Ronnie Das

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Woody Jacobs! This ethereal artist from South Bend discovered infrared photography about four years ago. He had an interest in photography since he was 15 years old, purchasing a Yashica 35 mm camera with some of the first cash to his name. Jacobs served in the US Navy which included two major deployments. He was inspired to start taking photos again after the passing of his father in 2011. Jacobs draws inspiration in his everyday life as a service engineer and is enamored with the unique look of infrared. His father loved and appreciated the beauty of the world around us every day, a trait they both share as Jacobs will stop to “smell the roses” on his long travels wherever his work or even a family trip takes him. Learn more about how family and friends can encourage an interest and create an opportunity to produce fine art archival quality photos.

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Princess Mcillwain! Princess McIllwain is sustainable poetry in motion. Mcillwain is an American artist and poet of Irish and Puerto Rican heritage. Her art could be described as a stylized fractal of uplifting vibrant narratives and poetry in both visual and written form. Her vibrant symbolic paintings evoke a deep emotional, tactile, and almost kinetic experience. Her skillful use of color theory, brushes, knives, mixed media, and other tools further expand her visual language. Get ready to enter an exciting sensory realm that is merely a jumping off point for profound connection…

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Sunday Mahaja! Sunday Mahaja is the owner of Mahaja Arts Studio. He started off as a painter at Goshen College and continued after graduation. He turned his focus to metal sculptures and has multiple certifications in welding. After working on a production line for 2 years, he is presently working as a paraprofessional for young adults with special needs at Goshen community schools. Mahaja has won multiple awards at the Midwest Museum of American Arts in Elkhart, Indiana as well as in other art shows.

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Gage Craft! Gage Craft grew up in a semi-isolationist environment which allowed him to develop an imaginative fervor. Craft dove into himself and found his own sprawling plains of creation. This has made coping with the developed world into adulthood a struggle, one that he continues to explore in his work as well as attempting to encapsulate the lessons he gained and world he began conceptualizing as a child through his broken lens, observing the world, but never really feeling apart of it outside of the woods his family calls home. Now his plans for work involve creating a universe that can help guide the youth through esoteric and existential concepts, ones normally faced later in life after living without the need to stop and consider. Philosophical concepts normally deemed to high literature or otherwise for younger peoples to grasp leaving them unprepared when they have to deal with them. Because these are the things he became drawn towards, horrified by, and understanding of during his time spent feeling as if the “normal world” was too far to reach.

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Jenny Frech! Jenny Frech spent a lot of time in her own imagination as a kid, like most artists and entrepreneurs. Drawing and imagining worlds that don’t exist. As an entrepreneur, her first business was a lemonade stand at age 6 or 7 on a dirt road that no one traveled down. By the time she was in her teens she had started oodles of short-lived businesses including: selling tiny plants, golf balls, handmade stationery; sitting for kids, dogs, and horses; even a window-washing business. As a Gen-Xer, her parents wanted her to find a long-term job with a company and get a retirement watch. She struggled with what she wanted to do as a grown-up and ended up with a degree in Animal Science. Even in college, she was checking out books called something like “How to Start a Business from Home”. Frech eventually went back for a teaching degree and taught off and on for ten years. Looking back, she thinks she should have studied art and graphic design because I love the whole process of creation and design. In 2012, she left teaching and worked at the University of Notre Dame as an Education and Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Sustainable Energy. She enjoyed the work and discovered some skills she didn’t know she had: like networking, leadership, and coaching. Meanwhile, she made soap for the first time in 2012 and it was an utter, messy disaster! Out of 3 batches, only one was usable. At Christmas that year, a friend suggested that they try to make soap for Christmas presents, that time it worked and was fun! She started experimenting and making all sorts of batches, trying out new recipes, scents, and color combos. Her husband suggested that she start selling at the farmer’s market in Goshen. It happened to be great timing, the former soapmaker had just left, and there was a space open. She sold $70 of very ugly soap, but with a great recipe that she developed at the first market. In the fall of 2013, she was able to quit her job at Notre Dame and go full-time with her business. In 2014 she opened her shop with her husband! Since then, they’ve moved two more times into bigger and bigger stores and have an amazing support team. She says she is not a fine artist, but does consider herself a maker and an artist. Frech likes to explain soapmaking as one part art, one part baking, and one part science. She spend a lot of her time in artistic and creative endeavors from designing soap, creating branded materials, designing labels, creating beautiful eye-catching store windows, and choosing merchandise assortments for the store. As an entrepreneur, she loves the creation of something from nothing. She start with a vision of what could be. Then, gathers up the ingredients to make it happen: a great team, influence from their customers, and the right mix of products. While the mix of products they make today is what she envisioned nine years ago, the business has taken on a life of its own! Sort of like raising kids…it’s fun and exciting to watch them grow up into who they want to be. In this case, her community and customers have a pretty big say on which way they grow. Find out how a quiet customer helped her create her favorite line…

