here for a few months. But I really go in there and I enter another, another part of myself when I go into that space, as naf as that might sound. But it really does, you know, feel like that when you've got such a busy family home life too, that you can go into this other room and feel like you are somewhere else. 

Courtney: And how do you prepare yourself before you're actually in that space? 

Lottie: I generally try to wait until I want to go into the space. I'm learning more and more that it doesn't work. Just going in and forcing something and there's always so many other things an artist needs to do other than just the making part, which a lot of people probably don't realise. There is a lot of admin and writing [00:02:00] and photographing and stuff that you have to also be on top of. So I wait in the morning if I feel I'm not ready yet, I'll work on those things and then wait till it kind of calls me. But another way, and the thing I now do before I make anything is I meditate beforehand, which is something I've needed to do in the last couple of years since I cared for my mother before she passed away.

And I was juggling way too much in my life. I had about five solo shows that year, two small children, very small and caring for her going between houses and I think I felt really out of control and I didn't know how to reel myself back. It's taken me a very long time to learn meditation and connect with it and feel I can because I feel like I always said that I was someone who wouldn't, it doesn't wouldn't work for me. I like thinking, but actually it went too far and I couldn't stop myself from talking to myself and thinking too much. And I've now found that I've been living with [00:03:00] probably a lot of anxiety for my entire life, and I can actually do something about it.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: So I now go into painting in a really calm way where I'm not thinking so much. And being so critical of myself, I'd become very critical of everything I did, and it was really crippling me in the studio. I've had to really bring in meditation to keep myself in a good head space to be able to actually make anything good.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. What kind of meditation is it?

Lottie: It's transcendental meditation, vedic, yeah.

Courtney: And did you learn that here in Newcastle or what was your way into it?

Lottie: I did a I tried to do many things online and blah, blah, blah. And then a friend was staying and he's like, oh, you've gotta do this course,  And I was like, oh yeah, okay. Maybe, you know, I'm not gonna spend $4,000 or $3,000 doing it. Doing a course, but you know, it was all, we had a great conversation about it. Anyway, he was in my studio and he really loved a little painting of mine. And he said, how about I take that painting and I'll pay for you to go to this [00:04:00] course?

Courtney: Wow. 

Lottie: And I went, well, okay, It was in Byron Bay. And I'm like, that's, I don't know. It's not gonna be for me. Not criticising that, but I just didn't know what kind of vibe it was, if it's not genuine, I, I can't do it.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: So I just didn't know what I was getting myself into. But I trusted this friend, so I went and did this course and I had to stop having coffee the week before. And I said to the woman when I got there, I don't get this whole no coffee thing. Like my Nona would have coffee on her cereal. Like, you know, the Italians, they drink coffee. There's no problem with coffee. Anyway, I said Sunday morning I'm going straight to get a coffee. Anyway, I haven't had a coffee with caffeine in it since. I now have have decaf, but I mostly have tea, herbal tea.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: And I just came home a really calmer person, and my partner noticed it straight away. It was a really stressful week. When I came back, we had a week to do a lot of stuff before going over to New York. And I should have been really strung out and I wasn't, and I was fine and I slept well. So I realised then that I had to commit to this [00:05:00] forever. Unless I can find some other way to stay in this calm state. Yeah I have to keep it. Otherwise, if I miss a day or two, which I have when I've, you know, been traveling or juggling things I can feel it instantly and I can't get that jittery energy out of me. There's no way of doing it other than sitting and being quiet and, yeah, focusing.

Courtney: Can you see I guess a before and after in terms of the work that you're producing?

Lottie: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Courtney: What is the difference for you? 

Lottie: I'm listening to my instincts more. My intuition. I'm able to identify what that is when it comes to me.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Lottie: Rather than allowing my head to go, now this is the next move. Or, or the intuition coming in my head going, no, no, no, but you're not gonna do that. You, you wouldn't do that cuz that's not gonna work cuz of this.

When I first started making abstraction, I remember the feeling of, listening to my gut and it just, it's just telling me like there was something else in the room telling me. Mm-hmm. 

