December 25, 2023 • 40 mins
It's an end of the year gift for everyone! The December 2023 Issue of Worlds of Possibility is available for free in ebook and online formats!
This podcast includes the editor's note, and interviews with the two featured aritsts, Alex Hernandez and Beth Wodzinki.
Read the editor's note and get the whole issue here: https://www.juliarios.com/the-december-2023-issue-of-worlds-of-possibility/
See the Ceasefire art and read the interview with Alex Hernandez here: https://www.juliarios.com/ceasefire-art-by-alex-hernandez/
See the Fallowtide art and read the interview with Beth Wodzinski here: https://www.juliarios.com/fallowtide-art-by-beth-wodzinski/
And you can order a print of Fallowtide at https://brightlycolored.com/product/fallowtide/ -- use the coupon code Fallow to get a discount!
This podcast includes the editor's note, and interviews with the two featured aritsts, Alex Hernandez and Beth Wodzinki.
Read the editor's note and get the whole issue here: https://www.juliarios.com/the-december-2023-issue-of-worlds-of-possibility/
See the Ceasefire art and read the interview with Alex Hernandez here: https://www.juliarios.com/ceasefire-art-by-alex-hernandez/
See the Fallowtide art and read the interview with Beth Wodzinski here: https://www.juliarios.com/fallowtide-art-by-beth-wodzinski/
And you can order a print of Fallowtide at https://brightlycolored.com/product/fallowtide/ -- use the coupon code Fallow to get a discount!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the OMG Julia Podcast,where we discuss creative lives and processes.
I'm your host, Julia Rios,and today I'm going to have two artist
interviews with you. But more importantly, I also have a gift for you.
This is the darkest time of yearwhere I live, so I've decided
to give everyone the gift of thetwenty twenty three December issue of Worlds of
(00:25):
Possibility. Usually the ebook version isonly available to paid subscribers, and individual
pieces appear online later for free,but this time the entire issue is being
released for free to everyone right awayas the end of the year gift.
You can download your preferred format overon juliareos dot com or go to the
December or twenty twenty three issue ofWorlds of Possibility page. It's linked in
(00:48):
the show notes of this podcast,and you can click the links on the
table of contents on that page tofind each individual piece online as well.
If you like what I'm doing,please tell everybody else. Subscriptions are what
makes it possible for me to keepdoing it. I love paying creators for
their work, and I'd love tokeep doing it, so subscriptions are a
(01:10):
key to that. This December issuecontains three pieces of original artwork, four
short stories, two poems, andone essay. Normally I save the content
notes either for the end of theebook or for the individual piece pages online.
In this issue, I did feelit was important to mention one right
(01:30):
up front, so I put itdirectly into the editor's note. The artwork
that opens the issue, cease Fireby Alex Hernandez, and the essay that
follow it are both engaging with Palestiniansolidarity. While the artwork and accompanying interview
are more focused on the historical cultureof Palestine, the essay digs deeper into
(01:51):
the past and present violence. SinceOctober of this year, our news has
been full of violence in Israel andPalestine. There's also been in a rise
of anti Semitism and Islamophobia, bothof which make me angry and sad.
I felt that it would be bestto let someone who is personally attached to
both Judaism and Palestinian solidarity have thefloor, so I invited a local to
(02:15):
me activist, Laura Mandelberg, towrite about her experience. Laura's essay is
a difficult read, but it alsooffers some hope that people can change and
can choose to stand up for oneanother. It's also full of links to
other sources where you can learn moreabout the current situation and the history of
the region. Note that if youare downloading the PDF version, that won't
(02:38):
contain any of those links, soplease if you are reading the PDF and
you want to see all of thelinks that Laura cites, you should check
out the online version or the epubversion to get those. Where I live.
As I mentioned earlier, we're inthe darkest part of the year,
when the days are shortest the weatheris coldest. Two of the pieces in
(03:00):
this issue are directly exploring that spaceand give us hints about how to find
hope when everything is dark and dreary. Morning Dew by Megan Baffo gives us
a look at one man's garden indifferent seasons and the gentle question of how
to maintain one's mental health, anda fairy romance after the dazzling brightness of
(03:20):
summer fades away. Fallow Tied byBeth Woodzinski, is a gorgeous piece of
artwork, and in the accompanying interview, Beth also talks about the deep work
that happens under the surface when theground is covered with snow and the trees
have lost all their leaves. Continuingwith the theme of fairies, Kay and
Bow's brings us a story of foundfamily and magic in a refugee from Fairyland.
(03:46):
This story is illustrated by Tatiana hutI eat A. Shony Barr's poem
Sweet Child gives us a hint ofmagic and a taste of home that can
magically appear wherever it is most needed. In Case of a Mgency by Alithia
Kantis is the second poem in thisissue, and it is a poem of
empowerment, suggesting that the narrator herselfis the one who can make herself at
(04:10):
home by embracing her full desires andpersonality. From there, we visit two
different houses, both seemingly sentient.In Christine Hannelsey's house, call a Home
falls ill and the narrator's family musttry to nurse it back to health,
and we end with some coziness viaHeartbeats by Anaka Baranti Klein, wherein the
(04:35):
house has a special connection to ournarrator and each must take it in turn
to save the other. The coverwas designed by me using stock art,
and any other art you see inthe issue that was not listed above is
also stock art. To the bestof my knowledge, I don't use AI
(04:56):
generated images, so that that iswhat you'll find in the issue, And
like I said, you can clickon over on the website and grab it
in any of the formats that youlike. Today, I do have the
two artist interviews with Alex Hernandez andBeth Wodzinski. So Alex's goes into some
really cool details of Palestinian folk culture. It doesn't get into any of the
(05:24):
difficult violent warfare or genocide issues.It pretty much just is a deep dive
into his art and into the coolfolk culture that he was drawing from.
Then Beth Woodzinski is going to tellus all about fallow Tide, a piece
that I absolutely love and that Ithink goes really well paired with Megan Baffo's
(05:45):
story. So let's get right intothem. Alex Hernandez has edited work that
I have written in the past,but this time has contributed a piece of
artwork to the December issue of Worldsof Possibility, and we're here to talk
(06:06):
about the creation of that art,his artistic process in general, the inspiration
all sorts of other things, andthen we'll also get a little chance to
hear about his other projects. Sowelcome, Alex. Please tell us a
little bit about yourself. Happy tobe here, Julia. My name is
Alex Hernandez, and I am awriter, artist, librarian by day,
(06:30):
editor and basically anything that involves sciencefiction, speculative fiction, you know,
horror, fantasy. I love allof that stuff and I like creating stuff
like that. Okay, So tellus a little bit about your work as
an editor, which is how Ifirst got to know you at all.
You've worked with the Latinx Rising series. Tell us a little bit about that.
(06:56):
So I first started as a contributor. It's a series. So in
the first anthology, I was awriter and I submitted my work and Matt
and I hit it off. Wetalked about future anthologies. We talked about
maybe doing one for ya, Wetalked about different themes anthologies. And then
when he came here to Miami forthe launch of Latenix Rising, which was
(07:17):
like the first book, we werewalking around core Gables right before our thing,
and I was really convincing him todo another one, and he was
just right off the first one hewas tired, he kind of wanted to
break and I was like, let'sdo one. Let's do one for ya.
So when he started planning that secondanthology, he called me up and
(07:38):
was like, do you want tohelp me edit it? So that's the
start of it. And I enjoyedmentoring new writers. I enjoyed reading writers
that I normally wouldn't have read.So I actually love editing because of that
because I get to develop new voices. Awesome. And yeah, I got
to contribute his story to the secondone, and I know that you're also
(07:59):
going to be working on a thirdone, which you can maybe tell us
about at the end of the show. But let's go into the art side
of things. How did you getinto drawing in the first place. So
I've always drawn. I don't knowif I'm very good at it, But
when I was a kid, I'vealways liked comic books and my dream was
to be a comic book creator,right, so the writer and also the
(08:22):
artist. When I was in mytwenties, I realized that drawing comics is
really hard and I could probably,you know, be better at writing.
