Latest / The Body Love Construct / Be... Inspired! Episode 50

Transcript

Be... Inspired! Episode 50 · The Body Love Construct

0:04
Lisa: Hi, Tina.
0:05
Speaker 2: Hey Lisa.
0:06
Speaker 2: How are you today?
0:08
Lisa: I'm great.
0:09
Speaker 2: You know, I recently had a chance to get to the Elizabeth Catlett exhibit here in Washington, DC at the National Gallery.
0:19
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
0:20
Speaker 2: And.
0:21
Speaker 2: I just wanna say as we start out, just to making sure that folks know, you know, this is this time in the season to get out and explore and do things and go to exhibits and museums, especially since some things are being taken out of museums.
0:38
Speaker 2: So now's a good time to go visit your museums and check out different installation and.
0:45
Speaker 2: Installations and exhibitions at bigger galleries and at small galleries too, you know, support the local artists in your area.
0:54
Lisa: Yeah.
0:55
Speaker 2: But that said I was walking through that exhibit.
0:59
Speaker 2: And there are so many exceptional pieces of work.
1:05
Speaker 2: I wasn't aware of everything that she did as an artist, but I was, I spent a, so much.
1:14
Speaker 2: Time looking at the sculptures.
1:17
Speaker 2: For some reason I just got so taken by some of the sculpture work that she's done.
1:25
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
1:25
Speaker 2: And one piece in particular was a bronze bust of Phyllis Wheatley that you know who Philip Sweetly is, correct?
1:35
Lisa: Yes.
1:36
Speaker 2: Okay, so for those who dunno, Philis Beat Lee was an enslaved woman who wrote a book of poetry that was actually verified as a book of poetry written by an enslaved woman.
1:53
Speaker 2: And she was noted for that.
1:55
Speaker 2: And I remember when I was standing there looking at this sculpture, I just remember.
2:01
Speaker 2: Reading about her when I was in grammar school, you know, the, the history books that I learned from when I was young didn't contain a lot of information on black people other than a short area, a short.
2:20
Speaker 2: Portion that had to do with enslavement.
2:23
Speaker 2: Of course, it was just said slaves at that point in time.
2:27
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
2:28
Speaker 2: But I remember somewhere in either English or even in the history class, I saw this picture of Phyllis Wheatley, and when it said she wrote poetry, I was like, I just remember as I stood looking.
2:45
Speaker 2: Present day looking that I remember and sort of took myself back to that moment when I saw that picture, because the bust is of the same profile that's in every book or every picture people have seen of Phyllis Wheatley, a sketch.
3:00
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
3:01
Speaker 2: That's done of her.
3:03
Speaker 2: And I wonder and have the feeling that I was writing already, but there's something that happened while I was saying that made me feel that she is the inspiration for why I write.
3:15
Speaker 2: Today.
3:16
Lisa: Oh wow.
3:18
Speaker 2: So I'm hearing that because, you know, we have these moments of that sort of take us back in, in our lives.
3:27
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
3:28
Speaker 2: And we never know what might.
3:31
Speaker 2: Bring that up for, for us.
3:33
Speaker 2: So I know, you know, we're talking off the cuff like we usually do it.
3:37
Speaker 2: Does anything come to mind for you?
3:39
Speaker 2: Have you had any moments where you sort of go back to a moment in time and see something about yourself?
3:48
Lisa: I don't really think so.
3:49
Lisa: Especially not for historical per people,
3:52
Speaker 2: no, not necessarily historical, but anything, you know, I.
3:56
Lisa: But there are some artists that do multimedia, not multimedia, mixed media art.
4:03
Lisa: And there's one that I have on my wall I can't remember her name, but it's called, the art is called.
4:09
Lisa: What did the peacock say?
4:10
Lisa: Hmm.
4:11
Lisa: And when you look at it, it's a lot of random things.
4:14
Lisa: There's like some newspaper clipping and some different shapes that she's drawn.
4:20
Lisa: And then there's the, the main thing is the peacock in the middle.
4:23
Lisa: And I look at that every day and think that this.
4:25
Lisa: I really like that style of, of, of art and I attempted it once, but I, I have really been recently thinking about attempting it again because it's just, I don't know, it speaks to me.
4:37
Lisa: I can't explain why it speaks to me, but it really does.
4:41
Lisa: It, it's, I, I, I have no idea, but I just love seeing those types of things.
4:45
Lisa: And there's a few other artists, I believe I belong to a Facebook group about collages.
4:49
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
4:49
Lisa: And sometimes collages look like this.
4:52
Lisa: I don't know if there's a specific name for this type of art, but that, that is something that inspires me to try it.
