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(This episode is marked as explicit because of strong language.)
Here is a little extra (taken out of the final edit of our conversation) in which Tasha and Charles Adrian talk about art and validation:
Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin , published in 1988 by Penguin Books; cover design by Melissa Jacoby; cover engraving by William Blake after a drawing by Philip Gidley King, third governor of New South Wales.
Taking some time out from performing at the Victoria Fringe Festival in British Columbia, Western Canada, Charles Adrian is joined for the 129th Second Hand Book Factory by mother, artist, performance artist, independent thinker, recovering academic, dog mother, cat mother, teacher and (in some ways) activist Tasha Diamant. They talk women living in brutal circumstances, what makes an artist an artist and Aboriginal Australians.
You may notice some slightly strange background noise in this episode, quite apart from jingle jangling, mewing and sighing of cats and dogs. The strangeness is because of the way the noise-removal software used to clean up the recording interacts with the sound of cars going by outside the window.
You can find out more about Yellowpoint Retreat Lodge, which Tasha mentions, here.
Another book by Bruce Chatwin, What Am I Doing Here, is discussed in Page One 91.
A transcript of this episode, as well as a transcript of the ‘extra’, is below.
Episode recorded: 17th August, 2019.
Episode released: 24th March, 2020.
Book listing:
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (trans. Ann Goldstein)
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Masud
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello, and welcome to the 155th Page One. This is the 129th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today, in her house in Victoria, British Columbia, Western Canada, is Tasha Diamant.
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Tasha Diamant
Hello. Thank you for having me on your podcast.
Charles Adrian
It's so wonderful to have you on.
Tasha Diamant
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
I nearly forgot that I had asked you to do this.
Tasha Diamant
Aha.
Charles Adrian
I nearly forgot to bring my recording equipment and everything. Yeah. Luckily, I remembered. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. You are my favourite Fringe performer, I think, in that your work... I mean, I like you, obviously, personally... but your work is the work that I think is the most interesting and powerful and important work that I've seen on Fringe... at Fringe... at any Fringe, really.
Tasha Diamant
That's super high praise. Thank you.
Charles Adrian
So how do you describe yourself, Tasha?
Tasha Diamant
Well, I describe myself first as a mother and an artist. And I'm a performance artist and independent thinker, recovering academic, dog mother, cat mother, teacher, and, in some ways an activist.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm. We might hear some of the dog noises, by the way, I should probably say that.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] Yes. And perhaps cat noises as well.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm. And the windows are open so we might hear stuff from outside.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Cool. Okay. That's quite a... Yeah, okay. That was quite a comprehensive list.
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Tasha and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Cool. So what is...
[page turning]
Charles Adrian
What is the book that you have brought that you like?
Tasha Diamant
Okay, the book that I brought that I like... I'm going to dig it out of the bag over here because I didn't want you to see it until now... is My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.
Charles Adrian
Okay. This is super exciting, because I've never read anything by Elena Ferrante but I have read... I've read about her.
Tasha Diamant
Yes. Me too.
Charles Adrian
Yeah,
Tasha Diamant
That's what... For me, for a long time, I'd read about her...
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Tasha Diamant
... and then I was actually in this really wonderful place. There's this, kind of, like, adult camp in... on the island called... Jesus... Yellow Point Retreat Lodge...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Here on Vancouver Island?
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] Yeah. Yeah...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
... on Vancouver Island. And I hadn't heard of it before. Anyway, I ended up going there for a weekend and someone had left the book there. And so I started reading it because I'd read about Elena Ferrante and I'd looked in the library sometimes and it was always out, right? I could never...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tasha Diamant
And I just... I was like: “Oh my God. Now I know what the hype is about.” So...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tasha Diamant
You want me to tell you why I like it. I love it.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. I mean, tell me something about... Yeah. Why did you... Why did you bring it to the podcast?
Tasha Diamant
I think because... partly what you just said. Like, I... Elena Ferrante is this, kind of, mysterious figure that no one actually knows who she actually is.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
She's been... She's kept her anonymity.
[sound of cat dingling]
Tasha Diamant
And there's a cat dingling there.
Charles Adrian
Ah. That's what that is. Yup.
Tasha Diamant
And because I'd read about these books and... Sometimes, hype... if something's hyped too much, then I'm, kind of, like: “Oh, I don't know if I'm going to read that because I'll be disappointed.” But, for me, this lived up to the hype and then some. She's a beautiful, beautiful writer but what I especially love about this book is how she captures a reality of... of especially women who are living in really brutal circumstances. But it's... It's not about that but it also... but it captures that. I don't know if... I feel like I'm not doing the book justice at all. But anyway,
Charles Adrian
It sounds wonderful...
