Born in New Haven, CT, Heidi Lender began her career reporting on the fashion universe for national magazines, writing features and styling photo shoots throughout her twenties. With a BA in apparel and textiles from Cornell University, she covered style and travel from New York to Paris, where she served as Fashion Director and Associate Bureau Chief of Women’s Wear Daily and W Magazine. After Paris she went to India, where she lived part-time while studying yoga for the next eight years. In 2007, she opened and taught at a yoga studio in San Francisco, and two years later she discovered her creative self in photography. Self-taught, she began by creating self-portraits and realised a meaningful way to make sense of the world and her place in it. Her images are often based in self-inquiry that stem from personal experiences, relationships and/or investigate identity.
She is represented by galleries in the U.S. and Uruguay and has exhibited internationally. Heidi is a founding member of the online collective Six Shooters, has twice been a Critical Mass finalist, received recognition from the likes of the Pollux Awards and the Julia Margaret Cameron Award. Her work has been featured in PDN and Rangefinder magazines and in online photo blogs including CNN, NPR and the New Yorker’s Photo Booth. Editorial credits include WSJ Magazine, Disegno Journal and Grey Magazine. In 2014, Kehrer Verlag published the photography book “Grassland” under Lender’s pseudonym, H. Lee. She currently resides on an 80-acre ranch in Pueblo Garzón, Uruguay, where she has founded CAMPO, a nonprofit creative institute supporting international artists (www.campogarzon.org).
In this episode and her discussion with Anne, Heidi recounts her impulsive decision to leave her burgeoning career as a fashion director in Paris at the young age of 26. Her tale is marked by personal challenges, including a divorce and the emotional roller coaster of IVF, which she bravely shares with Anne. Heidi's journey of self-discovery and resilience is punctuated by her immersion into the world of yoga, which led to her being trained under the renowned K. Pattabhi Jois, finding solace and a renewed sense of purpose.
Prompted by Heidi expressing the realisations she had while shopping in Goa, Anne shares a similar experience from her recent trip to Greece, emphasising the significance of unique, locally-crafted fashion. Anne also speaks candidly about her battle with rheumatoid arthritis and how yoga has been instrumental in her physical and emotional well-being, noting that movement does indeed help with pain, despite seeming counterintuitive. The episode takes a reflective turn as Heidi shares the trials and tribulations she faced during her attempts at conceiving through IVF, eventually leading her to embrace a different life path with acceptance and grace.
A pivotal moment in Heidi's personal story, she tells Anne, is her discovery of Garzón, Uruguay. During an impromptu trip to South America, she stumbled upon her dream home in the quaint village, which became the birthplace of CAMPO. Heidi describes to Anne how her passion for photography flourishes in this picturesque setting, where the art of self-portraiture becomes a therapeutic outlet and a means of self-expression. The episode highlights how photography, combined with mindfulness practices, has been a crucial part of Heidi's healing journey.
Heidi then goes deeper into the founding and growth of CAMPO, which has evolved into a sanctuary for artists, chefs and writers from around the world. Heidi articulates her vision of creating transformative experiences for both residents and attendees, fostering a sense of community through artistic collaboration. The festival, now a three-day event with a month-long residency program, is using the theme "unsettled" this year. The theme explores migration and movement, thus reflecting Heidi's own journey of continuous reinvention.
The episode concludes with a heartfelt discussion between Heidi and Anne on the value of solitude, introspection and the interconnectedness of creative pursuits and personal growth. Heidi shares important moments of reconnection with her past and influential figures, weaving a narrative of the importance of serendipity and openness to new perspectives. Through her story, Heidi exemplifies resilience, creativity and the transformative power of embracing life's unpredictable turns.
An intimate and heartwarming interview with a talented artist. Happy listening!
Out of the Clouds website: https://outoftheclouds.com/
Out of the Clouds on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_outoftheclouds
The Mettā View website: https://avm.consulting/metta-view
Anne on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annvi/
Anne on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@annvi
Anne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/
Heidi’s website: https://heidilender.com/
Camp Garzon: https://campogarzon.org/
Heidi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heidilender
Heidi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-lender/
Argentinian chef Francis Mallmann: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Mallmann
Restaurant Garzon: https://www.restaurantegarzon.com/
W magazine: https://www.wmagazine.com/
Women's wear daily: https://wwd.com/
Us Magazine: https://www.usmagazine.com/
Ashtanga Yoga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtanga_vinyasa_yoga
John Berlinsky: https://www.mettayogastudio.com/john-berlinsky
K. Patthabi Jois: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Pattabhi_Jois
Punta del Este: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punta_del_Este
The beheaded goddess book: https://www.amazon.com/Beheaded-Goddess-Daughters-Narcissistic-Fathers-ebook/dp/B007Y9L8Z6
Rafael Vignoli, the architect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Vi%C3%B1oly
Desiree, you gotta be: https://open.spotify.com/track/6CU0zWIWVTEnmWpSjVHM93?si=66f28c3e590a4eb2
Ain’t no mountain, Diana Ross version: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Viqm1uiiHtM5Y0FwTCtFR?si=a5cc9dfe19634c0f
James McBride: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McBride_(writer)
Tommy Orange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Orange
CAF 8 Virtual Film Forum - Aquí está el enlace actualizado para Film Forum: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1utIIAFPToi3gKu-CVvlag
Link to donate and support Campo: https://campogarzon.org/support/
00:04
Hi, hello, bonjour and namaste. This is Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness, and I'm your host, Anne V Muhlethaler. Today, my guest is Heidi Lender. Heidi is someone that I have heard about for so many years, without actually knowing her name, and we will tell you that story. But one day an amazing synchronous event brought us together and this is why I had the chance to get to know her and, of course, invite her on the podcast, so I could ask her as many questions as I can about her amazing life journey.
00:46
In our conversation, Heidi tells me about her upbringing, how she landed in fashion and moved from New York to Paris to report for W&WWD magazine, where she became fashion director at the age of 26 years old. We talk about her impulsive streaks and how she left the fashion world, got to Aspen and got into yoga and studying with Pattabhi Jois, but we also talk divorce, falling out of love, IVF, dark moments and what it's like when we feel our inner light is dimming. She also explains how she magically came across her dream house and found herself anew thanks to the misty local landscapes that surround her, as well as the medium of photography. She tells us about the practice of self-portrait and how she trained herself to become a fine art photographer. We move then the conversation to discussing Campo Garzon, the non-profit creative institute and festival that supports international artists, which she founded and now runs. It's an amazing creative pursuit, through which she aims to offer transformative experiences for the artists in residence and new perspectives for those in attendance. Without further ado, let me leave it at this.
02:13
Here's my interview with the wonderful Heidi Lender. Happy listening, Heidi. It's so lovely to see you this time. Welcome to Out of the Clouds, it's so great to be here.
02:26
Love seeing you. Thanks for having me.
02:29
So tell me, how am I finding you today?
02:33
Today the sun is shining in Uruguay, which makes everything really amazing. We're in the middle of winter. There's always this week in August where you think it's the end of winter and it's 60 something degrees Fahrenheit, so that's whatever. That is 20, maybe centigrade, and we're like, oh my God, spring's here, and it's really just a thing. I forget what they call it here, but it's a week of warmth. So, anyway, we're in that week, which is why I'm wearing a t-shirt today, but it will get cold again.
03:08
Yeah, I was thinking why are you also in a t-shirt?
03:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's like unusually warm. I have the fire going and the doors open, so yeah, anyway, I'm good.
03:19
Tell me a bit about where you are in Uruguay and what it's like I live in a village called Garzon, pueblo Garzon, which is 170 residents, maybe 175 now.
03:32
It used to be a town of 2000 people, more than 2000, with a running train and an old wheat mill.
