This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jennifer Apple: Hello.

[0:01] Welcome to the Empowered Artist Collective Podcast.

[0:04] I'm your host, Jennifer Apple, a multi-hyphenate actor, educator, acting coach, writer, dog mom, and founder of this vibrant community that champions artists as they carve out their own unique paths in this wild industry.

[0:17] Whether you're just starting out in the thick of it or seeking a bit of artistic fuel to expand your toolbox, you're in the right place.

[0:24] In this space, we'll have honest conversations, share actionable strategies, tips, and resources, and delve into the messy yet beautiful journey of living a sustainable creative life.

[0:34] We unmask the reality of life as an artist, from navigating career highs and lows to nurturing your full human well-being.

[0:42] I chat with women and non-binary guests who share their personal stories, helpful learnings, and hearts to help you unlock your artistic potential, expand your knowledge, and show up fully and fearlessly in your artistry and daily life.

[0:55] Before we dive into this week's conversation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

[1:01] If today's chat resonates with you, please leave us a review.

[1:04] It helps us reach even more incredible artists just like you.

[1:07] And hey, feel free to spread the love.

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[1:18] All right, grab a cup of something cozy, settle in, and let's get to it.

[1:22] How does one feel into being enough as an artist?

[1:26] And is art itself enough?

[1:28] In this episode, I sit down with author Stephanie Elizondo Griest to discuss her decade-long global exploration of women artists and the creative life to answer these and other questions that artists often ask themselves.

[1:40] Stephanie shares the emotional, economic, and spiritual trade-offs she's made in pursuit of a life devoted entirely to art on a path she calls being an art monk.

[1:49] Together, we unpack how capitalism and patriarchy can distort our sense of value, the pressures of conventional success, and the radical act of defining sustainability, fulfillment, and legacy on your own terms.

[2:01] We share tips around grounding practices and community models, as well as powerful reframes around enoughness, sacrifice, and resilience.

[2:09] Whether you're questioning your creative path, feeling torn between stability and passion, or simply seeking permission to honor your calling, this conversation will remind you that your path doesn't need permission.

[2:20] It needs honoring.

[2:21] Enjoy.

[2:21] Jennifer Apple: Stephanie Elizondo Griest, how are you doing?

[2:24] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Hi, beautiful. It's really I'm so glad to get to talk to you today.

[2:28] Jennifer Apple: Same here. For anybody who does not know you, who are you today?

[2:32] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Who am I today? Well, I am the first and foremost important thing is I'm from the borderlands. I'm from Texas-Mexico border.

[2:41] And that has been my primary news throughout my life. Um I have written six books, and several of them are about the border in some way about what it means to be Mexican-American.

[2:53] Um, but more recently, I just I'm about I'm on the verge of publishing a book about women and artists, which is what I'm so excited to talk to you about today.

[3:03] Jennifer Apple: Yeah. Yes, amazing. I cannot wait to like dive into the depth of what you've been navigating in this exploration.

[3:17] And I'm curious if you were comfy to just share what led you to exploring that particular topic.

[3:28] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah, cool. Yeah, you know what? I think that maybe I'm gonna read the preamble to the book. It's called Art Above Everything, and I think that it'll all make sense, but just one paragraph.

[3:38] All right, so here we go. Is art enough? Of all the questions I wrestled with during my 20s and 30s, this one taunted me most.

[3:48] Was constantly prioritizing writing over everything else, from postponing children to living nomadically to save on the rent, leading me to fulfillment or regret.

[4:00] I couldn't decide, and my eggs were vanishing by the minute. So in 2014, the year I turned 40, I started asking other women at the sacrifices they had made for their creative pursuits felt worthwhile.

[4:13] Each story was so revelatory, I sought another until I'd invested an entire decade into traveling to every region of the world for more.

[4:23] Listening to women reflect on their own internal strife with art, their insecurities, their jealousies, their disappointments, was deeply cathartic.

[4:32] But what truly moved me was hearing how their art had enabled their survival of externally imposed traumas, like totalitarianism, like war.

[4:44] When my own country descended into political chaos, their stories became a guide for powering through.

[4:55] So that is what you're reading.

[4:58] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, yeah. I mean, arguably you've kind of already tied it up a little bit, but I guess like the TLDR version, they'd say is like the, you know, what would be the ethos around your life that really led you to this particular exploration, right?

[5:16] I think that's why I'm curious about talking to you in this space is this concept of like, yeah, is art enough?

[5:22] Which arguably ties into our identity so often around like, are we enough if we are artists? Like that whole thing.

[5:29] Um, so for you, how did you arrive to that question being this like big search?

[5:38] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah, totally. You know, I just recently realized that literally the subject of all of my books is enough.

[5:44] Like what's it all down to I'm exploring this concept of enough.

[5:49] So it started off with like, am I enough? How I did it um led to some really profound life experiences, which is when I went to college, I studied Russian and then I moved to Moscow um in 1996, two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[6:03] And um basically I just started interviewing everyone whose path I crossed.

