Latest / The Russi Hive / Hydeon: Don’t Force the Magic — Alter Egos, World-Building, and Meditative Focus

Transcript

Hydeon: Don’t Force the Magic — Alter Egos, World-Building, and Meditative Focus · The Russi Hive

• 0:00
  Speaker: I'm Alejandra Russi, and this is the Russi Hive, conversations with people who treat their work and life as a creative practice.
• 0:07
  Speaker: Today, we enter Hydeon's layered world, where centuries collapse into a single picture plane, and a video game anchors whole eras to places you can move through.
• 0:18
  Speaker: We talk about what it means to age as a millennial and a creative motto that is simple and deep.
• 0:25
  Speaker: Don't force the magic.
• 0:27
  Speaker: Find the focus and let the work tell you what it wants next.
• 0:32
  Speaker: This podcast is presented by Ricco /Maresca.
• 0:37
  Speaker: Thank you for joining me, Hydeon.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 0:41
  Speaker: And welcome to the Russi Hive Podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Happy to be here.
• 0:45
  Speaker: I am so grateful to you for being here bright and early on a Monday.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: No problem.
• 0:51
  Speaker: I really appreciate it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 0:54
  Speaker: Each episode, I start by reading a text about my guest from this card.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:02
  Speaker: And after I'm done, you will tell me if you'd like to edit anything or if I missed anything, and then we can get into our conversation.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, cool, sure.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Sounds good.
• 1:13
  Speaker: Ian Ferguson, aka Hydeon, was born in 1985.
• 1:17
  Speaker: He grew up in San Diego and studied graphic design, eventually settling in Brooklyn in 2014 and devoting himself to visual art.
• 1:25
  Speaker: He has exhibited widely in the US and abroad, Paris, Berlin, Brescia, and Monte Carlo.
• 1:31
  Speaker: And also makes music under the name Vonson.
• 1:35
  Speaker: In 2023, he made his New York debut with Ricco /Maresca at the Independent Art Fair, followed by a booth at Nada New York, and his first solo New York gallery exhibition in December of 2024.
• 1:47
  Speaker: Hydeon's influences span medieval art, outsider art, fairy tales, gothic and baroque architecture, urban culture, and video games.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: How does that sound like it's perfect?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely perfect.
• 2:02
  Speaker: No edits?
• 2:02
  Speaker: No edits.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: It's perfect.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 2:06
  Speaker: So let's start with the creative use of alter egos.
• 2:12
  Speaker: So you've said before that Hydeon hides Ian inside of it.
• 2:18
  Speaker: Uh do you feel like Hidean has become its own identity separate from Ian Ferguson?
• 2:25
  Speaker: Or are they fused by now?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I think they're fused.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's like always kind of been a fusion.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: But it's a it's a nice way to kind of like separate the the art from the artist in a way, you know?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So like uh around my family and friends, I'm Mr.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Ferguson, I'm Ian, you know.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: But like in the art world, I'm Hydeon, but I'm also both of those things.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: So like they're both kind of one and the same in a way, if that makes any sense.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's like a fusion, but it's also split.
• 2:59
  Speaker: Interesting.
• 3:00
  Speaker: And there's also your musical alias Vonson.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Vonson, yeah.
• 3:04
  Speaker: Uh, who doesn't make as many appearances as Hydeon?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker: Um, where did that come from?
• 3:09
  Speaker: And why do you feel a need to give music its own individuality?
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the music I I've been doing music like um most of my life, actually.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Like uh, I don't know, I I think I started playing guitar in like sixth or seventh grade.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I got like a uh Fender Squire, I think was my first electric guitar and acoustic guitar.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And uh actually spent uh a good part of my my twenties like really trying to be like a serious musician, like playing shows and and playing in bands and doing all that.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I had this like big aspirations of being like a musician, more more so than than a visual artist, but I had always done visual art my whole life, grew up uh in a family of artists and making art and painting and stuff, and I always knew that that was like kind of um my strong uh point.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: But I love making music and I always saw myself as as this big musician and wanted to do this stuff, but it never really like panned out in like a career-wise, you know, and and so like you know, in my late 20s, early 30s, I really like made a huge effort to to really pursue my visual art.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: But with the music, I I I wanted it to obviously be like totally separate from my art and it and it can't be hidden because it's it's just like it just can't, it's just like a totally different entity.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: But I just love the Vonson and it sounded like a cool, like uh almost like an RB kind of name, you know?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: And so I just like continue to use that now for my solo musical projects, which I just do like because it's really fun and it's like I'm passionate about making music.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: So on aside from the visual art, I like to do the music and um perform this like uh Tropicana electronic uh pop sort of surrealist pop music uh as Vonson.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: So it's fun.
• 4:58
  Speaker: Yeah, so about that, what is your musical process like?
• 5:02
  Speaker: I read somewhere that you have a very quirky set of tools: a Radio Shack keyboard and a Paper Jamz auto-tune device.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:14
  Speaker: Is that still the case?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: For the Vonson stuff, it's it's really unique.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: You know, on the street in New York, you'd find pretty much anything.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Like you could imagine you can find it on the street.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Probably someone's gonna throw it away.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So I found an electric guitar on the street, and it was like a little beat up, but I like I I you know, I took it out of the trash, put some new strings on it, cleaned it up, and then I had an electric guitar.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And I was like, well, fuck, now I need to get uh an amp to play it.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So I went to Guitar Center and got like a small little amp.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: And then like shortly after that, I found this like Radio Shack keyboard also on the street, and uh, and someone was throwing it out.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: So I took that, cleaned it up, like got a power supply for it that was working.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Now I had guitar and keys, and I was like, oh great, I've like got a whole setup going now.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: And then uh I was visiting some friends in Chicago, and my friend Ray Borchers is like uh is another artist in Brooklyn.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: She she had this weird little like child's auto-tune machine, this tiny little box called uh uh Paper Jamz, uh which I have no idea what it is.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: It's just like a weird brand, it's just like this children's auto-tune thing, and it's just a funny little box, and it has like a couple different settings on it, and a little tiny little mic, and you can like sing into it, and it produces like a strange auto-tune effect.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: So then I was like, Well, holy shit, I feel like I found like a new voice, you know, using some money I made from the art, you know.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: So I got a new computer, and then I said, Okay, well, now it's time to make a new album, and and now it's time to bring like a new entity, and so I used the the Vonson name with using all this crazy, like found instruments on the street.
• 6:57
  Speaker: Beyond the album and the recording, the performance aspect of it is very is very important.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Just as much as like any other aspect of the music is the performance, because uh it's like uh I I do what what I just have the the whole the whole album on my iPhone all ready to go, and I just plug it into the sound system, and they're just playing the songs with vocals and everything in its entirety, and all I do is I get a mic that's unplugged, and uh, and then I just like actively sing over my own song.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So it's in a way it's kind of like lip syncing, but I'm like actually singing and dancing and stuff, and like over my own songs, and then I'm just going crazy dancing and singing into an unplugged mic instead of like focusing on playing the instruments and all this kind of stuff.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: It's about the energy of the live performance and the outfits and the fashion and uh all that kind of stuff.
• 7:56
  Speaker: And the the dance is not choreographed in any way, really.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Never, yeah.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: It's like uh happens in the moment.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: It happens in the moment, the energy of the each track and how it makes me feel.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And uh, and then I just like go go along with it.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: You know, I just have like my flow and I just go go along with it.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's super fun.
• 8:15
  Speaker: So there's an interesting tension between alter egos and authenticity, I think.
• 8:21
  Speaker: Um, one could think that alter egos are masks or kind of gimmicks, little tricks.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 8:26
  Speaker: But I wonder if they're actually a way to access parts of ourselves that would not emerge otherwise under another name or under our regular identity.
• 8:36
  Speaker: Um do you see it that way?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I've always looked at like my my artist alias as a company or something.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It's it's like an entity to to publish things under, you know, growing up, I always thought my birth name, it's not like uh, you know, Hieronymus Bosch or Peter Bruegel or like Picasso or MC Escher or you know, these these these names that have like a ring to them, you know what I mean?
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: And Ian Ferguson was like, ah, it's it's like John Smith.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: It to me, anyways, it just felt like, oh, it's just it's it's like Ron Johnson or something, you know.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I needed to have that bell ringer name.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: And so like I chose Hydeon.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I've been using it over 20 something years, and and I feel like it withstands the test of time.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: It's a weird kind of made up hybrid name that's sort of, I feel like can I can use my whole career and it's and it's gonna work.
• 9:31
  Speaker: Going deeper into that rabbit hole, um, your "alternate self," Hydeon is also the creator of these very complex layered alternate worlds where the distant past, the recent past, the present, and uh possible futures all collide in a single picture plane.
• 9:52
  Speaker: Um, how did that happen for you?
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I guess like going back to my childhood, I was like um stemming back from there, uh, I was always like really fascinated by all this, all this kind of like medieval stuff as a kid, but also uh the Civil War was really fascinating to me, specifically more so like the clothing, the frock jackets, the the rifles and muskets with the bayonets on them, the spiky stuff and um and the little hats and uh you know, and then the sailors, the maritime stuff going on.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: And so I always, as a kid, I always thought that stuff was just so cool.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Like I thought like like uh weapons and things were just the coolest thing ever as a kid.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: And then getting older, um, you know, and uh when I started traveling, especially internationally, um, and moving around the world and stuff, getting really, really fascinated by the places I would travel to.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And like I'm I'm from San Diego, uh, California originally.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: So, like, you know, in the tiny little corner of the of the United States, you know, coming from the west coast to the east coast, you have this like reverse manifest destiny where you're like going the other way and you're going back in time, you know.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: And then I started going to Europe, way more history.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Then you start seeing the real ancient stuff, you know, like in Italy and Greece and all over Europe, going to the country of Malta and seeing um the hypogeum, like it's like a 6,000-year-old uh labyrinth of cape systems and stuff like that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: So you're wow, it's crazy ancient stuff.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: So that all that kind of history and architecture and time periods has always really inspired me and continues to inspire me as an adult, and it's why I love to travel so much, and that's why I like to do these paintings and that create these worlds of um past, present, and future and these different time periods all uh sort of existing together at the same time.
• 11:45
  Speaker: So it's kind of holding on to that thing we do in childhood where we don't really separate reality from fantasy so much, right?
• 11:52
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 11:52
  Speaker: Everything flows into everything else.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, when you're when you're like a kid, when you're a child, you're you're you're sort of like you're figuring out the world for the first time.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Like everything's exciting.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: You're like, hey, these are fingers, these are these are pants, this is the sky, these are buildings, like you you're seeing all this stuff from the beginning and and you're figuring it out, and there's this sense of like wonder and uh and fascination and and magic when you get older and you see the world and you say, Oh man, this shit's fucked up.
• 12:24
  Speaker: I was just reading um about a study that found that our brains um can't always tell the difference between what we imagine and what's actually in front of us because it all goes through the same pathway.
• 12:38
  Speaker: Um so most of the time, what we see gives a stronger signal than what we imagine, but not always.
• 12:46
  Speaker: Like it can come close.
• 12:48
  Speaker: It's only after that the brain sorts things out and kind of after the fact decides what is reality, what is imagined.
• 12:58
  Speaker: And that immediately made me think about your work.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Because like if you think about like the perception, like we're actually not looking out, you know, from the eyes, you think like, oh, okay, we're like looking out into the world, but you're actually not.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Everything you're seeing is actually in your mind, and it's but it's just all projected in real time, you know what I mean?
• 13:17
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 13:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah.
• 13:20
  Speaker: So your recent solo show here at Ricco/Maresca, "Adrift in the Corners of Time," presented paintings um that were imagined as scenes from a future PlayStation 6 game, which I take doesn't exist yet.
• 13:33
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:33
  Speaker: My experience with video games stopped at the Super Nintendo.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, sure.
• 13:38
  Speaker: So um you've told me a little bit about um an actual video game project that you started working on shortly after the show.
• 13:46
  Speaker: Can you tell me more about that?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: You know, I've played video games my kind of my, you know, from childhood up until now, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 for and um playing those two consoles and uh and got really, really into like uh survival games, survival horror games, like Resident Evils and um The Last of Us, um stuff like this, you know, these adventure type uh game adventure survival, like horror type games or whatever, Silent Hill, stuff like this.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, how cool would it be to make uh have my own video game?
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: And um, but I don't know how to how to go about that, you know.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna make an art show about this imaginary video game and called Adrift in the Corners of Time, where you're uh this character traveling through these time periods in history, discovering uh different mysteries throughout these time periods and and um and gaining knowledge and resources and stuff.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: And it's like this survival game where you're going through time, and each painting in the show is like a screenshot of this imaginary game of a quest or some kind of mission or um something that you're doing like in the game, a puzzle you're solving, finding some kind of cool, interesting assets and and uh you know, strange narratives that happen like in the game.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: And then I actually made like a cover of the game as well as a painting, and I chose to to make it like a PlayStation 6, which is like doesn't exist yet, because I just thought it would be cool to have this like uh an idea of something like from the future and existing now, you know, in the present.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: So after we did that show, um I was really thinking, like, oh man, like I think it'd be, I think we should like I should like actually try to make the game like for real.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Like, but I don't know who to talk to and a couple leads here and there, but I don't really know anybody like in the the video game world.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I just know like art world people and stuff and friends and whatever.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And um, so you know, I was like, well, okay, if the opportunity maybe arises or something, maybe I can collaborate because I don't know how to use these programs and how to make this stuff.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And I was sitting at my house one night with two of my best buds, like uh Joe George and Dakota Pales Friedman.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And Dakota is a filmmaker, and Joe George is uh an amazing artist, multi-talented um artist and doing a lot of computer stuff.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Both of these guys are super big computer guys, they know all the computer stuff that I don't know.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: And we're hanging out one night, it's telling them about hey, you know, it would be so cool to make a game.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: And they're like, hey, you know, we can do it.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: We know, we know like some of the programs and we can we can learn and stuff, and we should collaborate together and and try and make a game.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: And I said, let's do it, you know.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: So, so they they knew some of the programs and stuff, like using this program uh Blender, which is have you heard of Blender?
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Blender is like a 3D art software uh program where you can you you're basically making anything you can imagine in a 3D universe.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: It's one of the coolest programs I've ever seen in my life.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Joe George taught me how to use the program.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: He's like a master.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: He taught me how to use the program in like a day and figured it out.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: And by the end of the day, I was already like placing items in the world and stuff and making the world.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And then um, and Dakota is like our he's like really, really good at animating.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: He's like a master animator.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: So Joe George taught me how to use Blender, and then we use this other program called Meshi AI, which is a brand new program uh where you can actually take uh images and generate them into this program, and it'll produce a 3D uh usable like mesh asset of the uh item that you put in there.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: So basically, I'm hand painting all of the assets in the game.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So, like hand painting a tree, hand painting a uh character, hand painting weapons, clothing, uh all these nature elements.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm just on regular analog style hand painting stuff, and then uh scanning those in the computer, running them through this program that creates the 3D model of it, and then taking that 3D model, putting it into Blender and using this Blender program to basically make a 3D painting of uh of my art.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: And Joey is like uh helping me do that and creating an inventory system of all the individual art uh assets, and then we're together, we're collaborating and making this world together, and then um using this other program called Godot, which is the video game engine, which makes it run.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Dakota is able to take some of these um assets, the character and stuff like that, and bring them to life and animate them.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: So we're all three of us collaborating together, making the game, and we just call it adrift.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: So we're actually doing it now, and we have uh we have like a working model of the game that's maybe like 85% done now.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And uh the idea is like you have these um uh these island systems throughout the video game, and each island is a different period of time, and so you kind of you kind of like complete each island and you you you go through like puzzles and mysteries and you solve things and fight demons and and battle enemies and stuff on each island, and then there's like a portal you go through, and then uh you after you be complete the island and the puzzles and stuff, then there's like a ship that you get on and you sail to the next island, and the next island is like you is maybe a modern world.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: You start in like a 13th-century Italian uh village, uh sort of I named Abnerini, and you start on this island.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Once you finish that island, you sail to the next island.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: The next island is like maybe like uh a motif of New York City.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: So, and then you go to the next one after that.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: So essentially, like each island is is completely different time period in history, and you're drifting like to all these different islands with different histories and stuff going on in different time periods.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: So, like you're traversing like thousands of years throughout all these islands, and that's kind of the game in a nutshell.
• 20:22
  Speaker: So, one of the things that I kept thinking about while looking at your paintings is this idea that comes up a lot in philosophy and tech circles, the simulation theory.
• 20:35
  Speaker: Basically, it's the it's a thought experiment that what we call reality might actually be a kind of simulation, uh, a game running on a some higher system.
• 20:47
  Speaker: Um, if you sit with that idea for a minute, how does that play into the choices you make when you're building your worlds?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I guess I don't really like uh dwell too much on that like sort of theory when I'm going about uh making the work.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: It's it's more um impulsive imagination, I guess, in a way, without really like considering that that narrative too deeply.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I I think personally like I'm I consider myself a spiritual person and I I believe that like uh consciousness itself you could say could could be a simulation in a in a way, the consciousness.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I I believe that like uh like I believe in God and I think that God is consciousness itself.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: And I believe like the life experience is uh God experiencing itself as as as being alive, like being consciousness, having awareness that you're alive in the world, and you know uh to me it's very easy to um believe in uh a higher source or power or consciousness, God, whatever you want to call it.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Um simply just by looking at the sky and seeing the moon or the sun and um realizing that we we are also on a giant floating ball in the vast infinite amount of nothingness.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And um without going too deep here.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: But uh but yeah that that that is enough for me to realize that we're living in like a very magical special uh experience and that it's it's very precious and it's a gift to be alive and I think that like um that is more of my like muse and that that is what I would consider like to be like the simulation.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: So I think it's kind of like this this the consciousness is this kind of the same thing as that in a way if that makes sense.
• 22:58
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:58
  Speaker: You've said that because of your graphic design background you kind of think in Photoshop layers.
• 23:05
  Speaker: Yeah totally you keep recurring elements that you use over and over again in your head or in your computer I'm not sure.
• 23:15
  Speaker: And that way of thinking is very much connected to how video games are constructed.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: For sure I chose graphic design because I was trying to think okay if um you know I really want to I want to be an artist that's what I want to do but in the event that like you know maybe that doesn't pan out or something at least I'll have this like very like practical degree uh you know computer degree because I I knew at the time okay like computers are going to be around for a long time and and um you know that's the future and and I should I should probably have some kind of like uh practical sort of degree in a way in my mind that's how I was thinking so I went to school for to study computers so I could know how to do you know all the typography and graphic design website design like um you know designing logos and all this all this kind of stuff and using heavily using Photoshop and Illustrator in the Adobe suite using Photoshop there you have all these layers and stuff like that you know and so I think about when I when I when I attach that to like my painting style I do everything in layers and stuff and based off of that okay I can actually visually see you know place things easily behind each other in the foreground and background so that's how I go about the paintings where I start with the background layer and kind of move forward like that and and um you know very strategically placing these elements and using a lot of like reoccurring elements kind of like uh ties everything together and there's a a cohesiveness with the art.
• 24:48
  Speaker: Yeah the layering is also interesting in that you're layering different time periods in one in one picture in one picture yeah so yeah it's it's a one way to understand it.
• 24:58
  Speaker: Yeah yeah of course absolutely yeah yeah so you described yourself as a freestyler artist just kind of flowing with your visions until the story becomes clear to you um what does that flow actually look like?
• 25:14
  Speaker: Is it chaos is it trance is it meditative It is meditative.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: I I feel like the the process usually starts as just like as as anyone else is an observer.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're all like observers in this world.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I look at like being an artist it's so much more than a career it's a it's a lifestyle it's a way of life so I don't even see it as work it's just like how I live and how I go about my life.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I haven't had a sketchbook in in maybe a decade or something.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I don't do sketches I just see things in my mind and I create like a mental sketches in my mind.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I just have like a mental log of like what I see and if I see something that's like really profoundly inspires me like if I'm out traveling a lot of my inspirations are from traveling even just being here in New York you're gonna you just go outside and you're gonna see something weird or cool or interesting like all the time in New York.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: So the stuff that that really kind of sticks out I will uh just pull up the notes on my phone and I'll just put like keyword like uh you know like uh for example like when I was in um in northern Greece I saw these like we're at this gas station and I saw these like really cool priests these like super orthodox like priests that were wearing like you know all black and they had this like big black um like dress robe with a black sports coat and then he had these like black oakleys on and gigantic huge like silver gigantic cross and he just looked so cool and weird and like out of place like at the gas station I was like this is the coolest guy ever like and so I like you know I'll put that in the notes like okay priest with the black dress sports coat black oakleys and I'll just boom I had that'll be in my notes and then I'll see it in the notes and I'll remember from the experience.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So I have like all these things in my notes and then from there when it comes time to make the painting I sort of like uh already know kind of like you know those ideas or whatever and if I need to reference them I just go back to the notes and I see like the pinnacles and oh here's the peacocks I saw at this castle in uh Lisbon Portugal or whatever you know what I mean and I'm like drawing those things in my own way in from memory and from my mind.
• 27:32
  Speaker: So I think creative people in general are more open to finding inspiration everywhere.
• 27:42
  Speaker: There's like a like an antenna that we have um it's just about you know really looking at things and really being present in your experience.
• 27:53
  Speaker: Um and that's inspiration obviously but then there's also the discipline right there's also kind of showing up every day even when you don't feel like it even when you're in a bad mood even when do you relate to that I have a feeling you relate to that.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I actually have fortunately gotten to a position in my life now where I I don't have to do that necessarily unless there's a really crazy deadline looming and I'm not really like caught up on the paintings but I usually prefer to work um I'm working kind of all the time but uh uh even if I'm not working I'm sort of working because you're observing and you're you're you're you're sort of you're the antenna you're absorbing you're absorbing every day is sort of working in a way you're like absorbing the information and the inspiration is always coming into different way but I'm not like uh I'm not like exactly like uh forcing myself to work in a way because I don't think you can like force the magic to happen you know like there's definitely some times where maybe like I have a deadline with the show or something and I know that I have to to work uh you know like quite a bit or maybe do like a a a long long day of work into the night but uh I really nowadays I prefer to work when I'm really like feeling the magic and I'm really feeling um fully optimized and I'm in a good place uh for working and stuff because sometimes it can be a little hard to get into that flow like uh when I'm coming off of a big trip or something like that.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I do a lot of traveling these days.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: So sometimes when I come back from the trip I've absorbed so much inspiration and uh sometimes it can take me a minute to sort of like get ease back into the studio and not just sit down and like forcing myself to work you know but I like to to slowly get into that back into the flow.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: And then once I'm like into that flow boom then I'm like then I'm strapped in and I'm like I'm like flowing really hard and I and it's hard for me to get away from the studio.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's hard to get into that zone but once you're in boom like you it's I feel like there's a point where you you like cross over in your mind and it just becomes like this this one point meditative focus where you're really meditating in that way where like you you're really like not thinking about the the past or the future you're you're completely focused on the present moment and just making that painting.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's really important to not force the work and to give yourself the the time to let it happen naturally so that you're not going against the grain.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: You want it to be pure you want the work to come from the right place and you're making the work for the right reasons and and not because it has it's coming from this place of being like forced and to appease somebody it's it should be about you and and your ideas and your work because you want to bring something that you think is beautiful or really cool and interesting and fascinating that you want to bring into the world.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Back to that flow your apartment which we call the capsule is like perfectly set up for that kind of productivity yeah yeah yeah thank you yeah the the capsule is cool it's it's just like a it's I've been there for like 11 years now as this tiny little micro one bedroom apartment in the top of this brownstone in Crown Heights on the top floor.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: It's uh I don't know square footage but maybe 200 300 square feet would you say something like that very small.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: And so I have it set up in a way where like I'm doing all the work all the paintings there and I you know because I'm in a small space I'm generally making a little bit smaller paintings but so much of the work is is very um like hyper detailed very small things and so that's what I prefer to work is the smaller paintings.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: It's it's more fun for me doing that.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: So I have them optimized on the um on like the up uh near the ceiling I have all the the paintings aligned there so I can make upwards of 20 paintings or something in the little small space and then the bigger paintings uh get stored on this like big table up against the wall and um so yeah I have like a whole system a flow whole flow system like a live work situation so it makes it nice there's a harmony there and um yeah I just I love working from home.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 32:32
  Speaker: Do you have routines for creative rituals that you follow?
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Um or does every day work every day is every day is a little different but now that I'm like back from traveling I think like a a classic like ordinary kind of work day is I I really I despise alarms.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: I don't like having alarms on my phone unless for example it's like today where we're doing this interview so I have to be here at nine so then I will set the alarm and wake up and it's and it's fine.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: But otherwise if it's just a regular work day I prefer to not have any alarm on my phone to wake me up.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: So that way I'm getting like an the most optimized sleep and I'm waking up naturally every day when my body is waking up and not when like there's a machine waking me up and then I feel like way better when I'm just like well slept.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: I'm cognizant in the morning and uh usually in the morning I I get my um have my little espresso going with the little cup and then um and then I'm just kind of chilling checking some emails and stuff in the morning and then uh when it comes time to start working I get to the big table and I usually have like uh start sketching or if I have the sketch done and it's ready to go to the painting I will take the the sketch and uh transform it put it into the computer get it onto the projector project the sketch onto the wood panel or canvas or whatever piece that it is that I'm working on then it goes onto there then I'm sketching out the piece onto the panel or canvas or whatever and then it just comes into painting I'll paint for a few hours take a little lunch break and then after that I'll paint for a few more hours then maybe taking a break to go for a walk or go to like Prospect Park or something ride my bike around get a little exercise and then I'm kind of working until maybe dinner time then I stop and I'm having a dinner and then chilling after that and playing some video games and and or watching a movie or something and then going to sleep and that's like that's the day.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: That's the day that's a classic work day classic ritual I guess always coffee in the morning for sure.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Of course that's maybe the ritual is the coffee.
• 34:46
  Speaker: Yeah same here yeah no coffee it's like it's it's not yeah I need to pass yeah absolutely so finally um here we are we are both 1985 babies yes and we're filming this September 2025 so your birthday is in about a week it's in a week I'm turning 40 and like yeah in about a week on the 5th September so be honest what's the vibe is it panic or party?
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: No it's it's neither panic nor party it's just kind of like uh there's a level of content contentment I feel and a level of calmness I feel just very like uh happily content with where I'm at in my life and I'm just like I'm very very happy to turn 40.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm stoked because I've I've never uh I've gone throughout my life always striving to do the things that I want to do and experience the the world in the way that I I want to even even in times before my career sort of took off and I was working like terrible day jobs like fast food like delivering food on my bike in Chicago for like $8 an hour and like getting like no tips and you know just living like a rough life like stocking stuff and a in a walk-in freezer at five in the morning you know for minimum wage and doing this kind of shit and getting fired from these jobs and doing all that but still regardless of even those jobs and and having to sort of like work for the system or whatever I'd get out of work.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I would still make my paintings I'd still like do the things I wanted to do and see the world in the way that I wanted to see it.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: And so in that way I never allowed any kind of like system to override how I wanted to live.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: And as soon as I was like in my early 30s when I was like able to break free and from that chain in a way and actually like get to do my dream as an artist and and and live and work for myself and just working with the galleries and and living that lifestyle then I've gotten to travel like all over the world and and do all the things so I don't really have any I have zero like a sort of like like midlife crisis like oh I should have done this or I should have done that as you know some people they turn 40 and oh well fuck now I'm like freaking out and I didn't get to do all these things because I was working this nine to five forever and ever and I got this my my two week vacation in the year and I blew that or what you know what I mean.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Some people have this like these these mentality when they turn 40 that they they have to scramble around and do all these things that they didn't do when they're young.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: I've always done those things regardless of like whatever job I had or situation I was in poor or with money it never mattered.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: I was always wanted to do the things that I wanted to do.
• 37:38
  Speaker: So I'm happy I'm very yeah I I wanted to get your take partly because I think the experience is very different for men and women um but also because I think millennials across the board are redefining what 40 looks like yeah like nobody that's 40 actually matches the the the mental image it's really really weird.
• 38:03
  Speaker: It's weird but it it means I think that means I mean we're the first generation to do that.
• 38:08
  Speaker: I think the generation before us 40 looked very different.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah because I remember when I was a kid and I you know and seeing my parents and and their friends like 40 and they're just wow just they they look completely different.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: People at 40 look like they're 25 now or 30 and they just carry themselves so much younger.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: I think people are aging a lot more uh youthfully and and gracefully nowadays and and not really like uh adhering to this sort of like boomer mentality and okay now I gotta wear the rock ports and I gotta be like oh mowing the lawn and kind of just you know and going to whatever like just doing like I don't know playing bingo or something like that you know like so and that means that we will redefine 50 60 70 right I think 50 will be like the new uh 30.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Okay that's very optimistic yeah depends on who you are and how you carry yourself absolutely but I was at a party in Manhattan like a couple months ago and met a dude that was like in his early 50s I thought he was 35.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah he was just the coolest guy he was dressed super cool and just had no idea he had like piercings and tattoos and stuff and he just like was hanging out with the crew and then someone told me oh yeah that guy's straight up like early 50s I was like cool.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I was like that's inspiring.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's awesome.
• 39:30
  Speaker: You know so I think like yeah age doesn't have to define you it's just like your mentality and how you carry yourself uh in the world and you know also millennials are the last generation that grew up mostly analog and then we grew into adults the internet and like digital technology.
• 39:49
  Speaker: Totally do you think that gives us a kind of double vision remembering that tactile analog world while also being fluent in the digital one yeah I think it's really cool.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: I'm actually like super grateful that we got to experience that sort of analog world because I I remember in in uh middle school and stuff like a typing class when we had like full on like typewriters and shit like that and like the early like the first early computers using those and I remember like my dad had like the pager and stuff you know like before cell phones and then there was like the big phones and the weird little Nokia flip phones and like all that and then you had the razor and you know and watching the technology go all the way I remember as a kid I was like super into filming and making videos and stuff like that and had the gigantic huge over the over the shoulder VHS camera filming and then you had to go to Comp USA and you had to get this like whole like contraption like the the the the inner this like interface where you plug the red yellow and white cords in and then that goes into the computer somehow and you're like capturing the video to get it in the computer it was like a crazy process and I always thought like man one day this shit's gonna be so easy we're just gonna have it like all in the phone and you can do everything and yeah of course and now now it's like that you know but it's crazy because we got to see that all the way from back in the days to to now and to see the technology and so I I I'm already having like this big vision which I've already like put into one of my paintings in the back of the phone here I always think that okay there in the very near future I have this vision of like there's gonna be a little a little thing like by by the lens somewhere there's going to be another little thing like this and then you can press a button and it's gonna and it's going to project out.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Like let's say it's like I have a painting where there's a you know a smartphone or iPhone or whatever and it projects out like a little floating earth right here.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: And you can and then you can say like oh I want to travel to here and buy plane tickets boom boom boom and then like you know you're you're able to watch movies or do anything through this little projection and you can throw it up on a wall you can throw it up right here you can put it like anywhere that kind of stuff is going to happen like very soon whether it's already right now or like in in the next couple of years.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: And it's funny because like all my friends they use chat GPT and stuff never wants to use it.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: No way.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: I use computers here and there but I'm really like not about it.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: I love being as analog as possible.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: I like being unplugged as much as I possibly can.
• 42:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:30
  Speaker: So I survive yeah I love closing on that note thank you again for joining me.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah thanks for having me.
• 42:38
  Speaker: That was fun.
• 42:38
  Speaker: Yeah that was super fun.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Ale.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 42:44
  Speaker: If this conversation resonated with you, follow the show wherever you listen and find me on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack @RussiHive.
• 42:53
  Speaker: If someone came to mind for the hive send guest suggestions to guests@russihive.com and if you just want to say hi it's hello@ russihive.com.
• 43:04
  Speaker: Original music and sonic identity for the Russi Hive by Ant food.
• 43:08
  Speaker: Until next time let your life be a creative act