we have a fun giveaway for today's episode! our guest for episode 4 is henny verhouven! henny is a queer settler multimedia artist working with natural dyes, felting, tattooing, sewing and drawing with a bfa in fashion and textiles from nscad university. they are currently working and living out of pender island, bc. you can find them online at twiglings.ca, on instagram @twiglingss, and on facebook @twiglings. henny is generously donating 3 each of their screenprinted patches printed on silks, satins and cotton of their designs “sew-er of the woods” and “lantern whale." to enter, leave a comment under this episode's graphic on instagram @snortandcackle telling us where you'd put your patch.

each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #snortandcacklebookclub, with a book review by ash and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. this season's #snortandcacklebookclub read is babaylan sing back: philippine shamans and voice, gender, and place by grace nono.

take the fibre witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz. follow us on instagram @snortandcackle and be sure to subscribe via your favourite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode!

support future seasons of snort & cackle by joining the creative coven community.

transcript

snort & cackle - season 4, episode 4 - henny verhouven

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] Hello, and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast where every day magic, work and ritual intersect. I'm your host, Ash Alberg, a queer fibre witch and hedge witch. Each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub with a book review by me and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. Our book this season is Babaylan Sing Back: Philippine Shamans and Voice, Gender and Place by Grace Nono.

Whether you're an aspiring boss witch looking to start your knitwear design business, a plant witch looking to play more with your local naturally dyed color palette or a knit witch wondering just what the hell is a natural yarn and how do you use it in your favorite patterns, we've got the solution for you.

Take the free fiber witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz and find out which self-paced online program will help you take your dreams into reality. Visit ashalberg.com/quiz [upbeat music fades out] and then join fellow fiber witches in the Creative Coven Community at ashalberg.com/creative-coven-community for 24/7 access to Ash’s favorite resources, monthly zoom knit nights, and more. [End of intro.]

I am here today with somebody that some of you might recognize if you followed From Field to Skin. I'm here with Henny Verhouven. Henny is a queer settler, multimedia artist working with natural dyes, felting, tattooing, sewing, and drawing, with a BFA in fashion and textiles from NSCAD university.

Henny is currently working and living out of Pender Island, B.C. Hi, Henny, how are you?

henny verhouven: Hi, I’m doing good, how are you?
ash alberg: Good. It's so nice to see you. Nobody that is listening to this can see

you, but it's nice for me to see. [Chuckles.]

So last time that we were chatting, you were still doing your degree at NSCAD. If anyone wants to go and see those days, then I can go check out the interview on From Field to Skin. But why don't you give us an update on what you're

doing and what you're ... where you are in the world? You are now on the opposite coast.

henny verhouven: And a lot of big changes since then. So I guess since our last interview, then I was in school, deep in the fashion and craft courses. And since then, I graduated in December 2019. So literally right before the pandemic.

ash alberg: Oh my god.

henny verhouven: I’m so grateful, I feel so lucky that just happened by chance. ‘Cause I have a lot of friends that are still in art school and it sounds like it's just been really challenging for them.

ash alberg: Oh God. Yeah.

henny verhouven: Yeah. So I graduated in 2019, December and I was ... I had moved to a rural town in Nova Scotia by myself and was planning to start a shoemaking apprenticeship. And then I got there and I moved in and then the pandemic started.

ash alberg: Oh god.
henny verhouven: Yeah, I just moved there. It has no car, didn't really know

anybody, was like literally in the middle of nowhere in a cabin by myself. ash alberg: Oh my god.

henny verhouven: Realized that was maybe not the healthiest place to live through that moment.

ash alberg: Yup. [Laughs.]

henny verhouven: So yeah. I was very lucky. My partner asked me if I wanted to move in with them in the Kootenays, so like to B.C. to ... [audio distortion] and left a couple of days after everything started shutting down. And then ...

ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: ... the day after I left, they closed the borders in Nova Scotia.

ash alberg: Oh my god. You like just got out of there.

henny verhouven: Yeah. And I left everything there, all my stuff's up. I had to get people to take it down and send it to me across the prairie. It was like this huge, intense process. And I eventually moved to Pender, which is where [audio cut out.]

And I have a lot of friends, a lot of friends who live here. So yeah, moved into a spot here and have been here for almost two years now, I guess. Feels wild.

And yeah, since I've gotten here, for a while I was doing, I've been doing, I was doing art full-time with like part-time jobs for a while. And then now I'm back again to full-time art. So last year I was really doing a lot of wet felted creatures.

ash alberg: Yes, they were delightful to be seeing in my feed. I was like, ooh, what’s this little one? [Laughs.]

henny verhouven: They’re weird, a super fun wet-felted creatures with different limbs and wings and horns and all of those things. But I, as my bio mentioned, I have lots of areas that I work in so I can work with different mediums as I feel called to them.

And in the last year, not a full year, but the last couple of months coming close to a year, I've been working with this local arts organization here where I do teaching contracts for them. I taught classes here on the island for a while, which has been really great. I just finished up a six-week intermediate level dye class.

ash alberg: Nice.

henny verhouven: Really fun. And then I also did a six month, six week class at the local school here working with their GSA. So Gender and Sexuality Alliance, I think is what it's called now. [Giggles.]

ash alberg: We'll keep the acronym, but we'll change the wording. henny verhouven: Yeah. Which like, I am so grateful for it because Gay

Straight Alliance is just like really cringy. ash alberg: It's very nineties. [Laughs.]

henny verhouven: We didn't even have [audio cut out] my high school.

ash alberg: No, we didn't either. I remember I was one of four out queers at that point and I was I think one of two that didn't get bullied out of the school. Thankfully things have changed and come along. They are not perfect, but the number of like little queer babies that I run into, I'm like, oh, thank goodness.

Also you're using language that I don't know what it means, but I will go Google it later.

henny verhouven: Like I had ... so I'm working with the GSA and you did a class that was on creative expression, gender and fashion.

ash alberg: Yeeess.

henny verhouven: It was so amazing. There was 20 students that signed up and I'm like, this is a tiny island that I live on. And there's it's a junior high school ages. So all the junior high students of all the islands come to this island for school.

ash alberg: Okay.
henny verhouven: Like a class with them after school once a week. Yeah.

There's 20 students. And like all these, like non-binary and trans and queer kids. ash alberg: My heart. [Sighs.]

henny verhouven: It was wild. I was so blown away. Yeah, that was really powerful. And so I'm hoping to work more with that group and with that school. Yeah. And so now I've been doing like sewing, a lot of sewing.

This last weekend, I’ve been in a sewing vortex. I'm making clothes and natural dying and [indecipherable].

ash alberg: Nice.
henny verhouven: Yeah. That's the big things in my life right now.

ash alberg: I've also seen quite a few tattoos coming across my feed, but I don't know if you've been doing those recently or if they've been like older, older artwork.

henny verhouven: No, that's also recent. I, yeah, I’ve been tattooing for six years now and do it like everything else in my life, a little bit, all the time, but not ... so to keep all my skills sharpened and do a little bit of everything once in a while so I’m keeping up with it.

And the tattooing is, yeah, it just feels like another form of expression that is really moving and personal, especially yeah, just the intimacy of tattooing is really ...

ash alberg: Yes.
henny verhouven: ... special, and we can get more into that as like the ritual of

tattooing is so great. And I listened to the other tattoo, tattooist that you had on. ash alberg: Yeeahh.
henny verhouven: That [audio cut out] great episode. I really enjoyed that. ash alberg: Conroe.

henny verhouven: But yeah.
ash alberg: Oh, this is so delightful. Also side note, I need to like, we'll figure

out logistics at some point but I need you to do my collarbone at some point. [Both talking at the same time, Ash laugh-snorts.]

henny verhouven: Oh yeah. Yes, I do it maybe like once or twice a month, couple of times a month, just to [audio cut out] but I do usually, and sometimes I'll do bigger. Like I'll do a couple or several in a month. Yeah. But my focus on that season.

ash alberg: Sweet. Delightful. Okay. I feel like I know how everything is magical in your practice because I have very similar practice in a lot of ways. But how do you ... what's your, what's the personal side of your practice been? Like, what kind of drew you into different things?

