Transcription of New Year/New You, #70
Speaker 1: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. Recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland, Maine. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at Re/Max Heritage, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedics Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, Booth Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Apothecary by Design and The Body Architect.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 70. Airing for the first time on January 13th 2013. A lot of 13s in this today. Today’s show is called New Year, New You, which seems pretty appropriate for a January show. Today we will be speaking with Antonia Anderson and Lucille Holt-Sottery, who will be discussing the work they have done with and through The Body Architect here in Portland. Also Jack Leonardi, one of the founders of Art Collector Maine and Sophie Nelson, the assistant editor from Maine Magazine.
As a physician, this is one of my favorite times of year. This is the time of year when patients come to me with things that they’re looking to change in their lives. They really do think about the new person that they have within themselves. As we talked about in our New Beginning Show, people really are changing every seven years with that cell turnover we described. People are really new people.
On the other hand, we’re also deeply ourselves. Most of us have the same passions that we started our lives with. In my case, I was always a wanderer. I would wander through the woods and I would make up stories in my head. I was a reader and I was a singer. All the things that I used to love to do when I was younger, I still love to do now several decades into my life.
What that tells me is that the newer we want to make our lives, the more we should kind of go back to where we were before and maybe think about who we were when we were new, who were we when we were young. This is a type of thing that I talk with my patients about in my practice at The Body Architect on a regular basis.
I’d like you today to listen carefully at things that Antonia Anderson and Lucille Holt-Sottery have to say about becoming new again at The Body Architect and also what Jack Leonardi, how he brings together the idea of art and wellness from Art Collector Maine and Sophie Nelson as the assistant editor describing the wellness issue at Maine Magazine. Think about the things that you might want to do in a new way as 2013 rolls on. Also think about the things that you did when you were new to yourself, when you were a new person in this world.
You’ll find sometimes that the same things that inspired you when you were new, new on this planet will continue to inspire you as you continue to move along. Thank you for listening to our show today.
For those of you who are listening who are familiar with my practice at The Body Architect, I engage in a regular practice myself and also teach something called Chi Gong. Chi Gong is very similar to the practice of Tai Chi which is like a martial art in some way. It’s all about Chi. It’s all about energy. When I think about New Year, New You, I think about really going back and inspiring that energy and waking it up, the energy you already have within your own body.
If you’re interested in learning more about Chi Gong and waking up the Chi or the energy within you, I encourage you to come see me at The Body Architect or give us a call and learn a little bit more about our practice. Our phone number is 207-774-2196 and we’d be happy to talk to you about waking up that Chi through Chi Gong and other means.
Dr. Lisa: January is the time of year when most of us think about making big changes in our lives and thus the whole idea of New Year’s Resolutions and losing weight. People want to stop smoking. They just want to do things differently. I have with me today two individuals who have made a lot of interesting changes in their lives and have also made changes that have enabled other people to make changes with this whole interesting snowball effect and all very positive. We have Antonio Anderson who is the Co-owner, Manager and Holistic Lifestyle Coach at The Body Architect Fitness Center here in Portland. Thank you for coming in, Antonia and joining me.
Antonia: Thank you for inviting me. Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: We have Lucille Holt-Sottery, who is the Owner and Founder of Collaborations and also a long-term member at The Body Architect. Thank you for coming in.
Lucille: Thank you for having me, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: It’s always interesting for me to spend time with people who believe in health and wellness the same way that I believe in health and wellness. It’s all about starting with there’s an emotional component, a spiritual component but a physical component. They’re all woven into one. You do that at The Body Architect.
Antonia: Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me why is it that you went in this direction with The Body Architect?
Antonia: Interesting. Stephen, who is my copartner and my husband at The Body Architect. It was our natural self. That’s how we wanted to lead our life and that we wanted to create. We found that there was really nothing around that to satisfy that need for a holistic refuge so to speak. We opened The Body Architect with the idea that we would address all the components: the physical component, the mind and for one to a better word, the spirit.
People bring everything when you come into a room, when you go anywhere, you bring the whole of you there. You don’t leave your mind behind or your spirit behind or half a leg. We have to address all. We really wanted to address all of the person and how the person comes into the space in many different ways. I’m Italian. You ask a simple question, I’ll give you dissertation always.
Dr. Lisa: Obviously, nobody can see you sitting across the microphone from me. You also use your hands a little bit to show. There’s a little bit of an attempt but that’s okay. I think also you brought with you an interesting sense of visual aesthetic and spatial aesthetic that not everybody has when creating a fitness facility. Where did that come from?
