For the Love of Creatives
Imagine a space where your creative spark is truly seen... a community where people get you.
That’s what Maddox and Dwight bring each week on For the Love of Creatives... a podcast rooted in the power trio of Creativity, Community, and Becoming.
As your hosts and “connections and community guys,” Maddox and Dwight invite you into soul-stirring conversations with artists, innovators, and everyday creatives who’ve faced challenges, found inspiration, and said yes to the next version of themselves.
Whether through storytelling, real-time coaching, or deep dialogue, this is where heart-centered creatives come to explore what’s possible... not just in their craft, but in who they’re becoming.
Expect:
- Practical insights
- Fresh inspiration
- Real stories from the worlds of art, design, dance, culinary, and beyond
If you’re a creative seeking clarity, connection, and the courage to step into who you most want to become, this podcast is your invitation.
Tune in weekly to explore the magic of community-fueled creativity... and start your own journey of Becoming.
For the Love of Creatives
#047: Hara Allison Chose Art Over Chemo And Found Peace
What if your creative practice wasn’t a side note, but the reason you get out of bed? We sit down with Hara Allison—graphic designer, photographer, and founder of Dream Studio—whose mantra “make love and make art” is both a rallying cry and a roadmap. She talks candidly about living with incurable cancer, why she declined more chemo after it stole a year, and how choosing creativity brought her back to herself.
Hara opens up about trauma, responsibility, and the moment she began to parent the “little Hara” within. We dive into mirror work, inner child care, and the practical ways self compassion turns down the volume on perfectionism. From there, we trace her return to photography: a 60-day self-portrait lighting experiment that transformed fear into freedom. If you’ve ever felt intimidated by gear or technique, you’ll love her “lighting made simple” philosophy and the reminder that play beats pressure.
Community sits at the heart of Hara’s work. We explore the real challenges of getting people to show up, the difference between holding space and being a safe space, and why collaboration outlasts competition. Along the way, we talk body image myths, the trap of social media highlight reels, and the clarity that comes from facing mortality with peace. The result is an episode that feels like a breath: grounded, generous, and brimming with creative courage.
Press play to reconnect with your why, remember your worth, and rediscover the joy of making. If this moved you, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more creatives can find the conversation.
This is Maddox & Dwight! More than anything, we want to connect and communicate with you. We don't want to think of you as listeners. We want to think of you as community. So, scroll to the bottom of the show notes and click the SUBSCRIBE link. Thank you!
Thank you for listening to the For the Love of Creatives Podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please scroll to the bottom of the show notes and Rate & Review us. We would SO appreciate it.
Become a SUBSCRIBER to Get Notified of New Episodes
Want to be a Featured Guest?
For the Love of Creatives Community
Um I mean, I'm not actively dying, but I do have incurable cancer, and I have chosen not to do chemo again because it kind of stole a year from me. And with incurable cancer, it'll just be like, that doesn't sound like a good idea to do it again and again and again and again. Lose years when I could, I'm already 57, I only have so many left. So I'm just gonna live out loud and and make art. This is what I wrote the other day. I had a I had the creative meetup here, and we had to write our dreams up on the board. And all I wrote was make love and make art. So if I die doing those two things, I'll be good. I have had the love of my life. I have the love of my life. I am so lucky. I was miserably miserable in love for 45 years, and then I met my husband.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, it's Maddox and Dwight, and you're listening to another episode of For the Love of Creatives podcast. Welcome, and today our guest is Hara Allison. Welcome, Hara.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. Hello, I'm Hara Allison, and I am a graphic designer for 30 some years and a photographer, and I also own a photography studio that is kind of a dream come true. It's pretty great in here.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and isn't it called Dream Studio?
SPEAKER_03:It's called Dream Studio, but I wanted to call it Impossible Dream, but had a little negative. But do you know from Man of La Mancha, The Impossible Dream?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, Don Quixote's my guy. I've loved that. I have Dulcinea and The Impossible Dream tattooed on me. I just, I really um I love that story. The more I know it, the more I get out of it. Anyway, Impossible Dream is really where it came from, but Dream Studio seemed more upbeat. But I do think we all fight the impossible dream.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we do. We absolutely do. Well, just to let our listeners know, um, Hara and I have known each other for I don't know, probably maybe four years. Um if I remember correctly, I found your podcast on I guess it was probably Apple Apple Podcasts and started listening. And I think I reached out to you and said I think somebody recommended you.
SPEAKER_03:Oh Tevi? Do you know Tebby?
SPEAKER_04:That doesn't really matter.
SPEAKER_03:I think um I think you were recommended, and I remember you saying that you didn't think your story was worthy. Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_01:I don't. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I remember that. Oh, that sounds like pneumatics. Um I remember that because you're the only person who's ever said that to me. And it stuck with me because I think everybody's story, I think everybody's worthy, period, end of. So it really stuck with me because I don't think you need to have any kind of anything to be worthy of.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I I I can think that maybe I thought, why would my story be interesting? You know, it's just a typical kid gets bullied at school story and spends his entire life trying to overcome all the trauma of that. You know, it's like everybody's got a similar story.
SPEAKER_03:Well, no.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and also everybody's story helps everybody else. And so it just stuck with me.
