EP23: On Following The Intangible – with Genevieve White

In this episode, we journey with Genevieve White, a seasoned artist and performer, as she shares her path from her multicultural roots in Canada to the vibrant art scene of New York City—recorded in the tranquil atmosphere of Berlin’s Grunewald Forest as a conversation with host and transdisciplinary artist Emeka Okereke. Genevieve’s story reveals the transformative power of collaboration, creativity, and the delicate, often interwoven relationship between art and life.

The conversation delves into how Genevieve views art as a vessel for expression, shaped by the diverse cultural dynamics and experiences she’s encountered. She opens up about the profound impact of nurturing and personal care amidst the chaos of creation. From collaborations with jazz musicians to the enduring influence of artistic legends like Duchamp and Graham, Genevieve unpacks the energy and magic that emerge when artists connect through mutual respect and shared vision, and how following those inklings of the intangible is a recurrent theme at the core of the creative principle.

Reflecting on her upbringing in a large family, Genevieve explores the interplay between nurturing others and maintaining personal boundaries—a theme that resonates throughout her artistic journey and now preoccupies her as her creative flair takes on a rekindled urge and agency. Together, Genevieve and Emeka uncover the rich, unseen moments of everyday life that spark their creativity, the connections that inspire their work, and the wonder children bring into the world.

But this episode isn’t just about art. It’s a story of resilience, fearlessness, and embracing change. They discuss the challenges of balancing personal passion with commercial success, the evolving role of online platforms in an artist’s journey, and the freedom that comes with artistic maturity. Through Genevieve’s experiences, listeners gain insights into the confidence that grows with time and the joy of stepping beyond traditional confines.

Join us for this serene exploration of art, life, and nature’s restorative embrace. May this conversation inspire belief, joy, and the boundless creativity that comes from nurturing both self and others.

Chapters

• 0:00 Artist's Pluralistic Creative Process
• 8:25 The Power of Creative Collaboration
• 23:00 Exploring Artistic Expression Through Connection
• 37:27 Navigating Artistic Confidence and Commerce
• 45:57 Embracing Artistic Evolution and Confidence
• 51:40 Embracing Fear and Finding Resilience
• 1:01:51 Discovering the Inner Child Through Nurturing
• 1:10:17 Nature's Peaceful Podcast Escape

Transcript

Emeka : 0:00

Hello, hello, welcome to yet another episode of Nkata podcast, dots of Thoughts. And today I am in a very special setting and I'm going to be having a conversation. Yes, very special setting and I'm going to be having a conversation with an artist, performer and many other things in between, and her name is Genevieve White and she is with me here. We are at the Grunewald Forest.

Genevieve: 0:28

Yes, yeah, hello, hello everybody. First of all, it's a pleasure. Thank you, emeka, for inviting me. I'm really grateful because it gives a voice and this platform is an amazing place for discussing deep topics that can create change and transform and influence, and I think your work is amazing and brings a lot of positivity and change, and so thank you. I'm very happy to be here. I'm very thrilled. I know that we have had already so many great conversations that fly in many directions. We have had already so many great conversations that fly in many directions, and so I'm grateful for you, for your work, for what you do and for this podcast. I'm grateful to be here, especially here in nature. Nature speaks to me. Nature is who we are, is part of inside of us, so it's really nice to sit on a tree trunk right now and have the space, the time and the opportunity to share yeah, yeah, yeah, it's also really a pleasure having this conversation with you.

Emeka : 1:37

Yes, like you rightly pointed out, we've been having conversations and, in fact, that is the whole point of this podcast as well is that each episode is an offshoot of, say, something that I have read somewhere, some encounter that is inspiring. I don't just come up with ideas. Follows a particular something I feel like, okay, it'd be interesting to have this as a conversation and bring it in and share it within, uh, in the context of a larger or the audience listening, as a way of also projecting, you know, what starts as a maybe an idea, an inkling, projecting it outwards, you know, so that it can also reach other people and I love this idea of tapestry and weaving.

Genevieve: 2:25

I lived in New York City and for 10 years there I was very active on the scene of performance art. I moved there to do my master's degree and from there on I started performing. I did a performance at Dyche for Vanessa Beecroft, which was a group of women Actually these women were sculptures. We were actually laying on the ground of the gallery and coming alive slowly in a two or three hour duration, and we were painted white with real sculptures lying next to us. So the question was who is human, who is not, and where is life coming from?

Genevieve: 3:01

But all of this to say that at my time there I was going from collaboration to collaboration. I was kind of a vessel as a performer, collaborating with other performers, more established, some less. It didn't matter, but it was a learning process for me to engage in how do I create my work and stay powerful and steady. But also I was more interested in how others can influence my work and how we can join these forces. And so I love this idea of going from artist to artist and being a nomad. And so I had a studio practice, but I was mostly doing five or six projects at the same time.

Emeka : 3:43

To give this a context, you are originally from Canada. Yes, I grew up in Montreal and eventually, so basically we know Canada From the little I know of Canada. It's a bilingual country, right?

Genevieve: 3:57

Yes, yes.

Emeka : 4:00

Between English and French. So your idea of things mixed up or mixed up identity.

Genevieve: 4:09

Yeah, it's already present. Yeah yeah, funny enough, I'm a first generation Canadian. My mother is from France and my dad is from England, so they emigrated to Quebec City, which is mostly only French, when they were in their teens. They were very young and started their family and then moved to Montreal, which is a very international city, like Berlin and like New York, so people from all over the world live there. So I was exposed to many different cultures and already in my blood kind of merging differences and identities.

Emeka : 4:44

That's very interesting because much of the conversations I've had in my podcasts has always been about this idea of people coming from different places and moving in the world, especially creative people, especially artists and cultural practitioners moving in the world in such a way that, by the virtue of their movement, they are also shaping and speaking of movement.

Emeka : 5:13

We have some people who are like we hear the leaves cracking up around us exactly a dance yeah, yeah, and it's basically some, some men, who are actually walking through, yeah, yeah, tracking through the forest. So, as I was saying, by virtue of their movement, they are also changing the cartography of the world, by what they carry with them and how they go to different places, allowing those spaces to animate who they are, but also them animating the social power of a place. Animate who they are, but also them animating the social power of a place. You were speaking earlier about how your work was also, first of all, becoming a vessel for other artists, but then it allows you to move and collaborate with different people. It's almost as if you are projecting, I would say projecting that part of yourself that is about sharing your multiplicity in different ways, and that became the way your artistic practice started, and so can we take it from there and you can speak more to this idea of plurality, multiplicity, working with different people.

