The FLOW State with Artist Brian Thompson

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Enter a thought-provoking exploration of creativity, connection, and the power of visual storytelling with acclaimed illustrator and art director Brian Thompson. With over two decades of experience spanning video games, book illustration, and visual development, Thompson brings a unique perspective on how art can bridge our increasingly divided world.

In an era dominated by short attention spans and digital distractions, Thompson reflects on storytelling's evolving role in culture. From its ancient origins as a tool for documenting events while making sense of our spiritual world to today's bite-sized content consumption, he articulates the profound shift in how we engage with narrative. 

Perhaps most moving is Thompson's reading of his poem "A Thousand Miles Apart," which beautifully explores how artists communicate beyond language barriers. The poem's imagery of two creators working through different approaches – one additive, one subtractive – speaks to the universal wellspring of creativity that connects us, despite our isolation.

Brian Thompson is passionate about teaching and the creative process.

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Chapters

• 1:30 Welcome and Introduction to Brian Thompson
• 17:41 Storytelling's Evolution in Modern Culture
• 32:58 Finding Your Voice as an Artist
• 49:20 Gaming, Narrative, and Visual Storytelling
• 1:08:34 Direct Drawing and Artistic Expression
• 1:25:35 A Thousand Miles Apart: Poetry Discussion
• 1:41:56 Connecting Through Art in a Digital Age
• 1:58:54 Closing Thoughts on Creative Legacy

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

Hi, guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul Podcast. We're very excited about this week's guest for a variety of reasons. I think, Virginia, you'd agree, uh just kind of interfacing with like-minded people can be inspiring, you know, especially in this climate with so much divisiveness. Well, I'll speak for myself. For me, it's just a reminder that there are really cool people left in the world and people that are contributing not to the noise, but hopefully to something empowering for you know society. Is that too is that too grandiose?

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

No, I was actually thinking um, you know, to something greater than our own selves.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27

Yeah, exactly. The the collect remember the collective? Like I feel like, yeah, there's a lot of digging in of heels right now, and we tend to forget that we're all entangled, you know, not to get too metaphysical straight out the gate. But yeah, it's gonna be the way out of this is recognizing our interconnectivity, just my opinion. But yeah, speaking to artists, uh, it seems to be inspiring for me. Artists and storytellers, you know, that's the whole premise of our podcast is storytelling is how we transform, way more so than persuasion or propaganda, right? You kind of change paradigms or change minds by touching hearts.

SPEAKER_00: 2:07

Agreed.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

Good. Then we'll continue. No, but truly, and even just catching up with old friends, you know, Greg Spolanka, it had been a while, but just it really reminds me there's some assholes in the world, you know. And if you get on social media, you're reminded of that real quick. And then you're reminded, wow, there are people that are actually putting out, you know, something worthwhile into the universe. So I think the world of this guest, and I guess I'll let the cat out of the bag, he's a former student who has been a colleague for many, you know, much longer than he was a student. I'm gonna ask him straight out the gate what effing year he graduated, because I know it was pretty early on in my teaching. So anyway, we've been colleagues now for I think 25 plus years, but we'll we'll check facts on that. Anyway, but I think the world of him and his work. I just really love his work, but more than that, I love his mind and how it works. So I think he's no pressure, but I think he's gonna have a lot to say about the creative process, creative expression, and storytelling. So he came to the right place at our invitation. Okay, Brian Thompson is an illustrator and art and an art director with over 20 years of experience in video games, visual development, and book illustration. His work has appeared in Spectrum, Wired magazine, and the World of Warcraft trading card game, and he has created over 15 young adult book covers for Harper Collins, Penguin Random House, and Simon Schuster. A graduate of Art Center College of Design, Brian is currently art director at Night Street Games, developing an original title. He previously served as art director at Amazon Games Studio and spent 14 years at Big Fish Games, where he co-created the acclaimed Drawn Trilogy and Fetch. Now based in Europe with his wife and two children, Brian explores themes of creativity and the subconscious in his personal work, spanning pen and ink drawings, children's books, and writing. He is passionate about teaching and the creative process. Welcome, Brian Thompson. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00: 4:13

Yeah, we're excited to have you.

SPEAKER_01: 4:15

Yeah, in case you didn't get that, we're we're excited to pick your brain. So thanks for making it happen. Uh being eight hours ahead, are you or nine hours? Yeah. Eight hours, yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for making this happen. I guess uh straight up, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 4:31

Oh, just um it's been something that you know we've wanted to do for a while, and I and I remember you asking me, and then life kind of got in the way, and and um yeah, time flies. And so I'm happy to be doing it now.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's uh I've been wanting you on for a while, probably since day one, in fact. So um, yeah, it's gotta be things have to line up, and when it's meant to be, things tend to happen. So I'm excited and um no pressure, but straight out the gate, I want to ask a rote question we've been asking in the new season, and then it's kind of Virginia, it's kind of evolved, right? There's a new version of it. So you're the lucky one who you're gonna get two rote questions. And the first one is, and then I want to follow up on some stuff in your bio. Did I get anything wrong, by the way? Is there anything in the bio you would want to correct?

SPEAKER_03: 5:19

No, but I graduated in 2000, so you were right. Oh wow, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 5:23

Wow, that was my guess was 2001, 2002, something like that. That makes perfect sense, and then it's always amazing to me when I go on Insta or Facebook, and you know, there is nepotism at Art Center, and there's also a huge alumni um association. But you sometimes I look and I'm like, wait, was Brian in school with that person? Like it doesn't line up, but I think we all know each other whether we actually went to school with somebody or not. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, totally. It's a small world with the art center world for sure. Yeah, and but sometimes when I look at the mutual friends, I go, wait, they were not in the same class. I don't in my mind, they're like decades apart. But yeah, I mean, when you teach for over 20 years, it's a mind F because you know, Gary Meyer, because I was in his first class, he started teaching quite late in life, but he always remembered me because I was in his first class, and so that's true too. You have a really distinct memory of your first students, but then over time you just can't possibly remember every face and every name, you know. Yeah, of course. Anyway, such fond memories of that moment because the entertainment track was rather new, and so anyway, we'll get into all that, but to start out real general, maybe you could humor us and uh no pressure, but maybe you could share your thoughts on what is traditionally the role of storytelling in culture and has it evolved over time.

SPEAKER_03: 6:51

Yeah, I was thinking about this. And um, and there's this idea of, you know, we tell stories probably um, you know, thousands of years, we tell stories to communicate um events, right? There's like there's a almost like a nonfiction kind of journalistic element of like, you know, this happened and this happened. And I think we we communicate events and share that and pass those, you know, throughout your culture, throughout your community. And then you also have this kind of like spiritual level where you're trying to make sense of of the world, you know, whether it's the natural world or the spiritual world or um emotions that you might be dealing with. And I think over time we've always associated these kinds of things with um stories, a way to communicate difficult concepts um and maybe abstract concepts to people of different ages. And and I really love that idea that there's this kind of combination in the human mind of wanting to wanting to know what happened, like tell me a story about this event and and tell me some tell help me make sense of the spiritual world. And sometimes these things have this really awesome interweaving, most often, right? Where you know the gods or whatever of our religion are are you know carrying out acts or events that then become this blurry uh is that fact or fiction? And um, and so you know, has it evolved over time? I I think so. And I think we're in like such a crazy time where um you know, people like you said a little bit earlier, I think a lot of people are not reading as much anymore, myself included. And the stories that we're getting are small, tiny, bite-sized things that we can like, you know, that we can actually hold in our little squirrel brains. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

And well, cultural a is that cultural ADD or just um I think I think it might be.

SPEAKER_03: 9:06

I mean, I think that we've we've kind of as a as a society, as a as a species, kind of worked ourselves into a into that kind of frenzy. And yeah, um, the lack of patience and the lack of solitude and the lack of calm, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 9:22

Yeah, it's been said we live in an image saturated image saturated society, but also, yeah, I would say we become yeah, I just call it cultural ADD, but yeah, maybe it's evolution and let's not put any judgment on it. We will adapt, right? But we do for whatever reason, maybe because of all the noise and the overstimulation. Um, you gotta get their attention and quick.

SPEAKER_03: 9:46

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely changing. So I don't know if it's evolving because I usually associate like you know, some kind of uh uh survival adaptation to evolution. And I I just know that it's changing in and at light speed, right?

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Yeah, exponentially, I would say. Yep, I'm with you on all of that. So um thank you for that, Virginia. Any comments, any questions?

SPEAKER_00: 10:11

I know I was thinking the same thing that we are constantly surrounded by, you know, the noise be that you know, it just feels like everybody's just kind of shouting into the into the chasm.

SPEAKER_01: 10:23

I used to call X, well, whatever we called it before. I used to say it's like shouting into a tornado. Yeah, love me, love me. But yeah, I mean, I I sorry to interrupt you, Virginia. Maybe you can chime in. I just feel like there's a huge difference between content and then the story that transforms. So maybe we're being inundated with content, but it's maybe to for the almighty dollar or for engagement, right? Which is indirectly for the almighty dollar, or propaganda, which you know, getting into somebody's pocketbook is propaganda in a way, it just is seeking a different outcome. So, anyway, I'm the snob who's gonna say, okay, but as things evolve, if more and more content or noise or vacuous content, call it what you want, if we're being inundated with that, then some new form of art that we don't yet recognize is gonna rise from those ashes. One hopes. I agree.

SPEAKER_03: 11:20

I yeah, I think that there's that that pendulum, and hopefully, you know, everything is in some cycle, and it feels like when you reach one extreme and like you said, of of saturation, then I I sure hope that people will be so ready and almost desperate for connection, and that's where that's gonna come from. And that's that's another thing about storytelling that I think is it's to it's to remind us of our um of that connection that we all share, that human condition that we're all a part of. Yep. And the these great stories, some some of the best stories are the ones that do that, and you know, they might just surprise you.

SPEAKER_01: 12:04

Remind us that we're all interconnected. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I agree with all that. And it's been said too, you know, Jen Alpha, what is it? Gen Alpha is starved for exactly what we're talking talking about. They're kind of done with anyway. And in the back of my mind, I read a little, I think it was an Insta post yesterday. It was a trailer uh created, of course, all in AI, right? Saying, hey, we're throwing, we're cobbling together a bunch of tropes and we're gonna do a whole series. And it was it was satire, it was comedy. But they were talking about this whole series they're doing with just AI-generated imagery and characters, and um, even the script was cobbled together with the old tired tropes, and it was very funny, but it's like, is that the future? You know, and so that's where I decided something new will arise. It always does. And if we're watching nothing but AI content that I would argue doesn't really have inspiration as part of the creative process, it's it's really just got out an outcome, right? As its impetus, then something else, there's gonna be, like you said, a a starvation for something more that reminds us of our humanity, like you said, or our interconnectivity.

