Grace: [00:00:00] I feel like art is for everybody. You don't need to have any sort of special like born talent or skill. I think you just have to be willing to try. I mean, of course I try to make my art nice, but I don't, I'm not like eaten alive by worrying about the outcome because I know I had a great time making the art. 

Malaika: Welcome to Happy Medium, a podcast where artists make art on the spot while creating art. With host me Malaika Hollist, we chat on topics like the days of doodling in their diary, how self-love gave them confidence, or on building a successful art career using only old boxes. This podcast made by W U S F Public Media is about one's journey to finding self through a creative medium. 

Malaika: Grace is an artist through and through. As a [00:01:00] person with a disability, she hasn't always had the opportunity to be treated as an adult and shine in her creativity. As a member of Creative Clay, she gets to do just that. With art at her fingertips, she has the opportunity to make, experiment, and even sell her art. 

Malaika: At the nonprofit Creative Clay today, she speaks with us on her favorite kinds of art to create. And her love for Creative Clay. And we also have a special guest appearance by Creative Clay's public relations manager, Kerry Kriseman, on how you too can get involved. 

Grace: Hi, my name is Grace. Thank you very much for having me here. 

Grace: I really like to do art. I sew most of my own clothing and I go to Creative Clay and I make paintings. I love art and I love Guinea pigs too. 

Malaika: So Grace, what do you love so much about creating art? 

Grace: What I love about creating art is it allows me to express myself and also it helps me relax. Like, you know, life can be stressful sometimes. 

Grace: Yeah. But when [00:02:00] I'm like painting or sewing, the stress just melts away. 

Malaika: Ooh, that sounds nice. I like that too. I like painting. It's really calming. I'm not like the best painter, but it doesn't really matter. I just like painting 'cause it makes me feel relaxed too. 

Grace: Oh yeah. It doesn't matter. Nope. It really doesn't. 

Grace: Yeah. 

Malaika: So you love to paint. What are your, what are your favorite things that you like to paint? 

Grace: Oh, I love to paint Guinea pigs on adventures. 

Malaika: Okay. Why Guinea pigs? 

Grace: Because I have a Guinea pig named Hazel. Mm-hmm. Okay. And she, that Guinea pig's the best thing that ever happened to me. Uhhuh, my mom got her for me because when I was younger, because I was really, really lonely and I started talking to stuffed animals. 

Grace: Mm-hmm. And so my mom, I guess, decided that I needed a friend. So one day we went to PetSmart. Mm-hmm. And there were Guinea pigs and I was like, oh, Guinea pigs. They're cute. And then my mom saw Hazel, [00:03:00] and after just looking at Hazel, she said, that's the one we need to get you this Guinea pig. And it was just fate. 

Grace: But me and that Guinea pig hazel are best friends. 

Malaika: What does Hazel look like? 

Grace: Hazel's, like she's kind of small for a Guinea pig. Yeah. She's like a little more of a pointy nose than most Guinea pigs. And she's a white Guinea pig with like a brown spot around her eye. A right eye has a brown patch. 

Grace: She's the prettiest pig ever. 

Malaika: And so when you, when you paint your Guinea pigs on adventures, what kind of adventures are they on? 

Grace: Like, I like to paint them. We have Guinea pigs have a friend, a dog named Ginger. Okay. My favorite painting I've ever made is of Ginger driving a I had in a dream once, so I painted my dream. 

Grace: Okay. Ginger was driving a little tutu train. And it was full of Guinea pigs and it's, I don't know why, but when I saw the train on the side of it, it 

[00:04:00] said the breakfast train. So that's what I call it, the breakfast train with the Guinea pigs. That's cool. I I made that into a painting actually. 

Malaika: You said you also like to sew. I love that. So you said, and you sew like all, a lot of the clothes you wear. What other kind of stuff do you sew? 

Grace: I like to sew purses a lot. 

Malaika: Oh, okay. Did you sew your purse that you brought today? 

Grace: Oh yes I did. 

Malaika: Do you wanna show them? You can. Oh yeah. Oh, it's so cute. How did you add the zippers and stuff? 

Malaika: Can I see? 

Grace: Yeah. The zipper sounds, the zippers intimidated me, but it's actually a lot easier than you would think. Yeah. Yeah. So cute. Thank you. 

Malaika: So when you sew stuff, do you have like certain colors, do you like to sew? Like do you have your favorite colors? 

Grace: Pinks, purples and turquoises. 