Genevieve: 6:22

I mean as an artist, I think the process is really interesting for me. So do you distinguish art and life as separate? It's a big topic for me at the moment, because art is a thing that we put in a gallery. You know, we've found a diagram, a space, a map where it is recognizable and at the same time, there's this idea of Joseph Boyce where, like everything around him, he would call art and has political and social power and is a whole. You know other dimension, and you know I always find myself in between, and in New York I was exploring you. You know, performing on the streets versus performing in the museum where there's a budget, where there's a whole range of people working for you, and and does it bring away the poetics of the work because you're in a certain frame? Do people notice if you're performing on the street? Does it? Do they even care? Does it have the same impact like where's the audience? So all these questions were quite relevant at that time and at the moment I've realized, you know, it's interesting because I'm a mother of four children, and so that's why I'm talking about the process, because how to bring art and life and are they connected or disconnected? And and in my process it cannot be disconnected. My life is so prominently, there's so many priorities and other contingents that they seep through in my art, no matter if I would like to be a conceptual artist or like completely be intellectual and separate, it's almost impossible given my situation, and so I'm adapting to creating works where I'm very aware that I have to nurture my children, I have to also nurture my art. So finding that balance and managing everything, and so I have more of a practice now. That's in the studio base, that's painting and drawing, but I feel that my performance work informs that medium. It's just a different shape. Funny that we talked about movement, because right now I'm working with a jazz musician and our topic we started discussions only about movement and what does moving mean? They're doing an album that will be called Move and based on a Miles Davis song from the 40s, which is actually political and about social change and moving and taking action, and it's a very fast-paced bebop song.

Genevieve: 8:52

I was thinking about many things In painting, for example, marcel Duchamp, the man walking down the staircase. It's about photography, it's about the body, it's's about movement. I was thinking about Martha Graham and her dance troupe and and the possibility of movement in dance, and how movement is vibration in music. And how could I paint to her music and try to capture her, her vibrations, her poetry, the lines of each instrument inside the painting, as my hand and mind is, is in reaction to the music. So embodying the music and seeing what is surfacing on the surface of the painting, while still respecting my boundary of my style or what I find beautiful or what is meaningful in my painting, and how to co-create and merge these energies, and I think that's also what we are doing here right now. So for me, what's interesting is this emergence of a new energy, when two creators come together without ego, but still have to respect each other's what they offer and what they can give, but what they receive and where is their creativity coming from and how does it affect each other, infect each other, crisscross, you know. So I'm really interested in the individual co-creating patterns that can emerge from collaboration.

Genevieve: 10:26

But, like you said, also, movement in space, in actual like, um, yeah, going into amusing, going onto the street, going in the theater, collaborating in that way, is another also dimension. This one is more personal, it's more but um, I'm super interested in navigating this space where it's a little bit of the unknown, but I take a lot of risk and I have no fear. This is this space of creation where everything goes, there are no rules, and I feel the most free and I feel the most alive and I feel there's this, this core like, there's this tie, there's this something that reunites me with the core of this universal energy, which I think should flow in art, in any type of work, if it's a performance, a painting, a building you're an architect a dance. My art is a way to reestablish my source energy back to this universal energy that hopefully emanates in whatever piece I'm making, so that it moves and transform people you've talked about weaving.

Emeka : 11:33

You've talked about you as a nurturer. Having four kids have you always had as part of your process, maybe growing up as a person, as a human being, like thinking to yourself I like to nurture things? Or if you look back now, what was the earliest realization of that aspect of nurturing for you, before it started to take shape and permeate other things that you do and other ways that you you live and move in the world?

Genevieve: 12:03

That's a fantastic question. I really love this question. As a small little girl, I was extremely altruistic, so I wanted to always help, no matter what. I thought that's my role, not even thinking, just doing. I thought it was the right thing. I don't know, it felt from my heart. It was like this egoless love, like an unconditional love, probably also stemming from family dynamics. I come from a big family. I have five sisters. When my younger sister was born I'm the fourth one, anne-marie. We have a six-year gap.

Genevieve: 12:43

I felt very responsible for her. I felt almost like a mother, because my mother was so busy and had a household very chaotic and a lot of things of responsibilities. I took on the role a little bit already there at 10. When she was born, I remember changing her diapers. I remember playing with her. I remember carrying her. I remember playing with her. I remember carrying her. I remember doing all kinds of things like being that close to her.

Genevieve: 13:10

But it was not a closeness of sisterhood. It was more like I want to protect you, I want to make sure you're safe. I like, I feel like I have to like I, because there's so much going around us that I think it was just natural for me, I don't know. I felt like, yeah, I wanted to be present for her, I wanted to make sure she's feeling good, and, I think, to the detriment of myself, because I still needed a mother. So it was a little bit of a tricky situation where I was pulled to do to take on that role, even though it was perhaps not really my role at all. I should just be freely be a little girl and enjoy myself and play with my friends and whatnot.

Genevieve: 13:49

But I think I felt responsible and I think this is something that followed me, where I've had to learn to say no, because I'm often giving and giving and giving and there's this line where you have to establish boundaries. So for me it's been a life lesson to say no to, you know, because kindness has its limit. There's the other side of human nature, the dark side, and you know. So I've learned through experience that I've had to be careful with this nurturing aspect, which makes me sad because I think there's nothing wrong in essence, to be nurturing and to want to protect and guard and love. I think for me as a person, I have to find my balance in being a life giver, nurturer and respecting my independence and my goals and my aspirations and finding the balance. And so, because whenever I give too much, there's nothing left. You know what else can I give? I have to then resource myself, and so it's so interesting.

Emeka : 14:50

So apparently there's been a dynamics between you giving and you not knowing where to say. A certain kind of replenishment needs to happen, like it has to get, it has to become sort of like secular. A cycle A cycle.

Genevieve: 15:12

Yeah, and it has to come back to you. So have you always struggled with that dynamics all your life? No, I felt very resourceful inside myself because one can tap into love immediately. It's just a question of choice and of finding the source inside of you, which is this you know, I think, divine energy, that your higher self is always there. So it's just a question of you know like, if you need the resources, you can stop everything and listen and have the intuition and the intelligence to say, okay, right now I can't anymore. So I've learned to do that more and more with the years and the recent years, because I know myself better. I think just giving because you feel like it's a sacrifice and it helps, but at the end of the day, nobody's coming to help you. So I found strength and power, and inside myself, and not through validation or trying to get it from there or here or there. No, it's all inside of us.

Genevieve: 16:06

I think the spiritual aspect has also helped me in my art as to see that I am a powerful creator. I think we all can dive into this source energy, and it's always there and it's free and it's something that is for me. It's like a grounding experience that I've experienced in my body and I know it's there and so I can always go back. So I have this sense of security there, and I think my father was also a huge sense of security, full of love and compassion, even though not so available. So I always had one figure that felt like a steady ground. I started making art because I needed to channel this idea of repair, this idea of sewing things, of making sure everyone is okay, this nurturing aspect again, of taking care, I think is a root in my art. First, joyfully just wanting to express, but also to try to repair this pain or what's under the surface. I've always been curious about why we use masks, you know, in society or in families, or how things are not communicated, how things are always blurred and it's like I'm always trying to get to the core of things and understand them, because people don't pay attention and we live in such a fast-paced world that I like to stop, and always stop, and go back to myself inside myself. Not I, and I don't think it's selfish at all. I think this is where this is where I can listen and hear these little whispers of my intuition, give me the guidance. Like being here today I was like, yeah, I totally love this invitation. I love what Emeka is doing. We've had such good rapport and this can grow somewhere else, I don't know where.

