Sabrina Ward Harrisonart making, arting around, art situations. The following was recorded on June 15, 2017, episode 45, Full Circle. Room in the Trees is hosted by Trent Reynolds and me, Sabrina Harrison. Show notes, including pictures, links, video, and more for every episode can be found at roominthetrees.com. If you like this podcast, please consider showing your support and you can become a subscribing patron at patreon.com. forward slash room and please please please leave us on iTunes. There you go. It really helps each wider audience.
Trenton ReynoldsPlease leave us a review on iTunes. We really could use your support. That's really crazy.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI'm excited about this episode it's with Allison who is in the first True Living Experience weekend of June 2nd through 4th and it's a wonderful conversation happy Father's Day Trent oh yeah happy
Trenton Reynoldsfather's day trip. That's right. It's coming up. That's right. You're
Sabrina Ward Harrisona father. That's right.
Allison DavisHow many times over? Three times over?
Trenton ReynoldsThree times over. Three times over.
Allison DavisYeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's hard to Hard to believe.
Trenton ReynoldsWhat are you going to do? I have no idea, actually. I overheard Liv saying to Laura this morning, we've got to do something for Father's Day. And Laura said, what do you want to do? And she said... we should cook him bacon.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's what I just was going to say. Isn't that what happened last time on your birthday or something?
Trenton ReynoldsYes, yes. That's always the go-to answer. And then she said, then we can eat it too.
Allison DavisAnd then we can eat it too. She's adorable. It's precious.
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's exciting. So. So let's introduce Allison. Allison, you came to. to the True Living Experience in Madison, June 2nd through 4th, 2017. - So that was the first weekend, right? - Yes, it was the first weekend. - Inaugural weekend, I think. - Absolutely. And so, how much should we, do you wanna share a little bit about where you live and what you do? - Sure. - And maybe why you decided to, how the, how the evolution of you arriving to Madison was.
Allison Davis- Right, how it happened. - Yes. - The story. So I live in Maryland and Sabrina, as you know, and I think a lot of people at the workshop were in kind of the same way where we've been following you for quite a while and just really resonated with the work that you were doing and the way that you kind of talked about the creation creative process and when you offered this really intimate creative experience it just it felt like such an amazing opportunity and I am not a trained artist so and I think that that's important because I got so much out of this experience even not having gone to art school and you know not not being in I guess the professional art world I I feel like this the true living experience is is open to everybody who just wants to really dive in and and and get into their creative process and kind of access that I I fell in love with Madison too it was the perfect venue for that - Yes, I did. I was smitten, like day one.
Sabrina Ward Harrison- Can you say what you do for a job back home, what your professional life is like?
Allison Davis- So, yeah, please feel free to redirect me too, 'cause I can, I might go off on tangents. - That's all right. - That's all right, yeah. - Yeah, I'll redirect. So I'm a therapist at home in Maryland for children and adolescents. I teach yoga. and part-time and and then on my free time I like to write and I paint a little bit with wax. That's kind of my medium of choice right now. Which I know Trent you've been, you probably have more experience than I do but I've seen some of your posts on Instagram.
Trenton ReynoldsYes, I've been loving wax recently. I was going to say that. It's magical stuff. Love it.
Allison DavisIt really is. I think what I love best about it is it kind of is its own animal. And it comes alive. Like when I take the torch to it and I just... moves around the wood and the shapes that come out of it are something I couldn't have planned. But it's also really forgiving.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. I've been thinking recently that I think the reason I love it so much is basically what you're saying, that there's this immediacy, you know? there's an immediate response to whatever you're doing so either you're heating it up or it's cooling and it's like active both both directions like immediately so it's either immediately wet and runny and moving or immediately dry and and you can touch it and carve into it and so it's just like it's the quickness of being able to think and act you know where it was with oil paint or even acrylic there's a certain amount of waiting you have to do in between phases of dryness was with wax I just I don't know I love that being able to move quickly and have it respond to to whatever it is that I'm thinking in the moment.
Sabrina Ward Harrison- Could you guys talk a little bit about how to work with it if someone would, oh, the clicking's happening again.
Trenton Reynolds- Oh no, that's me, I'm sorry. I'm fidgeting, fidgeting, sorry.
Sabrina Ward Harrison- With how someone would set up that to do, say, in their own home?
