98 | Creating a Medicinal Plant Zine with Julia Orquera Bianco and Meghan Henshaw

0:00 Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I'm an herbalist and nutritionist. And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners. So today, I'm really excited to share an interview that I did recently with Julia Orchero Bianco and Megan Hinshaw about a zine that they created. Now, you might be thinking, Camille, I'm a practitioner and it sounds interesting, but I'm not totally sure why this is relevant for me. And if that is the case, I really encourage you to listen to the conversation because we get into topics about how this piece of art came into the world, how it fits into clinical and community work, the process of collaboration, the process of research, the overlap of art and clinical work and even more.

0:47 So I hope you're going to enjoy this conversation as much as I did. And I hope you'll check out the zine and see if it might be something that you would like to have in your life as well. I'll put the links to everything in the show notes. But before I share the interview, I just wanted to read a brief bio for Julia and Megan, in case you don't already know either one of them. So Julia Orquera Bianco was born in Argentina, lived in Mexico before moving to the U.S. in 2016. She earned a BFA from the Universidad del Museo Social Argentino in 2012. My pronunciation, I'm so sorry, but I'm doing my best. In 2018, she graduated from the MFA. Program at Roski School of Art and Design, which is from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

1:32 She earned a certificate in sustainability from UCLA in 2020. She was a medicinal plant conservation intern at UPS in 2022, and she earned a certificate in permaculture design from the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute in 2023. Julia is an amazing artist. She interrogates modern Western culture, collective memory, and migration through the lens of being a guest on the land. Identity becomes an experience rather than a concept, and her work draws from her family and cultural heritage and from her practice with plants to craft stories where past, present, and place come together, redefining notions of belonging. And I think you'll see that in some of the art in the zine if you have a chance to have a look. It's absolutely gorgeous.

2:15 And then Megan Henshaw is a Cincinnati-based herbalist and educator with a background in herbal science, ethnobotany, and plant cultivation. She currently teaches medicinal plant classes, has an active clinical practice, and makes small batch products using plants she grows in a community garden in the city. So again, all the contact information for both of these guests is in the show notes, as well as info on how to order the zine, and I hope you enjoy the conversation. All right. So I'm so excited to jump in and learn more about this zine. Megan and Julia, thank you so much for joining us to talk more about it. I want to start with what is probably a really basic question, but I suspect some folks may not know. Could you just tell us what is a zine?

2:59 Yeah. So zines are just really easy to print, usually small booklets, although the format is really versatile. I'm like, I have a zine that's kind of shaped like a pizza that It unfolds in kind of an unusual way. But usually, you know, it's easiest to picture like an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper that's folded in half, multiple sheets, you know, stapled in the middle or sewn. It's really has deep roots in do-it-yourself culture, counterculture movements, because it's so accessible, really inexpensive to make, and so flexible. You just need very minimal supplies, you know, a printer or access to a public library, scissors, paper, you know, and you can kind of do your own thing.

3:40 Very cool. So could you share a little bit about this particular zine? The reason that you're here to talk to us on the podcast is that you have a zine that's coming out really soon, depending on when people listen to this. It might already be out in the world. So tell us about your particular zine and what it is, how it came into the world, who it's for, kind of your vision for this project. Yeah, thank you for that question. Yeah, so this scene is born from conversation, actually, between Megan and I. Megan had this idea of highlighting seven plants that grow in the Ohio River Valley, and I have been pretty involved with nature printing using cyanotype technique.

4:23 So we were discussing ways to bring this into life, and that took us to applying for the Loyola Berish Fellowship and getting it. And then it became a whole, a very mature project with many elements that we were not envisioning. Yeah, so the zine itself is really focusing on the botanical illustration. The history of eclectic medical use, and contemporary herbalism, predominantly from female herbalists, female-identified herbalists. And it really focuses on seven plants. So, calendula, whorehound, motherwort, sage, tobacco, tulsi, and valerian. And so these are all plants that I grow in a community garden that's in a neighborhood pretty close to where I live.

5:12 And I've had the honor of stewarding this piece of land with others for a little, I think this was maybe the sixth season now. But it's really set up as a living classroom. And we've been harvesting these plants to use in some of my small batch products that I make. And there's a crew of volunteers that come every week in the growing season. And so these plants are plants that we harvest the seeds from, and I have created a seed mix. And so that's kind of the crux of how we decided to focus on these seven plants, that this is a seed mix that's available to the public. And Holly and I really delved deeply into these plants and their application.

