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Truth In This Art
Only a couple months no longer. No new. I think I recognize her.
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Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth and as Art, your source for conversations connecting arts, culture and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to welcome my next guest on to the podcast. She is an award winning contemporary echo folk visual artist, poet and advocate for climate justice whose work spans from New Delhi, India to the Washington, DC region.
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Rob Lee
Drawing on her background in physics and deep roots in Indian heritage and folk traditions. Her creative practice weaves together art, poetry and global activism. Her work explores belonging, healing, and our connection to Mother Earth. Blending vibrant color with a powerful sense of purpose. She is recognized internationally for using creativity to spark imagination and drive change. So please welcome to the program.
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Rob Lee
Neha Misra, welcome to the podcast.
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Neha Misra
Thank you for having me.
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Rob Lee
Thank you so much. And it's it's truly a pleasure. Like, you know, I've been it's funny, like, I joke with people all the time when I'm having those interviews, those initial interviews and those initial conversations. I've been looking at videos, I've been looking up Ted talks, I've been listening to podcasts. So I feel like we already kind of friends before we got to this stage for the conversation.
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Rob Lee
But, as, as I open it up, I'd like to, extend to you an opportunity to introduce yourself in your own words and tell us a bit about your journey.
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Neha Misra
Thank you so much. And hello and namaste. My name is Nihar Misra. Nihar means love in Sanskrit, which is the language of my ancestors that I most associate with my Nani, my, maternal grandmother, who I imagine is now dancing with the stars and the universe. I'm a contemporary eco folk artist and poet and climate justice advocate, and my practice is really interdisciplinary and embodied, and I feel the purpose of my life, of which my art is a vivid expression, is still to embody the transformative power of art, to build bridges between our private, collective and planetary healing and justice.
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Neha Misra
I have been, for the last two years, and Hamiltonian artist fellow with Hamiltonian is, which is a wonderful creative incubator in the historic street neighborhood of DC. And I'm just immensely grateful for the community and just wonderful friendships I have formed through Hamiltonian, artists. And I live, on a beautiful border, which is very symbolic of my life.
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Neha Misra
I live in a solar powered, intentional community. My home is in Maryland. My sidewalk is in Washington, DC, which is quite appropriate because I feel I'm, as a first generation immigrant. I grew up in Delhi in India, and I, feel my life has moved border to border. So be it. So, so happy to be in conversation here today for the truth in this art of life.
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Rob Lee
Thank you. Thank you. That's is great. And it's definitely, different different parts of this that your story. And you gave us the the short version and we're going to go a bit further in depth in a couple of those, those areas. So I read in here about you have a background in physics. So you're in art now.
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Rob Lee
So how did those two areas connect? What's the story there of physics and art now? And I'll say this. Yeah. In high school I was it was a hardest class ever took. You know. So you're here so having a background in physics and then there's this whole sort of creative life, this advocacy life, this writing life that the poetry like, how do those two intersect?
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Neha Misra
I feel, this is the beauty of passage of time travels that, I feel in my life with the passage of time. The meta and metaphysics and physics are, converging, you know, because, at the most fundamental law of physics is the law of energy. That energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only be transferred from one form to another.
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Neha Misra
And what is art but the sharing of energy, you know, literal symbolic quantum. You know, universe. Multiverse. So I feel an almost magical and poetic way, and also literally as much as is metaphorical way, because the world is a fractal, you know, and no two snowflakes are alike, right? You know, and, and like those who study the structure of the universe, find that the, the most biggest structures in our universe, they are mirrored in the smallest structures of atoms.
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Neha Misra
How, you know, and, and I find this so fascinating because I love trees. Trees, show up a lot in my, art as well. And I have a deep reverence, for trees. And, you know, the the our our brain knows, the language used for them, that, also echoes the language of the trees.
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Neha Misra
And I read somewhere how, our fingerprints, resemble the tree rings, but really, that our fingerprint. Like, if you zoom, zoom, zoom, you know, and the dendrites in our brain, you know, so how, so much of contemporary world is a manifestation of separation?
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Rob Lee
Yeah.
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Neha Misra
And I feel if you study physics, if you are, inquisitive about so many wonders of our world, it's just most magical mysteries unfold. In art, most magical mysteries unfold. Do I field for me to be an artist, to be in a deep relationship with mystery? Yeah. And so is physics.
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Rob Lee
Makes sense. It makes sense that there's sort of alignment where it's. It's almost like when when we, we talk about, let's say, our making process. And the process is for us, we're the ones that are supposed to get it. How do we go about what we do and how we make it so when I share with folks that I'm a data analyst and they're like, I don't see how those things go together.
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Rob Lee
You just talk to people and do interviews. It's like it's all storytelling. I'm using the data to tell the story, and I'm using conversations to tell that story or as I like to put it, facilitate someone sharing their story and just providing a guide and sort of that interconnectedness that's there. Like as you were, you were describing the the poetry comes through in a way that you use your words at times, which is really great.
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Rob Lee
I immediately started thinking of as like, she's got to see the walnut thing with the brain. I was waiting for it, but it's sort of this thing where stuff that is in nature, symbolism that's in nature. We we see in just our day to day, as you use with the, the fingerprints.
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Neha Misra
Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm so fascinated by bioluminescence, you know, and so light, you know, light and and dark and pigments in nature and in art and the phenomena of bioluminescence, whether it is under the sea or whether it's in the fireflies. In this season, some of us may be spotting fireflies. So how, how how do natural beings generate light, right?
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Neha Misra
That we are light. How poetic, but also literal. You know, the the biophysics of being light and what conditions make one become light, whether it is under the ocean or in this ocean of life.
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Rob Lee
It I think and I think a lot of times, folks, when we have these conversations, we talk about energies, we talk about vibrations and things of that nature. Folks get really necessary about it. That's too woo woo. That's not real. Can you quantify it? I've been listening to how you've described a few things. It's like, well, so from a physics standpoint, this hard science sort of component, it's like this is where I can, you know, you can really get into the depths of it, the sort of research component of it, if needed.