03:39
It wasn't old at the time when it worked, but it was a functioning wheat mill which closed, I think in the 60s, and then the train stopped running in the late 70s, early 80s and a lot of people left.
03:53
But about 20 years ago Argentine chef Francis Malman, who had spent time he spends a lot of time here and he had a restaurant in Jose Ignacio, the beach, that's about a half an hour away from here he came to Garzon and bought up a lot of property and turned the old general store on the corner of the plaza into a five bedroom little posada hotel inn and a restaurant called restaurant garzon, I think it's called, and transformed the town again or started bringing people here and some of his friends I should say there are already people, amazing people here. But he started bringing outside people here, outside extranjeros, foreigners, foreigners and his friends and also his having his place brought tourists. So it's not the million people came after that, but it started a new vibe. Let's say it's not like a gentrification vibe, because the town was already something, but let's say, revitalized and a little bit of a rebirth. And I came a few years later, by chance, and I live here full time Now.
05:16
I like to start the podcast by asking my guests to tell us their story, and I know that's a big, wide, open expanse of a question, but I like that we get to recreate ourselves every time we choose to tell our story in a different way. Would you tell me your story and how you came to be the person you are today and be in Garzon as well?
05:42
Yeah, sure, I'll try to make it succinct. So I was born in New Haven, Connecticut. My father is also from Connecticut, but his family is from Poland had a family business and so they're very New Haven people and I had a lovely childhood there and I left when I was 18. I went to university, I studied apparel and textile management and went on to work in magazines actually, which I don't know if this happened to you, but when we were growing up, it wasn't like today I don't know if I was so, I mean, I was sheltered, but it wasn't like, oh, you could do this or this. There was not a lot of possibilities in front of us, did you have?
06:34
that I absolutely had no idea that there was any kind of career in that department.
06:39
Exactly, and I had no idea. And even at 18, I was like, what am I going to study? I like to do a lot of things. But then there was this fashion major and I was like, okay, but it was almost by default. I could have been in psychology. I thought I might. Magazines, since I was very young I had a subscription to 17 magazine. Actually, this reminds me talking about it I wrote into a writing contest. I must've been like 16 to 17 magazine. I have no idea what I wrote, but anyway, I loved magazines. I really did. And so I ended up, from a friend of a friend of the family. I got an internship at Elle magazine right when I graduated, and so that started my career in fashion publishing and I went on to work for W Magazine and Women's Wear Daily in Paris and then in New York and then back in Paris where we probably met, we don't know.
07:49
Did we? We certainly did, but I don't remember, but I'm sure we did. We must have.
07:55
I'm sure we did, because it does definitely. Just seeing you now it's like we definitely knew each other, definitely in some life. And anyway I was in my twenties and and in the end I was associate bureau chief of the Paris office and the fashion director in Paris and it was a very big job for a 26 year old workaholic but a wonderful experience that you know. I wouldn't have traded that for the world. But anyway, I worked in publishing and then I left Paris and I moved to Aspen on a whim my story now you'll understand that I am a whim type person. So I moved to Aspen on a whim. I met my ex-husband on a whim who sold me ski boots.
08:45
My first week in Aspen I worked for Aspen magazine. I continued to freelance and then after some we went on a big trip around the world, backpacking just I think I turned 30 and then the Himalayas, a big adventure after knowing a guy for six months. And after that we landed in the Bay Area and I freelanced for a while. So I wrote for fashion magazines and shelter and travel and I worked for LA Magazine and San Francisco Magazine. Anyway, that was a chapter, got a divorce that was a chapter.
09:23
Got a divorce, oh, and was like this is not my beautiful life. How did you know? My ex and I had decided we would live in San Francisco for three years. He wanted to be a stockbroker and I was going to be the supportive girlfriend, slash, wife, and I said, okay, we'll do this for two or three years and then we're going to do what I want to do, even though I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I had this inkling that I wanted to be an artist and have a farm in Montana. There was something I thought I don't really want to live in the city or be there.
10:04
And five years passed and on the fifth year something started knocking on my soul. Let's say that you're definitely going down the wrong path here. So it was hard. It was a hard time and there was some other things that happened that were like something’s not right here, something's not right with my relationship, something is not right with me, and it felt a flame had gone out inside of me. When I look back now, it feels like my creativity was not squelched by him, but that I put it out to put the relationship first.
10:43
Some big learnings you can see in hindsight, yeah you put the light out to put the relationship first yeah, I think it's like a dimming right.
10:54
yeah, and, by the way, it's not the first time and it was not the last time, so it's big lessons for me in that department. But I did get it and moved on, and then I ended up going to India. So I mean, I'm so cliche, it's ridiculous.
11:12
No, you're not. Not everybody who's got a divorce goes to India.
11:17
Okay, good point. Okay, so I went to India to study yoga. I continued to freelance and then one day I was writing a story for Travel and Leisure on shopping in Bangalore and then shopping in Goa, and here I was going deep inside and learning about non-attachment and no competition and not holding and non-violence Not that writing about shopping is violent, but there was a big disparity, it was a huge contradiction what I was doing. And I actually stopped writing for magazines at that moment and I dove deeper into my yoga practice and just had a whole chapter of internal wonder and seeking and that cliche seeking thing which was great.
12:08
Tell me just a bit more about what stopped you writing it was that.
12:14
It was the paradox that I was like who here I am looking at, who am I and I'm one part of me is looking at the superficiality of the fashion world, which is why I left W. To begin with, I couldn't quite connect anymore in the fashion world itself In Paris. It's so it's full on, it's not. It was a full on, especially working for a women's wear on W. And so I remember I was sitting in a specifically sitting in a cafe.
12:46
I had gone back to New York for a few months and I was writing a story I think it was about Goa, shopping in Goa. And I said to a friend I was writing with a friend of mine and I said what can you read this? And I was like what the F am I doing? So like, what I was writing was so ridiculously superficial that it didn't align with where I was in my seeking of self, so I dropped it. I also dropped it like I would like, like this notion of I'm going to sell all my clothes or I'm going to get rid of all my clothes from the fashion world.
13:22
It was like like that idea which I thought I might do, but of course I didn't do that because in the bottom of my heart and soul, which I know now is I'm both. I love the superficiality in the, not in its superficialness, superficiality-ness what is that word? And it's superficiality. But I love the art of fashion, I love the beauty of it, I love the making of it, the creativity of it, the expression of wearing it. But that took me a while to come to grips with that answer that I am both, I am everything. Sure, did you have that experience?
14:08
at all. I think I'm going through it now. It's been coming on for a while, but it's true that it's. It's interesting. You would mention the shopping in Goa.
14:16
I just came back from Greece and I think that one of the ways in which we can commune with people is through their food, through their crafts and through their fashion.
14:32
I guess that perhaps and I had this conversation with a couple of different friends of mine I think that perhaps what I don't like is homogenous way. That sort of fashion has become the same in many places around the world with the globalization of the big houses, and I discovered one or two absolutely mesmerizing stores on Paros which were all around unique pieces and crafts and they were very pricey, but they were also an amazing retail experience. I had full on conversations with someone who explained to me like every piece and how and why the person went to shop and had these made, and I felt like I had a relationship with the owner that I didn't meet with. The lady who told me all those stories. I kept the card. The card is on my desk somewhere, so I think that there's room for me to still love it, but I'm confused as to what is my role in this industry at this point but confuses to what is my role in this industry at this point.
15:28
Yeah, it's interesting. The mirror or what it reflects back is it's for all the things that you said there's a person on the other end making right, Creating, and that we talked about this before, too. That was one of the things that I really loved. What I loved about my job at Women's Wear especially was finding new designers and supporting them, and that's what I do now, which we'll talk about later is to support artists that want to get their stuff out there into the world and share.
