You And I Make A Thing Thomas Beutel

Are you old enough to remember Laffing Sal at Playland? In this episode, my guest Alison and I set out to make a marionette based on Laffing Sal, and it was something that neither of us had ever done before.
 
Photos


 
 
Links mentioned in this episode
 
alisoncowellish Alison's Instagram
Josh Bayer website
Inking class online with Josh Bayer
Musée Mécanique in San Francisco
Playland at the Beach Wikipedia page
Laffing Sal Wikipedia page
The Lonely Goatherd marionette show in The Sound Of Music
Altoid boxes into wallets YouTube video
Barbapapas YouTube video
Boudica Wikipedia page
Sculpey Amazon link
The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin
Jonni Good website
Jonni Good YouTube video
Many Faces of Laffing Sal website by M. Winslow
Playland at the Beach website by M. Winslow
Tillie’s Punctured Romance Wikipedia page
Pseudobulbar affect Wikipedia page
Some of the above links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them
 
Transcript
Thomas: Welcome to You And I Make a Thing. Joining us in this episode is the multi-talented Alison Cowell, a passionate urban sketcher, zine maker, and sometimes spooky storyteller. A familiar face at local zine fests, Alice is deeply immersed in the art community, constantly exploring and sharing her passion with others.
Alison’s work has graced several local galleries, and her unique art style is a blend of mediums, including ink, watercolor, and colored pencils, each adding a distinct texture and depth to her creations. Alison’s ability to transform ordinary scenes into extraordinary pieces of art is truly remarkable. And you can find her on Instagram at alisoncowellish.
Welcome to the podcast, Alison.
Alison: Thank you, Tom.
Thomas: Alison, before we get started on our You And I Make A Thing quest, I'm curious to know if you are working on a creative project at the moment, or you're looking forward to working on one?
Alison: I am. So right now I have a few projects going on. So my main medium is comics and I’m taking an inking class online, with an artist. A comic artist. His name is Josh Bayer.
And so I'm doing some projects for that class, but they're also sort of my projects and they're really like short format comics, where when I'm working on comics, it's usually I'm doing a story about something that's, kind of an idea that's really kind of out there and wacky.
Thomas: I like that.
Alison: And possibly also slightly tragic. One of the more wacky ones is I sort of have this idea about failed businesses, and that's something that amuses me.
And one of the ideas I came up with was, what if you didn't have enough gravy in a meal, and do you remember those old Fotomat drive throughs where you could drop off your film?
Thomas: I remember.
Alison: So what if there was something like that where you could drive up with your plate and get gravy and it was called Gravymat? So I usually do things that are sort of like these ideas that are a little out there with made up characters, you know, just sort of like these wacky little characters that I create, but I'm doing some more personal stories in this class as well.
And all this work I'm applying the different techniques that Josh Bayer, this teacher is breaking down for us.
Then the other project that I have that is really a little bit of a rabbit hole and you can really kind of spend hours and hours and hours is like, I bought myself a button maker, and I collect paper ephemera, vintage paper, vintage books.
If I see people have cleaned out their kitchen and put all of their old weird pamphlets from, you know, different companies and whatnot from the 60s and 70s, the 50s, those are priceless. and I love the way paper ages. Like it has this yellowishness to it.
Thomas: Mm hmm.
Alison: Really beautiful. It's so hard to buy paper like I've bought paper like that. It's hard to find in a sketchbook. It's usually really expensive.
But anyway, so I have been making buttons out of vintage ephemera and weird, like old comics. A

In this episode, I've invited my good friend Carissa to take the reins as guest host. She's brought along her friend, Aaron to embark on a fresh creative project, making something that neither of them has made before.
 