So I then in my twenties Ikind of let the art go, and
I just focused on writing and developingthat craft. And it wasn't until I
had kids that, you know,me and my kids would do arts and
(08:46):
arts and crafts and I would drawwith them and paint with them, and
I remembered how much I loved doingart. So now one of them,
they're grown, you know, oneof them is like thirteen, and she
doesn't want to do art with me. But I kept it up, so
I still do art. Know whenI would do art with them, and
I realized that, yes, drawinga comic is hard. It's hard to
do you know, you know,a bunch of pages. But I can
(09:07):
do you know, one off,so I can do, you know,
focus on a piece. And actuallyI find creating art to be way more
relaxing and way more I can zoneout and just kind of leave my body
and do the art, as opposedto writing, where I have to be
in it and I have to youknow, work on it. So I
actually use art as a like adistressor. That's really cool. So tell
(09:31):
me a little bit about what inspiredthis particular piece. It's called Ceasefire.
Obviously we're at a point where there'sall of the situation with Palestine and people
all over the world are calling fora ceasefire, so that's a clear inspiration.
But you specifically also said that thiswas inspired by the work of Tofik
Canaan. I'd love to hear moreabout how you decided to make this piece,
(09:54):
what your inspirations were, and alsowhat your process was. So my
inspiration for all art basically comes frommythology or from folk religion, and I
love that stuff, mysticism. Iread a lot about that stuff. I
look up you know, art workand you know illustrated you know, manuscripts
(10:15):
and things like that, and Ilove all of that art, and all
of that art really inspires me.So I wanted to do a piece to
highlight, you know, what's happeningin Gaza, and I went through my
regular process, which is I immersemyself in that culture. I am learning
I guess that's the best way tosay it. Arabic, specifically the Pastinian
Jordanian dialects. So you know,learning a language is you're not in a
(10:39):
vacuum, right, you know,with it comes you know people's culture,
people's art, people's history. Soyou know, I feel really close to
that region just because I'm learning theirlanguage, so I read up not just
things on you know, language learning, but you know, the folk tales
of the region. Telfic Canaan Is. He was a medical doctor, but
(11:00):
he's also an ethnographer and archaeologist andall of these awesome side hustles. And
he went around Palestine just collecting storiesand collecting, you know, artifacts from
the region. And I was readingyou know, books that he wrote or
books about him, and you know, every well, every spring, every
(11:22):
tree in that area has either asaint you know, living in it,
or the ghost of a saint.And that's what a wally is, that's
what they call him that it literallymeans like a friend of God, or
they have a gin. So somesome wells or some trees have both a
saint and a gin living in them. So part of the inspiration of just
(11:43):
soaking all of that in and lookingat art, you know, looking at
Islamic art and things like that,I wanted to to kind of remove myself
from like the modern dialogue because it'sso depressing. So I kind of went
back to what are the saints,what are the spirits of the land,
(12:03):
what are the gin? Right?What do they think of all of this?
And I created a saint, right, and the saint, you know,
saints could be women or men.There's no like official process for it.
Like in you know, Catholicism.The saints were basically just holy people
or people who could perform some kindof miracle. Think of them like cunning
(12:24):
folk, I guess in like Europeanculture. And if you've performed the miracle,
they would be like, you're asaint, right. And it wasn't
like only the Islamic people right wouldworship you, and not worship you,
but like honor you. But youknow, Jews and Christians in that area
would as well. So it wasvery like it would flow between cultures and
(12:46):
it was everybody, like the people, right, the people of the land
would would you know, honor you. So I wanted to do a saint
and she kind of has her handout. There's an eye in her hand
reference the Hamsa or like the handof Fatima, and she's calling for a
ceasefire. One of the the trademarksof a saint is there's a lot of
(13:11):
green light or a green glow ora green fire associated with them. Usually
their heads are glowing green or theirfaces. So she's like surrounded in Green
Fire because I said I was acomic book nerd. There's a lot of
green lantern influence there as well,but that's the influence for the piece.
(13:31):
And you know, her name isElhadra and that means the Green like the
Green Lady. And they were actuallyseveral saints that were called el Haadra that
were either like you know, femalesaints or male saints, and they were
they were called the green like eitherthe Green One or the Green Lady.
But she's one that you've made yourself, so she's not like a specific one.
(13:52):
She's one that you've dreamed up.Yeah, it's a composite that's super
cool. So there's not a lotof information on these that have survived.
So she's one that I dreamed up, but it is she is more like
a composite of of two female saintsthat were both called Eldra, like the
Green Ladies. They were just fromdifferent towns. But you know, it's
(14:16):
that's kind of what she is,kind of like a merge of the two
saints. Okay, so what doyou know about the two different saints that
you say she was sort of basedon, well, one of them.
Again, I this is basically whatI what tofic Kanan has collected and one
of them there's there isn't a lotor haven't been able to find a lot
(14:39):
of one, but the other one, and she's from his hometown. She
was like a young maiden and thisyou know, rich I don't know.
She wanted to marry her, andher she begged her father to not allow
it, and you know, hesaid no. But then the guy bribed
(15:01):
the entire town and they, youknow, the then the entire town because
they were you know, they werebeing paid off by this guy. Convinced
the father to let him marry her. And on her you know, wedding
night, he comes into her homeand she yells out, you know,
you know the name of the prophets, and the name of my grandfather,
(15:24):
and the name of you know,Allah whatever, and then he drops dead
immediately. So because of that,people were like, oh my god,
it's a miracle. And after that, they you know, venerated her as
a saint. And I liked alot about it. I liked that,
you know, she took matters intoher own hands. And from the beginning,
(15:46):
she was, you know, sayingshe didn't want this, she didn't
want to marry this guy. Thetown was against her, and you know,
she found the way to to win, and and something about that story
I loved. So that's that's why, of all of all the Wallies,
of all the saints, that she'sthe one that stuck out to me.
(16:08):
Very cool. So tell me alittle bit about your actual physical process creating
this. So it first first startswith research. I mean, I'm a
I'm a librarian at heart, soI approach everything through research. I read
up a lot of on things.I look at a lot of images.
(16:29):
So for example, the border ismore or less my poor attempt to do
like an illustrative manuscript type of border. And I looked at her, you
know, the dresses of the ofthe area, of the era, dresses
of the time, so her,the dress she's wearing is again my poor
attempt at that. And you know, so it's just looking at you know,
(16:53):
images and reading a lot, andthen I sketch out. I hate
drawing on a on a tablet.I like painting on a tablet, but
I hate drawing on a tablet.I like the physical, you know,
scratching of pencil on paper. SoI sketch it out first on a notebook
and then I scan it and thenin procreate I paint it. I you
(17:17):
know, add layers to it.And because you know, all of the
stories said there was this green glowassociated with with saints, you know,
I played with different greens, sothere's a lot of greens, and even
the yellow is kind of like alime green type of yellow. So that's
basically the process. It's a lotof looking at art of the region,
(17:38):
and not just with this piece,but with all the pieces. So if
I do something that's inspired by Cubanart or inspired by Mexican art, I'll
do a deep dive and I'll lookat old images and I find that fun.
I find it very relaxing. Youknow. I love, you know,
learning. So I also make surethat the language is right, you
(18:00):
know, if it's if it's Spanish. I'm a fluent Spanish speaker, so
that's not you know, always aproblem. Maybe I have to double check
to make sure I got the accentsin the right spot. But you know,
when it's something like Arabic that I'ma newcomer to the language, I
do want to make sure that it'sright, and I do want to make
sure that it's the correct dialect forthe region and things like that. So
(18:23):
it's it's a lot of process thatprobably involves not a lot of artwork at
first, but it's it's all partof it, and it all feeds into
the piece, and you know,at the end of the day, I
want to make it as authentic aspossible. Yeah, So you say you
don't like to draw on a tablet, so you do your drawings freehand on
paper. Yes, I always dothat. I have drawn on a tablet.