And I think there's an unknowingness [00:06:00] early on when you're making art, when, especially with abstraction, I felt, but I mean maybe it's with everything. Cuz I'd gone from painting the figure. Yeah there's a knowingness that that is the right next move. And another thing that's really helped with that is I've actually it sounds like it wouldn't help with my practice at all, but I started acting classes about a year ago.

Courtney: Mm. 

Lottie: and that I thought that I could do acting to be someone else. But it turns out it's all about being yourself and really finding what that self is and acting on intuition. So I think that's definitely been helping as well in the, in the studio space. I feel like it's the same space that you enter and the flow space that you enter when you're reading a script or, yeah, doing a monologue is the same as when you're painting.

Courtney: So what have you discovered about yourself in the acting class? 

Lottie: Oh, I don't know if I've learned it maybe, I think I already knew it, but I'm quite awkward. And I think we probably would all say that about ourselves, but physically I feel very awkward about how to hold my body and very [00:07:00] self-critical about how I've said things, have I said too much? You know, most of the shared kind of after thoughts that we have. But because I've been having to learn more about what my natural behavior is, I've started to accept it more and see that is who I am authentically. And be less critical. And I have the ability to be in a social setting now and be aware that I, I am awkward. I don't know where to put my arms right now because I'm not holding a glass of wine or, you know, I actually used to be a smoker a long time ago and that was a really good friend for a very long time. And I think I still haven't worked out what the other thing is to do with my hands. And I'll look at other people's behavior and I'll go, I'll try that way. Or you know.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: And never quite works. You've gotta find your own way that that works for you. And I'm also actually just accepting, being a little [00:08:00] bit awkward. And being okay about that.

Courtney: Yeah. an you describe the physical act of painting an abstract work? Like what? Yeah. What it feels like in your body to do that. 

Lottie: Oh, A year ago, I would've said it's torturous. Yeah. But now I just find it the most wonderful thing. And that's definitely what's changed for me in finding it a healthier place to make from. I, go into the studio and then I feel like I can do whatever I want.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: And I just push around things and have little epiphanies and put them in. And then there's these moments where you're just flowing, in this way and it's just yours.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Lottie: It's no one else's. 

Yeah. 

And it's, a wonderful feeling If you get that moment where you go, oh, I did that.

Courtney: Yeah. 

Lottie: That wow. Kind of moment, that's also splendid. 

Courtney: Mm-hmm. Does that come. On completion [00:09:00] or is that in the moments of realizing something surprising?

Lottie: Yeah, all the way through. I think you have those moments and then it's always the fear that you're gonna kill it. And my work's very restricted although there's ones that are quite busy, some of them get really busy. but there's also that excitement of pushing it too far. sometimes I look at paintings, I'm like, what happens if I, just pushed that one more thing?

But that, there's, that, I think that's what makes a good painting is a painting that's not quite finished. It's not quite resolved. We don't realise it when we are looking at

Courtney: Yeah.

Lottie: But it's a, like, it's a feeling of something's sort of just hanging that we like.

Courtney: Yeah. What do you do when you feel that this thing is not working? What, what are your powers?

Lottie: Generally it's, yeah, I've, I've generally locked it in too much. It's too tight. It looks like there's too much thought in it, what I'm happiest with, what works for me, is when it's still very open and there's a rawness to it. I have [00:10:00] to be really careful at what brushes I use. I can't stand really nice brushes cause then they, they're too silky and there's too much of a perfect mark. Mm-hmm. So I use quite scrappy hardware, brushes that kind of scratch over the surface, yeah and leave more texture, it's definitely an openness and a looseness but at the same time, I like structure. Mm-hmm. So my works are often symmetrical and like, they're not, abstract expressionist paintings really. There's elements that that people could see that are, but I have more thought in it than, than that. Sometimes I feel like they're more surrealist - symbolist painting, you could call it. Yeah. Symbols that I keep using.

Courtney: And where do those symbols come from for you?

Lottie: I think they come from, well, I know they come from, when I look at the mark, what that makes me feel. Yeah. 

Courtney: Yeah.

