We couldn't do this without our fabulous sponsors:
Bluebird Farms, Safeways, The Briar Patch, Summer Thyme's, The Flour Garden, and South Pine Cafe!
Christopher's Deli right down the street from the Center of the Arts will also be offering Ladyfest attendees a lunch special of 1/2 sandwich, salad and drink for $7 if any of your friends ask about food.
A HUGE thank you to these community-minded businesses for their generous support!
See you Saturday for a day of education, information, and fun!
Ladyfest: How did you begin your career in Writing?
Patricia: I WAS LIVING IN JAPAN AND A FRIEND LOANED ME A COPY OF NATALIE GOLDBERG'S BOOK, WRITING DOWN THE BONES. IT WAS A MATTER OF THE RIGHT TIME, THE RIGHT METHOD, THE RIGHT PLACE. I HAD A STORY I WAS DYING TO TELL AND GOLDBERG GAVE ME THE TOOLS. I'VE BEEN WRITING EVER SINCE. LATER I WENT TO ONE OF HER TAOS WORKSHOPS AND REALIZED THAT I WANTED TO TEACH WRITING LIKE SHE DID AND SHE BECAME MY FIRST MENTOR.
L: What do you enjoy the most about your work?
P: THE CREATIVITY AND FREEDOM. LEARNING, DISCOVERING, EXPLORING, AS I WRITE: ABOUT MYSELF, MY LIFE, OTHERS' LIVES, MY CRAFT, MY ART.
L:What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
P: LEARNING TO REVISE, TO PERSEVERE,TO ESTABLISH A WRITING ROUTINE AND KEEP AT IT.
L: Where do you get your inspiration?
P: FROM NATURE, FROM MEDITATION, FROM READING, FROM OTHER WRITERS, FROM EXPLORING MY UNCONSCIOUS THROUGH WRITING.
L: What advice would you give young women who aspire to live a Writing life?
P: READ WIDELY, TAKE A VARIETY OF CLASSES, FIND A MENTOR, ESTABLISH A WRITING
ROUTINE AND STICK WITH IT EVEN IF IT'S ONLY ONE HOUR A FEW DAYS A WEEK.
Patricia Dove Miller will be teaching "Gold In a Wild River: A 'Writing Practice' Workshop" as part of Ladyfest Nevada County. For a full workshop schedule, go here.
Patricia is a co-leader of a local Women's Writing Salon, and a member of the Literature Alive Board. She leads creative writing workshops in Nevada City and Grass Valley, and is available for individual editing and coaching. She can be reached at 530-265-5165 and [email protected].
Graham: It takes just one quick glance through your adorable website to see that you aren't only an extremely well rounded chef, but that you bring a familiar yet strikingly unique approach to modern culinary arts. Tell me how you became interested in cooking.
Wendy: It's sort of a funny story, I guess. Because I studied cultural anthropology in college, but I worked in this restaurant the whole time I was in School. It started out that the kitchen felt like the place to be; it was really warm, there was this amazing women that was the manager. The moment I stepped in there I thought 'I want to work with her, she seems like she has a lot to teach.' So I just started working there as a job, I had a great time being in the kitchen and I ended up working there for 4 year, and I was like, 'what am I going to do' - I guess I hadn't thought about it after college - 'what? I have to get a job!'
G: So cooking was a job on the side, it wasn't something you were
focusing on in school?
W: Exactly. But what ended up happening was that a lot of my cultural studies ended up overlapping with cooking. So when I was out in the world for the first time with no school, and I was just sort of grasping for anything, just trying to get it together - I thought, 'well I really like cooking, maybe I will just cook for different people.' I was living in this town, Claremont, and I just put a flyer up that said, "meals prepared twice a week and delivered. Who knows who will answer? And a few people answered, and finally I had 5 families that I was cooking for twice a week. I had some awesome meals, and I had some super failure meals. One family said, "You know, my kids just can't eat what you cook, I'm going to have to discontinue your service." Which was a totally humbling experience, but I kept going. I became interested in nutrition, so I moved to Berkeley and I studied nutrition education at Bowman college, but I always wanted to teach cooking classes. So I started teaching to kids through different public school things, and I moved to San Francisco with this vision of what I wanted to create. I knew I wanted to do this thing, that I was creating. I just needed to actualize it. So I posted something on Craigslist; I said, 'a cooking class, Tuesday night 6:30 - 9' and I got a few responses and these people came to my place. And it basically it evolved from there; from this really basic getting together of people in an non-intimidating environment to cook and be together and share a meal. That's the long of it, or the short of it, I don't know.
