Creative Expression is for Everyone with Ceramics Artist and Author Shelley Finance

Dominick and Virginia welcome the walking embodiment of creativity in action, a guest who will inspire with her intimate knowledge of the creative drive and her championing self-expression for all.  Shelley Finance is also a friend of Dominick's from high school. They grew up in the next-door-to-Hollywood but ironically unglamorous provincial town of Burbank, CA.  The two, along with Virginia,  discuss how creative efforts serve the individual and the products of them serve society at large. They discuss the age-old standoff between one's first love of muse and true earthly connection. They acknowledge how relationships rely on mutual respect for each partner's respective  'church'—his or her sacred practice. They explore the voices of doubt that must be silenced in order to accept a calling and thereby discover one's authentic voice--as well as how each gender is institutionally shamed for the pursuit.

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Transcript

Creative Conversations

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. Firstly, I would love to introduce our producer, extraordinaire Virginia, and we're calling you the fishy nail lady this week. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 2 0:17

I'm totally good with that because, as you know, I put fish on my nails.

Speaker 1 0:24

Yeah, but what inspired, that exactly?

Speaker 2 0:27

I wanted to do something unique and different. Just because of the weather. You know it's nice, it's, you know, sunny around.

Speaker 1 0:35

Lucky you right. We're not going to bring in our guest yet, but we're in the same locale in Southern California and the May, gray, june gloom that we grew up with it's at an all time high right now, oh my.

Speaker 2 0:47

God We've, we'll. We'll have some overcast in the morning, but it's been pretty sunny and so. But I didn't want to go like straight, like I don't want spring nails and I don't really want summery nails because of the weather. So to me I wanted something that was a little bit kind of Zen fun and so yeah, so I have koi, fish and goldfish on my nails I love it.

Speaker 1 1:09

Wow, yeah, koi fish. What do they represent? And I know chinese culture, they're pretty significant. What do they represent? Do we know? Uh, I probably used to know, but I don't know. I'm gonna ask our guest when we bring her in. I feel like she would know, because neil guyman's gonna come up, or Gaiman, I guess, I should say and I'm a huge fan of Neil Gaiman and he has a whole story about a koi fish and a pond. It's like an old noir, it's like an old Hollywood noir piece and obviously they live forever, right. So there's something about continuity and anyway, I'm sure she will know. So on that, okay, welcome Virginia. And on that note, I'm going to read today's guest's bio. As I said, I've kind of known her probably more than two thirds of my life, so I'm going to be really diligent today about filling in the backstory for our listeners. And, as I just said in the green room, I tend, when I know a guest, to not necessarily fill in the backstory for listeners because I know them so well. So support me in that effort here. Okay, and now for the bio. And Shelley in the green room. This is your opportunity to set me straight if I botch anything All right.

Speaker 1 2:19

A Renaissance woman, shelley Finance expresses her creativity through both her writing and her ceramic art. She co-hosted Hauntcast, a podcast for fans of Halloween and prop building, from 2009 to 2017 under the name the Mistress of Mayhem. She wrote, produced and voiced her own segment, the Charmed Pot, which covered various topics related to that spookiest of holidays. For each Halloween episode, she wrote her own short horror stories to thrill the fans of the show and is currently wrestling one of those stories into a feature-length screenplay. Shelley is currently a ceramic artist based in Los Angeles, california, with over 10 years of experience in pottery and sculpture. She's had her sculptural work displayed in Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum, as well as juried into international ceramics shows, peats of Clay and America's Clay Fest. She's taught ceramics classes in Folsom's Parks and Recreation Department, while nurturing the idea that creativity is part and parcel of the human experience. You're talking our language, okay.

Speaker 1 3:22

And then from LinkedIn, because even her day job is exciting. Shelly has over 25 years of office management and coordination under her belt, assisting executives and doctors in a multitude of areas. A highly creative artistic background is grounded by the practical balance between big picture focus and detailed execution of the tasks that bring the big picture to vivid life. Shelly has a strong background in writing, sculpting, pottery, business and podcasting. She likes long walks on the beach. Oh wait, that's a different show. For six years, shelley has served as executive assistant. Thank you for the courtesy laugh. I appreciate that. For six years Shelley has served as executive assistant for Richard Edlund Films in Santa Monica, california. Here she currently functions as visual effects coordinator, working in proof-of-concept AI technology for film and television in partnership with experienced US and international visual effects companies. That was a long sentence. Welcome, shelly Finance.

Speaker 3 4:24

Hello.

Speaker 1 4:26

Hi, how are you?

Speaker 3 4:29

I'm doing really well. Thank you so much for having me on here.

Speaker 1 4:33

Of course I was looking forward to it. What did I get right in the bio and what did I botch?

Speaker 3 4:40

Well, tiny little minor corrections. Well, tiny little minor corrections. When I was on Hauntcast doing that podcast, the only time I wrote stories was for the Halloween episodes. Now we did a monthly podcast and I handled what the then producer would call the girly parts, so party coordination and history of this, that and the other childhoods, uh, with halloween, uh, vintage halloween things, or to explore things they may not have known about, uh, in the history of, for instance, uh, the meaning of gravestones and their symbolism and you know things of that nature. And then with richard edlin, richard, uh, my boss richard is, uh, my boss Richard is, he is the guy who did the visual effects for the original Star Wars movies and Poltergeist and Fright Night.

Speaker 3 5:52

Yeah, I fell into this and I'm really enjoying it. We're not, we're not so active anymore because he is now 83. Because he is now 83. And but I do have some. I did produce a short film that was a proof of concept for AI, and this was filmed just before COVID shut everything down and so after that that moved on to another process. So right now I'm just enjoying being his executive assistant process and all that. So right now I'm just enjoying being his executive assistant and doing my ceramics and writing and just enjoying life.

Speaker 1 6:31

As you should. It can be short, they say from what I've heard, so you gotta seize the day. You know, I think, when I say even your day job is exciting, I just think anyone that can go to work and be involved in storytelling in any capacity or artistry or a creative effort of any kind is ahead of the game. So I'm inspired by it and I feel like you know, you and I are roughly the same age, so Star Wars was made for us, right? I was nine years old in 77. And I feel like it just had our name all over it.

Speaker 3 7:03

And I feel like it just had our name all over it. Yeah, absolutely. It's really fascinating to work in that office because it's like walking into my childhood. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 7:17

Is there like memorabilia around?

Speaker 3 7:21

Yes, yes, so he worked on Ghostbusters as well, and um? So at the end of the ghostbusters movie, the prop shop took the mold of the full-size terror dog uh, one of them and mounted it as you would mount an animal trophy, right.

Speaker 1 7:48

On the wall, in other words, like a deer.

Speaker 3 7:50

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it's got the little wood plaque you know shot on such and such a day, blah, blah, blah, because you know that's the prop department. They're all kind of fun that way, and so I have a terror dog hanging up in my office.

Speaker 1 8:05

Nice, everybody should have a terror dog on the wall. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3 8:09

I've got dibs when we close the office. I totally have dibs, Absolutely.

Speaker 1 8:14

Yeah, put a little post-it on the back, you know, like you do at your grandmother's house. Anyway, that reminds me a little bit of do you know, a guy named vincent guastini, since we're both from la I don't he's more of a practical effects guy.

Speaker 1 8:30

So, uh, but it's the same thing. I did a little freelance for him and I went over to his studio. It's actually a pretty big warehouse in, uh, north hollywood and it's just like, speaking of this is your life, nick domingo. It's like, oh my god, there are the wings from dogma just on the wall, you know, collecting dust and every, or, for that matter, even at Disney, we would go have lunch on the main lot and, uh, or even the drawing workshops were in the sculpture room. So you're seeing, you know, the bears from country bear jamboree. You're seeing Abraham Lincoln's head just on shelves. So, yeah, welcome to LA. Right, it's inspiring, right, to go to work every day and just have visual stimulation has got to be amazing and I'm sure you pick his brain, or do you?

Speaker 3 9:13

I have, um, absolutely, you know, and it's. It's fascinating to see. Like you know, I asked him, of course, like one of the big myths in and that's been floating around for a long time is that you know poltergeist. I shouldn't say it's a myth. The speculation is that the pool scene in poltergeist where all the skeletons start popping up, and all that business and of course they were like oh well, you know, those were real skeletons. Well, actually they were Really.

Speaker 1 9:50

Really.

Speaker 3 9:51

At that time, yeah, at that time there weren't the plastic skeletons that we have readily available today for, for instance, medical students and and like that. And at the time, because you've got to, you've got to remember, this is like 1981, 81, 82 is yeah, you're right, it might have come out in 82.

Speaker 3 10:17

Yeah and so they. They really were and they're. At the time, the skeletons were sourced for lack of a better word from India, because the people of India have a completely different understanding of you know. To them, the body is just a shell. It's not like here in the United States, where you, you know, it's something that's very sacred. They're just like well, you know, we're not using it anymore. Who? Cares right that's kind of that was so weird.

Speaker 1 10:53

Sorry to interrupt you, but I just heard a little segment last night on exactly that. How, I mean, we all know we just want to pretend that we're immortal, right, right, and that mortality doesn't exist in Western culture, right, but I mean, their entire monks will go and sit in the catacombs just to be surrounded by death and to see, you know, see how finite and fleeting this shell is, and just to get in touch with that. So it's just funny you would bring that up. But I do want to say you know, not only was star Wars formative I was nine years old when it came out but I promise you, poltergeist is the reason I became a filmmaker.

Speaker 1 11:32

I mean, everything, everything Spielberg was up to at that moment was pretty amazing. But poltergeist, for whatever reason, specifically inspired me and I made poltergeist too long before the real one came out. We made it. Strangely, my parents were the first ones on our block Burbank being our block right to actually have a video camera. We weren't hip in any other area, but we were the first ones to have a video camera. So, yes, we made Poltergeist 2 in probably 83. Yeah, and I actually I'm sure you feel similarly like, even as a kid. I remember it got a little gratuitous right around the swimming pool scene I was. They had me hook line and sinker all the way, but I just thought it was. This is the perfect example of you know, you, you you move the headstones, but you didn't move the bodies.

Speaker 3 12:33

You know, and so here the first really huge rain that comes, and of course, it's all this nightmarish stuff. Um, here you have all these bodies that are floating up.

Speaker 1 12:46

Now they may I just think there's that one shot of I think dana was the sister right. There's the one shot of dana with the skeleton right in her face and I just thought, okay, come on, let me back off a little bit um, but you know, but it's a horror film, okay, and it's, you're supposed to have some of those jump scares well, but it has a metaphysical.

Speaker 1 13:05

I did real when I was asked to co-direct a horror movie. I actually had to really think about it and I came to the conclusion that I like horror movies. That of course aren't just strictly slashers because we grew up with those too right, we rode that wave, but I do like when there's a metaphysical undercurrent or you know something more going. So anyway, I do love poltergeist, do not get me wrong, and it's largely the reason I became a filmmaker. But I feel like this is the part where we're a little bit off course for our listeners already. So I want to back up and hear a little bit more about you.

Speaker 1 13:37

I did hint that we grew up in a small town called Burbank, which I've often said is, despite being next door to Hollywood, is pretty provincial. And yes, we're tell me, you know, you can tell me if I'm off base on this, but it's. It's like, yeah, we're kind of rubbing elbows with Hollywood, but it's actually the blue collar positions most growing up. Anyway, it's changing now, but growing up it was the grips, the electrical, it was kind of the blue collar positions in Burbank and not glamorous. Would you agree with that assessment?