[6:07] And I did that for a year in Moscow, then I moved to Beijing and did the same thing in Beijing, and then I moved to Havana.

[6:13] And um, you know, my goal for about being interesting, certainly, you know, changed to far more, you know, important goals.

[6:19] But that was the impetus, and if I'm honest, that's the impetus, right?

[6:22] And then that is what opened like the whole world to me is going off and just exploring things that I found interesting.

[6:29] Um and uh anyway, that was the interest of the first one.

[6:32] Then this idea of enough became more like enough is enough.

[6:37] And that is what led to my sort of um social justice activist, you know, writing stage of life.

[6:44] Um, and that's what led me to do a lot of order reporting and you know, writing about environmental justice issues, writing about migration, things of that nature.

[6:53] Um, but what brings me to um my current project, Art Above Everything, is I started really questioning is art enough?

[7:03] Because since I was not born into wealth and I did not marry wealth, uh, don't have a sugar spouse.

[7:10] Uh so because of that, um the only way to make my art was to give up everything but the art.

[7:23] Um and I have you know, now that I'm like about to be 50, but certainly uh at the time um when I when I turned 40, I began realizing like, oh, there are real sacrifices to having chosen art every single solitary step of the way.

[7:40] And I did some really drastic things.

[7:41] You know, there was a point in my um in my 30s after my first book came out, um, where I uh and the re the only way I was able to write my first book was like by moving back in with my parents.

[7:53] My parents supported me for writing my first book.

[7:55] When when the next one came out, um I I just realized like the only way that I was gonna be able to I I could either write or I could pay rent.

[8:04] I literally could not do both.

[8:05] I mean, if you if you stay in one place, it's really expensive.

[8:08] But it turns out moving is cheaper.

[8:13] Being in the state of must stop movement is actually a bargain deal.

[8:17] So uh so or at least it was in the aughts, which is when I did it.

[8:21] So I um I put all my stuff in storage and I was basically living at artist residencies and at um and and on book tour.

[8:29] I just had this nonstop book tour, and I did that for three years.

[8:34] Wow.

[8:35] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: And that is when I began asking myself these questions like this is insanity, you know, it shouldn't be this hard.

[8:44] But I was unfortunately caught up within the like kind of neo-liberal idea that if I wasn't succeeding, it was my fault.

[8:53] You know, if I wasn't I imagine that's also just like, uh frankly, like a uh uh patriarchical thing as well, too, for like, you know, a woman specifically, like, oh, if I'm not succeeding, it's my which the inward turning of like, well, it has to be for me.

[9:09] It's uh versus something external.

[9:12] Jennifer Apple: Absolutely.

[9:12] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: And that began to slowly like start occurring to me when um you know, as I was like, you know, working the circuit and going to all these book festivals and began, you know, hanging out with writers in the hotel after, you know, and going out for drinks, and um, you know, at some point there was this one moment where um people started talking about book advances, and which is which is rare, like usually artists you know, writers are you know pretty pretty you know quiet about that, but I began to realize that everyone around the table, and these are people that I had just you know been on the stage with, had sold the same number of books afterward, you know, just like the same, you know, we had the same crowd reaction.

[9:51] Um, and these were all men, and they had all gotten at least ten times my book advance from the same publisher.

[10:01] Ten times I got 10,000, I got a hundred thousand dollars.

[10:05] You know, and um and these were all men that had like spouses and couches and you know, things and like I'm like, I've got my backpack and a greyhound bus that's gonna take me to the next town, you know.

[10:17] And so I began having those kind of encounters, and then it became a little more like curious and started asking more people about their advances, and I was really beginning to see like such a sharp difference between what you know, what I was getting with what everyone else is getting, and the same publishers, sometimes the same editor, right?

[10:36] Uh same imprint, big these are big five houses.

[10:39] Um, and then, you know, on Twitter, I can't remember when this happened.

[10:44] This happened many, many Twitter wasn't even around when I all this was trying to me.

[10:48] Um, but you know, many years later, there was actually a hashtag called Publishing Paid Me.

[10:54] And Jesmyn Ward, you know, who had won the National Book Award for uh Salvage the Bones.

[10:59] After that, her second novel, she had to fight tooth and nail to get $100,000.

[11:04] Where like men are keenly getting $100,000 for their debut novel, right?

[11:07] And she couldn't even get that after winning the National Book Award.

[11:11] Um so yeah, so I think we have more consciousness of this now, but like in the early odds when I was like really hardcore into the living entirely from my art stage, it's really, really, really devastating.

[11:23] Yeah.

[11:23] Jennifer Apple: I just internalized dog this uh, you know, I'm not successful enough to live off my writing because I'm not good enough, right?

[11:32] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah, yeah.

[11:33] Jennifer Apple: But that is, I mean, arguably you're naming you're naming the thing that I think is why you're in the space, right?