Links mentioned in this episode
Aaron Chen’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/journomadic/
Carissa Ferdinand’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3cloudsstudio/
Air and Space Forces Magazine
Minot State University Athletics
Minot Daily News
Carissa's Mad Hatter
Carissa’s Cloud Guy
Oklahoma City Asian district
Textile artist Victoria Villasana
Lao Gan Ma chili sauce
KattGrass Studios
Homestead Center for the Arts
 
Photos
Carissa's embellished print, photo by Aaron Chen

Aaron's embellished print, photo by Carissa Ferdinand

 
 
Transcript
Carissa: Hi everyone, this is Carissa from Three Cloud Studios, formerly Koi the Creatrix, here with Aaron Chen on You and I Make a Thing
Hi, Aaron. How are you?
Aaron: Good, good. How are you, Carissa?
Carissa: Good. Thank you so much for asking.
Aaron is a passionate and accomplished traveler, lifestyle, and commercial content creator. He's known for crafting compelling visual stories that resonate with his audience and best reflect his clients’ values. Some of his work has been featured in publications such as Air and Space Forces Magazine, Minot State University Athletics newsletter, Reveille Music Publishing, and Minot Daily News.
Aaron: That's a good intro!
Carissa: Yeah. Okay. I wanted to keep it brief. Does that sound okay with you?
Aaron: Yeah. That was awesome.
Carissa: Thank you! So Aaron, I know that you have been on this bit of cross country photography experience. What have been some of the most memorable stops that you've made along your journey?
Aaron: Yeah, thanks for asking that. It's interesting because the cross-country journey kind of ended up when I visited you guys. You guys are at the tip of Florida and that was the end of the journey there.
Carissa: Yeah, so you went all the way from North Dakota down to the very end of Florida.
Aaron: Yes. So North Dakota is where my journey started. And so same thing kind of as you, you know, North Dakota is kind of like our artistic, big breakthrough era. And I know we supported each other a lot in North Dakota. So I was very excited to go see you in Florida.
Carissa: Yeah, in my hometown in like my natural setting here.
Aaron: Yeah.
Carissa: And Aaron was kind enough, he has done a couple photo shoots for various products that I have created, t-shirts and the like. He also was kind enough to stop by and take photos of my first art exhibit last year. And so I was incredibly grateful. And of course, the photos come out absolutely amazing every single time.
Aaron: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Carissa: So any plans moving forward on your adventures?
Aaron: Yeah. I have Hawaii coming up pretty soon, and then after that with Japan, and pretty much my plan is to travel all across Asia, capturing stories of people and culture, and then bring them back to the American audience.
Carissa: Oh, I'm so excited hearing that. And I think that actually ties into one of the projects that I want to talk about here today.
So leading up to this meeting, I've asked you to come with three ideas. I myself have come up with three ideas of projects that we can work on. We come from very different media backgrounds. And so I'm really curious to see where this goes and to see what we can come up with. T
The idea is that we find a project that's a little bit anxiety inducing and maybe one that's feasible to accomplish within a month. So, typically what we do is a bit of a back and forth. You share one, I share one idea here.
Would you like to start or would you like me to?
Aaron: I think you can start. I'm very excited to hear what you come up with. I think you always have amazing ideas and it inspired me to keep spiraling and come up with more ideas.
Carissa: Oh, yay! Okay. So as I mentioned, your upcoming journey throughout

 
Have you ever seen a tunnel book? I hadn't either, so in this episode my guest Mel Anie and I set out to create one. Listen in to hear how we did.
Links Mentioned
How to Make Raspberry Jam by Mel Anie
Mel Anie's Instagram: @tumblingfumbling
The B0ardside
Stoke Fest
Laura Quinn
Bending the glass with a tea light YouTube by Laura Quinn
Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms by Alisa Golden
Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission
 
Photos of Tunnel Books
Mel's Book
 


Thomas' book
 

 

 

 

