Latest / Incredible Mind / Made of Clay: Simon van der Ven
Transcript
- speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: ⁓ You were made for creativity, learning, problem solving, and of course, action. On the Incredible Mind podcast, you'll hear from neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, artists, and others whose work expands our understanding of how the brain works, where things can go wrong, and what simple everyday steps you can take to make the most of the unique intelligence you were born with. The Incredible Mind I'm talking about is yours. For many artists, creating isn't a career or an identity. It's a need. In today's episode of Made of Clay, ceramic fine artist Simon Vanderven talks us through pottery, why people are drawn to ceramics as an art form, the ceramic making process, and how it applies to life as a whole. He also gives us a deep understanding of what it means to carry the arts through your entire career in some form, whether it is teaching art, being paid for your art, or doing other work. So that you are free to make whatever kind of art you like. If you like what you're hearing, please share this episode with friends and family. Let's get started. Welcome everyone back to Incredible Mind. I'm your host, Michelle Cross Smith. This season's theme has been about creativity. And in the last few episodes, we've spoken with not so much researchers of creativity, but practitioners of creativity. Today we're speaking with Seam Vanderven. Seem is the owner of Vanderven Studios, a ceramic fine arts studio in Lincolnville, Maine. And this is a man who has been doing his work in the arts for essentially his entire career. So welcome, Seam. speaker-0: Thank you. I'm really glad to be here. speaker-1: So my first question for you is really about ceramics and ceramic fine arts. It is not the very first art form that people think of when they think of the visual arts. So tell me a little bit about what drew you to this particular area of art. speaker-0: I actually entered college as a philosophy and theology major. But I had submitted a art portfolio when I applied, and something got mixed up in my transcripts. And the ⁓ I got called in to my advisor, who then advised me to see the head of the department. And the head of the department said, ⁓ I thought since you'd submitted a portfolio that you were an art major, and that's why I put that in, and there was an override and speaker-1: ⁓ okay. speaker-0: I said, well, actually I'm I'm not sure I want to do that. He said, well, what if you don't have to take any prerequisites? And I said, I'm an art major. So I started initially in painting and then moved to ⁓ printmaking. And so that's what I graduated was a degree in printmaking with a minor in sculpture. And before I went into the super lucrative field of printmaking, I decided to adventure for a little bit and I ended up in Maine. To work on boats. And so I sailed professionally for the first five years after college. During that time, I met a man who offered me an apprenticeship as a goldsmith. And when I came ashore, I worked as a goldsmith then for about five years, which overlapped into carpentry and house building. And while I was doing that, I got married, started a family, and an opening at the local high school to teach art opened. And I Decided what the heck I need insurance and a steady job and I applied and got the job, Camden High School, where I originally met you. Full full disclosure here. speaker-1: Disclosure. Steam, I knew him as Mr. V. He was the art teacher at my high school. And the classroom that you created, it was a refuge for so many of us high school kids. Felt like a place where we could go and just be. We weren't judged. You let us hang out there. And that was so great. Thank you. Because it was a highlight for sure. Probably not just my high school experience, but many. speaker-0: It was such a privilege and honor to be able to do that. So I got the job and there was this storage room in the back and the cool art kids. They weren't the cool school kids, they were the cool art kids. We're in the back and there was a kiln back there. And the kids said, Well, what's that? And I said, Well, that's a kiln, you know, for doing ceramics, for doing clay. And they said, Well, can we use it? And I was like, Well, I did do a lot of ceramics in seventh grade. So sure, yeah, I can teach that. I know how to do the electricity to hook it up. I ended up taking a a workshop Up at Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Deer Isle, Maine, this incredible place. And I took this weekend workshop with a man named Paulus Barrenson and something something just went in really deep that fall. That was in October. It was open doors, just a weekend. And it just went in so deep. And it also happened that that fall, my oldest brother was ⁓ was dying of complications of AIDS. And so when I went to take care of him, I took leave from teaching for a little bit. went to take care of him and spending time in the hospital with him. I brought clay with me and just worked it. And again, the clay just went in so deep to me. And so I came back and just had a class and it just kind of took off from there. And I I don't know if you remember Matt Silverio. He was like in some of my early classes and he ended up going off to to Alfred University and becoming a ceramics major. And he came back from that and taught me how to throw. Like I mean I had already been teaching clay for five years. And I relied very much on local craftspeople and ceramics, especially