[11:39] Which is that for any artist who finds themselves in the grind of it and the doing of it, and you know, from the macro level of like the pressure externally and like the world to the micro level of your own life, right?

[11:55] No matter where we find ourselves, there's always gonna be this these battles that we're navigating around the way in which we um create, produce, exist, you know, like uh and and think around ourselves and our art.

[12:13] Like I think that is for better or for worse, you know, a lifelong journey that so many artists navigate.

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[13:01] Jennifer Apple: I'm curious, post having written this, what do you have discovered?

[13:06] I mean, I guess the conclusion, not to like, you know, take the conclusion out of people reading the book, but like, is art enough?

[13:13] Like, what do you say?

[13:14] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[13:15] Uh yeah.

[13:16] Wow.

[13:17] So what I've been thinking about is um, I think the first thing to kind of come to terms with is that we are like culturally capitalist in the United States.

[13:28] Yeah.

[13:29] Which I didn't really have a deep understanding of until I began traveling to other countries and talking to artists in other contexts.

[13:36] And so that is something to know.

[13:39] And so we have this um, there is this sort of capitalism is rapacious just by the very nature of it.

[13:48] And so that also I think interferes with our understanding of our art.

[13:52] And in what way would you say?

[13:55] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Well, because we continue to want more and more and more. And we need to, because it is very difficult. I mean, obviously, and then getting even more difficult, it's very difficult to live in this country financially. I mean, you have like a decent paying job, right? It is, um, our housing situation is out of control, health insurance is out of control, like these things are subsidized in many other places around the world. So it's just extremely difficult. And then we're really in a bind as artists. We can only continue making our art if we have a base of income to start off with, right? So it's always this really difficult challenge. But I guess the first thing that has been helpful for me is just to realize that I am culturally capitalist, and therefore I'm always going to be struggling with this idea of enough.

That is just kind of the nature of the beast. And so I think that what's important to remember is first of all, what was the initial impetus? What was your initial hope and dream that you would someday be able to do with your art? Really hold on to that, you know. So for me, like my first, you know, my earliest was just, oh, you know, books just meant so much to me growing up. I loved reading, and just the thought of like, oh, if I could just write one book, that would just make my whole life, you know? And what how sad that I couldn't just hold on to that one goal and like just always remember like that was all that I ever wanted. But what's challenging, right? Is like when you reach that goal, like as soon as I got the book contract, I was like, I mean, I definitely had like a major celebration, but very quickly I was like, can I make this a bestseller?

Can I do you know, like, and yeah, it changes? The benchmark changes. The benchmark always changes, right? So, like, how can we keep the goal that we originally started with and also have a goal you can actually control, right? So I think that's also something that I've really tried to like reorient my brain. Like, what can I control? There are some things that, you know, it's a limited number of things. Like I can control completing it, I can control doing it to the best of my ability, I can control sharing it with someone I love. Every book has had like a different goal. And the initial goals were insane, you know. Like I wanted to be a bestseller. Like that's, you know, that's the author has zero control over whether that happens, right?

It is like a marketing decision that the publishers do, as well as luck. So that is a ridiculous goal. It was very naive to have ever had it, and besides the point. Then it became like making this sustainable, you know, also like ultimately don't have a whole lot of control over that either, right? Then it became, you know, more recently it's become more reasonable things. Like my last book was about the border, and I really wanted, you know, half of it is based in the Mohawk nation of Akwesasne. So it's like I really want to create a book that would be useful to the community I'm writing about. And that was an achievable goal. I went through a lot of work. I mean, it was achievable by like interviewing over a hundred Mohawk and trying to, you know, really come to a place of equilibrium and showing all sides to very difficult conversations, you know, that have troubled the nation for a long period of time.

And it was a lot of work to do that. But now they have it in their library, and I'm like, okay, that is that goal was met. Like it's a useful artifact for them. Right. So just really shifting like what the goal to something you can actually have agency over. Because ultimately there's not a lot of agency we can have over it.

[17:52] Jennifer Apple: So I think what's interesting though that I'm hearing too is like, you know, the agency thing for sure, but also just the goal of it all. Like I grapple with that verbiage because I, and if anybody's listened to these podcasts for a while, certainly over the past three seasons, you know, they'll hear me talk about like language and how for everyone, you know, words hold meaning. And for me, there's something about the word goal that takes away the creativity for me because it feels like I'm diminishing my process somehow and wanting to embrace the process in it. And I've been finding for myself and certainly with, you know, clients of mine and students that I coach that more often than not I will invite folks to create an intention for our practice or an intention for our session.

And the goal of said intention is, and the intention is so that they can accomplish the thing again that's all like success verbiage which I also have, you know, gripes with but that they will accomplish this intention in the time that we are working. And it could be literally immediately the second that they set this intention like I will take a single deep breath or I will ask one question or I will write one note in my notebook or whatever. So that when they leave the room or when they leave our session, they have done the thing that they sought out to do. And it's this like micro little shifts for ourselves of remembering, like, oh, we actually do have quote unquote control over these small little micro movements.