Is there anything in particular that you're like, this is definitely what I do all the time? Or do you like follow any particular, like rhythms of anything? What feels like ritual?

henny verhouven: Mhmm. Yeah, there's a lot in that. I feel like my artwork and like creative space that I go into is the magic. So it's that space in your head where you're making something and like all the time just flies out the window and you're just like in it. That is the like grounding maybe like [indecipherable] aspect of my art practice that I think is a ritual.

It's like how to get to that place in any medium, which usually means being competent enough in that medium, that you're not like constantly having to troubleshoot that really [audio cut out.]

ash alberg: Yeeahh.

henny verhouven: Which means being my [indecipherable] like you said. I'm practicing things that are hard, that are like intense, like integral parts of my work.

And yeah, I guess making those difficult tasks or some more challenging tasks, how to transform those into the place where I can also get into the flow state. And that really takes a lot of controlling my setting, like lighting and space, and music and like maybe smells.

ash alberg: Yeeah.
henny verhouven: I’m very interested and intrigued by the idea of like

sensorium, so all engaging all your senses. ash alberg: Yes.

henny verhouven: Being drawn into things. The more like levels of sensory activation you have, the more completely engaged I feel like you become.

Yeah, so whatever medium I'm working in that is always the goal is to like, find that magical space where I'm just, I'm not even really working. It feels like meditating, where you're just, you're doing this thing, you’re not thinking about it and you're just fully absorbed in it. And ...

ash alberg: Yes.

henny verhouven: That is what I think about ritual. Yeah. That's like what's first in my mind. Yeah.

ash alberg: How did you get started with everything? Like you're, you seem quite close with your family and your family as like a whole group, including extended family, seems like very artistic. So like how did that all, how'd that all roll out?

henny verhouven: Yeah. I'm very lucky. All of my ... not, I can see creative aspects in like each of my family members or like that I ... there’s definitely like characteristics of each person in my family that I feel like has guided me. And they're all interested in either art or like nature things.

At least, yeah, my mom's side is very artistic. And so I grew up with like my mom teaching art camps at like the local art center. And my mom is like a potter and a watercolor artist and weaver now, and my whole like grandma and aunt, that whole side of my family are all like spinners and crochets and knitters.

And grandma is so much like me. She can make everything, anything. She's always got a million projects on the go. She's like very knowledgeable in plant medicine and herbalism. She has like a coven that she would practice with. And if you're familiar with the author Starhawk, she came to my farm and I met her and they had a little thing in our [indecipherable.]

ash alberg: That is wild!

henny verhouven: It was very cute. Yeah. There was, I think there was ... I remember going to church, like Christian church, a few times as a child. And it felt like when my family was really into it, we were all I don't know [indecipherable].

And I don't like how it happened, but at some point all of that got left behind and my grandma and mom and aunt were all just, we are into paganism now. Me too. [Ash chuckles.] Finally just were like, all right, we're going this way now.

And yeah, so I like have a very big connection, I think, to like the magical realm and paganism and stuff as a young teenager. And I don't practice it the way I used to anymore, but I feel have more integrated parts, like lessons and teachings of those beliefs into my daily work.

ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: Yeah, like my mom sent me to a like pagan summer camp thing in San Francisco when I was like 16.

ash alberg: That's so cool! And also who says their 16-year-old off to San Francisco? [Laugh-snorts.]

henny verhouven: I like stayed at this commune for a few days before and after. And it was wild and like truly, I don't know. My mom is a flight attendant, so she also gets like really cheap flights.

ash alberg: Sweet.

henny verhouven: Like the beginning of that. And she's, you can go anywhere. Where do you want to go? You're going to San Francisco, like, I found this and you should do it.

ash alberg: [Snorts.] That's amazing.

henny verhouven: It really blew my mind. And that was like the first time I met trans people, [non]-binary people. I was blown away. I was just like what? My world, my world just opened up a lot.

ash alberg: Yeah.
henny verhouven: Yeah, that experience, and so like, I also felt like

magicalness and very queer.

ash alberg: [Sighs.] Yes, it's so amazing. And just it's so neat that so many things were ... whether it was like directly being like, given to you by family, or just like giving you experiences that allowed you to then engage with those things. I was talking about queer kids now compared to like, when we were their age.

henny verhouven: Yeah.

ash alberg: Just knowing that's possible is like such a major thing. Like I remember knowing a few trans folk when I was a teenager. And it was because I was in theater world. And so that was a space that was safer for folks to be out, but it wasn't until I went to university that like non-binary was being like, here's a thing, it's an option. I was like, oh, this makes fucking sense.

Like now I get it. Now ... but it now going in and working with youth and having these like super cool kids that like, know who they are and like what fits for them right now in their life and being comfortable with the fact that yeah, maybe that's going to change. Like right now, this is who I am.

And they're just like so comfortable with it. And their friends are comfortable with it. It's such a lovely thing to see. And kids can be assholes, but kids are going to be assholes about literally anything.

henny verhouven: And they will be.

ash alberg: Yeah. A hundred percent. Oh my god. There'll be assholes. And then there's also the point where they're not quite at the age yet where they realize that they could be an asshole and so they're just really blunt. [Laughs.]

Like I remember having terrible acne when I was like 18, 19, and going in to teach at a school. And this four-year-old looked at me and was like, why do you have red spots? I was like, ‘cause my skin. [Snorts.]

henny verhouven: Okay. Yeah. That’s subtle. [Audio distortion]. ash alberg: [Laughs.] Yeah, but ... kids. They’re so good.

henny verhouven: Yeah. I definitely was intimidated by working with junior high students. I feel like ...

ash alberg: Yeah.
henny verhouven: ... [audio distortion] kids of that age are particularly mean. ash alberg: Yes.

henny verhouven: But yeah. It was, yeah, I was scared. And I told them, that was like the first thing I said, I was like, hey, this is my name, I am really nervous. I haven't been [audio distortion] in many years. [Ash chuckles.] Like ... [makes anxious sound].

ash alberg: Yeah, that age is just ... I don't know. I love like two- to six-year-olds. I think that's like the most magical time. I do not need the stage where they are crying all the time and not sleeping and can't communicate. That's not an age I feel like I need to experience, but like two to six, I love.

And then once they hit seven, depending on the kid, they start to shift and that's a very important developmental thing for them to do, but I'm like, depending on the kid, they can start being asshole as young as seven. And by the time that they're like 11, 12, 13, like they have all the attitude, all the hormones, none of

the critical thinking to have reasons for why they are doing the thing they are doing.

I'll skip that. Come back to me when you're 16 and you start to have a little bit more reasons for why you're being an asshat at right now.

henny verhouven: Yeah. It's so real. Yeah. I think it would, it's so hard being a teenager.

ash alberg: Yeah.
henny verhouven: And yeah, I feel for them, but also it’s [audio cut out]. I

have teenage siblings and yeah, it's interesting. I love it.

ash alberg: It's yeah, it's fascinating because it's like, they can be like so insightful and so like sweet and just like honest about shit. And then all of a sudden it's like a hormone wave comes and it's the complete opposite. And it's, you can't really blame them ‘cause it's like, you have hormones coursing through your body and you also like your brain literally isn't fully formed yet.

