Transcription of Abundance #10
Speaker 1: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa radio hour and podcast, recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland, Maine and broadcast on 1310 AM Portland. Streaming live each week at 11 a.m. on WLOB radio dot com, and available via podcast on drlisa.org. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the generous support of the following sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepard, of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton. Mike LaPage and Beth Franklin at ReMax Heritage. Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Whole Foods Market. Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine. The University of New England, UNE, and Akari.
Dr. Lisa: Hello! This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Welcome to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast for November 20th. Thank you for joining us.
This week’s theme is abundance.
I speak a lot of abundance on my Bountiful Blog, which we read every week. Abundance has a major theme in my life. We live in Maine, which is a place of great beauty. It offers us food that we actually grow ourselves and we cook ourselves, we prepare ourselves. It offers us places to hike and a strong sense of family and community. Maine is all about abundance, and there is no better time of year to discuss this theme than our upcoming holiday season.
This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we will be speaking with Kirsten Scarcelli, who is training to be a holistic health coach with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. We will also speak with Ben Fowlie of the Camden International Film Festival, and Jonathan Laurence of the Real Project. We will finish up with a conversation with Dr. Rick Small of the Good Shepherd Food Bank.
Thank you for joining us this week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast as we explore the theme of Abundance.
We have a segment we have been calling Food and Sustenance, but my cohost Genevieve Morgan and I, we’ve decided we’re going to morph this into this Deep Dish.
Genevieve: Yeah, because we like to dish.
Dr. Lisa: We like to dish. And it’s not just about what you cook, it’s about what you talk about and what’s going on in your life. I always begin the conversation about the Deep Dish segment with our locally grown foods, which you get from the Whole Foods Market in Portland.
Genevieve: I cannot believe my eyes, because we, I asked you to do a segment about this a couple of weeks ago, and you, true to your word, are sitting here with a bunch …
Dr. Lisa: Ta dah!
Genevieve: Of gourds!
Dr. Lisa: Yes, good gourd! Well, a few weeks back we had Halloween, and Halloween is sort of the classic, let’s carve a pumpkin, let’s carve a, you know, here’s our gourd. So this is, we do this with our children and we carve out and get the pumpkin seeds. We roast those up. Those are full of great nutrients like zinc. We put a little, you know, full of fiber. We’re a little past that now, and if you still have a pumpkin left that’s laying around from Halloween, then I would highly recommend that it’s compost time for you. But we now, we have these gourds that they last forever. These gourds are like squashes for those of you wondering what gourds are. And Gen, look at all of the gourds that we have from Whole Foods Market.
Genevieve: Yeah, I see you’re picking one up that’s kind of bigger than a hand, gut it’s dark green. This is one of the things that confuses me about gourds. How do you choose among them? So, you have a variety over there.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I think about gourds, I think about sort of the winter squash and the summer squash. The summer squash is your zucchini and your, well, summer squash, your yellow summer squash. These gourds are basically your winter squash kind of family. So we have a bunch of them. We have a delicate, we have… there’s butternut, there’s buttercup, and …
Genevieve: And you have an acorn squash, I know that one.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, yes, we have all kinds, and in fact the bag that we have from Whole Foods, our recyclable bag, it says, what does it say, can you read that?
Genevieve: It says tasty select pumpkins.
Dr. Lisa: Right.
Genevieve: Locally grown.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, first quality. So Whole Foods is, they like their gourds. I believe these came from the Little River Farm here in Maine, but there’s also various farms that are supplying gourds, and the nice thing about gourds is they last well, well into the fall season.
Genevieve: I think I might have one on my counter from last year, actually.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, maybe you wouldn’t want to use that one, but these gourds, it is a little hard to know which gourd is the best one for you to use. And this is why I kind of like to play with them. These smaller ones, these little delicata squash, these cook up nicely, but they’re a little less easy to peel. They’re also smaller, so the amount of work that you put into a little squash like this is going to be significant, it’s going to have a significantly less yield. I don’t know if I said that right, but so some of the bigger squash, they’re going to be a little bit less sweet, but you’re going to get more bang for your buck.
It’s easy to cook these, really, if you want to do it just straightforward, Thanksgiving, you know, you cut them in half, you scoop out the seeds. You put them face down on a baking sheet after you put a little olive oil or maybe some spray stuff on them, and then you can leave them in the, I don’t know, 450 degrees for an hour. I mean it’s very straightforward. Or you can flip them the other way. We actually have a recipe that we had provided through our website which includes wild rice. You stuff it with a little wild rice and some apricots or maybe some cranberries, that’s sort of a precooked mixture. You put a little tinfoil over the top of it, and then you have essentially a really hearty main dish.
Genevieve: Yum. And once you roast them you can use the roasted flesh for other things, right, like soup and …
Dr. Lisa: Yes. Yes. And I had a good conversation actually with Barbara Galino over at Whole Foods a few weeks ago about just the use of I think she was talking about butternut squash and making butternut squash soup. Because I was talking about pumpkin soup. She said, “Oh, no, no, this is much easier. Use your butternut squash.” In fact, if you go to Whole Foods there is a precut butternut squash, you know, in a bag, if you really just don’t have the time to do it any other way. And you can make a butternut squash soup. She uses a little bit of maple syrup. She has kids who are a little older now, she uses that for the sweetener. And she uses like pumpkin pie kind of spices. Maybe we’ll have to be her recipe for it.