Genevieve: 18:00

Also, the collaboration with the jazz singer amazing person. I feel totally connected. What is it about? I need to explore, I need to dive in, I need to find out something about it. I don't know what. It's okay, but just go, jen, go with the flow. And so going with the flow for me has been years in the making. I think I show up with a lot of resistance coming from society, coming from what your family told you. Going to school, like always, learning, learning, you know, and I love this idea of creating a school of unlearning. Empty your mind, just like, be great and joyful at what you love and go full force, and I think amazing things can happen.

Emeka : 18:42

And will you say that art created that space for you in a, in a, yeah like, like a space of exploring all of these things that you are saying right now in a way that does it feel like also like a certain kind of liberation oh, totally, absolutely.

Genevieve: 18:59

I can't. It's a. It's a yeah. What is liberation? Liberation is feeling like there's possibilities all around you, like you're not tied down, like you, you know, we're tied down by so many things and and there is a safe sanctuary, a space where I can be myself, I can be who I am. I don't question it. I have full confidence because I think it reaches the part of me that's the creator and the creator.

Genevieve: 19:25

We, we're all, yeah, creators, and I think inside of ourselves there's a desire to express that life force, and we don't all have the luxury to do it, but I think it's inside of all of us and when we tap into it, I think there's a spirit and an energy that is so powerful, natural. It's a way of letting go, it's a way of saying, you know, yeah, I just want to pick up these pencils. This color, these colors are calling me. It would be fun to draw, why not? And not all these blockages and all these. You know there's so many um, yeah, dialogues coming in, but when you really follow your impulse to create, I think for me, it's liberation, yeah okay, when you ask that question, what is?

Emeka : 20:12

what is liberation? The way I think of it is um. Liberation is not necessarily to say, like, have all the comforts that you, that you seek in the world. Right, you know, it's not that kind of liberation, it's more. It's more like having the space and the possibility because we are. There's a feeling that we are always like a potential energy yes waiting to do something, waiting, waiting to manifest something exactly and so you.

Emeka : 20:39

So possibility is very important in that sense, having the possibility and the space for the energy to flow through you and out of you exactly.

Genevieve: 20:47

That's very interesting because it makes me think of the tangible. I was thinking about that also with you, because I was thinking about the value of thing and actually there's something invaluable that has no price between the exchange of energies between two people. It can create something that could bring in physical reality some I don't know money or something like whatever, but essentially it comes, I think, from this intangible source of energy. Together it can create something else and I think that has so much value and people don't, intentionally, are aware or see it, but I see it clearly. I see like there's something there and you said that too. You were like there's something I want to peel to the core with you, that I want to take apart because there's something that resonates with me and I want to go deeper and explore because there is something there and, and just for that, I think it's super relevant and human to want to, to do that without a preconception or end result or just believing your feeling, following it and creating something and building out of this desire to manifest perhaps something that you don't see. So the thing is, we're all so driven by our senses and what we see, what we smell, what we touch. But there's another dimension where we create, where it's the intangible, but that's yeah, it's a very powerful universal energy that you know.

Genevieve: 22:20

When you give up control and you let it to that energy I think that's when it's very scary but it's very there's so much potential for growth. And if you nurture that more and more and you go beyond your ego and your limitations and your thought processes and because we're logical human beings also, we always think pragmatically and I always try to find a balance, because I tend to be extremely intuitive and, just as an artist, with my art, to go from place to place, from person to person, feeling it out, learning, growing, nurturing. It's feeding my own art. A lot of the paintings I do at the moment are inspired by conversations, by people I meet, by moments in between, by spaces, silent spaces, where they're very rich and they're taken for granted. A lot of people don't see them.

Emeka : 23:16

That's very interesting. You know, as you are saying all of this, I see the excitement and I know this is the reason why we started having conversations in the first place. That's our anchor point. That's how we anchor, besides the fact that our children go to the same school, yes, and they are good friends.

Emeka : 23:30

They're very good friends, best friends, best friends you know, jack says you know, you see, that's it the same thing. You know, if it's not just saying the same, it's as if that these little ones brought us together. You know, it's a constant paradox that we face in life right the children will now bring the adults together, but that's also part of the beauty.

Genevieve: 23:50

But beyond that, it's also because we are artists.

Emeka : 23:54

We think, I have a feeling that we have a way of holding concepts to be tangible. You know, first of all, that what is conceptual is also tangible, because we are much more, or rather we align with the mindset of bringing something that is not there into something that is tangible and then you allow whatever form that will take, to materialize either in the painting or in the performance, in the photography or in the conversation.

Emeka : 24:24

And so that energy for us is palpable. I have a feeling that you and I discuss it not in a way of abstraction, but rather to say look, it is there. It's just that you cannot hold it with your hands. Yes, but it is there. Yes, in fact, what we are hoping, or what we are saying, is that why can't we shift more attention to seeing, yeah, this thing that is underneath everything?

Genevieve: 24:48

yeah, as opposed to seeing the outer forms right because it is in the outer form.

Emeka : 24:51

That is where you have the illusion. It is in the inner form, it is in the energy, that you begin to see that things are very much connected and they flow in a way that is beautifully dynamic yeah, there's an interconnection, there's a beautiful interconnection.

Emeka : 25:10

There's a wave and cascades and fractals and many things, but they're nevertheless really like if you can paint that, the kind of patterns you're going to find. Yeah, so what we think sometimes are random eventually settles into a certain kind of patterns you're going to find. Yeah, so what we think sometimes are random eventually settles into a certain kind of pattern that in and of itself holds so many surprises for us yeah, so nothing is really random, yeah, but there are surprises there are surprises, right, right, it is a life of one, absolutely totally a child moves around like that kind of wonder, yes, absolutely, totally.

Emeka : 25:43

A child moves around life in that kind of wonder, yes, it's like what is that? You know? Look at that, you know, my boy. I see him grow up, you know watching him all the steps. I saw many of those moments where he would walk me to something. I would like rush into somewhere. And then he says Papa, look, look, look, look, come, come, come. He points at this thing on the floor.

Genevieve: 26:07

It makes me really want to come down and look at that.

Emeka : 26:08

But then I realized as an adult that I needed to immediately give up that space of what I am planning what I have in my head to enter that space of wonder with him so that I can see what he sees. Because it's only when I can enter that space of wonder wow, look at that, and then I begin to contemplate the lines, the colors and then they say what are the odds?

