Bella Figura, The Tradition of Living Beautifully

Wendell Berry's "Family Work" Jan 26, 2022

In this third and final solo episode of Season 2, I am talking about the American writer Wendell Berry's essay, "Family Work."

Berry makes the connection between work around the home—gardening, cooking, reading, farm chores, etc.—and the solvency of family life.

Discussed in this episode:

Wendell Berry

The history of life at home

The forces that have eroded home life

Why disease is more lucrative to companies than health

How to combat the erosion of home life

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe

Ros' writing in "House and Garden"

Ros Byam Shaw Jan 18, 2022

Ros Byam Shaw is a freelance journalist and writes on design and interiors for "The World of Interiors," "House & Garden" and the "Saturday Telegraph," among others.

She is the author of Old House New Home, Perfect English, Perfect English Cottage, Perfect English Farmhouse, and English Eccentric, as well as Farrow & Ball Living with Color and Farrow & Ball Decorating with Color (all published by Ryland Peters & Small). Ros lives in Devon, England with her husband and dog.

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe

Guest:

Books by Ros

Ros on Instagram

Antique Shop

Dolores:

Axe and Root Homestead

Angela Ferraro-Fanning Jan 10, 2022

Angela Ferraro-Fanning is an author and the founder of Axe & Root Homestead, a six-acre farm in central New Jersey. A self-described "plant-based permaculture homesteader" (she breaks that down in the episode!), she began homesteading in 2012 after suffering postpartum depression with her first child. Unhappy in the graphic design business she’d worked in for over a decade, she longed to be outdoors, aligning her lifestyle with the seasons and with nature.

She started growing and preserving as much of her own homegrown produce as possible, and the homestead quickly grew from a home garden to a farm bustling with Clydesdales, geese and ducks for eggs, an apiary with ten beehives, sheep and a small orchard. She taps her own trees for maple syrup, creates her own soap and has even recently added a hobby vineyard for homemade wine.

She is the co-author of “The Harvest Table: A Collection of Seasonal Plant-Based Recipes Inspired by the Home Garden,” as well as author of The Little Homesteader Series. She is co-host of “The Definitely Not Simple Life Podcast."

[Photo Courtesy of Angela Ferraro-Fanning]

Things discussed in this episode:

Following your dreams

Changing career paths

Raising ducks, horses

Preserving food

Homegrown food

Learning as you go

Home gardens

Being a mother

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe

Guest:

Angela's Cookbook

The Little Homesteader Series

Angela on Instagram

Dolores:

A Handmade Christmas Dec 18, 2021

Join me for a Christmas special where I talk about cultivating the Christmas spirit with nature, vintage finds, and your own two hands.

Merry Christmas to all!

With love,

Dolores

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Shaye Elliott Dec 15, 2021

Shaye Elliott is founder of the popular blog The Elliott Homestead. She is a cookbook author, farmer, artist, wife and mother of four. She lives with her family in rural Washington state where she records her well-known YouTube videos on inspiration and tips on homesteading, cooking, preserving, gardening, and all around cultivating a beautiful life.

She is the author of four books, including Welcome to the Farm: How-to Wisdom from The Elliott Homestead; Family Table: Farm Cooking from the Elliott Homestead; The Elliott Homestead: From Scratch: Traditional, whole-foods dishes for easy, everyday meals; and Seasons at the Farm: Year-Round Celebrations at the Elliott Homestead. She is co-host of the high-ranking home and garden podcast, “Homemaker Chic.”

Things discussed in this episode:

Growing your own food

The importance of cooking

Why cooking challenges convenience culture

Embracing being a homemaker

It's okay to want to be a wife and mother

Defying the push to climb the corporate ladder

Living a slower life

Food is love

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

My Guest:

The Elliott Homestead

Shaye's photographs

Shaye's books

Homemaker Chic Podcast

Shaye's YouTube Channel

Dolores:

Copper, Iron, and Clay: A Smith's Journey

Sarah Dahmen Dec 09, 2021

Sara Dahmen is a coppersmith and the founder of House Copper cookware. When Sara was researching a historical fiction novel, she realized much of our kitchenware is no longer available as it once was and no one was making American copper designs. She created the House Copper American copper cookware line using historical references from original American coppersmiths.

Not only does Sara hand-drill, rivet, hand-tin and polish each of her wares, but she also spends time with a tinsmith, where she works weekly with tools from the 1700 and 1800’s to recreate vintage reproductions of tin and copper and build custom copperware designs from scratch. She is the only female coppersmith working in the United States. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and children on a micro farm.

