About The Side Woo
The Origin Story
The Side Woo emerged from the darkness of the pandemic after Sarah wrapped her first podcast, Artists + Travel due to the travel restrictions and heavy politics of the previous year. After brainstorming via text thread with future co-host Elizabeth Bernstein and friend of the pod, Zoë Taleporos, The Side Woo podcast was born.
The first three episodes were launched on Sarah's birthday, November 11, 2021, and produced on a weekly schedule until the following year when Liz joined as co-host.
It was only when Liz joined that The Side Woo took on new territory thanks to the new perspective that she brought, with a background in mental health and addiction therapies.
And this change also brought with it the increased prominence of Freddie Mercury as the Patron Saint of The Side Woo. About a year later, in April 2023, Liz stepped back from her co-hosting duties to take care of her family. (To be continued!)
Since then Sarah has solo hosted and begun her Art Date Substack newsletter as a behind-the-scenes compliment to The Side Woo interviews.
The Mission
The Side Woo podcast was created to open up a frank dialogue about the intersection of mental health, spirituality, and creativity as a way to understand how one builds a sustainable creative life, and to shine a light on the ways artists overcome trauma and adversity.
Specifically, the podcast has evolved to examine the way our beliefs shape our understanding of reality. This manifests in meaningful conversations about addiction recovery, mindfulness, risk-taking, overcoming financial hardship, LGBTQIA+ and social justice issues.
While The Side Woo is hosted by and centered around the female perspective, our aim is to offer a platform to artists and creators of all gender identities to use storytelling as a way to share their insights and experiences with our audience.
About Sarah Thibault
Sarah is an artist, writer, medium and tarot reader based in Los Angeles, CA.
Her artwork is inspired by painting’s history as well as autobiographical experiences to create works that center the female perspective and prioritize a mystical view of the world. Thibault’s paintings mine her personal photographic archive, art history, and imagery from meditations and astral travel to investigate themes of death, renewal, and the unseen forces that shape our world.
Selected exhibitions upcoming solo show with The Pit Palm Springs and Dreamsong Gallery. Past shows include Spring/Break Art Fair, Sotheby's x Jerry Gogosian, and solo shows with Dreamsong Gallery in Minneapolis, MN, Fahrenheit Madrid in Spain, and Casa Lu in Mexico City. Thibault and her work has been featured in W Magazine, Artsy, ArtMaze Magazine, CARLA, The San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, SFAQ, and The Huffington Post. She has been a Charter Resident of the Minnesota Street Project studios in San Francisco, CA since 2016.
Previous projects include acting as Co-Director of the Royal NoneSuch Gallery in Oakland, CA, which was named as one of Artsy’s Best Bay Area Artist-Run Spaces, and Co-Director of The Painting Salon, a nomadic lecture series. She holds an MFA from the California College of the Arts and a BA from the University of Wisconsin- Madison.
IG: @sarah_thibault
About Elizabeth Darrow Bernstein
Elizabeth is an artist, curator and educator based in Oakland, CA. She was faculty in the photography department at the San Francisco Art Institute for ten years, as well as the founder and director of Royal NoneSuch Gallery, an Oakland-based artist run project space that ran from 2009-2019. She currently owns and runs Maker’s Loft, a brick-and-mortar retail store in Oakland, CA and is the co-host of the Side-Woo podcast.