Antonia: I do believe that we are influenced by environment and by surrounding. There were many, many studies that show that that is so. Also the details of a place influence how we are and how our mood is affected. I thought that was an important part to bring to the space, creating, having large windows, having lots of wonderful sunlight. A sense of wellness and a sense of wellbeing is so important and the surroundings will definitely influence that.
Dr. Lisa: Lucille, I want to ask you about why The Body Architect in particular but I first would like to ask you about what in your life prompted you to start making these significant changes that you have told me you needed to make it at one time.
Lucille: I was gifted. I say that because a very dear friend of mine gave me a gift card to The Body Architect. I resisted it for an entire year. I was totally embarrassed because she would ask me every month, “Did you go to have your personal training session?” This was a very big birthday present. About a month prior to my making my appointment, I had a doctor’s appointment and I found that my blood pressure was escalating. That was a pivotal time for me because I did not want to take medications.
The doctor did say, “Lucille, you do need to be on medication.” I took the medication and I took my gift certificate and I went off to The Body Architect where I met Antonia for the very first time. That was eight years ago. I had joined. On my first entry into that doorway, it is a phenomenal space. I think Antonia’s totally spot on when it comes to you have to react to your environment. That was a perfect setting for me because I had resisted it.
It just enveloped me, totally embraced the concept and it’s been eight years since. I am off the medication in five months and living a very healthy lifestyle which I’m sure we’ll talk more about.
Antonia: You hadn’t really worked out before.
Lucille: Sporadically, very sporadically. Nothing like I’m doing now. Thank you, Ant.
Antonia: You’re very welcome.
Dr. Lisa: What happened when you walked through the doors of The Body Architect? You had a personal training session. Was it the training session itself? Was it The Body Architect that brought you in?
Lucille: I think as Antonia said, it’s the entire environment. It brought in all of the aspects of my life which happen to be that I was open to all of this because I think you do need to be open to it. It fulfilled every need. It was not the kind of environment that you expect going to a gym. This is more of a salon and very personalized training, very skilled.
Also it had the spiritual content of Chi Gong. Obviously, when you’re entering hypertension or some sort of medical issue, there are other obvious things that are going on. I was dealing with a lot of stress in my life. The Chi Gong brought in a whole different level. It wasn’t just the exercise part of it. It was the holistic environment that took me in and dealt with multiple levels of things for me to be able to really think about health and wellness as a package and not just about going in and exercising.
Then of course, the environment, it’s absolutely beautiful. When I put my hand on that door, I totally relax. Therefore, it was an experience that I have never had going to another kind of a gym before.
Dr. Lisa: What are some of the touches that you’ve put into place? I know when I first came in and I went in with Kevin Thomas, who’s a member at The Body Architect and one of the sponsors with Maine Magazine. You gave me a tour and you said, “This over here and this over here.” Of course, I took everything in. What are some of the things when you give people a tour that you point out because you think they’re important touches?
Antonia: We’d like to look after our members even when they don’t realize they’re being looked after. Everything affects us like the air that we breathe. We do it automatically without thinking about it. Try holding your breath for two second and you can’t do it very long. We have state of the art Japanese air filtration units. They filter the air better than an operating theater or a clean lab. The air is always fresh and invigorating. We want to feel good all the time. That is really important for us.
We don’t sell water bottles. We give the best water you can drink in Portland to our members with Japanese state of the art water filtration systems. There’s plenty of good water. We’re mostly water. Our brain has between 90 to some people say up to 98% water. The quality and the quantity of the water we ingest everyday is critical to our wellbeing, our energy, our focus and concentration. We like to make sure that our members have the best in everything that there is.
The training that we do which I really shouldn’t talk about because that’s where Stephen comes in and he’s the expert in that.
Dr. Lisa: Stephen has been on our show. People who want to go back and listen to Stephen talk, I think he was on our Light Show last year and also on our Summer Sports Injuries Show, so people can go back and listen to Stephen speak about that.
Antonia: Our training is based on functional training. Why do people come to a fitness facility? Not just to be there and as much as the space is beautiful and we love having members there for whatever reason. They come so they can be the best that they can be. Is that the right way to say it? Outside and that’s how we support our members. Everyone is different. That means something slightly different for each person. That’s what I mean by functional training.
