Driftwood Conversations

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with artist Jed Ochmanek, whose work explores perception, presence, and the act of seeing. Our conversation moves through art, awareness, and the subtle ways the environment shapes understanding. It’s a dialogue about attention—how we look, what we see, and what remains unseen.
This episode features music from Dreams of Sleep and Wakes of Sound by Merz, Laraaji, and Shahzad Ismaily.
Listen on Podbean, or find Driftwood Conversations on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube to follow more stories about creativity, consciousness, and connection.

Driftwood Conversations with Bernard Leibov
In this episode, Hilary Sloane speaks with Bernard Leibov — artist, curator, and founder of BoxoPROJECTS in Joshua Tree, as well as co-founder of the Joshua Treenial: Desert Futures.
Born in South Africa, Bernard’s story moves through the contrasting worlds of apartheid and awakening, the energy of New York’s art and finance scenes, and finally, to the open silence of the Mojave Desert. Here, he discovered a sense of belonging that changed how he lives and creates.
This conversation explores what it means to build community through art, how silence and vulnerability can be forms of creative practice, and the tension between supporting others’ visions and sustaining your own.
For Bernard, art isn’t just what hangs on a wall—it’s how you live, how you listen, and how you belong to a place.
Listen as we talk about transformation, belonging, and the power of the desert to strip life down to what truly matters.
Learn more about BoxoPROJECTS and The Joshua Treenial: Desert Futures at boxoprojects.com and joshuatreenial.com.

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with Sailene Ossman, a pioneering voice in plant medicine and conscious healing. Sailene’s path began with a near-fatal car accident at nineteen—an experience that reshaped her understanding of life, pain, and purpose. Out of that trauma emerged a deep calling to help others find balance and relief through the healing power of plants and fungi. For decades, she’s been a compassionate advocate, guiding people toward natural wellness long before cannabis or mushroom medicine entered mainstream dialogue. Our conversation moves through resilience, service, and the wisdom that comes from walking between worlds—science and spirit, pain and possibility, grief and renewal.

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with artist and energy worker Abigail Kochunas, whose creative and spiritual journey blurs the lines between art, healing, and the unseen world. Abigail paints, acts, writes, and works with energy—bridging the physical and the spiritual through her deep sensitivity and intuitive gifts. We talk about what it means to be born open, how creativity becomes a form of communication with life itself, and how staying sensitive in a noisy world can be both a challenge and a calling. This is a conversation about presence, listening, and the quiet power of living from the heart.

In this Driftwood Conversations episode, Lia, a homeschooled researcher gathering an oral history of Morongo Basin creatives, and Kiki, a traveler, musician, watercolor lover, and aspiring teacher, offer a glimpse into the lives of teens and local culture today. We discuss self-directed learning, retro music, and surf culture, as well as the impact of social media on attention and confidence. We explore what it truly means to be “best friends” and why documenting this moment in Joshua Tree’s art scene is important. There’s college dreaming, band practice, Swiss chocolate, Argentine meals, and yes… a cameo of favorite desserts.

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with Jef Harmatz—news director and morning show co-host at Z107.7 in Joshua Tree. Many of you know Jef as the quick wit behind your morning news, but his creative life extends far beyond radio. He’s been a cartoonist, a cook, and now a podcaster in his own right.
Our conversation weaves through art, humor, and the anxiety of making a living as a creative person. Jef reminds us that the value of creative work isn’t about chasing perfection—it’s about showing up for the process itself. From comics to hot dogs to community radio, his story is a reminder that creativity lives not in the product, but in the act of making.

Hunter Prosper is a nurse, storyteller, and now author of Stories From a Stranger, a collection born from his journey of asking hundreds of people to share their lives with him. You can follow his work and ongoing storytelling on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. 

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with Virginia Campo—a Colombian-born community builder whose life has carried her across continents, love, and loss. Virginia shares what it meant to immigrate as a child, to grow roots in the U.S., to find unexpected love in a Joshua Tree layover, and to walk through the profound grief of losing her father. That passage of grief led her to train as an end-of-life doula, bringing presence and compassion to others in their most vulnerable moments. What emerges in this conversation is Virginia’s deep resilience and her willingness to be remade by life’s turning points, to say yes even when the path is uncertain.

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with Claudia Thompson, a woman whose life has been a rich tapestry of adventure, creativity, and quiet wisdom. Claudia speaks about her “Loving Legacy” project—a way of weaving together the many threads of her journey and reflecting on what truly endures. From unexpected turns that carried her across places and careers, to the deeper pull of love, soul, and fate, Claudia’s story raises questions for all of us: Are we guided by something larger than ourselves? Do we recognize the moments when life redirects us? This conversation is about honoring what calls us, even when the path isn’t clear, and discovering how legacy is formed in both the choices we make and the mysteries that move us.

In Part Two of my conversation with Prema Saraswati, we move from her childhood in Laos and the flight from war into her years growing up in America. In Sacramento, Prema was expected to serve in silence, yet she excelled in school, pursued higher education, and carried the weight of her family’s survival. Her path led through poverty, dislocation, and an abusive marriage, but also toward resilience and discovery. From these struggles, she found her calling as a healer—drawing on Reiki, hypnotherapy, past life regression, and ancestral wisdom to guide others through trauma. Listen now to Driftwood Conversations on YouTube and Spotify.