Conceptual Image-making with Iconic Editorial Illustrator Greg Spalenka

Have you ever gazed at the night sky and felt a profound connection? Join us as we explore the intersection between art and human experience with iconic American Illustrator Greg Spalenka. We begin by reminiscing but also lamenting the deep disconnection from nature revealed by L.A.'s 1994 Northridge Earthquake when city-bound Los Angelesnos found themselves baffled by the suddenly visible Milky Way. We discuss the power of image—narrative and conceptual—to shift personal and societal paradigms. We discuss 'knowing thyself' and connecting that core essence with a sense of purpose, thereby owning authentic self-expression that transcends. We also explore the idea of maintaining resonance in an image-saturated society that threatens to desensitize. The evolution of cinema, the role of art in education, and the balance of masculine and feminine energies in human development all culminate in a rich tapestry of discussion.
 
Learn more at spalenka.comand artistasbrand.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:20

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. I would like to encourage you all y'all to subscribe or follow us, either on Buzzsprout or whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts, but also YouTube. We have some really great supplemental content on YouTube, so do not shy away from that. That said, I would like to introduce our extraordinary producer, our producer extraordinaire, who we're calling the anniversary lady. This week You've had a milestone Virginia Grenier.

Speaker 2 0:56

Yes, milestone, I have not taken my husband out into the desert and off to me after 21 years of marriage.

Speaker 1 1:07

That's a milestone right. That should be a um. That should be a national holiday right. Yes, I didn't bludgeon, my spouse day.

Speaker 2 1:16

Yes, my spouse is still with me. No, no, it's. It's been a good. It's been a good run. It's 25 years total been a good.

Speaker 1 1:27

It's been a good run. It's 25 years total, 21 years of actual marriage. So, yeah, congratulations, thank you. Yeah, all right, well, and we'll talk about your nails next week. That'll be your next or two weeks from now.

Speaker 1 1:34

Yes, anyway, thank you for being here and I, without further ado, I'm going to read today's guest's bio. I will preface it by saying he's a very dear friend. We are both looking forward to catching up in cyberspace with a listenership. This is my favorite kind of episode where I just adore the person and we get to really catch up because it's been a while. I mean, it wasn't just the pandemic as well.

Speaker 1 2:01

I'm so nostalgic about the early 90s, not just my youth, not just my glory days, but this sort of cultural shift that made me who I am. And I'm going to pick his brain about that. Maybe I imagined it all, we don't know, but I'm kind of looking forward for that reason. He is a big, huge influence on my trajectory as a storyteller, an artist, a creative and a human being and that's not an exaggeration.

Speaker 1 2:27

Okay, after graduating Art Center College of Design, pasadena, california, in 1982, I moved to New York City and began illustrating for America's most prominent publishers of books, magazines and newspapers. I'm going to add in my memory it was literally like Sports Illustrated, time Magazine, playboy, all the big ones. Two decades later, I worked as a concept designer on feature CG, animated and live action films such as the Ant Bully, the Golden Compass, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Escape from Planet Earth. I consider myself a cross-disciplinary artist and love to work in different mediums, from high-touch to high-tech I love that phrase Paint to pixels, photography to film, books to music. I founded the educational service Artist as Brand to inspire and nurture art career sustainability. Living in Santa Fe, new Mexico, with wife artist, botanical perfumer Roxana Villa Villa or Villa, I don't know of illuminated perfume keeps me in tune with my essential nature and is always a creative adventure. Welcome, greg Spelenka.

Speaker 3 3:40

Hello, hello. Pleasure and honor and fun to be here with you. To, yes, to catch up and talk about all sorts of fun things, woohoo.

Speaker 1 3:54

I look forward to it. Did I get anything wrong in the bio? Is it Villa or Villa?

Speaker 3 3:59

You can. Yeah, Villa, that works. Yeah, Roxanna Villa, that is correct.

Speaker 1 4:04

Well, let me start by saying I envy you for living in Santa Fe. From all I hear, I think I've been through there, but I haven't really spent time there. But my sister literally just says it's magical, it's right, the just the energy.

Speaker 3 4:19

Is it? Is it? Is that an exaggeration? No, that's it. That is very true. Actually, like I said, you know we talk about story. This is all about stories. The story of leaving Los Angeles after being there for decades and coming to Santa Fe was quite a bit. It was a gigantic move for me, roxanna. Well, this kind of goes back. I guess I'll go back just briefly. La was turning into a bit of a slog and so we decided to sell the house and then move to Santa Fe. Well, move somewhere else. And she, roxanna, really felt like Santa Fe was going to be a great place. So I like to say I followed the goddess Santa Fe. And with that there was a lot of learning. There's still some adjustment. We've been here about six years now, which is hard to believe that it's been that much time already. But I will say that there is a magic in the land here, you know there's this quality, indigenous cultures.

Speaker 3 5:31

There is also this quality of the earth and the sky. You know I was really missing the ocean, you know in California and LA big time. But I realize here now the sky is the ocean.

Speaker 3 5:48

I mean it's truly magnificent and so the energies are different. Santa Fe, under itself is, is very much an art town. It's full of healers. Um, you know, and once you start diving into, like, the history of New Mexico and you know, there's a lot of atrocities and a lot of suffering here that went down way back to even before the Spaniards came and before the white man came. Lots of difficulty, even between tribes, but then a lot of just sort of I want to say what's the word like, kind of there were violent episodes here, and this is what I bring this up is because it's surprising that the town itself is such a peaceful and more of a nurturing place. So it's like somehow the earth somehow like just took that, soaked all that up right and and and then let me ask you a question then, because I had about 12 things I wanted to say throughout.

Speaker 1 7:06

You know so much, it's so loaded, uh, and I guess no, I'll take that opportunity. I just want to ask, for example, I was born in 1968 and I share that birthday with a very dear friend, the mother of my godson. So every year we give not every year, but often we give one another cards like here's what happened in 1968. And you'll see Time magazine covers about, you know, the DNC. I mean the DNC protests, which were really significant. You know Martin Luther King was assassinated that year. Rfk right, yeah, robert, not John was assassinated that year. A lot of strife, a lot of upheaval, but obviously strife signals change. So there was a lot of growth, you know. And then the next year was Woodstock and the moon landing. So like I use that as an illustration Like our human potential came out of that strife in a way. So anyway, maybe that's going on there where all that character resulted from the strife. I didn't know about that, was it the Pueblo Indians or what tribes are we talking?

Speaker 3 8:10

about. Well, they have the Tiwa. They have lots of different tribes in this area. That's what's fascinating. So I'd say one of my biggest lessons from living here is that I didn't realize how ignorant I was about indigenous culture and that their you know, history is written in the books by the victors.

Speaker 2 8:30

If you want to say that.

Speaker 3 8:32

So they've been marginalized tremendously. I mean throughout the United States and a lot of parts of the world, of course too. It is amazing to feel and to experience this sense of this healing power of the land here, and that's what I say. In the earth and the sky is this connection between heaven and earth oh, beautiful. And so there is this quality. It's tangible and intangible. But I can say at the end of the day, it's just so much more relaxing here and peaceful, and people come. And I'll say this much too that I do really feel that it recalibrated my nervous system and it took me, it took a few months after being here to sort of settle in, and with that it was like I realized, it was like, oh my God, I'd been living in, you know, urban culture, you get habituated to it right and chronic anxiety becomes the norm.

Speaker 1 9:35

Exactly, and it was like I was dumbing down my nervous system, but you don't know it because you're Sorry, I have to interject because I am the guy who notices it, and you know, know, I grew up I this is something I wanted to say a moment ago like the desert is in my blood. I come from a line line of miners, prospectors, geologists, and we wow, oh, my whole childhood was spent in the desert and actually that's why I love virginia's state of utah, because it's gorgeous, right, fuck the grand canyon, go to zion, go to bryce, it's a beautiful strawberry. Fuck the Grand Canyon, go to Zion, go to Bryce, it's a beautiful strawberry reservoir. And so I'm sure, and I, yeah, new Mexico is the same way, it's so beautiful to look at. But I guess I was just going to say like I'll, I'll sit on the you know the patio at my favorite coffee shop and nobody else notices.

Speaker 1 10:23

Nobody notices the jackhammer, and then the car alarms. And it drives me batty, but I think it says a lot that nobody, even it, doesn't register at all, and so, yes, I am right behind you. I'll be in San Jose momentarily.

Nature and Silence in Urban Life

Speaker 3 10:40

Yes, please come visit. But yes, we do what we need to do to survive and it's just unfortunate that the urban culture it doesn't have more balance in that regard. I mean, it is fascinating now, if I go back to visit Los Angeles, the driving on the freeways there it's like what is going on.

Speaker 1 11:02

God did not intend it.

Speaker 3 11:04

Yeah, six lanes this way, six lanes the other way and it's like you know, millions of cars spewing out. You know, the energy is ridiculous and I'm just thinking, oh my God, world out of balance. You know what was I thinking?

Speaker 1 11:19

Kiana Scottsey. Do you remember speaking of the early 90s? Do you remember Kiana Scottsey? Oh yeah, I Klejana.

Speaker 3 11:23

Skocie. Do you remember Speaking of the early 90s? Do you remember Klejana Skocie?

Speaker 1 11:25

Oh yeah, I think that's the tagline of that film, World Out of something like that oh well, that's it.

Speaker 3 11:29

And then what's really tragic is then you have millions and millions and millions of people that have had their nervous systems I want to say dumbed down or they numbed out right, they numbed out right and they're sort of living part lives because they are not able to. When you're back in nature, it really calibrates your system, I mean all the senses, and it's like your radar is expanded, it's like your perception gets expanded outward, of course Outward, toward infinity gets expanded outward, of course outward outward toward um infinity.

Speaker 1 12:06

Well, I think the you've mentioned the sky, like when you're in the city and your buildings are literally blocking your view of the sky. Yeah, when you get out and you see either the milky way from fucking horizon to horizon right, or you see this one cloud stacked upon the next to eternity, you do expand right and you ponder it's set up that way. You're supposed to ponder the cosmos when you can see them absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 3 12:31

You know there's a. There's a great story um with the earthquake. I think it was at the in 95. Oh yes, the la earthquake and I, and, and, and, and. It was all that devastation. I think it was in 95. And all that devastation throughout the valley and what it did is, if you recall, Every light went out. Yeah it knocked out all those transformers and there were people calling in to the police departments and saying something has happened to the sky. Something has happened to the sky. The earth is ending.

Speaker 1 13:05

Because, they could see the stars for the first time, right, you know and I have told that story many times. I had two male roommates and we were all standing in the doorway in our underwear that's just for the visual of it. And yeah, every um, yeah, the transformers. Every dog in the valley was barking right, but the stunning thing that they didn't recognize was the Milky Way. Nobody was used to seeing it. What is?

Speaker 3 13:33

that. So ultimately, at the end of the day, what's really tragic is that you have kids that grow up in that environment, never even seeing the sky. I know that there's, I forget what organization is that takes kids from the inner city there in la and takes them to the beach. Some of those people haven't even don't even know that there's an ocean yep, you know I mean so simple, the simple um healing powers of nature.