Tasha Diamant
Really?
Charles Adrian
... what you're saying about it. Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
[laughing] Okay. Good.
Charles Adrian
Would you like to read the first page?
Tasha Diamant
[affirmative] Mmm hmm. Oh, also a thing I love about this book, which I wish all books had, because now I'm 57 and I can't often keep characters in my head.... so, it has a list of the characters.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, so good. Mmm hmm. Yup.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] I love that.
Charles Adrian
I love that too.
Tasha Diamant
Okay. This is from the prologue. It's the first page.
This morning Rino telephoned. I thought he wanted money again and I was ready to say no. But that was not the reason for the phone call: his mother was gone.
“Since when?”
“Since two weeks ago.”
“And you're calling me now?”
My tone must have seemed hostile, even though I wasn't angry or offended; there was just a touch of sarcasm. He tried to respond but he did so in an awkward, muddled way, half in dialect, half in Italian. He said he was sure that his mother was wandering around Naples as usual.
“Even at night?”
“You know how she is.”
“I do, but does two weeks of absence seem normal?”
“Yes. You haven't seen her for a while, Elena, she's gotten worse: she's never sleepy, she comes in, goes out, does what she likes.”
Anyway, in the end he had started to get worried. He had asked everyone, made the rounds of the hospitals: he had even gone to the police. Nothing, his mother wasn't anywhere. What a good son: a large man, forty years old, who hadn't worked in his life, just a small-time crook and spendthrift. I could imagine how carefully he had done his searching. Not at all. He had no brain, and in his heart he had only himself.
“She's not with you?” he asked suddenly.
His mother? Here in Turin? He knew the situation perfectly...
Charles Adrian
That is such a nicely cutting portrait of the guy. [laughs]
Tasha Diamant
Immediately, right?
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Yes.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah, I find the immediacy of the way that she describes people...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tasha Diamant
... I just get it right away. And also, like, you, sort of, get this little inkling... because one of the first things she talks about is these... is this man, who's: “a large man, 40 year olds... 40 years old, hadn't worked in his life, just a small time crook and spendthrift.” So. There's a lot of really disappointing men in her book... in her books.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh! Interesting. And is she... So is she the Elena, or Elena, of the...
Tasha Diamant
One imagines, yes.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That's... that's interesting. I like that idea that she has this, you know, constructed identity writing apparently autobiographical books.
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Charles Adrian
That's so... that's such a nice conc... conceit.
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Charles Adrian
I like that a lot.
Tasha Diamant
I mean, I feel she must have lived something of this life be...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tasha Diamant
... to describe it the way she does. Although some writers... like, one that's just coming to mind right now, who I also love, is Hilary Mantel and she seems to...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Ah, yes.
Tasha Diamant
... like, enter into these worlds...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
... that she's never been in.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] And she's in it.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tasha Diamant
But this feels autobiographical.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Interesting. Oh, so cool! Thank you so much for bringing that. I've been very curious about her books for... for a little while, but I haven't....
Tasha Diamant
I could not put it down.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... actually got hold of one. Okay.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah, I... I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. And that's super high praise for me because I'm very... What's the right word? I guess ‘addicted’ is the right word. I am super addicted to crime novels.
Charles Adrian
Ah! Okay! Oh, and I should have brought you a crime novel. I also love...
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] No! That's okay!
Charles Adrian
... crime novels. Of a particular type.
Tasha Diamant
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
I don't know whether we like the same type but I like detective stories.
Tasha Diamant
Yes, me too. I love detective stories.
Charles Adrian
Oh, so much. It makes me feel so calm.
Tasha Diamant
Yes, me too.
[page turning]
Charles Adrian
But instead, the book that I've got for you is... It's a book that someone gave to me. It's called The Woman Upstairs by Claire Mesud.
Tasha Diamant
I have never heard of it so this is exciting.
Charles Adrian
And the reason I've brought it... So, what I should have said at the beginning is that...
[sound of cat dingling]
Tasha Diamant
Cat.
Charles Adrian
That was the cat. I'm... I'm here to perform at the Victoria Fringe Festival, which is one of my favourite Fringes that I've ever done. I love it here. I like the city and I like the Fringe and it just... Everything seems very friendly and welcoming and people are very enthusiastic about Fringe here... about Fringe theatre and performance. And, obviously, for people who don't know Fringe... I mean, Fringe Festivals tend to be full of all kinds of people, right? There are... there are the people who are professional performers all around, all the time. And then there are people who do it some of the time. And then there are people who are just doing this one show and they're in this one festival and they are seeing how it goes and then maybe they'll go back to doing whatever it is they do the rest of the time afterwards. And this book is about a woman who is a teacher and, you'll see from the first page, wanted to be an artist.
