Exploring Art, Empowerment, and Psychedelic Creativity with Lexie Baker

Welcome to the Ambiguous Truth. I'm your host, Anthony Mistretta. Really excited to introduce you to today's guest. She is a friend of mine — I got really lucky meeting her paddleboarding one day, and we talked a little bit about her art. After seeing her art and having a couple of conversations with her, care for design and intention behind her life is clear through pretty much every decision she makes — her stylistic choices, her home furnishings, her motorcycle she just bought, which will come up in the episode, and obviously her art. It's really clear that she moves through life extremely intentionally, and she brings that to the world through her art. Let me introduce you to my friend, Lexie Baker. Thank you for joining, and here's the show.

Those books are actually in the shot, so I'm gonna quick move them.

Actually — who cares?

The ones on the floor?

Who gives a fuck? We like that.

We like it. It's books.

You shouldn't scatter them even more.

I can't operate under that — if I ever saw it in there, in the monitor, I would...

They look floor-organized. They are floor — they're floor-organized. I love a good floor organization.

Organization — that's a good word, I like that.

God, can we remember — well, we will, it's recorded.

Do you have a thing about feet on your table? Does it bother you?

Yeah, it's a big preference.

Okay, really?

No, for it — you want them on...

Yeah, other way around — I really like feet on my table, that's what it's here for. That and production equipment.

But yeah, get comfy.

That feels good. I was yawning a lot in the corner.

I wouldn't — I'm sorry, I didn't see it.

Yeah, I didn't — I was heads down trying to get it out.

It's not your fault.

No, it's technology. And the incense, probably.

Do you need Benadryl?

Well, that's gonna make you more tired.

No! Do you need an EpiPen?

One time I took Benadryl and I fell asleep behind the wheel of my car. And I woke up to a car honking at me, coming at me. And I woke up just in time to veer over. I've had a lot of near-death situations — I really value my life.

Really? Let's talk about that.

Okay. Firstly, near-death experiences — I've also been privy, or first on the scene, to multiple motorcycle deaths, which makes you wonder — the irony — I am a motorcycle lover. But it kind of ties into my art and my defiance — the theme of my life and my progression in my life as a woman is defiance. Because it's been the only way for me to move forward past what my expected norm is in other people's eyes. And just growing up in Kansas, too — a Midwestern way of looking at how a woman should live.

I think one time I jumped off a bridge — it was a 40-foot bridge.

Into water, presumably?

Into water.

Oh my god.

Yeah, thank you for filling in that blank. I wasn't trying to kill myself — I was trying to get that thrill, that rush. I learned quickly that I wasn't built to do things that give you a rush, because I don't have the skill needed to execute them appropriately. But a motorcycle is like a learned skill, so I think I can get there.

How is that different than, say, jumping off a bridge or a cliff jump? Some people are like — they have the innate nine lives built into them, like a cat. You seem like you have that built into you — you just look like you do.

I think I probably do. Yeah, I love cliff jumps and motorcycles, but I think — I don't have any, I have one life. You look like you have nine.

But I think the problem with that is you don't recognize when you've lost a life. So if you operate on the assumption you have one, you can hold onto that one. If you operate on the assumption you have nine — with my risk-taker friends, I wish for them to try and count how many they might have left.

Yeah, so I just can't land the fall — I can't time the fall, I can't calculate it. I wish I could, and I've tried, but it just wasn't built into me — I think it's genetics.

Okay, so I definitely have a lot of thoughts on this matter, because I would not consider myself a risky person per se — I'm pretty risk-averse. I think life is all about calculated risks. When I get on a bike, I understand that there's this objective baseline risk you take when you're on a road with a bunch of automobiles that are hundreds of thousands of pounds. I think that's something a lot of people don't realize about risk-takers — that they are calculating. But that's maybe half of them.

Yeah, I think there's probably some people who have a much higher risk tolerance than perhaps myself.

I will always — I'll never not wear a helmet on a motorcycle.

Whoa, okay, let me amend that statement — you have a built-in helmet.

What?

Oh — yeah, maybe it absorbs a little bit, but not like a hundred-mile-an-hour catch.

Camera zooms in.

Yeah, zooming in on the hair.

But I will choose not to wear a helmet in very specific circumstances. For example, last weekend I was at a buddy of mine's 40-acre farm, and it was like a combination of a multi-hour building of a greenhouse that kind of turned into a party — he's got a big barn, half pipe, DJ.

That's a fun Midwestern party. Really? I have never really — that made me jealous, very Kansas.

He's actually from, I think, Alabama. I can't even tell you how many barn parties I've had, or ones that were supposed to be about doing a project and turned into a party — which is a great way to do it.

Oh, great way to accomplish something.

Yeah, because you incentivize — you incentivize.

Yeah, like — I mean, I would have been there without the party, because honestly, in the morning, I think I got there around 11 or maybe noon, and then from noon to about 8 p.m. — call it 11 to 8 p.m. — there was, at any point in time, at least one joint in rotation. And like I said, I'm not a big drinker, but I had, you know, a beer — I think I had three beers throughout the course of that eight-hour period.

Would you — like the smoke of the ganja?

I love the smoke of the ganja.

Yeah, yeah, I have plenty if you need.

Well, you know that — when I first met you, you had a baby, tiny little baby J.

Well, I had one that was this big that he offered me, which is perfect because—

I only wanted one hit, and I was like, wow, how'd you know?

To be fair, I had a normal-size joint, but that was leftover from a couple days ago, and I was like, well, I'm not gonna scrap it, I'll save it for an occasion. And it was perfect, because we didn't even need to break out the new one.

I was like, you brought this for me? That's all I'm giving you — I know you were going to meet me.

I always know there's going to be a stoner in the crowd — I don't know who, I don't know when, where, but I know there will be one.

But going back to the risk tolerance thing — I think in that example, at the 40 acres, one of the girls there had, I would say, probably an 80s or 90s little bike — maybe a 250, like a dual sport, an old, old bike.

Yeah, you would have really liked it, actually. That's the bike I should have gotten — but everyone told me — like a Royal Enfield?

I love it.

Okay. Everyone has influenced me to start bigger. They were like, you're going — we're going to save you the sizing-up process, get a baby bike, a 200, 250, you're going to immediately grow out of it and want to do a sale and a transfer to a new one. So I skipped that process, and now I'm a little nervous about it, because the weight of it is a lot, but I can handle it. I've started to practice in the neighborhood.

But it would be cool if I could also have the bike you're describing, to be learning more. What's yours, a 500?

It's 650. My first bike was a 998.

Yeah, but look at you, you're a gorilla.

I'm not a gorilla, I'm like a little twig.

Yeah, I probably have like 100 pounds on you.

That's fair. But my point is not to boast displacement — my point is, if you have a 250 or a 300cc sport bike as your first bike, I don't know if you're gonna necessarily outgrow it. There are extremely talented motorcyclists that will take three-400cc bikes on a track, and you have to be pretty damn — like, my objective ride is different.

Yeah, but if it's a 250, this little dual sport that's light as shit, and I'm driving it literally no more than maybe 20, maybe 30 miles an hour — and bear in mind, I snowboard, I think, like 55 miles an hour, ski probably closer to 60, rollerblade and bike — and granted I do have helmets in on those cases, but they're tiny little things. I can rollerblade 30 miles an hour down the street not wearing a helmet, so I don't really see a big difference in riding a tiny little motorcycle 30 miles an hour on grass. So in that situation, there wasn't a spare helmet, I didn't bring my gear with me — I put on boots, but it was a little bit of squid behavior, perhaps.

But I think, going back to the whole risk aversion thing — are you planning your exit? Are you like, exit strategy, every place was an exit strategy?

No — no hell no, I was staying on that bike.

Yeah, and then there's no — when there was like a—

You knew what you were doing.

I know what I was doing. And I think that's the point — when you get on a bike, there's a level of risk that you assume because of circumstances, so it's your responsibility as a safe motorcyclist to reduce that risk. The most dangerous decision you can make is to just get on a motorcycle.

I don't know — I mean, it's dangerous to get behind a bike, it's dangerous — like, life is dangerous, there's so much danger.