Things discussed in this episode:

The benefits of cooking with copper, clay, and cast iron

What's in modern-day cookware

The origins of copper, clay, and cast iron as cookware

Being the only female coppersmith in America

Creating with your hands

Creating a life that resonates with your values

The importance of community

Embracing your ancestral culture

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Sara's website

Sara on Instagram

Bella Figura Shoppe

Dolores on Instagram

We Are What We Eat Dec 01, 2021

This is the first of several solo episodes, where I choose a topic and spend a bit of time breaking it down and exploring its many angles. I'm choosing topics, mostly books, that I believe will resonate with listeners. My first solo episode focuses on Alice Waters' "We Are What We Eat, A Slow Food Manifesto." Waters is an American chef, author, and restaurateur, well-known for her restaurant Chez Panisse, and its pioneering of the farm-to-table movement.

Things mentioned in this episode:

Recognizing the values of "fast food culture" in our own actions

Re-evaluating our relationship to convenience

Rethinking our approach to the availability of food

Learning to slow down

Learning to appreciate beauty over speed and convenience

Choosing what we value over what is easiest

The importance of hard work

The need for challenge in our lives

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Alice Waters' "We Are What We Eat"

"The Tyranny of Convenience" by Tim Wu, New York Times

Dolores on Instagram

Kay Foye Nov 23, 2021

Kay Foye is a knife maker and artist who grew up in Princeton, NJ, where her love of horses began. After leaving the hustle and bustle of work in New York City, Kay became a rancher in Colorado, and in 2018 began to learn the art of knifemaking, and she then began forging legacy knives—handmade knives with the mementos of a client’s life forged within the handle. Kay combines an aesthetically appealing blend of ranch life, artist, and blacksmith into her creative expression.

Photo courtesy of Preston Hoffman

Discussed in this episode:

Finding your path the roundabout way.

The importance of storytelling in different forms.

Creating a legacy through tangible objects.

Collecting items for beauty and longevity.

Creating and purchasing heirlooms for your descendants.

The kitchen as the center of a home.

Upleveling your kitchen tools.

The wrangler life.

The artistic life.

Country life.

Doing things simply because they make you happy.

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Dolores on Instagram

Angela Reed Nov 16, 2021

Angela Reed, also known as Parisienne Farmgirl via her online presence, is an author, farmer, wife, mother of six, and a successful entrepreneur. Angela lives on a 27-acre farm tucked deep in the woods of Door County, Wisconsin with her husband and six children. Moments from the sapphire waters of Lake Michigan, she spends her days tending to her potager and cottage gardens and caring for her family and farm animals.

In 2005, Angela created the website “Parisienne Farmgirl” and since then has been passionate about developing “joie de vivre”, a joy in life, and sharing that journey with other women as they cultivate memories of domesticity, motherhood and creativity. She is the co-host of the popular podcast, Homemaker Chic, and author of “From France to the Farm: Blending Generational Favorites with French Flair.” She is also the publisher and founder of Old World Design Society, a publication and private society for individuals who cherish the design and lifestyle elements of a bygone era and who believe in lived-in spaces, heirloom pieces, and that ‘new is not always better.’

Discussed in this episode:

Learning how to farm.

Being self reliant.

Adding beauty to your home and work.

Trusting your decor style.

Old World decor.

Antiques as decor.

Country life.

Homesteading.

Raising farm animals.

Preserving foods as our ancestors did.

Learning lost traditions that our ancestors knew.

Rethinking motherhood.

Homemaking and motherhood as artform.

Resources:

Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!