G: At what point, when you left college did you feel confident that you could make a career out of it?
W: Well in my mind, it was pretty much immediately, and I guess I just started doing it - but I was learning as I went. I certainly didn't feel confident enough to do what I am doing now, until 3 years ago when I made that first attempt at having cooking classes.
G: How long have you been cooking in general, or been involved in the kitchen?
W: I guess eight years.
G: Your work clearly has a strong emphasis on local, organic, and nutritionally balanced meals. I am curious how these elements became a part of your cooking practice, and if any of the initial farm-to-table women chefs like Alice Waters, Nora Pouillon, and Jessica Prentice played any role in inspiring that in you.
W: When I initially had started that really small meal delivery thing, in Claremont. I was living in this co-op and we had a farm that was in conjunction with it. So i was really around all of that, agriculture
that my friends and I were growing, and it only seemed natural to incorporate it. And that was really the first time any of that came into my consciousness, I was like, 'Oh wow! Not only does it taste better, but it actually feels really good to be part of growing this food.' And then, of course, taking it to the next step. I feel like I have seen examples of like, 'wow, it's so cool to grow your own food.' and then me even feeling that, but then not making the connection of how awesome it is to actually make that a part of your diet. It was like, they were two separate activities until I was living this lifestyle that allowed for that. And then all the other pieces started to feel like they were falling into place, with this concept being part of a greater consciousness happening - oil, and all of that. I worked with Jessica Prentice when I lived in the Bay Area, and she was doing Full Moon Feasts, and it was before her book came out and gained momentum. And I called her up and said, "Wow! I really want to be part of this, can I help on one of your diners just to see what you do." She was basically trying to live and work how she sees the world. When I last saw her, it looked like it all was coming together for her, and she was making a viable lifestyle for herself out of these passions that she has, which I have so much respect for and I am constantly finding that, that is my goal to build a sustainable lifestyle -that word is so cliche now - but a lifestyle based on doing something you love which is positive for the world. But, Alice Waters, when I lived in Berkeley, she's a rock-star - her whole thing is very glamourous and awesome and she has the right kind of personality that has really been able to spread this info to a greater audience.
G: It seems these woman, and other women in general have played a really crucial role in real and local food resurgence -
W: I really think that women and food has a natural connection. Women are nurturers, not that men aren't -
G: Breast-milk is a great example - you have food built into your physical structure.
W: Yeah, it's ironic, that women are just, in only the last 30 years, becoming renowned for being chefs - where did that disconnect happen?
G: The history of food is so peculiar, I am baffled by that myself. Somehow I geeked out and watched Top Chef all least season - which was the first time a woman had won Top Chef. It was interesting to see how significant of a role sexism and gender issues played in the Top Chef discussion groups. Talking about, this woman should have won, but didn't because she was a woman, and things on that note.
W: Granted, I have never seen one of those cooking shows, so I am totally judging it off of what I imagine it to be which is that it's all just a competition. And I just don't think that is where women are coming from in terms of cooking.
G: Right, and what makes Top Chef interesting, is that you see this
side of these women contestants that is very competitive, and aggressive and ready to rock.
W: I'm just not into it. It's putting competition and weird power dynamics on a really basic thing like cooking. The content doesn't matter, it could be anything, the power dynamics are what makes people watch it.
G: On that note, being a women in this competitive world of cooking, especially in the restaurant industry, there are certainly disadvantages. In that men have pretty much been the restaurant industry for so long, since the industries inception really. So you are more likely then not to be working under a man, if you are a woman working in a restaurant. I am curious, in the local and organic food industry, which you have created a niche in - have you found advantages or disadvantages to being a woman? Are there any that are gender-based in this particular faction of the industry?