Genevieve: 26:33

What are the odds?

Emeka : 26:34

that this could be like this, and then you begin to see what he sees, because he is also thinking how come he just took the shape? And yet you realize that in those moments. That's when you understand really the patterns that all of this energy we are speaking about takes From that infinitesimal. It can become this thing that just keeps going up to infinity.

Genevieve: 26:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Emeka : 27:00

So that's how I'm thinking about this idea of the tangible which we spoke of which I find very interesting, and you know, I know that you have been coming back to that in your work. Last time I was at your place, you gifted me one of your paintings.

Genevieve: 27:18

It's hanging in my house right now. Amazing, thank you. And my boy wasn't even looking at it.

Emeka : 27:23

He's like oh that's nice.

Genevieve: 27:25

And there's a lot of dancing, there's a lot of yeah waves of movement right in your work and I know that you have.

Emeka : 27:33

You have worked with the body yeah you have. There's always that aspect of you that is looking to free up, almost like I want to free up this so that this energy can flow out it feels like that to me.

Genevieve: 27:48

Yeah, your paintings are sort of like taking a bit of this different lines, almost like a performance on canvas it was like an overwhelming sense of creativity and flow inside of me and I I've I've had to direct it in the last few months because there is so much and at the same time, you know, I'm trying to organize the surface of the painting so that it looks done spontaneously and intuitively, in like one motion, which is very challenging, but and at the same time I wanted to maintain a structural, concrete, steady form. So for me that's the challenge at the moment. I'm trying to bridge, letting the colors speak to me, the forms, the lines, how they touch. I think it's a negotiation of space, the square or the rectangle or the circle, whatever painting surface I I'm on. It's kind of a dance also for me. I had a few canvases laying around and a lot of paint, like in January, and it's like painting was calling my name again. So it was like saying paint like paint, jam, pinch, and then finally I listened and there were a lot of only colors coming. So abstract paintings.

Genevieve: 29:05

And I have a problem with abstract painting because it's very problematic for my character and personality, because I'm so engaged and active and intellectual in the process of art and of being just as a human being and there's something so removed and distant and unaccessible about abstract painting for many people, I think, and so I'm trying to bring humanity in this plastic form. In a way. It's plastic but it's moving energy, so I'm trying as much as possible to bring a surface that is alive, that is vibrating, that is, yeah, like I'm glad your son saw the lines, because the inspiration was were actually branches of a tree from my walks in the park for that little painting I gave you. Coming back to nature, I think anything you create has been done. I think there's only room for invention in creation. And, like, I follow a lot of like what Ellen Frankenthaler said, this abstract expressionist painter, that basically there are no rules in art and there's just all this. You break all the rules. Basically, a painting should be like one motion, but it's been so complicated to build that motion but it looks like one swoop of energy, but so it looks effortless, but it's actually takes so much effort to create no effort.

Genevieve: 30:28

And so I think in my performance I was doing a piece that's called unravel, where I unravel a thread coming out of my mouth and around my head. This, this is a piece where I saw myself and people in New York with heavy heads and I just made a drawing first of a person with a heavy head just loaded way, way too much going on in the head and trying to break free from that. I love contrast and I love paradox and metaphors and I love to think about. You know, as close as you are to life, you're close to death, so it's just on the other side. So when you create tension, I think a painting can contain so many things. You know it's a container, for I try to embed all of these things I'm feeling when I'm painting and I'm hoping it can be channeled inside.

Genevieve: 31:19

But in my performance Unravel, I wanted to get out of my mind and into the body. And when you, I wanted to get out of my mind and into the body. And your body is information and also a very high form of intelligence, because your emotions tell you if you're in the right place and, if not, where to go next to feel well. So a lot of my work brings me well-being because I think if I'm going to be on the planet as a vessel I'm here to, I think, help people and be there for everyone to feel well in a way. I don't know why, but I think this well-being comes from liberating yourself from all these knots we create.

Genevieve: 31:56

We create so many psychological knots with each other in relationships and I think the paintings I try to untie all these knots, like I did in my piece Unravel in my performance, where I'm stuck, I can't breathe, I can't see, I'm vulnerable, I'm in front of all these people. I don't really care. People went up to me like doesn't it take courage, were you okay? Like they wanted to offer me scissors to get out, because all this twine was blocking all my senses and I actually felt safe. I felt, no, no one can get to me like this. So but I had to get out and it was. It felt like pulling out my hair, like I looked like a monster, and then the liberation of that.

Genevieve: 32:36

So, yeah, talk, going back to liberation, going back to contrast, going back to this idea of flow. So it's been very healing to go back to painting because I feel so joyful and so free and so I don't make up any rules, although I know there's so many rules in paintings and all this art historical canon is on my shoulders because I studied it. I don't come from, not from an art background, so I know the pressures of fitting and you know and I don't listen to all of that I've decided to just not compare and contrast and just paint and see what happens and I'm just really happy with the energy that they contain and these layers and these vibrations and this and this openness. Like you said, you saw my paintings when you visited that and you say I love that I can see them from all these different perspectives and see different things from all these angles when you've made a painting, when or what exactly I make you feel okay, this is right, this is good, this is where I should be going.

Emeka : 33:45

At what moment? While you are painting, after you've painted, before you've started painting. Uh, do you feel? Yeah, this is it, this is, this is, this is this is what does that feeling look like? What does it feel like?

Genevieve: 33:58

when I see it, I know, yeah, it's a nerve. If I've hit a nerve where I feel the painting is successful, this for me, a successful painting, is something that what it does to you. So it's not about what it means. Don't ask me what it refers. I mean there is a whole context and story. I could tell you I write a lot. Also, writing is part of my process. I actually write about each painting because they have a whole story like that, and it's not always to my advantage to talk about all these stories, but I have a journal and I write about my painting process daily.

Genevieve: 34:34

Yeah, so there could be a whole book written about the paintings but it's interesting that people only see colors and shapes and I don't know what, but there's a whole world for each painting, and but I stop at the point where I feel there's something that's um, there's something actually that painted it that's not me. I feel there there's then a power, do you think it?

Genevieve: 34:57

is not you or it is no aspect of you or an aspect of me that I sometimes I really look at paintings and I say, wow, this is a great painting. I did that. I'm astonished. And then I think, okay, like it's because there's skills. But I couldn't repeat that moment where that light is coming through, where that pink is shining, where that green is very embedded and textured and how it contrasts next to that white.

Genevieve: 35:27

And then I get lost in the painting and I could look at it and see something every day different and it grows and transform and speaks to me like a dialogue and then it's like has a personality and it's like a person. So when a painting does that, I'm like, okay, I don't touch it anymore. I think it's successful because it brings me to a conversation, to a depthness. But I'm very sensitive. So I immediately always connected to abstract painting. As a teenager I would go see Mark Rothko, I would go see John Mitchell's exhibitions, I would, and I felt what, how, maybe what they had been feeling while painting this. I was overjoyed and full of hope and feeling and they give me so much. So I don't know. For me it's an evidence, but it's. I think you have to be a certain character to feel that, to sense that and I think in my paintings if there's a space where it takes you in a different space and you can relate to it, so it has a humanity that could touch a lot of different people.