Speaker 3 14:09

yeah, for the most part I would. I would agree with you. I mean, my world was a little bit different in the sense that, um, my dad also worked in visual effects, right, and and had, you know, had his own visual effects shop with his partners, with his business partners, and you know he worked I mean his first, he originally worked for Encyclopedia Britannica and so some of those science movies that you and I had to sit through in junior high school my dad actually made for Britannica. So he did, he did that, and then he found he got onto the original Dune, the David Lynch movie, and so for me personally, my experience was a little different because I mean, he didn't do that until, like Dune wasn't until 1984. So that was, you know, my dad was, was a way that was during, obviously, during my high school years.

Speaker 1 15:15

What year was Tron? Do you remember? Was Tron like 81 or 82?

Speaker 3 15:22

I believe so.

Speaker 1 15:23

I just remember that was obviously a kind of a pivotal moment in digital effects and it was state of the art at the time yeah, anyway, yeah absolutely that was that, just totally did that.

Speaker 3 15:34

But anyway, uh, burbank itself, I mean it. I in my opinion it was a kind of that mix of you know, like, as you said, you know the grips and electrical and you know everybody in IATSE and all of those folks, but at the same time, you know you could go down to Bob's Big Boy or the restaurant that was across the street which was Moe's back in the day. It's not there anymore and, like you know, you could see Jay Leno back in the day.

Speaker 1 16:05

It's not there anymore and, like you know, you could see Jay Leno.

Speaker 1 16:12

Well, yeah, we, I regularly say for Halloween we would go trick or treating at Henry Winkler's and Bob Hope's right and get the big candy bars. I saw John Wayne at the supermarket pretty regularly and we didn't bat an eye. Right, my neighbor was Johnny Carson's son. Granted, it was the strange son and nobody knows who Johnny Carson is now, but yeah, we were not impressed. I do remember my brother and I ran a lemonade stand on our stickery yellow lawn. That's what I mean by. There's just more money. Now across the board, property values are higher, but we had a little lemonade stand and Gladys Knight pulled over in her limo and bought us out okay, now that's a story for the ages, that's, I've written it, yeah and the here's, the here's, the clincher, like, of course, we didn't know who they, who they were.

Speaker 1 16:55

Later our parents were talking about, uh, gladys Knight and the pips, and we heard pimp. So we thought it was for years Gladys Knight and the pimps. But uh, she needed to use her phone because there were no cell phones back then. So she actually came in, she asked to use our phone and we came in. You know, phones were mounted on walls and ours was, of course, avocado green, but my mom's jaw dropped.

Speaker 1 17:19

Right, well, as it should be. Anyway, my mom, just cause we didn't know who she was, we just knew, oh, this is, it could have been Liz Taylor Like we didn't know, we knew the limo meant something, but yeah, my mom, her jaw just dropped. So, yeah, burbank was quite an experience and that does lead. That was actually one of my main prepared questions for you was yeah, we might have had a very different experience in Burbank. I don't know, I don't know everything about you. So the way I put it, let me find my little question here.

Speaker 1 17:49

I would say, in my household, regarding just all things creative, creative expression in general, storytelling specifically. So my sister and I have compared notes over the years because we're in similar. A lot of our pursuits are parallel, neck and neck, and so she teaches vocal, she's a vocal instructor and, of course, I taught at Art Center for 20 years. So I'm just constantly fascinated by the parallels in both the creative process but also the artistic journey at large, all of that. So we've agreed that, of course, the chaos and dysfunction in our household birthed this boundless creativity, but creative expression was also very valued and encouraged in our home. So what if anything about your upbringing nudged you to nurture your gifts, or gave you permission. Put it that way.

Speaker 3 18:38

That's a really good question. I think it's sort of a dual-prongonged answer we love those on my grandfather, my grandfather who actually I I barely knew him because he lived in texas and obviously we lived here in california and burbank, um, and it wasn't like now where you you can just do a zoom call and and call up your grandparents on the other side of the world, or whatever it was. You know, yeah, made a phone call on sunday morning when the rates were low, you know, I mean from the avocado green right of course, and and but my grant.

Speaker 3 19:19

I think to it to a point, and I'll get to back to my grandfather in just a second. To a point. I think it was just a genetic marker within me that I was always creative and that I it just was who I was from the get-go right right, um, but my, my, my grandfather was a renaissance man.

Speaker 3 19:39

um, he, you know, I come from, of all things, a line of professional chefs. My great-grandfather, at the ripe old age of 22, was the head chef at the Hotel Régibon in I believe that was Switzerland. And then my grandfather and his brother also became chefs, and my grandfather went on to be the head chef at this little hotel in Texas where John F Kennedy had his last meal. So my grandfather actually my grandfather's the guy who actually cooked Kennedy's last meal. Wow yeah, it's a trip, it's a real trip.

Speaker 1 20:37

You know, I have to jump in my co instructor at Art Center, a guy named Bill. Well, it's all coming full circle here when you mentioned all the memorabilia the Star Wars memorabilia you're surrounded by Bill Wallen was the first one to really fight for intellectual property rights, like the Batman logo for Warner Brothers. He's filthy rich because he fought for the rights to that. Anyway, you go to his house and you're surrounded by memorabilia. But anyway, bill, what were we just talking about? Why did I bring up bill?

Speaker 1 21:08

um, we were talking about my grandfather and cooking john f kennedy's last oh yeah, bill was in the um roosevelt the night that robert was murdered. He was in the kitchen. Oh anyway, it's just weird. I guess, being our age there, there's going to be right little synchronicities like that. Anyway, some would say that cooking is the ultimate in creativity. Do you feel that way? It's such a form of creative expression father.

Speaker 3 21:33

He also uh became the guy. He was being a renaissance man, he in the 1930s. I actually have some gorgeous watercolors that he did, uh in various places, uh, the canals in venice, and and also he I have this gorgeous one that he did in pompeii and it was really interesting because I happened to travel to pompeii, you know, a few years back, and I happened to step up and turn around and there is this, the, the iconic view of mount vesuvius and, having this shock of a moment of holy cow, my grandfather literally sat here in 1933 or 32 and painted this exact view, you know, and in addition to that, to, in addition to being a very accomplished chef with and having written books, uh, on, uh, on catering and these, these kinds of things, uh, which my grandmother typed with an actual, real manual typewriter with carbon paper.

Speaker 3 23:03

Okay, yeah, I mean you just kind of put yourself back in that In addition to that, he also was a sculptor and he also uh, uh, he also bred orchids, like brand new orchids, and was a member in his day. He was a member of the, the texas orchid society, so that whole genetic package. My dad jokingly says well, that just, you know, that passed me up and went straight to you shelly. And I guess to an extent it did, because dad, dad was more on the practical end of visual effects. He did, obviously, he did have the, the cameraman's eye, okay, and the people that he worked with, for instance, like isdor mankovsky, uh, who won the oscar for somewhere in time, uh, who also was a friend of the family, and all that kind of stuff. So I had some of these folks around, but of course, when you're a little you just don't necessarily key into that. It's just dad's friend, you know, as opposed to, oh my gosh, this guy you know.

Speaker 3 24:11

And then, for me, I did a lot of reading as a kid and I was reading way above my grade level when I was in kindergarten and grade school and of course that led me to read the Hobbit, which was one of my first, you know, my first grown up book, and I read that when I was like nine something around there, and then it moved me on to to just being a voracious reader and a voracious consumer of story. And of course, my, my love for Stephen King grew from this tiny little store and I don't know if you remember this shop. You, you know where Vons is, over there on Pass Avenue, where there used to be a store there next to it called Gilbert's oh yeah, it was good remember gilbert's five and dime and they have those little tiny little book racks yes, that you can turn around, okay.

Speaker 3 25:14

And I picked up, I just at the time I I don't know if it was the second or third printing of the shining and I I still have that book and my dad didn't know who Stephen King was. He had no clue. I'm just like, hey, dad, this looks like a good book. And he kind of flipped it and checked for the thickness and I'm sure in his mind he was like, okay, this should keep her busy for a while. It was a pretty thick book for a 9-, 10-year-old kid to be reading and of course I just loved it. It and for whatever reason, I never they didn't scare me terribly. And I think that goes back to my, my little, my little swiss grandmother, swiss german grandmother, who used to read to me from grim's fairy tales. So of course grim's fairy tales, so of course Grimm's fairy tales. I'm sure you're familiar with them. There was all sorts of stuff that now as an adult I'm looking back at that.

Speaker 1 26:10

I'm going holy crap they beheaded the horse and the horse was talking.

Speaker 3 26:20

That's just not. That's not good form at all.

Speaker 1 26:32

Right, but. But you know, as a little kid I was just like oh, it's a magic horse head. I never even occurred to me how gruesome that really is. You know, like I like minor chords rather than major, I always loved, as we said before, halloween better than Christmas. Even though Christmas involved gifts, I still loved the dark. So I actually think that is a thread that can kind of stay with you throughout life. But I don't think it's a mistake that you didn't bat an eye at some of that stuff. But I want to point it because there's a lot in there that I want to sort of pursue. We are the same person, let's be clear. Um, I was reading college level in third grade.

Speaker 3 27:13

Sorry, do you think it's also a product of gen x, of like all of us being told to get under our desks for a nuclear attack? So you know, because of course that's going to help right. Well, product of that, or do you think it's us specifically?

Speaker 1 27:27

um, well, on that note I would say do you remember mrs rossoff at burroughs? Miss rossoff, yes, she would assign a poetry notebook. And she did say, wow, for whatever reason. It was sort of a delayed reaction because the cold war right had been going on for a couple decades by the time we were in school. But she said, for whatever reason, the fear of nuclear war finally reared its head. And she said I've never seen so much subconscious anxiety about nuclear war than right in 83 to 86 when we were there. So I do think there are absolutely things floating around our collective consciousness, or even our subconscious, that we can have in common, but I just think it's. I don't know. As a side note, heather Howe, do you remember Heather Howe?

Speaker 3 28:17

Yes, vaguely, I remember the name for sure.

Speaker 1 28:19

Yeah, she died during COVID. She and I were reading college level in third grade as well. They would take us out and do special testing on us because we were bored in class. Did they do that to you?

Speaker 3 28:31

Yes, they did.

Speaker 1 28:32

Okay, yeah, so we'll talk about that later. There was no electrodes or anything, but it was research.

Speaker 3 28:39

Okay, so you just made me think. You just made me think of Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters. They put the little colander on his head yeah, I think ghostbusters didn't stick with me.

Speaker 1 28:55

But um, the other thing you said too is I don't know when I discovered the hobbit, but I do know I reread the lord of the rings trilogy. For do you remember uninterruptrupted, silent, sustained reading USSR? You don't remember that?

Speaker 3 29:09

I don't, I don't recall that, well, all through high school, for sure.

Speaker 1 29:13

High school we didn't go to junior, we went to Jordan, right, okay. Well, I went to Luther. So we met in high school. But all through high school we had 15 minutes of sustained reading. It's what it sounds like USSR uninterrupted, sustained silent reading. And I just remember like I reread Lord of the Rings every day for 15 minutes for the entire three years I was in high school.

Exploring Creativity and Societal Expectations

Speaker 1 29:37

So we have a lot of the same influences, um, but I want to back up a little bit, cause we are all over the place. I think it's fascinating. Surely we're fascinating to our listeners, but I want to back up a little bit the reason I brought up sort of our upbringing in Burbank. We were talking about what makes you a creative, what made it okay to pursue that, and you said something in there about you know how multifaceted your grandfather was and it occurred to me you know, part of a well-rounded education back then was everybody plain air painted. So I think it's fascinating, like my grandmother's, probably from the same generation.

