Authentic Obsessions Podcast

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson is a multi-disciplinary artist in San Francisco, CA with a focus in fiber arts, illustrating, and storytelling. Biracial and born in Japan, she creates art to bridge the gap between her two worlds. Inspired by the healing and connective power of humor and play, she creates her wacky, whimsical, and colorful work to process deep emotions in grief and joy, while creating places of belonging and finding ways to stay connected to those we love.

Molly Meng talks to Risa about creating for the experience instead of the object, drilling down big feelings to the essence of their meaning, and and how the work you make often doesn’t make sense when you’re going through grief.

Takeaways

1. Our job as artists is to be the steward to the stories and lessons that have been passed down.
2. Artists are a great bridge for bringing people together.
3. What have you done lately that has scared the shit out of you?
4. You have to get extremely comfortable saying no.
5. Make eye contact with all humans at every opportunity.

Links

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson on Instagram

Risa Iwasaki Culbertson on Tiktok

Artist, teacher, collector, and storyteller Molly Meng is a force for good. Molly is heavily influenced by a scrap of paper, a single word, ​opera, rap, theremins, the thick cotton of an old book page, random sentences, and an overheard statement. Molly exudes optimism and curiosity, and believes we are ALL related and connected to each other. 

Takeaways

1. Just ask.
2. On social media: Follow less, engage more.
3. Same but different.
4. Be here now. Let go.
5. When you want to see beauty somewhere, if you don’t already see it, you have to create it. Make it come about.

Mentioned

Follow Molly on Instagram

Molly’s website

The Traveling Postal Club

Matthew Frederick

French General workshops

Jen Peterson’s Instagram - the pursuit of sunshine

On Being with Krista Tippett podcast

Chanel Miller

Priorities, patriotic quilts, procrastination, studio space evolution, and playing with the tension and finding the edge!

Maura's journey began in 2011 when she followed her dream to merge gardening and quilting. Hailing from a family of quilters and tailors, Maura finds joy and meaning in connecting with her ancestors through her craft and preserving heritage techniques. A pioneer in hand-dyed fabrics and hand-stitched quilts, Maura has inspired an international movement by sharing her plant-based dyeing processes and using those colors in quilt making. Her brand, Folk Fibers, has become a sought-after choice for heirloom quilt collectors. At her home studio and garden sanctuary, Maura immerses herself in color, allowing the transformation from seed to plant, dye, and textile to inform her work. 

She shares her expertise by teaching workshops locally and abroad, emphasizing a balance of technique and play. Maura and her family live on a ten-acre woodland property near the lower Colorado River in Bastrop, TX. Embracing the seasons, Maura's connection to nature and authentic living continues to inspire her creative work.

Takeaways:

1. Once you sit down to work in this slow intentional process of hand sewing there’s a heartbeat, a quiet space, a discipline of being present and reflection, allowing the waters to clear.
2. Artist dates are where creativity blooms.
3. Quilts touch the deepest parts of people’s lives.
4. There are many places in life where we have a need to control, but our art practice is a place where we can let go of that control.
5. The work speaks for itself, it’s told to me in real time.

Maura Ambrose Folk Fibers

Maura Ambrose on Instagram

Maura Ambrose on Facebook

Aurora Silk natural dyes 

Glue & adhesives, rules & parameters, loving the outcome without loving the process (this is where discipline comes in!), purposefully making things that others might not want, and knots all come up in today’s episode with Lisa Solomon.

Lisa Solomon is a studio artist that moonlights as a college professor and illustrator/graphic designer. Profoundly interested in the idea of hybridization (sparked from her Hapa heritage), her mixed-media works and large installations revolve around domesticity, craft, and personal histories. She often fuses "wrong" things together--recontextualizing their original purposes and incorporating materials that question the line between ART and CRAFT. She resides in Oakland, California with her husband, a teenager, two kitties, a three legged pit-bull, a dachshund mutt and many, many spools of thread. She is the author of - A Field Guide To Color, The Color Meditation Deck, a historical book on Crayola crayons, Knot Thread Stitch, and the illustrator for 20 Ways to Draw a Chair and Draw 500 Everyday Things. 

Takeaways

1. When it comes to making art, consider using the word ‘parameters’ instead of ‘rules.’
2. Art is a space where you investigate things.
3. Discipline is integral to everything.
4. It’s not about only making work when you are inspired, it’s about the ACT of making.

You can contribute to Lisa’s Japan Chroma Exhibit by sending material before May 30, 2025 to: PO BOX 99534, Emeryville, CA 94662

Lisa Solomon

Lisa Solomon on Instagram

Lisa Solomon on Bluesky

Lisa Solomon on Pinterest

Lisa Solomon on Amazon

Artists Take Action

This to That

Walter Maciel gallery

Tadao Ando architect

Michael McConnell was born in Michigan, where he used to watch squirrels from the front window. He graduated from Columbus College of Art & Design, with an emphasis in lithography and painting, and landed in the Bay Area soon after, where he still lives. Making art is how Michael makes sense of the world and his forgotten childhood, creating visual narratives that examine the space between memory and nostalgia.

During his conversation with Molly Meng, Michael talks about how falling in love with Joseph Cornell’s work allowed him to excavate his own language of “symbology.” He also reveals how the ropes and strings used in his work are about lineage and connection, symbolizing a narration thread.

Takeaways

1. You can figure out how you want to make something by learning how someone else makes something.
2. Your personal life affects your artwork. If you’re feeling like you don’t have a voice, ask yourself what you want to say with your art. Are people listening?
3. Slow down and let go of the expectation that you should crank the work out.
4. Be careful what you start collecting!  
5. Color becomes an environment for things and is about pushing something and taking it further.
6. “Sometimes you just go into the studio and just sharpen pencils.” The Woodmans documentary

Michael McConnell

Michael McConnell on Instagram

Michael McConnell on Bluesky

Joseph Cornell

Courtney Cerruti

Brian McDonald

The Woodmans documentary