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[0:00] Leah Walsh: Hi, and welcome to The Compass, the podcast documenting the struggles of life as an artist.

[0:05] Leah Walsh: I'm Leah Walsh. Hi everyone. Before I get started introducing my guest for this week, I just wanted to give a little shout out to an incredible workshop I did earlier this spring with Katherine Miller, M-U-E-L-L-E-R. It was called The Mamas, Mother Artists Making Art. And we were on a Zoom once a week for an hour or two and discussing inspirational mother artists, philosophy, challenges, where we all were with our experiences as artists and parents, and cultivating both of those roles at the same time. It was much needed, and I encourage you to check it out if you fall into the parent artist category. She also has one for pregnant artists making art. My guest today is Natalie Bartlett. She is a teacher, craftsperson, a naturalist, and a musician.

She and I went to the University of Evansville together where we were both studying to be actors. But actually, one of my more powerful experiences there was being in a production that she directed of Necessary Targets by V, formerly known as Eve Ensler. She's recently started her own venture in addition to her other teaching work called Folkways School. You can check that out at folkwaysschool.com or find her on Instagram. She's currently recording her first album as a singer-songwriter, and she's based in LA. I hope you enjoy the 177th episode of The Compass.

[1:47] Natalie Bartlett: And that means a little bit something different to everyone. But whatever comes to mind.

[1:54] Natalie Bartlett: Yeah, I mean, a few things come to mind, and I feel like there, yeah, it depends on the definition of that. Um I personally I kind of believe in having a little bit in the dark side. I feel like that has fueled so much of yeah, just my growth, just my personal growth, not just as an artist. Um, and then maybe for me what I'm hearing is like to not live there. Um when I say the dark side, what comes to mind for you most often? What what do you think you would define that as for yourself?

[2:36] Natalie Bartlett: Well, I feel like that would be for me, the dark side would be kind of being stuck in my own uh my own world, so much so that I you know, I'm kind of self-obsessed and I'm not um transforming and and progressing. Um when I hear that, I think yeah, what what would be keeping me from creating, what would be keeping me from um yeah, transforming, and for me I have to kind of try new things, um, and have a lot of identities as I don't know, not just an artist is as a human to stay out of the dark side, like have to push different edges and and try things that I haven't tried before, and that seems to be yeah, just a part of my path. Um taking things on and then sort of moving moving to a new version of that.

Whether it's teaching, whether it's I've I've lived on land for a long time, um, and that feels really uh core to my essence is time in the wild. So I would say actually that that's a mate major piece too. So keeping me from going to the dark side is connection to the earth, I guess, first and foremost.

[4:09] Leah Walsh: Can you tell me a little bit about where you're based right now and how the last year and a half has been during the pandemic? How you're doing now?

[4:18] Natalie Bartlett: Yeah, okay, so I'm technically based in Topanga, Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles, and during COVID, uh so I'm a school teacher, among other things, and I teach at a very alternative school uh based on 20 acres in Topanga Canyon, where the children are outside most of the time, and I teach a lot of earth skills. So during COVID, my job basically became doing embodied things in person and then figuring out how to teach that through the computer. So it was incredibly challenging, but one sort of freeing thing about it was that I could do it from anywhere. So even though I'm based in Topanga and we we did go back in person in March, I surfed around quite a bit, and I was able to be I spent four months back in the desert, um in at a place called Quail Springs that I live for 10 years, and I also spent probably about a month of time um on the coast in a place called Gabbyota with friends who are sheep farmers. And I was able to just have this uh life balance at the same time that I was teaching online. So the the long answer of that is that I'm essentially into Panga, but I have constant motion.

[5:47] Leah Walsh: How how are you feeling now being back in person and kind of dealing with this in-between this in-between time with COVID?

[5:56] Natalie Bartlett: Um I mean, going back in person was so important. It um I mean it's amazing that a lot of your work is bait already based outside. That's incredible.

[6:08] Natalie Bartlett: Yeah, yeah. So essentially, before we went back in person, I was going out into wild places and harvesting all these different things that I would then send the children in a box once a month. And as I was harvesting all those things, I would film everything that I was doing. And then I would create these videos for them on how to make earth and paints, how to make charcoal pencils. I just had like a whole list of things that, but then they had to teach themselves at home. So going back in person um made my life way, way easier. So that was an incredible learning curve for me. I actually like felt like I took a leap in technology that I would never have done before. And I I think a lot of people felt that.