Speaker 1 30:11

She was born in 22. So my grandfather was born in 1914. She was born in 1922. And she was an amazing plain air painter. She painted in oils but she didn't identify as such. She would never have said I'm an artist, but it was just part of that generation's general education. I will also say we came by it all. Honestly. My sister and I are both writers precisely because my grandfather was so eloquent and you know he never got published, but you read his letters to his sisters and they're so articulate and eloquent and I think you know we're all creative, as you kind of hinted at in your form. I think it's hard to parse between what is just the human drive to create and what is a particular disposition or temperament that burgeons in an individual. Do you know? I'm trying to answer your question a little bit. I think it's both. Aren't we all innately creative and with even, even, even if it's just to create permanence? We do have this human drive to create I think it's.

Speaker 3 31:11

I think it's two things. I think, first and foremost, everybody is is. My guess is that everyone is genetically predisposed to a thing or a talent. Like, I'm never going to be a Michael Jordan.

Speaker 1 31:32

Right right.

Speaker 3 31:34

Okay, apart from being far too old, right, but you know. But there are people who are just biologically, it seems like from out the gate. You read biographies and all of that and they're like, oh yeah, when I was five I did X, when I was seven I did that, and it was almost a very linear path to their profession. In addition to that, I would say that it is a part of us inherently to be creative, whether it's whether it's drawing or writing or sculpting. I mean, it's a very normal and natural thing for for children, when they're in kindergarten, you know to to do a thing. Let's see what happens. When, like, we throw all of the paints on our newsprint and scribble them around with our fingers, there's no thought that it would be just one big muddy mess.

Speaker 3 32:33

There's no judgment to it right, there's, there's, there's never that assumption that, oh well, you know, of a four or five year old kid, they, they never think. Well, I'm not really an artist, so I'm not even going to try that they're just into it up to their eyeballs from the first time you put a can of Play-Doh in their hands, right, and so in addition to that I mean, I could go on about that for quite a while but in addition to to that, I think that if we were in a situation, globally, where we did not have to have money, all right, in order to survive and and all that, or at very least if we had, uh, what they call the minimum income, I believe that all of us would, would, would have creative pursuits as just a matter of course, whether it would be, you know, just jewelry making or, as you said, cooking. You know how many people during COVID, all of a sudden it was was like everybody had a sourdough starter, because it's something they always want, you know.

Speaker 3 33:50

Yes, well, and I weren't spending an hour to two hours on a commute to go, you know, to go to work right we had that time at home, we had that time with our families and we were able to do those creative things you know try woodworking, try any number of things.

Speaker 1 34:12

Well, I think nowadays, in Western Judeo-Christian culture anyway, we tend to kind of create this binary system where things are essential or non-essential, right? I think COVID brought that to light. Essential well, who's deciding what's essential and not in life? So creativity actually sends rockets into space and builds bridges that allow us to function. So I think, just to dovetail off what you're saying, if we didn't have the system that we have, right? Uh, maybe everybody's individual gifts, their subjective gifts, would uh contribute in some way, Right? And then they say it takes a village, so everybody would find their particular talents and nurture them and then maybe uh, sort of contribute them back to the collective.

Speaker 3 35:04

I think that that's correct. I think that, additionally, I think the messaging that we get and I and I and I, you and I, I believe, talked about this before that there's a, there's this, there's this thing, as I was saying, you know, little kids never think twice about being creative in one way or another, and they never, uh, they never judge themselves, they never judge their work, and I think it's a very interesting thing that we start telling kids it's work and not play and not fun once they start hitting sixth, seventh grade, because then, because, then, okay, then it starts slowly edging over into you have to be a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or something useful, because now the messaging becomes the artist is a special person.

Speaker 3 36:03

It's the creator, the writer is a special person, it's the creator. The writer is a special person, and that is something that you are not, so you need to do this other thing right and well, if I could jump in there a little bit, sorry because there's so much to follow up on there.

Speaker 1 36:23

I mean, I would say what I heard in that. Anyway, it starts a little bit earlier. I think that I watch it in my own godsend and you know, sherry comes to me and says he's frustrated because his drawing or painting isn't exactly what he's envisioning. And I think it's largely because they start to tell you, oh no, no, this guy's not green, right, the sky is blue. So you start mistrusting your own intuitive, expressive impulses. Right, because the sky is blue and not green. So it happens very early.

Speaker 1 36:57

And I even saw my grandmother, like my mom was the one who would say, oh, not only can you spill glue on the table, it's encouraged, you know. So everybody felt very free at the Domingo household to spill glue on the table. But then my grandmother from Chicago would come in and all she cared about was that Joey, little Joey, made sure that she didn't ruin the brushes she spent money on and she, you know, make sure you shake them off. And then you got to get the point, just right. So I would just argue, the discouragement starts earlier.

Speaker 1 37:29

And then, yes, of course, japanese and American cultures have a monopoly on just everything should be about your ability not to just contribute to the economy but to make make a livelihood. So men, especially right are, are told you got to be the breadwinner. Um, I think women have their own you know cross to bear when it comes to like, oh you, you can't have your own selfish pursuits. There's a really great film called um who does she think she is? That talks about why women didn't make it in the art history books, you know. And so, anyway, I just think there's a lot in this equation. But I would agree that we do begin to make it a binary situation where, oh, you get to wear the title of artist and you don't. But I think I heard a little bit of like people think they don't have a right to creative expression because they're not trained in a given area or they weren't encouraged in a given area.

Speaker 3 38:24

Yeah't encouraged in an area, yeah I would add to that your sentence there, that in the, the idea is that in order to be a real a quote, real artist, that you have to be paid for it, you have to make money at it. You have to, and not only that, you have to make a living at it and it has to be your sole source of income. But getting back to the child thing, uh, where you're talking about your godson getting frustrated because of things in addition to yes, you're being told no, but, but this but, this is reality and your sky is blue and not green. The water in your water glass okay, the level remains of the water remains the same regardless of where you tilt your glass. Okay, when you look at kindergartners, they don't really know that. Okay, but then you start getting into. I think it's like second or third grade.

Speaker 1 39:42

Virginia, you know quite a bit about developmental psychology and piaget right. Does that sound like a stage in development that you're familiar with, is it? It sounds like you're kind of reconciling the empirical evidence with right, the freedom of your imagination, that sort of thing um, it's well, I'll just say do you want shelly to answer?

Speaker 2 40:02

do you want me to?

Speaker 1 40:03

well, I I'm asking Shelly no-transcript.

Speaker 2 40:24

It's hitting within the um and I'm not gonna.

Speaker 2 40:27

It's not or object permanence and yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely gonna be. It's it's gonna be in the um, just past object permanence. It's it's when they're getting more into their um higher cognitive development stages and it's because you, you know they, children watch kids, children watch their parents and they do. You know, the modeling is so important. And if you have parents who are very finance based, you know, tend to work, you know doctors, lawyers, banking, whatever type careers, and they're not, so they're more analytical in their cognition and what they do versus on the creativity side of things, and they don't like.

Speaker 2 41:19

Basically you guys are saying like, instead of like supporting the child and taking interest in it and basically supporting and trying to enhance that ability in their child, yeah, it's quickly the child's going to because they, you know, you want, you want to fit in as a child, you want to find your place, and they're going to model the behavior of their family and of course, you have the macro part that comes in place, so your community and all of that. So eventually, yeah, they'll put down those paintbrushes and the crayons and all of that because they want, they want the acceptance of the acceptance Isn't coming from mom and dad going wow, that's an awesome painting of that rainbow and I didn't know there was that many shades of purple, you know it's back to the practicality thing.

Speaker 1 42:03

I you know I called it essential or inessential. Anyway, sorry, I Shelley, you can get us back on track here. I just thought that was worth talking about Because to me there is a formal property stage of child development where you're learning right, literally, the formal properties of the world around you. But then we're also hinting that certain things are encouraged in society and certain things aren't. There's not a lot of talk about right, left brain anymore. Everything engages to varying degrees, both the left and the right half of the brain. But I would say society is all about building those bridges we talked about a minute ago. So we encourage empirical and we discourage more intuitive functions of the brain. Anyway, go ahead, shelley. So sorry, I just wanted to bring Virginia into the conversation because that is her background largely.

Speaker 3 42:50

Yeah, yeah, no, I think all of this is really true and I think that you know, it's really fascinating to me to observe how that actually functions. You were talking to just kind of rewind a little bit. You were talking about the letters that your, your, uh, your grandfather wrote and how articulate uh he was. And my dad actually has a pile of letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother, Um, and it's, it's the same thing. And I think that we're really right now we're really losing a lot of that ability to articulate, well, pretty much everything, but specifically articulate beauty and creativity.

Speaker 3 43:40

We're at this stage where we're teaching children from a tablet or a cell phone, to start with, in general, and I mean, I say this, I'm not a parent, Okay, so I. But this is what I observe is that you know, I'll go to a restaurant and, in order to keep your kid quiet, you hand them the tablet and you know, and away they go. And for me, when I was a kid and my mom and dad wanted to keep us quiet at a restaurant, we had our activity bag. Okay, so our activity bag was, you know, a pencil and a pad of paper to write things like. You know, like we felt like writing something, uh, a box, crayons and some coloring books, you know anything that was going to keep us occupied.

Speaker 3 44:34

Um, and there's a big difference in how the brain connects to an iPad, for instance, or a tablet, as opposed to physically having a pen or a pencil or a crayon or a paintbrush in your hand and physically moving your hand around to make letters or or paint a tree or whatever. It's a different part of your brain that's stimulated. It's a different part of your brain that's stimulated, and I think that that's problematic for us as we go forward, or it can be in our current iteration. You know our current state of evolution because I think it's very important.

Speaker 1 45:19

I'd like to follow up on that because I think largely you know that's what we're talking about with our podcasts. Right Is how story helps to transform the individual but also, by extension, evolves society. So I would say that I agree with you 100%. But in my teaching, for example, you know I try to up my game and I know if it ain't broke you don't fix it. So I do try to hit all the modes of learning right and through lecture, demo, in class, exercise, there's all critique, there's all these different learning modes and you try to hit all the different types of learners. So I really didn't change anything up if it was working and it really did.

Speaker 1 46:00

But at one point, you know you have the odd student that says, oh no, I have to doodle to to internalize what I'm hearing and I'm like, but I want you to look at the board and they'd started taking cell phone pictures of the whiteboard after I do all the work and I put all the notes right and they take a picture of it.

Speaker 1 46:17

So what I did learn at some point is that it's not just the tactility of putting pen to paper, which, as we know, engages both halves of the brain. But specifically in this, this is fascinating to me, not that it's about learning, but if we're talking about learning about the world around you, even just for survival, so you don't fall in a effing fountain looking at your cell phone, right, I guess learning is a good word here. But it was proven that when you, let's say, transcribe a lecture into your laptop and you just type what you're hearing, you're not breaking down the information into holistic concepts that can be carried further and applied to other situations. You're transcribing so it completely bypasses the process of creating a holistic concept out of it. So that's kind of my beef, right. With the digital technology in the learning context, uh, forget about artistic expression and getting your hands literally in the clay yeah, I would.

Speaker 3 47:21

I would agree with that and, I believe me, I don't have anything against, you know, laptops I don't know what I would do without it very young age and we leave it until you know, until maybe they're, you know, 13, 14 years old, somewhere in there, so that they have that opportunity to develop that creative mode and that ability to mess around with um, with clay or mess around with words, um, you know, and be able to and be able to do that. I mean, I remember we had, when I was in in elementary school, we had little writing exercises and things of that nature, and I think that that was, I mean, as a creative. I mean how many of us we wrote, we wrote these stories that were, yeah, I mean, you look at it as an adult and you're going, wow, that wasn't very good. That's not Hemingway, but that's the whole point.

