Rob Lee: Welcome to The Truth in This Art, your source for conversations connecting art, culture, and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm thrilled to be speaking with an interdisciplinary artist whose practice blends performance, public engagement, and analog tools to explore themes of democracy and free expression. Known for inviting the public to dictate postcards to political power, their work spans two decades, and thousands of voices typed live on the streets.
She's also the first artist to serve on the board of directors of the National Coalition Against Censorship. I had the pleasure of speaking with my guests back in Philadelphia in 2023, and I'm eager to catch up with her. So I'm excited to welcome back to the program Sheryl Oring Welcome back to the podcast.
Sheryl Oring: Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Rob Lee: And it's been a few years, and things have changed in that time. Oh my gosh. So, you know, as I'm one to do, I always like to set the stage and give the guests an opportunity to reintroduce themselves. Because in that instance, things definitely change as far as the work that we're making and sort of the world that we're traveling in. So if you will, could you reintroduce yourself and your work to folks who might not be familiar? Absolutely.
Sheryl Oring: My name is Cheryl O'Ring. I'm an artist, an educator, and an activist. I make work using typewriters, and my work activates democracy. It centers on civic engagement and free expression. And my signature project, I wish to say, is something I started 21 years ago. I set up a public office in places like parks or university campuses or libraries, and I invite people to dictate postcards to the U.S. president. And I type those verbatim.
People can say whatever they want to say. I've typed more than 5,000 of those cards in hundreds of locations. There was a really nice sort of retrospective exhibition of the project at the Free Library of Philadelphia this past year. It was up during the first 100 days of this current presidency. And there's currently some work up at the National Liberty Museum, also in Philadelphia.
And let's see. Oh, so I also served as team of the School of Art at University of the Arts. We're marking that that is actually what brought me to Philadelphia a couple of years ago. And we just passed the one-year anniversary of that school's tragic and very sudden closure. So I'm feeling a little, you know, a little sad about that at the moment.
But the things that I did in this past year wouldn't have been possible if I'd been doing my dean work. So I got to go on a pretty amazing tour of, I wish to say. I went all the way from Florida to California and New Jersey with my typewriter, Chicago, of course, Philly.
It all started in Philly. And that has sort of revitalized the project. And I'm working on a new book based on the project called Secretary to the People. So that's a little bit about me.
Rob Lee: Thank you. And we're going to definitely dive a bit deeper on a few of those points. So shout out to you for kind of teasing some of those things. I like it. I like it.
One of the other things I've noticed in here, National Coalition Against Censorship. You're in the board, first artist. So could you talk a bit about how that came about and sort of how your perspective and your experience plays a role in that role? Oh, absolutely.
Sheryl Oring: So this goes back even to before the I wish to say project. In fact, I had done a project called Writers Block in which I had collected hundreds and hundreds and by that, and I mean about 650 typewriters.
I mean, it was a little bit crazy. And I made sculptures out of construction rebar. So the typewriters are sort of caged into these sculptures, imagine just caged typewriters. So I'm visually taking away the ability to write it. So it's symbolic statement against censorship. And it was first created on Fort Babelcloth, which is the site of the Nazi book Burning in Berthin, Germany, where the students at the Humboldt University took the books out of the University Library in 1933.
And burned them. Wow. I mean, that work, even though I made that so long ago, I made it in 97, 98, and I was first shown in 1999. It feels more current than ever with all of the bookbinding going on. And when I first brought it to the U.S., that's when I started working with National Coalition Against Censorship. They helped me plan an opening event with a reading of different censored works up in New York at Bryant Park.
When that was in New York in 2003. And since then, I've been involved in various ways. And when one of the people there that I've worked with reached out to see if I might want to join the board, I was really honored and decided, yes, this is really something that I want to do as it's important work.
I feel very, very moved by the work that they do. And I think that artists can really offer models of creative resistance. You know, sometimes the people in the room are, you know, book publishers or lawyers for some amount of lawyers. And I think that with what I bring to the conversation, I help people see things maybe slightly differently and see how sometimes the visual can really move people in a way that other modes of communication down. And so, you know, I bring that creative viewpoint to the work that I do there.
Rob Lee: That's important. It's super important. And, you know, I'll say like the distinction of, you know, being the first artist having that creative expression on there, how I think that artists are naturally problem solvers. So we're able to see the problems, but also like, here's the creative way we're going about this. So bringing that dynamic. Right. Right.
Sheryl Oring: And the National Coalition again, so book banning is this huge issue, right? And it's this is what inspired my work, the Writers Block work today in this country. There's there's something like 2400 books that are banned every year and it's not just sort of the equal opportunity. The books that are banned are heavily coming from LGBTQ queer authors or from authors of color. And these books are being systematically removed from public libraries and school libraries across the country. And one thing that the NCAC does is they organize resistance to this type of book banning through something that they have called the right to read network.
And this is a coalition of community advocacy groups that come together to fight book banning in this country. And I just I can't think of more important work today to be involved with. Absolutely.
Rob Lee: I love that that sign read ban both Cepero t-shirts. It's like absolutely. And I think some of the efforts of suppression is just anti what I thought the message was supposed to be here like, hey, freedom and all this is like, but in this context. And if it starts in one area is going to hit all of these other areas and it's just very plain, very white, very male, very vanilla. And that's not reflective of the world that I see in a world that we're living in here. It's this is not even idealized.
Sheryl Oring: And when you look to the Nazi time and and this work was I was so involved with researching what had happened back in 1933. One thing that stood out was, of course, they were banning books. They were also banning music. They were banning art.