And arguably you just accomplished a goal. And it's rewiring our brains to think a little bit more micro so that when we start to get really macro with our goals, it doesn't feel so overwhelming. And then we often get paralyzed by how overwhelming that is, or if we meet that goal, it doesn't look like the thing that we thought it would. And now we have to feel like we need to redo it again and whatever. So like for me, those little micro movements. But I think the agency part of it is something that's really fascinating because for me it comes back to that question about identity, right? Where it's like when we as artists want to feel a sense of control in a world that feels chaotic and an industry that feels like there are nothing to hold on to.

And it's super, you know, solo adventure, even though there are folks who are in this adventure with you. It really does become the grasping at straws of like, well, where do I have this control? Where do I have this agency? And the dreams of it all is the one thing for sure. Of like I have this vision, this dream, this goal insert word here that feels good for you, like of what I'm wanting. But then the way in which one goes about achieving it or reaching it or searching for it or excavating it. Again, like you can tell I really am of like a verbiage person. It's like there has to be options. Yeah, but like the way that we do that, that's where we have that sense of autonomy. But in doing that, that becomes the spiral of, well, am I enough?

Or is this enough? And like I think that for me is where like the juice of this lives of like, you know, we can we can easily like try to create our own journey with cultivating the way in which we do our art and explore our art. But in that, that's because your identity is so tied to the work that you're doing, or so often we get muddied in the doing of it that then we think it's art, like how do we then suss out the enoughness in the art in ourselves, in both combined? Is that in response to other people? Is that within yourself? Is that like a practice that one must, you know, like continue doing and undoing for the rest of our lives? Like what are what is it? I think that's the thing that's also really been illuminating for me in the process of spending 10 years traveling to all these different countries and talking to women about art is just seeing what it has done for them.

[21:59] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: The reality is that, so what I was searching for were women, I mean, I was literally I came up with this term that I call an art monk. And how that term came about is there's only one book that I've ever abandoned, Book Project of Abandon, and that was a book about silence. And to write this book about silence, I was going out and having a lot of experiences in deep contemplative reflection. And that was one part of it. And I was also looking at people that had been living in imposed silence. So I actually interviewed people that come out of solitary confinement. Anyway, so there are many layers to it, but the one part that I was working on when this idea came up to me. I was looking at more like content will of love silence that's chosen.

And so that sent me to a Catholic house of prayer in South Texas, where you have to take the vow of silence to be there. So I was anxious about this idea, like take a vow of silence, what? You know, how's that gonna work? But I was there for a couple of weeks, and I was working on this book, and then I, this is how I came up with the idea to write a book about silence, actually. I came, I was there working on a different book, and I suddenly realized, wait a second, my life is already silent. And I became very, because the nature of like just being a writer, right? You are so often just deeply ensconced in your own little office monastery, and you know, you're solo and you're just really, really working on this.

And I became very fascinated that there were these canonized Catholic hermits there who one of them hadn't taken, one of them hadn't spoken since like the 1980s, you know. And this is, yeah, this is in the odds, right? Except for saying, you know, the word singing the word of God in church and at the Mass that was attended by like by people, you know, anyway, really deep in this very, very, very deep life of silence. And I became very fascinated with them. And the more I began reading, and so I just kind of shifted gears and I started researching monks and you know, thinking about that, and you know, their idea of like poverty, chastity, and obedience, I realized was really kind of similar to what I was doing.

I had essentially taken a vow of, you know, poverty, chastity. I mean, it wasn't quite chess, but I was friend, you know, and I wasn't having children because of my devotion to these books. I had partners, I've had three partners in my life who wanted to have children, and I was so ensconced in a book project I said no. And anyway, we can talk about children a little later, but that was a real sacrifice that I made in obedience, right? We're obedient to this views, and so that's when I began referring to myself as like I'm an art monk. And so when I then was found myself 40, and you know, I was always thinking this like my early 30s when childhood could, you know, a child could still potentially come, but then by my 40s, I was realizing like wow, this may not actually happen, and I may have, you know, by virtue of prioritizing art above everything, I may have indeed, you know, moved beyond the point where I could have a child, and that was a really scary, you know, idea for me, and I didn't really know how I felt about it, and I thought if I am gonna be an art monk, I need a congregation, right?

So that is sort of what sent me searching to meet all these incredible women around the world who have also just chosen their creative pursuit at every every turn, every crossroads. They continuously chose art, chose art, chose art, chose art, chose art. You know, there are sacrifices that you make, profound sacrifices that you make when you do this. And what I found is that these women were often choosing art in response to really very intense experiences that were often beyond their control as well. So the one that comes to my mind is, you know, Rwanda. So when I was in Rwanda, I spent some time in K Valley and encountered this extraordinary playwright named Hope Zayda, and she lost so many members of her family in the genocide, the Montagnard genocide, and she herself had grown up in a refugee camp in Uganda, and she decided that she wanted to heal wounds she could not see.

