Episode 76: The Art of Listening to Yourself: Collage, Creativity and Coming Home to Your Body with Molly Meng
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What if the most honest thing you could do today involved scissors, glue, and a pile of old magazines?In this episode of The Self-Investment Project, Kathy sits down with artist, teacher, and self-described "walking show and tell" Molly Meng, whose collage workshops have a way of cracking people open, gently, joyfully, and sometimes unexpectedly.
Molly's work is rooted in a simple but profound truth: we are all layered beings. And when we sit down with scissors and images that call to us, something quiet inside us begins to speak.
In this episode, Kathy and Molly discuss:
Why collage is one of the most accessible forms of somatic self-expression
How layering in art mirrors the layers we carry as human beings
The healing power of making something with your hands without a plan or a grade
What it means to work so slowly you can hear yourself living (yes, Elizabeth Gilbert makes an appearance)
Molly's Traveling Postal Club, where strangers make collage postcards and mail them to people they love
How procrastination might actually be a process, not a flaw
Timestamps:
00:00 Meet artist Molly Meng
04:00 Finding stories inside everyday objects
09:59 Discovering joy in ordinary things
13:57 Creativity begins with slowing down
21:43 Quieting your inner saboteur
24:18 Why adults struggle with creativity
30:00 How collage first became Molly's language
32:09 Giving yourself permission to play
37:19 Helping analytical minds embrace creativity
39:06 The Traveling Postal Club
44:05 Why joy is contagious
48:36 Procrastination as part of the creative process
50:28 Why your art should look like you
53:46 The healing power of layers
58:07 The question Kathy asks every guest
Connect with Molly Meng
Follow @molly_c_meng on Instagram
I am heavily influenced by my extremely loud and incredibly close family, an errant scrap of paper, the beauty of operatic trillings, the simple concept of kindness, overheard conversations, the genius of rap, the thick cotton of an old book page, and the magic of theremins. I am absolutely passionate about nature and create work to appear as affected by the natural world: Aged by the environment but in a much loved way. I'm slightly obsessed with other people's lives- people from the past- and the things they saved, lived with and ultimately let go. I have more collections than I can name, and they all make me happy.
Connect with Kathy Washburn
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