They were banning dance forms. And so when I did the work presented the work in Berlin for the first time, I worked with a choreographer named summer Ulrichson and a composer named Ari Benjamin Myers. And they created dance and music pieces that referenced those censored forms of art that really also took a hit in the Nazi period. So I hear you what you say that there's really books are one thing that there's definitely other forms of art that's being censored in that has, of course, been something in the past.
Rob Lee: 100%. And, you know, I was sharing a little bit earlier before we got on and I think it relates in this way sort of the power around like media, you know, I would imagine one can overtly say, hey, we're suppressing this.
They'll do it, but may not say it. And I see it in sort of podcasting where the weird shadow banning the weird sort of the emphasizing sort of black voices or voices of color or marginalized voices, whatever the sort of DEI or have you group might be. And I see it there and I look at sort of the rankings because I'm in that education realm and I see who are the top 10 podcasts based on downloads and it's very dude heavy and very white dude centric.
And I was just like, I don't know if this works. And this is something else driving it. It's not that, hey, it's purely it's these are just the most popular or the best. It's sort of this sense of the sentiment that their support and there's help to push sort of these stories and the ideas that are connected to these stories and I think kind of in some ways there is some impact on what led us to where we're at now politically, I think, you know, as far as, hey, you know, this guy is really funny.
It's like, yeah, he's leaning in that direction. I noticed this podcast has gotten very political. Oh, there's a joke there, but it's very political. Oh, this other podcast is connected to it. And it's just, I don't know, it's like the new frontier in some ways. Right.
Sheryl Oring: And one thing that you mentioned to is the idea of self censor, self censorship, which is something that we talk about a lot at NCAC and also something that I encounter with my work out on the streets with the typewriter. So, since the last election, I definitely have noticed that people are really fearing fear, right? There's there's this fear among especially people of color, I will say, and really, really moves specifically among immigrants that there's this fear of speaking out and of and also a fear of if they do speak out using their name, they don't want to be found understandably, don't want to be attacked. And that's a that's an interesting thing in my work, because in many ways I created this project to give the disenfranchised a platform to speak out. But if people are feeling feeling fearful and can't speak out, it's it changes it somehow.
And I'm starting to give a lot of thought to that and trying to come up with ways to make people feel safe. So for instance, I'm not encouraging people to use their last name anymore right now, like I did for a long time. And now I'm sort of like I don't my the point of my project is not to get people in trouble. The point of my project is to empower people and to have this way that people can collectively speak their minds and and that it's open to anyone. So I don't want that that that feeling of fear to to invade the project.
Rob Lee: That makes sense. I've, I've noticed that a bit with folks who are who've moved here who are living here who are different visas who work in sort of the the arts realm and, you know, I remember one that comes to mind. So like I don't really dive into the politics on this podcast, especially if it's not related to the guests working their back or obviously this conversation is like, I don't know, I just remember before we got rolling, you know, I'm trying to like go through all of the show notes and the guests was just like, so we're not going to get political army. And I was like, you have the questions were absolutely not talking about anything political but it was out of that as you're describing that sort of fear. And even this this notion where the technology the technology component of, hey, my face is now attached to a thing. So as you're touching on that's definitely a consideration of, you know, what I do and sort of how I go about what I'm doing and perhaps even some of the outreach of, you know, I've said it on this podcast before.
This podcast was born out of that person in that office said something about my city I didn't like and then my pettiness continued hitting to these sorts of conversations that really get to the root of what how people are living through the lens of arts through the lens of culture but really driven by that. And some people may do to fear, make a maybe rethink that because of what it could be attached to. Right.
Sheryl Oring: I did bring a couple of cards from recent events and this one feels relevant to read right now was from the other day in New York. Dear Mr. President, I'm getting married in a week and because of your latest immigration visa ban, my cousins were single Chinese girls who studied biotech at university have been blocked by your band.
So now that they are missing being bride made, bride's made at my wedding, I'm mad. And that's from Susan in New York and you know, the personal stories that come out through the work that I do are what keeps me going. You know, I could never have imagined this card or under, you know, just this very personal story that Susan shared with me. It really touched me that she would share that with me and I can only imagine, you know, how painful that is to have this special day and you want to have your family come. You know, you see it on the news like the other day when they were there were more bands from people coming from different countries and there were people from Haiti saying, you know, my relatives can't come visit.
You know, it's like they've always come for a birthday or, you know, some special thing and then now all of a sudden like their people are too scared to travel. And those anyway, those personal stories are really at the heart of this project as well. I didn't talk so much about the work as a storytelling vehicle, but it really fundamentally is. And I also think, you know, in this day and age when the media is under so much attack and censorship really that these documents that really tell the story of our time through one-on-one interactions with everybody. And so, you know, when you're talking about your day to day people, how some deep meaning that over time is sort of only growing in its meaning and scope, I think.
Rob Lee: So, and I agree with you so much there. And so when I think about, you know, sort of going back a little bit to the 2024 and being on the road, right?
So you've touched a bit on sort of this fear of fear, right? Were there any other patterns or changes that you've noticed? Because I would imagine maybe an uptick in anger. It's like, oh, we're back?
Sheryl Oring: Back to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there was some pretty deep, also, anger and disillusionment among young people that definitely encountered that both in my work as an educator and in the artwork that I do, because I do a lot of visits with colleges and work with college students. And just heard a lot of young people who don't feel listened to, don't feel like their voice matters, don't feel like their vote matters, don't feel like they need to vote.