(18:45):
I don't like it. I feelit's the stylus and the and the
screen. It's too smooth. Ilike the friction of of lead on paper.
But I also like that I can, I don't know, like draw
things around it that that I mayincorporate and with with the tablet, it's
more it's more the painting, likeI'll trace it, like I'll outline it
(19:07):
or ink it on the tablet,and I'll and I'll paint it on the
tablet. But I always sketch onpaper. I've got notebooks, a bunch
of notebooks, you know, athome with you know, sketches and half
sketches and notes and and things likethat. But definitely painting. I love
painting on a tablet more than especiallysince I like to do kind of like
(19:30):
a watercolor, messy kind of art. When I try to do that on
on actual you know, canvas oron paper with with real paints, there's
no undo, right, there's noyou can't go back, you can't fix
it. It's hard to erase wordswith pencil, you can always erase.
So I feel with the tablet isit's much more freeing because I can do
(19:53):
a whole you know, piece,and if I hate it, I can
just delete it and keep the outlineand then do it again with paint.
I'm committed to it, right,and I can try to fix mistakes and
I can try to you know,work with it. But if it's not
working, it's not working. Soyeah, those are that's my secret.
(20:15):
Appropriate There's a lot of heavy lifting. So how do you get when you
have a when you have a drawingyou've actually drawn out by hand, how
do you actually transfer that to thedigital image? So a couple of ways.
I'll sometimes I'll just use a scanapp. I don't really care about
the quality too much because I knowthat I will go over it. So
you're just using that as like atemplate. To guide you in the tracing
(20:38):
right exactly, or if the imageis very involved, right, and I
don't want to lose quality because Ijust I want to use the actual pencils,
like without tracing it, and youknow, as is, I might
do like a really nice scan,right, like a high quality scan,
and then remove the background and youknow, fill it in that way.
(21:00):
But sometimes what I've done too iswhen I have used actual paint and paper
and canvas, I'll do the wholething in paint and then scan it,
like scan the the actual piece andthen go into the with the tablet and
touch it up and do highlights anddo things like that. So it's sometimes
it's like a collage of you know, actual sketches, actual paint, and
(21:22):
then digital paint on top of it. That's so cool. I love hearing
about all the different ways that artcomes into being. Okay, well,
thank you so much for telling usall about the inspiration for this piece and
the way that you created it.I'm sure everyone listening will be as fascinated
as I was. Let us knowwhere we can find you and your work.
(21:44):
If people are curious and want tolearn more about you, where should
they go? So if you justgo at alex thoth thho thh. You
know, on any social media platform, you'll be able to find me.
You'll be able to find my workand you know, whether it be like
my right or my artwork. Wedo have, as you mentioned, the
Not Your Poppy's Utopia, right,the third installment in the Latinox Rising anthology,
(22:08):
and you know, we're in themiddle of working the stories. We're
in the middle of, I guess, finalizing the acceptance letters and things like
that, so maybe in a yearit'll come out. It's a great anthology
that focuses on utopia, especially nowwith how everything is and you know how
depressing the news is. We wantto be able to imagine what a better
(22:32):
future looks like. And that doesn'tmean that all of the stories are you
know, rosy, but they definitelycreate a roadmap for how to get to
a better future. So I youknow, be on the lookout for that.
That should be out by next year. I'm really excited for this one.
I like I said, I contributeda story to the YA version,
which was speculative fiction for dreamers,and I love that volume. I also
(22:55):
love the first volume. I'm reallyexcited for the third one, I can't
wait to see what all of thedifferent writers have brought with their ideas of
utopia. It's amazing. And evenwhen they lean toward dystopia, there's always
a ray of hope. There's alwaysa pocket utopia within the and I love
that, like I love how Latered. That is where you can create a
(23:18):
little utopia for you in your community, within you know, a larger you
know dystopia, and it's it's verycool. So I look forward to to
putting it out there. That's great, And that's definitely with Worlds of Possibility,
which is the project that you contributedthis artwork for. My goal with
that is always to sort of givethings that give us a little bit of
(23:38):
hope, even when we're dealing withdifficult topics. So in this issue,
we have your artwork and we alsohave an essay by a Jewish activist who
is in solidarity with Palestine, andboth of those pieces, like they're dealing
with a topic and an issue thatwe're seeing in the news and that everyone
is feeling deeply over the world isvery difficult. But what I'm looking for
(24:03):
those little glamours of hope, Likewhat are the things that we can do
to make things better, and I'mone of the things is putting great art
out there and then also seeing thatpeople can come together in solidarity even if
they are theoretically supposedly designated as theother side, Like, actually, we're
all in this together as humans,and we need to stand up for each
(24:26):
other. Thank you for that,and thank you for the work that you
do. It's it's so easy toget bogged down and get paralyzed by by
just the doom and gloom of allof all of it. That art is
a way to not just escape,but like I keep saying this, it's
not just an escape, but it'sa it's almost an emergency exit and we
(24:51):
kind of need to hang on tothat now. Yeah, yeah, I
agree. Well, thank you forcreating something beautiful and letting me share it
with others, And thank you somuch for talking to I hope that lots
of people go and find you onlineand see more of your work. Thank
you, Julia. That was AlexHernandez discussing his artwork Ceasefire, from the
(25:18):
December twenty twenty three issue of Worldsof Possibility. If you want to see
it, you can see it onlineor in the e book versions, just
follow the links in the show notesfor this podcast. Next up, we've
got an interview with Beth Woodzinski abouther art piece fallow Tide. Today,
(25:45):
I have with me special guests BethWoodzinski, who did some of the art
that appears in the December twenty twentythree issue of Worlds of Possibility. The
piece she did that appears in thatissue is called and we're going to talk
to her a little bit about theinspiration and process for creating that piece and
(26:06):
her approach to art overall. Welcome, Beth, Hi, thanks for having
me. So do you want totell us a little bit about who you
are in general? Like you arean artist, but you've also got a
background with publishing and editing as well, So tell us who you are.
I used to be the publisher ofShimmer magazine with Alise Tobler, and we
(26:27):
ran for something like thirteen years.I want to say Lalisa is still writing
and doing publishing, and she's workingwith my husband, Sean Marky at the
dead Lands, so I'm still veryconnected to that world through them. But
since since we shut down Shimmer,I've changed my interests like you've like you've
seen more to be about art andyoga, and I guess I'm looking for
(26:51):
a more balanced life always, andso that's partly how this piece came about.
In a private group, we startedtalking about foul as a verb,
and that was just sort of,you know, taking the time to chill
out, especially in this time ofyear. And then a friend of a
friend on the in that group hascame up with this term fallowtide, which
(27:12):
was so great, and she sentme what This friend whose name is friend
Crow, which I think is agreat name. So friend Crow lives in
Portland and originally described it as theseason of fallow Tide runs from falloween through
fallow mass. It's observed by layingfallow and generally being as unproductive as possible.
(27:33):
Be kind of retail workers for themachinery of capitalism pays no heed to
the observance of fallowtide. I thinkthat's wonderful and light hearted. And I
went in a little more meditative directionwith mine and just was starting to think
about all of the how much workis being done under the ground, right
with all the roots and everything twining, and there's so much going on that
(27:57):
you can't see, and that tothe metaphor for this time of year,
and so that's how that happened basically. Yeah, so talk to me a
little bit more about what why youchose the symbolism of the roots and what
that means to you specifically, whatis your own fallow tied mythos. I
(28:18):
mean, I've always taken the weekbetween Christmas and New Year's off to just
sort of you know, rest upand finish up any any projects. But
then this year it just seems likea really good time to expand it.
And so in my group we weretalking about having it be from Thanksgiving through
New Year's which you know, isa little different from what Friendcrow describes as
Falloween, which I just love thatterm fallowing Halloween, right, and just
(28:45):
thinking about how, you know,there's snow everywhere, but like everything's sleeping
underground but hibernating, and there's allthese processes that are still happening even if
you don't see anything going on inthe surface. And also just in art,
I like, I like the processof things overlapping each other, like
like roots do and sort of overunder is fun for me in art.