Speaker 3 48:26

Right Is, just stick your foot in, be willing to fail. Be willing because you don't, even when you're a little kid, you don't even think of it in terms of failure, you just look at it as fun and it's something that's put on us much later that, well, your story doesn't make sense here, here and here, and it doesn't have the, the Aristotelian blah, blah blah. You know we don't think of any of that stuff.

Speaker 1 48:51

What I'm hearing and saying the way I relate to what you're saying is that in every way, our upbringing nurtured creativity.

Speaker 1 49:02

So whether and we've had other guests that have talked about all this. You know they're roughly our age. Greg Spelanka just talked about this. Hell yeah, him and I were for sure said okay, go out and play, don't come home until the sun's gone down. And so, right, when you're left to your own devices, there's a lot to be learned, but there's a lot of creativity to be explored. I even use, like the example of the erector set I grew up with, versus. Do you remember how Legos over time, suddenly there was nothing to build, because you have the car, you have the car seat, you have the windshield, there was nothing left to build.

Speaker 2 49:38

So, whether it's growing rocks or the spirograph or all these things where they were a little more interactive and you got to engage right in the creative process, and I just think we're taking that away because everything's given to you, especially right in the digital realm well, here's, here's something, um, on that too, to kind of piggyback on what you're saying, is like being because I'm a gen x star as well um, shelly and so like when we were growing up because we had those kinds of things, the big thing about us having, like talking about Legos, like I know, when my kids came around, legos finally had like the little booklets that they like told them step-by-step how to build stuff on top of that, so they didn't even have to think about how to put it together and figure it out.

Speaker 2 50:27

And the problem is is, um, you know, it kind of stagnates that enriching, like their sensitivity and their emotional growth and intellectual growth, because when we were doing that it was actually helping with our cognitive development, because it's helping us do critical thinking, it's helping us understand our world on our terms as well as being able to express it and enhance that cognitive flexibility and problem solving.

Speaker 1 50:49

So it's like agency it's not just problem solving, it's agency.

Speaker 2 50:52

Yeah, and and and by having the. Not that I'm saying technology, technology is bad. I mean, these tools are great, but because they're so heavily relied upon now, with the younger generations, like you, put something in front of them and if they don't have a computer to go to to help them kind of brainstorm with, or even like kind of give them the answers, they can't start doing those basic, fundamental problem solving skills. A lot of the time.

Speaker 1 51:17

Do you remember which guest was it that said two things related to what you just said? She said they don't have the follow through to work through those frustrations in the creative process. Right, they don't have those skills. But also I think it was that same guest that said a parent came forward and said you know, I hired you to tutor my child I forget what but to have you know higher reading comprehension. Why are you having them write? I'm not not, I didn't. I'm not paying her something like that, I'm not paying you to have my student right. And they had no category for why it could conceivably be valuable to formulate your own right thoughts and structure them with a subject and a predicate. They just wanted their child to magically read like all the other, at the level of all the other kids do you, you remember that.

Speaker 2 52:05

I do, I do remember that and and that's the thing I think, I always think back to um gosh, I can't think of the name of the commercial, what the commercial was, but it was, you know, teaching, oh, hooked on phonics.

Speaker 1 52:17

Right.

Speaker 2 52:18

Sing to your child no-transcript my kid to be able to read like this and that's why I'm using the hooked on phonics commercial from our day Um, like, that's great, your kid knows how to read. You know they also have to understand the comprehension, they have to be able to visualize that and they have to enter. You know, like there's so many layers, which is what you know. I believe shelly's talking about that. You know, when it comes to playing with play-doh and clay, or, you know, be at legos without the freaking instruction manual, or sitting down with pen and paper with like literally a you know, I mean, think about all the writers you know, um, the literary, uh, writers that have talked about like you know, like they literally would open up I can't remember which one.

Speaker 2 53:32

I think I want to say I think it was him anyway. He said like he opened, like you open up your vein and you bleed on the paper, basically your own blood. And I always think about that. Because, you know, I know when I get in front of a computer screen, I'm typing like yeah, it's intimidating, it's like scream, but after a while, like thoughts will just kind of come and and I'm typing. So it's a little bit easier than when I'm sitting with pen and paper and I'm staring at that blank piece of paper and I'm going, I have.

Speaker 2 53:55

I mean literally.

Creative Process and Fear of Failure

Speaker 1 53:56

The first thing that always goes to my mind is, like I don't know what the freaking right you know I'm going to take this opportunity because, shelly, one of my questions listeners love especially indie authors or people in a similar vein want to hear about your process. Of course, I've appeared on a bunch of podcasts and they always want to know what. Do you have a chicken strapped to your ankle and do you wear fishnets? Like what are your perfect conditions? Or how do you execute a concept once you've had that lightning strike of inspiration? So people do love to hear that shit. I'm going to ask you in a minute about your process, but since that came up, um, I want to just back up a little bit and uh, I'm sorry, I'm stuck on the chicken strap to my ankle.

Speaker 3 54:33

I'm like I haven't tried that yet.

Speaker 1 54:36

Well, you can. You're welcome to it.

Speaker 2 54:39

Just leave a quarter on the nightstand when you leave.

Speaker 1 54:43

Um, that was, that was an example. Nightstand when you leave, that was an example. I'm not saying, I've just heard. You know what I mean. No, my thing is like access to caffeine. I don't shop, so I need access to food. I actually like the kind of white noise of a coffee shop, the kind of general buzz. If there's one annoying laugh it's all over right.

Speaker 1 55:05

But I will say to Virginia I've written entire novels longhand and a sketchbook. My sister's jaw drops and I used to say well, it's because it doesn't feel like a commitment. I can cross things out and you know, scratch them out, move them around, and it feels more workable. And then as I enter it right into my laptop, I feel like I'm finessing it and it I don't know. But now I don't do that. Now I can get in the zone just typing in my laptop. So who knows? I think our approach evolves right With our worldview. But anyway, I'm going to ask you about a what inspires you, shelley? So be prepared. And I'm going to ask you how you then execute your concept once you've been inspired. But since we're talking about all this developmental stuff, I guess I wanted to ask and I'm scrolling here. You know this in one of your pots and thoughts that's the name of your YouTube series, right Pots and thoughts.

Speaker 3 56:03

Yes, pots and thoughts.

Speaker 1 56:04

I love it. It's so inspiring. I really adore it. Um, oh, thank you. Yeah, you seem to be a hub for creatives. I don't want to presume you know, put words in your mouth, but you seem to be encouraging, championing and nurturing creativity and you seem to have created a little bit of a community. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 3 56:22

I think you're right, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I really strongly believe, and this has come over a period of years, and especially, it became very apparent to me when I was teaching at um Folsom's Park, uh, parks and Rec, uh, was teaching a beginning clay class there, beginning clay class there, and I cannot tell you how many times people came in for the first time and said, oh well, I can't even draw a straight line, and blah, blah, blah, and, and they're already, and they're already just disrespecting themselves right and kind of free. They're pre paving the way for me to disapprove of whatever it is that they're making.

Speaker 1 57:09

Wow.

Speaker 3 57:09

And I would always yeah, I mean, it was just. It was like they're apologetic about, well, I'm not as good as you, and it's like okay, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, You're here for fun. This is not a college class, all right, and one of the things that I would that I would pause. And this came over a period of time of like, wow, this is a pretty universal thing, because every time I had a new student, though, a variation of I stink at this would come out of their mouths nearly immediately, almost always on day one. And so what I developed over a period of time was okay, first and foremost, I've been doing this for a while. Okay, I'm a professional at this and you're not, so please don't start by comparing your very first piece to my 80 bazillionth piece. Ok, first and foremost. Secondly, what would you do if you weren't afraid of failing? And that would. And the response was exactly what you just did huh and that would start arc them.

Speaker 3 58:27

No, that would start to spark them of like oh my, maybe I am approaching this from a point of fear instead of a point of fun yeah, fear has no place in the creative process, so no, it really really doesn't, you know, and it's, it's fascinating because, I mean, I, I'm one of those people. My brain, as you can tell, my brain is just really messy, all right, and I, you know how they talk about. You know how men live in rooms and women live in all in one room.

Speaker 3 58:56

Well, my room is like a hoarder's room, okay, but you say that proudly I do, because you know what, in my hoarder's room I've got like all the little gifts from the crows that fly around in there and I also have my very neat, my neat stacks of books and my neat concepts and all of those things and I can access that most of the time pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 59:27

You seem pretty linear to me. You seem pretty organized. Maybe I have a lot of chaotic people in my life these days, but I would argue with that. Maybe it feels messy. It doesn't come off that way.

Speaker 3 59:39

Okay, well, that's good news.

Speaker 1 59:42

You fooled me yeah.

Speaker 3 59:45

I mean, no, mean I'm, I'm. I'm happy to hear that maybe I'm actually functional right, you seem linear.

Speaker 1 59:51

You seem pretty linear to me, but we're not here to analyze you.

Speaker 3 59:55

You were saying okay all right, well, we'll do that. We'll do that another time over coffee right, exactly you can.

Speaker 1 1:00:00

You can lie down.

Speaker 3 1:00:01

But the creative, this creative process, it's just so, it's so imperative to me to impart to adults in particular, that. It's that what you need to do is you need to be willing to. You need to learn how to be comfortable at sucking at something Right.

Speaker 1 1:00:21

Well, a couple of things came to mind in listening to that story, and one is you know, there's all kinds of voices of doubt that we need to silence, to own, to give ourselves permission, number one, right. But then there's a whole other journey to finding your voice and then contributing it and to a sense of purpose. There's two entire chapters on this in my book, but I would say you know the documentary I mentioned earlier. Who Does she Think she Is Talks about? And again, there seems to be a male version and a female version in society and the way we're socialized, right In the status quo. It's kind of built in. But the voices women need to silence are like how dare you neglect your children to go paint in the garage?

Speaker 3 1:01:04

Or right, how dare you not?

Speaker 1 1:01:04

put on the table for your husband and you go off and write a poem instead, and then, man, it's very much shamed, you know, kind of like being a sissy. The arts are not seen as practical or essential, and so there's all kinds of voices. Men need to quiet as well, but I think when you have somebody coming in and again this is what I heard immediately lowering your expectations or kind of saying, hey, I think there's competitiveness in that story too. Like you're saying, don't compete with me, I'm a professional. Well, they might feel sheepish or embarrassed that they're not going to be up to par, and so there's so much in that. But I just think quieting the voices and giving yourself permission is the trick.

Speaker 1 1:01:48

I loved what you said about what would happen if you didn't have the fear of failure, and I'll just tell a quick story. You know I am a trained illustrator has nothing to do with what I have to say in the world or nothing to do with if I was left to my own devices and had a government grant to create a body of work per year, I've jokingly said like I don't think I would bring a single rabbit out of my hat, I don't think I would use my bag of tricks, I think it would all be completely abstract. So who knows? But I'm a trained illustrator, right? So as such, you know, I'm midway through Disney and even there there was a whole six month training period.

Speaker 1 1:02:22

There's what's called the badgering technique. It's very specific and at some point I was just doing a painting for myself. Imagine that and it was a plein air painting from reference, I think from a photograph. No, this one was done on on location and I just remember it got to that point of no return where I couldn't fix it Right, I couldn't bring it back, so just smushed the paint around and just it's the only time I've ever gotten really pissed and just, you know, spread the paint around and it's my favorite painting to this day because I gave up on it.

