The Side Woo

Xiao Wang (b. 1990), is a Chinese born, New York based figurative painter primarily working with oil paint. Wang’s work combines dramatic and moody color palettes with a realism approach. He creates constructed scenes from photographs of still lifes, foliage, interior spaces, landscapes, himself, his friends, and loved ones. The contents of these scenes are rooted in everyday life, while the attention to atmosphere and emotion pushes the paintings to an uncanny space. With the use of theatrical lighting and distortion or exaggeration of colors, the world depicted in Wang’s paintings is elevated to a dreamlike space. At the center of this space are human figures, often in solitude, unaware of the fourth-wall in front.

Show Notes

This week Sarah chats with Basement VHS podcast and filmscreening hosts, Luca Antonucci and Mitsu Okubo. Sarah asks them about their love of horror and why it might be the best thing to get over the nighttime scaries.

About Basement VHS

The premier VHS seed bank of San Francisco! Highlights from our +3000 and counting vhs library. Basement Radio Fridays 6-8pm on Radio Valencia. Hosted by Luca and Mitsu.

Show Notes:

This week Sarah talks with author and educator Natalie Serber, a former mentor of hers that she met randomly - so random - during the pandemic. They talk about writing good endings, loving your worst characters, and how Natalie thrived after her breast cancer diagnosis.

About Natalie Serber:

Natalie Serber is a fiction writer, essayist, and educator. She is the author of Shout Her Lovely Name, a book that was reviewed by the NY Times Book Review, O Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. She also wrote Community Chest, a compilation of essays written during her recovery from breast cancer.

Natalie received an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in The Bellingham Review and Gulf Coast, among others, and her awards include the Tobias Wolff Award. She teaches writing at various universities and lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.

Show Notes

Sarah sat down for a chat at the Space Program Recording Studios in November 2023 to ask Griff Williams, Founder of Gallery 16 about his 30+ years running a San Francisco-gallery. We also talk about his documentary "Tell them we were here" about 8 artists making art outside the gallery system and the impact they have made on the Bay Area's many diverse and underrepresented communities.

About Gallery 16

Gallery 16 was founded in 1993 by artist Griff Williams with the primary focus of representing and advocating for the work of living contemporary artists. In addition to the regular exhibition schedule, the gallery sponsors artists talks, and hosts performances and music throughout the year. It’s our belief that the brick and mortar gallery model, to be culturally relevant, needs to embody new strategies for facilitating and presenting artist’s projects. The space, as Williams describes it, “allows for the artist to fail. We don’t create exhibitions around curatorial agendas, but extend an invitation to artists we trust and hope they use the opportunity to challenge themselves without restrictions.

Studio notes

As part of the Pure Beauty exhibition at Eleanor Harwood, Sarah hosted a live panel discussion on Resilience and Joy with artists Tara Daly, Mary Finlayson, and Rachel Kaye. Everyone shares the trials and triumphs they have faced over the course of their careers and fields audience questions.

The conversation was recorded on March 13, 2024. To inquire about any work in the show, reach out to the gallery directly.

Show Notes

In honor of the end of Flip Phone February, this week Sarah talks with the co-creator of the Light Phone, a "dumbphone" made to help people spend less time using their phones. Most recently Light Phone has done a collaboration with Kendrick Lamar for their instantly sold-out Light Phone II this past fall.

Joe shares how he and his partner Kaiwei Tang came up with the idea for the phone, and what impact running a business has made on his creative life. We also talk about the very real addiction most of us have to our smartphones, and some strategies for stepping back from the most unproductive digital habits.

About Joe Hollier

Joe Hollier is a multi-disciplinary artist from Brooklyn. He studied design at the School of Visual Arts. He's a filmmaker, designer, director, and entrepreneur. He likes to make stop animations, collages, patterns and drawings, music videos, documentaries, and books.

Show Notes

This week Sarah is in San Francisco and gets the chance to talk with artist Jason Hanasik about his career as a photographer and filmmaker. Jason talks about creating GAP’s contribution to the It Gets Better Campaign, losing a sister to mental health challenges and what personal liberation can look like. Sarah shares some personal news.

About Jason

Jason Hanasik is a filmmaker, artist, journalist, and curator. His work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, screened at various international film festivals, and featured on the BBC, The Guardian and in The Los Angeles Times. He has curated exhibitions for the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and his scholarship has been published in the academic journal “Critical Military Studies.” Hanasik’s photography monograph, "I slowly watched him disappear," is in the research collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA NYC, and other institutions.