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Lauren Steinhofer! Lauren Steinhofer was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. She has been consistently producing artwork or many mediums such as paintings, poetry and instillations. Her work centers around processing emotions. Steinhofer’s main focus is on the persistence of being and bringing representation to the human experience as far as what humans have going on internally. In her opinion a life lives for art is a life worth living.

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Kate Tillman-Craig! Kate Tillman-Craig was raised in Bremen and studied art at Ball State University, graduating with a BFA in Photography. Tillman-Craig went on to Chicago where she worked in her uncle’s photography studio, along with the required by all young artist- waitressing at a restaurant. After school she was a little burnt out from making art, so she wasn’t making much work but was always dabbling in something creative. Tillman-Craig wasn’t sure how to justify making work, submitting, and paying to submit work to shows, with no return, and very little space to store it! Eventually she saw on an artist submission website that they were accepting submissions to an art fair in her neighborhood. She really had never witnessed an art fair outside of Leeper Park in South Bend. Her mom took her there almost every year that she could remember when she was young, but she never really connected that these artists were not all local. Being accepted to the Glenwood Art Festival in Rogers Park opened the door she had been looking for. That show was a learning experience, to say the least. She sold one print. But found an outlet to sell work that she wanted to make. She also found that this art show thing was real. People were out there selling art, like as a job, for money. She wanted in! “You travel to different cities, see many of the same faces, make some great friends, sell the work you want to make. It’s been some great fun, A LOT of work, but exceedingly satisfying. It sounds fun, but it’s not for the faint of heart.” Tillman-Craig’s work has changed substantially since then, she has refined lots of points of the work she sells, the presentation of the work, and the shows she attends. However, the base of the techniques she uses are very similar from how she started. All of her images are film based, some color, but mostly black and white. She is a big fan of creating texture in an image, either through material, or manipulation of the image itself. She has a body of nudes that are all made of cut apart, medium format negatives that she glues back together onto plexiglass, and hand manipulates, either with sandpaper, or other mark making techniques. From there, she scans and prints them. This is a technique that she started using at Ball State, and further refined in Chicago while making new work for shows. They have a very obscure painterly quality to them, which she really loves! Her more recent work also had a start at Ball State, while studying in an alternative process photography class. This class experimented with several different types of printing processes, Van Dyke, Cyanotype, and the one she still uses – liquid emulsion. Liquid emulsion is essentially the material that is on black and white photo paper that makes it light sensitive. So, she gets it in a gelatin form, melts it and uses it on sheet metal. It’s a pretty labor-intensive process, but it gives her the look she is going for. Tillman-Craig has always been a fan of old photographs, antiques, creepy, eerie…. everything. So, these images she makes, they aren’t for everyone, but she gets a lot of props from photo enthusiasts, other artists, and collectors looking for something new and different. It’s been a real honor having her work appreciated by the public and to feel like she made some sort of an impact on people that enjoy art.