And it's interesting how like the artist I um really transferred to to making these little videos. Like I, even though it was tremendous amount of work, I had so much fun doing that, just the aesthetics of it and um trying to make it beautiful and and beautiful music and engaging. And I I would say, yeah, I I got a lot out of that. But then being back in person, you know, and it was still the height of COVID once we went back. So I I bonded with my students in this incredibly deep way, just because we saw each other virtually every day online during COVID when when there's very little other company, and some of those kids weren't seeing anybody else. So yeah, I I it felt like we became this sort of family in a sense, and I will never forget them for that experience.

And seeing them was like, yeah, it was it was honestly very um moving and joyful, and also I was really relieved to not be doing all the rest of that and try to teach them these skills in a way that they're just they've never been taught before.

[8:10] Leah Walsh: That makes sense.

[8:12] Leah Walsh: Yeah. Um I I know you're in the middle right now of recording an album. That's really exciting.

[8:21] Natalie Bartlett: It is very exciting.

[8:22] Leah Walsh: Is this the first time you've embarked on a big project like that?

[8:27] Natalie Bartlett: The first time that I've embarked on a big solo project like that, I sang for just off and on for four years in a group called Kitka, which is a women's um harmony ensemble that sings um music, kind of traditional folk music from the Balkans and Slavic regions and even to the Caucasus Mountains. So I did two recordings with them. I did two CDs with them, but it couldn't have been more different because even just the style of singing, and it was like, you know, eight people very, very, very big singing. Um, and the mics were set up for that. Just so much sound coming out of your mouth when you're singing um that type of music. And this music that I wrote and and I'm doing is just very different. It's it's I I it's I would say it's more like folk or Americana, so it's just much more tender. Um yeah, so it's been interesting. Uh they're very different. They're very different.

[9:30] Leah Walsh: Is this all music that you've written yourself?

[9:33] Natalie Bartlett: Yeah, it's all music that I've written myself over the last few years.

[9:38] Leah Walsh: That's so exciting. Um how are you enjoying the producing aspect of it? Was there is this kind of a self-funded project? Did you have to do some fundraising, like all the planning stuff? How's that been going?

[9:52] Natalie Bartlett: I know. Thanks for asking about that. That's like it's the it's the tricky part. It's always I mean not just the magic of creation. I guess I never imagined that somebody else would fund it. And it I I mean, I'm a school teacher, I don't have a huge salary.

[10:10] Natalie Bartlett: Um are we allowed to pause for a second? Can we Yeah, sure. Can we edit that?

[10:15] Natalie Bartlett: My dog is making a bunch of noise and I'm gonna move her.

[10:18] Leah Walsh: Sure.

[10:20] Natalie Bartlett: Yeah, so a lot of this music that I wrote came from uh challenging experience with a former partner, and I didn't expect to write any of this. I wasn't trying to be a songwriter, it just ended up being part of the healing process. And at the time, I was teaching very part-time at this school, and I was still living in the desert, and I had this crazy community like two and a half hours, so I would wake up at like 4:30 in the morning, you know, in this incredibly beautiful place, and then drive to Los Angeles and teach and teach there, and then um come back. And yeah, I I decided I was inspired by a friend who had done something different but similar. After I'd written all of them, I I asked some people that were really dear to me if they would be willing to come together on my birthday, and a lot of people that I sung with before in this group, Kitka, and then also some of my dearest friends at Quail Springs, and they're about 12 people and myself, and we I I basically on the spot taught them all these harmonies that I'd been hearing for all of the songs, and we were in this little boat in Sasolito, and my friend has a houseboat, and we sang through the whole it was 13 songs that we sang through, and um, and I shared the story of what had happened, and and just like they held the space for that, but they also have beautiful voices and did all these incredible harmonies.

[11:48] Leah Walsh: And after that, did you record that?

[11:52] Natalie Bartlett: We did, but just with a phone, like in the center of the boat, like it was so you like the ideas wouldn't get lost. But my intention was not like we're gonna record this, but afterwards, so many of them and who I really respect, they were like, You have to make an album, this is incredibly beautiful, and so that just sat with me and then it kind of built, and I I mean, I've never I live in LA now, so it's so funny, but I've never been like, How do you make an album? I want to be a musician, I want to be a singer-songwriter. I've never like looked into any of the business sides of that, it wasn't a part of my identity. And so um I had a friend who was gonna who has a a degree in sound engineering and has recorded, she's a beautiful singer, she's recorded a lot of her recordings, and she was gonna help me with it, and then COVID happened, and so I had to not do do that version of it, and then they were just you know, I was just feeling more and more like I I really wanted to record them, and especially because I was writing more music and I was just kind of in a different phase of life, and I wanted to help complete that sort of uh maybe like a healing journey for myself.