16:02
Yeah, it's an interesting red thread actually through your career, we'll get to that yeah. So there you are in India.
16:11
So there I am in India practicing yoga like very intensely and I tend to be a workaholic, so I did that in the yoga world. I had no intention of teaching whatsoever. Everyone around me was a teacher or trying to be a teacher for the most part, but I was just really interested in the personal journey, how to be a better person. I saw immediately with yoga you do yoga right.
16:40
I'm actually a certified teacher.
16:41
See, I know no but I am too, I am.
16:44
Me.
16:45
I know, no, but I am too. I am too now I know, but I didn't have any great goals for that. I think after the first year of practice, or maybe two years of practicing and I practiced Ashtanga yoga, which is pretty rigorous and very regimented I learned so much about myself. Competition came up really strongly and I was able to drop my competitive side a little bit. I'm competitive, but to the point where it was hurting me. You could suddenly see oh, what am I wasting my brain time on this? Because I'm never going to be able to do what she's doing, or I'm never going to look like she looks, or when I can be on my own personal journey on my mat, how can I feel better about myself and my life or be happier? So I learned that really quickly and I wanted more of that. So I just kept practicing.
17:42
I was going to ask you can you talk to me about who you trained with and who was your teacher?
17:48
Yeah, my teacher was Pattabhi Jois, who was the godfather, or grandfather, of Ashtanga Yoga. I started in San Francisco with John Berlinski, who was. I went to a yoga class when we moved to San Francisco Willow de Marin and it was the class that fit. My time was the first class in the morning.
18:12
I remember you said that and I love how we find places. It's just it works for my schedule. I have so much respect for that, Thank you.
18:21
And also who delivered that to me? Right, the universe was like here's your 6.30 in the morning spot and that was it. I never went to another class, I only studied Ashtanga. And John Berlinski was the one that said to me okay, now it's time for you to go to India. And so I went to a workshop with Pattabhi Jois. He was doing a workshop in New York and I met him there and then I went to India soon after my divorce and I was so lucky to have that time with him and his daughter and his grandson, and he was maybe 88 when I first went, and 88. Yeah, 88, 89. And it was up until he passed away. He was pretty much still in the room, adjusting people, dropping people back and back bends. It was a. Really. I felt very fortunate to have been able to study with him. Yeah, yeah, what do you do, Ashtanga?
19:24
Not much, a little bit, no, it's more Hatha Vinyasa. I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis and so some of the Ashtanga moves and all of the Chaturangas they can be really tough on my joints and I have to be very wary on the shoulders. I had some really bad injuries from that about 12 years ago. Just at the onset of the disease I didn't know that it was that, so I have to just be mindful. But so far, so good.
19:54
I still managed to continue playing on the mat, probably helping in some way. Right, it's helped circulation.
20:00
Yes, it sounds counterintuitive, but actually, even when you're in pain, movement does help and makes it better, but it can feel very hard at the beginning. But I'm very grateful. I'm managing really well with the disease and it's. Meditation and all of the ways I became more and more aligned to myself have helped bring me to that space, and prior to that my body was screaming at me and I wasn't listening. So I think a big lesson is there for me too.
20:38
Yeah, I think that yoga for me is exactly that also, like a heightened awareness of everything, and it just continues, even though I don't practice like a crazy person anymore. It's instilled in my body, which is very sensitive, and now you just awareness, which I think is healing.
20:59
Yeah, absolutely. And so how did yoga then open you up to what was going to be the next, the next stages of your life? Good question.
21:11
So I meet this guy is it's all part of the journey, it's all part of the yoga journey. I meet this guy. It was very magical connection. Yeah, he lived in Northern California. I didn't really want to live there and we had a very difficult time finding a place to live that we agreed upon. But we did agree to buy this building together in San Francisco. It was an old Edwardian, a beautiful building that needed restoration. It had units it had and it had this ground floor like retail spaces.
21:42
And and, at the time, Pattabhi Jois, there's a time, even though I was not wanting to be a teacher, guruji Pattabhi Jois said to us both okay, it's time you teach, you teach. And I was very committed to him and I said, okay, what can I say? It's true, I wanted to share. So when you have this life-changing experience, I probably in the beginning, was pretty proselytizing about it. I was like everyone should do yoga, everyone should do Ashtanga. No, I'm sure I was a pain in the ass. I still am, but I've changed my passions, but I really wanted to share it with the world. So it was a natural progression like, okay, so we bought this building and we did a bunch of renovation, beautiful renovations on it. We were great at doing projects together, john and I, and we opened Ashtanga Yoga San Francisco, which was an Ashtanga only and Mysore only Mysore style, where you practice individually and we walk around and teach, and we have this great little studio that didn't have a sign on the outside, it was underground. There was two yoga studios like in the same vicinity, two other yoga studios like a yoga boom in San Francisco. Oh, yeah and yeah, so that was great in San Francisco and yeah, so that was great.
23:08
And then there was a moment where and this was a big moment and I can't believe I just said it like that, but there was a moment, a big moment, where I was trying to have a baby and I was turning 40 or I was 40 something, 41 maybe, and the clock was ticking and we ended up doing a round of IVF and it was a whole thing about really around my clock. We weren't married, we were engaged and after this, I don't know, maybe we did an IUI or something, we did some other kind of supporting things because my eggs were old and I just had this very clear moment where I was like I'm done, I'm not doing that anymore, it wasn't working, we weren't married. There was like a lot of factors the science of it, the hormones, the shots, everything I was doing, acupuncture, everything and at one moment I just decided that's it, I'm not doing this. I'm telling you this story because it was also. Pattabhi Jois passed away that year. My mom was sick.
24:16
There was like a lot of things going, a lot of big changing things happening in my life, that I decided to not go back to India, let's say so. We had a house, we had an apartment in India, we were back and forth and it was just a decision and I didn't talk about it a lot and I didn't talk to John about it and I told him I'm done and he was like okay, but I fell into probably my first and only depression. I don't even know what else to call it. I was very sad. I didn't really know why. It was a really odd moment that I was watching myself because now we're all aware and I was watching myself like have no life, like my prana was sucked out of me and it was, and I didn't talk. Like I said, I wasn't sharing with anybody because I didn't. There was no mentalness around it, right. Right, it wasn't a thinking, sadness, or a sympathy thing or self-pity thing. There was no mind chatter about what was going on, and I think it's not like I had a dream, but I do remember lying in bed one day and realizing oh, if not, I'm not going to be a mother. Who am I? What am I?
25:45
And at that moment I realized that I was grieving something that was not necessarily having children, but more around the idea of being a mother, and that is what I was groomed to be, or that is what I was born to be. Or the fairy tale, the fairy tales we grew up with or I grew up with, where you, of course, you, become a mother. That was just how it is in my world, in my views, in my belief system, but deep in my belief system which probably, now that I do ancestral work, it's probably that's what it is you, you, were a mother. So I didn't necessarily want to be a mother. I did not want to be a mother. It was just something that was like oh, it's time, now, it's time to be a mother. And so there was this weird space of sadness that felt like my little girl's castle got trampled on. That's not even a word trample trampled.
26:52
No, but I like the metaphor.
26:57
It did feel like that. It felt like my dollhouse came crashing down, because it didn't feel like an adult feeling. It felt like a really young sadness that then there was this whole space of okay, well, who am I then If I'm not going to be a mom and I'm 40 something, what does my life look like after that? Did you have anything like this?
27:21
I am not a mom and I am 40 something and I've gone through two rounds of IVF on my own, yeah, and actually the clinic has emailed me yesterday saying you haven't been in touch, what's going on? And the second round left me feeling pretty poorly. I also put on a lot of weight since last year and it's interesting that you talk about having an answer or just understanding you are done. I was journaling on it this morning. It's a very strange feeling when you just don't know. And that's where I'm at.