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Mark Daniels! Mark Daniels grew up in in rural Elida, Ohio and developed a love of creative drawing and art making at a young age by observing the animals or digging in the dirt. Daniels was equally happy inside, busily creating his own fictitious characters, sketching portraits of people, and experimenting with different drawing mediums all through my formative years. It wasn’t until he attended Goshen College as an art major that he received any sort of formal training. Daniels pursued art-making at home after college, completing commissions, getting gigs as a caricaturist, leading art workshops, and attempting to sell his artwork at small art fairs. As he developed his skill as a caricature artist , he still craved to paint on canvas. His art career took a back seat for a time as he and his wife bought a house and started a family. Daniels got a job teaching art at Bethany Christian Schools, where he learned that he was not cut out for classroom teaching!. After 3 years of teaching, he made the decision to become a full-time artist. Daniels completed a series of small, mixed media flower paintings that He really enjoyed and was pleased when this unique way of depicting flowers gained approval from his growing fan base. After the sale of those watercolor paintings, subsequent greeting cards, and running more art workshops, Mark found he needed a space to do the messy work of creating. He found a fantastic studio space in The Irwin Art Center in Goshen, where he currently resides. He credits his wife Krista as his inspiration to paint the birds and flowers that he does. As an Interpretive Naturalist, Krista teaches the public of the importance and uniqueness of native flora and fauna in the Midwest. It is important to her that people understand and care for the natural world around them. This passion has also influenced Mark to celebrate her work and the native, important, and beautiful creation around us through his artwork. Mark loves creating vibrant paintings using his skill as a caricature artist to distill an identifiable subject into exaggerated angular color shapes and lines, leaving a recognizable but impressionistic depiction of said subject. He is passionate about sharing what he has learned about color theory, painting techniques and his methods with others. Daniels’ paintings always have a striking sense of rhythm, and fun, disarming compositional elements that make the painting seem to come alive. He has artworks in numerous private art collections throughout the U.S. and has won a number of awards in area art shows. Mark is available to create special requests for anyone that loves his style, but wants a different flower or bird depicted!

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Kandy Grady! Kandy Grady is an artist from Dowagiac, Michigan. Acrylic is her medium of choice but she also works in mixed media with paper she prints. Her work varies from figurative portraits to colorful mixed media landscapes. Grady’s artwork is expressive of who she is as a black person of color who is a daughter, sister, and mother. Her experience of navigating humanity and her social environment has made her conscious of her desire to depict her African American culture in positive ways and vivid colors. Hopefully you’ll find a little something to brighten your space with colors of joy.

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight into inspiration as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Angie Thieszen! Angie Thieszen hails from Defiance, Ohio, but now lives in Millersburg, Indiana. Thieszen has come from a family line of artistic talents in various professional and hobby art careers. She studied art at Bluffton College (now Bluffton University) in Bluffton, Ohio. Most of her past work has been as a hobby artist working with mediums such as watercolor, acrylic, chalk, and Etch-A-Sketch, but her wood stain art has taken her to a professional level. In 2021 she opened her first public studio and shop inside the beautiful Southgate shopping marketplace (27751 CR 26, Elkhart, Indiana). When she is not working on art, Angie values spending most of her time living life to the fullest with her husband and their four children. She enjoys being in nature, having deep conversations, loving on animals, and encouraging others. She is frequently motivated by the words of Wonder Woman, “You are stronger than you believe. You have greater powers than you know.” The most valuable part of her life comes from knowing that Jesus Christ is the source of that strength and power in her life. For Angie Thieszen, there is a breath of life found in details and contrast. Although this world is beautiful as a whole, the busyness of life has caused some of the most beautiful details to be lost to us. The ripples in the pouring of your favorite drink, the delicate edges of flower petals, the soft curves of the human body, the reflection of light and life in the eyes of a favorite animal, and so much more. These overlooked details have the ability to stir emotions, evoke memories or even elicit change if given the chance. Angie finds joy in capturing the life of these details and giving them the audience they deserve. Angie’s eye is most often drawn to the contrast between light and dark, shadows and highlights, depth and reflection. These elements are brought out in uniquely dynamic ways by using wood stain as her medium instead of traditional paints. Once Angie has a photo to work from, she often reduces that image even further until the detail she sees is uniquely highlighted. She hand-draws that image onto a smooth unfinished wood surface and uses q-tips and cloths on her fingertips to paint the images directly into the wood with wood stain. Layers of Polycrylic are then added to seal in and protect the piece for lasting durability. The process of making wood stain art is a challenge full of intuition, patience, experience and the willingness to learn from mistakes. Although she experimented on everything from rolling pins to furniture, old kitchen cabinet doors to indoor full-sized doors, she now primarily works on Poplar Veneered MDF board for her wall hangings. Each species of wood handles stains differently and Angie has found she appreciates the contrast and workability of poplar wood the most. She changed from boards of solid poplar to poplar veneered MDF board to avoid some of the warping and cracking of her larger pieces. These changes have brought not only longevity to her pieces but also much added value.