Show Notes:

This week Sarah talks with Bay Area artist Amber Jean Young about her work, grief from losing her mother, and then why she chose to have a double mastectomy and an oophorectomy after the birth of her second child.

About Amber Jean Young

Amber Jean Young (b. 1984) is an interdisciplinary artist residing in Berkeley California. Young’s work explores ideas about place, grief, and resilience across mediums, creating vibrant patterns and plant imagery in her compositions. She has exhibited nationally including Bryant Street Gallery in Palo Alto, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Hashimoto Contemporary, and Marrow Gallery in San Francisco, Berkeley Art Center in Berkeley, Monte Vista Projects and Subliminal Projects in Los Angeles, the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. She is a 2012 Djerassi Resident Artist Program fellow. Her work has been published the San Francisco Chronicle, Palo Alto Weekly and in catalogs including The MediaMath Collection: Selected Acquisitions 2012 - 2016, A Celebration of 50 Years of Women Artists At Kenyon College, MusiCares 2010 catalog. Her art has been used on the covers and inside jackets of multiple Neil Young and Pegi Young albums and is included in the MediaMath and Fidelity Investments corporate art collections.

Show Notes

This week Sarah talks with editor, creative director and co-writer of Taschen's Library of Esoterica books, Jess Hundley. Jess shares her plan for creating the as of today four encyclopedic books, Tarot, Astrology, Witchcraft and Plant Magick, and the important part the Philosophical Research Society played in finding materials for the books.

About Jess Hundley
Jessica Hundley is a Creative Director, Writer & Producer specializing in music, film, counterculture, magick and psychedelia.

As an author and editor, Hundley is currently engaged on projects for book publishers Abrams, Phaidon and Rizzoli. Hundley is also creator, author and Series Editor for Taschen Publications multivolume collection, The Library of Esoterica, a book series exploring the visual history of Tarot, Astrology and other esoteric traditions.
Recent projects as a Creative Director include overseeing staging, visuals and overall concepting for John Legend's 2021 Bigger Love Tour and Legend’s 2022-23 Las Vegas residency. Hundley continues to work collaboratively with John Legend and his team as a Creative Director and Producer, overseeing the recent launch of Legend's LOVED01 skincare line, as well as album art, limited edition book and album packaging and commercial projects. Hundley also served as co-creative director alongside Darren Romanelli on the DomeRX an immersive art experience at the 2022 FORMAT Festival. Other recent copywriting and creative directing work includes drink brand GHIA and an expansive campaign for Corona/Mexico alongside the team at CAA/Observatory.
As an author, Hundley has published over a dozen books in the last decade, an acclaimed biography on country rock icon Gram Parsons for DaCapo, a book on music and meditation with the director David Lynch, and an overview of photographs from longtime Michael Jackson photographer Todd Gray and extensive overview of the photography of Dennis Hopper from Taschen Publications.

Show notes:

Ever since she picked up Moonology in 2019, Sarah has been wanting to talk with Yasmin Boland, creator of Moonology the book and oracle decks inspired by the phases of the moon. Finally, this week, Sarah shares her conversation with Yasmin in early November 2023. During their conversation, Yasmin shares her career path from Journalist to Witchy Astrologer, and what led her to create a system of New Moon and Full Moon rituals to help her manifest her life goals and dreams.

About Yasmin Boland

Yasmin Boland is an award-winning astrologer and the Sunday Times best-selling Hay House author of books including Moonology and Astrology Made Easy and the creator of the Moonology oracle cards, possibly the best-selling oracle cards in the history of oracle cards. A former journalist and TV producer, Yasmin's work has been featured around the world, including Vogue, Oprah and Red, and she was recently named as one of the most spiritually influential people on the planet. Yasmin' taps into ancient lunar wisdom to explain to people that they can use Moonology and the Moon, as the most consistent and effective manifesting tool.

Show Notes

On November 5, 2023 Sarah hosted three guest artists at the Institute of Contemporary Art - San Francisco for a live panel discussion on creativity and what blocks it.

During their conversations they discuss where ideas come from, why do we as artists get creatively blocked and what can we do about it.

Show Notes

This week we share a conversation with Sarah and Bay Area artist Jamil Hellu. They talked during a shared artist residency at the Space Program in August 2023.