(29:07):
So a tree with extensive root systemsseemed like like the right thing. Yeah,
so talking about the process of sortof needing to have fallow time.
What kinds of cycles do you usewhen you're doing your creative work? Do
you do a lot in a steadyrhythm? Do you tend to take breaks
(29:29):
and do bursts what you're pacing Like, that's a really good question. I
think I'm still trying to figure outwhat my rhythm is. I do tend
to do something almost every day.I take a lot of I take a
lot of classes like on skill shareand whatever, and I'm just really inspired
by a lot of those, andthen I'll just go off and do like,
I don't know, five or sixof an idea and then maybe then
(29:53):
maybe I move on to the nextidea. What kind of mediums do you
use when your work on a piece. Oh, I'm almost I'm almost entirely
working digitally now, So I justuse pro Create on my iPad curled up
on the couch, which is avery cozy way to work. So you
do the entire piece from start tofinish, all digitally on your on your
(30:15):
tablet or similar usually Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, some once in
a while I'll like sketch something andthen copy that in, but usually I
just do it all and pro create. Yeah I was. I was talking
earlier with the other artist who isfeatured in this issue, Alex Hernandez,
and he was telling me that hedoesn't like to draw and pro create,
(30:37):
so what he usually does is sketchhis things in actual paper and then scan
it and trace it onto the tablet. But he likes the friction of pencil
on paper, so his initial sketchesare usually on paper and then he does
like all of the fleshing out inprocreate, which is a really interesting I
just find it so interesting to hearhow differ and artists are approaching things.
(31:02):
I just like how easy it isto undo. You just tap the screen
with two fingers, boom and itundoes it. Yeah, that was Alex
said that he likes to paint specificallyand pro create because with using real paints,
it's very hard to just erase yourwork. It's true, it's true,
and all the different layers, there'sjust so much, so much that
(31:22):
you can do. It's great.Yeah, Okay, So how long does
it take you usually to do apiece like this? Ah, that's a
great question. That probably took likeeight to ten hours over the course of
three or four days. And didyou have the idea for this like suddenly
(31:44):
and just decide to start doing it, or was this something that you had
to think about a lot first.I'm into a lot of Art Nouveau stuff,
so I've been doing a lot oftracing Art Nouveau stained glass pieces and
the frames and all the detail forthat, so that definitely. So once
I heard the term fallotide, Iwas like, Oh, that needs to
(32:05):
be something with a tree and init, like this Art Nouveau kind of
frame and with all these curvy things. And then the details of how that
actually worked came as I was workingon it, you know, as I
figured out how to make the branch'sbranch the way I wanted to, and
then at the bottom two of theleaves curved down around the words. That
(32:25):
just totally happened as I was playingwith it. That wasn't part of the
initial concept. It just came upthat way. Very cool. So I
guess it sort of sounds to melike maybe the idea for this specific piece
kind of came quickly and evolved asyou were doing it, But it couldn't
have come quickly without you already beingdeeply immersed in Art Nouveau as a style.
(32:47):
That is, that's a good wayto put it. Yeah, the
ground was fertile for it, asI might say, you had spent some
time following It's true. Okay,So you can buy a print of this
piece online. You're selling it throughthrough your online store. Tell us about
(33:09):
the materials that are used in thatprint. What would someone be getting if
they bought one. The printer Iuse is I Print from home dot Com.
They're a family based print shop inNew York and they just do a
really great quality. So it's allarchival and great inks, and it's just
really good quality piece. It's eightand a half by eleven, and I'm
(33:34):
asking fifty dollars for it with acoupon code called just type in fallow and
you get a good discount fifty percentI think. So that is available because
this is actually the very first artthing I've tried to sell, So mostly
I was trying to sort up thefigure out all the infrastructure what goes into
selling things rather than you know,getting rich off of this one piece.
(33:55):
So of course, yeah, andwhat goes into selling things as a big
tangle. Yeah, and it's sohard to get, you know, super
self conscious and tripped up and doubleoverthink everything and just get in your head
and panic. So I just sortof went ahead with the super rudimentary website
(34:16):
and am just sort of figuring thisall out as I go along. So
well, that is very cool andpeople can go and get it. We'll
have a link to that in theshow notes, So if you're listening,
just hop on over to Julia Riosdot com and look for the show notes
for this episode. If you're listeningto this in a podcatcher, it will
have a link to that show notespage right there that you can click through
(34:38):
on your phone and you can goand see where you can buy the print
if you would like it. Ithink it's beautiful, So I think that
it would be a great addition toanybody's decor, especially if you like kind
of like the dark art nouveau lookand a bit of sparkle because it has
that sort of silvery sparkle. It'salso a buil and gold. Oh okay,
(35:01):
so when when you get a printof these, will it be like
a sparkly silver or will it bemore of a mat Yeah? It's pretty
sparkly. Okay, cool cool,cool. Well, Beth, tell me
a little bit about your history withart, Like, tell me how did
you get into it. Have youalways loved it when you were a kid,
(35:22):
or did you do it as anadult? What's your story? Yeah?
I did it all through all throughhigh school, and then somehow I
decided that art was only for likeserious art people and that wasn't me.
So I didn't do any for along time. And then God then in
like I don't know, twenty twentytwelve, twenty fourteen, somewhere around there,
(35:43):
I started, you know, reallythinking that that was stupid and arts
for everybody, and so I startedtaking classes online and have just been playing
around ever since. And so fora long time, basically what I did
was I would take these classes andI would do these assignments, and I
never really had in my own sortof direction. But this year something shifted
(36:04):
somehow, and I've been having moreof my own independent ideas, not in
the context of a class or anything, and just sort of this is the
year that I started finding my ownway, which is amazing. And now
that's twenty twenty four I need tofigure out how to do that more for
money. So well, that's that'sreally exciting. I'm glad that you're finding
(36:25):
your artistic voice. I think thatit's really common for people to start with
classes and not really know exactly whatthey're trying to do at the beginning.
But it takes all of that practiceto learn what you're even working with exactly.
Yeah, and you read artists statementsand stuff and they're like, this
person, you know, blends contemporarywhatever with the nostalgia of this and ecosensitivity
(36:52):
and blah blah, and it's justlike, what, No, I don't
understand any of that. I'm justfollowing this lesson in those class about how
to do watercolor? What what areyou even talking about? So but now
I can sort of start to seehow people are trying to do something and
oh, not sure quite what I'mtrying to do yet, but we'll get
there. Do you think you'll domore Artneuveau inspired pieces. I'm really into
(37:16):
that right now. So yeah,and then someday I'll get sick of it,
and who knows. I don't thinkI've I've dialed in on one style
that's you know, uniquely mine yetI haven't quite found that one thing.
All the all the advice is,you know, find your own style,
and I'm getting there, but Idon't think I found it yet. Very
(37:36):
cool. Well, thank you somuch for taking the time to talk to
me. How about letting people knowwhere they can find you and your work
if they want to find out moreabout you. Okay, my website,
my very rudimentary website that will getmuch better this coming year, is Brightlycolored
dot com and people can also findme on Instagram at Beth Woodsinski. And
(38:01):
you should probably link that in yourshow notes as well because nobody can spell
it, so we will absolutely includethe links. All right, So everybody
should go follow Beth on Instagram andgo check out the website Brightlycolored dot com
and you can get, as Isaid, a print of Fallow Tide if
(38:23):
you would like it, And thankyou, Beth. Have a wonderful rest
of your Fallow Tide season. Iwill, and I'm looking forward to kick
an ass next year. So let'sgo. That was Beth Woodzinski talking about
(38:47):
her art Fallow Tide. Since weconducted the interview, I personally have ordered
my print, so I'm excited forthat to arrive in the mail. And
you can go and order yours aswell at brightlycolored dot com using that coupon
code fallow I tested it myself andit definitely does work to get you a
(39:07):
nice discount. Also, if youwant to read along with these, you
can read along with both the interviewfor Alex and the interview for Beth,
and also my part at the beginningwhere I read the editor's note. You
can read all of those on JuliaRios dot com. If you look at
the December twenty twenty three Worlds ofPossibility issue page, it has the editor's
(39:30):
note, and then Alex and Bethhave their interviews on separate pages, but
they are all transcribed for you,so if you click through, you can
read the text and follow all thelinks to find where to follow them online
and buy their things. Check itall out. I'll include links to all
three of those pages also in theinitial show notes for this podcast, so
(39:51):
if you're getting it on a podcatcher, you should be able to click straight
through from your phone. Thank youso much for listening. I hope you're
having a great fallow Tie season,and I wish you all the best for
twenty twenty four. Catch you nexttime.