SPEAKER_03: 13:18

Yeah, I think uh, you know, with uh raising kids, so I have like two teenagers now and um scary. Sorry. It is scary, and you're you really see that um with the the amount that that students in school are being asked to read, so it's not just what they read in their free time, but also what they're being asked to read. You know, basically basically there's just no reading happening, they're reading passages, they're reading parts of things. Um teachers are struggling so much with the the you know attention, you know, lack of attention. And when when you're not reading, I was listening to this one thing, I can't remember who it was, but you know, by reading, that's how you actually step into other people's shoes and you you discover like empathy and you you get into these characters' shoes and then you go through these experiences with them. And there's a level of empathy that comes from that that you just can't really get anywhere else. And the only other place would be like meet a lot of people, talk to a lot of people, and really get to know their stories. But that's harder and harder and harder to do. And especially if everybody, let's say you put your phone down for a minute and you walk around the street and you might find somebody who's not on their phone, then how much time do they have? How much time do you have to really get to know them? So we're just in this like fast-paced society, and that, and I think the younger generation is basically, you know, you were saying they're kind of starved of that connection, but they're almost like not growing up with it. Where we came from, uh, I can kind of remember that transition where I was reading a lot and then it just kind of fell off a cliff. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:03

So so if you're not getting, if you're not learning empathy and compassion right through reading, then the next step would be, oh, just engage with what's around you, but they don't have the tools to do that, right? That's the scary part. I will confirm some of the things that you said, you know, and this is the part where, yes, uh the book does go into this, and the podcast is loosely based off the book. But yeah, there are very clear-cut studies that say when you read about the other that you might not otherwise have be privy to, well, that grows compassion more than anything. And it tends to be uh literary fiction more than commercial fiction, of course. But yes, one of the biggest outcomes is empathy, which is kind of the word of the day, uh, you know, in light of the political violence lately, right? The word empathy has been coming up a lot. But sorry.

SPEAKER_00: 15:51

Oh, I wanted to say something to what both of you kind of were talking about, um, especially you, Brian, is because I have a 15-year-old, um, soon to be 16-year-old, which is even more scary because she's gonna be driving soon. Um, but she um she's been doing online school, and I actually just did the whole parent-teacher conference, and the language arts teacher was there and was we're just kind of talking about like where my daughter was um with reading and stuff, and she does read like on her own boat in language arts, like you're saying, yeah, it's like just passages and stuff. And I think the reason why the language arts teacher won't meet with me is because she had to do a reflective video essay back, and she's like, It's really hard to tell you what my opinions are when I feel like everything's a fragmented narrative. And I thought that was interesting that she picked up on that, that she's not really getting the full story by reading just sections of a book.

SPEAKER_01: 16:43

Well, we had do you remember we would read the Cliff's notes? Yeah, right. I think we all have some version of I don't know. I will say this everything I was ever forced to read in school blew me away, and I fell in love with it. And you know what I mean? Everything from great expectations to weathering heights to the outsiders to summer of my German soldier. I think the reading lists changed over the years, but the stuff I was forced to read made me who I am, and I would count them all as influences in my writing. So anyway, we we did do the cliffs notes, but I would say, do you remember, Virginia? We had a not gonna remember which guest, but one guest that was in education said they were called to the carpet by a parent who said, Why are you making my child write? I'm paying, I think it was a tutoring situation. I'm paying you to teach my child to read. Was it the other way around? But like they didn't get that the conceptualization process, you know, to interpret what you're reading requires that you formulate your thoughts and you employ executive function, right? Which is the thing that's missing, really, is that follow-through in that executive function. But if you're having everything spoon-fed to you, and that I guess that it whatever version of the Cliff's notes they're getting now, you're not engaging with it. It's got to be interactive.

unknown: 18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:03

And well, that's what my daughter was saying when she said that was a fragmented narrative because she's like, um, you know, you want me to use critical thinking skills and tell you what I'm picking up, and all I can tell you is what I'm glimpsing in this one moment of time from this passage of a whole story. So, how can I how can I really tell you what my overall thoughts are of these characters if I don't know anything more than what I just read? I mean, it's like literally like reading the headlines.

SPEAKER_01: 18:29

Right, right. A little snippet. Well, also, here's what I'll say. Sorry, we'll we'll get back on track. But I did a reading of this, probably my first screenplay, and I got some good feedback from actors saying, Well, I can really sink my teeth in, and this is pretty raw, you know, this is pretty rare to see. They sensed that it was a lived experience and it transcended or whatever. It was horrible, trust me. Uh, I got much better at the technique of screenwriting, but they felt the rawness in it and they really liked it. So I did a reading with actors. And Virginia, you probably remember my friend Keith left midway through, and he was a Scientologist, and he diagnosed me. He wrote a letter that I the first sentence I couldn't even roll with. He goes, Death is the accumulation of pain. And I'm like, I'm out, because I don't even know if I agree with that. But anyway, he went out to diagnose me, and I very much thought, no, no, no, no, you didn't stay for the redemptive part, right? You didn't even, I hate to say message, but there was thematic content that was very redemptive. But you show the good, the bad, and the ugly, including the pain, right? Because you can't tell the story without it. But I just thought you don't get to have an opinion because you didn't hang in there for the whole message of the damn thing. Does that make sense? So when you get it just a fragment like your daughter, yeah, you can't talk about the thematic content because the want and the need and whether they were met, and then the thematic content that results from that, yeah, it's gonna be completely lost on you.

SPEAKER_03: 19:56

It's really fascinating to think about just because as you guys are talking, I'm I'm thinking about my kids. And so my son is 15 and my daughter's 17, so she's gonna be going to college soon. Um but we talk about like the adaptation and the the changing brains. So if if our kids, like if our 15-year-old, like my son and your daughter, Virginia, are being fed or being asked to read these small snippets, which are probably quite a bit longer than most of the things that the kids are reading, right? Most of the kid things the kids are reading are gonna be those headlines or you know, some uh meme subtitle overlay of a YouTube video or whatever, you know. Um is the brain I mean, definitely the brain is changing, the brain chemistry is changing to um to consume these small bits of information. Now, if that higher level functioning, the executive functioning isn't there to go along with it, then you have a problem. And how is the brain gonna adapt beyond that? Because it you could one could argue that the future is just a bunch of humans consuming tiny bits of information, but making huge decisions and judgments about that, right? So I mean that's a a possibility. I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_01: 21:19

Well, what do you do in your like you can't really control how academia or the you know public education is is handled, but what do you do in your parenting to kind of develop those skills?

SPEAKER_03: 21:32

Well, for me, I mean, I'm sure Virginia has thoughts on this too, but for me, I I have find it really, really hard. I mean, like I'm we're not successful, I would say. I mean, I have a um my my daughter was a natural reader, that was just what she did. She loved books. She had read you know more books by the time she was um like 12 or something than I had read in my whole life. And that's that's just not an exaggeration.

SPEAKER_01: 22:00

She well, look at her parents though.

SPEAKER_03: 22:02

You she got it from somewhere for sure. Yeah, my wife is a is a writer and she reads a ton, but it was just one of those things where I was like, wow, this is kind of amazing. And um, and then with my son, it was really the opposite. I mean, it was hard for him to to stay focused and sit. And he really loved when he was little to be to have stories read to him. And um and so that was what we did early on. But then you get this kind of deluge of of you know, the phones and social media, and everybody, you know, you get to a point where everybody has a phone, and at some point you're like, geez, you know, my kid needs a phone because they're you know, they're starting to get older and they're gonna be out and about, and I want to be able to get a hold of them, but you know, there's that that tool functionality of the phone is like the the tiniest amount that it's used, right? I mean, it's just a a device to stay connected through Snapchat and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 23:02

I I find it a diversion, like instead of just waiting at that bus stop and noticing the bird splashing through the puddle or the doll, you know, the dollop of light on the cement, you're not in the moment because you have a convenient diversion. I also in my teaching, by the way, was the I remember the moment where I thought, okay, they're walking in the classroom doing anything but making eye contact. And you know, in the phone is a great way of never learning that skill. And I don't know if everybody did this, but I remember in my I don't know, early 20s, as you're figuring out who you are. I guess like confidence never meant much to me, or I wasn't that important. I just thought, well, confidence is just faux confidence, you know. But I did think I'm gonna look everybody in the eye today. You know, I'm not in New York, so I can. I can, you know, I can look everybody that I pass in the eye and maybe even nod or say hello. Like I think we all had that rite of passage where we were trying to just be human. And like I just remember, ooh, they they're not even saying hello to the teacher in an ass-kissing way. Like, what is that? Wouldn't you isn't I don't know, but the phone was a great way of not developing those social skills. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:13

Yeah, I'd agree with that too. I I'm seeing that um in my own household, you know, it's easy for everybody to show up and uh kind of like look stuff up on their phone and not really interact with each other when my when my kids get together because my two older ones are out of the house. Um but what what I have done because Sabrina, uh I'm saying her name, she doesn't care. She's out she's at she's out there on anyways, but um, yeah, Sabrina's pretty much uh she she loves to read. And so I'm lucky that you know, she and she has her genres of books that she likes to read. But what what I have found that we have done, and I I think it's helpful too because her older siblings do the same thing, is when she's when when my youngest is on her um phone and you know, surfing social media and stuff comes up, or she hears about something, she'll come and ask us. And with my older ones, I was a typical parent. I did the whole, you know, here's my opinion, here's where I'm coming from, here's my thoughts. And I think I have, which drives her my youngest insane, but I have shifted to where instead I kind of reflect back, like, oh, so you what I'm hearing is is you're finding that that's sad. And it's just because of my counseling that she gets me, just quit, quit therapizing me. But what happens is I'm I'm turning the table on her because I'm actually getting her like right now, actually, her and her siblings are in a disagreement with each other, and she wants me to give her the answer of what she should do. And I'm like, I don't know what you should do. I know what I would do, but I can't answer what you're gonna do. And so I'm actually making her talk it out and work it out with me like I would anybody sitting across from me on the on the you know counseling couch, which drives her nuts, but it does, it gets her brain thinking. And I think that's something I think as parents now we have to do because exactly what you said, Brian, they just don't get that same kind of interaction that we all did growing up.

SPEAKER_03: 26:12

Yeah, and that thinking is hard. I mean, it's like you actually feel the effort that your brain is undergoing when you're bored. And when I was when I was younger and I was bored, it was it was the the the feeling that I wanted the most. And like because I didn't call it boredom. I mean, of course I would be like, oh mom and dad, I'm bored, I'm so bored. But really for me as an artist, that was the time when I just you know, I drew, right? Yeah, yeah. And my my I hungered for that like my whole adult life, like as I got into, you know, being a professional artist, I wanted that boredom so badly. And um, but when I can see it in the kids, like when they're thinking through something, that's difficult. And they'll do it, they save that energy for school. And then when they're not in school, they're like, Oh, I'm this is my release time, this is my chill time. And what that really means, um, the kind of hidden meaning of that is like I'm just not thinking.

