The ghosts of Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, the OG’s (Old Guard) of the religious right are dancing these days. Since his inauguration, Trump has rewarded his religious right allies with executive orders creating a “Religious Liberty Commission” and a “Task Force to Eliminate Anti-Christian Bias.”

“Together they will put the force of the federal government behind the conspiracy theories, false persecution claims, and reactionary policy proposals of the Christian nationalist movement, including its efforts to undermine separation of church and state,” Right Wing Watch’s Peter Montgomery recently reported.

On May 1, members of the religious liberty commission were announced, and nearly all are ultra-conservative Christian nationalists with a huge right-wing agenda. The commission’s chair is Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and its vice chair is Ben Carson.

Right Wing Watch profiled several of the commission’s members:

• Paula White, serving again as Trump’s faith advisor in the White House, has used her position to elevate the influence of dominionist preachers and Christian nationalist activists. A preacher of the prosperity gospel, White has repeatedly denounced Trump’s opponents as demonic. When Trump announced the Religious Liberty Commission, White made the startling assertion, “Prayer is not a religious act, it’s a national necessity.”

• Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who developed the Heritage Foundation’s “road map” for overturning marriage equality and was the face of Heritage’s anti-trans activism.

• Franklin Graham, the more-political son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham, is a MAGA activist and fan of Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay policies who backed Trump in 2016 as the last chance for Christians to save America from godless secularists and the “very wicked” LGTBT agenda. After the 2020 election Graham promoted Trump’s stolen-election claims and blamed the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol on “antifa.”

• Eric Metaxas, a once somewhat reputable scholar who has devolved into a far-right conspiracy theorist and MAGA cultist, emceed a December 2020 “Stop the Steal” rally at which Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes threatened bloody civil war if Trump did not remain in power.

• Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who helped lead U.S. Catholic bishops’ opposition to legal abortion and LGBTQ equality, was an original signer of the 2009 Manhattan Declaration, a manifesto for Christian conservatives who declared that when it comes to opposition to abortion and marriage equality, “no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

• Kelly Shackleford, president of First Liberty, who works to undermine church-state separation via the courts; Shackleford has endorsed a Christian nationalist effort to block conservative judges from joining the Supreme Court if they do not meet the faith and worldview standards of the religious right.

• Allyson Ho, a lawyer and wife of right-wing Judge James Ho, has been affiliated with the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ equality religious-right legal groups Alliance Defending Freedom and First Liberty Institute.

Other commission members include Bishop Robert Barron, founder of the Word on Fire ministry; 2009 Miss USA runner-up Carrie Prejean Boller; TV personality Dr. Phil McGraw; and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik.

Montgomery noted that “Advisory board members are divided into three categories: religious leaders, legal experts, and lay leaders. The list is more religiously diverse than the commission itself; in addition to right-wing lawyers and Christian-right activists, it includes several additional Catholic bishops, Jewish rabbis, and Muslim activists.”

Notable new advisory board members:

• Kristen Waggoner, president of the mammoth anti-LGBTQ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which uses the courts to make “generational” wins like the overturning of Roe v. Wade, has been named as a possible Supreme Court Justice by the Center for Judicial Renewal, a Christian nationalist project of the American Family Association’s advocacy arm. The ADF is active around the world.  

• Ryan Tucker, senior counsel and director of the Center for Christian Ministries with Alliance Defending Freedom.

• Jentezen Franklin, a MAGA pastor, told conservative Christians at a 2020 Evangelicals for Trump rally, “Speak now or forever hold your peace. You won’t have another chance. You won’t have freedom of religion. You won’t have freedom of speech.”

• Gene Bailey, host of FlashPoint, a program that regularly promotes pro-Trump prophecy and propaganda on the air and at live events. Bailey has said the point of FlashPoint’s trainings is to help right-wing Christians “take over the world.” FlashPoint was until recently a program of Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel.