Speaker 3 13:59

Uh, they've definitely recalibrated me and it's amazing, like right now. So we live in this place, which is called the Royal Hondo, which is about 15 minutes away from downtown Santa Fe, and it's funny. I say downtown because it's like a town. It is like a town, it's a city, it's like a small city, but it feels very human, I guess you could say so. We live outside the city, about a 15-minute drive, and it's just so quiet, it's so quiet.

Speaker 1 14:38

Remember that, remember silence.

Speaker 3 14:40

Yeah, yes, exactly silence, and so I'll do my. I go outside, I do my naked yoga out there Good for you, not when it's snowing, right right. So that I would have to say that probably one of the more difficult parts for me has been is snow and winter, you know, I mean, I'm a California boy Through and through.

Speaker 3 15:03

Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, I'm a California boy and even though I lived in New York, you know, for those eight years, but I've not really been the. My body type likes warm and hot, and so when it comes to the cold, it's like here, it's like almost, it feels like it's six months of winter, it's like blaze.

Speaker 1 15:21

I will throw this in the mix, though. Like I've said, when it's hot you can only take so many clothes, you can't take your skin off, but when it's cold you can bundle up. So I actually prefer cold cold to extremely, especially muggy, right, because you can bundle up, but you can't take your skin off okay, I mean, I see your point, but it's the same to add pop.

Speaker 3 15:45

Maybe I'd like to be just native. I'll go into native.

Speaker 1 15:51

I want to back up a little bit, just because it is actually very much in the spirit of this podcast. I do think we're starved for silence, right? I mean Rilke, you might have even assigned that to me. But Rilke, letters to young poets, says you know, all true inspiration comes from solitude. So I would agree. As an artist, it's like we thrive on figurative silence, not literal right Silence. And Eckhart Tolle, have you ever read the Power of Now?

Speaker 3 16:20

I haven't read that, but I'm very familiar with him and a lot of his.

Speaker 1 16:23

Yeah, just kind of like being in the moment. Philosophy, yeah. So I actually just hear me out on this one. I, when I'm president, the first thing I'm going to do away with. First thing I'll do away with is noise pollution, and then second is literally visual pollution. You know, la is the only city really with above ground power lines, above line, above ground telephone lines, and it's visual pollution. So now in my head I'm imagining someone saying yeah, but that's really not a priority when you've got this social ill and that one and all these wars waging. And I very seriously would say but how about if there was less mental illness in the first place? Then we wouldn't have all this strife. So if we cared about aesthetics, if we cared about silence and we cared about, you know, aesthetics meaning get rid of the visual pollution, probably less aggression across the board, less chronic anxiety, less PTSD and less wars. And I'm not kidding.

Speaker 3 17:23

Absolutely Well, there's something to be said about. Once again, it's an inside-out job. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it really is about the peace within you and finding what that is and know thyself and connecting to the deeper source of who we are, and the one beautiful part about being in nature is that it allows that, it allows some semblance of that, even if you're in the mountains, in this wind, like here. What is another aspect of this area which is really powerful is you do have the desert. Yeah, it's um that, all the different facets of the desert. But then you also have the mountains. You know we're here.

Speaker 3 18:11

They have the uh, segre de cristo mountains, where they got ski slopes and everything, and you go up there and it's a totally different environment but whether you're in the desert and you're meditating, or if you're praying, or you're using that as a a means of um connecting yourself, you know, to the earth, to, to the, to the universe, to um those powerful aspects that are throughout all of nature, whether it's in the desert or in the mountains, you know, in the mountains you're up there and you get the wind coming through the trees and it's just like, oh my god, it's like the whispering of the ancestors throughout the ages. It's so powerful, but you know it just lightens you up.

Speaker 1 18:52

There's a different outcome when you're in the mountains and I think of the desert as very sterile and very cleansing spiritually. Right, but then in the mountains it's almost like that lack of oxygen transports you somewhere else.

Speaker 3 19:05

I feel that you get it, you both, both places complement.

Speaker 1 19:10

Yeah, but I thought you were hinting that there's a different, a slightly different.

Speaker 3 19:14

Oh yeah, well, the fact that you have, in this area you have differences in the environment. You know the actual physical environment, but the point being, ultimately, is that it is the nature of things, and in urban environments that's stripped out, of course, you know what do they plant. You know they plant a lot. I mean, it's essentially, it's a concrete jungle.

Speaker 1 19:34

Right right.

Speaker 3 19:35

New York, LA, any of the urban places. We'll stick a little park over here with some green grass. I mean, what that's not?

Speaker 1 19:43

Well, I lived in Manhattan, you lived in Manhattan. I remember going deep, deep, deep in the Ramble. You know that really wooded part of central work. I went there with my sketchbook and I'm like I'm going to go as deep. I never lost sight of a human being, Not once. So I go to Brooklyn for some peace and quiet.

Speaker 3 20:01

Yeah, oh, for some peace and quiet, yeah, oh okay, I was gonna say maybe a little yeah in the context of what peace and quiet would be in an urban environment.

Speaker 1 20:10

Right, but for the most part you're not well, I do think central park is really beautiful. I love central park, but I never lost sight of a human yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 20:18

Well, that's part of it and you still will get the noise. Like you said, the noise. Oh yeah, and then also just the energy of the place there is. You know, they call it the city that never sleeps, right.

Speaker 1 20:32

I say, the pigeons are even on crack, the pigeons are even in a hurry.

Speaker 3 20:37

Yes, it's really the truth, and thank God they designed that park into that city. Can you imagine if they didn't have that? Talk about a sprawling metropolis, I mean that would be. You'd have probably a lot more psychosis there than you do now. Right, and and even in an environment like, yeah, if you're in the city or in LA, if you have even a small backyard, you can create that for yourself too.

Speaker 1 21:12

But it's the energy, like you said, it's all pervasive.

Speaker 3 21:15

Yes, I just, they're all the time.

Speaker 1 21:20

You know I to agree with something you said a moment ago. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but obviously we're meant. And Virginia often says what not get your hands on the earth? But what is it? You do touch grass.

Speaker 2 21:30

Yeah, I go touch the grass and it's funny because I've been listening to Greg the whole time as he's talking. Not to stir away from me for a second, dominic, but I mean because I'm a native, born California, out of LA girl myself, okay, myself even though I live from Central down, but I moved. I moved here about 18 years ago.

Speaker 3 21:52

I followed my husband for his career, and it was actually between New Mexico, cause my family is out of New Mexico is where they come from and literally that location in Roswell, or it was here in St George, but I it did.

Speaker 2 22:02

it took me a while to acclimate to it, but once I did, I even my spiritualism changed like that's. That was the starting point of like this, the switch flip for me, and and rehoning, you.

Speaker 1 22:15

You do know she lives in saint george utah right, craig, did you guys cover that?

Speaker 3 22:20

oh no, I know you. Oh, so you live there now. Oh well, I live there now. Oh well, utah's well, I know well. Saint george is. Yeah, I'm guessing it's similar to santa fe, the oh no, I know, oh, so you live there now. Oh well, utah isn't I live there now. Oh well, utah isn't. Well, I know Well.

Speaker 1 22:25

St George is. I'm guessing it's similar to Santa Fe. The rock formations, it's just all those iron oxide stained formations.

Speaker 2 22:34

And I do when I need to rehone myself. I will literally will go out barefoot and I always say go touch grass. But it's, yeah, but it's, it's literally getting my feet into the natural soil and yes, yeah, well, the anecdote I was going to tell.

Speaker 1 22:48

The reason I brought that up is uh, it's back to something Greg said a minute ago. I have a very dear friend, diane, and again, all my stories are coming from the early nineties for some reason. But she had just divorced, you know. So there was a lot of processing going on and for some reason we took a trip to Yosemite and she literally just the tears streamed. It wasn't even attached to a thought, but it is so cleansing right that the toxins just surface. And, yeah, it was really beautiful. It was beautiful to watch her cry.

Speaker 3 23:21

Yeah, oh, that's sweet. And so you mentioned touching grass. You know there's the concept of earthing, which I'm sure you're both. Are you familiar with earthing?

Speaker 2 23:31

I am.

The Art of Earthing and Creativity

Speaker 1 23:32

Yes, not so much. I've heard some Japanese traditions about getting back to nature and hugging trees, that sort of thing. What is earthing exactly?

Speaker 3 23:38

Earthing is all about essentially being barefoot, having your feet um grounding on to the earth so that there is the human resonance. There is a resonance and a vibration, an energy that comes the earth is always producing this, and when we wear shoes, especially if they're rubber soles, excuse, they insulate you from that vibration. And so it's important, if you can do it, you know that you can. Even you know that you're somehow connected, at least a part of the day, to the planet.

Speaker 1 24:18

that way, there's a lot of health benefits to it and it's once again, it's about being human as you say, my brother and I must have known that as ragamuffins in burbank because we would develop pads on our feet. Oh yeah, literally never wearing shoes but we were also like trash. We were nobody recognized it as earthing and we were before our time, clearly.

Speaker 3 24:40

Oh yeah no, I said, well, even the concept of summer vacations is I don't know. Know if kids have that anymore. They have these, they have that system all set up now where it's in blocks of time and and so, like the idea that you're going to take three months off like we did, you know, which was amazing, right, and it's like, and I'll remember and I never forget, that when you would start summer vacation, one of the first things was to start to go barefoot again. Oh, it was always in those first two weeks or so it was like right, ow, ow, ow, ow, right, right, like I said, you fill up the calluses and then you're like running around like a, like a banshee much to our mother's chagrin.

Speaker 3 25:22

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, but that was also what was amazing too. I'm getting off topic here a little bit, but the idea that you know I grew up in Arcadia, california. I grew up in a large Catholic family, three boys, three girls. We were just like the Brady Bunch. I was the oldest, greg, right, but we were nothing like the party punch did you have beads for?

Speaker 1 25:46

did you have a bead curtain for your bedroom, like greg brady had? Oh, no, yeah, no, no, that was groovy, that was the only.

Speaker 3 25:53

That was the only, I mean, you know. And my parents weren't divorced, they were together. But the point is, um, we were similar but we had nothing to do with them because we was like barely controlled chaos, I mean. It just always was just insane, insanity all the time. With all these kids we were all born, one after another.

Speaker 1 26:15

Yeah, my mom had four kids in five years.

Speaker 3 26:19

Oh, my God. Oh, there you go. I don't know if that was the trend at the time or what, but you know so. Hence the neighborhood. No, but I think. I don't know if that was the trend at the time or what, but you know so. Hence the neighborhood. And especially, you know that time in the 60s. I was born in 58, so 60s.

Speaker 1 26:32

Wow, you're exactly 10 years older. I was wondering about that. You're exactly 10 years older, okay.

Speaker 3 26:39

But yeah, so the neighborhood was full of kids. So you know, summer vacation came and my mom was just like get out of the house.

Speaker 1 26:46

Exactly summer vacation came and my mom was just like get out of the house.