I mean, like, motorcycle, but also a bike — like, life is dangerous. So it's all about mitigating your death on a daily basis. Wearing a helmet is a really easy way to bring your risk significantly down. Wearing proper protective gear, period, absolutely plummets your risk. And then being a better rider — practicing, going to beginner and advanced rider courses, doing track days, things like that — because what you don't want to have happen is, if your skill is here and that's relatively stagnant, you want to make sure your risk is always below that skill. If you're a MotoGP racer, you can go 250 miles an hour, or if you're at the Isle of Man doing 250 miles an hour, they're still maintaining risk below their skill — it's just that their skill is way up here, so they're able to tolerate risk up there. Whereas my skill being here, I can only tolerate risk there. So by imploring — when the risk of a dual sport in a grassy meadow going 20 miles an hour is down here, perhaps my risk without a helmet is actually at par.

I anybody — that's great, well, I'm telling everyone.

I think it's just important to judge every situation uniquely.

Totally. I did some sketchy things learning.

And then I promised Lexie that as soon as she got her own personal bike, no drink would be had—

Yes, entering into turning on the motor, at any point.

Or marijuana should not be smoked.

Yeah, or any drug or any substance.

Exactly, that alters you — no mind alteration.

Or drowsy — don't even, even if you're drowsy, if you're too fatigued, don't.

And a big part of my training was, you don't use the motorcycle as an outlet for when you're having a rough day. That's very common, probably for most men, to use it to blow off steam — dare I say most Harley riders?

All Harley riders — 80% of men and 20% of—

But is that the 80-20 of the Harley?

But that's just how I visualize it. Yeah, I think it's a dangerous undertaking, especially for me, who doesn't have a lot of skill — but it's so empowering for me. Just the fact that I sealed the deal and I have it now has raised my confidence in a way that I needed in my life at this time. So I will take all the risk aversion into account, as much as I possibly can — which is just me starting very humbly in my neighborhood, popping around in second and third gear.

Yes, I'm so excited for you. And I love that point about confidence, because I do feel like there's something about a motorcycle that just — there aren't many things that just instill a level of confidence like that.

I mean, we'll get to this maybe at some point discussing my art, but my ex-husband was against the purchase of a motorcycle. He felt like it would be something that would take me further away from our relationship. In my mind, I thought it would be something that would make him more excited about me — like, I have my own hobbies, my own wild ventures that I've worked hard to accomplish. Just getting the endorsement alone, as a woman, is different — I was one in ten, one woman in ten people doing the endorsement class, the rest were men. So the odds are so different, and I felt really accomplished getting that. And because the divorce initiated not long after I got my endorsement — that wasn't the reason, there were other reasons, but that maybe was part of it for him — which is really sad. I think a lot of men might feel intimidated by women wanting to choose a predominantly male-dominated adventure.

And well, feel like that's probably a metaphor for perhaps some of the other things going on in the relationship — you saw a motorcycle, something primarily dominated by men, as an opportunity to further explore your identity, and he saw that as a challenge to his.

Yeah, which is unfortunate, because in my mind I was like, wow, he's going to think I'm a badass.

Right, you're dating a badass bitch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right — you've been married to a badass bitch for nine years, look at her doing something new in her thirties, showing that she can learn new things.

And so unfortunately, the cost of divorce immediately shut down the motorcycle purchase that I had been planning on and was ready for. There were a couple more times where I tried to buy the bike that I wanted and someone else bought it, and I just took it as a sign that it wasn't time yet. And then this one came along, and everything worked out perfectly — you were there the day before to guide me on some of the checklist items to look for. It all went through great. So now, from here, it's just a learning process, and it's all an addition to new confidence-building, which also translates well into how my art career is flowing. My business is called Psychedelicious — it's named accordingly, after the tasty space that exists between psychedelic and delicious. I've honed in my craft surrounding that aesthetic for the last six, seven years since I started this business. And my business is sustaining my life.

That's amazing, congratulations.

I can't believe I just said that — I've been waiting my whole life to say that. There's a couple other jobs in there too, which we'll get to.

I think that's powerful. I feel like we drank to the wrong thing — we'll take a—

Cute little — yeah, the sound effect. Maybe I'll copy that sound effect, I'll add that to the board. Psychedelicious.

Yes.

I could — the psychedelic, when you look at my logo, it absolutely makes that sound.

I don't think I've seen your logo.

It's a moon face, and it has my eyebrow piercing, and the tongue is out, and there's a little juice splashing off the tongue.

Is that your profile picture for Instagram? Have I seen it on Instagram?

You probably have, you've probably seen it somewhere.

It's not your profile picture, because I know that's you, but I'm trying to think if I—

We'll put it as the episode image, unless you think of a better one, but that works for sure.

It might have to be more erotic.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, this podcast very quickly became an explicit show — language, subject matter, and now cover art. Life and death. I want to go back to the beginning, like when art was just a small part of your life. What was your introduction to art, and how did it initially take form?

I was three years old — there's a very iconic moment that my mom and my aunt like to bring up. My aunt was an artist — she's a chosen aunt, because all of my family lives in Scotland, and so the family I've gained in the US — well, my two US grandparents and one of my US aunts has passed away, so I do technically have all my initial family, which is five others, and then one other aunt in the US. So that's all who's here, but then there's like 40 to 60 extended, depending on what you consider family, in Scotland. But my chosen aunt saw that I had been using this tiny little Swiss Army knife — you know, where that little tiny scissor part is that you can pull out, it's relatively non-dangerous, non-sharp. I was very attracted to sharp things — I would collect sewing needles in my pocket because I loved the little color bead on the end of them, and I would get in trouble in preschool because I'd be screaming, they'd find a needle in my pocket that had stabbed me and had to pull my pants down in front of the whole class. And I remember being exposed in front of all my classmates in preschool, and that being my initial moment of what it felt like to feel embarrassed in front of people. But I love sharp things — I was always looking for razor blades, just weird shit, to test the boundaries, I think that was my first way of testing boundaries. I also put my hand on the stove once, because it was glowing — it was a coil stove, the orange glow is just psychedelic and gorgeous, and as a kid you gotta touch that shit, and then you learn. So I learned dangerous things quickly, and was definitely a tomboy — my brothers introduced me to a lot of crazy shit faster than you would if you didn't have brothers. And my parents kind of realized I had heavy interests — not sharp things, but using scissors to cut out pieces from magazines. So I was three years old — like, who knows how to cut at three years old — cutting out intricate pieces. And that's the beginning of the collage.

Yeah.

So I've only recently reintroduced collage into my repertoire as an artist, and everything about my artistry can be connected to my childhood. I sell stickers for a living, and stickers I was highly obsessed with as a child — I had constipation issues as a child, and I was rewarded with stickers every time I had a successful scenario. So stickers became this highly rewarding gratification system for me, and then turned into more of what the typical kid loves them for — how cute and fun, you can just stick them on anything and mess up anyone's personal property. It was like an introduction to graffiti as a child.

So, trim off a successful shit?

Yeah, I'm not afraid to share that, because it's good to be vulnerable, and everyone experiences something like that or worse. And it translated into a big part of my current career — living in Colorado, people are so thirsty for stickers, they have their coolers and water bottles at all times and laptops. I've traveled to foreign countries, and people do not slap stickers all over their laptops.

You need some — yours, like we do here. I'm too organized for that, I have designated places for stickers, but a laptop's not what I need. I'm interested though.

So I sell stickers really well in Denver, Colorado, and that's been a big push in my artist career, translating a lot of my designs into stickers. So stickers in my childhood translating to now, and collage work, tiny scissors, cutting out pieces — I cut out women, I've always been enthralled by the female form, and that absolutely translates into my work now.

Beautiful. We took a moment to appreciate the sentiment that you are now supporting yourself through art. So when did you make a conscious decision to pursue art more seriously, perhaps as a career choice?

I began to sell earrings in high school — I would sling them to the girls in between classes, and that was the start of me knowing that my creations could be lucrative. I begged my mom to have my ears pierced at age five, and she took me to a jewelry-making shop where I could make my own earrings, and she told me my earrings don't have to match — she was like, I know everything you see with women wearing, they're matching, but you don't have to, you can choose to have different on each side. That was kind of the beginning of me realizing I don't have to do what everyone else does. I don't know if my mom realized how influential she was in this, or how impactful it would be for the rest of my life, that I learned very early to choose different paths.