If someone, their greatest joy is skiing down a mountain so they can be the best skiers. If someone else’s joy is carrying their grandchildren or their children or their dog, they can do that in the best possible way. If someone wants to dance, they can dance in the best possible way. That’s how we support all our members. Making sure that they have wonderful energy and then they have a sense of wellness that carries them throughout the week, not just while they’re at The Body Architect.
Dr. Lisa: Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we’ve long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Tom: In weight loss and in money gain, wellness is achieved by moving through seven steps. The first is to realize that the current situation is insufficient. Change is necessary. The second step is to stabilize the emotional ups and downs. The third is to work hard at eating less, counting our intake and living within our means. You’re saved from weight gain and money loss when you figure out how to set some aside.
Why? To truly be well we have to realize we eat so we have energy to do what brings value into the world. We invest with our time to make life easier and more enjoyable for those around us. When we do this, even in the smallest of ways, we turn our gifts into the love that fills us up. If money stress is standing in the way of the real you, then send an email to info@shepardfinancialmaine and type pound sterling in the subject line. You’re valuable as you are, we just need to convert it into a currency you can spend.
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Dr. Lisa: I think it’s interesting that you’re talking about moving your body and at the same time it’s somehow is creating new connections in your brain that enabled you to work towards collaborations which again is all about connections. Is this something that you see frequently Antonio with the coaching that you do with people or is that they start to reconfigure things in their body and all of a sudden life starts to change around them?
Antonia: Yes, absolutely because if one has a greater sense of wellbeing physically, that translates obviously the endorphins to pick in. That does translate to a greater sense of wellbeing mentally. There’s better focus, better concentration. Those are all improved. There’s more mental energy as well as physical energy. I think those do have obviously a bearing.
Our culture looks very much at the outside. What goes on in the inside is probably it is actually more important. You mentioned Chi Gong. Chi Gong promotes the reduction of stress or releases stress. Also goes to yielding internal organs. That is really anti-aging. That’s what aging and energy is about. Those are things that I do believe make a difference and go to create what we feel help to create what Lucille talked about collaborations.
Dr. Lisa: If you bring the energy back to your body then it’s going to help create these connections in your mind. It’s going to make things possible that maybe more possible before when your body was stuck.
Antonia: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: What are the types of things that you see people being stuck in when it comes to their lives? What are some of the problems they present to The Body Architect with? Actually Lucille, I can ask you this question too because I think both of you work in a business where you’re dealing with people who have things that need to be solved.
Lucille: Exactly. I think that I’ll use an area where I was stuck. I was having some back issues. It’s the old theory if you keep doing the same thing the same way, you get the same results. I needed to change things around. Strengthening my core and really focusing in on that really alleviated a lot of the back stress that was happening.
Now with TRX, which is a miracle class and I suggest everybody run to The Body Architect and take this class. It is absolutely amazing. It has totally relieved the stress of my back that I’m able to do things in six months that I really wasn’t able to do a year ago. I think that all is very impactful.
Dr. Lisa: How can people find out more about your business Collaborations, Lucille and also The Body Architect, Antonia?
Lucille: Give me a call and we do have a website. It’s collaboration1.com. I welcome anyone to talk to me as well about health and wellness. I happen to also have some expertise in this field in working with many area professionals in the field and also my husband comes from a scientific background. This has been kind of fun, kind of a parallel for me to see people and help people not only in their business and career development but also incorporate some wellness for them and going along the way. It’s been a lot of fun in that area.
Antonia: For The Body Architect, it’s thebodyarchitect.com or you can call 207 obviously, 774-2196. I’m always delighted to be able to assist and help anyone that would like to be helped.
Dr. Lisa: You have a Facebook page as well.
Antonia: Yes, we do. Yes, we do.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Lucille Holt-Sottery, who is the Owner and Founder of Collaborations and also Antonia Anderson, the Co-owner, Manager and Holistic Lifestyle Coach with The Body Architect Fitness Center here in Portland, Maine. Thank you for coming in and spending time with me today.
Antonia: Thank you, Lisa. Thank you very much indeed.
Lucille: Thank you. It’s been great.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our program after acknowledging the following generous sponsors: The Body Architect was founded on the belief that mindful exercise improves the health of the mind, body and spirit. Housed in an open, light-filled space in Portland, Maine, The Body Architect offers a cutting edge fitness center, expert personal trainers, nutrition counseling and a full class schedule. Visit thebodyarchitect.com or call 207-774-2196 and get started with The Body Architect today.