SPEAKER_01:I I certainly, after all that we've done with my my podcast and now this one, I see that clearly now. But I think when I was on your podcast, I don't think I had even launched my podcast yet. I think it was I was pre-host for me. Um, so I see it very, very differently now. Because somebody said yesterday, I said you should launch a podcast. And he said, uh, for the life of me, I can't imagine why anybody would want to listen to what I have to say. And I said, Are you kidding me? So I think that's kind of universal sometimes, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, we're too close to our own story. So it's it seems like it seems very mundane to us, but you know, it's we we're our own unique fingerprint. We are the the only ones who get to ride this the way that we experience it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03:And being able the reason I used to do that podcast and that magazine, Beneath Your Beautiful, was just hearing somebody rising above the things they've gone through can help somebody else. And that's why that was so important to me, because it's easy to get stuck when really it's our choice to be stuck, even though it doesn't feel like it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that that begs a question. I I'm really curious about the timing because I I know a little bit about your story, and just knowing how um knowing the the major beats, like how as a young girl, you had an an interest in photography, you pursued it actively, you had your own dark room, you saved all your money from your job at the great American chocolate chip company to go and and make uh make everything happen with photography, but you gave it up as soon as you crossed that threshold into adulthood and practical and and doing all that. So if I'm hearing the timing right, this is after you started to introduce photography seriously in your life again.
SPEAKER_03:Um yes. What happened was, well, yes, I'll give you a little uh try to do it quickly.
SPEAKER_01:Um okay, we've got time.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay. When I was five and seven, I was touched inappropriately when I was younger. And um, well, that's okay. I mean, now definitely it's okay. Um, but nobody talked about it, even though it was known in my family. And at 50 years old, I went to a trauma counselor because a nutritionist sent me there. And I was like, you know, I don't have nothing's wrong, you know. But my brother had died of a drug overdose. My mom died when I was only 18, she was just 46. Um, I had a lot of trauma growing up, and I really was a uh a tumbleweed in life. I didn't know I had um to take responsibility for all the choices I made. I felt like life was happening to me instead of I was responsible. And and I finally talked about the trauma, and I finally took responsibility for all the things, and it changed my life. And I learned to love me in this body with this whatever cleverness I have or don't have. And it was that was that's my mission. It's not really photography or graphic design or any of this. The mission is to help other people not waste any time buried in their trauma and thinking that they can't that they can't rise above it. The word is rise above because we can all have gone through hard things, but we don't have to stay there. And so once I realized it, that's really what I just hope for everybody. So I don't know what your even question was.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's no, I it's it's incredible. Absolutely beautiful, so well said.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's the that's the passion behind everything I do, and the passion behind trying to build a community in the arts. Because for me, well, I got diagnosed with marginal zone lymphoma last year, and it's an incurable cancer. And from last April through this February, even, I couldn't get off the couch. I was just, I lost a year. And I decided, you know, the only way to get me out of the house is to make art, is to have a studio to bring people together. And art really does, I think, I mean, it's keeping me alive. I I have the most loving husband and lovely children and siblings, but it's just not enough. I think art is what makes my my pulse go, you know, it's what um really just keeps me going. And so, so I'm trying to build a community of like-minded people, but it's not easy. And I'm very curious how your community building is going.
SPEAKER_01:Um, it's not easy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's not easy to, you know, we live in a world that's so distracted now, and screens and the busyness epidemic, and it's hard to get people to show up for events. Um sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Um it is a challenging time.
SPEAKER_00:Well, while it is challenging, the things that you can see right away are the things that feed into our own negativity biases. And we are reminded at those times that when we're not even looking for it, that we have an effect, that there is a lasting, outstretching ripple that uh has um it has a a lasting um well, just a lasting effect with those that we touched. And there are those in our camp that would do anything for us. They're they're willing to show up for everything. And I I've I have found that it's in those moments when we feel the most despair, when we feel like everything that we're doing is falling on deaf ears, uh, we're surprised by those people who are willing to to show up and say, you know, pick me. I I want to take part. What can we do next?
SPEAKER_03:It's fascinating, actually, the people that are sort of on your periphery even, not your not your besties. So it's very interesting who does want to come help and and be a part of it. I love I have loved that part of this, finding out who who the dreamers are, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but it it can be lonely when we're when you're in the trenches.
SPEAKER_03:I have I think my life's work is to to really acknowledge what's meant for me is for me. Those that don't love me, don't love me. And that's let them, let them not like me if they don't. Boy, that is like uh if I have any work to do, which I have plenty of work to do, but the I think the strongest calling I feel right now is get the little little Hara inside me um parented better because she's so insecure. And, you know, see me, love me. And you know, the 57-year-old woman's like, it's okay, you are loved. But boy, it's a battle.
SPEAKER_01:That that's something I speak about really frequently because I struggled with that for for many, many years. And it it finally, I finally had that aha moment where I realized that when I stopped trying to fit in, you know, because to fit in, you have to carve parts of yourself away, like the square peg going into a round hole. I stopped trying to fit in and just started focusing on being just who exactly who I was. And what I found is that really that's a polarizer. It it sends people either screaming and running or they want to come and sit right next to me. And when I realized that most of the time the people that screamed and ran were the people that I wouldn't have wanted to have in my space anyway. And the people that wanted to come and sit right next to me, for the most part, were the people that I was so excited to have them come and sit right next to me. And and it's it was just such a game changer for me. It helped me guide the little boy inside of me. I did a lot of um inner child work to just really play and to be that little boy and to focus on the people that that showed up and wanted to play with that little boy and to bless and release the rest. You know, Dwight was telling me earlier today, we he posted some video footage of me captured in one of our episodes, whereas I was on one of my little rants, and I was talking about this very thing, about the polarizing effects of authenticity. And he said, Well, it's gotten two reactions so far, one thumbs up and one thumbs down. And I said, Did the thumbs down make a comment? Because curiosity is killing me. I'd love to know. It didn't faze me even a little bit that I got a thumbs down. Probably not my person, but would still have loved to have just been a fly on the wall to know exactly, you know, what that was about.