About Jamil Hellu

This week Sarah talks Delia Brown, an artist and psychedelic-therapist-in-training living in the Bay Area.  Delia shares her ups and downs of having a multi-decade career in the art world and why she is leaving it all behind.

She shares her experience getting diagnosed with cancer, her subsequent recovery, and how she came to her new career path in psychedelic therapies.

About Delia Brown

Delia Brown's work is primarily engaged in exploring desire as an individuated experience that connects the personal to the collective unconscious, often mediated through advertising and commercial culture. Referencing early bourgeois painting genres, she paints herself and her friends enacting their fantasies of being part of the leisure class, with props from snacks and beverages to million-dollar artworks functioning as important accessories in the assumption of privilege.

Show Notes

This week Sarah reads for artist, activist, and podcast host Nikki Nolan. They talk about how to break from the patterns of perfectionism and let your inner Leo take center stage.

Show Notes

For the first Artist Tarot Reading episode, Sarah does a reading for LA artist and curator Vivien Chung who is wondering about making a big career move. You can check out Vivien's work on her website http://www.vivienchung.com/ and her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vivienpaints/

Reserve your spot at the Live Talk on Creativity and What Blocks It hosted by The Side Woo @ICA SF

This week Sarah talks with Sonny Smith about the creative process and what he has learned about sustaining inspiration for his music over multiple decades and many style changes. Recorded at The Space Program in July 2023. About Sonny Smith Sonny Smith (born 1972) is an American musician, playwright and multimedia artist from San Francisco. He has released fourteen albums since 2000, largely with group Sonny & The Sunsets. His work has variously encompassed blues, folk, pop and rock elements. AllMusic noted that his 2002 album, This Is My Story, This Is My Song, lifted him from obscurity to cult status.

Smith is a songwriter in the tradition of Ray Davies whose songs are often populated by characters with an emphasis on outcasts, weirdos, freaks, death, love and atypical transformation. They sometimes recall the 1950s era doo wop of The Falcons combined with the direct sincerity and positive spirit of Modern Lovers’ Jonathan Richman, the kitchen sink wisdom of Michael Hurley and the absurdity of The Hairy Who? art collective, as well as the dark confessional humor of cartoonists like Robert Crumb.

Show Notes

Sarah sits down with Bay Area artist Ron Moultrie Saunders to talk about the ways in which he cultivates and tends to his many communities, with a focus on supporting African American artists in San Francisco through projects like the Black [Space] Residency and the 3.9 Collective. We talk ancestry.com, giant plants, and what it means to get art to communities who don't usually go to museums through public art. This interview was recorded at The Space Program residency.

About Ron Moultrie Saunders

Ron Moultrie Saunders, a co-founding member of the 3.9 Art Collective, is a photographic artist and landscape architect. Originally from Jamaica, Queens, New York, he currently lives in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. He creates photograms: photographs that are made without the use of a camera. His art work is in the San Francisco Arts Commission Civic Art Collection for projects he completed for the San Francisco Library, Linda Brooks-Burton Bayview Branch, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, Laguna Honda Hospital and, Public Utilities Commission New Headquarters in San Francisco. He was commissioned to create works for VM Ware, Inc. in Palo Alto, CA and Dallas, TX and, for The San Francisco Travel Association (formerly SF Convention and Visitors Bureau) new offices. His art has been exhibited throughout the US including “The Secret Life of Plants”, solo shows (San Francisco International Airport and CordenPotts Gallery, San Francisco, CA), and group shows "Echoes of Bauhaus Photography Cast Long Shadows" at Ruth's Table, San Francisco, California (2020),“Self:Scape” at Middlesex County College, New Jersey(2012), “Exposed: Today’s Photography/Yesterday’s Technology” (San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art), “Measure of Time”(Oakland Museum of California at City Center). His work is published in several books including “Self Exposure: The Male Nude Self-Portrait” and “From Art to Landscape”. Recently he completed an artist-in-residence at STAR (Shipyard Trust for the Arts) in the Hunter’s Point Shipyard in San Francisco. His studio is located at Minnesota Street Project Studio in the Dogpatch area of San Francisco.

Show Notes

In this episode, Sarah talks with podcast host, psychotherapist, and tarot aficionado Shannon Knight of The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast. They discuss synchronicities, the collective unconscious, and ways to engage with tarot beyond traditional divination.