That is how she refers to art. Like I am a healer, and violence has devastated my country, and I need art to stitch it back together. And so armed with only a bachelor's degree in theater, she moved back to Rwanda after having grown up in a refugee camp and found some kids and taught them everything she knew and then just began this theater company that has traveled all around Rwanda and all around the world making art about the genocide. So using art as a way of bringing together these, you know, these warning signs to make something beautiful and to try to heal. So, you know, just going around country to country, I just found women, you know, using art as a way of just moving through really deep life experiences, many of which were imposed from above.

So, you know, I went to Romania, you know, encountered all these incredible women that were making art during the Ceausescu regime, it was so incredibly dangerous to paint anything besides the man's face. Like that was like literally all you were allowed to paint, you know, for 20 years, just Ceausescu and his wife Elena, right? Only if you painted their face could you get an artist studio, could you get good paint brushes that didn't fall apart, you know, after two pieces, like it so anyway, that was a really needed search for me, and especially now that our own country is really we don't know where it's going, you know, it's really scary times.

[28:00] Jennifer Apple: Um, I think art is going to be more important now for our generation than ever.

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[29:23] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Having spoken to these women, did it illuminate something for yourself about your art and the enoughness of that?

[29:32] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Oh, a hundred percent. And actually, something rather um extreme happened about halfway through this book. Um, well, halfway through the research of this book, I uh you know, was still thinking um about children. Um, you know, I was definitely probably our truthfully maybe already beyond the now or never, but you know, I was in my like early to mid 40s and and I did have a partner who did want to have a child so we were you know in negotiation about that and um and in my mind I'm like I just need to carry my last book All the Agents of Saints and just need to carry that across because like I was in the throes of like kind of finishing that and the book finally came out I booked a 40 city book tour and in my mind I'm like okay when I come back from this book tour then we're gonna have baby conversation and then you know I'll see what I can do anyway so 40 city book tour I'm so excited month sabbatical to do this and um and two weeks into the tour I started having um a really odd sensation that was kind of like heartburn I would I basically I would eat and I would um begin feeling like I would have acid reflux which I never really had before when I ate I started feeling full like up to my neck so uh that was very curious but again I'm on a tour you know for a book I've been working at for 10 years and I've got 30 cities ahead of me and I'm like every day every day every day and then I woke up bleeding and I uh thought okay I've got to in very thank God that was the day I was flying back home for three days to like unpack repack and I called my doctor on the way and she saw me and she put her hands on my belly and she said Stephanie are you pregnant and I'm like no and she's like are you sure and I'm like, I'm Catholic, is this immaculate conception? Like, that's really what happened. And um, yeah, so I had a variant cancer, and I had to cancel the entire book tour and go into uh emergency surgery to remove a tumor the size of a basketball.

[31:48] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: So the reason I was feeling full at the neck is because literally the food could not get around the tumor into my yeah, and uh so this very dramatic thing happened. I then had to go to chemotherapy and it was the whole thing, and um and what was so incredible is that I had this galactic shot of triumph and glory and gratitude that if it all ends now, I am so glad that I prioritized art above everything. I mean, I'm so glad, I'm so glad. I will leave behind five books that I gave my whole life to. I would leave behind all of these amazing students I've been so lucky to work with at UNC Chapel Hill, um, and and all the conferences I've taught at all over the world, like I leave behind something that in that moment, and and also I was like, thank god I didn't have a child because I'd be abandoning the child, you know.

I would be this would be the I mean that would be a whole other level of anguish and grief because I wouldn't just be losing my own life, but I would be you know losing someone's mother. Um so that was a really profound experience, and that I'm I'm so glad I'm so grateful. I it's it sounds strange to say you're grateful for cancer, but most people that you know if you survive cancer, it it really not obviously that's a big if and it's an incredible privilege to to survive cancer, but it really does give you a reckoning with everything, and yeah, so what art has done for me that I'm now realizing is that what it's given me now I'm not going to be able to have children I live too long but it is giving me lineage you know I have my teachers and I have you know have a long long line of students I have readers like why is that not creation too why is that not legacy too um I believe that it is um and and so I've I've really found deep meaning through that.

[33:59] Jennifer Apple: Yeah well first of all thank you for sharing all of that I'm sorry you navigated that and the resilience that you clearly have and the perspective that it made you um rethink it like obviously completely informs the work that you do. You know obviously I would never wish that upon anybody either and the fact that you've gone through it and now have come to the other side to like see with you know different colored glasses is I would imagine a a different perspective that you never anticipated. And so thank you for sharing that here.

[34:47] Jennifer Apple: You know whether that's yeah no but like whether it's of child rearing or whether it's of birthing creativity or a book or you know and I think you know we have we've had this a version of this conversation um throughout a couple of podcasts around creation being, you know, like the cycle of birthing something. It really is, you know, when you create art from nothing, or when you, you know, um have an idea and then it becomes actually something tangible or you know, that is a birthing. And there is an emotional labor, there is potentially physical labor, and it really is potentially akin, obviously very different, but akin to creating a creation of a life. Um, you know, this thing now lives and breathes on its own.