[13:04] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah, um, and so I essentially put it out through social media to all these people I know. I didn't attempt to like send to producers or I, you know, I don't even really, I still I don't really understand how people do that, how that works. Um, I wasn't looking for strangers to come and produce my work, and then a dear friend who's incredibly talented and professionally does this, did reach out and um had heard me sing before and we just had a strong connection.

[13:35] Natalie Suzanne: They also write very similar archetypal music. Um, and we have just hit it off and yeah, so I am self-funding, but with this friend who I feel very, very lucky to have connected with who actually just really loves the music and cares about it and understands the world of it. Um, lives in that world too, with a lot of the music that they write. So that's a long answer to your question.

[14:03] Leah Walsh: That's so incredible. I can't wait to hear the finished product. How much longer do you have in the studio?

[14:10] Natalie Suzanne: I'm sure it's even a, you know, a longer process after that. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's kind of I'm I'm a I have a couple decisions to make. So we finished five tracks, the mastering, but we will mix it at the end of August. And then I want to do the other five tracks. And so I will potentially crowdfund for that. I'm just feeling into that. Um, my first round I sold, you know, some of my crafts that I do. I could do a lot of leathercraft and um, there is a I know so many musicians do it, and there's been this tiny part of me that is like, oh, I don't want to ask for money because it's so many things are happening in the world that really need money. So uh yeah, it's it's just something that I've really been feeling into.

Like, should I do that? And and yeah, it's a larger conversation, but um and I know that's pretty standard for musicians and also just the COVID world that we're in, and with so much going on that needs uh funding. It feels yeah, it feels I feel torn about that.

[15:23] Leah Walsh: Hmm. I love this idea of kind of written not resolving, but having some sort of a catharsis about this experience in your life through this album before you like fully invest in your next creative project.

[15:41] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah. It sounds so satisfying right now. Maybe it's because we're in such a limbo right now with the pandemic. That just yeah, it feels like such a satisfying project. And it it's also like it had such a huge impact on my life. The experience that I had, it was so unexpected and so um, you know, traumatizing in a sense and also really beautiful, and it only happened a couple years ago, so it's still with me, and I feel like creating beauty out of that is uh it's just a necessary step, and it's not the only step to to, you know, having that circle and having that healing. There's certainly a lot more. I'll probably be doing that work for years and years of my life. Um, but it's been very helpful.

[16:34] Leah Walsh: Yeah. When did you first discover that about yourself? Like you were talking about at the beginning about needing to always be trying new things. When did you really articulate that for yourself? Was it something you resisted initially?

[16:51] Natalie Suzanne: I guess I don't know if I was conscious of it for such a long time. I do believe that it's my nature. Um, I think leaving school, leaving college, and then going to an incredibly untraditional environment straight out of school did actually shape the entire path of my life. Um, so I left Evansville, went to New York City, hated it, I hated it so much. I had just I had dark night of the soul there, and I was just so young I and I didn't know yet how to find people that had the same like um loves as me. And I felt very overwhelmed and lonely. I think it would be really different now. I'm just older. Um and I as you know, I I ended up um seeing this performance at La Mama with an experimental physical theater company called Double Edged Theater that was based out of a farm in Massachusetts and um I saw the performance of Don Quixote and they were all you know swinging on silks over the audience and they were essentially all athletes and gymnasts and musicians and poets and I was completely taken with the performance itself and then I went up and did a training and I f I didn't even think I could make it through it.

It was so physically challenging um but I felt so so alive. So this is a long version to say that I was very taken by that immediately and I just knew instantly that I had to do it and I essentially moved there as an apprentice. Only actually only seven or eight months yeah so yeah it was fast. It was fast. I moved to New York in the summer and I moved to double edge in January of that the next year. So I did a stint at a casting agency as a as an intern and uh yeah I I I thought I wanted to be an actor. I was obsessed with it. I was devoted to it and then just being on the inside of that and this is just my experience and seeing at that time especially I felt how women were treated.

[19:14] Leah Walsh: I'm sure from the other side of the table too, that must have been fascinating.

[19:21] Natalie Suzanne: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I just remember like, you know, a stream. We I think we were casting for a showtime pilot season and a stream of like the most beautiful women in the world coming in and I remember this one woman, she came in and auditioned probably like seven tim you know, like a lot and they were really considering her for a lead. And in the end, I think the producer told the casting director that she wasn't sexy enough. And she was beyond sexy. Like I don't understand their standards, like I don't Yeah, how do you define that anyway? But yes. Yeah, yeah. And just at that time too, yeah, so it was like f over fifteen years ago at this point. So some of that stuff was just so blatant, I'm sure it still is, honestly.