Speaker 3 1:02:53

I gave up on it well, I think that I think that expectations um can be really crippling, uh, for the creative process yeah, outcome it's always death yeah, I mean, I, I have, I. I mean I sort of juggle, I juggle a lot of this stuff around in my, in my brain, like I'm. I'm a big fan of julia cameron's book.

Speaker 3 1:03:17

The writer's way because that helped me. That helped me at a time when I really really needed it to reconnect with my inner writer, um, and to do I mean, you know, because I'm a masochist, you know the three pages. You know the three pages. I had to do it, college ruled. Okay, I didn't just do your regular lined paper. I said, okay, well, if I'm going to have to write three pages every day, every morning, by God, I'm going to do them, college ruled. And I learned how to just whatever was in my brain, just flow out and then and give my permission because like, that's just like, it's just like journaling or it's like you know it, nobody's ever going to see these, there will be no judgment on this. And I learned how to remove myself from judging myself on it because I would never read those pages again. All right, it was my brain barf, you know, and and so yeah, when you're concerned.

Speaker 1 1:04:23

I mean, I guess, the equivalent in writing of outcome being fixated on outcome, because in life you could say, you know, having no expectations is pretty much the way to go with the creative process. It's like death out being fixated on the outcome is death to the creative process. So usually that's Ooh. Being concerned about the readership, or even with journaling, will my grandchildren read this? Like you can't worry about any of that.

Speaker 3 1:04:48

No, I don't think you should. I don't think you should, I think you, you, you become your own killjoy in that. Uh, when you, when you put yourself in that, in that position. But getting back to what you were saying about men versus women regarding the creative process, like you know, my grandfather obviously, you know not a lot of men in general were are in a position where they can have that many things that they're good at creatively, creatively, and you know, and so he, I guess he was an anomaly in that way, although I got to tell you his watercolors, which you know, as you know, is a very difficult medium. His watercolors were often, more often than not, in my opinion, stellar, and his acrylics stunk and I don't know what it was. Oh, I, I mean, some of them were awful.

Speaker 1 1:05:45

I mean, it's like, it's like the worst couch art you could possibly imagine you know have you ever seen moba, the museum of bad art, moba oh my god, I've gotta go.

Speaker 3 1:05:56

It's what it sounds like a lot of black velvet.

The Jealous Mistress of Creativity

Speaker 3 1:05:58

You know, yeah, couch a dog's playing poker, that sort of thing oh my gosh, I love it, that's weepy eyed children so bad. It's good, um, but, but it's. It's one of those things where you know with where you were talking about the women versus men. Now I I remember there's there's this great video I don't know if it's even available anymore and it was a teaching video about the um. There's this great video I don't know if it's even available anymore and it was a teaching video about the. There's a specific process. It's a glazing and firing process called RAKU.

Speaker 1 1:06:34

Oh my God. Yes, of course.

Speaker 3 1:06:38

So there's a long story that goes along with that that I won't bore you with, but these two guys did this video and they're both a couple of just redneck Southern boys that have clearly been friends for the last hundred years.

Speaker 3 1:06:52

They've got that nice friendly banter that goes back and forth, and one of them made this comment that just emblazoned itself on my brain, and what he said was clay is a jealous mistress. So if you have a partner, they have to be secure enough to understand that you're just going to disappear on them for a while anywhere from hours to days to months, depending on whether you have a big project that you're working on or not. And honestly, I mean with me personally. Okay, I have a lot of great qualities, but one of my less wonderful qualities in regards to dealing with other people in my personal space is that I kind of wander off into my creative space and and God help me for saying this but like I kind of forget about them in the sense of like, and I don't mean that in a cruel way, I just my focus gets so absorbed and I and I have since read, of course, because I'm a voracious reader and I read just about any old thing that the genetic, there is an actual genetic marker for artists.

Speaker 3 1:08:22

They, they, they found it that, you know, we, we get that obsessive, we're, we're, we're, we're nitpicking and we're obsessive and we go down the rabbit hole of whatever creative project we're doing and literally everything else disappears. And my marriage, my last marriage, disappeared, I believe, on my end of things. Yes, he was problematic in oh so many ways, but on my end I was at that time developing my love for clay and wanted, wanted the that time to practice and and do all of these things. And he in himself was not secure enough, uh, in his in himself, to understand to that to give me that space didn't mean that I was taking away from him, he kind of took it as a person.

Speaker 1 1:09:27

Forgive me, I'm going to jump in, so sorry, because it's quite all right. So sometimes I hear something that our listeners could benefit from, so I'm going to take my time on this one. There was about 25 things in there I want to follow up on. So not only are two chapters of my book devoted to how to find your voice, how to connect it with a sense of purpose it's a lifelong journey, giving yourself permission but there's also an entire section on exactly and when I say we're the same person I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 1:10:01

So at 11, katie, you probably know, katie Alexander, katie Jones now, same thing She'd go, oh my God, I'd be painting a mural on a wall and she'd go. You haven't eaten in, you know eight hours and she'd bring me a sandwich. And she had this theory that I lost all track of time. And now I've come to understand. Actually, that's my meditation and that's the gift all artists have available to them is to get rid of the mental chatter and get only I guess it's beta waves flowing and that is our chanting, our meditation, our church. So it can be wrangled and it can be a good thing.

Speaker 1 1:10:37

So I want to follow up on a couple things you said. You know, I had a layout artist at disney, a dear friend. His daughter was actually my roommate and I knew the entire family. This guy was a stellar layout artist and then I knew his ex-wife, who was I'm not saying any names my roommate's mother, and they had divorced because exactly that she said well, his love of craft was a mistress. I could not compete with, right. And this is actually what Phantom of the Opera is all about the love of muse competing with an earthly connection. I mean, it's exactly what you're talking about in your marriage. So that does take. And when we talk about being a trained artist or not, this is what haunts people and actually you can master it. So when people say, oh, I don't, I'm worried about blank page syndrome or I'm worried about writer's block, we'll get to know the creative process and you can overcome some of those romantic notions around it and the fear just magically melts away. So it sounds like you've kind of learned this one.

Speaker 1 1:11:38

But my sister would say about that love of craft that becomes a jealous lover or a muse or call it what you want. She wrote a song 30 years ago that said you know what I don't understand. And now I'm saying names I guess I can say she would. She would say, well, jim loves to run. She's like I need a cop on my ass to run. I have zero desire to run unless there's a really good reason or, like you know, an exotic cat or something. But she respected that. That was his church, right, his stillness, his I'm putting words in her mouth now but that was his, his way. And so she never expected him to understand her love affair with songwriting and she gave him permission to go run, right, and so that is the trick. It just boils down to like understanding we're all different and we all have our church and respecting that.

Speaker 1 1:12:29

But I do think you know there's a lot of things. If somebody makes art their livelihood, I remember at Disney I didn't have the skill to switch from left to right brain or other way around, sorry, from right to left. If my office door flew open and I suddenly had to hold a conversation in teaching, I saw that my very young students, 21 or 22, didn't really know themselves yet. So if they're in a two hour binge working on a project and not using their mouth or connecting it to their brain, there's literally a motor skill hoop to jump through when somebody comes up and tries to start right, my students would literally come in with their eyes blazing after pulling an all-nighter and not be able to formulate a sentence. Right, that's something you learn is how to switch over.

Speaker 3 1:13:18

So, anyway, I just feel like, and it still takes a minute.

Speaker 1 1:13:21

I mean, it still takes a minute to shift gears like that.

Speaker 3 1:13:24

But what I found interesting, just to kind of finish up with my thought, you know the thing that unfortunately you really touched on it the competition. And here's the thing you have to if you want to be happy in a partnership, if that's what you want, if you want to be a partner with another person, okay, then in my opinion, as an artist of any kind, whether you're a musician or you know a 3D artist or you know whatever it happens to be, be writing any of the creative pursuits, you must have somebody who is not putting themselves in competition with you I mean I was, I was fine and good.

Speaker 3 1:14:16

Let me tell you something when I was first starting with the clay stuff, the, the condescension, and I I will say this because I will slam this and it was a red flag that I did not see in my marriage, but there was a very condescending. Oh well, you just go find some little thing to do.

Women and Creativity in Society

Speaker 3 1:14:34

And my little thing. I happened to literally live behind Folsom Lake College. So I said, well, I've always wanted to try clay some late college. So I said I've always wanted to try clay. And then it quickly became an obsession and um, and it was all fine and good until I got juried into my first international show. Okay, and and I won a prize at my first juried international show. Right, and all of a sudden, holy cow, all bets were off.

Speaker 1 1:15:09

Because it's his currency. You're winning at his currency, right.

Speaker 3 1:15:14

Exactly Wow. And this individual wanted to be the big man and the person who everybody looked to him, and then I was the little woman, in certain ways.

Speaker 1 1:15:30

Well, I will tell you this little story. You know, even believe it or not, so strong is socialization that even in a gay relationship. I do remember, you know, my lover during college. Although others, I sure thought that he was supporting me through my education, which is partially true, but I'm also the only one in my class that continued to work through graduation and pay rent. I never failed to pay rent and I graduated with distinction, which is, and I was one of two people that did that. So that's why I was kind of a hard ass as an instructor, because I was like, if I could do it, anyone could do it.

Speaker 1 1:16:04

But in all of that, of course, we were in love. But I think some friends thought, oh, I'm using him to get through school and, you know, is he going to pay him back at some point? And I will tell you, I did buy him $300 televisions for his birthday for the next 10 years. But aside from that, we did part ways when, yes, suddenly I was working at Disney making more money than he had ever made. So he's so socialized to be the breadwinner right and to have the upper hand that of course men are competitive, and that was too threatening to him yeah, live and raw Well and I mean yeah, and I mean there's's I mean you can go on a whole other topic.

Speaker 3 1:16:45

I mean there's internalized misogyny that all of us have. Uh, you know all the messaging that, that that revolves around that, and that you know, as you say that, the comment that you made where you said, well, women, you know women being conditioned, that it's selfish to go and that is absolutely 100% it. You know that that I mean. Uh, I forget who was Georgia O'Keeffe's lover or husband. I forget off the top of my head, but he told her Diego.

Speaker 1 1:17:14

Rivera. No, that was Frida Kahlo's Diego.

Speaker 3 1:17:17

Rivera, that was Frida Kahlo, but you know who I mean. We'll figure it out. But you know he told her flat out he's like you shouldn. He told her flat out he's like you shouldn't have kids, because if you do, your painting career is going to be over with. You know so it's the expectation that's put on women, well, but you know what's interesting about that is that the creative chakra is the sexual right.

Speaker 1 1:17:37

Is that that?

Speaker 3 1:17:38

region. Well, yeah, but we have to lay down, we are expected to lay down our lives and everything about ourselves to everyone else. But us of women who choose to be moms, uh, and if they're lucky enough to be able to be a full-time mom, uh, in the sense of not having to worry about, um, an income in addition to it and all that, hey, good on you you would love that documentary.

Speaker 1 1:18:12

Who does she think she is it's?

Speaker 3 1:18:15

it would speak to yeah I I really gotta watch that. That sounds good, but it's, it's. It's interesting to me.

Speaker 1 1:18:21

My sister screened it and it was so cathartic for everybody in Santa Clarita. It's a very powerful film about all of this, so to our listeners, check it out.

Speaker 3 1:18:32

Yeah, it's one of those things where women traditionally and even a little bit less so, because I think this upcoming generation is starting to not get sucked into this but we were uninterrupted by well, honey, what's for breakfast?