Tasha Diamant
Ah.
Charles Adrian
And I think... like, one of the things that interests me about it is this question of “What is an artist?” first of all.
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Charles Adrian
”Who gets to describe themselves as an artist?”
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
And then “What permission does that give you?” And I... So I find that... I find that really interesting. Particularly the question of: “Once you have... once you're confident enough to say ‘I am an artist’...
Tasha Diamant
Aha.
Charles Adrian
... what then are you allowed to do? And...
Tasha Diamant
Right.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... what are you allowed to steal from people and what of other people's lives are you allowed to use...
Tasha Diamant
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
... for yourself?”
Tasha Diamant
Right.
Charles Adrian
”What is... What is given freely and what is taken?” And all those... all those sorts of questions...
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Charles Adrian
... around permission and... and status also...
Tasha Diamant
Yes. Oh, [indistinct]...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over]... which I think are...
Tasha Diamant
... that sounds great. I love the sound of it.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. It's really cool. And it's a very angry book as well...
Tasha Diamant
Ooo! Angry! Good.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... kind of, under the surface, which is really nice. So, yeah. I hope you will... I hope you will enjoy it. I hope you will read it all the way to the end.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] Well, I love the sound of it.
Charles Adrian
1
How angry am I? You don't want to know. Nobody wants to know about that.
I'm a good girl, I'm a nice girl, I'm a straight-A, straight-laced, good daughter, good career girl, and I never stole anybody's boyfriend and I never ran out on a girlfriend, and I put up with my parents' shit and my brother's shit, and I'm not a girl anyhow, I'm over forty fucking years old, and I'm good at my job and I'm great with kids and I held my mother's hand when she died, after four years of holding her hand while she was dying, and I speak to my father every day on the telephone - every day, mind you, and what kind of weather do you have on your side of the river because here it's pretty gray and a bit muggy too? It was supposed to say ‘Great Artist’ on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say ‘such a good teacher slash daughter slash friend’ instead; and what I really want to shout, and want in big letters on that grave, too, is FUCK YOU ALL.
Don't all women feel the same? The only difference is how much we know we feel it, how in touch we are with our fury. We're all furies, except the ones who are too damn foolish, and my worry now is that we're brainwashing them from the cradle...
Tasha Diamant
Oh my god, I love it! Thank you!
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's good, isn't it. It is a really good first page, I think. I think it has so much passion.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] This really speaks to me.
Charles Adrian
Good.
Tasha Diamant
And espec... And so... It's... I feel like I'm a little bit in a... like, on that... say there's a dial... So I've... my dial is turned a little bit further than hers. But I struggle. Like, I am a declared artist. I think of myself as an artist. And, when I'm really brave, I say to myself: “I'm a great artist.”
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tasha Diamant
But I am also a daughter, a mother, a wife. And my parents are embarrassed by my work. My kids are embarrassed by my work. My work and who I am and how I think takes me away from being a mother. And... oh man, yeah, so there's all... And that whole part about women being angry. It's, like... I'm angry all the fucking time and I'm actually able to be an artist and I actually have a husband who supports me being an artist and I'm still angry all the time because... I'm... the world's not set up for women and the world's not set up for artists, especially women artists.
Charles Adrian
Right. [laughs]
Tasha Diamant
Not at all. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. [laughs]
Tasha Diamant
So I love the sound of this book. Thank you.
Charles Adrian
I think you're going to like it. I hope so. [laughs]
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] Yes. I'm sure I'm going to like it. I love the first page already.
[page turning]
Charles Adrian
What is the book that you have... that you think I should have?
Tasha Diamant
Okay. So the book I think you should have is one of, like, the most important books in my life, I would say. And I just wish this writer hadn't died so young.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
He died of AIDS, I think in... not even the nineties, if I remember right. The Song Lines by Bruce Chatwin.
Charles Adrian
Oh. I've heard of Bruce Chatwin but I don't know any of his work.