Um but yeah, and and then I had friends that were actors that were so I m I remember this woman who had been on Broadway and been nominated for a Tony multiple times and um I had I was helping with a production that she had r written and she um she shared with us just at the beginning of a rehearsal one night that she'd gone to uh audition and she hadn't been wearing mascara and she got a call her agent got a call from the casting director that she was looking old. And um I remember I mean this is just a phenomenally talented woman. She's probably about forty at the time, which is probably a tricky age for a lot of women when you're like no longer the ingenue and you're I mean, at least in in in the technical world world and you're not yet like other roles potentially.

And um, yeah, there were just a few things like that that really impacted me. And I was I just I maybe I thought I was too sensitive to to be in that world but yeah so then I went to the theater to Double Edge that was on a 110 acre farm in rural Massachusetts in the foothills of the Berkshires and um had this really old style apprenticeship where you all live together and i I think it's a little different there now but at the time you literally lived on the same everyone lived on the same land and you actually lived underneath you had a little room underneath this enormous barn where everyone trained. Um and it was you know I was exposed to so many different types of people there from all over the world um a lot of people who had politically resisted things in their own countries a lot of people who just by their nature made really unconventional choices and I mean they were making an unconventional choice to to live like that even though the theater had been around for a while and now continues to be around has been around for a long time.

Um but I think it kind of ruined me actually for the rest of my adult life to do anything that doesn't feel like deeply fulfilling in a transformative way because there were some really really hard things about being there but it changed changed my life. And exposed me to so many things and I am I learned so I I literally learned that I was capable of anything there. Like I had this very powerful experience over three years and so I I feel like when you're asking about you know do you did you resist that? Did you know that? I feel like I just sort of followed my nature, but then when I was in this cauldron of people who all did that, even though it was tumultuous at times and it was beautiful at others, it was like validation for the rest of my life that like lots of people and groups of people and people that I think are really amazing, soulful people make unconventional choices and kind of go for um for what their heart feels pulled to, even though it's challenging. So yeah, I would say I was very, very impacted by that and kind of have made many similar um maneuvers or choices since then.

[23:52] Leah Walsh: I'd I love how immersive a lot of your um your choices seem to be, and I'm obviously we have not been as in touch the last 10 years, but this is my impression from your yeah, you know, my social media stocking from afar and wishing you well from afar. I mean, the fact that you lived for 10 years after that in like another kind of immersive experience. Can you tell a little bit about what you were doing at what did you say it was called?

[24:21] Natalie Suzanne: Quail Springs, yeah. Yeah, so uh you know, I spent about three years at Double Edge and Um it was time to leave, and I drove cross country and at the end of the day. And you're from California originally.

[24:38] Leah Walsh: I'm from California, yeah.

[24:40] Natalie Suzanne: I'm from the Bay Area, I'm from Oakland. Um, so yeah, had had had this journey, you know, school in Indiana, then moving to New York City, then moving to Ashfield, Massachusetts. And actually, I don't know if you have time for it, but can I tell you a little story about living in Ashfield? That's kind of um okay.

[24:58] Leah Walsh: Sure!

[24:58] Natalie Suzanne: So I had been living there for about two years, and I as I said, I I was drawn there because of this performance at La Mama, and then went up and essentially became an apprentice, then became a company member. And probably about two years into my time there, um, my grandfather, who has since passed, shared a bunch of uh family ancestry documents with me, and I was going through them. My last name is Bartlett, and so um he prior to you know anything that we have available now, had tracked our ancestors by writing all these county clerks, and um so he he had done a very good job tracking both his mother's and his father's side, and on his mother's side, he tracked them, you know, to the place in Ireland where they came from, and on his father's side, they're like old colonizers, like when we got here, we call we were like c major colonizers, and um I do know that for sure.

And so I started looking at this document and I started seeing all these little towns near where I live, like Conway and Greenfield and all these things, and so I um I go because it's a really small town, it's called Ashfield, Massachusetts, and they they have you know, like five or six businesses, but they do have a historical society because it's in New England and it's only open like two days a week. And so I went in there with these documents, and she looks at them and she's like, Oh yeah, Dr. Phineas Sumner Bartlett. Oh, this is like my direct, direct ancestor from my grandfather's line on. And so she takes me outside and walks me up about two blocks to the house that he built in the 1780s in Ashfield.

[26:41] Leah Walsh: Oh my gosh.

[26:42] Natalie Suzanne: And then we walk around um to this graveyard that we've been jogging by like multiple times a week as the theater we we did a lot of intense physical training and nine of my ancestors that were on this family tree were buried there.