Speaker 3 26:48

Exactly, don't come home until nightfall, and that's exactly what we would do. You would just disappear, right, you know, and it now everybody's obsessed with, like you know, paying attention to every single minute they have ankle bracelets, don't they? Oh my god, they put chips in their heads now oh, it's freaking insane, I know right, whereas for us it was like it was like you know, and we just go, we disappear, and it's like you make sure you're back here for dinner.

Speaker 1 27:09

Right, exactly.

Speaker 3 27:10

You know that type of thing there was. It was remarkable times, you know. We were playing sports and doing things and falling out of trees.

Speaker 1 27:21

And drinking from the garden hose, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 27:25

All of it, and I think there was something really beautiful about that freedom and it gave us a certain amount of courage.

Speaker 1 27:33

Well, how about imagination? I'm going to get back to creativity, like actually Earth's imagination, whereas absolutely even the Legos got to the point where it's like you don't even need to build it, you've got the car seat, you've got the Empire State Building right, there's no inventing going on.

Speaker 3 27:49

Yeah, I mean, in either case, there was a certain amount of freedom I think that was there, which now you just don't see everybody's obsessed with like protecting their kids and things like that. I don't know what's up with all of it, other than maybe society's gotten a little crazier. But yes, the creativity we're always making up our own games all the time and just playing. And for me, you know, the art early on was there and just another. If you want to pull me out of this, out of the conversation, just let me know. But I'm kind of going off here, but I think this all sort of will make sense too, so you know. So I grew up in the big can't, the big family, but we're catholic too, right, and so it was interesting with that and my parents were hardcore Catholics and it's like you know, church every Sunday and getting everybody dressed and it was that unto itself. Herding cats into church every Sunday was a bit insane and it was interesting. I mean, for a while there I thought, oh, I was an altar boy, I was in a Catholic school for like my first two years, first and second grade, and I thought, oh, could I become a priest? There was a spiritual part of me, right, but as much as I mean I didn't, I wasn't so much into what they were. The church was about right.

Speaker 3 29:20

What I loved is where the church that we were at. There was this beautiful, almost not a cathedral, but it had all the stained glass. The art in the church is what I loved. You know, the candles. There was like all the facets of the architecture the stained glass, the candles, the incense, even the robes, the candles, the incense, even the robes. You know, there was this like fantastical facet to it. You know, the robes, the costumes, it's like this big piece of theater, yep, and I love that. I absolutely love that part. But I mean, inside myself, I knew there was always something else going on, that beyond all that, yeah, I think it was an intuition.

Speaker 1 30:10

I was going to say you know, I had my time of, of course, in our 20s, in college, you probably all of us went through our institutionalized religion bashing a little bit, but I did come full circle and I thought you know, yes, the word has been corrupted in a lot of ways, but there were earnest intentions here and there. When you go yeah, when you go to the Vatican, what's it called?

Speaker 3 30:36

Yeah, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 30:38

Rome yeah, oh, st Peter's Cathedral. Yeah, like any, really any abbey, any Catholic abbey, you're like, wow, this space was designed to transport you and you can see how. You know what I mean. It elevates you to a spiritual place, yeah.

Speaker 3 30:53

Absolutely so. Long story short with that is that I always knew inside me, I like to say that I had this interior cathedral inside of my spirit, inside of my brain and my heart, and I knew there was always something else going on, and I was always having these other kind of mystical experiences that would just let me know that there was something going on beyond the catholic church. And so, um it, you know, and so I've, through my life, I've had that journey of seeking and under, trying to understand more deeply what is really truly going on and uh, it says, and that, and now my path is more in the context of meditation, um, deep meditation, um. But you? But what I have been able to understand? I mean, I'm a fervent believer in reincarnation, I'm positive, I was a monk in many past lifetimes and I think this gravitation toward grand structures like cathedrals, beautiful churches, I guess you could say art that is designed around this concept of creating spirit in physical form, whether it's a building, whether it's a statue, whether it's.

Speaker 1 32:12

It's like incarnating right. It's incarnating the spiritual, the metaphysical, yeah yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 32:18

Yeah, you're making physical. You're making physical the spiritual.

Speaker 1 32:23

Well, ayn Rand calls it bringing the conceptual realm into the perceptual realm. Right, what you do as an image maker and I want to get to that you know the conceptual process of creating images. You are creating percepts out of concepts absolutely, it's like you're creating.

Speaker 3 32:40

This is what's so amazing about art and artists and people that you're creating something out of nothing. In some respects, right, it's mind stuff. You want to call it mind stuff, spiritual stuff. Somehow, however, you can connect a source. You have all that ancestral DNA. You have the physical being of who you are, your brain, have your, the physical being of who you are, your brain, um, and, of course, depending on how you want to look at it, from a very just uh, the the makeup of the human body, or if you connect it into the spirit, you realize that there are these channels of information and, however, you can pull, pull that through and then, with a pencil and be able to actually sketch or draw or create something out of nothing. You know these ideas and these concepts and then inspire the world you know in so many different ways.

Speaker 1 33:36

It's like we're all like little gods and goddesses right, absolutely, while we're conduits, you know, I mean, I agree, I agree with you. You know, a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea that we have divinity in us or, you know, god has to be separate and he's got to be on a cloud with a white beard and it's like actually we're extensions of collective consciousness, right, and I agree with you that we're all little antennas and conduits or whatever you want to call it that, that universal intelligence, that wisdom. But I do want to I think we're, for our listeners. I want to back up a little bit because this is beautiful stuff, but I want to give it some context. So I have a question for you Again.

Conceptual Art vs Narrative Representation

Speaker 1 34:17

You are an image maker and I'd love for you to talk about your process, like you're saying, of I don't want to put words in your mouth, but sort of being inspired and then sort of executing that meaning bringing it into the perceptual realm, right, but there's something I want to kind of define for our listeners, I and tell me if I'm wrong, but again, when I and I am so nostalgic about the early 90s, when I met you and I was in your class and it seemed like editorial, conceptual illustration was a rather new phenomenon, right, I believe you and Erisman and Mahurin and the Brat Pack right of conceptual editorial illustrators kind of maybe brought a more fine art sensibility to print illustration. But I know now that's really not anyone's radar. I have some quotes from you actually, where you're you know you kind of opened some people's eyes that actually images can be conceptual. It's like it's not even on their radar. So am I wrong about what I just said? And then, if not, what is conceptual art versus narrative? Do you parse between conceptual and strictly narrative?

Speaker 3 35:26

That's an interesting question.

Speaker 1 35:29

That's what I paid to learn at ArtCenter, in my recollection. I paid to learn how to think, and conceptually.

Speaker 3 35:40

If yes, well, you know, if you just look at the history of art, right, if you go back to, even to like the earliest cave paintings, where they were just putting their handprints or they were somehow creating representations of bison or animals, people hunting, if you go all the way back to then, in some respects it's like they were trying to capture a moment, a narrative in a way, but at the same time there's also the belief that they were attempting to capture the spirit of that moment Through symbology.

Speaker 3 36:14

Almost these were symbols of animals really Exactly, and so it's like that was sort of a little bit of both. And as you go through the history you can go, you know you can sit throughout all of history, if you can just imagine everything from Middle Ages to Renaissance to more modern culture, turn of the century, where things became much more representational, and then of course you moved into, like modern art, more abstractions, and then in the commercial, yet it wasn't abstraction there from the get-go as well.

Speaker 1 36:49

Those hands right? Yes, maybe they were just showing off for the women of the tribe, like hey, I can, I can blow air through this straw and create an imprint of my hand. Maybe it was just to get chicks right, but it seems like a representation of humanity.

Speaker 2 37:03

Well, who knows?

Speaker 1 37:04

but it I think there was abstraction from the very beginning, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 37:08

Yeah, sure, sure you can. I mean even just by putting paint on a canvas, whether it's representational or not. I mean this is an interesting thought. So there's this amazing book called the Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Dr Leonard Schlein. I know, yeah.

Speaker 1 37:26

My sister worships him. Yes.

Speaker 3 37:29

Oh my God, he's amazing.

Speaker 1 37:30

That book is a masterpiece, but he told me the title one more time, just for my sister.

Speaker 3 37:35

It's called the Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Dr Leonard Schlain Right Schlain, yes, and I bring it up because he talks about how you know literacy. When literacy was brought into any culture throughout the world through his research, there was created tremendous chaos and craziness and misogyny and women's rights were just diminished and destroyed. And it's because it went from generally. Cultures went from a predominantly right brain usage to a left brain. It switched it over, you know, or there was more.

Speaker 1 38:15

Was that the end of matriarchy? Is that when patriarchy took hold?

Speaker 3 38:18

basically yeah well, that's right. This is his theory and it makes a lot of sense that the literacy through the alphabet and through the strings and lines of type, that it moved it to the left brain side, which is more abstract thinking, whereas with the right side of the brain is more oral audio speaking. You're speaking in memory. It's a totally different paradigm. Um, but uh, he talks. This is the part I was wanting to bring up. He said that until, um, until you had a literacy, he goes.

Speaker 3 38:59

Perspective in art actually came about on a flat surface right the idea of the concept of perspective.

Speaker 2 39:08

Right.

Speaker 3 39:09

Painting, drawing, you know, was pretty much. You didn't see that until when literacy became more predominant. Then this concept of perspective was also in line with that, and he said that cultures that were not literate, when they would look at a piece like a painting or a drawing that had perspective, they couldn't see it. They couldn't see.

Speaker 1 39:37

That reminds me a little bit of, from what I understand, like eastern art is very, was very graphic through many dynasties, right, yeah, and when they saw the chiaroscuro shading we call it on a figure, they thought it was dirt on the faces. And then there's tribes of pygmies that literally didn't, couldn't see the forest for the trees because they were always surrounded by trees exactly when they were brought out to a plane they called the buffaloes ants right.

Speaker 3 40:06

Because they had no concept of you know. So the way they, but he was saying that it was the left brain. Through that the left brain was able to understand the perspective, that more robust left brain through literacy that they could then understand perspective in a painting Right, whereas if you didn't have that, then it was harder for them to see it.

Speaker 1 40:28

It was just like— and the implications of that seem enormous. Are you saying that's when conceptual thinking came about, or conceptual image-making? What was the big shift?

Speaker 3 40:40

I think it's just more in the context of— Well, you know, that would be maybe kind of connected to it.

Speaker 1 40:50

Because language is symbolism. Right, it is just symbolism. It's a very figurative, imperfect science, right. Words are symbols for percepts.

Speaker 3 41:03

And then you string them together to create a sentence, and then the sentences create paragraphs and then onward. But I guess, ultimately, what I'm saying here is that you've got a narrative facet and we're talking essentially about imagery here, right, because art, of course, can be an infinite variety of forms, because art, of course, can be an infinite variety of forms, you know, but narrative versus conceptual. If we were to go to so before, I would say so. When I was going to school, right, I was. I graduated Art Center in 1982. All of us at that time, like I, went to school with Matt maheran, um, and he was one of my best friends, and he, um, he. Well, that's a whole a story I can get into, but I I did want to mention that we were influenced by a lot of the more recent um illustrators of the day, which, of course, brad holland was one of them, marshall erisman right, right um.

Speaker 1 42:03

John collier was one of them.

Speaker 3 42:04

Marshall Erisman, right right John Collier was one of them.

Speaker 1 42:07

But how—I thought you were right neck and neck with them, they were your mentors, in other words.

Transcendence in Artistry and Medium

Speaker 3 42:14

Well, we were sort of influenced by them, but I was also very much influenced by, like, the turn-of-the-century art, the symbolists, the Pre-Raphaelites. I loved that time. The symbolists, the Pre-Raphaelites, I loved that time. The Pre-Raphaelites had a tendency to be. They were kind of narrative, but also conceptual too, depending on the artist. But the conceptual part and I have to say, at least in the context of being at Art Center, that's a real pressure cooker, right. That oh yeah, yeah, not only do you have tremendous competition in there, but but they're really pushing you hard in the class.

Speaker 1 42:52

It's really hard to come up with a concept when you've got 12 other assignments and you right come up with them in your sleep because you don't have time to formulate your homework, right but, it's intense but I will say that, uh, you know Phil Hayes right. Yes.

Speaker 3 43:06

The department head of illustration at the time. I think I would actually say that he was one of the people that really pushed this concept of taking illustration, which, for the most part, was much more narrative, if you think about the golden age of illustration from.

Speaker 1 43:22

Andrew Wyeth, representational yes.

Speaker 3 43:24

Think of Rockwell, Andrew Wyeth, the whole golden age Line Decker. Yes, exactly, For the most part they're showing scenes of a specific event. It was later that you started to see more of the conceptual elements come in, and so for us at that time, I'd say Aerosmith Brad Holland was huge.

Speaker 1 43:50

Collier.

Speaker 3 43:51

Collier oh God, I'm blank on some of these other names, but those guys coming out of the late 70s, 70s and into the 80s that it was like whoa, this is. These guys are doing something different and Phil Hayes really pushed that.

Speaker 1 44:13

That makes sense yeah.

Speaker 3 44:14

And for us, being our, you know, young illustrators like OK, well, we'm going to go into just like technique, just a little bit Mm-hmm, that there was this attitude, that I know that myself, I know matt maherin had, that you really need to draw that thing and paint that thing and you don't cheat. It's a funny thing you don't cheat by using like a lucy let's say how far we've come, right right the lucy.

Speaker 3 44:51

Or or like, god forbid, you would like you project a slide and you'd right'd trace over the top of that. Or even using like a mechanical tool, like an airbrush. It's like, no, god forbid, you draw that thing, you paint that thing, you make it real, you make it alive, you tell your story that way.

Speaker 1 45:15

But the funny thing is Well, well, can I read a quote of yours, though on that front I have a little quote here. I, I insist on yes yes, because I do. I'll tell you I've. I I've wasted a lot of time feeling like oh my god, I can't photo bash, god forbid, I photo. I got to paint the thing right, and then the whole world has changed. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 45:44

Oh yeah, I want to talk about this.

Speaker 1 45:46

Let me just read your quote, really quick because I think getting your hands in the clay is a lost art in a way, if that makes sense. And what I love about your work is the sensual tactile quality. Right, it's very much about surface, but you know what it's also symbolically about seeing through all those layers, like etched glass, right, and there's this sort of depth, literal and figurative depth that comes from all that surface activity. So, if that makes sense, that is what I love about your work. And I think it is missing, of course, in some digital image making and it's certainly lost in AI. So I'm just letting you know we need you.

Speaker 1 46:25

And then your quote is I love the tactile quality of a pencil moving against the surface of paper. It connects my mind with the world of image potentiality. I love that. And that is what AI does, too, right, it creates order out of chaos. By the way, many of my early sketches are indiscernible scribbles and smudged lines, yet slowly they declare their secrets. I can love that too. The initial idea is born from those primal marks on paper. Anyway, I had to get that in there. Is that related to what we're talking about? A little bit, that's nice.

Speaker 3 46:58

Did I write that? That's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 47:03

Yeah, I think that was you.

The Power and Purpose of Art

Speaker 3 47:05

Well, okay, I'd like to premise this with for me, what makes great art are three aspects mind, body, spirit. Mind being the idea and the concept that the body being the materials that you're using, whatever they may be. And then the spirit is your, your, your soul, essence, that, your love, your, your intense passion in the piece. And when you, when you have those three elements working at a high level of expertise, you reach what I call it um, um, a transcendence. You, you transcend the sum of its parts, right and so that, ultimately, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, that's what I'm looking for is, whatever materials I'm using, you know, it's, it's like there's still just materials, whether it's a pencil, whether it's paint, whether it's a Photoshop, or whether it's, you know, and and even the world of AI, which I'll I'm not going to get into that right now, but it's like your personal vision.

Speaker 3 48:13

That's another episode. I think it's like your personal vision, right, and how you bring your ideas to that. When I talk about it being an inside-out job, you start from the deepest levels of who you are, into your heart, into your brain, into your soul, and bring that to the surface. And when you do that, then you have made a mark. It's it's like it's a mark of transcendence that is very much connected to you, um, and it's beyond you at the same time. And if you've really pulled it together, you have that synergy I call a synergy of transcendence. It's like this amazing thing happens and so at that point I don't care, and you know this to be true. All great art has that. And you have you ever noticed like you're walking through a museum and you see something it could be a painting, a sculpture and it like it just pull. It's like it pulls you physically, like a magnet?

Speaker 3 49:12

to it and you want to see deeper into, you want to see the details, you want to touch it a lot in a lot of respects and and that's what you want it's like you're, you're, you're tapping in deeply to the human condition, but even beyond that.

Speaker 1 49:27

So the materials, I call it inspiration, right. So if we're surrounded by vacuous content all day, every day, and nothing grabs our attention, my premise is like it's actually inspiration that transcends. I like what you said. All those three things align right. It's like it came through you because it was inspired by the universe, if that makes sense. So my fear is and I love this conversation, but my fear is, with so much content that is propaganda or campaigning or it's meant to open your pocketbook, right, not your heart or your mind, and there's just a lot of content that the public is almost losing its gauge of what constitutes art, what is artistic integrity or literary value, if that makes sense. What is artistic integrity or literary value, if that makes sense, or merit. All those are very elitist words, right. But I want to hear later about how you see the future of image making, because I do feel like, culturally, we are Lucy in the candy shop. You know we've.

Speaker 3 50:44

That has the inspiration behind it that has the right intentions still can compete for attention. Does that make sense? Well, yes, today, as we know, once again, look throughout you, look at history. Today we are bombarded by imagery. Image-saturated society, they say. I mean it's gone. It's funny because in the book the Alphabet Versus the Goddess, he talks about how literacy really destroyed the image. It was about knocking out the image and in fact, during those times, you know you're talking back at the very beginning of literacy, back, you know, thousands, thousands of years ago, when it started to come up, that there was a battle between the word and image and so was Protestantism already afoot or no?

Speaker 3 51:36

That was. That was that kind of yeah, no, yeah.

Speaker 1 51:39

Because you know the lack of iconography. It would be interesting if that was a product.

Speaker 3 51:44

Oh yeah, yes, oh no, it absolutely. Was it destroyed? There was a battle between image and word and word won out after for a long time. That's why it created tremendous chaos throughout society and the thing is around the planet. But now what you've seen happen over, I say, last few hundred years, you know when you did advent of photography, yes.

Speaker 3 52:10

And more painting. Even in the Renaissance there is this pendulum stutter, then a swing back toward image and hence this concept of the goddess returning, which a lot of my personal work is around those concepts.

Speaker 1 52:25

That's where the pre-Raphaelite stuff comes in too.

Speaker 3 52:28

And so what's happening is now it's swung so far back. It may have even gone too far, we'll see but it definitely we're bombarded, and so I think we do uh have a tendency to lose uh sight of what is really important, what has value, um, and and so yeah, like images are losing their potency because we're so yeah exactly, it's just everywhere, everywhere.

Speaker 3 52:54

And and now also the video, the moving, moving image. So there's something that you know, there's a still image by itself has its own power and the idea that you could, you know, for instance in a museum, like some of these large paintings, that you would go to and you would just sit in front of them and it would just tell their story and they would almost become a meditation unto themselves. Right, but you're talking before any kind of tv or right right you know that type of thing, then that's what people would do.

Speaker 3 53:26

You know they would. Just, it was like their tv right now, of course, um, and that was the power, but now of course it was interactive too right, whereas maybe cinema and television is a little less interactive.

Speaker 1 53:39

It doesn't demand as much of you. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 3 53:42

Well, I would say it had more to do with an element of time and how you're focusing your attention, because you know to sit in front of, say, it's a large—say let's say church. You know, did all the large landscape paintings? You know Edward Church? No, oh God, I'm pulling a blank on this first thing. He's in a Metropolitan Museum of Art. He's all over the place, but he would go to these different countries, do sketches, come back and make these massive paintings and then they would have these openings where they would unveil the painting. People would pay to go in to see the painting. You know, I mean, it's a fascinating idea that you would charge for somebody to come in to see the painting right and they sit down and they would just look at this piece.

Speaker 3 54:29

You know, it was like a theater, um, and, but the idea that you could do that, you know, and just with the still image, there was something really profound about that, um. But now, uh, because of the bombardment of so much stuff, this, I mean, it might be nice to bring that concept back again.

Speaker 1 54:46

Well, it's like a meditation, yeah, I think that, um, we're, we have cultural ADD and you could argue that like the quick editing of MTV. I remember when that first came along, people were shocked and then it's been an arc toward like, oh, you got to have a ticker running at the bottom and a pop-up ad and literally you know, you go online and it's everything is competing for your attention. So I think it's been a steady arc toward bombardment, like sensory right of sensory stimuli, Whereas, yeah, single image and if you can just sort of meditate on it, it transports you to a very different place. So do you see us returning some potency? Does that make sense to stillness, or is it just going to be more and more bombardment?

Speaker 3 55:36

Well, right now, as we know, it seems to me that it's advertising running the show, so much money is in that area and if you think about it just in general, it's like this is what any of the social media that we have going on Ultimately. Even you go back to newspapers, right, it's always the advertisers that were running the show and this is why people don't realize but it's also people are more consumerist than ever.

Speaker 1 56:04

That's why I say the public are losing their gauge. It's really not content creators that are destroying our capacity to meditate on an image. It's the suckers out there that are more consumerist than ever.

Speaker 3 56:17

Yeah, but you have to understand that it's the money that's the driver. So, for instance, in advertising, this actually goes back a little bit to my career. So I chose to focus on editorial illustration because I always felt that there was the human element there that I was somehow. I did a lot of social political commentary early on and I always felt that a lot of dark stuff also, like looking at a lot of the wounds of humanity, but I always felt like this was the first step to healing. And so, even though those jobs didn't pay near as much as advertising, I always felt that to just create an image to sell a product was kind of empty. My heart wasn't into it.

Speaker 1 57:04

I call it rendering water droplets on a fruit.

Speaker 3 57:09

In fact, my horror story of my career was one $5,000 strawberry. Of my career was one $5,000 strawberry Well, it turned into that type of thing. It's like oh yeah, no, we want you to do your Spelanka painting and at the end of the day, it ended up a horror of a job, because it was like it turned out to be this photographic piece of a strawberry. It's like why did you hire me, right?