I don't think she realized it would lead to rebellion in the way that it has, but just starting small with your daughter like that is huge.

So my mom actually has taken tips from me, and she's become a jewelry artist — I became a jewelry artist, and then that's her full-on career now, she does beautiful leather jewelry.

Does she do that full time now?

Yeah.

Amazing.

A lot of creativity in my family — my dad makes puppets, his Instagram handle is called "Puppets for Climate Change." He creates these puppets to tell stories about protecting our world, and what that requires, and making conversations surrounding CO2 emissions palatable. So there was always creative bones inspiring me, and I was put into a lot of really awesome, rudimentary creative courses, so that I could very early on start to hone in on what my interests and skills were. So I've dabbled in every form of art-making, I think, and it feels like it. And it wasn't until after college that I went to school for art business — it's a combination degree. My dad was pleased when I finally found a degree that incorporated business, because he wasn't super wild about just art being pursued as a career — he saw my potential, and he was afraid that wasn't going to be lucrative for me in the long run, and didn't want it to be wasted. When I found this combo degree, I think it eased him a lot, and I'm really glad I found it, because it gave me insight into how to run my own business, how to connect with galleries and show my work, and just get my work out there instead of being someone who creates a bunch of stuff but doesn't know how to show it — and there are plenty of artists like that, which is unfortunate. I'm glad to have that upper hand, without really realizing the importance of it until it came time to apply. Then after college, I had emphasized in sculptural art — I learned how to use a lot of beefy power tools and was working in wood, which was fucking rad. But when you come out of school, all of a sudden you realize, I don't have access to those tools, unless I get my own workshop or pay insanely monthly fees, and most people aren't doing so well financially right out of the gate of college.

Quick, quick, related anecdote — that piece right there is the Atlanta skyline, taken from the perspective of Piedmont Park, a photo I took myself. But a buddy of mine worked, in college, at the Invention Studio, and there was a laser engraver and laser cutters — and those didn't exist for me at the school. I graduated in 2010, and then the whole world transformed right after.

Yeah, a little bit — I had access to all those things, and then once I graduated, I was like, well shit, I guess I'm not making anything cool anymore. But that's also the thing with college too, and a creative career, and probably other careers — the tools and platforms change rapidly, and I'm actually glad I didn't put forth a different type of energy to become a graphic designer, because all of that transformed rapidly.

I chose illustration, and I self-trained in Illustrator, how to illustrate and draw my concepts, after college, because I no longer had access to those tools — I had to find a different way to translate my ideas, and pencil and paper was, alas, the cheapest.

Yes, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how my skill translated in drawing, and it just became my way of journaling — my way to get concepts and ways I wished my life felt like, or experiences I had that I wanted to get out of my body and share, just for myself, but then to see how people reacted. And once I had my first gallery show, in Portland, Oregon, of all illustration, and I saw how people related to my concepts, I realized that was going to be my mode of translating my ideas and appealing to people. A lot of artists talk about how you don't make art to appease others, and it's very true — but if you want to sell your art, you have to.

I'm glad you took it there, because I was curious to explore the relatability piece — I was talking to a friend of mine last night about the creation of music, specifically in this context, of self versus the outcome. So how do you, as an artist, manage what feels like that competing force between creating for self but also recognizing there needs to be relatability, otherwise you're not going to sell?

Luckily that just happens naturally, because all humans are experiencing the same things in different forms, and something that feels like the most powerful, transformative, painful, or enlightening experience isn't just for me. In a way it's comforting when you realize other people are having that same experience too, because it can be really isolating when you're in the pain of it. That's something I've realized in just the last one to two years, after going through the divorce and creating work based on the pains of the divorce, and seeing people gravitate toward that, and understand my experiences, or see the beauty in it. It does happen naturally, and I don't allow that to get into my head, where artists are like, why are you creating with money as the end goal — that's not really what I'm doing, I'm just creating, and luckily it becomes what people are wanting. But I don't have the luxury to just make art for the fuck of it — if I want to be a successful artist and let it be my income, or transform it into my income, I have to create things that people want to purchase.

Totally — like, two things can exist simultaneously, the creation for yourself and for others, because art, any form of it, whether music or drawing or collage or illustration, all comes from emotion and your emotional experience moving through the world — moving through a divorce, as you alluded to. So others are going through those experiences too, so it's natural that when you create for self, there's going to be alignment and resonance with other people as well. On the flip side, I'm curious — when did you first experience rejection in your art, or what felt in that moment like failure, and how did you overcome that?

Yeah, there's a few circumstances, and I always look back at it as a beautiful moment. I have some sexually explicit art behind Anthony — the vagina crystal piece. I created that in a moment of pure empowerment and bliss, joy in my body and my experience, so that piece is a very empowering piece. There was a circumstance where I was very afraid to release that artwork — I was afraid for my parents to see it. My mom was raised, went to school in a nunnery, so she has a lot of Catholic guilt.

Showing my parents that you took a direction of sexualizing your art and empowering — don't think that your confirmation priest would appreciate that?

This is actually — it's hilarious you said that, let me segue into the moment where he did see it, to make the story even more exciting. I go back to Kansas every now and again, and I do markets with my mom, because she's an artist, and it's a way for her and I to bond. My art does really well there, because — Lawrence, Kansas, where I'm from, is a very liberal town, and I think my art is kind of next-level liberal.

A bit more progressive, sure.

Yeah, and so when I take it there — we did a farmer's market show together, and it was mostly vegetable people, Kansas farmers coming to get their veggies, and then — bam — here's my sexualized, psychedelic, female-empowerment, living-on-a-whole-different-cosmic-realm artwork in front of their eyes. And multiple women passed by me, in their mid-fifties, who saw the vagina crystal piece that I had front and center, on purpose — I did it for myself, to boost my confidence and get past my nerves. I heard women whispering, "disgusting."

And at first it made my heart sink, and then I kept hearing it all day, and looking over at my mom — my mom was just living in her own cute Scottish-woman world. As a foreigner, she had a lot of intense boundaries to break through, coming to the US at age 19. Even with my dad's parents, and them accepting her as a foreign woman into the world and the mother of their grandchildren — they were not the best to her in that regard, because they had very close-minded small-town vibes. My mom was so unbothered, it shocked me at this farmer's market — she didn't really give a shit that people had opinions on my art. In that moment, I realized any opinion on my art was a good opinion — it meant I was invoking emotion, it didn't matter what kind. And maybe some of those women went home later and took out their mirror and looked at their vagina, because they forgot what it looked like, and it was dusty, and they needed to brush off the cobwebs, and they were reminded — I came out of a vagina, I gave birth, things came out of my pussy, and that's what's happening there — literally crystals. It can represent childbirth, it can represent sexuality, empowerment — crystals are a source of energy, and that's how I see them. That was the purpose of this piece — sourcing energy from your vagina, and how that makes you feel. Once I learned to find power in that piece, I felt comfortable in whatever I created and shared — there isn't really any holdback. It contributes to my desensitization, and I want to contribute to others' desensitization, because in some realms that's feminism — reminding people what role we can play in the world, and that we don't have to stifle our ideas. So the holdbacks have always translated into pushing me forward harder and faster, and I absolutely exist in this space of defiance. I'm not sure why I was molded this way, or how it happened, but anytime someone has told me I likely can't do something, or shouldn't do something this way, it incentivizes the fuck out of me.

That's the rebellion side of you.

Yeah, totally, do it — but to do it in a way that people can't be shocked by, either a palatable presentation, or lots of people love it. If they have a negative opinion, it's like, well, sorry, but people are loving it, people feel this way too, and maybe you need to reconsider some of the ways you're stuck in your own frame of thinking. I think I've realized, as an artist, you do hold a platform to create messages — it could be signs of the times, you can be political about your work, you can be inadvertently political, because my work is illustrated and not a photograph, I can hide things in there that only some people will see, or windows that people who are ready to discover it will discover — that's kind of fun for me to do, little Easter eggs, but mostly phallic and perverted stuff.

Well, I want to hear a little bit more about some of the themes of yours — but before we get into that, I want to ask one question beforehand, which is, why do you think art is important in this world?