Allison Davisto do it and how oh that's where you guys do it or yeah because i don't have a studio i actually we got rid of our we moved our dining room furniture into the kitchen and we made our dining room my kind of little art play area and so right now i have this old barn door standing on two saw horses along the wall and that's my art table.
I love it.
Allison DavisAnd yeah, I'll send you a picture when we're done. I have, basically I went out and it took me probably about a year to kind of figure this out. I got a griddle, just like a pancake griddle from, I think I just went to Target and got a griddle and it's... And then I can have all of the aluminum cans or the aluminum. And I went to the grocery store. And you know how you can buy this tiny little aluminum bread pans, right? And so I got a bunch of those. And then I melt the wax paint in each one of those. And it's already set up. ready to go. So I can plug the griddle into the wall and everything starts cooking. And you know what's really funny though? My husband, Matt, he's a firefighter. So he's, right, so I have these torches and I have this heat gun and I'm cooking this wax at 150 degrees. and he's so polite about it but as soon as I'm done he kind of gently circulates through the room and I know what you're doing and he's just making sure everything's safe and unplugged and taking good care of us
Sabrina Ward Harrisonbut nothing's smoldering right the wax has to have to
Allison Davismix with resin? I buy, I am not that talented yet. So I buy, actually I buy the RNF paints and you can get them on Amazon. Okay. And they come in these little cubes and it's perfect. And I just go to, I go to the to Home Depot and I buy a bunch of those horse hair bristle or brushes because if you have synthetic brushes the wax will, this was a personal mistake. Oh I bet. If you have a learning experience, if you have synthetic brushes the wax melts all of them together and you end up with like a Monobrush.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonMonobrush monocoff. Right, yeah.
Allison DavisAnd so it's got to be some sort of natural occurring hair fiber in the brushes, but you can get a bunch of them for 55 cents at your local hardware store. That's the way we like it. Yeah, right? Nice and easy. And then I usually paint on wood and just paint over with some white gesso and then I just go for it. And then that way, what happens is the wax can soak into the wood and it can soak into the gesso. and you get this really kind of solid piece of artwork. See, now the thing is... Totally solid. Totally solid, right? So Trent, I would love to hear kind of how you do it because I didn't go to a class or anything I tried and set a lot of things on fire and figured it out over probably about three years. So I'm curious about your setup and how that looks different from mine.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, I'm actually not too far from you in terms of experience with wax. I never took a class in it, but obviously there are quite a bit of similarities between it and other wax. painting media so I did have a you know the art school background but essentially it was the same my approach was the same as yours I went on Craigslist and got a griddle and I went to Salvation Army and tried to pick up any kind of hot plate or you know heating thing of any kind just out of curiosity to see what I could what I could do with different heating implement what did you notice well I had some successes and failures I actually I still have a hot plate that I picked up in a Chicago I don't know if it's salvation Army or some other thrift store. But and it's awesome. These these old. I don't know, it looks like it was kind of 70s color, kind of that that pea green and fake wood, plastic. like handles or something like that. Anyway, it's still ticking, man. It is fantastic. And to be able to use that as both a palette, so I'll mix colors on the hot plate.
- Oh yeah.
Trenton Reynolds- And then I'll also use it to, I'll put like a piece of paper on the hot plate, paint on it, and then I'll collage the paper onto the surface that I'm working on. So it can also act, as a heating element for collage stuff.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat's your collaging process with the wax?