SPEAKER_01: 27:15

Yeah, well, we talked about executive function as well, you know. And I think the boredom is where creativity arises from, right? If you're not yes, and yes, I never used that word either. In fact, as a kid, I would think, how could you be bored when there's elephants in Africa and to learn about and zebras? Like the world is such a fascinating. I recognize that as a kid. Like, yeah, I could how could somebody be bored? But I do think maybe being in the moment and not having that diversion 24-7 of a device, that is right, kind of where all creativity arises from. I mean, letters to a young poet, right? It's it's not isolation, but it is stillness.

SPEAKER_03: 27:55

Yeah. So anyway, we're I was thinking go ahead. Can I just wanted to follow up on that? Because when we were when we were kids, at least for me, we had that like the Encyclopedia Britannica or whatever. Right, right. The illustrated one, and it was on the bookshelf. Yep. And just to think if if you didn't have that and you could see elephants in Africa, every type of elephant, every video about elephants, every possible thing about elephants immediately. And the human brain is so you know, we can like quantify and we can categorize and we can so you're you have all of that access on your phone. Imagine when because when we were little, you gotta go in the gap. Oh my gosh, I would lay down on the rug and with my feet in the air, and I would flip through the Encyclopedia Britannica with the amazing illustrations, and I would fantasize about those other worlds. And I think that act of fictionalizing, like imagining that we just don't, we're skipping that step because everything is like I can just see a picture, and now I don't even know. Now it's AI, but like right, right, right, and that's just it's off the charts, it totally blows my mind, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 29:07

Yeah, well, I I think that's what I meant by image saturated and simply oversaturated because yeah, that's what imagination is filling in the gaps when not everything is handed to you, right? And that's how it becomes interactive, and um yeah, I don't know. I I I this is related a little bit in terms of the over-stimulation, but this is probably 20 years ago now. I remember, you know, the latest, greatest Matrix had come out, and I already had God knew what was on the horizon with AI, right? But I already, being in entertainment, I already thought, God, does everything have to be exploding helicopters all the time and have a toy attached or some franchise? And you know, where's the real raw storytelling that speaks of the human condition? And yes, I was aware there were commercial films and more niche films or art films or independent films. I was aware of all of that, but I did think, why is every studio picture about the body count or you know, the the exploding hell? It was really effects driven. Everything at that moment was effects driven. And I I mean I say the third matrix, I don't know, it was somewhere in there, but I remember I almost walked out, and I'm so I always get my money's worth. I've almost never walked out of a film, but I was just so aware at that moment, like I can't rub two nickels together to make my own films right now, but yet they're throwing money at these effects driven films. But then the next day I went to the Bodhi Tree bookstore. I don't know if either of you remember that on Melrose. Really great, yeah, a great bookstore. And there was a performance of Vietnamese shadow puppetry, and it's about as minimal as it sounds. It's these really beautiful sounds. Transparent puppets that are a real art. It's kind of like Wahawk and wood sculpture, like the whole culture learns this craft. And anyway, and it's they just tell the story with the shadows on the wall from these really beautiful puppets. And I'm sorry, that rocked my world more than the overstimulation of that Matrix film.

SPEAKER_02: 31:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:03

So that's what I mean by like hopefully we'll return. And again, Jen Alpha is supposedly starved for it. And that's why actually Disney is bringing back 2D. I don't know if you guys have heard that. No. Yeah, well, it's speculation, but they have, I mean, some of my animator friends have been hired back to start doing little experimental sequences and training younger animators. So it's happening. Yeah. And I didn't really sorry, I didn't really care that much one way or the other, because to me, it's storytelling that matters, not the medium or the technique. But there's something about the archival quality, you know, returning some value back to archival quality materials. And even in the fine art realm, right? I think there's something to be said for tangible art. Yes. Okay. Okay. Always more to say, but I'm going to go on to our second rote question, Brian. Um, so in all of that, I think we've I love what you said, by the way, about the role of storytelling and culture and how it how it's evolved. Um, so what makes you a storyteller? I know that you probably identify, I don't want to put words in your mouth, as a visual storyteller, but you're also a writer. So simply put, what makes you Brian Thompson, a writer? A storyteller. Sorry. What makes you a storyteller?

SPEAKER_03: 32:23

Oh my gosh, I don't know. I I do do do do yeah. That's that's a deep, deep question. Should we do a part part two? I think that I think that what makes me a storyteller is that uh I love like I feel like there's just an inherent kind of magic in everything. And when you I really my whole life I've uh been uh a very keen observer of things. I was quiet as a kid and I I was really artistic early on, and I think I just I looked and and noticed. And I I think that one of the things I I try to do um or that I hope that I do, I don't set out to do it, but I want people to feel something, I want them to have a response to something. And I'm just gonna digress slightly to um I guess started getting into things like um wood carving, um specifically spoon carving and like leather crafting and what what was really fascinating, all there's a ton of things that I could talk about in those, but I won't rather but the creating an artifact with my hands, like knowing the tree that this wood came from, shaping that the uh the wood into a spoon, giving it to someone that they will use in their kitchen to cook meals for their family was uh a type of storytelling that filled me up so much. And it and it contrasted so much with the digital art making I had been doing for so long. And it was similar when I got into leather cooked stuff. I just wanted to make something simple, so a wallet, I could do these simple fold over wallets and things because my skill was um, I was just learning. But I started making these and then gifting them to friends and family. And when I see them, like you know, five years later, and they still have that wallet and the patina on the leather and the smell of it, and and I look at it and I'm just filled up with like I made something with my own hands that's that's there's only one of those things in the world. And that is an artifact that person carries with them literally every single day. And um this might have pictures of their kids and you know, dollar bills that have been passed from human to human throughout the whole world. And it's just I I don't know. Um, I don't really know how to describe the mystique of that.

SPEAKER_01: 35:12

Um well it sounds like it it becomes you know the storied, the the well, right, the artifact, it's not utilitarian, it might serve a function, right? And there's all these elitist views about craft versus high art, you know, and utilitarian. But the most satisfying things can be things that last and are utilitarian by definition. But I'm hearing, I've never thought about it this way, but it it's becoming storied, right? Through use, the patina tells a story, all the photographs you're talking about. It become it takes on a story almost.

SPEAKER_00: 35:45

Well, I was just thinking, like, you know, and and that whole or and it's organic, so it's not multi, you know, manufactured. So as you're kind of talking about, it was making me think of the movie The Red Violin, and how that violin, you know, that's what the whole movie's about, right? Is this this violin that was crafted and you know, obviously stained in his wife's blood because she died from a miscarriage, but you know, the fact is and it went on to the next person, next person. So it had its own life that was yeah, breathed into this object. Well, you know, as you said, it it it had it was storied, it it had its own story and it was very organic.

SPEAKER_03: 36:22

The um yeah, a musical instrument, especially like the cheese. I mean, the life that an instrument has had and seen and the places it's been and what it's been played on it. And um, you know, I I started feeling that when I was um starting to trade drawings with people all over the world, I would do these sketches or I would just reach out to people totally, sometimes completely cold, and just be like, I love your artwork. Would you be willing to trade with me? And um and that's kind of what um you know, that's that's sort of the impetus of this thing that we I wanted to talk about a little bit later. But I don't know if I if that really answers the question very well. Um, because it's not something that's like really concrete for me, it's very um intangible. And I think that that when I make something whether it's a line on a white sheet of paper or uh or a spoon or a leathercraft or a painting or a poem, you know, there's so much love that goes into the making of it. Like literally every line is I love every single line.

SPEAKER_01: 37:41

Yep. And um that's gonna come up when we discuss your poem, I think. Yeah, by the way. Right? This is all interconnected. And I will I will say this you know, a true art, uh I'm not about to define what a true artist is. Let me start over. I think one of the one way of looking at it is there are artists who are not that in tune with it's unexamined. Do you know what I mean? It's visceral. Their drive to create is completely unexamined, and it's a beautiful thing. Then there are other people that learn craft and technique, and we all know the rules get in the way for a while and then the dust settles, right? And hopefully, exactly. Yeah, I think we all go through some version of that where the rules become second nature and you get back in touch with why the hell you do it in the first place. So we're all somewhere on that journey of finding our voices, and then, but I do think it can remain unexamined, and there I'll just give without throwing anyone under the bus, my sister's a vocal instructor, and I'm trained a little bit, you know, Seth Riggs and even my sister early on. I took some lessons with her, but it's nothing I've ever put on the front burner or pursued. So when I invited her to a friend, a friend's um gig, who finally at 40 something decided to get her her music out there, literally her voice out there, and it was a beautiful thing to watch, and it was so gut level and visceral, and it just defies any, do you know what I mean? Like conversations around technique. And yet, my sister being a vocal instructor, she was like, Wow, she's really using her middle register beautifully, and it's a mix and the lower larynx, man. And sorry, Renee. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, just just feel it, just be in the moment. But we all have some version of that. I'm such a sucker, I'm so relational that when I watch a movie, I forget to look at technique, you know, unless it's really bad and the boom mic enters the frame, and you see through the medium, you know, through the message to the medium, I tend to just get so engaged that I forget to learn. I forget to learn my craft when I watch films. But anyway, so I think I love it when a you know, somebody doesn't really know what makes them tick as an artist, and it can be very visceral. I know you can articulate it, Brian, but I think sometimes we over-romanticize keeping it a mystery because I love, especially with students, they fear if I bring it out into the light, it's gonna lose its potency.

SPEAKER_02: 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:02

And I think maybe there's a longer journey where you do analyze what makes you tick, and then yeah, like all technique, it becomes say second nature again.

SPEAKER_03: 40:13

Yeah. Well, I think that I still am struggling with the question, and I think that is an honest answer. Like, I think that I'm always learning. Um, I mean, what you described, that journey of like, oh, we, you know, we we have this impetus early on to be an artist and we're we're not sure, and then we go into art school, maybe, and then you you know, you get all of this technique and skill-based stuff forced upon you, and then you know, you're told you're never gonna amount anything. And then uh, you know, 20 years later, you're like, Oh, okay, like this is what I'm meant to do, and this is why.

