Makers & Mystics

Does commerce feed or take away from your artwork? Does getting paid to do it validate your work? How do you make the leap from hobby to vocation in your work and more importantly, should you?These are among the questions our Summer Series round table guests songwriter, John Mark McMillan, author/illustrator, Vesper Stamper & visual artist Brandon Willett discuss in this episode. Find out more about today’s guest hosts.John Mark McMillanVesper Stamper Brandon WillettBecome a patron of the podcast. Support the work of exploring art, faith and culture. Patrons of the podcast receive exclusive patron-only content and resources.Send us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

Jason “Jay” King is the founder and owner of World Citizen Media and a twenty-year veteran of the music industry. He manages Los Angeles based duo JOHNNYSWIM, Propaganda, and Pop writer/artist TRELLA. World Citizen’s core mission is to help BUILD, LAUNCH, and ACCELERATE meaningful projects, with strong foundations, that contribute good back into the world. Jay’s background includes working with renowned artists including Platinum selling hip-hop group GRITS, 4th Avenue Jones, Hillsong United, Grammy award winner Israel Houghton, All Sons & Daughters, Fonzworth Bentley, Daniel Bashta, John Mark McMillan, Rhett Walker Band, and more. He has also worked along side brands such as Tumi Luggage, Macy’s, Fiat, General Motors, Southwest Airlines, St. Jude, and more in order to bring campaigns for his clients to life. He held the title of VP of A&R positions for both Gotee Records (Universal Music Group) and Integrity Music (Sony BMG) before establishing World Citizen Media. In this bonus episode, guest-host, JOHN MARK MCMILLAN, interviews Jay King about the role of artist management and navigating the “business” of art making. Connect with John Mark McMillanSupport the podcast! Become a patron and access exclusive content! Send us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

David Chang is an NYC based artist merging the traditions of Western calligraphy and Eastern philosophy that is shaped by immediacy of his urban environment. Chang’s art is a sustained exploration into the significance and meaning of words and texts as embodied through physical gestures. Centuries-old eastern techniques in calligraphy find new form in the western alphabet as the artist shapes his own hermeneutics of the hand. The artist's brushwork, vacillating between traditional scripts and contemporary abstraction, issues statements of personal, cultural, and spiritual awareness, while it also retains an autonomous formal beauty full of urgency and grace.www.davidchangstudio.comDavid Chang InstagramAnd online framed prints can be purchased here:www.fourcorners.artBecome a patron of the podcast!Vesper’s WebsiteSend us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

Shara Nova is a classically trained vocalist and self-taught multi-instrumentalist. She records dazzling, shapeshifting music under the moniker My Brightest Diamond.Her music resists the conventions of genre, blending elements of rock, art pop, and chamber music into a sound totally her own. Over the span of her career, Shara has released multiple ground breaking albums, as well as composed a baroque chamber opera titled, "You Us We All.” She has recorded as a guest vocalist with notable artists such as David Byrne, The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, and many others. Her extensive collaborations with visual artists include contributions to the works of Matthew Ritchie, Matthew Barney and more recently, performance artist and vocalist Helga Davis on a collaborative film project titled Ocean Body.In today’s episode, I talk with Shara about her background as an artist and some of the motivations informing her work.If you are a patron of the podcast you can enjoy an additional episode segment with Shara on her experience as a working artist navigating our current cultural landscape.Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics or see the show notes of this episode to sign up as a patron today.Join the Makers & Mystics Creative CollectiveMy Brightest Diamond Official Website Ocean Body KINDTAPP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gskvj9ofGxcTratar: https://lnk.to/TRY_Tratar_de_Transformar Send us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

We may not care to be famous or even desire to make art as a full time vocation, but we each carry a need for our work to matter.  We want to know that what means something to us may also mean something to others or that what we give our time, attention and resources to may serve to beautify or to better the lives of those around us.In this episode, I discuss what it means to make a significant contribution through our creative work. I invite the listener to reframe the narratives we believe about ourselves and our art.  What if our art isn’t about us? What if we learned to care less about what we have to lose and more about what we have to give?In my work as a creative coach, I’ve encountered many artists who trip over concerns about self-promotion or what others may think about their intentions. But what if rather than being concerned over self-promotion or of having selfish motivations, we were more concerned over the loss of not offering the world our creative gifts? This episode explores these concerns and offers a new way of seeing our relationship to our art. ORDER STEPHEN’S NEW BOOK: NAMING THE ANIMALSJOIN OUR CREATIVE COLLECTIVEMusic in this episode provide by Glassea and C’est LisSupport The Podcast. Become a monthly PatronSend us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

