Tina: 00:00:00 I look at them every once in a while to make sure his red light is on.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:04 It's working.

Tina: 00:00:05 Remember when you were a little kid and you had the naked in school dream?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:07 Yes.

Tina: 00:00:08 My dream is I look down and you guys are saying these precious things and I'm like, "Well, could you repeat?" You can't conjure it again.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:15 No.

Tina: 00:00:15 It's not repeatable.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:16 That's frustrating.

Tina: 00:00:17 It happened to me when I was interviewing 1J. He was talking about something and I looked down and I didn't see Mike's light. It was full. He was full. Now I empty it every time.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:35 Right, right, right.

Tina: 00:00:36 I'm just going to throw this under here.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:39 I guess that when that happens it's crazy.

Tina: 00:00:41 I am an only parent, not single. The other one isn't on the earth anymore.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:47 I'm sorry.

Tina: 00:00:48 His choice, I keep my phone on in case my child-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:53 I'm glad you mentioned that. Here's a tissue.

Tina: 00:00:56 Thank you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:00:57 My best friend's mom is in hospice and I just found out this morning. I called her. I mean I didn't expect her to answer-

Tina: 00:01:06 Karma weirdness, as you say that, the ice cream truck goes.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:01:11 I called her earlier today and left a message. If she calls-

Tina: 00:01:14 Please take it, no problem.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:01:19 Do I need to fill out my stuff?

Tina: 00:01:20 No, I did all of that. I want to point out that's your name. That's your name.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:01:25 That's me. That's me.

Tina: 00:01:25 I have until 1/1 of '20 to write this or I have to come back to you and say, "Hey, is it cool if I get an extension?"

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:01:32 Nice.

Tina: 00:01:32 It's just so you have some date today. I sign. You sign and sign both and you keep one. You'll get updates. I'm good about sending updates.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:01:40 You're saying go ahead and sign it while we're talking about it and thinking about it.

Tina: 00:01:47 I tried to go to that website with these little birds and I love that you had, there was a play on the letters. What is the website where these are? Something flight?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:01:58 Patterns Of Flight, Flight Patterns.

Tina: 00:02:00 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:02:01 I forget which one is which.

Tina: 00:02:02 I think it's, because it made a cool, you could either look at it as flight or slight and it was cool. I thought you did it on purpose. It's a very cool twist of whatever, meaning.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:02:15 No, I did not, but I'm glad you thought that. I haven't even, I know. I get into whatever. I get sidetracked into whatever I'm doing. Then, all that stuff, I haven't updated that thing in forever.

Tina: 00:02:31 It goes away. Any preference which copy?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:02:35 No, no. This little bastard right there stung the hell out of me earlier today, my God.

Tina: 00:02:41 What is it?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:02:42 It's a saddleback caterpillar.

Tina: 00:02:44 I've never seen that. I thought you wrapped them in something.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:02:47 Isn't it amazing? It's one of those things that goes on and on and on. Actually-

Tina: 00:02:54 It gets worse.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:02:55 I was cutting some branches and then it stung me through my shirt and on my arm. I've never been stung before, but I knew the second it happened what it was because I'd read about them. The weird thing is, this will be the last thing.

Tina: 00:03:06 Did you Benadryl it?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:03:08 No, I hate Benadryl.

Tina: 00:03:11 I usually just put tea tree oil to it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:03:14 This guy I found last week and I'd never seen anything like it ever.

Tina: 00:03:20 I've never seen that either.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:03:21 Isn't it? It's so weird and it's got, if you look at it up close, it's got this really reptilian pattern on it.

Tina: 00:03:30 What is it?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:03:31 It's a caterpillar. As it turns out, it's related to that guy, but it's the non stinging kind. When I found that guy today I was like, "Whoa."

Tina: 00:03:39 You know what the problem is? I give everything the benefit of the doubt. I would've picked it right up.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:03:45 No, normally me too.

Tina: 00:03:47 I would've solicited it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:03:48 That guy, I know.

Tina: 00:03:50 Cute, look.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:03:50 Now you know. Don't pick it up. It hurts like a mofo.

Tina: 00:03:56 I was with Elizabeth and I had my arm out of the car and something landed on me. Elizabeth was like, "Oh, look, Mom." I was like, "Oh, it's so cute." I was giving this bullshit. Normally, if you remain calm, nothing will sting you. It stings me. I was like, "I deserve that. I totally deserve that."

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:04:13 Is Elizabeth your daughter?

Tina: 00:04:16 Yes.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:04:16 That's a perfect mom moment. That's hilarious.

Tina: 00:04:19 Right? I was like, "Maybe if you don't move, she won't know." Then, it hurt and I was like, "Oh." Then, I just said, "That's not always true."

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:04:30 Thank you, nature, for just being in your face.

Tina: 00:04:33 It was perfect timing. You had to give it that. That was funny.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:04:39 I'm going to actually, if you don't mind, I have a million of these things to shuck, which is why-

Tina: 00:04:46 Shuck while we talk? Perfect because that will give, see and that's the stuff I wish Angela was here for because she'll capture that.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:04:52 Right.

Tina: 00:04:53 I make notes and she'll come back and get some of that stuff. What happens after they're on the Beltline?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:05:05 I mean they come back here. My hope is that I will make this one. There's a new director at the Beltline, a new Beltline art director or whatever. I'm hoping that maybe, because they do buy pieces for more permanent things. I'm hoping if I make it sturdy and built to last, they'll want to keep it for longer. That's my hope.

Tina: 00:05:42 Don't individual people want it?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:05:47 Somebody wanted that. They wanted something like it and then they just evaporated a little.

Tina: 00:05:53 Right, no, I think it's all the things. It's cool because it's all the things I like. There's a book and there's a tree and it's not formed. It's not so perfect. Where do you sit to shuck?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:06:05 I'm probably just going to sit on there. If you want to sit here-

Tina: 00:06:08 Yes.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:06:08 I'll probably bring a chair in the background.

Tina: 00:06:12 I could care less. I'm very easygoing about food and place and stuff like that. The reason I'm asking is because I can totally see it. I just don't know what something like that goes for. You don't know yet?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:06:31 I really don't. I mean-

Tina: 00:06:33 It's beautiful.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:06:34 I'm doing this one in collaboration with a friend who is-

Tina: 00:06:38 Is that the person you list on your website?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:06:41 No, Craig?

Tina: 00:06:42 Yes.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:06:42 No, no, he's actually a neighbor two doors down. I love him. We actually dated years and years ago. Now he's married and has a baby and I love both of them. We're very close, but I hate working with him. I think we've come to the end of our whatever.

Tina: 00:06:58 Your path.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:06:59 Yes, but this one I'm doing with this woman named Camille Thompson. She's actually having an opening at White Space.

Tina: 00:07:11 Cool.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:07:11 I don't know if you're interested. It's not this Friday, but next Friday. She does ceramics and weaving and drawing. She's going to make beehives to go in the trunk. Then, we're both making just a shit load of bees that will go on the tree around the hives once I finish the shucking.

Tina: 00:07:38 Are you going to incorporate any books into this one or is this one just going to be bees?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:07:41 This one is just all bees.

Tina: 00:07:45 A pollinator kind of thing?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:07:47 Yes, and I have another, I'm supposed to be writing a proposal. I have a proposal due on Friday that is also going to be on pollinators. I think it's because of when I was little. The first thing I can remember is really digging for insects and butterflies and bees and stuff. My dad raised bees.

Tina: 00:08:23 Cool.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:08:23 Actually, that is a fond memory. You just go to work. It's funny. Now that I think about it, it was probably a fire code or something back then-

Tina: 00:08:37 Back then-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:08:37 I have that memory. Anyway, this whole disappearing colonies of bees, it's just-

Tina: 00:08:40 My neighborhood is full of front yard signs that say, "Don't spray for mosquitoes," and all.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:08:44 That's good. That's good.

Tina: 00:08:45 Right, you don't say it. If people are asking directions, we say forward. We don't say straight. It's that kind of mindful thing.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:08:51 That's great.

Tina: 00:08:53 Sometimes you just want to yell something inappropriate just to do it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:08:55 I know. Actually, my buddy whose mom is not doing well lived in Oakhurst for years. I used to go take care of their dog.

Tina: 00:09:02 That's so funny.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:09:05 I saw somebody with a shock collar, a dog with a shock collar when I got there and I was like, "They shouldn't stand for this."