Trenton ReynoldsOh, that's the thing. Wax is so much fun. So I've got this little travel iron that's probably about as big as the palm of my hand. My studio mates are always laughing at me when they come through my space and they see me like this, you know, big body holding this tiny little travel iron over a small piece of wood. It's like I'm playing with a miniature set or something. But I'll put paper and I also use muslin, which is a really thin cotton. very porous and I put the paper down and if the wax that's down is is soft enough I don't have to put any heat on it but if if it's hard then I can either use that baby iron to iron the paper on there so it melts the wax below and it'll kind of embalm it or I can use a heat gun to to warm it up and have it stick so anyway so i've been doing collage and then i build up a layer of collage and fabric and stuff about half inch thick and then i'll use uh carving tools to dig into it and pull it off and yeah anyway just very very visceral physical media do you use reality oh yeah go ahead resin
Sabrina Ward Harrisonwith it, I guess I keep going back to what's hardening the wax.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, see, here's the deal with wax. Wax, as you probably noticed with a cheap candle, or really any candle, it has what's called bloom. And that's when the pigment that's coloring the wax pulls towards the center of the candle or the center of the wax and makes everything on the outside look kind of ghosty. like really white and creamy looking. So to prevent that from happening you put Damar resin in with the mixture which is when you so when you're buying R&F you're buying it pre-mixed with usually beeswax and some Damar resin. So the resin hardens it so it's not as delicate and can take a little bit more abuse on the surface but it also prevents it from from bloom happening so
Sabrina Ward Harrisonand isn't that toxic to have the resin we sure yeah okay we have and I know in
Allison Davisour I mean in our house we just said we have this big box fan that I set up on I mean I make myself into a little bit of a wind tunnel and set it up on one side side and I have the windows open on the other side. So, you know, as much as I can, I'm getting all of that pushing out. And then I watch the temperature pretty closely too.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, they make these grill thermometers that you can get and just put on the hot plate watch temperature.
Yeah.
Allison DavisYou know, Trent, you know what I love most about wax is that you can get your what you said about the physicality of it is so great. I mean, you can really get in there. You can I mean, you can carve, you can dig, you can put images in there, you can do image transfer. spurs and and you know and if you don't like any of it you can just heat it up and scrape it all off yeah and start over yeah I love that about it too I had
Trenton Reynoldsa friend in grad school that used to do these big things with crayons which typically you don't want to use because crayon wax is really cheap and will kind of go bad on you and flake off really easily but he would put these have these big boards and he'd line up crayons right next to each other and then cover them with like a gray wax and then take take a tool and start excavating into the lay and like so he kind of pulled out the different color of crayons. I don't know how to describe it very well, but there were just these beautiful rows of crayon colors that he, again, it was like an excavation almost, like he was pulling away layers until he got down to the colored crayons.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, God, that sounds yummy. Sort of like the way a floor would have, like, layers of paint on a wall?
Trenton ReynoldsKind of like that. I'm trying to think of, like, what a good analogy would be is, like uh like uh i can't think of any good examples situate yourself go situate yourself i need to
Sabrina Ward Harrisonsituate my mind is what i'm doing we came up with this phrase we've you know this phrase yesterday when we were uh talking about something regarding that. What were we talking about? I don't know, but we were talking about this and I've been saying so much lately, like it's a situation it's a whole situation, it's a situation. Yeah. And then kind of that phrase, go F yourself that I personally love saying a lot but it's like somehow it's so funny to say, go situate yourself. Go situate yourself. I love it.
Allison DavisGet it under control.
Trenton ReynoldsSomething confrontation. I don't know. - Get the sitch down.
Allison Davis- Get it down.
Trenton Reynolds- So, so let's, should we revert back to the story a little bit? So you are, so that's, you said that you weren't an artist, but you've got this table and you're throwing wax around. That's something. So you didn't, you didn't go to Madison completely, you know, having not done any kind of like creative work before.
Allison DavisNo. What's so funny though is that I have never finished a piece in my whole life. I've never finished anything. And then when I signed up for the True Living Experience, I signed up in February. And so I thought about it and I said, okay, I have four months for it. five months. I said, I am going to finish a piece of artwork, something before I go. And I ended up finishing five. So just awesome. Right. So just for me having the motivation of saying, you know, so it was the true living experience was alive before I was even in Madison. And just knowing that it was happening. And Sabrina, you did such a great job of creating a virtual space for all of us to come together and to introduce each other and to share a little bit about our lives. And when we first gathered in Madison, I felt so close to everyone already. And I think that made the experience so much more rich and it was just easier to kind of kind of drop in and be really authentic and be real and get to that kind of intimate vulnerability that made the whole weekend really cement together.
Sabrina Ward Harrison- Did you feel that in the beginning when we did the writing, I was feeling? I feel that kind of writing and the sharing and the reading out loud.
- Yes.