Yeah, I don't think anything else is as important, other than love. I think that visually, people can get so stuck in what they think reality should be. Art personally has allowed me a space to translate worlds that I wish existed, or concepts I wish were accepted, or shapes and spaces and forms I could only dream of, but somehow was gifted with the talent to translate. I think anyone could learn the skills to translate, but having artists do that job, and voluntarily choose to commit their life to something that isn't necessarily going to sustain them financially, is like them volunteering to give their brain to the world for pleasure — and the people who haven't had the opportunity, the space, the time, the energy to devote to learning that skill get to be the ones to enjoy the artwork. In a way, like introverts have to feed off the energy of extroverts in order to be in a space, people who haven't had the chance to become creatives for themselves get to feel the creativity just by viewing what someone's output is, and they get the benefits of that — kind of like, psychedelic music makes you feel like you're on psychedelics at some points, you get the runoff energy of the experience. Or you just get to relate, and get to feel seen, because someone else was able to capture a feeling you weren't able to translate.

I appreciate that response.

Thanks, it was very roundabout, it took me a second to get there.

I think it's clear. So I want to hear about your art — talk to me a little bit about the themes. You've alluded to collage, but you've also mentioned illustration — what are you doing now?

So illustration and collage are my two main avenues. My work explores themes of empowerment, eroticism, psychedelic energy, the natural world, and our awestruck relationship with the cosmos. A little more recently I've incorporated more of a Western aesthetic into my artwork, just because of my Kansas roots — I like to combine the Western aesthetic with the cosmos, do like an alien-Western mashup.

It just feels right — makes me think of that Harrison Ford aliens-and-cowboys movie, I think it was called — really good, actually.

Everything I do is drawn initially in pencil, unless it's collage, and then I ink it, scan it into Illustrator, and digitize it from there. In order to be successful as an artist, I had to come up with a way where I wasn't just selling originals and one-offs — I needed to replicate those, and that's when I trained myself in Illustrator, because I had to translate my work into multiples so the prints could sell, the stickers could sell, and I could have varying avenues in retail spaces and galleries. Volume really comes down to success financially, so once I honed in that skill, I was able to target the business aspect of things. My concepts have a nature component to them, because I highly value my natural experiences, and what I see in nature — I see plants and the sky and the cliff walls all as their own living, breathing forms, and I get to turn what I see into the drawn version of how nature exists through my eyes. I like to think it perpetuates an interest in nature for people, by combining sexuality and nature — we already know sexuality gets a lot of attention because we all need and want it consistently, but nature is a harder thing to break through to everyone, and by combining those things it just is so appealing to people.

I feel like those two things are just so raw and organic — they just should always coexist. I feel like if there was so much noise removed from the world, those two things would exist incredibly powerfully.

Definitely.

Why do you feel drawn to those themes — why psychedelic art, erotic art, empowerment? What is it about those things that you feel align with you?

Yeah, that's a great question. This is what's happening in my brain — what you're seeing here is what my brain looks like, and if I can't get these ideas out, they feel stuck. The moment I complete an illustration — I know artists, musicians feel the same way about writing a song — you all of a sudden feel this insane sense of relief when you've achieved conceptualizing something that existed in your brain, when it comes out of your hand through the instrument or the pencil. The relief is so pleasurable. So first off, the reason I'm drawn to it is because they just exist in my brain — it looks like this, and I want other people to see what it looks like. But psychedelia can translate how playful I am — I see such warped reality, that psychedelia connects really well, surrealism connects really well, with the reality I'm experiencing in my mind. So it's just the right avenue, the right color spectrum, for the things I see and how I want to output. I have a psychedelic color palette, but it's also nature brights, so it's natural-looking. And then eroticism — I think I was just born a highly sexualized person, and it's a therapeutic process for me to translate it creatively, and then to see how many other people are also that way once they get to witness it. I am absolutely enthralled by the female form — I love drawing breasts and vaginas and muffs and booties. I also love drawing penises too — I do see the male form as maybe more beautiful than other people would. I think a lot of people would describe the penis as a very interesting-looking piece of anatomy, and not many people would describe it as beautiful. I do.

Yeah?

Yeah, I do see it as beautiful, and as equally beautiful as breasts and vaginas. But it's not as sought-after in the creation of art.

So why do you feel that is?

I think it could be because I lean more toward feminist art, and if I started, in terms of what art you consume and you see — okay, so there's a sort of bias there — if I all of a sudden started drawing erect penises, I think people would be a little downtrodden about what I was — the empowerment for women that I'm trying to portray. I also really am trying to portray male vulnerability in some of my artwork too.

So maybe, historically, there are symbols used in art, like serpents and things, that tend to be more male-dominant — the male is seen as the warrior.

Yes.

And I think part of what I'm hearing is part of your almost responsibility as an artist who tries to really approach the feminine side of things, is to try and illustrate ways the feminine can be portrayed the way men have been portrayed for centuries.

And all of that art exists everywhere — males dominating, and warrior is the exact word, for sure.

Well, and you talked about your sculpture background — you think about the Statue of David, right, the most iconic statue of all time, and it's a naked male with a penis.

Seen it in person?

Loved it.

Loved it. And I love seeing all the naked male art that exists, it's incredible. But I wanted to give women the opportunity to see themselves represented in the feminine form, in an empowered state, and this piece absolutely exhibits that. This is a woman who ripped the heart out of her lover with her mouth, so she's got blood dripping from her mouth and blood dripping on the floor, and her chains are breaking. The whole concept kind of came from this pagan story surrounding Galen time, which is now Valentine's Day — but the pagan story was that women would leave their partners and run off with the rest of the women of their tribe and pave their own pathways together. So her hair is like a storm, it kind of shows her stature alone, shows she's empowered — she's done the deed, she's got the heart throbbing in her hand, she's broken free, and now she can do whatever the fuck she wants. I just — I wanted—

When did you create that?

I created that actually before the divorce.

Okay, I was curious, it seems like it could have come after. Do you feel like that was perhaps a catalyst — isn't the right word — sort of you were internalizing?

Yeah, yeah, maybe a premonition, or I saw myself in that art. There were components where — of the relationship where I felt trapped and unable to express myself as freely as I wished.

Do you feel like that in and of itself was something that enabled your art to actually become even greater, because you felt the tension and the entrapment greater — like the process of the divorce did that? I mean the relationship — do you feel like feeling trapped in that relationship allowed you to create better art?

In my specific situation, the divorce came as a surprise to me, and I was actually existing in my relationship quite happily — but there are things I can look back at in retrospect and be like, I was actually kind of drowning in this specific scenario and didn't realize it until I got to experience something different. But there was absolutely space within the relationship that was pushing my angst into creating art surrounding that, and I don't think I would have created certain pieces if it hadn't been for either the comfort of being in the same relationship for so long and having the space to do that, or the angstiness of not feeling fulfilled and wishing for something else, and creating the art of what I was wishing for — which absolutely happened in a lot of cases.

Gotcha.

So there were pieces that I made that were me fantasizing about what I wished my life was like. But then there were also pieces I made because I liked my life, and I felt comfortable and happy, and I was able to create in a space of joy. So it was a combo.

I think a lot of art stems from an intense emotional connection, and that can be a good thing and a bad thing — or, put differently, it can be intense sorrow that creates something beautiful, or intense happiness that creates something beautiful. Do you feel like your art represents that entire spectrum of emotion?

