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Flow vs Friction · Divas That Care Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's Divas that Care Radio Stories, strategies and ideas to inspire positive change.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Divas that Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is a global movement for women, by women engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: To find out more about the movement, visit divasthatcarecom.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: After the show.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Namaste and welcome to the Divas that Care Network.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, gia Raquel Rose, owner of Heirs Above Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground Podcast.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: This is your first time tuning in.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Our network is going into its 15th year and is listened to in over 30 countries.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I'd like to personally thank you for giving me the gift of your time.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: As always, it is my honor to hold space with you, and today we have a super special treat.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: A friend of mine and a visionary in many different capacities, mr Charles Cording, is here to discuss overall his artistic bent as the Chief Visionary Officer of Digitrax AI and, more importantly, for our purposes.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Today we're going to be talking about the amazing artwork that he creates, which you can see displayed behind him and just kind of go through his creative process and how he brings his vision to life each and every day.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: So, charles, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: So talk to me a little bit about kind of how you get into the.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: We can talk about the mindset of it, absolutely, but how it is that you start your creative process and kind of bringing that idea of getting the inspiration, like having the hit or whatever, whether you see it in your mind's eye, how does it come through for you?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: And then how do you, what are the steps that you kind of take to implement it into what I see behind you now?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, I mean into its final form, that's.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: That's a long process, but I approach it kind of as a lifestyle.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: So I'm not necessarily trying to get into the creative zone.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: I'm receptive to all creative ideas, right, yeah, so I spent a lot of years trying to hone that ability.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: The best way to kind of describe it is like being an antenna right to the universe, because you don't know where ideas are coming from, um, and you're definitely not going to catch them if you're not open and receptive to them.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: So always be collecting, uh, ideas in notebooks or in whatever form.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: They come to you in like little pieces, um, allowing ideas to come to fruition, uh, you know, on their own, and then always understanding that you are kind of a vessel for that idea.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: You know, there's like a great story of like a Michael Jackson not going to sleep and working on an idea and because he was scared that the universe would give it to Prince if, if, he wasn't there to like receive it.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: That's amazing, yeah, but I mean like I hope I don't think the universe works quite that way, but I don't actually know.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you look at all great artists they've always had the approach of being simply a vessel, I mean, and those are when the best ideas come through.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: You know, some ideas take a long time to form.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: And then there's that process of experimentation and iteration and you know, I kind of describe it as like water going down a hill Right, like you don't know which direction it's going to take.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: It may splinter A lot of times good ideas like the.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: You measure a good idea by if it leads to more good ideas.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Right, good ideas will branch off and lead to more good ideas.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the problem with that is that, like, all of a sudden you could be suffocated with a lot of mediocre good ideas, um.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: So then there's that next process of like taking 100 ideas and refining them into you know, the 10 best ones, or you know, to finally get to one idea, um.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: So, depending on the project, um, and what the aim is, uh, you know it demands a different approach.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: A lot of times there's like that brace like if I'm doing something on a canvas and there's no rules per se, like I have to kind of implement the rules of like what I'm trying to achieve, um, and even then I'm not sure where it's going to go.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: But if it's like a design problem, like I always say that, like, design is about solving problems right, and art is about creating problems, so it's like a very you know, contrasting they go hand in hand though.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Approach, yeah, but they go hand in hand.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: So to kind they go hand in hand, right, um.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So to kind of run ideas through both of those filters, um, to try to come up with something new, right, combining stuff.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: But like, always just be collecting, right, always be collecting and open to new ideas, uh, being able to borrow from something, right and and put it to something else, right, so you kind of you're filling up a ton of glasses at once.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: It's a lot easier when your domain of kind of expertise is very limited, right.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: But if you have a like, so for me it's like oh, I'll have a music idea here, or a business idea here, or a drawing, painting idea here.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: I want to just, you know, build something with matchsticks over here, or like something with cardboard over here.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: You can kind of get lost in that, in that play, right, uh.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: But then it all comes down to like okay, what's the aim of this project, you know, and then can you design whatever you're doing to to that, to fit that aim.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: But it really just comes from an overall mindset of being open, receptive, receptive, uh, egoless, like that's a huge part, um, one of the things that I try to strive for in the early stages of conceiving an idea or or, uh, bringing a product to life.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Is that like knowing that I can't make a mistake in the first part of the process, right, like the best projects are where I'll get 80% of the way to a final, you know, product, but in like 20% of the time, and then 80% of my time is spent on that last 20%, which, honestly, nobody even really notices, except for me and other artists and stuff like that.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: However, like, those are the best ideas that they kind of like make themselves, yeah, through the refinement process.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like it's very clear that like, oh, my god, I'm just a conduit for this idea to come through me, right, right, and I think that I understood that from a very young age.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Like, uh, I was raised on like jazz music, right, so, like and like improvis and like improvisation, stuff like that.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: So my dad would always, you know, point to somebody on stage and be like, you know, see him with his eyes closed, make them weird, you know, movements, like he's in the zone and like that's where your ideas come to life.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: You don't know what you're doing when you're in the zone, right, cause you can't kind of be, you know.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Well, you're purely in, you know, in contact with that.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I call it like the higher version of you or like you are, like I talked to.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: You know, sandy Roth, I think you do, but she and I had a whole conversation about the same thing in yoga, and we actually talked about jazz music on that episode as well, and just talk about the fact that, like those musicians, there's an element of your expertise as a practitioner, whether it's in design, whether it's, you know, with a paintbrush, whether it's vocally, whatever it is.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: As for us, she's a yoga instructor as well.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: You know, we practice yoga for however many years, and then we don't necessarily practice our sequences for class because you have one person, one student, come in.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: They can't, you know that their body's not going to be comfortable in a certain thing and your entire class plan goes out the window.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: So she and I joked about how, like, there is nothing but improvisation, kind of, at life, and so the ability to be in that receptive the thing about the receptive state, though, and I love your antenna thing but what do you?