You know, so those are things that are really concerning and part of what I hope my project touches on. I always remember one young woman who sat down at my desk in Chicago, and afterwards she was almost in tears and she said, you know, nobody's ever listened to me like this before. And that, I think that feeling of having been listened to and having been heard and having been taken seriously is really critical. And I, two people have told me after they've participated that the way the project makes them feel is important, that they feel important by participating. And I think that self, that feeling of importance in yourself and that you believe in yourself, that is the beginning of how we make change in our communities, in our, you know, in our society. And so it's a hard thing to measure. Some people ask me, you know, what I'm trying to do with the project.
And if something, you know, I don't think it can really be measured sort of scientifically, but on an emotional level and multiple sort of anecdotal level, I believe that it is making some sort of small change in the people that participate. Yeah.
Rob Lee: You know, two things that I want to say before I move into this next question, and I really relate to it in this way. Being able to sit down and have a conversation with someone, you know, and really feel like they're being, have them feel like they're being heard because you're listening, right?
You know, I had an interview, because I've been in so much time in DC, but I had an interview with a Russian artist, who's a visual artist, who's, this is their work behind me actually. And I love it. And she's, she's great.
And she's gonna be great. And she, she'd mentioned after we finished up the conversation, I do my conversation to do my interview and the style that I do. It's not, hey, I'm going to interrogate you. It's like, we'll have a conversation.
I'm trying to guide it in a direction, but we're having a conversation. And, you know, she thanked me afterwards. And she was like, yeah, we had a great conversation.
You didn't just hit me with rapid fire questions about my work and theory and so on. She's like, that's part of it, but she made me feel like a human. You made me feel like I was being heard. And I was like, that's the goal. And thank you. I'm so happy that you felt that way because, you know, that was a decision and doing this and which is why have the rapid fire questions or how I go about it. I don't want folks to come on and, you know, feel like they're a commodity and they're only here to talk about their thing.
Because it's not an advertising and marketing tool. It feels like a hickey to me, you know. Right, right. And the other thing I want to say is when it comes to some of these things, there's just 100 plus days now, just so much news and not news and press releases and just, I can't go as far as saying it's purely distractions, but in the face of some of these things that feel like this is hell, right? I'm trying to, my dam is to practice some degree of stoicism. It's just like the only choice we have is to kind of get through it, you know, whatever it might be. And it's not a matter of diminishing how people feel, feel how you feel, you're supposed to feel something, but you just got to keep rolling, got to keep going.
Sheryl Oring: You know, I've been doing a couple things that relate to that to get me through. And you might think they're funny, but I think when, for me, when the world is, there's so much that's kind of overwhelming right now. It's hard to make sense of.
I think that's probably part of the strategy and people have talked about that. But I've been getting into gardening a little bit and watching seeds grow every day. I get up and I, and my plants are a little bit bigger and that is somehow really metaphorically important to life right now that, you know, it's life is continuing. And then I also started fermenting things. This is a little weird, but I did start fermenting. I fermented some oats. I fermented some radishes.
And that's also a strange biological process that creates this weird stuff. And I don't know if somehow it's somehow it helped me get through, you know, these difficult days. I could watch the bubbles coming up in the jars and the colors change and stuff like that because it's really hard times. It's extremely hard times on a personal level, going through the closure of the university and watching. So many colleagues, myself included, you know, just try to make sense of this new world order where all of a sudden we don't have a paycheck and, you know, the everything's just sort of embaloned apart. So that was difficult and difficult to watch what it's done, not only to the people, but really also to the city. You know, going down Broad Street and just feeling the void where there used to be so many art students and artists and life and just, you know, creativity pouring out of University of the Arts in the middle of Philadelphia on what's called Avenue of the Arts. And, you know, now it's kind of sad and watching that happen, you know, in our city was really hard. And yet there's a massive inspiration too. You know, I've talked to some of the students who've gone on to other schools and, you know, there is life goes on in some strange ways.
And like I said, I wouldn't I had been planning to mostly focus on Philadelphia in the 2024 election year. And then when I suddenly have the time and an ability to travel, I thought, you know, I really have to get my typewriters out and go on the road again.
Rob Lee: Thank you for that. That extra layer, that extra detail there because, you know, I this sounds goofy, it sounds ridiculous, but, you know, anyone that I've had on this podcast and I've done an interview with, especially going back and reaching out to folks like, you know, there's almost not heard interviews. So it's not a sort of, oh, well, I ever find a guess. It's just like I was very curated and intentional for what I wanted to speak to again. And when I saw sort of what was happening up there with the school, I was like, what's going to happen with Cheryl? I was immediately the first thing and I was like, I interviewed you.
So I'm like, okay, you're one of my people. I feel it's small and as simple as it is. And when I went back up in November, and I was walking past that avenue, I was like, Oh, I don't like this. And that was just my viewpoint with very minimal knowledge and minimal information. And I was like, I don't know what the story is and, you know, don't really care about the story up to a point. But I was just like, you know, the isness of it is, this is gone and this was here and this sucks.
That was literally all I had for it. And, but, you know, as you touched on sort of, it opened up an opportunity, maybe a window, if you will, to explore and it may be a different way at a very interesting and pivotal time.
Sheryl Oring: Absolutely. I think about that a lot. You know, it did allow this other work to happen. Now, of course, it doesn't really pay. So, you know, there's a sort of like existential, you know, stuff that I that I'm dealing with, along with everybody else, you know, it's, I think, because I think, you know, right away, there was this outpouring of support and, and sort of commiseration and a year in, you know, when I see people from your like, we understand each other, we look at each other, we know right away. I mean, it's like, it's been a slog and or like, and not many people have found new work. It's, it's, you know, so it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's tough.