Tina: 00:09:23 Weird, that is weird because it usually wouldn't be tolerated. This will crack you up. There was a post on the neighborhood thing that said, "Please be aware of this man," and there was a picture of a guy riding a bicycle. He had a campaign sign in his hand. Apparently, he rode up into someone's yard, grabbed their yard sign, and said, "That's what I think about your democratic party," and rode off with the sign under his arm.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:09:49 My God, crazy.

Tina: 00:09:52 I just found it profoundly funny that this guy is riding through. You know where you are?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:09:59 You can't swing at a cat without hitting, I know. It's terrible.

Tina: 00:10:09 When I was looking at all of your, I was just ferreting around about you on the internet and reading some of your statements and stuff. Speaking of Oakhurst and that mentality, a lot of if not most of the work I could find of yours comes from, except for the wedding dresses and things like that, comes from, I don't want to say connection because that's so trite.

It's some sort of affiliation or association with nature or a cause involving nature or animals. I consider animals nature actually. I just wanted you to talk a little bit about that. How did that start? Your dad raised bees. There's already something to a symbiotic relationship with the animals.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:10:50 I think when I was little we just spent a lot of time outside. I think that's part of it. I just have always been interested in outdoor things. I will say that I think when I was five I remember having a family meeting and my dad saying, "All right, this is it. We have exactly one hour of television a week and that's it."

Tina: 00:11:30 A week?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:11:31 I think that really changed me because you couldn't sit around and watch. I mean I loved watching TV, still do unfortunately, but it just made you go out and explore. Plus, we-

Tina: 00:11:47 Think things.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:11:48 Exactly, and there was a creek behind our house. For me, I think nature has always been and still is. I mean even dogs and dog behavior and all that stuff, it's the last mystery kind of thing. I think I just have, my nature was to explore and find stuff.

Tina: 00:12:17 How does it happen? It makes natural sense or progressive sense that you had a lot of that growing up and it was just your environment. How did that translate to you making art of, for, or about it? How did that happen? Were you always an artist or did you always create environments? Did you make forts? I'm trying to dig in a little bit about-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:12:44 No, that's really good. I think I can remember always wanting to do stuff with my hands. That was another thing my parents really encouraged, creativity, whatever. Do you want bug spray? Are you getting bitten? I do-

Tina: 00:13:02 Not yet.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:13:03 I was-

Tina: 00:13:03 You might have a mosquito on your elbow though and now you don't. You got it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:13:05 I always liked working with my hands. Whenever I could learn something new I would. I would try to. My mom was really good about, I don't know, just having activities for us around stuff like that when we were little. I also started going to camp really early.

I think I was, I don't know, six the first time I went to sleep away camp, which was in north Georgia. It was the perfect combination of outside and we slept in tents. Then, we had arts and crafts and horseback riding and all that stuff. I mean I think part of it was I was just born that way. I was just born loving to be outside.

Tina: 00:14:08 It resonated with you and you were raised in it. It became your safe space.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:14:11 Exactly.

Tina: 00:14:12 That's what's so I think hard today. I grew up similar to you, but much lower. We had a drainage ditch and we played in that. I could find turtles and frogs.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:14:25 There's stuff everywhere.

Tina: 00:14:27 Right, right, if you're looking for it, newts and crazy shit. I was comfortable being out. What's interesting that I've noticed, I just have to check this. This is Tina, yes, yes. You're supposed to be with Conner and all of them that walked to Color Wheel Studio. As long as you're with the kids that are also going to Color Wheel, you're fine, bye, yes, as soon as I can. Just go to Color Wheel and trust me. I love you. I don't know, baby. I don't know. I need to go. I love you, bye.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:15:36 How old is she?

Tina: 00:15:39 11, but she's had a hard, just her dad dropped her off at school and she never saw him again. She has a natural attachment to me, "When are you picking me up? When?" She gets crazy if she doesn't know when she's going to see me again.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:16:00 How long ago did that happen?

Tina: 00:16:05 March of last year.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:16:07 My God, I'm sorry.

Tina: 00:16:08 Me too, but I do the same things to open the bags.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:16:10 You got to get inside.

Tina: 00:16:12 I do. I totally do. We were back at camp and your childhood and being outside. It's safe. What I was telling you was I noticed with Elizabeth, and that's exactly what she called for. It's fortuitous that she called. She's afraid to walk from her school to Color Wheel, which is four blocks. They have a sense when they're outside almost of foreboding. I don't know if it was the same for you, but when I was growing up your mom, you left in the morning and you came back at dinner. You were in trees and-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:16:56 We were gone, just gone.

Tina: 00:16:59 Building stuff, throwing rocks in the water, just stuff.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:17:02 No, absolutely, going to abandoned places.

Tina: 00:17:05 Yes, we found a dead cow once in the thing. We kept going back every day.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:17:10 My God, yes.

Tina: 00:17:12 That stuff, kids don't do anything like that today. It is all structured, programmed. There's not a go explore. Go make it up yourself. I was looking, and I'm putting words in your mouth. Confirm or deny. When I'm looking at your work I feel that sense of like, "I saw this and so I went in and I built this."

I think you have to have what you have, that innate comfortability. Why not make up a word? It's with your environment to be able to feel like you can manipulate it like that or that it would work with you like that. I don't know if that's what you feel.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:17:55 I mean that sounds totally good. I meant that sounds pretty right on.

Tina: 00:18:02 Plausible?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:18:03 Exactly, I was really shy growing up, painfully shy growing up. I think that plays into it too with nature. You don't have to, you just are what you are. You don't have to interact with anybody. You don't have to-

Tina: 00:18:26 You already fit in because you're part-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:18:28 Exactly, you're just in it. I also think that I was so interested in everything around me. Just being so, I don't know, whatever, what's wrong with me or whatever I thought was wrong with me. I just-

Tina: 00:18:49 You were shy. This was a safe space for you. I want to go back to the question a little bit. When did you start weaving things? When did you start picking, collecting leaves? How did it start that you became not a master of the environment, but something that affected it?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:19:09 This series, this same series, is that what you mean or do you mean back when I was a kid?

Tina: 00:19:26 Back when you were a kid walking through the woods-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:19:27 I wish I could remember better.

Tina: 00:19:29 You pick up a stick. You throw a rock. You peel bark, all that stuff.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:19:34 I did. I mean I collected all that stuff. Anything that was interesting or dead or whatever, I totally collected it. I'd put it on my shelf.

Tina: 00:19:48 I think it's important. You wanted to bring that-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:19:52 Yes, in, which I've never thought about. This proposal for the pollinator thing that I mentioned, it's just interesting that we're talking about all of this because it's just been really present lately. I'm just trying to think where this stuff comes from and why does it mean so much to me?

Tina: 00:20:19 Your dad raised bees. I have an answer, but sometimes it might not be that obvious. It might be something else. I caught a bee in a butter dish once and I thought it was the cutest thing in the world. I was carrying it around and I was so happy. Then, I was like, "Okay, bee, I'm going to let you go now," and it stung me in the belly button.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:20:36 Bastard.

Tina: 00:20:37 I kept in a dish. I poked holes with an ice pick. He was probably like, "When I get out of here."

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:20:45 Exactly, the last thing I do.

Tina: 00:20:48 I always had a butter dish of a caterpillar or a fish or a bug or something like-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:20:54 Yes.

Tina: 00:20:55 That thing that stung you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:20:57 Yes, no, absolutely. My grandma lived in Griffin and we used to spend, we'd go spend a week with her in the summer or something. It was the same thing. She had a pool and she was very the opposite, very gentile.

Tina: 00:21:17 Coasters.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:21:20 Exactly, I never saw her in, maybe pants, but certainly not jeans. She was just very formal, "Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am." She had some awesome, the pool, shit would fly in her pool. We found a bat one time.

Tina: 00:21:44 I love bats.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:21:44 I kept that bat for a week. I'm like-

Tina: 00:21:47 It was alive?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:21:48 It was alive.

Tina: 00:21:48 I love that.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:21:49 I kept it in a peanut butter jar.

Tina: 00:21:51 You didn't know.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:21:51 Seriously, it was like that big. I know. It was really like the highlight of my life.

Tina: 00:21:56 He was probably like, "Seriously?"