SPEAKER_03:Well, intellectually, I hear you. I mean, my brain hears you, and my 57-year-old woman sitting in front of you hears you, and the little girl inside me is like, but and stomping her foot. And I'm getting there because I'm very aware of it. So that's very helpful. And I definitely need some inner child work. Somebody just recommended a book to me, but anyway, I gotta start, I gotta start playing more.
SPEAKER_01:Are you familiar with mirror work?
SPEAKER_03:Mm-mm. Well, I mean, will you just talk to yourself in the mirror? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, I I will pile. I still do this. I've done this for decades. I learned mirror work from Louise Hay way back in like the 80s. I'll pile up in my bed with a hand mirror that I have saved from my days as a salon owner and hold it pretty close to my face. And for a period, I'll just stare into my own eyes. Complete silence, just connecting with myself. And then I'll say whatever I want to say, but I always make sure it's very loving and very affirming. All the things that the little seven-year-old inside of me needs to hear, it has been single-handedly probably the best out of all the books, all of the therapy sessions, all of the workshops, the mirror work has been the thing that I continue to do. The mirror stays between the bed and the nightstand right there. So I have easy access to it because it's such an important thing to connect with myself and and just yeah, you know, give myself the same thing I would give Dwight because I love him, or one of my close friends because I love them, which is my time and my attention.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:It's just really it's really powerful, but it's really simple. That's what I love about it.
SPEAKER_00:Herod, do you have any little children in in your life?
SPEAKER_03:Um, my daughters just are just turned 30 and 26, and they are the reason I learned to love myself. About a decade ago, I heard my daughter when she was about 20 say she hated her body. And I was unlike I couldn't believe it. She was perfect, you know, she's my baby. And I realized at the time she was mimicking me. And I thought, well, what if she's perfect because she's my baby? Well, I was somebody's baby too once. And so then I must be perfect. And I started talking to myself. I I really, I really, that was the first time I could even say young Hara or little Hara without rolling my eyes at myself. Um, like because I'm the youngest of six kids, for some reason I imagine them being like, oh, you know, needy little Hara. But but little Hara is very needy, and and I'm giving her all the things she needs now. So I am very in tune with this little girl, and I talk to myself just so, just like I talk to my kids. You're perfect, good try, you know, I love you. I really do. At first it was weird, and now it's just that's how I speak to myself. That is what I want for others. Um, so having that's what I always I'm I'm saying that because I always ask somebody, if you have little kids, then you'll know how to love yourself. Yeah because because if you can just imagine how you love your child, how you're just somebody's child.
SPEAKER_01:It is so simple. It is so simple. It's amazing to me how many people say, I don't and I don't know how to do that. How do I do that? And I just say, just think of the little child that lives inside of you like a real physical child that you have, that you are completely responsible for their every need. Yeah, every need from physical food, water, shelter to emotional needs to all needs, and just give them what you would give a real child. It's not rocket science.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't know why it is so hard to love ourselves. I I've gained so much the chemo, I gained 30 pounds with the chemo, but that does not, after so long, I know that it does not define who I am. It has nothing to do with who I am. Um, I know my worth period. It does, it's not based on anything that I ever thought it used to be based on. There's no, I am worthy because I'm just worthy because I'm, you know, I'm alive, I'm a person. Those are the things I wish, I wish my even my children knew, but hopefully I'm now teaching them that instead of I hate my body because it's not whatever size I think it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01:Teaching it and modeling it for.
SPEAKER_03:Modeling it, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And so many others need to hear it.
SPEAKER_01:So you you said earlier, you know, this isn't really about photography or you named a couple of other things, you know, it is really about bringing people together. But it seems that everything you've done has been rooted in some form of creativity.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How can I come to you?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, would you I've been a my mom was a fine artist, and um, so I guess it's just in me, but um, I went through college and got a degree in advertising, so I've always been in the creative industry. I was a graphic designer, I am a graphic designer for since 1990. And um you're this the what you were saying about my photography is when I was in high school, even younger, I always had a camera. And I went to I went through college and I got a degree in advertising and communications, but I still loved photography. And I went to an ad agency in Miami. I mean, um, a photo studio in Miami. I was already working at an ad agency, and I was gonna give it all up and they were gonna take me on as an apprentice, and I was so intimidated by lighting that I just didn't do it. And then and then at 50 I talked about my my childhood sexual abuse, and then I went to a conference it's so funny that a conference can do this, but they the whole weekend they kept talking about whatever you feel called about, you're you have to do it. Like it's you're doing God gave you that on purpose, whatever that is calling you. And that very next weekend, I started taking pictures of this woman because she kept saying how she kept complaining about herself the whole time. I was with her, and I was like, oh my God, I see your beauty and you don't see it. Can I take pictures of you with my iPhone? And that sparked photography again. I I took pictures of like, I don't know, eight people before I bought a real camera again, of just to show them how beautiful they are. So I think that's what I bring to it through my art, is I just want you to be seen because I think as the youngest of six, I don't think I talked till I was 15 because my sister talked for me. I definitely was invisible. I have been up to been up to a bar counter and been invisible. And you know, like I can so I think that's the passion, is I want you to feel seen and heard, and that's why the podcast, that's why the photography I just if I can give anything back, that's what I'm giving, and also I get a lot out of it. Um, I really enjoy holding space, and I I shockingly am good at it. I say shockingly because I just the younger me can't believe that I do this.
