WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:16.480 This is Room in the Trees, a podcast about living a creative life. Room in the Trees is hosted by Sabrina Ward-Harrison and me, Trent Reynolds. 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:23.600 Show notes including pictures, links, video, and more for every episode can be found at roominthetrees.com. 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:33.480 If you like this podcast, please consider showing your support. You can become a subscribing patron at patreon.com/room. 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:44.880 Please help us grow our audience by rating us or writing a review on iTunes. To do that, you can use the link. roominthetrees.com forward slash iTunes in any phone or computer internet browser. 00:00:45.480 --> 00:00:53.480 You can follow us on Instagram at Sabrina Ward Harrison and at Trent Reynolds Art. And now here's this week's episode. 00:00:55.340 --> 00:00:56.740 Hello, hello, hello. 00:00:57.420 --> 00:00:58.180 Hey. 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:03.120 Hi, girl. Hi. 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:04.400 Hi. 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:12.920 Oh, gosh. It has been, it's been a while. A lot of life been happening in the past few weeks. 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:16.120 A lot of summer. A lot of summer happening. 00:01:16.460 --> 00:01:54.140 A lot of summer. So Liv's taking swim lessons for the first time ever. Wow. That's been happening. Kind of excited. It's been a lot of fun. It's just fun, like, watching a kid grow up. Like, even if I'm not... Yeah. I guess it's, you know, it's like there's that little bit of extra meaning because it's your own kid, but... I don't know, there's something so fulfilling for me to be able to go and just watch Liv take swim lessons and see her learning, you know, how to kick. I don't know, it's like... 00:01:54.140 --> 00:01:54.640 Yeah. 00:01:55.600 --> 00:02:18.000 It's cool. It's cool seeing her kind of having her first experiences and being able to remember, you know. my own time learning how to swim. Summer's been fun. We just had a in-law staying with us all last week, so it's nice this week to be able to breathe a little bit. 00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:19.640 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:02:21.400 --> 00:02:22.720 What's been going on with you? 00:02:23.280 --> 00:03:07.020 Oh, I just got back from the West Coast. I went out to have a family reunion with, On the coast of Oregon. So my family, my sister and her family and my mom and dad, my dad's wife, Gretchen, all gathered for a weekend on the ocean. Nice. And never nothing. Never nothing. It was good. Yeah. It's just amazing seeing your parents get older and loving on them. And I think I wrestle with just not being – I'm not close. But Madison feels like home for now. But it's always a really teary goodbye. It's always hard to leave and say goodbye to them. 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:08.300 Yeah. 00:03:08.300 --> 00:03:39.760 And it's a very, very special time to be together. So that and then as, yeah, I wrapped up Liberate. The course has wrapped for this season of it. And it was fantastic. And I'll share a little bit more about that. But I'm moving. I'm moving in 10 days. I'm moving to this spot on the lake that's close by. 00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:45.560 I thought you had already moved, but you just signed a contract. That's what happened. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:48.240 Yes, I signed the lease. Yes, I signed the lease in May. 00:03:48.740 --> 00:03:52.900 Got it. So now you actually get to go. Did I see a picture of that? Yeah. 00:03:52.900 --> 00:04:05.560 Did you send a picture? Yeah, I sent you pictures. Yeah, yeah. So I haven't, it's, I've lived here this long and I have not yet canoed on the lake. And so I just can't wait just to get the canoe in the water. 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:11.580 Do you have anybody in mind to go? 00:04:14.480 --> 00:04:20.380 I do. I do. I do. I do. 00:04:21.380 --> 00:04:21.900 I do. 00:04:21.900 --> 00:04:30.040 Well, awesome. 10 days. So you're in the middle of packing up then and kind of gearing up for, that's a big deal. 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:41.300 Yeah. And I'm using this service. It's really cool. Have you ever heard of Greenbox? I don't know if that's the name of the company, but they bring over these big, not really big, but sturdy boxes. 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:06.420 Oh, I've never heard of that. And that is genius. 00:05:06.740 --> 00:06:07.080 So like they all stack on dollies. They're all super secure. They're kind of where they had those sort of folding down tops, plastic, plastic kind of things that he's holding down. So it's great. So those get delivered and I don't even have that much stuff. I mean, relatively, the way I used to live was crazy. I mean, moving took a month to pack up. Big, big moves. Can't believe I moved that stuff around so much. So, and ideally, I'm trying to figure out how to get my stuff that's in Portland, that storage unit, out here. So, anyone has any... interest in helping that happen in Portland. I'm going to hire some people to just help oversee stuff getting packed up safely there and shipped out here. So I'm ready to, I'm ready to commit to Madison. So that's, that's the story here. What do you have coming up? 00:06:07.080 --> 00:06:31.800 I am in the middle of working with a guy downtown LA that has a has six laser cutters and he and I are working on some projects together. He's teaching me the ropes a little bit. We're working on some videos. I am really, really close to posting videos. 