You have a book that lives and breathes beyond you. There's a legacy that you mentioned that now will withstand for the rest of hopeful time, right? Like same with actually birthing of a child's in that way. You know, I'm thinking of multiple conversations. This this happened in our conversation with Daniela Rabani, where we talked about motherhood and artistry and those parallels of creation. We talked about this with Liz Kimball about creation as like a cycle. Even Jessica Paz, our sound designer came on and talked about, you know, you create the show and then you leave, and what is it? You know, it's just it is throughout all these conversations with all these different artists that we've done over, you know, over a hundred episodes, crazy.

Um, that is a theme. And, you know, for me, I'm fascinated by that because whether, you know, it's by choice or whether it's by necessity for women specifically choosing not to have, you know, actual children, that's not to say that they're not also creating a legacy and this being that would not have existed if they did not truly like birth this of their artistic creative process and the labor that that requires is intense. I'm not comparing child's birth to that in the like, you know, they're completely different, but the but I do think that there are similarities to the fact that it doesn't just happen, it is an intentional movement that takes time and will continue to um be developed over time once it's essentially quote unquote birthed. Like I just I'm fascinated by that.

[37:14] Jennifer Apple: Um and I I do think again, it goes it brings me back to the like enoughness of it all, right? Of like, okay, now you have this thing, and whether it looks, feels, sounds like the thing that you intended is kind of irrelevant. It exists, you know, and how do you then grapple with the reality of what you've, you know, metaphorically or literally birthed um in your life as the thing that you now must take care of or release, or it's I I I I think all of this is I don't know, I'm not speaking on behalf of other people. But for many of my friends, certainly for myself, it's a question that I think about often of like, what have I created? And and does it matter? And if it matters to me, is that enough?

Or if it matters to, you know, five people, is that enough? Does it need to reach a hundred, a hundred thousand people for it to make a difference? Like that's that question, I I don't think we're gonna solve it here. And I don't know if there is an answer, but I do think to even just raise it is um what it means to be an artist.

[38:26] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, like forgive yourself for wanting more. Realize that that is sort of embedded in being, you know, living living in this nation, living in a capitalist society, right? Is is something that does that. You know, I had a friend, um, someone, someone from grad school who came um once and um I you know was supporting her on her book tour, and which I was so happy to do. And I mean her book really was taking off, and she was just on all of the good shows and getting amazing reviews, and I was so excited. So when she you know arrives in my house, I'm like greening her with champagne, I'm like, woo, you know, you do it as this stuff. This is like her date. And she just looked at me and she goes, the problem with success is that the more you get, the more you realize there is to get.

I was like, whoa, you know, I mean or and also that the more people demand of you. Like I think, you know, if you start to throw yourself into that mix, the more people are now expecting, there's an expectation around, well, what's next versus let's embrace what is.

[39:29] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[39:31] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah.

[39:31] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah. So I think that is why a lot of um, yeah, I I find this really interesting. You know, I'm I my my closest literary community are Chicano writers and you know, Latina writers, and um an amazing number of us are Buddhist. Uh and I think that actually is really a thing. Um and it really, really helps. Um, Buddhist practices uh have have really I mean I I I should say like I mean I'm I'm culturally Catholic, uh, I'm Mexican American culturally Catholic, and Buddhism has been such a profound practice for me, um, particularly going through cancer, but um but also in in trying to deal with all of this. It's just how do we root ourselves? How do we be present? Um, I I've just found that you know, non-attachment, non-attachment, you know, desire is the root of suffering.

Like, all of that is like really, really, really a helpful way. But it I just I thought I've always found that fascinating how many of us are Buddhists, and I think we turn to that because we're trying to grapple with these these larger issues.

[40:35] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[40:35] Jennifer Apple: Do you find that your relationship to it is more in the practice or more in the spiritual offerings?

[40:41] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Oh, yeah. No, I I have um I have been studying Buddhism for about a decade now. And um, yeah, I feel like they're both um, I feel like you know, I mean I I do I do meditation and yoga every single day of my life. Um, whereas the more spiritual practices um is is far less frequent, but I think it has given me um a a deep uh a censuring and that that was especially important when I was going through cancer treatment. Actually, the the type of Buddhism that I practice is one Buddhism, um, W-O-N, which um as I understand the history of it, uh it developed in South Korea in the aftermath of the war when Allah's suffering um was so obvious that they changed the kind of underlying philosophy of one Buddhism to Allah's grace. And so how can you in that moment of war, being in the aftermath of war, how can you look all around you and um reconfigure this to be a form of grace?