SPEAKER_01:You are you are good for that, and we have that in common, you know. As I listen to you talk, I think about that. Was my whole reason for getting into the beauty industry was to help people just see how beautiful they really are.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, is it it's almost like a crime to not love yourself and to go through life. Can you imagine somebody on your deathbed going, oh, that was a really nice person, but they should have lost 10 pounds. Nobody's ever gonna say that, nobody's ever gonna think anything, all the things we're worried about, nobody else is caring.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, the size of my ass does not dictate whether my husband likes me or not. So it doesn't matter. At this weight, I'm having plenty of fun.
SPEAKER_00:There you go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's sad that there's such a machine that's in place to keep us imprisoned in um so many things that just don't matter. I mean, you you've seen it from the inside.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I once didn't go into an event. I was all dressed up, I was sitting in the parking lot. And this was, I mean, probably well, a lot of pounds ago. I mean, probably 70 pounds ago. I didn't go into the event because I felt fat. I mean, what a crime. How I mean, no, if I walked into that event, I can't imagine one person thinking, oh, there's Hara, but she's fat. It's so crazy what what we do to ourselves. And so I just don't want to waste another second not thinking I'm all that because I'm the only me, too. Like I know I'm cool just because I exist. Like there's I bring something, I have a voice that nobody else has. That doesn't mean that somebody can't duplicate it or I'm just saying there's something special about me, as is there is about everyone.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Ah, I you you're just yeah. Pouring out beautiful words. I love everything you're saying. And it is the epitome of who you are. You know, I've just been around you enough, and I'm just such a good judge of character and and intuition and feel into people's hearts. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's exactly who you are.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, thank you. I feel is that like when a dog likes you?
SPEAKER_01:I do, you know, it's reflected in your podcast. And now all the I, you know, I see some of the photos you take. I don't see all of them, but I see some of them. And and and it's all about just really bringing beauty into the forefront where people notice it. It's all around, but bringing it up where people notice it, and that's that's just amazing. Tell us a little bit more about the because it's it's been a a year ago or a little more than a year ago that you launched Dream Studio.
SPEAKER_03:Dream Studio just opened in April of this year.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I'm off on time just a little bit.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's okay. Last year I got diagnosed with the cancer, and so I kind of lost that whole year. But in April we opened. So it hasn't been that long though. I'm an impatient person and I want I want all the things right this second.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. I feel that. Tell us a little bit about the motivation for that and and what that looks like, what's going on there in the studio? Because I get some of your emails and know that there's you're pulling people together for photography shows and for different creative things. Tell it, give us a little bit of an overview, please.
SPEAKER_03:Um, well, I I've done a few events. I've done some art events uh in this in Spokane, they do First Fridays, which are art shows, and you know, and so we're on that path that we did three of them so far. And that was fun. It's just it's a lot of work, and and you know, like I feel like, you know, I don't know if you proud, maybe you know, like you know how when you didn't get picked in school, that's how I every First Friday feels to me. Every event, every everything I've ever done feels that way. That's why I'm saying the little girl in me is alive and well and loud, because she's like, pick me, pick me. I just watched a TV show yesterday that said something about don't be a pick me girl. I'm a pick me girl. Um, but it's been beautiful. I brought a lot of creatives together. I just had a creative meetup, which was really fun, and there was a lot of people that came through the studio. I mean, there's there's other events that are happening. I'm getting I'm doing a lighting class, which is the irony of all ironies, because I'm trying to show people that it's not as hard as you think, and I shouldn't have waited 30 years to go to it because it took me 30 years, yeah, full circle. So that's really exciting.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we we also teach what we must need to learn. So that makes perfect sense to me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love I really do love that because that's what I was so scared, and really it is not scary at all. It's just point the point it at somebody and see what happens. That's what I think about all art now that I know better. I'm just trying to have fun. I can't take anything too seriously. It might come out, it might not. It's you probably probably gonna. You know, I've no done it enough to know that it's gonna work out, but also I'm going into it with let's see what happens. Right. So there's no fear that way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you you never know if you don't try. Or I guess the other way of framing that is it'll it'll never work if you don't try.
SPEAKER_03:And I think it's okay to the word isn't fail, but to create something that you don't like, toss it and try again. Like it is not the end of the world to make art that is not what you hoped it would be. But it we have this such a fear of, well, I can't, I'm not creative. That's just I just that's another thing that really I hope we can let go of because for me, the joy of creating is as much as the final product. There's such a pleasure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, unfortunately, I I think that there's there are too many dark forces that gain from people having uh a very fixed mentality where it's it's a coin flip. It's you win or you lose. But in reality, if we try to sustain an infinite gain, even that coin flip when you're learning something is well, I mean, that's just it. You're either you either get lucky or if when it doesn't work out, you learn something a little bit more. That's how you acquire skills, it's how you sharpen the saw.