• Anti-abortion activist Alveda King, a niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., once dismissed the late Coretta Scott King’s support for marriage equality by saying , ‘I’ve got his DNA. She doesn’t.”

• Abigail Robertson, CBN podcast host and granddaughter of Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson.

Donald Trump claiming that he’s the front man for “bringing religion back to our country,” is as if the late Jeffrey Epstein claimed that he was working to end sex trafficking.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation called Trump’s religious liberty commission “a dangerous initiative,” that “despite its branding, this commission is not about protecting religious freedom — it’s about advancing religious privilege and promoting a Christian nationalist agenda”.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.

On May 31, 2023, the West lost one of its most ardent wildlife advocates, Dr. James (Jim) Bailey of Belgrade, Montana died peacefully at home. He was 89.

I saw Jim in Bozeman in mid-April. He attended a lecture I gave for Earth Day Celebrations and then, during the same week, gave a talk on wild bison.

Jim ceaselessly advocated for the restoration of American bison. He was one of the few people that I knew that also promoted wildness. What Jim meant by “wildness” is that evolutionary processes would dominate and influence wildlife.

Jim was particularly interested in bison. He wrote American Plains Bison: Rewilding an Icon in 2013. In particular, Jim was committed to Yellowstone bison.

He has pointed out that bison are not endangered. There are hundreds of thousands of bison, most on commercial ranches. But the biggest threat to bison isn’t extinction but the  extinction of wild bison and of wildness. Domestication is occurring among nearly all bison herds from tribal herds to private ranches to numerous partially wild herds in between.

Yellowstone bison are the only significant bison herd in the United States that has been more or less continuously wild. By wild, we mean the bison were influenced mainly by natural processes like predators, drought, harsh winters, tournament breeding, and selection for mobile and hardy animals.

Jim’s dream was to see public wild bison restored to the Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge in central Montana. To Jim, restoring bison or any other animal was mainly about a hands-off approach to management. And to ensure sufficient genetic diversity and resilence, you need a herd with several thousand to many thousands, and few herds meet this minimum size.

In an interview in 2014, Bailey explained his concern: “Most people think there is no issue with the bison because Ted Turner owns a bunch, but we’re domesticating them,” Bailey said. “We’re stripping out the wild genes and replacing them with domestic genes. We’re losing the wild bison.”

Jim started the Montana Wild Bison Restoration Coalition. Jim was concerned that nearly all bison in the United States are domesticated. Worse, they are getting more domesticated all the time due to management and policy decisions such as the annual slaughter of Yellowstone bison near Gardiner, which kills all bison, not the individuals that native predators or other mortality factors like starvation might kill. He has listed the ten leading causes of bison loss of wild genes.

Jim grew up in Chicago, but early in his college studies decided that he was interested in a profession in wildlife. So he did graduate work at the State University of New York at Syracuse and the University of Michigan. He eventually got a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Syracuse.

In 1968 he left the East for an instructor’s position in wildlife management at the University of Montana. This was followed by a professorship at Colorado State University, where he retired as a full professor in 1990.

He then served as Assistant Director of the Conservation Services Division in the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, overseeing endangered species programs, habitat conservation, and watchable wildlife. He eventually moved to Belgrade and actively promoted the restoration of wild bison.

Unfortunately, Jim died before achieving his dream of wild bison restoration. But others, including myself, continue to advocate for wild bison.

Montana lost an effective wildlife advocate, but his vision will continue.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Wuerthner.

I would get out the pamphlet with the spreadsheet of all the other toys and look at the graphics on the pamphlets. I collected them. When I was little I was artistic, but I never took an art class until high school. My parents didn’t really nurture that side of me, mostly had me in sports. That was the focus. Sports around the clock. The goal was to get me into college and play soccer.

I took a turn in high school, things just kind of came together. I would collage in my room at night—my entire bedroom ceiling, the floor. That love from childhood came back and was ignited partly by psychedelics and weed. Coming of age, figuring out who I was again. I decided I wanted to pursue art as a career and go to school for it. I had signed on to play soccer in college but dropped out halfway through the summer and was like, “I’m going to art school.”

You made your own path.

Yeah. Well, my mom was a graphic designer in the late ’70s, early ’80s. I knew that was a career people could have, but she wasn’t practicing. She was always taking care of us. She did draw little characters sometimes and did super nice bubble lettering. Now that I’m older, I encourage her to go back to that and start practicing again because I think she’s good at it.

Was attending art school a net positive for you?

It was. It got me learning the programs I now use every day. It’s crucial to have that practice. I liked my teachers a lot, but it’s up to you to take the reins after that. The teacher’s position is to lead you along the way, push you in the right direction. It was worth it because of the time I had to physically sit down and learn about design. My style back then was nowhere near what it’s like now. The seed was there, but that seed takes a while to grow. I’m glad I planted it in school when I had structure around it.

That’s refreshing to hear.

There was a lot missed in school though. I don’t think they covered everything I needed for the real world and design. I had my first job in New York City. This woman hired me for her studio and ended up firing me a month later because I didn’t have the best skills. I was trying to gain traction and learn how the real world of design works. I wasn’t a graphic designer yet. I was still a student and am still a student today, but have more experience behind me. Experience in general is what will get you going. You have to be a fish out of water for a while.

You also did AmeriCorps, right?

When I was in graphic design school, the day after portfolio day, I got on a plane and went to California and started AmeriCorps. Working on a backcountry crew building trails. That was for just six months, but was a crucial break. I was so burnt out from school and being on the computer. I needed a break from everything. It was 10-hour days, no phone, no communication with the outside world other than letters for six months. After that I traveled around and ended up in New York somehow.

Are you starting to envision life as a full-time artist around then?

Not at all. I was just running with the wind. I knew I wanted to practice graphic design. After I left the backcountry in Yosemite I didn’t know if I wanted to work in-house or be on my own. I didn’t have any idea. I came back to my parents’ house. Applying to every graphic design job across America. Someone finally hired me in New York. I asked my dad, “Is this salary going to support me?” It was very low. I’m surprised I even made it there. It was tough for a while in the beginning. I went up there on a Greyhound bus and this Craigslist roommate picked me up. I was headed to work the next day for this tiny graphic design studio that hired someone living in Kentucky with their parents. It was crazy.

Was there a moment when you realized you could support yourself from your own work?

After I started working at a record label, Mexican Summer. They hired me a month after I’d been in New York. I found them on the Indeed jobs website. I was shocked that they hired me because I didn’t know what they saw in me. They played a huge role in my style and led me in the direction where I am today. I got hired as a junior designer and was making YouTube spinners and doing mock-ups. Then slowly I started doing Anthology reissue projects. Touching up record covers. The next step was working with the creative director and musicians on LP packaging. The trust from them gave me the confidence to keep going and hone in my own voice. It’s an inspiring place to work. Working with musicians that I admire and appreciate. It’s a creative place to get your footing in a design career.

What’s your approach to album art?

I love working with musicians. I am a vessel for their vision to go through. I enjoy the process of picking up on their energy and translating that into something visual. That’s what makes a good designer—if you’re intuitive and can pick up on what they’re thinking and feeling. They might send you reference images, but it’s up to the designer to make it their own. When I’m designing album artwork, I listen to the album on repeat. I don’t listen to anything else. If I do, it’s music that pairs well with their own.

How do digital design/illustration skills impact your painting or vice versa?

They’re in tandem. Since I’ve had a baby illustration is what I’ve been gravitating to. Digitally, mostly, because it’s quick. I don’t have to set anything up. I can just hop on my computer and start right away. It is so refreshing when I get to a canvas and it’s like, “Wow.” The control of my brush is more refined after doing so much digital illustration. It’s fun to notice that and the changes that happen when you jump in from different mediums and get into different practices.