28:02
And it's interesting because I have uterine fibroids so they're crowding my gut literally, and some neuroscientists have voiced theories around the fact that the gut-brain connection, sometimes it can feel very difficult to make decisions when you feel unwell around the tummy, the uterus, the gut system, and so I feel like I'm unable to move right now. There's a stuckness that's physical and metaphorical and I don't know if I'm going to try a third time. And I was sure I would, I was a hundred percent sure, and now I'm like I don't know. But I'm being very nice to myself and just taking care of holding what feels tender and giving myself space. And it's my journey. But I appreciate you talking about it because it's much, much tougher and it's not the same with every treatment. That's what's from one month to another. It's a whole different ball game and that was very unexpected. I'm just very glass half full. I was just very positive. I did not think I was going to hormonally come crashing down like I did.
29:24
It's really something and thank you for sharing that. Thank you, I had no idea. So timely, and I think space is it. That's all you can do is make a clearing and you will know. You always know.
29:38
You're super intuitive too, and you'll know, yeah, and I'm not putting pressure on it, yeah, there's enough that's going wrong with the world. So, if I can just do my best not to do anything harder on myself, but I do think that there's something to the body-mind connection and the ways in which we can foster more closeness, more awareness, more intimacy with ourselves in order to move through the world. And yeah, I need to do more yoga this summer.
30:10
I hear you. I feel the same.
30:14
I hate space and that space is good, yeah, but the words still echo for me that your castle came crashing down. Yeah. What happened? Once you know that this is what you're grieving, were you able to make space? How were you able to formulate what could happen next in your life?
30:36
It was almost like I'm not very good at being depressed. It's just not my thing, so I prefer to not wallow. It's just doesn't feel good for me. So, and it definitely didn't feel good for John and I was up at his place in Northern California. So there was a lot of things I didn't like. As I said, I didn't really want to be there.
31:07
I was like walking around in a bubble of sad and bad and nothing positive, nothing glass half full and I don't remember if it was him or me or somebody was like I got to get out, I got to shake out of this. I need something. I was probably both of us right, Because I also wasn't sharing, which was not like me. So I think at the time maybe I shared and I knew that the only thing that would that, the thing that would help, is traveling and going on an adventure, because that always helped. So whenever I had a breakup or whenever I was sad about something, I would get on a plane or get in my car or go on a road trip. It's like movement is really helpful for me, and also being in new environments, and whether it's you know whether I'm quote unquote running away or I like to think of it as running towards myself. It's probably a combination of both.
32:02
But it's also your present to your. You're no longer just in your head right, you're out in the world.
32:09
You're being in the world being in the world and having a bigger perspective right, Seeing other humans that have it way worse than I do or way better or whatever. It is just seeing other human beings and relating to people and cultures and things like that, and so that's how you found your way to Garzon?
32:29
I think it is. Tell us the story about how you found your house.
32:34
So we decided to not go back to India and I said let's go to South America. Neither one of us had been here. Okay, let's travel. We're going to travel for two months on a budget, we're going to plan out the trip and we're going to go see some yoga people in Brazil, but we'll start in Argentina. And when I looked at the map, I didn't really. Neither of us had been to South America.
32:57
I traveled a lot, but not down here, and I saw on the map that in between Argentina and Brazil is little Uruguay, that you could take a ferry by my lonely planet and said take the ferry from Buenos Aires to Uruguay, to this little heritage town. You could take the ferry. And we did that. And then we got on a bus and we came up the coast and I planned the trip out. So I had hotels where we were saying it was very cheap to travel in Argentina at the time and Uruguay, for some reason that I didn't understand at the time, was ridiculously expensive, like the opposite of Argentina. And that's because I know now the place where we were going on the beach, where we were going to travel up the coast to Brazil, was the resort area of South America. So all Argentines, all Brazilians are all flying and staying in their beautiful houses on the beach, moneyed people that come here on vacation for years and years. It's a big family destination. It's like the Hamptons of South America or like the Cote d'Azur of South America and I didn't really understand that.
34:14
We get on the bus and it's New Year's and Christmas, it's like the highest season week in this area and in the Punta del Este area and of course, there's no hotels available. We did find this place at the beach and I was struck immediately by the vibe, like how I felt, like I discovered this cool place that I hadn't read about, that W hadn't written about maybe once. Like Punta del Este sounded familiar but I really didn't know anything about it. It was so okay, we're in a cool place, but anyway I couldn't find a place for New Year's and I Googled and I find Francis Malman's, the chef's little five bedroom place and he happens to have a place free, not for free, but we get there.
35:02
We come here to this little village and a very ridiculously expensive taxi from Punta, where no one I remember saying to people we're going to Garzon and everyone at the hotel, everyone was like why are you going there? No one could understand why we would go to the middle of nowhere, cause that's how it feels. Um, you know, people were like there's nothing there and I was like there's a hotel there and they've got a room for me and they've got a room, so we're going there. Anyway, the taxi got got lost. It took two hours to get here. I thought we were getting kidnapped. I didn't speak a word of Spanish, was like it was ridiculous, like it was. I really did think we were getting kidnapped because I didn't. I didn't know anything about South America, that or that. Uruguay is the Switzerland of South America and it's safe. I was very ignorant, very, very, very ignorant.
35:59
I was like super gringa ignorante like super ignorant.
36:04
Anyway, we finally pull in and we go to the old general store, which is Francis's place, and walk through the doors and I am struck by, I'm like bewitched, like instantly. I'm like where am I? This is gorgeous, it's not fancy, it's really well appointed and it just it was like rolling into a ghost town and then open it, going through the doors of some beautiful, magical, well-styled, cool place. It felt like a secret. It felt like I was in the coolest secret ever on the planet. And anyway, we had an amazing three days and a New Year's up. Francis was there and we met some friends of his that lived in the village at a big barbecue for new year's. And on the third day, oh, I should say that I was starting to take pictures, so I had I was going to come to that my first camera with me that I didn't really know how to use because it was a digital and I didn't.
37:13
So this was like my South America trip that I was getting out of my depression was a little bit also about creativity, so was I'd stop writing. But now I was very interested in taking pictures, which became much easier to me, and it was same kind of storytelling, although I wasn't covering fashion, but I could have been covering travel or whatever. But I was just so fascinated with taking pictures at this point. So one morning I think the second morning we were here I got up at sunrise and I took a walk around the empty village and I turned a corner and there was a lot of for sale signs around the village. But I turned this corner and I saw this little yellow house with five for sale signs on it. But when I turned the corner I had this moment in my whole body that I actually gasped. I was like I had this holy shit moment Like that's our house, like that is my house. And I ran back to the hotel and I woke up, john, and I was like I found our house, like that is my house, and I ran back to the hotel and I woke up, john and I was like I found our house.
38:20
I found our house and now John would never move from his kingdom in Northern California, so we could never agree on a place to live. San Francisco was a great idea, but he didn't really like the city. I don't know, definitely didn't like the city. And so John and I came back and we looked at this little yellow house and we had somebody introduce us to the owners and it was 80 acres, so it was like on the edge of town with 80 acres in the back, which I knew he would love because he's a farming guy, and that's it. And then we met the owners and we put a bid in that afternoon. Then they changed the price. We said, okay, well, we'll think about it. We went on to Brazil. After a week in Brazil we're like what are we doing here? We got to go back and get the house and we came back to Garcon and we bought the house. Wow, yeah. So there's another whim happening.
39:22
Whim or just intuition? I don't know.
39:26
It was very intuitive, it was a very magical moment. That then had all its complications, because John and I broke up a year later and then I was faced with another. Who am I now? Who am I without my partner? And here we are.
