Today we’d like to introduce you to Ariel Lavery.
Hi Ariel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I am a mother of two who began as an artist. I was teaching Sculpture at Watkins College of Art in Nashville when I became pregnant with my first child. My husband and I had been working and living in two separate cities and decided to move back in together two raise our family, which meant me leaving my job.
In that first year of being a new mother, I felt immense awe and inspiration at this new transformation in my life, but also frustration at not having an outlet through which I could express this incredible feeling. I could, however, talk to other mothers and have a shared experience with them. Suddenly, just by the simple act of conversing, I felt satisfaction and belonging.
That is when I decided to start formally interviewing creative mothers and I started my first ever podcast Mothers’ Project. I had not yet gotten my first four episodes of Mother’s Project (mothersproject.com) published when I was approached by WKMS, our local NPR station, about participating in another podcast project that would be funded by PRX. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity.
It’s rare to feel like you’re doing the exact right thing at the exact right time in the exact right place quite this much. WKMS received the grant from PRX and our team was brought on board to begin training. After a five-month training period that consisted of monthly flights to PRX’s podcast garage in Boston, MA, we began to research and produce our first season of Middle of Everywhere.
I produced two seasons of Mother’s Project, 15 episodes in all, and, though I am no longer producing that podcast, I owe everything to that initial experience. Most of all, I owe my newfound passion and success to the birth of my first daughter.
While I knew motherhood would be a new chapter in my life, I never imagined becoming a mother would launch me into an entirely new creative field full of things to discover.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Ironically, as I attribute my success to becoming a mother, my biggest challenge these days is childcare. It’s a common story many mothers have been facing since COVID, and even before.
Because I am a part-time employee on this podcast, I have to find part-time child care, and, surprisingly, that has put my family into the never-ending juggling act of who is watching which kid and when. Yet, perhaps this experience will one day turn into an investigation into how our country deals with childcare and early childhood education.
Other than that, working as a team has its own set of difficulties, which are ultimately totally worth it. Trying to maintain good morale and focus within the team has yielded incredible results for us. But it’s not always easy to keep everyone on that same track.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work as an artist was/is very different from my work as a podcast producer.
I was primarily working as a sculptor, but also had media and audio experience that gave me an introductory skill set in audio production. I also fully believe that my education (BFA Ceramics CU Boulder, MFA Fine Arts from UMass Amherst) gave me a foundation in critical thinking and exploration that is required of podcast work… not to mention the drive to create something new and inspiring at every go-round.
My artwork can be viewed at www.ariellavery.com.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I actually died once! And then nearly repeated it.
When I was young I rode horses with my mom. We were both horse lovers. I was ten years old when I was kicked square in the chest by a horse and it stopped my heart.
Luckily my mom was a physician and quickly performed CPR, which, just like in the movies, actually got my heart going again. (Don’t try it at home.) I was in the hospital for a week after with a horseshoe branded on my chest. You could see the minutest details down to the nails used to attach the shoe.
Then, a decade later, when I was 20, I was nearly killed again when I was in a horrible car accident. I broke half-a-dozen bones and shattered my humor, which put me in a wheelchair and took me out of college for a year.
I was waiting for something to happen when I turned 30, but the horrible luck seemed to have lifted. This year, however, I turn 40, so we’ll see what the universe tries to throw at me as I enter my next decade of life.
Contact Info:
- Email: alavery@murraystate.edu
- Website: middleofeverywherepod.org, ariellavery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simpsoar/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ariel.simpsonjohnson
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/home
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/mothers_project
Image Credits
PRX