What’s allowed you to find your own voice?

For one, getting older and having more experiences. Working with musicians that have introduced me to other visual artists that have contributed to my own style. Taking in inspiration from past artists, reading about them. Going to museums, seeing galleries, but also trying to take all the external things, then sit with it in meditation or go on a hike. Taking in things from different places and piecing it together and seeing how it all comes out on the canvas.

Your work feels intuitive to me. Not forced.

That’s what I like about my practice. I’m not trying to paint a self-portrait or a still life. When it comes to painting, I’m not trying so hard. It’s more therapeutic. It just flows out of me. That’s what I like about having the balance of illustration and painting. Painting is my zone to play and not be so serious.

You’ve built trust in your process.

One hundred percent. I love having this style to work in, but also not being afraid to branch out. That is what I have been craving more. To bust out of it a bit. It’s hard to say how people might react, especially when you’re financially dependent on having art for your income.

Space has a lot to do with it. Currently my painting studio is in my garage with all of our bikes and tools. I’m being patient. I have a baby and I’m realizing that maybe right now isn’t the time to be making huge paintings. You have to be kind with yourself and accept that, sit with it. In the future I would love to make giant paintings. My ultimate goal is just to be a painter. That’s what I would really love to do.

You’ve said when you became a mother, you realized you had to put being an artist second. How did that feel?

This year has been one of the hardest years of my life. It’s a huge adjustment. I wouldn’t change it for the world. Remi is teaching me so many things. It’s a lesson in humanity. How we all need to look out for each other, love each other, whether that’s putting a practice aside for a bit or not doing some of the things you want to do in that moment, just so you can nurture this other creation that is amazing. It’s only going to get better from here. It has already, starting to see him grow and flourish into a little toddler that’s running around like a little alien. It’s worth it, for sure.

You are launching a new project, an interview series with mothers who are artists. What can you tell me?

I’m really excited. I had this idea in my head a few weeks ago. I need to hear stories of other mothers that are raising children and still practicing art. It’s kind of a selfish project that other people could be into. I’m excited to gain more insight from mothers I’ve connected with through social media, or I follow them on social media and see they have babies, whether that be my son’s age or older. It’s nice to connect with them and ask them questions. I’m like, “How is everyone operating? How is everyone doing this?” It’ll be really fun. I’m not trying to take it super seriously or turn it into some sort of brand. It’s just an innocent blog that I’m going to do on the side. It’s needed in the mom art sphere.

What’s your current relationship with Instagram?

For me it’s kind of essential. It’s not essential for all freelancers. I do get a lot of jobs through there. It’s a hard one. We all know it’s not super good for you, but at the same time, it’s fun to just do a doodle and put it out there. It’s kind of a shame that it’s turning into this insane mashup of stupid, mindless videos. I do miss the platform that it used to be and try not to spend too much time on there. The positive is finding people that inspire me, whether that’s mothers who are artists or other artists in general. I love that aspect of it. I wish you could turn off all of the other stuff.

How have you dealt with people/brands using your work without credit or copying your style?

It’s hard. I teeter in both directions. It’s just art. It’s so fluid and open. How can anyone say that it’s their own, given the extremity of the copy, I suppose. Then there’s this other part of me where I’m a mom now and this is literally my livelihood. It’s hitting me a bit differently now. I respect people that are copying me, because I guess my work resonates with people if they’re doing that. I’m not an upfront type of person, to just call people out. When it’s a larger company or something like that, that’s when I feel a bit jaded. It’s like, come on, you could just pay me, pay me something.

How do you determine which projects you’ll take on?

Freelance work ebbs and flows a lot. It can get scary if you’re not prepared for that, if there’s not a lot of work coming in. Most companies that have reached out to me are run by good people, especially smaller ones. I love to work with them. They usually have more chill timelines and are a lot more open.