Tasha Diamant
Okay. So you would have, probably, because he's the kind of writer that I think would be... Like, his work... writing is so vibrant and it's still so, like, very important to our time and current, even though he was writing... This book is... is it the eighties or the seventies that he wrote this? Let me see... First published in 1987. And I think you would really love this work because he's so British, even though he's doing like, really... Well, it's not that he's doing un-British things. It's just that he's... Because he's a traveller. He's an explorer.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tasha Diamant
But there's something just so honest and the voice of... his voice reminds me of your voice. Like, it's... his beautiful way of expressing and just a very compassionate voice as well. So he kind of reminds me of you. And he's a gay man and you're a gay man, although...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tasha Diamant
... I don't believe he ever wrote about being a gay man or...
Charles Adrian
Ah. Right.
Tasha Diamant
... admitted it in his writing.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
So The Song Lines is about the song lines of the Australian Aborigines and about his going to try and learn more about it. And I love the way, like... He... This is also, I would say, auto-ethnography in the sense that he's going into a place in an... and, of course, it's anthropological because just of the nature of his work, but he's always talking about himself and the people around him and the other Australians and... and he's very, very reflective on his own self. And, yeah, it's just... it's an... it's very moving.
IN ALICE SPRINGS - a grid of scorching streets where men in long white socks were forever getting in and out of Land Cruisers - I met a Russian who was mapping the sacred sites of the Aboriginals.
His name was Arkady Volchok. He was an Australian citizen. He was thirty-three years old.
His father, Ivan Volchok, was a Cossack from a village near Rostov-on-Don, who, in 1942, was arrested and sent with a trainload of other Ostarbeiter to work in a German factory. One night, somewhere in the Ukraine, he jumped from the cattle-car... cattle-car into a field of sunflowers. Soldiers in grey uniforms hunted him up and down the long lines of sunflowers, but he gave them the slip. Somewhere else, lost between murdering armies, he met a girl from Kiev and married her. Together they drifted to a forgetful Adelaide suburb, where he rigged up a vodka still and fathered three sturdy sons.
The youngest of these was Arkady.
Nothing in Arkady's temperament predisposed him to live in the hugger-mugger of Anglo-Saxon suburbia or take a conventional job. He had a flattish face and a gentle smile, and he moved through the bright Australian spaces with the ease of his footloose forebears.
His hair was thick and straight, the colour of straw. His lips had cracked in the heat. He did not have the drawn-in lips of so many white Australians in the Outback; Nor did he swallow his words. He rolled his r's in a very Russian way. Only when you came up close did you realise how big his bones were.
He had married, he told me, and had a daughter of six. Yet, preferring solitude to domestic chaos, he no longer lived with his wife. He had few possessions apart from a harpsichord and a shelf of books.
Charles Adrian
Wow. Well, another quite... much fuller portrait. [laughs]
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Charles Adrian
But beautiful. I think... Yeah, I think I'm gonna really enjoy that. And I also have been to Australia once and I was in Alice Springs for, I think, a day.
Tasha Diamant
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
But I... Yeah, I find tales of Australia fascinating.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
It is a really incredible, kind of, mishmash mixture of all kinds of different things, it seems to me.
Tasha Diamant
Yes. It's fascinating. I mean, when I was there, I was pretty young still. I was 30. I did... It was just before I... I did one of those exchange visas that you can do as a Commonwealth person.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh yes. Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
So I just was meeting the end of that age limit...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
... and I hadn't yet, sort of, woken up to anything in my life yet except for that I was extremely depressed and lonely. And... I was still a journalist. Like, my job and... from late twenties into early thirties, I was a journalist. And so... and journal... fucking journalism still existed. So... I ended up getting a job with People Magazine but they had started a magazine in Australia. So it was the big People Magazine but they called it Who Weekly. I don't actually know if it still exists or not. Anyway, so it was, like, People but Australia.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
So one of the stories I did was to go out to the Outback, because there was a rock and roll band in Australia that was travelling the Outback and teaching kids out in the Outback... like, Aboriginal kids... to play rock and roll...
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Tasha Diamant
And I remember just, like, k... like, kind of, taking in the unfairness and... okay, so this was in ’91 or ’92 and out there, like, in the Outback... and it wasn't even the far, far Outback, I was still in New South Wales... there's a bar in town or tavern or whatever and there's an aborigine entrance and, like, a white person's entrance...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh really? Ah. Right. Okay.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] ... and an aborigine part of the bar and a white person's part of the bar.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
And that's where I had to stay, in this, like, hotel tavern place.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tasha Diamant
And being pretty shocked by that.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tasha Diamant
But also still, like, not... like, I... like I said, it was, sort of, the beginning of beginning to feel what... what culture I was in and not being okay with it and all that. And so I found it, like, kind of shocking, but also... “Yuh. Oh well. Whatever” kind of thing.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm hmm. This is how it is.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah. But I remember, kind of, getting into going to different aborigine gatherings that were in Sydney, say, like, of, you know, bands or whatever... like, music bands... and, in my head, thinking: “Wow, we're so much better in Canada.” Like I knew that!
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tasha Diamant
I don't... Just thinking that thought!
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
And I didn't even know that was true.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tasha Diamant
But I believed it.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tasha Diamant
So looking back on that is really interesting, to see, like, the way that I've been brainwashed. And... Yeah, my experience in Australia was really quite interesting.
Charles Adrian
Oh, thank you so much. This has been lovely.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah?
Charles Adrian
Yes! So good! You're looking very doubtful.
Tasha Diamant
[laughing] Okay. Good.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tasha Diamant
[laughing] I feel like I... I don't... I feel like I haven't done these books justice because they're just amazing books. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Well, I mean, you didn't write them.
Tasha Diamant
No. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
And I will read this one. You will read the one I gave you.
Tasha Diamant
Yes, and you should read this one too
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And I will probably read the Elena Ferrante as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
And then you'll have to read the rest of them. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah, that's.... I mean, that's the other problem with that, is the commitment that... we'll...
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] Yeah. Well, over time.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... you know, deal with that at that time.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] I've only read the first two.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Thank you so much.
Tasha Diamant
You're welcome. Thank you!
Jingle
Thank you for listening to Page One. For more information about the podcast, please go to pageonepodcast.com.
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]
155 extra transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello! Charles Adrian here with a little extra that I'm releasing alongside the main episode this week... Page One 155... This is about two and a half minutes of conversation that didn't make it into the final edit but it contains some things that I like, including the sound of a cat needing to be left out of the house. Very important documentary footage. So, in this recording, Tasha Diamant and I are talking about art and validation and the book that sparks this bit of chat is The Woman Upstairs by Claire Massoud, which we talk more about in the 155th Page One. You can find out more about Tasha's work at humanbodyproject.org... that's [spelling it out] h u m a n b o d y p r o j e c t dot o r g... and more information about this podcast, including all past episodes and some transcripts... I'm in the process of transcribing all of the archived episodes but it's taking me a long time so it's going to be years, probably, until that's finished, if I do get through it at all so I'm sorry about that... Anyway, all of that is at pageonepodcast.com. Here's me talking to Tasha Diamant.
Charles Adrian
It's funny, because I was thinking: “Oh, I wish I could get something that reflects more how I experience your work!” Because I experience your work as very much... [sighs] I mean, it's... it's... it's... it's such a... it's a simple concept that drills very, very deep...
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Charles Adrian
... and I... and I couldn't find a book that quite encapsulates that.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] Right.
Charles Adrian
But I think it's... yeah, that question of... that question of whether or not you're an artist... Obviously, it's something that I've thought about and I have lots of friends who thought about it. In the book, it... it's about outside validation as much as anything.
Tasha Diamant
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And I feel like one of the things that you do that I find very inspiring is that you do that for yourself, I feel like. You do the validating of yourself. Does that make sense?
Tasha Diamant
Well, I'm not good at it and I...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] No, but you do it.
Tasha Diamant
I feel like... Like, one of... There's so many struggles in my work...
[cat yowling]
Tasha Diamant
... and one of the struggles has been to...
[cat yowling]
Tasha Diamant
... let... I have to let my cat out.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tasha Diamant
Okay, off kitty. Off kitty. Yeah, here you go. Out you go.
[sound of door opening and then closing]
Tasha Diamant
I get very little validation in my work and I get a lot of misunderstanding.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. And this is, kind of, what I mean. That you don't get that from outside.
Tasha Diamant
I don't. No.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tasha Diamant
And also... even, like, solidarity. I thought there'd be more solidarity even. So there isn't much of any of that...
Charles Adrian
Yeah. That's a, kind of, touchy... touchy subject, I think, in the artistic community. [laughs]
Tasha Diamant
Yes!
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tasha Diamant
And one of the things I've come to understand in my work, which is about showing up as vulnerably as possible and using my own bare body and bare self, is that... well, I mean, it makes the art stronger that I'm just this one lone woman really fucking plowing ahead and chipping away.
Charles Adrian
That's true. Unfortunately. Yes. Yeah, I think that is true.
Tasha Diamant
[speaking over] And it's... it's really been a lesson in, for me, letting go of a lot of things that I hoped would happen in my life, like finding collaborators, finding community, all that stuff. And that idea that we all have a tribe. Like...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tasha Diamant
... fuck off, I don't. So...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right.
Tasha Diamant
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah.
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]