And you also don't have enough life experiences to be able to put this into context. Whereas like when somebody in their twenties or thirties goes on hormones for like gender reasons, I'm like, you don't actually get the excuse to be an asshole right now because you have life experience to know how to like, yes, you are feeling a thing that does not mean that you get to punch a hole in the wall, like ... [Laughs.]

henny verhouven: Oh for sure, yeah.

ash alberg: Too funny. So let's dig a little bit more into the way that ritual plays a part in your work. Like when starting with whichever, whichever part of your practice you want to dig into first.

henny verhouven: Hmm. I mean, I feel like I have things I can say about each of them, like with natural dying, I feel like it's, you just feel like a mad scientist. I feel like a mad scientist. So the ritual of like prepare-- ... choosing the fabric and preparing, and then preparing that stuff and putting it all together to create this wonderful thing that you have no idea what it’s going to look like ...

ash alberg: Yes!

henny verhouven: ... is so [audio cut out]. And like, opening the dye bundles will always be the most exciting thing to me. And so like, I think there's, yeah, clear lines of ritual with that. And I love the fact that it has been around for as long as people have been wearing clothing and with that passing through time and like the different processes that have been created.

They're all very, this is a tool that we're passing down, clothing-making alive. Also there's like this technique I'm really curious about trying to varying your [audio cut out] to dye it.

ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: I think it ... I've been thinking a lot about that process. And just how, with the pandemic, as a beginner, that everyone has been experiencing, like loss and grief of so many things. People, and also like the way that you thought your life was going to be and the plans you made and all of that, and put it as like ambiguous loss or ambiguous grief.

Doing something ritualistic and like symbolic of varying fabric that I was going to decompose and transform into something new and when you take it out again, like working a lot of power in doing acts like that, craft or like taking meaning to your craft and putting like your energy and grief and burying it in the ground with some fabric that will record the story of that as it goes through its own processes.

ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: That’s something I've been thinking a lot about and I need to dig some holes in and throw some fabric in the ground. Not throw it in, do it very ...

ash alberg: Very intentional. [Chuckles.]

henny verhouven: Ritualistically. [Ash snorts.] And yeah, on another note, like tattooing, there's again, like the, like creating the image, which I feel can be it’s own ritual in itself, like calm. Like whether it's the person choosing their own design or [audio cut out] a design, I think that drawing on the images that I want and feeling that I want to convey, and then the act of like putting it onto someone's body forever.

ash alberg: Mhmmm! Yeah. That's so much like, that, it's so much like pressure and responsibility of you're like permanently marking somebody. With their consent, but ...

henny verhouven: Yeah. And it's interesting. Like every person is different and each person, their skin is different and their bodies react to it different. And like, it's not, it's interesting ‘cause there's again, like other ... there's other practices or some little variables that like, no experience is ever going to be the same. That it can be powerful to tattoo someone. Partly it's just you're just getting to someone feel more at home in their body and that is so powerful too, because I think about, it really helped me to feel a lot of things in my life is through the act of like tattooing myself has been, it's like a very powerful, intense process and like ritual ... that is definitely a ritual.

This particular feeling is in my body, but I have to expel it by tattooing and that is like a transformation of like other unhealthy coping mechanisms that I once relied on, but where it gets transformed into this beautiful expression of my art and [indecipherable] in my life. Yes, like self tattooing is like big ritual and I don't do it often.

I always struggle with the desire. I'm like, do I fix an old tattoo that I have that I don't like, or do I do something new? [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yeah, yeah.
henny verhouven: I've been really enjoying changing old tattoos that I have

given a new life and new context. And yeah.

ash alberg: That'sy ueah, there's something really lovely about that, especially where you know, people ... there's like the, for folks that don't get tattoos and they're like but it's permanent and if you don't like it, then you can't get rid of it or you can't ... And I'm like, I'm putting it on my body.

Like we're not lasering it off. That is not a thing that will happen. That scar tissue is way worse than just going and getting a new tattoo on top of it. But it is, like when you are tattooing your body and it's, because you're like marking an important phase of life, whatever that might be so then that's something that might carry on with you forever and it's also something that like might carry on with you for a chunk of time and then there's a new phase and it feels more appropriate to adjust or add to it or change it completely rather than carrying it as is on your body.

Like, for me at this point, I wouldn't change any of my tattoos. They all feel still very appropriate, but I just don't necessarily have the same, the same relationship to them as I did when they first went onto my body. And I regret none of them and I wouldn't remove any of them. And I would absolutely be adding more to my body, but it's such an interesting idea to be in the position of having the skills and knowledge to be able to add to something, if you wanted to.

Like I remember when I got, when I literally first got my airplane tattoo with its little stitch trail, I came home. I was staying with a friend ‘cause I went home to Halifax to get it done. And I came home and I'd like taken the bandaging off and he's, oh, did you get your tattoo? I was like, yeah, it's on my body. It wasn't here this morning when you left for work.

And he was like, oh, is it a stitching line? And it wasn't until I showed him the airplane that he was like, oh, I just thought it was like stitching ‘cause that makes sense for you. And I was like, oh yeah, like that would make sense, like add a needle to the line at some point. And I think that's a thing that I would do and would make sense. But I don't tattoo. So like I wouldn't go fucking around with that for now. [Laughs.] But it would be neat to be in the position of I could do that if I wanted to.

henny verhouven: There's spots that I'm like, I can't do that because it's physically impossible.

ash alberg: Yes. [Laughs.] Like here, let me try and fix something on my like mid-back. That's a great idea.

henny verhouven: I definitely am very happy that I have like the set up and the supplies to build things on. And I don't do it very often because it's very tiring ...

ash alberg: Yeaah.

henny verhouven: Because again, that flow state. And I actually [audio cut out] when I’m getting tattooed by other people, but I really enjoy tattooing myself, but I will be at it for hours and hours just like sitting bent over, some weird position. I'm like, just I gotta get it right.

ash alberg: Oh my god.

henny verhouven: Five hours and I literally have to stop. But yeah, so it's very, not very often that I do it, but when I do, it's always big. I like to work big. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: [Laughs.] Oh, man. I've just like imagining your body and I fully understand it because like, when you get into that like zone where you just aren't aware of time, it's why I have to restrict the amount of times that I pull out my spinning wheel, because I'll just go into a spinning hole.

And then eight hours later, I come out of it and I'm like, why is my back fucked up? Because you've been like sitting in the exact same position and like doing like really weird movements that are like not great for your back muscles for eight hours without stop.

henny verhouven: I'm really, like currently I have, I have been working out in my living room, like with all of my art practice, which has been wild ‘cause that's three dogs that like to run around through here. But like I don't, I need to figure out a better set up because currently I sit on the couch at a coffee table and sew all day and my back is not happy.

ash alberg: Yeah. I've literally just like giving my back a little stretch and crack. Like I can feel that and it hurts in my body. [Laughs.]

henny verhouven: [Indecipherable.]

ash alberg: Oh, my goodness. Yep. Yeah. It's so, it's so funny because I feel like as artists and like fiber artists and just generally artists, like often people don't think that our work is that hard on the body because it's not like, it's not like manual labor where you're lifting things, but I'm like, okay, my dye pots are a hundred percent manual labor, but even without that, like if I completely removed my dyeing practice, my knitting practice puts so much wear and tear on my body.

And there's the obvious things in terms of my thumb muscles are stronger than normal people's thumb muscles and like my joints in my hands are fucked and will continue to get more fucked. But then it's also like your back, like what your posture is with your back and then going up the forearm, like there's huge amounts of tension in there that for a normal person wouldn't exist.