39:51
And here you are. Well, it's interesting when you say who am I? One of my favorite yoga teachers? I don't know whether you're familiar with Annie Carpenter. Yeah, so I did a five-day. I don't want to call it a workshop, it was a teacher training in Vienna two years ago already. It goes very fast and it was interesting.
40:12
She gave us some questions and reflections at the end for those who wanted to get accredited. And who am I was one of the questions she wanted us to answer, and it's interesting because at any moment you can be very defined by what comes after. I am right, right, I've learned to try and make room for what is I am versus what is I feel like to notice that the states aren't me, I am not my states, for example. So I try to, even when I'm on my own and some thoughts come and they're a little bit charged with a difficult I am, I try to remind myself oh no, I am not that, I'm not that I feel like that, but I am not that. Have you ever gone through anything like that?
41:07
It's interesting because there's an I am practice that I work with now, and so it's like, not, I am woman, or, yeah, maybe I am woman, I am writer, I am photographer, but I am peace, I am abundance, I am that kind of I am my soul or I am yeah, I'm into the soul thing right now. Oh, okay, about aligning right. So it's interesting what you say about the things that feel a little bit charged and those are the things that you're like no, I am not that, I am not that.
41:43
And knowing that you can let go. I think have you ever heard I don't know if you listen to Tim Ferriss' podcast. Sometimes he has a question he has asked many guests where he says if you had a billboard anywhere, what would you put on it? And if he asked me the question, I would say don't believe your thoughts. We are not our thoughts. You can choose the thoughts that feel right from the ones that are wrong. And my teacher, jack Kornfield, he's like you know some of your thoughts are fake news and he's right, like even it's coming from within. It's not just the news where you have to beware, or TikTok or social in general. You have to learn to be mindful of your own thoughts and just double check which ones are correct, valid and helpful.
42:39
I love that. I love that Maybe they're all fake news our thoughts and we just get to choose the ones we want to pretend are real right.
42:49
But knowing that there's a choice. I feel like I spent most of my life not knowing there was a choice and just taking them as if it was the truth. But so you use the words. I am photographer. Can you tell me about your photography and how you developed as an artist?
43:08
Yeah, sure. So during it's right on point and time, and chronologically, as I was dealing with the who am I and a very sad moment in my life, again different kind of depressed, but more, the space of everything was wrapped up in my partnership, my relationship, the buildings we owned, the business we had our future here in Uruguay, and at the same time I was almost you know, maybe some flame again, that dimming had happened and a flame was being ignited at the same time, and so you know, I feel very grateful that I had this tool, a camera, to get myself out of bed in the morning, which I did. So I'm very, very, you know, most photographers are, but very inspired and fueled by light, and at the time I was really obsessed with fog, which is really beautiful, foggy.
44:09
You still are, but you also are in a place where the fog is crazy beautiful. Yeah, it's really beautiful, because it's not like that everywhere in the world. Let's be honest.
44:17
No, I think there's some crazy energetic vortex and garson and but superficially the light is ridiculous.
44:26
I wanted to actually bring up a couple of your pictures while you're talking about this so I can look at them while you're talking about it, because they're so special. Oh okay, keep going.
44:44
So I feel like during that time, the only thing that would really get me out of bed or get me going or took me on a few cross country trips was taking pictures, and if I were bold which I am I would say that photography, in a way, so that saved my life. Not that I was like nearing the end, but I was definitely having a very bad time and so, at the same time that I was very sad, I also was getting out of bed and making a lot of work. So I took I think I had a little Bishan Shih Tzu. He just passed away a year ago.
45:17
Oh, I'm just looking at him, little Baba.
45:22
So Baba was my sidekick and I think for four years those four years after the breakup we maybe took a self-portrait with my iPhone almost every morning, so it was like a practice. I was still practicing yoga too, but I did both in the morning. So we did a lot of self-portraits but there was no one around. I shot with my iPhone, which I probably started with an iPhone 4, 5, 6, 7. It was very early days and my photography career took off. I found a community online. I started Flickr. That's how I learned how to take pictures was on Flickr. Remember Flickr?
46:06
I remember vaguely. I didn't really use it very much, but yeah.
46:09
I was obsessed and I met people there and I joined groups, and I studied a lot. I studied a lot.
46:17
What year was this?
46:19
That was 2009.
46:21
Yeah, so this is just around the advent of all of the personal style blogs, am I wrong? No, yeah.
46:28
It's just around that time, yeah.
46:29
Yeah, it was around that time and so this sort of new emergence of a different kind of talent behind and in front of the camera.
46:38
Yeah, exactly. Exactly, and I didn't really know. I came from magazines, so that's one kind of photography, but there's this whole world of fine art photography out there and then the digital world was very accessible and so I just like dove in. So imagine, I'm like very thin, very sad, eating very badly, taking very bad care of myself physically and mourning and grieving and trying to get back together in this relationship and also my photography career is taking off. So, like I had my first solo show, I was very active, in jury, doing submitting. Amazing. I was very active in jury submitting. I just made a lot of work quickly and again, magic, it feels like to me that it took off and so I continued taking pictures. Some of that happened when John and I were still together. Some of the series were at the end and then I kept shooting. I just kept shooting.
47:37
I'd love for you to tell me about and this is my instinct wanting to ask you about that but why you worked so much on self-portrait, and is that related to the? Who am I, or is that related? Yeah, yes, I would assume it's related your desire to find yourself in seeing yourself on picture, and you do talk about this being a practice, but what did it bring you?
48:25
And do you still practice self-portrait? Yeah, it's a really good question that I actually feel like is an evolving answer, because I have to ask myself this all the time and I'm writing a lot now again and I'm also asking myself what the answer to this is, because I think it's very layered. But immediately, like I remember, when I very first finally started to understand how to use the actual camera, somebody a friend of mine said, oh, you should just take portraits, and I was like I was so not confident. I had no confidence in how to take pictures and light and anything. And I remember going down into the yoga studio we lived upstairs in San Francisco upstairs, and I took some stuff downstairs, and I put it on the tripod. I put the thing on the tripod. I was going to take pictures of ceramic cups, like whatever still life practice, and at one point I turn it's so beautiful. The yoga studio is so beautiful. It looked like a photo studio. Actually. It had like very faint lavender walls that were almost white and this not polished concrete floor. It was amazing.
49:44
And so I remember just turning the camera on myself, like I slumped down in the corner and put my head down and I took a picture and then I took, I did like you know you have to run back and forth and put the self timer on because there was no clickers. I didn't even know anything and I took a couple shots of looking at the camera and I remember looking at the camera and I was like who is that person? It was a moment where I was like I don't even, I didn't even recognize myself, which is different than looking in the mirror. It was like somehow I it's just so weird I've never even said this out loud, but it was somehow like taking, it was like watching a movie of my life of another person who was me right.
50:34
So there was a very distant perspective that I suddenly saw in myself, that I was like, oh, I am not ugly or I am not bad or I am not all these belief systems that I feel terrible about myself or unlovable or whatever. I saw something I dare to say beautiful, because it wasn't like, oh, she's beautiful. It had nothing to do with the superficial beautiful, but it was almost like oh, I saw my spirit. I don't even know how to say it without sounding super woo-woo, because it was not. It wasn't nothing egotistical about it, nothing, but it was like a light bulb went inside of Heidi, the Heidi watching the Heidi. Does that even make sense? It does. Does that even make sense?
51:35
It does. I'm not making this up right that when the first cameras were introduced to indigenous people in I think it was in the United States that they were against getting their picture taken because they thought that it could capture their soul Because of the magic of the reveal of the finished product, the picture. And so what you described sounds like there's an echo of what would have been the first models, who were just incredulous about what this tool actually can do.
52:16
I need to read about that. That's amazing, did you? Not?