And in university there, so it's there like 150 years, it really, it was this, this amazing institution in Philly. And it's just very sad, it's deeply sad. And I, and other arts institutions are experiencing similar challenges.
And, and I'm sure other art schools will not be making it. And that's a really tough thing to, to grapple with. And, and, and as we think about our role as artists and creators, and, you know, how does that continue to play a valuable role? I think as the, as the world gets more and more into AI and technology rules, so many aspects of our daily life that, but the, the role of the artist becomes maybe even more important that, that the making of things and objects and, and drawing and things like that become even more rarefied and, and, and, you know, hard to, hard to find. But I don't know, it's very interesting times for sure. And I'm glad to be able to document this with, with my work. Yeah.
Rob Lee: And, you know, I work in sort of both of those realms. I use a fair amount of AI to, for certain purposes, but the today job and just seeing over the three years that it's been out there, I think it was a really big piece that I remember covering at a work function with like management of, yeah, this is coming and how is it going to affect graduation and are people who are writing term papers using AI all of this different chat GPT. All of that different stuff and just seeing sort of the attention and the focus being on some of these things that it's going to sound hokey, but that requires soul that requires sort of creativity. You can maybe replicate kind of what it is. And we've seen that with attempts to capture the essence of someone's style as a visual artist. And one of the things in the back of my head that I think of, I mentioned how many episodes of this podcast that I've done and I've been a podcaster for nearly 20 years, which is a little bit of a segue, but we'll get to it.
Awesome. That, you know, someone's like, Hey, there's a repository. My voice can just be or any guest that I've had. Oh, you've said this. And it's scary and it's, it's there. I don't know if it's going to be that sophisticated yet, but it's moving at a very, very quick pace.
And it's not, I think in many instances, optimizing the stuff that we don't like to do the, the paperwork and the sort of admin stuff that artists don't really care to do, but it's kind of coming for, when they're making an attempt to come for the creative stuff, the stuff that we love to do.
Sheryl Oring: And that's, that's here to me. Right. Well, we're in a massive transition, right? The economy, the world. So many things are changing. And in a really epic way. And these transitions will take, they'll take a little bit of time to sit out. You know, it's interesting when you, if you're working with younger people, it's interesting to try to think through how we guide them. And I think one of the things was just maintaining a certain flexibility and an ability to cope with change of resilience. We need that resilience. I actually, I think a lot about that, about the concept of resilience and how we can foster that.
Rob Lee: Perseverance, resilience, it's important stuff. We already have a certain baseline of it, you know, like, oh, rejections and, you know, people, but now it's like sort of like, all right, one to zero is what are we doing? So I mentioned sort of my near 20 years and you mentioned 21.
So wait a, wait a like overshadow me right there. So talk a bit about this idea of revisiting work, revisiting archives. Is there any like unexpected messages or themes that stood out upon revisiting work and really, you know, this series this year, this conversation in some ways is revisiting, reconnecting and trying to do better and trying to take from that initial conversation and add to it as a continued conversation.
That's how I approach sort of these run it back episodes. But for you revisiting work, you know, over this, you know, two decades plus at this point time, talk a bit about that.
Sheryl Oring: I think one thing that stands out is that there is and there is some enduring hope among the darkness, right? Like there we've gone through different dark moments, 911, different things that have happened in the world where, you know, it's been very, very challenging for us, for everybody. It's interesting also a small thing came up that were the tone of the letters. When people are dictating to me as if I were the president or I'm sort of the I'm the secretary taking everything in the word please there's a there's a heightened sense of sort of reverence and and that is is so different from what we see in social media.
So, for instance, so it's a different tone. So the project that I've been doing with the typewriter has also mirrored this time in our own history that where we've undergone this incredible change in relationship to technology, right? There was no Facebook, basically almost no Internet when I was starting and people were using smartphones. So the way people sort of are in the world and the way we interact with each other has changed while this project has continued and I think that the value of the one on one the personal conversation has only increased over time as it becomes less and less common to interact with strangers.
You know, we just in person in person obviously we do it online all the time. And I think the archive reflects all of this in a in a really simple, slow and moving and powerful way that is absent from, let's say, video documentation or even books. I mean, when you line up 5000 know one thing I haven't done one thing I'd like to do is show all of the cards. I haven't done that yet.
So there's more than 5000 messages and you can maybe start to get an idea. I need to actually calculate the space and I mean, sort of on my to-do list. Each card is four by six. It's like an index card.
I type on a blank index card and there's more than 5000 of them. And so you could imagine, you know, this sort of huge room or I also had the idea of maybe dividing it up in different locations around Philadelphia and showing the entire archive and where you'd have to kind of go on a trail to kind of see the, you know, the different years. So that's one of the things I'd like to do with this project that I haven't done yet.
Rob Lee: I like one of the things that stuck out that the reference the please component and that sort of, you know, the light comparison to technology. I remember that recent conversation from maybe one of the heads around like the sort of AI thing. And it's like, oh, yeah, please and thank you. Don't use those. It's a waste.
Sheryl Oring: Yeah. Oh, that's so funny. That's so funny. I do actually, I play around with chat GPT and I do use please. Oh, could you please, I don't know. I'm typing. I interact with it as if it were a secretary or something. I don't know. You do as well.
Rob Lee: Like, hey, take it out, please. Yeah. Yeah.
Sheryl Oring: I don't know. Maybe that's uncommon, but I wanted to read one more. That's maybe feels relevant right now to whoever wants to read this. As the child of immigrants, the American dream was a dream formed in two different countries almost 50 years ago. Fate and circumstance brought them here and opportunity kept them. And for that, the American dream is no dream at all. It's a reality and I voted for the best one. And it's not what we are receiving as a country. And then it's stamped action required. I thought that kind of summarized some of what I'm encountering out on the streets these days.
