Conversations on Practice

There Was, There Was Not: The Artist as Witness with Emily Mkrtichian

In this conversation, Armenian filmmaker and multimedia artist Emily Mkrtichian joins Alma to reflect on There Was, There Was Not—a filmic meditation on memory, belonging, and the endurance of love. The film traces the lives of four women from Artsakh, a historically Armenian land that has since been blockaded, invaded, and ethnically cleansed. What began as a quiet portrait of daily life evolved into an unflinching act of resistance and remembrance. Their dialogue explores what it means to witness rather than control and the artist’s role when reality ruptures. The conversation moves through themes of diaspora and transmission, the body as archive, and the ways that story itself can keep a place alive when homeland is lost. This episode is as much about the making of a film as it is about the making of meaning: how attention becomes devotion, how pain opens into wisdom, and how art continues to transmit what history erases. There Was, There Was Not is opening in theaters in New York and Los Angeles this month, with additional cities soon to follow. ----more---- Learn more about Emily and find the full show notes here [https://www.subtlepractice.com/conversations-on-practice/there-was-there-was-not]. Watch the film trailer and find screenings on the film website [https://www.therewastherewasnot.com/]. Find details for the upcoming creative cohort beginning October 18 here [https://www.subtlepractice.com/cohort]. You can learn more and apply for Flowering of the Self, our immersion course beginning October 31 here [https://www.subtlepractice.com/flowering]. Subtle Practice is a community platform for creative self-inquiry. Explore all our offerings on our website at subtlepractice.com [https://www.subtlepractice.com].

The Slowest Somersault Imaginable: On Attention and Transformation with Alexandra Fuller

In this episode, Alma is joined by Alexandra Fuller, a visual artist and poet based in the Utah desert whose practice moves between photography, installation, and text to explore impermanence, climate, and the shifting relationship between people and place. Together they reflect on the arc of a two-year creative exchange that began as an epistolary poetry practice and unfolded into friendship, collaboration, and shared inquiry. Their conversation traces themes of fear and courage, thresholds, the archetypal power of the mother, and the role of attention as our greatest creative currency. Alex shares the story of a waking dream that reshaped her relationship to making, opening her practice to play, levity, and surrender. The exchange opens into a meditation on the fertile pause of the in-between — and how both art and life ask us to loosen our grip, attend closely, and allow ourselves to be remade. ----more---- To learn more about Alexandra, visit our full show notes [https://subtlepractice.com/conversations-on-practice/the-slowest-somersault].  Find her personal work at alexandrafuller.com [https://alexandrafuller.com/].  Find details for the upcoming creative cohort beginning October 18 here [https://www.subtlepractice.com/cohort].  You can learn more and join Flowering of the Self, our depth immersion beginning October 31 here [https://www.subtlepractice.com/flowering]. ----more---- Subtle Practice is a community platform for creative self-inquiry. Explore all our offerings on our website at subtlepractice.com [https://www.subtlepractice.com].

Embracing the Unknown with Ben Mustin

In this episode, Alma is joined by Ben Mustin, an organizational ecologist, systems thinker, and facilitator whose curiosity has led him from organizational consulting into deeper creative practice through dreams and the unconscious. They explore how practice has shifted his relationship with self — from control toward surrender, from striving toward receptivity. They touch on shadow, engagement with the natural world, and the companions who have guided him—thinkers like James Hillman, Ursula Le Guin, adrienne maree brown, and Octavia Butler. What emerges is a portrait of someone learning to live in closer dialogue with mystery, with image, and with the gifts that arise when we yield to life’s deeper currents. ----more---- To learn more about Ben, visit our full show notes [https://subtlepractice.com/conversations-on-practice/embracing-the-unknown].  Find him at Mercury Wayfinding [https://www.madebetterllc.com/] and Making Peace with Masculinity [https://www.makingpeacewithmasculinity.com/].  Subtle Practice is a community platform for creative self-inquiry. Explore all our offerings on our website at subtlepractice.com [https://www.subtlepractice.com].

The Art of Making Sacred Space with Ceara Metlikovec

Alma sits down with artist Ceara Metlikovec who shares how a natural practice of collecting and relating to materials from the natural world evolved into an intentional practice of creating altars in her home and studio, and how this radically transformed both her creative practice and her relationship to self.  Alma and Ceara explore the nature of sacred space, the practice of receiving guidance from the natural world and in visionary and imaginative practice, and Ceara so eloquently describes how aligning with the cycles and seasons opens us to powerful currents that work through us, opening our creative inquiries and intentions like seeds that inform our inner growth.  ----more---- Join Ceara in practice from equinox to solstice in the Art of Making Sacred Space [https://www.subtlepractice.com/sacred-space] on Subtle Practice. Connect with Ceara on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/ceara.metlikovec/] and Substack [https://substack.com/@cearametlikovec]. Subtle Practice is a community platform for creative self-inquiry. Explore all our offerings on our website [https://www.subtlepractice.com].