You and I were kind of talking about this the other day — it has always surprised me that the majority of my artwork is created in a state of bliss, comfort, happiness, new fun experiences. It doesn't line up with the typical storyline of the struggling, depraved, painstaking artist creating from those depths of pain. I've always been a little worried about that, looking around the world at the greats — not that I'm striving to be one of the greats, I don't really think that way — but I guess I was just like, I'm not like the other ones, I create in a different space of emotion. But then I've kind of grown into myself, into understanding my optimism and how it's beneficial and how it's not. It wasn't until the divorce process that I learned how to create art out of the pain. Some of my recent pieces — I did an exhibit at Sputnik, which is a Denver dive bar on South Broadway, and it's kind of a rite of passage to get to show your art there, if you're a South Broadway girlie, which I am, because I've worked down there at the other store I work at. So it was a big deal to me to get to have a gallery space there. Not only that, it was the first gallery show I'd done since my relationship kind of went into shambles, and I had to work on myself, regain every aspect of my life. And I did not have the energy to create art, I did not want to make anything, I just felt a lot of pain and couldn't translate it creatively. I was just selling existing art, but my whole world was focused on ramping up my income in more dominant ways — since I wasn't creating new art, I had to put more energy into other forms of income in order to take over the loan on my home, and I successfully did that. And once all those things that felt impossible had happened and I had succeeded, I began to feel the breakthrough again in creativity, and I had years of built-up ideas ready to be translated. So my show was called Raw Resilience, and a lot of the artwork was about pulling myself out of those depths into a newfound space of success that I achieved entirely on my own — and just that experience alone is going to propel me forward as an artist. It's sad to say, some people want to go through a divorce, no one wants to experience what it does to you, how much it can turn your world upside down — but that's happening in this piece. This one's called Raw Resilience, and it's me, and I'm coming out of my aorta — I'm pulling myself by my hair from my aorta, to exhibit the resilience I've had with my own heart, my own being.

Thank you for sharing that. You certainly strike me as someone who is optimistic.

Yeah, to a fault.

To a fault. And I think, honestly, I really appreciate you sharing all of that, because I find myself sometimes — it's kind of fucked up — almost feeling like if I had more sorrow, more sadness, more of this depressiveness in me, then perhaps I would be able to leverage that for better art.

But if art stems from emotion, who says it has to stem from a negative emotion? It's nice, as you inform yourself of the typical sayings that have existed in our lifetimes, you realize that only one person decided to make that up, and it resonated with people, so they perpetuated it — but nothing is set in stone, and just because these people have said this throughout the times doesn't mean there aren't other circumstances, or that those truths can't be rewritten. That has been another form of resistance that feels really good — you can completely rewrite the way that others have formed reality.

In terms of your creative path, did you experience any resistance from outside forces saying, you know, you should — like you mentioned your dad wanted you to explore something more businessy, but you found a compromise there — did you experience any resistance to pursuing a creative path?

Yeah, when I was in college at KU, I had a teacher who was the head of the graphic design program there. This was before I found the double major in Colorado — I started my first two years of college at the University of Kansas, and I was double-majoring in business and graphic design, which was a big undertaking. I had like 21 and a half credits for multiple semesters, and I just thought I was on top of the world because I did really well in high school. I thought I could take all of this on, and I had difficulties with the graphic design teacher — my work was great, and I had a lot of other students who backed that up, and you can see from what I create now that I have the creative eye. But she felt like I wasn't devoted enough to the graphic design program, because I was extracurricular — I was also doing business, and I was on the ultimate frisbee women's traveling team at KU.

Do you still play?

Well, just for fun, on the side. And she took all of this intel as me just not being a devoted designer, so she had it in her mind that she wasn't going to move me forward in the assessment process, and she chose not to — and that was a huge blow, because I had always done well and then moved forward and was praised. When I look back on the moment, I was so disappointed — I thought my art career was over if I wasn't going to be allowed to move forward in this degree. She really was — it was bitchy for her to do that assessment, which felt very personal and not about my art. It just felt like she didn't think I had what it took to put the energy into all those things and succeed — that she chose less talented artists to move forward in the program over me, I've analyzed it a lot, I was like, was I just not a good artist? I was making some really cool stuff, and she was a huge barrier. Then I started the double degree, the combination degree, and the teachers there saw my talent, and it was a much more personalized experience, and I got to hone in my craft in different arenas — not graphic design, but hands-on sculptural work and some illustration — and I got to see parts of me thriving. So when I graduated, I looked back at that moment with her and had gratitude for what I felt like was a really rude decision on her part, and was able to look at it as, okay, this is what happens when you get thrown these challenges and your world kind of gets turned around. To me at that age, it was one of the most impactful things that had happened to me — I hadn't had a lot of tribulations, and I don't even really consider that a tribulation anymore — but she was trying to halt my creative experience in a way that felt like she didn't believe in me, and it only perpetuated me to work harder, to show — no, I am meant for this, I've always been meant for this, but just in this form instead. So everything that's happened in that regard has just pushed me more forward. And same with my most recent partner — we always had issues discussing the financial component, and I was always pulling my weight to half of what our finances needed to be, because I wasn't making nearly as much as what he was making in his career, so he always looked down on my career as an artist. He was supportive of me being an artist and making artwork, but he wasn't supportive of it as a career — he was always sharing his distaste with where I was financially.

Yet it's interesting — almost seems like, so the first anecdote about the teacher who didn't move you forward, it sounds to me like she wanted you to go balls to the wall, a hundred percent in on this illustration thing, and it seems like you kind of set some boundaries with yourself, a bit more of an understanding that you need variety.

To — I mean, the well-roundedness.

Yeah, you need to be more well-rounded, and it's funny because it almost seems like your ex-husband perhaps almost wished you did more outside of art — it's like you can't please anyone, you're trying to figure out your own path, and you try something and someone's unhappy. But I think that all speaks to the truth that you can only do what you want to do — you're never going to be able to appease someone a hundred percent, because if you bend over backwards for the teacher, you're doing yourself a disservice, and if you bend over backwards for your ex-husband, you're doing yourself a disservice. And I bet, now, you're looking back at both of those experiences and thinking, I'm proud of myself — and you should be proud of yourself for sticking true to your guns and following your heart and doing what you want to do, even if other people are urging you to do something different.

I had — if I had done what he was requesting, which was to have a nine-to-five, to be putting in X amount of money into our savings account, going to bed at times that were similar to his, eating at similar times as him, not staying up at my creative hour — I would have had to alter everything that I felt was powerful about me, to fit what he was experiencing. And he was requesting me to change most everything about myself to fit his world, because he was succeeding more financially — he was the one that I would have to mold to, because money is what he fully viewed as success. And so that was the end of our relationship, when we realized how misaligned our values were in that way. It's not that he's wrong, it's not that I'm wrong, it's just we weren't—

Different strokes for different folks.

We're very different. It took some really excruciating circumstances to realize how different we were, and that we weren't meant to be in a relationship anymore. I think you can be, you should be, different people, but it is really hard when there's just a complete value misalignment.

Yeah, and like — you don't teach you that when you're really young and getting married, I think.

Yeah, they don't.

That's definitely something that's come up in my life recently, exploring some of my past relationships — one in particular that ended poorly. I think the roles were a bit reversed, and I was more in your shoes, in the sense that I felt pressure from her to conform to her lifestyle. It felt like it stemmed, oddly enough, from not her knowing what she wanted, but thinking that she knew what she wanted — so she was requesting something of me because I wasn't fitting her family.

Yeah, probably that's what I was seeing with mine — but the funny thing is, when I did conform, it wasn't ever good enough.

Yeah, and that was the lesson I learned — you can never change yourself for someone, because if you continue to be this relationship chameleon, you'll never be enough.

That was a huge thing with the therapy I was going through, when we were deciding about the dissolution of the relationship — the biggest thing was, if you do all these things, can you envision him being satisfied? And I just couldn't. I just felt like his issues were within himself at the end of the day, and me changing my life to appease him wasn't going to solve what was happening within him.

Yeah.

And I'm so glad I saw that and made that decision — I mean, I didn't really have a decision at the end of the day, it was his decision, he made some mistakes and didn't have the power to own up to them, and didn't want to put in the energy it would take to work toward fixing things and making things better, and was headstrong. And me making the changes wasn't going to serve anybody. So some really beautiful transitions came in my life, and I haven't begun to feel them until very recently — it's a long process, and that kind of pain can really fuck up your confidence for a while, and I've been digging myself out of the ground, climbing back up the mountain slowly, and I've recently gotten to this point in my life where I'm so fucking proud of everything I've done, and where my art world is at, and my personal space, and owning my home, and creating the balance of taking care of the landscaping and my dog and my social life and my eight jobs — I do have eight jobs, it's nearly impossible to only be an artist. But what I was gonna wrap up with was that I'm just gonna be happy living in this moment that I'm in right now. Some people are like, what's next in your art career? It's like, no, that's not how I look at the world — I got here, and it was so fucking hard to get here, so let me just enjoy being here right now, where everything feels balanced at the moment, because that is so fucking rare, and I don't need to tack anything else onto the pile in this balance — let me just enjoy that.