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Rob Lee
But it's still this sort of sense of wonder and desire to discover. And then seeing those connections versus being shut off to the possibility of those connections.
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Neha Misra
Right? Yeah. I feel for me, my love of physics is, that's why I said the physics and the metaphysics with time, I feel I when I was much, much younger, maybe in my undergrad in India, maybe that is just one's own rite of passage. You know how one arrives where one arrives? I feel I might have also been a naysayer.
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Neha Misra
No, it's all a mechanist world, you know? But it's not like I feel, Not everything can be, can be converted to numbers. As much as I love numbers myself, I actually got 49 out of 15 mathematical physics, at the University of Delhi, which I love. I like to pull out that that sheet from my undergrad just to get a kick out of it, even though I don't remember most of it.
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Neha Misra
Like.
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Rob Lee
Oh, I'll add this before moving into this, this next question. The, the I like that you touched on metaphysics a couple of times that you said that a couple of times and, you know. Right. And having metaphysics or that interpretation of metaphysics as the framing of it.
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Neha Misra
Just.
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Rob Lee
Helped out so much. It opened my sort of mind set up. And I find that when my thinking is not as open, I'm more inclined to be like, oh man, I should be afraid of something. Versus this openness to the wonder and the desire to discover and be curious, I guess.
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Neha Misra
Yeah. And that's really beautiful. And, you know, I remember I think it was Einstein who said that madness is to do the same thing over and over again to and to expect a different result. Yeah. You know, Einstein also played, violin. Yeah. So how the right and the left brain can come together and and be in wholeness.
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Neha Misra
I feel that's what our world needs more of. And actually that kind of balance of right and left brain is really integral to my creative practice as well. So that's such a beautiful question. Thank you. Thank you.
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Rob Lee
And it's it's almost a I might have I might have done a podcast here or there, but it's almost a segue into this next question. So I really appreciate it. Your Ted talk, reclaiming creativity as a portal to wellness. Again, poetry here. This isn't poetry. And is this these titles. And you spoke of turning to art, doing like a really like, tough, like time of personal loss following a tough time of personal loss.
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Rob Lee
And you mentioned creativity saved your life. And, you know, podcasting. I've gone from being a 24 year old goofball kind of kid to a 40 year old adult. So I've seen a lot and I've matured a lot, hopefully during these, these years. And, creativity is help me following these periods of big emotions. I know that even during, you know, Covid, a lot of folks, you know, this podcast kind of blew up during that time, just folks just reaching out.
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Rob Lee
Hey, I want to talk. I want to connect and creative expression kind of help people through these periods of anxiety and loss. So how did creating some of those earlier paintings and earlier creative expressions sort of help you process your emotions? And, you know, and I'll just leave it there, as I said a lot, but talk about some of the the mind frame going into some of that early work and processing, you know, really big and heavy emotions.
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Neha Misra
Yeah. I feel, again, your questions, go to what is, at such a core of my practice? So it's, one bridge to another. I feel my why, I, I just, I feel like I reclaim my creativity. I am artist in the world, and why I choose to not only do it in my solitude.
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Neha Misra
I have a beautiful relationship with solitude. But why I choose to be in and of this world and share it. Because I think it's a profound gift, to reclaim. Because I feel we are all, innately creative. Our creativity is stripped by systems of extraction and obsession. Extraction and oppression, you know, that. Take us away from our creative essence for me, because I studied physics and,
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Neha Misra
And then I studied economics, so I wasn't very cerebral, you know, career wise and education wise, pathways in life. And I feel like it so happens it did happen to me. I know it happens to a lot of, I grew up in India. You know, I feel my family is very creative. And, there are doctors and engineers, the.
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Neha Misra
So very, also very cerebral, but they are professions that most of them have chosen are very that kind of left brain cerebral, you know, even those are whole of our brain isn't who all in us being alive and moving through the world. So I feel more and more, you know, in my adulthood, even though I grew up surrounded by art, I grew up surrounded by, there being no separation of life and art because our culture, you know, like first thing in my parents house in Delhi, music comes up, you know, when my dad is stuck in a traffic jam, he would recite a poem, you know, in Hindi or the Urdu.
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Neha Misra
My mom would come back from hospital. She's a doctor and hold afternoon. She would listen to Urdu poetry. So I grew up in that environment and, but I it I feel I had gone away from very vivid expressions of creativity. And then when I first moved to America, and in my early years, I had gone through a series of losses which were incredibly hard and, I feel how to express something which is so beyond words, you know, so I like to I would say it would be, it would not.
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Neha Misra
It would be arrogant to say that I became creative. I feel my creative creativity return to me. I started painting, again, you know, because I had I used to paint and I had just gone away from it. You know, in my adulthood. And, I had always been like, I come from a culture of poetry. So I started writing first for just for myself and then I started going to open mics in DC and, and also seeing, as somebody who does like, like, I don't see being I come from a, like, very iron culture in that sense that you don't show your vulnerability, you know.
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Neha Misra
Yes. Be strong. So like to, to also see art. Wow. Like how is somebody sharing something that is so raw and vulnerable and also so beautiful, you know, so I feel like through making art, whether it's paintings or writing poems. And then when I felt so called, choosing to share them, and even my, I feel my, my climate justice, work, they were all expressions of the same creative thread that we face adversity in life.
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Neha Misra
We are actually all tied by loss because loss is not an aberration, that we are our bubble gum. Positivity culture tells us loss is part of the holiness of life. So when we encounter loss in, in really, very profound ways or daily small losses of the world, how are we going to look, the losses in the eye, how are going how are we going to carry it in our body, mind and soul?
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Neha Misra
And what are we going to do? Are we going to succumb or are we going to take, the vinegar and make pickles? Really delicious pickles. Yes. So I feel bad. Is art. Take the vinegar, take the losses and make delicious, delicious pickles like my not needed, you know, like my, like, mother's, my mother does. And so many women in my family have done, yeah.