Speaker 3 1:18:52

Or, you know, the kids need to get ready for school, or any of those other things you know. And I, you know, I did not have kids. That was not in the cards for me, and so I've had the luxury at this point of being able to develop my creative, my creative side, creative side even though, yes, I was like this since I was a kid, uh, these these last seven years, uh, of not being married, uh, and not having to lay down my myself and my needs for someone else, uh, in that's, in a romantic partnership with me. I mean, yes, I've got my elder my, you know, I had my elderly parents. My mom passed away a year ago and my dad is now 88. He needs some help too, but still, I'm in a position where I am able to have that luxury of creating and writing and and making more stories and, yeah, women are, I think, what you're saying.

Speaker 1 1:20:07

Women are socialized to put others before themselves every step of the way. Right, you're supposed to be serving, whether it's the family or the husband or the community. Yeah, your needs come last. That's across the board. Yeah, and creative expression seems so like such a uh, what do you call it? It's so superfluous, right, that it's even more self-indulgent if you satisfy that impulse.

Speaker 3 1:20:34

Right, and I mean for people like us, you know, and for anybody who's listening to this podcast, you know, the creativity is breathing. That is air. Air, that is oxygen to us.

Speaker 1 1:20:44

It is not an option yeah, you will languish and actually it's that it's that conventional wisdom that you have more to. If you do the self-care, you actually have more to offer a relationship. So if you're languishing inside because you have a creative drive that goes unexpressed, what do you have to offer the family?

Speaker 3 1:21:04

yeah, well, it's so funny. It reminds me of that line, uh um, in beetlejuice, where she says and if I don't get to create my art, I'm going to go crazy and I'm going to take you with me my favorite line from that is.

Speaker 1 1:21:18

Do you remember when the sculpture pins him, somebody, against the wall and she goes that that's my careful, that's my art, it's dangerous.

Speaker 3 1:21:25

Exactly. But I mean, but you get back to the creative, to the creative process, and I think step one, as I said earlier, is being willing to suck. And I mean, my whole thing is, you know, if I'm doing writing, for instance, and I'm creating a story or whatever, um, my first draft will be pen to paper and it'll be what, as I say, it'll be my brain barf, it'll be my vomit draft and I'm I don't outline. I wish I did outline and I I've looked at outlines, I've seen them, um, and I would probably be a better writer if I did actually discipline myself to do an outline. But I often start out with okay, I want to get to the end, okay, this is my end scene, how do I build up to that so that it makes sense? But I'll do that pen to paper and I'll just whatever comes to mind, um, just comes out that way. For me that's what works best, because that is how I I connect to my creativity, uh, most efficiently is by I've just got a crappy old spiral notebook that I'll do that.

Speaker 3 1:22:42

And every time I did anything for Hauntcast, whether it was you know the history of Halloween postcards or Memento Mori, or even writing. You know the traditional Halloween story that I would do for that. It started out pen to paper. Do for that. It started out pen to paper. And then I would do my second draft, which you know because of my my time constraints at the time, second draft was about as good as you were going to get, cause I was doing it for free. I did it all for the love of it. All of us did that, um, so you ain't paying me to do a 10th draft, so you ain't going to get one. You know I don't have time for that because I've got a full-time job and I've got all these other things that I've got going on. So second draft was generally about as good as it was going to get. But that went on my laptop and then it got printed out and and then I would, you know, read it into the microphone and do my editing and my production and all that business. Read it into the microphone and do my editing and my production and all that business.

Speaker 3 1:23:44

Um, but I thought you know that that is my key and I think that very much. I had Julia Cameron to thank for that. Uh, because I did for years I did my, my, my pages every morning religiously, I did three pages long hand of whatever came into my brain, like and like college ruled paper for me because I'm a masochist. But that's what I did and that's how I managed to get these stories done. And I'm having a little challenge with, you know, with doing the screenplay, because it's a different format, first and foremost, and I am kind of reading screenplays, but right now I mean my main focus is like okay, I've got my clay stuff that I'm doing this I'm doing kind of on the side to please myself, but it's. What's really interesting to me is that I've got the screenwriting program and it's a little bit more difficult for me because now I've got to stop and think about the format to talk about final draft yes, okay, so instead of barfing it out on the page.

Speaker 3 1:24:57

Yeah, so instead of barfing it on the page longhand, uh, as I've been accustomed to doing it and final draft is great, don't get me wrong?

Artistic Inspiration and Creative Process

Speaker 1 1:25:05

I'm not. That's what I was getting at is it's so intuitive? Yeah, yeah, it's pretty intuitive, so I actually find it more fluid when you get used to it. It's very fluid and right. It's a great way. Okay, we're getting up on the end here. So, uh, I love that you're wrangling one of your stories into a screenplay and, um, I also happen to know you have a body of work in the ceramic realm about native american mythology. Is that right?

Speaker 3 1:25:40

um, yeah, it's kind of my own take and you know I don't want to. I don't want to get into a point necessarily where I'm like going to be accused of of what do they call it?

Speaker 3 1:25:50

um alteration oh yeah oh yeah, I don't want to get accused of appropriation right right, you know, because I mean I am, I am half mexican, so I'd probably be like more acceptable to do like more Mexican mythology and I think I will incorporate that at some point. But yeah, I had an idea that that was inspired very much by Charles DeLint's writings, which, if you're, if you're into urban fantasy at all, he's your boy as far as I'm concerned. He's just, he's great, and it was the idea of okay, so just like in the UK they have the Fae, the fairy and all of the various and sundry earth spirits if you want to call them that, that were native to the UK, that they used to explain their natural world, uk, that they use to explain their natural world. The idea is, what would it have been here in the United States? Because earth spirits are earth spirits, right? So, very much in keeping with that, I started thinking about, well, what would it be like to have that in a 3D situation?

Speaker 3 1:27:02

So I'm in the process of kind of considering a scope of work that encompasses that the two sculptures that got juried into the shows that I was talking about earlier, both of them are based on the Manitou is what they call them, and that's sort of like the Earth, um, the earth spirit that walks around, uh, in human disguise, and if you catch them in just the right way, if you see them from just out of the corner of your eye, you might be able to see their true form.

Speaker 3 1:27:38

But they walk among us as, uh, looking like people, but they walk among us as looking like people. And having that marriage, of course you know the most fun because jackelopes, as we all know, don't exist, but how fun are they in that way. And also being able to take into account the actual, the landscape that goes along with the South of Southern California, the Southwest and all of that specifically, which is what you and I grew up in and you're nameless prince in the LA River, and all of these things can be very inspirational and a beautiful jumping off point for that kind of mythology.

Speaker 1 1:28:50

It's beautiful work. I really I didn't realize those were the two pieces that had been juried in, but I I so respond to those human animal hybrids. I love me a human animal hybrid, but specifically the jackalopes. Speaking to the Mojave, you probably know I spent much of my childhood traipsing around the Mojave Because, despite, my great-great-grandfather was actually one of the first from the first graduating class of Stanford, but then the next generation were miners and prospectors and geologists. So I will never forget the postcards. You see them all over the Southwest of the Jackalope. It's kind of like a modern, a modern uh, shapeshifter, I guess.

Speaker 3 1:29:32

Yeah, and I mean I guess it's the Southwest version of the Loch Ness monster.

Speaker 1 1:29:36

Right, exactly, and it is fascinating how shapeshifters do seem to exist in all cultures. But I think uh, you know, the appropriation conversation is obviously a nuanced one and a long one, but I think you're allowed to be inspired by whatever you like, aren't you?

Speaker 3 1:29:52

I would think so. I think I think the inspiration you know you're inspired by, whatever it doesn't. It doesn't matter what you're inspired by, as long as you just continue to allow yourself to be inspired.

Speaker 1 1:30:06

Yep.

Speaker 3 1:30:07

Well, and you answered the execution you talked.

Speaker 1 1:30:09

I love what you said about how you approach a project because it it kind of made sense, it puts you directly in touch with I don't want to put words in your mouth, but your fluid creative process. Uh, virginia, would you say we've had about 50-50?. We've had a lot of writers on here and some are. You know, I always use this animation metaphor. There's straightforward animation and there's pose to pose, right. So if you don't do the three by five cards and kind of lay out the structure in advance, but you just run with that inspiration, that's more like straight ahead animation. So I think we've had about 50, 50 right.

Speaker 2 1:30:45

People that structure and people that just go for it right yeah, and I was gonna say I don't feel like shelly, just like doesn't have an outline, because I mean you know where you're, where you want to end, because you start with that in your head and to me that's so.

Speaker 2 1:30:57

It's more of a loose outline, um, because you have an idea of what you know where, where you want to end, and then you know kind of the points that you want to hit as you go where someone. I think that has zero structure and those are usually the ones who don't get published. This is me speaking from being an editor, um, for many years. Uh, generally it's they regurgitate stuff and like it literally is like the. They get to the middle of the story and it's like the windy road of you're just like where in the heck are we?

Speaker 1 1:31:28

Well, that's what I say about the creative process in general, the only time. I think everybody's different, and they should you know whatever allows them to access their creativity, and I do feel blessed again that I was on at 21. I had to access my creativity eight hours a day, right 40 hours a week, with no creative blocks. So I do think the only reason to investigate structure, if somebody has never done it, is so that you don't lose sight of the goal. The pieces that I've abandoned and never finished were the ones where, yeah, I didn't really know where I was going with it and the problem solving along the way became laborious. So I dropped the ball on that initial lightning strike of inspiration. Shelley, you're in great shape. I just love the way you explained it. I think structure can be overrated. It can be limiting.

Speaker 3 1:32:21

Yeah, I guess it's just like I said. Said it's just the way my brain works. I mean, before I ever put pen to paper, a concept has been rolling around in my hind brain for a while. Yeah, well, that's what I was.

Speaker 2 1:32:36

I think your subconscious knows how to get to the finish line, so I would agree with that and, as I said, that's where I see it as being more of a loose outline versus unstructured process. Because unstructured process? People just sit down like, oh, I want to talk about you know a story to teach kids how to eat healthy. That's all they have, but they don't know how to begin, they don't know how to end, they don't know what points they want to make, and then it just becomes this wandering lost trail.

Speaker 1 1:33:05

Yeah, no, I've abandoned plenty of things because I didn't have a strong enough vision, I guess, initially, or inspiration, but also because I didn't know how to get from A to B to C and therefore it felt like it's a little over romanticized, but it felt like problem solving along the way felt laborious and I felt I had lost the initial inspiration. Anyway, everybody's different, but I love that you explained how you approach a project. But that does lead to my. It was a two parter, Like what is your inspiration in the first place? You mentioned you might have something sort of living in your subconscious for a period of time before it comes to fruition. What does inspiration look like for you?

Speaker 3 1:33:45

Well, I will give you a perfect example, my short story neat, freak which I just read last night.

Speaker 1 1:33:54

It's amazing. I love it.

Inspiration From Amway

Speaker 3 1:33:56

Thank you. Thank you Love it. The inspiration from that came from, and don't judge me. The inspiration from that came from, and don't judge me. An Amway meeting. I was at an Amway meeting, oh no, do not judge me.

Speaker 1 1:34:09

Okay, all right.

Speaker 3 1:34:11

I can't promise anything, keep going. Okay, just be kind, just be kind.

Speaker 1 1:34:16

Okay.

Speaker 3 1:34:17

So there's this woman on there and they did these things where, like, the woman will come, come up and she'll tell her story pre and pre and post right and one of the things she. She mentioned that and you know me well enough to know that I'm I'm very much a feminist. I'm very much, you know, women having their own thoughts and autonomy and they shouldn't have to be stuck in these.