Lottie: Yeah. So there's certain marks that can make me feel very uplifted. And the ones that are very, I've said this many times before, but you know, very somber ones. Depending on the shape of a [00:11:00] curve and then there's ones that can be quite aggressive and I have to, like, sometimes I feel like there's a couple of paintings I've made that are almost too, too hard, that can make people feel very uncomfortable, which I find interesting when you're working in abstraction that just shapes it, or not shapes, but lines can make people feel very uncomfortable.

Courtney: Do you have an issue with that in terms of how you want your work to be received?

Lottie: I actually am quite drawn to the more grotesque or un pretty paintings of mine.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: So my paintings, you know so my favourite painting's, never anyone else's favorite painting. And I've had curators in the studio going, yeah, but why do you like that one? You know, in a niceish tone. And I'm like, I don't quite know how to explain it. Like, it is the ugly duckling or it's the harder one.

Courtney: Yeah.

Lottie: It's the one that's not easy to win over. Sure. It's like, and it doesn't need you to like it. You know, and I love those ones.

Courtney: I love that. Thank you. In I guess relating your, work into a, a bigger picture and [00:12:00] knowing that the world of art history, the documentation of art history is incredibly sexist. Are there any stories that you've found within those histories that resonated with you or you felt, gave you a charge?

Lottie: I've actually just finished the Georgia O'Keeffe book 'A Life - Georgia O'Keeffe' by Roxana Robinson and she was a force. 

Courtney: Yeah.

Lottie: Very fierce. She was very successful early on.  But her prices were like, the prices we would charge now, they were so expensive. 

Courtney: Mm-hmm. Do you think in terms of her. Did you say fierceness? Can you explain that?

Lottie: Oh, she was very hard on people. Yeah. She could be quite cruel, you know, Alfred Stieglitz, her partner, she did not want to spend time with his family and would just kind of leave certain things and just kind of disappear. They were [00:13:00] married, but she went and lived in other places and I mean, he was having affairs all the time.

So they kind of had unspoken agreement, she could live her life, he could live his life, but mostly hers was kind of devoted to her art practice, although she always had lovers, but they stayed as a couple not living together.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Lottie: the other artist that I looked at a lot is Agnes Martin. And she also was a very fierce woman. And you know, in nowadays, I dunno whether she would've even identified as a woman 

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Lottie: In, in her own time. She probably may not have, I'm not sure. But she was also very successful in her time and an absolute force as well.Very hard on people. And and maybe that's the way that these two women were successful, is that they didn't bow down to other people. They stood their ground and kind of demanded what they expected. 

Courtney: I know in Georgia O'Keeffe's case, the reviews of her work by the, art critics of her day was incredibly condescending, incredibly belittling and [00:14:00] failed to see it in for what it was. And yet she was, you know, still selling. 

Lottie: I'm sure like even in texts, she would've been not included and things like that. I think as a woman in particular, I feel like the best thing you can do is just continue to make good work I'm not gonna spend my time going, well you need to be doing more for me. And I need to be credited more for that because that's time that could be better spent just making good work. Cause I really do feel that above all it will be recognised eventually. You know? And she definitely got recognised.

Yeah.

Courtney: Do you have a concept of a muse or does, does that word have any meaning for you? 

Lottie: Oh, I never imagined myself having a muse, but there's this dancer that is so incredible. Yeah. And she, she moves in a way that that I'm so drawn to maybe I could see that it is a similar conversation that she's having with [00:15:00] movement that I have in my own work. Maybe that's why I'm so drawn to it.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: And I actually said to her one day, you almost could be like my muse. Like, you are so incredible to watch. Ellie Graham is her name she's been in a video work I've made and I'd love to do some more things with her.

Courtney: Could you describe what you think that conversation is?

Lottie: Yeah. She, so she moves her body in a way that it becomes not a body. And it becomes very abstract. I think that's what I'm quite interested in. And I'm not someone who's been drawn to a lot of contemporary dance. I love Pina Bausch, like so many other people. She does that, she pushes dance and her body in a way that it doesn't remain in dance. And it's not even movement. They're almost like sculptures. You're not even aware that there's a, face anymore. When I watch her, I don't feel like I'm watching dancing. I feel like I've kind of entered into something very [00:16:00] surreal.