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:21:58 Even though she was very like, "Mmm, mmm, mmm," and a little on the colder side, I mean she let us do stuff like that. I mean she had to have known I had a bat in my bedroom in a peanut butter jar.

Tina: 00:22:09 That's good. That's good. If she does her, but lets you still do you, that's fine.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:22:14 Exactly.

Tina: 00:22:15 I'm going back and forgive me because this is my job, to dig at you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:22:20 No, I just wish I remembered more.

Tina: 00:22:23 No, this is great. You remember the trail and that's what it is. You were around it and you collected and you started to see. You collected and brought back. Do you remember things that you started to manipulate? Did you start to arrange or weave or take from one? I'm just trying to get the impetus of when you started. I mean this is you. This took your life to figure out. You're in there and this all makes sense to me. You can get a lot of it from reading about you online as far as your connection, but where it comes from is what I want.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:23:02 Right.

Tina: 00:23:02 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:23:03 Yes, no.

Tina: 00:23:05 Do you remember when you started going, "Oh, I need this because it will fit this?" Do you know when you started to exert control rather than just appreciation? I know it's a ridiculous question, right?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:23:20 No, I mean-

Tina: 00:23:21 I have no formal training.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:23:23 I just did. No, it's good stuff. No, no, no, it's good stuff. I just wish I remembered more. Here's what usually happens with me. We'll talk and talk and talk and in an hour I'll be like, "Oh God, dah, dah, dah, dah."

Tina: 00:23:38 Perfect because, just tell me. There's no, what happens is I get this turned into a transcript. Then, when I'm done with the 12 of you I will go back to each one and listen to this again and get the feel and really immerse in the person. Then, I'll look at Angela's pictures that she captured.

Then, I'll write your chapter. You have a long time before I get to that. I have 12 of these to do. I'm really hugely, what do you call it? I'm dedicated to making sure I care for what you're giving me because I think it's uber precious. I'm very respectful of what people are turning over to me during these interviews. It's going to take me a while. I'm not just going to-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:24:27 Throw it.

Tina: 00:24:27 No, no, I don't know how anybody could either. They'd have something broken inside if they could just throw this because it takes translation, which is the pressure. I'm afraid I won't translate what I'm hearing. We're going to have a site with some of this on it. It'll be cool. Anyway, if you think of something, it's absolutely no problem. Did something come into your mind though picture-wise of, "Oh, I do remember making a stick man or a moss pillow?" Don't force it if it didn't. I'm just trying to get-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:25:08 No, I mean I remember. What I really remember most is bringing my critters back home and wanting them to want to be with me too. I would bring a lizard home and then I would let it go in my bedroom thinking that it would just want to hang out with me. Then, I would find it in the ceiling later, exactly. I remember stuff like that the most and bringing crawfish up from the creek and putting them in the bathtub.

Tina: 00:25:41 I think we're hitting on something that's totally missing in kids lives now. It's that respect. Now I'm thinking about it. I grew up more like you did. I lived in Florida and I caught those little lizards constantly. They would bite you, but it didn't hurt and their tails would come off sometimes. I did it constantly, baby frogs and all of that. Kids don't do that now. They don't develop. They don't peel bark and go pick an orange off a tree and eat it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:26:09 Right, they're not-

Tina: 00:26:11 "Oh, you got to wash that. You got to do antibacterial on your hands," no, just eat the fucking orange. You're going to be fine.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:26:15 Right.

Tina: 00:26:16 Kids don't do that now where I live, where I see them now.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:26:20 Really that's where you learn curiosity and really also I think about this because there's a girl up the street. I've known her since she was little. I think she's 13 now. I see that she doesn't quite empathize with animals or-

Tina: 00:26:45 Right, there's some, right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:26:49 I do think being out, even bringing a lizard home and wanting it to live with you in your bedroom-

Tina: 00:26:58 A snail.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:26:58 Then, finding it later, realizing like, "Oh."

Tina: 00:27:01 I did that.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:27:03 Exactly, I did that and it doesn't live like I live. It needs a whole different-

Tina: 00:27:09 I should've left it where it was and I shouldn't have-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:27:11 I should've left it alone.

Tina: 00:27:13 I think you're totally right. I think that's important and they're not getting it, the connection between what you do and what happens. I think it's taught versus felt.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:27:26 I think that-

Tina: 00:27:28 I killed a lot of things trying to play with them.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:27:31 I know. I know, me too.

Tina: 00:27:33 It bothers me now.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:27:36 I know, me too.

Tina: 00:27:38 I'll you a very quick funny story. Because you are who you are, this will crack you up. I'm coming back from a shoot. I worked in commercials for a long time. We were coming back from a shoot and we were somewhere south. I don't know where and we stopped at a Burger King. As I'm walking in the door, an adolescent raccoon walks in with me during the day. I don't know if you know anything about them, but usually they're awake in the day if they're rabid. Everyone-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:28:06 Sometimes it's just a thing.

Tina: 00:28:08 It was. Everybody flips out, the whole thing. Everybody goes, "Ahh." They all get in a corner. The thing is this big and it's going around and it's picking up fries off the ground and licking the spilled. I'm like, "It's hungry and starving." If it's rabid, it would've, it's right here. It walked in with me like, "Thanks, cool." I'm with my friend and then the manager comes out with a broom and starts jabbing it.

I go, and I made this up, "Stop, I'm a vet tech. I know exactly what to do." I make this up on the fly and then I looked at the woman and I'm like, "I need a box." She comes out and she dumps cups on the floor dramatically. She had to throw all those away. She brings me the box and I put it down. I'm like, "Everyone, it's going to be fine." It's either going to bite me or something, but I put the box down. He looks up, climbs in the box. I shut the lid.

There's a little opening. I'm like, "Okay, let's go. By the way, I need a quarter pounder." They give us the food, didn't have to pay for it, which was awesome. We go sit in the car and I've got a box with a raccoon in it. I had my hand on the flaps because I didn't want it to open in the car. I'm pregnant by the way. My friend is like, "You know if that thing bites you, you're going to have to get shots. You're pregnant."

I'm like, "I know, but I couldn't let them hurt it." I have my hands like this. It puts its little paws up to the crack and holds my finger like this with both his paws. He was scared. I'm pregnant so I'm uber maternal and I'm like, "Hey." I loved him so much totally, Raising Arizona. I'm doing this straw with water. I'm giving him French fries. I'm like, "I want him."

She's like, "You can't have a raccoon." I had to take him to an animal rescue. She pulls him out of the box. She opens the box. She grabs it by the scruff of the neck, pulls it out, and goes, "Did you wash it?" I'm like, "No." She goes, "This is a pet. This is somebody's pet. Smell it." She's holding him like this.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:30:15 She did? My God.

Tina: 00:30:17 It was somebody's pet raccoon that had gotten out. That's why it was like, "I just want some fries. I'm here for a small fry."

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:30:23 Right, "I'm hungry and there's food in there and people feed me so I'm just going to go in."

Tina: 00:30:26 Wasn't afraid at all, while she's swinging her hips like this.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:30:28 My God.

Tina: 00:30:31 I wanted it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:30:32 I bet you were like, "Wait a minute, nevermind. I'll take it."

Tina: 00:30:34 She said one sentence to me that brought all my childhood back. She goes, "They never want to be with us more than they want to be with their own kind." I was like, "Okay, rehab him." I wanted it. It snuggled right up and she started petting it. I'm like, "Hey, you get to do it."

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:30:49 Wait a minute, I want to make out with him too.

Tina: 00:30:53 Anyway, with that feeling, and if we can't bridge it linearly, let's bridge it emotionally. You're collecting. You feel all of this. I feel like we're out now. There could be a lizard or a snail or a biting caterpillar. How'd you get here? Was there a span of time that you got out of touch? Did you go to college and then came back? How the hell did you get here? Even do broad strokes and then I'll dig at you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:31:21 Let me think about this.

Tina: 00:31:26 Little kid collecting lizards.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:31:27 I will say I have discovered a fair amount of stuff about my own self in the last year. Now I'm looking at things through that and how everything affected me or why. Anyway, I do have a raccoon that lives in my attic by the way and I feed him every day. I haven't seen him in five days, which makes me a little nervous. He will come find me in the house because I feed the kitties on the front porch.