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: As we are all, our, all our vessels, I also think that we are all filters, right.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: So there's that, there's that perspective, or that idea that no human perspective is the same, because everyone is viewing the world around them through their own unique filter, based on their experiences, how they were raised.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: You know the nature and nurture all of that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: And then, as you become this receptive vessel and I'm going to throw back to what you said about, uh, michael jackson and prince like their filters, if they had the same idea, yeah, that idea would not come out in the same way, no matter what.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Even if it was the exact same song lyrics, if it was the exact same melody, it would be completely different.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So, while, yes, we are all vessels, I also think that we are all individual filters and that, in some divinely orchestrated way which I would never pretend to comprehend, either our higher self or whatever it is that you believe in that is bigger and greater than us, kind of feeds us those things, because we may be, on our own special snowflake way, the best vessel to bring that into reality as the greater expanse of consciousness wants it to be in reality, if that I may have just gotten a little too out of left field but you know what I mean when I say that the competitive nature of being an artist comes in because, like I want to paint something better than you, or I want to make something better than you.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: So I mean like, yeah, there's a lot of like technique and skill that comes into play.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: You know when you receive an idea and the ability to receive the idea, you know in different forms, is definitely a skill.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but going back to what you said on the jazz stuff, as somebody who has worked in AI, you know specifically creative AI.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Since its inception, a jazz band improvising on stage is kind of looked at as the pinnacle of human creativity and something that an AI will never be able to replicate.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: And that's a really cool thing, because when you have like four musicians on stage playing in unison, improvising together, it's not just that they're improv, they're reading each other's body language, right like there's a human element to that, yeah, yeah, um that we don't think ai will ever comprehend.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: And even creative AI.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: What's cool about it?
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: is that it definitely breaks down the creative process into these kind of stages where you can see where the human element will still exist and always exist AI will never be able to replicate or do certain things and then where AI is like really good at stuff.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And I think that's where things are going in the near future, which is a really cool kind of moment in human history where we're able to like we're really good at asking questions and AI is really good at answering questions, if that makes sense.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: And we saw, like with chess you know the best chess teams are now what are like centaurs right, where it's like human and ai working together.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, so like, uh, a great lens to look at ai.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: Uh, technologies is like electricity.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Okay, like it's kind of in everything.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Now, can you imagine a world without electricity?
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: It fundamentally changes everything.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: So at the dawn of electricity, factories didn't know what to do.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Some factories took 20, 30 years putting electricity into the process.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: It's a lot quicker timeframe nowadays in terms of integrating, you know, new text into process.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: But like that's like what we're on the dawn of right now is trying to figure out.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, you could type in a prompt and have an image for anything or, like you know, do deep fakes and stuff like that, but like AI is really going to fundamentally transform everything from the ground up.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: We're starting to see some of that changes now, so I'm definitely not one of those artists that's like anti-AI or anything like that.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think artists really have a good technical grasp as to what it can do and how it can transform things.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: And that again goes back into into the creative process of being open-minded.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: If we look at these things as tools, your process adapts to what tools you have available and what you can do.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: And if you approach something with a bias, instead of just like, I love just getting in and experimenting and seeing where these things, or you know how I can re-approach things, right, like I could do a drawing now, knowing that I'm going to be able to animate that drawing and bring it to life in 3d space, right, just something static on a page.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: So I think we had a really cool time in human history where we have this kind of convergence of a lot of cool tech and I think in the next 10 years it's really going to be eye-opening in terms of, like, what spatial computing can do.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: You know, like, right now I'm talking into a phone, I'm looking into a computer screen right, it's very screen based.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like the computing platforms become spatial.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Everything becomes a potential screen or surface.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: With AI, information begins to overlay everything you know around you, or a really cool kind of brave new world where, if you have the proper approach to creativity and innovation and experimentation, who knows what will emerge.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Right, right, and even that can be, you know, a double edged sword, because you know there are people who think very positively and constructively and there are people who think a little bit more selfishly and destructively.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: And so we hope that the power that these tools have are harnessed for the highest and best good and highest and best use, as they will be, I know.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: They will be.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: No, no, it'll be, don't put that out into the universe, right like we're gonna.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: We're gonna.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna focus on the positive because I have to um for my my it's, it's.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: It's on that, it's on the part of people like me, like of artists, to to experiment and then bring it to market in a way that shows people what these different things, these different tools and experiences can be.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, positive implications.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Because it is magic.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Like some of this stuff is magic, yeah, and that's really cool.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: It's a really cool time to be creating Like I majored in hip hop and built a studio in my dorm room and was rapping and producing, you know, and I did that all with pirated software from like napster and like I was.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I kind of came of age in that like at a beautiful time when it was like you had access to like every single.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: So it was like learning how to drive but being, but being given a Ferrari because you have all of those tools now and they were so easy.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: So I'm definitely grateful for you know, coming of age right at the dawn of like the internet, like I can still remember life before the internet, I was blessed to start my first business, uh like during the MySpace era.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: I started one of the first daily fantasy sports platforms, like before fantasy sports was even known as a thing, so like 2009.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Um, and then I was in that, you know, in the tech space, for the rise of social media, yeah, uh, and I hate social media and I it's become like a necessary evil, evil.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I was about to say the exact same thing, yeah it is yeah and uh.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: You know, I watched an entire generation of kids trade power for influence, not understanding the difference between the two um and I.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: I've just never been been about that um, but I've seen the and I regret that, to be honest with you, like I probably should have put more, like I put a lot of effort into my space and then when that went the way of the dinosaurs, it was like, why would I?
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: do that again for a different app, for that app to disappear.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Right his concept of like following people and stuff.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: And then I saw how fake it was behind the scenes, working with influencers, and I was just.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I've always been turned off from that yeah, it's very disillusioning the reality of the facade, because yeah, it's really, it's a, it's a, it's an entire way of.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: It's honestly like a way of living that is just creating false falsities yeah, it's gross.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: It's gross and I try to keep my daughters off of it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Um, yeah, a lot of people are ignorant about how it kind of works too uh, like you know right, so like just just knowing how these platforms are built and the methods.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: I was never hooked.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: They never got me with the unconscious hooks Right, so I was never trained behaviorally to respond to notifications and I have a hard time responding to text.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so my hope is that, in bringing all that up, is that we do have a generation of kids who see it for what it is and kind of can recognize hey, it's not about likes or follows or whatever, but really like let's explore this domain right and, you know, pioneer new things.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: New types of apps, new types of experiences, let's think outside the box, even if that means taking a risk, you know, and doing something you know that is controversial or that hasn't been done before something like that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Well, there's an element to it too of of trying to kind of like play the algorithms against themselves and, you know, like, cultivating, cultivating content that you know you do want to see, which has a double-edged sword of also limiting, you know the.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: The problem with all of the platforms and all of the social and the internet kind of in general, is that you can really and people do move themselves into a vacuum of their own.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, we saw this with like amazon book sales before.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Right, it was like what, yeah, what books?
