Latest / Cue the Creativity / Matt Mitchell

Transcript

Matt Mitchell · Cue the Creativity

• 0:09
  Alright, hello! I'm Kat. This is Andrew.
• 0:27
  And this is Cue the Creativity, a podcast from the Walker County Arts Alliance. And today we have none other than the Ostrich, Matt Mitchell.
• 0:37
  Howdy.
• 0:38
  Cue the applause track here.
• 0:40
  Yeah, we got the live audience we have in here.
• 0:42
  That's right.
• 0:42
  Uh, well, can I ask, how did you get that name, the Ostrich?
• 0:46
  Well, wow.
• 0:46
  Because I've always wondered and never known.
• 0:49
  It's a story. Uh, try to do the Reader's Digest version. Okay. Um, Back— started with a parody account of the local newspaper we have, the Denham Mountain Eagle, on Twitter back in like 2012. And, and the logo, I used their logo, had a different name, like a more condensed Twitter handle style name.
• 1:11
  Yeah.
• 1:12
  Anyway, they got upset about it. And so I changed some things and I swapped the eagle out of their logo for what I thought at the time would be like, what's the least majestic bird I can think of? An ostrich. An ostrich. Okay. Can't even fly. I love it. It's basically me, just a flightless thing with long legs and a big round belly. So,
• 1:31
  and your head in the sand.
• 1:32
  Yeah, yeah. Uh, so that's— it just stuck, just became the ostrich after that. So that's how that happened.
• 1:40
  So yeah, you wanna— you wanna tell us, I mean, where we know— I don't know, a little, again, uh, CliffsNotes version of how you got here? Like, have you always been interested in, um, comedy and things? Of course, I have seen an old video of you hosting, um, some local TV show at your high school?
• 1:59
  Oh yeah, Eagle Vision. Yeah, Eagle Vision. Yeah, that didn't last even the whole semester. That got canned. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it's always been this or that. I think, you know, my parents tell me, say that when I was little, it was like I'm gonna put on a show. Like, I would, like, if, if there's a living room full of adults, it was like a time to perform. But for me, the, the earliest thing I remember doing is being just in love with doing, like, creative writing. Like, I got into like reading, you know, books, all about Goosebumps books when I was a kid, and, uh, Boxcar Kids, and just reading these stories. And then I was like, I can write my own story. So I would sit down and just write pages and pages of just made-up stories. And so I guess that was really the beginning of just creative writing. And so everything I do, uh, writing is always like my favorite part of it.
• 2:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:43
  I, I don't mind so much the getting in front of the camera and doing this or that one, but like the writing is the important thing to me. The rest of it, I'll just— we'll figure it out, we'll make it work. But if I don't have a good script or I didn't write anything fun, funny, then it doesn't really matter what I did on camera, right? You know, so the writing is the, is the fun thing. But that, I guess, since the, the day I learned you can put words on paper and make it say whatever you want. Yeah, that's been—
• 3:06
  okay,
• 3:07
  it's been a long
• 3:08
  time. Do you write? Like, do you like sit down every day with like a pen and paper, or what is the process?
• 3:14
  I wish I was that disciplined. It is, um, I don't write every day. I think right now, especially with the video schedule and stuff, it is if I'm writing, I'm writing for video. Otherwise Uh, what am I doing? I've got too much to do. So it's, it's, it's definitely probably writing, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 pages a week of just random things. Uh, you know, right now it's football season, so ACC Roll Call is the main thing, and that's really the bread and butter of the whole YouTube channel and everything I do right now. So that takes priority, and that's like 6 to 8 pages of just script, just writing dialogue and stuff like that. But then I do these essay videos on YouTube, and that's more fun. That's like I'm writing, you know, for the, for the paper again. Like, you can just, you know, it's not so much about dialogue and funny actions, it's me delivering lines. And so those are fun. Those can get ridiculous, like 15 pages. We get the video back and it's like 30 minutes. Like, no, nobody wants to watch a 30-minute video about Cracker Barrel. I'm gonna have to cut half of this off. So, um, But yeah, that's, uh, that's it. Now, there's dedicated writing days, like right now for Roll Call. Really? Oh yeah, like I have to do that. I have to schedule a time because I'm not the— there will be moments where inspiration strikes and it'd be like, I need to sit down and write this down. But more often than not, it's like I have to force myself to sit down, open up the laptop or iPad, and just try to zone everything else out. I will go to the park sometimes. I used to go to the library over here. I can just chill, sit there and write for hours. I've gone all the way up to Carbon Hill. I was like, hell no, nobody at the park at Carbon Hill on a Thursday at 11. There's not. No, maybe one guy that's like, why is this dude sitting out here by himself? That's— there was a dude eyeballing me. But yeah, so I'll find a random park around here. I'll just, just find a quiet place where there's no distractions where I can try to write. But, but yeah, that's pretty much it. I got to schedule it, unfortunately. I wish I was the—
• 5:12
  Well, I think a lot of creatives are like that.