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Dr. Lisa: It’s January 2013 and as we’ve mentioned on previous shows, this is a time for new beginnings. This show is called New Year, New You and we’ve brought in to speak with us today, Jack Leonardi, one of the founders of Art Collector Maine to talk about a relatively new within the last year and a half I think project that’s been going on within the Maine Media Collective. This is Jack Leonardi. Thanks for coming in and talking to us today.
Jack: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Jack, there is a larger discussion about art and wellness that I think it’s important to start out because some people would say, “Art is art. What does it have to do with living a healthy life or being well? Why does it belong on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour?” What would your response be?
Jack: I think from my discussions in interactions with the artists in Maine and because Art Collector Maine is about Maine arts specifically both those who are part of our program and those who I’ve just spoke with in the general community that there’s a couple of common themes that I think come up when speaking with the artist and understanding how they think about their art. That’s kind of the root of both sides of this.
One is I think artist in general that great satisfaction out of the process and the work that they produce in being an artist whether it’s paintings or sculptures or some other medium. I think while they feel a strong sense of how good that makes that whole process makes them feel, I think they feel … I don’t want to say necessarily an obligation but a strong desire to share that and convey that inner feeling that they get in satisfaction out of painting to the people that view or buy their art.
That’s really a really common core theme in how a lot of these artists feel about what arts’ presence is in the world. It’s really, really important part of why they do what they do.
Dr. Lisa: They’re trying to share something that they see in the world with other people and perhaps help them to see something similar or maybe be inspired or …
Jack: I think in my mind it comes down in these discussions the two variations of that. Some of the artists want to convey in paint or create a sculpture that creates a specific feeling of time or place. They want that same time or place and that feeling to be conveyed through that art to others.
The alternative to that in some of the artists making is that they want to create a blank vessel. They want to create this painting or sculpture that is very interpretive. They very much want the viewer of the art or the buyer of the art to engage in the art and relate that art in that picture or that sculpture back to something that’s important and something that makes them feel good. Maybe it’s a childhood memory. Maybe it’s some other memory that they have. They want that to be just a vessel for them to create their own peacefulness in doing the art. I think it can be both of those things.
Dr. Lisa: Was this one of the reasons why you became interested in art yourself?
Jack: I think not consciously. I know now reflectively that it is what I think why most people engage in art is because it makes them feel good. It even makes them smile or it makes their heart warm about something that they remember or a place. I think I didn’t consciously think that when I decided to get involved with this project. I think I now recognized that that was just under the surface and part of the whole reason why it was appealing to me to try this.
Dr. Lisa: You came originally from Massachusetts. You worked in business for quite a long time.
Jack: Correct.
Dr. Lisa: You took some time off. You built a house, I believe.
Jack: Correct. Yeah, in Kennebunkport this year.
Dr. Lisa: In Kennebunkport. You could have gone in any direction. For some reason you, business guy, Massachusetts background chose this.
Jack: It was really somewhat accidental. When I moved to Maine and left my job in Massachusetts, I actually commuted for five years back and forth to Boston before. When I decided to leave that job and focus on something up here, take a little break and try something different. I really had no predisposition as to what that might be. This whole project really started by happenstance. I had just built my house. I was looking for an outdoor sculpture for my backyard.
I found a process of searching Maine art and artists to be overly complicated fragmented. I’d have to go to a gallery website here. I’d have to visit a gallery there. I’d find an artist via Google search but there was no centralized simple way to do it. What I related it to was the real estate business. When you’re looking to buy a house or land or what have you, a condominium, you can go to basically one site, realtor.com as an example. There are other but realtor.com was the model point, the starting point for what I thought about Art Collector Maine.
You can go to that site and you can basically search everything that’s available for sale within 1% or 2% maybe. I thought, “Why isn’t there some commonized place for people to find art, Maine art specifically on the web?” That’s really was the beginning of the idea. I thought about it for a little bit. Did a little bit of research on my own and then I reached out to Kevin Thomas, the publisher here at Maine Magazine, Maine Home and Design because Kevin had been involved in the process. In his prior life, he was a builder. He was actually the one who built my house.
I knew from that process that Kevin had a great sense of business. He had a great sense of the art community through the interaction of the magazines here have with the art community in Maine. I e-mailed Kevin and said, “Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea. I just want to bounce it off to you.” I had no thought that we would come together to do it together at that time. I really was just looking for his respected opinion as to what he thought of the idea and whether it had any merit.
At that point, I was just thinking of it as a website. I hadn’t really fully thought out the idea. Quickly when I came up here and met with Kevin and Susan Grisanti that we turn that idea into not just a website but an entire marketing platform to promote Maine art and artists not only in Maine and New England but really nationally from an exposure point of view.
That happened over a two or three month period of time. It was really just by that initial contact looking for an opinion that the whole idea really came to for wishing here. The nice part about … there were nice parts about that but the nice part about why it made sense from all of our reasoning was that there’s a lot of infrastructure here. There’s a lot of preexisting tie into the art community. It made a lot of sense both from a financial point of view and a structural point of view to do it together and incorporate the resources here that exist with Maine Media Collective, the magazines, the Brand company. It all tied together very nicely to make it a much easier launch of the product.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about the first time you saw a piece of art that gave you that feeling that you were describing, that just feeling good, feeling inspired, feeling joyful.
Jack: Let me think about that a little bit. First time, I think it was really a glass vase sculpture that I saw. It was nothing here in Maine. It was something that I saw when I was visiting out in California. There’s a very famous glassblower out in the West Coast internationally known Dale Chihuly. When I saw some of his work, the first work that saw of his was the people that … some of the people that I worked with had a house out in Palm Springs, California.
They had this gorgeous estate with a little pond on the estate. In that pond, they had a canoe resting on a shoreline of the pond which was just full of these super colorful odd shaped glassblowings that were just integrated into this giant kaleidoscope of color in this canoe. That was really the first thing that made me think, “Wow.” That is so beautiful and it just made you smile looking at it.
I think that would probably be where that first happened for me. That was probably 10, 12 years ago when that happened.
Dr. Lisa: Were you surprised by how that made you feel?
Jack: I guess I was because prior to that I think I would see something that I thought was beautiful but I wouldn’t let it sink in the way that sunk in with me and hit home a lot more deeply than other art that I had been engaged with before. That really was something that elevated my feeling in connection to it a lot more.
Dr. Lisa: Is this similar to the feeling that you think people in the Maine community are getting when they’re connecting back with some of the artists who are represented by Art Collector of Maine or some of the artist that have been featured in Maine Home and Design, Maine Magazine? Is this feeling of maybe happiness, joy, surprised?
Jack: One of the things that I get the most satisfaction out of in this process of building a product in this program together here is that when we have events, one of the things that we do is we host several art shows and events around the state during the year. Last year we did two. This year we’re doing 15 or 16. We’d really ramped that up and expanded that process. Inevitably, our goal is to bring not only art buyers and collectors to those events in order to generate transactions for our member artists.
We’re also trying to create this networking and engagement amongst our members because we have both gallery owners and individual artists who are members. What I get the most satisfaction out of this is when a gallery owner that is a member of our Art Collector Maine community meets an artist who’s a member of our community who they’re not familiar with, who is sitting right here in Maine and they see this other, they meet, they engage, they have a conversation with this artist.
Then go back and they look at their work and they get blown away by this great artist work that is maybe 20 miles away from where their gallery operates. They have no idea this person existed. A month later that artist is now represented by that gallery. A great relationship forms.
That I get as much satisfaction out of that part of this process and seeing that happen as I do getting the inquiries that come into the website for someone who’s just loving something that they see on the website and want to buy it. I think both of those things provide a lot of satisfaction for the process.
Dr. Lisa: You are in the process of and I think you’re just about to launch the Art Collector Maine annual issue, annual book.
Jack: Art Collector Maine Annual, it’s our first edition of our annual. One of the products that we produced within the Art Collector Maine services. It’s an annual hardcover book. Beautifully designed collectors’ item, coffee table-styled book, about 300 pages in this year’s first edition. Each artist gets a two-page spread in the hardcover book which is beautifully designed with one image. What we think of it is a signature image that represents that artist’s work. Then on the opposing page, a little biographical information on the artist.
We have 500 or so of those books presold from people. We’ve had a preview, a demo, digital copy on our website for a while. We well-distribute those through our gallery members, our artist members and then a host of retail locations throughout the state. I think Kevin Thomas would tell you that there’s been this itch that’s been existing for a few years and he’s been approached about creating a book like this that highlights only Maine artists in a very superior production product.
For whatever reason, there’s been no impedes to do that. It made a lot of sense where we’ve created Art Collector Maine to incorporate the production of that annual book. We’re super excited about it. We think people are going to really enjoy it. It’s going to be something that they’ll reference for years. We’ll do that once a year and each year obviously it will change somewhat stylistically but we think that’s a really important part of what we’re doing.
Dr. Lisa: Through these events and I know that there’s an art presence at the Kennebunkport Festival. I know that there’s a relationship with Cellardoor up in Lincolnville, Camden-Rockport area. I know that you’re going to have various events that are available on the Art Collector of Maine website and also at Maine Magazine. People if they want to learn about that they can go to those websites.
Jack: I think you highlighted the Kennebunkport Festival. We incorporate an art show into that each year. Last year, we did that at the Colony Hotel. It was a two-day show featuring really all of the Art Collector Maine artists that wanted to participate. I think we had 67 artists work at that show. It’s a tough environment to put up a show and take it down two days later.
This year, what we’ve done is we’ve partnered with River Tree Arts, which is a community art association down at Kennebunk, just across the bridge from Dark Square. We’ve partnered with them and whereby they’re going to allow us to have an art collector show at River Tree Arts and have it be out for the entire month of June, which is a significant step beyond where we were last year. We’re really happy about that.
We think they’re a great partner. They’ve got built-in community down there that exist with their running shows and their activities that they do. It’s a great organization. That’s one kind of significant step up from us. Then the whole Cellardoor series is really we think elevated not only the profile of Art Collector Maine and the art community here but also it has elevated really the type of services we’re providing.
We thought about this idea with Cellardoor that it’s a … Cellardoor runs a great operation up in Lincolnville. They have a villa location which is more of a retail location on one in Rockport. We had the idea that we could incorporate art into that environment at the villa on one at Rockport. By doing a series of monthly art shows bringing great artists who aren’t represented up in that area, bringing Southern Maine artists up there and maybe someone from MVI down there doesn’t have local representation there.
Really not only service our need to provide great venues for our artists to sell their work but also the reciprocation of that is to hopefully create reasons for people to continually revisit that Cellardoor facility for whether it’s a wine tasting, view the art at the same time and create repeated traffic for the Cellardoor property as well.
Dr. Lisa: You have the events. You have the annual book that’s coming out very soon for people who want to order it. You have the interactions with the artists and just in the community in general that you champion. What type of an impact do you think that you’re making on the wellness of the State of Maine?
Jack: I think in general, the more exposure we can provide for our Maine artists, the more we create the vehicle for people to connect and get those great feelings from interacting and engaging with the arts though. We think more exposure creates more engagement, more feelings that both the artist and the people who are viewing the art are looking to create.
A couple of specific examples, one of our Art Collector Maine artists, Francine Schrock who was engaged by a local assisted living facility here in Portland, Fallbrook to create a giant mural inside the lobby of that facility. They were looking to basically bring the outside environment into the interior of the building. I have a great quote here from the administrator at the facility at the conclusion of the project that’s part of a story that I started recently.
If I could just read this to you I think it speaks clearly about what one of the things that art does from a wellness perspective. They say the construction of this mural is profoundly grounded in the engagement of the community from preliminary meetings with the residents throughout the painting slash construction process to the final painting and celebration. The residents were engaged the numerous conversations. They’re engaged in conversations with each other, with the staff, with their families and with the artist.
It transforms their daily lives. One resident in particular, Gwen, who has difficulty in formulating thoughts and sentences miraculously had complete sentences and engaged in the dialog slash conversation with the artist, another resident and a staff member. It was truly miraculous. This is the power of art functioning in the world. Art is the platform for transformation and human connection. I think that’s a perfect illustration of what we think art can do in the community beyond the simple kind of initial engagement and feeling that that’s creates. It can go much deeper than that.
I think we’re seeing more and more evidence of that and I won’t try to say any particular studies. There are probably better students who do that for me but there’s a lot of evidence that are having really significant impact on wellness in different applications.
Dr. Lisa: Jack, it’s been a privilege to sit and spend some time hearing about Art Collector Maine and the work that you’re doing to provide joy and inspiration and wellness through art in Maine. I encourage our listeners to go to the Art Collector Maine website and what would that be?
Jack: Artcollectormaine.com.
Dr. Lisa: I also encourage them to take a look at some of the work that’s being done in Maine Magazine, Maine Home and Design and perhaps even think about ordering the book that you’re describing that sounds like a inspirational thing.
Jack: People can order right through the website.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Jack Leonardi, one of the founders of Art Collector Maine. Thank you for being part of our New Year, New You show.