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: And that was like 2008, right, right, like we knew it was going to happen with social media.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: We knew, like none of this stuff happened by accident, like all the problems that have emanated from social media no it's by design.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I mean all of this, I mean that's, that's a whole can of worm topic that that I'm sure we could dive into.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Those are the types of things, though, that I try to uh play with in your art right.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: So, like as an artist, right, can you look at that from a meta uh, the company meta, but for, like, from a you know third or fourth degree, right, and then try to create work that makes people think or confronts them with that reality.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, um, and I think that's what the best art is is stuff that, like, makes you feel something yeah like I love when people hate my stuff Right.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: I almost like that just as much, if not more, as somebody who likes it Right when hate is like apathy or indifference.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: And I think, like you know, that's where the artist goes to die.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you're not wrong.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: But like that mean in the middle is where everybody in your life will tell you to go Right.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: So it's like.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, dude, you can't make a painting or an artwork of that.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: You know it needs to be toned down or something it's like everybody tries to push you into that middle box.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no that's not where real art exists.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: No, of course not, and it's also a matter of when you're talking about, and one of the things that I love about your artwork is it's very provocative.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: It's very, very provocative in in a very powerful way, because it's not, it's it's not really in a box and you know, art is so subjective, um and, and to that end, it's like when you know, when we're looking like I'm just going to take, take the ones that I can see behind you.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: there's so much emotion in your artwork and I think that let's add a link so that people can actually see some of the stuff that we're talking about yeah, absolutely yeah, of course we will.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Um, so you know it's in my mind, it's like when, when you talk about apathy and you talk about the ability to create emotion, you know music because I know you, you have a base in hip-hop as well, but music is a very evocative and powerful way to create emotion visually, um, statically, I think it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: It is so much more challenging.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: And so when you can do that in an image prior to the ability now that we're seeing, to animate that image, et cetera, but when you can create tears, let's say, for example, in a person based on a static image, to me that is exemplifies like the peak of artistic I don't even know what the word is, but just the pinnacle, because you are creating an emotion on from a, you know a, one screen, one image, one, and you've created it, you've put it together and there's no, there's no old there, it's purely visual.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: In theory, right, I know art is expanding much beyond that, but I'm talking, let's just for a moment hone in on the painting aspect of it, and and it's it's.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: It's so powerful to be able to create emotion in another human being and it's almost like an alignment, potentially not of where you are going, because that's the other kind of flip side to the beauty of it is that you know what your intent for that image and what it can evoke in someone else can be two entirely different reasons.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe one emotion, but two different reasons, and to me that's very similar to jazz, to four people on a stage right, yeah, it's out of my hands, you know, and there's two parts to the emotion that you bring into it.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: It's like one, can I channel that emotion into something right, concrete, like a visual metaphor or something like that, and then like, can the person, the viewer or participant, uh, can they clean that emotion or a similar intensity of emotion from the piece back?
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Now, that's a process that kills a lot of artists.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: To be honest with you, how so cool it's like and I say this to my daughters bringing them up.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: It's like, you know, if they're upset, draw me a picture of somebody crying you know what I'm saying, like nobody wants to listen to a song and this is the problem with, like ai in music as well, right, like nobody wants to listen to a song about love if you've never had your heart broken.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: That's fair, yeah.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you've written a love song but you've never had your heart broken, I really am not going to put too much into that love song.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, you kind of have a double-edged sword here and, like, my uncle is a poet, right, so he's dealing with words, right, and then his son died and he had to write poetry about that experience and I'm like, oh my God, I can't imagine a more difficult process.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: And I can't imagine a more difficult kind of situation as being somebody who's tasked with putting words to emotions and then being given those emotions to make sense of Right.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: So it's almost as if, like the deeper you go into the box, you know like the darker it gets the hole yeah, the hole yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: Like there are stories about like Stanley Kubrick.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: when he died he had been working on like a Holocaust movie for like eight years and his his wife was like he was miserable right, like if you're gonna go to a subject right and or, if you're gonna explore an emotion, you have to do it with uh, to do it with a vulnerability yeah right and an honesty that uh you have to let your boundaries makes real life harder yeah, well, but so, and that's like a different, so that you know we're, on the one hand, we're talking about creating from nothing, right?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: or from divine inspiration, right, creating from your own mind's eye or whatever, however you interpret it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: When you're talking about the kind of that kind of a creation, where you're, you're actually, you are becoming the thing that you are trying to create, whether it's documentary, whether it you know what I mean.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: But whatever it is, if it's, if it's an occurrence that you are trying to bring a perspective to, to illuminate a certain viewpoint on what, however you want to frame it, point on what, however you want to frame it, it's like I would, I would say it I don't know much about it, but I will make it akin to like method acting, where you become the very thing that you're trying to display and if you choose something like the holocaust that is going to be, I mean, one of the arguably one of the most atrocious things that have ever, has ever occurred in human history, that we're aware of, that we have documented, and so to die, to deep dive down that rabbit hole is, I mean, I, I would never, I would never want to drop my boundaries around something like that to allow it in, to feel that horror, to then reflect it back in through my filter, through my perspective, through my lens of the blends of my vessel, if you will, because I just would want to, I that I'm sure he was miserable and the process that that you just described for the last 15, 20 seconds would make for a great painting.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: To be honest with you, yeah, I mean somebody trying to undergo that process.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, well, there you go.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe, maybe you commission a down boundary canvas, right?
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Like, that's the and that's what it's all about.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: But like, and so our conversation now has created this idea in your mind, right, and I will.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It flew through my mind when you're talking about AI, which, I will be very candid with you, scares me on a on a visceral level, the implications of it.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Again, things that have the most power for good also have the most power for harm.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: I believe that duality, very, very truly.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: But I was thinking, all right, awesome, like, if I was teaching a yoga class and I could have an AI of me as a, as the muscular system, breaking down whatever muscles in real time on a holographic image next to me, showing my students what I want them to do and why, so that I can, you know, explain it.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: That would be amazing.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: There's an implication that I never thought of, that I would love.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And what if I was the first yoga instructor to do something like that?
