Art, Death, and Creativity with artist Corrina Sephora
On today's episode, artist Corrina Sephora beautifully crafts storytelling of art, death, and creativity. She shares her experience of art's pivotal role in being with her mother through dying of cancer and the celebration of her death.
Referenced in the Show
Images from the Episode
From left to right:
Grave sculpture by Corrina Sephora for her mother, Elaine Karen Sutton
Corrina Sephora at her mother's grave side
Ravens Soars by Corrina Sephora
Elaine Karen Sutton’s necklace
Corrina’s Bio
Corrina Sephora is a mixed media artist specializing in metal sculpture, painting, and installation who has lived and worked in Atlanta, GA, for 24 years. Corrina works with universal and personal themes of loss and transformation, within the context of contemporary society. In Corrina’s most recent bodies of work she is exploring lunar images, cells, and the universe as “a meditation in the making.” In a concurrent body of work she has delved into the physical transformation of guns, altering their molecular structure into flowers and garden tools through hot forging the materials. Her work has led her to community involvement with the conversation of guns in our society.
Corrina earned her BFA in Metals and Sculpture at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, in 1995. She received her MFA in Sculpture in 2005 from Georgia State University and has done residencies throughout the US and abroad.
She works individually and collaboratively, creating a dialogue with personal psychology and social interest, producing art, teaching, and executing public and private commissions.
A selection of her awards include: “Best in Show” Annette Cone-Skelton of MOCA GA and “Best in Show” and “First place”at the National Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition in North Charleston. Corrina’s work is on permanent display at The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, The Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Atlanta Jewish Academy (formerly Greenfield Hebrew Academy), and in the collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and in national private collections, including Elton John.
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Full Transcript
Sarah Marshall, ND: Welcome to HEAL. On today's episode, artist Corrina Sephora beautifully crafts storytelling of art, death, and creativity. She shares her experience of art's pivotal role in being with her mother through dying of cancer and the celebration of her death. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Marshall. (music)
Sarah Marshall, ND: Corrina, thank you so much for being here and thank you for doing this. And, Oh my gosh. Like we both said, it took us a little bit to get to this actual moment. So I actually am very present how special this moment is that you and I are here having this conversation. And I'm really excited for this because this is going to be a little different. We've had doctors and chiropractors and we've had people who shared their own health journeys in particular, supplement companies we've, you know, we've stayed in the genre predominantly of the health field, and I'm really excited to have this conversation with an artist.
So thanks for being here.
Corrina Sephora: I'm happy to be here.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. Yeah. And I want to dive into this, like, To me. Art is sacred. Art is a special, particular, medium, and I, as a practitioner and a doctor can see art as a modality of healing, but I want to hear it from you and what your experience is, but tell us a little bit about you and just what artwork you're into, what your mediums are and just a little background.
Corrina Sephora: Okay, great. Well, I'm Corrina, Sephora. I currently live in Atlanta, Georgia. I grew up in New Hampshire and Maine. My parents are from New York city and I think my upbringing had a big part in, I would say like the process part, my love of process in art. I went to what's called the Waldorf school, which is a Rudolf Steiner.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yep. So did I; must be where we connected. (laughs)
Corrina Sephora: Okay. Did I know that? We knew that?
Sarah Marshall, ND: I don't know. Probably.
Corrina Sephora: Yeah. I know Jennifer Dolphin is involved in, we moved there. So a lot about, you know, then working with your hands and then there's eurythmy. And so there's this sort of body, mind and spirit that's all encompassing. And Rudolph Steiner was actually very good friends with a very well-known artist named Joseph Beuys.
Joseph Beuys would make those chalkboards and they would say, like, like everybody is an artist or, you know, something like that over and over and over again. And so for me, you know, growing up, my family was very intentional about we'll call it, like living off the land. We grew our own vegetables. We, provided vegetables for other communities.
And we had home-built houses. You know, I can remember the very first time connecting my dad, making a drawing, he was dressed at a drafting table and he was drawing the blueprints for a house that he was going to build out of recycled materials. And then inside of Waldorf school, there was weaving, before weaving, there was like gathering the wool, and cleaning the wool, and spinning the wool into yarn, and then, you know, with drop spindles or, you know, you know, potato spindles, you name it and then weaving it or crocheting it. So that whole process, right from the sheep to the loom. Right? And, so at a very early age, I really connected like all of life through working with my hands and creating.
Also at an early age, you know, my, my father, he, he was at Yale in theater and set design, but then very consciously chose to live off the land. And, you know, do all of this with organic vegetables this was way before his time. Right. You know, I knew I wanted to go. I was always encouraged Corrina, you can do whatever you want as long as you put yourself into it and you focus on what you want to create in life. You could make that happen. And, I learned about welding. So, so my specialty, you asked me this, my specialty in art is metal sculpture, specifically blacksmithing and welding. I really prefer non-ferrous materials.
And, what that means is like metal that doesn't rust: stainless steel, copper, bronze. Back going back a little bit. In high school, I started doing jewelry metal smithing and there was a particular moment and even back before that, on this farm, my dad would oftentimes build things and he had a welder.