About Shannon Knight
Shannon Knight (she/her) is a queer psychotherapist licensed in both Arizona and Florida where she specializes in working with individuals and couples. Shannon received her B.A. in Applied Clinical Psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology and her M.S. in Mental Health Counseling from Johns Hopkins University. She is the host of The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast and creator/facilitator of The Symposium community where she invites folks to meet at the intersection of tarot and mental health to explore tarot’s inherent psychological function of promoting self-reflection and healing.

Show notes

For this week’s episode, Sarah talks with researcher Tracy Poff who is doing her PhD on Medical Intuitives. After visiting a medical medium for an unexplained illness in her family, she felt compelled to study transpersonal psychology and then pursue her doctorate in medical intuitive practices. We talk about what exactly that is, how to discern a good one when meeting someone for the first time, and a general discussion of how intuition can inform all our decisions to make us more in tune with ourselves - a favorite topic on The Side Woo. 

About Tracy L. W. Poff

Tracy L. W. Poff is a student of Life whose work in the world is to infuse everyday living with the light of divine context. She holds an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School, and an MA in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. Straddling the worlds of intellect and intuition, Tracy is a soul-centered guide whose quest and teaching is to know thyself. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the Transpersonal Psychology program at Sofia University in Palo Alto, California, and the focus of her doctoral research is medical intuition, also known as medical clairvoyance. Medical intuition is a perceptual skill that uses non-local awareness, or extrasensory perception, to assess health conditions of another person. The phenomenon of medical intuition is a fresh area of study within academics and through her work, Tracy hopes to deepen understanding and raise awareness of our intuitive capacity as human beings.

Show Notes

Sarah talks with artist and activist Amy M. Ho. Amy talks about her work as an art teacher for an art-in-prison program at San Quentin Correctional Facility and how in 2021, her father was tragically killed during a mugging in downtown Oakland. Amy shares how her background in social justice activism with the prison system, has reinforced her belief in restorative justice, despite being touched personally by violent crime.

About Amy M. Ho

Amy M. Ho builds video and spatial installations that bring attention to our existence as both physical and psychological beings. Amy completed her undergraduate degree in Art Practice at University of California, Berkeley and her MFA at Mills College in Oakland, CA. She was selected as a KQED Woman to Watch in 2017, received a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artists Grant in 2013 and once won a costume contest at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack dressed as a fusilli pasta. Amy was included in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Bay Area Now 7 in 2014 and was a 2013 fellowship artist at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA. She has previously exhibited at the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA, the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, IL, and at the San Diego State University Downtown Art Gallery. Amy is a trustee at OUTPOST in Norwich, UK. She lives in Bozeman, MT and is currently designing a board game about dogs.   

Show notes

This week, to kick off Pride Month, Liz and Sarah talk with trans artist, Eli Thorne. We talk with Eli about his experience coming out and transitioning as a trans man, dating as a man for the first time on the hellscape known as Tinder (where he ended up finding love), the Faustian bargain of Instagram success, and how he feels about becoming a dad with his long-time partner.

About Eli Thorne

Eli Thorne was b.1986 in Harrogate, England, and raised in the mountains of Santa

Cruz, California. He received his BFA at UC Berkeley. Later received his MFA from Mills

College. As a trans paitnter and sculptor, his art practice aims to reconcile and negotiate

his own sense of and relationship to manhood. His work has been shown in various

spaces in the Bay Area; Mills College Art Museum, Southern Exposure, Root Division,

Gallery 16, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, Royal Nonesuch Gallery, and Et Al. He has given

talks at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and UC Berkeley and was a featured artist in

the KQED Artist series Redefining Pride. Eli currently lives and maintains his art

practice in Upstate, NY.

Show notes

This week Sarah talks with friend of the show, Rachel Dawson. Rachel shares the way her connection to her intuition has evolved throughout her life.

About Rachel Dawson

Rachel Dawson is an artist, educator, and intuitive located in Oakland, CA. She makes connections between her artistic practice and metaphysical processes, seeking to render the invisible visible and to materialize the immaterial. She is interested in how spiritual wellness practices are attached to a “feminine” space, such as the history of witchcraft and its connection to agency, medicines, and

power objects. As an artist, she sees her role as a medium within the feminized space of her intuitive practice and the process of art-making.

Raised in Southern California, she has spent the last two decades in the San Francisco Bay Area. When she is not in the studio making art, she is teaching art to gifted middle school and high school students. She received her MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, after she received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of San Francisco. Her work has been

exhibited in the US, Mexico, and Canada.