Welcome to the OMG Julia Podcast,where we discuss creative lives and processes.
I'm your host, Julia Rios,and today I'm going to have two artist
interviews with you. But more importantly, I also have a gift for you.
This is the darkest time of yearwhere I live, so I've decided
to give everyone the gift of thetwenty twenty three December issue of Worlds of
(00:25):
Possibility. Usually the ebook version isonly available to paid subscribers, and individual
pieces appear online later for free,but this time the entire issue is being
released for free to everyone right awayas the end of the year gift.
You can download your preferred format overon juliareos dot com or go to the
December or twenty twenty three issue ofWorlds of Possibility page. It's linked in
(00:48):
the show notes of this podcast,and you can click the links on the
table of contents on that page tofind each individual piece online as well.
If you like what I'm doing,please tell everybody else. Subscriptions are what
makes it possible for me to keepdoing it. I love paying creators for
their work, and I'd love tokeep doing it, so subscriptions are a
(01:10):
key to that. This December issuecontains three pieces of original artwork, four
short stories, two poems, andone essay. Normally I save the content
notes either for the end of theebook or for the individual piece pages online.
In this issue, I did feelit was important to mention one right
(01:30):
up front, so I put itdirectly into the editor's note. The artwork
that opens the issue, cease Fireby Alex Hernandez, and the essay that
follow it are both engaging with Palestiniansolidarity. While the artwork and accompanying interview
are more focused on the historical cultureof Palestine, the essay digs deeper into
(01:51):
the past and present violence. SinceOctober of this year, our news has
been full of violence in Israel andPalestine. There's also been in a rise
of anti Semitism and Islamophobia, bothof which make me angry and sad.
I felt that it would be bestto let someone who is personally attached to
both Judaism and Palestinian solidarity have thefloor, so I invited a local to
(02:15):
me activist, Laura Mandelberg, towrite about her experience. Laura's essay is
a difficult read, but it alsooffers some hope that people can change and
can choose to stand up for oneanother. It's also full of links to
other sources where you can learn moreabout the current situation and the history of
the region. Note that if youare downloading the PDF version, that won't
(02:38):
contain any of those links, soplease if you are reading the PDF and
you want to see all of thelinks that Laura cites, you should check
out the online version or the epubversion to get those. Where I live.
As I mentioned earlier, we're inthe darkest part of the year,
when the days are shortest the weatheris coldest. Two of the pieces in
(03:00):
this issue are directly exploring that spaceand give us hints about how to find
hope when everything is dark and dreary. Morning Dew by Megan Baffo gives us
a look at one man's garden indifferent seasons and the gentle question of how
to maintain one's mental health, anda fairy romance after the dazzling brightness of
(03:20):
summer fades away. Fallow Tied byBeth Woodzinski, is a gorgeous piece of
artwork, and in the accompanying interview, Beth also talks about the deep work
that happens under the surface when theground is covered with snow and the trees
have lost all their leaves. Continuingwith the theme of fairies, Kay and
Bow's brings us a story of foundfamily and magic in a refugee from Fairyland.
(03:46):
This story is illustrated by Tatiana hutI eat A. Shony Barr's poem
Sweet Child gives us a hint ofmagic and a taste of home that can
magically appear wherever it is most needed. In Case of a Mgency by Alithia
Kantis is the second poem in thisissue, and it is a poem of
empowerment, suggesting that the narrator herselfis the one who can make herself at
(04:10):
home by embracing her full desires andpersonality. From there, we visit two
different houses, both seemingly sentient.In Christine Hannelsey's house, call a Home
falls ill and the narrator's family musttry to nurse it back to health,
and we end with some coziness viaHeartbeats by Anaka Baranti Klein, wherein the
(04:35):
house has a special connection to ournarrator and each must take it in turn
to save the other. The coverwas designed by me using stock art,
and any other art you see inthe issue that was not listed above is
also stock art. To the bestof my knowledge, I don't use AI
(04:56):
generated images, so that that iswhat you'll find in the issue, And
like I said, you can clickon over on the website and grab it
in any of the formats that youlike. Today, I do have the
two artist interviews with Alex Hernandez andBeth Wodzinski. So Alex's goes into some
really cool details of Palestinian folk culture. It doesn't get into any of the
(05:24):
difficult violent warfare or genocide issues.It pretty much just is a deep dive
into his art and into the coolfolk culture that he was drawing from.
Then Beth Woodzinski is going to tellus all about fallow Tide, a piece
that I absolutely love and that Ithink goes really well paired with Megan Baffo's
(05:45):
story. So let's get right intothem. Alex Hernandez has edited work that
I have written in the past,but this time has contributed a piece of
artwork to the December issue of Worldsof Possibility, and we're here to talk
(06:06):
about the creation of that art,his artistic process in general, the inspiration
all sorts of other things, andthen we'll also get a little chance to
hear about his other projects. Sowelcome, Alex. Please tell us a
little bit about yourself. Happy tobe here, Julia. My name is
Alex Hernandez, and I am awriter, artist, librarian by day,
(06:30):
editor and basically anything that involves sciencefiction, speculative fiction, you know,
horror, fantasy. I love allof that stuff and I like creating stuff
like that. Okay, So tellus a little bit about your work as
an editor, which is how Ifirst got to know you at all.
You've worked with the Latinx Rising series. Tell us a little bit about that.
(06:56):
So I first started as a contributor. It's a series. So in
the first anthology, I was awriter and I submitted my work and Matt
and I hit it off. Wetalked about future anthologies. We talked about
maybe doing one for ya, Wetalked about different themes anthologies. And then
when he came here to Miami forthe launch of Latenix Rising, which was
(07:17):
like the first book, we werewalking around core Gables right before our thing,
and I was really convincing him todo another one, and he was
just right off the first one hewas tired, he kind of wanted to
break and I was like, let'sdo one. Let's do one for ya.
So when he started planning that secondanthology, he called me up and
(07:38):
was like, do you want tohelp me edit it? So that's the
start of it. And I enjoyedmentoring new writers. I enjoyed reading writers
that I normally wouldn't have read.So I actually love editing because of that
because I get to develop new voices. Awesome. And yeah, I got
to contribute his story to the secondone, and I know that you're also
(07:59):
going to be working on a thirdone, which you can maybe tell us
about at the end of the show. But let's go into the art side
of things. How did you getinto drawing in the first place. So
I've always drawn. I don't knowif I'm very good at it, But
when I was a kid, I'vealways liked comic books and my dream was
to be a comic book creator,right, so the writer and also the
(08:22):
artist. When I was in mytwenties, I realized that drawing comics is
really hard and I could probably,you know, be better at writing.
So I then in my twenties Ikind of let the art go, and
I just focused on writing and developingthat craft. And it wasn't until I
had kids that, you know,me and my kids would do arts and
(08:46):
arts and crafts and I would drawwith them and paint with them, and
I remembered how much I loved doingart. So now one of them,
they're grown, you know, oneof them is like thirteen, and she
doesn't want to do art with me. But I kept it up, so
I still do art. Know whenI would do art with them, and
I realized that, yes, drawinga comic is hard. It's hard to
do you know, you know,a bunch of pages. But I can
(09:07):
do you know, one off,so I can do, you know,
focus on a piece. And actuallyI find creating art to be way more
relaxing and way more I can zoneout and just kind of leave my body
and do the art, as opposedto writing, where I have to be
in it and I have to youknow, work on it. So I
actually use art as a like adistressor. That's really cool. So tell
(09:31):
me a little bit about what inspiredthis particular piece. It's called Ceasefire.