I called it the electric lightning, you know, I had my little lens. So at age five, I'd be there with my dad and barn and he'd be with a garage actually, you know, and he'd be welding parts that he was going to make a sawmill out of recycled parts from a car. And he said I was helping him, but I think really, I just mostly got in the way and sometimes I'd hold something and scream a bit, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. And I never learned anything about welding that what I learned is that it was okay to be around that stuff. Right. Not very traditional for young girls. but then again, I grew up in a very non traditional household and encouraged to be an artist, you know?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. Yeah. So to just pull in here as an artist, how do you see this is going to be like, kind of the, I'm going to start with like the dumb question, but maybe it's the question, which is how can you see art as a healing modality?
Corrina Sephora: Great. Yeah, that was a long background.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I loved it. No, and especially because I'm a Waldorf kid, so I'm like, we had a loom I'm like, we didn't get to go get the wool from the sheep. How come you guys got to go get the wool, but we did pick the apples and then we mushed the apples and then we made the cider. So we did that part. You know, so, but yes, it was very, and there was a guy that built a canoe right. In the middle of our schools. We could watch it. And like we had a clay area and we had this black building area and we had a woodworking area and all, all of the hands on components and I turned out to become a naturopath.
And you became a mineral metalsmith.
Corrina Sephora: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So, I forgot the dying of the wool, gathering mushrooms.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Ah Yes. Yep. Bringing those in Indigo and yeah.
Corrina Sephora: Yeah, I would just really like for me, you know, I don't really work in fibers, once in a while I do a little tiny bit here and there in my mixed media work, but mostly it's painting and metal sculpture are the main, main things.
But as far as like the healing, you know, your first actual question here when I went with the whole background, so almost three years ago, this December will be three years ago, my mother passed away. Now it wasn't a surprise. Right. She had bone marrow cancer and she, she was sick for almost seven, seven years. And, so we knew that she was going to pass at some point. And, you know, there were a couple of very specific moments inside of what I would call "art as healing," and I'm just trying to think of like which one to share first, but, you know, the relationship with my mom for one thing, you know, we, we weren't always close.
My dad raised me. My parents separated when I was young. My mom lived elsewhere and it wasn't until I was 40 years old that we really developed a close relationship through me practicing my own personal growth training and workshops, which is how we met, through that. And, and that was where I really gave up that there was anything ever wrong.
Right. And, and we just created this beautiful close relationship with each other. So we had that background of relatedness. That was really extraordinary. I've been waiting my whole life for, and then we had these five years that were intensely close and, Probably crammed 35 years worth of missed relationship into five years. So leading up to my mother's passing, she was a writer, she was a poet. And, and she, one of her dreams was to publish her works. She called it her memoirs, and so she was compiling her work all the way back to the eighties. Right. And, but kind of trying to make it perfect before she let it out. And so, so one thing that was very creative and healing was really getting in there with her and her poetry. And she'd written a couple poems about me, you know, specifically. So six days before she passed, I got the idea to record her, sharing her poetry and just, we laid around. I can remember we laid on the couch and just, I'd read from her poems to her and she read her poems and I recorded them with the video of my iPhone and it was very low quality. (Sarah: yeah) But like I use those for things, and we talked about her publishing her work and, it became clear at a certain point she wasn't going to be able to do it, and she was passing on how this would be done.
And so I offered to make some paintings to go with her poems. And so, Oh, gosh, the healing goes so far so right. My mom was also adopted and we did a DNA test within the year before she passed. And so we found this new relative that was her half sister, and she's this like massively published author.
And so when she found out her sister that she'd never known her whole life, was a writer, but couldn't find anything published. She took it on also as like something that was important. Like let's get her work out there. So after, so before my mom passed, I offered to illustrate her. So that was one very healing process.
To just go through and read all of these poems. I mean, it was over a hundred pages of poetry and prose and short stories. And I did the project. I've become, I've created a friendship with her sister and she laid out for me. I needed the biography. I needed the dedication I needed the, we had another friend of hers that's a famous writer to write the forward. The index, you know, just all of this stuff. And we compiled them. She helped me compile them into chapters. So just that whole process of reading my mom's poetry and like being inside of her, her brain and her, her heart and her soul right. It was really extraordinary.
And having the opportunity, you know, I'll never forget the look on her face when I said I'll illustrate your book. And she was like, really. You know, mind you. It was the same day that she was having her final birthday party. This was September before the November that we had last visit (Sarah: oh my gosh) and um at the birthday party, she read a Mary Oliver poem "When Death Comes" and we had a gathering of her friends and I made a cake. I make cake sculptures. Well, to be honest I don't make them that often anymore, but it's an all day affair, but so I made this cake and, you know, anyhow, and so there was this line in the Mary Oliver poem and it's something to the extent of, I'd rather be, I'd rather that I live my life, a bride, married to amazement.
So in the same day and the same set of conversations, you know, of her having this final, we knew it was her final birthday party. You know, all, you know, the macabre poem, "When Death Comes," but that line married to amazement. And so she asked if I'd make, a gravestone for her, a grave sculpture.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Wow.
Corrina Sephora: And my mom was buried in a very non-traditional setting. She's buried on the side of Lama mountain where that book "Be Here Now" was written and Ram Dass. My mom was also a Sufi.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: So, she said, well, you make some metal flowers. And then she says, will you, will you write on, on the stone, Elaine Sutton married to amazement, but you got a giggle out of that. Cause she wasn't like physically married. Right. But it was her way of, I mean she insisted on this and she was, she was a mountain climber, a backpacker, all that kind of stuff.
So that's a little bit about all that. So that was, I have to say it was one of the hardest projects to do. You know, cause after she had passed and within the year after we did the Memorial. (Sarah: yeah) so I can remember laying it out and having to do these technical things that I'm used to doing for clients like planning out how something's going to go.
But, you know, contacting a student through like three different companies to try and get the stone made, you know, in New Mexico. And I was making the flowers and then I flew there and put them together with a neighbor who had a torch, we put all the parts together, and we actually--this is so funny--but we had to for the oxygen for the oxyacetylene tank, the neighbor, I asked them to maybe make sure they had everything.
Oxygen was empty. My mom had been on oxygen.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh my gosh,
Corrina Sephora: oxygen, medical oxygen,
Sarah Marshall, ND: medical oxygen from her. Wow.
Corrina Sephora: Right. And then there's like banging around in the storage shed and this neighbor was a real MacGyver kind of guy that was sort of helping me. And, I forgot about that. So that was the moment. That was pretty extraordinary.
And, I wanted to go back a minute. I mentioned that I published this book of my mom's poetry. This also happened after she passed. And there was this day that we had done all the work and we sent it in to the publisher. And then I hear this noise at the door. I was on a phone call and they had left this package.
Well it was the books. (Sarah: hmm) And so I opened the door. I get the book, I open the envelope, I'm sitting having my tea in the morning, the sunlight streaming in, and I'm-- I opened the book and I see the cover and I see all the illustrations. And I see the biography I had written for my mom. And it was like, tears just started streaming down my face and it was such a combination of tears of joy and tears of sadness. How amazing to fulfill the legacy of somebody that didn't happen in their lifetime. Right? How extraordinary. And then at the same time, how sad that I didn't get to look at it with her, you know, how proud and how happy she would have been to look through and just the way that we picked out the poems and the images and, you know, it was just like soaking it all in.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Wow. That's so poignant. I mean, it's like, there's a lot in that in for you. What do you feel like the project created or released for you? Like what was the healing of it?
Corrina Sephora: Well, for me, I have some procrastination tendencies as well, (both laugh)
and I looked around and I was like, who's it going to finish my projects? (Laughs) So it was like the year after my mom passed, I had this like massive I, what moves great is I had a solo exhibition that was planned for a year and a month after the date of my mom's passing. A year and a month and like four days, you know what I mean?
You know, my mom was very kind of mystical person. I mentioned she was a Sufi. she's very connected to the elements and to nature and. You know, a lot of unexplainable things happened in my mom's presence. So, you know, there's a couple of layers, but what, what, what, what I will say is I really sunk myself into my artwork and there's a term that I created, which is: meditation in the making.
And, so, you know, there was the poetry book, which came, you know, two years after her, she passed, there was the Memorial stone that came... her birthday was in September. So it was about a half a year after her passing. And within the year, after her passing, I created a massive body of work. I had a solo show in this very large space.
You know, like I think it's a. Over 65 feet in one way, almost a hundred feet in another direction. It's a very large gallery space. And I convinced the gallery owner that I was going to have this show and he gave me a lot of creative freedom. Right. And so I'll go back. There was the day. So, so what, so one of the big things was I, I, I got present to what are some of the dreams that I have in my own life, mostly as an artist, right?
What are some of the dreams that I have that I want to be alive for and fulfill and get to enjoy? You know, no one's coming to finish my sculptures.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Right,
Corrina Sephora: right. Yeah, no, one's gonna have that big museum show. You know what I mean?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Right? Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: I want to enjoy those moments. And so it gave me this, like, I'm going to call it like a superpower. And so I gave myself this carte blanche, you know, just this space, you know, I kind of cleared a lot of things from my calendar, a lot of commitments, a lot of things where I assisted around and, and I just really got into my studio practice and I like to work in the middle of the night and I also called it midnight dreaming.
There was a song that I would listen to, Ethio Jazz is the style. And I can't think... Cleat-- Meklit is an artist, an Ethiopian-American artist. And I would listen to her and you know, I like Pandora. A lot of musicians think Pandora's terrible, but I like it because you pick a genre and then (Sarah: yeah) it's mixed.
It's like a mixed tape.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Takes you along a journey. Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: So I would listen to music and I would work through the nights. It's great. I'm looking at a piece, you know, over here, I was going to give you a little view. It's part a little bit right now it's two panels. I know the viewers can't hear this, but
Sarah Marshall, ND: we're going to need a visual display to go along with this one.
Corrina Sephora: There's going to be some snapshots. Yeah, that's perfect. So there was a moment. I was in Mexico at a, as a retreat, right? A yearly annual, wisdom vacation course. And I'd been with my mom six days before that. And I was really debating is it going to be okay to go on this trip? What if she passes while I'm there?
You know, but we couldn't tell and I hemmed and hawed and then I said, I'm going to go. So there I am and have this beautiful, probably the most beautiful hotel room I've ever stayed in. It's like a pool that comes right up. There's a little patio. And I brought my watercolor paints, sketchbook with watercolor paper, and some gold leaf and, I had decided I was going to make a painting every morning, every day.
So there I am, I'm sitting my eating, drinking my tea, again, drinking my tea and, which is funny. Cause I make tea there's teabags in a lot of my artwork. (Inaudible) (Laughs)
Sarah Marshall, ND: that's the healthy version of Jackson Pollock with his cigarette butts like embedded in his paintings.
Corrina Sephora: Well, they kind of hold the place for, I practice, like native American, sweat lodge, ceremonies, and whatnot. And so we always make prayer ties. And so the teabags are kind of like a stand in for like the prayer ties (Sarah: uh huh) medicine and I'm a (inaudibile) .
So, so there I am, it's the morning and I'm about to make my first painting. I'm staring at this beautiful view all the way to the ocean. And there's this kind of wall, this half wall between me and the next hotel room and resort room, whatever. And so this bird comes and it lands. And you know how sometimes like an animal has a little conversation with you where it stays a little longer than you think it might.
And it's like, you know, looking at you and
Sarah Marshall, ND: checking you out and yeah.
Corrina Sephora: Yeah, yeah. Checking you out. And, you know, flashback, my mom had a lot of animal interactions, balls of snakes, meeting bears. You know, she would commute in nature a lot by herself. And there were a lot of interactions with animals. There's a whole set of poems, all about that in the book.
And so this bird visits with me for a bit, and I don't know exactly what kind of bird, but. The mythological bird is the Raven, right? It's the messenger, low key. And so I decided it was, it was a raven, and I made a painting about this bird. And then the day goes on. We have the beginning morning opening of this workshop and I created this whole environment around my mom, like there was a question like what's something that you're proud that you're accepting or something. And I would have said that I was proud that I accepted that she was really ready to pass. And I said that language and I created, my mom did this extraordinary beadwork. It's really weird. I have everything right around me.
My mom did this extraordinary beadwork and, and so I created. Inviting some of our, some of my friends, you know, who were at this 800 people, right. To wear them for the cocktail party that we'd have that evening before the dance party. And so there we are. And it's dusk, is that what it's called when the sun starts to set? (Sarah: yeah) It's dusk and, Like I was supposed to meet four or five people and then like all the, well, what do you have?
We do you have? What's that Corrina. And so then it was like this whole thing where all these people were trying on these beautiful, you know, very regal pieces and then wearing them at this beautiful cocktail party in the sunlight, the ocean. And I wanted my intention was to bring my mom's spirit into this space.
And so we have this whole evening and then people give me the necklaces back. Some of them decided they wanted to have them forever. And then we have this dance party and I like just dancing and it felt so good to like be in my body and dancing in the pool, you know, all of the fun.
And then I go back to my room and it's late. It's probably midnight. And my dress was damp and I was going to change dresses and go back out and party some more. And, And I had a text when I got back and it was the text saying that my mom had passed. And, and she, and it said that, for some reason it also shared her last words, which were... She lived in Taos, New Mexico, and she had this view of these beautiful mountains and the sun would set on the mountains. It was one of her favorite things was dusk. And to watch the colors change on the mountains, we'd say it's better than TV, and she had this gazebo built with a couch on it.
And so it was December in New Mexico. So her friends wrapped her up like a taco in her turquoisei was blue comforter. And, you know, after we all left six days before that it was the last thing she was planning. She had this big Thanksgiving event and um she had become like that she couldn't speak.
That's how sick she was. And it was hard to get out of bed, but she came to and was very alert and said, I want to go out and watch the sunset. So her friends brought her outside and they wrapped her all up and they sat with her. And she was sort of dozing a bit and she looks up and she says, Oh, and by the way, it's it's December 3rd.
And it's a new moon. It's a, it's a supermoon! It's a supermoon. (Sarah: yeah) she says, "I'm sending this prayer to you from the moon." And then she just goes to sleep like the forever sleep.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh my gosh.
Corrina Sephora: So then. I get this text, right? So simultaneously why we'll do this thing at dusk, right. (inaudible) Her artwork around and sharing it by , you know, she's in her last moments of life, you know, and so I get this message and then it's like, we're at day one of this whole,
Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh my gosh.
Corrina Sephora: Six or eight day. I don't know how many days it is. Whatever, not a whole it's I guess it's six or seven days basically, right?
Sarah Marshall, ND: A week. Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: Yeah. And it's not an inexpensive week either. Right. And so I had to make this choice. Oh, and then the moment, right.
So I get the text and I'm like, Whoa, I'm with 800 of some of my favorite people around the world. And my mom used to always call the wisdom community, my spiritual community. So she says, so, I have to choose like, am I going to stay or am I going to go and mind you, my father died very suddenly of a heart attack when I was 30.
So 18 years prior. Okay. 16 years prior. And we had no time to plan. We had no idea what to do with his body. And it was the worst thing in the world to sit in a. whenever you call that a, um, funeral home and try and decide between the $2,000 casket, the cardboard box, the $10,000 casket, you know, like nobody wants to make those choices in that moment.
So we knew my mom was passing. So for two years she started planning what she wanted, you know, and, Anyhow. So it was a well, or who was like, we were actors in a play and everyone was so thankful that we didn't have to make any of those chioces
Sarah Marshall, ND: yeah, you could just be with it and let things be the way that, Oh my gosh, that's such a gift.
Corrina Sephora: She had a woven woven willow and grasses, casket, you know, basket. That was her casket that was delivered to the house. And when we all gathered for Thanksgiving, she had us like come over and kneel in and say some words, and she says to me, when I did that, she says, Corrina, you smell like the ocean. Weird, right?
Cause then I come from the ocean fly to (Sarah: oof!) Mexico and we're in a part of Mexico. I don't even know where it took a long time to get there in a car. So I get there and, you know, all our family's flown in from different places, my sister and everything. So then we have this whole ceremony that we're going to do, and I was one of the people to carry her. We, what we must have had some kind of a sticker or rope, or we had something that we had attached, you know, that we all carried. there was like six of us that were picked out to be those roles. And I was one of them. And, and then we had a, a backhoe had dug her grave before the ground froze.
Right. So we lower it. We have this procession and there's music and we walk out through this field and the edge of a mountain and we, you know, We have all these flowers, we've woven into it, she liked Frida Kahlo or something. There's like all these flowers. And then, you know, for some reason they decided it would be a good idea to open up for everybody to see her face one more time. I didn't like that so much. I thought we had done that part already. (chuckles) You know, but anyway, that happened and then we closed it and there were all the flowers. And then we took the ropes and me, and I think four other people or five other people lowered her into a way deeper than six foot hole. In the ground. And, I mentioned that I practice sweat lodge ceremony. And so there's a, a practice that we have where we blessed the stones before we put them into the fire and then eventually bring them into the lodge. And inside this blessing, we make a prayer to afford erections. And then we make a prayer to the sky and to the earth, and to our hearts.
And for some reason in that heart where we make a prayer to the sky, I feel like conduit right from spirit, great spirit. And so I did that before we started bringing the dirt and I had this beautiful cloak on that was my mom's this moment where I reached up, you know, to make a prayer. And I just had this sort of jolt, like felt this energy come through me.
And one of our really good friends who was a dance teacher, she's took this photograph of me and it was wild because it was this moment that lasted for a long time but it was like THAT right. (Sarah: mmhmm)
And so that's what that piece is. It's called (inaudible) and it's about that moment.
Those two moments where the bird came to visit. And that was a very long story. Sorry. Those two moments where the bird came to visit and also, when that spirit is coming through. And the piece when it's put together, there's like copper in between. And it's very much about the, that space between the worlds, right?
Like what we know and what we don't know. So that was featured in this solo exhibition that I had
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah
Corrina Sephora: Along with 68 circular forms. So I started thinking about cells, right? We'll go back to medical science.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah
I want to, I want to put a couple of things into this. (Corrina: ah!) Cause like my brain is like so full. I mean, one, your stories are, are works of art. I mean, I get what you said, but like there's something and you know, much of HEAL is about. What happens when we get to share our stories and connecting heart to heart. And it's not, yeah. We sometimes do the like logistics and the, how do you heal and what does glutathione do in the body anyways? But like, this is something so distinct and I'm loving it because telling our stories, you know, that, that, those are such rituals.
We still have. I mean, we have Facebook for Pete's sake. What do you think that is? Other than a giant storytelling ritual, right. Not always the most sacred li held, but like it's some part of us in our humanity that that's, that's so integral to the way that we communicate and how we connect to others. And I think it's part of the healing processes, getting to witness each other's stories, getting to share our own stories and connect in that way.
I also am really present to, I wrote down a couple of different versions of this, but like death is a work of art. (Corinna: mmm) Just the world that got to get created and that your mom created and that your community did and your family did around her, of knowing she was passing and how she wanted to pass and all of the ritual and the ceremony. And I mean, we do have ritual and ceremony in our death process in our own country, but it's, it's different. And there's a lot we could say about how we've totally hidden death away.
We don't want to look death in the face. Like most people in my community and culture have never seen a dead body. And there was a time in humanity that, that, you know, if your cousin passed, the family took care of it. And, and, and we interacted with death so much more. And so there's, there's so many nuggets of what you said that were both beautiful, but also really poignant of like, there's worlds in there that's not common. That's not how we usually interact with those kinds of events in our life.
It was really incredible. And then to also get to bring that into a piece and create art and this exhibit and have it on display for others is just really powerful.
Corrina Sephora: Yeah. Yeah. There was something about something about the whole process us, right?
That it became like, as I started working it originally. Oh, I, so my mom was a writer and she would lead these writing circles. And so she had these tickets, like, you know, like little red tickets and then she had taped on the other side or glued or whatever, like magazine, like cut out words for magazines that were different shapes and sizes, but they, so I, I would pick them. I was just creating ways of being in communication with her. Yeah. At the height of my morning, I'd wake up, you know, and like crying in the middle of the night when I was back home, you know? And, there was something I got oceans of love, health, one other word. I don't remember what it was. And so, and I would make these paintings related to it and I. I felt very tender. And so painting to me was something that felt very good to do. Thinking and planning and engineering sculpture was really hard. I was just felt very goopy, you know, and like I wanted to be around soft materials and I really followed that instinct.
And I started really, really painting a lot and, I got curious for the first time, what does a cancer cell look like? What does a cell look like at all, but what does a cancer cell look like? And I started doing these little drawings. Actually. I can see these little kind of odd shapes circles that were connected.
And, cause I looked it up on the internet. (both laugh) I'd never been curious. I mean, years, I was like, yeah, my mom has cancer, you know, but I never looked at what are the cells really look like? And so it was like this way, this meditative way of drawing these cells and getting to know what it was that took my mom essentially.
Right. What it was that her body was riddled with. And and then I went to this gallery and so I started drawing these circles. Right. And painting them. And it was a way I can remember drawing them and having thoughts and memories flow. And then I would just keep drawing these shapes and just thinking and not thinking like the Dalai Lama talks about something called flow and he says it, you know, when someone who's practicing science or medical study or reading or art, you know, along those lines where you start on a project and you keep working with it and you don't even notice or realize how much time has flown by in that space of flow and then I went to a gallery show and this woman had made all these pieces inspired by the lunar eclipse.
You know, we were... where I live, we were at like the 98th percentile of viewing, you know, And so there's this art community up in the mountains that we all went to and had picnics on the lawn. And, you know, it was very beautiful and Southern and proper and wild all at the same time. And we watched the day turned into night, and so this woman was a part of this, and I was there as well. Right. And so I saw these moons and it just like clicked. I was like, my mom's last words were, I've been sending these prayers to you. I'm sending this prayer to you from the moon. So these cells, I started kind of coagulating them into these very lunar type shapes. If you look on my website, it's, what's a long title. But it's, I can't even think of it right now. It's not funny. Anyway, I'll get back to you on that long title, but, but it's this whole body of work. And, so I'm distracted by that now that I can't think of what the name is.
I know what it is. I just can't think of it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I'll do a little riff interlude here of, You know, flow is actually something that I've spent a lot of time studying and there's actually scientists have been working on. being able to capture what the actual specific brain patterning is that happens. And they've, they've basically distinguished flow is a very specific mental state. Meditation is one of the ways we drop into flow, but artists, creativity, musicians, but also any intense thinking or inspired thinking, you'll drop into flow. And it can even be in a conversation with another person where it's like something else is arising and happening and there's specific. Components about it, of timelessness and also like uh it's uh, it's agelessness in the sense that there is no death. There is no birth. There's only now everything kind of blends together, but a lot of extreme sport athletes drop into flow all the time. And when they're there, there is no sense of a fear of death.There just is the thing to do.
So those guys that do like free climbing. 1200 foot huge cliffs. Like that's what they talk about. And, there's some authors that I've been tracking for a long time that are working in a project called The Flow Genome Project. And there's these books on it. And we'll have notes on the show notes about it, 'cause I think it's, I actually have a hypothesis and if anybody, yeah, out there studying flow and can bring me information about this, please contact me. But. I actually think that, you know, like in X-Men like Wolverine and there's always superheroes that can like heal themselves instantly? I have a theory that I actually think we should track that our healing capacity goes up when we're in the state of flow.
I think something magical on a cellular DNA level has got to happen when that occurs.
So I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Did you find the title?
Corrina Sephora: Yeah. It's "Between the Deep Blue Sea and the Universe."
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: And there, you know, I guess you can track life by the specific moments in time so I started, you know, I was at the, I had an exhibition in Florida, you know, kind of in between building this other exhibition and it was put on by one of my students from years ago to thank me for being an influence in his life. And I was a little bit on the downside. It was around November. It was over my birthday actually, and I had the exhibition and the artist's talk, and then I booked an extra day or two by myself at this hotel on the ocean.
So I spent a lot of time with the ocean, like staring out at that vast nothingness and everything all at the same time,and you can't see the horizon at a certain point. It just becomes that infinity space. And somewhere in there, I realized like I wanted to get to know that infinity space that we call the universe or the cosmos.
And so my work from that point forward was very much about this meditation in the making. And like being, you know, astral projection, I guess, being inside that space of universe in that timelessness. Yeah. And kind of like the universe was like the new neighborhood that grandma moved to, you know, So, and I would have dreams about the universe and I would paint about the universe.
And so I painted these 68 circular forms, which you can see on my website (inaudible) in that universe. And it happened in that moment of staring out over the waters, AF after sunset and, and thinking about that space of infinity. Right? And. So the circles, my mom was 68 when she passed. And so
Sarah Marshall, ND: I was just going to ask, what was the 68?
Corrina Sephora: Yeah, she was 68. And so there was one for each year and I thought of them as like portals to the cosmos, like little windows to look in, we were in another painting and it was very much about this is veil, right? People talk about this veil. Between the two worlds. So it was the cosmos. I wanted to have these kind of layers that were about that space.
And then that kind of like, like, you know, you can't quite go through the computer screen, you know what I mean, vail that's there. And there were some ladders involved, you know, and I use ladders in my work a lot, but there was one in particular that was about my mom's garden. And, It was modeled after an installation from an artist called Kiki Smith called 'Blue Girl.'
And in Kiki's, she has this like blue girl's sculpture.
And then this very universe looking wall that's all bronze cast starfish. So I made all of these flowers. So there's this one piece. And it's got these ladder, this 15 foot tall ladder, and it uses this foreshortening. So it starts out wide and it gets thin at the top. And, and then it's got all these flowers on the wall, metal, metal flowers. It's in copper and steel. And they're kind of to mimic like the stars, you know, and it's the piece that's very much about, I started thinking who's going to attend my mom's garden. You know, she's gone, mom was known for making these massive Dahlia flowers. They call it the Dahlia, the queen of the dahlias or Dahlia, and she lived in the desert, but she would make this Oasis of a garden. And so I, I, you know, and one of the times that I visited and she was in the hospital and not at her house, I spent some time at her house and it's this emptiness that was there.
And, when I came back, that was in October. So, I went there a lot that year, September or November, December. So, at any rate that was, that piece was about that. And there's one other ladder piece, and it was a ladder that went into a painting that had this very cosmic lunar, it was all in purples and blues and golds and stuff.
So the whole process of creating that body of work was a big part of the healing process and so there was that meditative quality of working and kind of when you're in that vibration, it was a place where I would gather communication it's and, I would attempt at my own communications one time she visited me in a dream right shortly after this. So funny. She was like, it was the first time I could see her. Right. But it was in the process of doing all this work. And she was also mint green, which is my favorite color. And we climbed this mountain. And there was some cart. She had some person that was like helping move her stuff. And she had like these silk pajama type loungewear on and she was like, well, now that we're here, let's go get a massage. (both laughing)
Oh, (inaudible) climbed this hill. You know what I mean? This is like some situation going on, you know? So that was like, when I got the message, like wherever it is that she's gone to, she's settling in.
Sarah Marshall, ND: She's doing good. Yeah.
I'm super present to your relationship with your mom and who she was for you and you know, what you guys created in those five years together. And like, that's pretty remarkable. It's, it's just really beautiful. Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: Yeah. It's special.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I love it.
Corrina Sephora: It needs to be special, you know, and it's like, I get to create occasions, you know, and actually just having this conversation is making me think, you know, her birthday is coming up, so (Sarah: yeah) (inaudible) . And there's. You know, there's this really special day that we're doing something with the wisdom community.
And I mentioned the mom's birthday, you know? And so it's like a space that she gets to live on in infinity.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Mhm, mhm yeah, continue that space for sure.
So for those of us, and actually through my own practice as a patient, actually in that said wisdom community, which is a course, and I have on this podcast, mentioned Landmark before, and it's one of, many of Landmark's offerings, but you know, that's, that's an area that wisdom gets into, and this isn't about wisdom, but it's about me ha-ha is, is that. I had to reclaim a conversation that I'm not an artist. I actually, my version is I'm not the artist. My sister's the artist. So it wasn't so much just like me. It was like, no, no, no. In comparison to right. And my sister was, is an artist. She. I think left completely to her own creative whims would have gone to art school, but she went into information and graphic technology, 'cause she saw that as a means to like have a career and make money inside of creativity. Which many times you immense afterwards, like why did I not just do the thing I wanted to do? And, you know, my mother is a seamstress and literally made these incredible costumes for ballet. And my sister always has had artists around her and I'm over here, like I was the kid clunking around in ski boots who basically wanted to climb every mountain and do all the adventurous things. And like art was that like, uh-nuh and like after I got through whatever years in school I got through, I was, I was done with it. Interestingly enough, that was the story I told myself, but when I went back and looked, I had done almost seven years of ceramics. I threw pottery in college for years as the way that I actually balanced that I was a chemistry major and all the physics and all the calculus and all the tough science classes. I needed to go get my hands in clay and sit there and meditate on the wheel. I would not even fire most of the things that I threw, I would just throw and then scrap it and put it back in the clay bucket and you know, go back in the next night. And there are places where I can see artwork. I love collaging. I have actually collaged using magazine pictures since I was a kid. I have collages from my teenage years. It's been a modality I've used. I had to reclaim my own conversations about me and art.
And I think a lot of people out there have that, you know, where something happened when they were five or 15 or whatever, and we make these decisions. So like, how does the normal everyday Joe or Josephette get access to art as healing? What would you say?
Corrina Sephora: I think art shows up in people's lives in different ways.
Right? Like we have, I'll just say like a stereotypical version of what an artist is. They're like a painter or they're a sculptor or they're whatever. But yeah, I mean, for me, even gardening is an art, you know, in the height of this whole COVID time, I built this uh this stone pathway in my backyard, just goes from one part of the yard to the next.
And I get to look at it from my deck and I felt like I could go somewhere, you know, when we were staying at home so much. but I think for some people gardening, some people cooking, you know, some people, it doesn't have to be cake sculptures by the way. (both chuckle)
Sarah Marshall, ND: For me, it's soup (inaudible)
Corrina Sephora: We'll have to trade soup recipes. Food is, food is a massive way that I have wellbeing. Right. But creative, creative flow, like I love to go to the farmer's market and get the fresh vegetables from farm. I grow all my own herbs and some vegetables that don't have enough space where I live right now to grow as much as I like, but flower gardens, you know, some people like cloth, you know?
So, Some people shopping, you know, like some people have shopping
Sarah Marshall, ND: Putting fashion together. There are people that have the distinctions in fashion that I cannot wrap my head around at all. Yeah. Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: So I think as far as people who don't have access or don't, it doesn't occur, that there's something that they could accept in their own lives. Like, what is it that brings you joy that you do or you create, or some people it's neat, some kids music, if you're listening to it or playing, you know, what am I about this time every year, there is this big music in the park thing that happens in some of my favorite DJs. And, you know, it's sort of like, kind of reggae and dance hall and, you know, some hip hop out there and some kind of jazz and the other day it was like, one of my favorite DJs was playing on Instagram live and, you know, and he has a particular style that he walks around and he still uses records, you know? And it was like, that's his art is putting music together.
You know, that's why real musicians get upset about Pandora, you know, (laughs)
the way that you put the order of the songs...
Sarah Marshall, ND: It's part of it. Yeah.
Corrina Sephora: The order of the songs on the album is um is part of the whole art. Yeah. So I think it's really noticing, like being present you know, what is it that you access some part of your creativity, or even you know, like hiking to me.
And, you know, I've started doing this thing where I do these sunrise hikes and the moment, this is actually great. This is one of the, one of the, you know, embracing from the moon this much about coming from the moon to the sunrise. And I had to make a peace about that transition.
Cause I worked with the moon lunar imagery. I needed to have one major piece. That's like, this is my transition piece, you know, but you know, I met, I met a young woman while I was hiking and now we go hiking together and that's her space of being creative and she's got a 2-year-old, you know, and a husband at home and, you know, for her that hiking and she envisions going on the Appalachian trail one day, you know, that's probably her, really like her art.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
Corrina Sephora: Physically. Some people, you know, like bodybuilding is their art.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Their own physical self. Yeah. I love you breaking that open and having it be, you know, anywhere that we get to express our creativity. And for me, creativity is life force energy and life force energy is inherently healing or restorative.
Like that's, you know, if, if, no matter what you're dealing with. You want to gain access to more energy, more vitality. You want to heal some part of your body. You gotta go find your access to adding life force, energy, adding that vitality. Yeah. Yeah. Creativity could be a huge, you know, way of looking; that's a lens to look through, like where can I bring creativity? Where do I get lit up? And you know, what does creativity lead me to? (Corrina: yep) Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I actually really love working with fibers too. That's another thing that opened up for me. I wouldn't have thought of knitting as art. That's like my practical brain. I didn't use to think of cooking as art either.
And those have been things that opened
up for me and I've started to recognize like how much, and actually I even get snippy in the kitchen when I'm really in it. And someone's like, oh, let me add this. Let me add that. I'm like, would you just walk up to an artist painting and just like slap red paint on the middle of that canvas?
Like I'm working here, you know, I get a little protective over my artwork in the kitchen. (laughs)
But all of those places of being able to, you know, just look and
I. I think this is a whole area. I mean, you know, it's, it's hard as one practitioner. I want to do everything with my clients. I want to talk about sex with them. I want to talk about art with them. I want to like open up all these different areas in their life and it doesn't always happen.
But I just see that I think having some sort of a creative practice is as integral as the diet that you follow and your sleep routine and the way that you exercise, like to me, being a human being is to be creative. It's a very huge part. And I actually think that's a place that dis-ease in our lives or in our bodies, starts to stem from is where we've cut ourselves off from our creativity. And a lot of times when we talk about it, you find childhood dreams that died or got killed off. And when you can reignite those, all kinds of cool things happen. So thanks for being one of those beacons of that possibility out on the planet, standing for art, producing art, producing artists, you train other artists, you teach. You've got workshops. Yeah, that's really awesome. If people wanted to connect with you, what's the best way to do it?
Corrina Sephora: I think, my website is a great spot. It's corrinasephora.com.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Great.
Corrina Sephora: And, you know, from there, you can send me a message. You can join my, I have a weekly newsletter that comes out (Sarah: nice) that features whatever is happening in life right then artistically. And, I also have this great show that I do, "Connect and Create," and that's featured in it. Of course I have some other social media on Instagram, @CorinnaSephora.Metalartist. On Facebook, I have Corrina Sephora. And Corrina Sephora art and metal work.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Okay. We'll have all of that, you know, we'll pre... predominantly your website, but people can connect with you through that. And yeah, this is just been really awesome. I've I've, I've had a craving to create this episode in particular for quite a while and bring this conversation forward. So thank you for helping me fulfill it. It was awesome.
Corrina Sephora: Well, I'm really pleased, Sarah. It's really a pleasure to be a guest on your your show and I acknowledge you for taking all the steps with your career and developing creatively and creating a platform for other people to share their story.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Thank you.
Corrina Sephora: And you being such an integral. You know, healing person, yourself, to look at all the different aspects of what is healing, you know, from the medical point, too, meditation to art, all the other directions you've gone in.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, it's been pretty awesome. I love it. Yeah. It was a wonderful voice to bring into it. So until we do this again. (Corrina: okay) I appreciate you. Thank you so much.
Corrina Sephora: Yes. My pleasure.
Sarah Marshall, ND: All right. Okay. Bye. (music)
Thank you to today's guest Corrina Sephora for her beautiful storytelling and joyous heart. For a full transcript and all the resources of today's show visit SarahMarshallND.com/podcast. You can learn more about finding your own healing by going to SarahMarshallND.com or following me on Instagram at @SarahMarshallND. Thank you to our music composer, Roddy Nikpour and our editor, Kendra Vicken. We will see you next time.