Jack: Happy to do it. Thanks.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of Re/Max Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With Re/Max Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com and by Booth, accounting and business management services, payroll and bookkeeping. Business has gone better with Booth. Go to boothmaine.com for more information.
Dr. Lisa: In the studio with me today is Sophie Nelson, who is the assistant editor for Maine Magazine and someone that I’ve known for probably about two years, I think. Is that right, Sophie?
Sophie: Yeah, that sounds right.
Dr. Lisa: Somebody that I’ve come to spend quite a lot of time with at various events and gotten to know your boyfriend, Max Garcia Conover, who is a local musician and also teacher at the Breakwater School. I’ve gotten to know you and some of your background. You’re one of the bright shining faces I think that makes me in a wonderful place to live but you’re not from here originally.
Sophie: No, I’m not. I’m from Western New York. I grew up on Chautauqua Lake, a long drive, days drive away and came to Maine to go to college and existed in the bubble that is College for those four years but have explored Maine since. I moved away for a little bit. I have come back to Portland and really love living here, doing the work I do with all these great people.
Dr. Lisa: Anybody who wants to read some really good writing should read some of your profiles in Maine Magazine.
Sophie: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: It’s interesting to me. Did you go to Bates?
Sophie: Yes, I went to Bates.
Dr. Lisa: I think that they do do an emphasis on writing at Bates. There must have been something about writing before you even got to college that drew you in. What was that?
Sophie: I’ve always been writing. I took lots of English courses in high school. That was a focal point for me. In college, I was excited to try anthropology and sociology and all these outside of the box topics but I went back to writing in English and ended up concentrating creative writing. I wrote a senior thesis that was a collection of short stories. This is one of my first four A’s into journalism.
I think I’ve been lucky. I feel like people have appreciated my … Perhaps my fiction background has actually helped me enter writing profiles in a different way that I think has been valuable and it’s been really fun too. I’ve loved writing for Maine Magazine. It’s been great.
Dr. Lisa: I imagine that they both informed the other where fiction is a lot about character. Then if you do profiles, obviously these are actual, real people. Tell me some of the profiles that you’ve done that have been your favorites.
Sophie: Some of the first profiles I wrote were about musicians, local musicians. It’s such a real honor and privilege to sit down with people like Emilia Dahlin and Eric Bettencourt. It was great to get to know them. It’s a challenge to try to figure out what you could actually feel comfortable saying about someone after having met them for an hour or something. Certain things come to the surface. In some ways, I think it’s easy to get to know people.
I also had written the wellness column profiles in that section of the magazine. We pretty much run a profile in every issue, a wellness profile in every issue of Maine Magazine. Through that then sure I’ve gotten to know Susan Fekety, a really amazing woman. I’ve gotten to know Chip Cochrane, who is a ski coach at the Carrabassett Valley Academy and Catherine Cloudman of Apothecary by Design who is really lovely, really inspirational.
I wrote some pieces in the art world. I did write issue is the dedicated wellness issue. In that magazine, I wrote a piece on Dr. Dora Anne Mills. I also produced the Q&A section of the magazine. Through that, I get to sit down with great people and the person in the wellness issue is Michael J. Chase, who is the founder of the Kindness Center and had wonderful things to say that really pretty nice. The Q&A falls at the back of the book. I feel like it was a really nice way to end the magazine.
Dr. Lisa: People who have been reading Maine Magazine for a while know that wellness has become a focus for this magazine and even Maine Home and Design really and even all the work that the Maine Media Collective does. There’s something that’s really beautiful about the fun color of the wellness issue for people who haven’t picked it up yet. I highly recommend that you do.
It’s interesting. It’s ice fishing on the Kennebec. Even this, even though it may not seem like it’s directly related to wellness, it’s somehow inspirational. It somehow makes you want to get out there and be part of Maine and live a well life. Do you think that’s part of the reason why Maine has gone in the direction of wellness?
Sophie: I think so. It’s interesting to look at that cover and try to think what that might say about our approach to covering wellness. It’s ice sacks on the Kennebec. It’s not what you’d expect to a company, the words, the wellness issue but it is. It’s colorful. The sacks are glowing and it’s winter. It’s like people are making the most of it. I think that we’ve covered a range of people in our wellness cover from Susan Fekety who is a registered nurse and has done all kinds of really great works across genres in wellness to Chip Cochrane who is someone who’s really passionate about the outdoors and has found a way to sustain himself on that and has created a life that allows him to do what fulfills him and that is to be outside. I think that we really make an effort to come at it in lots of different ways.