Emeka : 36:29

Speaking about touching a lot of people. It's interesting Because I'm listening and like okay, so now, because there's this aspect of you as well that is equally strong, which is the need to share this with people, that energy going out to branch out, or else you're just a cook.

Genevieve: 36:50

You're in your cocoon yeah, so.

Emeka : 36:51

So the question I want to ask now is how do you go from this place of this? Is how I feel about this and I want to, I want to fly with this. I want to feel good and liberated. I don't care about the rules and whatever rules that are there, that preceded what I'm doing here. I just want to do this and now, at some point, you have to now deal with those rules. Yeah, true, that is very much embedded in the idea of dissemination, in the idea of sharing, in the idea of bringing it to the audience and somebody else thinking, or that work having its own life.

Genevieve: 37:25

How do you deal with that tension? At the moment, I invite a lot of people in my studio. It's very personal-based, one by one. I think for me it's the most natural, the most feels real and good, because actually we don't just speak about the paintings but it becomes a conversation. So I've had people in the studio, I've put my paintings online on Instagram and I mean this is not the ideal platform, but actually I get a lot of messages and people positively reacting and I see that there's a whole art scene also there which I didn't know. Like I'm not really there very often, but that's one way to a platform to to share my vision.

Genevieve: 38:10

And then there's I'm reconnecting to all the people I know from New York, from Montreal. I'm applying for many, like I just applied to an artotech. It's a place where you rent art in Montreal, where I used to have paintings in. So I create new dossiers, so I'm trying to get the paintings out there in the world with my energy and just my ideas, my concepts. I mean it's a very interesting question because I do it for the sake of it. It's like a second skin. So I feel like it's a breath. It's like my soul needs it. I cherish it like nothing else at the moment, right now. So how do you share and propagate? And so there's the gallery system. There's a gallery owner. I've met through someone and she wants to come visit me next week and she loves all of my paintings. I mean, at some point I have to, I think, sell them. So make a living out of it so I can make more art.

Emeka : 39:07

How does it work for you? Do you be like? You compartmentalize this? You say, now I'm just making, and then, after I have to put on another hat and to say time to now go and do the business of it.

Genevieve: 39:18

Kind of yeah, I mean, most important is to make solid work like really good work that I feel confident about sharing.

Emeka : 39:27

Okay. So that's the key thing, the confidence you have to feel you are moving. You are moving with the confidence that this work is good.

Genevieve: 39:35

Yeah, a belief in it that it has value, you know because I don't.

Emeka : 39:41

And where does that belief come from? Does it come from these things that we've spoken about now, which is like the that, that moment that you feel yeah liberated you feel. You say you struck a nerve does that? Uh belief and confidence come from that, or does it?

Genevieve: 39:56

does it come more from?

Emeka : 39:58

I take a step back now. I decide that one. I had a lot of nerve striking but that one there feels like it's good for the art market, I take that one.

Genevieve: 40:08

So how does it work? It's a great question.

Emeka : 40:10

What exactly does the confidence that comes from you doing this as an artist for?

Genevieve: 40:16

yourself liberation.

Emeka : 40:18

You feel that moment and it doesn't really depend on what anyone else. Yeah, the result, the art galleries the critic doesn't depend on that, but then when you are now about to take it to the market yeah is it the same confidence that carries it to the market, or is?

Genevieve: 40:31

it something else uh-huh yeah, I think it comes down to, to your motivation. So I make the the art out of love and and desire and some sort of uh passionate, uh sense that it's also a platform for emotions, and so I feel that if you truly do a solid work, there will be resonance of another human will resonate with it, because it's authentic. Selling art is, like a lot of people, it's more like jewelry, it's an extra right. So at some point I started to feel like, unless they're serious, you have to convince them a little bit so it's it's.

Genevieve: 41:11

I don't like that part of art because I feel like if I wanted something yeah it's like any other objects, I just want to get it, but also for an art piece. But to navigate that is a little bit tricky. I think if I would have a gallery who's interested in my work, it would start with a discussion about what triggers their interest, which paintings exactly. It's a collaboration in a way, so I would have to take it from there. Either I would agree to make more in that vein because it rings true, but if it doesn't, I wouldn't force myself to go in a direction because it has to be commercial. So I'm kind of old fashioned about that.

Genevieve: 41:51

I think I have to mostly stay true to myself and I've had people just come to me because it resonates and buying the work. So the best situation for me has been selling one on one to people who I know and who I don't know, and it's been very smooth in that way because the work makes them happy. It makes me happy that they have them. I want to have a cycle of energy in my studio where things leave, because I've produced too many artworks. So I'm happy the paintings go and have a life of their own and they're happy and they want to pay for it. So that's the best situation. That's the idea at the core of it also is.

Emeka : 42:26

Yeah, there is a certain kind of generosity and a way of sort of like freeing up yeah like not keeping this to yourself.

Genevieve: 42:35

That is also driving the need to find a home for it outside your home yeah, but there's it's funny because that's a principle a lot of people are afraid of. I like to give pieces and people. Some people they will not have respect for that. Always give, I think, is my mentality, my philosophy, and also always make space for the new to come in. So you need to give to receive.

Genevieve: 43:01

At some point in my practice, I think I have to be in a state of receiving, I have to be allowing myself to, because it's a concept to get money for art. For me it's also. I have to take a wall down because I it's an extension of myself and I have to have confidence that I am valuable without the money sign like it's about. You know, there's this strange dynamic where art is is kind of an extension of yourself and you don't want to put yourself a price tag but you have to make a living. So at the moment I'm in between. It's a strange place. I'm negotiating that and not having clear answers. But I'm selling to people I know, friends, family. I'm trying to see if I should make a website where there's more of a, more of a yeah, a selling database, or to go with high-end galleries where they have the power and the clientele and they do more of the work that I do. You know that is taking a lot of time invoices and and certificates and things like that and shipping and all of that and then they take a cut. But then they do the work and they have. Maybe it can grow faster in that way, but then you're commercial.

Genevieve: 44:14

So then some people judge you, like there's this whole dynamic, it's very interesting. And then I don't know, there's a gallerist coming to me now we'll see, you know if she takes me or not and, um, for what reasons? What does she like about my work? So that's always a discussion to have and I think that's why so many artists work with bodies of work, like to be consistent and show up in a certain framework. But I my, my work, I think, is difficult to access because I can go from one painting to the next and they're completely, they might be painted by two different persons, so I don't know. But I don't worry about that. I just try to be a channel for creativity and then I'm at the point where I'm.