52:19
hear about it, I have reread about it. I don't remember why. I once went back down the Google rabbit hole to find out about that. Yeah, people thought there was a mythical power in the machine and that it was going to steal their soul. And suddenly you saw your soul anyways yeah, I yeah or I saw something you saw something the flame.
52:42
Yeah, I do think that it was something like that. I do think so and so, yeah, I mean, if someone else takes my picture, it's a terrible situation. Yeah, I can't. Even I can't stand it.
52:57
I hear you, girl. I hold you in my heart because it's the same for me. Yeah.
53:04
So I really don't like it to other people taking my picture. And yeah, so there's, there was something about this practice that has helped me to define who I am. So you were correct, it's strengthened me in some way, empowered me. Now, keep in mind, I was, and very wounded in a lot of like child ways that one is wounded, maybe by a narcissistic parent let's say, and so finding my.
53:49
Now I'm in a moment where I took pictures for a long time where you didn't see my head, and I just read a book recently called the Beheaded Goddess, which is about narcissistic fathers. Oh, it's also very interesting to feel like maybe through photography was a way of growing my head, symbolically, and actually eventually I've shown my face in images or felt okay enough to show my face, so in a way it's been a process. The self-portraiture has been a process my head really, or growing my head.
54:37
That's amazing. How did you go from this practice and your development as an artist to creating Campo Garzon, and can you explain to our listeners what it is?
54:53
Yeah, thanks for asking. Campo is a nonprofit I founded in when I was turning 50. So eight years ago I had finally gotten happy. My photography career was in a good place. I, as one does when they're maybe in the 50 area, start reflecting about second half of life or this mid-age. It's a big age.
55:19
I woke up one day and I was like, wait, I've got 80 acres, 33 hectares here. I have animals on my land that are somebody else's but they're not mine. There's a winery opening up down the street with a guy that wants to make a new wine region here. Like I felt things were bubbling and that it was a moment where I was like, okay, maybe this is my time to use my land and my experience to do something large and help and be of service in a different way than I feel like I have been on one-on-ones or with yoga, and I wasn't sure what that was, but I knew that something was bubbling. And then one day I got the download. Somehow I wish there was a magic story, but I had gotten so much.
56:15
I was so enriched by my life here and by the opportunity of having so much space and time and, even though they were sad years, the fact that I was in magic land here, with very little noise in nature, beautiful skies and light.
56:34
I decided that was something that I wanted to give to other creative people and to give value to them, as I felt like I finally had given to myself. It's been a place where I became an artist, where I really was like you know what, Heidi? You're not an imposter syndrome writer, which I felt for forever, and you are actually a creative person. You're not a business person Now. I am a business person because I run a nonprofit, but it all comes together. We're everything. But it was the first time when I applied to a residency program. Around the same time I was chosen from an application. Somebody said she's an artist, she can come. It was like a big moment for me to be valued as a creative person and and so that is the gift of Campo that we bring other artists from around the world chefs, writers, creative people in general to do residencies and be here in this corner of beauty to have time and space to do whatever they need to do.
57:47
That sounds so cool. I was writing a couple of notes because I picked up on your vocabulary during this conversation and one thing strikes me First. I love metaphors, and so do you. I can tell, but you talked about the prince's castle, you talked about John's kingdom and the magic land of Campo. It does sound like you're in some kind of fairy tale to me. Now I'd love to understand. How can people participate? What kind of programs do you run? Is it all year? Just give me the download, because it sounds wildly wonderful. And of course, I'm going to find a way to come and visit you.
58:36
You must, please, definitely must come Right now. Our residencies are on hold, as we're in our. We're about to do our eighth. We have an annual art festival.
58:49
Yes, that's what I wanted to hear about.
58:50
Exactly, yeah, the festival. So when we started Campo I say we, because now we're a bunch of amazing women and I started with one woman, gabby. She volunteered to start with me, but that's why I call us we I knew as an outsider here in our little tiny village that to do something big, especially bringing art to a place that was pretty culturally barren the landscape, that I really wanted to be a part of this community that I love and not create something that is us and them or the American she's doing this and I'm not. And it was really important that if we were going to bring artists from the outside, even if they were from Montevideo or from wherever that we really integrate with the Pueblo. So I said, okay, let's do a festival, something public, so we will bring artists from the outside. It's important that we integrate with the village and introduce art to everybody and that art is accessible to everyone. So we started this festival At the same time that I started the residency. I mean I had no idea what I was doing, but I mean literally, I mean it happened. It's a creative Institute. So I was like we're not, we have a fake business plan and honestly, it was all backwards, but it's, it was great. So we brought all these artists. We had like 45 45, I think artists participating with their pure, like love and energy. We didn't have any money and we took over the little pueblo with there's an abandoned train station which just got reformed, there's little houses that are abandoned around, and we just took over and the artists intervened and made site-specific work and, like, thousands of people showed up, thousands of people from Uruguay, and it was crazy. It was only four hours, so it felt like this insane invasion of humans coming descending on the Pueblo. It was really fun, but I knew from the first one that was only four hours that we were onto something and that there was some, some need for art and connection and creativity and community, and so it has grown. It's a three-day festival.
01:01:06
Now we have our eighth edition in December. It's every December 28th, 29th and 30th. It's during the high season, that week, of course and we changed everything up a little bit this year to connect with our mission a little bit more, which is to bring artists to have a transformative experience. That's really what I want. So, instead of having just artists come in for a day and make work, we now have a residency connected to the festival, and this year we have 14 artists in residence coming, which is crazy because we've only ever had five or six at a time. So we've rented all these houses. We don't have a building yet. We've rented all these houses around and they'll be here for a month making site-specific work around a theme.
01:01:57
We have a theme every houses around and they'll be here for a month making site-specific work around a theme. We have a theme every year, and this year it's unsettled, on migration and movement, and so we like to create conversation around the theme through online conversations. We're launching a film forum, virtually, which maybe some of your listeners will want to come. It's a shorts festival, so we'll have I think it's the last Monday of every month, starting this August Amazing and it will be a short on migration. We have four amazing shorts and then the directors will speak after or we'll have a conversation. It's an hour long Zoom or webinar and we can put the link in, because that's really amazing.
01:02:45
One of our missions with Campo, as I know you will appreciate, is that you're going to have a conversation out in the middle of nowhere around a dinner table. That is way different than having a conversation in a New York City or Parisian restaurant. You're in a different frame of mind, it's slower, there's no noise, there's no distractions. You're disconnected. A lot of deep, deep shit happens around here, right A lot of self-reflection, a lot of connection, a lot of really beautiful conversations and friendships and things that have come out of this amazing program.
01:03:24
Forgive me, but it sounds magical, yeah it is.
01:03:29
The thing is I have looked at the Kampo website quite a lot when I was doing some research before our conversation and some of the images are really they're very pretty. I was like, oh, I could see myself there. Good photography always helps tell a story. So I apologize for the listeners. I hope that the words carry as much for you as it does for me, but I'll try to put a couple of links so that you can go and check out the previous editions of the festival.
01:04:01
Thank you, thank you, what is your hope for the future of Campo?
01:04:10
So right from the start I had a huge vision for Campo that it would be a very significant and important institute of creativity in South America where creativity is at the forefront through, let's say, looking at universal and planetary issues through a creative lens. And so I think residencies and and being able to help individual artists is really important, because I you know, as my who am, I thing I think that's the place that we need to start and is to look inside, and I think the festival is another level of sharing that with the public. But the bigger vision of Gambo is that we're able to bring, let's say, a group residency, kind of think tank of multidisciplinary groups, where you would bring an artist with a scientist and an entrepreneur and a tech person and a medical person together for a five-day summit, slash retreat or group residency and bring that conversation into the middle of nowhere around a theme which would be our annual theme. Last year it was about the roots of land and water, like an ancestral look at the environment, and this year it's about migration. Next year I can't tell you yet because I haven't unveiled it, but that being able to convene humans together to discuss issues that will then result in some creative project, whether it's a film, a magazine, music, a symposium, that would be the end of it, and then that ripples out right. You take that home. You have a new perspective, Say you're a scientist, you've now heard from an artist. You bring new perspectives back with you to your home, to your community, to your work. That's my hope.