Obviously we're at a point where there'sall of the situation with Palestine and people
all over the world are calling fora ceasefire, so that's a clear inspiration.
But you specifically also said that thiswas inspired by the work of Tofik
Canaan. I'd love to hear moreabout how you decided to make this piece,
(09:54):
what your inspirations were, and alsowhat your process was. So my
inspiration for all art basically comes frommythology or from folk religion, and I
love that stuff, mysticism. Iread a lot about that stuff. I
look up you know, art workand you know illustrated you know, manuscripts
(10:15):
and things like that, and Ilove all of that art, and all
of that art really inspires me.So I wanted to do a piece to
highlight, you know, what's happeningin Gaza, and I went through my
regular process, which is I immersemyself in that culture. I am learning
I guess that's the best way tosay it. Arabic, specifically the Pastinian
Jordanian dialects. So you know,learning a language is you're not in a
(10:39):
vacuum, right, you know,with it comes you know people's culture,
people's art, people's history. Soyou know, I feel really close to
that region just because I'm learning theirlanguage, so I read up not just
things on you know, language learning, but you know, the folk tales
of the region. Telfic Canaan Is. He was a medical doctor, but
(11:00):
he's also an ethnographer and archaeologist andall of these awesome side hustles. And
he went around Palestine just collecting storiesand collecting, you know, artifacts from
the region. And I was readingyou know, books that he wrote or
books about him, and you know, every well, every spring, every
(11:22):
tree in that area has either asaint you know, living in it,
or the ghost of a saint.And that's what a wally is, that's
what they call him that it literallymeans like a friend of God, or
they have a gin. So somesome wells or some trees have both a
saint and a gin living in them. So part of the inspiration of just
(11:43):
soaking all of that in and lookingat art, you know, looking at
Islamic art and things like that,I wanted to to kind of remove myself
from like the modern dialogue because it'sso depressing. So I kind of went
back to what are the saints,what are the spirits of the land,
(12:03):
what are the gin? Right?What do they think of all of this?
And I created a saint, right, and the saint, you know,
saints could be women or men.There's no like official process for it.
Like in you know, Catholicism.The saints were basically just holy people
or people who could perform some kindof miracle. Think of them like cunning
(12:24):
folk, I guess in like Europeanculture. And if you've performed the miracle,
they would be like, you're asaint, right. And it wasn't
like only the Islamic people right wouldworship you, and not worship you,
but like honor you. But youknow, Jews and Christians in that area
would as well. So it wasvery like it would flow between cultures and
(12:46):
it was everybody, like the people, right, the people of the land
would would you know, honor you. So I wanted to do a saint
and she kind of has her handout. There's an eye in her hand
reference the Hamsa or like the handof Fatima, and she's calling for a
ceasefire. One of the the trademarksof a saint is there's a lot of
(13:11):
green light or a green glow ora green fire associated with them. Usually
their heads are glowing green or theirfaces. So she's like surrounded in Green
Fire because I said I was acomic book nerd. There's a lot of
green lantern influence there as well,but that's the influence for the piece.
(13:31):
And you know, her name isElhadra and that means the Green like the
Green Lady. And they were actuallyseveral saints that were called el Haadra that
were either like you know, femalesaints or male saints, and they were
they were called the green like eitherthe Green One or the Green Lady.
But she's one that you've made yourself, so she's not like a specific one.
(13:52):
She's one that you've dreamed up.Yeah, it's a composite that's super
cool. So there's not a lotof information on these that have survived.
So she's one that I dreamed up, but it is she is more like
a composite of of two female saintsthat were both called Eldra, like the
Green Ladies. They were just fromdifferent towns. But you know, it's
(14:16):
that's kind of what she is,kind of like a merge of the two
saints. Okay, so what doyou know about the two different saints that
you say she was sort of basedon, well, one of them.
Again, I this is basically whatI what tofic Kanan has collected and one
of them there's there isn't a lotor haven't been able to find a lot
(14:39):
of one, but the other one, and she's from his hometown. She
was like a young maiden and thisyou know, rich I don't know.
She wanted to marry her, andher she begged her father to not allow
it, and you know, hesaid no. But then the guy bribed
(15:01):
the entire town and they, youknow, the then the entire town because
they were you know, they werebeing paid off by this guy. Convinced
the father to let him marry her. And on her you know, wedding
night, he comes into her homeand she yells out, you know,
you know the name of the prophets, and the name of my grandfather,
(15:24):
and the name of you know,Allah whatever, and then he drops dead
immediately. So because of that,people were like, oh my god,
it's a miracle. And after that, they you know, venerated her as
a saint. And I liked alot about it. I liked that,
you know, she took matters intoher own hands. And from the beginning,
(15:46):
she was, you know, sayingshe didn't want this, she didn't
want to marry this guy. Thetown was against her, and you know,
she found the way to to win, and and something about that story
I loved. So that's that's why, of all of all the Wallies,
of all the saints, that she'sthe one that stuck out to me.
(16:08):
Very cool. So tell me alittle bit about your actual physical process creating
this. So it first first startswith research. I mean, I'm a
I'm a librarian at heart, soI approach everything through research. I read
up a lot of on things.I look at a lot of images.
(16:29):
So for example, the border ismore or less my poor attempt to do
like an illustrative manuscript type of border. And I looked at her, you
know, the dresses of the ofthe area, of the era, dresses
of the time, so her,the dress she's wearing is again my poor
attempt at that. And you know, so it's just looking at you know,
(16:53):
images and reading a lot, andthen I sketch out. I hate
drawing on a on a tablet.I like painting on a tablet, but
I hate drawing on a tablet.I like the physical, you know,
scratching of pencil on paper. SoI sketch it out first on a notebook
and then I scan it and thenin procreate I paint it. I you
(17:17):
know, add layers to it.And because you know, all of the
stories said there was this green glowassociated with with saints, you know,
I played with different greens, sothere's a lot of greens, and even
the yellow is kind of like alime green type of yellow. So that's
basically the process. It's a lotof looking at art of the region,
(17:38):
and not just with this piece,but with all the pieces. So if
I do something that's inspired by Cubanart or inspired by Mexican art, I'll
do a deep dive and I'll lookat old images and I find that fun.
I find it very relaxing. Youknow. I love, you know,
learning. So I also make surethat the language is right, you
(18:00):
know, if it's if it's Spanish. I'm a fluent Spanish speaker, so
that's not you know, always aproblem. Maybe I have to double check
to make sure I got the accentsin the right spot. But you know,
when it's something like Arabic that I'ma newcomer to the language, I
do want to make sure that it'sright, and I do want to make
sure that it's the correct dialect forthe region and things like that. So
(18:23):
it's it's a lot of process thatprobably involves not a lot of artwork at
first, but it's it's all partof it, and it all feeds into
the piece, and you know,at the end of the day, I
want to make it as authentic aspossible. Yeah, So you say you
don't like to draw on a tablet, so you do your drawings freehand on
paper. Yes, I always dothat. I have drawn on a tablet.
(18:45):
I don't like it. I feelit's the stylus and the and the
screen. It's too smooth. Ilike the friction of of lead on paper.
But I also like that I can, I don't know, like draw
things around it that that I mayincorporate and with with the tablet, it's
more it's more the painting, likeI'll trace it, like I'll outline it
(19:07):
or ink it on the tablet,and I'll and I'll paint it on the
tablet. But I always sketch onpaper. I've got notebooks, a bunch
of notebooks, you know, athome with you know, sketches and half
sketches and notes and and things likethat. But definitely painting. I love
painting on a tablet more than especiallysince I like to do kind of like
(19:30):
a watercolor, messy kind of art. When I try to do that on
on actual you know, canvas oron paper with with real paints, there's
no undo, right, there's noyou can't go back, you can't fix
it. It's hard to erase wordswith pencil, you can always erase.