Angela's Website

Old World Design Society

Angela on Instagram

Angela on YouTube

Homemaker Chic Podcast

Dolores on Instagram

Stephanie's Makeup Artist page

Lisa DiCicco Cahue Jan 11, 2021

My guest for Episode 13, the last of this season's conversations recorded in 2020, features model and fashion blogger Lisa DiCicco Cahue. Originally from Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, Lisa, of Italian descent, moved to NYC and attended Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) where she graduated top of her class and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Merchandising. She worked in numerous areas of the fashion industry, specifically in the fashion closet at Harper’s Bazaar, as well as being an assistant buyer. She has since been signed with Wilhelmina, Ford, and is currently represented by Elite Model Management. She has worked for designers such as ATM, Cynthia Rowley, Thom Browne, Ramy Brook, Rebecca Minkoff and Protagonist. Maintaining the perfect minimalist street style and “model off-duty” looks, Lisa hosts her own blog, and in 2018 she became pregnant and now dedicates herself to her own business and raising her son, Sebastian. She has collaborated with some of the best designers in fashion both as a model and an influencer. She had a successful capsule collection with Amazon, selling out many pieces in under 30 hours and hopes to one day have her own label. Things discussed: Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones Jealousy verse aspiration Motherhood The struggles of the postpartum experience Learning to accept our postpartum bodies Inspiring women to be bold Fashion as bella figura Raising children to have a sense of their roots Embracing our cultural values and discarding those that limit us Fashion tips to feel your most confident How to look great in photos Resources: Lisa's website Lisa on Instagram Bella Figura website Dolores on Instagram The Italian American Podcast

Sandra Chuma Dec 27, 2020

Sandra Chuma, of Zimbabwean ancestry, is an entrepreneur, speaker, coach, podcast host, and award-winning documentary filmmaker. She believes that our greatest responsibility is to share our stories so we can inspire and create possibility for others.

Raised in a tiny mud hut in Zimbabwe with no running water or electricity, Sandra has never been one to let circumstances define her. Through hard work, and support from her “village,” she became a management consultant, advising major global companies. She then went on to build two successful companies.

But despite all her professional success, she knew she wasn’t walking in her purpose. Sandra made the decision to go back to school in 2015 to get a master’s degree in Journalism, Storytelling & Documentary Filmmaking from Columbia University.

Sandra has made it her mission to help others create the best version of themselves. She is building brands focused on providing inspiration, tools and community.

Discussed in this episode:

The power of storytelling

Assimilation and knowing your roots

The complexity of leaving your country of origin

Holding onto the values you were raised with

Following your purpose, not just your passion

Taking the first steps in a new endeavor and allowing the path to unfold

Passing cultural awareness onto the next generation

Resources:

Stephanie Flor Dec 22, 2020

Stephanie Flor, of South American ancestry,is a NYC based celebrity makeup artist who works regularly with industry leaders ranging from musicians to television personalities. Her clients include Mariah Carey, Eve, Sting, Kathy Griffin, and politicians Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and the Israel President Shimon Peres, among others. She is most currently the Global Colour Pro artist for Clinique U.S and Hispanic market.

Flor has been featured on Glam Belleza Magazine “Weekend Section,” Latina magazine's “Young & Inspiring: Ones to Watch” list, “ Beauty Vanguard in April 2015”and landed herself on the Cosmo for Latinas blog spotlight for Around the World Beauty.

She is a go-to beauty expert for her tips in both beauty and travel for Teen Vogue, Allure.com, Glamour, InStyle, Essence.com, and Vogue.com.

Editorially, Flor has worked on photo shoots and video productions for Cosmopolitan, Glamour, L’Oreal, People, Martha Stewart, The New Yorker, Time, OWN Oprah, Victoria’s Secret, and Women's Wear.

Flor expertise in multicultural beauty has made her a go-to ambassador for leading cosmetic and hair care brands, such as Head and Shoulders, Makeup Forever, L’Oreal Paris, La Bella, Thicker Fuller Hair, and Maybelline.

Discussed in this episode:

Entrepreneurship

Beauty as a spiritual practice

Connecting to ancestors through beauty

Traveling the world

Connecting to ancestral culture through beauty practices

Beauty approaches from around the globe

Resources:

Around the World Beauty

The Italian American Podcast

Dolores on Instagram

Shelly Marshall Oct 01, 2020

Shelly Marshall, of Japanese and Irish descent, is the founder of Beauty Shamans, which unites the wisdom of the past and the science of today to create healthy skincare products from the ocean and Earth. As a nurse, esthetician, and aromatherapist, her approach to skincare is clinical, clean and holistic.

Things discussed:

Connections between our work and our heritage

Helping our parents and ourselves reconnect to our roots

Taking care of our skin holistically

Ways to wean off chemical skincare products

Turning our nightmares into our greatest gifts

Feeding our bodies for optimal health and skin

Embracing our family stories

Connecting to our ancestors through our work and by being the keeper of family history

Resources:

Shelly’s website, Beauty Shamans

Shelly on Instagram

Dolores on Instagram

Jaquira Diaz Sep 16, 2020

Jaquira Díaz was born in Puerto Rico. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Longreads, The Fader, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and included in The Best American Essays 2016. She is the recipient of the 2019 Whiting Award in Nonfiction for “Ordinary Girls,” two Pushcart Prizes, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Kenyon Review, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. She lives in Miami Beach with her partner, the writer Lars Horn.