And it's, we're not necessarily like lifting 50 pounds of something over our heads on an ongoing basis, but we are putting strain on our body in repetitive

ways. Like I feel like that's why having a diverse art practice is actually like really necessary for literally just maintaining each of them for your life.

henny verhouven: Oh, for sure. I had to, that's why, partially why I had to stop felting for a while, wet felting, because it's, it is very hard on your hands in general, because well, first of all, your hands are wet, are in water and soap for hours.

ash alberg: Yup.

henny verhouven: So like dry and sad, and then it's all these tiny hand movements that are really hard on the hands. Like I was starting, I used to work in carpal tunnel when doing it, and I was also working at a bakery baking att night for them.

ash alberg: Doing the same like kneading movements. [Both talking at the same time.]
Oh my god.

henny verhouven: Movements and then I was like, I can't do both of these at the same time. I cannot ... [audio cut out] ... it's my hands. And so I slowed down. I always feel like felting is, it's a good winter ‘cause I can sit in my house and be warm and drink tea and have my hands in hot water all day.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah.

henny verhouven: It’s nice. Somewhere I'm like, yeah, I tend to go to [indecipherable] mediums that ... yeah. I definitely change mediums as my body needs it if I'm really starting to wear myself out of doing one thing too much.

ash alberg: Yeah.
henny verhouven: There’s a balance like that.

ash alberg: Yeah. It's funny, like when I think of my dye pots, I've learned ... I say I've learned. I'll learn this lesson again in probably six weeks, it's just a lesson I keep learning. But I always, the Aries comes out all the time, obviously,

and you know that, but you like start a thing. You get the idea, you don't even start the fucking thing.

You get the idea and you want it to have been done yesterday and also like to finish and complete the project is its own hard thing to do as an Aries because you get distracted by the other shiny thing. But like whenever I get my dye pots going, I'm like, oh, I need to finish all of this right now. And so then I'm like, I, especially what the quantity of dyeing that I'm doing these days, like I get an order from the mill, there's 500 or a thousand skeins that arrive.

And I'm like, I need to process everything right now. And it's, even if I worked literally without stop, like 8, 10 hour days, seven days a week, that amount of dyeing would still take me minimum six weeks. And yet I'm like, this is a thing I need to do.

And I start going at that level and then it's four days into it, I can just feel my body, like my back is about to go out. And my body is like in breakdown mode because I'm just exhausted. And then I'm like, oh, this isn't a good way of doing this. [Chuckles.]

henny verhouven: I really feel the exact same way, also Aries. The intensity is real. Yeah, I just was just in a sewing vortex for the last four days. And yeah, I just, I need to shower still, I haven’t done that in a few days. I like get back on making food that regular times.

ash alberg: That's the thing, like making food is fucking hard. Like you get into this vortex and then it's also, especially when you're making progress on a thing, like knitting is probably the slowest of all of my practices, but even still I can see progress. And so even if it's, if I just keep knitting to the end of this row, if I just keep knitting to the end of this repeat, and then it's, I was hungry three hours before.

I still am knitting ‘cause I'm like, I'm almost there. And it's meanwhile, there's 40 hours of knitting left to do. And I'm like, but I can't stop to make food! Like it's not, I'm not advocating anybody do this. This is very much like a don't do as I don't do, as I do moment. Like all of my students, please don't do this. [Snorts.]

henny verhouven: For sure. Working from home, I feel like it's easy. I'm just like, just eat whenever. ‘Cause it's all just like, I’ll, whenever I'm hungry, it's all there. And then [audio cut out] and so I’m like, oh, okay.

ash alberg: Yeah.
henny verhouven: This body is your, actually your most important tool.

ash alberg: Yes. Oh my god. It's wild trying to like, figure out, okay, how do you like do that maintenance on an ongoing basis? And same with like vacations. I tried taking vacation over the Yule season and I managed the first week because I was working on Yule gifts. And so it was like, I shifted my work to like personal projects, but they were still work.

And then Yule and Christmas came, did that. Halfway through boxing day. I was like, so fucking antsy ‘cause I'm like, I have all these things to do. And so I realized okay, taking two weeks of vacation when I'm literally not able to leave my house because it's a pandemic is not a thing that works for me.

And then yesterday, I went with one of my dear ones to the ... one of the local spas. We'd had a credit from last year when we were like going to go and then Delta came, so we didn't go. And then we were going to use it in the summer. And then they're like, ah, it's not a problem yet, because Omicron wasn't in town yet.

And so they started lifting restrictions. We're like, we're not going. So now they're going to lift all of the restrictions cause they're dumbasses. And so we're like, okay, we need to use this now before anything changes. Because at this point you still have to wear masks, you still have to be vaxxed in order to access the spa.

So this is, hopefully they maintain it, but in case they don't, at least we've used it. And I was like, oh, maybe this is what I do when I want to do vacations. Like I don't try and take two weeks off ‘cause that's literally ... it doesn't even feel good in my body. I don't enjoy it. Unless I'm traveling and occupying myself with other things, if it's just, I'm going to sit for two weeks in my home and not do any of my work, that doesn't actually feel good for me.

But if I take two and a half days and I like book myself into a hotel or go to a resort and use a spa for a few days, that's rejuvenating, that actually feels like I've rested. That is doing good maintenance for my body. And then, I actually feel okay then going back into work, two days later or three days later, but ...

henny verhouven: Yeah. I feel like learning how to take time and learning how to actually rest and not feel the urge to get up and make something or do something is worth a lot and have been also trying to get better at.

But the only way I’m able to do that ... not the only way, but the most effective way, but that has worked for me is my partner lives elsewhere than I do and they're also like super busy artistic person making all the things, doing all the things. So when we like spend time together, we're like, okay, we're going to spend a week together. And neither of us are going to have work to do. We're going to chill and relax. And that has been so nice.

ash alberg: That's sounds delightful. I feel like that would still be hard for me. I'm like, I would be like, I didn't bring any work, but I did bring this one knitting thing. [Chuckles.]

henny verhouven: Yeah. I know. I always end up with, I did bring all these drawings that I want to finish.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Yeah. It's ... I’m always amazed when people can fit themselves into the way that we work our lives. ‘Cause like normal people, and I don't understand it, but like normal people, they go to jobs where they're not emotionally invested in them. That's not to the same extent where it's, I'm like, I had a recent conversation that resulted in an existential identity crisis that also like I needed at the time, where it was like, what the fuck? Fuck this shit.

And also, oh yeah, this is why I do what I do and why I've structured my life this way even when it drives me up the fucking wall. But it was this moment of remembering for myself, oh yeah. Even if I made literally no money, even if I had to give up all of the way that I am doing things and go back to like regular people, I would still be making my work. I just would not be making my living off of my work.

But none of the art would actually stop. It would just not have to be for consumption, which is a nice pipe dream that doesn't exist under capitalism. And, but like normal people don't do that. So normal people like go to a job for a set number of hours a week. Maybe they have an additional job. Maybe they take up extra hours at that job but there is still a point where they go home and they turn off and their brain can turn off and also then their partner and their family and their like, whatever people in their lives can be like, oh, you should turn off right now. And they're like, yes, I should. Okay. I will. And off.

And I'm just like, that's not what my life looks like. And I also don't really want my life to look like that. I love my work and it’s why I do it to begin with, and I can't imagine not doing it. And so like, you demanding ... and nobody's demanding this of me right now, which I appreciate, but in the past, when

people have demanded oh, you need to spend more time with me or in this situation or just not working and I'm like, I don't want to though.