Tina: 00:32:00 That's my dream.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:32:00 He will, I do a lot of work in the back. I have my computer and stuff out there and a couple drawings. I hang out with him and he will hang his head over and look in the window because he knows they'll see him and freak their shit. He's done that here. I've been working in here and he'll come all the way across the roof, across the tree, and look at me. I go up front and I feed him. He'll follow him. They're so smart.

Tina: 00:32:36 That's my dream.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:32:37 I have a video of feeding him. They do that. It's almost like they're blind because they do that thing.

Tina: 00:32:43 I didn't know that.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:32:45 It's really, I mean I don't think he's blind. He seems like he can see, but he does this weird thing where he's very tactile.

Tina: 00:32:52 Does he look at you the whole time he's doing it? I've heard some animals do that because they don't want to break eye contact with you. I don't know.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:32:58 I don't know. It's funny. I don't think so. I mean he kind of is looking at me and he kind of isn't. He knows-

Tina: 00:33:06 He's wary, but he trusts.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:33:07 Exactly, I mean if he's really hungry and I'm going out in the morning to feed all the cats, he'll come up. I've never tried to touch him because I really do think there should be some distance even though it's really hard for me. I want to make out with him. There's a possum too. There's a possum story, which it might smell funky in there because-

Tina: 00:33:30 The story ended?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:33:31 No, he actually, he convalesced in there for two weeks because one of my dogs got him. He was injured and I couldn't find any rehabers to take him.

Tina: 00:33:40 They would've put him down.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:33:41 Since I used to work at Fulton County, I called the vet because he was okay. He had puncture wounds, but he was okay. I mean that vet was the only vet that would help me. He's like, "Bring him up here. I'll give him a shot."

Tina: 00:34:01 Antibiotics or something, good.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:34:03 Antibiotic shot, and then he stayed in here for probably two weeks just healing. I would feed him every day. I called him possum because he, I mean I would come in and I mean everything would just be broken all over the ground, spilled, whatever.

Tina: 00:34:21 You work through your rage, baby. Just go.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:34:23 I mean he just was totally, anyway, he did. I fixed the fence. Hopefully, he's now out in the world making babies and stuff.

Tina: 00:34:34 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:34:35 Anyway-

Tina: 00:34:42 He's got your stock, the stock of you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:34:44 I'm trying to remember. I went to-

Tina: 00:34:48 High school, college, were you still in touch with this in some way or did you-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:34:54 High school, in the eighth grade was when I took my first photography class. Then, I continued that into high school. I actually got shipped to boarding school. I was in boarding school when I was 16. They had a dark room and photography pretty good. It was in the bottom of my dorm. I could be in there all the time if I wanted to.

That's when I actually started not capturing stuff that was around me, but maybe dressing people up or making stories out of stuff or trying to, trying to create a little story in a picture. Then, I went to Georgia State and started out as a photo major. I just got burnt out I think. I got burnt out and I just lost my focus. The program was weirdly pretentious.

Tina: 00:36:07 That's what happens with art. That's why I'm writing this book.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:36:09 It's just such a turnoff for me. I ended up majoring in English, which I loved. I can't really write worth a shit, but I really like fiction and stuff like that and talking about all that stuff. Then, when I was 20 I had a really bad car accident. I had always wanted to go to Africa. I got some insurance money from the car accident and I went to Africa. I think that was a big, I think I was 22 when that happened.

Tina: 00:36:55 Which is a good pilgrimage.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:36:57 I mean really I think it helped me get out of my shyness a little bit and I, I don't know, learned that I could be self-sufficient. I wasn't alone or anything like that, but it was pretty rigorous. I went with National Outdoor Leadership School. Most of what we did was just hike and camp. That's pretty much all we did.

Tina: 00:37:24 You've kept that thread near and dear of this outdoor and a connection with that and everything.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:37:29 The interesting thing is I think when I was there I really just didn't, I took very few pictures. I really just wanted to be where I was.

Tina: 00:37:40 It was almost probably like a return to you for that. Let me just go back and feel that versus trying to-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:37:46 I mean every day was, because that too. Every day was such an adventure, every day, every night-

Tina: 00:37:56 Different from what you've seen before.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:37:58 Completely and totally.

Tina: 00:38:00 Did you still feel at home outside there?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:38:03 God, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's just way better stuff to look at. I mean-

Tina: 00:38:10 Right, right, right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:38:11 Ostriches and shit, anyway, I went. After a succession of just shitty jobs, I ended up going back to school when I was 30 for photography. I worked as a studio manager for a long time in the commercial field. I just never wanted to, I just-

Tina: 00:38:36 It just didn't get you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:38:38 It just didn't get me. I remember the first one of these that I did. I really wanted to do an image through fire. It was in this before the roof was on. It was when I moved in the house. This was just a structure with no roof or anything.

Tina: 00:39:00 How did that, do you remember why fire or was there something? How did you pick it?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:39:05 Honestly, I think it must have been something from a movie or a video or something.

Tina: 00:39:18 Something hit you and-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:39:19 Something, I was like, "Oh." I was a photo assistant at Macy's at the time and I was working with this woman named Caroline who I'm very good friends with now. She was a style assistant then. We spent months talking about what all we wanted and we gathered stuff for a long time.

Tina: 00:39:44 Back to gathering.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:39:44 Then, we set it up one day and then took it down the next day, set it up again, then shot. I loved it. I loved making something and I loved what the result was.

Tina: 00:39:57 What were you making at that time? Was it-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:40:00 Just photos, I mean just-

Tina: 00:40:02 Was it nature?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:40:04 There was a lot, especially because the roof was open. It was someone living outside basically is what it was. I do think to a certain extent when I make these you get to be older and you're an artist and you have six dogs and then cats. You don't have any money. You can't really necessarily go. I think for me it's a little like making my adventure now.

Tina: 00:40:42 No different than when you were-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:40:49 Anyway-

Tina: 00:40:49 No, it's so full. I mean you're doing what you did when you were, and what I think is interesting is you mentioned about being shy. You even used the words, without conviction, something wrong with you, but you were more introverted. What's interesting is when you're in nature there is no shy. You just are. That whole lens isn't there because there's no introvert to be.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:41:14 Right, you can't be wrong or whatever my issue was. I can't.

Tina: 00:41:20 Right, I think it's interesting that you gravitated towards that and then you started bringing that in. Then, of course, we do what we all do. We grow up, but what I love is you held onto it and then brought it back out. Then, I was thinking about how you were bringing people in.

Now you're doing that. You're bringing people from there. I'm wondering if you're reaching what's in all of us that didn't get tapped and bringing it out and saying, "This is all one thing. It's not so separate." It's not house, humans, nature, everything else. I love how you're bringing that in.

Photography, setting up, nevermind. Setting up, you loved it. You started getting back into it again. Now you're back into photography. You went back to school. It's on. Where did you start? Did you start with pictures of things like nature things and then eventually got to building? Take me a little bit through it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:42:33 I think when I got out of school, when I was in school I was starting to do setting of stuff and setting stuff up. I wasn't doing documentary. At Georgia State, I tried to do documentary stuff, but it just, I don't know. I never was comfortable with photographing people surreptitiously I guess. I always felt like I had to ask their permission. It's stupid thinking that everyone who takes pictures can do this or whatever because they're an easy target and I might tap into that shit in college.

I think I recognized that it was really stupid and it just wasn't my forte. When I went back to school and got out I started shooting the wedding dresses. Then, I started shooting women in nature, that black and white series where it was someone in nature, but creating the situation.

I think just the way my brain works is that things were always just going to get bigger and more elaborate or whatever. I think part of it is a challenge. Part of it is needing to do something maybe a little different or learn something new. I really do, I love labor intensive shit. I really do. I'm trying to remember. I know when I was a kid I sewed and crochet and stuff like that.

Tina: 00:44:28 You don't mind the process of creating because that's in your artist statement somewhere. You like it. The butterflies, I think it was in the writing of that. That makes sense to me because this world is all about efficiencies and finding ways to cut out steps. When you're out here it's part of it. The beauty of it is going through cycles and things like that. There's something interesting about not fighting that, not trying to make it shorter, but being okay with it and going through all of it and-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:44:59 I do think-

Tina: 00:44:59 Not discounting any of it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:45:02 I think having a mental picture of what you, I mean it comes like a fixation or like an obsession. You have a picture in your head of what you want to do and basically you just beat the shit out of yourself until you do it.