That's a value thing, and I think it's a big perspective shift — a shift from having a goal you want to achieve and chasing that milestone continually, versus the perspective of just being grateful.

Being grateful for the moment, and how beautiful life can be, and it will help you if you choose to see it that way. I think a big lesson I've also learned fairly recently is just the importance of being appreciative of the moment — I think that's something I definitely take with me in everything I do, because it's easy to become complacent in where you are and then look for what's the next thing I could go after. We've been trained from the moment we came out of the vagina — bigger, better, bigger, better, bigger, better.

100%. American dream.

And maybe I'm lucky in a sense that I had a European mother who had a very different outlook on money in the world.

I think you are, I think so.

I think that's really — I'm not some crazy anti-capitalist, anti-American-society person, but I definitely have a lot of—

Well, I think there's a healthy amount of — there's obviously problems, but we live here, so we gotta work with it.

100%. And even when I chose not to live here, and lived abroad, I think there's still so much influence that American culture had on me for 20-something years of life — it's just at a certain level, I had to realize this is probably never leaving, it's just with me forever, because it's so deeply ingrained in who I am.

But on the note about the European mother and upbringing — I think there's something really important, a lesson we should take, even though it may not be part of American culture, and that is, it's more than just chasing after "X." Because we go to elementary, then you're like, alright, well now you go to junior high, then you go to high school, and it's like, okay, now do well in high school so you go to college, and once you go to college, you get your job, and then you're like, okay, what's next? And it's like, well, nothing — maybe retirement at 65. But the next has to be now.

Choose your adventure.

Yeah, it's literally a choose-your-adventure — you got here now.

Hey — don't get stuck in the lineup.

And the reason I say I think you're lucky to have that upbringing is, this isn't a "woe is me" statement, but I think I didn't have that upbringing, and it took me being beaten down by corporate culture for so long, continuing to take the path that was encouraged but never left me feeling fulfilled — and that's why I've just been exploring so many things, hence the podcast, also hence exploring, getting back into playing saxophone, exploring the creative sides of life, riding more motorcycles, adventuring, going camping more — just doing things that make me feel full in the moment, rather than orienting my life around a chase of something meaningless — i.e., money. That isn't to say money's bad, obviously — I don't believe it's the root of all evil by any means, I think it's an incredible tool you can use to leverage and create a more fulfilling life for yourself. But it shouldn't be the objective.

And that's kind of what you've been saying this whole time about art — yeah, it shouldn't be, it has to be a component, it just has to. I will recognize that I am a white woman who is privileged, and that has given me opportunity to go to college and hone in on a skill and use creativity as a lucrative form, and it takes much of that to make that happen — unless you can make it through additional struggles if you don't have all of that. So I am very lucky to have that, and I want to recognize it in my art. A big part of my art is inclusivity — I want to recognize my privilege by trying to give a platform, a space of existence, to women of color, for example, in my artwork. I could just be making all pieces that are girls that look like me, and it feels important to make artwork for other women who get to see my work and say, I'm represented here — I don't see this often in illustrative artists, I don't see there being a variety of skin-tone colorations to choose from, to choose the one that looks the most like me.

Right, because even on your Instagram you'll post the same piece of art with different colorations.

Yeah, it just feels good, and there is a slight line I have to be careful with, to be tactful, to not over-sexualize women of color when that's not my space to choose to do so. So I do feel like I'm pushing it with some of these pieces, where the shackles are being broken — because it's not really my story, depending on the skin tone of that piece — I see the connotation behind the shackles themselves. I'm trying to just create a space where more skin tones are represented. I also like to kind of blur the line between skin tones, and do psychedelic skin colorations, more of an alien existence — something more people who are just in touch with their psychedelic nature can connect to, rather than a more realistic coloration. So there are all these attempts at inclusivity in my mind as I'm creating.

I want to go back to the point on privilege, because I was talking to a friend of mine, and I don't remember the exact question, but something along the lines of, how do you feel about being a white, straight man?

That's an interesting question.

My response was something to the tune of, I think we live in this world where privilege is painted as a negative thing. Privilege is not a bad thing — it can turn into a bad thing if you fail to make it a good thing. What I mean by that is, maybe your privilege is that you come from a background where money is not a concern — and frankly, I didn't grow up in a crazy wealthy family, but I never had to worry about food being on my plate. And I'm in this weird, freelancy software world where I haven't had a full-time nine-to-five W-2 salary job for almost four years now — I'm also not concerned with there being food on my plate, and that's an incredible privilege. So it's on you to take that opportunity and capitalize on it, make it better for everyone — if you have financial resources, deploy that capital to help others, if you have time resources, deploy that time. Those are both incredible privileges — so many people want more time, so many people want more money, so if you're abundant in those areas, leverage them, explore them, give them. This isn't something wrong with society — it's something that was wrong with me, where I let the word "privilege" be negative, and I looked at my privileges growing up and today as a bad thing, and I think that really tainted my experience moving through life, and made me feel guilt, made me feel a bit of remorse for something I can't control, which is what family I was brought into. I'm really trying to rewrite that narrative, and instead paint it as — yes, I have the opportunity to have capital that I can deploy to this podcast that I'm starting from scratch and obviously make no money doing, but it's something I'm passionate about, it lets me connect with others. It's a tremendous privilege to have the time to do it as well, and I recognize that. But I think it's doing a disservice to yourself when you look at it as only a negative thing, and can't paint it positively. And ultimately, that's what the whole practice of gratitude is — everything in this world has a positive and a negative, there's pros and cons to everything, with every yes that's a no to everything else. So you have to make the conscious decision to look at it from the positive lens, the right perspective — how do I utilize it productively?

Yeah. It doesn't even have to be necessarily about whether others view it as negative or positive, or you view it as negative or positive — it's just, how are you using it to help?

Yeah, how are you using it to serve? You mentioned your art is a service to those who may not be able to create — they're able to consume and understand what you're portraying, that's a service to others, a service to the world.

Yes, which is definitely one of the grand themes that I feel comes back to that question of why do you make art.

Yes. Can you quickly define surrealism? You mentioned that a few times.

Surrealism is like a stretched reality, a warped reality — most people think of the artist Dalí, with the clocks that are melting off the side of the table. A clock is like structure and reality and time, and the clock melting is the definition of surrealism — reality being warped.

And I feel like time is such a great one for that, because it's just real — it doesn't exist anywhere outside of what we created.

So for me, my surrealism is taking concepts I've experienced and tweaking them to feel like they don't exist in this plane that we're familiar with, so our brains can be taken to another realm for a moment in time.

Speaking of brains going to another realm — how has psychedelics influenced your journey through art?

I would say I'm like a middle-ground psychedelic user. I've had all of your typical full-blown experiences with different things, and just decided that I'm pretty sure my brain is already existing in that space of psychedelic — I already have a lot of intense thoughts processing that a lot of people achieve when they're experiencing psychedelics. So for me it's so overwhelming that I've transitioned more into the space of like, natural mushroom psychedelic experience.

Do you explore breath work, or any non-drug or plant medicine ways to experience that sort of psychedelic effect? Have you explored that at all?

Not really.

Okay, that would be an awesome avenue, I'm sure it would have some sort of effect on your conceptualization of things.

I mean, I've done meditation, and meditation allows for concepts to come to mind when you're supposed to be quieting your mind — that's when my best ideas come to play, and my best ideas come to play in nature. Usually when I'm out in nature, there are moments of meditation that happen naturally — you don't have to necessarily say, I'm meditating now, it's just happening because you're there, and it's solace and serenity, and that's when the creative ideas come flowing best, and I just record them — I usually get ideas and have to come create them later, it's not like I'm having the idea at the moment I'm making it.

And I think that's an interesting thread to pull on, because one of the ways I think corporate culture has tainted the way we explore creation is that you're expected to go to work between a set of hours, sit at a desk, and it's 9 a.m., go, now it's time to work, time to execute.