00:06:54.500 --> 00:07:00.460 of good stuff happening. That's exciting. That's exciting. The laser stuff is so interesting, 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:40.320 too. I can't wait to see more of that. I'm still I'm so enamored with lasers. There's so and I mean, yes, because they're they're lasers, you know, like, I think on some kind of like boyish psychological level, I like their lasers, you know, it's like, of course, who's not going to be stoked about lasers, but, but I really am just blown away by what, like how, how much they can do, like what an amazing, amazing tool they really are. So excited to share more about that. Hopefully soon. 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:47.000 Can you give us one example of something just mind-blowingly cool that it could do? It could laser? 00:07:48.420 --> 00:09:35.180 Well, one of the projects that we're working on right now, me and this, my friend downtown, we're making a guitar, like a Fender Stratocaster. And like, you know, something that would have taken a lot of expertise and months and tools and, you know, like we were able to find a basic design and have it cut out in, you know, a couple hours. Wow. Wow. But like, it's just so many cool things you can do with paper with wood and leather and resin and. fabric and just possibilities are limitless. It really is just it's one of those things that I think is going to be as transformative a tool as photocopiers were. Photocopiers are now ubiquitous. Everybody has a use for a photocopier. It's so versatile. It can do... or cell phones, right? It's like there's a million uses for it. It's such a useful thing in so many different ways. I think lasers are kind of like that. Like I was just talking to my dad the other day about how lasers are used throughout medical profession in all sorts of different specialties or specializations, different kinds of surgery. They're just amazing. It's a very powerful, versatile tool and it's becoming more accessible and the tools and software that are that allow people to use them in different ways are getting more accessible and easy to use. And so it's just it's it's an exciting thing to learn about. 00:09:35.580 --> 00:09:37.900 Yeah. And you don't get your fingers chopped off. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:10:31.420 Totally could. And the laser machines they had up at the high school had a lot of safety features built in. This guy downtown, not so many safety features. Totally, totally safe. you know, remove appendages very easily. I thought it would be worthwhile while it's still kind of fresh in your, in your mind. I have been thinking a lot about and about this first round of liberate and I'm so interested to hear just your experience and some of the successes and things that you learned and, what's coming up next for the people that were part of the course and when you're going to be offering it again. Just the whole process has been so interesting to, to see from the sidelines. And I don't know, I just, I guess I want to hear your debrief about the first, first round. 00:10:31.780 --> 00:10:33.300 You good with that? 00:10:33.300 --> 00:10:47.300 I'd love it. Absolutely. Kind of the development that you saw and things that you learned or things that you're excited about, you know, that came from that first round of workshops about creating a book. 00:10:47.400 --> 00:11:28.860 Yeah. So I am coming at the back end now of finishing the first round of Liberate, the course, creating the book you most want to find. And it has been fan-friggin-tastic. And as a teacher to witness people, I mean, this always happens in real life, like true living experience, retreats and workshops. But to see people become free across the world, to truly see them kind of awaken to showing and being more of themselves and hearing the feedback. 00:11:29.420 --> 00:11:29.920 Yeah. 00:11:29.900 --> 00:12:32.060 Like yesterday, for example, I got a message from Emily Luman, who's taking the course, and she's working on her book that's incredible. And she just said, this is a message that said, I feel alive. And she had said in her testimonial that she'd never felt passion before until she started. took this course, the experience and passion. So her sense of falling in love with creating this book and the energy and the passion that she's experiencing for the first time in her life is just, she's a very sensitive and shy, introverted, wonderful person. And just that's You know, that's ultimately, that's the wish, right, for us to help people become deeper and more alive in their life and their expression of that. 00:12:33.740 --> 00:12:34.300 Mm-hmm. 00:12:34.300 --> 00:14:15.220 So when I was in Portland this past week visiting my family, I took the chance to talk to three of the people who are taking the course that live in Portland area. And so I invited them over to my dad's place. it was Keely, Lisa, and Emily, and they had not met each other yet in person, so it was fun for them to meet in person. And Lisa brought her husband. She said, can I just bring my husband along? We were having a sort of day together, and the kids are away