W: I don't really know how to answer that. I worked in this sophisticated, high-end restaurant that was run by a man and a woman. She was a very powerful lesbian woman, and he was the more fun business partner, and he was gay and they really had different dynamics then the ones you are describing. I was pretty low on the totem pole though, so no matter what I would defer to whoever was above me. And in that situation it wasn't about gender, it was just about my experience.
G: That seems to be the way it is in the progressive food world. We can say men this or women that, but obviously not everyone lives up to the cultural stereotype.
W: Honestly, I feel like those sort of dynamics are actively trying not to exist in this movement. It's more egalitarian.
G: Definitely. Now that you have come back to your home of Nevada City, and you have immersed yourself in the local food community here. Where is our community at in relationship to the macroscopic local food movement? All around the world these incredibly progressive and sustainable measures are being achieved toward local food security. How are we doing here in relationship to the greater world, and where are we going?
W: If you look around this county, everyone is doing something or starting something, and I just feel like, 'the more the merrier.' Someone grows basil in their yard, and another person grows blueberries, and the more of that networking we have, the possibilities just grow.
Wendy Van Wagner will teach the workshop "Cooking with the Seasons- Spotlight on Fall" at Ladyfest Nevada County. For a full workshop schedule go here.
Interview by Graham Hayes. Go to Graham's website, Nourish Wise, for more information about his cooking classes, Community Supported Kitchen menu, and catering services.
Ladyfest: How did you get started in salsa dance?
Dominique: I had been teaching junior high school for about 10 years when I did an activity with my 6th grade class about "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Well, as 6th graders will do, they asked me what I really wanted to be. I told them my dream was to be a professional dancer, so I promptly began ballroom classes the next month. That was about 10 years ago, and I have been performing and teaching ever since, including a big show at the Reno Hilton in 2000.
L: What do you enjoy the most about your art form?
D: I love performing and teaching salsa, swing, ballroom and zumba. I love to play with people and watch their inner magic spring forth. It seems like most people just need a little prompting, and perhaps a lot of permission, to let loose and find their artist within.
L: What is the most challenging aspect of teaching dance?
D: When someone resists their own creativity out of fear of looking stupid. There simply is no such thing as looking stupid, it is a mindset from youth that some people battle with well into adulthood.
L: Where do you get your inspiration?
D: My students and people who perform and social dance. My original inspiration for salsa and swing was going to dance conferences and watching people be so creative and dance naturally and spontaneously with each other. It looked like so much fun, and my heart would race with excitement just watching. Since then I have been to many countries and many dance events and watched people who love the art of partner dancing. It tells a story, it makes you feel connected to something bigger than yourself.
L: Do you feel that your gender has impacted your professional life in any way?
D: My mom told me when I was 16 to never depend on a man; meaning, find my place in the world. She never did that, and consequently she died of leukemia (perhaps from years of depression) when I was a 18. I know as a woman who owns my own business, my own house and runs two dance teams that I need to stay on the ball. I don't have time for distractions and bad attitudes. I am grateful for this kind of inner guidance and discipline beyond words. I love being a woman, who in this time in history, can do it all!
L: What advice would you give young women who aspire to enter your field?
D: In any field I would say find your passion early. Let it be YOUR OWN passion, not someone else's. What makes your heart sing? What seems a little out of your reach? What makes you want to give yourself completely? I started dancing at 32, and wished I had started at 12, but I found that it is never too late to pursue a dream.
Dominique Del Chiaro will be giving the dance workshop "Spicy Salsa Shines" at 4:45pm as part of Ladyfest Nevada County.
Dominique can be reached on her websites at www.salsasierra.com and www.razzmatazzswing.com.
She can also reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at (530) 477-0767.
Ladyfest: How did you get started in your line of work?
Terri: I left my career in Social Services after many years of counseling people and working within a bureaucracy. I returned to school and received a degree in Communications. While enrolled, I interned first at KVMR, then at the old FCAT, Community Access Telelvision Station. I started out not knowing anything about how individuals’ voices can be heard via local, independent media. I ended up as an advocate for people to use their right of freedom of speech and use our local media, as it is one of the few real freedoms we have left.
L: What do you enjoy the most about your work at NCTV?