5:54 So cool. So the idea is that somebody from your community could come and have some of the seed mix and then learn about the plants that are part of it, that they probably could grow pretty easily themselves if they have space and access. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, the zine itself is a standalone source of information. If folks are just, you know, interested in botanical illustration and female botany, female botanists and, you know, what grows in this part of the world is a really interesting text. But also you know if you have these plants growing in your yard you know you can read about how you can use them because you know there's information on harvesting and cultivation and medicinal application and medicine making it's all included in the zine yeah and i will just throw in here that i got a little sneak peek of the zine before we started recording and it's a beautiful work of art even if you know you may not have access to all these plants i think just having it in your space.

6:52 That's probably a lovely way to brighten things up a little bit. So that's really great. So tell us more about how this is connected with United Plant Savers. Because I know you said you got the Lloyd Library Fellowship. People might like to hear just a teeny bit about that and like who else might want to apply for it. But then also, how does this relate to UPS and what they do? So, Julie and I both have really deep roots and connections with the United Plant Savers. So, United Plant Savers, for folks that don't necessarily know, is a conservation organization that's based in eastern Ohio, but they have very far reaches. So, there's an at-risk plant list, which is kind of the entry point for a lot of herbalists.

7:33 I know that, you know, when I went to Bastyr University, I learned about the at-risk plant list and really thinking about formulations and sustainability and, you know, the chain of sourcing medicinal plants. And so UPS is kind of who started that and created this list that other herbalists and companies can look to for guidance around, you know, what plants are most in trouble that, you know, maybe if you have space to cultivate, these are things that you can focus on cultivating things like black cohosh, blue cohosh, that sort of thing if you use them in your formulations. So, you know, I spend time at the UPS Sanctuary in Eastern Ohio annually just as part of my business retreat, which basically just means I get to hang out in a yurt and work on business things and walk around the woods and think about medicinal plants and kind of, you know, check in with myself about if I want to do new projects or how have things been going and, you know, looking at Excel spreadsheets, but then And also like laying around and drinking coffee, you know.

8:34 And we were introduced, Hulia and I were introduced via the plant steward, the sanctuary steward, Chip Carroll. Because he knew that we were both in Cincinnati and knew that we were just compatible. And he was completely right. Yeah, I would say to add to that, CHIP has a pretty good human sensor. I actually got introduced to UPS via an online course on foraging that I took during the pandemic. It's a very pandemic kind of thing to do by the Herbal Academy. And that's how I found out about UPS. At that point, I was living in California. And I did a little bit of research and became really interested.

9:18 In a program that they have it's an internship which is a certificate in medicinal plant conservation so we started a bit of a conversation about that they were because of the pandemic they were not really hosting that but I ended up becoming a deep ecology artist fellow. Or deep ecology fellow which is basically their version of an artist in residence program I spent two weeks there and honestly, because of UPS, I moved from California to Ohio. So UPS is a big deal in my life and I became familiar with the Ohio flora and in 2022, I actually took the internship.

10:03 And I think around that time between 2022 and 2023 was when Megan and I connected and, Got it. What a beautiful story. And so as I understand it, the two of you already kind of had a relationship. You already knew each other before the zine came about. So this comes up a lot, I think, in the herbal world where we know each other, we are friends or what have you. We already have relationships with people. And then it's always an interesting thing to collaborate with people in a more like work-focused environment. So how was it to work together on this project, kind of moving from that, that, you know, kind of like, oh, we know each other and in this one way, and then taking it to a different level. How did that go?

10:46 Well, we collaborated on kind of right off the bat when we first connected, because Julio was doing a series of programs to connect with Burnett Woods, which is the woods that's kind of a couple neighborhoods over from where I live and close to where Julia lives. And so I ended up teaching a class for this program that Julia was doing. And there was a moment in which there were some other people that kind of like got into the whole mix of the conversation and it made things really sticky. And so Julia and I, even though we didn't, I mean, we had had tea together and, you know, we obviously kind of naturally connected, but it really kind of forced our hands to have these harder conversations in the beginning because of the sticky situation involving these other folks and so it was at that point that I really was more aware of how clear our connection was and how complimentary our styles were and then we just kind of had more and more conversations and talking about originally I think.

