Caught Red-handed Podcast

With her words and her art Rebecca is the soul of concision. We talk about issues which many artists will understand, including the sin of comparison.

Hiral and I are fellow wolverines from Michigan..though Hiral’s birth country is India.  I met her about 6 years ago when I was visiting Michigan.  She still saw herself as an inexperienced henna artist.  Fast-forward a few years and Hiral had rocketed to new heights in her henna skills.  She is a model for engaged effort to master an art form and the results were amazingly apparent.  Her path to super-pro included attendance at too many henna conferences to count (I exaggerate only slightly), constant learning and practice, and a trip to India to study with a mehndi master.  She even packed up and moved out West where she could find more mentors, as well as a lot more clients.  I think we can all learn from Hiral and her concerted effort to get from point A to point B, and beyond. I really admire her courage to go to India to study with a master as well as relocate for her art. I’ve kept in touch with Hiral over the year through social media but we never really talked about the specifics of what she was up t

At long last here is part 2 of my interview with Nic.  Part 1 finished with us discussing how to learn a new tool and this episode starts off with Nic’s advice on how to learn a new style.  Thanks for patiently waiting for each episode. I am trying to get them out regularly and often but it’s hard with a full-time job and my henna work.  I finished editing part 1 right before my trip to Australia so you would have something to tide you over, and then as soon as I returned I started editing part 2. Antoinette’s x-wing fighter belly! All my listeners have been really kind with compliments and also with constructive criticism; the latter has been really important because you all alerted me to some technical issues which allowed me to fix them for future episodes. I recently received a really wonderful email from a listener in the Seattle area, Anoinette Hippe, who said that I could post her message wherever I wanted.  I was so happy to receive this message because what she describes feeling while listening t

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We talk all the time, Nic and I. We've been talking non-stop for 15 years, a lot of it about henna.  When we talk about henna we cover the gamut of topics, from cone material to ingredients, from the meaning of art to the meaning of the khamsa.  Even though we live in different cities we end up having a lot of these conversations over coffee or idlis or red wine somewhere in NYC.  We cooked up our Moroccan book in a corner booth at the Culture espresso bar in midtown Manhattan.  We dreamed of our next book over an incredible beet salad in the Roebling Tea Room in Williamsburg.  Now we've actually recorded a snippet of this fifteen year long conversation for this podcast.  The conversation ran long--as it often does--so it's been split into two parts.  We're already planning future episodes with a different format so watch this space! I have been nagging Nic to send me his bio but then I realized that there is no point. You all know the origin myth of Boy Wonder (now Man Wonder) so why bother even cutting and

If you listened to the last episode you know that my conversation with Noam went into overtime with the score tied. We had so much to talk about that I split the episode into two parts. This is the second part.  We finished part 1 talking about some of the common myths of henna and henna history, and the conversation picked up in that same stream.  We also talked a lot about Noam's work as a henna artist, especially how he uses henna as part of his role of Ritual Facilitator.  I knew nothing about this aspect of Noam's life so it was fascinating to just sit back and listen. Since starting this podcast I have heard from many people that they don't listen to podcasts or don't know how. I am such an avid consumer of podcasts that I didn't realize that not everyone was as obsessed by them as I.  Podcasts fill an entertainment niche for me.  They are great for times when I want entertainment but I can't watch a screen, maybe because I am biking, or lying on the beach, or drawing henna designs or am crammed into a

Noam's Moroccan henna work[/caption]The air was thick and moist on this first hot day in New York City.  Anticipation ran rampant as I spied those familiar flowing, caramel locks chilling at a sidewalk cafe. That was surely Noam Sienna, my most favorite henna historian ever!  We were on a tight time schedule and rushed to get the express train out to Brooklyn. Feeling the crunch of time we started the interview as we swiped our Metrocards and got on the A train.  The interview continued until we walked into my apartment.  Fearing that I wouldn't capture every word he uttered I got the mic set up, did some testing of the sound and we were off!  Two hours later and only a handful of subjects covered--along with a lot of really fascinating tangents--we wrapped up.  Quick hugs and then we were off to our other appointments, mine with my trainer, Noam's with the sun. Noam Sienna is a professional henna artist and has been practicing and researching henna for six years. Growing up in an Ashkenazi Jewish family, in