Tina: 00:45:29 Until it gets out of there.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:45:33 I mean this thing, I started it and then I took it apart and restarted it and then I took it apart. I mean it's just one of those things.

Tina: 00:45:44 It comes into your head, this vision of something, which is an amalgamation of all you are. You picture it and you put it together and then you take it apart. Why?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:45:52 If it doesn't look right the first time, it has to, I mean it's just a process. If you don't necessarily know what you're doing or how you're going to get it to where you need it to be, inevitably it's wrong. It's going to be wrong until all of a sudden it's not and then-

Tina: 00:46:22 That's a feel thing, just-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:46:24 I think so.

Tina: 00:46:25 Look at it and does it match this? There's been a little bit of a theme of that of, "I've painted over it," or, "I just broke the clay." Most of the time it didn't translate what I was trying to get out.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:46:37 I think it's a quote by Billy Collins maybe where he's talking about poetry and editing and stuff and how you should, whatever your most precious mind has, just do the motherfucker. I think it's interesting because I think-

Tina: 00:46:59 That's a hard one. That's good.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:47:00 I think what happens is you put so much work into it or at least I do, the first draft of whatever. The first branch, I put two weeks into it. It took me so long and every part of me wants it to be and I'll try to ignore that feeling that it's not right. Then, all of a sudden I'm like, "Fuck," and just take it apart.

Tina: 00:47:32 That's it. That's it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:47:33 Yes, that process always reminds me a little bit of that advice.

Tina: 00:47:38 I think you're right. I've never heard that before. I'm going to chew on it for a while.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:47:42 I hope I didn't make that up, but I think I remember it.

Tina: 00:47:46 It's brilliant if you did because you do sometimes. You write something or you think of a thought and you're like, "Oh." Then, you not disregard what's around it, but you think, "Well, I've got that." Then, the other isn't. I never thought to do that. What a hard thing.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:48:03 I know. My God, I know.

Tina: 00:48:05 What a hard thing.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:48:07 I know.

Tina: 00:48:07 One thing that I loved about looking through your work, and somebody told your name and I looked at it. I was like, "Yes, I've got to get her." That's why I coerced you hard into doing this. I don't think people photograph in nature well because we're not made or we've evolved ourselves out of fitting in. Then, I'm looking at it and if I was all the other animals, this is a far side in my head. We have no teeth, no feathers, no cool skin, no claws. I mean we're the ugliest animals. We're not covered with anything.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:48:46 That's so true.

Tina: 00:48:47 If was the other animals, I'd be like, "That's the top of the food chain? That?"

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:48:51 Right, "That kills me? Really?"

Tina: 00:48:52 "I could take that out." I mean there's nothing about us that, if you look, everything else in nature has got. A lizard has got a cool skin. Snails have this cool shell. Porpoises have that. We have nothing. We have sad hair, weird-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:49:06 We've evolved into whatever, but-

Tina: 00:49:12 Evolved so we don't fit, and that's what I liked about your work. That's what hit me about your work. This is one of the first people I've ever seen that can take a human and put him in a natural setting and it doesn't look like, "Oh, there's a picture of a guy."

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:49:26 Nice.

Tina: 00:49:26 Do you know what I mean though? I was like, "Oh, she's starting." There was a picture float. I think there was somebody in the water. I don't immediately go, "Person in the water." I was like, "Oh, somebody is trying to solve that where we don't fit in anymore."

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:49:43 I do think those black and white ones, it is really about the landscape and the person I mean really because they're so far back.

Tina: 00:50:01 They just didn't stick out so much. The scenes that you created where there's a person, it's not the focal only thing you see. You see all of it and that happens to be in there. I thought that was brilliant because for most people the focus is making the person look great and the background is supporting the person. You put the person, you did the opposite. I thought that was cool, which goes all the way back to-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:50:30 I was going to say it does.

Tina: 00:50:34 You fit best in and I think your eye knows how to do that whereas I don't think a lot of people do.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:50:42 That's interesting. I'm also-

Tina: 00:50:43 It's just a thought I had, but it fits.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:50:44 No, I think that's it.

Tina: 00:50:50 In all of them the job of the person is to fit into the scene, not the scene built around the person, I mean unless you build it the other way. It just-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:50:59 No, absolutely, it's always the scene. Then, usually I'm like, "What the hell do I have that person doing?"

Tina: 00:51:07 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:51:07 They're in there, but-

Tina: 00:51:10 I think you're bringing up a good general conversation, which is we don't fit anymore and here's how. It's-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:51:14 Part of it is I just want them to be, just to be.

Tina: 00:51:23 You're comfortable being. A lot of people aren't.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:51:26 I do think I feel so much better when I'm not the focus of anything. I think it's that too. All the detail around the person is really the part that-

Tina: 00:51:50 It shows your respect for it because you paid attention to it instead of just-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:51:59 Photoshopping some shit in.

Tina: 00:52:00 Photoshopping some shit in, yes. I love that these were made to go, to come to, to start that coming back together. Again, I'm putting all those words in your mouth, but that's what I see when I look at your work.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:52:15 No, it's good.

Tina: 00:52:16 I think it's because I have a little bit of you because I grew up-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:52:19 The same.

Tina: 00:52:20 Loving and killing things.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:52:21 I just wanted them to love me.

Tina: 00:52:27 My mom would never let me have pets like a dog or a cat.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:52:30 Really?

Tina: 00:52:31 I had to have caged things. I had hamsters and birds and a ferret. She let me have a ferret once.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:52:38 Wow.

Tina: 00:52:39 A descented ferret, I loved it and she always like, "Go wash. You smell like that rat." I know. She didn't have a pet herself until she was 60.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:52:54 Jesus, it's interesting-

Tina: 00:52:54 She got one of the dogs from the puppy mill.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:52:56 My God.

Tina: 00:52:57 It was a little black miniature Pomeranian. They carried it out by its front feet and it was in the breeding shed. Its eyes were just caked because it had never been outside. I was taking it, picking her up at the hospital, and taking it to the vet. She's like, "What is that?" It was the cutest thing in the world, a baby Pomeranian. I'm like, "It's a dog. We got to take it." She just never had a pet.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:53:22 Wow, that's really interesting that you loved animals. You came out loving critters and stuff and she-

Tina: 00:53:30 Yes, still, still.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:53:33 That's really interesting because I will say my parents, we had dogs and-

Tina: 00:53:38 Your dad raised bees. There was-

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:53:39 Whenever there was a stray animal, I mean we always took it in.

Tina: 00:53:44 I was always, "No, you can't keep it. Take it." I stole a chick. We went on a field trip to a farm and I stole a chick because they were going to eat it. We went to Sea World on a field trip and I let all the animals from the petting zoo out into the park.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:53:58 My God, are you serious?

Tina: 00:54:02 Take us back to when we were that age. It seemed logical to let them out.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:54:05 Right.

Tina: 00:54:07 Not logical for them.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:54:08 That's really bad ass though. I think I probably would've been too scared to do that.

Tina: 00:54:15 It's pretty brave. I mean you're putting yourself, your work is.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:54:24 I mean it's definitely-

Tina: 00:54:25 It's all of that. Now so much of it makes even more sense to me because you've said what you've said. Here's what I think is also interesting. You say you're an introvert, maybe a little shy growing up. You got over it, but it's still in there. It's still part of your mitochondria or whatever on a cellular level.

This is brave because it's not a follow to anything. It's a complete departure from safe and normal and ordinary. Not to put down any of those forms, I'm just saying this is brave because it's different, this and plenty of your work. Where did you get that?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:55:07 I think I wish I had been an art major. Part of me wishes I had been an art major or had gone back to school. I don't know shit about sculpture or materials or any of that stuff. I wish I did, but I also think maybe that helps because then I'm like, "Well, this should work." I mean I don't know it wouldn't.

Tina: 00:55:51 It's a thread. It's a thread.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:55:53 I had this artist residency at Cheekwood in Nashville in 2013. 2012 was a crazy year. I had my first, I opened my first scene out of my studio at FLUX. Then, I got that artist residency. Two months later I was in Nashville for three months.

Tina: 00:56:18 For that? Then, you did a piece after it as the purging of that experience because you had to come out of that perfect womb, right?

