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In this episode you’ll hear: author Beth Pickens discuss Your Art Will Save Your Life, and wisdom on why you need to preserve your artistic practice, and what to do with what blocks you.
Our guest is: Beth Pickens, a Los Angeles-based consultant for artists and arts organizations and the author of Your Art Will Save Your Life. She has a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, and provides career consultation, grant writing, fundraising, and financial, project, and strategic planning services for artists and arts organizations in the U.S. She teaches at the California Institute of the Arts School of Theater, and specializes in supporting queer and trans artists, women, and artists of color.
Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. She specializes in decoding diaries written by rural women in the 19th century. She credits her ability to read nearly-illegible things to a childhood spent trying read her dad’s handwriting. She reinterprets traditional narratives in her blogs, podcasts, essays, photography, and poetry. Christina supports her artistic practice by taking daily photos in nature, which she posts at: https://www.facebook.com/themeditationwalks/
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:


Big Friendship by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman


Art INC. by Lisa Congdon


Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic by Lisa Congdon


How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell


Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland


How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price


Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles by Beth Pickens (out April 6 on Chronicle Books)


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