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Rob Lee
The. It's interesting you you've moved it into to pickles where I remember I think it was an interview I saw on YouTube and you were being interviewed, and I think you just finished, like, some mangoes or stuff or something. Yeah. Just like you always eat these.
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Neha Misra
I love mango pickles. I love pickles, you know, actually, first when I moved to America, I thought, why is everything so bland? Haha. You know, and I then I discovered dill pickles. I was obsessed with dill pickles because they made my like tongue feel like you are still alive. So, like, I love flavor and like I love vividness, whether it is in taste or whether it's in color, which is like my art is very unabashedly wavy and multi-sensory.
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Neha Misra
So that's why you're so.
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Rob Lee
It makes it makes so much sense, like, you know, like, I think when and also I'll say thank you for for that that piece there because I think of the wholeness part, right where, you know, having those losses and we I think here the weight of this culture is set up at times where. So we have this sort of shared experience and we feel like we're on islands, we feel like we're isolated a lot of times, like, let's say something as common as everyone is going to die right at the end of the day, not to be dark or morbid or whatever, but it's sort of the reality now.
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Rob Lee
We all know this. We don't know when, we don't know the circumstances, but we all know that this is going to be the sort of end. And I think we don't talk about it. We don't have any community around it. And then when it comes there, it's sort of like a shock. But we all know it's happening. So it's like we're kind of lying to ourselves for a very long time.
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Neha Misra
And.
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Rob Lee
It's sort of like sitting there and, and it's it's somewhat related to what I'm going to talk about a little bit. I'm going to move this ahead a bit, but the sort of notion of community I've been really thinking about that more and more like we have the shared saying that we're all isolated. There's been research and data around it going again to, oh, that's just an assessment.
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Rob Lee
That's not real. It's like there's data now out there about folks are isolated and it's not good for you were social creatures and we have this shared thing. We're not having conversations. We're not being around people. We're not enjoying vivid art, vivid meals of those dill pickles. We're not enjoying those things together and in community. But then I think we find these small pockets, you know, where it's like, as I was saying earlier, you're one of several artists that I've interviewed from the WPA, you know, in DC, and it's just something about that.
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Rob Lee
So could you just just say your insight and your thoughts on the importance of sort of community and connection is sort of this shared thing? I know we've moved it up a little bit, but I at least want to talk about it.
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Neha Misra
You know, I think community is essential and to imagine and reimagine community. In what shape or form? We want to reconnect and connect and reimagine it is really important. The former surgeon General, wrote this book called together, which is about the pandemic of loneliness. You know, to be alone in a data saturated world, in a media saturated world, what does it mean to have authentic connection and how like it can be so daunting, right?
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Neha Misra
Where and how so? Like, to me, my creative practice, and literally every expression of my life has been an excuse to make friends and more and more, I feel, to make intergenerational friends because we also at the North, social structures, do not typically in the contemporary life offer us unless like our families cultivate them or our neighborhoods cultivate them.
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Neha Misra
So many of us only, or at least that was my experience, tends like to only like have peer to peer connections, which is of course very invaluable. But to also have like across generations, how do we deepen, relationships and mentorship and meals and dill pickles? And so I, you know, and, so what is I feel art has a big role to foster multiculturalism, to make us, like for me to reject false binaries of East versus west, past versus future, local versus global physics versus metaphysics.
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Neha Misra
It is actually. Yes.
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Rob Lee
And yeah.
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Neha Misra
Either or you know and I myself I will I'm a local person because I grew up in India. I spent many years actually living and working in Africa, where I worked on grassroots feminist climate organizing, work with communities. And, here Turtle Island is my very beloved adopted home. So how in these times and all times and these times, how can art, foster and help us see each other better, see ourselves deeply, do not even disconnect with wholeness of ourselves.
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Neha Misra
And I feel to have community like, you know, we connected through that Washington project for the arts. So, sure. And, I received the wherewithal grant in 2023 with my very dear friend, Fit Thompson. Our project, is called Nature of Us, and it is to transcend, separation with the natural world in urban environments.
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Neha Misra
So how to celebrate urban nature, love stories in cities because we we don't have to save nature as another. We are nature. That is not the planet that I know of. We are going to so so, so community in both the you know the from the smallest circle where we are right now who is in my circle sure to like to me transcontinental circle because my family, friends, kids, are around the world and not just human.
00;26;24;05 - 00;26;52;21
Neha Misra
I feel I'm a migratory bird. Birds that are being impacted by climate change. You know, not the flies that are being impacted by climate change. So I feel just to both contemplate, reimagine the shape and form of our communities and to honor what is and what has been lost to rekindle that. Yeah. To create what has never been.
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Neha Misra
You know.
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Rob Lee
It. Yeah. You know, reclaiming and, you know, recentering it and sort of we we have and I go back as I is, I think about sort of that again the shared experience that we all were engaged in, you know, looking at, let's say, Covid is sort of one of those inflection points, as I remember so many. I just started this for about ten years.
00;27;16;24 - 00;27;37;28
Rob Lee
I'd been doing a different podcast. Where was me? In a very small circle of people, just a kind of the same guys talking about movies and comics and just silly stuff. But it was an opportunity to be around my friends, right? And when this started to develop and everyone was kind of inside, I just remember I was a random guy from Spain.
00;27;38;00 - 00;27;55;25
Rob Lee
They just went live and pinged me on Instagram and he was like, you think this guy looks like you hope everything is going well where you're at? And it was just random, random, random. But, I was like, oh, people want this. People just want to hear another person, see another person to feel connected. This guy is in Spain.
00;27;55;25 - 00;28;23;22
Rob Lee
I don't know him at all. But being able to connect, and it was a very interesting time because I just really started doing this podcast in earnest and doing many, many more episodes around this time and thinking like, oh, I don't need to keep it to purely my community or purely people that I know. And then I started kind of looking outward, like, what's happening in this country, what's happening in this community, and being open and letting sort of curiosity drive things.