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:56:26 I think it was so hard for me to be so, I mean because that was, I mean I loved it. It was like a freaking fairy tale having funding and working with excellent people and all that stuff. I do think it, I don't know. It was almost like a self-sabotage thing where I just had to go hide a little bit.

Tina: 00:57:05 That's a lot of eyes on somebody who's reserved and you're putting out there what was, when you were, that was sold I mean.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:57:14 That summer is when I started working at Fulton County Animal Services. I made this really weird abrupt, I mean I had been doing a lot of volunteering and stuff like that until that one. That job, I mean I have a really good friend that's a psychiatrist. When I started working there he was like, "My God, what are you doing?" He was like, "You got to." He was like, "Okay." I think he did a very short stint in working with child molesters and then he just wouldn't.

Tina: 00:58:12 I don't know how.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:58:13 He was like, "Here's what I think we should do. We need to come up with how many times are you going to sob hysterically before you quit?" I'm like, "Okay, 20." He was like, "Nope, too many." Then, I was like, "Okay, 10," and he was like, "I mean that's still too many."

Tina: 00:58:22 That's two weeks.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:58:23 He was like, "Okay, so 10 times, I want you to really respect that and quit." I mean it was just constant, I mean constant, and why? Why did I put myself through that? I don't know, but out of that weird, abrupt turn came these, came more, less in there and more sculptural. It was just the desire to do, I don't know, something different.

These are all really, really personal more than anything else. I think they're personal in that internal personal, but also close friends of mine I think might advise them and that goes in there too. It's all of our stories a little bit. I think these in a weird way got me out of that a little bit and made it about something else like the Birdnado.

Tina: 00:59:28 Birdnado.

Dorothy O'Conno: 00:59:28 Birdnado, all the dogs and cats and then the butterflies and then that was more about Steph and Amanda.

Tina: 00:59:36 You took it all on. I feel like you took it all on. I mean the emotion was tapped from your experience in the animal shelter, but then you took it on from a global, the butterflies and now the bees and the dogs. You channeled that, I hate to say pain and suffering, but that angst, all of that.

Then, you went, "But I know it's going on here and here. My dad raised these. I know these are in trouble and I know the butterflies are in trouble." I mean you took on this. I don't know. I think it's pretty interesting that you channeled that pain and hurt. You could just say, "It's focused on dogs. I'm going to leave that and lock it up and put it away," but you went, "No, I'm going to apply it."

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:00:28 I wish I could be a little better. I just wish I could've thought of something bigger and better and still-

Tina: 01:00:36 Than what? Than a giant tree that's taller than a person that goes on Beltline that makes thousands of people aware? You mean more than that?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:00:44 I don't know.

Tina: 01:00:48 Are you kidding me?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:00:48 I know, but the dog and cat thing, I mean that's harder. It just never-

Tina: 01:00:54 You can only do so much. Do that much. I live by that because otherwise I can't sleep at night.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:01:01 Right, exactly.

Tina: 01:01:02 You should be up here.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:01:04 That's true. That's true.

Tina: 01:01:06 You did the Birdnado and you did the butterfly thing. I mean that's yours.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:01:16 Anything I can do, that's true. That's true.

Tina: 01:01:18 That's you making up for the dead lizards. No, I'm kidding. No, I guess I get so passionate about it because I see, there was something in it I saw. There's a lot in here. Someone didn't just take materials and construct this. There's blood and stuff in there. Come to find out, it's sap and blood. That might be your chapter title. Why the trees? I'm giving you an easy one. I'm giving you some levity because I've been digging at you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:01:54 No, I mean it's good. It is. It's good. It's good and I don't feel dug at.

Tina: 01:02:03 Good, good, because-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:02:04 I really don't just so you know.

Tina: 01:02:06 I made a couple people cry.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:02:07 No.

Tina: 01:02:07 In a good way.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:02:08 I was going to say it's not hard to make-

Tina: 01:02:10 Right, we just got places that-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:02:12 Animals, trees, I was thinking about today I had this weird, I get these fixations or whatever where I really have to just do it. It's gotten me in trouble in the past in many ways.

Tina: 01:02:35 You're making me want to dig.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:02:35 It's just an impulse control thing. I think at the beginning of, anyway, whatever.

Tina: 01:02:49 Don't you think that's necessary?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:02:52 I mean yes, but God damn it. Sometimes it's just so detrimental in other ways. It really just, it's the balance that's really hard. I mean part of it is just living and learning. The other bummer is you always learn when it's, I don't know.

Tina: 01:03:14 The worst?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:03:15 When you've really put yourself in the shittiest you're like, "Oh, oh, I should've done that differently."

Tina: 01:03:24 You got to feel it and then it's muscle memory.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:03:26 Exactly.

Tina: 01:03:27 Otherwise, it's just in your head.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:03:29 Right.

Tina: 01:03:29 I talked to the art, this is good for you to know too. There's an art therapist who's going to write the forward to this.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:03:38 Cool.

Tina: 01:03:39 I just interviewed her last week. It was awesome, but she said-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:03:43 Is she here?

Tina: 01:03:43 I didn't even know where she was. I thought she was in New York and I was like, "Well, it's another plane ride." She's like, "Actually, I'm in Marietta." I was like, "Yes, that's just a really long car ride." She was explaining the right brain, left brain thing and she's an art therapist. If you experience trauma or deep emotions, it doesn't necessarily have to be such trauma.

You experience it on your left side because it's emotional. How do we try to fix it? Talking about it, which is the right side. There's physiological proof for this. Unless you touch back into the left side of where that feeling was, it doesn't get it out or address it because it just stays on the logic side. It never physiologically goes into the left side and cleans it out.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:04:32 That is really interesting.

Tina: 01:04:36 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:04:36 I mean we're having a really good conversation, but normally I am, one of my challenges has been expressing myself verbally. I think it's just-

Tina: 01:04:52 You're knocking it out of the park today.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:04:53 Part of it too is I did start taking medication this past spring. It really is-

Tina: 01:04:56 Helped.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:04:56 Fucking up my eyesight, but it's helping in so many other ways I think.

Tina: 01:05:02 Right, right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:05:03 I mean sometimes it's-

Tina: 01:05:09 When I was going through all this I had to take it for a little bit because I was wanting to pour antifreeze down my feeding tube, never seriously. I couldn't eat and I love to eat.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:05:23 That's a bummer.

Tina: 01:05:25 You were talking about why the trees.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:05:28 My God, the leaves.

Tina: 01:05:31 The more you look at it, the more you see. What does it feel like when you look at this and it's the expression you wanted and it's done and it's out? Are you relieved? Are you exhilarated? Just talk to me about that a little bit, especially if it came from that obsessive impetus.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:05:53 It's both. It's always anticlimactic. It really is just-

Tina: 01:06:01 Really?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:06:02 I mean these are always. I think it's hard, especially when I open them in a public way. This is different because it goes out into the public and then it's there for months. People see it. It feels better. The last one I built was a cone square and I was sharing space. It was that collective, an artist collective thing, and I was sharing a big space. I'm sharing with a group of dancers.

Tina: 01:06:43 Cool.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:06:45 I don't know why. It probably just never occurred to me because it wasn't my thing, but they were talking about performances. When I do one of these and I open it and then it's done it really does, I tank and I do. So much goes into it and then it's done and I'm like, "So that happened." It's just that feeling.

Tina: 01:07:11 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:07:11 They're like, "We have that with every performance we do." It's so ephemeral. Of course you do. I mean it's just you put it out there and then it's done. At least I have a photograph of a whole physical thing that at some point will be taken down.

Tina: 01:07:33 Does it lose its visceral-ness once it's done? Is that what it is? It's like you've expressed? You've left sided brained it?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:07:39 I think. I don't think there's any way to say this without sounding like a total jackass. Whatever, that's fine. I tanked after the hive thing, the square thing. I think part of that was just nobody saw it. It was just a weird space. It was a great space, but it turned out to be a weird space. They have these huge windows and it was built in in front of the windows.

It was going to be up for months. I think I had built up a lot, but then the windows had been blacked out for so long. I started building the thing and they took the black out off the windows. It turned out that the glass was tinted. You couldn't see. I think in part I put so much into it and I really loved it. Then, just nobody saw it.

Tina: 01:08:46 It was under-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:08:47 I think probably I had gotten my hopes up, but I don't know. I hoped something, some other thing would come from it.