11:53 Yeah, we were talking about doing a zine together and, you know, what would that look like? And then the fellowship kind of came up as a way of funding this project. And, you know, also was really professionally of interest for both of us because of just how, you know, how we move through the world and being connected in Cincinnati. The Lloyd Library is a really big deal throughout the world because it's the largest repository of botanically related text in the Northern Hemisphere. But people in Cincinnati don't necessarily know about it, you know, because it looks like you would pay your parking ticket there. Like, it's a very nondescript building. Like, you just, I mean, I probably drove by it for 25 years before I even knew what was there.

12:37 So, it was really exciting to think about, you know, how we could delve into the archive at the library. And, you know, I've been doing independent research at the Lloyd for probably 15 years now through a lot of different projects with herbal companies and other things, but I've never had an opportunity to be in the private staff where they keep all the books. And so it was also really exciting to think like, okay, well, we get a fellowship and it means that we get to go in the elevator and go behind the scenes and, you know, see so much beyond what, you know, the, what's in the written catalog or what's in the very sort of concise library that's accessible to the public in the more open area in the, in the front of the library.

13:21 Yeah. And to add to that, I would say it's true. Now that I'm thinking about, Megan, about the past, we actually collaborated. I put together a little scene and you remember that you made like these seed packets also for like a workshop that I was invited to. So we were already kind of working together in one capacity or another since we pretty much since we met. I would say maybe to add to that, we... This is a multi-month. This is a very long project. We started actually working on the application, I want to say, maybe 18 months ago. And then we had a lot of conversations. Once we, many like interviews and conversations, and we were like finessing the project.

14:07 And also, you know, again, in conversation with Deloitte. And then we did the fellowship, which took about two to three months. So we were spending a lot of time together also at the library, sharing our findings and kind of, yeah, just like really a lot of, we gathered a lot of fun facts and really interesting stories, but also trying to figure out other more like logistical things. And I think throughout all that time, we had lots of different conversations and we went through different stages that both involved our professional collaboration and also our friendship.

14:48 And it's been very, I don't know, expansive, I would say, because I read somewhere that we should always work with friends because there's already a relationship of mutual care. And I would say that, yeah, it's been a very, very expansive experience, definitely for me, I think for both of us. And again, the end result is just this beautiful labor of love that came from like very committed research. And, you know, as part of the fellowship, you know, you have to do 20 hours of in-person research. I mean, that's if you're a single applicant.

15:30 But, you know, since Julie and I were applying together for a mutual project, you know, we got to decide amongst ourselves, like, how we wanted to split up those hours. But, you know, we very much prioritized, if we could, if it worked for our schedule, to do the, you know, to be working side by side, to be co-working as we're looking through our own books. So, you know, the way that the library has it set up is that they've got this big desk that's kind of tucked back into the corner. And so, you know, we would select books or send the list to the librarians and then have this cart. And so we would have our own kind of shelves on the cart with all the things that we're looking at. And these, you know, kind of beanbags to put the books on that are called book couches.

16:15 And it was really cool because we just would come across some really funny stuff. And we would be able to talk about it and laugh about it. And it was just, it was more, it was more fun, you know, having the two of us there. And, you know, we would both do our own thing if we had a deadline, if it's something that we needed to, you know, sort out or delve into, you know, we would be there on our own, too. But I think it was definitely a highlight working next to each other at the table and showing each other some of the things that we found. Sounds really fun. I know we don't have time for like a full comprehensive overview of your research, but can you share some highlights from what you learned or, figured out or some of the things that happened at the Lloyd Library?

17:02 Sure. Yeah. So for me, the idea within the collaboration, my part would be to create these illustrations and really delve into nature printing. But that evolved as an artist's research can be very creative. So I actually ended up learning a lot about nature printing, especially the history of the cyanotype technique, which is the photography. It's the oldest photo-based technique that exists thus far. And also, I became really interested in the role of women in the history of botany as it was being considered as a science.

17:47 So I read a lot about the 18th century and the Enlightenment in relationship with the creation of botany as a science. And then how women were such crucial figures in the creation of cultural production, both in terms of the illustrations, but also with their labor, right? So gathering specimens, sometimes finding new specimens, identifying through conversation, and really because of their work. Assisting their husbands or their fathers or other men, most of these women have been invisible in the history of botany.

18:40 So I became really, really intrigued by that. And, you know, there's a lot that I can talk about about that. But the last thing is, to me, as an artist, understanding. Botanical illustration and design and where all that comes from and all the different ways that are used to depict and describe plants in a visual form and thinking about illustration as another mode of cultural production that can also stand on itself and that it became really, really important in the field of botany since it's such an important part of learning about plants. That would be my take on that.