Courtney: Do you have a sense of what you want to create for your viewer, or are you even thinking about the interaction? 

Lottie: Oh, I, I really don't, and I can't, I mean, my works have so often often dark in palette that I know most people probably wouldn't even like it. So, Yeah. I can't go there with thinking about that. Like the painters I like most are like, Peter Booth, I love Peter Booth. And most people that I go, do you like Peter Booth? Like, oh no, don't like Peter Booth. He's one of my favorite painters. You know, because they are, they're harder works. They're not pretty works, but they've got this strength in them and I'm definitely not drawn to making pretty work.

Courtney: So the incentive or the energy required to make a, a beautiful life, which by all appearances you have made a beautiful life, Where does your work sit within that or live within that?

Lottie: Mm-hmm. Psychologically? Or?

Courtney: Let's, let's go there and you've mentioned your attraction [00:17:00] to the grotesque and what's harder to love or more challenging to love as a work. So yeah, what's your take on that?

Lottie: Yeah, it's funny. I mean, if I could have been Rothko and made work that had that same, kind of emotional response that you can have in front of one of his works, but still use all those beautiful, to some people beautiful colors then I guess I would've been, but for reasons that I think I might know, I'm not drawn to bright colors in my art. I've tried to, artificially sort of respond to color and bring it in, but it, it just hasn't worked yet for me. I find it quite distracting to have that going on too. And those decisions to make too. 

When I was younger, I used to draw all the time. And I always just used pen or like a big pen, just drawing black and white. Black and white. And then I started painting when I was in year eight but, I would always draw I just had books full of it. And I won the art award in year 12, and instead of them [00:18:00] buying one of my paintings, because all the paintings got bought by someone already, they bought all my sketchbooks and I now want them all back because there's just piles and piles of drawings in them.

And then when I went to university, which I didn't do an art degree, I did a business degree. I just sat and drew the whole time and then put my hand up. I think they were surprised. I was still listening and it was probably a bit of a waste of time, that degree. so black and white's definitely always been the main thing that I've been working in. My father is a painter, and the paintings that would hang in our house were painted mostly in the seventies. And so that palette was very much black ochres and very earth colors, greens. So that's what I was surrounded by that was my main influence. 

And then when I started to paint portraits, I was looking at, you know, painting older people, which a lot of people love painting older people cuz there's more lines and Yeah, more to
work with. Then I got invited to paint at a home for men that had schizophrenia in [00:19:00] Kew, this big old manor, it was quite incredible. I went in there and would sit a few days after school, a week in year 12, and sit with one person at a time and I would ask them to tell me about their lives while I drew them or painted them. And I think it was one of the most influential things The mind became more interesting to me, and my own mind had always been, I'd, I don't think I was a very happy child, teenager. I desperately hated school. My parents were split from when I was about two and a half, which is fine, but I really didn't like that and my mother moved me around a lot. She had a lot of different partners and I just became very aware of my mind very early on and how it would try to cope in situations so I think that that has been, what I made work about is the mind and it being like I was a, you know, a young girl, should be just living a normal life, but underneath it was not coping, didn't cope very well, but had to hold it together for everyone else and act like everything was fine.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Lottie: And [00:20:00] then, when I was 25, my sister actually took her own life. So that became another big thing for me, the weight of the, the physicality of the mind and its presence being far greater and its impact being far greater than anything in our physical world. You know, if we didn't have bodies, we'd probably just fly away, we certainly wouldn't stay here, that's for sure. But yeah, I, I mean, I feel I live the most wonderful life now as a grown up. I really enjoy it. but, I think now I make work more about, not about the weight of the mind, but the possibilities of it and how it can feel, you know, reverence and awe and love and strength, yeah I feel like I try to make serious paintings and hopefully they talk about what it is to be human you know, I'm not trying to tell anyone anything. I just hope they feel something when they're in the presence of them.

Courtney: Do you feel like [00:21:00] it's part of your ongoing inquiry? 