Show notes

This week Sarah sits down with Bay Area artist, Rebekah Goldstein. They talk about the way we define success and failures and look back at an ArtForum article, The Loser Thing, which examines a period in the 90s where failure was at the forefront of people's minds. Sarah and Rebekah discuss whether failure, and it's artistic counterpoint, the masterpiece, are useful in terms of how we look at art. Rebekah shares how her experience becoming a mother and how that transformed her painting.

This week on the Side Woo we talk with LA-based artist and former long-time Bay Area resident Kelly Lynn Jones.  I was really inspired by Kelly’s story and asked her to come on to talk about how she in 2018 she made the decision to file for bankruptcy for her store Little Paper Planes, which was a super cute boutique on Valencia Street in the Mission District of SF.  It came as a bit of a shock to those on the outside and I was really impressed by how transparent Kelly was while going through this challenging time that many would look at as a failure. But instead, Kelly saw it as a chance to change her life. She and her family eventually moved back to LA where she grew up, and began recommitting herself to her art practice.  Three years after returning, Kelly’s first solo show in LA sold out affording her the chance to pursue her art more seriously than she had for a decade since graduate school.

BONUS: Listen all the way to the end for some special ghost-related content. Spoiler: it involves ouiji boards. Really people don’t use them.

About Kelly Lynn Jones

Kelly Lynn Jones (b. 1977 Los Angeles, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist. She earned a BFA and MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Jones has shown her work in multiple group exhibitions including The Pit, La Loma Projects, The Lab, Kala Art Institute, The Berkeley Museum, Southern Exposure, Bedford Gallery, NURTUREart, and Charlotte Street Foundation.  Her work has been highlighted in The Wing’s 2020 publication,  San Francisco Chronicle, and Museums Press. Kelly Lynn Jones is represented by The Pit, Los Angeles. 

Show Notes

This week Liz and Sarah talk with Glasgow-based, cosmic-pop musician, performer and magickal practitioner Elisabeth Elektra about their magickal tendencies and prophetic dreams, including one in which they dreamt about the bombing of the Machester Ariana Grande concert the night that it happened. They share their love and affinity for both Prince and yes, Freddie Mercury, as well as what they see as the power of performing and music to connect people.

About Elisabeth Elektra

Glasgow-based musician Elisabeth Elektra (she/they) delivers poignant, deeply melodic art-pop anthems. Elektra released their self-produced debut ‘Mercurial’ in 2020 to widespread critical acclaim. Something spectacular, and something different...that’s the best way of describing the music of Elisabeth Elektra. A songwriter, producer, and performer drawing from the cosmic and the familiar to create pop music that’s as addictive and spine-tingling as the stories we’ve been telling for centuries.

Show Notes

This week we talk with the prolific Carissa Potter. She’s the founder of People I’ve Loved, and the host of the podcast Bad at Keeping Secrets. Carissa’s illustrations are gentle line drawings that tackle big subjects like emotional messiness, boundaries, and the search for meaning in a wild, imperfect world. Her newsletter and podcast interviews get into the nitty gritty of what it means to be alive and exist in a body while embodying the different roles of woman, mother, wife, and artist. We talk about much of this and more in our episode while unpacking the structures and systems we use to try and make sense of it all. About Carissa Potter Carissa Potter is a human longing for connection. She writes books, makes art & public commissions, and hosts the series Bad At Keeping Secrets (one of Substack’s featured newsletters of 2022) where she talks to other humans about the mess of being alive. Carissa is the founder of People I’ve Loved, the author of three books, one of AdAge’s 24 Most Inspiring People of 2021, and one of Cosmo Magazine’s 24 people making the world a better place. She lives in Oakland California with her daughter, partner, dad, and neighborhood cats. Show Notes

In this episode, Patron Saint of The Side Woo, Nikki Nolan shares her story about how she began advocating for patient rights, specifically a requirement for stricter regulations around medical consent. After a traumatic experience with a Bay Area medical facility in which her requests for an all-female staff during an ob-gyn procedure were denied, Nikki began researching how to implement policies that favor the agency of patients within medical institutions. Sarah shares her own traumatic experiences within the medical industry. And Nikki and Sarah discuss the benefits of having an internal locus of control on one's sense of self-worth, and self-efficacy and how patient consent will help to further that in vulnerable populations.