[26:57] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah. So bizarre I definitely yeah so I definitely tend towards you know believing in the magical realms of things when you get brought places or and have really considered that since like that was a big moment for me like okay I thought that I came here for this thing and maybe I did but maybe there's something bigger at play and each time I've ended up somewhere I try to have that conversation with the land I don't need to have it front with anyone else nobody needs to approve of my beliefs but it's a very powerful way of arriving somewhere like maybe there's some reason that I'm here beyond what I can see in this moment and I do believe that and that has been true for me in a lot of places.

So when I left that place I um I had like no money and I ended up in the bay and very quickly got like a bunch of really crappy jobs and just made enough to like pay my rent. Um, but on my way across the country, for some reason I was like, I just have to learn permaculture and natural building. That was just like in my head. I didn't know why. And so I was very lucky that in the Bay in Oakland, one of the oldest permaculture community college programs is there, and it's um, so essentially you can take a certified what's called a permaculture design course for almost no money, uh wow at this amazing institution, and they had I think it was two or three acres. They had this enormous permaculture garden at this place called Merritt College.

Um Merritt College is famous in Oakland for a lot of reasons, including um the Black Panthers. But I went there and took this permaculture class, and they also had a natural building class, and so uh I also took this natural building class, and this whole world opened up to me. I started meeting all these people, and I connected specifically with this house of badass women that had they had bought this small house in the East Bay all together. They were all about my age, just a little bit older, some of them, and they were natural builders and permaculturists and artists, and they basically renovated the whole house and they were building three little natural like earthen pods in the backyard.

And I was gonna say, I was curious how you see that like in an urban setting. Well, you can pursue it in a lot of different ways, other than that, like they were really believing in doing a lot of retrofits as well, so that that still is a huge um thing that happened. So they ended up they had an accessory building that they did a retrofit on, and they actually got the first permits in that county to do it with a certain type of um earthen insulation called light straw clay. They got it all fully permitted, but then they did these like experimental structures in the back that were technically you know under a certain amount of footage, and so you weren't supposed to live in them, but um they were like little little cabins, and a dear friend that I met in the permaculture class that I'm still friends with, and we met on the first night.

We show up there, and they're like, Oh, it's kind of cool that you're here today. We're we might have some apprentices. Um we're we're talking to people if they want to come and join us and help build out, uh, help build more more often. So we like immediately jumped in. It turned out we were like the most reliable like ones, and and we came all the time and they just became our friends, and um, I'm still friends with all of those people to this day, and one of them is one of my absolutely most best friends, Sasha. And so this is a long story to say. So when I was in the Bay, I I then got deeply immersed in all of that, and I was very much taken with that culture. Um, yeah, just people are super passionate about making things, and you know, they had all these incredible foods that you know they'd harvested, wild harvested, and they had all these, you know, they would just if they wanted to experiment with different earthen paints, they just paint a wall in their house, and you know, then they paint over it when they were done, and um they were just they were also artists, but they were very different form of artists than I'd been around, and so and they were also just nice people.

So I was really taken with them and started, you know, just pursuing a lot more of that and kept hearing about this place, Quail Springs, and um at the time there were only a few sort of like quote unquote permaculture education centers. And that was one of them. And it had didn't really cross my mind to go there. And I remember this one guy that I met um in Bellinas at a course and his name was Huatemok and he had spent a lot of time there. And he was just raving about how great those people were. And so I I was at this crossroads, I was 27, and I was like, maybe I'm gonna go to um traditional Chinese medicine school and become an acupuncturist. And I had been taking like some classes on the side.

And um then I then I was like it was another one of those moments where I was like, actually I just don't wanna do that and I wanna just leave what I'm doing and go move to this farm in the desert. And so I applied to be an apprentice there and to be a farm and garden apprentice and I moved there and I was just like immediately taken with the culture of that place and just incredibly loving people, like deeply welcoming, like almost like you're in another country. Like I feel like Americans are are not very welcoming on the whole, especially in Los Angeles, they're really bad. Um but it's one thing people say when they travel to other countries in my experience too, a little bit in my in my travels is it's not always true, but just that welcoming.

Um like we're so grateful you're here. Who are you? Nice to meet you, and then you immediately feel like you're a part of something, and that place still has that like deep, deep heart. Um and they do amazing work and yeah, so I I lived there off and on for about ten years and um yeah that's incredible and I know this isn't the fun part to talk about but I'm curious about it. We brought it up with the album like I'm curious about how you balance your art and your and commerce.