00;28;23;22 - 00;29;01;14
Rob Lee
And then one of the other things you said earlier, which I thought was really cool, was just sort of to paraphrase, just like almost everything you do, your life is sort of committed to and around making friends. I really dig that. I really like that. It's something that I hear in, you know, the Austin Kleon books that I like think like an artist and still like art as he talks about two of those, those points, one of you said earlier around returning to Art and he's he talks about, like sort of the creative equivalent to, phantom limb pain when you used to do a thing and then you'd leave it and it's
00;29;01;14 - 00;29;26;10
Rob Lee
like you still want to miss it. It's still there. You just got to reclaim it. And you know that a lot of stuff. I think he's quoting an artist, but a lot of the stuff that he was doing, this artist he's referencing, is to connect with people, is to make friends. And, and I see that in doing this as, like, you know, there's some people that you really connect with in conversation, you're like, wow, we're or might be friends.
00;29;26;16 - 00;29;35;18
Rob Lee
And then people that you connect with maybe on a different level, but you still wish them well and you hope they do really well. You feel that they're part of the community.
00;29;35;20 - 00;29;39;28
Neha Misra
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00;29;40;00 - 00;29;41;01
Rob Lee
A lot of Robert.
00;29;41;08 - 00;29;48;10
Neha Misra
Yeah, I second that. Oh I love that. Yeah I resonate with that.
00;29;48;13 - 00;30;13;12
Rob Lee
So again going back to you know sort of the, the reclaiming your art, could you describe that what that period felt like, like there we, we were touching a little bit earlier on the, the energy component. Like, I feel like there's a, a brightness and a heat that comes off of folks when they're really engaged and, you know, realizing their creativity and like just in it, like locked in.
00;30;13;14 - 00;30;15;27
Rob Lee
Could you describe what that period felt like for you?
00;30;16;00 - 00;31;01;13
Neha Misra
Well, I feel it felt like my, my own Renaissance. Because, you know, coming from my background in physics and economics, which is very like not only geeky, it is unconventional because it's, you know, and that's my life has been, nontraditional relationship and reclaiming of tradition because I studied physics, then I studied economics. I worked as an energy economist for several years, working on solar power and making sure that solar power is equitably accessible to people who don't have access to it.
00;31;01;16 - 00;31;21;08
Neha Misra
And during my time of loss and my richness, my creative renaissance, which, you are meeting me while I'm in it, you know, because it's a once it has been switched on, it's on. You know, I feel like.
00;31;21;10 - 00;31;47;14
Neha Misra
It felt the, like the power of it, you know, the shut the the shack, the is the, the Hindi, Sanskrit word for power, particularly from the feminine power. So to reconnect with creativity, to take back your own power, to not succumb to loss, while also not to not see it, to witness it, to look it in the eye.
00;31;47;17 - 00;32;12;11
Neha Misra
Loss is hard, you know. And actually, I'm you were talking about, you know, we of course we don't. We don't want to make it morbid, but I'm actually a very morbid person. A lot of people don't believe it. But the reason I'm ecstatically alive is because I also honor the grief. And there is so much grief and loss and and planetary loss.
00;32;12;11 - 00;32;36;24
Neha Misra
We are living in a global climate emergency. Signs of age, even right now, you know, from, like 2024 was the hottest year in the entire recorded history of our planet. We are seeing these extreme floods. We are seeing extreme, you and my family. Like some days here, temperature has been higher than for my family in India.
00;32;36;25 - 00;32;47;10
Neha Misra
It hasn't. And so, like, for me to reclaim creativity, there was and continues to be an agency.
00;32;47;12 - 00;32;48;10
Rob Lee
Yeah.
00;32;48;12 - 00;33;07;22
Neha Misra
You know, that I would honor my grief and the larger collective grief. And also, I will dream the dream that is my dream and the dream that is the collective dream and not succumb.
00;33;07;25 - 00;33;33;12
Rob Lee
Yeah. I mean, there is a there's a thing there like a and it makes sense where you start thinking about sort of again, the, the shared thing. We all seen it, right. We, you know, the, the grief piece is interesting in the sort of morbid piece is interesting that the again, going back to the sort of shared nature of it, you know, we all are sweating, we all are seeing these floods.
00;33;33;12 - 00;34;08;09
Rob Lee
And it's just like, we shouldn't really worry about that. It's like clean up after yourself, you know, do do I don't know, like improve what's around you. Be a part of it. I don't know, be be a part of like improving what's around you. And I think there's sort of this, this weird case study that again, going back to, the 2019, 2020, like 2020 rather, I remember when everyone was at home, not too many cars on the road, not polluting the air, and all of this, I'm like, oh, wow, we got deer, beavers just walking in my urban neighborhood.
00;34;08;11 - 00;34;26;07
Rob Lee
Everything is growing really quickly, and it's almost like in some ways, Mother Nature is sort of reclaiming what it's what's supposed to be there. Like the growing is there, air quality was better and so on. And then as soon as this sort of back to work, we got to get back to the capitalism. It's like, oh, all of it's gone.
00;34;26;14 - 00;34;31;21
Rob Lee
I was like, oh, that, that's that deer I was friends with is gone now. My, my community deer is gone. They're not here.
00;34;31;21 - 00;34;33;17
Neha Misra
Oh,
00;34;33;19 - 00;34;47;14
Rob Lee
And, you know, it's, it's something about it, but we see it and we kind of not I think most people aren't ignoring it, but sort of the sentiment is we got to get back to business, and that's a problem.
00;34;47;16 - 00;35;13;08
Neha Misra
Yeah, absolutely. I wrote this poem during the pandemic, which, I, also performed with the wonderful, writers collective. So there's a line in that, poem, it says a pandemic would be a terrible thing to waste, you know, and then it says later, like, yeah, that some of people are saying, let's go back to normal.