Working with larger companies I’ve had mostly positive, but maybe a few more interesting experiences where I haven’t had as much say on what the final design was going to be, or they already had ideas where I might not have not gone that direction. I like when people come to me and they’re just like, “You can do whatever you want.” That’s the best case scenario. It’s a fine balance of being able to say no to some companies, but also this is how I make a living. I need that financially to continue the train.

Your color palettes are always on point. What’s your process like?

Generally I free-sketch for a while and come up with shapes that are in balance. That’s super important—the balance and composition in my work. It has to sit well with me. Then I go in and sculpt it. The fun part is choosing a color palette for an illustration or a painting. That’s where a lot of the energy in a piece comes from. I really enjoy color theory, seeing how colors are in contrast to one another, how they vibrate next to each other. It’s very intuitive and I will know when that’s the color palette the piece is going to use. It just sits well and vibrates and is jumping off the page. Each form has a personality to the color palette.

What do you want to move towards in your work?

I’m ready for a big space where I can make a mess and experiment until I get to something good. We’ve been moving a lot the past few years and haven’t had a space where I can get messy, let paint drip, and get it on the ceiling if I want to. The possibilities for my art and practice will open up once I get to a space where I can experiment. I want to get a bit messier and step out of this color field I have going on. I don’t know what that’ll look like. Maybe I’ll try it and it just doesn’t work. The need to expand is definitely there. It’s probably just on the horizon somewhere.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Jeffrey Silverstein.

On February 25, in Johannesburg, supporters of the opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters and municipal police obstructed and then assaulted Silindelo Masikane, a reporter with the privately owned broadcaster eNCA, according to a local news report, a tweet by the journalist, a statement by the South African National Editors’ Forum, and her editor John Bailey, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.  

Separately, at about 10:30 a.m. on February 28, a former mayor and his bodyguards attacked Gaddafi Zulu, a reporter with the privately owned newspaper Zululand Observer, according to multiple news reports, a SANEF statement, and Zulu, who spoke to CPJ by phone.

“South African authorities must thoroughly investigate the unprovoked assaults on journalists Gaddafi Zulu and Silindelo Masikane, and all those responsible must face the consequences for such outrageous actions,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “Failure to arrest and successfully prosecute the perpetrators will simply encourage open season on journalists covering events of public interest, including by assaulting and filing retaliatory charges against members of the press.”

Masikane and camera operator Thamsanqa Chamane were trying to interview an elected EFF municipal councilor involved in a new crime prevention program when EFF supporters created a human barrier around the party member, shoved Masikane to the ground and, alongside some members of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police, stepped on her, according to Bailey and those reports on her case.

Masikane was not severely injured. ECA representatives reported the incident to the Johannesburg Metro Police Department on February 27, and they have not heard anything back as of March 9, Bailey told CPJ.

Previously, in March 2021, EFF leader Julius Malema tweeted that no eNCA journalist would be allowed to interview a party member “anywhere globally” and that June party members blocked eNCA from covering an anti-racism protest and harassed and threatened reporter Ayesha Ismail and camera operator Mario Pedro.

CPJ called EFF spokesperson Thambo Sinawo and Johannesburg police spokesperson Justice Hlabisa, and contacted them via messaging app for comment, but did not receive a  replies. 

In Zulu’s case, he was attempting to photograph an official who had been denied entry to the local government offices in the northern KwaZulu-Natal town of Mtubatuba when the former mayor of Mtubatuba, Mandla Zungu, and at least six bodyguards approached Zulu and asked who permitted him to take those photographs. 

“Before I could answer, I was slapped [and] punched in the face, head, and the upper body,” Zulu told CPJ. He pushed one of the attackers and escaped the building, leaving behind his laptop, phone, and notebook. 

While outside, Zulu asked Zungu to return his equipment, and Zungu unsuccessfully tried to drag Zulu back into the building and then threw the journalist’s empty laptop bag at him. 

Zulu reported the assault to police later that day, and his badly damaged laptop and phone, which appeared to have been dropped on the ground, were returned to him with the help of the police, but his notebook was not.

Zungu lodged a counter assault complaint against the journalist the same day, which Zulu called “untrue.” KwaZulu Natal police spokesperson Nqobile Gwala responded to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app saying an investigation was ongoing.

Zulu saw a doctor on March 1 and was treated for bruising to his head.

On March 3, Zulu and Zungu appeared in the Mtubatuba District Court, and the matter was adjourned to March 29 to allow the parties to obtain legal representation. CPJ repeatedly called Zungu and contacted him via messaging app for comment but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

A month after the two largest pharmacy chains in the United States announced their efforts to become certified to dispense abortion pills by mail, in accordance with a new Food and Drug Administration rule, the Republican attorneys general of 20 states on Wednesday warned the companies that providing the medications by mail in their states could result in legal action against them.

In a letter co-signed by 19 attorneys general from states that have banned or attempted to ban abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Attorney General Andrew Bailey of Missouri wrote to officials at Walgreens and CVS and suggested that they could face litigation if they follow new regulatory guidelines introduced by the FDA in early January.

The agency announced last month that retail drugstores can dispense mifepristone and misoprostol—drugs used for medication abortions, which accounted for 51% of abortions in 2020 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rule reversed strict regulations that for decades required patients to obtain mifepristone only at health clinics, which medical experts have long said were unnecessarily limited people's access to the pills and were rooted in politics rather than science.

"The prohibition and difficulty in accessing abortion pills has no medical basis, just a political one."

Both pharmacies said soon after the rule was changed that they were beginning the process of becoming certified to send abortion pills to patients who have a prescription for them from a healthcare provider, in states where abortion care is legal.

The attorneys general who signed Bailey's letter on Wednesday claimed the companies will be in violation "not only of federal law, but also of the laws of the various states" if they follow the FDA guidance.

Two states—Indiana and Texas—have imposed bans on medication abortions starting at a certain point in pregnancy, while 18 states require patients to be in the physical presence of a prescribing clinician to obtain mifepristone and misoprostol—restrictions that run afoul of the new federal regulations.

A manufacturer of mifepristone filed a lawsuit late last month to overturn West Virginia's abortion ban, arguing that the FDA's approval of the drug preempts the state's law.

The Biden administration also issued a legal opinion last month saying the U.S. Postal Service can mail abortion pills to states with abortion bans or severe restrictions, if the sender does not intend to break the law.

Of the 20 states whose attorneys general signed the letter sent Wednesday to CVS and Walgreens, 10—Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Utah— still permit abortion care. Several of the states have attempted to ban the procedure but the proposals have been blocked.

Despite this, the attorneys general suggested that sending abortion pills to patients in their states will violate their laws.

"These state laws reflect not only our commitment to protecting the lives and dignity of children, but also of women," wrote Bailey. "We emphasize that it is our responsibility as state attorneys general to uphold the law and protect the health, safety, and well-being of women and unborn children in our states."

The right-wing attorneys general "are in the wrong here," said women's rights group UltraViolet.

The letter comes just over a week after South Dakota's Republican governor, Kristi Noem, joined state Attorney General Marty Jackley in threatening the state's pharmacists with felony charges if they distribute abortion pills.

If the pharmacies cave to the demands of the Republicans, said author and advocate Jessica Valenti, people in the 20 states in question "will no longer have access to one of the most common forms of miscarriage treatment."

"If abortion medication isn't available—if pharmacies literally don't carry it, or only have limited quantities available—we will see unprecedented suffering," she said.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

It’s a little of everything. When I was eight years old, my dad took me to a film set where his friend was working with Walter Matthau, and I just knew that’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I didn’t know what that meant, but as a young woman, it kind of only meant being an actress at that time. So, I assumed that I wanted to be an actress, so I took acting classes and did plays.