About Nikki Nolan

Nikki Nolan is a conceptual artist, designer, and podcaster based in Oakland, CA. Her thought-provoking work tackles important social issues, exemplified in her two podcasts, "Matter of Life and Debt" and "Disability Bandwidth". Nikki holds a master's degree in art with a specialization in interactive media from Pratt Institute, where she explored the effects of online media on human memory. She also has a bachelor's degree in sculpture and photography and a certificate in web development. Through her passion for art, design, and podcasting, Nikki Nolan inspires others to innovate with her unique perspective.

Show Notes

This week on The Side Woo, we talk with Adobe Books Director, former SECA Coordinator, and long-time Bay Area native Heather Holt.  The conversation looks at what it means to be queen of a scene, and what it was like on the outside after Heather left her former husband for a married man.  Plus, bonus shout out to Valley Girl culture.

About Heather Holt

Heather Holt graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an emphasis in photography and performance. She currently oversees all aspects of Adobe Books organizational systems including volunteer scheduling, operating all aspects of business management, community relations, book scouting, curating, conflict management, grant writing and PR. Heather was formerly the ED of ArtSpan, the producers of SF Open Studios where she reversed a three year budget deficit and launched a strategic planning process with the staff, community served and BOD to strengthen and enrich the impact the organization has on sustaining local and regional California artists. Prior to ArtSpan, Heather worked at the SFMOMA from 2004-2010 as the SECA Coordinator - supporting the museum's art award and exhibition program for local, Bay Area artists. Heather volunteered as a Summer Teachers Assistant at Lilydale Spiritualist Community in Upstate NY and has participated as SEVA for the Spirit Weavers Gathering in Southern Oregon. She enjoys tarot, astral travel, meditation and writing. When she is not working, you will find her dancing midweek at the clubs, cooking and hanging out with her family. She lives part time in San Francisco, Sonoma Valley and Upstate NY.

Show Notes

Our guest this week, Dr. Raghu Appasani, an integrative & addiction psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and neuroscientist, is trying to revolutionize mental health from the inside out.  We unpack alternative modes of healing and how can we start to transform the way mental health is diagnosed and treated.  He shares his work serving as the Chief Medical Officer of PYM (Prepare Your Mind), a wellness brand that produces supplements based on amino acids to support mental health, and why they work.  

About Raghu Appasani 

Dr. Raghu Kiran Appasani is an Integrative Psychiatrist, Neuroscientist, and Social Entrepreneur focused on bridging the gap between western and eastern practices to create a wholesome society by taking a proactive approach to health. Currently, he is an Addiction Psychiatry Fellow at the University of California-San Francisco where is also a member of the TrPR (Translational Psychedelic Research Program) team where he is focusing on the treatment of mental illness using psilocybin.  His current interests lie at the intersection of psychodynamic psychotherapy, integrative/nutritional psychiatry, mental health literacy, advocacy, wellness, entrepreneurship, and psychedelics. His alter-ego's life goal is to become a chef integrating farm-to-table experiences in stunning landscapes around the world.

Show Notes 

Sarah and Liz talk with Rachel Howe, an LA-based witch, healer and illustrator of the Small Spells tarot deck about her book Witch Ethics.  They talk astrology, mercury in Pisces and the importance of creating good energetic boundaries between you and the (spirit) world.

Rachel is a Los Angeles-based illustrator, reiki healer, stick and poke tattoo artist, a potter, a tarot card reader, and a writer. 

Show Notes

We invite back photographer and spiritualism scholar Shannon Taggert to tell us her stories about Freddie Mercury from the Spiritualism community.  She tells us celebrity ghost stories about Freddie, Michael Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, and Elvis. Plus, we dish on the idea of sex with ghosts ( first dibs on Sex With Ghosts as a band name).  

About Shannon Taggart 

Shannon Taggart is an artist and author based in St. Paul, MN. In a past life, she contributed to printed publications, including TIME, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Discover, New York, Wall Street Journal, and Reader’s Digest. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized by PDN, Nikon, Magnum Photos + Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography, International Photography Awards, and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace. Her first monograph, SÉANCE (Fulgur Press, 2019), was named ‘One of the Best Photobooks of 2019’ by TIME and will be re-released by Atelier Éditions in December 2022. Currently, Shannon is working on an illustrated book about The Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis (SORRAT), one of the most exotic cases in the history of psychical research. 