Speaker 1 57:34

right.

Speaker 3 57:38

But yeah, so I chose. I made a conscious decision because I felt that it was connected to my heart and I knew that that would sustain me longer and I just loved it. I felt it was important, it was for me, it was art with purpose, but I could have made a hell of a lot more money just doing five5,000 strawberries.

Speaker 3 57:54

It would have eaten my soul away, right. But the thing is the advertisers are the driver and if you think about it, even with all the magazines and newspapers and I think of all the publishers, it was the advertisers that were running the show, and today it's 100 times worse. You know, this gets a little bit into sort of the political facets of how those industries are run, but you know I worked for all the large publishers, as you said.

Speaker 1 58:27

Yes, yes.

Speaker 3 58:28

From the New York Times to Washington Post, la Times, all the biggest newspapers in the United States, all the biggest magazines, all the biggest publishers. And I can tell you right now, even back then in the united states, all the biggest magazines, all the biggest publishers. And I can tell you right now, even back then in the 80s, when I was doing that, there the lies I saw firsthand when I would, um, for instance, do portraits of people and on the cover they would be on be, they were being vilified on the cover of the, on the front page of the new york times, and I, and when I had to do their portrait and I was asking them, I said so what was that all about? And he said that was complete fabrication. He said that was a complete lie.

Speaker 1 59:04

Wow, and he's like what I'm going, so hillary did not have an alien baby I'm telling you yeah, well beyond that.

Speaker 3 59:11

I mean it's it's all about agenda. It was back, but now it's worse because all of these companies there's like a few, there's a handful of conglomerates that own all the newspapers. They've all been taken over, magazines, same thing, like Rolling Stone. Well, if you look at, journalism.

Speaker 1 59:31

Sorry to interrupt you. If you look at journalism the way I, the arc that I saw was even, you know, I was again 10 years younger than you, born in 68. And I do remember a day when, actually, you checked your facts right, you didn't have to be the first one to publish the story to beat right Whatever the other news organization to the punch. You actually had what's called self-regulation ethics, right. And also there was still the guys, at least the guys of unbiased reporting, objectivity, I think, with as much as I prefer CNN over the other options, right, cnn started it. Then you had MSNBC. Further left, then you had Fox news as the answer to that. Then you had Al Jazeera.

Speaker 1 1:00:14

So, the truth is out there somewhere. But you know what? Everybody has a daddy and it's actually getting worse, but I blame CNN.

Speaker 3 1:00:23

No, it's much worse and, um, and it's tragic and I'm really sad. It's sad for me to see it because you know, like I think, in the New York times, you know, in the past, when I was working for it, it's like they were they would fuck up sometimes, sometimes on purpose, right, because they had their agendas. Then too, and and you're talking about you, go back, it's from the advent of newspapers. You know advertisers and agendas by the government or just the paper itself and the people that were that own the paper. Um, but now it's, like I said, it's a hundred times worse and in fact it's. I can, I can't, I, I can't believe anything that's in those anymore.

Speaker 1 1:01:06

It's like well, and then you have. You have really do the research I have really dark rabbit holes now too, where conspiracy theories run amok.

Speaker 3 1:01:15

So yeah, well, there's a thing you would think well, so that's, that's the yeah, the benefit, and the the, as you said, the, the uh the, the bane of the internet yes, exactly, exactly is that you know, like this podcast, right, it's like this would have never been possible, say like 20 years ago. Right, it's like this would be not non-existent. But all of a sudden it's here and well, how about?

Speaker 1 1:01:39

this the truth. The truth is out there, but the burden is now on the consumer to watch al jazeera and msnbc and fox news and and then cobble it together and somewhere in there lies the truth, and then stop smoking pot and you won't buy every conspiracy theory and every rabbit hole online.

Perception and Reality

Speaker 3 1:01:58

Exactly. Well, I tell people more and more you know so much of it is just opinion. You know 99% of it is opinion. Life, yes, is an act of creation and that our view of reality is based upon our experiences and the biases with which we see the world yeah, of course it's like a lens.

Speaker 3 1:02:24

You wear a lens so sometimes you can have the truth right in front of you and it will not be. You're not going to see it or you're not going to believe it because it doesn't fit your paradigm. I, I mean, I have to tell you. You know my parents, right? So my parents were very conservative and very Republican and I was always very more liberal you want to say Democratic or whatever, but and I would go home and you know, know, I was living in new york working off all these magazines and publications and they would come back and they just go, all the liberal, all the all, they got all the um all the libtards yeah, all the bleeding heart.

Speaker 3 1:03:07

Liberals media is all liberal and in fact you know they lived in that we, they moved to mission viejo, I like to say behind the orange curtain, right, right and uh, they would get the registered newspaper which, in my opinion, from my experience, from working with all these magazines and newspapers, I had a pretty good sense as to where different publications were in the context of right to the left, or liberal or conservative or whatever. I had pretty because I was working for all of them. You know, I'd and it was fascinating, I'd get an article, the same article, from a conservative newspaper and liberal, the same one, and they'd want me to then skew it to be more liberal or more conservative.

Speaker 3 1:03:48

In either case, I would tell my parents. I would say hey, you know, actually, media is, media is not generally liberal.

Speaker 1 1:03:57

Right right.

Speaker 3 1:03:58

It's more conservative and it's because it's about money and advertisers. And they said oh, no, no. I said hey, I work for—and it's my parents. I work for all these—I've done pieces for all these, even the Orange County Register, I did work for them. And and they go oh no, no, no, no. You know, rush Limbaugh tells the truth Right right, right, you know, and, and, and.

Speaker 3 1:04:25

even now the Orange County Register is getting more liberal. And I go oh no, you don't. And so it didn't matter what I said, it did. My experience meant nothing to my parents Right, and so I thought you know, ok, you know what To keep the peace. I just cannot talk about this, and so I stopped that conversation.

Speaker 1 1:04:42

Good call, good call it helped a lot. I just you know I call it an intervention. I had a friend who's. You know we all live in a bubble to a degree, right. Right, you know, our parents can sometimes leave the TV on all of our parents and just take in Fox News all day every day, oh, my God and I had a friend who was like I just had to shut the TV off. It's called an intervention.

Speaker 3 1:05:08

Yeah, yeah. But at the same time that's why I go back to that perception is an act of creation. They had their view of reality and it's like, no matter what I said, no matter what my experience, whatever facts, it didn't matter, it was irrelevant. And I think this is just one of the challenges of being human on planet Earth, and this is why, more and more, I suggest to people you know, if you want to know the truth of something, you need to get as close to the source as possible.

Speaker 3 1:05:42

So don't go give me opinions, I don't care on any of them. You want to say Biden or Trump, I'm getting into political aspects there. I don't care, you know, go talk to them then. Or go talk to the people that are close to them, or get as close to them so you can find out. Then, or go talk to the people that are close to them, or get as close to them so you can find out where they live. I don't want to. Don't tell me, don't parrot information that's coming to me from some other article or somebody else's opinion, because that tells me nothing about I'm not getting any closer to the truth. So I say go out. But the plot, the challenge, as we know, is it's it's so hard. Everybody's just making a living these days trying to pay their bills. That is like it's hard for them to do that. You know, to go out and to do the extra effort, and most people are too damn lazy.

Speaker 1 1:06:25

Well, yeah, I'm not going to disagree with that, but I also think that there's a short sightedness, you know, I think even when it comes to oh, I vote for the lesser of evils, you know. And they're all corrupt. I'm sorry. There are plenty of politicians who are very earnestly devoting their lives and getting up off their ass and doing more than you or I have ever done to to change policy or to social evolution, and so I don't buy that thing of oh, they're all corrupt. It's like sure they might become corrupt and, you know, have earmarks and have lobbyists and succumb to lobbyists, or maybe they have a lifestyle to uphold.

Speaker 1 1:07:02

It does happen, but within reason, I don't know. I guess I was just saying that you got to tune out the noise, you know, and that that when you just say, oh, I'm worried about keeping a roof over heads and food on the table and I don't care about social issues, you know, a lot of our societal ills would heal themselves if we had a broader view and stopped just worrying about the economy, yeah, and started paying attention to the social issues. Does that make any sense?

Speaker 3 1:07:57

Oh yeah, absolutely, and started paying attention. Do the right thing. They're trying to be helpful. Sometimes they get completely lost. Sometimes they're mentally challenged with different like. I have a brother that's schizophrenic, you know and for decades we've all tried to help my parents and everything and he's still. We can't reach him wow, I that vaguely.

Speaker 1 1:08:23

I remember you talking about him now.

Speaker 3 1:08:25

Yeah, yeah yeah, so he's um and he's living in la, he's, he's existing and surviving somehow in there, but I cannot have you cannot have a just a normal conversation. So I just send him love and light as much as I can, um, but you know, there are some people that are just in that condition. Uh, I would say not, most are not that that deep into psychosis. But uh, yeah, I you know we could argue that this whole reality is like a dream and, depending on how you want to look at it from an astrophysicist standpoint, it's all energy, right, that it's all just bits and pieces that that piece of wood that you think is solid is actually just.

Speaker 1 1:09:10

you know protons and neutrons and you know how deep yeah, it depends how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go but you're everything you're I hate to say it, but you're reading from my book, so that's what it's all about yeah, that's what it's all about is really, when we say an awareness of story, when we say the vastness of story, right, that's what I'm talking about is we do create our reality.

Speaker 1 1:09:34

We were talking about living in do create our reality. We were talking about living in bubbles a moment ago, right, and so I would just call that confirmation bias, when your parents couldn't shift their view of things. It's like the alternative is cherry picking your facts right, applying confirmation bias to dig your heels in even further, but on a real, then you take a step back, and I'm agreeing with you If you look at cell biology and connect that with quantum mechanics, with the law of attraction, like we are creating our reality in a very real, empirical way, actually, because our apparatus, our sense organs, are taking in the data, but they're actually being reified, right, reified in a very different way than a dolphin who would use sonar, very different than a spider who would use a thousand eyes to do it, and you know what I'm saying. So the field of pure potential is being reified into one reality of many. Did you ever see what the Bleep out of Curiosity?

Speaker 3 1:10:34

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:10:35

Yeah, a long time ago, but we forget. Do you know what I mean? We're all just trying to function here, so we forget all the ways in which we create our own reality, right?

Speaker 3 1:10:46

If you look at the deeper spiritual, you know, for instance, saints and sages, especially a lot of Indian philosophies talks about the illusion, right Maya.

Speaker 1 1:10:58

Right, right right.

Speaker 3 1:11:00

That there is a force you know from spirit that creates reality. But it is, it's like a dream, and Maya's job is to show you that they think that this is real. You know that death when you die, I mean that's it. You know that this is real. You know that that death when you die, I mean that's it. You know that, that, that this reality is it man, and and so your pain, you know your struggles. Uh, whatever is happening around you is real and that's all you need to care about.

Speaker 3 1:11:30

Uh, but when you go deeper and if you can spend some time with, however, that's whatever that spiritual practice is for you, where you can go beyond the mind and beyond the Maya, then you begin to realize that there and I know you know because you're a meditator, right you tap into those deeper sources of knowledge and wisdom. And I think the windows, what is it? Blake said the windows, what is it? Blake said the windows of perception open. Yes, it's that third eye. You know those other dimensions that are there, that you have access to, but we're never taught these things.

Speaker 1 1:12:09

Culturally, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:12:10

No, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:12:11

We're all about well yeah, on the surface.

Speaker 3 1:12:14

We're living on the surface of things. You know, whether it's paying the bills, or it's like you know that steak I want to eat, or or there's that drug I want, or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 1:12:25

Well, I think it's very fashionable as well. So you, I loved hearing you say not to put words in your mouth, but it seems like Catholicism is in your blood from a very young age but it became a personal spirituality as a core component of your personality, not institutionalized religion, but it explains so much. You know, there's Catholic imagery in my work as well, because I actually now love ritual, right, and I love symbolism and iconography and all of that. But I guess my point is like I do think it's very fashionable to throw out the Virginia you've heard me say this throw out the spiritual baby with I'm sorry, yeah the institutionalized religion, bathwater. So do you know what I mean?

The Power of Concept in Art

Speaker 1 1:13:08

People think they're being smart and savvy by saying, oh, I'm agnostic, I'm an atheist, but something goes out with the bathwater. I don't know if that makes sense to you. Gnostic, I'm an atheist, but something goes out with the bathwater. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but it may have taken hold with empiricism, with this idea that science and faith are mutually exclusive, when actually they didn't used to be. The church was at the forefront of investigating the true nature of the metaphysical universe, if that makes sense. So you were talking about a kind of language, being a major shift to left brain, I believe. And maybe it's all connected, if that makes sense, like the when empiricism took hold of the public imagination, you started beheading people right and executing Copernicus and things like that, because it was not in step with the status quo that the Catholic church was enforcing. So I think it's been a steady arc, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 1:13:58

And now the way I put it is, there's a very good reason to be a disillusioned with, yes, institutionalized religion. A lot of bloodbaths, right From what the conquistadors to the crusades. A lot of bloodbaths in the name of religion. Yes, it was a bucked up way of using the word right, usurping the word itself, but and then you add to that like, oh, all these molestations. There's a lot of very good reason to turn your back on religion, but I see it as being connected. It's so fashionable to be empirical. People will say, oh, that's not scientific. They don't even really know what they're saying when they say scientific. I call it empiricism. Even in the scientific community, scientists acknowledge it's still consensus in the end. For your findings to be canonized, for your findings to be published, your peers have to approve it. That's called consensus.

Speaker 3 1:14:59

Yeah, consensus and of course, but you still ask questions even when you have consensus. True science is about asking questions. I'll say this much too You're familiar with Joseph Campbell? Yes, of course yes. And so there's a great book that he wrote called the Masks of God.

Speaker 1 1:15:19

Yes, of course Want to read that, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:15:21

And what I love about this—.

Speaker 1 1:15:22

I recommend it every week on this podcast.

Speaker 3 1:15:24

Oh, excellent. Well, what I love— what I love about the title of that book and, of course, a lot of his concepts, which are really all the masks right are the stories, they are the religions, they're these, they're these facets that are representing something right, they're telling their story. Are they what you, what they want you to believe? But it is until you pierce the mask that you reach the true mystery. And to me, this is where I feel that that I think that's genius, because I do believe there's a truth in that. That. All the religions you know, he says, and he said well, that last little part is that he says the tragedy, like what's happening in the middle east and most religious wars throughout history, is that all these religions, and when you get to the core, when you remove all the dogma and you get to the core of what they truly are about, they're all saying the same thing, they're all after the same thing, it's the same point of source, but they get caught on the we split hairs.

Speaker 1 1:16:52

We get caught on the we split hairs. We get caught on the On semantics.

Speaker 3 1:16:55

Yeah, and the exteriors of the words, or the way that the intellect may feel that the concept, how the concept needs to be explained. So this is why I think art can be where art can be so powerful and in its symbolism. There's sort of an ambiguity in that. And if you're able to create a piece of art or an image or whatever, however, you're doing it where it can get people thinking a little bit, you know to, to dive into the subconscious. Um, where the subconscious, as you know, it's like the guards come down right, the shields come down. If you can pierce beyond that left brain and somehow make that right turn into the right brain, then we've done our job Beautiful, especially if you're attempting to touch a deeper part of the being, of the human condition. That's the power in art, at the end of the day, and I think, in story also.

Speaker 1 1:18:01

Well, but I'm so glad you said that and that really resonates, because one of my questions for you was you know, I mean I actually my book was originally going to be called Word and Image Language of the Soul.

Speaker 1 1:18:14

But really word and image together are story, but yes, they touch you in very different ways. So one of my prompts that I was going to ask you was exactly that and I would say image circumvents cognition in a way, cuts to the core viscerally and not just. You know, with story you always hear, oh, it's got to have a relatable character, it's got to speak of the human condition. I would argue that story literally is the handbook for how to navigate life in the physical realm as an expression of consciousness, if that makes sense, like how to navigate your expression in the physical realm. So you just said exactly what I was hoping you would say. I was going to prompt you and say what is the power of image as opposed to word, if that makes sense. So from what you said I got like it actually bypasses cognition and it can be more powerful. I think there's a reason.

Speaker 3 1:19:11

you know they say images speak louder than words. Yes, that's true in a lot of respects, but it's funny how illustration right is about illustrating the word, which is kind of funny.

Speaker 1 1:19:26

That's why I initially wanted you to define conceptual, because I do feel like we're kind of all over the place in a really good way. I think this will be really inspiring for listeners. But I had wanted to kind of start out a little more linear and by defining concept, which I think we've done right eventually. But the way I remember it really being pounded into our heads I'm being facetious Thank God it was because it changed the trajectory of my image making and my storytelling. But I do remember in those classes, like literally illustration 101 or whatever it was called, intro to illustration they would say avoid narrative at all costs or we'll chop off your hand. Oh, really.

Speaker 1 1:20:02

I'm kidding, those are my words. You just have to do what you did. You avoided a narrative situation at all costs. It could be figural, it could be figurative. It could be figural, it could be figurative, it could be representational. But the way it was put was like don't show I don't know the standoff between the two heads of state. Show the mice on the floor having a standoff, or show the shadow on the wall, or show the moment before or the moment after. So do you remember the assignment where you had to depict two people from history or fictional characters without showing them Right? So I did like Samson and Delilah, and it was like a pair of scissors.

Speaker 3 1:20:37

Did I do that? Did I give that?

Speaker 1 1:20:39

I don't think that was your class, but I think a lot of them, you know, if anybody that's something sounds like something I would have given. Well, I think anyone that taught intro to illustration was probably told by Phil to do the fortune cookie assignment, if you remember that it was similar to that.

Speaker 1 1:20:54

And it was intro to illustration, but I didn't for Samson. I did a lock of hair and scissors and my target while I was 19,. My conceptual skills were horrible, cause my Tarzan one was even worse. It was like a helmet with a pink bow for Jane and then like a loincloth or something. That was lame, but I eventually grasped concept, trust me. But I, for our listeners, I was just hoping to lay out what is a conceptual approach to image making versus just kind of relying on the narrative, as a laziness, I guess. I mean, do you have anything more to say about concepts? Because it seems the power of an image seems to lie in the symbolism, the concept, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 1:21:41

Yes, well, I think the obvious is the narrative and in fact it's interesting because culturally right, that can also be an element that comes into play in the context of how they understand imagery. So, for instance, to give an example, I'm working on an I Ching deck right now.

Speaker 1 1:22:02

It's beautiful, beautiful.

Speaker 3 1:22:04

It's a 64 cards. I Ching Oracle deck.

Speaker 1 1:22:08

I love everything I've seen.

Speaker 3 1:22:10

Oh, thank you With Mei-Jing Li, beautiful, she is an I Ching master, feng Shui master, chinese, and through different connections we hooked up and then I'm doing these pieces for her and she has a tendency, because of her culture, to be much more literal in the context of how she creates, how she wants images.

Speaker 3 1:22:37

She is the I Ching master, she understands it inside and out from a written standpoint, from the concepts, but then it's my job to bring in the image. And the thing is, I don't want to be just narrative or to be representation, and so we have these. I don't want to say they're fights, I'll just say they're intense discussions where it's back and forth.

Speaker 3 1:23:03

I mean we've gotten halfway through. I thought it was going to go very simple. I thought it was going to be incredibly simple. I was just going to bang these out. It's like there it is, it's all done. It's like months later. I was just going to bang these out. It's like there it is, it's all done.

Speaker 1 1:23:13

It's like months later. Oh my God.

Speaker 3 1:23:14

I know both of us are pulling our hair out, but I think part of it is because there's a cultural Of course yes. And she's seeing the I Ching this way through her lens. And then I, as but they're not mutual.

Speaker 1 1:23:27

How about this? Narrative and conceptual are not mutually exclusive. So in entertainment, I've had to fight this battle too, where actually and you know, I taught at art center for over 20 years, maybe 25 years, and so you know the drill like when you're looking at the work on the walls for scholarship review and you know that phenomenon of minions and the stuff that's going to make it in the gallery right Is going to be the stuff promoted by I don't know an instructor who wants minions right to reflect their influence, and there's all these you know, rote institutions in place, right. But the work that regularly jumps off the wall during scholarship review is the merging of narrative and conceptual right, where you're not afraid to show characters interacting in an environment, because that was demonized when I was there in favor of concept. So in entertainment, you know what you got to go from a storyboard You've got to show those characters interacting.

Speaker 1 1:24:22

But what if that little stained glass window just oops, accidentally happened to be right behind her head so that subliminally, you're suggesting she is divinity?

Speaker 3 1:24:32

Yes, absolutely behind her head, so that subliminally you're suggesting she is divinity.

Speaker 1 1:24:33

yes, absolutely so. Isn't it the merging of both that can be powerful, both the conceptual and the narrative, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 1:24:39

Oh sure, well, form follows function, right, if you want to look at it that way, form follows function. So, yeah, in a film now, granted, depending on the type of film it is, if it's an art film, you can do whatever you want. But yes, if's a, if it's going to be like your typical motion picture generally, there's going to be a story and a story arc and and the character is going to have their arcs and you know there's a whole template, right, that's used over and over for for that medium. When it comes to, like, an I Ching card card or an illustration in a in a magazine or something, it can be a totally different thing, but uh, it's, it's. It's always an interesting journey and when you collaborate, you know, and that's the thing that's amazing about film in general, it's amazing that any film gets done.

Speaker 3 1:25:28

I mean, seriously, you're finished, dude, you're talking to a filmmaker and and, in fact, um, I, I remember I I was having a great talk with matt maherman about this and and he said you know, essentially, um, creating a film is like a controlled train wreck. He goes oh you just pray, that is going to be on halfway on the track by the time you're done with it.

Speaker 1 1:25:51

Well, because it's collaborative, right Exactly. You hear about creative differences. Yes, I would be great to make a film in my shower without involving anybody else, but you know what it's? Collaborative by nature.

Speaker 3 1:26:03

Exactly, and so the more cooks in the kitchen, the more difficult, and I've worked on enough films to see it all.

Evolution of Art and Film

Speaker 1 1:26:11

Well, that leads to a question. I really do have two questions that I'm dying to ask, and this is the perfect transition also to bring it to a close. But you have I mean more than anyone really. I think you went from print, you know, conceptual, editorial illustration, which is obviously print, but then you transitioned into entertainment. The sensibility is very different. So what's the biggest arc, I would say, in your own work? Have you evolved as an image maker not a storyteller, but an image maker through transitioning into cinema, if that makes sense?

Speaker 2 1:26:45

How has your?

Speaker 1 1:26:46

work evolved. How has your work evolved over the years?

Speaker 3 1:26:49

Well, I'll say this much, the very beginning. I've been involved. I've enjoyed a lot of things. You know I I, as a kid, I was in always making art, right, I don't know if you knew this, but I was also a musician.

Speaker 3 1:27:03

In fact, I had my I do know that I have visions of vespertina right here yeah, but even before that, uh, you know, I learned how to play the drums when I was in fourth grade. I had a paper route to buy my own drum set like in fifth grade, and then I started my own, had my own rock band in sixth grade. Oh, man. We were called Electric Fire.

Speaker 1 1:27:26

Did you play the Blah Blah Cafe? Remember the Blah Blah?

Speaker 3 1:27:30

No Well, we played well. Let me see, remember the blah blah. No well, we played. Uh well, let me see, we played for the uh, sixth grade talent show at two songs. All my loving in both sides now, nice, but um that. But then, and I had music in my, my soul from very early, from probably lifetimes of that. But then at some point I had to make a decision am I going to be a musician, am I going to be an artist? And then I chose art, which I think was the right decision. But then now I fuse all those, I fuse those things, I'm doing projects all the time where I'm fusing music and art. And so the, the moving into film, that happened because barry jackson, who was, are you familiar?

Speaker 1 1:28:10

oh, yeah, yeah, he I worked with them. We were instructors at the same time.

Speaker 3 1:28:15

I think he's still there, actually at Art.

Speaker 3 1:28:17

Center. Barry started out as an illustrator. Then he moved into film and he worked. Probably his first big break was with Cool World. But I was friends with him and I would look at all these productions he was working on and I kept saying, damn, I mean, it mean, it's interesting, because you know, the illustrator is sort of a solitary exploit. You're doing your own thing, you're working with the art directors and editors and such. But when you but I'd go to see barry working on all these different films at these different studios or dreamworks or or, uh, private company or private production, and I was always just so impressed, you know that he'd pull all these, this team of artists together to create the vision of how this film was going to look. And I said, hey, you know, if the right, one right film comes around, just let me know. I said I think it'd be fun to join in on the team, just to see what it would be like. And as fate will have it, he then hired me to be a part of the ant bully, right.

Speaker 1 1:29:16

I actually remember that you and I were in touch the very first film project you worked on. I did not realize it was Barry Jackson all those years ago.

Speaker 3 1:29:23

Oh yeah, and in fact almost well. Not all of the films that I worked on, but no but that first one.

Speaker 1 1:29:28

I do remember we were in touch and you were picking my brain about entertainment actually, but I have a Barry Jackson story. I don't think he would mind me telling this. I think he'd be very proud of it. He's such a character. We were at a department meeting and it's a diversity and inclusion meeting, Right, and that's really taken over academia, by the way and so they were talking about microaggressions and he literally stands up goes what the fuck is a microaggression?

Speaker 3 1:29:58

That sounds like Barry.

Speaker 1 1:30:00

I love it, but he spoke what was on everybody's mind, Like I don't know if he's a product of his generation, but it just said it all. What the fuck's a microaggression?

Speaker 3 1:30:09

It was great, well, as we know it's. In any case, I learned a lot, uh, from being in film, uh, but now, um more. One of the one of the reasons, uh, one of the benefits of moving to santa fe, is that it allowed me not only to recalibrate my new nervous system, but it recalibrated a bit as to where I wanted to go with my career, um, which is less. I know about doing illustration and I'm doing this. I Ching gig right now, and I still have things coming up here and there, but for the most part, I want to focus on my own personal projects and bring everything that I have loved throughout my life together, you know, to create these projects?

Speaker 1 1:30:49

Is there music? Are you working on music projects?

Speaker 3 1:30:52

as well. Yeah, well, there there, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 1:30:55

Well, isn't the beauty of film, actually, when I first, as soon after leaving Disney, I spent my own money on my first short film, and I just wanted to be a filmmaker.

Speaker 3 1:31:04

Yes, I recall, I remember. Yes.

Speaker 1 1:31:07

Every book you read on filmmaking says not to spend your own money. So I broke all the and I also had a. Everything they say not to do. I had a horse 60 extras a baby, everything you're not supposed to have on set.

Speaker 1 1:31:19

But point is I, I think at the time I thought, you know, it engages all the senses and I just think it's obviously a very persuasive medium. But I specifically thought, yeah, like you, it, it. It actually seemed like the culmination of my little brush with music, sorry, community theater. You know, my mom was a costumer and a cosmetologist, so just a lot of skill sets came into play, but I think more so it was like, oh, it engages all the senses. It really has the power to transform us. If you sit there for 90 minutes and you're invested in the want and the need of the protagonist. The example I use is you'll, you'll root for Bruce Willis to kill more people. That's how powerful the medium is. So, for good or bad, you really sign up. If you're invested in their want and their need, it goes a long way. So that was kind of my passion for film well, and nick uh also.

Speaker 3 1:32:17

So if we just look at our careers, if we look at where I look, from when I started to now, you know there was um in the beginning, at least in the 80s, 70s, there was this giant push to be a part of industry somehow, some way. So you went to the art school and then you learned specific skill sets and then you tapped into some sort of an existing industry where there's publishing um. And for me when, when I started off, it was all about becoming the illustrator, and then in the 90s I saw that shift where it was more, more moving toward like, oh, I want to be a concept designer or animator, and so it moved away from the publishing facets into more into film, and then all that moved then also into gaming.

Speaker 1 1:33:02

Right.

Speaker 3 1:33:04

And then, as it's been going, it's been moving more and more into these. I'd say the moving image Right, but, that being said, not dead. But then, to take it a step further, the other part which, um, I feel is is vitally important, is to realize that you can create an industry around yourself and hence this gets a little bit into the artist's brand I created that company because, um, and believe it or not, the concept of that came out of going to comic-con to san diego comic-con for years, for decades.

Speaker 3 1:33:42

Uh, that's a fascinating story into itself because I first went to it when I was um. I entered the science fiction and fantasy art contest contest when I was in high school in like 1975 or something, and I won these two. I created some monster painting this is in Orange County and I won two tickets to the San Diego Comic-Con, which at that time was in the El Cortez Hotel, in this back room, you know, just like these guys with stacks of comics and really badly made Batman costumes I mean horrible right.

Speaker 1 1:34:18

No furries or fuzzies or nobody dressed up, right oh?

Speaker 3 1:34:21

yeah, no, no, no. It was like I said. It was like I was like what am I doing here? I don't understand what this thing is. And so then I fast forward to when I had been in new york for eight years in 1990, the kent williams, who was my friend. He was saying you got to come to the san diego comic-con. You know, of course, comics were really growing up at that point in a big time, a big way, because they were integrating painted and drawn conceptual comics very different than your superhero type comics.

Speaker 1 1:35:04

I remember Kent's stuff? Yeah, Kent.

Speaker 3 1:35:05

Sienkiewicz, sienkiewicz, sienkiewicz, yes.

Speaker 1 1:35:08

Sienkiewicz love his stuff.

Speaker 3 1:35:10

And of course then Dave McKeon. Yes, yes, but he said, come to Comic-Con. And I said, oh I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:35:12

And of course, then Dave McKeon, yes, yes yes.

Speaker 3 1:35:13

But he said come to Comic-Con. And I said, oh, I don't know, I've been to Comic-Con, I don't know anything. No, you've got to come. So by that time then it had changed, it had moved to the San Diego Convention Center and, as we know now it's just so gigantic, right. But it was in that place where I realized, oh my God, there's a whole new art commerce going on here.

Speaker 3 1:35:37

Where it's, it's about the fan, it wasn't about just you know a lot of these guys are working for the comic industry. They were like Dave McKeon or John J Muth or George Pratt Kent Williams. They were, they were doing a lot of their own work. They were doing they had their own personal vision that they brought to the stories in these comic books. They were graphic novels, right, and they were amazing. And then you had Dave McKeon, who was like not only he was doing his graphic design, he was doing the children's books, he was doing his films, he was doing his music, he was doing everything. It was like anything he wanted to do. And then he would make products and he would sell them there and it was just like, oh my god, this is, this is amazing. And so it was. At that point it's like my brain just exploded and said, oh geez, I've been in these industries, but these are all about industries that are around the artists themselves.

Speaker 3 1:36:33

And then the fans support them, and so hence this concept of artists as brand came out of that, and I thought you know what Artists need to know about this entrepreneurial paradigm that's out there that nobody knew about. So I put that educational service together and, uh, and it was great and, for you know, a solid decade I was presenting those workshops at colleges everywhere. Uh, and so now I finally created an online version of the workshop so if you're anybody's interested, they can go there and sign up and actually take the whole work.

The Evolution of Artistic Branding

Speaker 1 1:37:09

You know, I, I think you only gave us one. Well, you gave us Spelinkacom and then one other link. But yeah, anything you want to provide us we can put in the episode description. Yeah, it was so needed at that time too. Right, because with industry trends sort of changing and I know when I started at Disney I had a four-year contract it became less and less the case. It was per picture, right, right. Then a lot more freelancing and so buoyancy. I call it right, just having that buoyancy but also retaining your own agency and literally, yes, the rights. So I think it was so needed. Don't you think they're raised on that shit now, like? I'll give you one example.

Speaker 1 1:37:49

I worked for five minutes at nickelodeon. I'm not proud of it and it didn't last long, but while I was there they were actually. I mean, I was working with 12 year olds, let's just be clear. So this uh pokemon thing came out, where you're supposed to go outside and look for pokemon. Remember that, vaguely, this kind of says it all not were you in. It was okay to leave your chair and go out and look for Pokemon. You were the odd man out if you didn't do that. So that's the climate. But I know like when I was at Disney, you couldn't leak anything right, you couldn't show work. There was NDAs were really, really in force At Nickelodeon, I promise you, when you talk about the fan base being the emphasis now, they wanted their artists to show their work on Instagram well in advance of the release, because they're counting on the fan base of each one of their artists. It's like is the sky green? Up was up right. Up is down, down is up, it's, it's, it's completely changed.

Speaker 3 1:38:51

Yes, it's a it's fascinating. I it's uh, it's fascinating. I remember when I was even started out with it I got a lot of pushback from that with that concept because you know even the title. I call it artist as brand. Right, it's artist as brandcom. But the the concept I had fine artist friends that said that's ridiculous, I am not a brand, art is not a brand. I said actually it is a brand.

Speaker 1 1:39:19

Well, you need to get comfortable seeing it that way, right, or you're not going to survive. And it's the same with AI, like, oh, it's really uncomfortable for people. But, like you were saying, even airbrushing was uncomfortable, even Photoshop was uncomfortable. You've got to evolve or die at some point.

Speaker 3 1:39:34

Your brand is your purpose. This is the thing. It's not just people want to just say, oh, actually, corporate structure. It's like you're just now sold out, you're sold out. You're not even about who you are as an artist. It's like, no, no, your brand is your purpose. And if you even just look at the literal word brand, that's pretty much what it means. It's like I am a rancher. Right, the brand on the cattle or whatever is like I am a rancher, that's my brand. You know that's who I am. So, but that yeah. So this idea that you would bring the entrepreneurial facet was a bit tough, but slowly it now.

Speaker 1 1:40:13

You know it's everywhere when you say it that way, that it's an extension of your voice, your very purpose on this planet. People get it right. Yes, your brand is the culmination of finding your voice right.

Speaker 3 1:40:25

Exactly, that's it perfectly. But I'll I'll say this much this last little part about the concept in that is that you know, essentially we have a school system, an educational system that just pushes you through the grades, right.

Speaker 3 1:40:41

if you think about it, it's like take those tests, get those grades, get to the next grade, right take the test, just get good grades and then go to the next level, you know, and then you move from they do that through elementary school, you go to junior high, you go to high school and then, of course, it's the big push. It's like a big racket, right, a big push to get you into college. And then, of course so you go into college and I cannot tell you the amount of whether you're artists or whatever you know. They come out, they graduate sometimes with a $100,000 loan on their back. They still don't know what they want to do. Or, conversely, you know.

Speaker 3 1:41:24

So, for instance, like in a lot of the art colleges that I was teaching at different art colleges, I would give these artists around workshops, you know, but what would come out of there is able to just teach you the skill set, especially when um in the 90s, 2000s, where they were really pushing, like everybody, getting into film. It's like learn your, learn how to model, or learn how to rig your characters, learn, uh, um, environmental design, characters, design. You know, learn these things and then you're going to get your contract with the studio system. But the problem I was seeing also was like they're all excited and then they get into Pixar, or they get into DreamWorks or whatever Disney, and then five years later they're totally burned out.

Speaker 3 1:42:10

Yes yes, and they don't know why, and they're trying to escape, but but, but they're getting that income, you know, like a drug. That's every month, and they don't know how to get out of there, and so then they're miserable. And so I thought, well, this is not good either.

Speaker 1 1:42:26

So you know, I mean, I do think again. I taught the portfolio class at art center for six, six years and I keep in touch, I'm sure. Well, we're still in touch. For that matter, you know, I see where my students land and I keep in touch with them and I see how things play out.

Speaker 1 1:42:41

And, yes, inevitably a lot of them that had more to say in the world, right that found themselves languishing on production, reach out to me and inevitably try to move from gaming, let's say, to actually feature animation, because they imagine it's going to be more satisfying. Well, I do think, you know, there's a lot of niches on production that involve very technical skill sets and if you don't have something to say in the world, cool, you still get to be part of film, which you may have fantasized about as a child, and you get to put food on the table and roofs over heads. Amen to all of it. But for those of us with something to say in the world, it doesn't behoove you to focus. And, trust me, I had a lot of students in the. I founded the entertainment track at ArtCenter and so you'd get students coming in and they had taken one modeling class and they have a really low poly model for gaming, if that makes sense and they try to lead with that.

Speaker 1 1:43:38

And you're like if you have enough content to justify a section of the portfolio, go for it, but if not, that's coming out and so, but I think, more importantly, right, I think we're saying the same thing, Like what about that thumbprint, that is your worldview and your emotional imprint and all those intangibles? What about that flair? The biggest question I get at the portfolio workshops is what's going to make my work stand out? And I'm like well, how about developing, of getting to know yourself? Like you're saying, know thyself right, Know thyself.

Speaker 3 1:44:11

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:44:12

And then, eventually, your skill set is no longer just a craft. It's married with what you have to say in the world?

Speaker 3 1:44:18

absolutely, but you can't force.

Speaker 1 1:44:21

That arc is my point. Like some people are meant to do it, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. So if it's meant to happen.

Speaker 3 1:44:27

It'll connect it'll but I'll say this much I think, knowing who you, having a sense as to who you are, because that's never taught in all the years of education.

Speaker 3 1:44:36

It's not like who are you, what do you love doing? You know what's your passion, as well as learning. You know reading, writing, arithmetic. You know. But who are you inside that Number one? And then you can build off of that. And so, for instance, in the Artist's Brand Workshop that I put together, we start with what I call it's your heart virtue. Your heart virtue is that part of you that you were born with. It's like innate, it's in your DNA, it's like it's that voice within you that has a strong sense as to what it is you love. You know certain desires that are there and when you can then understand, when you understand that then you can connect your talents yes, right and other goals to that, then it makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1 1:45:26

So it's like everything it's like your core essence. You know we've talked a lot of thrown around, a lot of spiritual terms, but I call it when you quiet mind and ego, only then can you, or consciousness, your core essence, whatever it is. But I do think aesthetics follows right. Whatever we are, whatever our soul is made of, that is our aesthetic. If it's minor chords, it's minor chords. If it's major, it's major.

Speaker 3 1:45:49

Yes, you want to be authentic, you want to be true to yourself and uh, and that's why I say, unfortunately, we have a educational system which pretty much drums that out. It's like you know, you just learn what you got to learn to to make a living and what about the waldorf?

Speaker 1 1:46:07

have you explored the waldorf?

Speaker 3 1:46:09

school. Oh, yes, yeah, roxanna, her daughter went from preschool through high school to the Highland Hall Waldorf school.

Speaker 1 1:46:20

Are you a fan?

Speaker 3 1:46:21

Oh, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 1:46:22

Yeah, it seems to work yeah.

Speaker 3 1:46:24

Oh, I mean at least it doesn't squelch their, you know. No, well, it's about the whole child. And you know, if you know rudolph steiner uh work and his writings and his philosophy, you know he's the one who created it right.

The Future of Education and Art

Speaker 3 1:46:37

I mean it's very, it's very much about the mind, body, spirit. It's about integrating the whole child, the whole facet of that person. So you're learning from the outside in, but you also are very much connected from the inside out and hence that's why those kids that leave that school are generally very well balanced. And it's pretty cool, it's a beautiful idea.

Speaker 1 1:46:58

Yeah, I think education in general might be heading in that direction, at least in terms of, like you know, the different types of learners and kind of accommodating them all. Maybe public school will not necessarily come around to that degree, sorry. Maybe public school will not necessarily come around to that degree, sorry.

Speaker 3 1:47:12

Well, when you see schools being removing all their athletics or removing all their music or removing all their art programs, you realize that it's not going in that direction. But but the more we're aware of it, I do believe that we can help inspire that Right To keep, keep, because it's important.

Speaker 1 1:47:34

Of course it's everything I mean. I think education there was value placed on just being a well-rounded human, if that makes sense, and that included the arts. I think it's all. Like you said, uh, back to money. If, uh, the sports program is going to bring it, bring in the money, let's keep that program, let's cut the arts. So I just think we need to shift back toward. I do think there's a lot of merging of the binary things, including masculine, feminine, left brain, right brain, and so along with that, maybe there'll be a more holistic approach to education where eventually we understand it all works together. I'm just the eternal optimist, like you, apparently.

Speaker 3 1:48:16

Very good. I think it helps keep us sane.

Speaker 1 1:48:19

You got to get up in the morning, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:48:21

Okay.

Speaker 1 1:48:22

We got to bring this to a close. Virginia, are you still with us?

Speaker 2 1:48:25

Of course I am.

Speaker 1 1:48:26

I feel like you're napping or something. No, I've been enjoying all of it no, no, not at all. I've been enjoying all of it. No, no, not at all. I've been enjoying all of it, and I just, I just think everything you shared.

Speaker 1 1:48:49

Greg is just right on going to be really inspiring for our listeners and you know, we don't know who identifies as a storyteller probably a lot of our listeners but again, there's such a huge difference between image making and the literary realm, for example, that I think it's going to be new territory for a lot of people. I know I cut you off, virginia. What were you saying about what Greg has beautifully delivered today?

Speaker 2 1:49:11

Oh, I just think everything that Greg has been, you know, on point, and I just love listening to both your guys' voices because you guys both have great voices.

Speaker 3 1:49:23

Really, I think Nick's is much more mature Me more yes. Of course we could do the oper, the operatic version right, we'll do that.

Speaker 1 1:49:36

That'll be next episode we'll have you back.

Speaker 2 1:49:40

But but going, you know, to the spiritual and the holistic, you know um wellness side of things. I mean everything you guys have covered, especially a lot of the points that you've made greg is right on, you know. Point to everything that I've seen in my studies when we talk about mental health and you know what it takes to, you know, help somebody have that whole body healing within themselves. And you know art is such an important aspect of it all. I mean, as kids when we first start off, I mean our visual, you know, outweighs our cognitive out the gate in our development. So yeah, Beautiful.

Speaker 1 1:50:18

Okay so we should not cut the arts in public school. That's what we're saying no, no, never, no.

Speaker 3 1:50:23

That's a gigantic, huge mistake. I mean, not only are you dealing with different facets of the brain, it's inessential, do you like that word, inessential, inessential?

Speaker 1 1:50:34

Well, well, during the pandemic, you heard essential and inessential. It's like it's just your priorities, really. Anyway, all right. Well, thank you guys. Thank you greg thank you, nick.

Speaker 3 1:50:47

Thank you, virginia, this was a pleasure. Yeah, we'll have to do it again, maybe I would love to to.

Speaker 1 1:50:51

We didn't reminiscence. I'm so tired. You know we did an episode this morning to my tongue.

Speaker 3 1:50:56

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1 1:50:58

We didn't reminisce nearly enough for my taste, so we'll have you back for sure, okay, sounds great.

Speaker 3 1:51:04

Well, pleasure and honor and wonderful to be reconnecting with you, and I love what you're doing. That I think that your podcast is is vital, it's important, so I bow to your vision and so continue on.

Speaker 1 1:51:20

Thank you so much. Yeah, we're really lucky to have you. I'm not just blowing smoke, but you changed the face of pop culture, of culture, and I want to get more into that next time. You are an icon in the illustration field, you know, and it's uh, I don't know.

Speaker 3 1:51:38

I want to talk a little bit more about your career, basically, sure yeah, we can get into that yeah, next time and then, if anybody's interested, they can always go to my site, spelinkacom, and they can learn about my different projects. Go to my blog there. I have a sub stack also.

Speaker 1 1:51:57

You're my screensaver right now. I just made some of those deck images of my screensaver. Oh, cool, beautiful. I mean, that's the part we haven't conveyed. The work just will transport you.

Speaker 3 1:52:09

Yeah, we ended up doing sort of the overall view with this one. Yeah, we ended up doing sort of the overall overall view with this one yeah, exactly, which is yeah? Dive more into the art next time.

Speaker 1 1:52:19

That would be great. All right, thank you so much. And to our listeners, remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay, individually and collectively. We can write our own story. See you next time.