Speaker 3 1:34:39

I know the audacity. They shouldn't have to be stuck in specific roles. Okay, so this woman is speaking this language. It's English, but it's a language I'm like what in the heck is coming out of your mouth was a stay at home mom, and she got to this stage where she was obsessed with keeping the house clean to the point where if anybody walked on her newly vacuumed carpet, okay, she was very careful about having all of the carpet, the like the vacuum cleaner marks they all had to go in a certain direction. You know, you know how do you see people who do their lawns like that and they've got like the stripes on the lawns? Well, that was her idea for her carpet, right, and it stuck in my head. Here's this woman who literally has nothing else.

Speaker 3 1:35:38

And she like later on to her credit. Later on she's like yeah, I finally came to my senses and screw that. Okay, so thank God for that Really, yeah, and that's a long story, but she replaced her carpet obsession with an obsession with being an Amway person, which, hey, that's human nature. We take one addiction and we replace it with another.

Speaker 1 1:36:00

Swap one religion for another.

Speaker 3 1:36:02

Yeah, and that's pretty much it. Yeah, but that's human nature, that's people being people. But I took that and was like okay, how can it? Because that's kind of horrifying when you really think about it, when, like, somebody gets pissed off at footprints on their carpet like that's, that's sort of that's like. To me that's a symbol of obsessive, compulsive behavior a, b. How can I boost that up into like truly frightening psychotic behavior?

Speaker 1 1:36:36

And so I wrote neat freak for that, for that very purpose yes, well, I love that as an example of inspiration, because the truth transcended, right, the authenticity just transcended. I do want to say I mean not that you need a review from me, but I loved how it did feel like a prison. You actually felt for her because it was a prison.

Speaker 3 1:37:01

Right, there's it her own creation to an extent. Yes.

Speaker 1 1:37:05

Yeah, it's interesting to hear that she swapped one religion for another or found her way out of that, because it felt like a prison to me. But I loved your ability to and I am guessing it could be the Stephen King influence, or maybe just Poe. Do you count him an influence?

Speaker 3 1:37:27

Definitely Poe, or maybe it just poe. Do you count him uh an influence? Uh, definitely poe. Uh, definitely rod serling.

Speaker 1 1:37:29

Uh, not as much the twilight zone but his night gallery years well, what I was getting out is that your understanding of not just the human condition but psychology, like the complex itself. We're very invested in it because it's so, it just rings so true. So I loved that. That when you're inside her head and you're sort of sharing the internal dialogue, it's almost tongue in cheek like, well, she knew that dot dot dot, and it's like we know better. But you know, she knew that her husband was conspiring with the children and you just know better. But you could see how she could wear that lens, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 1:38:11

So I thought it was pretty. Yeah, the paranoia that comes along the internalizing, the internalizing of this.

Speaker 3 1:38:19

Allow me, if you would, let me read a little segment oh yes, we would love that yeah yes, thank you, um, all right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna preface this site by saying here, you know, setting up. The scene is she's alone in the house and every day, this is a woman who cleans the house top to bottom, every single day, uh, only allowing herself a moment to go out to her garden. And this is a house that itself has a a sordid past all on its own, and there's a mysterious voice who convinced her to buy the house. Um, and we come to discover, of course spoiler alert at the end of the story, we come to find out that this house has seduced a number of women, uh, into mayhem. But here's part of her, uh, part of her insanity that that comes out right here.

Speaker 3 1:39:16

After she scrubbed the entire counter and the oven, the floor, the refrigerator and the kitchen table too, for obvious reasons, she was dripping with the sweat of her efforts. With a satisfied sigh, she stepped into the living room. She stopped short and nearly shrieked with anger. There were footprints on her white carpet. Mind you, the footprints weren't black with dirt, but pristine. Pattern left by her vacuum cleaner was ruined. She conscientiously vacuumed every day, sometimes twice, to eradicate dust mites, knowing the tiny aliens were nothing but trouble. Snarling to herself, she stormed to the utility closet and brought out the vacuum. It was one of those cyclone models with the clear bins, so you didn't have to touch the dirt. She would dump the dirt in the compost pile afterwards, thereby making the dirt useful to her precious roses.

Speaker 3 1:40:13

As she vacuumed, frantic with the need to erase all traces of her family from the room, she made little noises of anger and frustration. She made little noises of anger and frustration. Didn't they understand how much effort it took to clean up after them? Didn't they appreciate all her hard work happen? No, it was obvious they didn't. The ungrateful pigs, they were slobs, all of them, just living to make work for her. So she couldn't spend time with her roses and Jeremy, husband and ringleader, mocking her to the children behind her back. She just knew he did.

Speaker 1 1:41:00

And it goes on that's exactly that's what I was the way you. Even just that one line. She just knew he did. It's like we kind of know better that it's paranoia, but you could actually buy into her worldview. 100, it's amazing. It's a really great story.

Speaker 1 1:41:16

Can I ask you a little more about it? Yeah, without telling you my reaction. Anyway, thank you for sharing that. I'm so glad I did say a minute ago we're steering this to a. Sharing that I'm so glad I did say a minute ago we're steering this to a close. But I'm so glad, uh, you remembered to share an excerpt. Uh, because again, I just read neat freak. Last night I read prop master I think we called it prop maker before, right, prop master, and then I re-listened to disorderly. So I'm more and more a fan. But tell me if I'm wrong. The kind of common thread I see there is this comeuppance idea right, which I would trace back to Poe, and even the psychological tension seems kind of Lovecraftian but kind of oh like. If you think of the telltale heart, you're just in that paranoid mindset and it's not going to end. Well, you know, any of those click for you a little bit.

Speaker 3 1:42:08

Oh, absolutely, I mean, and it's the Grimm's fairy tale stuff you know they try to teach you the morals right. You know the moral is and, and of course, with with those morals, more often than not the bad guy gets it right.

Speaker 1 1:42:24

Yep, yep.

Speaker 3 1:42:25

You know the witch gets shoved into the oven. You know all of these things.

Speaker 1 1:42:33

It's a cautionary tale too, right. I mean to put it in a real universal template. Do you know a writer called Guy de Maupassant?

Speaker 3 1:42:42

I do not.

Speaker 1 1:42:43

I do.

Speaker 3 1:42:44

Wait, the dead girl. Wait, wait, yeah, yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:42:47

Guy de Maupassant. All I know is the Necklace and the Dead Girl, because I illustrated them but kind of it's almost like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein became science fiction, but in a way it's kind of creep or horror, you know. And then I would say, um, oh, bram Stoker's Dracula, like the genres hadn't really defined themselves yet. So I put Guy de Maupassant in, like it's almost literary fiction, but yet it became that comeuppance idea. So the dead girl specifically, it felt a little bit like the dead girl too, where, like as a reader, you see it coming and you kind of know the comeuppance is just around the corner.

Speaker 3 1:43:33

But it's satisfying when it happens. You know Well it is, and it's one of those things that it's got an animus all of its own, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 1:43:39

And it's like the comeuppance itself is another character in the story. Yes, yes, yeah, and it's almost like the natural order of things too. I won't, I won't give, I won't issue any spoilers, but I love. Oh, it kind of reminded me of creep show too. Do you remember that, speaking of 1981, that's a huge, huge influence oh absolutely.

Speaker 3 1:43:56

That creep show is perfect.

Speaker 1 1:43:57

Yeah, I think they were all about comeuppance weren't they? I'm sorry, I think all of those short segments in Creepshow were all about comeuppance, weren't they Sure?

Speaker 3 1:44:12

Yeah, I didn't recognize it at the time. It's divine, yeah, well, I mean, you're just, you're kind of taken up with with the supernatural creepiness of the whole thing, right, you know? And, and that's one of the things that that I have loved in in most of the horror stories that I listened to as a kid kid, uh, the, you know, the ones from the record player, the old little tiny record players that we all had, you know, when it was vincent price reading these stories, or boris karloff with his tales of the frightened or any of those things it was. You know these things were were horror stories and urban myth geared towards children in order to teach children that bad guys were the ones who got their comeuppance at the end yep and it was that cautionary tale and and it was that stuff.

Speaker 3 1:45:09

I mean, when you go to disorderly, you know, here you've got this guy who you know, who's got a string of ex-wives that he's screwed over and plans to do his final you know, disappearing act with his new identity you know about to, you know whatever, go off to South America for hookers and blow or whatever.

Speaker 3 1:45:33

And here he gets his comeuppance with the wild hunt and the wild hunt being an aspect of the UK's fairy court and not to get too deep into it. But you've got the seelie court and you've got the unseelie court, and if people are very, very Christian, oh, it's heaven and hell. Not really Cause, like the seelie court, if you're looking at like the, the scale of white being the very purest of the pure and black being the evilest of the evil, the seelie court kind of started off at steel gray, you know, and then the unseemly court was, of course, the, the darkest, uh, the darkest of the dark, and the wild hunt was called to to punish, uh, the oath breaker and and and the criminal and all of that and and effectively the Christians sort of repurposed that to the force of vengeance that took the bad guy to hell for his punishments. And of course, you know, the unseemly court, would you know, end up torturing you for all eternity in their own special way, or eating you alive, or whatever it happened to be, you know?

Speaker 3 1:47:00

Uh, but absolutely it was that.

Speaker 1 1:47:03

Yeah, there's a mythic. There's kind of a mythic epic quality to it because of those precedents. But even if you don't know which I didn't, I didn't know the ins and outs of that, but there's a resonance that comes from right All these ages of using those similar archetypes Before.

Speaker 3 1:47:26

I forget. I want to say do you know a publishing company called Collective Tales? I don't think I do. Okay, well, we had a guest.

Speaker 1 1:47:29

Yeah, we had a guest called Elizabeth Suggs and she's also a great writer and I read a couple of her pieces Similar territory. In most of their collections They'll have a theme like comeuppance, you know, and so you might want to check them out if there's works that aren't yet published that you'd like to collect, of tales. But I also want to speak to something you just said as well. So Disorderly was. I mean. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed like it was about a revenge fantasy a little bit, right, so.

Speaker 1 1:48:00

But I would say the credence in sort of a revenge fantasy is it's also about manifestation, right, it's subconscious wish fulfillment. That's how I write about that a lot, how in a given moment one person comes in with a preconceived notion, or maybe they've listened to a little bit of gossip, but you know what it's going to play out because it's it's, it's swirling around in the subconscious. So I like picking a moment and then just showing how all parties have preconceived notions or expectations or judgments that are going to play out and combust, if that makes sense. So in yours all three of the pieces I read recently I feel like it says a lot about manifestation or subconscious wish fulfillment. Does any of that sound accurate?

Speaker 3 1:48:48

What do you mean by subconscious wish fulfillment?

Speaker 1 1:48:50

Expand on that Well in my own work I'm thinking of, you know, women I'm going to get in trouble here are powerful, right? If you buy that archetype that y'all are witches, right? Well?

Speaker 3 1:49:02

we are Well, that's all I'm saying.

Life's Subconscious Influence and Justice

Speaker 1 1:49:04

That's all I'm saying. I think you're socialized to be more in touch with the nonlinear. I'll leave it at that. And it's not practical for men to investigate, you know, the metaphysical or whatever. I just think women can be powerful manifestors. So I just wrote a few stories about how I started. One of them I forget, something like a woman can move mountains, but sometimes it's subconscious.