• 5:14
  Yeah.
• 5:14
  Like, it's hard to do the thing that you do.
• 5:17
  Yeah.
• 5:18
  You know, getting to that point. At least I feel that way. Like, for me, it's like in a perfect world, I would do a sketch in my sketchbook every day. That does not happen.
• 5:25
  Right.
• 5:25
  You know, sometimes it's like improv.
• 5:28
  Yeah.
• 5:28
  Do you workshop any of these bits beforehand, or is it— do you know, does your camera guy be like, that, that didn't fly, don't, don't do that?
• 5:37
  We, uh, we do some of that still with roll call. Like, there'll be Some of the characters that I'll just keep riffing after the line's done, and, and maybe 20% of the time that makes it into the video. The rest of it's just nonsense, it went nowhere.
• 5:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:54
  Um, and I can usually read the room with everybody that's working on the video with me. Nobody's laughing, it's like, all right, yeah, that's not gonna make the cut. But you know, you don't ever know until you just try, you just put it out there. Sometimes you find gold and it'll be like everybody's favorite thing, all the comments are about that one thing that was not even in the script. Um, I was like, what did I even write all that for if I just come here, turn the camera on, and be stupid?
• 6:14
  Uh, and then they're like, yeah, more of that!
• 6:16
  Yeah, that was so good! No, no more of that.
• 6:19
  Are you the editor? Do you edit?
• 6:20
  Not— I try not to. That is my absolute least favorite part of the process.
• 6:25
  Yeah, it's rough sometimes.
• 6:26
  It's a pain. And like, you know, I've had the pleasure, and I wouldn't even be doing videos if I didn't have that time where I spent at AL.com working with this other thing, because I wouldn't do video stuff before that at all, and I probably never even touched it. had I not gone over there. So, but I had the pleasure of working with these people who are legitimate pros at what they do. They went to school to do cinematography and editing, and, and some of them, like Adam that I worked with, even taught at Alabama to students. So they know this stuff, you know, forwards and back. So if they're available to me, it just makes sense to give it to a professional.
• 7:00
  Yeah, sure.
• 7:00
  Instead of me, because what they can do in an hour Takes me, no joke, 2 full days.
• 7:07
  Wow.
• 7:07
  And will down— will kill my hard drive, and I'll be cussing at it all night long. And yeah, so I try not to. Editing sucks. That's the least favorite.
• 7:16
  What's something that's like kind of surprising about what you do? You know, like something that you don't think about?
• 7:24
  I guess it still surprises me the way people like latch on to things, and like people will meet me somewhere and then they'll quote like a line back to me from like 3 seasons ago. And we're getting to the point I don't remember anymore. I remember some things, but they'll throw stuff out and I'll be like, was that me? What? When? And they'll have to explain to me where it was in the video. Like, oh, okay. I mean, I don't really go back and rewatch.
• 7:46
  Yeah.
• 7:47
  The old ones. But so that's still, that's still crazy to me when people pull out a deep cut like that. And there's still people locally from the Damn Iron Eagle days that will come up and start talking about like something from 10 years ago when it's like, gosh, I definitely don't remember. all that. Please don't go look at my stuff from 10, 15 years ago. I don't know what's out there. So, but yeah, that, that's, that still surprises me.
• 8:09
  Yeah, I'm wondering, like, how do you deal with those kind of parasocial relationships?