01:06:13
We don't have a building yet. Your work, that's my hope. We don't have a building yet. It's been designed by the late architect rafael vignoli, who passed away quite suddenly last march. Campo is one of his last designs, which is a really beautiful, amazing building, and so my hope is that when that is built after we raise a lot of money for that that we will be able to have year-long programming and residencies for nine months and these creative summits then twice a year. But until then it's hard we have to rent build. It's's not ideal.
01:06:57
Yeah, and also it's tiny and you're in the middle of nowhere, exactly, but it does sound like the vision that you have is really clearly outlined and I'm excited to see how that's going to come together. Thank you, I wanted to ask you this question and then we can perhaps wrap things up. In the mission, you describe your hope as being that what comes out of the conversations is new perspectives. What does a new perspective mean to you?
01:07:37
What does a new perspective mean to you? So you know how you can think, you know everything, sure. And then you're like, okay, I've gone through all the possibilities of this. Or I'm thinking about this, and then suddenly somebody else not from your world, or that's been somewhere else, not from your world or that's been somewhere. Or you just told me the story about the indigenous humans and cameras like there's something else that lights the flame, or lights ignites something, an idea you've been stewing on. Or you find out that halfway around the world somebody else is doing something similar, but they're thinking about it this way. Or there's a new connection to another human being that you didn't know, that someone knows for somebody you know. I think opening your mind, body, soul is an allowing in different perspectives than gives you a new perspective. It's like an ingredient. It's an ingredient to growth, it's an ingredient to possibility and opportunity and it's like creative thinking. It's creative thinking, ideating yeah, of course, like it's the word ideating. That is just like in my brain this week.
01:08:57
Interesting. Thank you so much for sharing that. I feel like you're planting seeds in the conversation, so I'll reflect back to you, because I can tell this is going to percolate. For me, seeds are good. Yes, I think so too. Now, now, before I go to my closing questions, is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you want? Oh my god. No, I forgot to talk about Christian Louboutin. Oh my god, because I want to tell a story to our listeners about how we met and just make sure that you tell your side of that magical story.
01:09:32
So there I was going to Ted TED, the one in Vancouver and I was feeling a bit poorly and tired and I was on this big escalator and someone said nice coat. And I turned around to see a lady with like really cool glasses and a very cool hat and I said thank you. And then we started walking and you told me your name and then, about four hours later, as we're walking out of the first evening, the first party for the TED newbies, suddenly we figured out that you were the journalist who had written the first piece on Christian Louboutin the now very famous Red Soul, king of the Universe, also known as my ex-boss and that I had heard of you so many times because I sat with him through so many interviews, when people said, oh, how did you get started? And he was like well, this one journalist from W Magazine wrote an article and then the customers started flooding in.
01:10:44
Now I don't think it was floods quite, but you open the gates for his North American clientele and, dare I say, they made his business take off. And of course he's got amazing fans everywhere and great clients everywhere in the UK and in Southeast Asia and Europe. But anyways, he referred to you as his fairy godmother and I didn't know your name. So imagine my stupefaction when I realized that I'm in Canada, in a city I've never been in, in a crowd of 2000 people, and somehow I am in front of Christian's fairy godmother. That was my experience of meeting you. Can you tell us about what you remember of this article, of finding out about Christian and whatever connection you've had with him since?
01:11:37
Yeah, it's so funny. It was so funny, right? What a crazy thing. I don't even remember how we figured that out. I must have said I worked for W or Windsor, and then we were like, wait, what? Yeah? So I was just talking about this story recently too. I think I was in New York now during this period of time, so I had been in Paris, and then I went to New York and I think Natasha Frazier must've been. She must've said listen, and I was like I was a fashion features editor at Women's Wear Daily and W, and she must have called me and said listen, my friend, you got to go meet this guy. He's in New York, he's fabulous, blah, blah, blah. And as you're talking, I can picture this where I was sitting talking to him. I feel like, hon, I may have this wrong. Do you remember? Do you know?
01:12:34
I don't.
01:12:35
He was staying in some apartment, because I feel like we were sitting in this window. Anyway, I can picture where I was sitting with him. Of course, I loved him immediately. Yeah, he's very lovable. I loved him and remember I'm like 25. So this is like 100 million years ago, sure.
01:12:55
And he's what? 35? Anyway, he's not that, and he looks pretty young, I guess.
01:13:00
Yeah, he looked young, yeah, I was a baby, yeah, we were both babies, we were just both young. And I think he had like a meeting with Bloomingdale's or Bergdorf, so he had a meeting, he had like meetings and I, whatever, I loved him. And then I wrote a little thing, but I can't remember if it was in W or women's. It was in W, but I think it was probably in both, because they often got published in both. And then somebody, like some big social ladies I can't remember who they were went and saw him or bought his shoes, like right away, and that was it took off. And then I moved back to Paris some months later. That's where I was there for two more years as the fashion director there and then we became really good friends and that's when I don't know if you were there at the time I was in.
01:14:02
London.
01:14:03
At that time you were in London, oh yeah, and anyway, I think I must have sent him a picture of you and I from Ted and texted him. No, I texted him recently. No, maybe I texted him a picture of us on a podcast. Oh, did you?
01:14:21
Yeah, I texted him after I met you say you won't believe it, but I met Heidi.
01:14:29
And she was like I haven't talked to you in so long. I haven't talked to him in so long. I haven't talked to him in forever, but it was very sweet yeah right.
01:14:35
So I'm glad, actually, that I remembered for us to get into the story because, as we we hinted at the beginning of our conversation, there is that red thread from what you loved doing in your role as a journalist at W and WWD, which was to support young designers and to be in contact with amazingly creative young people, and that goes all the way to the artists that you help. And also, I guess, you give them a platform, you give them an opportunity to be seen beyond the transformative experience, of course, of the residency. It's very poetic, if I may say, or rather it's really great to see that you still connect with that thing you love and you have found a new expression of it, but in the middle you became an artist yourself. Yeah, how does that feel?
01:15:35
It feels like I need to return to my artist now to be honest. Yeah, no, it feels really. It feels like a really beautiful trajectory. I feel very blessed and I feel really like I, I feel really like I feel very lucky in my life and to be able to share that with other people. I just I sometimes I can't believe my life. This is really beautiful and I really do miss making work right now. So there's a moment, which is now, which is, you know, I need to take care of myself. You know we're talking about really being aware of what is lacking and where is my flame and is it still lighting? You know, a lit? And and yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to veer back into my own, doing my own work.
01:16:30
As I hear you say that, from the giving the platform and supporting young designers and artists to returning to your artist, I feel like maybe it's a balance. I the what I the image that came to me was a sort of a pendant pendulum, if that makes sense. I love that Charging.
01:16:53
Or dance.
01:16:56
Yeah or dance. Like charging on the one side and then recharging the other side.
01:16:59
Yeah, I'm so bad at that. I'm trying, it's a practice. It's all a practice.
01:17:06
Okay, so now. Is there anything that you'd like to add for our listeners? Before I ask you a few of my closing questions?
01:17:14
Not that I can think of right now.