Show Notes 

https://www.shannontaggart.com/ 

Elvis Afterlife, the Unusual Psychic Experiences Surrounding The Death of a Superstar by Raymond Moody  

Everything You Need to Know About Ghost Sex via The Cut (paywall) 

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

About Amelia Whitehouse

Hello! I am Amelia of The Carnelian Keep- a Tarot Reader, Dream Interpreter, Events coordinator, Podcaster, Illustrator, Tarot Teacher, Writer, and astrology enthusiast- living and working in sexy Edinburgh, Scotland. I have been reading and studying Tarot cards for over 20 years, reading for friends for 12 years, reading for clients in Edinburgh (and globally) for 7 years and teaching Tarot online for 2 years. During that time I have read cards at countless events, in shops, at hen parties, in cars and, through the magic of technology for people all over the world! Astrology is a part of my practice that I value immensely and is such a vast topic of study and discussion that I am learning more about it all the time. I love learning from other Tarot readers, astrologers, and diviners – my Libra Stellium and I believe that a strong magickal community is key to keeping the craft alive and well.

Show Notes

Erica Wallace Moore is an Usui-trained Reiki Master Instructor. She conducts in-person and Remote Reiki sessions with included intuitive guided conversation. She specializes is providing a safe and welcoming environment to utilize relaxation as a focus to connect with inner being and Spirit. She listens and helps to clear energetic blockages, helps clients to discover the vibrational energetic self, and to focus on intention setting for the life and well-being most desired. 

Show Notes: 

• Erica Wallace Moore website 
• "Los Desparecidos" on Watson Review 
• National Alliance on Mental Illness  
• What is Reiki

Show Partners

About Kate Rhoades

Kate Rhoades’ lives and works in Oakland, California. Her videos, paintings and publications probe the ever-mutating art world. Her work has been presented in the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Santa Fe International New Media Festival. Rhoades has participated in exhibitions at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, and various venues, publications, hotel rooms and alleyways across North America and Europe. Since 2014 she has co-hosted the Bay Area's number one arts and culture podcast, Congratulations Pine Tree. Rhoades is also one of the Fleishhacker Foundation's Eureka Fellowship grantees for 2018. 

Show Notes: 

• Kate Rhoades website  
• Kate Rhoades Instagram 
• Congratulations Pine Tree  
• Maysoun Wazwaz, co-host on Congratulations Pine Tree 
• Required Skimming 
• Julia Bryan-Wilson  
• Death of An Artist 
• Ana Mendieta  

Show Partner  

Tech For Campaigns  

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

About Shannon Taggart 

Shannon Taggart is an artist and author based in St. Paul, MN. In a past life, she contributed to printed publications, including TIME, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Discover, New York, Wall Street Journal, and Reader’s Digest. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized by PDN, Nikon, Magnum Photos + Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography, International Photography Awards, and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace. Her first monograph, SÉANCE (Fulgur Press, 2019), was named ‘One of the Best Photobooks of 2019’ by TIME and will be re-released by Atelier Éditions in December 2022. Currently, Shannon is working on an illustrated book about The Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis (SORRAT), one of the most exotic cases in the history of psychical research. 

Show notes:  

• Pre-order Shannon Taggart: Seance in its 2nd print. The first edition was reviewed as ‘One of the Best Photobooks of 2019’— TIME 
• https://www.shannontaggart.com/ 
• Spiritualism  
• Lily Dale, NY: Western New York's home for mediumship and spiritual healing since 1879. 
• Oscar Gustav Rejlander - the father of art photography

About The Side Woo

Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

Host: Elizabeth Bernstein

Sound editing: Sarah Thibault

Content editing: Sarah Thibault

Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle

About Jesse Bransford 

Jesse Bransford is a New York-based artist whose work is exhibited internationally at venues including The Carnegie Museum of Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center and the CCA Wattis Museum among others. He holds degrees from the New School for Social Research (BA), Parsons School of Design (BFA) and Columbia University (MFA). An associate professor of art at New York University, Bransford's work has been involved with belief and the visual systems it creates since the 1990s. Recent work has focused on the folk magic of the Norse traditions, specifically the talismanic stave spells and the seiðr traditions. Parts of this work are collected in the recently published book from Fulgur Press, “A Book of Staves (Galdrastafabók).” He lectures widely on his work and the topics surrounding his work. He is the co-organizer of the biennial Occult Humanities Conference and an editorial member of the Black Mirror Network. 

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Host & Creator: Sarah Thibault 

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Intro and outro music: LewisP-Audio found on Audio Jungle