[33:47] Leah Walsh: Yeah like is that well were you able to get a paying job there or you were subsidizing it with other work or

[33:47] Natalie Suzanne: I basically showed up I had probably like five thousand dollars of savings and I essentially lived off that so it cost me very little to be there. Um once you were there for a certain amount of time all of your food was paid for and I just lived in a tent for the first seven months. I wasn't like a lot of people would never want to do that. Um I thought it was fun and uh yeah I liked it and I had other unique living situations there. But essentially I mean it was challenging. I basically the way that it worked at the time and it's since changed but you know it's a typical nonprofit so it's not like they had a lot of money. Um so I made money there by being um there was a few of us that were sort of like lead cooks for large courses that we had so she'd be cooking for which was so fun you'd be cooking for like 70 to 100 people sometimes.

And then on you know a nightly basis just because of the amount of people there you'd be cooking for like 20 people just for fun. Um, and you would get paid only for the ones where you're like officially catering the course. And then I moved into the realm of teaching. So I created a series of ancestral skills classes because that became my big passion was all of the um kind of like ethnobotany earthcraft. Um yeah, more so than the than the farming or the natural building, which I also loved. I kind of discovered my childlike love um for craft and and for making things, and so I would put on courses and if I was the teacher, I would get paid. If I I would have a lot of other people be the teachers, and then I I would literally make like 150 dollars for organizing a workshop, but it would I mean for months of work, you know, and all the correspondence, but it would it was enough, and I wouldn't actually be able to go back to that at this point.

So I was living off probably like three thousand dollars a year. It was definitely a struggle, so it makes it you know, at a certain point, and then at a certain point I joined this group Keepka, so I was also making a little bit of money from from singing with this group, but it definitely made it so once you make a choice like that and you're in that situation, it becomes actually really hard to get out of it because you don't even have enough money to leave, if that makes sense.

[36:25] Leah Walsh: Right, right.

[36:25] Natalie Suzanne: Um that's how I felt like when I graduated from grad school, being like, I don't what do you mean I need a put deposit for the apartment, you know?

[36:34] Leah Walsh: Like I have the money for the first month's rent.

[36:36] Natalie Suzanne: I don't have a deposit.

[36:38] Leah Walsh: 100%.

[36:41] Natalie Suzanne: So yeah, I that was not easy. It was maybe because I became I came from performing. And I I you know, I I came from a lot of people who were talented people and didn't make very much money, I just had a less of a stigma around that. Um, but at the same time, after years of it, it kind of like wore wore me down. Um but this whole time you're kind of gathering these skills.

[37:12] Leah Walsh: And that's what it really was a few credentials from your classes and this kind of you know, beautiful resume of things that you could move forward with.

[37:23] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah, I mean, when you when you go to places like that and you're fully just living it, you learn a ton of things really quickly. And then when you do it for years, you really learn a lot, a lot, a lot. So, you know, even now it's not like I put chef or cook on my resume, but I have so much experience, and I you know, I've I've led whole weekends where you know, my friend Sasha is teaching how to build a cob oven and I'm just cooking in the cob oven for the participants the whole time, and so like cooking with fire and just I mean uh yeah, I could go on and on about it. I really believe I I'm a person that's drawn to living on land, period, and and wild places, and that transformed me more than anything, and I do believe that that's best love lifestyle for myself.

Um so yeah, I so many different things that you just become when you're taking care of all of that, and and at that place in terms of cooking, like we didn't have a gas-fired oven, it's only wood fired. Um we harvested out all of our own wood and um yeah, we did build earthen houses and um we did a lot of different crafting, and you know, I had been a vegetarian for this is it, sorry if anyone is a vegan, but I had been a vegan and vegetarian for years um and my beliefs around that changed and sorry if anyone's listening to this and they're upset at me for that but I just want to let you know my beliefs changed and I really um had a different experience of that especially after having kind of a mentor and dear person in my life who was um indigenous to that land kind of call me out on some of my uh or call me in maybe some of my thoughts around that and and um another path that I had you know that was has been a huge path that I never even imagined is I became very I spent I had spent so many hours with skins and I have uh really really really know how to make leather and um that's a thing I would that started there.

[39:38] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah it's a thing I would never have ever imagined in my life that I was gonna do or be drawn to or take on. But I guess even when I was yeah 12 years that I was vegetarian slash vegan and even when I was I remember always thinking secretly that leather was beautiful. But I was like oh I can't work you know it's not my it's not my identity like my identity is this person that doesn't believe in that. And then I was around all these people that they weren't abusive of that and they had a deep relationship with their animals and sometimes ate them and they knew how to you know make fire and harvest the things to make fire from the land and how to you know spin the wool and harvest all the different parts of it.

[40:20] Natalie Suzanne: And to me, I'm just I just don't have ears for somebody who's gonna tell me that that's not beautiful. You know, if they haven't been around it, haven't experienced it that that's like way more sustainable um and I finally understood that that yeah those sustainable cultures truly unsustainable but is is kind of a past word at this point. Regenerative cultures are um cultures that understand that and do that by their nature. They use absolutely everything so yeah so I that was one thing that um kind of took me and um yeah I've been doing that now for ten years and I know I saw some of the pictures of the like journals and stuff you make they look beautiful.

[41:11] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah so I I first started um with leather craft and and book binding and I I don't know I was just interested in it and just with leather that I'd bought and that led to a real curiosity about how to transform skins and and you know that yeah there's a lot of destruction in that industry as well and and a lot of pollution in conventional leather creation. And so and plus I just knew all these amazing people that knew how to tan hides um and I was just thought that they were I wanted to be like them. So I um I learned that way.

[42:01] Natalie Suzanne: But I've since kind of returned a little bit more to because unless you're fully fully living that lifestyle. And I did have a a point at which I really was selling only things that I'd made with leather I'd made myself. And that talk about art and commerce, that was just really disheartening because you can never get paid the hours that you put in and it literally takes like three days to make one hide. And then you know you might sell that one hide for $250 or $300 at the most. And if technically if you make things out of it, you might sell it for more. But I just realized that after I really did attempt that I was doing a lot of artisan markets and stuff and teaching at different gatherings and I realized for me that was not the right relationship that I for me and also with the animals.

So it's such a tricky line when you're obviously we all need to support ourselves, but there's a certain amount of pressure you're putting on something that you love doing on this work that you're making when it's uh when you need to make the money from it. So it's that tricky line of like how do I need to position this in my mind so that it still has that power for me. It is really, really, really so hard.

[43:21] Natalie Suzanne: And then sometimes the decision gets made for you because you get burnt out and you're just like, I literally can't this doesn't feel this doesn't feel right.

[43:31] Leah Walsh: Right. So even if you're really skilled. Yeah, tell me about where you are now and kind of do you feel like you've found a balance between having the stability of your job at the school and still keeping in touch with a lot of the work you do with the land that maybe you had when you were like really living there full time. Are you still looking for that?

[43:53] Natalie Suzanne: I think it's a constant uh balancing act and I mean there's certainly part of me like my there's a part of me that always wants to just run away and just be on the land but I also know that that there's really hard things about that too. Um yeah not just commerce but there's there's a lot of things that you choose when you choose that. Um yeah having a school job has definitely helped and randomly I work at a school that um believes in all those skills and that's what what I'm teaching.

[44:34] Natalie Suzanne: So um I have some opportunities to to go into that and share that it's really different working at a school versus um you know because I I did teaching my entire life in places that I was at but it was always in environments where people it wasn't a school people self-selected to be there. So that's a really different way to teach than at a school where kids are just like I'm here whether I want to be or not and so um it really is very humbling and you know I there's a lot that I teach now that's just very different from like a lot of things that I teach that take a lot more time. I I teach certain things that are just way shorter and w just little bites.

[45:26] Natalie Suzanne: And then I've just continued to try to create opportunities for myself to do what I feel like helps uh balance that and and so this next year, starting in October, I have a small little school called Folkways that's for adults, and that's gonna start, and it's it's an immersive education in craft and song, and so it'll be an opportunity to really go into all of those things in a way that I can't with with young people. I uh I simply can't in an apprentice style situation with the right young person, absolutely. But um, yeah, first for for adults who are drawn to to use their hands and and learn some of those things, um, that's a new piece that I'm I'm jumping into this year.

[46:18] Leah Walsh: That's so exciting. Are you teaming up with any other artists to make that happen, or is it are you kind of going it alone?

[46:24] Natalie Suzanne: I you know, usually I always teach with a large team. Friend was reflecting this to me, um, because especially at Quail Springs, I've always been in a place with all these people, and I really believe in collaborative teaching and learning, and um I also discovered through many years that I am a very reliable person, and if I want something to happen at a certain in a certain way, that I I can't actually ask anyone else to I should just do it.

[46:58] Natalie Suzanne: So um, I know I've just now my dream is to have that be collaborative later, but the first year at least, just to have it even happen, I know that it needs my resilience and energy energy behind it, and I do have like you know, years of of doing these skills and teaching, and so so that there's a lot to share. Um, and I have a couple friends that will come in for certain pieces that are amazing, um, but it will primarily build be myself.

[47:33] Leah Walsh: That's so exciting. I'm really curious to hear about how it goes, especially coming out of this time where everyone's been so isolated. I feel like a lot of people are gonna be hungry for things that are really physical and connecting with the land and just using your hands and yeah, feeling connected to anything that isn't a screen in front of you.

[47:55] Natalie Suzanne: I know. Well, I feel that as well.

[47:57] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[47:58] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah, definitely. I know. I think we're all pretty burnt out on the on the virtual reality that we've been in.

[48:04] Natalie Suzanne: I don't want to speak for everybody, some people really love it. I I've learned that over the years that things that I'm like, oh, you can never do that, like somebody loves it.

[48:11] Leah Walsh: Somebody does, yeah.

[48:12] Natalie Suzanne: Yeah, and to be quiet. But um I yeah, I think that that that community piece is you know nourishing and um I I deeply believe when you're learning those skills that you're not just learning like how to do it, but but you're learning the whole container around it and you know, where it's come from and um some of the lineage pieces and you know how you can have pride because you know your ancestors did a lot of those things, so you're like re learning something that's already in you.

[48:51] Leah Walsh: So yeah. If if you do feel like you're having a day where you're kind of going to that dark place and feeling uninspired or unmotivated. Are there any tangible things that you reach for again and again, like a book that you reread or music that you listen to over and over, or things like that that help you get out of it?

[49:14] Natalie Suzanne: I feel like I have people in my life, and they they really I ha I have some like anchors. I have some really really really beautiful friends who have done kind of their shadow work and continue to do it and are safe people to share all of those things with, and that is enormously helpful for me.

[49:36] Natalie Suzanne: Um also being on the land, you know, really deep, quiet in a wild place is always helpful. Um yeah, I think those are the main anchors.

[49:56] Leah Walsh: And then is there any piece of art that you've taken in lately of any art form that you want to recommend?

[50:04] Natalie Suzanne: Oh, um I'm obsessed with stories from Scotland and Ireland right now, and just storytelling in general. Um yeah, I that has been giving me so much life, specifically the stories of the Fienna and the the Salmon of Wisdom. And oh, there's so many, so many stories. The Selkie stories actually named my dog Selkie because I I'm so interested in that.

[50:32] Leah Walsh: Have you have you been like reading, deep diving reading, or how do you usually take them in?

[50:38] Natalie Suzanne: I have been doing both. I actually well, I can recommend another podcast. I love this guy, he's just an incredible storyteller, probably about my age from Scotland. His name is Daniel Allison, and he has a podcast called House of Legends, and he's a very understated storyteller.

[50:57] Natalie Suzanne: He's not like performing everything, but he you really feel like you're sitting at the fire with him. And I love that style of storytelling. And yeah, me so he tells some stories.

[51:07] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[51:07] Natalie Suzanne: He tells some stories from other parts of the world, but he also brings in a lot of guests to tell stories from their lineages. And um yeah, and I just finished a book that was one of the most beautiful books I've ever read called The People of the Sea by David Thompson.

[51:24] Natalie Suzanne: And it was a uh a guy from England who worked for BBC Radio, but who was obsessed with kind of the folklore of the British Isles. And I don't know exactly what decade, but he went traveling around. I I want to say the 40s, but I could be wrong. But he went traveling around in like the outer and inner Hebrides and along the coast of Ireland as well.

[51:46] Natalie Suzanne: Um, and anywhere he would he would go, he would show up and he would just ask people, you know, he'd be in the pub and then he'd be like, Do you know anything about the seals? And then they would start, he would open them up, and the most amazing stories come out. And you know, I hadn't really dove into that part of my ancestry until the last several months.

[52:08] Natalie Suzanne: Um, I almost had some resistance to it, but just learning how much shape shifting and deep connection with animals, and it is so indigenous and so beautiful, and it's like the part of the ancestry that I that I want to be in touch with. So people of the sea, house of legends, those are two things that I really love right now.

[52:29] Leah Walsh: Okay, great. Well, that's it, Natalie. Thank you so much.

[52:32] Natalie Suzanne: Yes.

[52:34] Natalie Suzanne: So happy we're able to do this. It's a good to see your little face.

[52:48] Leah Walsh: Thank you for listening to the Compass Podcast. If you find these conversations valuable to your life as an artist and would like to support the ongoing production of The Compass, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash The Compass Podcast. Pledges start at as little as $1 a month, and anything you can give would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you have a moment, please review and follow in iTunes. Every little bit helps other listeners to find the podcast.

[53:21] Leah Walsh: Audio assistance from Monica Choxie, and a special thanks to Frankie J. Alvarez. See you next time.