Nick Leng is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer known for his abstract blend of electronica, classical piano and ambient soundscapes. Nick’s music is hard to categorize but evokes a sense of musical synesthesia, which he describes as a kaleidoscope of emotions turned into sounds. 

Nick's musical journey began in his early years growing up in South Africa, where he was classically trained on the piano. His formal education provided a strong foundation for his later experimental approach, as he learned to seamlessly blend technical skill with a passion for experimentation. 

In today’s episode, Nick talks with me about his musical development and the nuances of his ever-evolving creative process. 

In a world where artists are often pressured to keep up with the demands of producing new content, Nick openly shares his struggles with the industry’s relentless pace. He talks with me about the importance of resisting this pressure and taking time to sit with the muse, allowing his songs to develop naturally.

In keeping with our Season theme of Reclaiming Wonder, Nick contributes a fascinating perspective on discovering wonder within new sounds and new ways of approaching music.

Name Drops:
Chopin 

Maurice Ravel 

Scriabin 

Dawn of Midi 

Portsmouth Sinfonia

Topics: 

Minimal Techno

Rominimal Music 

Subconscious 

Classical Music 

Experimental Music 

Creative Process 

Join our creative collective

Give a one-time donation

Watch Nick Leng's Insanely cool Beetle Bugs music video

Edward Knippers is a visual artist whose large-scale body of work spans 50 years of practice and explores various genres, including figurative, expressionism, abstraction, and cubism.  

His work has been displayed in museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide and centers on the human body. 

His paintings often depict scenes from biblical narratives and invite us to consider the goodness, brokenness, mystery, and glory of embodiment, urging us to grapple with the temptation to avoid, sexualize, downplay, or disparage the human form. 

Image Journal said of Edward Knippers that he is "without a doubt, one of the founding fathers of contemporary efforts to explore the relationship between Christian faith and the creation of outstanding new visual art.”

Alongside garnering numerous awards and accolades, Ed’s work has been the subject of much controversy.  It has been banned, defaced, and even mutilated. The nudity, sometimes violent or disfigured forms within his paintings, have left some viewers offended at his imaginative handling of the biblical narratives. 

I had the honor of interviewing Edward live at Gordon Conwell’s Embodied Faith Symposium in Charlotte NC.  In our talk, I ask Ed about the role of embodiment within his work, how he has handled his critics and what advice he would give to this generation of emerging artists. 

Support The Podcast.

Give A One Time Thank You Gift

Melbourne-based visual artist and electronic musician Mike Lane creates under the name Chalom, a name spoken to him in a dream. His practice consists of visually expressing dreams and meditations, with mostly found materials, embedded bible pages, penciled notes, and spray paint. 

Beyond the haphazard backgrounds of his paintings, brushes or tools are rarely used in the making, just hands and fingers employing scrawly texts, scribbles, and vaguely figurative forms.

CHALOM’s prolific work is a deeply spiritual practice, and he loves to write blessings and prophecies, hidden under the paintings for the viewer to experience as mysteries and positive energetic flow, intended to shift the atmosphere in the spaces where the works are hung.

In this episode, Chalom talks with Stephen Roach about his creative process and the deeply-felt spiritual underpinnings behind his visual art.

Topics:
Dreams and Visions

Abstract Art

Risk in Art

Surprise in Art 

Experiencing the Now 

Name Drops: 

Ludwig Von Zinzendorf 

Henri Nouwen 

Rivertribe 

Become a Patron! Help us continue our work!

In this episode, podcast host Stephen Roach takes listeners on a journey into the world of ecstatic poetry. Drawing from the wisdom of Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton and author/scholar Michael Edwards, Stephen highlights poetry as mankind’s first language. He tells us, the meaning of a poem is not found in what a poem is about, but rather what effect the poem has on it’s hearer. Through reciting several of his own poems, Stephen reveals poetry and the poetic encounter as a doorway to wonder.

THE BREATH AND THE CLAY WRITER'S RETREAT Oct. 25-27 in Moravian Falls, NC. APPLY NOW.

Join our creative collective

Give a one-time donation

Purchase A Collection of Stephen's Poetry

Our voice is one of the most uniquely defining qualities of our person.  For artists and writers, finding our voice is a foundational and often painstaking process of search and discovery. For many, finding the courage to acknowledge, I am an artist. I am a writer. I am a musician, takes a lot of courage. Speaking it out for the first time can be an act of bravery and overcoming self doubt, imposter syndrome and fear. 

In her book, The Mystics Would Like A Word, author Shannon K. Evans says, 

“Claiming your own voice - your own perspective, your own experience, your own intuition, your own prophetic call to the world - is essential for artmaking.” 

In this episode, Shannon talks about her journey of overcoming imposter syndrome, embracing her whole experience of balancing artistry and motherhood and how six revolutionary women mystics helped her reclaim her authentic voice.

Name Drops:

Margery Kempe 

Julian of Norwich 

Hildegard of Bingen 

Stephen King

Rollo May

Topics:
Imposter syndrome 

Motherhood 

Wonder in the mundane

Unconventional lifestyles of women mystics 

The writer’s life

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy exclusive interview segments at http://patreon.,com/makersandmystics

Apply to attend The Breath and The Clay Writer's Retreat. Oct. 25-27, 2024 in Moravian Falls, NC.

Stephanie J. Spencer is a visual artist, author, nature-lover and an Enneagram coach who is not afraid of hard questions. She loves moving towards the struggles of the human experience to help people find new ways forward. Stephanie has spent years coaching individuals and teams from around the country, from major universities to local churches, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses. Time and again, she has seen the power of the Enneagram, imagery, and questions to open pathways for growth and transformation. 