Lottie: Yeah, I think, I think it is. Early on when I actually was painting the figure, people would go, you know, cuz some of them would be quite dark and, people would go, are you okay? 
And I got a bit sick of that. And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just talking about you know, all the stuff that you're probably all experiencing too.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Lottie: Yeah it's definitely an inquiry into, the possibility of the mind and how it's altered through different experiences, and I think that's why I probably find. I'm very amateur at meditation but why I find it so interesting. Because I can see it changing me. and I'm not someone that's, taken medications and that's, that's altered my mind before. So this is really the most, Interesting experiment is actually seeing how I can just on a daily basis, alter my own mind. And it makes me think about You know, what could have my sister have done, for instance, who, who just just didn't have the time or the opportunity to, to rest her mind and find other, you know, another solution or other solutions. We as humans [00:22:00] endure so much and everyone has their own level of how much, you know, they have endured. And it's all relative, but, I'm more now I don't want to investigate a darkness. Mm-hmm. 
That's not what I'm interested in. I don't need to go down there. When my sister passed away, I made a lot of work about loss and longing. Mm-hmm.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: Not grief, it was more, more surreal in terms of, I, I would try to reverse things and like there was this image of me falling. I'm in the middle of the fall and it was this kind of idea of would I go down or would I float back up again And making performances like the bird catch or where I would collect dead muttonbirds off the beach and fill up a bird cage, which, you know, obviously you don't need a bird cage for dead birds, but this idea that maybe they would come back alive if I put them into the cage. And then one where I had 200 dead butterflies falling down, a dining table that was broken, leaning into the ground, and I was mouthing, I love you backwards, which the night before my sister passed away, we were at a huge dining table at a dinner party, and I looked over to her and I mouthed, I love [00:23:00] you.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: And so the idea was that, If I mouthed I love you backwards, everything would just come back up. The butterflies would come back alive, the table would come back up, she would be there and everything would be back to normal. So it's not about her depression or this darkness, but there's this kind of this, this thing that we do in our minds where we try to reverse things, the strength of the imagination. I'm really interested in the imagination.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Lottie: I think that that is the most wonderful thing we've been given. So the work now is really trying to yeah, focus on the, the beauty of the mind the power of it, what it can do, how it can find refuge, yeah. And that's really the the most important thing. 

Courtney: This is almost circling back, when did you learn to take your ideas coming from your mind seriously and to respond to them? 

Lottie: I feel like I did from a very young age I feel like I've been making this forever

Courtney: [00:24:00] Yeah.

Lottie: When I was really young in primary school. I would always have a diary like from, I remember from grade probably three

Courtney: Yeah,

Lottie: I would have a diary and I would write really bad poems. And they were very deep, very emotional. 

Courtney: I might be a bit guilty of that, yeah.

Lottie: And it doesn't stop though, does it? And, and I would draw like big serpents, you know, eating one another and creatures and naked body with patterns and, you know, they were 
horrendous. I had siblings, a lot older or a lot younger, all half siblings. And so I actually did have periods where I was alone. Mm-hmm. So I would just be in my room drawing a lot.
and then I got into making jewelry when I was 13. my cousin and I, her mother gave us money to buy beads. It was the bead phase. Oh yeah. You know those little tiny bead? Yeah. The bead shop. Yeah. And she goes, yeah, make [00:25:00] jewelry and go sell it. So we did. We sold it to like the surf shop and made all this money. She's like, right now I want the money back that I paid for. They're like, okay, so we gave the money back. She's like, no, you need to sell more so you can keep your business going. So we did Anyway, she stopped making it, my cousin, and I kept making it. And selling it to shops. And I was making proper good money and this is why I ended up doing a business degree because I thought I'll have a jewelry business cause I was on this trajectory. Mm-hmm. 

And I was painting as well, but that was, yeah, I thought, I wouldn't make money as an artist. And then the jewelry got, got really big and I ended up making these scrap metal jewelry, so big ornate crowns and chest plates, 

Courtney: Cool.
 