T: I enjoy the variety. I enjoy the challenge of working in a technical world when I, myself, am not a “techie.” I enjoy being connected to the community in a broad way. I enjoy working out front, as well as behind the scenes, doing something (programming a television station) that most people take for granted, and have no idea how it all works.
L: What is the most challenging aspect of your work?
T: The world of community access television is a very specialized area. Most people have no real understanding of what it is, and how it can be of benefit to them and to our community. I want to get the word out to more people so that they can utilize it to the fullest.
L: Where do you get your inspiration?
T: I write, and do photography and videography. I love Nature and working outside. I also love the spontaneous…catching something as it is naturally occurring. I also love working with musicians, and get excited by their talents, which brings out my own. I love brainstorming, and working with like-minded people…when ideas are firing one right after the other, and it seems like anything is possible.
L: Do you feel that your gender has impacted your professional life in any way?
T: I actually think that in today’s world, being a woman may have advantages. There are more grants, for example, for women in the arts than there was say, twenty years ago.
L: What advice would you give young women who aspire to enter your field?
T: I would encourage them to get an education and make the most of it; to try different things until they find their “right livelihood,” then keep on going and keep on learning new things. Also, to take nothing for granted and remember to SHINE, SHINE, SHINE!
Terri Hicklin will be a participant in Ladyfest’s Media Panel from 11:30am-12:30pm.
Interview by Jesse Locks and Sasha Soukup
Tammy: how is country livin' these dayz? do you feel
free of the rat trap? do you have more time and space to be creative out in the sticks?
Sasha: country living means sleeping under the stars, Sundays at the river, and plants and trees all around me. it is a much slower, quieter life... and not being overwhelmed with options sort of lets me be ten years old again. I have created more art in our three years here then in the previous ten years. but living in a community of 13,000 people also means a total lack of anonymity, which is sometimes suffocating, and sometimes comforting. every once in a while i need to get out, to soak in the bright lights and random magic of the city, but our cats Mouchie and Zazou clearly prefer the country. they like to climb trees and go on hikes.
T: many of your songs are autobiographical, do you find it
scary baring all of your memories, beliefs and fears for others to
dissect?
S: when I get possessed with the urge to express certain things, it's like I can't rest until they are outside of me. being brave enough to play my very personal songs live has made me grow up a lot, because I've had to decide over and over again that the satisfaction I get from self-expression is worth the horrible fifth-grade feeling of being naked and ugly in front of everyone. it has made me learn to be true to myself first.
T: where do you find the characters and the words for your
songs? are they all you? am i crazy? are you constantly writing things down as they come to you? are you fantasizing all day long? how the hell do you write this sh*t?
S: the most exciting writing that I do happens in a kind of manic trance state, but I am married and we live in a small place, so I can't always be the psychic space-hog. but I have to have a creative outlet, or I get off-balance; so I have found that I can write in small bursts on my lunchbreak at work. this tends to create songs that develop slowly-- even over several months-- instead of coming out in one huge rush. sometimes the subject of the song will change completely by the time it's "done".
yes, i am pretty much fantasizing all day long, but whether it's a good, creative fantasy, or obsessive compulsive thinking about the state of politics or my bank balance really depends on how well I am harnessing my imagination.
I'm not actually sure if all of my songs are about me. I have to really feel something to write about it; but not all songs come from my own experience, so maybe some of it is channeling. now that sounds very mystical, but sometimes I channel ridiculous things, like bad French TV shows from the 70s. I write on scraps of paper, I have a tape recorder, and great ideas usually come in the car driving home from a good gig, or from extreme emotional turmoil.
T: what is your writing process? do you know what the song is going to be about before you pick up the guitar?
S: sometimes I have a general urge, like "I want to write a pop song with the chords from "Under My Thumb!", sometimes a whole song shows up unannounced. I like to have a couple of different songs coming together at once, so I can switch focus. thinking too hard about a song is the surest way to kill it.
the most dynamic songs come from me and Chris just jamming, and the final forms of the songs almost always come from a collaboration between us. Chris has incredible ideas about rhythm and also about structure.
T: the yellow hair is a murder ballad about killing your sister, yet you're an only child. did you borrow the story or are you exorcising the evil other inside of you with this one?