Genevieve: 44:58

I believe gallerists will show my work and I can be comfortable with that. There's an acceptance that has to come with it, you know. I think it comes from society and parents and you know, being an artist, you know making a living out of this. Yeah, right now it's a mixture of selling from my studio, collaborating on this album cover I'm doing right now and that is branching out already people you know. So it's word to mouth. You know I'm talking about her music which is, you know, growing her audience. She's talking about my paintings. People are loving it. They're coming to me. Now it might not mean a selling, but who knows, maybe and I think that's how I do it I go and present on the scene and talk to other artists, go to openings.

Emeka : 45:50

So I started to go more and more to openings as well, the reason why I'm asking is also, these are the questions I'm asking within my practice as well. Yeah, because I have a feeling that there has to be a new like, develop a different language and process to dissemination and creating, especially in our time. So you have different platforms nowadays social media, but there's also websites that allows you to, you know, raise money directly and people supporting your project. There's all these ways, but all of that is trying to peel away all those heaviness on, you know, the middle person, like the gallerist or anything. They're trying to.

Emeka : 46:26

Just, you know, let us remove it a little bit and see if we can just give some freedom to the artist to just create and make it a little bit more yeah more flexible in the way they move, in their, in their creating, so that that thing which guides the work itself, that's urge, that guides the work, that says when I'm in my flow, making the work, so that that that same flow can also lead to when they are sharing the work as well, and how they are sharing the work. Yeah, for instance, when you gifted me the print, okay, when you give them in the print at your home, it was more like you were still in that flow, because there was a continuity between that and which for which you made the work for.

Genevieve: 47:07

And the reason the group exhibition we were in there was a whole.

Emeka : 47:10

It took a different form and a different aesthetic. I feel like the energy also came from the fact that you were able to see a continuity between how you are sharing the work and why you are making the work in the first place.

Genevieve: 47:21

And so there was a motivation to do all of that, and so there was a motivation to do all of that.

Emeka : 47:26

Even the eventually giving me the print was also part of that, because you have seen a certain kind of continuity Between when you have made the work, the exhibition, meeting me, us doing all of this. There's a certain kind of like a harmonious synergy that we can eventually say as practicing artists is very much part of the profession and has to be articulated as something that is viable, as something that eventually could be seen as a way of being a professional artist and not.

Genevieve: 47:55

Oh, I have to always be at the art fair. I mean it's interesting. I mean I think my way is very it could be maybe very naive, I don't know like a child, you know, because I've just thought about Sean Scully. He's an abstract painter and there was a curator talking about him, how, how specific and intentional he was about giving his works and he knows to who he gives it and why and how many, and it's all a tactic and started me thinking, oh, should I be more careful? Like what's going on? I don't know for me, I don't know. So maybe I'm just very naive and learning in this process, but I, it comes from my heart to give really it's. I don't expect anything in return and it's a joy and the dynamism there is, yeah, the dynamics.

Emeka : 48:38

There is like a dance, where it is a tension between this part of you that wants to create a space for just making and not having to feel like you're giving yourself away, but rather you're giving to yourself by creating yeah, it but then you must also.

Emeka : 49:01

There's a part of you that needs to reconcile itself all the time within the work as well, which is I must give, give, give as well. So I feel like there's a part of you that needs to reconcile itself all the time within the work as well, which is I must give, give, give as well. So I feel like there is a question of, like you said, the balance.

Genevieve: 49:11

Yeah, the balance.

Emeka : 49:13

But a little bit feels like more like, if you look at it in the long run it feels more like an integration.

Genevieve: 49:19

I think so too. In the long run, I think somehow this will all have an impact and will make sense. I don't know how, I can't tell you, it's just a feeling. I go with feeling a lot and I don't know, I don't know why I do certain things, but I just trust. I trust myself, I trust my, that I want to go and sit in the studio and work the whole day and that I have no security. But I know that this work is somehow important. I just know it. But it doesn't matter to me if it's sold now or in 50 years or 300 or never.

Emeka : 49:53

That's the thing interesting. So now, when you look, you're speaking about I don't know and, and and the future. So when, when you from here onwards now, because you've, you've lived, uh, you've lived, you have your kids, a lot of experience you are in Germany now, all the way from Canada. That's a long way, that's a long way. Does it feel like a new chapter or a shift in perspective in what is happening within your artistic work now?

Genevieve: 50:25

Oh, absolutely Does it feel like it's a new beginning?

Genevieve: 50:29

Okay, is it a new beginning that feels like completely new, or is it like now all the pieces are falling together oh yeah, right, it's more of all, the pieces are falling together Absolutely. It all makes sense now and I'm more ready, like 15 years ago I would not have been ready, I feel now I'm matured and I'm at a space with all this experience, like you said, that I don't know I there's no, none of these blocks as a young artist that I have. This is the, the beauty and the of getting older I and more stable and confident and looking towards the future and not being so self-sabotaged or critical.

Emeka : 51:16

If you would explain this sense of confidence and showing yourself that things are falling into place properly. If you were to explain it to a younger artist who is coming up now, who doesn't know this feeling right now, because I tell you I'm in that place as well and we are sort of like in the same and I know there's no way they're going to know this feeling until they get there. But if you were to explain it to them, how would you put it?

Genevieve: 51:40

To be quite honest, I think for me it's a spiritual thing, it's really about belief. So the more it's about the mind, whatever you can create in your mind can become reality. So you only need a seed, a mustard seed of faith, to move a mountain. So I think it's really comes down to this idea that you have all the resources inside yourself and if you follow with joy, enthusiasm, your passion and you pay attention I mean, people don't pay attention. Whatever you pay attention to, like, we said, like a child and you develop that to infinity, there's gonna be a life force and the flow in that particular direction like never before I believe it 100. And if you do that, everything falls into place instead of focusing on doubt or fear. You just have to have techniques in your mind, in your to rewire your brain for creativity. It's very simple, but whatever you think, you become. So if you think I'm a great artist, I'm can do this every morning and you believe, you believe. You believe there's no more room for anything else inside yourself in your experience.

Emeka : 52:59

In your experience, what does it feel like to to get rid of fear?

Genevieve: 53:04

I think that, um, as soon as there is fear, there's hesitation, and as soon as there's hesitation, there's a lack of confidence. And as soon it's as there's a lack of confidence, there's doubt, and then you cannot make clear, confident decisions. Of course, we all have fears. We're human beings. It's impossible, you cannot. Just it's about shift. So it's an energy.

Genevieve: 53:32

What I've realized is that as soon as I see I, I know it's coming inside me or appearing, I recognize it, I acknowledge it, I thank it and I tell it to go somewhere else. Like you have to just shift the energy, and I do it more and more rapidly, instead of it taking over your system, your nervous system, and then believing. That's true, but it's all a construct, it's like. So it's a very low vibrational energy and I and we get addicted to it. People love it. They like stay in fear and then wonder why they have ailments or depressed, because, uh, fear is the lowest form of energy and I want to be on the love spectrum and joy and enthusiasm, and no matter what happened to me, I know that it's right there to grab.