Lottie: and then big bangles, like rings that were the size of your hand, like they became so unwearable and I realised I probably had to stop and just like make sculpture or something instead. But we were living in Berlin at the time and I was still making jewelry and I just had this urge to just give it up and just paint[00:26:00] And I kept going, no, I've gotta keep doing it cause I'm making money off it. Like it's, you know, contributing to the family. And, and then I just went, no, I'm gonna stop. I didn't think I'd stop fully, but I just moved away a few days a week and started painting more and I'd got back into my portraits because we were living in Berlin at the time. I'd gone Max Beckman crazy and was painting very much like him. And all those German Painters, So I started really painting these portraits again as a grownup in Germany as well. So the palette, there's also darker, a lot of black, I hadn't actually thought about that. That's probably been a big influence on me. 

And I then just never made jewelry again. Never. 

Courtney: So the idea you had that you couldn't make money as a painter, you just let that go.

Lottie: My husband James and I, we made a pact that - I always wanted to buy a house, that was something - I wanted to buy a house cause my mom had to move. We moved a lot and she lost her money and lost her house. And so I had to move back to my [00:27:00] Dad's when I was 14 and that was a really scary thing for a teenager to let witness their mother sleeping on a friend's couch cuz they lost everything. And so that was a thing for me. I wanted to have a home but then James and I had to make, this commitment that we weren't gonna have a home we just so desperately wanted to make our art. Yeah. 

Courtney: Yeah.

Lottie: I said, but if there was a moment where we got a chunk from a show that we could do, it, could, could we try to do it? Because it was just important to me. We didn't think it would ever happen, but we did do that. But I think our love was just so big. And we were doing it together. We were so fearless. it's funny, we still say all the time, we don't need anything we are just so lucky to have one another. That it really doesn't matter. And our art practice is the most important thing other than our family, that we get to do this. It's such a privilege, and that's, that's the most valuable life we feel that we can live. Do you notice that artists [00:28:00] generally live a very long time?

Courtney: I have noticed you. 

Lottie: You noticed? 

Courtney: I have. 

Lottie: because they're never finished. They've always got something to do.

Courtney: There's no retiring. 

Lottie: No, you know, artists that are born in the late 18 hundreds, they lived till their nineties.

Courtney: They do. maybe it's that idea of sense of agency, in the way that you were describing what you you get to do. You can do anything in your studio. 

Lottie: Absolutely. That must release all those things in your brain that are good for you, and that sense of wonder mm-hmm. 

Courtney:  Mm-hmm. 

Lottie: I've been thinking lately about other people's practices, so, you know, a musician or a composer or these things that [00:29:00] we are so drawn to do each of us who choose to go down an artistic path. We have this thing that pulls us and we just so desperately want to be doing it.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. Do you know what that thing is for you?

Lottie: That makes me want to do it? Yeah, I think, that agency and something that only I am in control of that is mine. And I remember that with my father painting. When he would go paint, it was just his. It's a feeling about it. It's this, you know, some people might get it when they sit down to watch a film or something, and I get it getting in the studio. It's just this cozy, comfortable. It's almost like getting drunk. Yeah. You know, you're just gonna fall into it and you're gonna come out and something's gonna have changed. And could change in a small way or a big way. It could feel great. You might feel bad, but these days I'm just trying to feel great. 

Courtney: Yeah. So Lottie, when you need to fill your cup and feel inspired, what do you reach for or what do you look to? 

Lottie: I often find that the only place to really look is to nature and I try to go to the ocean, which I do get to look at every day. More and more I actually seek out going into the bush and walking in the bush in an area where there's no path and I just take a compass with me and it's actually, quite scary because there's very long grass and no one would know where I am and there's no phone signal. But I just go out and walk and walk. And there's this incredible feeling that you get from not knowing where you are. I think I get quite charged by those walks in the bush. 

Courtney: Lottie Consalvo, you are so brave in your work and your life, and I have just loved every minute of our conversation, thank you. 

Lottie: Oh, good. Thank you for coming Courtney. Thank you very much.

Courtney: Are You Still Working is an independently produced podcast by me, Courtney Collins, and produced by Lisa Madden. If you enjoyed listening, you can support us by [00:31:00] reviewing it and telling all your friends. If there are artists you'd love us to feature in season two, you can direct message us on Instagram at are you still working podcast.

Till next time.