SPEAKER_03:Right. I I think that's true too. I'm learning that too about people. Like every time something happens, it's like, okay, that person's a lesson for me. I'm not sure if I know what the lesson is this minute, but I know it's something I'm supposed to learn. And you know, I'm really, really, really working hard to not take things personally. I mean, if I'm on my deathbed and I'm still saying that, I didn't succeed, but I'm working on it. That's the hardest one for me.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's hard for all of us. I it all feels personal, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Yeah, I just have to really step back sometimes and say, okay, you know, people didn't plot to hurt you by not showing up at your event or whatever the thing is.
SPEAKER_03:100%. They're not even. Been thinking about you at all. Like they have forgotten that there was an event. I totally know this. Like, my I guess what I'm saying. Like the 57-year-old is totally fine. She's just having to calm down the five-year-old, you know, there, there.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. You know, I I think the there's I'm I'm wondering if there's something more. Your your story about walking away from photography because you didn't think they were intimidated by the lighting. And we all have something like this. Um is there more that we could dive into that? Because I think that's something that is kind of universal and creative. I know for me, when my father died in 2012, I had been saying one of these days, one of these days, I'm going to take painting lessons. And he died. I got that slap of mortality in the face, and I started taking classes and painting. And I painted for five, six years, maybe seven, I don't remember. And then I put it down. And I haven't touched it now in about seven years. And about, I don't know, three months ago, I decided I wanted to paint again. And I've been creative all my life. And most of the creative endeavors that I took on, I was able to create things that were worthwhile, you know, whether it was decorating the house for Christmas, whether it was baking something or cooking some wonderful creation or hair color and haircuts and makeup on my absolutely fabulous clientele. I did photography for a number of years as a hobby and even shot professionally for a couple of years. That was a mistake, but ruined it for me. But for me, most of the things that I've gone into creatively have kind of come rather easy to me. I I do remember photography that in the beginning, just I just wasn't getting it. You know, I was studying, I was reading, I was playing with the camera and all these settings and what they do, and and it wasn't clicking. And I just kind of kept being patient and kept studying. And one day it was just like all of a sudden it made sense. Well, I'm in that right now with my painting. Yes, I've acquired a few skills, and I can paint a thing or two here or there that kind of look decent, but there's some aspect of it that just hasn't quite clicked yet. I just don't, I it just hasn't clicked.
SPEAKER_00:And part of it is that you carry around with you your own harshest critic. You you carry one of the things that you gain from that 40-year beauty professional career is that you always aspire for perfection the first time around.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, you don't get a second time once you've cut their hair off, it's cut, you know. You you you only get one chance to do that color and that cut right. Because if you fuck it up, it's almost impossible to come back from that.
SPEAKER_03:And I appreciate perfectionism in hairdressers. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. And that's been probably part of the hardest thing to overcome because everything, most of what I've done had a very specific end game. I knew what I wanted it to look like before I even started. And I, when I started painting, I thought, I don't want that. I I I just want to start and let it take me on a journey, not knowing where the end place is going to be. But boy, the way my mind works is just struggling with that. Um, so I think that there's for all of us, it doesn't matter what stage of our creative journey we're in, we hit walls from time to time. And you have a story of how you just charged and you know mowed that wall down. Now you're teaching the lighting.
SPEAKER_03:I found out it's ADHD. I have no impulse control. That's what I think the uh mowing things down is. I just I am a throw shit at the wall and see if it'll stick kind of girl. I'm not very uh I'm not figuring out the steps to get there. I'm just gonna try it and see what works.
SPEAKER_01:You're you're not a strategist. You're not you're not a strategic.
SPEAKER_03:There's no strategy in this this brain. There's all creative. There's all I'm tilted. There's a whole left side of me that's empty. It's very hard to go through life this way, actually. Um, especially with my husband who's extremely the opposite, very organized, knows. I mean, I have to ask him where everything is. It's so cute.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, that that's one way of achieving balance.
SPEAKER_03:It's nice to have them. Yeah, oh yes, it's very good, actually. Um well for me, the lighting thing was my sister, the closest sister to me, we were one person when we were little. I mentioned that she talked for me. We were we weren't separate. Um, but she was the smart one. She was in the gifted, and I was not. I was in remedial math. You know, I just was not her. And I believed the lie I told myself that I was stupid. Um, I truly, which is so strange because I learned how to use a computer, but for some reason the lighting, and like you're saying, the camera is intimidating. Um so I just was sure that was not my path. And then, and then right when I started, it was right before COVID, and COVID hit, and so then I did, oh, I'm gonna try a self-portrait series, which lasted 60 days. It wasn't meant to be 60 days, but it was 60 days of me practicing lighting, a very patient model, uh, me, and um I found out it wasn't as hard as I thought it was. So, I mean, I got really lucky with COVID and this self-portrait series, and I I I know so many photographers that are like, well, I don't do lighting, I'm a natural light photographer because they're scared. And so that's the the lighting class is lighting made simple, you know, a hands-on approach because it's truly so simple and it it adds so much to the image. You know, you're you don't you're not dictated by the light, you're you're creating with light.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you're painting with light.