Rob Lee: Yeah, I think that's just really, really timely, really, really powerful there is I think we think just there's there is that sort of disenfranchisement the I go back to when I when I went to sleep that that night, you know, before the results were presented and sort of where we're at now. And I said this and I rarely do it's not even a prayer or anything.
It's just like I just had this thought it was a very clear one. And I usually get up very early. And I went to sleep. I was like, it's going to be this result of we're good country. It'll be this result of where the country I think we are. And then I woke up and I say, Oh, okay. This is where we're at. Not all of us, obviously. But, you know, it was one of those things where I was just not very surprised.
I was like, this is this thing. This is going to be tough. And really just try to get as much information for because I because I've heard in the the two cards that you shared, right? The family dynamic.
The, you know, and I immediately thought of like my family who are in these different spots that, you know, the healthcare component sort of being in these more disadvantaged sort of groups or at risk sort of groups. And I know that that's the thing. It's like, you know, putting a hand on who's closest to you and trying to figure out through your research or whatever the case may be to try to help because that's where we're at now.
Sheryl Oring: Yeah, there's this intense, I would say, for agility to the moment. And could I read one more? Please. This one. This one was from the other day. Dear US citizen, what do you think you are doing calling the military against your fellow United States citizens who are peacefully protesting exorcising their constitutional rights? How do you think this will end? Recommendation? Consult history books. That's from Sarah in New York City. One thing this work does is it reflects the moment the zeitgeist of what's happening out there. So you get these little snippets of stories that this is, you know, clearly about Los Angeles and what's happening in LA. And so you get a personal view on this history in real time in a way that can be kept because I think all of the chatter on social media, you know, is probably in some data bank somewhere out there, but it's going to be hard to reference.
So hard to look back on in a sense that sort of lost. It's like emails. I mean, I suppose some people archive their emails, but, you know, who does that anyway? I used to. I used to print it. You remember? Like I used to actually print out emails and file them.
Rob Lee: I still keep a I'm looking at it right now. I have like three hard drives of podcasts. Like I had it on the cloud briefly and I was like, no, no, no. And I was like, I need to have it on something that I have control of.
I don't pay that goofy fee. And suddenly my archive is gone. So it's like, I need to have the tangible right here. And these conversations, even the video component is just like, I will be able to revisit it and capture it. And but the thing that's tough before I move into this next question, the thing that's tough about it and looking at sort of 2019 and starting this and where we're at now in 2025, I'll see like my face getting smaller because I've lost weight over the time. And then my hair getting thinner. I'm like, wow, time has progressed for you, Rob.
Sheryl Oring: Well, don't get me started on that because I just did an exhibition, a couple exhibitions actually where they included photos of me from when I started the project in 2024. Oh my gosh, 2004. 2004. Yeah, I look a little different. It's still you.
Rob Lee: I've looked at some of those. It's still you. I was like, yeah, that's a sure. Here we go. I like this. I like this. We're all here.
Sheryl Oring: You know, I was I was at an event with Creative Capital, this amazing organization in New York that has funded my work and supported me over the years. And I was typing there the other day.
That's where some of those New York messages came from. And I was asking someone, you know, like, do I could you imagine me doing this when I'm 90? Like, am I going to be out there with my typewriter when I'm 90 years old? I mean, my grandmother was a secretary.
She sort of inspired the role and the work that I do. And she worked as a secretary till she was maybe 70. You know, how she was still typing. I mean, the beautiful thing about typing is you can kind of keep doing it as long as your mind's there. You can, you know, you can keep keep up the type mean. So I don't know the answer to that.
Rob Lee: I think I think the answer is going to be yes, we're going to keep having something we're going to keep having something that we need this this coverage and this this conversation and just, you know, it's just really good and important work that you're involved in. And, you know, it just, you know, I may have said this previously, but I definitely will say no. Thank you because I think it's important.
Sheryl Oring: Yes, I appreciate that. Especially coming from you.
Rob Lee: Oh, 2004 you mentioned that. So I want to talk about it's a so Stephanie Christ Christ.
Sheryl Oring: Christ Stephanie Elizondo Christ.
Rob Lee: So Stephanie has a forthcoming book, Art Above Everything and explores this notion of this idea of art monks and it opens with 2004. I wish to say road trip. So that's right. Yeah. So that's the connection I'm trying to make here.
Sheryl Oring: Yeah, I'm glad you I'm glad you brought that up because that is that was a key sort of point in the start of this project. Stephanie and I knew each other actually through national coalition against censorship. She was working there. That's how I met her. And then she had this book come out and she was planning a tour and and she was telling me she didn't really like to drive that much, but she had access to a car.
Trying to figure out how to do stuff on a shoestring. You know, she's like, well, I have a car. If you want to drive, you can come with me. And so, you know, I took my typewriter and and went along with her on her book tour and we stopped. It went from Texas through Arizona and Mexico and California for about three weeks.
And it was it was pretty amazing to be, you know, to remind me of that movie film in Louise for some reason, not exactly, but, you know, it was a different different reason we were on a road trip. But we're out there doing our thing and Stephanie, you know, doing her readings and then helping me collect messages to the to the president. And I thought a lot about that recently, partly because her book is coming out now. And in fact, it just came out officially on the 10th of June. So it's available now and we'll be doing some events in Philadelphia this fall.