Genevieve: 54:24

It's just that, you know, I think we are all geniuses and creative people, but life gets in the way Life brings you down all these things. But how do you want to feel? You get to decide. How do you want to feel? You get to decide. How do you want to be in the world? You get to decide. You know, I write down how does it make me feel this situation or that person and why, and and if there's a fear, I confront it straight on. I confront fear. I have also a lot of anger, but anger can be a good thing to propel you, to give you a fire. But I think that fear is really a blocking energy in the body. It's a complete block.

Emeka : 55:05

So, in other words, you sort of like look the fear in the eye at a point in time. You're not like letting it take over without passing through your processing mechanism yes, yeah and um because oftentimes that's actually what people are afraid of. You know that it doesn't pass through their system, their, their, their processing system, so they they either close their eyes and then it takes them over because they don't want to deal with when it is passing through their system I let it be yeah, come through.

Emeka : 55:35

Yeah, come through, because it's only then that it can basically dissipate, Because it's almost like a hollow. It's not a thing. Once it comes through you, it dissolves.

Genevieve: 55:46

Yeah, I mean, emotions are like clouds, so they come and go and in a day there will be a lot of fluctuations depending on who's entering your space, energy, who's leaving it, where you are, what you're doing, and I think it's a question of awareness and acceptance and then healing. Also, if these fears come from a deep place, then there might be more work to do. So it depends on the type of fear. There's all kinds of fears, fears all kinds of depths of fear, but to acknowledge it and let it live in your body and then shift it into a new energy, even if it's not joy right away, it could be a step up. If it's fear, from fear to I'm afraid, to uh oh, I feel neutral and safe, but you're not overjoyed and happy. But at least you feel grounded. That's already good. So I think it's to, yeah, not let it take over, because it's just a feeling in the end, right?

Emeka : 56:47

Yeah, it's a feeling that needs.

Genevieve: 56:51

If you give it energy, where your energy goes, your attention goes, like where your attention goes, the energy will just double, triple, so so that's that's why, whenever you focus on something low and negative, you get you.

Emeka : 57:03

you see, more appearing in your life because, and yet, at the same time, it is, and it is an emotion that needs to be acknowledged acknowledge, yeah, you don't want to fuel it.

Genevieve: 57:15

but you want to acknowledge, you must acknowledge the presence. Yes, absolutely, you know.

Emeka : 57:18

for instance, I started teaching my son that we really do not have the jurisdiction to decide what is and what is not.

Genevieve: 57:28

If something is there, it is because it was supposed to be there.

Emeka : 57:32

So if you see something blocking the street, you can say yeah it's not supposed to be here, true, yeah, if it's not supposed to be there it wouldn't be there you must acknowledge its presence, first of all and clearly, before you can begin to say yeah, I don't engage it now I want to take it away because I think if I carry this thing that is blocking the street out of the street, then it's a better way of being.

Emeka : 57:59

Then that way we become really proactive without necessarily contending with what is and what is not, but rather to see things clearly that thing or giving something yes the, the, the benefit of clear acknowledgement of being, of being so. You spoke about loving, loving this, this fear that comes and I feel like that is it. This idea of love is that somehow the universe has a place for everything. That is a certain form of acknowledgement that everything is acknowledged, even those things you think are bad and awful. They all have a place.

Genevieve: 58:41

That's very wise. I think that we go through so much setbacks that are lessons for growth. So I am actually grateful and say thank you when I go through hardships now, because I know they're making me more resilient. I know that they have a reason and I know that on the other side I'll be stronger and I will have learned something and I'll be a new being with more capacity for incorporating situations I find difficult.

Emeka : 59:13

Exactly, and, as we are saying this now, some people are listening and saying, okay, yeah, more catchphrases from you guys. I find difficult, exactly, and, as we are saying this now, some people are listening and saying, okay, yeah, more catchphrases from you guys, like talking about how you know. Okay, but this is real, it's real, it happens really. Like when you begin to really confront and not confront acknowledge your fears and, little by little, you always see how, when you become part of it, little by little, you always see how, when you become part of it, when it's integrated into you, it leaves you with something.

Genevieve: 59:40

You feel?

Emeka : 59:40

like a little bit, like you understand better, and that understanding is also what refinement is.

Genevieve: 59:44

Absolutely Knowing yourself is the best knowledge that you can ever. If I can recommend anyone is just to spend time alone with themselves, knowing themselves.

Emeka : 59:55

This is really beautiful. Absolutely, absolutely recommend anyone is just to spend time alone with themselves, knowing themselves, absolutely, absolutely. Then you can navigate life confidently and most importantly, you can also see and enjoy for yourself how you navigate yes, yeah, yeah and at some point you you get to a point where you see someone else doing that.

Emeka : 1:00:13

You can say, oh, yeah, they are also learning. Yeah, to figure out how they navigate life. Yeah, not, oh, that's not how you're supposed to be doing it. Yeah, it's more like that person is also getting to that point where they will enter into how, yeah, they navigate life, because you begin to see for yourself the aesthetics yeah of your own way of navigating right, and you can see the beauty, because once you see the aesthetics, you begin to see the beauty.

Genevieve: 1:00:38

True, also, it's like a.

Emeka : 1:00:40

They go together, hand in hand and then you can now begin to see that beauty in other things as well, right, and in other people as well, and the other things around, right.

Genevieve: 1:00:49

So it begins to move, yes, and it creates respect also for differences, because what makes you happy doesn't necessarily make me happy, and there's so many do's and don'ts, but I have to follow the feeling of where there's less resistance. I think we have to move in the world in spaces where we feel good. I really think like follow your feelings. Of course, there's going to be things you have to face that are, it's just a spectrum of feelings. There's no bad or good. It's like okay, I felt this way in this situation. It was more difficult you can describe it, you can understand it more to find, to be wise, to know yourself and then, when you know yourself, you go to the places and the people where there's a vibrancy and an aliveness that's like no other, because I think we were meant to be here to to be joyful and happy human beings and to learn from each other and grow and like.

Genevieve: 1:01:51

This whole idea of nurturing, I think, is coming back to this idea that you go in the world and just love what you do and do it the best you can. And how could that go wrong? In a way, how could it? I mean, how could it? That's why, for me, children it's so important to support where they find themselves, their niche and to support and engage and that they decide what they love and then to to be able to support that, I think, and did you think it comes easy for us to discuss this?

Emeka : 1:02:24

because we are.

Genevieve: 1:02:25

We are parents um, yeah, we see it firsthand, experience right from the eyes of a of a child.

Emeka : 1:02:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so again, yeah, they're forming, so we see all the steps, all the developments, slow-mo.