SPEAKER_03:You're painting with light. You are the master of what happens in that picture.
SPEAKER_01:It is something you have to master for sure, but I always felt like when I was doing photography, it you know, when you're working with natural light, you're at the mercy of the weather, the time of the day, short seasons when it stays dark later in the morning and gets dark earlier in the evening. Yeah, it plays havoc with your your whole creative uh journey. And and to be able to manipulate artificial light gives you an insane amount of freedom.
SPEAKER_03:But but I think the the thing is you don't have to master it, you just have to play with it. And I think that's what you have to learn about your painting. And what we all have to keep in mind is that nobody's an expert. I just talked to somebody who works on worked on films in LA, and the sound guy who gets paid, she said, as much as she made all year on that one project, um, would say, Oh, I don't know, let me go look that up. Like, just you don't have to know everything. And every, even he's getting paid so much and he doesn't know everything, and he's not even pretending he knows everything. I think we I that's what like every photo shoot, a paid one or a play one, I'm still going into it with the emotion of I'm gonna have fun, I'm gonna play, I hope it works out. Like I said, it usually does, but but because I've taken all the pressure off of me, now I'm gonna have fun no matter what.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And now it's art again and it's not a stress. Because what what the point, what's the point of even doing it if I'm not having fun?
SPEAKER_00:What a gift you give to yourself.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm very generous. I think if people could hear the old inner critic and this this new sweet person that chats with me, they'd be like, ah, you know, like when people are so in love and they're gooey. That's what I'm like with myself. I'm just so very kind.
SPEAKER_01:I like that a lot.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_01:Very much the whole world could use a an extra dose of that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I wish it for them. I really do.
SPEAKER_01:That's beautiful. Well, what's what's next?
SPEAKER_03:Well, well, um, I I think until I die, until I die, I'm gonna make art in whatever form that it takes. Um I mean, I'm not actively dying, but I do have incurable cancer, and I have chosen not to do chemo again because it kind of stole a year from me. And with incurable cancer, it'll just be like, that doesn't sound like a good idea to do it again and again and again and again, lose years when I could. I'm already 57, I only have so many left. So I'm just gonna live out loud and and make art. This is what I wrote the other day. I had a I had the creative meetup here, and we had to write our dreams up on the board. And all I wrote was make love and make art. So if I die doing those two things, I'll be good. I have had the love of my life. I have the love of my life. I am so lucky. I was miserably miserable in love for 45 years, and then I met my husband. And so for the last 11 years, I've been so lucky and feel very okay with whatever happens, happens. That's also a lovely place to be.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I can I can literally feel that peace.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01:I can I can feel it. You've made peace with what's going on, and you're just gonna make the absolute friggin' best at it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I'm not sad about anything. I'm not like it's not morose at all. I think I I wish that for everybody too, to be at peace with the ending that is destined for you. You just don't know when. The people the fact that people are scared of death too is a fascinating thing. Um, but I just feel very at peace with all of it. And I feel I'm so lucky to have been loved so well by my husband. And people that have graced my camera lens have just, I love making art. I love the beauty in everybody, and I appreciate that they let me shoot them, you know, photograph them.
SPEAKER_01:It's a real special thing to be allowed to come into somebody's world, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:I think so. I think that with the podcast too, you know, you know that you know, you get intimate. You almost feel like it's so intimate, we must be best friends. And then you have to realize you're not, you're just for that moment. But that's okay too. That once you get that, that it's nice to have that moment with somebody.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and knowing that, you know, at any time you could recreate that moment. I believe that I could reach out to any person that's on the podcast and say, can we connect? And and it would be a most likely a resounding yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I feel that way too. It's it is a beautiful experience. I love that people are willing to open up at all, and especially in these ways. You know, a lot of models ask me, a lot of people ask me, well, what should I wear? Or what do you what's your concept? And I'm like, what do you want to wear? What's your concept? I mean, it I don't even think it has anything to do with me. I mean, I am bringing artistry to it, but generally I feel like I'm pointing the camera at you and you're doing everything. You're the art, you are what we're trying to capture. It doesn't really have anything to do with my vision of you because I don't know you, even if I know you. Like, what do you want people to think about you? What do you want to portray? So I I really love the collaborative process of photography. Because it's not about me. I do enjoy it, I love the art of it, but it's about the person and how do they want to be represented.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, holding space for them to really show up so you capture the who they really are.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Yeah. Well, recently I I had somebody upset with me and I said that, you know, while I'm a safe space, somebody pointed out the difference between holding space and being a safe space. And I'll share that with you because I think it's fascinating because I didn't realize the difference. I mean, I don't know if you do, but I just I just love this idea because it was a good lesson for me. Well, I'm like, but I'm a safe space. And he said, How can you be a safe space for everybody? Because if you're in the Black Panthers, the KKK is not a safe space for you. And I was like, Oh, oh, yeah, like, okay. Though so that's just another lesson of those who love me or feel safe around me, love me and feel safe around me. And those who don't, don't, and that's okay, let them, let them. That's a hard one. Um, but somebody came into the creative meeting, she didn't know anybody, she was very emotional, she started to cry, and I held her, I hugged her and held her for a little bit. And she wrote recently, she wrote afterwards, um, thank you for holding space for me. And I was like, that's what I can do. I can hold space, but I can't be a safe space for everyone. And I love that lesson. That was just recently. Isn't that a really good way of looking at it?