Malaika: That's a good, that's a good group of colors. 

Malaika: Yeah. They like we're, we're both wearing purples and pinks today. 

Grace: Yeah. My favorite. 

Malaika: Okay. So outside of [00:05:00] painting and sewing, is there any other arts that you like to do? 

Grace: I like to work with Clay sometimes. Ooh, okay. 

Malaika: What do you make when you work with clay? 

Grace: At Creative Clay I like to make finger puppets. Oh, okay. 

Grace: Like out of clay? Yeah. Creative Clay sells them to, I believe, a local theater. Mm-hmm. That gives them to members when they join. I really like making the finger puppets. 

Malaika: Do you, are they like little people? Are they little people? The finger puppets? 

Grace: Oh no. We usually make animals. Oh, okay. I made recently, I made one of Hazel and one of Ginger. 

Malaika: So you said at Creative clay you get to make art and then sometimes it gets, um, put in the gallery. 

Grace: Oh my God, I love it when that happens. 

Malaika: Do you? Yeah. What pieces have you had in the gallery? 

Grace: I've had a lot of pieces in the gallery. Let's see. In the gallery, I had one, I called it "Pig Pile". Okay. It was me. 

Grace: 'cause every time I go to bed, I sleep on [00:06:00] my bed and Hazel lies over my eyes like an eye mask. And I like to imagine that there are a bunch of little Guinea pig Guinea pigs lying on top of me like a blanket. Yeah. I love that. 

Malaika: We hope you are enjoying Happy Medium. Our podcast is made in collaboration with W U S F, Public Media Arts Axis Florida, and the N P R Network. Arts Axis Florida is your online destination for finding content on all things are going on in your area. Go to Arts Axis, that's AXIS florida.org to learn more and find all Happy Medium podcast episodes. 

Malaika: What do you love about having your stuff in a gallery? 'cause that's pretty cool. I haven't, I've never had anything in a gallery before. 

Grace: It's really fun. It's just nice. And Creative Clay. As I [00:07:00] go in, I walk by, I see my art on the wall and it just feels so good. Yeah. And I love it when like sometimes people will come in and buy it. 

Malaika: That's really cool.

Grace: And people get to come in and look even when they don't buy it. I just like it when people look at it. 

Malaika: Yeah. They get to see what you've done. Yeah. You're a professional artist. Yeah. That's really cool. What do you love the most about Creative Clay? 

Grace: What do I love the most? That's tough. 

Grace: I love so many things about, you can say multiple things if you want. I love that they treat us like adults. I feel like they act like I'm 24. Mm-hmm. And they treat me like I'm 24, which is really nice. Yeah, I love that. And the teachers are so nice to us, and I feel like they talk to us like we're equals to them. 

Grace: Oh good. Instead of talking to us like we're kids or something and they don't even call us kids ever. They call us the artists, which I love. 'cause I'm not a kid. I'm 24. Right. 

Malaika: What kind of classes do you take there? Do you get to take, [00:08:00] so you get to take painting classes? Like what? What are all the classes there? 

Grace: What we do mainly is. Everyone, which I love, everyone sort of does what they want. Mm-hmm. And the teachers assist us with it like, well, during C I D in August, this is the first experience I had with Creative Clay. I did some Zoom classes where they would teach us like how to draw stuff. But in studio and Creative Clay, it's really nice. 

Grace: We sit down, the teachers ask us what we wanna do, they help us get set up, and if we need their help, they'll help us. We do things like paper, like we do. I'm making a fabric mache bowl right now. Okay. And we do painting and we do clay like, and one of my teachers has a kiln at her house and she fires. It. 

Grace: Fires. It's a real deal. 

Malaika: What do you hope to keep doing with your art as you continue to learn to do more things and get even better at it? What other stuff do you wanna make? 

Grace: I'm hoping to spend a lot more time at Creative Clay, quite like I'm hoping to keep going for my whole life. Mm-hmm. [00:09:00] And while for 

my sewing, if there's not much stuff on it, but I did open an Etsy shop, so I'm exploring that. 

Malaika: What's your Etsy shop? 



Grace: It Purses and Sew Much More. And the sew is spelled like s-e-w, sew, oh. Yeah, so good stuff, but there's barely anything on there. I just started it. 

Malaika: Okay. Well we can still share it. Maybe people find it after they listen to this. Pretty cool. Um, is there anything else you wanna say about art or yourself? 