So that will be fun. I'll get to I always love to be in conversation with Stephanie. She's a great storyteller. And she teaches creative writing. So should the nice thing about the book is that it profiles all these amazing women artists from around the world. I find it very inspirational and I hope that it finds its way into the hands of young people, but especially young women in these times where where that question, you know, can does art matter?
Is art enough? And that's something that a lot of people struggle with. It's something Stephanie and I talked about right after you are kind of crashed because I showed up on her doorstep one night and needed a friend. And we were talking a lot about that, about the meaning of art and and how art can sort of save us on a personal level, but maybe also more sort of more on a collective societal level to, you know, the work that we do as artists can have an impact, great impact on society. For me, it did have this really. I don't even know what to start on maybe get a little emotional, but you know, I needed to be out there typing in this past year that act of creating and putting myself out there again and making myself get dressed up instead of, you know, just like hiding in a hole or something, which there were definitely days I wanted to do. That was really important. And also, when I'm out there, I'm always encountering people in their own personal struggles and there's something very inspiring about being in conversation or hearing people tell their own stories and knowing that there's this.
I don't know. There's something about the collective, even other individual stories, they sort of come together to lift me up through the through the typing. You know, I met this woman. There were a few people I remember, you know, from last year, there was a woman I met in Chicago who had been a journalist in Venezuela and had moved to this country and she didn't have a way to make a living and she'd been living in shelters and just encountered an incredible amount of difficulty. But she shared her story with me and it was very heartfelt and and, you know, it was very genuine and I was really moved by that interaction and that she trusted me to tell me that really personal story.
And then there was another person. It was funny, both in Chicago, another journalist I met who she'd been a journalist in the Bay Area and had lost her job. And, you know, that's really, really common and I had been through that media restructuring myself and and so we were chatting for a while and and I really liked her and I said something about, oh, well, maybe when I get to San Francisco, I'll, you know, I'll look you up or something and she's like, oh, I don't live there anymore. And I said, oh, you know, where do you live? And she said, well, she moved to Mexico City because she couldn't afford to live in the US anymore. And, you know, she seems happy about, you know, she seems happy to be in Mexico City.
It wasn't, but it was really striking, right? You know, there is these two stories of these two journalists, both women, one who'd come from Venezuela to the US and was really not able to make a living with her with her work. And then the other from the Bay Area who'd had to leave the Bay Area has gone so into the expense of, you know, she couldn't make it work without a job and journalism and there's so few and far between right now and, you know, just getting to be fewer. And those stories were really, really touched me personally since that's my background as well. And I was, I'm always really amazed when people share these really personal stories with me and, and agree that they can be included in my archive and that I can talk about them and, and, you know, include them in books and things like that, because I think there's something powerful and Stephanie gets at that in her book, the Art Above Everything book. The storytelling aspect and, and, and really sharing the lives of the women that she profiles with us and it's really a gift.
Rob Lee: It's great. And thank you for that. And I feel it as well. And in doing this, there are folks that I've had on who are in different stages and encountering sometimes the conversation is therapeutic. Sometimes it's just. Yeah, I mean, exactly.
Yeah, right. And, you know, but it's, it's relatable and it's, it's real and I'm always privileged and I take a responsibility in having those conversations. Just, you know, I've had folks on who are like, Hey, I'm not sure if my magazine is going to be around tomorrow, but we're going to have this conversation.
I'm looking forward to it. Or, Hey, I, you know, I find out maybe later, you know, after we did the conversation that they had a really bad thing happen, like they had a medical scare or they had just life-living and, and that having this conversation and what it was with something that was going on. And I think that was just something they needed, I guess. And, and I, I feel really weird and odd with that. And I'll share one thing before I move into this.
This next to last question, this penultimate question of the real questions. I had a, had a conversation in the sort of the real life component. I was speaking on in my, my class, the first year of my class and speaking on the importance of being vulnerable in a podcast.
And it's like, you know, a story telling people are interested from a humanistic standpoint. And one of my students who was supposed to be a guest in the podcast and had to just not, you know, do the podcast, they couldn't do it. I wasn't sure why, and I was very like puzzled as to why are you taking the class?
Are you kind of no show the podcast or we had to reschedule or what have you. And I'm expressing sort of, you know, vulnerability in a pod. And she was like, can I share something? And I was like, sure. And she's like, I feel really bad that we were supposed to do a podcast together and I couldn't do it.
And I was like, Oh, okay, I'm not expecting this. And she's like, I had to change a couple of times the scheduling because I had some health stuff presented themselves and actually the day that we were supposed to do it, I had a miscarriage that morning. And she was like, I would really love to be back at a podcast later.
My, my face just lost its color. I was like, whatever you want, anything that you want, you know, but, you know, it was one of those things of having that conversation and just people are open and sharing. And so when we eventually had the did an interview a few weeks after a class wrapped, and she shared with me after we're wrapping up the interview, she's like, I have some good news. I know I mentioned this in class, but she was like, I'm going to have another baby.
I'm pregnant right now. And I was like, congratulations. And I had a thug to your come down and it was, you know, it was just our conversation and connecting with people, I suppose.
Sheryl Oring: I feel that so deeply when I'm out on the street typing and people share one of these really personal life experiences with me and it's, it's really a privilege. Like you said, it is to, you know, to be there as a witness to someone's story. Yeah.
Rob Lee: So I have this next question that relates actually to kind of into the territory that we're covering. And I have been rethinking my work because some of the stuff is digital. And, you know, I've been trying to find ways like I'm doing this new marketing thing, this new promotion or networking thing where I have a tangible like in hand. And I think with something that is nearly wholly digital, these conversations over, you know, what, a Wi-Fi or connectivity. And, and I find like, sometimes it's treated like it's disposable.
