We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Josiah Bolth. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Josiah below.

Josiah, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

By far the most meaningful project I have ever worked on was the Palestinian Resistance Fair in 2024, which I helped to coordinate alongside the incredibly talented curators Lana Murad and Sara Madandar, and event producers Rory Michelen and Becka McLoughlin. Organizing this event was something well-outside my area of experience, but an opportunity had presented itself that we felt we could not ignore: the opportunity to turn a community art complex, with sound stages, galleries, and theaters, into a space dedicated to the Palestinian Resistance and those who support them, and hosting the local organizations we felt were doing the most important work in this regard. Organizing this event was the most challenging learning experience of my life, but never before had I experienced so clearly the power of human creativity to build a culture of solidarity and resistance to imperialism and genocide, with all participants volunteering their time for free. Because of the profound aversion that institutional art organizations possess toward all things Palestinian, and their general cowardice when it comes to adopting any but the most convenient progressive stances, my participation in this event is considered a liability in many professional artistic circles. But they are not the keepers of my reward.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Josiah Bolth, I’m a painter living and working in New Orleans Louisiana, currently an MFA candidate at Tulane University.

My paintings are narrative illustrations of the hidden forces undergirding our reality. Forces comprised of ghosts, spirits, strange energies and entities that influence our perception, operating just beyond our line of sight. My painting is a way of engaging with these forces without driving myself completely crazy.

I attempt to present these forces in order to demonstrate the fluidity of reality, to provide a window into fantasy worlds where new, different realities are possible. The imaginative power of the human mind is our only weapon against the machine, and I hope my paintings can encourage everyone to hone theirs.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Friendship is the greatest resource. It sounds trite, but it is true. If you’re one of the unfortunate many who is not born into spectacular family wealth, the extended family of friends and supporters that you grow throughout your working life will be your greatest asset. They will be source of strength in times of darkness, they will be your salvation when you need it most, and they will be there with you to celebrate your good times when they finally arrive. For a long time, I neglected that garden, attempting to be an island, to do things on my own, in my own way, without anyone’s help. It is better to do things with friends, and I make more of an effort to cultivate those relationships now.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Give artists no-strings-attached money to use as they see fit, and support them when they organize. Nothing kills creativity like deadlines, fixed requirements, itemized budgets, and the constant pressure to mediocratize your work that fund-issuing organizations often require. This system is a kind of humiliation ritual for artists, which allows moneyholders to control the processes of production and promotion within entire creative industries, and inculcates artists with an instinct for self-censorship in order to appeal to the ecosystem of philistines, automatons and sex-pests that often comprise the membership of these funding organizations. Find art locally, buy it locally, and often. Artists need more work outside of institutional funding structures that they can engage with on their own terms.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thesecularcowboy.com
• Instagram: @the_secular_cowboy
• Facebook: thesecularcowboy

Image Credits

Josiah Bolth