SPEAKER_01: 40:50

And um yeah, I think it's and well, I I do separate like finding your voice within your craft from like assigning it to a sense of purpose or realizing what it serves on the macro. But I want to backpedal a little bit because we're into this territory now. Um, for our listeners, I want to backpedal and say, we're talking, I love the purity, like you said, of just learning to whittle spoons. It's uh it's got a legacy and a history behind it, right? And I think I mentioned to Virginia uh somebody I went to school with that I think the world of as well as an artist. I I guess I won't say any names, but um, during the pandemic, he sent me a beautiful painting that I just treasure, you know. And um, even back then, during Art Center, he I guess I'm pretty shallow because he gave me$500 worth of old oil paints that he wasn't using. So that won me over way back then. But anyway, he um I just admire what he's up to. He is the most prolific plain air painter I know, and it really serves him to just go out every day and create a little panel, and he's just cranking these things out, so it's really beautiful to watch. But more to the point, he whittles um fishing rods. Oh yeah, I don't know if it was he was raised in Hawaii, he's not Polynesian, but he was raised in Hawaii and he's a surfer. But somewhere in there, he learned this craft of whittling, and you got to get him right, you know, it's very precise. But anyway, I really love the purity and the rawness of that. So by contrast, Art Center, I think it occasionally redefines itself. But I know when I went there, because there was no entertainment track, I founded it for good or bad, I created that monster. But when I went there, it was all concept. I joke, like I was paid to learn how to think. Sure, I think some fine artists thought, ooh, it's so elitist and so high art that if I really academically want to learn to draw and paint and learn my perspective and my composition and my color theory, I've got to take illustration, not fine art. But even so, it was very conceptual. I learned to think conceptually. That can be at odds with narrative, right? In entertainment, whether it's cinema or even I don't know, theater or any other form of entertainment, it can be very narrative and the two can be at odds. So I just want to backpedal a little bit and say before we talk about your career in gaming, what was your big takeaway from Art Center? What were the biggest things you learned from Art Center, if anything? I hope it's something because it's very expensive.

SPEAKER_03: 43:25

It's it's yeah, and it it's it wasn't it wasn't as expensive as it is now, but um so many things. I mean, Art Center was like just a life-defining uh moment. And I was going to school at University of Washington up in Seattle um before that, and I was two years into that program where I had some teachers and they were like, Look, you know, you University of Washington has more of a fine art, you know, traditional fine art-based program, and you're just not going to be happy, you know. They could just tell. All I was trying to basically do entertainment work for these fine art projects and assignments. And I had one teacher who just said, you know, Brian, I I really think um, I really think he should go to Art Center in Pasadena. And um, it's a it's a school that my high school art teacher had had told me about too. But I had been like, no, no, I want a four-year, you know, liberal arts education and I can't focus this early. And so anyway, after two years at University of Washington, I I left and I actually did that and I bit the bullet and took out the loans and went to art center.

SPEAKER_01: 44:35

And it was probably already had your general ed, right?

SPEAKER_03: 44:38

I did. I basically had all my credits for that stuff, so I didn't have to do no waste of time. Yeah, yeah. I got to really focus. Um, but I had so many uh things, I mean uh so many like different epiphanies, too. Um, I mean, I'll probably start um I'll probably start with you. Uh your class, um, and it's not just because I'm on your show, it's because we're friends. I hope yeah. Your class, you taught me so many things. Um, just about the bridge between the things that I love to do, um, build worlds, create characters, think about storytelling and the theater of it and the audience and how the audience is reacting to what you're showing them and how you can lead them through that the visual storytelling. All of that stuff was just like mind-blowing to me. And it really was literally like exactly what I wanted to learn when I went to Art Center. But I had been doing all the foundations and everything. So when I got into your class, I literally was like, oh my God, like now, now is when it starts, you know? And um that was one part, and obviously that's complex, as you know, because you taught the class, so there's lots of things that go into that. But the other thing was you introduced me to a type of like mark making um and drawing that hit such a note with me, it felt so akin to the marks that I always loved, and um and it totally changed my drawing style.

SPEAKER_01: 46:17

Um, I don't know if you knew that, but well, I remember we used to we both probably liked um I don't know, like Frisetta and I know trees. We shared an aesthetic when it came to trees, gnarly trees. Yeah, but but it was the straights to curves to straights to curves.

SPEAKER_03: 46:36

Yeah, it was straights to curves and like those sickle-shaped marks, and the um the gestural mark was very different. It was basically like taking a lot of the the facility with the pencil that I we had been honing with figure drawing and bringing that way of drawing into um you know, drawing layouts or drawing environments or setting up a scene or whatever like that. And so I became that's where I really fell in love with the mark. So I attributed. And now you're way up.

SPEAKER_01: 47:09

Wow. Well, I think if anything, I just saw it in you and I may have encouraged it, but I saw something really beautiful there. And I would say, in terms of mark making, which is not a word, you know, that term doesn't come off my lips often. Yeah, yeah, but you're all about that, and you are off the charts. So I didn't learn, well, really, I I there's the Shinkievich's of the world, and there's Hogarth, and there's you know, Magnola, and there's a lot of people that work with positive and negative space, right? And how the line interacts with these solid fields of black and figure ground relationships. There's a lot of there's huge history that I've never seen anything like your work, where it all comes together and it's way more expressive than anything else that's out there. So I want to ask you does Sumi mean anything to you? Do you think about traditions like Sumi or mark making? What's your relationship with mark making? Because it's way off the charts. I you may have learned something in my class, but I think it was what I saw in you that I tried to encourage you in, if anything.

SPEAKER_03: 48:15

Yeah, well, thank you for saying all that. I mean, it's like you've always been kind of one of my heroes. So for you to talk about my work that way is it really means a lot to me, really, honestly. Um and I think that, you know, we studied Notan, right? And we studied, we studied like, yeah, Sumi Inc. and Japanese calligraphy and um at Art Center. Well, I think I think it may be part of design class um when we're looking just at shape, um, but then also just stuff that I was into. Um I was really into these, you know, kind of gestalt type, you know, masses. And there's something that that really clicked for me, and it might have been in your class, it might have been in a figure drawing class, maybe with uh when we were doing the do you remember when you do the like the powder charcoal um you you rub the rubbing and then you do the race out?

SPEAKER_02: 49:12

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01: 49:13

No, I don't know it wasn't Vince Robbins, okay. It was I do remember that assignment, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 49:17

You we all had to do a huge yeah, and I that's when another place where I was like, okay, I'm gonna bring those marked into the negative shape making. And then I started looking at the negative shape just as earnestly as the positive shapes, and um I think it just evolved out of that. I mean, of course, I was a big Magnola fan. I fell in love with Sergio Topi, who I didn't really know when I was at Art Center, and he I kind of learned about him later in life. And I think moving to Europe, you go to a comic book store here, and it's just so different than like all the French artists and I was gonna say, do you spend time in Paris at all? No, I still haven't been. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01: 50:00

Well, you know, les Bouchanists, the the Bouchanist along the Seine and the whole Latin quarter, it's all band dessinée, which is comics, band dessinée, graphic novels, and it's so appreciated there in a way that it's not here. Your mind is, I'm sure you've already been exposed to a lot of it, but the French ones will blow your mind. Yeah. And sadly, I I stocked up on them when I was living there, and um, every single one of them is now moldy and the pages are stuck together because I watered my plants in my MR. Like my armoire became my bookshelf, and I yeah, for years I watered my plants, not realizing it was dripping down into my band dessine.

SPEAKER_03: 50:37

So yeah, like the do you know the artist Manu Larcinette? Do you know him? Maybe. Do you know a title? I hope I'm I hope well, he did a biz he's done so many works, but the latest one is the his uh version of the road. He did a graphic novel interpretation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. And uh I'll check it out. Oh, you need to check it out. Oh, it's so good. But he he's also like he he's very um chameleon-like with his styles, which is something I really love because he's a he's a very um prolific comic book and graphic novelist who changes style all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 51:15

And that's well, I'm let me ask you then, because we do distinguish between voice and style. So I like that he's versatile, right? And in style, versatile, adaptable in style. Do you see a voice that shines through all of that? A sensibility, a worldview, something like that.

SPEAKER_03: 51:34

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 51:35

What does he bring to the table despite the style, if that makes sense?

SPEAKER_03: 51:38

Yeah, yeah. I think it's that like real strong sense of um pathos, maybe. Is that the right word? Like just the human, the the there's a visceral quality that stylistically his work brings out. And again, he he navigates different styles, but he always has that voice of like wanting to get deeper into the kind of visceral nature of our experience. And I don't speak French, so most of the books I've seen are in French, and I need to find English, you know, versions of them.

SPEAKER_01: 52:13

But I get that a lot through the the the narrative work and yeah, the sequential words are worth a thousand words, they say exactly. Not to spew a bunch of cliches, but it's kind of true. If you can tell a story visually, you're 90% there. Words are cheap.

unknown: 52:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 52:30

But you know, I do speak French, so hey, uh, be good practice for me. Ask me any questions about your French.

SPEAKER_03: 52:39

I don't know any French questions.

SPEAKER_01: 52:40

Well, nowadays on the interwebs, you can you don't even need to go to um Google Translate anymore. If you use the AI function in Google, you can literally say what does bandessinet mean, and it'll it'll tell you.

SPEAKER_03: 52:54

Oh, that's cool. I use my um, it's funny when I'm in bookstores, I use my Google lens, you know, it's got that like instant translate.

SPEAKER_01: 53:01

So I'm like, I'm reading it. I say we're all part of the problem and not the solution here. I know when it comes to technology, anyway. Thanks for going into all that. Um, for our non-artists, because we we don't we don't even know really, we like to think we know our listeners, right, Virginia, but who knows really? But to bring it back to story a little bit, because we're getting specific in terms of mark making and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. So I just wonder coming from Art Center, which probably was in transition when you were there, right? It was still, I'm sure, somewhat conceptual. You probably still had plenty of editorial illustrator teachers, and then entertainment was rather new. So you went into gaming. Now I worked on a few titles in gaming, just a few, and it was largely gameplay driven. So the art direction was always gameplay driven. Yeah, but the titles you worked on straight out the gate, it seems like at um Big Fish were largely narratively driven, you know. Um, drawn and yes, sketch are those, fetch, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, they were very, and you were the mastermind largely behind those. And I know they were more narrative, and uh again, you can clarify this, but I I think that was kind of the the brand there at Big Fish was a little more of a narrative slant. So tell me about how story works in gaming, other than gameplay, and then your relationship with it. Like, how did you get to utilize your love of story in the gaming realm?

SPEAKER_03: 54:33

Yeah, that's a really good question. And I, you know, it's funny because I came, I got into games without being a gamer myself, and I always thought this was like a kind of a hindrance um at first. That that became more of a problem or like an issue when I was working in like AAA, you know, I was working on big console projects. But when I moved to um and it wasn't a it wasn't a problem for me, it's sometimes a problem for people I worked with because they were kind of snooty about, you know, if you don't if you haven't been playing games your whole life, and what do you what do you do when working in games?

SPEAKER_01: 55:10

Oh, yeah. No, half the job postings that I see demand that you be a game lover. Yes, sometimes they want a fresh eye. I was hired on a few because they wanted an animation person that was not a gamer. I love that, but it was the rarity, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 55:27

Right. I I think what I was working, um, I was like lead concept artist on a at a company called Surreal, and we were working on a big open world, realistic game. Um, and I was doing all of the environment design. We were basically doing a like a fantasy version of Las Vegas. I know it's already a fantasy version. We were doing a we were doing our own version, which was a lot of storytelling in itself. It was almost like stage design type stuff. Um, and then when this job opened up at Big Fish to Art Direct there, what I realized is they were doing all 2D adventure games, basically. Um they have a bunch of like hit these this genre called hidden object games. I was totally not interested in that. But they they were willing to develop a new title and um and they wanted it to be like a point-and-click adventure, kind of an old school Sierra or Mist type thing. And you know, as part of me taking the job, I really wanted to know if I would have full um freedom to, you know, define the style of the of the game. And and I understood that to be the case. And so I took the job and then I started um developing a project that was really there was already already a game designer, and um, he was working on this. It wasn't it wasn't really going in a good direction. We were developing art for it, and I was developing a style that this was the thing that I love, Nick, is that I came out of Art Center and I had all of these like influences and you know, Don Bluth and all the old Disney stuff, and yourself included. And I was like, oh, maybe like do some lean into that, and so that's what I started doing. I started doing you know, background painting. Um, and with the shape design that I loved and the color palettes that I loved and the mood, but there was a story element that was being authored by another person who it was just all over the place, and so it's kind of like the art just always was the backdrop. And then that um that kind of design leadership changed, and we were able to reinvent um that project, and it eventually became drawn. And it was, you know, it was like, well, what if there was this young girl and she was she had this deep story that she was engaged in and she could paint these pictures and enter them. She painted her dreams basically, and then the whole the whole uh mechanic of the game was to find these paintings on the wall that were destroyed and repair them. And then once you repair them, it you gain access into the world that that painting represented. And so then it was just it was it was journey, it was the hero's journey, it was like the culmination of the juxtaposition of the world outside of the paintings and then the world inside the paintings.

SPEAKER_01: 58:26

So you would call them designers, but they're they're writers, really. Most people would think of right, the writers.

SPEAKER_03: 58:33

Well, in those in no, in this particular case, you can have a game designer who is not a writer, and they basically are just doing the um it's a very difficult job, but they're kind of designing all of the gameplay mechanics. And then, you know, if there's a narrative element, they write that sometimes, or they have a writer that they work with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 58:54

But what I'm getting at is sorry, in animation, visual development and story development are hand in hand, no matter whether they go on for 20 years or a year and then move into pre-production. It's very much, you know, the visuals, as you know, world building informs the storytelling. And sometimes you only build the world by indulging the concept art. So I'm just wondering how that evolved. And did you learn your storytelling sense by doing it in gaming? I'm guessing you probably learned a lot. How much did you interact with the storytelling or the story structure?

SPEAKER_03: 59:25

Yeah. Well, once the once the design that designer moved on, it was basically on me and and Chris to you know, he was kind of like the senior producer, and I was the art director, and the designer left. And then the it was we basically had our boss come to us and say, we could either hire a new game designer or you guys could just take on that role. And we were like, what's it arsenic? You can tell me, Brian. No, so we did we decided to do it, and and we hadn't done that before. I mean, Chris came from a long history of playing games and working in games as a producer and and just a game lover. Did you say Chris Jennings? No, Chris Campbell.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:10

Was he the one that used to that came to Art Center for that um lunch brunch? Remember, you guys used to come for um scholarship? No, for the recruiting event, and I sat next to somebody. Was that uh no?

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:23

He never came for that. No, I'm trying I can't remember who came down with me. I came a couple times. Um anyway, that that's how we became these reluctant kind of uh game designerslash storytellers, and because it was an adventure game, it was all story, you know, it was based up on these like kind of segments, chapters. you know, acts and then what the character was oh eventually overcoming and how you build up to that and what are the you know progressive complications that lead to you know this kind of story wrapping up and then we made you know I think it was two more so it was a trilogy anyway. Um and I had when I was at Art Center I'd say outside of your class the other big story class was um and it was his storytelling class really was the uh storyboarding with John Coven.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:19

You remember John? I do I I know the name I can't picture him right now I'm aware of him for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:24

Yeah he so he taught storyboarding class and I took that class and I really loved it and it was I I really wanted to um storyboard my own uh stories and so those became kind of like graphic novels in a way and um like because I went way overboard for what they needed to be as true storyboards but I learned kind of like the sequential the sequential storytelling and then the camera and those kinds of things that then all were tools that I used to to art direct and and be a storyteller in games.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:00

Wow yeah it's all making sense now you know those early influences uh not everybody can tell a story visually and it's about information reveal right I would say style doesn't really matter it it depends but in cinema or animation you know we would show our um reels we call them there was a you know a reel for every act and we would of course look at dailies but it got greenlit act by act which doesn't sound sounds counterintuitive but sometimes the whole act would be greenlit and based on just uh the animatic but I'm sorry there would be one you know one artist who's really good at the comedic sequences and somebody who specialized in you know maybe the the romance sequences and another artist who was good at the action adventures and it didn't drawing style did not matter at all. It was all over the board if that makes sense because it's really information reveal that matters. And so I love but I think the fact that you indulged them as illustrations more so than just uh a means to an end you developed your love of graphic novels and comic books if if that makes sense. It it kind of explains a lot that that was an early influence of yours.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:10

Yeah yeah and I was able to bring all that to bear in that in that job and those years that I was doing that there and it was really formative for me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:19

It's beautiful work I have one of the art of drawn books only one are there oh yeah are there others for the other two in the no I think we gave I think we gave that to you when you came up to speak right I love it yeah yeah beautiful work that's cool that's cool and did they were they refreshed by your visual storytelling sense which is more cinematic I'm guessing were they refreshed by that because I I it seemed new to me when I was given that book I was like wow this is not your typical gaming aesthetic yeah they were I think I think it was um within that adventure game you know sort of genre especially at that time you know PC adventure games downloadable there was a lot of people that um that reacted really strongly to that because it just wasn't uh what it didn't come out of something that already existed it was not um at least in games of course everything has you know a derivation like quality to it but um yeah on that note I mean I will say some of the people even toward the end at Disney feature animation we got more and more people from Disney interactive from Dimgy and um even back then this was the Cretaceous for God's sake but there was always a desire for better storytelling or more storytelling if that makes sense. I think Silent Hill was new and they're like ooh there's some some level of storytelling we haven't seen before so all the writer the game designers that showed up at Disney feature animation would talk about this desire for better writing and it's in the eye of the beholder sometimes but I would say um it's come a long way right and I think it's always evolving but the few titles I've worked on not only was the art direction not thematically driven but it was gameplay driven but more so it was derivative. Hey let's you know that one title they did really well let's do a hook put a hook on the carrot like that was the best little bit of art direction I got was put a hook on it dude like because it had been seen before you know yeah a lot of the designs I did they were like yeah cool total freedom yeah we love it green light and then in the final couple weeks of this one gig we just conformed everything back to the movie that was neck and neck with this title. Do you know what I mean? Like it can be very derivative in gaming is my experience.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:37

Absolutely and that's why it was so refreshing to have that kind of opportunity and early on because that was my first time art directing and I got so lucky that I got to art direct something that I got to you know invent. Yeah well but it probably also made a big I think it probably changed or broadened the types of storytelling that are happening in gaming just to guess um I mean I like to think so within that small that small genre you know I mean we it's not like we had that wasn't the games that like all the 20 you know the mid-20 guys were playing and on their souped up PCs this was this was like a different type of uh a slower pace immersion you know the sound and the the the music was all really carefully you know considered and so it that was the other thing too that it was just uh the immersion quality like what you're giving the audience that was I really love that the theatrical element of it yeah and you guys were very aware of your demographic too right I think every gaming company probably has a brand and they know exactly who they're catering to.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:41

I feel like Virginia may have gone to the restroom but I trust okay I was like I trust you'll pipe up if you have something to say but I am looking at the clock Brian and very clearly we need to do part two because you and I always have more to say but maybe as a way no we're not wrapping it up like right now but I want to get to your poem because I feel like it'll open some other conversations. So before we do wrap up we try to go around an hour and 20 minutes and the more I talk here the more the clock's ticking. But in the interest of getting to some of those conversations I know you had some things you did wish to impart to listeners. And um we're not going to get to all of them so we'll have a part two hopefully if you're not too busy. But maybe the poem will open up some of those other conversations do you care to share that now or is there better transition I can I can yeah yeah tell us quick quickly though as as as context I do know that you have been incorporating your writing with your image making maybe you can tell us about the direct drawing I wanted to get a little more of a definition on direct drawing and just what you're up to lately really.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:48

Yeah well the yeah there is probably part two in there because um one of the things I wanted to talk about is just like the the the ability for drawing or art making to deal in dealing with like you know um our our deeper emotions and our our subconscious and um and the direct drawing is something that came out of a you know a very difficult experience that I had in my my family's life and um and I was looking for I didn't know it but I needed a form of expression that uh would allow me to get some of these kind of emotions out. And um and I was going back and forth to work um throughout this time period over these years um crossing the Puget Sound to go from Bainbridge Island to Seattle and I started doing these drawings and because I was on a ferry and a pen and ink and paper was the easiest um thing and it was very direct and I didn't want to sketch anything I just wanted to go. I just wanted to do I just wanted my I just wanted the ink to flow and so that's what's meant that's what's meant by direct is no block in. Yeah right no no sketching just kind of like direct reassociation symbolism just drawing trying to enter the flow state and then letting the letting whatever comes come. But even content wise you have no plan it just it comes out yeah I hats off to you I love I mean one of the things that of course like what do you draw when you don't have an idea and it's like you know I you kind of skip that step by just having that visual vocabulary like right there and then you you oftentimes it'll be like these organic shapes maybe it'll be a tree I started just like you know pulling up my my sort of deeper symbolism and recognizing like if I draw a tree like 20 times don't judge that I'm drawing a tree just understand that I'm drawing a tree because I love a tree and that's my way of honoring the forms. And that was the thing of just kind of letting go and then the direct drawing. But I that's when I started posting those ink drawings and I started getting people interested in them and and it started to bring up a lot of things for for people where they were like wow you're kind of helping me fall back in love with drawing because I've spent my whole life just trying to always chasing perfection or you know sketching and getting to final and you know even people that are like really successful comic book artists they just felt like they had it it had been so um stilted or they felt caged by it you know and permission permission to just let it flow yeah yeah yeah and this kind of unbridled um quality to it that I just absolutely fell in love with I became it kind of addicted to it. So um people I started um saying hey you know would you like I love your work and they would say oh I love your work do you want to do a trade and so maybe there's an artist in Brazil or in you know in Europe somewhere or South America whatever all these different places all over the world and that's where this idea kind of came from is that it felt so special to open a package and carefully unwrap it and take out this drawing that somebody made it was it was handmade and they had put pen and or pencil it wasn't a reproduction and it the the artifact nature of it in even the the journey that it had gone on through you know across oceans or whatever it was was so magical to me. And it it piqued this part of me of being a little kid and like treasure and these these this the stories that we all go through and adventure and it was just something magical and I I think one of the things that I I don't know it's 820 now or it's it's in my time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:09

Do you do I have time to talk about this a little bit more absolutely we go over trust me we have some really long episodes I like that the yeah I just wanted to gently steer it toward the poem but I love this this is context for the poem yeah it is it is yeah it is and when when I when I would get these drawings and you'll totally totally relate to this when I look at a drawing or a painting or a sculpture I've spent my whole life looking at artwork.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:38

And when I look at you know an artist's work I I can see them in the marks I can see their personality I can see their influences I can see I can read the drawing in a way that's much deeper than just the visual. And I think that makes a lot of sense to artists you know but if you think about other people who have not looked at art their whole life or maybe that they've always felt a distance from it they can always everyone can appreciate everybody's got eyeballs and everybody can appreciate how it makes them feel or their reactions to it. But um but oftentimes it stops with I don't it's not for me or ooh I really love that. But but for artists I think it gets to this place where we can see so much in it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:26

And so anyway at best, you know, if somebody's really I don't know taking their journey the chemist to bring back the French taking their artist's journey seriously it can be the purest expression of your soul on paper or you know on canvas. And maybe and we've had writers on here that have said it's kind of between the lines that abstract territory that only language can access is not to put words in anyone's mouth but yeah a very pure expression of our subjective consciousness, you know, our souls if that doesn't scare anyone. Okay. Yeah and I and yeah I think people are stilted and there's some people that haven't don't have that direct access or that visceral intuitive access to their pure consciousness.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:15

But for those who do it transcends and I think even that people that can't articulate it are going to sense that yeah in the world and the thing the thing with me is I didn't have access to that until this process and this this kind of thing happened in me where it just started bubbling up. Well you needed to purge and have a catharsis I'm guessing yeah I did and it's it's gets into that whole thing of like you know you you have to live and you have to go to the bottom of the well to to discover these things sometimes and and I did I went down deep and and found it and it just it started springing up and so let me read it and then and I can tell you what I was um yeah um so the idea well anyway it's how do you how do you start? Okay it's called a thousand miles apart how they came to be in the desert that day I will never know but let me tell you what I remember on the thin path pale and parched drawn along the earth by the hooves of beasts they walked from different worlds unknown from obscure histories evolving in their own with the desire for discovery like a building thirst growing and growing until one day stepping from their separate shelters they embarked a thousand miles apart one with drawings bound with string and one with wooden carvings packed away two artists set off in the shadowless gloam, one toward the horizon's pale glow, the other toward the sinking silver moon and in their separate silence walking with their curious minds blessed with wandering they followed the light by candles a thousand miles apart. Each of them with no spoken language, no alphabet or written word, simply listened deeply to the sounds of the earth and hummed the tune of their heart. And as the night fell they made solitary camps, alone in separate silence, but sharing the same blanket of stars, and they dreamed impossible dreams a thousand miles apart. And one carefully drew a sheet of paper from the bundle that he had and the other turned a piece of wood in dark with dark calloused hands while one looked into the emptiness of white to find the secrets there the other felt the flowing grain and the warmth of fleeting forms. One set his pen and began to see what lines were meant to be and far away another flame caught the glint of a careful blade and he began to carve away all that's not while the other drew all that never was a thousand miles apart.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:02

Well that's it's really beautiful yeah it's really beautiful you're it's so it's strong imagery and that leads me to a question I wanted to ask earlier um in the freeform drawing do you find archetypes come out of you? Do you recognize universality in the images that come out of you? Because I feel uh in your in your writing you know I don't know all of your writing but over the years I've read enough of it to know it's very visual that was so evocative and and visual and yet the resonance had more to do with the symbology. So I just had wanted to ask that earlier do you see archetypes that are universal or uh do you not examine it when they I do I well oftentimes I examine it like afterwards.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:50

Um you know I I sometimes do like that free association where I take the drawings and I lay them out and I especially like the connections that form between two completely unrelated things because each one of these drawings I would do like a 35 minute um on the way to work and 35 minutes on the way home at the end of the day. And I call I call the body of work the crossing for that because it's the crossing of the ferry each way one drawing each way you know over years. And so there's like you know many, many hundreds. But um one of the things that I think about with like voice and style is that you you kind of are um you know excavating these ancient symbols within you. Yeah and there are things that you've gleamed onto something that resonated with you maybe it's things you've seen but I also think there's that there's an element of that we talked about it in that creativity panel that epigenetics of like things no dude I sorry go no like this the symbolism that's passed down right is so it's I I feel like when when you're making this work or like writing or whatever if you're tapping into this this kind of timelessness that isn't not about like the just our what we're experiencing here on the the surface level is just the blink of an eye it's the tip of an iceberg but what is deep deep deep within us I think is this connected symbolism. Yes. And what where it comes from it's that's such a cool philosophical question, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:32

Yeah well I think this this poem makes us think about all of that. And I want to quit before I just I'm trying to stop you from saying too much about your intention because I think what I got out of is right in line with your intention. I'm of course I think that but I want to ask you about a specific line. So I just think it's all really beautiful. But since you mentioned the word epigenetics I did find it fascinating that the line they walked from different worlds unknown from obscure histories evolving on their own. At first I thought ooh I wonder if that's a typo because it could be obscure histories evolving on their own. But you said from obscure histories evolving in their own. So I wrote in their own histories right that's the implication. Yes. So I wrote um I can't read my own writing because it's so tiny I wrote shared lineage cellular memory epigenetics threading all individuals together into the collective over time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:32

So yeah that's that one line kind of yeah put me in touch with what we're tapping into and it is kind of intergenerational and uh speaks to speaks to epigenetics so I didn't imagine that right yeah no that was right yeah and I think the the overall thing that I was trying to convey too is that what if we couldn't talk to one another what if we couldn't speak we we didn't have a language we didn't have a tongue or a way to form words and just like the the owl that hunts in the night uh over you know hundreds or thousands of years it's evolved its sense of hearing and its sense of sight. If if I couldn't speak then my sense of visual interpretation of if you handed me a drawing and I didn't know you at all I could read that drawing as if it were your life your a poem from your heart absolutely and in the same way that this so I put these two artists one carves things and the other one writes things okay and so oh yeah go ahead well we for the listeners we I I I debated I'm just kind of being fully transparent here for the listeners I did read it beforehand of course I took notes I had to read it many times and over you know I let it sink in and um even overnight I think the puzzle pieces you know cemented themselves and yeah I wrote my interpretation but I was telling Brian in the green room before we came on here like it's not my time to play critic and feedback to you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:16

This podcast is not about me but I said sometimes you know that's a great exercise to see if you're conveying your intention and so we were debating about whether I tell what I got out of it before you reveal your intention or not. And we're doing a little of both here but I'm trying to stop you because I want to confirm that you really I don't know I just think there's got to be some value to hearing what people get out of it. Have many people said back to you about this poem um not in particular this one but I I've shared it with my my kids and my family um my wife uh just the idea behind it and I think um it resonates um it resonates the it gives there's a lot to think about there I think yeah that's why I'm just tempted to I'm stopping you because I kind of wanted to share what I got out of it because it would be confirmation to you that you've got that would be that would be an honor for me. It's a little too late but that's the idea is that you know you want to know it's transcending and speaking to people but I fully fully got this idea that I love the word ineffable. Does that morgue mean anything to you ineffable defies language. Oh yes I've often said you know most truth defies language language is insufficient to characterize the ineffable I put it you know and so I very much got that straight out the gate that this is about kind of not the function of art but one of them right is that it speaks like I was saying between the lines like one of our guests said it's the nonlinear space between the lines where language you know can create I don't know fill in the gaps but it can also be completely insufficient. So I I do want to point something out to you and then maybe you can speak to your intention but I I know what I got out of it and I guess I'm resisting sharing that but I did find it because I think there's a micro level like ooh this is what Brian's twisted psyche was working out right I'm kidding but then it's like ooh but what's the universal version of that? What does it say about all of us? But then I'm the weirdo who always goes to the major metaphysical level the meta view of what it says about existence not just the human condition but the expression of consciousness in the physical realm I didn't want to lose anyone but for me there were many levels to this so I just wanted to say isn't it interesting that you can apply whatever symbolism you want to desert right for me a desert is the chaos of existence it's life it's it's seemingly empty and void but they are meeting right from very isolated places. So I think it's pretty obvious that the two characters whether you see it as two aspects of Brian's psyche or two aspects of the human condition that they're kind of meeting right in a vast desert. I don't want to say the obvious either but to me I think it's fascinating and maybe you can speak to this that one uses an additive medium and one uses a subtractive any symbolism occurred to you what that might mean?

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:25

No, but I it's because you know I mean that it's definitely I think it's interest so interesting to hear this actually because um the the reason one of the reasons I fell in love with the wood carving was the subtractive nature of it and and having it be it basically defies everything that you do on the computer which is like build up build up control Z control Z. I mean everything has like a you know safety net blah blah blah and when you're carving there is no undo you know you really have to be in tune with it's not necessarily what you want to make it what the wood wants to become exactly and because there's a yeah go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:07

Well I'm just gonna really quickly rattle off what I got out of it and it's you're definitely we're on the same page for sure. But I think even you know sometimes we subconsciously do things in our writing and that's the beauty of art. It can be so universal if you've hit on something that the projections of the patron play into it you know so I'm just gonna quickly rattle it off because it's not about me but I think yeah I tuned into your intention because to me it was about two you know these two entities again maybe warring aspects of you or not maybe two dual aspects of the human condition but what are they is what I was wondering. And yes to me I immediately got like ooh the act of creation gives us access to the common meeting ground even if so it spoke very much of our isolation right our subjective realities which can be very separate and isolated but then there is a meeting ground somewhere where is it ooh it's in the act of creation right and how interesting that one was additive and one was subtractive so on the major macro level I just kind of thought hey maybe and you can just think about this you might not have attention but maybe it was about ego and pure consciousness which is our souls right so maybe ego maybe our our pure consciousness our souls want to add beauty right we create beauty we create meaning right Virginia we're meaning makers so we add beauty by making those marks and then the subtracting was like the chipping away at ego that allows you to meet in the middle so to me divinity is when you chip away at ego enough to where your pure soul can come into the equation of existence you know so I just felt like ooh they're meeting in the middle and it's something to do with ego uh kind of having to chip away uh like a sculptor I think it's been said many times Michelangelo sees the form like the Aristotelian form that's already exists in the ether but you got to bring it into fruition so I got like all of that like even the Ayn Rand idea that you know creativity is taking concepts and making them percepts right and so I don't know there was something about additive meant you're creating beauty or subtracting means you're chipping away at ego to access pure consciousness. Does that resonate at all cool totally resonates um and it's I'm I'm thinking of it now through you know that lens as well because I totally believe that you write these things and these things come to you on multiple levels you know and uh I think that's a really really fascinating interpretation super cool thank you I'm glad yeah you you don't have to answer now you can think about it but I mean on a surf there is no surface level to this poem you know but I think ostensibly it's about craft but then it does say say something larger about spirituality that's my word you know and uh I didn't want to lose anyone but I think creativity is the ultimate way to bring divinity into the physical realm I've said too much sorry the act of creativity is maybe bringing collective consciousness or even our higher consciousness into the perceptual realm am I just saying the same thing over and over again no I love it I love it and I think that the I I saw this thing by this guy do you know the the author Percival Everett who wrote sounds familiar no um he if I haven't read the book but I think James the movie James wasn't there a movie James um I don't know if they've made it into a movie it's just uh yeah um he said that artists and you know writers and we're like facilitators and we we are like tuned in tuning all the time to try to catch some idea or some thought or something that we have to express I'm not I'm not paraphrasing this very well but then you it absolutely requires a reader a viewer an audience to interact with it for it to become the thing yes well that's almost the observer effect right if we're antennas and we're just fine-tuning something and finding the frequency to communicate it to others uh you know the observer effect right does does a tree I mean and now I'm come I'm making a mixed metaphor here right but does a tree fall yeah if nobody's there to hear it did it really fall it's the same thing as the observer effect right that those waves don't become particles until Yeah. Okay, go on. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:51

No, I mean it's just that that synthesis or that alchemy or whatever happens when a certain you know, it's a little bit like when you and when a flame catches uh when you light a piece of paper or something and that spark catches fire, it it requires those two things, those two substances to happen. But the but the fire that that comes from it is a pure energy of its own and it's completely unique. So how I interpret a novel or a painting or something is gonna be totally different from how you do or somebody else. And um but I loved that idea that we are facilitators and we really need to communicate things, but we don't have this like divine plan. We're just in tune to something that uh that maybe uh could help somebody else change their perspective, uh see something differently, feel something differently. Um that to me is just so beautiful and and it gets back to that that human connection, which is another big theme of the poem, which is just you know, they're driven by this curiosity to see what's out there and say they go on this epic journey and they meet and they can connect with one another even without this language and read the history of one another, and the it's it's really it's just a really neat thing. I I want to spend a lot more time delving into this in my own work.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:25

I just yeah, you're preaching to the choir because I mean I try not I try to be very pregn pragmatic about craft, you know, like as far as talent. Oh, it's not god given, it's it's something one devotes oneself to and right and does all those exercises and perfects. But I'm sorry, I'm an elitist at the end of the day that we need to give credit to artists and visionaries and creatives of all kinds, right? There's all kinds of creative, creative acts all day, every day. But let's recognize it as yes, being a conduit, as you said, or being an antenna, and it is no small thing, um, especially in this fascist you know, milieu right now. That's what we're protecting, is the fact that we wouldn't evolve without people that held up a mirror to society and our own humanity as an agent, right, in its evolution. So call me an elitist, but that's what we're trying to protect here, in my understanding. And uh, I don't see, and I'm gonna broaden it. You know, it's not sculptors and or painters or authors, it's all creatives, all innovators are harnessing and contributing it back for our collective evolution. So, anyway, I love what you said, and even in your prompts, you wrote something about you know, maybe true, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but maybe true inspiration is if you're driven to draw or paint something or tell a story, it's because someone out there needs to hear it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:51

Yes, that I don't know who told me that. I I really can't uh I I can't recall. It might have been. Anyway, somebody told me that and it really just because I was like, what's the point? I'm doing all this work. Like, I just I don't know if any I don't know if it's making a difference for anybody. But if you're compelled to do it, then it's because somebody needs to see it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:17

And then well, I'm gonna plug my book though, because it can sound very kind of mystical and not empirical. What's the opposite? Rational, believe it or not, is the opposite of empirical. It sounds pretty woo-woo, but my book makes a case for how quantum mechanics supports this, epigenetics supports it, and I kind of try to connect all the dots, you know, where it's not that mystical. If you are called upon to do it, it's because collective intelligence knows what's needed next in our dialectic, and we all have our individual gifts, right? And we all have inspiration all day, every day to contribute what's needed next from us, right? Through our particular gifts. So I didn't say it very well, but I have 375 pages, you know, to make my case in that book.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:06

Yeah. Yeah, I I really love that because I I think then as creators, the thing that I know that I struggle with, I know a lot of other creators do, is just that feeling of um, you know, what's it all for?

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:22

Especially right now, it's like, why bother? Trust me, I have to renew my faith all day, every day. This podcast really helps, you know, and interfacing with people like you that get it. I do go, why bother? I mean, trust me, right? Uh Virginia knows right after the election, and like never thought I'd be here, but people suck way more than I knew. At least 50% of Americans, anyway, suck, you know, and like, why bother? I don't even have kids to leave a better planet to. So for me to get up every morning and continue, I I always think of um Mother Teresa. She says, Well, I didn't see evidence of God for 20 years, but I did the work. Yeah. So that's what faith is, right? Is not giving up on humanity or life or any of that. Sorry if I went off the rails there, but for me, I have to just go, that's what faith is. You do the work even if you don't see the evidence for 20 years.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:17

And sometimes it's the work is just being open to like, you know, again, like having the antenna up and um like putting yourself in situations where that kind of magic can happen. Like the other day, my wife and I went to eat at this seafood restaurant we totally love, and down by the beach. And we were there was a guy sitting next to us by himself, and he had this book with a really interesting title. We both noticed it. And um it I think it was something like uh things the fortune teller said to me. Um and he we noticed that he was at the very end of it. So we were like, Oh, we both want to ask him about this book, but he's at the end, so let's wait till he finishes. And then, you know, he finished his book and his meal, and he um he got up to leave, and we we started, we talked to him about the book, and and it was just one of those like beautiful human moments where we weren't on our phones, we we he was reading an actual book. So it gave us something to to talk about. We connected on that. We started, we heard about his whole story about traveling in Southeast Asia, which is what this book is about, and um, and all the things that that taught him about life and and and the way he his whole worldview, and it was just one of those things where you're like, wow, that was so special and and so rare these days.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:43

Well, do you does the word peak experience mean anything to you? No, Virginia loves when I mentioned Maslow, right, Virginia? Oh, yeah, because he's hierarchy hypnee. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's one of the ideas, these peak experiences. So when you're aligned, or call it what you want, right? When you're like you said, you have no diversions or devices in your hand, and you're in the moment, you're tapped into synchronicity, right? And so we've all had them. I've done, I've said this on the podcast, too, enough shrooms and acid to know, you know, there's way more going on here. And uh, we all love those days when we're not in a huge hurry, right? And I mean, the Nameless Prince is all about just going down into the LA wash one day because he could. We're not always we don't always have the luxury of being in the moment, but I do think that's when the magic happens, and maybe when souls align, right? So I don't think you imagined it. I think that's a real soulful experience that happened there, and I would just call it a peak experience, you know, because yeah, and yeah, we should all be receptive all day, every day. Artists have, you know, how in the creative pro I wanted to say this a moment ago, by the way. Uh, you kind of hinted that until the patron or the observer completes the circuit, yeah, right, that uh it's it's almost like that tree hasn't fallen in the woods because there's no one there to hear it. So I've always wanted to add a step to the creative process that says, like, okay, but what about when you're done? Does it collect dust under the bed? Does it change one person's life in a cornfield in Iowa? You know, does it reach I don't know? Does it go viral and change the world? What is that final step in the creative process?

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:25

Yeah, and and it does it ever end because if it's if it just, you know, I love that completing the circuit. I wrote that down because I think that's really um that's really how it is. You know, there's like this crackling energy when you have something you made, and so many people just put it in the in the trash or put it in the drawer for a variety of reasons, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:39:47

Yeah, fear of reception, fear of falling short of your own expectations. You know, outcome is overrated, right? But yeah, I think we're driven to share. I do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:58

Yeah, and these drawings were such a good lesson for me about just you know, just draw all the time. Just I I drew every day, multiple times a day, and there's there's just lots of bad drawings, lots of drawings that I felt were were better than others, but I really started removing the judgment. And because I was drawing so much, it didn't really matter. It was just fluid, like the there, the the flow was never off. So yeah, there's gonna be all kinds of stuff that comes out, and stepping away from it was stepping away from judgment was one of the biggest things for me as an artist because I have lived my life judging constantly my work. I think we all do that, and it sucks because it really kills I think it really kills what you have to say. And I don't know if there's anybody listening that that could take that message to heart. It's like, you know, just try to just not judge yourself and just draw what you love, draw what you feel, and do a lot of it, like volume is huge because it became it's a language that we've mostly stifled, and you can't stifle it, you have to speak in that language a lot to become fluent, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 1:41:20

Yeah, um well, you're onto something for sure. I mean, it's more than just being in the zone regularly and uh having momentum, and you are really onto something because I think inspiration transcends too. So the fact that you're tapping into the zone, do you know what I mean? That transcends and it moves people and touches people. So on that note, I think I saw on your insta that you're making a book of your writings accompanied by imagery. What is not that there has to be an outcome, but I believe you have a project in the works that incorporates the artwork and your writings? Is that right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:57

I do. And and this is something that I I don't know if you and I have talked about over the years, but I've struggled a lot with this idea of you know, if I make a book of drawings, how much does it have to tell a linear story versus being these abstract journal type images? And then does the writing that accompanies that have to be linear and direct? So actually, you're one of the people that I really wanted to talk about this with lately because I I don't know, I kind of have a feeling of how the form, what the final outcome should feel like and look like. But um, I wrestle with this because I'm like, oh, these are all you know, quote unquote unrelated drawings. But of course, in in my mind, they all come from this direct source, so they're very much related. And um and part of what I want to talk about is that, but then it's like I don't want to put too many words, you know, it's like you don't want to overexpose just a forward, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:56

I think some when you go to a gallery and they force you to write a blurb, right? Sometimes it's just art speak, gobbledygook, right? For the for the patrons, you know, and you just I actually had a little art critique generator, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen online, but art critique generator, and you just put like one column is the juxtaposition, and the next one of the illusory flux, and then the next column is like of the formal properties of, you know, like and uh I think sometimes that is overrated, but I could see a forward explaining the nonlinear approach to just consolidating images, so it's ironic because just this morning I looked at your Insta in preparation, and you were it was a video, and you were saying, Hey, I'm just lining up all my drawings on the table here, kind of interesting to see how they relate. And I wrote, Yeah, it's more than an unexpected rhythm and flow to the compositions, right? How it leads the eye around it was rhythm and flow, but it was also like only by doing that do you have ooh, that totally breaks the rules and takes you into this completely nonlinear space. Like if for no good reason at all, one of your dark shapes leads you off the page or to another panel. Yeah, I think it's fascinating to just trust our meaning making, you know, the patron's gonna attribute meaning, but also randomness, like that is where the growth is when you get into uncomfortable territory. So maybe I'm encouraging you to just use a nonlinear approach. I'm sorry, any I every time I see your drawings just laid out randomly, it's like, holy crap, it tells a story that's way beyond something a human brain could come up with, you know, taking a linear approach. That's the beauty of it, isn't it? That's the poetry of it, is that it's it's almost like I don't know, putting the cart before the horse instead of manufacturing something to serve an outcome, you're creating a more suggest right, a more open experience for the patron because they get to project on it and project the meaning on it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:45:01

Yeah, and then and it's like by removing, and it's been very, very hard for me just intellectually or logically or whatever, to remove the that preconception that that you always kind of approach art with at least I have my whole life, like what am I gonna draw now? Or I already have an idea of what I'm gonna draw. I've sketched it, I I there's a problem I'm trying to solve, there's a you know, a concept or whatever. And it's layer by layer, and I think the the subtractive carving, getting back to what you were saying, is what allowed me to feel so free. There's like a trust and a faith that you have to have, you know, like you're just gonna kind of you have to jump and see if the wings work. Right. Right. Uh and I think that you know, if you do that, the the viewer will those things will resonate. Those those recurring symbols, those, you know, okay, there's a man on a journey, and there's these, you know, a lot of it is, you know, a deep exploration of kind of shadow selves and and things. Um but I just released myself of any plan. It's beautiful. And it's doing so, it kind of yeah manifested.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:26

Yeah, it it it shows through, trust me, it transcends that you're onto something is the best way I can put it. And um, it's pretty divine. And uh yeah, it's it's powerful, it transcends um whatever you've done. So I do think you know, I we're interested in the parallels, you know. Whenever we talk about color harmony, you know, oh, in music, there's one, three, five, there's all these amazing parallels between the disciplines, but I think what we're talking about would have value to a violin player, if that makes sense. So in that spirit, I just want to say different strokes work for different folks. And in my um, what do you visual art? It is not my chosen craft. I have never gotten there, I've never embraced, you know, it was no regrets. Like I told some great stories at Disney. I made a life for myself, I got to travel, you know what I mean? But I never had the delusions that it's my self-expression. It was a craft and it was a great career. I was proud of what I put out into the universe. But in terms of really maturing my relationship with any one craft, it was never going to be illustration. I joke, like, if somebody gave me a bunch of oh yeah, it's an avid, it's a what is it? It's a vocation, not an avation. Yeah, it's a vocation. Yeah, but you know, I didn't give up on it. I thought, God, if somebody gave me a bunch of money tomorrow to create a body of work for a gallery show, actually, at one point I thought it would have to be abstract. Completely well, conceptual for sure. Conceptual, and whatever medium was demanded, whether it's video or installation art or collage, multimedia, it would be conceptually driven because that's how I most identify it. I also thought I miss oil painting, I'd have nowhere to do it, I don't even have a garage right now. So if somebody put me up in a studio, I would probably not bring out my bag of tricks because that's old and tired, right? Figurative, figural, it would probably be completely abstract. I'd love to see that. But I've kind of gotten to the point where my most mature vehicle of expression is my writing, it's not gonna be my illustration. So I envy you, I think it's beautiful work. I think one day maybe I'll orderly mature that part of myself, but right now it's the writing. So anyway, but I everything you said, like, ooh, yes, kind of letting go of outcome and trusting that balance between having structure, but also letting it be free-flowing. I've often said having an outline is what allows the happy accidents. If I didn't know where I was going with a piece, I would probably beat my head against a wall and it flows because I know where I'm headed, or I really know what the intent is, put it that way. The inspiration was strong enough where I know what the end goal is to a degree, it still evolves. So it's a balance, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:20

It is a balance, and I I think about it in terms of you know, if I if I ever had the opportunity to do a graphic novel, like it would be amazing if I had dreamed about that for I dreamed about it for like my whole life, but it scares the crap out of me because it it kind of means that I might have to have a linear like how would I take my approach and make it work? Like, would I get would I be back in that same world of oh I'm I'm making a product? Yeah, how would I how would I navigate that? And um yeah, it's always been a thing for me. I mean, one of the things that coming full circle to Art Center was Dave Makarski, I had an illustration class, like one of my late, you know, late term things. And you know, of course, you we were just going through the motions, doing your sketches and your concepts, and then you know, doing a final. And I I just hated I after at the Art Center, I came to really hate that process of making the quote unquote final because it just felt like I was killing the energy. And and I said, you know, I showed him my sketches, and he's like, Man, your sketches have so much energy and they're so gestural, and and I said, you know, I love my sketches and I hate my finals. Like any final I've done, I hate it to this day. And um and he said, Well, why don't you just take your little thumbnail and Xerox it, blow it up to 11 by 17, you know, paste it onto a board and start painting directly onto this blown-up sketch. And it was really life-changing for me that that concept because it allowed me to retain that energy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51:10

And Mukarski is a wise, wise man. No, you you told that story in the creativity panel, and then I told Oh, yeah, no, I love it. It's so because it's a parable, yeah. You know, and I told my own Makarski story, but I there's a lot of wisdom in that because it's kind of symbolic of retaining the initial inspiration throughout the hot and cold creative process. And so that's one one thing that saves people, true, because we all deal with that, trust me, to a degree. Like, ooh, I mean, a lot, a lot of people love the ideation process, the conceptualization process, that initial expression of the inspiration, whether it's in a thumbnail form or whatever, and they effing hate rendering and they feel they've lost the magic. It is tedious. I used to love rendering because it was meditative, yeah. But it doesn't mean the pieces weren't stilted and stifled. I just liked rendering, I wasn't afraid of it. But I guess what I would say is the execution, you just always have to keep in mind that it's a colder right part of the creative process. Dave Zaboski would say, you don't go straight for the goal, you stalk it, you go through more intellectual, more intuitive, cotton cold as he calls it. But really, once people fully understand the creative process, then those romantic notions dissolve a little bit. That, and again, I had a very young nephew that once said, dude, because you know, I have to promote books long after I wrote them. Yeah. And I fear, ooh, do I even care about this anymore? Or, you know, is it really going to speak to anyone? And he said, if it was inspired in the first place, that transcends. So you gotta have that faith. So yeah, when you're rendering something, just have faith that those strokes will always be underlying the finish, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:58

Yeah, but then you look at those, you know, those artists that we studied, the you know, the NC Wyath and the singer sergeants, and you just look at how much like gesture and life they have when they're making their final things, and you know that they went through like studies after studies after studies, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:53:16

Um, I admired always sorry, I admired my students that would kind of resist, you know, the very linear process. I was teaching what we do in animation. You do a you know, you finalize your drawing, you finalize the layout, then you do a value study, then a color key and a finish, and very linear, and people resisted it, and it was just a tool, with the goal always being eventually you're just gonna do it intuitively, and you may skip a step or whatever. But once in your life, go through this linear process and it'll become a tool on your tool belt. But I still secretly admired people that kept it fun every step of the way. Does that make sense? Whether it meant doing a looser value study with markers, whatever kept it fun for them. God, my hat is off to you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:01

Yeah, because you know that hot and cold, that that's really what you learned. And it was it was brutal, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:54:07

It's it's it's hard to survive that, but yeah, that's the nature of art school, but okay, so we're gonna steer it to a close, Brian. I do think maybe there's a part two. I would love to talk to you more about how to retain the freedom that you've found while maybe doing a project that feels more linear or like it's asking for more structure. Let's keep talking about that later. Yeah, that would be that would be cool. I'd love your thoughts on that. Cool. And I know you're busy, but maybe there's a part two. Any final words of wisdom you would want to share with listeners, whether about story or the creative process or anything to do with creative expression?

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:45

Um, I think just that like you, you know, I I think we I was talking with my wife about this, and you know, we talk about the fact that we're, you know, like 48 now and and how you know she's laments the fact that she hasn't written a novel yet or published a novel. She's written two novels, but she hasn't published yet. And so there's certain things about like living your life and adversity too. You know, it's the highs and the lows, it's the agony and the ecstasy that informs what we make and it informs the stories we tell. And we have to um have patience and let these processes kind of work over time, and then those will be the things that we draw from and and or paint from or compose from. And we can't do it without that life and that living. And so everybody wants to rush, and and I think it's just one of those things, it's it's a painful lesson, but um, just deeply deep connection and presence in the life you're living is gonna be everything that informs what you make and the connections you make through it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:55:56

I think beautiful, absolutely. I love that because sometimes um it's ego, right? When we want to leave a legacy, and actually life is happening now. So if you think of it from the artist's lens, yeah, only life experience informs the work, but also you know, not everybody needs to contribute through their craft. What about the legacy of just raising a family? And do you know what I mean? Like that's a legacy in and of itself. So I think everybody has to decide for themselves. I do know, like my sister, you know, has empty nest syndrome. Once they're up and out of the nest, sometimes you do want to tap back into your craft as as a mode of expression, but also as a contribution. So I agree with everything you said, but I think also maybe just some people are here to live life, maybe not to use the surrogate of uh reflecting back life, you know, life's happening now. Yeah, exactly. That's enough. That's enough. There is plenty. Okay, Virginia, are you are you with us?

SPEAKER_00: 1:57:01

I am, and I was just gonna say that when you made the comment, Nick, about how you know there's people who are just living life, the way the way I was thinking about it, and this is the the counselor brain of me that was kicking in. It's they're the witnesses to the creation of everybody else.

SPEAKER_01: 1:57:16

Wow, wow, yeah. Well, I we're steering this to a close. We really are, but it sounds a little bit like my friend Marie Martine Bessot was convinced at one point, I'm here to support artists. Her whole mission and purpose was to support her musician husband. She's now divorced him and she's changed her tune. But I kind of like that idea, you know. It take, like we said a million times, uh, it takes a lot of different threads to make up the tapestry of humanity. And amen to all of it. Was that kumbaya enough for everybody?

SPEAKER_02: 1:57:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:57:53

Anyway, well, thank you, Brian. And I would love to do a part two if you ever have time. I think we just kind of addressed the tip of an iceberg here.

SPEAKER_03: 1:58:02

Yeah, it sounds great. Thank you so much for having me. It's really been a pleasure. Um, thank you, Virginia. Thank you, Nick.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58:09

Thank you for being here. And to our listeners, remember life is story, and we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can tell a new story. See you next time.