00;35;13;08 - 00;35;17;00
Neha Misra
But that normal was what brought us there. So.
00;35;17;02 - 00;35;17;28
Rob Lee
00;35;18;00 - 00;35;52;12
Neha Misra
What are we going to do? You know, and, and I feel it's to not, you know, these are, of course, that personal responsibility. Stewardship that's needed and also to acknowledge we, we live in systems, that, that operate on us and in and around us that want us to not be numb. They just want us to produce and produce and consume and consume and not pause and reconnect.
00;35;52;13 - 00;36;02;15
Neha Misra
Entity clearly kindle with wholesomeness because who to be wholesome does not serve the machinery.
00;36;02;17 - 00;36;25;13
Rob Lee
The the machinery piece is very apt. They're like, you know, like I like sci. Right. And I keep going back to as I get older. I'm 40 now, so it's like I've seen some things and, as I, as I think about it, I go back to the matrix. I keep thinking of that and this notion of like, oh, we're just batteries until we realize otherwise.
00;36;25;15 - 00;36;51;01
Rob Lee
And it just keeps popping up, especially recently, but it just keeps popping up. And I find more often than not that I'm questioning, like, why are we doing things this way and just accepting the way that these things are sort of designed for us. And I find because a lot of times I make a choice, I'm aware of it and I'm like, know, do something different that I'm not sitting in.
00;36;51;04 - 00;37;18;25
Neha Misra
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, in my, if I may speak about my show at Hamiltonian. Absolutely. Please. What you are saying, because and it's, it's going on right now and it will be, up till August 16th at the Hamiltonian Artist Gallery. The show is called Climate Mandalas in a Burning World portal. Self-Transformation.
00;37;18;27 - 00;37;49;03
Neha Misra
And it'll it looks at it has five elementary mandalas and mandala itself the word mandala is from Sanskrit and it means a circle and a circle we have been talking about. It is an invitation to be whole and in a world which is burning, in a world which is hurting, what does it mean to be heat, to heal, and to be whole with planet eight, with Mother Earth?
00;37;49;05 - 00;38;24;21
Neha Misra
Right. So the show has ten monumental works, on my family series. So there are my lineal from my mother's, my sisters, my and my own series. They're monumental pieces, and some of them are vintage saris. On silk. Some of them are, newer. So. So again, I feel like the symbolism of how can all the new threads come together in the world, which is burning?
00;38;24;23 - 00;39;05;14
Neha Misra
What circles should we imagine and remember those that we have forgotten? And the show also has, I worked with and there are five climate solution organizations that I'm in a meaningful relationship with locally, regionally and internationally. So I made a mandala to honor and celebrate their work. And also so we can see in our community, no matter how big or small, we draw the circle, those who are, who are those amongst us who are persisting, you know, in the face of all these fires.
00;39;05;14 - 00;39;39;19
Neha Misra
So what you were saying about sci fi reminded me. One of the mandalas honors the work of North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, with whom, last year I did a taproot artist residency, and actually, they're going to soon start this year's cohort there. They're working model, that they themselves developed through, through their collective practice, is resist reform, reimagine, recreate.
00;39;39;22 - 00;40;10;02
Neha Misra
So their mandala at the very center has their logo, which are these hands of different colors, the fists that form the bark of the trees. And the fist becomes the trees of many hands in different colors. White, brown, black coming together. And then that is on by a circle that is reminding us that, just sustainable future needs us to resist.
00;40;10;02 - 00;40;53;06
Neha Misra
It needs us to reform. It needs us to reimagine and to recreate. And then it is surrounded by many circles of kinship. What does it mean for humans of different kinds to be in kinship with each other, be in kinship with the birds, butterflies, turtles, fishes? They said the the show itself has in addition to and North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, and a beautiful garden, Temperance Alley, garden, which is behind the U Street Metro in DC, which is the place used to be post-Civil War.
00;40;53;06 - 00;41;24;13
Neha Misra
It used to be a tenement and the land has already already been sold to a luxury condo developer, as DC needs more of, you know, what the community is. It's just so beautiful. Temperance alley garden. And then, there's a mandala for Green Diamond, which works on climate change through interfaith, engaged engagement because all faiths I like.
00;41;24;13 - 00;41;51;01
Neha Misra
It is true of my faith, but truly I feel all faiths talk about kinship with Mother Earth. Yeah. And then, there are two more like, our Climate solutions mandalas for, the Nature Conservancy has the initiative called Women and Allies in Climate. And there's an organization for, which I have been a global ambassador for several years now.
00;41;51;01 - 00;42;20;03
Neha Misra
Remote energy that works with a variety of people and communities. Indigenous communities work with a woman, solar installers in America. And in different parts of Africa. So all these solutions. So how can art, you know, art can be it has many manifests as art can be our solitary contemplation on meaning of life and Big Bang. And it's that's worthwhile.
00;42;20;05 - 00;42;53;17
Neha Misra
And art can be in deep solidarity with Mother Earth and those who are very, in face of bread, lords and fires and mountains persisting. So I just have had such a joy creating this body of work. Because and it has been a medicine for me, it is again, related to the question you started with. Right? Because in the face of loss, how can Khaled help us heal?
00;42;53;19 - 00;43;24;17
Neha Misra
Yeah. And this time it feels like so many levels of losses, you know. And so even in the making of these works and this show, instead of succumbing, has been such a source of catharsis for me. And to do so in community, I feel it's such a deep honor and a privilege, you know? So yeah, I wanted to share that with you and, and the listeners, you know, like that.
00;43;24;22 - 00;43;45;28
Neha Misra
What what is what shape can our circles take and what can socially, environmentally engage our, how how to not feel daunted because some of these problems feel too big, right? But no matter where we are, we can draw a circle.