SPEAKER_01:It is. We we got exposed to something similar to that probably maybe about a almost two years ago when, you know, because we we host events and and we we we would say, you know, this is we've that we've created a safe container, and and and we were taught, and and we really, really fully get it, that we don't have that ability.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:We just don't have the ability to create a safe container for others. We have the ability to hold space and then ask them if they will collectively create a safe container, yeah, and get their buy-in. And we do that with every event that we we lead. And it's amazing what that you can feel a shift in energy in the room when everybody has raised their hand to agree that they will do everything in their power to hold the space as sacred space and make it safe for everybody. There's just this collective kind of like, ah, exhale.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And it just, and then everybody gets really, really real, really open, and um, it does create a what we call people magic.
SPEAKER_03:I love that. Do you find that people are, especially artists? I mean, I'm not sure what I think about this, but do you find that people are constantly in competition rather than collaboration? I'm not sure what I think about that, but I I have a feeling that there's that, that's a problem.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's what's modeled in the West. And uh it's something that's a very there's a very strong pressure to have that be how people are are steered. But it's overcome because uh there are a lot of uh famous anthropological studies where they go into places where they haven't been corrupted by uh uh our commercial practices, and it's very easy for um for the children to play infinite games where there's not someone that wins or loses, but the idea is to just keep playing, and they would go on forever.
SPEAKER_03:My sister and I actually, she's in Boston. We play Catan in our Oculus and our and you know what I'm talking about, a quest of VR headset.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03:And it's a game of chance, so but we just play, well, we'll play one more, we'll play one more, we'll play one more until you know 10 games have gone by. But it's that same thing. You're gonna win at some point because it's it's a game of chance. It's not like you're better than the next person or smarter or anything. So that's the competitiveness is gone. It's just like, let's see what happens this time. But it's very uh joyful to play. I love I do like infinite games.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I I would say that in all of our because we're very involved in the arts community locally, we go to a lot of stuff, we host this stuff, we have all these guests on the podcast, and I would say we don't come across very many creatives that are talking up competitive energy. Yeah, most of it's more collaboration. I can recall one very specific conversation where somebody, you know, had an experience of somebody kind of like stealing her idea and you know, like literally looking at some of her paintings and then going and recreating them and doing better with them than she did with them. And so she is very like closed off. She doesn't want to have contact with other creatives, and she's very solo and very isolated and very, very fearful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, she misses out, I think. I mean, like you said, she's fearful, but she's so alone, like she's really on an island.
SPEAKER_01:You know, to have one experience like that and to take that experience and determine that everybody is like that is is um it's a real sad decision to make to decide that you, you know, you had one person did you dirty, and now you know, everybody is like that. And that's kind of a human condition. We tend to do that sometimes. We label people and put them all in a box once we've you know had one person of that type, whatever, do us do us wrong.
SPEAKER_03:Um but well, and also I feel like the person who maybe maybe did wrong or maybe didn't because did she own art? I don't know. That's a thing, that's a whole nother thing. But um, but to be like for that one act to then be that person for the rest of her life. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like we were just talking about that I can think something, write it down, and then no longer think it because it's outside of me. Like I'm not even my thoughts that I had a minute ago sometimes. So to be like, you know, that she did that five months ago. Like I'm I'm not the person five months ago. I'm not even the person I was a thought a minute a minute ago.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. We know that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_03:So we have to just totally give ourselves, give each other grace too, because we can't even be held responsible for our own thoughts the minute we think it, because we the minute we let it go, sometimes it's not even true anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's that's a valid point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, because you can't, yeah, I don't want to be held responsible.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I I think maybe we don't attract much of that because we speak so much about community and about collaboration and co-elevation. And yeah. So we kind of that polarizing thing that we send those those competitive people, they just go away because, you know, we're not speaking their language.
SPEAKER_03:I'm just in a community of, and I don't know if this is true, is why uh the question was genuine. I'm in a community of photographers who are all buying for the same clients, I think. It's a small community and a lot of photographers. And so that's what made me think that. But my creative meetup, I had a film director here and I had an actress here who had never met, and she auditioned for her. And anyway, that that's so exciting. That's the whole idea. Like I I made that happen just by creating the space for it to happen. And that I feel like there, that's what if that's all that ever came out of all the things I've ever done, that's so cool. Because that's the whole idea.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I call my happy place.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You know, when we bring people together and we see what happens with the connections, um, that that really's my happy place.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:As you as you speak about that competitive atmosphere, I'm reminded of the old proverb about the long spoons. You know, the spoon, so the way that it's set up, you have these people that are uh around a big bowl of soup and they only have really long spoons. And the spoons are impossibly long, so long that they can't feed themselves the spoons. But the only way that they can all eat is if they can serve each other with the spoons.