Tina: 01:08:58 That's hard in life. That's really hard.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:09:01 I think that it's one of those things that can turn people away from continuing this sort of thing.

Tina: 01:09:13 Talk to me about that. Remembering audience, I'm hoping these are people who have some sort of pull or interest and then it gets thwarted because of the way society views art and artists in those words. There's two things I'd love for you to talk a little bit about. You say you tank. Once you have this expression and it's out and it's where its destination is, what does it mean to tank?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:09:39 This was the same thing that happened with the Cheekwood thing. I think I just, especially if I don't have something lined up, I put full on, intense focus and then it's done and I'm like, "Fuck." I can't help it. I just nosedive.

Tina: 01:10:09 Then, you get another.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:10:11 Then, I recover and I get another idea. Usually these will stay up until, I can't bare to take them down usually. They'll just stay up until I have another idea and I'm ready to get back in.

Tina: 01:10:36 The second part I wanted you to talk a little bit about is you said that is the thing that sometimes keeps people from continuing. That is when you have something and you have this hope about what it's going to be to others. What is that? What happens? You mean it's just so discouraging that it-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:10:56 You have the desire or the obsession to build something, but on the other side of that, and I don't give a shit about who you are. You do want people to get it on some level and appreciate it on some level, especially when you put so much into it.

Tina: 01:11:25 Otherwise, you'd keep it in your backyard.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:11:26 Exactly, and I think part of everything is rejection. I mean it's just the way it is and it sucks. I mean it really, really sucks. I don't know. I mean I think for people that it is a turnoff and they can't continue making stuff, I mean I get it. I do. There's no like, "You should keep trying." I mean you should, but-

Tina: 01:12:04 If you lose it, you lose it, right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:12:05 I mean if you can't, because it does, I mean it hurts.

Tina: 01:12:12 This is a question that I've posed to everyone and I usually don't, but I think it's a good one. What would make you quit or stop? Those are two different things.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:12:22 I don't know. I mean I will say where I am in my life, it's my thing and I'd like to do other things. It's insane that I have no babies whatsoever. I mean I do. In a way, I really love my life because I love my neighborhood and my neighbors and my dogs. I'm home all the time and I have this amazing space to create in. Then, on the other hand, there's just this creeping terror always in the back of my mind like, "What the fuck are you doing?" It's that.

Tina: 01:13:16 You let go without knowing the net. You just said, "I'm doing this."

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:13:20 Right, and it's not always, I mean it's a freaking struggle. I mean not refugee struggle, I mean clearly there's whatever, but it is hard not knowing where, what, income, whatever. You're holding your breath every time the mortgage comes around. I think that if I can't figure out some way to get some stability in that way-

Tina: 01:13:55 Necessity?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:13:56 I mean I think that is probably going to be the thing. I don't think I would ever stop or quit I guess, but I think I'm going to have to address that.

Tina: 01:14:11 You might scale or do percentages of stuff.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:14:13 Exactly, I think before, when I was working full-time before I was a studio manager. I would come home and work here in the studio. It was totally easy to do all of that, but the animals weren't there then.

Tina: 01:14:35 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:14:35 It just adds a whole other time suck and energy and focus. I think that's the other thing. Getting a job, I know I wouldn't have enough time to devote. I mean-

Tina: 01:14:55 Right, then when you get that obsession you'd have to hold onto it. That's harder sometimes I think when you have something because I lose stuff all the time. I'll be driving and I'm like, "Oh, I have this." By the time you get home, you're like, "All I can remember is like banana and blue shoe," and now it's gone.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:15:11 Yes, my stupid talk to text on my phone is broken and that is everything, really everything. It's so annoying.

Tina: 01:15:20 I send myself emails all the time.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:15:22 Yes, my God when I'm walking the dogs, absolutely. I'm like, "Hold on, wait," and I have to, especially writing proposals or whatever.

Tina: 01:15:35 Answering RFP requests.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:15:37 Yes, exactly, that whole verbal expression is so hard. Those things are just freaking laborious. A lot of times when I'm walking that's what's going through my head. I'll come up with a line and I'm like, "Oh, shit, hold on." It just evaporates so quickly.

Tina: 01:16:03 How long have you been doing this to sustain you?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:16:09 I mean really honestly cobbled together a living in so many different ways. I mean I have a couple people that I do some retouching for from time to time. Then, I used to nanny maybe 10 hours a week or so and then I watched the girl across the street. I mean it's just stuff.

Tina: 01:16:34 Necessity.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:16:35 Then, if I'm lucky, I'll sell a piece of art. Also, I will say I think part of the impetus for this sort of thing was that there was funding for it.

Tina: 01:16:53 Right.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:16:53 I'm like, "Oh, there's actually, there's like a call and there's $6,000 if you can prove you need it. What can I build?" I think that just took it in a different direction too, just the necessity. Really gathering funding is the freaking worst. I mean it's just awful.

Tina: 01:17:18 I'm sure.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:17:19 That's part of what has bitten me in the ass from the early days. I would just self-fund just to do it and then-

Tina: 01:17:30 Right, you didn't do the game.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:17:31 I'm still paying for shit from years and years ago.

Tina: 01:17:40 It's so strange to me just because, and this is the other thing that I think is funny. When you're an adult funny rarely means humorous. I think it's funny that people have the opinions that they do of artists and artists, this whole duality of it. Yet, you cannot go into a building or a city or a house without art.

People buy it. They manufacture it. They have to have it. They have people who get it. I think it's funny that you're four or five or six and everything you draw gets put on the refrigerator and heralded. Damn, I missed it. It's heralded and celebrated. Then, somewhere along before you get to double digit years, it gets taken away.

If you pick it up again, now there's this judgment and this thing and you have to draw like this. It all changes. That's what's so funny. Then, you have people like yourself and the other people I've spoken with who are like, "I'm still going to do this over here." Then, it gets celebrated again. I hate that there's that filter.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:18:50 I know. It is. It's true. It is very interesting how that works.

Tina: 01:18:57 One of the artists that I spoke to, his mom had a drawing table and I think it was pastels or something up in their house upstairs and paper and everything ready and she never touched it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:19:12 My God, no.

Tina: 01:19:15 Right? It was in there and she never touched it. There was always laundry or kids or stuff. That's a good metaphor for what I'm trying to get people to do. If you have something, go write it or mold it or build it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:19:39 Right, just try. I do think, I mean especially these, in those. I mean they started out as one thing and totally morphed into another. They just got more and more detailed. I love that. I love seeing that progression and just the possibility. With that first one, I never would've realized how, I don't know, and what it would've done for me personally too. Opening them up with a live performance and stuff, I never would've done that shit ever.

When I build them in here my favorite thing is walking into a whole different world. Normally there's not shit all over the place like there is now. Then, it's nice to share that with people. I mean a performance, me with the shyness and stuff, I never would've thought about that, but I really enjoy that part now because it is sharing it on a different level. It's somebody else in there performing, not me. I'm off the hook.

Tina: 01:21:05 Right, if someone is paying attention, it is you. What I love is in my head when you're saying, "When I walk in," I picture you little. You know what I mean? When you were talking about it I was like, "Oh, I picture her, but she's little." It's what you did when you were little and you walked around. Now you're trying to invite everyone into what it felt like and what it was like. It's cool. I picture you as little.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:21:27 My friend's daughter, the first time she ever came to one of these openings she went home and she was really excited about it. They went to my website and they looked at all the pictures. She made up stories about every single picture and I love that. That just made me so happy.

Tina: 01:21:48 She looked at the scene and wrote? That's so awesome.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:21:50 She was like, "Oh, this builds into this." She just made up little stories. I like that too and I like it when people come up with different interpretations.

Tina: 01:22:05 Which is what I'm hearing, just tell me what I see. I've done that since I was little. If I see something, I'll make up a story about it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:22:15 That's very cool.

Tina: 01:22:18 I can't help it. You look at that. You're sitting in front of it and you're like, "I'm seeing inside someone's head." You see that and you took it out of here and you built it. That's interesting because I don't know that a lot of people would have the wherewithal to do such a translation. I think maybe that's the obsession things you're talking about. You get this vision and then-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:22:47 I fixate.

Tina: 01:22:53 How long would you say from you have a vision and then you get it to its fruition? Is it six months? Is it a year? Is it a month or does it just depend?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:23:05 It depends. Lately, it's been, I think the average is two months, something like that.