 
Transcript
 
Thomas: My guest today is Melanie. Mel is an artist and author living in the UK. She's active in the mail art community and runs the Society of Letters. Her correspondents are from all over the globe. Mel has also published Five Foot Story House's debut book called How to Make Raspberry Jam, a lyrical journey of anguish and joy.
You may reach her on Instagram @tumblingfumbling.
Hello, Mel. Welcome to the podcast.
Mel: Hi, Thomas. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so excited to do this with you.
Thomas: Oh, I'm excited too. This is wonderful. Before we get started on our ideas for You and I Make a Thing, I'm curious, do you have a current art project that you're working on or something that you're excited about?
Mel: Well, I think at the moment I'm focusing on writing my big piece. That's like the core, most constant aspect of my creative practice. I've been working on something for about two years and now it's starting to take shape, but I have lots of little side projects. which a lot of those are participative.
So for example, mail art correspondence in the past has been a big part of that. Yes, like you pointed out, it's mostly international.
Whatever my project is, it's usually conversations. So at the moment there's a walking project going on. I do a lot of walking and I've started up a small online salon, but that's a really new thing. We've only done that once.
And then sometimes these side projects, they turn into bigger things, more ongoing things. And I'm also joining a poetry writing group this month. But I've never really intentionally written to a form, so I don't think I've actually properly ever written poetry, so that will be a whole challenge for me.
So yeah, those are some of the things I'm doing.
Thomas: You are busy.
Mel: How about you?
Thomas: Well, I participate in a local art collective called The B0ardside. And we hold backyard art shows with music and whatnot. But there's gonna be a local community festival here in the neighborhood called Stoke Fest. And The B0ardside are going to have a booth at that festival.
And I'm going to be leading some sort of do it yourself activity. Stoke Fest is all about surfing and the ocean and whatnot, so I'm kind of thinking of doing something with surfboards and surfers and like a little kinetic art project or something like that. So, you know, bring a bunch of materials and then invite people to build little kinetic art pieces with me.
So that's, that's what I'm focused on right now. That's coming up on November 11th. And…
Mel: I wish I was closer.
Thomas: …you know, whenever there's a date coming up, it's always sooner than you think it is.
Mel: Yes.
Thomas: So, I'll be focused on that here pretty quickly.
Mel: Yeah, that sounds good. You've sent me some of the B0ardside zines in the past. They're really neat.
Thomas: Yeah, I enjoy contributing to them. Thank you for asking.
Mel: You're welcome. It's always nice to know what people are doing.
Thomas: Mel, I ask you to come up with three ideas of things that you might want to do that you've never done before, and I've done the same. How about we talk about them. Do you want to tell me what one of the things might be?
Mel: Okay, yes. So one of the things I was thinking of is making some sort of food art assemblage. So they are maybe something like a croquembouche, which is an assemblage of profiteroles.
Thomas: Right, right.
Mel: Some kind of a

In this episode I collaborate with artist Koi The Creatrix to make mini zines. The challenges we faced included our zines going missing in the mail for extended periods of time.
 
Links
@koithecreatrix on Instagram
Koi’s monthly Postcard Club
@katcurio on instagram
@brattyxbre on youtube
@brattyxbre: Your Zine Sucks (And That's Okay)
PythagoraSwitch
Hedy Lamarr biography
Emilie Wapnick’s TED Talk on multipotentiality
B0ardside Art Collective
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön
Some of these links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them.
 
Mini Zine: "Who Am I?"





Mini Zine: Ren Soul









 
 
Transcript
Thomas: My guest today is Koi the Creatrix. Koi is a mixed media artist who identifies as Japanese American and Queer. In her art, Koi engages in sociopolitical discourse. She enjoys using bright colors and bold patterns, invoking pop art vibes. Her exploration of emotional themes, coupled with her seemingly chaotic displays, offer a deeply personal feel. And her Instagram handle is @koithecreatrix. Welcome to the podcast, Koi.
Koi: Hi, thank you so much for having me, Thomas.
Thomas: Before we get started, I wanted to ask you, you just finished a solo exhibition. It was at the Taube Museum of Art in Minot, North Dakota, is that right?
Koi: The Taube Museum, yeah.
Thomas: The Taube Museum, thank you. Tell me how that went and also how you felt about it.
Koi: You know, it was absolutely nerve wracking leading up to it as I think all events that I participate in tend to be, a lot of nerves and getting everything prepared and making it a cohesive collection. One challenge I face as a mixed media artist is that pieces may not have like a single theme or even a single medium throughout all of the art.
And so it was a challenge to keep some commonality between all of the work. But it went over really well. I heard from the museum director that they received a ton of positive feedback, and the Taube Museum, I have to say, is like my artistic home base. This is the first space that I felt an artistic community and support for my work, and really for the first time, saw myself considered as an artist to someone outside of my family, you know.
Thomas: Oh, that's wonderful. Isn't that a wonderful feeling when that happens?
Koi: It was fantastic. And so I have very deep ties to the folks there.
Thomas: I want to follow up on that. Did you have trouble saying the A word? Meaning artist?
Koi: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely! Oftentimes I don't consider myself an artist, more of a creative. And I really resonate with… I'm racking my brain trying to remember the term, the people who are really into a lot of different activities. I know you identify closely with it as well.
Thomas: Multipotentialite.
Koi: Yeah.
Thomas: Yeah.
Koi: I think as a multipotentialite, I can enjoy many different activities and there's never really a sense of sticking with anything for too long or developing what I would consider, perhaps incorrectly, as expertise.
And so there is definitely that imposter syndrome leading up to it. And even now, even after the show I'm like, “Was it good? Were they just saying that?”
Thomas: Yeah, another term that I like to use for multipotentialite is Renaissance Soul. And it actually was considered a good thing in the Renaissance to have many different interests and try many different things. So in some ways, this idea of niching down or specializing is more of a recent phenomenon in our culture.
So I've come to the conclusion that, at least for me, there's nothing wrong with dabbling here and tinkering there and trying this new and trying that new. And in fact, part of the reason that I'm doing this podcast You And With Make A Thing is for that exact reason, I like to try new things.
I like to do something that I've never done before because it feeds our curiosity and it feeds learning and it just feels wonderful.
Koi: It really does. I love learning new things. At times get frustrated