I, if we have a plan, great, let's do that. But if you're just like, let's go and hang out for six hours, I'm like, if we don't have something that we're doing for those six hours, I'm bringing my knitting with me.

henny verhouven: I feel like it’s so hard, like I probably like, I read probably every day, but the amount and the timing of it, [audio cut out] but that also means that I will wake up and be doing stuff until I go to bed and that never shuts off. And I'm like falling asleep thinking of all the things I'm going to do tomorrow and like this other thing, maybe I should try and ...

ash alberg: Yes.
henny verhouven: ... this rolling, like list of all the things that yeah. You have

to be very emotionally invested in. Otherwise it doesn't work.

ash alberg: Yeeah! And that's the thing, right? And it's, it can cause a bit of problem ‘cause it's you get something to a stage where you're like, oh yes. It's like either the project is almost done or you've created something that's like the system that you're doing, it has become more efficient and so you've created a little bit more downtime, but then that feels like a pocket.

And then you get the next idea. And the next idea is actually bigger than the pocket, but you're like, oh, I have some time, let me plop that on top of this tiny pocket.

henny verhouven: Oh god, it’s so real. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been, there's definitely been points in the pandemic where I just like struggled really hard to self motivate and when you’re running your own business, that's like really scary. And yeah, I feel like the best ... my way through that has been just like taking things, breaking things down into the smallest steps possible.

ash alberg: Yup.

henny verhouven: Oh, low battery. Breaking things down in just the smallest steps that I can just so that they are somewhat more manageable. Even if I just do a couple little things, I feel way more accomplished than if I like tried to do a big thing and then got frustrated and stuff.

ash alberg: Yes. A hundred percent. It's ... yeah, it's been really interesting too, because while we're recording this, there's like active war. And there's, there's always war, but like right now there's like very active war with nuclear threats on the table. And so it's interesting trying to like navigate running small businesses right now because the platforms that you use to communicate with people are like this weird mishmash of some high level resources, actionable, like useful things, a lot of opinion stuff.

And then also what looks like business as usual. And it's, nobody thinks that this is business. There might be some people. They live in a completely different reality, but it’s not ... it like, the thing that I try to remind myself to not get so frustrated with is that for normal people, again, who don't run their own business, who have a paycheck that is being paid by somebody else and/or like folks who run small businesses and they're being supplemented by somebody else and so they can afford to like, take a pause if they need it.

There's so much financial privilege in that. And so when that's not your reality, and you're like, wow, this is fucking nuts. And I wish that I could step away, or I wish that I could like interrupt my own communications right now to focus my energy on like sharing resources or like signal boosting this other thing but it's who the fuck knows when it's going to feel like you can start returning to communications?

And I actually can't afford to take a week off of work and not be paid. And trying to figure out like, how do you navigate, being a human in a really fucked up world, who is the sole provider for the resources that then allow you to be a living human and not ignore what is happening in the world? But also like, you don't have the financial privilege of stopping or putting things on pause indefinitely.

And I remember that, like this has come up enough times now that I have reconciled for myself that I don't have the option of not running my business while shitty things are happening. But I remember ... it was probably like, I think it was like pre-pandemic, but maybe it wasn't.

I want to say it was pre-pandemic but I don't know, time is a vortex that doesn't exist. And there was like something happening and people were like everybody needs to pause their communications for the next week and signal boost these things. And it was like ... and some people didn't. And so it was like, oh, you're a bad person or whatever and they got shat on.

But it also became really aware of like really obvious really quickly within the first two or three days that that method wasn't actually helping the people who needed help. And then also a lot of those businesses were like, we can't afford to do this. Like we actually can't.

We either, we’re providing for ourselves and/our for our employees. We can't, we don't have a giant buffer of money like Amazon does, that could actually pause and still be providing for everybody who is staffed and also need support. And it's, I like, I've reconciled for myself, the fact that that's not an option for me and so I have to figure out how do I do this resource sharing, signal boosting of reliable intel, as much as we can tell and do my activism while also having the business running even if that looks like business is like usual? It's not like usual, but also the world is super fucked up these days.

So I don't know.

henny verhouven: Yeah. I think we're all trying to find our way through like really difficult times and people need some normal, need to pay their bills and their rent and eat. And yeah.

I definitely think about that with my own business and my, yeah. I guess I'm pretty openly like political on, in my business and support of places that I donate to. The money that is made through my work and sometimes that goes toward certain groups if like things, if there's a political relevance at the moment and yeah.

It's definitely been, I think the last few years of pandemic life, having a small business, it was really hard. People are stressed or broke. People are struggling and wanting to do the work that I do and create the things that I want to create while also realizing that the people around me are struggling and you know that a t-shirt or a patch or a natural dyed scarf or whatever is not going to fix those problems, but hope that they could offer some like personal armor, the like hardness of the ... yeah.

ash alberg: Yeah. There's something really lovely about like textiles as well, like fashion and tattoos being its own form of armor and of a softer form of armor. And I think especially as queers and like queer bodied folks, then we become much more aware of that at a much earlier age than a lot of people, about like how important clothing choice is and how important like body adornment choices are in terms of how we take up space and also how we protect ourselves.

henny verhouven: Yeah. And how we relate to other people and connect to like people in our community. Um, like, yeah, I think that it is very important and like gender and clothing are so tied together and like our own feelings about how our gender or our identity is so much represented through clothing. Yeah.

That's one of that's the first thing that you'll see or notice about someone when you meet them, or at least that’s what I do. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yes. No, totally. Like we literally, we like self identify who we like see ourselves as and who we consider our community with the clothing that we wear. If I walked around in like store-bought jeans and a t-shirt, I would be fitting in very differently. And I've pierced, I pierced my septum literally because I live in a place where so much of the year, my skin is covered by layers ‘cause it's so fucking cold and I still needed that like visible identifier of “I'm queer,” which like other queers recognize.

And when non-queers get septum piercings, I get very confused. We don't technically own them, but I get annoyed. [Laughs.]

henny verhouven: I feel you there. Like signalling, especially like within the queer community, is really important. And it's, it might be a small thing that someone else, like a cis, straight person might not see you or a register, but when another queer person sees it, it’s that little wink, that little nod. Like, heeey.

ash alberg: Yeah, queer. It's yeah, it's so interesting ‘cause like on the one hand, I mean, it can cause problems in terms of gatekeeping within the queer community is highly problematic. And ... but it's all, and it's also one of those things where you like, don't want folks to stereotype.

And especially like when cis straight folks are stereotyping or like somebody outside of whatever sub-portion of the community is, when a trans masc person is like you must be she because you're femme and it's no, that's not how that works. Fuck you.

But it's, we also still do use us those signals, right? Like I intentionally pierce my septum, my septum so that there was like a clear identity. And then like I spent a few years without my undercut that I'd had for seven years. And then this year ... er, no, like last year. I was like, oh no, I need that back.

And it's like for similar reasons, it's just I just need to feel for myself, this is ... and same with tattoos. It's, I don't get tattoos for somebody else's sake. And I

also don't not get tattoos because somebody else doesn't like it. This is a form of adornment that is being done very intentionally. And there are folks that just get tattoos on a whim. That's totally fine.

It's not the way that I do tattoos. And so for me, every single tattoo I get has been very intentional whether somebody from outside feels like it came on a whim or not. I'm like, no. I thought this through. And even if I went into a situation, not planning on it, there is a reason that I am putting it onto my body.

I'm a masochist, but I'm not that much of a masochist.

henny verhouven: I think that there's also like a lot of reasons that people can want to get tattoos and that it's, if it might not be the image itself that's meaningful, might be the person who's doing it. The situation at the time.

I think there's so many layers to tattooing that can be very yeah, transformative and like connection to yourself and to [indecipherable] and to your own personal history.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You recently tattooed some really beautiful symbols on, I think it was your uncle?

henny verhouven: Yeah. That was really special. Yeah. My uncle is like a Bosnian comedian, anthropologist and he was, it was really cute. He's, I want to get these tattoos? Can we just doing the design? And he sent me an essay.