S: I'm obsessed with the genre of murder ballads-- I have no idea why. I think it is a socially accepted outlet for my inner morbidity. (once a goth, always a goth.) I like your hypothesis about the Evil Other inside of me. this question from the woman who thinks the soundtrack to Rosemary's Baby is party music! (:
T: how into witches are you?
S: I think that a witch-- a white witch, a good witch, however you want to put it-- is the greatest thing a woman can aspire to be. people are afraid if magic, but it is all around us. most of the universe is invisible. a witch learns to perceive and work with these natural energies. my mother grew up in Southern Ireland, so I am not very far removed from my pagan roots. I do a lot of sorcery in the blogosphere... me herbal blog is called Kitchen Witch!
T: who writes the best stories that you are so jealous of that you didn't write them first?
S: currently, I am obsessed with Francesca Lia Block (Weetzie Bat) and Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn). I have fallen in love with the Young Adult section at my library. a friend of mine does a blog where she is always talking about what she's reading, and she really re-ignited my love of books. When I read a lot, I am a much better writer.
T: in the song 'driving at night' you write about being a pizza
delivery girl and falling in love with the security guard at a gated community. in it, you sing 'you are the guardian and i am on fire.' is it easy for you to make the jump from the mundane to the extraordinary?
S: I think my whole brain is a mix of the mundane and the extraordinary. thank you for noticing that line! my habit of leaping from the Totally Out There to the Totally Practical still confuses Chris, even after all this time. I blame my Capricorn Rising and Moon in Aquarius. also, there is that little matter again of the Invisible World. just because something looks normal, it doesn't mean it is. take a pizza delivery girl, for example... there could be a lot going on under that Round Table uniform. I would know.
T: who are your top three female rock heroes?
S:
1. Yoko Ono
2. Neko Case
3. Carla Bozulich
T: who would direct your life story?
S: Agnes Varda. With some help from Guy Maddin.
T: i want to mention some of my favorite songs, and in five words or less you tell me how they were inspired:
a) charmed viola: las vegas, fungi, barbie dolls
b) happy anywhere: moving, staying, coming, going
c) scorpio girls: pen pals, desperation, first love
d) let's play princess: loneliness, invisible friends
e) hms endurance: Os Mutantes, perseverance, February, lust
f) annabel lee: media, feminism, fake feminism
T: where do you get your inspiration for your hair and your costumes?
S: i pull from the flotsam and jetsom of thrift stores and storybooks. I am imprinted with my mothers fashion sense from her days of being single in San Francisco in 1965-- I had a Dress Up Trunk full of those clothes when I was growing up. I can also be found in the movie theater lapping up any and all period pieces... all film snobbery goes out the window when there are good costumes. as far as onstage fashion goes, my number one rule is to avoid subtlety at all costs.
T: do you see a kind of particular evolution when it comes to the content of your songs?
S: I notice two themes coming up again and again in my work: first, there is the painful awareness that we can only live one life, have one love, at a time. secondly, there is the theme of a desire to bring hidden things to light. that could mean parts of my own life story, my ancestry, or events and themes from broader human history (like witch burnings!). I am fascinated with hidden things, things no one talks about, things no one else sees. my expression of these themes has changed, as I've moved away from a folkier kind of singer-songwriter style into more pure Rock. it is challenging for me to write about personal things and make them universal-- it is easy to create your own little world, and describe everything inside of it, but if someone else can't hear your song and make their own understanding from it, you have failed. I didn't use to feel that way-- I was happy to write in code, or in explicit personal detail. I still value the songs from that time, but they are like very pretty diary entries... now I want to paint big public murals. I feel that the Ultimate Song is about things that are important and need to be heard by everyone, but is also irresistibly catchy-- and danceable.
Sasha and the Shamrocks will perform as part of the Ladyfest Nevada County evening concert. Show starts at 7pm.
You can download Sasha and the Shamrocks songs for free from their Myspace page, and purchase CDs at their live shows.
Interview by Tammy Fortin.
Tammy plays in the all-girl San Francisco psyche-pop band Excuses for Skipping, and she is a regular writer and videographer for the SFMOMA blog Open Space.