Genevieve: Yeah, it sounds delicious.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, it’s a way to get your kids to eat it, and it tastes like eating a pumpkin pie. And then over time, you can actually decrease the amount of sweetener that you put into the sweet kind of soup, and then the kids are left liking this squash.
Genevieve: Now you mentioned zinc in the pumpkin seeds, and I know one thing about different squash, they have very colorful flesh, and so that leads me to believe they’re rich in nutrients, but I’m not exactly sure which nutrients are in squash.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, they’re pretty high in beta-carotene. Any time you have an orange or a yellow-fleshed fruit or vegetable, beta carotene is sort of top amongst them. And beta-carotene has been shown to be good for a variety of things. One of the things that we know about is beta-carotene is very important for eyesight. So this is why people always talk about eating their carrots and having good eyesight and night vision. I think that may be a little bit of a myth, the night vision piece, but we know that this is good for things like preventing macular degeneration and just good healthy eyesight is eating these beta carotene rich foods. This is one of the things that I like about squash.
The other thing that I like about squash and gourds is that you can introduce it at a very young age for children.
Genevieve: Oh, that’s true, because they’re mushy.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, it’s mushy, and instead of feeding your kids baby food from a jar, if you’re sitting next to your child who’s old enough, I’m not saying feed it to a two-week old, but a child who is old enough to eat solid foods, you can actually give them what you’re eating. So baby food from a jar kind of separates out what you eat versus what your child eats. If your child sees you eating squash off a plate and then they’re being fed squash off a plate, then they’re going to say “Oh, that’s what food is.” And they’re going to grow up understanding that there’s really no delineation between what kids and adults eat, within reason.
This is, you know, I enjoy going to Whole Foods and kind of wandering around and seeing what they have …
Genevieve: Well, and we’re starting to come into the winter months, and I think there’s a tendency to think there’s not much fresh out there, but clearly there’s still plenty for us to indulge in and enjoy.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, there is plenty of abundance, and we’re happy to be talking about that today, Genevieve Morgan and I. We hope that you and your families are able to take some of these tips and put them to good use, whether it’s Thanksgiving or upcoming other holidays, and we hope we can have a positive impact on your health through our Deep Dishing.
Speaker 1: This segment has been brought to you by Whole Foods Market of Portland, Maine, and by the University of New England, an innovative health sciences university, grounded in the liberal arts. UNE is the number one educator of health professionals in Maine. Learn more about the University of New England at une.edu.
Dr. Lisa: We at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast are pleased to be presenting a segment we call Wellness Innovations, which is sponsored by the University of New England.
The University of New England has let us know about a very exciting event coming up at the Portland Museum of Art called Arab Spring, American Winter.
While the peoples of the Middle East are demanding the right to good education, health and employment, Americans, battered by economic systems that elude most people’s grasp, seem to be resigned to a future without such rights. Professor Noam Chomsky, professor of Linguistics at MIT and author of Hopes and Prospects, reflects on this irony.
This event takes place on December 12th, 2011, and is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the UNE website, www.une.edu.
This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we have the great pleasure of welcoming into our midst Kirsten Scarcelli. Thank you for coming in.
Kirsten: Thanks for having me on the show. Welcome everybody. Hello.
Genevieve: Hi Kirsten.
Kirsten: Hi, Jen.
Dr. Lisa: We all feel like we kind of know you a little bit because there’s actually some personal connections, which maybe Gen will talk about a little bit later. But I feel like I know you because as somebody who’s really interested in food and wellness.
You can always sense a kindred spirit. Let me talk a little bit about who you are. So Kirsten’s lifelong passion for health, nutrition and wellness has brought her to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She’s currently enrolled in the Holistic Health Coach Certification program and will be soon working with clients to support them in reaching their health and lifestyle goals and guiding them step by step to lead the best life possible.
Kirsten has recently completed a certification in Nordic walking, which she offers as a low impact, full body wellness option for clients. I also happen to know that you have reinvented yourself multiple times. You have owned a restaurant and bakery, you have a line of designer clothing. So you are sensualist of the highest magnitude. Is that a fair estimation?
Kirsten: That’s a very good estimation, yes. I’ve had …
Genevieve: And a Flexitarian.
Kirsten: And a Flexitarian, that’s my latest goal, yes. So I’ve had many reiterations …
Dr. Lisa: Of yourself, yes.
Kirsten: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Which is very appropriate, because today we’re talking about abundance, and this is kind of our Thanksgivingish theme for our show. And really abundance is about knowing what is around you and what, and it’s not just food. It’s, you know, the tastes, the smells, the touches, the things that you can sort of incorporate into your life and the people. So talk to me a little bit about this theme of abundance and what that means to you.
Kirsten: Well, to me, I actually looked it up in the dictionary, that’s my first thing, and it’s really, the dictionary confines this as overflowing fullness. Now the fullness we don’t mean necessarily full with food, but full with pleasure, how to approach people, really thinking, emphasizing the positive in your life. The glass is always half full. So focus on that, share generously of yourself during the holidays. Those are the things that people can do to be well.
Dr. Lisa: We think about food when we think about Thanksgiving, but I think it’s interesting that the first that you said is share generously of yourself during the holidays, not share generously of your turkey. So what types of things would you recommend to people who are looking to share generously of themselves? Where do you start?
Kirsten: Reach out to people. Call a friend, call a neighbor. Invite them. Maybe invite them for dinner or just for a walk, for a talk. Reconnect. You know, be present. Notice what’s going around yourself.
Dr. Lisa: I have a friend that is at, or actually spent time at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and she spoke to me about how we feed ourselves. And it isn’t just about food. That’s what I think is so fascinating about where you’re studying currently.