“Всё мгновенно, всё пройдет; Что пройдёт, то будет мило.” -Александр Пушкин

“Everything is momentary, Everything will pass, What will pass will be dear.” – Alexander Pushkin

1000 Words is a podcast that paints a picture about the creative process. This is a lens to focus on the unique perspective of a specific artist. Hopefully drawing insight as we brush up on how imagination provides a groundwork for artistic exploration. We continue that journey today with Vasilisa Kiselevich! It will pass, but we hope that the photos will remain. We hope that the images will help us halt this beautiful moment. And it is not just a Faustian fleeting moment of personal life. Now it is a fleeing moment for the whole humanity, the whole World. Vasilisa Kiselevich’s landscape and wildlife photography is her contribution to documenting nature on the brink of ecological crises due to climate change and to progressive damage inflicted by human activity. For Kiselevich it is also a way of studying nature. For the last 7 years she has been documenting in images and notes the life of a swan family. She also observed and photographed night life of beavers for a couple of years. Macro photography lets her into the invisible word of butterflies and flowers. Kiselevich did not know that butterflies had two proboscises when they were just born, until she saw it in her photo. Finally, photography is her way of immersing herself in nature, it is a way of being in it and being a part of it. It is her therapy, which she calls “Nature Sessions.” Our time is a fleeting moment for society as well. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, she has been working on my “Parallel Worlds” project. While documenting nature in the National Parks, in Canada, in Alaska, and in Buchanan, Michigan, she also documented the tectonic movements of the social landscape in Chicago: Pandemic, Black Lives Matter, 2020 Elections, and most recently the response to the war in Ukraine. The latter gives my photography a new purpose. The photos that she is taking at Ukrainian rallies and events are her way of sharing support, pain and hope. Her images promote awareness about the war and are exhibited in the South Bend Museum of Art as well as in the Buchanan Art Center. Kiselevich says she is also fortunate to be able to share the world of photography with her talented students. A student’s wife told her: “Thank you for giving photography to my husband. Now it is all of his life.” The student himself said that after taking her classes he became addicted to photography and sees everything “as if it were in a photo.”

“Il faut être toujours ivre. …. Pour ne pas sentir l’horrible fardeau du temps qui brise vos épaules, et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve. Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous! – Charles Baudelaire.
(You have to be always drunk. … In order not to feel the horrible burden of time which breaks your shoulders, and bends you to the ground, you have to get drunk all the time. But with what? With wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But get drunk.)

“With wine, poetry or virtue,” or with photography, Kiselevich would add. For Kiselvich photography is a way of life, a way of perceiving, and a way of seeing things. It is also a way of expression. She often pairs her poems with her photographs and calls them photo poems. Photography is like poetry: it distills the essence. That’s why her studios name is “The Essence of Light Photography.” We cannot halt a fleeting moment, but we can capture it as light, Express its essence in a sonnet, Or write a fugue to voice its flight.