[Grating sound in background.]

ash alberg: That’s adorable.

henny verhouven: It was like, he went all anthropology on this, which I love, but it was like a lot of information. [Ash laughs.] But it was really interesting. What I skimmed of it was like, these were simple, quite simple designs that he’d taken from historical documents of some of the first tattoos ever recorded in Bosnia and like the Balkan area, all these smaller designs.

And he spent several months creating these very intricate but also simple designs based on those symbols from the text. And he also wanted ... yeah, he told me like a bunch of other history while we were tattooing, which was really cool and like how it was mostly women that were tattooers and that they would mostly tattooed themselves and each other. And that men would get traditionally

their fingers tattooed and their upper arms and then women, it was like their whole bodies.

ash alberg: That's so cool.

henny verhouven: And it was really special to be able to hear the history and his personal experience with it, so that was really honored to be able to do that for him. And the symbolism of it was around family symbols. So he said that it was very important to him that it only could have happened by me because we’re family.

So that was cool.
ash alberg: Ah, that's so lovely.

henny verhouven: Yeah, we did it like in our, like that whole side of my family, the weird artsy pagan side, they all live on a farm. And they built a yurt like a decade ago. And so we did it in the yurt with the woodstove going and all our family was like eating and watching and like standing over. And I was like, what are you doing now? [Ash laughs.]

[Indecipherable] was like here, give me a shot, I’ll do great.

ash alberg: [Laugh-snorts.] Oh, man. That's so funny. It's so interesting, like I've recently started digging into ... I've always found runes, like actual, like old production runes and sigils, really interesting. But I've only recently started digging into the ones on like for my ancestry and in particular right now I'm digging into the Polish side of things, and it's sooo interesting.

But I'm like, at this point I don't speak Polish so like finding those resources that like actually are like good, reliable texts is like not a thing that I've been able to do yet. And so I'm like hesitant, but I definitely know that at some point I'm going to want to do probably protection runes on my feet. That's like where my body is, this is what you need to do. Not yet. But at some point this is what we expect.

henny verhouven: Definitely. That's really neat. Yeah, I think it's, yeah. Digging into your own personal history and finding the symbols that you know are going to ... you're going to feel it in your body. I feel like if you’re relating back to your own ancestry and [audio cut out] there's a lot of, a lot to be found and I’m excited for you to have started that.

ash alberg: Yeah, I'm excited. I don't know when it's going to end. In the meantime I'm like, my dad has, he's just finishing off this dollhouse that he started making for me when I was a kid, like I was like seven years old when he started it and then it went on hiatus for a couple of decades, a few decades. [Chuckles.]

Now, like during the pandemic, it's been his project that he's gotten back to and it's almost done and it's almost ready to transition over here so that I can start filling it with little things. And I'm like, there's this one tradition that I really love. And I'm actually like right now, because there's so many images of Ukrainian like artwork and cultural work floating around, I'm seeing a lot of these like really beautiful painted cottages, which is also a thing that is in Poland because, similar practices.

And so there's like these different things that you would like, during different points in time as things became a little bit more like modernized, it started being relegated to the rural cottages and the places that like still had dirt floors and things, but you used to draw protections in the dirt floors and then you would paint these symbols around door frames and windowsills that were like protection things.

And so I'm like, I'm going to do that for my dollhouse.

henny verhouven: That sounds so neat! Wow, I love that.

ash alberg: I'm like, it'll be my little mini version that will be really easy to like repaint over if I need to. At some point I want to do it like on my house as well, but I'm going to wait on that until I did a little more research, but yeah.

henny verhouven: Very cool. I love that. I feel like I used to ... dollhouses are so great.

ash alberg: ‘Cause then you can just make the most satisfying little things. The projects can be much quicker, not necessarily ...

henny verhouven: I know. I've definitely been like, especially if I just sew doll clothes, everything would go much faster

ash alberg: Right?
henny verhouven: Less fabric and materials.

ash alberg: [Chuckles.] It would be so much cheaper. I like, I sometimes when I'm like cutting like teeny little quarters off of like scraps of naturally dyed fabric, I'm like, I could keep that. It would take approximately three hand stitches to make a seam.

And I really don't enjoy stitching enough to warrant that so I'm not keeping these scraps, but and I always feel bad ‘cause then I see people who do zero waste mending and shit and I'm like, I feel like a bad like eco slow fashion person ‘cause I don't keep those scraps. Like when they are that tiny, I am not willing to keep them around.

henny verhouven: Yeah. I feel like, unless you have a project in mind ... ash alberg: The line towards hoarding becomes like a little too close.

henny verhouven: I currently am collecting all my scraps because I decided I'm gonna make a dog bed.

ash alberg: Yeeaah, that's a good one.
henny verhouven: I used to make pillows out of all my fabric scraps, but

they're like so chunky and like uncomfortable. So dog beds. ash alberg: Yes.
henny verhouven: That is actually such a good idea.

ash alberg: That makes so much sense. Yeah. I always, whenever I see people like, oh yeah, I stuffed this thing, I'm like, I can't imagine that's that like ... it, maybe a poof, if I made a floor poof. I don't have space in my house right now for a floor proof, but I feel like, but then I also I'm like, oh, but what happens if I want that one scrap of fabric for a project later?

‘Cause it was nicer fabric and I'm just like, this is the problem with me. [Chuckles.] Like I can't commit to what the scraps are going to be used for, but I also can't commit to getting rid of them.

henny verhouven: I recently started a quilt, I only made the front and now it's been sitting, just the front, for a month or so, but eventually it will be a quilt. It was very satisfying to go through and figure out my scraps. I’ve been actually like cataloging a lot of my ... I recently bought a binder and some sheet protectors.

ash alberg: And you're actually like cataloging in your natural dyes?

henny verhouven: Yes, and I'm like writing notes and percentages and it is so satisfying. I've been really enjoying it except for the times when I have no idea how I dyed something and it's just like a mystery.

ash alberg: Yup. Yup.
henny verhouven: But yeah, I've been really getting into cataloging and it’s a

good way to use the scraps because they’re like a tiny square or ...

ash alberg: Exactly. I've started ... yeah, I've started doing similar things as I'm working through my dye pots. ‘Cause I also, I did a tanning workshop last fall, and at the end of the workshop, I was like, everybody give me your scraps that you've cut off the frame ‘cause I want them for my dye pots ‘cause I just wanted to be able to start experimenting with dying leather.

Which right now, it's a fascinating process because it takes, after you pull it out of the dye pot, it doesn't necessarily look like it's taken on much dye, but then as it sits, then all of a sudden it like deepens, but then it also hardens the leather.

henny verhouven: OK, yeah. I did that, I tried once throwing a piece of like leather with fur on it into my dye pot, and it was so crunchy after. And there’s this dye book that I'm obsessed with, The Craft of the Dyer, and they have a section about dyeing leather and about, it's like a cold immersion dye, that I didn't know.

[Audio disorted.] I just started working with that at Unist’ot’en camp and they were like, we're trying to dye stuff, like dye this hide, what do we do? I'm like no idea, must not get crispy, flake.

ash alberg: Yeah. And this is the thing that I'm so interested ... so cold immersion, that makes so much sense.

henny verhouven: Craft of the Dyer, that is like my all time favorite dye book. And they have so many weird recipes that I've never seen anywhere else.

ash alberg: Okay.

henny verhouven: Like a lot of cold immersion, slow dye processes that are ... like, they go in, it's basically, there's no photos. It's just like a reference book, but they'll list all these plants and then all the different ways that you can dye

with them. But there's ones that like, I've never heard of anywhere else before, like how to get color from cat tails ...

ash alberg: Cooool.
henny verhouven: ... and like weird things, like everything. It's a great book.

ash alberg: Okay. I feel like I need to add this to my library and start fucking around with it this year. Because I've just, I remember once ... because no dyer is ever working with leather, which I find very annoying ‘cause I'm like, this is an obvious thing that we can do, but nobody does it because probably they've tried it once and then ended up it was crunchy.

But I remember once seeing, I think it was Tara Piatsa? Oh my god, what's her name? And she's done work with like chalk rubs and there was one time, like she died their botanical line at one point, their sex toys. But before that, she dyed a whip and it was this likem the most beautiful. I was like, this is bringing all of my favorite things together.

And it was this like absolutely stunning handcrafted whip. And she had dyed it with, I think it was logwood and iron. So it was this like beautiful, like gray mauve color. And I was like, I need to be able to do this someday. And I, it's been like in my brain and now that I have the scraps, I'm like, okay, I can start fucking around with it.

But now every time I do it, I like pull them out. They dry on the like little clothesline thing. And then I have to snap them up in order to get them flat. I think there's something wrong here.

[Both talking at the same time.]
henny verhouven: Or put it in a jar, like solar dye.

ash alberg: Yeah, that might work. That makes sense 'cause I was like, I tried Googling stuff and it was like, nobody does it. So there's not really any instructions. And the only things that I'm finding are people who use like leather paint, which is synthetic stuff. But if that hardens and they're like, oh just oil it to soften it.

And I'm like, I don't know that oil is going to do quite enough softening here. [Laugh-snorts.]

henny verhouven: [Audio distorted, indecipherable.] Just remembering the crispy times that I ended up with.

ash alberg: It's basically like beef jerky. [Laughs.] henny verhouven: With a lot of hair on it.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. [Laughs.] The color is beautiful, but it's not really usable. It's just a reference point. Oh man. Okay. Now I need to get that book and do some digging.

henny verhouven: [Audio indecipherable.]
ash alberg: I will. Oh my god. That could be quite fun. That could be really

cool for some projects.

Anyway, so now that we've got on a bunch of tangents what is something that you wish you'd been told when you were younger about magic or ritual?

henny verhouven: Hmmm. What do I wish? I wish that maybe it was more I guess just ... hmm, sorry. Putting this into words.

ash alberg: It’s okay.

henny verhouven: I wish that was more socially acceptable for people to do like rituals that they need to feel comfortable in the world. I wish that was more ... like, I feel like I have anxiety and so the things that like keep me grounded in a social setting, I feel like I maybe would consider like little ritual that I do to feel [indecipherable] around people.

And I think that, especially when you're getting into like mental health stuff and neurodivergency, it's like [audio cut out] to cope, but are there rituals? And those are more normalized that people didn't have to feel shameful about, like fidgeting or [cut out] or whatever.

Yeah, I guess I wished it was okay to do the weird things that you need to do to be a person in a body.

ash alberg: Yeah.
henny verhouven: Yeah, I don't ... that's what's coming to mind right now.

ash alberg: It makes sense though. I think of, I, like also anxious creature, especially in social settings and knitting, like the reason that I started knitting again as an adult was for me to have something to do with my hands so that I like could ... I literally remember going to house parties in Halifax when I was doing my first degree and bringing my knitting with me because it was a thing that was safe for me to, if I needed to hide behind it, it was like appropriate for me to be like eyes down and like working on something.

And it also was a conversation starter as well, so it like served both purposes of allowing me to engage more with people, but also like having something to do with myself and occupy myself with when I wasn't engaging with people. And for the most part, I think most of my profs were pretty cool about it.

But I, like once I joined the workforce after I'd finished my degrees, I remember, I remember working at one organization where all of upper management ... like I was this like entry-level position that then made a point of being in the middle of everybody's work and was like, you need to speak to me in order for shit to happen because when you fuck up, it makes my life harder.

And I'm not interested in that. So talk to me first and then we'll go. And so all of upper management was just like, I was just like weird little fairy, like flitting around that they didn't really know what to do with, but like also got shit done so they were fine with it.

And so I'd go into meetings with them and I'd be knitting during the meetings, but like also taking notes for my boss. And everything was always fine and nobody ever questioned it. And then it was middle management that like, including my supervisor, who was not my boss. She was like my immediate boss but then my boss was the one who would take me to these other things and like all of the like CEOs and C- whatever Os would be like, oh yeah, that's fine. Whatever.

But then it was middle management that was like, no, you can't do that. I'm like, my options slash your options are either I do this below my desk where nobody can see so that I actually stay engaged because you haven't given me enough work for me to stay engaged for eight hours straight, or I'm going to be scrolling on Facebook for six of the eight hours.

Like those are your options. So like pick one. And they never really got it. It was this thing of, we're not comfortable with this. This makes, this looks funny to us. And so you need to not do it. And it's, now you're not going to get my best work.

And also you're not paying me enough to give that much of a fuck and now you're making it harder for me to stay aware of what is happening around us, because this is how I put the like part of my brain that needs to be doing something constantly aside so that I can be like aware and present in this moment.

henny verhouven: Yeah. That’s super real. Yeah. I feel like they're just like those little moments, especially as a worker in the workforce where you can feel like you are a person that has, you know, space to be yourself and do the things you need to be comfortable, it's really ... can go ... it can make such a big difference and doesn't always have this, like the freedom to happen.

Yeah, I guess maybe that's why like ... I have, in the last two years, especially through COVID trying to work at other places and realizing that I really struggle working for people that aren't myself.

ash alberg: Yes. A hundred percent. [Laugh-snorts.]

henny verhouven: Yeah. And so through that, I'm trying to learn how to be a good boss to myself while also getting shit done and yeah, I think it's a very hard line to walk sometimes, but like I will give myself a ... sometimes if I like, literally just can't get myself doing things and it’s just, that's okay. You work every single day. You could sit and watch movies for a day and that is totally okay. That is fine.

ash alberg: Yeah, I think that's the thing that is it's also part of the reason of working for yourself as to have that freedom and it's this idealized, like someday my whole life will look like that. And that's, that takes a really fucking long time to get to that.

But in the meantime, having those single days, or like a half day where you're like, oh, this thing came up and now I can choose to adjust my day in order for me to take advantage of whatever this thing is, whether it's being able to go and see your partner for a week and actually just take that time away or like the weather finally got nice after a chunk of days of shitty weather and so now I'm going to take the dogs on a walk for a long part of the afternoon instead of forcing myself to sit at my work.

And I feel like probably we work way more hours to compensate. If we were working in a regular workplace, that would be like, you have way more overtime hours allotted at this point. So please do use, use those two hours right now.

henny verhouven: It's so real. Honestly, I know I'm getting the place where I know, now know that I will not be doing my best work if I'm not feeling like rested and like somewhat like, you know, some things are managed and I don't have to ... if there’s something that's like really bothering me or like I have ... I can give myself, allow myself to give that thing attention so that the rest of my work flows better.

And I think that is, yeah. It's important to have the balance, which is a struggle. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: It truly is, but it's also one of those things where like, when we're our own boss and our own employee at the same time, like you have to figure out like how to be a nice boss to yourself.

henny verhouven: Mhmm. Yeah, definitely still working on that one. ash alberg: [Chuckles.] So what's next for you?

henny verhouven: Gosh, what is next for me? I am hoping to develop maybe some more like curriculum, along the lines of the class that I was teaching with the GSA around gender and fashion, I think.

I would like to keep working with the school on my island, but also maybe other schools in the future and like creating ... like when I was working on that project, I was looking for, searching the internet for crafts that were related to queerness or both identity or gender expression. And there were ... [Audio cut out.]

ash alberg: But I feel like everything ends up being queer. Like when you actually start digging into any craft, you're like, oh yes, this is like heavily rooted in queerness regardless of like time or place.

henny verhouven: So finding resource or like activities, like younger people ... ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: ... have questions about their identity, maybe. Like how other people like learning about other identities. I think that there could just be more things that are specifically geared to that kind of age group, but also queer, young queers. Last year did a youth project that was creating like a LGBTQA+ coloring book.