Genevieve: 1:02:40

What? We went through. We see from their perspective now.

Emeka : 1:02:45

Yeah, it's been an opportunity to be able to experience this.

Genevieve: 1:02:50

Yeah, First hand, yeah, first hand, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, definitely yeah, yeah, yeah, first hand, yeah, first hand. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Emeka : 1:02:57

It's almost like what you say about faith, right? I think of faith as a creative force. That's how I think of it as an artist. I think of it as what I do every time I conceptualize and decide to move my camera and to move my recording device and bring that to life. That is faith, because you could easily leave all of that in your mind and you'll be fine as an artist. I'll be fine thinking all my good ideas, but then you decide to make it into something that you will now share with someone else.

Emeka : 1:03:31

And then someone else comes around and says Wow, that idea or that thing. I am thinking about it, but it has made me better it has made me stronger.

Genevieve: 1:03:38

It has healed me.

Emeka : 1:03:39

Because all of that is also healing right. I think of faith having that. You know you are dealing with the unknown. If you look at it from a logical standpoint, it is bad business, yeah absolutely.

Genevieve: 1:03:54

Yeah, I call it inspired action. This action that you say moving the camera, moving the mic, moving this, moving, that it's creating movement. It's creating something, no matter what. It's moving along to your future. You have your eyes on the future, not on the past. So you're defining, you're creating your future step by step. You're the creator of your life, so you can decide which parts you want stronger, which parts you want to see come alive.

Genevieve: 1:04:23

And I think when I decided to just paint and go back to the studio, it was like you, it was that feeling of like just do it, just do it, just sit down, sit yourself down, Just okay, there's all these other things, there's all these other things. There's all these other things like millions of responsibilities of the children, and you can spend a lifetime doing this. But no, there's something else calling me and it's also very important and I need to listen and I need to prioritize and I need to do this. It's too important. And that's inspired action, I think, because it's moving in that direction where I don't know, like you said, but it's based on faith. I believe truly that this is important and I don't know why and I don't need to justify and I don't need to explain, but I do and I make and I move and and there's a lot of power in that. I think there's a dynamic energy that's almost magical. Yeah, I think it taps into also your inner child.

Genevieve: 1:05:25

Yes, yeah you want to be connected to. You know what puts a smile on your face, and we all have forgotten.

Emeka : 1:05:34

And we all need to be reminded, I think when I say the nurturer, I don't think of it only on the, on the level of parents. I don't know anyone can actually be there, but it's, it's almost like a, it's a very, it's a quality it's a quality, it's a certain quality.

Emeka : 1:05:48

I understood that, yeah now does it mean that this idea of your inner child also is almost like the paradox again, where for you to really get that part of what drives our quality of nurturing is that discovering and reconciling with your inner child? Again, does that make sense?

Genevieve: 1:06:08

because if you are nurturing something, there must be a part of you that must feel like a child for you to even understand, to even align with the, the, the energy of nurturing right right right right yeah, I mean, I think nurturing, like you said, it's a, it's a condition, it's more a state, it's more a feeling, it's more, um, taking care of my art, it's taking care of my plants, my apartment, like, if you come, you come in my space, there's an energy. I think that's like a healing energy, a kind of a light energy, because I move a lot of things and I burn incense and I meditate and there's this kind of space I try to create. Like my friend came to visit me and she left and she said she felt so energized for the whole day and the whole week and she was. And she said she felt so energized for the whole day and the whole week and she was so joyful. And and when I had my painting workshops, it was the same with I was doing workshop in my space for women for learning how to watercolor, and and I started to realize that there's an energetic field and that is connected to nurturing that was there. I was fascinated by that because then I thought, wow, we moved some energy in a powerful way while painting and being together.

Genevieve: 1:07:24

There's something else about it that's really strong, and I think the inner child is often forgotten and needs attention, and healing is often forgotten and needs attention and healing. And for me it's been like a disregard for it, a disrespect for it. At some point, I think I said no more. I said I'm sorry, inner child, and I will listen to you now, like you want to do this, you want to do that, okay now. So I took the risks to listen and to do all these things and they they promote a lot of um, wellness and self-love and self-respect and and as self-fulfillment and a lot of happiness.

Genevieve: 1:08:07

At some point it's been like kind of cut off and broken and so to reconnect with it. It takes a lot of nurturing energy, yeah, to recognize it first and then to be like it's okay. And it takes a lot of nurturing energy, yeah, to recognize it first and then to be like it's okay and to have a lot of compassion and self-forgiveness and not be so critical that you left it behind, because it's a real part of you and to have disregarded it and put everybody else in front and other responsibilities. And so it was like a little sad in the corner, does it? I don't know if it answered it.

Emeka : 1:08:42

It does, it does. I'm listening and I feel like this is a nice place to wrap up our conversation.

Genevieve: 1:08:48

I think so.

Emeka : 1:08:49

We've fleshed out this aspect and I also like the way the conversation has gone, which is in a meandering way. Yes, I love it that way, and all of this is to say thank you so much for coming all the way out here.

Genevieve: 1:09:05

Yes, it is cold, it's starting to get cold.

Emeka : 1:09:10

It's about four degrees.

Genevieve: 1:09:11

Yes, we are brave, we are doing it.

Emeka : 1:09:13

We are brave. We are brave. The idea was to do this in the autumn, yeah, but it's. It's in the cold autumn now yeah, but we've done it.

Genevieve: 1:09:20

We've done it. Yeah, I was like, let's do it today because it's just gonna get colder but you know, generally it's canadian, so you can't tell her anything about cold.

Emeka : 1:09:28

I'm the one who's like, yeah, I'm cold. No, she's like I'm rolling.

Genevieve: 1:09:32

Yeah, well, I want to thank you, emeka, because for me I hope you got something out of it and people will as well. I don't know, it was a lot of questions, a lot of deep resonance for me and, um, we still have so much to uncover. That's how I feel about it. Thank you for having me for me. It gives me so much food for thought, so it's enriching, and anything enriching I I just adore, so I'm very happy, thank you yeah, so I also want to take a time out to say thank you to to nature very nice, I love that yes, thank you to nature, thank you to green about forest for receiving us, even though that we came and and took the the energy a little bit higher because everything is quiet here.

Genevieve: 1:10:17

It's true.

Emeka : 1:10:21

But it's been very, very welcoming of us and peaceful, and once in a while we hear raindrops, but these are just like leftover rains from the trees falling. And then the footsteps as well. People sort of like walking around and enjoying nature as well. It's been really beautiful and, yes, as always, you can, you know, listen to this podcast on the website mkatapodcastcom or on the podcast listening platform such as Apple Podcasts, spotify, deezer, Overcast and many more, much more out there. Yeah, thank you so much and see you in the next one.

Genevieve: 1:11:01

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Emeka : 1:11:04

Bye-bye.

Genevieve: 1:11:10

Amazing Great.