• 8:14
  Uh, it's a big thing I worry about, uh, because I mean, not knocking those types of creators, but they're certainly in the whole creator economy, a giant chunk of it, who appears to me that they are living off of just creating these parasocial relationships, which I don't find healthy.
• 8:31
  No.
• 8:32
  For you or for the viewer. But I mean, is it— in their defense, I guess, is it different than reality TV? Probably not. You're just producing it and doing it all yourself. But I don't want any part of that. I try not to put too much of like my personal life in there. Like, I was real quick and excited to be able to get out of my house when I went independent. and go shoot my stuff somewhere else. So I'm not bringing that so much of my work home with me. Like, I still do some— a lot of the writing and stuff at home, especially for Roll Call on Sundays. But shooting at the house is— it's just too much. I feel like there's some privacy I need to put up a little wall there.
• 9:11
  You don't need to have people have that much access to you.
• 9:13
  No, no. But, you know, not knocking those that do. But I know there's a lot of creators that do at least like parody what their home life is like and their spouse, a lot of couples accounts and stuff. You know, that's, that's fine. I know they're also— a lot of them are also just writing and doing their own stuff, but they're just portraying themselves as this character. And I don't like to— that's a, that's a line I don't want to cross because then people, some people get a little crazy.
• 9:37
  Well, that's what I was wondering is because I could imagine that people would come up to you and then start a conversation as if you've always been having a conversation with them.
• 9:44
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we get that and I don't mind. I don't mind that at all. I like, I tell people, they're like, oh, you probably get so tired of, you know, people saying— I said, no, not at all. I just, I do stuff on the internet, so I put it out there and Hit publish, and then I just sit back. I'm like, all right, cool. And you can look at the likes and the views and the comments and all that stuff to gauge it. But, um, I— but I don't look at the comments anymore, not on Facebook.
• 10:09
  Uh, oh yeah.
• 10:09
  Yeah, I kind of just stay away entirely from there. But, but so it's nice to like face-to-face interaction with somebody that watched it and stuff. That's what I tell them. I was like, no, that's great. I don't ever get to just hit send and walk away from it. So it's nice to— nice to talk to somebody.
• 10:22
  Yeah. It's like you're connecting with them in a way, and that's cool.
• 10:26
  Yeah. Is there anything that you've done either on the AL.com piece or when you went independent that you were surprised that blew up?
• 10:36
  Oh, everything I do that blows up. It's like that. All the things I work the hardest— this is the— this is— I don't know if this is like industry-wide, but this is definitely true for me and for everybody I work with that's still doing stuff over It's a Southern Thing and all that. It's been a joke for years is the thing you spend the least amount of time on is the thing that's going to blow up. And the thing that you will spend forever on to be your, your baby, uh, and just get ready for it to flop. We, we would sit there and know when we were working on videos back at It's This Other Thing, we were on this clip for like, man, almost 2 years of putting out a video every single week. And, uh, we would know after we've been working on just the details of the video, like we're not even to the point of the script yet, we're just fleshing out the bits, that we would stop and say we've We're over it. This is gonna fail. Or we laugh at it too much when we're talking about it and writing it out. If we're all laughing too much at the idea, also gonna fail.
• 11:31
  Wow.
• 11:32
  This is too funny to us, they'll hate it.
• 11:34
  Yeah.
• 11:35
  That's crazy.
• 11:36
  Yeah, but we would joke, we would have no ideas and like, we gotta hurry up and make something. So we're like, I don't know, what if we just did types of people stay at a hotel? I don't know, millions of views.
• 11:47
  Really?
• 11:48
  It's like, all right, whatever. Why even bother thinking?
• 11:51
  Sometimes simple is key, though. It's like, that is so hard. Like, even with art, it's like, I have these students, they focus on, like, all these different details, and I'm like, don't look at all these details. You're gonna get overwhelmed. You're gonna do a bunch of stuff that's gonna look bad.
• 12:06
  Yeah.
• 12:07
  So simple is key, and it's— I can't do that sometimes. It's hard.