Things Discussed:

Growing up in Puerto Rico

Coming out to a Catholic family

The tensions between the white and black sides of her family during childhood

The silence around sexual violence

Ethnic and racial identity - What am I?

Practicing Catholicism and being gay

Even the hardest family stories can give us strength

The publishing industry

Racism and learning to understand one another

Resources:

Jaquira’s new memoir, “Ordinary Girls”

Jaquira on Instagram

Jaquira’s website

A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff

Dolores on Instagram

Aimee Raupp Aug 26, 2020

Aimee Raupp, of Irish ancestry, is a renowned women’s health & wellness expert and the best- selling author of the books Chill Out & Get Healthy, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, and Body Belief. A licensed acupuncturist and herbalist in private practice in New York, she is also the founder of the Aimee Raupp Beauty line of hand-crafted, organic skincare products.

She’s appeared on The View and has been featured in Glamour, Allure, Well + Good, GOOP, Shape, and Redbook and has received endorsements from Deepak Chopra, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Arianna Huffington, and Gabby Bernstein for her work in helping thousands of women to improve their vitality, celebrate their beauty, and reconnect to the presence of their optimal health. Aimee is also the Head of Chinese Medicine at The Well, an active columnist and is a frequent speaker at women’s health & wellness conferences across the nation.

Things discussed:

Cooking and eating as our ancestors did

Being drawn to practices from other cultures

How to improve fertility through health and wellness

Possible causes of the epidemic of infertility

The impact of the IVF industry on women’s perceptions of their fertility

Epigenetics as it pertains to fertility

As long as you’re still menstruating, fertility can be improved

The myth of fertility decline past 35 years old

Resources:

Chloe Garcia Ponce Jul 02, 2020

Chloe Garcia Ponce, of Mexican and Native American ancestry, is a Mexican Curandera healer, herbalist, and channel working through the power of prayer and candle work. Curanderismo is a holistic approach to wellness that has been used in the Americas, pre- and post-contact, for hundreds of years. In Mexico, it is also known as Mexican Traditional Medicine.

A Curandera may be referred to as a woman of knowledge, or, if trained in traditional Native ways and serving their native community, a medicine woman. Chloe’s multicultural upbringing shaped her life and Nomadic Songlines, her healing practice.

Things discussed:

Making the best out of times of fear and uncertainty

Returning to practices that connect us to our true selves

Youthful rebellion leading to a circling back and finding your roots

Supporting one another through hardship

Ways to release emotion

Death as a catalyst for growth

Accessing the voices of those who have passed

The importance of human touch

Women and christian sacred texts

Resources:

Alicia Jo Rabins Jun 17, 2020

My guest for Episode 6, Alicia Jo Rabins, of Jewish ancestry, is a writer, musician, performer, ritualist and Torah teacher. She is the author of poetry books Divinity School (winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (finalist for the Jewish Book Award) and has released three albums with Girls in Trouble, her songwriting project about Biblical women. She is currently at work on an independent film, "A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff." The recipient of a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship, Rabins lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.

Things discussed:

Being drawn to ancestral religious practices.

Reconnecting to cultural traditions even after several generations of assimilation.

Re-examining the biases against organized religion.

How organized religion can root us.

Art as a means to explore religious experience.

Embracing the roots of our adopted country in addition to our ancestral one.

Emotional challenges of motherhood.

Struggles of the writing life.

Teaching children about their heritage.

Raising children with ancestral traditions.

Resources:

Alicia's website

Girls in Trouble

Alicia on Instagram

"Ancestral Language for Strength," Dolores' blog post

Connect with Spirit, Find Your Center, and Choose an Intentional Life

Jill Willard Jun 09, 2020

In Episode 5, I speak to Jill Willard, of Italian and Irish ancestry, author of “Intuitive Being" and celebrated intuitive and healer. Jill is trained in multiple healing, wellness and listening modalities. Her wisdom and expertise focuses mainly on the connection between the brain, our body and our choices.

Topics discussed

What intuition is.

What an intuitive is.

How her heritage connected her to her intuition and fifth-sense.