at camp. And so he came along, and it was really special because he actually ended up getting on camera too and giving a testimonial. And, you know, he said, yeah, "Thank you for giving me my wife back." He said she was in a hard place, I'm paraphrasing, for a long time. And through Untether and then Liberate, he has seen her just unfold. And she said the same thing, but it was really meaningful. He said, you know, the community you've created has that sense of safety and inspiration to bring forth this from people. So, yeah. And it's really, it's a reminder that you just got to, you do, you got to do you, you know. There's a lot of things like where I thought, you know, I didn't do slick big videos at all. I taught this live on Zoom. 00:14:16.940 --> 00:14:17.500 Yeah. 00:14:17.500 --> 00:15:10.300 I didn't take extensive, you know, do extensive notes and planning and rehearsing. I knew the things I wanted to teach, but I let it come through naturally and spontaneously, leaving room for the spontaneity. And didn't like go deep diving into preparing for the demos. I'm like, oh, this is what we got. This is what we're using. Okay, let's use this. And let that be... Let that just be like that. And I think all the different elements about letting something be its own, become its own thing, made it be effective in the ways that I really, really wanted it to be, which is people felt permission and energized by the realness of it. 00:15:10.300 --> 00:15:11.480 Mm-hmm. 00:15:11.480 --> 00:16:36.900 And I think they could feel my sincere excitement for the work and the – like leading people through this process. And so now as we finish, we sort of talked about having people could do sort of two-week check-ins and posting in the group where they're at, what they're up to, and just helping people keep going. And so just the first round happened a few days ago on the 28th. And just to start seeing these, you know, seeing them now being some of the pages are being laid out. So you're seeing them on the computer and thumbnails in the programs. The joy in seeing the stuff that I was teaching about, about juxtaposition and elements of design composition and how I use photography and energy coming from the sides of the pages just seeing that, I'm like, they got it they're using that, they're applying that and their pages look really great and different than what They look like what the work has clearly really developed. They got it. It's kind of this wild thing as a teacher. I think when we see that, I know you must have that experience a lot. But you think, oh my gosh, they actually really digested that and brought it forth in their own way. 00:16:37.680 --> 00:16:38.200 Yeah. 00:16:38.200 --> 00:18:55.560 I mean, there's so much to what you just said that I think is so significant and important to, I don't know, things that I've been mulling over myself and the experience I've had this past two years teaching at a high school and the kind of juxtaposition of that against my previous experience teaching at college and teaching older folks. Yeah. I think there's this tendency that we have when like putting together something for an online course, for example, of and even like teaching in a class in a classroom of wanting to create this polish of and presentation and everything is in order and makes sense and. there's something, you know, there's an opportunity cost there, you know, there, there's a consequence or a trade-off that you're making with that kind of presentation that I feel like is, is critical in this case, you know, it's like your ability to engage with people and not have all of that polish or not force yourself into that mode of needing to make it to sterilize the information and sterilize the experience, um, like that was critical in, in a critical part of the instruction, you know, is you being able to work and teach in that mode was part of the instruction. I don't know. I guess I'm saying stuff that's obvious, but I don't know. That seems so powerful to me that, um, You know, and I think is part of what I love about listening to podcasts, you know, and people having conversations is there's a kind of learning and unlocking that happens for me when I hear information presented in that way, in that format, that I wouldn't get just watching a TED Talk or watching a Nova video. Exactly. Right? It's like. Yes. There are nuances and subtext and all sorts of. other types of communication that can happen only when something happens in an authentic or spontaneous way, right? And I think it's exciting to hear that you have had success in working and teaching in that way because that's only something that I've experienced in person in a classroom, right? 00:18:55.700 --> 00:18:56.300 Yeah. 00:18:56.300 --> 00:19:39.340 And to hear that you've been able to accomplish that and have people resonate in a very deeply felt and experienced way is phenomenal. I don't know. I guess it kind of opens the potential of connecting with people at just... You know, through this, what feels like an impersonal medium of the internet, you know, of digital technology, of cameras and screens and, you know, things that feel in person, there is a way to teach and to experience and to connect with people in a very human way, which... which sounds like what you've been able to achieve. That's fantastic. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:20:00.000 Yeah, and it always feels a little, there's a danger in it too, right? There's a danger in just going, okay, we're going live, we're doing this, there's no rehearsal here. And it is probably a level of doing a play, not even a play, because you do a play over and over again. I don't know exactly what it is. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:22:16.520 It's like stand-up comedy. It's like there's a certain pressure and alertness that has to be present for it to work. Yeah. And everybody senses that, I think, and everybody's hyper-attentive because of that energy and present. Yeah. But just like a stand-up comedian or a teacher in a classroom, you can never prepare enough to account for how your students are going to react, right? Or the audience in the case of a stand-up comedian. A stand-up comedian might tell a joke that kills in one club and then the next night it's a different crowd and it falls flat in the audience. you know, the comedian delivered the joke in the same way, you know, or, or vice versa, right? Like a joke could die on it with one crowd, but, you know, just kill with another crowd. And it's the same thing with, in a class, like you could be all prepared, but then like, for some reason you picked up the wrong tube of paint and all of a sudden, you know, everybody is like tuned into the fact that something is, didn't happen as planned. And there's this like, I don't know, like that, that spontaneity that, that, that, uh, that room for chance to, to happen or for things to not quite hit the way you expected to, it creates a dynamic and an energy, you know, that I think is lost a lot of times in education. And it's like we, like in education, I feel like it's almost incentivized. Teachers are incentivized to get rid of that spontaneity and to get rid of that energy and that creativity and that chance for, you know, things to happen. Exactly. Yep. This is all very exciting stuff for me because it's, you know, it's like just stuff that I've, thought about for so long. And this whole idea, the notion of freeing people and people feeling freed and feeling more alive, you know, that's what art is so good at, you know, and, and yes, and it's a whole point. Exactly. And then, and when you see people trying to teach it and take all of that life out of it, all of that, you know, 00:22:17.100 --> 00:22:17.600 that, 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:47.860 it just feels so like you're missing the point entirely. It's not about, you know, some technique. It's not about some method. It's not about some, you know, these steps that you have to follow. It's about feeling alive, you know, and, and yeah. And feeling passion, feeling more yourself, you know, and feeling more, uh, connected with other people. And that it, I don't know. It's all very exciting. 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:51.900 It's so cool. It's so cool. It's so cool, right? 00:22:52.440 --> 00:23:14.100 So people have responded in a way and you're seeing them actually practicing the things that you've taught. And then you check in every couple of months to see what they're doing. Or did anybody actually publish a book? What happens after that? 00:23:14.100 --> 00:23:57.220 Oh, no, they have a year to do it. Yeah, they have a year. So we'll meet live. So part of the investment in the course is they'll be a live thing here in Madison that they can come to. And so it will be a chance for them to ideally have a book, like the first draft of it, first printings done by then. So everybody's working towards that. So some people are further along in that process right now. But I really wanted people not to rush through. I just want them to experience and soak it in and then rewatch and reflect and apply. So it didn't want it to be something kind of fast and quick like that. 00:23:57.220 --> 00:24:10.500 Will you be sharing that with the podcast audience? Or will you have some place that people could go to see some samples? I don't know. 00:24:10.780 --> 00:24:22.020 Yeah. Yeah. At some point I'll have all the, I'll have examples to share people's, you know, I can even in the next week or so, see if I can get some that we could add to the, onto our website. 00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:28.860 Will you open this, the same course up again then and, and have another session of the. 00:24:29.040 --> 00:24:33.320 Yes. So it's going to re oh, registration will open again in January. 00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:50.240 And again, it will just be a week. I'll be open for a week and. so there'll be stuff coming out about it at the beginning of January. Well, great to hear your voice, great to connect, and I look forward to chatting next week. 00:24:50.300 --> 00:25:02.680 Indeed. Lots of cool stuff coming up. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, you can follow us on Instagram at Sabrina Ward Harrison and at Trent Reynolds Art. 00:25:03.040 --> 00:25:08.540 And check out the show notes at roominthetrees.com where you can also get in touch if you have any ideas you'd like to share. 00:25:09.020 --> 00:25:12.480 Rate us on iTunes and share Room in the Trees with a friend. 00:25:12.860 --> 00:25:28.180 With a friend. And now? Go be in the summer breeze. I'm gonna go be in the summer breeze. It is picture perfect summer breeze right now. No humidity, just lovely. 00:25:28.180 --> 00:25:31.260 Go enjoy summer y'all. Be alive. 00:25:31.260 --> 00:25:36.620 Be alive, be even more alive and let love uncover you. Let love uncover you. 00:25:38.280 --> 00:25:43.940 Let love uncover you. Sounds like a hymn.