Like a like free PDF on my website that goes through, it was like the gender garden and like all these different gender identities and like a little description about them and history of the LGBTQA+ movement and like where it started at the Stonewall and like the things you can do now to uplift and support queer people and like a sexuality tree for free, with all these [audio cut out] sexualities.

ash alberg: I love it.

henny verhouven: Yeah, it was really cute. So I definitely would like to keep working on stuff that is like queer youth-centered. I guess my dream would be to create some kind of group of queer crafters and artists to put on like workshops of gender and fashion intersecting, so like workshops on how to alter your own clothing and how to make your own clothing because I think giving those skills to young people is so important.

That was such a huge part of me finding my identity as a teenager and young person was like exploring through fashion and like making a really weird stuff. But if I'd had a bit more guidance or the right materials or like set up then, I think that clearly like helpful formative thing to people to like, just be given some skills and the time and opportunity to learn how to personalize clothing or explore their gender through fashion. That's like a bigger thing that is looming in my brain always that I don't know ...

ash alberg: However it becomes a thing, I want to be involved because that is like all the things that I love so much.

henny verhouven: Yeah. Yeah. I’m thinking of writing out some grants. ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: So applying, so just kind of like formalizing what that would look like and figuring out what my goal is to like, make or produce. Is that like a booklet or it's like an online thing or a workshop series? And look for funding for that.

And then my other creative practices, I am currently working on a line of stretchy screen-printed hooded pocket dresses that are ...

ash alberg: Everything about that sounds wonderful. [Laughs.]

henny verhouven: They’re very fun and I'm making them all with secondhand clothing that I'm like upcycling and taking the fabric from. And so I'm hoping to do like a photo shoot and with a local jewelry friend of mine, like a collab photo shoot and get those out into the world in the next month or so.

ash alberg: Nice.
henny verhouven: Like a more immediate thing that’s going on. Yeah. And just

keep going.

I've got a new screen printer designs coming out soon as well that I'm really excited for. So yeah, I'm really into screen printing clothing and sewing right now and so that's where a lot of my energy is going. And of course spring is coming so the dye pots are going to be going and natural dye season is upon us.

ash alberg: Yesss.
henny verhouven: So very excited for that. And hope to be teaching a lot of

classes and working with a lot of local people here on doing some dyeing.

ash alberg: Nice. That sounds delightful. Hopefully I can come out and visit you at some point. Pandemi life, I'm always just like, I don't know when the fuck I'm going to travel. I feel like at this point I'm like, okay. It feels like maybe we've found our new normal and there's ways of getting from A to B in a semi-safe way since I'm like triple vaxxed and have my N95s and things.

And then I'm like, but I'm still like too cautious to actually make plans ‘cause I'm like something else is going to happen.

henny verhouven: For real. I feel like I went to Calgary to visit some family and I was very stressed. I have not been on a plane since the pandemic started and I got on a plane and it was really weird and I took a COVID test right away when I got there.

There was multiple COVID scares while I was there. And like I was in a city. I haven't been ... I don’t live in a city, so that was ...

ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: That on top of that was really stressful. And I, it was a lot. I don't know if I should go back to that.

ash alberg: This is my thing. I'm like, I, like, I miss going and traveling and going and eating at like new restaurants and like doing those, or if you're going home to a place like to go to your favorite restaurants and shit like that. And I'm just like, I don't think that I can do that right now. [Laughs.]

It's, it’ll be like, go, land, take a test, wait for the negative results, and then like still have some anxiety about what happens if it's a false negative. Go to a dear one’s and then just plant myself and stay there until now I have to repeat the process to go home.

henny verhouven: I think there’s also just like less opportunity to meet people when you go to new places. You’re probably is going to go to people that you already know ... [audio cut out.]

ash alberg: Yup.

henny verhouven: And then yeah, I feel like so much part of traveling that really is inspiring and exciting is like meeting people along the way that [audio cut out] your life and I, yeah, I'm hoping that is something that can maintain through throughout this thing that we're in or at least some semblance of that.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. It's just, what does like new things look like? I don't know. ‘Cause it's like the old normal is gone and we've got to figure out what a new normal looks like.

henny verhouven: Yeah.
ash alberg: And everybody actually accept that there is a new normal now.

Stop pretending. [Laugh-snorts]. henny verhouven: Yeah.

ash alberg: Like even just, oh my god. I was watching, I really love reality TV because it just like, my brain gets to melt a little bit, but it's also like my own personal social experiment, watching people.

And I was watching a Netflix one, 20-somethings Austin, something like that. And it was like, it was filmed like in pandemi time, like it was filmed in like Fall of ‘21 or something like that.

And it's in Texas and literally fucking nobody in any of the shots ... it's not just oh yeah, the household ‘cause then you're like, okay, if you're dealing with a

group of people that are being bubbled and so like cast and crew are being tested and it's like a controlled environment, that doesn't feel gross necessarily. That is, this is now the world we live in. But like, then they would just go out into bars and go see shows and go to restaurants. And literally nobody is wearing masks.

You've got these crowded fucking bars and I'm like, this is 2021. What the fuck are you doing?! This is why we're all still stuck in this shit. Like it was wild.

henny verhouven: I was nervous about people being too close to me, like especially at the start of the pandemic, like just the idea of walking into a room full of people now is like literally horrifying.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. Like I, I was thinking recently about how oh, I miss going to like drag shows and like dancing with people. And I think about it and I'm like, I miss that. And also, I can't. Like I would just be too anxious and to not be anxious, I would need to get to a certain level of drunk where I don't want my mask removed for that long in that crowd of a group of humans.

And it's just, I don't know. I'm grateful that my twenties were not spent in pandemi time ‘cause I do feel like that's like an important stage to go through of just like learning how to socialize and making good decisions and bad decisions and being around people and learning how to do that.

But ... and like finding community. And I feel like, especially in queer community. But like now I don't know what that looks like.

henny verhouven: I, yeah. I have siblings that have graduated high school throughout this time or are [audio cut out] school and they're sad. Like they feel like they missed out. Like my ...

ash alberg: Yeah.

henny verhouven: ... two siblings are in high school right now. Like my one, [indecipherable] was about to graduate like at the end of this year. And he was like, I am sad. I feel like I didn't get to experience any of the things that I wanted to and like, all these sports were cut and all the clubs didn't happen. Like [audio distorted] certain classes. Yeah.

It sounds really hard. And I really feel for yeah, the youth of this time that are just having this super tough experience and having to go to school through all of

it and have their learning changed so much. And yeah. I really feel for the youth of this time. I can't imagine being in school like that.

ash alberg: No.
henny verhouven: Yeah.

ash alberg: No, thank you. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is and maybe there is no answer.

henny verhouven: Mhmm. Yeah.
ash alberg: This has been delightful. [Laughs.] henny verhouven: This really has.

ash alberg: I really appreciate having a catch-up chat with you. This has been super fun and like seeing where your practice is at now and yeah, this has been wonderful.

henny verhouven: Likewise. I was very excited to hear that you're doing a podcast now and yeah listening to some of the other episodes, I really enjoyed it. So very thankful for you and all the work that you're doing. [Ash giggles.]

Yeah. A pleasure talking to you and yeah, we’ll have to do it again some time. [Audio interference.]

ash alberg: Yes, definitely.

[Upbeat music plays.] You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at snortandcackle.com. Just click on podcast in the main menu. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram @snortandcackle and join our seasonal book club with @SnortandCackleBookClub. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast by your favorite podcasting platform.

Editing provided by Noah Gilroy, recording and mixing by Ash Alberg, music by Yesable.