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Right, like, so, just in us having this conversation back and forth, here are two ideas that have come to us from the other's perspective, the other's, you know, iteration, if you will, and I think that that's what that's part of what the creative process is all about, and it's why mutual back and forth between people, just like the jazz element of it, creates beyond the AI and beyond, let's say, my stream of consciousness and my connection with my divine, to your connection with your divine, then creates this entirely other, and you do need that human element and to bounce ideas off each other because we don't live in a package.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: That's the centaur right there, where it's AI and human working in unison doing what each thing does the best, and that's a really cool empowering process when you get it right.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: You know like, as an artist, a lot of jazz musicians that worked with with music ai, you know they have said I would have gotten to that idea eventually, but this saved me, you know, two, three days of work to get there and I found that same thing with AI where it's like.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: It's never really blown me away with anything that is created, because I know I would have gotten to that point eventually.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: I could just get there a lot quicker now.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of like a superpower with being able to sketch ideas or visualize things or mix and match things or apply styles.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: But you need to have that kind of play mindset right at the beginning, right like, and that's a really cool mindset to have.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: But then you need to have the technical expertise and the experience with how to transform that mold of clay that you've been playing with into its final form.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: And there are a lot of steps and phases along that way which take continual learning and input from others.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Wisdom from others.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Mentors will tell you how to finalize stuff or what to look for, just processes that come with having done that so many times.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Right, um, you know, like how to prune things like a lot of times in the beginning.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: You know, like you hear the the term kill your babies.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Right, like I'm gonna bring.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: I have this great idea, but it's not working.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: In this context, you got to kill it.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Right, like, how to prune things the best the best artist will take.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: That you know it's over here.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: It doesn't mean it's dead right.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Three years may go by and all of a sudden you're like, oh man, I have an idea.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: And now all of a sudden, that puzzle piece fits with that perfectly and it never would have happened if it wasn't discarded from the previous project.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Right, you see that happen all the time with.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: And if you look at people who have ever made something great, they've always said the same thing right, it's the culmination of a bunch of different great things that came together.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Right, a lot of those great things started off as very simple ideas that gaining complexity.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: Like complex things are just a lot of simple things put together yeah right, and it's a skill with being able to kind of discern okay, uh, what was, what are the foundational building blocks?
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Right, and that's also as an artist, where it's like you'll never run out of good ideas.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: That's not, that's another thing, right, it's like being, when you're open to the source, right.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: When you're open to the universe, when you're open to nature, right, like always being in awe of nature because nature is the most amazing.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: But like I don't understand people who are fascinated with aliens.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: I'm like yo just go outside and look at a tree, I know, right, like it's amazing, nature is amazing.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: I try to teach my kids that Like always being in awe of just what awesomeness we live in and around.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: And when you connect with that energy, right, you understand very quickly you're never going to run out of ideas, right, right, like it's an infinite loop.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: You know, make a great idea, execute on it and then kind of let it go.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: And in the beginning that was hard for me to do as a perfectionist, because something could always be better, something can always be better.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: I can work on something forever if you give me forever.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And so that that's kind of, I think, leading me to my next question for you is you know, is we, we the inspiration, right, how it filters through, how you begin to make it?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: You know your own in quotes for those people that are not watching um, and then you know the process of execution, the process of refinement, like the devil's in the details, a little bit there, right, because people can't, you know, you can go, you can micro until until you drive yourself nuts.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: So how do you?
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: What is your let's?
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Let's take a moment.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: How do you process, how do you fine tune from, from the, from the inspiration, from the idea, like where do you start and then where do you stop?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: How do you start and how do you stop in the physical?
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Starting with.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Usually, like I said, it'll be a lot of different things coming together, right, and then it depends on what I'm working with, right, right?
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the process of stopping.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk about that.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: How do you?
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: stop.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: That's tough, right, it's tough, it's tough.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I usually look for, honestly, like a sign from the universe that says like it's time to stop, right.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: To be honest with you, you get a feeling when something is done yeah, you know, like in music music it's a little easier like when you hear a final mix.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Like you get a certain feeling when it's done, or like when you hit it and it's like yo that, and then you chase that feeling for every single thing that you do.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Um, it's easier when it's a design project or something like that, because design, again, is around a certain problem.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: If I want to communicate a certain idea, I know that that idea, you know, can be communicated.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: The hardest place to stop is on a canvas, where it's just me right and that's kind of and it's kind of like uh, I will tell you that nothing that I've done on a canvas is done.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: I need, I need to take photos of it, to make prints, because I have a show and that's because that's why it's done.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Right, like, honestly, it's an answer like that where.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: I'm going to mess something up more if I start doing it, you know continuing it.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Or if somebody looks at something, like you'll look at something and be like yo, that's awesome, Can I put it on my wall?
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: And I'll be like that's halfway there, yeah.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: And then I start to think, well, what is that person, that person's seeing?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: it.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: And then it really comes down to okay, are you just trying to be a perfectionist on every detail, or is this piece communicating whatever message emotion, is it doing so effectively at this point in its creation?
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Right, and then, then you can let it go.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Um, the other part is like market pressure.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: So it's like hey, this, this needs to sell, or you know something like that.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Like those are other artificial constraints like time yeah, and I know and that's that's no fun.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: That takes the life out of the guy.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Guy, I know it's reality.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: It's reality.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to give you a very solid, awesome answer on how the process stops.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Usually what I try to do is like okay, you know, I'll create 100 ideas for something, I'll combine the best 10 into one and I've done all of that other work that most people would quote unquote, throw away or what a waste, right.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: But like right, all of those pieces are kind of ruminating still, right.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: So, like, one piece will usually lead to two or three more pieces, right, like I'll have, I'll start something and have an idea while I'm doing that and then start the next one.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: And the problem with that is then you have like eight things that are going right yeah that's why, like you know, the best artists, that is then you have like eight things that are going at once, eight things that are right, yeah.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: That's why, like you know, the best artists that are doing this at the peak, or like just creating at the peak, they have like a big warehouse, yeah, where it's like all of those ideas are out in the open and you can move effortlessly from one to another, so like anywhere that that river's flowing.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where you go.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like oh, I have a music idea.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: Let me jump into the studio and do that.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Oh you know, idea for this over here, um, yeah, and then you try to.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: You try to just go with the flow.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, then, from experience, knowing what's going to work, what's not going to work, how to package an idea to sell it, um, if it's in like a business context, um, or you don't know what the hell you're doing, and you try to put all those pieces into your head and do activities like lucid dreaming or some of those other kind of meditation, yeah, yeah, esoteric things where, like you, you know, there's different modes of thought.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: The best way of thinking that a you know a metaphor is like a pinball machine.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: So like, if you're actively, that pinball goes in and that pinball is bouncing around tons of different things, right.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: If you're actively thinking, in diffuse thinking, right which is the other daydreaming right would be an example of that there are a lot less obstacles.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: So when that ball goes around and the pin is bouncing around, there are lots, lot less things for it to hit, right, and that's where, all of a sudden, ideas can make sense.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: You know, that's where I'll jump out of bed or, like you know, be like oh my God, I call it getting hit with the hammer of God.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: It really is Like when all of a sudden the idea clicks, like all of a sudden something clicks.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like an, all mind consuming.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: It's a, it's a very special feeling yeah um, these are the things, though, that take me out of the world.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Like if I have an idea like that I'm in the studio for hours and I'm in like my own world, right, and that that's where girlfriends will be angry at me or frustrated, or, you know, like my kids like dad dad dad, dad, dad, and I'm just like in a different you're in the zone.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: That's the zone like that's you know and I it's.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I think it is synonymous with creation, right?
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: You cannot, or if you do, create outside of that place.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's going to be as pure and I use the word pure loosely there but I think you know what I mean when I say that I think that's the here's the difference between being an amateur and a professional.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: right, there is like, if you're like who's a great, a great quote, that it was like yo, like professionals don't need inspiration.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Like professionals don't need inspiration, Right, Right.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Like I have a process, I could sit down with a piece of paper any day of the week, do something creative.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Like I know the process, I don't need inspiration, Right.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: But when you get hit with inspiration and you have the kind of tools necessary to bring that to life very fast, like that's when something special happens, Right.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: So it's a lot of like you're not going to be good at an instrument if you're not practicing that instrument.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: You know, and, and the same goes for anything you know, skill-based.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: So no, a hundred percent.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: I think that there's.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: You know again, there's that, that, there's that intuitive sense and I think that, like, the one thing that I took from you, know, when you were talking about stopping, is it sounds to me like it's a little bit full circle and that the kind of hammer of God that strikes at the beginning to give you the inspiration, it's just as intuitive for you to find the ending.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, someone's finding it for you because they're saying, hey, I want to put that on my wall.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's usually someone finding it for you, because I try to not stop right, like you.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Like you're thinking of it as like, okay, what are you done with the piece?
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: It's like no, I'm never done with any of the piece.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I'm always just working on stuff and like when the piece is finished, it's finished and I'm on to the next one.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: There's never not going to be a next one right I'm not working on a picture, I'm in a grave.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay, I mean that that's just the way.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Like, like, like my fingers literally are indented because I just hold a pen in my hand.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: So, like, the end of the day, I'm never doing an artwork.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: You know, like art, art for anybody else other than myself right like I'm drawing to stay alive yeah because if I'm not drawing then I'm just gonna go insane right and a lot of stuff is oh, that's a lot of, a lot of artists.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, listen, when you so, going back to the whole Kubrick thing, like when you are a true in my mind, a true art, a true creative let's not even just pigeonhole it into artists but when you are a true creative mind and you have that capacity, I'm gonna throw it to a root metaphor as well, because we're talking, you brought up a tree and I kept thinking, like you know we talk about, you know, we ever, we always, think about the tree, from the, from the top down right, because that's the part that we see, but the roots are where it's all coming from.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: So if you that upside down, you think about the fact that all of this inspiration, all of this process, right like the inspirations coming from the soil, up through the, up through the root system, that root system is our human filter, it's our design, it's our this, it's our perspective, it's all of those things.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: And then what we create, in essence, the process, is the trunk, and then what we create is this is process, is the trunk, and then what we create is is the tree in in a very basic.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: You're next to another tree and your roots are connected and then you have the fungi that connects all of the roots into, like, its own nervous network.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: That's why, being around other creative people, people, right and and stuff like that, and then also understanding too, like that you're not, you are just a vessel, like at the end of the day, we are all the same stuff, right, and always keeping that in mind too, yeah, you know, like we're not so that's why the best art will resonate with a lot of people yes, either positively or negatively.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: Right, but the worst thing you can do is just make boring stuff that that won't, that doesn't hit.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: Hit somebody you know, and that's always like my mom is a great litmus test, because if she likes something that I do, I knew I made it too mellow, right.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: It's like I need.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: I need my mom to hate everything that I do.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: It's like the ultimate act of defiance, I mean the irony is I know you get at least part of your artistic vent from your mom.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, when it comes to content and messaging and stuff with that she's always like why can't?
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: You just do the flower.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Why does the flower have to be growing out of a skull, in an eye socket?
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Well, it's like it's a metaphor.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: It's a metaphor.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: It's provocative, right like it's.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: It's you're about you.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: You two have very different markets, very, very different.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: We're going to bring the professional back into a very different target markets.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's your artwork.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Essentially, any kind of artwork, any kind of medium, it's a piece of the of the person, it's a piece of you that was the whole, like the whole.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: The whole point of having this conversation with you was bringing like.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: You are creating from the roots the source that, whatever you want to call it, your creation is from your vessel.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: It is a piece of you.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: It is a piece of you that you have created that was not in existence prior to your existence yes, and that's a lifestyle that is absolute, and if anybody wants to learn that process, and the best, absolute best resource that I've come across for learning, that is Rick Rick Rubin's book the act of creation.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you, I will, and then this will plug that there, but Rick Rubin is the guy who started Def Jam.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: He's one of the most famous producers ever.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Uh, he's got the big, huge beard.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: If I had an idol or somebody that I like looked up to, it would be he.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: He kind of distilled a lot of what I've said into very simple, short, easy to read chapters right in a book called the act of creation.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: It's about and he's been around the greatest artists of the last few decades and he's kind of just distilled those lessons down into very easy to read.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've definitely relayed a lot of the stuff that's come from that book.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of stuff that I knew is.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: You know, like any artist can tell you that you know what he's saying is very similar.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: But if anybody wants to learn more about my approach and other people's, approach.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: That's definitely the best resource.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: All right, thank you for sharing that.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it, and so to that.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: To that end, I think one of my one of my next questions for you is when you're talking about, you're talking about the art of creation creation.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: One of my goals in in yoga, as an instructor, even with this podcast, is to inspire other people to create and to inspire people to follow their own guidance.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: I have a personal.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to go down that, but I have like a personal reason why I try to develop my communication with my intuition as my compass at life and to not have to necessarily rely on an outside influence other than you know the daily grind or whatever it is that you need to do to survive, but other than that, I try to take my next steps in my every day from a place of my own intuition, so that I have no one to blame but myself if things don't go according to divine plan.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: So do you have a process for yourself to?