00;43;46;00 - 00;44;06;03
Rob Lee
Yes. And it speaks to that. Just saying that speaks to the the connectedness that's, that's there. And the importance of art and creativity, that's that's there for humanity. I think often it's just like art's not for me as I know it was as far all of us. And it's for dialog, it's for communication, it's for all of these different things.
00;44;06;03 - 00;44;15;20
Rob Lee
It's as you referenced it earlier, you do a little improv thing in there. Yes, there. And I noticed that I worked at an improv place for a long time.
00;44;15;20 - 00;44;19;09
Neha Misra
So what I do tell me, what is it?
00;44;19;11 - 00;44;39;26
Rob Lee
It's a Baltimore improv group. And, and sort of. Yes. And it's this notion of there's no bad ideas, you know, just keep keep going, keep going. Let's not hit a roadblock and, and I find that often when I talk to folks and these. Oh, well, it's only this arts only that goes on to be a it could be every and all things.
00;44;39;28 - 00;44;49;29
Rob Lee
And this notion of the connectivity that's there and it's a big part of the the seasoning, the flavor, the dill flavored seasoning that makes it.
00;44;50;02 - 00;44;53;29
Neha Misra
And mango pickle, which is the mango pickle.
00;44;54;01 - 00;45;18;18
Rob Lee
It makes things, makes things worthwhile. And it's I and I find that it's no, it's not one shape in any community, in any culture. It's so different. So that kind of again, speaks to what it could be, whether it's folks coming together with, hey, we we should be looking at this temperature. We should be improving the world around us.
00;45;18;21 - 00;45;38;28
Rob Lee
Let's present that through art as the tool to hit a large audience, to spark a conversation and spark a community. And we really need to do something about this or just appreciate the art, you know, but also get the message that they are and be in conversation with people who can perhaps open your eyes and open your minds to what's around us.
00;45;38;28 - 00;45;39;28
Rob Lee
That's all.
00;45;40;01 - 00;45;51;05
Neha Misra
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And many ways to enter the circle, right? Yeah. And there are many circles.
00;45;51;07 - 00;46;00;19
Rob Lee
Absolutely. So I got two more real questions. Some of my other ones I think we already got in here, which is nice. Really great.
00;46;00;21 - 00;46;03;28
Neha Misra
Podcast. We are all talking about imaginary questions.
00;46;04;00 - 00;46;24;21
Rob Lee
So but but I'm very curious. It was one I want to talk about. It was a poem that you wrote, reclaim. And this is where I was like, she's a words. I like this. Especially your use of language. Like the Republic of Imagination and the, the stubborn hope is the in a stubborn hope is the queen.
00;46;24;21 - 00;46;44;22
Rob Lee
It's vivid and inspires the the mind's eye to see, like, a physical place. And for me, a physical place of ideation. Could you talk to us a bit about poetry and sort of those central messages and themes there? For me, it feels like there's a hopefulness there, but at least want you to kind of talk a little bit about your poetry.
00;46;44;22 - 00;46;48;03
Rob Lee
And there's a follow up question to it, but I at least want to start there.
00;46;48;06 - 00;47;20;20
Neha Misra
Yeah. And Rob mentioned it's a tiny poem. May I share it with the listener? Actually, it's almost like my my mantra or my email signatures. Have the poem also like, not just to share, but also to remind myself. So the poem is called, reclaim. Yes, reclaim from the barren fields of heavy hate and hollow ignorance.
00;47;20;22 - 00;48;02;26
Neha Misra
From the barren fields of heavy hate and hollow ignorance. I reclaim the republic of imagination. Where stubborn hope is the Queen, an action her flying minister. So to reclaim is one. Do see that. And I feel it speaks. You know the poem I wrote a few years ago, but it could have been written today because we are surrounded by so many barren fields of heavy hate and such hollow ignorance.
00;48;02;26 - 00;48;39;27
Neha Misra
Right. So what is again? That theme of not succumbing, to reclaim the Republic of imagination? Do not not to give up hope and also hope as something, it is very form, you know, it is a like people who say it's a soft skill. It's a very fierce, soft skill, you know, and a quality to cultivate in action.
00;48;40;00 - 00;49;36;28
Neha Misra
So what does it mean through an artful life and the truth in this art being that one reclaims the Republic of imagination by inhabiting and embodying stubborn hope? You know, stubborn hope is the Queen. And hope not a hope tied to action. How can our contemplation and action come together? Because I for me, you know, my art is rooted in eco folk art traditions, which, come from spiritual ecology traditions, of my culture and also comes from folk art traditions, what God traditions are of the people, by the people, for the people.
00;49;37;01 - 00;50;09;12
Neha Misra
So what does it mean for contemplation and action to unite in art? And as we are dealing with spirals of heavy hate and hollow ignorance, how I persist is a word I use a lot. Endurance is a word I use a lot. It's actually a ring I wear, I got from a local art fair by a wonderful West African elder.
00;50;09;15 - 00;50;35;01
Neha Misra
It's an Adinkra symbol of endurance. How can our tempers endure as it does? As it must, you know. So I feel the Republic of imagination is the one that India is. And shall. Because kings have been here before, you know.
00;50;35;03 - 00;51;04;06
Rob Lee
Yes. Put some, I think like hope will will get you far. And having the action as the as they are with it. It's just like I know for me and so do the conversations or whenever things just feel like super daunting and sort of like trying to persevere and like degree of stoicism. But really in that stoicism, there is there's hope for better, there's action that's attached to it.
00;51;04;06 - 00;51;07;10
Rob Lee
There's I can get through this.
00;51;07;13 - 00;51;08;15
Neha Misra
And.
00;51;08;17 - 00;51;28;01
Rob Lee
How am I going to get through? And I'm putting together a plan. I'm a good planner, you know, not a plan. I'm not a planner reservation, you know, but whatever the thing might be, I'm working to get through it. And I find and kind of as you were, you were touching on as a reminder and going through the the poem just doing this during these conversations.