19:22 And for me, I think one of the things that stood out to me the strongest of the research that I did was how much alignment there is between contemporary modern application of these seven particular plants and how the eclectic doctors used them. You know, some of these books were written in the 1800s, early 1900s. And, you know, I know that some of these same books that I was referencing, you know, there's very respected herbal companies that use those in their formulation and like R&D department, you know, when they're looking at kind of what plants to investigate. But it was just really cool to see that, you know, here were these eclectic doctors that were kind of the precursors to modern day naturopaths.

20:03 And they were doing very meticulous extraction of medicinal plants and they were using them in a clinical setting, you know, and, you know, they were knowledgeable about the, Lots of very advanced topics around formulation and extraction. You know, dangers of internal tobacco use, you know, different dosages of valerian and their effects on the body if it's stimulating or relaxing. But there was a lot of alignment between the eclectics and how, you know, current herbalists like Mimi Hernandez and Lucretia Van Dyke and others use the herbs now, in particular with the seven that we looked at.

20:45 Yeah, really, really interesting stuff. It sounds like it was an adventure in many ways. I'm wondering, since we're already on the topic, could you share just a little bit about the Lloyd Library? If other people are like, oh, wow, I didn't even know that existed. Are there ways that artists and herbalists could learn there also or take advantage of some of the resources that are there? Like, how would you recommend that we interface with that space and resource? Yeah, the Lloyd Library is an incredible resource for herbalists and artists alike. I did a whole talk at the International Herbal Symposium this past, I guess, 2025 in the fall.

21:26 And so that's recorded on the Lloyd Library's YouTube channel. And that goes through, you know, how you can engage with the archive, both in person in Cincinnati, as well as if you're a researcher. An herbalist, an artist that's wanting to kind of work with the collection from further afield. But I mean, the Lloyd Library has been around for, you know, yeah, a long time. It originally started as the private library of the Lloyd brothers who were pharmacists in Cincinnati. All three of them were pharmacists and one of them in particular taught a lot at the eclectic medical institution which was or the institute eclectic medical institute here in cincinnati and so there was a lot of collaboration between the brothers too and that there was one brother that kind of took care of like the more businessy stuff one brother that worked on the extraction that was john urey lloyd who's probably the most predominantly known and then there was curtis Gates Lloyd, who traveled a lot and really acquired all these texts.

22:27 So he, you know, was on these old ships and, you know, these different port towns all over the world would know him. And so they would hold books for him. And then, you know, he would bring them back to. And so the Lloyd Library and Museum, you know, they have private stacks. And so you really have to utilize the online catalog to look up anything, although there are some books that are available on the floor. You can't check anything out, but you can take things off the shelves or you can request the librarians to pull information for you. And it's, you know, if you're interested in acupuncture and horticulture and medicinal plants and chemistry, all of that, you know, there's it's an amazing resource to be able to have these primary sources that are physically all in one place because we don't really have an opportunity to do that kind of research as much.

23:16 So there's lots of applications for herbalists and herbal teachers. You can do single topic research for classes, for writing articles. You can do, you know, branding research because there's just so many gorgeous books that are in the stacks. There's, you know, plant identification techniques because a lot of these older books, they didn't have mass chromatography or, you know, gas chromatography or mass spec. You know, so they had to all be about the senses. And so you can look at these old books that were all about plant identification using just your physical senses. So it's a really rich place. And it's a great place to learn about American herbal history, because we have a lot, a lot happening here on this continent.

24:00 And I think for artists, especially artists who are interested in ecology or botany or anything that involves plants, really, Deloitte is a great resource because I would say... Again, artists sometimes take a lot of like different, I don't know if to say license, but we can do research in a very expansive way, not necessarily only by reading books, but we get really stimulated by looking at beautiful things and really engaging with an archive, building a relationship with that.

24:43 So I think for those artists who are interested in the plant world in one way or another, Deloitte is really such a unique space because as Megan said, you have books dating all the way to like, I don't know, 16th, 17th century, like really incredible stuff that at least I didn't know existed here in Cincinnati. And as an artist, I can say for sure that after the time that I spent at Deloitte, I have like seven ideas just from the time that I spent looking at other books. So one thing led to another. And now I have a list of ideas that came just from hanging out with books at Deloitte's.