In high school, I wrote, directed and starred in a play. Then, I went to a college to study acting. While I was there, I was also directing and writing. I remember the staff asking me to pick one position. There were a couple of guys that were actor/director combined, or writer/director combined, but they didn’t have to pick one. So, I essentially was like, “No, I’m not picking one. I’ll get enough credits to do everything, even if it has to be more than the guys that they’re dual majors were different.”

After graduating I moved to LA, I was acting in a bunch of stuff that, while the parts might be good, I didn’t think the material was necessarily great. So, I decided I wanted to produce material that was good and maybe act in some of the smaller roles. Then I found this niche of producing because I have an organized personality. I also got pregnant, so that was what you could do if you still wanted to make movies. That’s how I became a producer.

About directing, I guess I always was directing beforehand, but I didn’t really realize it until I did my first documentary, which was called Greenlit, but it was supposed to just be a little behind the scenes video. I had been doing the EPKs myself to save money. I was doing an EPK in the behind the scenes video of greening of the film The River Why. It was so disastrous that it was hilarious and was its own movie. I submitted it to SXSW and it got in and premiered there. When you’re a director premiering a movie, as opposed to a producer, you get treated a lot better. I decided that directing was something I was going to focus on because I like being treated better than just basically an assistant/babysitter as a producer.

You have worked with so many films as a producer. You were the executive producer for Noah Baumbach’s, The Squid and the Whale. You worked with Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl, and also with Swiss Army Man. These films are all really different from one another. What motivates you to get involved with a project? How do you choose the projects you want to work with?

It’s interesting because it is the filmmakers. There’s also James Gunn’s Super before he went on to Guardians of the Galaxy. As I look back now almost all of the directors that were not my business partner for a long time, those people went on to become really great directors on their own. The projects were picked because they had their own unique voice. I really admire that. You can really feel that when you read something fresh, or you meet someone in the room, you can really tell if they’re going to be able to bring it to the table. That was a skill that I had to hone. I had it there when I did The Squid and the Whale, but I was still young. I was still a girl at a time where I didn’t trust my own decisions. By the time I did Super, I was starting to trust my own decisions. When I did The Diary of a Teenage Girl, I realized that I should just trust myself and go with the movies that I like.

What do you think helped you to trust more in yourself and follow your gut and your experience?

I think, inherently, it’s growing up and aging. There’s that, but also, as women, we always used to try to over-prepare and always want to listen to the voice of the man who is producing with us. Whether it was a partner that I had or whoever. It’s like, “Oh well, they must know more than me because I’ve been taught in society that they do.”

It really took The Diary of a Teenage Girl for me to remember and realize that I don’t need a man, and that I can make my own decisions, and that they can be good decisions. I think that’s about something like hitting your late thirties and then into your forties where you come into your own as a person, as a woman anyway. Over the last three years or four years, in particular, I felt not so alone as more and more women are helping and supporting each other. I know that not everyone was like that, it wasn’t a normal thing, and I think it’s getting more normal now. We’re now able to team up, which I like because that’s more of the kind of person I’ve always been.

In this business it’s so important to build relationships and have a community and, again, being able to build a team, as you said. Did you have a mentor that helped you navigate the industry?

No, I had the opposite. I had pushback from anyone I asked for help. That’s why I made a promise to myself that I would always encourage and help as many women as I could, and I would always share my contacts, and my relationships, and my agents, and my managers because I found the people that hoarded them or were afraid to lose them weren’t the kind of people I want to be.

Why do you think people did not help you? Is this like a sense of competition, or that there are not so many opportunities?

Yes, it is, but I think that we’ve evolved, maybe even as a society. We’re moving, not to get all woo-woo, but we’re moving into a different age now. I think it was a survivalist mentality, and if you’re an actor, which I was for the beginning, there’s only one job for the 40 actors that are in the room. No one wants to add their friends to their agents’ list of competitions. I don’t have that problem. I refer people to my agents all the time. I know that I’m unique, and I know that everyone else is unique, but not everyone knows that about themselves.