this woman named Laurie Adams, to have guest artists come in and teach and and show and you know, and I I would push the students aside so I could watch, you know, I s may maybe not. I learned and it just yeah, it's ceramics just went in deep into me. And I've circled back in a lot of my production to back to painting and metalwork and sculpture and all that kind of thing, but ceramics is that medium that just slaps me on the backside of the head and says, You are you're part of something bigger here. Just always reminds me that I'm part of something much bigger. And that's ⁓ it's a really wonderful medium for that. It's really fantastic. speaker-1: What is it about it that goes so deep? Is it the tactile experience of it or the connection that it's clay? Clay is of the earth. speaker-0: The things that come to mind are so cliche, but one of the things that ceramic people or people potters or whomever say is that as you form the clay, it forms you. And so it's very much that kind of exchange with the material. Another thing that I often think of is that clay never wants to be anything but itself. And and you're thinking like, what that what the hell does that mean? Paint doesn't want to just be paint. Paint wants to serve imagery, serve all these other things. And no one looks at a painting and says, ⁓ yeah, that must be golden cadmium red. It goes beyond that. But clay is just it's not about illusion. And and there are certainly fantastic clay artists that create illusions, comboi and all those things with clay. But for me, the clay is just always just wants to be itself. And so it's always a matter of getting out of the way. me getting out of the way of my interaction with the clay. And when I say the clay, it's the whole process, all the way from wedging the clay at the beginning to whether I'm hand forming or or however I'm making it, my body's interaction with the clay. And then you always have to give up that clay and your interaction to the process of firing, glazing, all those things like that. There's so much involvement with the process where Basically the ego just has to be set aside. speaker-1: What you're describing is almost how I'm understanding it, is that you're doing this work almost at the service of the clay. speaker-0: It touches on that. It's like that. But it's but it's almost like I'm not in the service of the clay. My interaction with the clay, it's almost like the two of us are, you know, or I I almost say the three of us, because there's always this other, there's always this other, but it's the interaction that is at the service of the art, is at the service of the and you could even say at the service of the cup, at the service of the sculpture. And whatever the thing is that it ends up in, it's the interaction that is at the service of it. speaker-1: Like that. One of the things that I wanted to ask you is we all know what ceramics is, right? It's cups, vases, plates, bowls, all kinds of things. Although I toilets toilets. speaker-0: Don't forget. There's so much ceramic in your life that you don't even think like, ⁓ that's ceramic. Yeah. speaker-1: You are right. That porcelain bowl. Okay, so you're right. So ceramics is part of our everyday life. It really is. It truly is. And yet it's only once in a while that we come upon a piece of ceramic that we would really identify as art. And what I find unique and special about your work is that some of it is not designed to be drinking out of. We will definitely have to share images of Seam's work. speaker-0: Just because speaker-1: So you can get a sense of it, but they're very natural, tied to the patterns and the intricacies of the earth itself and what nature produces, but they're very precise. speaker-0: Some not all, but yeah, some speaker-1: Very detailed. Well, to me they are. And from what I've heard, ceramics or ceramic arts really attracts very distinct types of people from the art world that get them there. For those of us who have only observed ceramics very tangentially in our lives, what do most of us not know about it that you would like people to know about ceramics? speaker-0: There's over minimally a 25,000 year history of ceramics in humankind's existence. When people come to my studio and they're seeing what I do with that kind of stuff, they ⁓ your work is so unique. And and I'm flattered. And it's wonderful when someone says that or thinks that. For me to think that I'm making some sort of discovery in 25,000 years of ceramic history is pure hubris. Forget that. But each piece, each individual piece on its own, yes, is unique. speaker-1: Yes, you're right. speaker-0: So I understand the paradox of that. For me as a as a ceramic artist, I'm much more interested in being connected to that history than being separate from it. So there's that. That's one thing. And I think that that is true of a lot of ceramic artists. The ones who are saying, like, I'm doing something with clay that no one else has ever done. That's they have other issues. God bless them for thinking that. But in terms of what I want people to know about ceramics, is that it's so deeply connected to human history, to the connection to food that you know, food. culture and and history to religious ceremony and connection to divinity. Ceramics is deeply involved. The breadth of ceramic production in human history is almost seems like it's too big a river to navigate. And I think it's one of those things, once you open your eyes to it, it's really pretty fantastic and and and wonderful and rich. And it's endless. I get to fire in all these different kinds of kilns. But again, it's just a tiny little bit of the ki firing that goes on with ceramics. Like many people who've done something for a long time, they get to the point where they need to stop thinking about how little they know. It can be paralyzing, but you just kind of keep on and going. Because there's ⁓ one of the things I love about it is just I know I will never come even close to reaching the end of what there is to know and experience about ceramics. And I love that. And I'm sixty six years old and I gotta have to live a long time to finish all the things I wanna do. Yeah. speaker-1: To be a ceramicist, you're part of this lineage that reaches back to some of the first remnants of humanity found on our in archaeological sites around the world. So this is not just from certain areas. Yeah. They are part of humanity. Yeah. And in a way that they can be something beautiful and they often are, but they're functional also. Or can. speaker-0: Culture. Yeah, you know, so much of what I'm interested in involves ⁓ human nature. And at the very basis of human nature is this idea of paradox. And clay is one of these perfect things that demonstrates that over and over again. That I'm sure an anthropologist or an archaeologist would be able to say this much more clearly and precisely, but I think there are some cultures we only know anything about that culture through ceramic remnants that we've sort of found these caches of. Ceramic. We know much more about that culture because of that. So I I make a lot I make cups. But for a long time I didn't put handles on cups because I wanted people to have this sort of prescribed, from my perspective, certain kind of interaction with the vessel. And the handle like was separate from that. So I didn't make handles, but then someone clued me in at a student's workshop and as one of my students was making work specifically for her father, who had trouble with nerves in his hands, and so had to have like handles that could really grasp and not be afraid to drop the cup. And I've also my my cups are kind of expensive and people say, ⁓ I would never want to use it because I'd be afraid to drop it. One of the things built into ceramics is its fragility. And I love that there's this fragility to ceramics we think of. ⁓ my god, drop it and break you know, breaking, you know, this this precious thing. But yet that even despite the fragility of ceramics, the built in brittleness of it. So I love the paradox of we know about things through the last, you know, how long ceramics last, and yet it's a it's innately kind of a fragile thing. It is. You know, I just love that that paradox. Let's see that blows me away. speaker-1: And when you were talking about the kiln, I thought about what a great metaphor that is for just being a human in life. That for this thing to be actualized, to be a usable thing that you can use, a cup or a bowl or vase, it must go through the fire and survive. speaker-0: Has to go through this on fire. Yeah. No, the the paradoxes abound. If you have any interest in metaphor, in ⁓ what is behind this? ⁓ my God, the ceramics just just goes on and on. And it's the process. That's what I'm talking about. I've mentioned before. The process just teaches and teaches and teaches. There are lessons, such big, huge life, obvious lessons that I, and I and I hope I'm not the only one, I don't think I am, but I have to learn over and over again. And ceramics will Never let you forget. speaker-1: Well, as you're talking about that, can you walk us through the process of making a piece of ceramics? speaker-0: That's a secret, and you have to be in a particular club to learn any of the thing of the processes. What's involved going from a hunk of clay to a finished piece? That's a difficult thing to do because the variables are the clay itself. I work with several different kinds of clay bodies, even going to the part of working with clay that I've actually dug to working with clay that I've ordered from a supplier. There's kind of a whole bunch of categories of the clay itself. And then what it takes to prepare the clay for use. So there's the variable of the clay, preparing the clay. Then the next variable is what is it I'm trying to make and what is that process? Am I doing a simple pinch pot, building something with a slab roller? Am I throwing on the wheel? All those kinds. So there's the variables of what it is I'm going to make, the process that I'm going to go to make it. And then the next variable is how it's going to be filed. Most of the time when I make a piece, it gets bisque fired, which is a lower temperature sort of first firing to drive out all the molecular water and just prepare it to take glaze. The next variable is the glazing, if there's going to be glazing and how it's going to be glazed. And then the the next variable would be how it's going to be fired. And I fire in several different ways in different kilns. At the far end extreme of that variable is a An onagama, which is a very large kiln that I fire in, which I fire either once or twice a year. It's owned by a woman who lives out in Swanville. Eight to ten of us fire together. It takes about six to seven days to load the kiln. And that's after we're preparing the kiln, like preparing the shelves, stacking wood, get gathering wood, all that kind of stuff. Then we load for about a week. We fire for eight days using about seven quart of wood. It cools for two weeks, then we unload. And then we clean up and then we have to clean the work for another week or two after so to describe that process is hard. speaker-1: It's a good description. ⁓ speaker-0: Even even that's a description because there's all these different sort of processes involved. This goes to a question that I get in my gallery. I have a gallery attached to my studio. I have these large like two foot eggs that are all carved. And of course, and I understand the question. And even if it's a a small cup, I get a question, Well, how long did that take you? And my question, and it and it's not at all snarky. It's very ⁓ sincere, what do I get to include? I and I'm serious. Like, are they asking me the my hourly time on this particular piece? Or do do I get to include how long it took me to learn to throw? How long it took me to develop this handle for? What is it that they actually want to know? Are they trying to figure out, okay, it's a hundred and twenty-five dollar cup. What is he getting per hour? And I'm saying, okay, well, it might have taken me four hours to make this particular cup, but how long did it take me to develop? You know, like all that kind of stuff. There's this one pot that I had, I worked on it for three and a half years carving it. ⁓ and I could I could carve one row. If I worked about eight to ten hours a day, I could carve one row in two days. And there were 40 rows like that. So just in the carving of that pot alone, there's over almost a thousand hours. It ended up being like a nine and a half inch tall pot. It was just crazy. But so when you say how long does it take you to get from clay to a finished thing, kind of depends on the piece. speaker-1: Because you have these intricate designs that you work on, that's a lot of fine motor skills and a lot of repetitive. Some might consider tedious. speaker-0: Mm. Some might you know, tedious, meditative, there's so many different ways unbelievably frustrating. speaker-1: Yes. So one question I have is as you're working on those things that could take an entire day and days and days and days of the same type of work, what are you doing during that time? Are you listening to music, watching TV? Are you just dead silent, focused? What is going on in your mind as you're doing this? speaker-0: What am I doing mentally? So yeah, I'm such this which makes me such a terrible interview, is that it it all depends. In similarly to my work itself, which is sort of wide-ranging and going in lots of different directions. I would say the majority of time I'm working, I'm working in silence. But that might be by 50.1%. For the time that I'm not working in silence, I'm listening to music, probably is the next biggest thing. Listening to books on tape. I do f watch a fair amount of ⁓ European football or you know soccer. That's one of the best things if I am gonna have a a screen on. Soccer to me is such a great thing because it's noise in the background that I don't really have to pay attention to until like someone goes, and then I know something's happening and I look and then I can wait for the replay. ⁓ yeah, good goal, and I can get back. So there's a fair amount of that. I'll listen to books that I don't really have to pay attention to. Sometimes I have movies on, but they're generally movies that I have already seen. It depends on what I'm working on. There's a fair amount of just labor making handles or doing stuff like this. I can definitely have something on that I will pay attention to. I just want to pass the time. But most of the time in terms of that intricate work, that the carving, the dimpling, you know, all those things, I have to both be focused and unfocused at the same time, if that makes any sense. speaker-1: What do you mean by focused and unfocused at the same time? speaker-0: I think the best way to answer that would be to give a specific example that then as a metaphor for the focused and unfocused expands out to a bigger thing. One of the processes that I do is I carve ⁓ the surface of a vessel using a flex shaft tool using a rotary burr. So a little little spinning carving tool. If you can imagine, well, I I mean, if I have take this cup, for example. All these dimples that are on here were carved with this rotary tool while the clay is it's called a dry leather heart. So there's a little bit of moisture in it, but it's still very solid. It's kind of it's not bone dry, but it's dry, you that it's unfired clay that is like this. And so I'm working on this. I have to hold it. I'm holding it in front of me. I have vacuum attachment, taking, you know, dust particles away. I've got protection on my face and breathing and all that kind of stuff. I have to be aware of all these other things, but I'm focusing on my carving. Not this particular treatment, but one of the things I do is I do this carving that is I'm carving on a grid pattern that I've drawn. And so there's cross sections of my drawing and on the intersections of the drawing, I'm gonna make a little zip zip zip mark. With this spinning burr, this spinning tool, I have both vertical lines and horizontal lines that correspond to the shape of the pot. Gotcha. But then I have to make a mark in the middle of that grid. And on a pot that is curved, the middle as I go around is not exactly in the middle. If it was a cylinder that was straight, the grid would be you know the same all the way up. But when it's a curved form, you have what is that, a trapezoid? If it's the the circumference of the pot is decreasing, the bottom of that square is smaller than the one on the top. And so the center of that point, it's its own point. If I focus on trying to hit that center, I miss. If I focus on the four points that I've already made, I almost always get it exactly right. So it's not a matter of I have to be focused and unfocused. I actually have to be focused in a way that my focus is brought. speaker-1: You you have to focus on the right things and let your hand and your eyes do. speaker-0: You because my body knows, and that's where I'm saying that's a the specific example leads out because in so many different situations where we have to be either precise or let's just say totally present, we do best when we open our focus because our body knows. speaker-1: That was an excellent example. I take dance classes and if I pay too much attention at what I'm supposed to do, I it wrong. Yes, I lose it. I have to kind of let my body do what it's been practicing. And then it can do it. But if I'm like, no, you have to do this arm and this arm, that's when I will mess it up. speaker-0: You lose the dance. I often will pull dance, music. There's so many connections to other forms that help me understand my artwork, as well as my studio work helps me understand dance better and all those kind of things. Because of that. And I often think in dancing, if you focus on the steps, you lose the dance. Yep. You have to know the steps. I often get bemused by people who talk about just being totally intuitive. Yeah, you do kind of have to educate your intuition sometimes. Otherwise you end up just doing the same thing over and over again. speaker-1: Absolutely. No, I always like to remind people that part of creativity requires knowledge because you're pulling from yourself, from what you have stored in your gray matter, the physical practice that is also in your brain. The less you know, the less you have to work with. It doesn't mean you have to be a brilliant genius about everything in the world. Sure. But that knowledge will serve you. And it does serve you in other places, not just your craft. There is a beauty of gaining mastery in some form. And knowledge is always a part of that. Another question that I had for you is about this concept of professional artist. I would consider you a professional artist because I've been seeing your work throughout your career. Yes, I knew you first as an art teacher, but it wasn't long until you had moved on to working professionally as an artist. What does that mean? There is a fallacy out there that to be considered professional, you need to be making art eight hours a day, five to seven days a week, and that is the only way you make money. Is that the reality for most practicing artists? speaker-0: Well, first of all, reality, when you said eight hours a day, I was like, Why only eight hours a day? Why only seven days a week? If you're gonna make a make a living as an artist, you're gonna have to work way more than seven days a week. That's reality. Okay, fair. Being a professional artist, what does that mean? Means that someone somewhere along the line has paid you for making art. Okay, there's the bottom of it. This fallacy of being successful or a legitimate professional artist is because of all your income comes from being an artist. I don't know if there's ever been a time where a hundred percent of my income comes from being professional artists because I've been married two times and my wife had income. So, ⁓ well, does that make me not a professional art? You know, like I mean, no, that doesn't really matter. And I taught high school for years. College. Does that mean that every college professor, art professor, is not a professional artist? That's that's not right. So just let that one go, because that's completely wrong. But it's interesting to think. So my art making had been kind of going through a change when I was interested and been kind of going through a change. So I've been able to make what could be a living out of selling pots, selling work. The work had been changing to where I at one point sort of would I would say I was an artist. I would say I was a potter. I would kind of go back and forth, but I I know that my income, my work was essentially potter artist. Not that that's an important designation, it just made sense in my head. But I was making cups, bowls, utilitarian wear, making some sculpture, making some work. There's this whole line of sort of paintings and sculpture called from the rack line that I'd been kind of working on in the background. I'd shown, I'd sold, but most of the income was was utilitarian wear. And I made wear that was sellable. And I did open studios. I did shows. I did things like that to sell that work. Collectors would come by and continue to buy it. But I felt myself drawn to this other body of work, this rack line work. And I felt myself drawn to ceramics that were much more sculptural, less, much less still utilitarian, but they were skirting the sculpture designation more than just strictly nice glazed usable wear. I felt myself wanting to shift to artist potter and maybe lose the potter. Felt myself becoming more resentful of having to make work that the motivation for me to make it was to sell it. There were some projects that I ⁓ my God, I'm gonna spend so much time and money making this thing and I'm gonna own it for the rest of my life, but I have to make it. I just I can't I just have I've I've had those projects throughout my career. I generally sold them way before I would think I would sell them. Someone is interested in this, I would attach a story to it. Like this is so weird. No one is going to be interested. I've learned to let that go as well. Kind of got to this idea, I