5:00
Speaker 2: Well, you know, collaging is, is my main method of, of expressing my, ooh, expressing myself artistically.
5:07
Speaker 2: Yes.
5:08
Speaker 2: Other than photography.
5:09
Speaker 2: So I'm always, you know, enamored or sort of have to sit and look at collage work by anybody that's doing it to see, you know, what, what they're doing and what style.
5:23
Speaker 2: They're working in or how they're using the different kinds of medium to do collage work.
5:29
Speaker 2: Somebody sent me recently a page that had a person that's making collages, although I kind of wanna say this is mosaic work because it was breaking mirrors and putting it back together.
5:41
Speaker 2: But I think I was, I was having a conversation about collage work and I don't.
5:46
Speaker 2: I think this person interpreted as that collage was that kind of medium.
5:51
Speaker 2: I think what I was looking at was more so would more so be described as mosaic work.
5:56
Speaker 2: And I, I love mosaic work because essentially mosaic work is kind of like collage, kind of collage work because you're piecing things together.
6:07
Speaker 2: And I even think about puzzles as like collages.
6:12
Lisa: Yeah.
6:12
Lisa: That's how I think of it.
6:13
Lisa: I have, I love collage.
6:15
Lisa: I mean, I love mosaics.
6:16
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
6:17
Lisa: And for a while there I became obsessed with it and I made one particular piece that was very intricate.
6:23
Lisa: It's a mandala.
6:24
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
6:25
Lisa: And it was very intricate.
6:27
Lisa: And it's my favorite piece of all the other ones I gave away.
6:30
Lisa: I think I have maybe one other one besides that.
6:33
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
6:33
Lisa: But I love it.
6:34
Lisa: So much because it's, it's just peaceful to sit there and cut the glass into shapes that you need.
6:40
Lisa: There's different parts of this mosaic that have like square pieces, and then there's some that have tiny triangular pieces.
6:47
Lisa: And so each each item on the, on the, on the.
6:53
Lisa: I don't know what to call it.
6:55
Lisa: I think the, the pieces are called
6:57
Speaker 2: sra, girl, don't, don't get me to lying.
7:01
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what they're called.
7:04
Speaker 2: But you're just, you're talking about the pieces that you're gluing into place to form the, the Mosaic.
7:09
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
7:09
Lisa: Right.
7:10
Lisa: And for, for each item on the mosaic, there's a different type of Erie.
7:15
Lisa: Like some are squares and some are tiny and some are larger.
7:19
Lisa: And so it's it's fun to do and it's relaxing because you, you have to think about, it's kinda like pattern.
7:25
Speaker 2: Right.
7:26
Lisa: And, and it's, it's, it's, you're thinking about the patterns, but they're not stressing you out type of patterns.
7:31
Lisa: Right,
7:32
Speaker 2: right.
7:32
Speaker 2: You know, and see, this is why I love when we have conversations that are so off the cuff, because now you've made me remember that when I lived in New York, I started doing mosaic work and I have this very.
7:46
Speaker 2: Very intricately done box that I made, and it's a big box.
7:52
Speaker 2: It must be at least 12 or 1215 by 15.
7:58
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a box you can open.
8:00
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
8:00
Speaker 2: That inside it has sections in it.
8:02
Speaker 2: Of course it has my jewelry in it, but I remember now that I went through this period of time when I was making these mosaics on top of boxes.
8:14
Speaker 2: And my nieces have, well, they were young then.
8:18
Speaker 2: I don't know if they still have them or not, but mm-hmm.
8:22
Speaker 2: I definitely spent time, you know, developing patterns and not sort of the, there's a couple things about mosaics that I like, I liked mm-hmm.
8:34
Speaker 2: When I was doing those, because it was a well thought out pattern.
8:39
Speaker 2: To sort of frame the, in the inner piece of it.
8:42
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
8:42
Speaker 2: Then the inner piece, I actually poured in some sort of something, I don't wanna call it cement, but I poured this substance in it that was going to, I, it was probably some paper mache pulp stuff, and then I was able to press in shells and other things in the middle of this.
9:03
Speaker 2: Box that was surrounded by, it was almost the, the mosaic that was done like very structured, framed this part that was not so structured.
9:14
Speaker 2: And it takes a lot of time.
9:15
Speaker 2: I You have to, this isn't the kind of thing,'cause I did, I don't remember cutting too many.
9:21
Speaker 2: Pieces of, of the, I had little square pieces of tiles to put on the box.
9:27
Speaker 2: I don't remember cut cutting a lot of them because the box had a definite, you know, dimension.
9:34
Speaker 2: And those little squares, those little squares can add up to that dimension.
9:37
Speaker 2: So I didn't have to cut anything.
9:39
Speaker 2: But it takes right.
9:40
Speaker 2: It's mosaics and collages now that we're talking about'em both as I sit here thinking about the different things that I've tried or done, even doing glass, not glass blowing, but I've done a glass, cutting glass where you're working with pieces of glass.
9:57
Speaker 2: You know that you put into something and then of course they fire it and it, and sort of melts together.
10:02
Speaker 2: But essentially it's kind of that same feeling of sort of freely putting things together the way you see them.
10:11
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
10:13
Speaker 2: And, and let them create a design that you wanna create, whether it's a structured one or not.
10:19
Speaker 2: I love a mosaic that is I've seen some recently online where someone was making it and they turn out to be, you know, really.
10:28
Speaker 2: Something like there's a picture or a person in the mosaic, and I'm not that talented to do that, so I'm not even gonna try.
10:35
Speaker 2: But I can do that with paper.
10:37
Speaker 2: I definitely can do it with paper.
10:38
Speaker 2: So,
10:39
Lisa: yeah.
10:40
Lisa: Yeah.
10:40
Lisa: I just recently went to the Philadelphia.
10:44
Lisa: Magic gardens.
10:45
Lisa: Hmm.
10:46
Lisa: And it's a whole mosaic exhibit.
10:50
Lisa: It's huge, it's humongous and it's, it's completely covered in Mosaic.
10:54
Speaker 2: Wow.
10:55
Lisa: And it's, it's really beautiful.
10:57
Lisa: And some parts of it are a little bit overwhelming, like they have like bottles and, and bike tires and things.
11:02
Lisa: But, but for the most part it's just very, very intricate.
11:07
Lisa: And I, I can't imagine how many pieces, that they took, this has been done over time.
11:12
Lisa: I think what happened is they had a, they had a, a mural and then I think somebody had purchased the building and they were going to remove the, the mural.
11:22
Lisa: And that got a whole activist community together to save not only that mural, but to expand this piece of art.
11:29
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
11:30
Lisa: And it was.
11:30
Lisa: Really fun to visit and it kind of got me thinking about doing it again.
11:34
Lisa: Although it was very different from the type of work that I did.
11:38
Lisa: I didn't do like you would see a whole facade of a building done in, you know, with mirrors and glass and things like that.
11:46
Lisa: But it kind of made me think about what you could do in a garden like your own garden.
11:50
Lisa: Yeah.
11:50
Lisa: And you could do pavers or things like that, and just little items or pots things in the item in the garden that you could make these things in.
11:58
Lisa: And when the sunlight hits it, it's just spectacular and sparkly.
12:02
Speaker 2: Hmm.
12:04
Speaker 2: Wow.
12:05
Speaker 2: You know, I think being inspired by.
12:09
Speaker 2: Going to see artwork or even just reading about it is really one thing.
12:16
Speaker 2: It takes my mind off of anything that's going on around me.
12:20
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
12:20
Speaker 2: Particularly when I'm, when I'm working.
12:22
Speaker 2: And I haven't really created any artwork now.
12:24
Speaker 2: I have definitely been out with, you know, the, the florals and taking photographs, and then of course I edit them in some, I do some artistic editing on.
12:33
Speaker 2: But I, I find that I am seeking, or things are seeking me that allow me to look deeper into my own creativity in different ways.
12:50
Speaker 2: So it's, it hasn't come out so much visually, artistically, other than the photos, but it seems like my writing is getting inspired by.
13:02
Speaker 2: What's what I'm seeing that's around me finding the beauty in the floral or the beauty in something, or even just seeing stuff on online.
13:11
Speaker 2: I actually had to go through, I was looking in my blogs, you know, that I wrote a blog for 10 plus years from 2009 to 2019.
13:21
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
13:22
Speaker 2: And I was in there looking for I was looking for a specific entry because.
13:28
Speaker 2: I wanted to make sure that I had not submitted something that I had put on my blog mm-hmm.
13:35
Speaker 2: To a competition that I was submitting for.
13:39
Speaker 2: And so that made me start looking through like, you know, 10 years worth of stuff.
13:45
Speaker 2: And it doesn't, it doesn't take a long time to do it, honestly, because, you know, you pull up the year I can.
13:49
Speaker 2: Go through the months because and, and get through it pretty quickly, but I ended up just stopping on some of my old posts and being re-inspired by things that I wrote, or photographs that I put on the blog years ago mm-hmm.
14:08
Speaker 2: That I haven't looked at or paid any attention to for.
14:13
Speaker 2: Several years now.
14:14
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
14:15
Speaker 2: So I'm, I'm, I'm getting a little excited sometimes.
14:18
Speaker 2: I, I, again, I was gonna run back to the Harken, back to what I said about Philis Wheatley.
14:23
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm in my philis wheatley mode.
14:26
Speaker 2: Because something about seeing that sculpture has really sparked some in.
14:31
Speaker 2: Some thought about writing and things that inspired me to write and looking at writings and different writings by other people and that sort of thing.
14:41
Speaker 2: So it's interesting.
14:43
Speaker 2: What will ins bring us to a place of inspiration or make you think about what you wanna do or what what, or the things that are inside of you come out.
14:56
Lisa: Right.
14:56
Lisa: You know, it's funny that you mentioned going back to all.
14:59
Lisa: To your blogs.
15:00
Lisa: I'm sitting here in my room and I have a table a little it's just a small table and it's a mosaic table that my daughter and I made when she was a little girl.
15:11
Lisa: Hmm.
15:11
Lisa: And it's, it's an octagon shaped, I guess it was like a piece of wood that was shaped like an octagon.
15:16
Lisa: And then, we had gone to some mosaic studio here in the city.
15:20
Lisa: So you go there and they provide all the materials and we made this.
15:24
Lisa: And, you know, later on I was thinking, oh my gosh, this is kind of terrible.
15:26
Lisa: But you know what, it's not, it's not terrible.
15:29
Lisa: It's great'cause we both did it.
15:31
Lisa: And now it's sitting here in my room and I actually love this table.
15:34
Lisa: It's had, has a sunshine in the middle.
15:37
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
15:37
Lisa: And then around it is some iridescent blue and white pieces.
15:41
Lisa: And then around the perimeters just mirror.
15:44
Speaker 2: Mm.
15:46
Lisa: And I had forgotten all about this.
15:48
Speaker 2: Wow.
15:51
Speaker 2: Hmm.
15:51
Speaker 2: Until
15:51
Lisa: right now.
15:52
Speaker 2: I, that makes me think that I have the feeling, I, I don't even want to even think this, but I, I have this weird thing that just came over me when you went to the table that I actually bought a table.
16:07
Speaker 2: That you can do mosaics on, like it's got a, a space where you can set the mosaic in it.
16:14
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
16:15
Speaker 2: And I'm sure, and I hate to say this, that it's in my storage unit.
16:20
Speaker 2: I never did it because I have all these tiles and things that or in that I know are put away because they're in a.
16:30
Speaker 2: Storage thing in, in my home.
16:33
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
16:33
Speaker 2: And as I'm sitting here, I'm like, you know what?
16:35
Speaker 2: You need to go to that storage bin that you had.
16:38
Speaker 2: It's a, it was my art storage bin.
16:40
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
16:41
Speaker 2: That I bought while I was.
16:43
Speaker 2: Doing a whole lot of work with, with different things, but it's got all of those tiles in it.
16:50
Speaker 2: I need to go in there and look and see, and then I need to brave the storage unit and see if that table is out there.
16:57
Speaker 2: 'cause I have the, yes, I have the feeling that it is and I'm scared to even think that it is because I'm like, oh my God, you gotta be kidding me.
17:06
Speaker 2: I bought this to do it and never did it.
17:08
Speaker 2: But it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be the first time I.
17:13
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
17:13
Speaker 2: It would not be the first time for any of us.
17:16
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sort of thinking back when I lived in New York, how I got started sculpting paper.
17:22
Speaker 2: I don't call them paper mache bowls'cause it was not paper mache.
17:26
Speaker 2: The way paper mache is done, it's a paper pulp substance that I bought.
17:32
Speaker 2: You add water to it and I used it and learned how to work with it to sculpt these bowls.
17:38
Speaker 2: And I just remember, you know, doing that.
17:42
Speaker 2: But I had bought the paper Pulp thinking I was buying paper mache.
17:50
Speaker 2: The kind of stuff you used to do paper mache with actual mm-hmm.
17:52
Speaker 2: Strips of paper.
17:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:54
Speaker 2: And when I bought it and when I got it home and realized that wasn't what it was, I just left it in the kitchen under, I had a little storage area under the counter in, in my apartment in New York, and I had just left it there.
18:07
Speaker 2: And the only reason I started using it is that.
18:12
Speaker 2: When I got sick, when I was recovering from back a back injury and sciatica at the same time.
18:19
Lisa: Oh, wow.
18:20
Speaker 2: I pulled it out and started using it because I needed something to do.
18:26
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
18:26
Speaker 2: I, I needed something to fill my time because I was stuck at home.
18:31
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
18:34
Speaker 2: And I, that's when I started sculpting these bowls.
18:36
Speaker 2: So again, sort of saying, you know, you buy stuff, you have things, and then you don't get to it till later, but sometimes you're not supposed to get to it until you get to it.
18:45
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
18:46
Lisa: Yeah.
18:46
Lisa: That is also true because I find things that I forgot all about and pull out the, the whole, the multimedia thing, I keep on saying multimedia, I mean, mixed media.
18:57
Lisa: That had been a class that I took let's see, back in, I think 2018.
19:01
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
19:02
Lisa: And I was all excited about it when I took it, and then I put it all into a bag and stuffed it in the closet.
19:08
Lisa: And then later on when I decided, you know, I just.
19:11
Lisa: Bought some canvases and I thought, okay, I'm gonna paint.
19:13
Lisa: Then that's when I realized, wait a minute, wait, wait.
19:16
Lisa: I took a whole art class and I didn't do anything, and that's when I went back and pulled that stuff out.
19:22
Lisa: And I'm glad I did because it's, it's something that I, it's more I'm glad I'm doing it now because back then I guess I just didn't have time and I had other things to do, but now I, it's inspiring to me to do it now.
19:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:37
Speaker 2: This, this, this inspiration of doing it.
19:39
Speaker 2: Now, I think I shared with you that I actually checked out a book at the library.
19:46
Speaker 2: On Phyllis Wheatley.
19:48
Speaker 2: Now I've had a library card since you and I started meeting.
19:51
Speaker 2: 'cause we sometimes meet at the library to mm-hmm.
19:55
Speaker 2: Record and also to, when we were first meeting, just to have our meetings.
19:58
Speaker 2: We met at the library and I decided to check out a book.
20:02
Speaker 2: I haven't checked out a book in the library, you know, because, no, again, I would buy the book, buy a book, and it's like, why are you gonna buy it?
20:11
Speaker 2: You need to.
20:14
Speaker 2: Check it out.
20:14
Speaker 2: The library.
20:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:15
Speaker 2: Then if you want to get it, first of all, I don't need to buy another damn book because the same day that I was reading all those blogs, when I was reading them, I also noticed there were, I referenced some books that I had read years ago and then I went to find them and I'm crawling all over'cause my books are everywhere.
20:35
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
20:35
Speaker 2: And I'm down on the floor.
20:36
Speaker 2: 'cause some of them are on the floor lower to the floor.
20:39
Speaker 2: Finding these books that I referenced in these blogs, and I got them stacked on the table, and I'm wondering what, why did I, why did this happen?
20:51
Speaker 2: Why was I looking for at the day that I was looking for the post in the, the blog?
21:00
Speaker 2: Why did that happen and why do, why did I pull out all these books and is Phyllis Wheatley really working on me from somewhere?
21:09
Speaker 2: But I'm, I'm excited about the fact that that inspiration, because it also has made me pay attention to another writing that I've been trying to get out of me, and I just feel much more compelled to do it and write it because.
21:25
Speaker 2: After I, something about being at that exhibit and walking away and all that has happened has really sparked some, sparked something in me.
21:34
Lisa: Yeah.
21:35
Lisa: Could you tell me a little bit about the the person whose exhibit it was?
21:40
Speaker 2: You talking about the Elizabeth Catlett exhibit?
21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:43
Speaker 2: She has a, a full body of work.
21:46
Speaker 2: You know, she didn't just do.
21:51
Speaker 2: Painting.
21:52
Speaker 2: She's, she's sketched, she had sculptures.
21:57
Speaker 2: She was an activist.
21:59
Speaker 2: She went to Howard, moved to, moved and lived.
22:04
Speaker 2: Moved and lived in Mexico.
22:06
Speaker 2: I was not familiar with the amount of work that she did that was about being an activist, so it's just a very enlightening exhibition because I was not fully aware of everything that she's done, so.
22:28
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
22:28
Speaker 2: This is sort of a brief.
22:30
Speaker 2: Kind of overview, but her work is very vast.
22:33
Speaker 2: In in what it is in scope and what you, what you would see there at the exhibition.
22:39
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
22:41
Lisa: Okay.
22:41
Lisa: Y'all gonna have to excuse this some
22:46
Speaker 2: just.
22:48
Speaker 2: We'll be the reality today is we're, we're recording remotely from our different living spaces as opposed to being together in the, our studio at the library.
22:59
Speaker 2: Right.
23:01
Speaker 2: Okay.
23:01
Speaker 2: So there'll be different sounds.
23:03
Speaker 2: Hopefully there won't be none from here in Southwest, but that's just how it's, today's a remote day folks.
23:11
Speaker 2: But anyway, so again, if.
23:15
Speaker 2: It certainly you can look up, not you, meaning you, but folks who will listen.
23:20
Speaker 2: You can look up Elizabeth Catlett if you live in the DMV.
23:25
Speaker 2: She definitely stop by the exhibit is up until July the sixth.
23:29
Speaker 2: And who knows what'll inspire, you know what'll inspire you because really what we're really talking about is being inspired by things.
23:37
Speaker 2: Yes.
23:38
Speaker 2: Yes.
23:40
Speaker 2: So, and you
23:40
Lisa: know, the, the.
23:42
Lisa: Peacock with the, what did the peacock say?
23:44
Lisa: Uhhuh, that artist's name is Judy Paul.
23:47
Speaker 2: Okay.
23:47
Speaker 2: I was, I was gonna look that up, but I was, I was so busy listening to you.
23:52
Speaker 2: I didn't wanna get sidetracked.
23:53
Speaker 2: I was trying to quickly try to find it.
23:55
Speaker 2: Okay.
23:55
Speaker 2: Judy Paul.
23:56
Speaker 2: Okay.
23:56
Speaker 2: Okay.
23:56
Lisa: Yeah.
23:57
Lisa: I don't know a whole lot about her, but she, I found this because I like to shop at World Market back when they were open.
24:03
Lisa: Yeah.
24:03
Lisa: And I had seen a different work by her, and then I went online and.
24:07
Lisa: Then I ran across this peacock.
24:08
Lisa: I love peacocks by the way.
24:09
Lisa: Mm.
24:10
Lisa: And so I just fell in love with this piece and ordered it, and now it's on my fireplace.
24:16
Speaker 2: Oh, lovely.
24:18
Speaker 2: I didn't know you liked pea peacocks.
24:20
Speaker 2: I, I, I know you for the color.
24:22
Speaker 2: Yellow and peacocks are not yellow.
24:27
Speaker 2: No, they're not.
24:28
Speaker 2: But they're spectacular.
24:30
Speaker 2: They're very beautiful.
24:31
Speaker 2: Very.
24:32
Speaker 2: And I've seen them with their full plumage open, which is something to behold.
24:37
Lisa: Oh yeah.
24:37
Lisa: Yeah.
24:37
Lisa: My friends have a, a guest house in Maryland by the shore and they have a local peacock and his name is Lenny.
24:46
Lisa: Hmm.
24:46
Lisa: And he, he makes his appearance and spreads all his feathers and prs around looking just absolutely fabulous.
24:54
Lisa: And I love when I went over there just to see him.
24:56
Lisa: And I would always run over there with my phone and try to record it.
25:04
Lisa: He's such a show off.
25:05
Speaker 2: Oh, well, you know, that's the bird species is something, especially the men, the males and the bird species.
25:11
Speaker 2: Many bird species are very flamboyant and colorful and it, I was always, you know, sort.
25:18
Speaker 2: Startled that the males have all the beautiful plumage for so many species.
25:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
25:24
Speaker 2: Like, wait a minute.
25:25
Speaker 2: Yes.
25:26
Speaker 2: Why?
25:26
Speaker 2: Why?
25:26
Speaker 2: They get all the, but then it, but then as I've grown, you know, grown up and watched these nature shows, then you have to watch how much work they men have to do to get a woman.
25:38
Speaker 2: Exactly.
25:40
Speaker 2: And that's their whole purpose and that's their whole purpose is to strut out and, you know, fluff their feathers and do all these crazy dance.
25:46
Speaker 2: I am so tickled when I watch these nature shows where they showed these birds doing all this, carrying on, trying to get a mate.
25:56
Lisa: Yes, especially the Bird of Paradise.
25:59
Speaker 2: Oh,
25:59
Lisa: that one.
26:00
Lisa: He had a whole dance prepared for the
26:03
Speaker 2: lady.
26:03
Speaker 2: They're all hilarious.
26:05
Speaker 2: They're twirling around like little dervishes, some of them.
26:07
Speaker 2: It's hilarious to watch to watch them, but yeah.
26:11
Speaker 2: But again, when I was younger, I never understood why the males didn't, well, the females weren't pretty.
26:18
Speaker 2: Quote unquote, they're all pretty, but they don't have as much coloration.
26:23
Speaker 2: Although the cardinals is like, you know, they, you could definitely spider male'cause it's a bright red, but the female is really beautiful.
26:30
Speaker 2: Her, her plumage Oh plumage is really beautiful.
26:33
Speaker 2: It's just got all these different colors in it, but it's not as much.
26:36
Speaker 2: Red, the beak.
26:37
Speaker 2: I think the beak is red, but it's not, not so much.
26:40
Speaker 2: But I have actually taken a, got captured a photograph of a female cardinal and her and I had not, was not aware of how beautiful her plumage is, but thankfully one day, years ago I was out walking and she was sitting still long enough for me to get a good enough photograph of her.
26:57
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
26:57
Speaker 2: To see really the coloration, because most of the time they fly so.
27:01
Speaker 2: Fast.
27:01
Speaker 2: You don't get to see that.
27:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:03
Speaker 2: But but at any rate, so peacocks are something that, you know, you like this and they in, do they inspire you in any other way?
27:11
Lisa: Well, well they kind of inspire me based on this statue.
27:15
Lisa: Thingy that I got, my great grandmother she would just do different art things just to pass the time.
27:22
Lisa: And there must have been some kind of studio where you could buy this, this art fig, this figurine.
27:29
Lisa: It was, it's big, it's not a small one, and you could paint it and the tail had holes where you could put marbles.
27:37
Lisa: Hmm.
27:38
Lisa: And so the tail has marbles for the feathers, and then there's a light under the way I'm describing it, it sounds hideous.
27:45
Lisa: And the truth is nobody in in my life likes it except me.
27:48
Lisa: But underneath the the feathers is a light bulb that you turn on and then it lights up through the.
27:56
Lisa: Through the marbles, and she used to put this on her table around in Christmas time.
28:01
Lisa: I, I've seen of Christmas trees done this way too, but I don't like them.
28:05
Lisa: But she would always put this on the table at Christmas time and then tell me not to touch it.
28:08
Lisa: And of course I always touched it,
28:10
Speaker 2: of course.
28:11
Speaker 2: And then when she passed
28:12
Lisa: away, I went to one of my relatives house and I saw it and I asked them, could I have it?
28:17
Lisa: And they said yes.
28:17
Lisa: And that's that.
28:18
Lisa: That's, it's been in my house ever since and I just love it.
28:22
Lisa: And that just started me up with the peacocks.
28:24
Lisa: I was like, you know, now I want a peacock painting and I have a different peacock painting in my bedroom.
28:28
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
28:29
Lisa: And that's where, that's where it went.
28:31
Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
28:33
Speaker 2: Well, as soon as you said the little light things, I thought about two things.
28:36
Speaker 2: One, I thought about the Christmas trees that had those little pegs that you put in.
28:41
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
28:41
Speaker 2: Because we, because we had one.
28:43
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
28:43
Speaker 2: And then I thought about this thing.
28:44
Speaker 2: Did you ever have a toy called Light Bright?
28:48
Lisa: Yes, I had light bright.
28:49
Speaker 2: Okay, so light bright.
28:50
Speaker 2: See, every time you talk, when you talk about, if you keep talking, you start thinking about things from past years.
28:56
Speaker 2: You know, like things that you hadn't even thought about in the months.
28:59
Speaker 2: 'cause I haven't thought about light bright since.
29:02
Speaker 2: Who knows when.
29:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:04
Speaker 2: And the fact that I even remember what the name of it is, is actually sort of something to be cheering about all by itself.
29:14
Speaker 2: Yes.
29:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:15
Speaker 2: Because I came
29:16
Lisa: from the seventies, I think.
29:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
29:23
Speaker 2: Back then, and again, I don't, it wasn't my twin, my sister, younger sister had it.
29:27
Speaker 2: It wasn't her, her thing, it wasn't mine.
29:29
Speaker 2: But but I remember her having that light bright and other kids having light bright.
29:34
Speaker 2: Hmm.
29:35
Lisa: Yeah.
29:36
Lisa: And those pegs being lost all over the floor in the house.
29:38
Speaker 2: Oh.
29:39
Speaker 2: Or the next year for the Christmas thing.
29:41
Speaker 2: Finding out we.
29:42
Speaker 2: Couldn't find all the little pegs to put in the Christmas tree.
29:48
Speaker 2: And you, you definitely had to have all of them.
29:49
Speaker 2: 'cause it looked crazy if you did not.
29:56
Lisa: Oh gosh.
29:57
Lisa: Who thinks of these
29:57
Speaker 2: things?
29:58
Speaker 2: I don't know.
30:00
Speaker 2: But somebody thought of it and then people bought it.
30:02
Speaker 2: 'cause we, we both know about it and have seen it somewhere.
30:05
Speaker 2: So I would, would wonder if.
30:11
Speaker 2: The, that ceramic tree with the little pegs that is in my mother's attic.
30:16
Speaker 2: Or now it's my sister's house.
30:17
Speaker 2: But I wonder if it's in the attic somewhere.
30:23
Speaker 2: You should look.
30:23
Speaker 2: It probably is.
30:24
Speaker 2: I will, the next time I go visit my sister, we'll have to see if we can find the old Christmas ornaments.
30:30
Speaker 2: 'cause my mother definitely put stuff up every year, even after we were grown.
30:36
Speaker 2: So, and after we were going and gone and she was an empty nester, you know she definitely put some things out, but we need to go look.
30:43
Speaker 2: That's something that I will think about.
30:45
Speaker 2: Here we go.
30:46
Speaker 2: You know, it is be inspired people.
30:47
Speaker 2: Be inspired by the littlest, the littlest thing can make you think about things you haven't thought about in a while, and then you wonder like, well, where is that?
30:59
Lisa: Well, you know, I think this is part of the whole idea of.
31:02
Lisa: Bringing happiness into our lives.
31:04
Lisa: These are the things, these are the little tiny sparks that we can grab onto and let them grow into something bigger, especially at a time when, you know, there's a bunch of stuff going on, but you need some way to relax.
31:17
Lisa: But sometimes you can't really think of something.
31:20
Lisa: So you, you just, you can be inspired by something that you've done or had or seen and just go for it and it's, it's good for your mind.
31:28
Speaker 2: Mm, yes it is.
31:30
Speaker 2: Yes, it is.
31:32
Speaker 2: Well, I know that after talking to you now, I have made a couple notes of things that I have to go look for, see if that, see if the mosaic tables, I don't need to give myself a another darn thing to be doing, quite frankly.
31:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious.
31:52
Lisa: A whole bag full of canvases here.
31:54
Speaker 2: I'm just curious.
31:56
Speaker 2: Now it's like, hmm.
31:57
Speaker 2: I.
31:58
Speaker 2: Wonder if that table is out there or if I thought about buying it and never did buy it.
32:03
Speaker 2: So hopefully it.
32:07
Speaker 2: Not that I bought it.
32:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never did it.
32:10
Speaker 2: Well, if you bought it, never did it.
32:12
Speaker 2: You can go do it now, girl, please.
32:15
Speaker 2: I have way too many things.
32:18
Speaker 2: I just said I have to, I'm trying to get this writing that I have been, that have been inspired to write, that I need to want, want to work on, and it, it really require, it's gonna require that I should sort of shut everything down to get it.
32:34
Speaker 2: Done.
32:34
Speaker 2: I have
32:35
Lisa: mm-hmm.
32:36
Speaker 2: An outline that's drawn up, but I haven't, I put some meat to the outline, but not too much.
32:42
Speaker 2: But I, I need to stay focused on it, you know, this getting distracted.
32:46
Speaker 2: That's a whole nother conversation about distractions.
32:49
Speaker 2: And we've probably talked about that before too.
32:51
Speaker 2: I'm not getting too distracted because.
32:54
Speaker 2: Something else comes up and you know, one of the things I have written down for myself is to finish out one thing before getting going onto something else doesn't mean Yeah.
33:05
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean I can't, you know, have more than one thing happening at the same time.
33:10
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
33:10
Speaker 2: But it can't be more than one sort of thing that I have to put a lot of focus to at the same time.
33:16
Speaker 2: 'cause I just can't.
33:17
Speaker 2: I just can't.
33:18
Speaker 2: Then nothing gets done.
33:19
Speaker 2: Nothing gets done.
33:20
Speaker 2: I have pieces of things and they're not.
33:22
Speaker 2: Complete it and I want to, to complete them.
33:25
Speaker 2: So
33:26
Lisa: yeah, I, I, I totally get that.
33:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, well hopefully, you know, if you are listening out there, you will be inspired by something.
33:37
Speaker 2: It may not be art, it may not be a writer.
33:40
Speaker 2: It could be anything that could inspire you to.
33:45
Speaker 2: Either look into something you thought about doing and never did, or that takes you back to a moment in time that reminds you of something that you bring forward and use that information.
33:59
Speaker 2: So be inspired.
34:00
Speaker 2: Just get inspired.
34:03
Lisa: Yeah, I agree.
34:07
Speaker 2: Alright, so generational body love is like generational wealth.
34:11
Speaker 2: We must
34:13
Lisa: pass it on.
34:14
Speaker 2: Okay, take care.
34:16
Speaker 2: Bye Bye.
34:18
Speaker: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Body Love Construct, where we have intelligent opinion-based conversations around reconstructing the generational conditioning that has influenced black women's narratives about themselves.
34:31
Speaker: Our main purpose with the body love construct and this podcast.
34:34
Speaker: Is to engage our audience by having more non-traditional conversations about present day and historical issues, situations, behaviors, events and beliefs that affect how we see ourselves and how others perceive, make assumptions about copy, treat, see, or unsee us as black women.
34:55
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34:58
Speaker: Thinking about the stories you formed about yourself and determine if perhaps it's time to rethink a few things.
35:05
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35:14
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