Yeah, no, and I think it works for — well, I don't think it works, it's not a human thing, it numbs a lot of people. It's not the natural way we're able to do our best — we're not on someone else's time, we're on our own, and we don't know what that time is, it's just creative inspiration sparks from inspiration, and you don't feel inspiration when you're numbed in that sense, or when you're forced — hey, Lexie, come up with something creative.

Graphic design ultimately would have been a poor choice — put you in a box, and you have to create for someone else.

Yeah — commission work is really hard, actually, for all artists, it's hard, you have to read people's minds.

Well, this is actually a really good segue, because I wanted to ask — do you do commission art?

Yeah, I do, and it's very lucrative, and I should do it more, but you get a bad seed every now and again — someone who's really difficult to work with, they give you an idea and you create what you felt like they were trying to translate, and then they want you to redo the whole thing, and they don't understand what it means to completely deconstruct and redo an idea. So you have to pull information out of someone right off the bat, get as much as you possibly can before you begin something, or else it derails, and the time frame is no longer within what your pay agreement is. So I have distaste for it every now and again, when someone really doesn't understand the process of an artist and is disrespectful about your time. But I have methods in place to get as much info as I can from somebody before embarking on it — nine times out of ten, people are so pleased, and it's awesome, it feels good to do that, but it's also not creating the ideas that I originally had in my head, which feels really different than creating someone else's idea — it's not as pleasurable, not as much of a release, but you do have to do that as an artist. Something that I started doing, that actually really ramped up my business during COVID, when I thought my business was going to become completely obsolete, was developing logos for people — I trained myself in how to create logos, and then everyone was starting their own online businesses, because more people were online due to COVID, naturally and unnaturally. So they needed those, and I was just churning out logos, and that felt really great — that was kind of my fusion between some of my graphic design knowledge and my illustration. I was like, these aren't going to be your typical corporate logo, these are going to be illustrated logos. So I started to work with psychedelic brands, weed brands, other companies that were maybe music-related, or just psychedelic-related in one form or another, or some holistic brand about wellness and alternative medicine — all of those things really channel my work well.

I feel like those are pretty true to you — like, everything you mentioned is something I've either personally experienced or heard you talk about, that's something you value.

So that feels like alignment with the brand Psychedelicious, getting to develop logos for companies that were somehow psychedelic-related — even though my personal form of psychedelic use is very minimal compared to what you would initially imagine someone who named their business Psychedelicious would be. It's still heavily represented in the themes of my work. So it's a gentle dabble — mushrooms for me are just a playful way to slightly alter the mind enough to make way for new ways of thinking, new concepts.

Yeah, I think mushrooms particularly — you're consuming a part of nature that has incredible properties, from their network — fungus is just fascinating, it's literally stimulating your brain and connecting your synapses.

And it makes sense — the biology that exists in the mushroom is becoming part of your biology. So, yeah, it's — I mean, that's a lot of why there are anatomical structures in my artwork, I've done a lot of brain stuff, drawn a lot of brains. I like to make that connection between what parts of your body are formulating these ideas — the heart and the brain, I've always felt at the epicenter, for me especially, with mushrooms.

And I feel like there's a sort of tension too, between the heart and the brain — the heart being the emotional, purpose-driven side, and the brain being the logical, more reason-driven side. I don't know if that's something you've experienced.

I should do a drawing where they're holding each other.

Yeah, honestly.

And they're like, you're doing a good job, bro.

I would love that piece of art, because I think that's something I really struggle with — I have this tendency, and I don't know why, to just follow the logical choice. I need to — I want to — I should say I want to.

You need them to acknowledge one another.

Correct. There's a time and place for each — hopping on a motorcycle, that's where you need to be very logic-driven. If your heart says, be free, don't wear a helmet — no, fucking put a helmet on. You can have nearly equally as much fun.

I think you can have more fun wearing a helmet, because I don't feel as terrified for my life, personally. I would actually prefer riding with a helmet — just break your arms.

But your brain will still exist.

Yeah, a broken arm is a hell of a lot easier to heal than being a vegetable, that's for sure.

You mentioned, specifically talking about commissioned work, but you touched a little bit on having to scrap something and start over. Have you — does that happen in your own art, or is it only commissioned work? Do you sometimes finish a piece, or get to a point, and you're just like, fuck, this is not what I wanted?

I hate that, that might be one of my biggest downfalls. In my own art it's easy, because I can just say, that was the intention, oh, this isn't working out, next, okay, and stop and try again.

You're fine with that, you're totally okay with it?

But when it's for someone else, you have to accomplish it, so you've got to get around that obstacle, and it could be frustrating. I think there are so many artists — like the people who stack stones on rivers, and muralists who know their mural is going to be painted over the next year, for someone else to do something — I have a very hard time wanting to be that kind of artist, I hate the idea of—

Impermanence?

Yeah, I don't know why that's just how I am — it's like, I'm going to put all this time and effort into it, I need it to continue to exist. If it doesn't, what's the point?

So that could be like a psychological thing you're grappling with, that connects to something else — but do you feel like that rejection of impermanence, and desire for things to continue to exist, is attached to other parts of your life, or just art?

Yeah, I mean, it could — more recently, with pain and rejection in relationships, I can see — I think I'm probably going to be learning a lot more now about being okay with impermanence, because something I thought was going to last my whole life — a marriage — no longer exists. That rearranged my entire viewpoint of relationships, because I thought, yeah, this is where I'm at, we're just going to keep working on it, we can get through the hard times together — I never thought it would come to the point where one gave up and forced me to give up too. But it was for the best in the end, and I think my issue with impermanence — if he still wanted to be there, I still wanted to work on it, it probably would have kept us both in a bad space. But I'm grateful for him wanting to get a divorce, because now I'm glad to be on the other side of that, and have my freedom. I think that being okay with impermanence allows for more freedom, so I want to be okay with that. I want to be more liberal in creating my art — my art is very detailed, very concise, very Virgo, which is my zodiac, and I claim that 100%, I'm a perfectionist, and for some artists that works great for them, but I do think it's probably created boundaries for me in being able to just freely create. I think that's why people feel okay knowing their artwork is going to get washed away by the ocean — whatever sand art they made. For me it's just like — are you not crying right now? This is horrific for me to see this happening — it's even hard sometimes to look at sand art, just knowing it's gonna be gone. Gives me the ick, but — it's fucking cool-looking, it's just — I'm having a hard time understanding why people would make their life's work something that could be washed away. I don't know, I see the beauty—

You can't experience true happiness without sorrow — it's kind of like, you can't really appreciate the things that will stand the test of time until you can appreciate those that won't. And even as a human, right, everyone dies, there's no escaping that — but that's also, I think, a big reason why I tend to be grateful for where I am in this moment, is the recognition that I am impermanent. I can't — if I lived forever, I wouldn't do anything, because at a certain point I'd have enough money accruing through interest, living for a million years, that I'd never have to worry about money — so what's the incentive to work? If I have to — with finding someone I can explore romantically, if I just know there are going to be infinitely many partners out there, then what's the point? I don't really view—

I feel like I have a healthy view of death — I understand it's coming. I have this concept, morbid optimism — I know I'm gonna die, so let me enjoy my life, let me enjoy every moment, I could die at any time, let me enjoy every moment. So in that sense of impermanence, I think I'm in a healthy space. But it's just art that — it's like, I have done a mural that was painted over, and I'm okay, I didn't suffer. But I guess it's harder for me to see people who put their entire creative career into balancing rocks that are gonna fall, and sand art that's gonna wash away, chalk art that's gonna wash away.

Do you have a fear, or do you experience this currently, that especially now doing this professionally — like you said, you support yourself through art — that the passion, the drive behind it is ever gonna get lessened?

Well, it hasn't since the moment I got that Swiss Army knife scissors in my hands.

Since the age of three, you've had it.

Yeah, that's fair, it's only increased. And since my work is derived from experience, heightened experiences, as long as I continue to put myself in situations where I'm experiencing new things — new relationships, new travels, new music — all of those are some of my biggest inspirations for wanting to create. And human beings — being with another human being is one of my pinnacle inspirations, people are my muses, people that I fall in love with are my muses. As an optimistic person and a lover, I'm going to continue to travel, continue to fall in love, continue to have heightened experiences of nature and push myself. So I think my art is going to continue to reflect that. If I moved into a cabin in the woods and I was alone, I don't think much would stimulate me to want to create if I was isolating. But I just can't see that becoming a situation, based on who I am as a person.