00;51;28;01 - 00;51;44;18
Rob Lee
It's selfishly, I guess, being able to have conversations with people and getting some insight and getting some of that, maybe that magic from them, it's like, how do you how do you get through? How do you cope? How do you? Because I'm trying to remember that myself and maybe glean a bit off of them.
00;51;44;20 - 00;52;13;16
Neha Misra
Yeah. And I also love to circle backdrop to you know, what about the poetry itself? So for me, it takes you know, everything this is me. Everything is, is, is imbued with poetics. Whether I'm writing a poem or not. And I don't make art. I am art, you know. And how I live is a work of art.
00;52;13;16 - 00;52;45;06
Neha Misra
The choices I make are a work of art. And in the container, or for sure, like the. Sure, climate mandalas in the burning world, portals of transformation. The portal of transformation. That's a poem, actually, as you enter the gallery. It's a poem I wrote. It was commissioned by, Somatic Dance Company Mad Dance, and it was supported, in 2022, I wrote it and was funded by creativity Grant from Maryland State Art Council.
00;52;45;09 - 00;53;19;01
Neha Misra
So the whole show emerges from the portal and and the idea that a portal is an edge, you know, it's between life and death, past and future, you know, and then beginning. So when we are in that liminal space which which can also feel so disorienting, right? How and I also read a crises in a disease. A crisis is a turning point.
00;53;19;03 - 00;53;21;12
Neha Misra
So a crisis can be a portal.
00;53;21;15 - 00;53;22;07
Rob Lee
Yeah.
00;53;22;09 - 00;53;48;06
Neha Misra
And the way that poem ends is explore. It goes through portals, through the five elements of I Read the Earth, water, air, fire, spirit and reimagines the world through each of the elements and regenerative climate solutions and our own very real lives, very tangible lives, you know, and and then in the end, it comes through that long journey.
00;53;48;09 - 00;54;30;12
Neha Misra
It says that the portal, this is our open secret, that the portal is us. So what does it mean to, in face of great odds, which are very real, to not give up our agency and what is essential, vital, life giving, life affirming source art is a reclamation of art, you know, and a reclamation to take the brush, whether the canvas be blank or whether the canvas be messy, whether be canvas, be a an old story with with torn threads.
00;54;30;15 - 00;54;47;15
Neha Misra
What does repair mean? You know, and what does it mean to resist, reform, recreate, reimagine with art as North Carolina climate justice, elders and community remind us.
00;54;47;17 - 00;54;58;13
Truth In This Art
No, no no no no no no no no no no no.
00;54;58;15 - 00;55;17;14
Rob Lee
I think that's a good spot for us to kind of close on the real part. And I got three rapid fire questions for you. It's going to be fun. So here's here's the the first one I can't help but notice you're wearing some great colors and your work has a lot of color in it. So I got to ask.
00;55;17;17 - 00;55;21;01
Rob Lee
It's probably gonna be tough. What is your favorite color?
00;55;21;04 - 00;55;23;25
Neha Misra
My favorite color is blue.
00;55;23;27 - 00;55;34;21
Rob Lee
Another person that likes blue, I mean, when I, when I interviewed, Carter, when she's like, I really like blue. And I was like, oh, you blue people with your blues and the blue. I used to like blue a lot.
00;55;34;24 - 00;55;46;09
Neha Misra
I love blue, and also I transcend the blues with the blues. So for a lot of blues and we lived on a shared blue planet.
00;55;46;12 - 00;55;48;20
Rob Lee
This is true, this is true, this is true.
00;55;48;23 - 00;56;02;09
Neha Misra
I floated in blue and transcend the daily blues of existential crisis with my blues. And we are water. You know we are. Bodies are made of water. Just like Mother Earth is blue.
00;56;02;11 - 00;56;11;03
Rob Lee
And I, I know I kind of took a shot at it, but my shirt is actually blue. What am I talking about? What am I doing to like.
00;56;11;05 - 00;56;12;02
Neha Misra
00;56;14;03 - 00;56;32;15
Rob Lee
What? Here's the next one. I, I'm always curious about sort of the habits that that artists have and folks who are as you, you touched on, I had some popcorn before I start. I need to get that energy up. What is that? Gas? What are you usually snacking on? I feel like you. You might be a snack person.
00;56;32;17 - 00;56;37;04
Rob Lee
You talked about pickles a little bit. We talked about mango. What we snacking on?
00;56;37;07 - 00;57;09;05
Neha Misra
Well, my ritual, which is, I feel it's in the holy territory, is I make, Indian chai, not chai tea, because chai means tea. So Indian chai or masala chai, and I make it with, spices used by, also by my mother in, in South India. And I put ginger in it and I make fresh, chai.
00;57;09;07 - 00;57;45;28
Neha Misra
And I have it with this rusk. They're they're like biscotti. You dip and then you have to very fast. You have to put it in your mouth. You have that part. Yeah, because they're crispy. And then you dip them in really hot tea, and then you put them to be very fast. But that ritual and my, the tea boiling and the home filling with the fragrance of the ginger, and the tea fragrances, and me having rusk and I use a lot of incense.
00;57;45;28 - 00;58;13;28
Neha Misra
I'm, in my home is. I probably like it on wallops. Me right now, is filled with incense. Just, I feel more and more like reimagining rituals of my family and lineage in my life. In this country. And so I feel, because, you know, sense of smell, I read is one of our only senses.
00;58;13;28 - 00;58;35;29
Neha Misra
It doesn't go to a third, like another processing center. We experience it directly. That's why smell is so powerful. So I time travel every day to India with my incense and with my chai, you know? It's already possible. Time travel. We can have tea together. Yeah, that's a really good point.
00;58;35;29 - 00;58;57;21
Rob Lee
I, I that's actually a question. I, I do have a question I'm using in an interview later in the week around smell. And because I'm very curious around it like every now and again my, my, my, my grandmother passed years ago, but she used to have a, fragrance always in her home. And when someone walks by and I smell that fragrance and it's not, it's it's pretty rare.
00;58;57;24 - 00;58;59;07
Neha Misra
It was just like.
00;58;59;10 - 00;59;21;00
Rob Lee
Grandma, you know, I start doing that. It's like, is that that sort of sense? And, you know, again, and having these conversations from folks, I pick up small things. I have a few incense in here. I have candles in the studio. And when it's one of those instances that I feel like and again, it might feel one of like one of these woowoo things.
00;59;21;00 - 00;59;40;16
Rob Lee
And I don't believe in it, you know, the woowoo aspect of it, I think there's value in it. I light a candle, I'll light something just to kind of cleanse the room and just have like the positive energy, like give me creativity, help me feel sort of sated and I believe in it. Whereas if you talked to me back in 2020, I wasn't really sure.
00;59;40;22 - 00;59;46;28
Rob Lee
I wasn't against it, but I wasn't really sure I was open, but now I'm more so like, no, this is absolutely what I'm doing.
00;59;47;00 - 01;00;12;07
Neha Misra
You know? I and also I love that. And also Rob, like I say, motive also because somebody beautiful because some oh is because of a lack of understanding. I have a poem called spellcheck which says that you can spellcheck me all you want. You can paint the body of the work and the work of my body read all over with your colors.
01;00;12;07 - 01;00;27;17
Neha Misra
But that doesn't make me wrong. It means that my, the tongues of my mothers and grandmothers are not in your vocabulary. And it is time. For you to spell check yourself.
01;00;27;19 - 01;00;33;12
Rob Lee
I read that. Well, I like that one, too. I was just like. I was like, this little spice there. I like this.
01;00;33;14 - 01;00;50;01
Neha Misra
So, Yeah, I feel so many multi-sensory ways of being and connecting right with those who are here and those who are there. So let me just say that.
01;00;50;03 - 01;01;00;02
Rob Lee
Here's the last one that I have for you. So I gotta make it a good one. So what is the last book you read?
01;01;00;04 - 01;01;34;20
Neha Misra
The last book I read. I'm a serial reader. I read obsessively into. Well, I, reread this this, book by British author is by it. It's called possession. And I recorded actually I got the audiobook because it was only like I only recently found it was the, it had an audio version, many years ago. That's another story for another podcast.
01;01;34;20 - 01;02;01;23
Neha Misra
I lived and worked in Uganda. I found this beautiful like physical copy of this book. The Purple Color purple is my other favorite color that I'm wearing right now. The whole book was purple and the each page, you know, the rims when you see a book from a corner? Yeah, it's purple. So my, my friend said, you know, I don't this is too much for me.
01;02;01;26 - 01;02;20;28
Neha Misra
Do you want it? And I just looked at I said, this is a purple stunning book. I want it, I need it, I will read it. This is my book. And so I've been reading Lord of all. Maybe there was when I was much younger, there was a time I used to think, I will never read anything twice.
01;02;20;28 - 01;02;49;22
Neha Misra
I will never watch a movie again because life is too short. But we are always changing. I'm not the same person. I was in my 20s, so I'm doing this experiment with myself. I'm going back to older works that I loved to see in this season of life. What do I understand better? What reveals itself to me better?
01;02;49;22 - 01;03;13;21
Neha Misra
That maybe when you know, I was in my 20s, I couldn't fathom because there is life to be lived, there are losses to be had, and there are gains to be made, and all the spaces in between. So thank you and I highly recommend it. It's, it's a it's a literary detective story.
01;03;13;24 - 01;03;30;16
Rob Lee
And I would be remiss if I didn't say that it makes so much sense of sort of revisiting things like in this season of the podcast. This is technically season ten, and I've been doing it for six years, but it's season ten at a point. I would do like two seasons in a year. That's because that's how productive I was.
01;03;30;16 - 01;03;52;28
Rob Lee
And one of the things that I wanted to do, because there's five years, six years for some folks that I've interviewed. So most of the interviews this year of folks I've interviewed before, and it's me catching up with them where they're at in their journey. And part is for me to, you know, maybe ask more informed questions. Having those losses, having those gains, having that sort of new knowledge.
01;03;53;01 - 01;04;13;13
Rob Lee
I'm not the same person. I hope that I was five years ago and maybe having a more, informed perspective or learning stuff through the the just life just gives me a bit more depth and then catching up with them. And there are some folks who came on that are like, hey, I'm doing the same thing, and it's great, and this is where I'm at now.
01;04;13;13 - 01;04;29;08
Rob Lee
And some folks, they've moved on from there are to maybe something else, and maybe they'll revisit their art in a couple of years. So being able to catch up with folks in the way that that framed it is we're just continuing the conversation we had maybe three years ago.
01;04;29;11 - 01;04;44;13
Neha Misra
Yeah, yeah. And maybe, you know, like they say, like, maybe to one thing you've been painting or it's your life is one, one painting or one poem, right? Maybe it's this big bundle of threads that they.
01;04;44;16 - 01;04;47;09
Rob Lee
Each podcast is a stanza.
01;04;47;12 - 01;04;51;07
Neha Misra
Thing, they say.
01;04;51;10 - 01;05;15;19
Rob Lee
So there's two things I want to do as we close out here and just thank you for coming, I feel I feel energized, I feel like we had a great conversation and, a lot of ground covered and just my mind is open. So thank you for for the time and the conversation. And, to I would like to invite and encourage you to share with the listeners anything in these final moments, social media, check out the show, all of these great things.
01;05;15;19 - 01;05;18;07
Rob Lee
Website please. The floor is yours.
01;05;18;09 - 01;05;43;14
Neha Misra
So thank you so much. So my social media is name is studio.com or Instagram at Nahum Israel studio. You will see my, my doppelganger sketch from a painting with a big pink flower. I always wear a flower. So you'll recognize me on Instagram by that.
01;05;43;16 - 01;05;56;04
Rob Lee
So there you have it, folks. I want to again, thank Neha Misra for coming on to the podcast and for Nihar. 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.