The value of the conversation isn't there. And I see that there's a use of sort of like, obviously for you, you know, typewriters and Polaroids, I think it's an analog component. So, you know, it's in the contrast to this ever emerging and shifting digital and more digital world. How does sort of the analog component maybe shape sort of any project as you have coming in 2025 into 2026? And how do you hope audiences will engage?
Sheryl Oring: Well, the analog is such a critical part of what I do. And so it's really at the center of everything. And it's, it's interesting moment when you've been typing as long as I have and have the archive of the files that I have. And I want to care for it. So the idea of care is coming into my mind a lot, the care for this archive and for this work.
It's more than one might imagine, you know, it goes on behind the scenes and it's not visible labor, but it's keeping it organized. So, I try to scan everything, try to make sure I have all the permissions, you know, all those things. So, and in the, in the, you know, chaos of the UART closing and I've had to move some things around and, you know, like, I'm not even sure where everything is. So, first, I'm like, okay, we've passed the one year anniversary.
I think I need to get on with my life and, you know, move on to the next things and kind of put that behind me because it really has been quite a year. And one of the things is like getting things in order. I feel like the strong desire partly tied to the work on the book because it has to be in order to be able to work on the book.
So, I'm feeling this, you know, yeah, I got to get stuff back in order, organized and, you know, like a chief secretary, it's got to be very, you know, I got to know where my files are. And there's something, I think that you touched on a little bit that we touched on, but it's just the value of the tactile and the real in this digital age. It's just there's something, I don't know, it almost has a weight to it.
That's beyond like a piece of paper. It has some sort of heaviness or seriousness. And I do think about, start to think a little bit about that at this point about the legacy of the work and, you know, where it will be, you know, where it wants to be, where it will end up.
Some of those questions are appearing in my mind and thinking a little bit about that. As libraries suffer, you know, we talked about ban books and the crisis in education and higher ed and, you know, libraries are right there on the list of things that are being cut and challenged. And libraries play such an incredible role. I had the really amazing experience of being able to spend a lot of time at the free library at Philadelphia this year with when my exhibition was there. But sometimes it was just like putting it together, but also just being there and working there and seeing what an amazing, amazing place that is and how it's such a diverse cross-section of the Philadelphia, you know, community. And bringing so much to the city. And when you think about libraries being cut, it's, you know, it's very sad. I think they play a really important role in our democracy and in our society.
Rob Lee: 100% agree. I think even in some of these conversations I've had around third spaces, it's one of those as well. And it's obviously there's this shift to how can we privatize everything and everything has a price tag attached to it. And I remember this period where I was soul searching. I was unemployed and in a non-compete and it was not good. And there's another not a good time. And my brother was in a similar spot. And we both like live in these apartments near each other. And I say, Hey, man, you went to a library and just kind of like chat or stop and some skills.
And I don't know. I just remember those times and remind romanticize them in a way where it's just like, I was eating popcorn in asparagus because I was that broke. And I was like, this is all we got. But, you know, being able to go there to the library and really be focused and having something to do to move towards a goal. And it's a learning environment. And whenever I'm, you know, out of town, and I have to travel and I need to get some work done between interviews or whatever the case may be. I try to find a library, because it's something about it's just like, work is getting done here. I'm learning stuff.
I don't know what activates me in that way and to see them sort of under attack and just makes us like worse and it makes things not as not as cool and it's progressive.
Sheryl Oring: You know, when, when I was working with the curator, a free library for the show that I mentioned the secretary to the people show, she wanted to tell the story of how I started, I wish to say, which I hadn't really done in an exhibition. And one of the things she was asking me, and Susanna, or Ms. Goh, sort of amazing curator, she was saying, do you have any things that show that you were a journalist or, you know, your connection to libraries or anything? And I really don't know how this happened because my stories are sort of a mess, but I was visiting my parents over Christmas last year, and my mom had like six boxes of my stuff that I didn't remember ever leaving with her.
Like, you can imagine how long that's been for her house. And so, but I, you know, dug through these things and found all these press passes from when I was a journalist, which was really cool. But what was even more amazing was I found these library cards and the brilliant thing was they were typed. My name was typed with a typewriter on these cards.
And the funny thing was this was from like around 1975 through mid-70s to mid-80s. And there were, they always had the date, my name and the date. And there were, there were, I don't know, 15 cards. And there were multiple cards from like the same month. And I was like, Mom, what are they, like, did I keep losing my library card?
Why are there so many library cards? I'm sure that's what happened. But what I do remember very specifically is that as a child, I grew up in North Dakota and I don't think we have time to go into it now, but I did grow up with a family with mental illness. My brother had a severe mental illness and I always had a need to escape that sort of home life that was really infused with the crazy. And I found it in the library. I found peace in the library and I went there every single weekend, it seemed like, and just, you know, looked for books and kind of had this imaginary life, you know, this imaginary life that the library afforded me as a child who wanted to be in a different place than I was.
And the library provided that, that sort of possibility that, you know, it showed me that there was a world outside and that I could imagine, I could imagine it and I could imagine myself in it because of the books. And that's what libraries do and it makes it even more, all the more upsetting that books are being taken out of libraries because kids need them, you know, people need them. But kids especially really need those books that show them, you know, I'm okay, you know, I may be the only queer kid in my school, but that doesn't, you know, that there are other kids like me in another place. So, you know, that this, for me, it was like that this, this mental illness that sort of like, sir, kind of really influenced my day to day as a child, you know, that there was a world beyond that, like outside of that, but that really helped me. The libraries, yeah, they're amazing.
Rob Lee: Yeah, 100% agree. And having sort of this idea that I think it has to be something that has to be earned the actual physical activity of going there to the library, it's Richard Stix versus sort of where we're at now. Oh, you can just Google it. I don't want to do that. You know, I rather go there and actually explore and not just have a very specific refined Polish version of it because I know there's stuff taken out of it. I want to go there to the library.
I might look up a cookbook for Thai food and then wow, they brought that to let me check this out and it's something about that that just really works. So, I got, I got like one last real question, a couple rapid fire questions in this, this last one is sort of a summation really you've used the phrase activating democracy with art across your work. What does it mean right here in this moment?
Sheryl Oring: Well, I think that art can open conversations that politics can't and it invites connection in a way that sometimes politics invites people moving apart, you know, takes people apart as opposed to bringing them together. It also is a way to center voices that might otherwise be silenced in particular through the wake work that I'm doing. And it's also about resisting censorship and and and continuing to provide a means for people to speak their mind even in a in a space where there may be fear.
And so I think for me that's something that's been on my mind lately like how do I create a safe space so that it's it's not putting people at risk and things like that. So, but I think that I think that artists are often at the forefront of change and and so that's part of it too. And and the work that I'm doing, for instance, with the National Coalition Against Censorship and the work that I'm doing to raise awareness about the book bans and the danger of book bans. That's that's also tied into the idea of activating democracy. Wonderful.
Rob Lee: It's a great sort of tying up of everything. We did something there. I like that. I may then. So I got three rapid fire questions. Don't overthink these.
Sheryl Oring: Everyone, you know, what are you going to ask me?
Rob Lee: One is a little trollish. I just added, because I think it's kind of funny. So I'll start with that one. So type writers, right? What is your words per minute? How fast are you typing?
Sheryl Oring: Oh, I don't have a simple answer to that because it does, you know, and I haven't tested it lately. I'm sure it's like 90 or 100 or something like that, but it can vary based on am I on a slower typewriter or faster typewriter? But I'm a pretty good type. I learned on an IBM select trick.
Rob Lee: See, I'm barely cracking 65. So when you said 100, I was like, okay, monsty monsty. So 2024, going back to that a little bit, just, you know, obviously travel was a piece of that with their city that really surprised you like during the, you know, sort of the tour in 2024. Was there like anything that really stuck out? Like, wow, you know, there's a lot of construction, a lot of development here, a lot of changes or sort of the desired guys is very dissimilar or very disconnected, maybe from other cities.
Sheryl Oring: You know, it's hard to say one city, but what I will say is that what this project reminds me is that you never know what someone's going to say until they sit down and talk to you. And so, you know, the sort of assumption or presumption or stereotype, for instance, about New York is that, you know, it's a super liberal city and, you know, there's just like lots of Democrats and stuff. But I meet Republicans on the street of New York all the time and type their messages. And, you know, it's not as monolithic as one might think and not as much as Philly. Like Philly is pretty, you know, I guess it kind of depends a little bit which neighborhood. But, and also, you know, I did some typing, I'm going to ramble a little bit, but I did some typing in Ohio and in Florida.
And same thing, you sort of think, oh, Ohio and Florida, red state, you know, super conservative. But no, you know, you meet a variety of people. And I think that what this project reminds me every time I do it is that you really don't know what someone's going to say until you sit down and listen to them. And you can't make assumptions just on how someone looks or something like that or where they live. That's a good point. That's really a good point.
Rob Lee: This is the last one. I'm always curious about the inner workings. What's behind the curtain or under the hood, if you will. So what's the habit or a ritual that's like helped you grounded in the last year?
Sheryl Oring: Well, I talked earlier a little bit about gardening. Yeah. And that's a little bit of it. It's definitely kept me grounded in the sense that I am caring for something and I see it grow and you see the result of your labor. Sometimes art takes longer to see the results and the garden is very satisfying.
Good. Until the birds eat the seeds, I was very upset because I planted some flowers. And I think the crows came and ate all of my sunflower seeds. I don't think I'm growing any sunflowers this year.
Rob Lee: That's funny. My partner, she was trying to have a lemon tree in her backyard and she was so excited when this one little lemon presented itself. She was like, yes, she reeked. I was like, all right. And she was like, I can't wait to have some lemonade.
It's going to be really good. And I grew it myself. And then when it kind of, I think the plant got sick or something and then it just kind of died, she was like, damn it. It's all over.
Sheryl Oring: Oh, that's very sad. That's very, very sad. I did have a lemon tree once and fresh lemons are really, really amazing. But right now I'm concentrating on my herbs and they're doing really well. So it gives me some feeling of peace and happiness when I see my basil getting like really big and I can imagine the pesto that I'm going to make at the end of summer. Fantastic.
Rob Lee: So that's kind of it. We've covered a lot of ground and I really appreciate you coming back on and spending some time with me. And in these final moments there, two things I would love to do. One, thank you yet again for coming back on. It's been truly a pleasure. And two, I want to invite and encourage you to share any like final thoughts, any close out social media, any of those things that you want to share where can folks find you and any closing thoughts.
Sheryl Oring: Oh, well, first of all, thank you for having me on and it'd be amazing if people wanted to check out my Instagram. It's Sheryl Oring. I also do post some of the messages on I Wish to Say, so two separate feeds and then same on the web. I am SherylOring.org and I wish to say that org.
Rob Lee: And there you have it folks. I want to again thank Sheryl Oring for coming back onto the podcast and catching up with me. And for Sheryl, I am Rob Lee saying that there's art, culture and community in and around your neck of the woods. You just have to look for it. Thank you.