SPEAKER_04:I love that. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's so beautiful. There's a great visual of that or a short video that floated around on Facebook uh a few years back that was just amazing. You know, illustrated, you know, the people scooping out with these really long spoons, and they couldn't get it to their own mouth. So they finally figured out that they would just feed each other. It was beautiful.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that is beautiful. Well, I'm hoping to to build something here. Um, you asked me, I guess you asked me what the future holds, and the future holds, we'll see. I don't know. I don't know how long the future is, I don't know what this space will be. I don't know if it'll all work out, but it always all works out, just maybe not the way I have envisioned in my head. So, so I'm open.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, it's kind of like me spreading paint on the canvas and seeing where it takes me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Have you ever written something the same way? Like I've written a story where I'm as excited as somebody who might ever read it to find out what's gonna happen. You know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know the end. I don't know when a painting is the same way as you. I'm like, let's just see what happens. I feel the same way about it's exciting to see what happens. It is, and like the person who did not know where she was going in Italy, and I went to France once too, and I didn't know. I loved the I love not knowing.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's it's all fun and games until you come across the the wrong border checkpoint.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, well, I have people in charge. My sister knew everything. I did I wasn't I wasn't worried about, yeah, no, everything was planned to the I don't know how we're so different, but she knew everything. It was on a spreadsheet, even yuck.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, they all are different as night and day, aren't you?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes. I don't know how, right, she was the smart one.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we have one question that we ask every guest toward the end of of the episode. And um, so here we go. In your current creative life, what is the biggest pain point? That challenge that if it were solved would be a game changer for your creative journey.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I think I have it solved by not taking it too seriously. Like, I'm not holding myself to there's no pain point because I'm just playing. But I think if I can answer the question in the way that if there's a pain point in my life in terms of like everything I do, it would be just really building a community. And and also then I think is that the solution? Will that will that change everything? I don't even know. You know, like you're saying that the people who don't like you, then are they even the people you would want to be around? Like I want to build this community, but then will that change anything? I don't know. So I'm open to it and I'm trying, and we'll see. But I don't think there's anything that needs to happen to change anything for me. Oh, am I the only one who ever said that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's it's a beautiful thing. And oh, you know, you're you're talking to uh the connections and community guys, so we're a little biased. And uh we uh I hate to speak for Maddox, but we we love your answer.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, good, good. Well, I it's true. I really can't even think of anything because if if you're just playing, if you're if you're willing to fail or the project, you know, not with any pressure on yourself, there's nothing, there's no pain point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I can't even think of anything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, nobody's nobody said that, Aaron.
SPEAKER_03:But also, because I'm we're all gonna die.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Not in a bad way. We're all just wasting time worrying about things that aren't to worry about.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, I for many years I've tried to, you know, when I get too overly worried about something, I will project myself out to the very end of my life. Imagine that I'm about to take my last few breaths. And I ask myself, is this something that you'll be worried about when you're about to take your last breath? And if the answer is no, then why are you worried about it now?
SPEAKER_03:I don't think that's morose. I think that's brilliant. I think we should all be doing that because it's really true. We're holding on to things that do not matter. Right. Or like think about somebody who's written something stupid on Facebook and then that's their last post. I'm just saying any moment can be our last, and we just have to. My mom passed away when I was 18. So I always thought she was 46. I always thought I was gonna die at 46. And so I've kind of been living that way anyway. Yes, like just, you know, uh could die any minute. And now I'm 57. I didn't die at 46, luckily. So every day is already a gift. I just I really don't want to waste any of them. There's so few.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you you have to love fate. And I'm I'm reminded of uh a nice story I came across where there was someone who was at the the horri horribly um old age of 30, I believe it was. And just feeling like it was all over, they were all washed up, that was the end. And someone had the kindness to uh have them think about what it would be like for the 90-year-old version of themselves to think about how every day that they had up and you know, that followed was more than a second chance because you know they uh they got to really seize the day uh for another 60 years. And what a gift is that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:When I hear somebody that's getting ready to turn 30 talking about their life is over, I have literally said to them, don't make me bitch slap you.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, it's it is annoying, it's really annoying. Little do they know, but that's okay. We didn't know either at 30.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but I don't remember thinking my life was over at 30.
SPEAKER_03:I don't either. But we maybe we're from a different time.
SPEAKER_01:We were, yeah, we are.
SPEAKER_03:You know, they have everything. I do feel sorry for them, the 30-year-olds in particular, because social media, while it has been very good, they can look anything up, they can know anything they want to know. They've also been thrust into this world of comparison and the highlight reel of everybody's life rather than reality. And it must, I mean, I do think it weighs differently on them. You know, it can. Yeah, I imagine it would because you know, when I was young, you only had it in your head what was happening, and now you can actually see it. And if it's just the highlight reel, I mean, I've been going through um foreclosure. On my house, and somebody saying, Oh, I'm so glad to see you're doing so well. Because I was self-promoting, and they, you know, the truth was my house was in foreclosure, but you only know the highlight reel. So social media, while it's wonderful, it is not the whole picture. And we and the younger generation is just has to be is just in it, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they don't really get that it's not the whole picture.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Well, this has been amazing.
SPEAKER_03:It's been lovely. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:I have I have loved this. Thank you so much for um being just so open with what's going on with you. You know, it's it couldn't be an easy thing to talk about, yet you you you made it feel very, very easy. Like I really do sense your your level of peace. And that in and of itself, that energy that you have left in this space right now will be a gift to every listener.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. I do I am very much at peace, which is you know, what a blessing. Just can't even imagine, you know, my 30-year-old self whose life was over. No, I'm just kidding. But, you know, I did go through a divorce in my early 30s and I had two young kids, and it it is can be overwhelming. And so it's nice to remember to pay attention to the sunsets and the way the light's hitting something, and you know, just take in all the little moments because dream anyway. What else is there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you.