Kirsten: Absolutely, and we actually talk about that more than the secondary food. It’s not really the food on our plate that nurtures us, but the primary food around us. Like what’s going on with your relationships? How are you doing in that area? Are you doing well, or do you need some improvement? Are you physically active? Do you have a spiritual life? So those are really the primary foods that feed us. So I think that’s especially important during the holidays where we tend to get a little stressed, maybe a little overworked doing too much.
So take a step back and really look what nurtures yourself. Because if you nurture yourself, you’re there to nurture others.
Genevieve: I have a question for both of you, since you’re both well versed and trained in nutrition. You read a lot about emotional hunger and emotional eating. Can, and I ask this actually of both of you, can emotional hunger manifest as physical hunger?
Kirsten: Oh, absolutely, I would think. I mean Lisa, don’t you agree?
Dr. Lisa: Oh, yeah, I deal with this all the time in my practice, and that is that people will come in and actually, it goes both ways. It’s all on the same spectrum. People will overeat because they’re looking to sort of fill themselves, and they’ll undereat because somehow they’ve sort of taught themselves to starve over time, because they aren’t nurturing themselves. They aren’t nourishing their own spirits. It’s all part and parcel of the same thing, that’s why I’ve been so fascinated by these primary, sort of the primary …
Kirsten: Primary food, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, Gen, you know, why you’re eating that tub of ice cream every night may be you really need a hug or you need a different relationship. So absolutely they’re connected.
Genevieve: So what you’re saying is that one of the ways you cannot over indulge in food around the holiday season is to nurture yourself in other ways. So when you finally sit down at the table, you’re already feeling sort of full.
Kirsten: Yeah, you’re feeling fulled up, you can sit down, sit down a minute, appreciate your food, appreciate the people that cooked the food. One of the things you can really do, don’t beat yourself up over the holidays. If you go to a friend’s house, and she made a lovely meal, eat it and it will nurture you, rather than saying “Now how many calories are in her pie” or something. Have small portions, but enjoy it and thank whoever made it for you. Maybe you made it for yourself. Who knows?
Dr. Lisa: I think that’s an important point, because there is a little stress associated with the holidays just in general. For a lot of people, the holidays are a time of getting back together with maybe family members that they might have been in disagreement with or estranged from or there some sort of feelings that have been held on to. So we like to think of the holidays as being wonderful and abundant, but this can be really stressful. Are there things that you suggest to people who are going back into a somewhat stressful situation to help them deal with their hunger?
Kirsten: Well, first of all, never go to a party, or go hungry. So physically feed yourself, as well. You know, drink lots and lots of water, stay hydrated, so when you arrive at an event or a gathering you’re not arriving there famished. So you want to take care of your physical wellbeing. But also maybe take a step back this year and say how can I approach that person or the situation maybe a little differently. How do I feel about myself approaching this person? So if there’s a little tension, look within yourself and say, “Well, maybe there’s a different way to approach this.” Rather than saying, “You know, that Uncle Bob, he’s always saying these things to me.” So just look at it a little differently.
Genevieve: In my family the women always ask you how much you weigh. Yes … (laughs)
Dr. Lisa: What???
(laughter)
Dr. Lisa: This is me over here being slightly shocked. Is that, that would be very stressful.
Genevieve: Extremely so, oh, my goodness.
Kirsten: Well, you can just say you don’t know. You don’t really, I mean it’s like, or just turn it around and just say, “Well …” just change the subject, you know.
Dr. Lisa: Say I weigh as much as I need to weigh, or something like that.
Kirsten: Yeah. Just don’t, just because somebody asked doesn’t mean you have to give them an answer.
Genevieve: That’s a good point. Boundaries, you know, when you think of abundance, you think of a cornucopia and this overflowing plate of things. But maybe part of abundance is good boundaries.
Kirsten: Absolutely. And that was actually one of the points I wanted to bring up. You don’t have to go to every gathering that you’re invited to. Send a nice card and say thank you, and I will donate to the Food Bank or make a donation and thank you for inviting me, but I just couldn’t make it this year.
Speaker 1: We will return to our interview after acknowledging the following generous sponsors: Akari Salon, an urban sanctuary of beauty, wellness and style. Located on Middle Street in Portland, Maine’s Old Port. Follow them on Facebook, or go to akaribeauty.com to learn more about their new boutique and medispa. And by Robin Hodgskin, senior vice president and financial advisor at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Portland, Maine. For all your investment needs, call Robin Hodgskin at 207-771-0888. Investments and services are offered through Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, member SIPC.
Dr. Lisa: Do you think that there has been too much emphasis placed on the things we shouldn’t be eating? Because I, we talked about this on a previous show where I’ve been with a group of … I have a fifteen year old. We have a group of girls that came over to our house, and one of them didn’t eat wheat and the other one didn’t eat wheat or sugar and the other one didn’t eat wheat or sugar or milk. Do you think maybe we’ve gotten a little extreme in our setting of boundaries, and if so, why?
Kirsten: Well, first of all, there’s an overabundance of food supply in our daily lives. So we don’t even know anymore what’s normal and what feeds us. I like to think of it as adding on and crowding out. So the things that don’t work or that maybe are “bad foods” and they’re really other than, you know, your coffee and soda and high fructose, whatever, there’s no bad foods in the sense. Whatever works for you, works for you. But sort of add on the good things. Don’t make it about what doesn’t work, make it about what feels good and what nourishes your body.
Dr. Lisa: And this isn’t to say that some people don’t have a milk allergy, a wheat allergy.
Kirsten: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: And it’s not to disrespect a choice not to eat meat, for example. For social reasons or health reasons. It’s just that what you’re saying is find other ways to sort of bring things into and put on your plate rather than always saying no.
Kirsten: Right.
Genevieve: That’s a good point though, actually, what you guys are saying. If I’m hosting a holiday gathering or going to a holiday gathering and I have a food allergy or I’ve decided to not eat a certain kind of food, how do you go about that gracefully? How do you as a host honor those people’s choices without getting exasperated? Because it can be exasperating when you have five guests and four of them have different food preferences.
Kirsten: Usually I, as a host, I would ask my guests, “Do you have any allergies.” Because like Lisa said, there are true allergies out there and would be harmful for people to eat that. Put a variety of your food out, and then I think it’s up to the individual to just say “Thank you, but I prefer not to eat that” and just take it as that.
Genevieve: So if we as in my holiday situations tend to feel a little overwhelmed and stressed, are there any practical solutions you have to not only feeding ourselves swell and nourishing ourselves, but just taking better care of ourselves?
Kirsten: A couple of things. Sit a few moments quietly every day and just take a moment to reflect and breathe. Stay very well hydrated with water, so throughout the day you want to drink as much water as necessary for yourself. And a couple of things that I like to do especially during the holidays is like a hot washcloth scrub. Where you fill the sink up with hot water and maybe use essential oil in it that you like and just really give yourself a little scrub down, starting at your toes, all the way up, all the little crevices. And what it does, if you do it in the morning, it energizes you. If you do it at night, it will relax you. Just opens up your pores, and your energy flows. That’s one way to take care of yourself.
Genevieve: Sounds great.
Dr. Lisa: I’m interested in this Nordic walking. Because you’re talking about sort of crowding your plate with good things. Is this Nordic walking sort of crowding your life with good activities? Is that sort of the, not crowding, but just putting good stuff in your life.
Genevieve: Adding on, I think …
Dr. Lisa: Adding on, yes, yes.
Kirsten: I know what you …
Dr. Lisa: Crowding out the bad and …
Kirsten: Yeah, and adding on the good. For me, I love it, and I walk by Gen’s house every morning. (laughs)
Genevieve: I see you. You don’t know I’m watching you, but …
Dr. Lisa: Right, and this is one of the personal connections we were eluding to me.
Kirsten: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: You know in Maine we’re a very small state, so …
Kirsten: It’s a very small state, and that’s one of the pleasures. You get to know a lot of great people. For me the Nordic walking is the best exercise. Nordic walking is a form of fitness walking and cross country skiing. So you walk with two specially designed poles that have rubber tips on it. What it does, it engages your whole body, so it’s a total low impact workout. So you’re working your upper body, you’re working like 90% of your muscles. You have increased heart rate. You’re using more oxygen, so there are lots of benefits.
Also for people, I always say if you can hold two poles and you can walk, you can Nordic walk. It’s really good if you have some back or hip or joint, it’s very gentle in that you might be a little overweight and just starting to want to lose weight, a great way to start.
Dr. Lisa: I’m intrigued by all that you have to offer. How can people reach you?
Kirsten: Right now the best thing is by phone and email. A website is soon to come.
Dr. Lisa: So we can put your information on the Dr. Lisa website, and people can then communicate with you that way.
Kirsten: Right. And I have to say, I’m currently still a student, but come February I’ll be able to do this …
Genevieve: You’ll get a certificate.
Kirsten: Yes, thank you, I was going to say for real, but … (laughs) That’s not very good.
Dr. Lisa: What is the name of your company?
Kirsten: Nourish Yourself Now.
Dr. Lisa: And your certificate is from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition out of New York.
Kirsten: That’s correct, yes.
Dr. Lisa: Kirsten, it’s been great to talk to you. Thank you for coming in and talking with us about the theme of abundance, and we wish you a very abundant set of upcoming holidays.
Kirsten: Thank you, Dr. Lisa, and I wish it to both of you and to all the listeners out there, thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa: Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we have two very special guests with us, one of whom has driven a bit of a distance to be here. I met both of these individuals several weeks ago in Camden as part of a few events that were quite exciting and interesting, considering this is Midcoast Maine. So I can’t wait to have Genevieve Morgan interview them as part of Maine Magazine Minutes, Jonathan Laurence and Ben Fowlie.
Genevieve: Hi there, guys.
Jonathan: Hello.
Ben: Hello.
Genevieve: I’m thrilled to meet you. Actually I’m meeting you for the first time here, but I’ve been reading about you in the Maine Magazine for about two years, because we’ve been following you closely. I’m going to read to our listeners a little bit about you, because it’s sort of unbelievable how much you’ve managed to accomplish in your brief 30 years on the planet, but here it goes.
Ben, you are the founder and director of the Camden International Film Festival, an annual documentary film festival that takes place each fall along the coast of Maine. The festival has been recognized as one of the top 25 festivals for documentaries in the world. You’re also the founder of Points North Forum, a conference component, which runs concurrently with the festival and includes participants from HBO, A&E, Indie Films, BBC, PBS, Sundance and the Tribeca Film Institute.
John, you are part of the Reel Project, spelled r-e-e-l, which is dedicated to connecting people and transforming lives through art, technology, information and opportunity. You’re also a photographer, a video artist, a visual artist and a teacher at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport.
The two of you told me that you grew up together in Camden, and you have been bringing the world to Camden, you have been photographing the world and bringing it back to Maine. I want you to talk about how you got inspired to do this.
Jonathan: We both grew up in the Midcoast area, and we’re both skateboarders, and actually that’s how we hung out was skateboarding and snowboarding. And I’ve continued doing that for a while. My previous live was as a professional snowboarder, and I love traveling and kind of went all over the place and did some fun things. Then burned out of snowboarding at a kind of not young age, but at 22 and decided to come back to Maine and kind of refocus life and always had a camera with me, and my passion was photography.
When Maine Media had their college program, I did their two-year college program there and then kind of catapulted myself into a career in photography, but still with that love and passion of kind of seeing the world. Instead of being someone that’s just experiencing it, it was being a part of it in a different way of capturing it and letting other people see the visions that you see out in the rest of the world. That’s my story.
Genevieve: How about you, Ben?
Ben: As John said, I grew up in Camden. We did spend a lot of time skateboarding and snowboarding. He was much better at snowboarding than I was. I kind of had dreams of becoming a professional snowboarder, but ended up playing a lot of music and going to school in Boston for film. After a lot of touring, realized that living in a van was not something I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. At the same point, I’d been going to a lot of film festivals and focusing on documentary and was trying to find a way to get into the industry without moving to LA and spend three or four or five, ten years interning and kind of starting from the ground up.
I really wanted to find a way to get back to Maine and get back to a community that I think was, you know, this was 2005, so the creative economy was just kind of being talked about, or the idea, the test of what is now I think a very successful program was just bubbling up and it seemed like a good opportunity to go back to a community that was supportive and try and put an event together, which has now become the Camden Film Festival. Just celebrated our 7th year about three weeks ago, so it’s been nice to be able to grow professionally but also have some connection to a community that I really respect.
Genevieve: Well, there’s a lot of talk about young people leaving Maine, but the two of you have just spoken about how you had this deep compulsion to come back to Maine. And not really too far after graduation. I mean …
Ben: Uh huh (affirmative). Well, I think it’s many factors that play into that. But I think for me, I have so many great connections from growing up in such a small community that I really consider people like John Laurence and our friend Jake Dowling who has a gallery in Rockland really close friends. The closest friends you have. Obviously when you’re young and trying to figure out what you want to do with your life and you need support and you need help from many different people, talented people, you obviously go to a place where you have the most support, and for me that was Camden.
If you look at our organization, for instance, you’ll see that everyone involved really I’ve known for fifteen to twenty years. It’s probably one of the most local organizations, I think, in the entire state. In that sense it’s really refreshing to see whether people live here or not, they’re still committed to the long-term vision of the Midcoast area.
Genevieve: Can you speak to what is it about our state that kind of feeds artists? Whether they end up staying, leaving, coming back … even the ones that leave tend to come back and continue to create here.
Jonathan: I think it’s a combination of a couple of different things. For one, I think a lot of people looked at Portland and the whole thing that’s going on here when you’re removed from this state and they think of the Whole Foods scene. You go to Brooklyn, and everyone’s leaving Brooklyn to have kids and open up a new restaurant in Portland. I think it’s the approach to craftsmanship, and that’s across all different art forms. For instance, my brother-in-law, my sister’s husband, is a carpenter. He would never consider himself an artist, but I mean the work that he makes is hand’s down, you don’t see that in many places. There’s a real, I think it’s the approach towards how you approach your craft, whatever it is, and the desire to really spend the time necessary to understand what you’re doing and do it at a really high level. The other concept is the lack of distractions.
Genevieve: That’s an interesting point.
Ben: I would think, you know, in cities you have everything needs to be done quickly. It’s a faster paced environment, you want to get from here to there. You don’t want to waste time by letting someone spend two weeks or two months on your kitchen or whatever. But here it’s just the concept is quality over anything else.
Johnathan: And the lack of distractions I think is a huge one, and also just in so many ways kind of the ease, not ease of life in it’s an easy living in Maine, but it just kind of, there’s nothing keeping you from if you want to just go and paint for a day or make work. It’s pretty easy just to do so. There’s no one pulling you away. You don’t have to take the train to go buy your paint supplies and take the train back, carry plywood on the subway. It’s not this whole mission. If you get inspired, you can kind of go get the materials you need quickly, and it’s just also an inspiring landscape …
Genevieve: And John, you were talking about how it was important for you to be a little rural.
Jonathan: Uh huh (affirmative).
Genevieve: So nature must play a part in that, as well.
Jonathan: It does. And I think it’s nice when you have that ability to leave the state and see other cities, other towns, other places, other countries. But then you realize that where you live is one of the most beautiful, remarkable places. I mean my father said it to me growing up when I was living out in Colorado, he came and he said “Oh, it’s really beautiful out here. You must love the mountains.” I said “I do.” He goes, “What are you going to do, because you were born on the Midcoast. You’re never going to be able to leave.” I said, “Yes, I will.” And then I found myself back there with this kind of thing where every day I’m like “He was so right. He was so right. I’m not going to be able to leave this area.”
Dr. Lisa: Don’t you hate it when your parents end up being right?
Jonathan: They’re always right. They’re always right.
Dr. Lisa: My children hate that, so …
Jonathan: They’re so right, and you’ve just got to brush it aside until you’re older and then you just tell them, “You were right.”
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our interview after acknowledging the following generous sponsor. Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine. Making of Dr. John’s Brainola Cereal. Find them on the web at orthopedic specialists me dot com.
Genevieve: Ben, every year you get an abundance of submissions, and you have to pick the films you’re going to exhibit. John, every day you’re bombarded with images, and you have to pick the one that you’re going to capture and show to your audience. It’s similar and different, and I’m wondering about your process, how you both … I’m sure it’s individual.
Jonathan: I think talking about abundance, it’s really tough. I mean I probably take on average at least five photos a day with my iPhone and upload them to my blog. Sometimes I don’t feel inspired by what’s around me or maybe it’s the mood that’s the difference. But I think for me the outlet that’s helped me with kind of visually separating things is kind of the mobile upload and the blog and kind of just keeping this ongoing running thing.
Feeding the monster contents, you know, you’re always thinking visually, seeing visually, sharing, getting feedback, what people are responding to, what they’re not responding to allows you to kind of keep focused on your craft. But at the same time, not feel the need to be really technical sometimes with your big DSLR and going out there and feeling the need to be “Well, I need to make this project happen right now.” Because there’s the simple things, the everyday things that you see that you respond to, they might not be the ones that you put in the gallery. But they’re the ones that, it’s that light that’s kind of coming in …
Genevieve: Yeah, they’re like impressions.
Jonathan: Yeah, it’s that emotional response to some scene that you might look at or just something that’s kind of funny or humorous.
Genevieve: You find the jewels.
Jonathan: The world is full of, yeah. Just great little things.
Genevieve: How about you, Ben?
Ben: I think it’s funny because the way we approach it is so much different, and what I love about John and how he works is just that the amount of images that he produces and how it all, it kind of washes over you. But then every once in a while you get this one image that you just can’t get out of your head. I’ve always respected the sincerity to how he approaches it. I couldn’t do it. I mean for me, like my approach is I kind of go off the radar for like nine months (laughs) and sit in my apartment and watch three to four hundred movies a year and don’t really talk to anyone about them.
Constantly looking for 20 of them that I think will play well or will work well. For better or for worse, I’m not sure if that’s the right approach …
Genevieve: Well, I don’t think there is a right or a wrong …
Ben: Yeah, yeah, no, you know …
Genevieve: It’s just interesting to see how, because you both have to do the same thing in your careers, but just in a very different way.
Ben: Yeah, we’re both in the visual fields. I think I consider myself, the festival is many different things, but I do consider myself a programmer, and a programmer is just someone who is trying to construct a program.
Jonathan: You’re a curator.
Ben: A curator, of sorts. So the festival, for instance, it’s a combination, our program is consistent of an open call for submissions, which we get about 300 to 400 a year from all over the world. And then I travel a lot to other festivals and get to handpick certain ones that I think will do well.
Lately, when I first started the project, I always wanted to see a many films as I could with audiences, and I think that’s changing as you get a little older, you realize that there is many different ways that audiences can manipulate your connection to the work in a positive or a negative way. I think what I have here in Camden is the ability to program whatever I want, and there’s very few options like that. We’re very lucky in the sense that we don’t have the stipulations that other larger international or huge corporate-based festivals have where their programming has to be very, they have a strict kind of guidelines that they have.
This year, for instance, we screened some work that was very challenging and you had people that didn’t quite know what to make of it. There was a lot of lines blurring between what is reality, what is fiction, what is documentary, what is … I like the concept of trying to throw as much as I can at people in four days and have them kind of hopefully leave with their head spinning, having a good time, but coming back to some of the concepts that are integral to the program that I’ve put together.
Genevieve: Right, so they walk away actually talking about what’s going on. Whether they hate it or love it, they have a strong reaction.
Ben: Yeah, and the greatest compliment I can get is from someone that says, “Gee, I really didn’t like that movie, but I’m still thinking about it a year later.”
Genevieve: Right.
Ben: Or whatever it is.
Genevieve: That I think is something that artists would like with their work, as well.
Ben: Yeah.
Genevieve: John, tell me a little bit about Maine Media Workshops.
Jonathan: Maine Media Workshops is kind of a fantastic little retreat. I love watching students come in there, no matter what age they are and entering into some places definitely going to change their life in some way, shape or form. It transformed my life, and I love being a teacher there and allowing people to get that ah ha moment where all of the sudden they’re just, they click and they get something in their head that they’ve never gotten before. Just the ability to share ideas with people and allow them to just kind of break the box down that they’ve built up around themselves perhaps.
I used to teach a teaching class, so teaching teachers, and it was always really fun to teach that class. You see veteran teachers that have been teaching for years and years and years and they’ve gone through the whole black and white, dark room thing, their schools have cut that because of financial costs, they’re now on digital. They’ve never really had a background in digital. You start talking about new concepts, new ideas that you can do that teach students all these different kind of narrative threads or workflow kind of threads. You see them kind of like their eyes and their brains just start to swell and by the time Friday comes around, they’re just this hot air balloon just kind of floating. It’s a great feeling to watch people kind of have that transition. I’m sure Ben feels that when people walk away from the film festival, and they’ve had their life kind of something impacted and it’s no longer going to be the same. They’ve been hit by some kind of thought or a question.
Genevieve: So for our listeners out there, if they would like to make a submission to the Camden Film Festival or come take a workshop at Maine Media Workshops, how do they go about doing that?
Ben: Well, for the festival, it’s an open call for submissions, which it opens up this year on December 1st and will be open for submissions through about July 1st. It is a kind of a rolling fee, based on when you submit. There’s a few different deadlines. We do encourage as many Maine filmmakers, experimental filmmakers, documentary filmmakers to submit, because we do have I think all the Made in Maine showcase which is about 2 ½ days of really amazing work that we’ve seen over the past seven years really continue to develop and grow.