So I feel with the tablet isit's much more freeing because I can do
(19:53):
a whole you know, piece,and if I hate it, I can
just delete it and keep the outlineand then do it again with paint.
I'm committed to it, right,and I can try to fix mistakes and
I can try to you know,work with it. But if it's not
working, it's not working. Soyeah, those are that's my secret.
(20:15):
Appropriate There's a lot of heavy lifting. So how do you get when you
have a when you have a drawingyou've actually drawn out by hand, how
do you actually transfer that to thedigital image? So a couple of ways.
I'll sometimes I'll just use a scanapp. I don't really care about
the quality too much because I knowthat I will go over it. So
you're just using that as like atemplate. To guide you in the tracing
(20:38):
right exactly, or if the imageis very involved, right, and I
don't want to lose quality because Ijust I want to use the actual pencils,
like without tracing it, and youknow, as is, I might
do like a really nice scan,right, like a high quality scan,
and then remove the background and youknow, fill it in that way.
(21:00):
But sometimes what I've done too iswhen I have used actual paint and paper
and canvas, I'll do the wholething in paint and then scan it,
like scan the the actual piece andthen go into the with the tablet and
touch it up and do highlights anddo things like that. So it's sometimes
it's like a collage of you know, actual sketches, actual paint, and
(21:22):
then digital paint on top of it. That's so cool. I love hearing
about all the different ways that artcomes into being. Okay, well,
thank you so much for telling usall about the inspiration for this piece and
the way that you created it.I'm sure everyone listening will be as fascinated
as I was. Let us knowwhere we can find you and your work.
(21:44):
If people are curious and want tolearn more about you, where should
they go? So if you justgo at alex thoth thho thh. You
know, on any social media platform, you'll be able to find me.
You'll be able to find my workand you know, whether it be like
my right or my artwork. Wedo have, as you mentioned, the
Not Your Poppy's Utopia, right,the third installment in the Latinox Rising anthology,
(22:08):
and you know, we're in themiddle of working the stories. We're
in the middle of, I guess, finalizing the acceptance letters and things like
that, so maybe in a yearit'll come out. It's a great anthology
that focuses on utopia, especially nowwith how everything is and you know how
depressing the news is. We wantto be able to imagine what a better
(22:32):
future looks like. And that doesn'tmean that all of the stories are you
know, rosy, but they definitelycreate a roadmap for how to get to
a better future. So I youknow, be on the lookout for that.
That should be out by next year. I'm really excited for this one.
I like I said, I contributeda story to the YA version,
which was speculative fiction for dreamers,and I love that volume. I also
(22:55):
love the first volume. I'm reallyexcited for the third one, I can't
wait to see what all of thedifferent writers have brought with their ideas of
utopia. It's amazing. And evenwhen they lean toward dystopia, there's always
a ray of hope. There's alwaysa pocket utopia within the and I love
that, like I love how Latered. That is where you can create a
(23:18):
little utopia for you in your community, within you know, a larger you
know dystopia, and it's it's verycool. So I look forward to to
putting it out there. That's great, And that's definitely with Worlds of Possibility,
which is the project that you contributedthis artwork for. My goal with
that is always to sort of givethings that give us a little bit of
(23:38):
hope, even when we're dealing withdifficult topics. So in this issue,
we have your artwork and we alsohave an essay by a Jewish activist who
is in solidarity with Palestine, andboth of those pieces, like they're dealing
with a topic and an issue thatwe're seeing in the news and that everyone
is feeling deeply over the world isvery difficult. But what I'm looking for
(24:03):
those little glamours of hope, Likewhat are the things that we can do
to make things better, and I'mone of the things is putting great art
out there and then also seeing thatpeople can come together in solidarity even if
they are theoretically supposedly designated as theother side, Like, actually, we're
all in this together as humans,and we need to stand up for each
(24:26):
other. Thank you for that,and thank you for the work that you
do. It's it's so easy toget bogged down and get paralyzed by by
just the doom and gloom of allof all of it. That art is
a way to not just escape,but like I keep saying this, it's
not just an escape, but it'sa it's almost an emergency exit and we
(24:51):
kind of need to hang on tothat now. Yeah, yeah, I
agree. Well, thank you forcreating something beautiful and letting me share it
with others, And thank you somuch for talking to I hope that lots
of people go and find you onlineand see more of your work. Thank
you, Julia. That was AlexHernandez discussing his artwork Ceasefire, from the
(25:18):
December twenty twenty three issue of Worldsof Possibility. If you want to see
it, you can see it onlineor in the e book versions, just
follow the links in the show notesfor this podcast. Next up, we've
got an interview with Beth Woodzinski abouther art piece fallow Tide. Today,
(25:45):
I have with me special guests BethWoodzinski, who did some of the art
that appears in the December twenty twentythree issue of Worlds of Possibility. The
piece she did that appears in thatissue is called and we're going to talk
to her a little bit about theinspiration and process for creating that piece and
(26:06):
her approach to art overall. Welcome, Beth, Hi, thanks for having
me. So do you want totell us a little bit about who you
are in general? Like you arean artist, but you've also got a
background with publishing and editing as well, So tell us who you are.
I used to be the publisher ofShimmer magazine with Alise Tobler, and we
(26:27):
ran for something like thirteen years.I want to say Lalisa is still writing
and doing publishing, and she's workingwith my husband, Sean Marky at the
dead Lands, so I'm still veryconnected to that world through them. But
since since we shut down Shimmer,I've changed my interests like you've like you've
seen more to be about art andyoga, and I guess I'm looking for
(26:51):
a more balanced life always, andso that's partly how this piece came about.
In a private group, we startedtalking about foul as a verb,
and that was just sort of,you know, taking the time to chill
out, especially in this time ofyear. And then a friend of a
friend on the in that group hascame up with this term fallowtide, which
(27:12):
was so great, and she sentme what This friend whose name is friend
Crow, which I think is agreat name. So friend Crow lives in
Portland and originally described it as theseason of fallow Tide runs from falloween through
fallow mass. It's observed by layingfallow and generally being as unproductive as possible.
(27:33):
Be kind of retail workers for themachinery of capitalism pays no heed to
the observance of fallowtide. I thinkthat's wonderful and light hearted. And I
went in a little more meditative directionwith mine and just was starting to think
about all of the how much workis being done under the ground, right
with all the roots and everything twining, and there's so much going on that
(27:57):
you can't see, and that tothe metaphor for this time of year,
and so that's how that happened basically. Yeah, so talk to me a
little bit more about what why youchose the symbolism of the roots and what
that means to you specifically, whatis your own fallow tied mythos. I
(28:18):
mean, I've always taken the weekbetween Christmas and New Year's off to just
sort of you know, rest upand finish up any any projects. But
then this year it just seems likea really good time to expand it.
And so in my group we weretalking about having it be from Thanksgiving through
New Year's which you know, isa little different from what Friendcrow describes as
Falloween, which I just love thatterm fallowing Halloween, right, and just
(28:45):
thinking about how, you know,there's snow everywhere, but like everything's sleeping
underground but hibernating, and there's allthese processes that are still happening even if
you don't see anything going on inthe surface. And also just in art,
I like, I like the processof things overlapping each other, like
like roots do and sort of overunder is fun for me in art.
(29:07):
So a tree with extensive root systemsseemed like like the right thing. Yeah,
so talking about the process of sortof needing to have fallow time.