In this episode I collaborate with artist Michael Tarnoff to make self-portraits inspired by Chuck Close.

In this episode of You And I Make A Thing, my friend Tara and I decided to go into nature and create ephemeral art, something that both of us had never done before. It was quite an open-ended idea and we both struggled a bit before we found the inspiration to guide us. Join us as we discuss how it all unfolded.
 
Links mentioned in this podcast
Tara’s SoundCloud album: My Favorite Things, Sacred and Secular Seasonal Music
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Issa Rae Teaches Creating Outside the Lines on Masterclass
Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Some of these links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them.
 
Photos
The fallen cypress tree in Golden Gate Park



 
The fallen tree in Westchester NY near the reservoir



 
 
Transcript
Thomas: My guest today is Tara Bahna-James. Hello, Tara.
Tara: Hi, Thomas.
Thomas: How's it going?
Tara: Great. Great. Thanks so much. I'm happy to be here.
Thomas: Yeah, I'm happy that you're here. Tara is a playwright, singer, and performer, educator and essayist. She's co-authored six musicals and her shows and songs have been performed at theaters and festivals across the United States. And [00:01:00] about a year ago, Tara released an album on SoundCloud called My Favorite Things, Sacred and Secular Seasonal Music. And I've listened to it and it's wonderful. It's so beautiful. You have a, you have a beautiful voice, Tara.
Tara: Thank you.
Thomas: Before we get started with You And I Make a Thing, I want to ask you, Tell us about a creative thing that you are making at the moment or something that you're planning to make soon.
Tara:  So right now, I've been spending a lot of time outdoors recently, in all seasons just because, just before the pandemic began, I moved to sort of a more rural area than I was living before. And so there have been actually surprisingly, lots of opportunities to just sort of get out and hike and, so I've been thinking about trees a lot.
So at present, a previous collaborator of mine, Jonathan Portera, who I've, worked with several times on musical season, brilliant composer. He and I have been talking for a long time about beginning a new [00:02:00] work together and we don't know a lot about it, but we know that we're both fascinated with the life cycles of trees and the connections of trees to fungi.
Thomas: Mm-hmm.
Tara: And so I exactly where that's gonna take us.
But I think that's kind the direction that we're going in right now.
Thomas: That's great. That's wonderful. I mean, there's, there's a lot there to study and research and talk about and create from. Trees are like us and they're also very different from us in some ways. And, you know, in the sense that their lifespans can be much, much longer than ours.
And they have these, beautiful connections. You mentioned fungi and many trees have that symbiotic relationship with fungi. The fungi give them nourishment and the trees give the fungi nourishment in a different way in return. It's very [00:03:00] interesting.
Tara: What I'm also, what I'm in particularly fascinated by is that, just like from what I said, from spending time outdoors more often, just the way that wilderness affords you simultaneously a real stillness and also company at the same time. And I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass right now for the first time and there's this beautiful quote that I just came across. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm not gonna get it right, I'm sure.
But it was something about how the land recognizes you or knows you even when you don't necessarily recognize yourself. And immediately that resonated for me as something that I feel like I experience, even if I'm in a very new place. There's when I'm out hiking, if it's by myself or with dogs, I always, there's just this, this sort of sense of being recognized and not alone in the world. You know, even when in one's solitude.
And that's [00:04:00]