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: And it sounds like you don't have a lot of creative blockage, which is awesome, and but do you have any?
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: And I'm not going to call it spiritual, but do you have any tangible, just like the book that you mentioned, tangible things, which is what I try to leave people with tangible things that people can do For me.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I usually go with meditation to connect to that, that intuition within you.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: But what is your process for connecting into that space of receptivity, or do you find that you live in it, which can be overwhelming, I would imagine?
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: live in it, which can be overwhelming, I would imagine.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, it's overwhelming, as a single parent trying to manage that state of being with everyday interruption, right, uh, that is the daily struggle of mine, to be honest with you.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because like it could take two or three hours to get into a creative zone, yeah, right and Right, and then all of a sudden, like you're interrupted and it's like that's start, stop, start, stop, start, stop.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: That it's not conducive to any type of creative thinking.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: That's when I started to go insane yeah, I it for me it's just a lot of alone time, thinking, to be honest with you.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: I mean I could sit there and stare at a wall for three hours, but like my mind is moving a thousand miles an hour as I formulate pieces and try to put things together, I've tried to go back and study through time what people did to tap into that zone.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Right, you have like Edison sleeping on his couch, like in his lab, like with a ball, where he can kind of catch himself like in a lucid dreaming state.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Meditation is a great one, sometimes just doing like rough sketching, like something like that, like to get into the zone, or like reading.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: It's like something, though, where you're not, where you can allow your mind to drift, put it that way.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: That's where, like having my phone anywhere near me, game over Anywhere, like where you're going to be interrupted or you allow yourself to be interrupted, like that flow state is going to stop, it's gone.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: What I measure everything in my life through is like flow and friction.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: I found this to be very simple Like this thing in my life is going to bring me flow or it's going to bring me friction.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: The more things I can do in my life to allow flow, energy, right, it's like the better, right.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Relationships like really, uh, I always put relationships through that kind of lens Like is this person bringing I don't want to say positivity, but like is this person bringing something forward, moving positive energy, where it's not like a black hole, vampire energy, where you know we're talking about people and drama and stuff that like I just don't want to deal with Right, and drama and stuff that like I just don't want to deal with right, right, um, and like I just picture all of that just like clutter and friction and starts to feel like sandpaper.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: To be honest with you, like going through that grind, uh, and I'm extreme in that so like if I just sit on hold for an hour with something in the morning, like I know I'm screwed for like three hours, like that will have just driven me so insane where I need just, and then I sort of isolate Right, so like I don't I still haven't perfected this process yet.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Right, I'm still dealing with that, but that's an everyday struggle.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I try to just maximize, okay, big blockages of time, yeah.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: Right, so like, maybe I don't you know I could do something in two hours, but like it's really going to be good if I have six hours to do it, right, because then I'll have time to like kind of get into it and I'll be able to work with the pieces without that like little timer in the back of my head saying like, oh, it's three o'clock.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: You know like I work best.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: I always say like no clocks, no calendars.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like if you could put me in a situation where I don't know what time of day it is and I don't know what day it is you're going to be getting great art.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to be the happiest I am and you know, like that that's the essence of me and that took many years of the people around me learning right where they're not.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Like you know where's Charles?
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Like you're being a bad friend, it's like no dude, that's just me and I'm working and that's I'm not being a hermit.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: You know, like come into the studio.
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: Like I love that.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: Let me play music for you, let me show you artwork.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm used to people coming here.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Right, I'll go out to a bar and just sit down like I'm miserable right now, um, because I don't have that that kind of energy or flow.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: And like sharing stuff too and getting feedback from people.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: That's a big part of the process.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: Like I love sharing stuff that's in process yeah and getting feedback from people and whether or not I let that influence the final piece.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like I'll respect other people's stuff.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: I'll also know why they're saying certain things and I'll be like, yes, I wanted that to to get under your skin.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Um, but the but, the flow friction metaphor, and there's a bunch of them right?
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think it's unique to me, you know, trying to.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: It's not an accident that most great artists get money and the first thing they do is build themselves like a warehouse and disappear into it Like that's.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: I think that's every artist's dream, which is like.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, literally every great artist has done that to some capacity, where it's like I got paid.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Now leave me alone right and I'm in my big open space to now work.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: I'm in a bubble bettered by you know yeah, the outside world, yeah, or the demands of just an everyday job or the demands of, like you know, uh, so being a single parent has made that tough.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: I hope that I'm showing my kids all of this on an everyday basis so that they can be incredible artists and they're kind of shaping up to be these like great little creative vessels, yeah, um, and they can kind of internalize a lot of this, these lessons that I've learned the hard way over decades.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: You know very early on, when you look at like great artists like Picasso his dad was an art teacher so like I have that in the back of my head, like yo, if I feel like if I can instill a lot of this stuff into them, you know early on it'll benefit, like they can be, you know, or 10 times, 100 times the artist that I am, um, and then you know, staying focused on the overall kind of vision, which is like you're not attached to one piece, just make as many as you can Right, like always keep moving and always keep creating.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: And there's something like I can never imagine not living a creative life.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I just can't imagine that Well you'd probably be miserable.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: to be honest, You'd be.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the creativity would come out in different ways I mean like yeah, I feel like it's an energy.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: That is, uh, very anti-fragile.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Uh, that's another book like if anybody wants, it's not necessarily a creative book, but like understanding anti-fragility, uh, in a creative sense.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: You kind of have an appreciation for randomness or or, uh, entropy, you know, and it being able to make certain things stronger, um, and then kind of going with the flow.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: And I by no means have the answers to a lot of these questions, I'm still learning, um, that's the whole point, right.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: I don't think we're supposed to have the answers.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: If we had the answers, life would be pretty boring, or everyone would just be perfectly successful, and then that would still lead to boring and mundane and the same and so yeah, and that's.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: That's another thing like how do you, how do you gauge success as an artist?
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: A lot of people will gauge success as exactly are you living a creative life and are you able to produce things you know daily on?
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: a basis.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: Other people, especially like in the social media world, will be like it's.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: It's how it's received.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's not true art, it's not it Well, it shouldn't be the driving force behind what you do and the value that you attach to stuff Like job is to produce work, to promote it and present it to the world.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: That's something I'm getting used to.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: I'm doing more shows and stuff like that.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's the necessary evil of the business aspect of the creative space.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: It feels very weird.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest, I've never been, even like with music back in the day, like promoting music.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: I just there's so much mediocrity out there that like, hey, listen to my music and look at my art and give me a follow.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: It's like nah, man Just saying that feels weird.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: A follow, that's like you know man like yeah, just saying that feels weird.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: But that's my own internal kind of bias.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: I'd like to stay focused really on the on the uh producing and just making the dopest stuff possible, like that.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: You know, like my company slogan is like make dope.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: I don't want to swear stuff, yeah stuff like that's, that's that's the slogan.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't matter what domain that's in.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it could be in fashion, it could be in art, it could be in music, it could, you know, be in tech anything um and it has that.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: You know, just that intangible dope quality yeah, but again that's like the manifestation of the zone right.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, it's the tangible, like it's then bringing, driving it all home, wrapping it up in a nice pretty bow.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you for doing that, whether, whether inadvertently or inadvertently, but you know it's just that.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: That is the idea behind the creative process is bringing the zone into reality and like you can see it.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: You can see it and I've always used the sports metaphor a lot as well with jazz, with sports, like top athletes, you see it very easy in that visual.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: But when you're talking about art specifically, or you're talking about um, you know it's, it's like your uncle.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: When you're talking about like he had to complete that project and I'm sure that was very, very I'm sure he went through a process not dissimilar to yours, as he was the.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: The ending, the wrapping up of that, the selection process, that's the painstaking, that's the to me.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: I feel like the culmination is one of the hardest things that you can do.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: That you can feel complete in as an artist is the feeling of completion Because, like you said, it doesn't stop.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: You're always going to be creating and you're always going to be manifesting that, that zone, into something that is actually separate and outside of you, which I think is the distinction between something like the written word, something like painting versus something like a top athlete versus a jazz musician.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: They are in the zone and you can see it and in the room with them, you witness it, you bear witness to it.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Something like this is very different.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: You are exemplifying the zone in something outside of yourself.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: You are in the zone when you create it, and then you've created something that is a physical representation, a manifestation of the zone in reality that someone can then take and hang up on their wall, and to me that is effing beautiful yeah, it's very special, I agree with you.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: That's why I think I've been drawn to drawing more so than any other thing, because it's kind of like yo you give me a stick and like dirt and I'm going to draw something dope Like it's like very primal yeah.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like one human versus another human.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: We both have a stick.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: I bet you I'm going to do something a lot more creative, you know and like.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: To me that's always been like okay, it starts with that and then from there, there, you can manifest these things into final form, whether it's a painting or a song, or it could be like with movement, like with yoga routines and stuff like that.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: Um, yeah, there's a, there's an entire world that's invisible to us.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: I think that's that's the biggest thing.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Is that like?
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: being humble and, uh, open to a world of energy that we barely comprehend and, at the end of the day, we are just animals, right, and like we're all from the same tree and from the same universe and part of the same fabric of energy.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: And the more you can be humble and in that space, the more open and receptive you are to the ideas that pass through that, and the best artists will have the strongest antennas and being able to make sense of that energy and manifest things that resonate with other people and outside audiences.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: And, yeah, as stuff goes to market, it gets, you know, transformed in different ways or whatever.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: But, like, that's not up up to me and there's stuff that's out of my hands and the only thing that I can really uh, control is the root of that process, right, which is actually, can you, you know, bring into form these different ideas?
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: Um, and the process is different for everybody.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: If somebody doesn't know where to start, you know, I would recommend, like like I run into this with my clients a lot too when they want to build like a new brand or a new logo, right, so like a very narrow scope, right, but like, like I don't draw or whatever, can you sketch a hundred different types of your logo.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: Well, I've never drawn anything, ever.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: I don't kind of just force yourself to do a hundred little things.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: And like I guarantee you by the end of it, you know exactly what you want to see.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Like there was no playbook for me to do any of this.
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: I majored in hip hop Right Like I literally says hip hop culture on my degree, and the thing about hip hop was it's an art form that started from nothing.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it was brand new, the essence of hip hop is transforming nothing into something.
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: Right, we have no art classes.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: We have no schools.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: We're going to steal cans of paint and we're going to draw on subway cars that go through the city so that people could see our artwork.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: We can't make music, so we're going to take a record and we're going to cut it into breakbeats.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: Right, and we're going to create beats off of sample records.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Right, I don't have a microphone, I'm just going to start rapping with somebody on the corner.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: Right, we don't have a dance floor or a dance studio.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: I'm going gonna take a cardboard box and I'm gonna start break dancing on the corner.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Like, hip-hop is literally the essence, and this comes from, like, the experience of american slavery and that you know a lot of the creative resistance, right, uh, like the seeds of creative resistance that were formed there, it's like a very so.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: Like in studying hip-hop, you really have an appreciation for there is no right or wrong way to do this, but in a lot of times, it's going to come from doing something differently, right, like I'm going to take this turntable and I'm going to use it differently than to just play a record and all of a sudden, something new was born right, so having, uh, you know, taking some of the lessons from that, which was you don't need anything to start right, just take the same stuff and and make it something different yeah and then the third thing is teach yourself.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: So, like me, coming of age in the internet, it was like web 1.0 and I don't think kids will appreciate this kind of stuff anymore where it was like like mit, open courseware was like I could go to graduate school at mit or I could just download every course for free online and do it myself.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: I did that for three years.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I took every course at MIT aerospace courses.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: I didn't write the papers, but I did all the stuff on the syllabus.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: The knowledge for Web 1.0, the knowledge explosion that was available was insane.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: And next thing, you know, facebook and these other platforms popped up and they created these walled gardens that people, you know our kids nowadays see the internet through those lenses or whatever.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: It's not like hey, this was like all of the world's knowledge for you to learn, whatever you want, um, and I think that's what you need to have that spirit of kind of exploration.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it's a little harder nowadays because you've got to fight through.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: Like you said, you've got to fight through your own filter bubble first.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: Right, you've got to fight through your own algorithms, and it makes it a lot easier when you understand how these platforms work, right from a technical standpoint, like why your algorithm is working the way it is, or you know how to game it and stuff and then trying to escape that so that you can kind of be kind of like set free in the library of knowledge.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: Right, like the internet is crazy and people don't really get that anymore, and what's worse now is that like AI is now learned on that and now just spitting you back like little pieces.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: So I do think I have like a very unique upbringing in terms of when I came to learn everything that we've talked about in the context of of like the internet and new emerging technologies right right, and you know, it's really up to this next generation, uh yeah, to figure out.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: it's funny it's like I look at all this stuff and I'm like I want to create dope artwork to figure out.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: It's funny it's like I look at all this stuff and I'm like I want to create dope artwork, right, and it's like the next generation needs to look at all of this stuff and be like, okay, we need to actually save the planet with this stuff.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: Right, I'm really looking at AI through the lens of like oh, ai is making my pictures move, but it's like you know we need AI to kind of like solve.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: You know climate change Problems?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, extinction.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that's happening a lot faster than expected, right?