Allison DavisAnd I did, but I also felt everybody's anxiety. And so, right, which was a totally normal thing, which I kind of thought of more of as excitement, maybe. I think we were all just so excited. And in the middle and just when we were sitting around in the very beginning, learning about each other and reading the poetry, you could start to feel things loosen up. And I could feel the vibe in the room kind of change and people becoming more willing to be open and more willing to share. and it was just so inclusive. I felt like everybody got such a, everyone got permission to take care of themselves, which was, I think, one of the things that I took away from the weekend the most, which was giving permission to myself to be able to do the things that I need to do to make sure that I have, you know, that I situate myself, essentially, right? Like, I take care of myself, and I balance my own resources, and I stay nourished, and then what I found was that I found I had so much more generosity towards other people after I did that.
Trenton ReynoldsI can imagine that scenario where you arrive and you're meeting these people for the first time, you're in a new situation, you've been anticipating this event, and the feeling is all about, especially for an introvert, I think it's all about these people. Like, I'm observing, I'm trying to figure out who they are and how I relate to them. And I can imagine through the process of reading and sharing and having these conversations, And just like you said, it was interesting for me to hear you say that it gave you permission to focus back on yourself. You're in this very social outward looking scenario where you're in a new circumstance with new people, but yet you, Sabrina, and I think that all of you found a way to look back inward. even though you were surrounded by other people. I don't know, I think there's something very unique about that, especially for an introvert who, I like, I can imagine when I, if I were in that setting, I would be much, it would be very difficult for me to get back into myself.
Sabrina Ward Harrison- I could make it happen for you, Trent.
Trenton Reynolds- I totally, I totally believe you.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonBut I think that's, I think that's significant.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd I think, you know, people that are thinking like, I don't know. That is a cool idea to me.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's what I feel most really passionate about. Really passionate. I felt that in the beginning of teaching 15, 20 years ago. How would you describe that? What is that? It's a... I feel... I intuit the room and the energy in the room. I feel like that's part of the thing I'm doing is helping guide that to happen in a way that's, you know, it kind of is a little bit of alchemy to it. There's something, you know, sometimes it's in the poem I choose at that very moment. Sometimes it's in a... a certain prompt kind of unexpected that I know once sharing with one-on-one with another person is going to kind of open the door to sort of something but it's like kind of going the back way not the direct like I am feeling vulnerable and really acknowledge that you're giving yourself this time. I never saw cell phones, I mean, the way you respected those boundaries and really saw it as a time that's just yours was really remarkable.
Allison DavisYou know, and you raised such a good point there, and I think the fact that everybody was so responsible ready to kind of drop in and and I think it allowed everybody to share a little bit more of themselves straight off the bat there wasn't so much kind of like you were saying negotiating the social boundaries and the social roles they were already kind of preset so everybody could kind of plug in and then the richness of the insights of the other women there and their talent and their humor and their ability to look at things in a different way, that came out in full force because it was already, the path had been cleared. It was already ready to go. And I think, Sabrina, you kind of modeled that from the beginning too, which set the stage for everyone to be really real. with each other in a very loving and gentle way. And there was total acceptance and the sense of being able to talk about what you needed in the moment or to share pieces of yourself that would be helpful to other people or whatever, but it was just process of it unfolded throughout the whole weekend and and it was like you said it was alchemy it was creating the magic of it from what was happening in
Trenton Reynoldsthat moment mm-hmm there's this there's this contradiction that keeps coming up for me of goals or situations, and that is that this idea of being social and introspective at the same time. You know, needing to occupy that space and somehow hold on to both of those seemingly states at the same time and like this even like the idea of social introversion or social introspection it's like it's like this contradiction of terms that that i again i think on more on an intuitive level than intellectual level which is what what's kind of nagging me a little bit i understand the necessity of that and the beauty of that but it's it's hard for me i don't know i think uh you guys are starting to put that into words in a way that, I don't know, I think it's been hard for me to get at.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's kind of establishing a little bit of that feeling of like, thinking of you and your best friend Gavin from back in high school, I remember. Like, it establishes something that there's, it has to have, the sharing has to have a little bit of humor, a little bit of realness, and a little bit of emotional depth. of longing or loss or desire, but I think it has to find that closeness and just a bit of a recognition in another person. I feel like that, establishing that with one other person, creates in the whole you can sort of be within the larger group because you've you've kind of have had have an echo have had an echo of um you know resonating with someone uh you know what i mean like allison do you know what i mean yeah like exactly yeah yeah there's
Allison Daviswell there was i mean fostering that connection i think was one of the things that made the weekends so rich and the fact that you kept the group small really kind of intensified that and made it and made it more natural and made it easier to happen but i loved what you just said this kind of recipe of you know intimacy involving humor and realness and then the sense of kind of longing and kind figuring out like you know what's what are we yearning for and what are the parts of ourselves that have real value when we share them um that other people can say oh me too and and And what was so funny about the weekend was all of our foul mouths. And I felt like that was part of the magic too because it kept things from, it kept, as soon as something would, it kept us in this place where we couldn't draw and get too heavy. - Exactly, exactly. - Right, it was perfect. - That's exactly right.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYep, that's exactly right. There has to be that levity. There has to be that levity. And then I think in the things we were doing, like out on the grass and the back and the painting and then getting into, as we love the word physicality of it, that was a big part is that kind of entrance into the creative part of the weekend was, you know, just dropping the storylines in our heads of expectation and self judgment and sort of pre-thinking what it should be or what it was going to happen, but just kind of going in with like, yes, let's do this.
Allison DavisYes, I'm showing up. Yes, I'm all in. And yeah, so I started to take notes and I wrote down some of the main takeaways from the weekend. And one of the things for me, again, because I think some people are coming to your workshops that probably have a really strong art background. And then some people are coming who play with it and enjoy it as a hobby. And I'm kind of on the latter side of that. But being able to show up and to really take away the fact... that it was such a mindful experience for me and that it changed not what I do in my life you know I still go to work I still do the dishes I still do all of the things that you know have to be done but it changed kind of the how of that what so it opened some space to allow for more and for more, a little bit of free flow of thinking. And it really changed the process for me in other areas of my life, my work, my family interactions. Now I began to think about, okay, well, how can I bring some of this creative energy into parts of my life that are not just making something. But, and I, and you know, and I have to say, I think you guys do this with this podcast too. I think, I think of this podcast as like your own kind of canvas of words. It's, you, you show up and there's, and there's real life happening here and there's, and it's spontaneous, but it has a bit of a structure, right? And it has, you know. I think, I don't know, but it has this sense of an understanding of direction. But at the same time, there's all this permission to explore and come up with new conversations and to just let things happen within that space.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI love seeing a few of you each of you had interesting like Instagram posts after the workshop like I love seeing you know boom you were out with your husband like outside weren't you had to have a fire going or something or what was yeah we were cooking on the fire pit
Allison Davisin the backyard it was almost 100 degrees and we were just, we just did it. We just, it was 10:30 at night.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt was Monday night, it was 10:30 and we were just...
Allison DavisYou just did it. We just did it. And Matt was like, we're gonna do it. We didn't do it at all last year, we're gonna do it. And so we lit the fire and put the corn on there, put the meat on there, ate at almost midnight yes it took so long it was great and it was you know yeah and i love the instagram relationship also that's what's happening afterwards you know so what were some of the things you know as a facilitator for you yeah i want to know your side of the things like what was it like
Trenton Reynoldsmight take what you were learning here, experiencing here, and how it might show up in other parts of your life or other relationships. And I think that for me that there's something there, and I'm going to attempt to talk about something that I know nothing about, so I want to give that disclaimer, but I've been listening to a lot of and reading a lot about augmented reality, and one of the things in virtual reality is that it's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very reality. And one of the things that they talk about is embodied cognition. And this idea that there is that movement, that the way that our body exists in a space or in the world, there is thought in that, you know, like that. we're actually processing and understanding things differently through not just our thoughts in our brain, but through how we, like our physicality, our existence in the world. So it seems to me like there are some of us out there, and I see this in my own students that come to me after a full life and profession, and they retire. and you know sometimes I at emeritus I have older students and there are these discoveries that they make through the process of making art and through understanding a new material and technique that I see and they're like these things click and make sense in a new way And so I think, I think it's not, we, we tend to silo what art is and where it exists and what it applies to and kind of block it off from the rest of our, of our life. When, when in my mind, when I'm making something in wax, I'm thinking about relationships between color, relationships between color. like the oil paint and the wax and how they mix together or don't mix together. And these are bleeding into thoughts about my children and my wife and my relationship to people in my religious faith, you know, and God and the world, you know. Like, there's not a clear separation in my mind between thinking in my mind and thinking through the act of making art. if that makes sense. Anyway, I think this idea of embodied cognition is interesting. And I think in that vein, what Sabrina's workshops are doing and evoking and assisting in is not just, you know, a cool craft thing that you can come and play around with for a while, and maybe go home and scrapbook in a cool new way. But it's a way for you to access something that there is no other way to access. Access thoughts that you need to go through the process of making and the physicality of using your hands and materials to open up get to. Nailed it.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's fantastic, Trent. Totally. Boom. Yeah. Boom. Drop the mic. Respect. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsI wanted to give the disclaimer, though, that I might be totally misunderstanding the idea of embodied cognition, but that's what I understand of it.
Allison DavisThat sounds pretty great to me. You just crystallize perfectly exactly what the experience of Sabrina's workshop was.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonCan you think of a funny moment?
Allison DavisSo I love the pontoon ride because I felt like everything broke open. And we had the most beautiful weather and it was hot. but the water was very still. And I think one of the funniest moments was when we saw that rainbow around the sun. I've never seen anything like this. It was a circular rainbow all the way around the sun, and the whole boat flipped out. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you can hear us probably all the way across Lake Mendota. We were just.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt was a whole, it was a whole thing. It was a phenomenon. It was like, really? It was not like, oh, maybe that's a rainbow around the sun. It was like, no, that's it. thick bright rainbow around the sun yeah that was so good
Allison Davisand then I think we at some point we were all running to one end of the boat and we almost kind of got in a bad situation where it looked like it was dropping down into the water on one side and then some other people had to go to the other side to balance it out because I think we were so excited see this rainbow and yeah and we just made a whole lot of noise that I loved that that just was out of left field and completely hilarious and fun magical yeah I've never seen anything like that and I googled it Sabrina I googled it afterwards and it's the cirrus clouds apparently the ice crystals in the cirrus clouds form little tiny prisms and the sunlight as it's coming down and you're gonna have the right conditions on the right day creates the image of a rainbow all the way around that's incredible that's a serious rainbow yeah yeah yeah and then the other one was when we went swimming and And it was, you know, there was just algae everywhere. Yep. Yep.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonLike kind of nasty algae or?
Allison DavisIt was a combination of nasty and, you know, decorative, I would say. Yeah, it was. - Yes. It was, and then, you know, and one of the ladies climbed out and she had, she had put it in her pocket. Oh, Breezy. Breezy, yeah. Breezy put it, I didn't want to use her name in case she didn't want to be on here, but Breezy, Breezy had it in her back pocket. And I think, and Juanita looks at her and says, Breezy, do you intend to have seaweed in your pocket? It was just this like. - Yeah, it was really... It looked like a necklace. It was beautiful. It was very pretty. Yeah, I'm not kidding. Decorative algae, that was a thing.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonCould you talk about coming to Madison by yourself and, like, if someone was to come, like, the feeling as an introvert coming by yourself and then... what it was like being in the city?
Allison Davis- It was so friendly. Even the TSA agents, like seriously, it was such a welcoming environment, such a welcoming, friendly environment. You know, I came by myself, I stayed at an Airbnb. It was, again, a perfect introvert situation because I had my own exit and entrance, so I could come and go whenever I wanted to. I think what struck me about Madison was just how calm it was. It was so safe, and it was so calm, and it was so interesting, but, you know, there was no sense of kind of Latin tension, or aggression or anything like that. So it felt completely natural to walk around even after dark and be out on the streets by yourself. It was very easy to navigate. You know, you could get, the Uber drivers were amazing. I talked to one gentleman who was from Montana Mongolia. And we just talked the whole time. He drove me up to the capital for the farmer's market on Saturday morning. And we had this really awesome conversation. I talked to a family that was unicycling. Yeah, that's right. Wasn't there like a little one? Yeah, no more than probably five years old on a tiny unicycle. It was just so pedestrian friendly and I mean, and you could, you know, they had bike rental places and bike mechanics and it was, it just, it was such an easy place to be a solo traveler. Yeah. One of the other things I loved, and Sabrina, tell me if this is true or not, is that my Airbnb host told me that back in the 70s and 80s, there used to be an art mandate in Madison, where if you were building any new structure or making any sort of improvements to a building, you had to add an element of art. I love that. Right? And so she said that's where you get all the sidewalk poetry from. Wow.