Grace: Anything else? Let's see. I feel like art is for everybody. It does. You don't need to have any sort of special, like born talent or. Skill. I think you just have to be willing to try and it does, and people can make art without worrying too much about the outcome. I mean, of course I try to make my art nice, but I don't, I'm not like eaten alive by worrying about the outcome because I know I had a great time making the art. 

Malaika: Yes. That's like the best [00:10:00] attitude to have about it. It's hard to not try to perfect everything, but if you just like enjoy doing it, then it usually turns out pretty well. And if it doesn't turn out exactly how you want, you can always just try it again. 

Grace: Oh yeah, I learned that at Creative Clay actually. 

Malaika: Ah, So I thought you could just tell everyone a little bit about, um, what is Creative Clay

. 

Kerry: Sure. Um, well, Creative is a nonprofit that began in 1995. We were in St. Petersburg in the Grand Central District. Okay. And Creative Clay creates, um, provides a safe and inclusive space for people with disabilities to create market and sell their work. 

Kerry: And like Grace said, you know, their, uh, work sometimes is in our good folk gallery. Which is open Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and every second Saturday during art walk, five to 9:00 PM So we do have a working gallery that the public comes in and shops at, and sometimes there's art that has been commissioned and sometimes our artists will exhibit in different locations throughout the Tampa Bay area, um, such as Eckerd College. 

Kerry: There's a piece [00:11:00] that's at U S F St. Pete and. You know, in private collections and businesses. So, but first and foremost, it's a safe and inclusive place, right? Um, for people to create art are. Uh, vision is equality through art. Awesome. That, that says it all. So, you know, we love our volunteers. Uh, we love when people say they want to get involved with Creative Clay. 

Kerry: Um, you know, you can, uh, we have a tab on our website to, um, fill out a volunteer form and come to an orientation. Mm-hmm. Um, if you'd like to get involved that way. We, um, have events kind of throughout the year that. You know, people are welcome to volunteer at. Um, so yeah, we just love having the community get involved because Awesome. 

Kerry: That's how you learn about Creative Clay and see our mission in action. 

Malaika: It sounds like a great place and Grace has said so many good things about it. Yeah. So I'm glad that, you know, she's enjoying it, that everyone there is enjoying it. So much, 

Kerry: Sure, yeah, definitely. Go to our website. We have, um, creative clay.org and there's lots of opportunities [00:12:00] on there, um, to, to get involved. 

Kerry: Whether you want to be a sponsor, if you're a business or an individual that would like to sponsor Creative Clay, there's opportunities for that. There's opportunities to join our Good Folk Society, which is a monthly giving program, and the beauty of that is that the Good Folk Society member can, um, set the donation to whatever fits their budgets. So the idea is just if you wanna get involved, if you're moved by the passion, um, shown by our artists and, and our mission, um, you know, get involved that way or just come volunteer or, or, you know, shop our good folk gallery. We have, um, cards, we have t-shirts, we have some jewelry. We also have of course the art that hangs on the walls. 

Kerry: But, um, you know, lots of things. I think, you know, there's something for everyone. And, um, we just invite you to come and, um, We're off for the summer with this one event that we have called the Friday Art Market, but September, our Friday art markets resume, um, as our transition student artists who are [00:13:00] in the Pinellas County School system and our member artists put on the Friday Art Market, which is the first Friday of every month, 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and that's another great way to get your weekend started early. 

Kerry: Come have lunch. We always have a food truck and music. Um, and come see us on set Second Saturday of each month during Art Walk, five to 9:00 PM. 

Grace: Okay. Well thank you so much for being here and doing this with us. Thank you for having me. 

Malaika: You are welcome. We'll see you in the next one. Bye. Bye. 

Malaika: Thank you for listening to Happy Medium. You can find more info about the guest and other episodes in the show notes below, or go to our website, arts axis florida.org. Thank you to our sponsors, Community Foundation, Tampa Bay, building a vibrant, prosperous community through transformative vision, leadership, and philanthropy at cftampabay.org. 

Malaika: And the Gobioff Foundation [00:14:00] supporting human rights organizations and the Tampa Florida arts community at goofffoundation.org. Lastly, thank you to P R X for consulting on this podcast, the Arts Axis Florida team and the Florida Department of State Divisions of Arts and Culture for making these episodes possible. 

Malaika: Copyright 2023 W U S F. Public media. 

Subscribe to these Podcasts