25:27 So it's incredible. And the Artists in Residence program that they have there at Deloitte. Again, because of the time that you are assigned to spend at the library, there's just no way that you're going to leave the place the same way as you entered, basically. You're just going to have so many ideas and it's just really exciting. It's a very, very stimulant place to be. I love that. I love that. Well, I want to wrap up by just talking a little bit about how working on this project for the zine, the monographs specifically, whether it's the art or the kind of the more written versions of them, how is this overlapping or not with other types of monographs that you all have worked on in the past and, you know, where you might have more space or maybe a different focus?

26:21 Well, I've written a lot of monographs over the years. And, you know, often I'm using books that I'm already familiar with, you know, things that I physically have, because I'm, I love doing research with physical books. I mean, there's a lot of benefits from being able to look on PubMed, you know, current clinical information about phytochemistry, application, that kind of thing. But when it comes to the history of plant usage and the botany of it, I really love to use physical books. So I will rely on my own personal library when I'm writing those monographs. And this project was really different in that I, you know, got to use the physical books, which is my preference.

27:02 Because, you know, as we know, there's a lot of crazy stuff out there on the interwebs when it comes to herbal information. and, you know, AI generated content and how accurate or inaccurate that is. So it feels much safer to me to use texts that have been physically published and to be able to use physical texts from just such a huge array of teachers, of specialists, and to be able to look at these old books and pull out the primary information from that That felt really special and unique. Maybe I would like to add to that I don't write monographs, but in this case, for the purpose of this scene, one of the aspects of our collaboration that became really special is the fact that the practice, in a way, is pretty interdisciplinary.

28:04 So Megan brought in her vast breadth of knowledge to the table as a herbalist. But then there was also like a physical aspect or a practical aspect. We had the project was delineated within the framework of these seven plants that Megan grows in the garden. So I got to go to the garden on a workday and harvest these herbs. And then we did the cyanotypes together. We kind of arranged them and designed them together. And then I was further illustrating or making illustrations and illustrating these cyanotypes based on these plants.

28:48 So I think that that interdisciplinary aspect and also with the very special focus and with the physical presence of the plants is what makes this project so special. It's very, very involved. Hmm. I love how these things kind of intertwined and overlap. It's really fun. Yay. Well, it sounds like such a project we were talking a little bit about before we hit record here about how, just how much goes into creating a project like this, where you have it in your hands, but then there's just so many layers to it and so much love and attention to detail and. Yeah, it all comes together. So I want to make sure that people know how they can get a copy if they want one.

29:36 Would either of you like to share how people can get their hands on one of these zines if they want one? Yeah, so my website is okotowerbals.com and you can order the zines there and have them shipped to you. And then you can also get them via our publishing partner, which is Cereal Box Studios. and they'll have them available on their website. And then Julio, do you want to mention your website? Sure. So my website is mundokenti.com and you can also get the scenes there. Yay! And I'll put those links, as well as the links that you all had mentioned earlier, to the Lloyd Library. I'll put those in the show notes in case people didn't have something to write down while they are listening.

30:22 Any last things you want to share, like pieces of advice for people who might want to undertake a similar project, or any other encouragement that you can give to other people as we wrap up this episode? I think that people are really thirsty for physical items that are made with care and awareness and love. And I just encourage folks to make things these days. I mean, so much of our lives are spent in this two-dimensional capacity and, you know, we are such creatures of physical form. And so there's, you know, such a deep satisfaction with making something that you can touch and hold.

31:06 And I mean, that's true with this bean project that we did to be able to touch and hold this, you know, this labor of really a lot of love and care in our hands. But I think that that translates into so many different mediums, too. It's especially important right now. Yeah, and to add to that, make something and make something with a friend. See what happens. It's a really good way of getting to know someone in a different way. And honestly, we know that community is so important for just human thriving, humans thriving in the world. So, yeah, make something, make something with others. I love that as a way to wrap up. There's that special synergy that you get places you can ever get by yourself when you work with somebody else.

31:54 Yay. Well, thank you all so much for coming in to share a little bit about the zine. I hope people are leaving, feeling, A, interested in checking out the zine, but also to make something themselves and to kind of bring things into the world in a physical form. Because I do think that's such a, it's very needed right now. So thank you so much, not just for being here, but also for all the work and love that went into this project. And so excited to welcome it into the world. Thanks for having us. It's great to be able to connect about this. Thank you, Camille. You're welcome.