[41:52] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: And so the Queen Im, who is my spiritual leader at one Buddhist temple here in North Carolina really implored me to meditate on as I was going through chemo, Allah's grace, Allah's grace, I'm so grateful, Allah's grace. Like that was the meditation that I did throughout it, and it sounded so obscene. I was so devastated to lose my book tour. I was so devastated to lose my hair, I was so devastated to lose my womb. I mean, I was losing. And then and actually it's also interesting that I cared about it in most bad order. I most first and foremost cared about my book tour. I'm sorry to say more than, you know, and I care about my hair. Um, those are the things that I was really so profoundly like out of my mind with anguish about.

Um, but we conceiving of that through this idea of this is grace, this is grace. All that matters is this is grace. Um, I just chanted it until I started to believe it. And I think that's why when I start talking about cancer, I'm like, oh, it was this amazing experience. You know, I mean it's crazy, like I lost so much, but I re it worked. This is what I'm just trying to say, it works. Yeah, affirmations, people talk about it all the time. Just say it to yourself in the mirror every single day, multiple times a day, and you'll feel I mean, yeah, yes.

[43:09] Jennifer Apple: I guess the reason I was curious about whether it was like a practice part of it that felt, you know, in the like that was your access point, or whether it was the spirituality part, is just because you know, I do at least within my sphere of folks as well, I'd say that the people that I believe are uh the most grounded are those who do have some sort of spirituality or practice, um, sometimes both, that allows them to come back to themselves. Um, you know, whether that is a religion like from a religious practice or whether that's something that's you know, a healing thing or a modality or a physicality that, you know, or an affirmation, it allows them to come back to themselves and stay grounded within themselves.

And you know, I think ultimately, if you know, if what we're trying to do is be able to sustain our artistic lives and careers for as long as we possibly can while simultaneously maintaining our health, wellness, and being, you know, which is all in and of itself its own feat, to do that really, well, the world and circumstances make things harder. It's like really trying to come back inward and really being with oneself in your feet and on you know, uh, your head over your spine of it all. Um, and to have something that is reliable when everything feels so unreliable, whether like in that practice, in that spiritual connection, um, however that manifests, I really at least I haven't done research, but if I think to my community, that is the thing that really allows people to continue.

[44:50] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah, absolutely. And also art is a form of spiritual practice. Yeah. Um, so you know, when I think about being an art monk, um, you know, I initially like that was it was I passed that off as like a joke. I mean, I was like, I would, you know, call myself that and um but over the course of 10 years, the woman that I interviewed, I began to think I'm I'm I'm actually sort of onto something. What is an art monk? An art monk is you know, uh first of all, it's like this, you know, profound devotion. Um, but a profound devotion to something that is actually selfless. So the people that I really was fascinated with, it's are the people who are doing this for the illumination and the enlightenment and the betterment of people they will never know.

You know, it's um so it is this intense act of faith that this thing that you labor over all of these years will do something for someone, and they may never tell you, you know, and I and so that is something that has kept me going. I have been so incredibly lucky over the course of my art life. Um a couple of times at a conference, it's happened. We have this huge gathering called the AWP Association of Writer Writing Publishing. I can't remember what the acronym is about, but anyway. Gather once a year, there's like 14,000 writers. We gather, you know, once a year. And anyway, a couple of times in that conference, someone has like just pulled me aside and said, Your writing meant so much to me at this moment in my life.

And like, and that is just such a gift, and and we have to have faith that that it is going. We can't do it for that reason, but we have to have faith that it is, you know, it is reaching the people that it is meant to reach, and that is and it's making an impact, even if it might feel small or individual.

[46:52] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, and that is essentially what monks do as well. They are also praying, you know. The hermits that I met back in South Texas, you know, when I when I came upon this whole idea when I first started thinking about silence and writing about silence, right? They don't know that their prayers are going to reach the people that they that they are hoping it will, but they do it anyway. They do it anyway, they do it for the love. They do it for the hope. They do it for the faith. That is all at the end of the day that we actually have.

[47:22] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah. Well, I think that is, I mean, we're not answering it fully, but I think that that is ultimately like an answer, right? The enoughness is like there's this trust that you know the process is the process and it's yours. And that in doing so, it will reach who and where it needs to reach because that's what it will do. Like I think there really is a surrender in the lack of structure that it is to create. Um, and obviously I giggle as I say this 'cause I'm like, I don't I can't do this yet. But you know, it's like I think it bec that's part of one's life mission as an artist is to really continue leaning into one's self-trust, to continue coming back to oneself and really finding that autonomy and that groundedness to continue, you know, uh learning and expanding one's spiritual or you know, practices to continue like creating the environment with which to thrive, to continue being curious in it.

Like I think, you know, the the ways in which we do it, that the barometer has to be enough for you. Like I think, you know, because ultimately who well who is gonna define it other than your own self. And um it's yeah, it's a hard one. It's a hard one. And I appreciate the fact that while you were doing that in this, you know, exploration through other women that you found around the world who were all grappling with this within their own worlds.