• 12:10
  It's tough, and I have to tell myself, it's a hurdle when I'm writing, especially this, like, dialogue, because, you know, I'm trying to bounce off somebody else and keep the dialogue— you're trying to— attention spans get shorter and shorter, You gotta like keep the beats fast, can't give characters too many sentences because people be like, oh, one person talking too much, I'm out. So you're like just trying to play off each other, and one joke is also a setup to another joke. But then sometimes you'll hit a point where like, I don't know where to take this, and I'll just stare and rack my brain for 30 minutes of trying to figure out where do I go next. And it'd be like, Matt, just put joke parentheses joke here and then just move on. You can come back to that later. So that's the hardest thing for me is to be like, just put a little filler here and come back to it later. Wow. Yeah, that's, that's tricky. But
• 12:59
  yeah. Talking about artists, we know that you are a fan of local artists and you use some of them in your Gettin' Place. You tell us a little bit about that.
• 13:08
  I do. Yeah, it's— so the Gettin' Place is my merch store. It's— we launched it back in October 2023 with the shirt I made I was wearing on Roll Call. And I had been— we We did merch it. It's this other thing and it was huge. Came up with a card game that we were selling at Target. And, but I got real burnt out on it because I was just like pumping ideas into the business and getting no profit extra from it. And it was, it was, it was, it burnt me out and I had a bad taste in my mouth when I left and I was like, I don't wanna do this. But then I wore that shirt and people were like, where do I get that? And like, I don't know, maybe I'll do a store. And then all of a sudden all these bots on the internet, people had like set up to print these out in China. Like they stole my design.
• 13:50
  What? And I was like, oh no.
• 13:52
  that is a worse taste in my mouth than the one I got from there. Yeah. So let me, um, so I started the store actually, I was like in a layover in Atlanta. So in the 2-hour layover, I like created the website and got the order sent off, and that was the start of it. And, uh, but I knew from the get-go that I wanted my art to be— I'm not an artist, I can't draw. Um, I mean, I guess I can draw, but nobody wants to see it, or they don't even know what it is when I'm done with it. So I was like, I wanted to find local artists, uh, not use AI, um, not fool with any of that, but like use local people and give them credit like on their work, like on the page you can find out what artist did this and where they're from. And so, um, first one I worked with was Jonathan Fox that lives out in Warrior, and Wotown, uh, is his, his art company. And he made some stuff for me that just like blew up and did great.
• 14:44
  Cool.
• 14:45
  And then I started working with, uh, Joshua Hamilton, who was originally from Oakman. He lives over in Tuscaloosa now, and he's made a ton of things for me. He also shoots and edits a lot of my videos. And then now my niece, Angel Welch, who lives over in Dora. She is— she's been making a lot of my stuff too. So, but yeah, using local artists is super important to me just because AI sucks. AI art is awful. It's just stealing from those artists to begin with, and it just looks bad. Everyone— oh yeah, most people can see it's It's this new— I don't know if we've like coined it yet, but when you look at something that AI has made, especially like food, like menus and stuff, there's an uncanny valley thing that's triggered. Like your body, your mind is saying, that's not real food, don't eat that. Yes, it is. But that is— I feel like that is kind of like poisoning everything else in AI. So your brain just is trained to see this and then just ignore it. But your brain does that all the time with ads. If you're scrolling social media, if, if it even looks like an ad, people are just gonna instinctively just scroll. And so if your stuff looks like everybody else's stuff, what are you doing?
• 15:57
  That's right.
• 15:58
  Like, you're not— you're killing your business by doing that. It's just not— forget the whole ethical implications of it, just from a business standpoint, I can't think of a worse thing to do for your advertising. You might as well just go buy some poster board and get a Sharpie and write whatever you want on it and take a picture. Hell, that's a pretty good idea.
• 16:15
  It's a great idea. I've seen some businesses do that, and let me tell you, their engagement, like,
• 16:19
  through the roof. Yeah,
• 16:21
  because people are like so hungry for something that has a human hand now.
• 16:25
  Yes,
• 16:25
  because it's like people forgot how to use their hands to make things. Yeah, so when someone does, it just feels more authentic.
• 16:33
  Yeah,
• 16:34
  I don't know, it just makes me sad. There's so many nonprofits and community events That will make these flyers that are just so much going on.
• 16:43
  It's bad. Yeah.