It seems that you had to find your own voice that makes you unique, but also you had to work within the industry guidelines.

Yeah. For example, Shonda Rhimes had a huge influence on my life. Before her work, actors, especially women, had to fit into a mold, a specific mold of a type. We were not allowed to be ourselves. We were not allowed to be individuals bringing our own personality to the characters. We had to fit into whatever these small-minded mindsets of what women were allowed to be were.

Then, Shonda came in and she just broke through, and allowed actors and actresses particularly, of all races and sizes and ages to come in and have meaningful dramatic roles with character arcs. She, in my opinion, completely changed the way I think actors can realize their own uniqueness as an asset as opposed to, “Oh, I got to get skinnier, or I got to stay younger, or I got to be blonder, or I got to be taller,” or whatever.

You created a website called the CherryPicks, which highlights film reviews and original stories from female-identifying and non-binary writers. This project started before Me Too, Time’s Up, and the Harvey Weinstein stories broke. This conversation about the importance of representation in front and behind the camera was already happening.

Yes, those conversations were happening, but you were not able to really get much movement on it because, at the end of the day, the consumer who buys the tickets is the one who drives the market. If the consumer is listening to critics, then whatever the critics say they should spend their money on is what the studios are going to make. If the critics are overwhelmingly Caucasian males, then you can bet we’re going to be seeing a lot more films like Ford v Ferrari. That said, I love Ford v Ferrari, don’t get me wrong. But we’re going to be seeing a lot more of films like Top Gun and not too many films like The Farewell. I just had this realization that in order for real change to happen, then the consumers have to buy it. In order for them to buy it, then they have to be told that it’s worth their money and that we have to open up those gatekeepers, which are the critics, and have more women and more people of color, and particularly more women of color being critics.

I noticed the guidelines at the time to be a critic and add up to the score of Rotten Tomatoes were very narrow. Most of the time, women or people of color, and particularly women of color, were not able to get those jobs at The New York Times or The LA Times and stuff like that. Also, the number of years they were required to have been writing for, some published in a professional paper, and they hadn’t opened up to blogs yet or more online publications. They hadn’t adapted themselves yet. So, I decided to start the CherryPicks to open up those guidelines for women and women of color and start adding in more online stuff.

In these past few weeks, as a producer, where I’ve had a couple of productions that I was working on shutdown so we’ve been able to have these great Instagram live interviews on our CherryPicks account. We’re having actors or actresses giving us their favorite quarantine movies. It’s really growing at a pace that’s a bit overwhelming, but it’s a lot of fun, I have to say, working with a bunch of ladies and writing content and working with female writers and women of color, to write stories about the entertainment business. It’s really quite fun.

What do you think are some obstacles that get in the way of creativity or being creative?

Oh, that’s easy. Fear. I think we have natural instincts of being afraid of rejection. I recommend that it’s okay. See the fear, allow it to happen, but do not let it stop you because you have to be willing to fail and you have to be willing to suck and you have to be willing to take chances. In order to survive the obstacles and grow as a creative person, you have to be able to be okay that nothing is perfect because nothing is ever as good as it can be. Just let it go and make it. Everyone has an idea, but it’s the people who execute the ideas that grow and get the rewards.

Have you ever abandoned a project? Is it okay to walk away from a situation or a project you’re not comfortable with?

Of course, but just don’t do it because you’re too afraid. I’ve found that the projects that I’ve walked away from are related to the other personalities involved. Life is too short to work with people who are disrespectful or narcissistic.

Now that everybody’s staying and working from home, have you been able to set some boundaries?

I can’t. It’s impossible for me. I’m working, because being a mom is work as well, and being a wife is also work, so I’m always working, but I am enjoying the time I’m spending with my family. Just the fact that I get to sit here with one of my cats and see my kids going up and down. I have to say, me being at home since I normally travel so much, has just been lovely.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Miriam Garcia.