What kinds of cycles do you usewhen you're doing your creative work? Do
you do a lot in a steadyrhythm? Do you tend to take breaks
(29:29):
and do bursts what you're pacing Like, that's a really good question. I
think I'm still trying to figure outwhat my rhythm is. I do tend
to do something almost every day.I take a lot of I take a
lot of classes like on skill shareand whatever, and I'm just really inspired
by a lot of those, andthen I'll just go off and do like,
I don't know, five or sixof an idea and then maybe then
(29:53):
maybe I move on to the nextidea. What kind of mediums do you
use when your work on a piece. Oh, I'm almost I'm almost entirely
working digitally now, So I justuse pro Create on my iPad curled up
on the couch, which is avery cozy way to work. So you
do the entire piece from start tofinish, all digitally on your on your
(30:15):
tablet or similar usually Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, some once in
a while I'll like sketch something andthen copy that in, but usually I
just do it all and pro create. Yeah I was. I was talking
earlier with the other artist who isfeatured in this issue, Alex Hernandez,
and he was telling me that hedoesn't like to draw and pro create,
(30:37):
so what he usually does is sketchhis things in actual paper and then scan
it and trace it onto the tablet. But he likes the friction of pencil
on paper, so his initial sketchesare usually on paper and then he does
like all of the fleshing out inprocreate, which is a really interesting I
just find it so interesting to hearhow differ and artists are approaching things.
(31:02):
I just like how easy it isto undo. You just tap the screen
with two fingers, boom and itundoes it. Yeah, that was Alex
said that he likes to paint specificallyand pro create because with using real paints,
it's very hard to just erase yourwork. It's true, it's true,
and all the different layers, there'sjust so much, so much that
(31:22):
you can do. It's great.Yeah, Okay, So how long does
it take you usually to do apiece like this? Ah, that's a
great question. That probably took likeeight to ten hours over the course of
three or four days. And didyou have the idea for this like suddenly
(31:44):
and just decide to start doing it, or was this something that you had
to think about a lot first.I'm into a lot of Art Nouveau stuff,
so I've been doing a lot oftracing Art Nouveau stained glass pieces and
the frames and all the detail forthat, so that definitely. So once
I heard the term fallotide, Iwas like, Oh, that needs to
(32:05):
be something with a tree and init, like this Art Nouveau kind of
frame and with all these curvy things. And then the details of how that
actually worked came as I was workingon it, you know, as I
figured out how to make the branch'sbranch the way I wanted to, and
then at the bottom two of theleaves curved down around the words. That
(32:25):
just totally happened as I was playingwith it. That wasn't part of the
initial concept. It just came upthat way. Very cool. So I
guess it sort of sounds to melike maybe the idea for this specific piece
kind of came quickly and evolved asyou were doing it, But it couldn't
have come quickly without you already beingdeeply immersed in Art Nouveau as a style.
(32:47):
That is, that's a good wayto put it. Yeah, the
ground was fertile for it, asI might say, you had spent some
time following It's true. Okay,So you can buy a print of this
piece online. You're selling it throughthrough your online store. Tell us about
(33:09):
the materials that are used in thatprint. What would someone be getting if
they bought one. The printer Iuse is I Print from home dot Com.
They're a family based print shop inNew York and they just do a
really great quality. So it's allarchival and great inks, and it's just
really good quality piece. It's eightand a half by eleven, and I'm
(33:34):
asking fifty dollars for it with acoupon code called just type in fallow and
you get a good discount fifty percentI think. So that is available because
this is actually the very first artthing I've tried to sell, So mostly
I was trying to sort up thefigure out all the infrastructure what goes into
selling things rather than you know,getting rich off of this one piece.
(33:55):
So of course, yeah, andwhat goes into selling things as a big
tangle. Yeah, and it's sohard to get, you know, super
self conscious and tripped up and doubleoverthink everything and just get in your head
and panic. So I just sortof went ahead with the super rudimentary website
(34:16):
and am just sort of figuring thisall out as I go along. So
well, that is very cool andpeople can go and get it. We'll
have a link to that in theshow notes, So if you're listening,
just hop on over to Julia Riosdot com and look for the show notes
for this episode. If you're listeningto this in a podcatcher, it will
have a link to that show notespage right there that you can click through
(34:38):
on your phone and you can goand see where you can buy the print
if you would like it. Ithink it's beautiful, So I think that
it would be a great addition toanybody's decor, especially if you like kind
of like the dark art nouveau lookand a bit of sparkle because it has
that sort of silvery sparkle. It'salso a buil and gold. Oh okay,
(35:01):
so when when you get a printof these, will it be like
a sparkly silver or will it bemore of a mat Yeah? It's pretty
sparkly. Okay, cool cool,cool. Well, Beth, tell me
a little bit about your history withart, Like, tell me how did
you get into it. Have youalways loved it when you were a kid,
(35:22):
or did you do it as anadult? What's your story? Yeah?
I did it all through all throughhigh school, and then somehow I
decided that art was only for likeserious art people and that wasn't me.
So I didn't do any for along time. And then God then in
like I don't know, twenty twentytwelve, twenty fourteen, somewhere around there,
(35:43):
I started, you know, reallythinking that that was stupid and arts
for everybody, and so I startedtaking classes online and have just been playing
around ever since. And so fora long time, basically what I did
was I would take these classes andI would do these assignments, and I
never really had in my own sortof direction. But this year something shifted
(36:04):
somehow, and I've been having moreof my own independent ideas, not in
the context of a class or anything, and just sort of this is the
year that I started finding my ownway, which is amazing. And now
that's twenty twenty four I need tofigure out how to do that more for
money. So well, that's that'sreally exciting. I'm glad that you're finding
(36:25):
your artistic voice. I think thatit's really common for people to start with
classes and not really know exactly whatthey're trying to do at the beginning.
But it takes all of that practiceto learn what you're even working with exactly.
Yeah, and you read artists statementsand stuff and they're like, this
person, you know, blends contemporarywhatever with the nostalgia of this and ecosensitivity
(36:52):
and blah blah, and it's justlike, what, No, I don't
understand any of that. I'm justfollowing this lesson in those class about how
to do watercolor? What what areyou even talking about? So but now
I can sort of start to seehow people are trying to do something and
oh, not sure quite what I'mtrying to do yet, but we'll get
there. Do you think you'll domore Artneuveau inspired pieces. I'm really into
(37:16):
that right now. So yeah,and then someday I'll get sick of it,
and who knows. I don't thinkI've I've dialed in on one style
that's you know, uniquely mine yetI haven't quite found that one thing.
All the all the advice is,you know, find your own style,
and I'm getting there, but Idon't think I found it yet. Very
(37:36):
cool. Well, thank you somuch for taking the time to talk to
me. How about letting people knowwhere they can find you and your work
if they want to find out moreabout you. Okay, my website,
my very rudimentary website that will getmuch better this coming year, is Brightlycolored
dot com and people can also findme on Instagram at Beth Woodsinski. And
(38:01):
you should probably link that in yourshow notes as well because nobody can spell
it, so we will absolutely includethe links. All right, So everybody
should go follow Beth on Instagram andgo check out the website Brightlycolored dot com
and you can get, as Isaid, a print of Fallow Tide if
(38:23):
you would like it, And thankyou, Beth. Have a wonderful rest
of your Fallow Tide season. Iwill, and I'm looking forward to kick
an ass next year. So let'sgo. That was Beth Woodzinski talking about
(38:47):
her art Fallow Tide. Since weconducted the interview, I personally have ordered
my print, so I'm excited forthat to arrive in the mail. And
you can go and order yours aswell at brightlycolored dot com using that coupon
code fallow I tested it myself andit definitely does work to get you a
(39:07):
nice discount. Also, if youwant to read along with these, you
can read along with both the interviewfor Alex and the interview for Beth,
and also my part at the beginningwhere I read the editor's note. You
can read all of those on JuliaRios dot com. If you look at
the December twenty twenty three Worlds ofPossibility issue page, it has the editor's
(39:30):
note, and then Alex and Bethhave their interviews on separate pages, but
they are all transcribed for you,so if you click through, you can
read the text and follow all thelinks to find where to follow them online
and buy their things. Check itall out. I'll include links to all
three of those pages also in theinitial show notes for this podcast, so
(39:51):
if you're getting it on a podcatcher, you should be able to click straight
through from your phone. Thank youso much for listening. I hope you're
having a great fallow Tie season,and I wish you all the best for
twenty twenty four. Catch you nexttime.
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