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: So yeah, you kind of have to balance the big picture and the small picture.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, balance the creative exploration state with okay, I'm done exploring and experimenting.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: Now I need to kind of bring these ideas into final form.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: There's the editing, self editing process.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: That usually hinders people from doing that, but off that.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: so if you have a refinement process from the standpoint of like.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: Okay, I can't make a mistake.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Like that gives a tremendous amount of like whenever I get a new notebook right, like I'll write on the first page first page is the hardest and then I turn it and then now I'm off right because, like everybody gets stuck on that first page or like that self-editing, if you realize that the first draft that you make of anything is going to suck, then you, then you make the first draft, no matter what.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, um, I don't have any great answers on how to finish stuff yet.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I ever will, that's okay listen again.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: It's not about the finishing, it's about the process.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Right, it's about the process probably means that nobody has a great answer to that, because I have not found one yet and I've been actively looking for that because I am a student of the creative process yeah, yeah but other than like you, just kind of know, like like your intuition.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: It's intuitive, it's intuitive and that's your intuition, is a muscle.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Like people don't understand that either, Like if you're not listening to your intuition ever or you question it, it becomes a lot harder to work.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: But, like, the more you exercise your intuition it is absolutely a muscle in all areas of your life and then being able to kind of like, catch your own biases and thinking and analyze yourself honestly and openly, understanding that you're not the emotion or whatever but the essence behind it.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: So that kind of borrows from a lot of different.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a bit like I mean that comes down to self-awareness, like all of all of the muscle of the intuition, the entire thought process behind you know, stopping right like and, and the entire process behind knowing, like the intuition, that sense of knowing throughout the creative process, knowing that, knowing when the next step in the process is ready to begin, and and I think that's part of the answer to the ending is not necessarily the ending but the new beginning, right?
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: So it's like that next step, whether it's a net, whether it's another painting or another idea that sprung from that idea, that now you're off to that, maybe there is no true ending, maybe it's all a new beginning, yeah, and maybe that that is the culmination of it yeah, and if anybody's listening to this and they're like stuck in that spot, just starting stuff, starting stuff, starting stuff.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: This is where, like, the experience comes in.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: Like you start enough projects, you can then step back and be like, okay, now I need to start finishing these.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: This is what happens when I start 10 projects at once.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, like, and those are all just like kind of small creative problems, but like if you're approaching everything from being open and receptive and understanding that you're an antenna and a conduit through through which ideas flow, um, you know, you may be technically better at bringing those ideas to life, but, um, it starts with that one well, not better than just.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: It was meant.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: I believe it was meant for you, like, whatever idea michael had wasn't meant for prince, it was meant for michael.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: If you're asking me about my belief system, I believe that, and the same for you.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Right Like there is, there are going to be visions in your, in your mind's eye that are going to come to you that would not come for your mom.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: Right Like, like there's.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: Just that is, that is, and I believe that that is our own.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: Again, like unique, we're all, we're all individual.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: We're all, we're all one, but we're all a little bit different.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: And so bringing whatever your difference is into tangible reality, and if everyone does that in their own way, whether whatever medium and whatever it is, hopefully only uplifts, as long as, again, you're using it for the right, for the right and the good right, yeah yeah, I think there's a tremendous amount of empathy and uh that comes along with that
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: right and again the self-awareness yeah, yeah, and a tremendous amount of like, respect for others and and whatnot, regardless of what, like, the actual work is, um, but yeah, it's a uh, it's a grueling process that I wish schools kind of spent more time cultivating.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: That's another can of worms, conversation about, like, about.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: But yes, yeah, and I think that you know, one of the banes of my existence was standardized testing.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not a good test taker, um, I could write a paper any day, all day long, but I cannot.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: I'm just, it's not.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Multiple choice is not my friend, um, and so I think that you know, like avoiding that rabbit hole at all costs, other than to say that I think a lot of the school systems have gone in that direction and away from the creative mind, and I think that that is potentially by design, and I don't want to get into my thoughts on that because, like the stem versus theme argument, where like should art be added to that um so we'll see yeah, yeah, only time will tell, but hopefully, uh, hopefully, you know, hopefully the parents and hopefully families will instill all of that creativity, all of that channeling of the goodness of the zone of the higher connection, if and when schools don't or choose not to, because, you know, hopefully you spend more time with kids than they are at school, or the long haul anyway hopefully um, but I just want to thank you so much for all of this you and I both um and I just I want for all of our listeners to be able to find you and connect with you, and so would you like to drop some locations for where they can best reach out to you, find your artwork, find some of your music and potentially hit you up for commissions yeah, uh, at.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: The human animal on instagram is probably the one that I promote the most, but any, any on any of the social stuff the human animal, um, and then dangerous d8 and g-e-r-o dot u-s um.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: But you can find that link on instagram.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: That's probably the easiest way for everyone to perfect, hit me up perfect, charles.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing this for having me on and it has been my ultimate pleasure and always, always deep diving.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: In this kind of thing.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: You go on forever, but we will.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: We will have the.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: We will craft our own ending as a new beginning, and I am just going to say to you and to everyone who's listening how much I appreciate each and every one of you for sharing your space with me and ask that you please feel free to share the same with your loved ones, For more goodness.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Follow me on all the socials, at Above the Ground podcast, and visit my website, heirsaboveyogacom.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: As always, don't forget to check out my other episodes and my amazing sisters at deepestthatcarecom.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: You can find us on Spotify, Odyssey, Apple, Amazon, iHeartRadio and anywhere else you might feel guided.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: Again, my name is Gia Raquel Rose, owner of Heirs Above Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground podcast, where every day is a good one Thanks for listening.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: This show was brought to you by Divas that Care.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Connect with us on Facebook, on Instagram and, of course, on DivasThatCarecom, where you can subscribe to our newsletter, so you don't miss a thing.