Speaker 1 1:49:33

I also saw a really great film that one of my actors was in. I'll, I'll plug it if I can think of the name. I think it was. It was set in Northern California, in the Redwoods in the thirties, and the name is not going to come to me, but his name is Mark Aaron and it's just this amazing portrait of how just it couldn't be a coincidence. But one thing leads to another. They're like dominoes, right, one thing affects the next and suddenly he's fucking his like daughter. It's like, oops, how did that happen? But they all created the circumstances for it to go down that way, subconsciously, if that makes sense. So I've written a little novella that was about oh, one person did one thing here, but here, but it was. You know, they left the key in the door and then another person forgot to put the blocks up on the automobile, you know the bricks back up, so it just all combines and combusts and um, bad things happen. So does that make?

Speaker 3 1:50:31

sense. It's like unavoidable, yeah, it's like an, and it's a series of events that eventually make the ending. At that ending moment, you look back and you realize there was no other place.

Speaker 1 1:50:53

I could have ended up. Well, I make the case that every moment right is a dovetailing of a bunch of little particles and it has to do with wills and expectations and desires. It's inevitable. What's that? It's the inevitability of the ending, but that's every moment, and so yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:51:18

Life, you know yes, it's a fascinating thing that's why we're writers anyway.

Speaker 1 1:51:28

Well, let's maybe end on this note. We I do want to. If you have anything that's not in your links that you would love for our listeners to investigate, please let us know. But but maybe you know I was jokingly saying ah life, you know, you just got to write about it. Oh, life is stranger than fiction. And what I was going to say about subconscious wish fulfillment, just real quick because it came back to me is the reason I started writing about that is again way back in art center days 89 or 90.

Speaker 1 1:51:57

I don't want to say too much, but I had a lot of Texas money friends because Art Center is very expensive so and they weren't particularly the most ethical people. I don't know why. I didn't judge them at the time. But I had one friend that was on full scholarship but didn't tell daddy Right the oil tycoon, so she was getting double tuition. Then she married somebody that worked there so she got tuition remission. That's three incomes. So I'm sitting here eating on the 59 cent Taco Bell menu while she's buying Wave Runners. But I didn't judge him. I was like I'll go Wave Running with you at Cascade Lake on the weekend. It's great. And I was younger, I guess I wasn't as judgmental, I don't know, but looking back.

Speaker 3 1:52:49

I'm like, holy crap.

Speaker 1 1:52:49

The reason the dad gave the extra tuition money was because he had had an affair and she was the only one that knew about it, so he was pretty much buying her off. That's an odd one, right there, right. But somewhere in there had a roommate and I remember I was in their wedding. Actually I, I played his dad now I'm saying way too much. I did the part in the Catholic ceremony that his dad would have done. So I was very close with him as well. But he would say like and this is before I was out I lived with a lover all through college. They knew him but it just wasn't talked about this. This was 89 again, but I remember he would say, oh, that fag at work. And his friends talked about this fag at work and then, oops, somebody ran him down and killed him in the parking lot at work. So that was the first time I thought, hmm, was that a mistake or was it a subconscious combination of you know what I mean circumstances and conditions?

Speaker 3 1:53:38

Right, right, yeah, it's, I mean there's. We all write because we have angst right Of one kind or another that we need to work out. I mean that's like, generally speaking, and and you know, and Gen X is all about angst in its own way. You know, we have that, that surface of well in its own way. You know, we have that, that surface of well. I don't give a crap about anything because we also don't, you know.

Speaker 3 1:54:04

But at the same time we get, we we've developed a sort of anxiety about, about that, and we've, we've developed this anxiety of of having gone through life the way we have and and being that bridge generation of well, you know, when we retire we're going to be able to retire, and now we're like you know how many economic crashes later that have wiped out most of our savings and we're like, wow, now I'm going to invest in really good booze because that's about all there is, you know. And then you get to that point of like you know of that, of that wish, fulfillment of that, that, that desire to see justice, justice is that, it's that arc that we all subconsciously want to be true, whether you know, we want that, we want that comeuppance.

Speaker 3 1:55:01

Well, here's here's my way of putting it nobody is above the law.

Speaker 1 1:55:03

We want to thank you I was about to say, with the orange asshole right being always on the fringes of our subconscious. That's the most I've said is like you know what I still don't wish ill on anyone. I don don't Prison, you know, is not good enough Death, I've thought I really don't wish ill on anyone, but I do want to believe there's justice in the universe. I'm never going to throw in the towel on that.

Speaker 3 1:55:29

Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm exactly like that too. I mean, I won't get into it here, but you and I both know what my history with my ex-husband is right, and my genuine wish fulfillment is not any sort of grandiose thing other than justice.

Speaker 1 1:55:48

Right, that's yeah, I think we're on the same page, all I genuinely want to see is just justice.

Speaker 3 1:55:56

I don't have to be there, I don't have to be the instrument, I just want to hear about it.

Human Drive for Justice in Storytelling

Speaker 1 1:56:02

I love that, virginia. Do you think it's a human drive to look for justice in the universe? Is that pretty universal?

Speaker 2 1:56:09

yeah, um you know, we because order yeah, you can't, that's. I think that's always been like the big thing. I mean, everybody has a different definition of what they consider to be civilized, or right or whatever. But the point is is you have to have some form of a structure, otherwise there's total chaos and total chaos, right that just doesn't work, even though I know it's gen x, we're like anarchy but you know it was always anarchy with some form of a structure plan um right right so yeah, um, it's, it is.

Speaker 2 1:56:43

It's just, it's a human thing, because we we need to know where our place is yes, and so that's where that comes into play, where you so, even even if there wasn't, you know organized religion or spiritualism, you know sadism, you know whatever. Um, we or spiritualism, you know sadism, you know whatever we would come up with something else, in our own way, to put some type of me, because we have to, we have to have meaning and purpose.

Speaker 1 1:57:08

Yes, well, the irony you know there's. I love the word teleology or teleological, and you know rationalism and empiricism I use those words a lot too, and rationalism is not what it sounds like actually, it's just again having a teleological view of the universe, that there actually is order. So I do think that's a human, uh construct or it's a human drive.

Speaker 3 1:57:30

But you know even anarchy, if it's got a name, it's a teleological structure, sorry that's why I ended up writing that ending for disorderly, because, as I said before, you know, here's a guy who's escaped everything, whose major plan is now that he is there in a retirement home, in an elder care facility facility.

Speaker 3 1:57:58

His big plan is you know, I'm going to rip off a bunch of jewelry from these old people and they'll never know. And you know, you know, in order to make my grand escape to belize or wherever, and having these people who appear a number one to be people when they're not, and having them appear to be the weakest members of society, that he is more than than happy to take advantage of and to brutalize, all right, and for them to turn around and to effectively be the bigger predator. And for you know, as you, as he gets his comeuppance and he is taken by the wild, hunt and and torn apart and left on the cliffs of the ocean all right in pieces. And then you, you do that cinematic pullback of the dawn rises and this apparent old folks home. This facility is in fact a derelict building and it is this very like no, you know what Justice will come for you Period. And that's what I just really wanted to leave with people with in that particular story well you've given.

Speaker 1 1:59:24

Thank you for giving listeners a picture because obviously they haven't read it, but I love what you said about both stories. Do you have a blog where they can find these two stories and, um, maybe even the third?

Speaker 3 1:59:35

it's a little tough to, yeah, unfortunately it's a little tough to find. I probably you know what I will probably repost, uh, the other two stories that I did and, if I can find a, uh, a copy of it, because these were all recorded for hot cast right, which I have been off, which I have been off of for seven years and unfortunately my it iTunes has has made a terrible mess, predictably, of my recordings of of these stories. But I will, I will see what I can do about posting a link to to these on my blog, which is shellhawksnestblogspotcom, and I believe I gave you guys a link for that that you can put up on the show for later.

Speaker 1 2:00:22

Exactly, it'll be in the episode description for our listeners for sure.

Speaker 3 2:00:27

Right and my and my blog does have a little search box that they can. They can go through and search for for a post that has to do with that. So even if I posted afterwards, they can go to the search box and put in disorderly or you know, the other titles of the other of the other stories, like neat freak and the prop master. So I can, I can just put the put those up.

Speaker 1 2:00:49

Perfect, thank you so much, and I have the perfect way of putting a bow on all of this. You kind of answered the question and I'll give you a chance to add something to it if you like. But one of my questions was why? Um well, how does storytelling serve you? And I think you kind of just said in so many words, there's a catharsis in it for you and the patron right, and so purging, anxiety came up. Uh, generationally, you said this generation has a lot of anxiety, so it sounds like a little bit of a purging. You know, even Aristotle, way back when, said that is the definition of catharsis, is purging, and he used the word complexes. So is there any other anything you would add to? It's a two-parter. If you could add anything to the first part, which is how does storytelling or how does telling stories serve you, is there anything you would add?

Speaker 3 2:01:39

Yeah, I would say that I mean, it is catharsis, it is trying to make sense of things as well. I think that's something that's really important to me, because, I mean, my brain works in a certain way, and what you see as somebody who does not live in my brain is something different than, obviously. This is a human thing. I experience things differently than what you see on the outside, and so I, you know, I view myself in certain facets of my life as just a little bit clueless about certain things, and sometimes I won't pick up on social cues and some, you know, certain little things like that, and so writing will help me to make sense of that and to make sense of certain things that are happening in in, in life in general. Uh, in addition to, uh, the idea that, well, this, this individual is never going to see justice, for instance, um, but I'm going to make them see justice, damn it it's almost like restoring.

Speaker 1 2:02:42

It's restoring the order in the universe, or the there is justice in the universe. So then, my, the two second part of that question would be and we're going to end on this uh, what do you feel is the role of storytelling in a culture?

Speaker 3 2:03:00

Oh wow, that's a really good question.

Speaker 1 2:03:02

Well, that's the entire premise of our podcast, of course. What is the role of storytelling?

Speaker 3 2:03:13

on the macro level in culture I would say.

Speaker 3 2:03:15

I would say the purpose of storytelling in our culture is teaching humanity, and by that I mean teaching us how to be human, teaching us that empathy for others, teaching us the acceptance of the other and teaching you know, teaching us all those things are very important to the human experience that my view isn't necessarily the only view, um, and your view is not the only view, and all of us come to it with our, our cultural sensibilities, um, our, our, our gender, uh, sensibilities, uh, whatever those may be all of these things, but the universal thing is that we need to learn about each other as humans. I think that the biggest, the biggest lie that Westerners, all of us, believe is that we are separate from each other. Story brings us back to the point where we are all connected.

Speaker 1 2:04:35

Beautiful, beautiful. Yep Interconnectivity is the name of the game. That was really beautiful the way you put it. You certainly deliver. I love it. Yeah, I was tempted to put it in a clinical, in a clinical terms, but that was really beautifully put, so I think we're going to end on that. Thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 3 2:04:55

Thank you so much. This has been so delightful. What a great conversation to have.

Speaker 1 2:05:00

I think it's going to be very inspirational. You know wherever people are on their journey of you know owning their gifts or expressing themselves, or even contributing wherever they are in terms of finding their voice. I think there's something in here for everyone. I really do so thank you again. Thank you, Virginia, are you there?

Speaker 2 2:05:19

I there, I am. Oh, I thought she was napping.

Speaker 1 2:05:21

I thought she was taking a nap no, no, no, I'm here and I absolutely agree with that okay, well, thank you both for having me.

Speaker 3 2:05:30

I so appreciate it it was a wonderful experience.

Speaker 1 2:05:33

Thank you both thank you and to our listeners, remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay, individually and collectively. We can write our own story. See you next time.