don't really want to make work where it's if the main motivation is just to sell it. What do people want? I'll make some of that and I'll sell it. I don't want to do that. I'm too old. Life is too short for me to do that. I'm going to just not worry about making anything that I have to sell. For me to do that without pure ni naivete, I can't do that. I I need some sense of security. I had for years and been work with a friend and he's had a really great business doing carpentry. So we do projects, carpentry projects, and I've done some on my own. Since the spring and kind of through the summer, I did that. And I'm spending the next two to three months doing just studio work. I d I never, never have been good at making a living, but I really feel like I've excelled fairly well at making a life. It's an important distinction in my head anyway. I'm incredibly grateful every day for where and how I live. You know, try to be the person that you would want your an your eight-year-old self to be proud of. So that's what I'm working on. And part of that is like letting go. I'm working as a carpenter. I'm tearing down a plaster ceiling. Is that a professional artist? Hell yes. I'm gonna do it beautifully. How about that? Because I'm not an artist because of people pay me money to be an artist. I'm an artist because that's how I process my world. And anybody who sort of processes their world as a maker, as an artist, is an artist. Who cares if it's professional or not? I mean, if you process your world as an actor, as a lawyer, as a doctor, as a healer, if you're going around putting your hands on people and they feel better and you're not getting paid for it. Or if you are, you know, the professional thing is this like, let that one go. speaker-1: Maybe. Artist is your vocation. How is that? It's yes. It's it's speaker-0: Who I am. It's not even I even go past, I'm not a professional father, but but that's who I am. I don't have any kids living at home, but I'll never not be a father. So the stories people attach to labels, and then what limits that label in terms of legitimacy, you can make it a problem if you want to. That's your choice. speaker-1: Yes. Thank you for sharing that because the wisdom that I see in it is it came to the point where you want to make your art for your art's sake. Yeah. Versus as the way of paying the bills. And in order to facilitate that change, you need to find work that does pay the bills. But it sounds like you've managed it very neatly that you're able to work not a nine to five job that's sucking up all your time and energy, but you're doing something that is still craft based, because I consider carpentry a hundred percent part of the arts and crafts. Sure. That you are able to to take some elements of your skill set and things you had learned before in carpentry and use that as your moneymaker for now. I mean, if if only we could all do that. It's definitely something I'm working on. speaker-0: Yeah. And it you you work you figure it out as you go. You definitely do. I remember when I first moved to Maine and I moved here when I was twenty one, but as I came ashore and started living my life here, one of things that really felt so right and good to me is that people around here sort of cobble their lives together in so many different ways. Your value or even your welcome into sort of society and culture around here is not based on your professional title. It really isn't. Yeah, I I like that. speaker-1: It is something special about areas like Maine where you don't necessarily introduce yourself by your job. speaker-0: No, if you do, you're almost suspects around here. If you come in and say, Hello, I'm Doctor So and so I was like ⁓ that person's full of themselves, aren't they? speaker-1: ⁓ my God. As someone who grew up in Maine, I still love Maine. There are many things about it that I've taken with me, even though now I live in Philadelphia, which has its own special charms. But Maine does have that. It is part and parcel with the seasonal aspect of the work there to be more flexible in in what what is paying their bills. But there is a a sentiment there that you should do what you like to do. speaker-0: Sure, of course it does. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. And even if you don't do it all the time, who cares? It's but it's that you are doing it that's important. speaker-0: And for some reason in my head, when you say that, it's what you like to do and what you need to do too. And those things can be the same. That's what we're hoping. That's we want. Yeah. speaker-1: Well, we hope. So Seam, Mr. V, thank you so much for speaking with I really appreciate it and it has been a pleasure to speak with a practicing artist who is following what called him most deeply. speaker-0: You're very, very welcome. You it was my pleasure. It was great to see you. speaker-1: This episode is dedicated to the many artisans, artists, and craftspeople I've known, from sculptors like Joseph Query and stained glass artists like Roxanne Poulin, to quilters, carpenters, and stoneworkers. Thank you for bringing beauty into this world. Incredible Mind Podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Michelle Cross-Smith. Peter Aronson is consulting producer. Angela Ferrero designed the cover art, and the music was created by Alex Grohl. If you're enjoying this content, please like and subscribe to Incredible Mind Podcast wherever you're listening. Extra credit if you share an episode with friends and family. For more information, visit incredible-mind.org.