One of the main things about the festival is we really want to open professional opportunities and doors for the filmmakers working here regionally.
Genevieve: That’s great to know about. And John, what about Maine Media Workshops?
Jonathan: If you’re interested in taking a workshop at Maine Media, it’s mainemedia.edu, and you can either download the catalog in PDF form or browse everything online. There’s a lot of different workshops, so …
Genevieve: Great, so we encourage all of you out there to check it out.
Jonathan: Yeah, at least just browse and get inspired.
Genevieve: I think you guys have blazed a trail, and I think all of your efforts will benefit all of us right now, but also all of those upcoming visual artists and movie makers and writers and storytellers and screen writers that are growing up in our state right now. So thank you both for coming on for the Maine Magazine Minutes. It’s been such a pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: Where can we find out more about you?
Ben: Well, you can find out more about the festival and what we do at camdenfilmfest.org. That’s fest, not festival.
Jonathan: You can find me at johnathanlaurence.com.
Dr. Lisa: You can find out more about the Reel Project there, too.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Which we didn’t really talk about, but it’s pretty fascinating.
Jonathan: Or you can find out about the Reel Project just by going to thereelproject.org. You can find out all about the Artist’s Giving Back program that we’ve been working on and kind of the continuing work in the Congo.
Dr. Lisa: And you’re both on Facebook?
Jonathan: And we’re both on Facebook.
Dr. Lisa: We will link through the Dr. Lisa website, so there should be many avenues which will get people to where you are.
Jonathan: Wonderful. Thank you.
Genevieve: To read more about Ben Fowlie, the Camden International Film Festival, Maine Media Workshops and Jonathan Laurence, please visit us online at themainemag.com. Our November/December 2011 issue features new articles on other inspiring artists and entrepreneurs living in our state. Subscribe at mainemag.com or pick up an issue at your local newsstand.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we read a quote from the book Our Daily Tread. This week’s quote is from Winston Churchill.
“You may make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”
The organization Safe Passage is all about giving. This organization was founded by my late college classmate Hanley Dunning, and it is the organization which I will be visiting this week in Guatemala City.
If you’re interested in learning more about the organization Safe Passage, go to safepassage.org, or visit theislandportpress.com website and buy a copy of Our Daily Tread, which is a perfect gift for this time of year. In fact, there is a special holiday promotion. You will find that Our Daily Tread is discounted for a very short time so that you can buy as many copies as you would like to give back to your own family and friends.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible by the support of the following generous sponsors: Thomas Shepard of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton and Ameriprize Platinum Financial Services practice in Yarmouth, Maine. Dreams can come true when you take the time to invest in yourself. Learn more at Ameriprizeadvisors. com. And by Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of ReMax Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With ReMax Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we feature a segment we call Give Back in recognition of the fact that wellness is not just about the individual, but about the wellness of the community and the world at large. In our Give Back segment, we invite guests that talk about ways that they or their organizations are giving back. Today’s guest is Rick Small. Genevieve Morgan and I are happy to have you in the studio, Rick. Good to see you.
Rick: Thank you.
Genevieve: Hi Rick. It’s exciting to have you here especially right before Thanksgiving.
Rick: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, this is our abundance themed show, so it’s very appropriate that you’re here, because you are the CEO and president of the largest hunger relief organization in Maine, which is the Good Shepherd Food Bank. This organization provides for those at risk of hunger by soliciting and distributing surplus food to more than 600 partner agencies.
Since 1981, the Food Bank has partnered with individuals, businesses and farmers to alleviate hunger and build community relationships. In 2010, the Food Bank distributed 12 million pounds of food to families and individuals throughout Maine.
Rick, this is impressive. You’re doing a great job!
Rick: Well, thank you, yeah. Well, it’s not just me, it’s a lot of people working at this all over the state. The agencies, the people that actually feed the meals or pass it out to those in need are numberless. They work a long time, and they’re all volunteers. So my hat goes to those people in each local community that we supply. We supply nearly every community in the state.
Dr. Lisa: 12 million pounds, that’s a lot of food. That means there are a lot of hungry people out there.
Rick: 12 million pounds is a big chunk. I can’t imagine how big a pile that would make, but it’s a lot of food. Yeah, it is a lot of food, except it’s a lot less than what we really need. We probably need twice that.
Dr. Lisa: And that was 2010. It’s 2011, and Genevieve and I, we talked to Mark Swann from Preble Street. He said that the numbers of people in need are increasing dramatically.
Rick: They are.
Dr. Lisa: Has that also been your observation?
Rick: Absolutely. Mark’s right on the money. We’ve seen anywhere between a 30 and 50% increase each year for at least the last three years of those number of people coming to Mark’s establishments and many others around the state. Some of these people are the ones you never expected to be there. They are the ones that we used to call the middle class.
I’ll tell you how this works. Mainers are a bit stubborn sometimes, and they could be your neighbors, these folks. Now they have to keep the house, because they’ve got a worse problem if they don’t. They have to keep the cars because most of them are working and have children. Everything looks good in your neighborhood, but it might not be. About those Mainers, they’re not going to come next door and tell you about it. That’s a situation that’s pretty common around this state right now.
Dr. Lisa: It’s interesting, because a couple of shows ago we had Major General Bill Libby of the Maine National Guard and also Chaplain Andy Gibson, and they both said the same thing. Mainers are stubborn and they don’t necessarily want to talk about their problems. They were talking about military Mainers and military families. But I think that there is this sense of I should be able to do this on my own. I should be able to be self-sufficient. But sometimes we all need a little bit of help.