Dr. Lisa: There’s also a light behind the words that people have given to the magazine when asked for their quotes about wellness. Is that true?
Sophie: Yeah. That was a really fun part of putting together the wellness issue was grabbing quotes from different people across the state in the field of wellness or medicine. I think it’s just really nice to read those. I think that we all need a reminder of things that we know to be true.
In the Q&A, Michael J. Chase spoke with me about forgetting some of the things that you or setting some of the things that you accumulate throughout your life and remembering the person you were originally, someone without judgment or with just full of love and getting back to that state. He spoke to that and people at the beginning of the magazine did also.
Dr. Lisa: One of your questions to him was “How do you define kindness?” He replied, “It’s love in action. It’s love in motion. In the moment that you are emitting compassionate loving energy, you can’t feel depressed, resentful, angry, jealous. In the presence of kindness, all the negative emotions that human beings experience go away. There is a difference between being kind and being nice. A truly kind heart expects nothing in return.”
Those are pretty profound words for really a magazine that you might just pick up off your coffee table. How do you think that the wellness issue might impact people who start going through its pages?
Sophie: I think it’s a combination of really profound quotes like that, thoughts like that. Also, I think it’s a real and the profile on Dora Mills, I hope that I demonstrated my appreciation for the work she does because in some ways, it’s harder to distill what she’s done. You might not be able to button it up so nicely as a quote like that about kindness. She’s just demonstrated it in so many ways, just long, grueling hours at work in a very public vision.
I think there’s a piece about the Maine track program. We highlight three fourth year medical students from Maine who are committed to continuing to work at Maine as doctors who are committed to issues of rural health in Maine. I’m just so grateful for their intelligence and their commitment. They’re going to make the state a healthier place.
Dr. Lisa: Do you think that as part of what you’re doing not only in the Q&A section of the profiles for the print version of Maine Magazine but also the online work that you do, the Q&As that you’re doing with people like Maxwell Chikuta who also is on our show. Actually, I should mention you and I have a lot of overlap between people. I know we had Dr. Dora Anne Mills on the show. We had Susan Fekety on the show. Do you think that you’re helping bring wellness to the state of Maine yourself.
Sophie: I hope so. It really is that I say this everytime I meet with someone. It’s really one of my favorite parts of my job is just talking to people and just as challenged I’m sure that you guys know this challenge well to cut down what they like. There’s so much good stuff that comes off our conversations that can be hard to leave anything out. Yeah, I really hope that people are getting something from that and I think they are.
I think that to be able to introduce people to Maxwell or even a handful more people who might not have known him, it’s really, really great.
Dr. Lisa: I encourage people who have been listening, who have been joining us in our conversation today to go out and pick up a copy of the January 2013 copy of Maine Magazine, the wellness issue. You’ll enjoy this very lovely glowing picture of ice fishing on the Kennebec and all the wonderful quotes that you’ve talked about and the profiles of the Q&A section. Some inspiring magazine and as we go into the New Year, it’s one way that people can really seek to find joy and wellness. We appreciate you’re coming in and spending time with us today. Sophie Nelson, the assistant editor at Maine Magazine and the work you’re doing in the wellness world.
Sophie: Thank you so much. This is great.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 70, New Year, New You. Airing for the first time on January 13th 2013. Our guests today have included Antonia Anderson and Lucille Holt-Sottery from The Body Architect, Jack Leonardi, founder of Art Collector Maine and Sophie Nelson, assistant editor at Maine Magazine.
We hope that you’ve found some things to inspire you to live this New Year in a way that’s consistent with the you that you once were when you were new, i.e. your younger self. Perhaps it’s through reading an article in Maine Magazine about wellness. Perhaps it’s through joining a wonderful place to exercise like The Body Architect or maybe it’s by being inspired through art. At any rate, we know that you’re going to find some new inspiration that’s going to make this year a joyful one for you.
For more information on our guests, go to doctorlisa.org. Like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Pinterest or Tumblr or Twitter or read my bountiful blog, bountiful-blog.com or perhaps even come to see me or give me a call at The Body Architect 207-774-2196. Please make sure that you let us our sponsors know you appreciate the efforts they’re making to help this show come to you on a weekly basis. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for letting me be a part of your world. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at Re/Max Heritage, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedics Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, Booth Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Apothecary by Design and The Body Architect.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street in Portland, Maine. Our Executive Producers are Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio Production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Courtney Thebarge. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.