In this episode, Juliana talks with Melissa Staiger, a Brooklyn-based artist who has had solo exhibitions at the Pratt Institute, SCPS Art Gallery, Kent Place Gallery, among others. She co-curated an exhibit on the life of artist Pamela Colman Smith who was mostly remembered for illustrating the widely used Rider-Waiter-Smith tarot deck. The retrospective was reviewed by the New York Times. Staiger most recently assisted with the storytelling of Smith's life for the Whitney's Biennial. Melissa and Juliana discuss Smith's life, interpret a few of the nonhuman animals who show up on tarot cards, and share stories.

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Conversations with Animals is a monthly podcast hosted by Juliana examining our interconnection with nonhuman animal lives. Expect interviews with ecological writers, filmmakers, vegan chefs, animal-related spaces, artists, and more! Each month, a fresh companion newsletter is published. Subscribe: www.julianaroth.com/drawinganimals

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Melissa Staiger (b.1978, Louisville, KY) earned a BFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, MD; an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Staiger has had solo exhibitions at the Pratt Institute, SCPS Art Gallery, Kent Place Gallery in Summit, NJ,and Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. She has been included in exhibitions at The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Cementa Festival, Cuchfritos Gallery, Equity Gallery, Ground Floor Gallery, The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, The Painting Center, Renée Riccardo of Arena, Schema Projects, Stand 4 Gallery, Transmitter Gallery, Trestle Gallery, TSA, Ventana 244, Underdonk, and The Wassaic Project. The artist was nominated and attended the Robert Rauschenberg Artist Residency in Captiva, Florida, and attended The Wassaic Project Residency. She is a member of the American Abstract Artists.

Julianais a writer, filmmaker, educator, and performer. She formerly lived as a volunteer on an organic farm in Maine, out of a backpack in the wilderness of Utah’s La Sal Mountains, and worked for the Ecology Center. She was selected as a VIDA Fellow with the Sundress Academy for the Arts for her fiction. Her writing appears in The Breakwater Review, Irish Pages, Los Angeles Review of Books as well as being produced as independent films that she directs. Her web series, The University, was nominated by the International Academy of Web Television for Best Drama Writing and screened at survivor justice nonprofits across the country. She teaches writing at NYU.