01:17:15
Okay, so the podcast. I like to say that it's at the crossroads between business and mindfulness, because I sometimes I am a business woman a woman who is in business, or rather who supports other people's businesses and also I'm a mindfulness meditation teacher and I love to teach that, though I don't teach yoga and one of the things I realized is that early on, I thought that I could just be a teacher on the side of my life and then do the consulting and the coaching on that side, and that they were going to be separate, and that's not how it works when you have a spiritual practice, and so I like to open the conversation at this point to speaking to any kind of practices that help or have helped, make you feel better, make you navigate life better, what works for you. It's not strictly about meditation or mindfulness, but we've talked about awareness, so is there anything that you want to share about what tools you have for life?
01:18:28
Sure, I'd love to share. This is not for everyone, obviously, because it's a very personal life, it's your own personal journey, but I was made to believe my whole life that there was something wrong with me for wanting to spend time alone. And I already had the weirdo tag tagline Okay, and wanting to be, whether it was alone in my room, playing guitar or going to spend whatever time by myself take a walk by myself, go out to dinner by myself, go to the movies by myself it's also added to the weird thing. Movies by myself it's also added to the weird thing. And so, really, since living here in Garzon, which is very quiet and very insular, in no distraction, and really honoring myself in that, and it's taken me a long time so just to say to anyone who's maybe an introvert I'm also very extroverted, but I really am an introvert at heart that it's okay.
01:19:54
And not only is it okay to go spend time by yourself, but maybe you need it. Maybe you need it like I need it. I need it so much that I leave my place in the middle of nowhere on a Friday and go further into the middle of nowhere for the weekend so I can take walks in nature and not hear the dogs in the village or a car passing by my house, and that's a way of meditation as well. I also meditate, which has given me extra space in my life, which is I'm in and out of meditation practice all the time because of work, but I think that's my greatest tool and again, it's not for everybody right, it's an introverted practice, is being on your own and you're the greatest weird. If you need that.
01:20:45
The greatest kind of weird. That's beautiful. Now, what's your favorite word? But by that? A word that you could tattoo on yourself or live with on your skin for a while?
01:20:59
Freedom. I love that. That just came to me yeah.
01:21:07
What does connection mean to you?
01:21:20
to you. It's so awesome, because I just talked about being alone and being in silence, and yet connection is such. It's what life is all about really. So connection to human life, let me say, or, as humans, even connection, is that thread that puts us in like a vibration, with another thing being plant. Again, you can only think of it as an invisible thread and an energetic thread that if it's a great connection, it goes both ways. Right, it's like a highway going a two-way highway. If it's a bad connection, it's a one-way thing that will eventually break or stay and be corroded and toxic. But you know, even having me thinking, even being alone, I still feel connected, right, I'm still connected, especially to nature.
01:22:17
It's interesting. You should say that, because I think that sometimes in quiet it's easier to find or feel the connection.
01:22:28
Agree, that's why I live here, that's why you have to visit. I will.
01:22:32
What. That's why you have to visit. I will what?
01:22:37
song best represents you. It's so hard, the song, I know I'm just going to say this because I can't think of anything else, but you know, Desiree.
01:22:49
Yeah, that is so aging me.
01:22:50
I think the song you Gotta Be, yeah, I think the song You Gotta Be, oh I love that tune.
01:22:57
I don't remember the words, but yes, ‘You gotta be’.
01:23:01
Yes, I remember. It doesn't matter what you gotta be, you just gotta be.
01:23:09
Oh my God. So I don't know whether you're aware, but I've got a playlist with the answer to this question from all of my guests. I'll send it to you. This is a great addition to our playlist, thank you.
01:23:17
You're welcome. I also wanted to say ain't no mountain high enough. Also, it's mine, it's mine.
01:23:27
Really. Yes, it is, but mine is the Marvin Gaye version. I don't know whether yours is the Diana Ross version. Yeah, Diana Ross, oh, there you go. I will add both then that's amazing, that's connection. That's definitely connection. That's very unlikely but cool. What's the sweetest thing that's ever happened to you sweetest, the sweetest thing that's ever happened to me.
01:24:10
I'm going to say two things. One is it going, going to be quick. One is this is because it happened to me. For me was I don't know if it's sweet, but it's sweet. And when I think about the tenderness of the age when I was 15 and at camp, I was the blue team captain, which was like one of my greatest feats and achievements in my entire life yes, it was a very big deal for me for my confidence level and to be a leader. And the other sweet thing I would say is my grandmother passed away a year and a half ago. She was just about 104. Just about Mamma mia, just about she was almost about 104. Oh, just about Mamma mia, just about she was almost turning 104. And we had a very contentious, precarious relationship always and I think that the last year of her life was probably one of the sweetest things that has happened for me. I already feel emotional talking about it.
01:25:16
I said to her Grandma I think you lived this long so that we could mend our relationship to be what it was in our last couple years. I know, oh, that's beautiful.
01:25:29
Yeah, it was really really sweet. Yeah, what's a favorite book that you can share with us?
01:25:36
so I'm a huge reader, like I read a lot and I'm writing a book right now, so I'm extra reading a lot. So I have to give you a bad answer which is like the latest, my latest phase, because I can't think of other books, because I love so many books, but I went on a big James McRae reading in the last couple months, oh, and also Tommy Orange. These are like the last things that I've read that have really made an impact on me. I can't give you one, okay.
01:26:07
Imagining that you can step into a future version of yourself. What do you think is the most important advice that future you can give to present? State you To present? State me, yeah. What do you think that future you can tell to you right now? What do you need to hear from your future self?
01:26:32
Oh, my God, this is make my heart beating quickly. It is my future self would say keep following your intuition, practice following your intuition, because it's really strong. And that brings me to my last and favorite question what brings you happiness? Oh it like you are crying so hard with your friends dancing alone, or with friends singing on the top of my lungs, with or without friends, my dog, my house and my people. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, anne.
01:27:40
It was such a fabulous conversation. I just love to talk to you and I'm in awe of what you've gone through in terms of life journey and it feels like you've taken me on a film. I feel like I saw some of India and Paris and San Francisco and Garzon. It's really remarkable. I'd love to ask you to. No, what I'm going to do is I'm going to put all of the links so that people can find out more about you, who you are, what you do and Campo I selfishly also had mentioned to you before. I wanted to find out the links so that if people fall in love with your photography which I'm gathering more than one person will, because I have where can they perhaps purchase some of your prints, because they're really incredibly beautiful, very evocative, and I think that it's. I'd love to be able to have more people discover your work. Will you be in Europe showing your art soon?
01:28:40
perhaps I don't have plans for Europe right now, but I will for sure be there in 2025 at some point. I don't know if I'll be showing my work or not, or finishing my book on a residency, hopefully, but I will for sure keep you posted, and I will say that Campo is a nonprofit, that we depend on funds from everywhere, and so that link to donate, if anyone feels moved to support us, is in our website. I can't not mention that.
01:29:15
No, that's very important, absolutely Well, have a beautiful rest of your day, because you're a few hours behind me and I'm looking forward to connecting again soon.
01:29:28
Thanks, Anne. Such a joy to be here with you.
01:29:31
Thanks so much. Take care. Thanks, Anne. Such a joy to be here with you. Thanks so much. Take care. So, friends and listeners, thanks again for joining me today. If you'd like to hear more, you can subscribe to the show on the platform of your choice and if you'd like to connect with me, you can find me @AnneVi on threads and on Instagram, Anne V Muhlethaler, on LinkedIn. If you don't know how to spell it, the link is in the notes or on Instagram, @_OutoftheClouds, where I also share daily musings about mindfulness. You can find all of the episodes of the podcast and much more on the website outofthecloudscom. If you'd like to find out more from me, I invite you also to subscribe to the Metta View, my weekly newsletter, where I explore coaching, brand development, conscious communication and the future of work. That's the Metta View with two Ts: themettaviewcom. So that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to Out of the Clouds. I hope that you will join me again next time. Until then, be well, be safe and take care.