Rick: That’s right.
Genevieve: The thing about food is you have to eat it every day.
Rick: Yeah.
Genevieve: And you have to eat it several times a day. It’s not like a donation of a blanket that can be reused.
Rick: That’s true. You need a constant source. That’s not available for a lot of adults, but even our children, and in fact the children of this state are in real trouble. 24.6 percent of all the kids in this state don’t have enough food. That’s one in four kids.
Genevieve: That’s shocking.
Rick: It is.
Dr. Lisa: And that’s what they call food insecurity. Where they …
Rick: Food insecurity, yeah. We don’t have hunger anymore, it’s called food insecurity in the United States. What that means is there are actually two levels of food insecurity. One is you either don’t know where your next meal is coming from, or you don’t know where the next three or four meals are coming from. Which to me doesn’t make much difference. If you’ve ever been in that situation, and many of us have been, if you’ve ever been in the situation where you don’t know where the next meal is coming from, trust me, you can think of nothing else. Nothing else. It is survival. It is important that you have food. When you don’t have it, it’s an awful, awful thing.
Dr. Lisa: Schools and other places around the state tend to have holiday food drives. But what you’re really saying is this is a constant need throughout the year.
Rick: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: So in addition to food drives and donating food, what else can people do to help you do your job?
Rick: Well, what’s really nice is when you do a food drive and you bring us pounds and even tons of canned goods and non-perishable items that we can distribute. That’s wonderful. But if you had to go to the store to buy those things and bring them to us, here’s another thought. For every dollar that you bring us, we can turn that into $8 worth of food.
So it may feel better to go to the store, spend the money and bring the food to us, but if you bring the dollars to us, we can multiply that by eight. So it would be much more helpful to raise the money and give us … In fact, why don’t you do both. Bring us the canned things and …
Dr. Lisa: I like that approach!
Rick: Yeah, bring us the canned stuff …
Dr. Lisa: Talk about abundance, that’s right.
Rick: And bring us the money, too, so that works. That works.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. How can people find out more about your organization?
Rick: This stands for Good Shepherd Food Bank, GSFB.org. You can go that way. You can call our main office is in Auburn, and the number is 782-3554. Want me to repeat that? Yes, you do. 782-3554.
Dr. Lisa: We can tell you’ve done this before.
Rick: I have.
Dr. Lisa: Yes.
Rick: Once or twice.
Dr. Lisa: Well, we appreciate you’re coming in and talking to us. You’re doing good work, you’re bringing in the abundance, you’re redistributing it. We wish you all the best with this.
Rick: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: And I hope that we are able to grow our own and feed our own in the very near future.
Rick: I believe we can. Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Every week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we conclude our show by reading from the Bountiful Blog. I began this blog in 2008 as a means of learning how to feed myself physical, and as I’ve said before, it became a means of feeding myself emotionally and spiritually, a means of nourishing myself.
One of the themes that I discuss on an ongoing basis, which is related to the theme of abundance is love. This blog post from May 22nd, 2011 is about that very theme.
Easy it is to love some people. Much harder to love others. Many of us pride ourselves on our ability to be loving. We are generous in offering our affection to those around us who we believe may be deserving. Our friends, our family members, our close colleagues.
Yet, when we’re faced with those who challenge us, we turn away. And I just sheepishly count myself among this “we”, justify this behavior by reminding ourselves of how loving we already are. We tell ourselves that we are merely preserving our love to make it more readily available for the more worthy people in our lives.
But love in its highest form is incapable of being fully spent. It is ever abundant. Each of us has an infinite capacity to care for others. Love, as it turns out, is a choice. We may offer or withhold it.
One of the world’s great spiritual leaders suggested that we love our neighbors and in fact love our neighbors as ourselves. This gives us some latitude, depending upon how we define neighbor. Using the literal definition, a neighbor is one with whom we live in close proximity. Taking a more global approach, it is possible to understand that all humans are our neighbors, every single one.
It is not having love to give that stymies us. It is giving the love that we have. Loving, whether easy or hard, is ever possible. Because love, whether we realize it or not, is ever abundant.
Read more posts about love, abundance and other themes on bountiful dash blog dot com.
Dr. Lisa: This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we discoursed on the theme of abundance. We began with our discussion on feeding ourselves, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and being a part of something bigger. Being emotionally connected and nourishing those around us and ourselves in our discussion with Kirsten Scarcelli.
We continued the theme of abundance with Ben Fowley of the Camden International Film Festival and Jonathan Lawrence of REEL as we brought in the notion that Maine is a state of great abundance, of great talent, of great beauty.
We came back again around to the idea of nurturing ourselves and others with Dr. Rick Small of the Good Shepherd Food Bank.
Ultimately, all of this is about love. It’s about loving ourselves enough to feed ourselves physically and emotionally. It’s about loving those around us, as difficult as it may seem. It’s about giving what we can, giving what we have, giving who we are, and being happy to do so.
I thank you for listening this week and every week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the generous support of the following sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepard, of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard and Eaton. Mike LaPage and Beth Franklin at ReMax Heritage. Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Whole Foods Market. Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine. The University of New England, UNE, and Akari.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market Street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Chris Cast and Genevieve Morgan. Audio production and original music by John McCain. For more information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine or any of the guests featured here today, visit us online at doctorlisa dot org. Tune in every Sunday at 11 a.m. for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour on WLOB Portland, Maine, 1310 AM, or streaming WLOBradio.com. Podcasts are available at doctorlisa.org.