• 16:44
  And it's like they all look the same. And I will— my eyes immediately glaze over when I see it. And I know there's some good stuff in there. There's this, there's this account of this guy who goes around and like will redo— I've seen this. Yes. You know what I'm talking about? He'll go and he'll— he's a graphic designer and he redoes bad posters.
• 17:05
  well.
• 17:06
  Like, it's like a vigilante kind of thing of like redoing, right, graphic design. I wish we had someone like that.
• 17:12
  And he always compliments the creator though, because it's always very, you know, it's very Xeroxy, very, you know, old school, uh, way of doing it. And he always like, we want to make sure that he have the— yes, we should. Yeah, I'll send you. Yeah, it's great. It's great.
• 17:24
  I've seen, I've seen a guy doing that for like logos, business logos. Um, but yeah, I've seen a few of those, but It is. I mean, even if you can't, I get not everybody can afford to go out and hire a graphic designer, although, uh, like a local one starting off can get really affordable. Yeah, I mean, we're talking like maybe $25 a design. Some people just want to get experience, they just want to have a portfolio. That's right, so they can move on to bigger things.
• 17:52
  I mean, University of Alabama, they have like a whole graphic design program. So does University of Montevallo. I'm sure those college kids, you know, like starting out building their portfolios, that would be somewhere to start. I don't know, I'm just all about like putting money in real artists' hands because just like you were talking about how it takes you like days to do something, probably only takes them like 5 minutes to do what we do.
• 18:16
  Oh, I know it does. I said,
• 18:18
  yeah,
• 18:18
  like I will—
• 18:20
  They're magicians.
• 18:20
  I hate how much if I'm trying to design anything that like my spacing and I'm like, oh, there's too much junk in this corner and there's all empty space here. And like, I know these people have the brain to figure out where things go. I don't. I'm just trying to like make it readable.
• 18:35
  Yeah.
• 18:36
  So I love handing the artwork off to them too because I stress about it. Even if like, you know, Canva is my one area that is— that at least will help me take my ideas and make them look somewhat presentable. Um, but that's, you know, I think there's a free plan for Canva. Yeah, there's some people can jump on Canva and just use those clip art and stuff. Sometimes still, it used to be that didn't stand out. Now Even your basic Canva art stands out thanks to people using AI. So
• 19:03
  it's true.
• 19:03
  Silver lining for people who have no artistic talent like me. Barrier for entry has been lowered drastically thanks to AI.
• 19:12
  So now we're talking about, you know, talk about your designs and your designs that you have for your shirts and whatnot are available in a real store now that you don't have to just go to on the internet anymore.
• 19:22
  Yeah, this is— we— this has been like a goal of mine for a while. I think just kind of further down the road. Was to have an actual store for the shirts and some other products, but also just to showcase Southern makers and things like that that, you know, aren't going to be able to get space in Walmart, Dollar General, wherever, and, and maybe wouldn't be carried by, you know, one of the boutiques or something around town. So, so I kind of put some of that stuff together. We, we had an opportunity with Summerton Christian School that they have uniforms have had uniforms for forever, and they were doing them in-house for a long time. And then it got to where that was, um, kind of too much, and they also needed that space where the store was. And so I guess there really wasn't a good way to hand that back to whoever was doing it back before. The company that used to do them may not exist. And so, uh, me and my wife Lisa were talking about it. I was like, I think we can— we already have a space where we are holding our shirts and shipping them out. Like, we have a space. And there's a big chunk of that space that used to be a storefront that's just kind of empty right now that we're renting out. So we could do the uniform stuff and also kind of just go ahead and start our store. So we, we really cobbled that together real quick this summer.
• 20:43
  Wow.
• 20:44
  Um, we got the, the school board agreed on it, and, uh, it's like in May, and in July the store was open. But like, the uniform part was it took me forever to get like, you know, my things in there that weren't my shirts, all the other stuff. But now it's great. We've got, um, skincare products from Alabama and from South Carolina and, uh, working on art prints and stuff that Josh that I work with, he's got several different— 2 art prints in there, trying to get more of those. Um, man, all kinds of stuff. We got a huge like barbecue sauce collection now, trying to get different sauces from different parts of the South. Oh, nice. Um, gosh, stickers, air fresheners, hair bands, pillows made in Mississippi, and just, yeah.
• 21:28
  So where is this located?
• 21:30
  We're, um, we're in Sayre.
• 21:32
  Okay.
• 21:32
  The address is Dora, but, uh, we're— if you know that area, we are across the street from Crest UBP up on the hill. There's that white long building with a blue roof, and we're on the end of that one. Got a big old Get in Place sign on that end of the building, so But we're like, if you know, if you know where at least Summerton and Dorr is, we're just headed like you're going to the old Green Top, but right before you get there on top of the hill, we're on the left.
• 21:54
  Yeah.
• 21:55
  Okay.
• 21:55
  And I went in a couple of weeks ago. I had a time on lunch, and they also have candies that only your grandma has. So somehow y'all have found the supplier of these grandma candies.
• 22:05
  Yeah, we have candy cigarettes that are not expired. Yeah, they are fresh. Uh, I forgot how good they were. Yeah, we got— yeah, we got all kinds of candies. I love them. It's all like the Atkinson Candy Company. It's in Texas that does Chico Stix and the Zebra candies and
• 22:22
  the
• 22:23
  strawberry ones. Coconut— I forgot what they're called. But yeah, they do a bunch of those old school candies that I've always loved and they're hard to find. Those little strawberry buttons that are in grandma's purse. She don't know where she came from. They just— They just appear. You turn 70, you just get them. Yeah, Werther's, all that good stuff.
• 22:41
  Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I'll have to come by and check it out.
• 22:44
  That's fine. We're slowly, slowly getting more stuff in. Just takes a while to get from certain suppliers. But, but they're also small companies I'm buying from, so it's, you know, they're having to go make the things, I guess, after a while or something.
• 22:55
  Yeah, because it's like a small operation.
• 22:56
  But they're always so nice to work with. Like the company that does the pillows from Mississippi, their stuff is so good and it's such great quality. And they were short one pillow in my order and they gave me another one for free. And they're like, oh, we'll ship you that when we get in stock. And then they mailed me one single pillow. Wow. And I was like, that's great. You didn't have to do that. But because everybody else just cancels the order, like, we ain't got it, so you ain't getting it. But they were like, no, we want to give it to you.
• 23:20
  So that's amazing.
• 23:20
  It's been great. And also some of the companies I get from, I forget who it was, but they, they, I guess, recognized my name on the order form and they're like, we love your videos. We're so excited to be in your store and all that. I was like, and they were like in South Carolina or something. That's awesome. That's great.
• 23:34
  I love that you have the tradition of, you know, In our area, we have a gym that you can go get your hair cut in, you know, and we've got a pool shop that you can get Bibles in. I know, I know in Hamilton they've got a music store you can buy guns in. So now, and you have a store, the tradition, you know, keeping with the tradition that you sell your stuff as well as some merch for some, you know, uniforms for a local high school. So, you know, ever what you need.
• 24:01
  Local merchant.
• 24:02
  That's right.
• 24:02
  Your local goods.
• 24:04
  Yeah, it's a very weird selection. It's very fun to see the 2 types of customers we get. We get the Summerton Christian parents who are in there, and they're like, oh wow, like there's a lot of other stuff. I had no idea. And it was like, oh yeah, that's— it's The Gittin' Place. It's more than just
• 24:18
  The Gittin' Place,
• 24:19
  right? Otherwise I call it the Summerton Christian School Store. Uh, then we get the people that come just for The Gittin' Place, and then they'll be walking around the store, and then they'll turn the corner to the Summerton Christian area, like, oh, weird look on their face, then turn right back around. It's like, yeah, okay. But nobody's been like, what is all— what are all these uniforms? What is this?
• 24:36
  So funny.
• 24:36
  But, uh, yeah, 2, 2 very different types of customers in there, but it's been fun.
• 24:40
  Well, we're very happy. Kat and I are very happy to tell you that, uh, Matt Mitchell will be with us at Art Party very soon. What is that date, Kat?
• 24:48
  That is November 5th.
• 24:49
  There we go,
• 24:51
  November 5th.
• 24:51
  So, uh, tickets,
• 24:53
  tickets are on sale right now on Eventbrite. Uh, you can follow us on social media and we are posting about it, but Art Party's great. You've been there for us before This will be
• 25:05
  my third?
• 25:06
  Third? I think it's your third. Yeah, I think that's right.
• 25:08
  Yeah. It's a unique event.
• 25:10
  It's a unique event. Unique event. Yeah.
• 25:12
  I never know what to do. The first time I did it, I don't know if I really had anything written out. I think I was just more like, oh, you're gonna do the auction part. Yeah. Like an auctioneer. And then the second time around, I was like, all right, I'm gonna prepare something. But there's so, there's like a, there's a good amount of people here.
• 25:27
  Yeah.
• 25:28
  And it's like—
• 25:29
  Yeah, kind of a, I would say we were pretty packed that night.
• 25:31
  I think so. Yeah. Yeah, last time we went for sure.
• 25:33
  So I don't know what I'm gonna be doing this time. Yeah, who's to say? made art like 2 years— the first time, first time it didn't— did you buy it?
• 25:40
  I bought it. Well, yeah, everything turned half price and I bought it.
• 25:43
  Yeah,
• 25:44
  I'm sorry, but I do have a Matt Mitchell original.
• 25:45
  Could have waited till the very end to get it free.
• 25:47
  But now I'm auctioning it on eBay if anybody wants it.
• 25:49
  Oh, look at there.
• 25:51
  That's a joke, but if anybody's interested. Uh, well, Matt Mitchell, it's been so good to have you on today. Thanks so much for coming by the podcast on, you know, a day where I'm sure you had things to do. And thanks for coming out in a couple weeks for our party.
• 26:03
  Oh yeah, I'm excited about it. Always a pleasure. Really appreciate what y'all are doing, especially, you know, like we talked about with the AI stuff. It's, it's never been more important to support local artists and to promote it. Let people know this exists.
• 26:19
  Yeah.
• 26:19
  You know, there's— you can get real art out there. Don't go get the robot art.
• 26:23
  And we've expanded our programs this year. Like, I don't know if you know, but now not only are we doing art in like the elementary and middle school, but we're doing art in the high schools. And not only art, but we are— we've partnered with Red Mountain Theater and we're bringing in a theater residency. So like Dora, all of the county high schools get like an hour or 2 of theater once a month.
• 26:47
  Yeah, that's great.
• 26:48
  And they are— I just got word back from Red Mountain. The kids are loving it. They're like, we don't have any students that are this engaged.
• 26:54
  That's awesome.
• 26:55
  They're like, we— they want it. They can't wait for it. And so
• 26:58
  it's such a treat. Amazing. Even if it's like, I'm not good at this, I'm not good at acting, or I'm good at art, or, you know, there's no way I will ever make money or make it for a living. That's not even what— well, you're in the majority then. The majority of people just make it because it's more— sometimes it's more for yourself. Sometimes for you it's more of a therapeutic thing or, you know, self-discovery or something like that. And it's just, it's just taking time for yourself and just quiet time.
• 27:23
  Yeah. Kat posted something this week. It just said, just make the thing.
• 27:26
  Just
• 27:26
  do it. Just make it.
• 27:27
  Just make it.
• 27:27
  Don't worry about it being good.
• 27:29
  That's right.
• 27:29
  Definitely.
• 27:30
  I was talking to Crystal Jordan, who started— I keep pointing that way because there's like a little incubator shop on Main Street. So she has an art shop that she opened, and I was talking to her because, you know, art, we like find each other. It's like we have like beams of light and it's like art person, art person. And she was just saying, you know, making art is just soul food. It's just food for your soul. And I'm like, yeah, that's kind of cool. I like that. You just got to do it.
• 27:55
  Just got to do it. And we want to thank Matt Mitchell for, for doing it and sharing it with everybody else and sharing his time with us today. We'll see you next time on Cue the Crew at Creativity.
• 28:04
  Cue the Creativity. Thanks for being here.
• 28:06
  Thanks for having me.
• 28:08
  Thank you for tuning in to Cue the Creativity.
• 28:10
  This podcast is made possible thanks to our sponsors, the Walker Area Community Foundation and the Alabama State Council on the Arts ArtTag grant.
• 28:20
  When you purchase a Support the Arts license plate, the funds directly support arts organizations, educational programs, and communities across Alabama, and things like this podcast.