In our conversation, Stephanie and I discuss the Enneagram as a tool to help artists become more self aware and understand their own temperaments and motivations. Drawing from her book, Out of The Box and Into the Wild, Stephanie and I talk about discovering wonder in nature and how the natural world can serve as a metaphor for our own internal landscapes. 

You can find links to Stephanie’s work as well as an unedited version of this conversation in the show notes and at patreon.com/makersandmystics 

Name Drops: 


Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Sleeping At Last (Ryan O’Neal)

Topics: 



Enneagram and Nature

Natural imagery

Routine and Ritual

Join us at our Writer's Retreat! Oct.25-27, 2024!

Be sure to give us a follow on Instagram @makersandmystics 

When we think of wonder or beauty, we might be inclined to think in terms of an external appearance, a scene of nature or an attractive person. But what if wonder is something that grows from the inside out? What if wonder is way of seeing? And what if wonder is an interior force, one that begins in the hidden recesses of our perceptions? 

Today, on the show I’m talking with Oregon based, poet, writer and critic, Paul J Pastor.  Paul serves HarperCollins as senior acquisitions editor for their Zondervan imprint, and also serves as a contributing editor for Ekstasis magazine. He's the author of several books, including Bower Lodge: Poems, and two forthcoming titles: The Locust Years and The Fire Cantos. 

In our conversation, Paul and I discuss the importance of learning to see as a means of engaging wonder. Drawing from the work of William Blake, Flannery O’ Connor and stories from the Gospels, this episode takes us on a journey into our perceptions and invites us to reconsider beauty as more than an aesthetic experience.  

Topics: Perception, beauty, wonder as an interior experience.

Art Forms: Literature, Philosophy

Name Drops: William Blake, Flannery O'Connor, Herbert, Donne, Horace, Sappho, Wallace Stevens, Dante, Byung Chul Han

Music: Some Were At Sea

THE BREATH AND THE CLAY WRITER'S RETREAT Oct. 25-27 in Moravian Falls, NC. APPLY NOW.

Join our creative collective

Give a one-time donation

Philosopher, Simone Weil said that attentiveness is the heart of prayer. In this episode, we discuss postures of attentiveness as gateways to wonder.

Guests: Dr. Mary McCampbell is an author, educator, and speaker whose publications span the worlds of literature, film, and popular music. She is the author of Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy.

Dr. Joe Kickasola is a Professor of Film and Digital Media at Baylor University.  He is the author of The Films of Krzysztof Kieślowski: The Liminal Image, and has published in numerous academic venues and anthologies, including Film Quarterly, The Quarterly Review of Film and Video,  and The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film.  

_____

Topics: Attentiveness, cynicism, receptivity, humility, consumerism, experiencing wonder during times of upheaval, 

Art Forms: filmmaking, photography, literature. 

Name Drops: Douglas Copeland, G.K. Chesterton,  Jim Jarmusch, Terrence Malick, T.S.Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrey Rublev, Rothko, Stan Brakhage, Virginia Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, 

Movie References: Patterson, Tree of Life, Zabriskie Point 

Support The Podcast! We need your help to continue our work of advocating for the arts.

Join our creative collective

Give a one-time donation

Cleo Rinkwest is a South-African actor who has worked with the likes of Samuel L Jackson, The Walking Dead's Callan McCauliff, and Game of Thrones, Charlotte Hope. Through her acting, she seeks to perform stories that go beyond entertainment and enlighten her audiences to values of human flourishing. 

Her current film projects follow themes of justice and mercy, capital punishment laws in Southern Africa, the supernatural realm, and the impact of AI on humanity. 

In our conversation, Cleo shares about the sacred service of the actor, the role of empathy in her art form and how she embodies the personas of the characters she portrays.  In keeping with our season theme Reclaiming Wonder, I asked Cleo what reclaiming wonder looks like in her life. Be sure to listen to the end for her answer. 

If you’re a patron of podcast, we reserved a special segment of our conversation exclusively for you. In that segment, Cleo shares about the aspect of collaboration and the challenges of being a working actor in South Africa. 

Help us continue our work! We can't do this without your support. If this podcast has been meaningful to you, show the love.

You can give a one-time donation here or join our monthly creative collective here.

Thank you, friends!

Poema: An Online Course by Stephen Roach

One of the more powerful aspects of visual art, is when a single image encapsulates an entire narrative, or when viewing a painting or illustration, the viewer’s imagination is invited to fill in the gaps and finish the tale.  I recently came across an artist whose work embodies this narrative quality. I found myself going back to his images and studying what story was being told through the characters and gestures in each frame.  I was moved to create in response. Which, for me is always a sure sign of a living work of art, when I am compelled to respond or when creativity is awakened and I am transported to an experience of wonder.  Today, I have the honor of introducing this artist to you. 

Cody F. Miller is a printmaker, illustrator, and mixed media artist whose illustrations often depict people on a journey, navigating the interplay between light and darkness, as they try to find their way home. Cody’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions and publications such as the “Arts Beacon of Light” at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and the current front cover of Comment magazine. He received an Individual Excellence award in 2002 and 2018 from the Ohio Arts Council and is represented by the Sharon Weiss Gallery.

In our conversation, Cody shares about his own incredible journey of searching to find home and how discipline and everyday experiences become unlikely doorways to wonder. 

If you have found yourself lacking wonder, I encourage you to spend some time with Cody’s work and also to listen to this episode in full for some practical wisdom on how to get unstuck. You can find images of Cody’s work on our Instagram and on his website. 

Help us continue our work! We can't do this without your support. If this podcast has been meaningful to you, show the love.

You can give a one-time donation here or join our monthly creative collective here.

Thank you, friends!