BE INSPIRED Podcast Host: Francesca Durham Website: francescadurham.com

After a month of curating three exhibitions and hosting a series of thoughtful artist conversations, I found myself reflecting on a deeper thread connecting it all, courage, vulnerability, and the quiet strength it takes to stay present through life’s uncertain seasons.

Keep in mind, 2 AM, wide awake and reflecting on the past few weeks when recording this.

In this episode, I'll share a personal story about the unexpected paths that shape us and the moments that remind us none of our experiences are wasted. From time spent working in hospice and palliative care spaces to guiding women through creative self discovery, these chapters have taught me something profound about hope, resilience, and the power of simply showing up.

Recently, an invitation arrived that stopped me in my tracks, a reminder that when we stay faithful to our path, even when it doesn’t make sense to others, life has a way of revealing why every step mattered.

✅ if you’ve ever questioned your path

✅ wondered whether the pieces of your life fit together, or

✅ found yourself in a season of waiting, this episode is for you.

Sometimes the most meaningful chapters begin when we least expect them.

Tune in, stay the course and Be Inspired ❤️

#BeInspiredPodcast #MindsetMatters #HealingJourney #WomenWhoInspire #CreativeLife #SelfLoveJourney

ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Artist Conversations | Episode #7 -Amanda Tkaczyk

In this episode of Artist Conversations, created alongside ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience, I sit down with poet, educator, and artist Amanda Tkaczyk to explore inherited wisdom, memory, and the layered truths carried within Caribbean sayings.

Her artwork True Say II: Speak Up or Sit Down invites viewers into a visual debate. The piece challenges fixed ideas of good and bad, instead suggesting that truth and falsehood, desirable and undesirable, are often contextual and culturally shaped.

Peonies bloom alongside so called weeds, reflecting the contradictions embedded in Caribbean proverbs and teachings. Viewers must tilt their heads to read the phrases woven throughout the composition, mirroring the mental shift required to engage perspectives outside our own.

At the center of the work sits an obfuscated QR code. A deliberate gesture that blurs the boundaries between private and public memory, much like the lived wisdom passed between generations.

During our conversation, Amanda speaks about the influence of her mother, the lessons embedded in Caribbean sayings, and how her background in poetry, teaching, and technology informs the conceptual structure of her work.

In a particularly moving moment, Amanda reflects on what participating in this exhibition means for her personally describing it as a quiet message to her mother:

"Hey mom… look. I’m still here. Still blooming."

Within the exhibition’s curatorial framework of Speaking in Proverbs, True Say II reminds us that wisdom is rarely simple. It lives in contradiction, context, and the lived experiences passed from one generation to the next.

This is a conversation about memory, inherited knowledge, and the courage to speak truths that ask us to see the world differently.

Guest: Amanda Tkaczyk Artwork: True Say II: Speak Up or Sit Down | Mixed Media | 2025

🖼️ ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience

📍 Art Gallery of Burlington

🗓️ On view until May 24, 2026

Artist Conversations is a podcast series created alongside ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience, exploring how artists navigate memory, identity, and the quiet power of becoming.

ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Artist Conversations | Episode #6 - Kristen Allicock

In this episode of Artist Conversations, created alongside ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience, I sit down with artist Kristen Allicock to explore balance, interdependence, and the sacred tension between complementary forces.

Her diptych Yin & Yang: A Love Rooted in Balance visually explores the necessary tension and eventual harmony between feminine and masculine energies. It reminds us that love is not isolation, but active interdependence.

**She, the nurturing pulse of yin, radiates wisdom and softness that shapes the soil of becoming.

**He, the grounded fire of yang, stands firm in truth and forward movement.

Between them grows a love that is cyclical, sacred, and sovereign a union where individuality thrives, and partnership elevates.

In our conversation, Kristen speaks about the influence of her mother and grandmother, how she faces challenges head on, and why monstera foliage becomes a botanical language of connection throughout the work.

The leaves symbolize relational strength, reminding us that we bloom not alone, but in communion.

Within the exhibition’s curatorial framework of Repositioning Softness As Power, this diptych affirms that harmony is not passive it is intentional, embodied, and alive.

This is a conversation about sacred balance, ancestral inspiration, and creating spaces — like The Salon — where artists gather, grow, and rise together.

Guest: Kristen Allicock @theartofkoa

Artwork: Yin & Yang: A Love Rooted in Balance | Diptych | 2025

🖼️ ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience

📍 Art Gallery of Burlington

🗓️ On view until May 24, 2026

ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Artist Conversations | Episode #5 — Kemmy Walker

In this episode of Artist Conversations, created alongside ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience, I sit down with artist Kemmy Walker to explore perception, environment, and the quiet power of rootedness.

His work Biota reminds us, "we live within nature, and nature lives within us." KW.

A tree rises from the figure’s head like a visual prayer, grounding, protective, alive. In our conversation, Kemmy speaks about blending perception with environment, history, fantasy, and fear, creating work that keeps us close to the earth and close to ourselves.

Within the exhibition’s curatorial framework of Repositioning Softness As Power, Biota anchors us from protected ground. It invites us to reconsider strength not as dominance, but as symbiosis. Not separation, but belonging.

This is a conversation about environmental memory, inner landscapes, and the resilience found in remaining rooted.

Guest: Kemmy Walker (@greenz_269)

Artwork: Acrylic on Canvas | 30" × 40" | 2025

🖼️ ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience

📍 Art Gallery of Burlington

🗓️ On view until May 24, 2026

ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Artist Conversations | Episode #4 — Funmilola Adeseun

In this episode of Artist Conversations, created alongside ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience, I sit down with architect and mixed media artist Funmilola Adeseun (@byajike) to explore legacy, colour, and the generational wisdom carried in her work.

Her painting Rooted (2025) reminds us that life is one big garden and we are the blossoms.

From seedling to elder, our growth unfolds through interconnected stages: budding, blooming, ripening, and returning to the earth to regenerate. In rejecting the idea of linear progress, Funmilola embraces a spiral understanding of life, one shaped by culture, kinship, and community.

In our conversation, she shares how her father inspired her creative path, how architecture informs her maximalist compositions, and how joy and opulence become acts of cultural affirmation.

As she writes:

Life is one big garden, and we are the Blossoms. Seeds popping, Children budding, Teens blooming, Adults flowering… Then we return to earth, regenerating, seeding again, blooming again. We Blossom always, with heads held high.

This is a conversation about inheritance, colour as celebration, and survival through continuity, where softness is not fragility, but rooted strength.

Listen now and be inspired.

Guest: Funmilola Adeseun (@byajike)

Artwork: Rooted, 2025, Acrylic & Oil on Canvas (48” x 36”)

Exhibition: ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience

Dates: February 7 – May 24, 2026

ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Artist Conversations | Episode #3 — Según Aiyesan

What happens to the spirit when the walls close in, and how do we find the light within the gaps?

In this third episode of Artist Conversations, curated alongside the exhibition ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience, I am joined by self-taught artist Según Aiyesan. We explore the intersections of surrealism, community, and the persistent power of growth in narrow spaces.

Originally trained as an engineer, Según brings a unique, analytical lens to his stylized surrealist art, using visual metaphors to resolve internal conflicts and expose the "underbelly of reality". His work transcends mere aesthetics, serving as a catalyst for poignant conversations about sociocultural nuances and the human search for peace.

His piece, Through The Crevices (2025), is a profound meditation on collective collaboration. It invites us to consider the "crevice" not as a place of defeat, but as a generative space where pressure creates diamonds and constraint births innovation.

Drawing on the wisdom of figures like Angela Davis and Alice Walker, we discuss how "blooming" is an active, communal response to system denials, a practice of finding sovereignty in the very gaps the world thought were too small to hold life.

This is a conversation about the architecture of resilience, the power of collective formation, and the "embodied knowing" that we are strongest when we grow together.

Listen now and be inspired.

• Guest: Según Aiyesan (@segun_aiyesan)
• Work Featured: Through The Crevices (Acrylic and Cretextura on canvas)
• Exhibition: ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience
• Location: Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB)
• Dates: February 7 – May 24, 2026

ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Artist Conversations | Episode #2 — Shery Keen

What does it mean to create a safe space while we are still becoming?

In this episode of Artist Conversations, created alongside ST!LL BLOOMING: The Art of Survival and Softness, I sit down with multidisciplinary visual artist Sheryl A. Keen to explore refuge, inner dialogue, and the necessity of softness during times of growth.

Working with acrylics, collage, and sculptural texture, Sheryl creates visual stories that move through physical, emotional, and mental spaces. Her work acknowledges survival not as something loud or hardened, but as something deeply tender.

Her piece Cover Me (2022) reflects on the spaces we seek when growth becomes uncomfortable, places of care, protection, and quiet resilience. We talk about the importance of creating refuge without retreating, guarding the flame without dimming the light, and allowing art to hold us as we become.

This is a conversation about survival through softness, being multidimensional and honouring the interior work of transformation.

Listen now and be inspired.

Guest: Sheryl A. Keen (@keen_kreations)

Exhibition: ST!LL BLOOMING: Emerging in Radiance, Rooted in Resilience

Dates: February 7 – May 24, 2026

Release Date: February 7, 2026

ST!LL BLOOM!NG: Artist Conversations | Episode #1 — Komi Olaf

In this episode, I sit down with Toronto-based, Nigerian-born visual artist and poet Komi Olafimihan to explore Afrofuturism, ancestral memory, and decolonization through art. Komi's work in ST!LL BLOOM!NG, including Empress Sheba and Wildflower (Mary Ann Shadd Cary) meditates powerfully on belonging, African diasporic history, and cultural sovereignty.

We discuss his creative process, the intentionality behind every symbol, and how art becomes a site of ceremony and resistance. This is a conversation about truth seeking, bold vision, and painting the stories that need to be told 365 days a year.

Listen now and be inspired.

Guest: Komi Olafimihan (@komiolaf)

Exhibition: ST!LL BLOOM!NG at Art Gallery of Burlington (Feb 7 - May 24, 2026)

Release Date: February 1, 2026