Tina: 01:23:12 Wow, that's quick.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:23:14 I mean just to build it from the idea.

Tina: 01:23:18 That's what I meant. You have the impetus.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:23:20 That totally varies on how quickly I can get something.

Tina: 01:23:29 Do you have things? I have this actually, snippets or visions of something that I want to do that are in my mental shoebox for forever. Then, one day I'm like, "Okay, it's time to write this," or, "It's time to revisit that thing that's been with me." I'll have a thought about a story, about a blah, blah, blah, blah. I have it for years. Then, one day I'm like, "It's time," and then I'll write it.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:23:51 Probably, that sounds right. I can't think of an instance, but that does sound, it sounds right for sure.

Tina: 01:24:03 It makes sense from the way you described your work too because it's incubated from when you were young. It's all part and parcel from how you grew up and all of that. It would make sense. Is it hard for you to let a piece go?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:24:27 You mean to tear down a scene? Absolutely, I hate that part. I mean it's a pain in the ass, but also I miss it. The tornado, I still miss that thing. I mean it was really opening up the studio and I mean I loved that tornado. I even loved it when I first made it and there was nothing on it. That was the hardest thing because I loved it so much and I was like, "Oh God, I don't want to put anything on it."

I had that Kickstarter project where people had sent me all this shit to put on the tornado. Luckily, I did because it was better. I mean that was what I had seen in my head. I just was really surprised at how much I loved it, just a big, black thing in the studio, but I still miss that. The lazy Susan part is still on the ceiling. I think there was a rat living on top of it at one point.

Tina: 01:25:39 I've had pet rats. They're amazing pets. They're sweet and super trainable.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:25:44 Really? I had mice.

Tina: 01:25:47 I would walk around with, I had Monday and Tuesday. That was their names.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:25:50 That's funny.

Tina: 01:25:51 I would walk the neighborhood with them on my shoulder. They would stay no problem.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:25:55 Wow.

Tina: 01:25:55 They would get scared and tuck in. I would put my hair around them and they would, it was really sweet.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:26:00 That's very sweet.

Tina: 01:26:01 Then, people were like, "Um, yes, they're rats," but they would stay. That's what I thought was interesting. It was the thing you and I were talking about.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:26:11 Yes.

Tina: 01:26:12 They would stay.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:26:13 They loved you.

Tina: 01:26:14 They were like, "This is my meal. I get cheese with her. You guys are eating bugs. I'm staying."

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:26:21 I think when I was little I think it was the reptile thing. That's maybe when I was realizing reptiles weren't ever going to be cuddly. Maybe that's when I made the transition to mice.

Tina: 01:26:40 I love watching the light through the leaves like that. That's one of my favorite things to see.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:26:43 I love it back here. I really do.

Tina: 01:26:49 I get it. It makes sense.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:26:52 It's so nice and I mean it's weirdly important. I don't really notice it.

Tina: 01:27:02 I don't think they would know what to do if they were looking for something. There's a reverence that you wouldn't mess with it I think.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:27:09 It is pretty surprising. I think maybe, no, I don't think anyone has ever tried to break in here really.

Tina: 01:27:18 Even if they did, I don't know. It just doesn't feel like something. There would have to be something really broken with someone to want to hurt this. You said a while back about, "This is hard because I'll be thinking and I'll think of something an hour later." If that happens, just say, "Hey, here's a thought," and send it to me. I'll just include it because we can do whatever we want. Comfortable-wise, you will see it before it goes.

Nobody ever does that, but I figure what you're telling me is so personal with everyone that I want to make sure that, one, I captured it correctly and, two, I'm representing what you said. It's really your story. I'm the messenger. I'm the steward. The intellectual property is yours to be like, "No, I want that in there." You'll see it. Don't feel like what I just told you, "What are you going to write?"

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:28:23 No, it's funny. I mean maybe it was because I wrote to Jill and she was like, "Oh, you'll love her." Maybe that's part of it. Maybe initially that was part of it, but I don't know. I don't feel any-

Tina: 01:28:45 Exposure or vulnerability?

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:28:47 Or just any nervousness about it whatsoever, I really don't.

Tina: 01:28:51 Good, I mean I want you guys to feel like that. It's what you said. I was very excited. I have this vision and I picked the artists and I sent out the thing. Everyone said yes, which is really weird, everyone. That's weird. Then, I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to let it." Then, everything worked out with the photographer and then I ran into this art therapist that was referred. It just all-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:29:17 That's really nice.

Tina: 01:29:19 The intellectual property lawyer was like, "Oh, there's a guy." He wrote back and was like, "I would love to do this." "Okay, great, you're on," and he works at a huge law firm. I can't remember the damn name of it, but he's a partner.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:29:34 That's very cool.

Tina: 01:29:36 It's awesome. You'll meet everybody. I'm going to have a big opening.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:29:39 Nice, cool.

Tina: 01:29:40 The guy, Jay, who painted the big bear paining, he paints under the name of OM Norling, which is hilarious. His wife is an event planner.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:29:51 Is a what?

Tina: 01:29:51 Event planner.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:29:52 No shit.

Tina: 01:29:53 She did his opening. I'm going to have her do our opening at the solarium.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:29:58 Hopefully, it'll still be in Oakhurst.

Tina: 01:30:02 I'm hoping to get Calvin's in San Francisco and Bruce's in New York.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:30:07 I mean you've got some really good people.

Tina: 01:30:13 Calvin, what I love is all of you. Joe Manass, he lives in Swaney and makes furniture. Wait until you read his story. All of you have that though and everyone has something. I feel like you're all different points of entry into some similarities. Meaning that the reader would go, "Oh, I identify with Calvin because he's so socially inept." He had to have a bird when we talked. It was on his head and it was-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:30:46 That makes me-

Tina: 01:30:47 I so wanted to hug him. I did. At the end, he let me. Calvin had to have a bird. Bruce had so much trauma when he was growing up. He has seven boxes of ashes of his family in his basement. There's trauma. Then, there was somebody else that worked in a Ford plant and was an LSD. There will be something. Someone will go, "Oh, that's mostly me," or, "Dorothy is how I was. I was shy and I love nature." All of you have different-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:31:20 That's really interesting. I'm looking forward to reading it. I mean-

Tina: 01:31:24 Coolest thing I've done in my adult life, hands down, coolest thing I've done in my adult life.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:31:28 Where did the idea come from?

Tina: 01:31:30 Talking to Jay, he's a dad and the guy that painted this eight foot by five foot bear. He's a dad in the neighborhood. I know him as Britt's dad. I'm talking to him at the opening and I'm standing in front of this beautiful painting of this bear and it's called The Subjugation Of The Hat Box. It's really sophisticated. It's huge. I'm like, "I can't believe it." I'm going on and on about this and he's like, "I know. It was really hard to paint." I went-

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:31:59 Wait, what?

Tina: 01:31:59 "You painted that?" He's like, "Yeah, I get up at 4:00 and I paint until 6:00 and then I'm a dad the rest of the time." I monopolized the poor guy the whole night. I'm talking to him and I was like, "This is the kind of thing that people need to know about you. Not that there's anything wrong with the artist statement, but that's the story."

"This came from, you paint by OM Norling because you're a grandfather and you feel inhibited to paint something so brave and bold as yourself. You paint under this thing to get this." Then, it just went from there. Then, I developed that and I sent it and you all said yes. Then, Jill, I was cutting. She's like, "Oh, do you have anybody that does this?" I was like, "No," and then she pulled you up. I was like, "Oh, you must." I felt pushy when I wrote you. I was like, "Oh my God, you must."

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:32:54 That's very cool.

Tina: 01:32:55 It's good company. It's good company.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:32:57 It really is. It really is.

Tina: 01:32:59 I think what I love too is you all will like each other. Nobody is an asshole.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:33:06 Good.

Tina: 01:33:06 Nobody is pretentious.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:33:08 I'm really glad to hear that.

Tina: 01:33:08 Not one, not on anyone have I smelled a hint of pretense, not one of you.

Dorothy O'Conno: 01:33:14 That's very cool. I mean to me it just seems unusual.

Tina: 01:33:17 12 of you, 12, I have one more interview in North Carolina. I think he's very shy, won't answer email from my work email, but last one. I wanted to get everybody done by August, but he can't because his studio is-