Temi Coker is a Multidisciplinary artist based in Dallas, Texas. He creates visually compelling artwork for campaigns, products, activations & more. Temi’s use of vibrant colors and textures come from his upbringing in Nigeria as well as his love for the colors, patterns and storytelling of the African Diaspora. He has worked with clients such as: Adobe, HBO, Apple, and Facebook. In today’s episode, Temi and I discuss color as a means of storytelling along with themes such as the business side of art-making, how to avoid burnout and the challenges of overcoming people pleasing to follow a sense of calling. Temi Coker Join The Makers & Mystics Creative CollectiveMusic by: Layirid MusicSongs of Water Support The PodcastSend us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

J.F. Martel is a Canadian writer, filmmaker, and podcaster. He has directed a number of French and English documentaries for Canadian television as well as created several dramatic short films. His writing has appeared on Reality Sandwich, The Finch, Metapsychosis, and in anthologies published by Tarcher-Penguin, North Atlantic Books, and Intellect Books.His book Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice was published in 2015 by Evolver Editions;The back cover tells us the book is an essential reading for visual artists, musicians, writers, actors, dancers, filmmakers, poets, anyone who has ever been deeply moved by a work of art.I’ve read the book and I have to agree, J.F.’s ideas about art as an inborn human phenomenon that precedes the formation of culture resonates with own thoughts on creativity as an inherent part of our spiritual and human experience.In this episode, I speak with J.F. about many of the concepts in his book including his thoughts on viewing the universe primarily as an aesthetic universe.J.F. MartelBecome a Patron to unlock an additional interview segment with J.F. Martel on “Where Ideas Come From”Send us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

Amy-Jill Levine (“AJ”) is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt. Her books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus and Short Stories by Jesus; four children’s books (with Sandy Sasso); The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III); and The Jewish Annotated New Testament (co-edited with Marc Brettler). In 2020 she published The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (with Marc Brettler); and Sermon on the Mount: A Beginner’s Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven.She is the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. AJ describes herself as an unorthodox member of an Orthodox synagogue and a Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches New Testament in a Christian divinity school in the Buckle of the Bible Belt.In this episode, I talk with AJ about how we interpret Jesus’s parables and why having a clear contextual understanding of Jesus’s stories is important both spiritually and creatively.Connect with AmyJoin our Creative Collective and gain access to additional content - including our question to AJ Levine “What would you say to encourage artists who are interested in scripture as a source of inspiration for their art?”Music in this episode by C’est LisLeave us a review on iTunes! This will help others find us.Follow us on InstagramSend us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

In this episode, I share highlights from some of my favorite conversations from the year. Highlights include my interviews with Kimbra, Elephant Heart, Padraig O’ Tuama, John Eldredge and others. Support the podcast! Join our creative collective!Tickets to BC21Send us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.

Sarah Hempel Irani has been sculpting expressive figures in clay and stone for nearly twenty years. Originally from Michigan, she moved to Maryland to apprentice with Jay Hall Carpenter, former Artist-in-Residence at the Washington National Cathedral. Sarah has contributed sculptures to national shows and received several notable awards, including the Maryland Arts Council Individual Artist Award in 2009. Currently Sarah is sculpting a seven-and-a-half-foot statue of renowned fashion designer, Claire McCardell, to be cast in bronze and installed in McCardell's hometown of Frederick, Maryland. In this episode, Stephen talks with Sarah about her creative process as a sculptor, how technique and spontaneity work together and how practices such as centering prayer leads to unexpected astonishment in her art making.  Connect with Sarah Hempel IraniSupport The Podcast! Featured Music: Songs of Water Send us a textSupport the show Get Tickets to The Breath and The Clay 2026 featuring Malcolm Guite, Jon Guerra, and Jonathan Pageau! March 20-22 in Winston-Salem, NC.