[49:01] Jennifer Apple: And I think that in of itself is like essentially a proof that like this isn't just a thing that happens here on this side of of the planet. It happens everywhere if you are an artist and we're all grappling with it, and we'll probably be for the rest of our lives.

[49:15] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Our lives totally so so much of this is like it's an absolutely universal experience. I mean I was I interviewed people in Peru and Qatar and Mexico and um uh Romania Rwanda um New Zealand Iceland right all over the world India um and and had the same conversation with everyone right um something else I want to say is um another aspect of this that I find so fascinating is ecstatic experience which is something else I feel like we're where um I think the the term art monk is appropriate right um that is something that is uh an intrinsic part of the the monk experience um, you know and I I say this having interviewed a lot of monks right because I I was I ultimately abandoned the book about silence maybe actually the book about silence became this book you know who knows right but I interviewed a lot of monks and um and that is that is like a goal in being a monk right like not a goal but um yeah an intention right or or a hope or or something that you know but a lot of monks have these sort of ecstatic experiences where they they they have this sense of like being aligned in with their God and it is just like they they they're on fire right and you interview like early monks you know early Christian early Catholic literature is just full of these just really intense amazing descriptions of ecstatic experiences with with with God.

[50:48] Jennifer Apple: And um I think that artists really have that too. And and people came up with different terms for it. There's a term in classical Indian dance called rasa. And it's where um I interviewed this extraordinary choreographer, I don't know, one of the but probably mu the most famous Indian classical Indian dance choreographer, name as Sumupa Sand. Extraordinary, extraordinary human being. And she refers to it as a spiritual orgasm. You know, so it's this moment where like you are in it and you, you know, you're throwing out the energy and your audience takes it and gives it back and it becomes this circle and you're like on fire and all neurons and you're just like woo you know and it is better than any physical orgasm I've ever had.

I mean it is just like it is like it's spiritual, right? It's like your whole all of your energy is suspended. You are absolutely one not with one other person, but with like a hundred or two hundred or a thousand or ten thousand. I mean I can't even imagine like rough musicians, right? There's like we're talking like hundreds of thousands of people, right? Woo so that is also a pursuit. Which is why and when you when you when you when you experience that when you're really young, which I was really lucky to experience it um on my tour, my first book tour, right? I'm like, I want this in my life forever. You know I mean that's arguably like why folks you know do theater you know you have the applause at the end of a number you know or why like the why why live art is a very different thing, you know, not in a better or worse, just a very different experience than you know consuming a movie from the comfort of your couch.

It's just there is a communal element where you experience other people's feelings simultaneously, energy around you that um, you know, is a very different thing than, you know, when you're creating art in your home alone or your studio space by yourself, which is in and of itself its own gorgeous thing. But yeah, it's a different pursuit for sure, depending on the medium.

[52:56] Jennifer Apple: As we begin to wind down our time, is there anything else in your heart that I didn't ask or we didn't get into that you would be remiss to not share?

[53:05] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Oh wow. You know, when I when I do readings, um I've started doing this for like the last year and a half, but when I do readings kind of couching like we doing reading from all of my books and just couching the whole thing and in a m. I I actually literally make my my audience turn to one another look each other deep in the eyes and say you are enough, you know?

[53:30] Jennifer Apple: I love it.

[53:31] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah. Yeah. So I just implore you all to do that. Um wherever you are in this it is enough.

[53:38] Jennifer Apple: I love it. For anybody who wants to find you, work with you, reach out, learn more, what within your boundaries are the best way to find people?

[53:49] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Yeah, yeah. Well I'm gonna be doing a four-month book tour that starts June 10th in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and I'm going all over. I'm going to most of the United States. So I would love to see you. Um and yeah you can find me on my website. You can find me on Instagram. Yes, Stephanie Elizondroprice.com.

[54:08] Jennifer Apple: Amazing. Thank you so much for being in this space and for creating art that you know invites us to think about these larger questions and meet other folks around the world and create a universal conversation around what it means to be an artist, especially in these hard times that we are living in. So thank you for being in the space and going down this rabbit hole with me.

[54:31] Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Thank you so much. This has been such a joy.

[54:33] Jennifer Apple: That's it for today's episode. I hope you walk away with some fresh insights, feel inspired, and a little more empowered to take the next step on your artistic journey. Remember, whether it's a small shift or a big breakthrough, every step forward counts. You've got this, and we're here cheering you on every step of the way. If you found today's episode helpful, don't forget to hit subscribe so you'll never miss out on the discussions we have each week. And if something today really resonated with you, please leave us a review. It truly is one of the best ways to help other artists find our podcast and join in on the conversations. Plus, we feel the love too when you do. And don't keep all this goodness to yourself.

Share this episode with your people or post about it on social media. Be sure to tag @empoweredartistscollective and @JenniferApple_ so we can see what's landing for you and keep the conversation going. As always, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. And thank you for being a part of this incredible community. Keep creating, keep thriving, stay empowered. I'm Jennifer Apple. Until next time.