Trenton ReynoldsI know that that still is the case in Iowa City. My oldest brother went to medical school there. And they have some kind of city mandate that a certain percentage of a building cost or budget has to be allocated to our artwork. That's great. I love that idea.
Allison DavisYeah, that was and I think that was also kind of made the vibe of Madison really just welcoming to strangers too, was that there were these you'd be walking along and then there's this beautiful poem right under your feet in the sidewalk, you know, permanently imprinted in, or a mural on the side of the building. And it was all positive artwork, too. It was very intentional. There was like this intentionality behind it. And I felt instantly welcomed and safe and, you know, it gave me all sorts of warm fuzzies.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, what was one of your, do you remember what one of your favorite episodes was or something that you held on to?
Allison DavisI have, okay, so I have three of them. The first one, I... not in any particular order of significance. But one of them was the midnight Newton because Sabrina, I do the exact same thing. - Yeah. - And I thought I was the only person in the world and Matt thought I was the only person in the world who would wake up at two in the morning morning and unwrap, you know, a breakfast bar from next to the bed, cram it in my mouth.
Trenton ReynoldsI cannot believe you guys do that. That is so funny.
Allison DavisOh yeah. And I ended up having a root canal. Yep. I've had two. Yep. Oh, they're no fun. I know. And then the dentist is like, well, tell me about your, she's like, tell me about your eating habits. And I'm thinking. I'm not going to do that.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI know. I know.
Allison DavisYeah. So that just made me laugh because that part resonated with me, and I didn't realize there was this secret club of midnight snackers. Yeah. And now I feel totally inducted. And then the other one, I loved, loved the interview you did with Mila. Oh. - Oh. - Yeah, because, yeah, I think that spoke to a lot of people who have these really significant high school mentors and teachers who see them, who truly see them as people and see their gifts and see what they're struggling with and reflect that back to them and take it back. the time to really help them get on this path that's going to influence the rest of their lives and I know that was true for me but you know it was wonderful to hear you connect with this person who had done that for both of you and to have this conversation so much later in life where you were fully aware in hindsight of the you know process that you were in at the time when you were with her and then she could remember you and kind of feed back to you that all of the growth that you had and i thought there was just there was so much nostalgia there and meaning it was just sweet
Trenton Reynoldsit's a really sweet podcast yeah i enjoyed that too
Allison DavisYeah. And the third one was take the unicorn because I just cracked up the whole time.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWith Molly. Yeah.
Allison DavisWith Molly. She was a treasure. And just the, you know, you know, the idea of going into the senator's office with this stuffed unicorn. And yes. And I find myself sometimes re-listening to the podcast, and I hear little nuggets of wisdom or little kind of verbal illuminations that you guys have together through the process of your conversation. And they're new. There's new things to discover every time.
Well, that's awesome.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI would love you to connect with Molly because you guys both are in Maryland. At some point it would be fun for you to connect with her. Yeah.
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThis is so nice, Allison. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you.
Allison DavisWell, I'm so thankful to both of you for just putting this out into the world. And I know I speak for a lot of people and I just say how... how just enriching it is to listen to these beautiful conversations that you have every week. And thank you very much for that. And you're always listening in DC traffic, right? Yes. And sometimes I'll just put it on repeat because I do. I just want to hear a friendly voice. He's stuck on 495 for four hours. I'm like, I just want to talk to a friend. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsThat is awesome. Thank you so much, Allison.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThank you. Thank you. Bye.
Trenton ReynoldsLadies and gentlemen, Allison Davis. Allison, thank you so much. It was great to meet you and hear about your art making and your experience in Madison. And I hope I get to meet you in person sometime. And speaking of workshops, we have spaces. We have availability in the upcoming workshops.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYes, we do. A few spaces left. There's in... Madison here in September and Santa Monica, California in October. So just go. So you can sign up, just go to the river, the trees.com and you'll see a link there. Thanks.
Trenton ReynoldsI am really looking forward to having you all come to my neck of the woods, Santa Monica, October. Check it out at roominthetrees.com. Also make sure you check out the show notes for this week. Some great pictures of Alison's workspace and some of her work, as well as some links to some of the things that we talked about. So you can find show notes at roominthetrees.com. And now, get out. there and do stuff.
Take a nap.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's what you gotta do. You gotta go out. It's time. You gotta go take a nap. Get a cold beverage.
Go be happy.