Her silent conversations with her grandparents.

How intuition and instinct are not new ideas, but ancient practices that were commonplace to our ancestors.

Catholic sacraments and their parallel to energy centers.

How her psychic abilities forced her to see the abuse priests perpetrated on children, and other troubling facts, before they were revealed.

Why intuition has faded in modern society.

What being out of touch with your intuition feels like.

Learning to rest and to get back into our bodies.

How motherhood opens up a new form of intuition.

The art of mediumship.

References

Joseph Campbell

Guest

Jill's websites:

www.jillwillard.com

https://intuitivebeingexperience.podia.com/ibe

https://www.thepresentprogram.com

Jill on Instagram

Bella Figura

Bella Figura website

Dolores on Instagram

Mallorie Vaudoise May 26, 2020

Mallorie Vaudoise, of Southern Italian ancestry, is a NYC-based spiritualist of Italian descent. With Vanessa Irena, she hosts Good Bones, a podcast about living and dying well. She is the author of Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration and Italian Folk Magic, a blog about devotional practices from Southern Italy and Sicily.

Drawn to witchcraft and folk magic from a young age, her path has required both careful study and wild abandon. Her writing is an act of devotion, an offering to the spiritual ecosystem in which she finds herself. She believes that music, food, wine, and kissing are vital tools of spiritual evolution.

Things discussed:

What ancestor veneration is and what it isn’t.

How different cultures venerate their ancestors.

Mallorie’s book, “Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration.”

How we repeat patterns from not only our own past, but the pasts' of our ancestors.

Ancestor veneration can shine a light on these patterns to help release them.

How to discern if a pattern is ancestral trauma.

The body and home are our spiritual foundations and need to be tended to first and foremost.

How to feel messages from our dead.

Resources:

“Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration”

Mallorie’s blog, Italian Folk Magic

Mallorie on Instagram

Bella Figura website

Episode 2 [Marine Selenee]

Italian American Podcast Gay Talese Episode 1

Christopher Castellani May 19, 2020

Christopher Castellani, of Southern Italian ancestry, recently published his fourth novel, Leading Men, for which he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, was published by Viking in 2019. The novel explores the complex relationship between Frank Merlo, a Jersey-born Italian American, and Tennessee Williams. Castellani is also the author of the novels All This Talk of Love, The Saint of Lost Things, and A Kiss from Maddalena, a trilogy inspired by the lives of his Italian immigrant parents. His collection of essays on point of view in fiction, The Art of Perspective, was published by Graywolf Press in 2016. He is currently on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives in Boston, where he is artistic director of GrubStreet, the country's largest and leading independent writing center.

Things discussed:

The parts of our heritage we need to leave behind.

Internalizing our family stories.

Research shows that family stories give us strength and build the foundation of our lives.

Loosening the ties to our family stories in order to incorporate some of our own.

How our respective cultures can be comforting and also suffocating.

The beginning of our lives start with our ancestors’ stories.

Writing our family stories as a way to redeem the loss of assimilation.

Leaving behind the parts of our heritage that don't support us.

The same Elemental of our culture can heal as well as wound.

Tips on how to gather and write your family stories.

Resources:

Guest:

Christopher's website

Christopher's books

Christopher on Instagram

Grubstreet

Mentions:

Guggenheim Fellowship

Italian American Podcast Gay Talese Episode 2

"Where are the Italian American novelists?" - Gay Talese essay

Bella Figura:

Family Constellations Therapy

Marine Selenee May 12, 2020

This episode with therapist Marine Selenee, of French ancestry, who specializes in the practice of Family Constellations, dives deep into why we keep repeating destructive patterns, and how we can stop doing so by healing our family traumas—both our own and those of our ancestors.

Things discussed:

What is Family Constellations?

How is it used to break damaging patterns?

Your body remembers and guides you toward what needs healing.

Trauma is passed down genetically through generations, and it appears as fears and phobias in descendants.

The four principles to teach children in order for them to thrive.

We all want to belong, and we’ll even take on bad habits—alcoholism, gambling— in order to feel we belong to our families.

Our lives are entangled with our ancestors stories.

All family members have a place, including those lost through miscarriage, and someone will repeat the story if those members are not recognized.

Taking responsibility for our own lives, no matter how our parents may have failed us.

Resources

Guest:

Marine's website

Marine on Instagram

Mentions:

Bert Hellinger

Bella Figura Podcast: