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The art of Ampersand: applying the creative process to podcasting and audio journalism

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The art of Ampersand: applying the creative process to podcasting and audio journalism

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THE ART OF AMPERSAND:
APPLYING THE CREATIVE PROCESS TO
PODCASTING AND AUDIO JOURNALISM

by

Stephanie Case

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)

December 2015

Copyright 2015 Stephanie Case
ii
Acknowledgements

Thank you to Arts Journalism director Sasha Anawalt for her unconditional support and care,
which has fueled me through every step of this master’s program. I owe all of my
accomplishments this year to her. I would also like to recognize Sandy Tolan and Willa
Seidenberg, two stellar professors, who together sparked my love of audio storytelling. Thanks
as well to the entire Ampersand team for being wonderful collaborators. Lastly, I’m most
appreciative of Dominique Moody, my inspiration for this project, who in no small way shaped
my trajectory as a journalist and an artist.

iii
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iv
Meet Dominique 1
Ampersand 7
Our Work 10
Revisiting Dominique
Introduction 18
Audio Transcript 19
Conclusion 25
References 26

iv
Abstract

This thesis project tells two stories, intertwined. The first story is a year in the life of Dominique
Moody, an assemblage artist, who struggled to build her magnum opus: a deeply personal tiny
home for her to live in, named "the Nomad." The second story is a year in the life of a different
kind of artist – eleven audio journalists – who built their own deeply personal project: a podcast
and multimedia website called Ampersand.

Journalists and artists are surprisingly similar. They're both storytellers, using their chosen
medium to convey an idea, or articulate a vision, to a receptive audience. I was one of the eleven,
and, after meeting Moody, I realized our vision was the same. Both of us wanted to express our
individual voices – one through sight, the other through sound.

Radio journalists are frequently dispassionate narrators, focused on being objective and fact-
driven. The rise of podcasting, on the other hand, has offered a venue for first-person expression
and individual creative liberty, ideals that seem to mirror art more so than journalism.

I used Moody's more personal artistic style as a model for my own work as Ampersand's
executive producer. I hoped to create a podcast with impassioned narrators who each had a
distinct creative voice to share – and, in doing so, turn our work into an artistic expression of its
own.

1
Meet Dominique

Surrounded by 48 acres of wilderness, Dominique Moody stands, working. Overalls caked with
dirt and dust, and a handmade straw hat fending off the sun, she leans over a ten-foot panel of
corrugated metal. A spray bottle, filled with vinegar and salt, is in one hand. She presses the
trigger, and liquid coats the metal, dripping between each groove. She wipes the panel clean.
Within minutes, colors start rusting in swirls – magentas, deep greens, mixed with a brassy
yellow. The finished product looks weathered, like a piece of scrap metal worn over decades, but
it’s glittering in the sunlight.

Bringing out the sublime in overlooked objects is Moody’s passion. As an assemblage artist, she
transforms things – metal, twine, shattered mirrors, vintage photos, teacups, even the plastic
limbs of baby dolls – into dynamic pieces of art. Moody has been described as a visual griot – a
West African storyteller. To her, objects speak louder than words. “They’re like pieces of a
puzzle,” she says. “Through them, I’m telling my own story, but I’m also telling the story of the
object itself.”

At Zorthian Ranch, a sprawling artists’ oasis at the foot of Angeles National Forest, it’s quiet.
Moody works in a breathtaking, high-ceilinged studio built entirely from telephone poles. She
can count her neighbors – all fellow artists – on one hand, not including the wildlife that
occasionally roams past her door. For most, secluded life would be isolating, but Moody is never
alone with her art. “What keeps me going is my ability to be so tapped into my passion,” she
says.
2

It’s a passion that never shuts off. As a kindergartener in Philadelphia, she’d spend hours in
empty classrooms—drawing animals with Crayolas, constructing costumes out of brown paper
bags, losing track of time—while other students left the room to play. At 12, she was sitting in
on university-level classes at Philadelphia College of Art. Unusually tall and thin for a preteen,
with big brown eyes and a ’60s afro, she was the odd one out in a class full of grown adults, with
her head up, eagerly sketching away.

Her appetite for art was strong, but paying for school wasn’t an option then. Money around the
home was scarce. The Moodys – all eleven of them – frequently moved in and out of neglected
houses, forever packing and unpacking boxes, subject to the ebbs and flows of a less steady
income. “Way before the crash of 2008, we experienced crashes over and over again in our
lives,” Moody says. “We knew we had to consider home in a different way, because it would be
too devastating if we always associated it with the physical house.”

Instead, when they thought of home, they thought of their mementos, their family flair – all the
style that was distinctly Moody. Dominique’s father brought John Coltrane and Nina Simone
records and would play them around the house. Her brother brought his half-constructed stereos,
which he’d build by hand. Her sister brought cameras, and set up darkrooms in broken
bathrooms. For each move, they’d make sure to carry their artistic spirit with them. “We could
transform any space. There was a joke in our family that if we had to go live in a cave, it would
be the baddest cave that you ever saw,” she says, erupting into a grin.
3
The Moodys treasured the artistic over the monetary, and adventure over stability. “Our lives
went certainly underneath the radar of what is capitalism,” she says. “We learned to value
something that most people think has no value at all—and that is the creative endeavor, the
experience of adventure, the freedom of movement.”

More than anything else, Moody measured her riches in experience. She moved to Brooklyn
alone at 15, worked at an African bazaar, learned the art of butterfly mounting, started an interior
design business in San Francisco, studied at the Pratt Institute and UC Berkeley, taught at UCLA
and lived in Washington D.C., to name a few things.

Now, in her late 50s, she hasn’t felt any pull to slow down. The only roadblock has been her
sight. In her 30s, Moody started to become legally blind. After years of relying on her eyes to
create, gradually they began to fail her, leaving only peripheral vision. But in her loss, she also
gains. As we talk, a butterfly flits by, fifteen feet in the distance. She spots it immediately, before
I could even sense its presence. The “corner of her eye” may be the only place she can see, but
it’s a powerful line of vision.

Peripheral sight allows her to zero in on things on the fringe of perspective – discarded items,
that our minds cast off as unimportant. This is especially helpful in creating assemblage art.
Moody’s eyes are like a hawk’s, always scanning for objects to make her think deeply. Over a
decade ago, while waiting for the Big Blue Bus at Pico and Fairfax, she narrowed in on
something unusual. The sole of a shoe was sitting in the gutter.

4
“I looked at it, and the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘Someone in L.A. lost their soul.’ It
had this irony to it,” she says. “It was funny as all heck, but it also was incredibly sad. Because
what does it take for someone to actually walk the sole of their shoe off? Where were they
going? To step inside their shoes … What is it like to walk around without that shoe? All of that
was flooding in, and all I’m doing is looking at that object. If it does that, if it elicits that kind of
story, that kind of thought, even for a moment, that’s invaluable. How many times in our life do
we get told a story that way, do we get connected that way to something?” Moody transformed
the shoe sole – with a handmade shoebox, a magnifying lens and leg-like branches – into a
stunning assemblage piece, which she says points to a need for empathy: walking in another’s
shoes.

Her other work can give the same emotional pause, forcing viewers to process complex or hard-
to-swallow stories. Moody once created a life-sized piece to represent her estranged, deceased
father, removing his silhouette from a panel of deep orange wood. Small, wooden artist’s models
sit at the panel’s base – one representing each Moody child. The models’ heads crane up, as if
they’re waiting in vain for the absence above them to be filled. In another piece, “Baby Daddy
Blues,” an infant’s head, lathered in deep blue paint, is supplanted as the neck of a guitar.
Collaged upon it is old sheet music of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.” A paper birth
certificate is indelicately wrapped as a diaper; on it are scribbled the words: return to sender.

“There are things that have occurred in life that you really don’t know what to do with … that
you’re definitely not sure how to express it out loud,” she says. “But creatively, you can. The
5
most difficult stories can be told through art. The most amazing, out-of-reach things can be
entered into by the viewer.”

As the sun arcs past the San Gabriel Mountains, dipping closer to the horizon, Moody glances
back at her panels of corrugated metal, their patina glittering even more vibrantly. These panels,
when finished, will be one small piece of the biggest project of Dominique’s life, her magnum
opus: the Nomad. It’s a small home on wheels, which she plans to take on the open road. She’ll
wind up and down California, assemble art on the go and leave it to be found by strangers.

“Nomad” is a profound word for Moody. As a child, it’s the name her siblings chose to describe
the way their family roved through the suburbs, never settling somewhere permanent (“We’re
nomads,” they’d explain to curious classmates.) More so, it’s become her life practice.
Dominique is a true wanderer, with her artistic vision as her sole compass.

The Nomad is made entirely of assembled objects: reused barn wood, tree branches – with
washing machine doors as windows. The corrugated metal will act as the Nomad’s outer
paneling, overlapping, like a quilt of rusted color. “What I have found over my life, is that this
unfolding and unfolding of stories overlaps like those corrugated panels are going to overlap on
each other,” Moody says. “Each one tells another layer of story.”

Underneath the shimmering panels – the beams of reused wood, the windows, found objects, the
memories, each layer of personal story – will lie Dominique, in a cocoon of her own expression.
6
“To me, that’s the way you want to connect to art,” she says. ”Art that surrounds you, it warms
you … You’re sleeping underneath of it … It shapes your dreams”
1
.

1
Interview with Dominique Moody, 2/16/2014
7
Ampersand

I've followed the evolution of Moody and her Nomad for a year since that day, through each of
her creative sparks and setbacks – all culminating in a final audio segment (in Part IV). During
that same year, Moody inspired me to change the way I made journalism. With her artistic
sensibility in mind, I produced a project at USC Annenberg's School of Communication and
Journalism called Ampersand.

So much about the Nomad first struck me. It was personal – an aesthetic representation of
Moody herself. She’d taken something functional – her shelter, the roof over her head – and
turned it into an opportunity for bold individual expression, eschewing typical standards of
utilitarian architectural practice, and instead, molding it to be distinctly her own. This was a
woman who knew how to use her art form to convey a narrative: hers. It made me consider my
own storytelling, in my own form: radio journalism. Was it as personal?

The answer was no – and understandably so. Working in a traditional news radio environment
can limit reporters' ability to overtly express themself. In most scenarios, it's inappropriate for
narrators to weave their personal opinion and perspective amongst the facts of a piece. The
reporter isn't the story; the news content should take center stage.

This being said, there are exceptions to this rule of objectivity, where it's valuable to take a more
gonzo approach and share your own story. One exception I've found is in the arts. When writing
about a piece of art – whether it be a play you've watched, a song you've heard, or even a tiny
8
house you've seen being built – using personal voice can deeply enrich the story. There's a great
value to sharing how art resonates with a person on an individual level – and that includes how it
resonates with the journalist. Art's purpose is to inspire those who consume it; it's often driven by
passion and feeling, not facts. So, if a narrator remains dispassionate and doesn't share how a
certain work of art made her feel, then was it worth covering at all? If something moves you,
share it.

In this way, the arts are fertile ground to share a personal take with your listeners. Reflecting on
that day with Moody at Zorthian Ranch, I knew I wanted to apply her practice – the art of
impassioned, personal storytelling – to journalism. Instead of looking to other journalism, art was
the model from which we produced Ampersand. How could we use audio as a platform to be
individually creative and expressive, like an artist? Could a podcast be our art?

This wasn’t uncharted territory. Podcasting has, since its birth in 2004, blossomed into an art
form of its own (Hammersley 2004). Online and often independently produced, podcasts have
democratized the playing field of audio production, giving a rise to independent voices outside
the bounds of broadcast radio. This influx of grassroots voices has given a rise to the first-person
narrative. Podcasters have the freedom to tell stories that are highly personalized, fueled by their
own passions and curiosities.

Out of these questions grew Ampersand, an arts & culture storytelling podcast and website I co-
founded and produced with ten other Arts Journalism master's students. Ampersand's main goal
is to share stories of how art inspires people – ourselves included. Each segment is a personal
9
snapshot of a creative experience: an aspiring conductor hearing a twelve-tone row for the first
time; a Brooklyn teen embracing rap to escape the gang life; a black performer facing
discrimination on stage at a high school musical; a family tearfully reminiscing after watching a
play; an outcast curing his sense of "otherness" with punk rock; a writer finding himself through
childhood memories.

I was executive producer for each of these stories – and, in Part III, I'll write about two of them
in detail. As producer, my goal was to create content that showcased our contributors' individual
inspirations as artists, because that is what art, at its best, can do: unveil a person.

Our end product was three half-hour podcast episodes, plus dozens of standalone audio stories,
videos, and written essays published on our website. These pieces were not technically perfect,
but they were woven with the personal narratives of each of our reporters. Like Moody and the
Nomad, we made our art – Ampersand – unmistakably our own.

10
Our Work

Audio culture is unmistakably moving in a more personal direction, and it's something
Ampersand was a part of. All around us, we saw professional journalists approach podcasting
with a vision to make something individually revealing. WBEZ Chicago's Sarah Koenig wrapped
us into the drama of her wavering convictions on a puzzling homicide case in Serial
2
. Lea Thau
spent five episodes of KCRW Los Angeles' Strangers exploring her most intimate bits of grief
and heartbreak post-divorce
3
. Independent podcaster Nate DiMeo of The Memory Palace
welcomed us into the depths of his attic to share treasured pieces of his family history
4
. Alex
Blumberg of Gimlet Media let walls down with StartUp, openly sharing each mistake he made
and setback he faced while struggling to build his own business
5
. They enlivened the audio field
with immersive and wholehearted first-person reporting, and, by so doing, fostered a close
intimacy with their listening audience.

Audio is an inherently intimate medium. Listening to Koenig wrestle over her beliefs, for
example, or Thau earnestly lament over her insecurities, provides a "voice and a personality
beyond the printed word," Slate's executive podcast producer, Andy Bowers, has said (Houston
Santhanam, Mitchell, Rosensteil, 2012). To hear someone speak is to hear his or her personality.
There's an emotional resonance in each lilt and crack of the voice that's difficult to capture

2
“The Case Against Adnan Syed,” narrated by Sarah Koenig, Serial, WBEZ,
http://serialpodcast.org/season-one/6/the-case-against-adnan-syed
3
“Love Hurts 3,” narrated by Lea Thau, Strangers, KCRW, http://www.kcrw.com/news-
culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts-3
4
“Origin Stories,” narrated by Nate DiMeo, The Memory Palace,
http://thememorypalace.us/2013/06/origin-stories/
5
“How Not to Pitch a Billionaire,” narrated by Alex Blumberg, StartUp,
http://thememorypalace.us/2013/06/origin-stories/
11
through pure text. I think Digg columnist Stan Alcorn articulated it best: "A transcript [without
audio] would be like lyrics without melody” (2014).

But I think finding a melody (or, achieving that personal, emotional resonance) transcends audio.
It's something Moody does with visual design. Just by looking at the Nomad, her melody – the
little details that make her her – shines through.

So, what would Ampersand's melody be? As executive producer, I worked with each contributor
separately to hone her unique tune. The eleven women of Ampersand all had distinctly separate
voices and areas of expertise: one was a classical composer; one was an Indian architecture
enthusiast; one worked in the Hollywood film industry; one was a Colombian writer; one was a
Brooklynite with a fashion blog. For each, I wanted Ampersand to be a space where they could
make journalism that was most authentic to them. I didn't distribute pitch lists or give
assignments, embracing our blank canvas. The editorial mindset was simple: tell the arts story
you want to tell. Write about art that moves you. Where would it take us?

It took Meghan Farnsworth, a Smiths fan with a deep belief in the power of pop music, to dive
bars in East L.A. There, she interviewed karaoke singers whose lives were changed by
Morrissey's transparent and heart-wrenching lyrics. “I know he wasn't from a broken family, but
I was ... When I'm sad, when I'm dealing with a breakup ... I can always relate to all of his
music,” a fan told her.
6

6
“Morrissey*oke at Eastside Luv,” Ampersand,
http://www.ampersandla.com/morriseyoke-eastside-luv.
12
It took Vanessa Wilson, a Latina visual artist with close ties to her family, to Hollywood
celebrations of Dia de los Muertos. There, families created stunning shrines to hang on to the
memories of their loved ones. “I made a diorama from a picture of my mother in the '70s,” a
daughter admitted. “She passed away three years ago from lung cancer. I love her so much. I
miss her so much. This is the best way that I have felt I can honor her memory. It's the way I've
been able to experience a catharsis after her death.”
7

Because each reporter was so connected to the stories she was reporting on, I noticed that our
interviewees felt comfortable to get personal. They detailed the times they cried over heartbreak
to "The Queen is Dead" and their wistful memories of their mother. When interviewing punk
band the Sex Stains, Meghan grew a close kinship with the group, who then were at ease
confessing to her their former insecurities and most closely held beliefs. “I feel like a lot of my
lyrics have been aimed at trying to build or rebuild self-esteem in women, in girls,” lead singer
Allison Wolfe. “Maybe it's just a pep talk for myself, actually. Or a ‘what I wish I would have
done’ – and that's the song.”
8

Once we became confident in getting our subjects to open up, I pushed us to insert our point of
view as artists. How did punk music inspire Meghan? How did Dia de los Muertos shape
Vanessa? My thinking was: if we pick these topics because they inspire and shape us, let's
capitalize on that by mixing personal storytelling into our reporting.

7
“Honoring Life and Death: Dia de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever Cemetery,”
Ampersand, http://www.ampersandla.com/dia-de-los-muertos-at-hollywood-forever-cemetery.
8
“Revolution: Inside Punk Music with Kathleen Hanna & the Sex Stains,” narrated by
Meghan Farnsworth, Ampersand, http://www.ampersandla.com/revolution-inside-punk-music-
with-kathleen-hanna-the-sex-stains.
13

This is something that Dominique Moody does well: blending her stories with others. The
recycled objects she uses in her assemblage art have had former lives – like the shoe sole in the
Pico-Fairfax gutter and the discarded baby doll – but she infuses her own story into the finished
piece to add a personal layer. Through her art, she's "telling the story of the object itself," while
simultaneously "telling [her] own story," she explained to me.
9

I wanted to see if this dual storytelling was possible in audio – weaving personal narratives in
with our interviews – so we tried it with Myah Williams. She came to our studio at Annenberg
Radio excited about reading the memoir of of New York Times columnist and CNN contributor
Charles Blow. The book, Fire Shut Up In My Bones, told the story of his difficult coming-of-age
in Arkansas, marred with prejudice and abuse. Myah consumed the book and was inspired by the
parallels between her and Blow: she, too, was black, raised near Little Rock, and had been raised
by her grandparents, who fostered her love of storytelling. She scheduled an interview with him,
and I came to record. As I sat between them, their kinship was palpable; I whisked the
microphone back and forth, capturing each bit of their energetic discussion. She brought up
specific passages that touched her – like one about his grandfather and role model, Jed, who
taught him self-assuredness and strength in his identity:

Williams: You say ... what he possessed was not the quality of running like a river, but an
ocean that just is where it's always meant to be.

9
Interview with Dominique Moody, 2/16/2014.
14
Blow: That is, you know, what I aspire to be. I aspire to feel like I can just be me in the
space where I am, and experience the depth of that – and the peace of it. That not wanting
anything other than to just be me. I think it's just a beautiful, powerful expression of
humanity...

Williams: It's not a journey that you come to the stop of. [Or Is it] something you pursue
your whole life?

Blow: ...The depth increases, if that makes any sense. That you not grow up but down
into yourself. That you become deeper in your understanding of who you are.
10

This was a powerful idea – digging deeper into your personal history to define a sense of self. To
capitalize on the theme, Myah and I decided to bookend her interview with her personal
narrative, using the podcast segment as an opportunity for her to "grow down," too. She took a
metaphorical page from Blow's book and thought like a memoirist. What parts of her own
childhood could she reflect on to gain clarity in her identity? Akin to Blow's admiration of Jed,
Myah chose to open her piece telling the tale of her biggest role model – her own grandfather:

Growing up in North Little Rock, Arkansas, I’d spend summer evenings with my
grandfather on his rickety back porch. I’d sit on his lap, and he’d tell me tall tales. I was
convinced he could be nothing less than Superman. Sometimes, he’d tell me stories of
how he’d wrestle boa constrictors in the canopied jungles of Sierra Leone. Other times,

10
“Building Identity: Charles Blow’s New Memoir,” narrated by Myah Williams,
Ampersand, http://www.ampersandla.com/building-identity-charles-blow
15
he’d tell me about how his all-black regiment had to dig their own recreational swimming
pool at camp in World War II. His stories slid on a scale of magic realism to harsh
reality... but I was always transfixed.
11

This created a dual narrative, weaving hers and Blow's stories together to echo each other. Myah
meets him at a similar caliber of transparency, breaking down her walls as he breaks his. She
opens up to Ampersand listeners, and explains to them, fittingly, her own roots. Through getting
to know Charles, we get to know Myah, packing two mirroring stories of personal growth into
one piece. This was the epitome of what I wanted to do with Ampersand: use the story of an
artist as inspiration to tell a story of our own. We could match personal story with personal story,
match their art with our own.

Christina Campodonico also did this well in her piece on the play The Trip to Bountiful. The
piece was part of an Ampersand series called The Drive Home, where Christina goes to an arts
event with friends or family, then records their ensuing discussion on their drive home. In this
particular segment, the Horton Foote play struck a personal chord with her, her mother, and her
grandparents. The play is about an elderly woman, Mrs. Watts, who returns to her beloved
country home for a last time. Incidentally, Christina's grandmother and grandfather were forced
to sell their home at Big Bear and were also in the process of saying goodbye.

The impact of the play hit her grandmother the hardest. In Christina's piece, she achingly
recounted her love of Big Bear: the romantic smell of pine trees, the crisp air, the mountains that

11
“Building Identity.”
16
looked like Japanese paintings with their strokes of blue and gray. She described how to her
granddaughter about how driving there feels like flying. “I'm always on a high,” she said. “Every
curve of the road as we get higher and higher in the mountain, I think, ‘Oh, we're almost home.’
... There's nothing like your memory of your home. It's the most [fulfilling] feeling in the world.”

Like in The Trip to Bountiful, the joy came with the sorrow that it wouldn't last. Like her
fictional counterpart, Mrs. Watts, she struggled to let go, then found peace. “Seeing the
resolution this play gave us, I just know in my soul that I will come to grips in it,” she assured
her granddaughter. “It is a conflict, but I know I can accept it and deal with it. It will make me
miserable the rest of my life if I don't.”
12

Here, Christina was able to provide a great example of life imitating art. Instead of merely
discussing the facts of the play, she enriched the piece by adding a new layer – her family's story.
And, by including her personal tale, she was able to emphasize the timeless themes of the play:
home, loss, and learning to say goodbye.

Christina was at first hesitant to publish the piece, afraid it was too revealing, but I think she
could have gone even deeper. She rarely included her own sound bites in the piece; throughout,
she asked her family the questions, refraining from delving into her own thoughts. I would have
loved to know how hard the move hit her, as the granddaughter, and what it felt like to watch
such a emotionally poignant play with her grandparents sitting beside her. Still, choosing to

12
“The Journey Home and the Trip to Bountiful,” narrated by Christina Campodonico,
Ampersand, http://www.ampersandla.com/the-drive-home-ep-1-the-journey-home-the-trip-to-
bountiful.
17
speak about Big Bear at all, and bring up – showed our willingness to be personally expressive
and open up to an audience. The choked-up "I love you"s, kisses, and hugs Christina and her
grandparents exchanged at the end of the piece showed exactly how upset she felt, even though
she didn't articulate it in words.

There were many other moments where we made our stories and perspectives present in
Ampersand. I worked with Meghan Farnsworth to bring more of her personality into a piece
about the art of perfumery. What began as a straightforward feature on a scent-making
organization grew into a rumination on the impact of smell. She explained, beautifully, how
scent effects her life. "Like osmosis,” she said, “it sends me to a different time and place
suddenly, without warning or permission. Certain spaces smell like holy water, reminding me of
masses at St. Patrick's Church in my hometown. Sometimes, I'll purchase a new candle, because
it smells like my sister's distinctive perfume.”

In another, Uttara Valluri turned a piece about the architecture of Union Station into a narrative
about her competing cynical and romantic notions of Los Angeles.
13
She invites us to walk
through the building with her as she describes her amazement at each detail; as she openly falls
in love with the nostalgia and beauty of the place, so do listeners.

In these personal moments – whether describing a memory, an experience, or a point of view –
we're able to go beyond merely sharing the art of others, but also contribute something unique to
ourselves: our own verse.

13
“Gateway to the West: Union Station & Tara Thomas,” narrated by Uttara Valluri,
Ampersand, http://www.ampersandla.com/gateway-west-union-station-tara-thomas.
18
Revisiting Dominique

In my eyes, Ampersand‘s best pieces are those that layer narratives and share something personal
to us, whether it be a childhood memory, like listening to a grandfather tell tall tales, or an adult
dilemma, like losing a home. But while they meet our vision of being personal and artistic,
they’re not our most technically smooth work. Some might call Heather Heise’s profile of Chris
Rountree or Maureen Lenker’s feature on Los Angeles noir literature two of our best, just
because they sound faultless.

Sound quality was a continuous problem with Ampersand‘s work. I would pull my hair out
listening to in-progress audio pieces (including my own), finding stretches of poorly recorded
audio, hot mics, and muffled sound. The personal narrative was there, but our strife towards
technical perfection always seemed to fall short.

This peaked in Danielle Charbonneau’s story on Dreaming Sin Fronteras (Dreaming Without
Borders), a musical play that wove together stories and songs of immigration.
14
Her interviews
were intimate and powerful. But, there was one glaring issue: her most crucial interview (one
with director Antonio Mercado, where he explained his drive to create the play) was recorded
over the phone. This was out of necessity – Mercado lived in Denver – but made it hard for
listeners to understand him. It was the perfect storm of wonderful content and aural
insufficiency. So much heart and meaning were in his words, but it was sound that wouldn’t be
deemed playable on a professional site. In a battle between perfection and passion, what wins?

14
“Behind the Scenes of Dreaming Sin Fronteras,” narrated by Danielle Charbonneau,
Ampersand, http://www.ampersandla.com/behind-the-scenes-of-dreaming-sin-fronteras.
19

This isn’t just a question I’ve faced. Dominique Moody has faced it while making her art. Her
process has been imperfect: her budget maxed out, construction assistants left the project, and
she was forced to push back her timeline to get the project done. And with Dominique’s failing
eyesight, technical accuracy in building the Nomad is nearly impossible. She has an artistic
vision, but it’s hard to get every part just right.

The Nomad’s and Ampersand‘s one-year journeys ran parallel, both with this problem. So, at
the year mark in our projects, I turned to her for some perspective.

Narration: It’s been a year since I’ve seen the Nomad. And to be clear, the Nomad isn’t a person
– it’s a thing. It’s the name of a tiny home on wheels, designed by an L.A. artist. But it might as
well be a person. It has character. Its exterior walls have been rusted in swirls of overlapping
color, like a patchwork rainbow. Its windows are, actually, those round, washing machine doors,
the glass ones where you can see the clothes spinning inside. They were recycled and nailed into
the walls. There’s a porch, too. With chairs. And if you sit there, and crane your neck up, there’s
a spot where a vintage globe will suspend from the ceiling, and spin, ever so slightly. And since
the whole home’s hooked to a trailer, it can pack up and drive off at any second. So no wonder
it’s called a nomad. It’s got the personality of a traveling storyteller. It’s got eyes that’ve seen
some things.

Narration: I’m looking around for the Nomad’s designer, and I find her.

20
Stephanie Case: Oh, hey!

Dominique Moody: Hey! There you are.

Narration: Her name’s Dominique Moody. I met her last year, and we’ve been friendly ever
since.The Nomad will soon be her home. She’s been at it for three years now – building away.
And in those three years, the project has shifted locations, had setbacks, gained and lost helping
hands. Now, it’s parked in a darkened lumber warehouse.

DM: Tucked back here!

SC: Oh, wow!

Narration: Shadows cloaks its vibrant features, and saws whirr in the background, overpowering
our conversation. The past year has been hard. Dominique wakes up at dawn, for a two-hour
commute to work – one bus, then another, then another – all in L.A. traffic. She does this six
days a week. Money is tight, and help is scarce, so it slows her down.

SC: You can complete as fast as you can pay for at the time.

DM: Exactly. I maxed out on that financial timetable by two years. So that left me in a difficult
place. By bringing it here, I was able to continue, even though the resources were almost
completely exhausted. And that was the important thing: don’t let it go stale or stagnant.
21

Narration: This is a deeply personal project. Her art is her home. She’s going to live in it, and
sleep in it. So, it’s private. But she’s not alone. Other artists have helped fuel the engine…
whether it’s giving her a space to work, or lending a hand in the construction.

DM: What’s interesting about the Nomad is that it has this flexibility between public and private.
Most artists, their studio is a sanctuary, and no one has entry to the process until you’re done.
With this, in almost every stage, I’ve had to share it in some capacity, just so it could help build
the momentum and support.

Narration: Another part of making the Nomad public is letting people inside.

DM: Come on, watch your step. It’s a big step up.

Narration: I take the big step, and peek in. And the first thing I notice is the bathroom in the
back. It’s concealed by a sliding door. In the door, there’s another washing machine window.

DM: I thought it would be really ironic to have it—

SC: A washroom!

22
DM: –for a washroom, right. You have this glass panel that says the suds level of the washing
machine, and then that you should not open the door until the machine is done. It’s kind of
tongue and cheek, and humor in the way that space is accommodated in such a tiny dwelling.

Narration: And it is tiny. It’s, maybe, 20 by 8, I would guess, so bigger than a breadbox, but
smaller than your average mobile home. It’s like living in a cubicle, but filled with bits of
furniture and trinkets. There’s a table for two, a line of tiny Mason jars for spices. The world’s
smallest sink. The walls are all recycled scraps of wood, unpolished, imperfect. Rescued from
different places. I see a few blemishes in the panels… scars, from their former lives.

DM: When there’s a scar… that’s beautiful. When there’s an embellishment on the wood … It’s
a living thing. Thank goodness there’s an embellishment. That there’s a slight coloration. I have
different colorations on my body, so it’s great. I love the fact that this grain of wood looks like
freckles, you know? I think it adds to it. The ruin-ness aspect of it, the deterioration of it, has
actually told us more of the story than when it’s fresh.

Narration: I love the way Dominique looks at the world: part thrifter, part scavenger, finding the
beauty in the broken. But she wasn’t always like this. She says, in school, she was more into
conventional art. Still lifes, landscapes, that kind of thing.

DM: I had lots of skill, and it was done in a traditional European Western style of seeing and
replicating. My skill set was one that tried to achieve perfection. And it was intense. Until my
eyesight changed.
23

Narration: There’s something I haven’t told you about Dominique. She’s legally blind. This
custom home was designed by someone with only peripheral sight. No center sight, and no eye
for detail. We’re sitting a foot apart on the wood floor of the Nomad. Her face is one I’ve known
for a year – short graying hair, big brown eyes. I’d recognize her in an instant. But she sees me
differently.

DM: I look at your face, and I only see one eyebrow and part of your bottom lip. And the side of
your face. Everything else has disappeared. I shift my sight every now and then to get pieces.
And I put it together like a puzzle.

DM: One of the most terrifying things a visual artist can experience is to lose that sight. But what
I realize is, sight is one thing. Vision is another. Vision is not a physical manifestation; it’s a
spiritual and mental one. And that’s what dictates your creativity. So no matter what your
eyesight was doing, I knew I could still have vision as an artist, and continue to create. But what
I had to do was let go of the perfectionism. And when I did that, I opened up a whole world that
was fascinating for me.

Narration: The Nomad isn’t perfect. And that’s the point.

DM: There are these nuances where you actually need to allow the imperfect to play its role. And
these objects I’ve acquired, washing machine windows and salvaged material – those need the
space for their imperfection to shine. There is nothing under the sun that is perfect in reality.
24

DM: I think part of the reason we consume so much and throw away so much is that we’re trying
to look for perfection. ‘I don’t think I have the perfect house yet, so I’m going to get rid of this
one to seek it out in the next.’ Or, ‘I don’t have the perfect body yet.’ So I think it becomes very
important – embracing things that don’t meet certain artificial standards, but meet natural
standards of just being. We can gain greater harmony and happiness out of that.

DM: For example, in Japan, when a beautiful piece of pottery breaks, instead of throwing it
away, they repair it. But instead of repairing it so that the repair is invisible, they fill the cracks
with gold, so that you can absolutely see the cracks. The cracks are not damage; they just elevate
the piece to a whole new level of beauty.

DM: So, as a person with visual–

Narration: She stops short from finishing the phrase. A person with visual – disability.

DM: The term is fairly negative. You call it a dysfunction or you call it a disability, or a
handicap. I use the term that I’ve had a visual transformation. My eyes weren’t what they were
before, but they’re able to supersede that and do something extraordinary. I see better now. And
the seeing has nothing to do with if you’re sitting ten feet away from me that I won’t recognize
you. The seeing is much bigger, seeing the world differently. So, I celebrate that imperfection.
25
I’m a bit like that broken bowl. And I think we all are. We have inherent in us cracks that are
filled with gold.
15

I like to think of Ampersand as a broken bowl. This was an experiment, full of missteps and
bumps in technical quality. But, despite this, our artistic vision held strong. Like Dominique, we
knew what we wanted to create – work that reflected ourselves – and we largely accomplished it.