You feel like connection is a big driver of the art you create?

Yeah, if I'm feeling a little in a rut, I know all I have to do is travel, and sometimes it's hard to make that happen time-wise and financially, but when I do make it happen, it is a reset button — I know that's kind of a corny thing to say about taking a vacation, but that resonates a lot with me. When I feel myself in a rut, my default is, alright, time to fuck off — whether that's going up to Wyoming for a couple of days, like what I did last weekend, or going to Europe.

Yeah, right, when you came back you were like, want to be on a podcast?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely had the inspiration. But I do find — it's interesting, because I mentioned being an extrovert, and I love connecting with people, I also think it would be hard for me to live in a world where I was so distant from authentic connection, I need that in my life. But I also find a lot of inspiration and solace in solitude — I lived out of a van in southern Australia for seven months alone, I find that inspiring, and I want more of that in my life, I just don't know what it looks like yet. This is my first time being single in 16, 17 years, and I've only been single for six months now.

You have an exciting journey ahead of you, that's amazing.

So I have been forced to experience time alone, which as an extroverted extrovert is painstaking to be alone, but I talk to myself a lot, which is helpful, and having a dog is helpful — tons of dialogue, just constantly. I'm such a huge proponent of talking to yourself.

I can see you right now — sometimes if I'm feeling a bit embarrassed about it, I'll walk around Cheesman, but I'll put my headphones in so people think I'm on the phone, and I'm just fucking talking to myself.

I'm embarrassed for you for that.

What do you mean, you walk and talk to yourself in the park?

Fuck yeah I do. Like I said, I love people, but I also fucking love my own—

Blushing for you right now.

You can blush for me all you want, I feel zero embarrassment behind that fact.

That's so funny.

I mean, I am fucking entertaining as hell.

Maybe I'll take that tip.

You should — I mean, especially, you have a dog, so you kind of have another excuse.

Man, I don't care, I love talking to myself. When I go on hikes alone I'm chatting with myself the whole time — not the whole time, I like silence and listening to nature too, but—

It is a skill to be happy with being on your own, and I think it will only further assist me in seeing myself as an individual, after being in a relationship for so long, and relying on partnership for so long as a way to love myself, for validation. I have spent the majority of the last few years really trying to understand what self-love is, and even though I love myself and I'm proud of myself, I never really knew how to just love me, and I've always put so much of my time and energy into other people, and it's really hard to reverse that and put it back this direction. It feels selfish to want to devote so much to myself, but then when I started, I began to see the benefits, and it benefiting others around me too, ultimately.

I'm not here to bash on religion, I'm personally not religious, but if you choose that route there's nothing wrong with that. But I do think—

What, bash it?

Yeah, I'm gonna bash it. I think one of the dangers of it is, especially Christianity, because I'm definitely the most knowledgeable about that religion, this whole notion of you and your spouse become one — which means, by definition, you are each a half to begin with.

Yeah, that's fucked up.

Like, there's no way you should ever think of yourself as a half, and seeking that other half — I hate that phrase, "the other half."

I feel the same way too, I'll never say that.

No — yeah, or "my better half," "your better half" — it's like, why would you say that about yourself?

Why do you say that, you're just like — a shitty response should be, you say you hate yourself.

Yeah, that's — that's not a good thing. But my point with this is, I think, given your religious upbringing or exposure — and I think even removing religion, just looking at it culturally, especially with marriage culture—

Also female, too.

True.

True, especially being a female — people-pleasing is a huge part of my upbringing that I'm working on deconstructing. And it's a hard one, because it's fun to please people, it feels good, but it is damaging in the long run — it really damaged me, and my ability to know what a good partner for me would be. I have to deconstruct a lot to even be able to see green flags — red flags have been green flags to me for a long time.

And that's the danger, right — when you're exposed, and you're painted this picture of the typical family and marriage, and it's painted as the epitome of happiness, then when you see things that sort of index in that direction, you think of them as green flags — even when, for example, the "half" concept — when you're taught from a young age that your objective, particularly as a woman, is to find a man who will take care of you, and you are there to serve him, which is all more or less what the Bible tells you to do — everything that indexes towards that, you internalize as a good thing. But when you remove yourself from that perspective, and think more objectively about life, and you're like, okay, I am now alone, I must create the life I want — are those actually the things I should be looking out for?

No. It kind of rocks your world.

Yeah, totally.

But it is again a privilege to have been put in scenarios that allowed me to think outside of the box — one, school, two, moving away from my hometown, having to meet new people with new perspectives, and three, breaking a traditional mold of being in a marriage — and probably a lot more things.

Those are great starts.

Good starts to empowered female individualism.

And so is a motorcycle.

Fuck yeah it is, it's a great start.

What's the best piece of advice you ever received?

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Great, what have you done today?

This — this excited me.

What scared me? Maybe you haven't done it yet.

I haven't done it yet.

Yeah, that's great, no pressure. And then I think the last question I'll have for you — to flip the script on that particular question — is, for those who, like myself actually, are excited by the idea of pursuing a — call it non-traditional, or a path that feels more heart-driven and brain-driven—

Wait, can you start over?

Yeah, I can, I was thinking of another piece of advice — do you want to share?

Yeah, I'll do that.

Yeah, yeah, 100%, this is your podcast.

A piece that I heard in a song once — that a song had been a graduation speech, was a graduation speech for Harvard, turned into a song, and there was one phrase — advice is a form of nostalgia. So when you get advice, it's like picking a dusty object up and wiping away the parts on the surface and revealing what's underneath, revealing your own truths — so you should take advice with a grain of salt, which is another good phrase, but — when I learned that, I think it benefited me so much in life, understanding that other people are just fucking figuring it out too, and their advice is not the advice that you have to choose, but to take it and reformulate it in whatever way fits your life the best, or makes the most sense in your decision-making process, for the most successful outcome.

Okay, what was your next question? Actually, I want to touch on that — it feels like the emotional reaction you have to something that's nostalgic does feel very similar to the emotional reaction to a good piece of advice. And then you kind of said it at the end, but I think this reminds me of one of the best pieces of advice I ever got, which was, listen to all advice, but choose what to take.

That is so similar.

It's so similar.

My, my — I'll send you this song, you can listen. You don't know that, when you're a sapling, you think you just have to listen to the elders, you think the things that they say — and that's how religion gets seeped so strongly.

What advice do you have for those who are looking to follow their creative endeavors, follow their heart, find their purpose, and ignore the naysayers, but really feel convicted behind that choice?

You just answered it with the "ignore the naysayers." Okay — yeah, I think it's understanding that you can make any reality possible. And I've not always felt this way — I had to see myself achieve what my brain at that time viewed as impossible, to understand that this does exist.

Yeah, that's the most optimistic thing you can say — anything is possible.

Because, you know, it all comes with its tolls, and know that you have to make the steps forward — you have to choose to make those steps forward to have any sort of outcome, you can't just sit there and expect magic to happen. But you can absolutely create magic, you can absolutely manifest it — say things out loud, don't just think things in your head. Every time I've wished for something and said it out loud, it came true in some form, because you're actualizing it to your own existence when you say it out loud — you're letting it connect from your brain to your heart, and not just existing in your brain, and then into your fingers and toes for action. My brother had given me some interesting advice during the divorce — I hated this analogy when he said it, because the imagery made me uncomfortable, but it was, to eat a whole elephant, you have to start with the toe, and just start by eating the toe. And it was when I had like a year's worth of paperwork ahead of me. But this could be translated into any creative endeavor, any endeavor — just knowing, yes, it is, it looks and feels like a heavy elephant, and you just start with the toe, and it'll start rolling forward after that. You just have to start, that's all you have to do, it's that simple.

Start. Thank you so, so much, Lexie, for joining.

Thank you for having me, it's my pleasure.

What a joy to discuss my art to these depths. It made me feel all the more powerful, and that I'm heading in the right direction of my life.

You are — it's very clear. I'll say, as an outsider who doesn't know you that well, you should be very proud and excited, because I think it'll become apparent to everyone who listens to this that there's a fire inside of you that's burning for this stuff, and it's beautiful.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing it.