I met Lorri Scott at an art retreat--Art Unraveled? Or Art is You in Petaluma? I can't remember, and  that's the way it is with art retreats--you see the same people at many of them, and the retreats begin to blend together in your memory. But not Lorri's artwear--you'd never mistake it for anything else. Her up cycled slip dresses and linen jacket shirts are all one-of-a-kind, hand-dyed and altered and embellished in Lorri's signature style. I fell hard for one of her jackets last year in Petaluma. It found a new home with someone who adores it just as I did, but I keep hoping it will magically show up on my doorstep someday, anyway. 

To see more of Lorri's work, visit her website, her blog, and her Etsy shop. 

My friend Chris Malone makes dolls. But, oh, honeys--that doesn't even begin to describe the sculptures Chris creates. I've seen many of his pieces in person, and while the costumes and beading are absolutely amazing, what I can't get over are the hands and faces, each individually sculpted by hand. They're so lifelike that I expect the fingers to reach over and touch mine. We've stayed with Chris and his partner, Bill, at their home outside Washington, DC, and I've gotten to watch Chris work in the morning, standing at his dining room table without any equipment or complicated tools. A-maz-ing.

You can find out more about Chris and his work in my book, Creative Time and Space, in which he's one of the contributing artists. To see more of Chris's work, go to his website, here. 

I met BJ Adams when I interviewed her for a profile in the Summer 2012 issue of Art Quilting Studio (out June 1st, 2012). It was a wonderful conversation--she's a lot of fun to talk to, full of ideas and enthusiasm and a willingness to share information about sources and techniques. When we talked, she was just finishing up a really busy year: when she turned 80, she set herself the challenge of creating 80 8" x 8" canvases representing a retrospective of her work so far. And I mean "so far"; she's in the studio working on a couplel new series and with enough ideas, she says, for several more lifetimes. I love this: I'm at an age when many of the people around me think their careers are coming to a close, that they're too old to start anything new, that it's too late to get excited about, well, about much of anything. It's a ridiculous attitude, and I love talking to people like BJ who are living life the way it's meant to be lived, savoring everything, finding inspiration everywhere, and pursuing her endless curiosity. 

In this conversation, we talk about her embroideries; go here so you'll know what we're talking about. Go here to see the 80 at 80 series. And here are the book sculptures we talk about near the end of our conversation, and here are photos of the centerpiece for the party. Here's BJ's blog, and if you go back to April of 2011, you can read the first of her art app reviews--there are several, so take some time to go through them all if you're at all interested in iPad apps. Stay tuned for more of those as she gets caught up~~

Laurel Gibson works in both ceramics and fiber, and I first saw her coffee filter embroideries on the walls of the Starbucks where she used to work as a barrista. Amazing work--I was totally captivated. We did an article about it for Somerset Studio, and I wanted to find out what she's been up to since then. Turns out she's finishing up two life-sized embroideries for a show May 12th in San Antonio at R Gallery. You can find out more on Facebook.

Jill Berry is always terrific to talk to, full of ideas and information and new projects and plans for even *more* new projects, and I love all of it. In this podcast, we talk about her current Iris project--or, rather, sort of multiple Iris projects, which is just this totally cool thing about how one idea just keeps on multiplying--and ideas for a collaborative map project, map garments, Google map paintings, working outside your comfort zone and why failing spectacularly is good for you. And some other stuff, too. 

To find out more about Jill and see more of her work, go to jillberrydesign.com

Seth Apter's first book, The Pulse of Mixed Media, is now on the shelves everywhere, and Seth has set up a fabulous variety of events--both live and online--for people to meet and talk about the results of the surveys he did for the book. He's becoming the roving ambassador for the mixed media community, and in this podcast we talk about some of those events, particularly his recent Twitter party, which sparks all kinds of ideas for meeting like-minded people to talk about art. You can find out more on Seth's blog at The Altered Page.

Melanie Testa is on fire with her wardrobe, altering everything and making blouses out of vintage linens and preparing to start a series of blog posts for CreateMixedMedia.com about surface design on garments. And I cannot wait for this: it's really rare to find someone who's excited to talk to about altering clothing. I love that Melly is loving this, and we have fun here starting the conversation. She's going to be hosting a sew-along on her brand-new-and-improved blog at melanietesta.com starting in April, and you can read her columns at CreateMixedMedia.com starting April 17th. 

Maggie Rudy makes mice. I love saying that--it just sounds so cool: "Maggie makes mice." But what Maggie does is way cooler than just creating fabulously detailed felt mice; she's created Mouseland, a whole world of mice and their companion animals and everything they need to exist, from tiny working lamps to actual books to stoves to--well, you get the idea. If you were ever a fan of The Borrowers, you know what I'm talking about here: a fabulous miniature world full of things found and gathered and repurposed. Maggie is a complete joy to talk to--enthusiastic, interesting--and you can find out more about her and about Mouseland by going to her blog at Mouse Houses. You can find her first book, The House That Mouse Built, here.

Christine Mason Miller is an entrepreneur, an artist, a world traveler and the author of Desire to Inspire: Using Creative Passion to Transform the World. In this book, she writes about how each of us can be "an example for possibility and passion," and in this podcast she talks more about that, about her purpose in life, and about what's coming up. (Hint: think art + inspiration + community!) You can find her book here, and you can find everything else on her website, here, including a link that will take you to Christine's regular column at CreateMixedMedia.com

Janet Bodin is a Houston artist working in fiber and creating figurative sculpture--what we refer to as art dolls--but that description doesn't even begin to do tell you about her amazing work. I first saw her figures was when I was a judge for the Treasures of the Gypsy Challenge at the International Quilt Festival in Houston where we awarded her first place. Yes, her pieces are *that* fabulous. Recently, I got to talk to her for an upcoming profile in Art Doll Quarterly--you can see that in the summer 2012 issue, on the shelves May 1st. We talk about ideas and inspiration, and we talk a lot about her studio renovation--the floors were being put in and she was getting ready to move in the furniture the week we talked.

You can see Janet's work at janetbodin.com, and you can read her blog at janetbodin.blogspot.com