I can listen to my audio interview with Moody and point out its obvious flaws: the noisy
lumberyard background sounds distracting from her words; the glaring pops each time she starts
a word with the letter “p.” But, there’s more to it than its insufficiencies. Dominique is an artist I
care deeply about. Through this piece, I’m inviting listeners in to experience her life through my
eyes; I show them why she inspires me.

I look at Ampersand’s body of work and don’t see something perfect, but something that is
decidedly personal. To listen to these pieces is to know us: our artistic passions, our curiosities,
our inspirations. By layering in our own narratives, we made ourselves present – not just as
journalists, but as artists.

Through this year, I realized: Ampersand was our Nomad. Radio journalism – when expressed
with personal voice – can be its own form of art.

15
Interview with Dominique Moody, 4/26/2015
26
References

Alcorn, Stan. “Why Audio Never Goes Viral.” Digg, January 15, 2014.

“Behind the Scenes of Dreaming Sin Fronteras.” Narrated by Danielle Charbonneau.
Ampersand. http://www.ampersandla.com/behind-the-scenes-of-dreaming-sin-fronteras.

“Building Identity: Charles Blow’s New Memoir.” Narrated by Myah Williams. Ampersand.
http://www.ampersandla.com/building-identity-charles-blow.

“Gateway to the West: Union Station & Tara Thomas.” Narrated by Uttara Valluri. Ampersand.
http://www.ampersandla.com/gateway-west-union-station-tara-thomas.

Hammersley, Ben. “Audible revolution.” The Guardian, February 11, 2004.

“Honoring Life and Death: Dia de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.” Ampersand.
http://www.ampersandla.com/dia-de-los-muertos-at-hollywood-forever-cemetery.

Houston Santhanam, Laura, Mitchell, Amy, Rosensteil, Tom. “Audio: How Far Will Digital
Go?” The State of the News Media 2012, The Pew Research Center.

“How Not to Pitch a Billionaire.” Narrated by Alex Blumberg. StartUp. Gimlet.
http://gimletmedia.com/episode/1-how-not-to-pitch-a-billionaire.

“Love Hurts 3.” Narrated by Lea Thau. Strangers. KCRW.
http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts-3.

“Morrissey*oke at Eastside Luv.” Ampersand.
http://www.ampersandla.com/morriseyoke-eastside-luv.

Moody, Dominique (artist). Interview with the author, Altadena, CA, February 16, 2014.

Moody, Dominique (artist). Interview with the author, Altadena, CA, April 26, 2015.

“Origin Stories.” Narrated by Nate DiMeo. The Memory Palace.
http://thememorypalace.us/2013/06/origin-stories.

“Revolution: Inside Punk Music with Kathleen Hanna & the Sex Stains.” Narrated by Meghan
Farnsworth. Ampersand. http://www.ampersandla.com/revolution-inside-punk-music-
with-kathleen-hanna-the-sex-stains.

“The Case Against Adnan Syed.” Narrated by Sarah Koenig, Serial, WBEZ.
http://serialpodcast.org/season-one/6/the-case-against-adnan-syed.

27
“The Journey Home and the Trip to Bountiful.” Narrated by Christina Campodonico.
Ampersand. http://www.ampersandla.com/the-drive-home-ep-1-the-journey-home-the-
trip-to-bountiful.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This thesis project tells two stories, intertwined. The first story is a year in the life of Dominique Moody, an assemblage artist, who struggled to build her magnum opus: a deeply personal tiny home for her to live in, named ""the Nomad."" The second story is a year in the life of a different kind of artist—eleven audio journalists—who built their own deeply personal project: a podcast and multimedia website called Ampersand. ❧ Journalists and artists are surprisingly similar. They're both storytellers, using their chosen medium to convey an idea, or articulate a vision, to a receptive audience. I was one of the eleven, and, after meeting Moody, I realized our vision was the same. Both of us wanted to express our individual voices—one through sight, the other through sound. ❧ Radio journalists are frequently dispassionate narrators, focused on being objective and fact-driven. The rise of podcasting, on the other hand, has offered a venue for first-person expression and individual creative liberty, ideals that seem to mirror art more so than journalism. ❧ I used Moody's more personal artistic style as a model for my own work as Ampersand's executive producer. I hoped to create a podcast with impassioned narrators who each had a distinct creative voice to share—and, in doing so, turn our work into an artistic expression of its own.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Case, Stephanie (author)

Core Title The art of Ampersand: applying the creative process to podcasting and audio journalism

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 09/01/2015

Defense Date 09/01/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag ampersand,art,artist,assemblage,audio,Dominique Moody,expression,first-person journalism,journalism,narrative journalism,Nomad,OAI-PMH Harvest,podcast,podcasting,Radio,Storytelling,tiny house

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Anawalt, Sasha (committee chair), Seidenberg, Willa (committee member), Tolan, Sandy (committee member)

Creator Email casese@usc.edu,stephanieecase@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-173632

Unique identifier UC11273298

Identifier etd-CaseStepha-3864.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-173632 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-CaseStepha-3864.pdf

Dmrecord 173632

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Case, Stephanie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA