What if your art was an invitation rather than a gift?
What if this was an invite to a party that celebrated failures?
A FAIL-A-BRATION!?
What happens when we share our wins AND losses, happy accidents AND miserable mishaps?
In this fun and inspiring chat with Brad and Kristi Montague, we discuss the origins and inspiration behind their newest picture book 'FAIL-A-BRATION' and how an idea generously shared, can spark a movement.
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SHOW NOTES:
Co-Writing / Editing: Sophie Miller sophiemiller.co
Audio Editing / Sound Design: Conner Jones pendingbeautiful.co
Soundtrack / Theme Song: Yoni Wolf / WHY? whywithaquestionmark.com
Web: https://montagueworkshop.com/hello
Brad's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradmontague
Kristi's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristimontague
Kid President: https://www.instagram.com/iamkidpresident
Their Books:
Fail-a-bration,
The Circles All Around Us,
The Fantastic Bureau of Imagination
Mentioned:
James Marshall Books
Sister Corita Kent
'Burden of Dreams' documentary
'Adventures of Pete and Pete' tv show
'Son of Rambow' movie
Robert Frost
[MUSIC] Hey, you're listening to Creative PEP Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator, and this show is just everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice. Let's get into it. [MUSIC] I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. And I have applied this to my creative practice, too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro. And that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's fluid engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out Squarespace.com/PEPTALK to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. [MUSIC] Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're going to chat through our new Journey of the True Fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or antijpizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. Today Brad and Kristi Montague are on the show. I'm very excited for you to hear it. Brad has been a longtime friend and Internet buddy supporter of my work. We've been friends for a long time. Brad was on an earlier episode, a much earlier episode of this show, episode 72, I believe it was one of the first guests on the show. And Brad is an excellent guy and him and his wife, Kristi, have been making some incredible picture books. You might know them from their gorgeous, heartwarming kids books, like Fantastic Bureau of Imagination or their New York Times bestseller, The Circles All Around Us. You also might know Brad from his web series, Kid President, from Back in the Day. And in my estimation, Kid President is one of the most hilarious, inspired and successful creative things to ever live on the Internet. I'm talking billions of views, collaborative episodes with Frickin' Steve Carell and Beyonce and Obama for goodness sakes, like this thing was just an incredible force and for so much good and light on the often very dark Internet. And in the past few years, Brad and Kristi have been really focused on making wonderful picture books and I wanted to have them on the show for a couple reasons. First of all, they have a new picture book out called Fail O'Bration. It's hilarious and also just really powerfully illustrates a key concept from this show and from the book Mindset by Dr. Carol DeWack. It illustrates the idea of the growth mindset so well and we talk about that idea so often on this show that I had to have them on to talk about it. And I think it's an amazing thing to bring this idea to life through a story for the target age range of the picture book because it's such a make or break concept, both to creative people but also to kids and also just humans everywhere. And I think learning to embrace failure is such a game changer and it's something I need to remind it of all the time. The second reason I wanted to have them on the show is because I don't know anybody that makes picture books in such a similar fashion to the collaborative process that Sophie and I have. My wife, Sophie and I, they make books in a very similar fashion and I was just desperate to compare notes and see what I could learn from them about how they collaborate and see what other kind of lessons and ideas we could pull out because that collaboration in my own practice has been a complete game changer. Some of the best things I've ever made, some of the things I'm most proud of have come through that but it hasn't been easy. It's been enlightening, sometimes it's been easy and often it's really just magical but it can also be really difficult and so I wanted to talk to them about it, see what they had learned and we have so many powerful takeaways on the collaborative front in this chat. Stay tuned until the end of this episode for a creative call to adventure. I'm calling it the first word on how to approach your creative work in the opposite way that most people do and by doing so, making your art something that people integrate into their lives on a deeper level and become the agent for spreading your work throughout communities online and in real life and I think there's an important shift that we talk about in this episode that can really help you make work that spreads instead of trying to make stuff that is the final word on what you're doing. We'll get to that later but for now, let's get to my chat with Brad and Kristi Monigue. [music] Honestly, I love the new book. It is so funny and it feels so much like your spirits. I loved your other books, they're great. This one has that comedy though of that, I don't know, or some about failure that is just right in your comedy wheelhouse and it was fun and it's growth mindset and I just freaking love it. First of all, I wanted to just say that. Well, there's compliments and then there's compliments from you, people that I love and have known me for a long time. You know what this is like too, you make stuff until it starts to feel closer to what's inside you and around you, you've done that a lot. Really, yeah. I wondered if that was the case for you to like if it felt because I mean, your heart and soul are in your previous picture books but there's something about reading this that bridges and it also bridges the gap between like it feels so fresh, like closer to what's happening on the internet and often there's a big gap between traditional media and like new media and I feel myself, I have a hard time like getting past my preconceptions of what a picture book needs to be and I wondered if you felt like you were on to something different or you tapped into something different with this book. I think what helped is it was so disarming the fact that we were working on a totally different book and this one was like demanding to be made and so suddenly it had this energy to it that I mean it just came together much quicker than anything else because like we were working on a book that took place in the woods and there's all these animals and there's all sorts of painting and things that have to be done with that and this big story and I've been you know, so much thought going into that and then suddenly this was just urging itself to exist and so we couldn't be in our heads too much and at the same time we were reading a lot of James Marshall and you like love James Marshall as much as I do and I mean like that kind of energy of the fun, the silly right? Yeah, well it's interesting because celebration started as an event and it kind of took on a life of its own and then this book I feel like kind of took on a life of its own where it kind of, I don't know, the words and the way that we wanted to be playful with it it just kind of dictated the way that we ended up putting it together. There was less of us forcing it and more of it forcing us to get to work. Yeah, yeah and I totally relate to that, I feel like you know, the majority of I think a lot that being, making good work or making the work that feels best to you is so much this mind game of how do I access this part of my brain and there's so many weird hurdles and one of the things that seems to work the best is like procrastinating where you're like all right we have to do this thing and it has to be good and then your brain's like well what about this other thing that's totally irrelevant and if you just let that go a little bit sometimes it gives you something really, you get in there in the back door and could you tell us a little bit about- So your advice to all the creative professionals listening right now is procrastinating, I mean honestly it doesn't matter whether that's my advice or not, that's what we're going to do. I just think there's no way around this. I mean that's kind of how this book happened yeah I mean a year ago last July we were talking to our editor at agent and then it kind of turned into like well could this be the next book instead and then like a month later we had a manuscript and then two months later we were working on the art and it's crazy. It's such a tricking yourself thing, you have to figure out how do I get, that's what I always look at my to-do list and I'm always like okay all these to-do none of them are that difficult, the difficult one is getting past myself like to get these finished. So I think you know over Andy yeah yeah yeah yeah well you know so the party itself was a thing that I just wanted to get people together and I was a little stressed out about doing an event, bringing people together and all that barrier to well what if people show up, what if it's like doesn't meet their expectations and so to get over that I made the event about failure so that it would could be messy and scrappy, we could spell our names wrong on the name tags, the playlist could be dumb like weird owl said dare to be stupid and that that was the mission and and the people that were presenting you know I invited you know people who've done impressive things but they could only share the thing they wouldn't want to share on stage and in doing so we found that not only did the people in the room resonate with the idea like emotionally I mean we were laughing but crying and a big room turned into a living room you know that kind of feeling but then like people just started going back and wanting to do their own parties like this it just was freeing in a way that people went oh finally I wanted an excuse to do something dumb. I always want that that's also great finally I can actually I have an excuse for this one okay Brad said I can do it I think that it's okay there's so much interesting stuff there so it's a celebration it's a picture book inspired by these events that you were doing where you're telling stories about failures that different people had had and then in the book it's really about helping kids embrace failure as funny or learning or not an identity I think it's really amazing I wonder if just real quick we could go into two things you did there that I think are really interesting creatively one is you know there's so many times where I want to do something but I'm like oh man an event what if people don't come what if it's embarrassing what if I you know forget some of the basic things like chairs like that kind of stuff and so then I just don't do it and I just don't do it and there's so many other you know this could be anything an event a book a podcast whatever and I think that rather than try to get around the problem you creatively embrace the problem in a way of like well what if it was a failure and that was like the whole concept like it's a concept party and I just think that that is such a good like create again a hack of the creative mind because for me I can just kill my ideas before I even get started so I love that yeah it's a it's you know it's a habit of creatively approaching life that way of of being playful and and when you sort of have this this we forget how fun fun can be you know we just get so you forget oh this is fun oh I like this and that sounds like one of those dumb things that would be on a podcast did you know fun is fun have you know fun fun is it's fun to be the excerpt you share to promote well definitely really deep music in the back so a lot of people don't know this fun is actually a fun thanks Brad and yeah so you're welcome but you're right I mean it's I mean especially like the amount of times that when I have to do a video for a company or a talk or an illustration or whatever how many times I get into that zone of all right I have to go do a video I have to go do this thing and every time I forget that the whole idea is that it's creative the whole idea is that I have to do what am I doing yeah and that's a thing I have to kind of actively remind myself that that if I'm unhealthy my default is fear but when I'm at my healthiest my default is fun like which is joy and that's where like my favorite work comes from and you know create a Kent that none artist just brilliant woman one of the things she talks about a lot was her students best work came when they were playing and she called it plork like you know that you've got a plork it's this mix of play and work and I I mean you got to get plork and man that's that's great I also am envisioning it as a character plork you make a great visible thing yeah I love that and I love sister Krita Kent yes see yeah go ahead no go ahead we're gonna say was gonna say even you know for whether it's a young person or an adult going through a challenge or feeling disappointment or you know experiencing some sort of perceived failure to then move from a fearful framing of it to this fun place of seeing it as some sort of opportunity or seeing it as some way in which they can grow is gonna lead to some really good places and sort of planning those seeds early in a picture book or in conversations or in games and is helpful but it's also this helpful reminder for the parent who would be reading the book to be like oh yeah yeah I've I really should loosen up a bit a bit here yeah and people won't believe this but I too need that reminder like you know but most people think I need to tighten up but I do as a parent it's easy it's easy to get into like I gotta do this and do the dishes and oh my god like I totally get I get in that zone I want to get into a little bit of like what causes people like you to to throw a fail abrasion and if we can get into any of the real stuff around that because I know you and I we've been making stuff for a long time some of it is really fun some of it didn't go the way that we hoped that it would and so I'd love to dig into that I just want to underline one other thing real quick that I thought was super interesting right the top you guys have done a lot of like event gatherings like campaigns and I just wanted to point out that you turned an event into a kid's book and I think a lot of times like I think a lot of times myself I get into this zone of like the muse wants this to be I never say the muse first of all just let me say that okay I was pretending but I'm like the muse wants this to be a podcast episode or this thing you know get really precious about it but often a lot of the ways to kind of break through is to be to mismatch what it wants to be yeah you know was that in your mind like as you guys were translating this there was some tension early on when it was even suggested to me that you know this is a book and I mean I was just kind of no what is a book is the book I'm working on that is very serious and has rabbits in the woods with newspapers that is that is very serious is very like serious about it and and then the more and more start thinking about it and and then it really gets serious when Christy starts going well you know they're kind of right I'm like yeah not you too they got to you you've been infected as well yeah it was like a 30 minute meeting and from the beginning of it he was just like no no way like that wouldn't work - oh maybe yeah let me think about this and then like a dinner tonight then I emailed a manuscript you know is this a thing and yeah and the the fun starts to kind of come when you play with that when you go oh you know I actually was pitching this as a movie but it kind of would be more interesting in this setting and that leads to some of the most interesting things and this this becoming a book suddenly made so much sense because core to what I love and what is contagious to me like I'm addicted to it is stories that inspire more stories or creative projects that inspire more creativity that you know it started when we were doing work on YouTube and and you know we would do something like throw a parade for our postal worker and then see hundreds of parades happen within a month and and go oh a parade is cool but a parade that inspires more parades is even cooler it's generative in that way and and this is the exact same thing it's a party that could inspire more parties and and also the the book itself is made out of these really cool things that that I feel like the way you brought the I did these drawings and then she makes these paper sculptures and is tearing cardboard together and hot glue and things and you look at it and the kids gonna go I want to make a thing too and they feel the barrier is not too high for them to attempt it I love that component of it by the way Sophie and I have done collaborations in the past with obviously invisible things this is part of the reason I was really excited to talk to you about it is you guys have a similar thing happening over there with the picture books but I've also she's a fabric artist and we've kind of explored different times adding my illustration with her fabric and this dimensionality and so seeing you guys do that was extremely inspiring and it looks fantastic it works really really well yeah like talking about how you did the playing with the cake and stuff is that's yeah I think we've been so inspired by books like the beautiful oops and like ones where it was very tactile and our kids always love those where you can like touch them and so even in Fantastic Bureau we had a page where they like it was torn open like you know like it looks like there's a piece torn out of it and so so many people would like touch the page and like think it was real and we loved the way it printed and so we just kind of wanted to turn in you know use a little bit more of that in this book and so really it just started with playing with everything and kind of taking Brad Brad creates great sketches the way that we work and I take those sketches and then either color them or whatever you know we do to be able to turn them into finished illustrations so with these I just started cutting out a paper and I would print them out and then just kind of trace and figure out like what you know should these be and then I love the way the shadows were showing up whenever I photographed it so it was just a lot of play and then just kind of seeing what came out of that but that's great she is a perfectionist yes there's so many that I like redid or I kept having to like like I would photograph it like three times that I would put it in the computer and I'm like nope that's not gonna work you have to go hang on this book is this book is about like it's okay and so it was a like a bit of tension there of you allowing the imperfections to still exist in the book yeah that's something I struggle with and so I guess needed to address and address throughout the process of this book so that hits on the next thing I want to talk about which was one of the things I really relate to in my collaborations with Sophie is I can get in my own way it's hard to access different parts of my brain like the creative parts when I want to because of ego or whatever it is that's gotten you know insecurity there's all kinds of different things that stopped me from accessing that creative side and even in this conversation you both played different roles and then swapped him like you talked about Christie like you know this is actually maybe a book and Brad's like that has to get Brad out of the way and then you're struggling with these perfectionist tendencies and he's now getting that person out of the way that to me working with somebody so close to you who knows your crap knows your tricks like it makes it honestly I've been really open like it makes it difficult like it's not easy but it's really can be super powerful and rewarding how does that dynamic workout do you think do you know Christie like when Brad like when Brad's like it's not a book like what are you this is dangerous but what do you like recognizing or how do you what are your tricks like how do you get around it we don't have to go to counseling you know couples can't say yeah but it's an interesting thing for all collaborations you know yeah yeah I think it's funny because we are so much alike and I think we compliment each other so well and like you know a lot of people are like opposites attract I'm like no like we are like in so many ways except for he is a dreamer and I'm a realist so he will come in with me like yeah we're gonna do this and I'm like okay but practically I don't know like you know this isn't gonna work it's even with like celebrities like I have this idea and we're gonna do this event and it's gonna be this and I'm like okay but you know and then I introduce all the problems that we need to solve first and so I think whenever I'm excited about something and I bring it in I think he really listens more because I wasn't immediately shooting it down like it was like no this is a book and he's like wait what they're saying it's like when a dog hears go yeah yeah let's go yeah I get that totally yeah I mean it's clouds and concrete kind of thing but kite and string that that's as a negative feel but yeah it's a positive thing and that's what I always feel like we joke about that like I'll crush his dreams so it real come in and have some kind of like it was really not that it's just looking at things you might not have thought about just making sure that we address all those problems ahead of time so yeah it's like oh she's in on it then that means oh it must be good because you know out of a hundred ideas one of them goes through and then she goes actually I think that's a thing and usually I'll get grumpy about it but then I'll be like okay we'll do it again a few years ago for like a karaoke backpack and he was just all about it like we gotta make a karaoke backpack and I'm like I mean I think that'd be great but that means I have to figure it out like fine okay and so then we built it so yeah but it was great and it was awesome at the end but I mean that's something that had to be invented the faces of people when they got to sing karaoke and they saw it didn't support it it's worth it you know what's hilarious is it's so similar to my partnership with Sophie we actually have we wrote in invisible things there's a there's two pages that came from conversations we had with our editor about heading the clouds feet in the ground feet on the ground yeah that was exactly yeah and it's interesting like when you have the honesty to of someone close to your collaborating with yes it's frustrating how often things get shot down back and forth like where are each other's toughest critics for ideas but when something goes through I feel exactly the same because if we're both if we both turn the key and we're like this is good we know we have to like go through with it it's a really powerful motive yes yes it is it is and and there's something really cool that can grow from that sort of binocular vision having people see it from different angles and then then coming together and and it it elevates the whole thing it elevates my work when she comes and takes the brad crumbs and says we're gonna we're gonna do this and then I have been able to help her you know play more and and bring an energy and a kind of color to what she longs to see in the world and and kind of understanding that about each other about what is your really longing what's the energy you're really longing to add to the world in some way and kind of finding some some way to help each other do that yeah we're in a really bright spot so let's just take a nosedive into the darkness let's go straight into what makes one want to to celebrate failure what kind of scenario you know we we like we've said we've known each other for a long time we've talked a lot about the ups and downs of trying to have a creative practice I know from my experience and know from just things we talked about it's not all fun and games and sometimes it's really really hard what did you did you guys share a story at that first event or what was the catalyst for that why why did you want to do this combination of lots of things one being you know you've interviewed lots of people so you you know this sense to that it's really fun to talk about the kind of resume pieces the things that that you did that you made that cool like that's nice but then when you get to kind of do those conversations that's about the detours or about the job that didn't go right the company that they you know wrecked the audition that was so bad that it's now studied by a school as how not to audition which is what our friend Sarah shared that story you're like oh that's like now I'm learning about you I'm learning about humanity I'm learning the good stuff and I started thinking about like man I would it's cool when they do you know interviews with CEOs about you know what their dreams are over the company and where they're headed but it'd be far more interesting if business school was just all hey here's what this guy did that just was a disaster this was a fiasco don't do that and that's that's what I want to hear from people and this sort of realized like I'm with kids a lot and I don't tell them the things that that you know went wrong or went sideways and it was a principal of a school in Oklahoma who was telling me a story of seeing his kids he was doing a guided drawing of the Grinch around Christmas time and he saw kids you know happily drawing and he saw a big crowd of them like start to crumple the paper up or hit the table and getting frustrated at their drawing didn't look like that and that he was explaining to me that that was one symptom of in which he saw over and over again that there was this bubble of perfectionism that needed to pop this stressful idea that they had to be perfect or do exactly right on a test and that sort of anxiety bubbling up and didn't learning that one in three kids deals with anxiety to such a degree they're like they can't function you're just going whoa whoa whoa like as bad as it affects us like there's children growing up and and hey we got to change the conversation about this is part of the process and it sometimes it hurts and it's disappointing but we can kind of help each other grow through that so what if school was a safe place to make a mistake and grow what if like they understood that there is a community around them that there is this way this way through to kind of playfully approach problems and to not avoid failure but to fail better and I mean it's something that I needed but I know you like what this is like a book you would have oh I would have loved it yeah I think one of the things too that even working on this book that I've realized is that one of the things I love about Brad is that he is not afraid to try things and so we have had so many different things that we've done like weird rooms we've ended up in just because of him you know calling somebody and or messaging somebody on social media and being like hey I want to interview you or I want to talk to you about this and he's tried so many things and so he's also felt like oh I failed a lot because a lot of those things he thought oh this will be the thing like he created lots of things before he created him president and he told me once like yeah I thought every single one of those was the thing like it was gonna take off and I think it relates so much to this it's difficult to hear almost but you know one of the things that I've realized though through working on this like as we've been trying to think of like oh what are some stories that we could tell like at a celebration I feel like I don't have that many stories like I was like I haven't stepped out of that comfort zone as much as he has to really try things and to you know do something different and to get out there and actually fail and so I think that's something that was an important lesson for me to learn to and just be like oh what am I not trying like I should be failing more than I am so what can I get out there and actually start doing that yeah that's that's really interesting it's just a piece and we just had a breakthrough what is counseling session not a real doctor just in case you know I don't want to ask him for more therapy I want my money back the holidays are upon us and finding the right gift for your kids nieces and nephews and partner and family members can be super difficult but it doesn't have to be go check out uncommon goods Sophie and I were checking it out the other day looking for gifts for our kids have a make your own storybook kit which we love there's this cardboard toolkit with a cardboard saw that's safe and connectors you can build cool stuff and forts and whatnot they also got these building connectors where you can connect sticks and make a fort mainly I just like forts but there's tons of cool creative gifts that will inspire your kids to go make stuff but we could also easily have just bought stuff for each other or even ourselves this curated selection of goods means you don't have to scour the internet for something unique and exciting and you're supporting artists and small businesses at the same time which you know I love to get 15% off your next gift go to uncommon goods dot com slash pep talk that's uncommon goods dot com slash pep talk for 15% off don't miss out on this limited time offer uncommon goods we're all out of the ordinary I mean it's a really interesting kind of turn that I wouldn't have thought about if someone prompts you like what are your failures I wonder even if there's there's first of all like do I have any like what are they but then also how you know speaking of therapy how repressed are they or like can I even think of them or if I just detach myself from them and you know like you talk about in the book these are like the prime learning experiences and then also as creators those are our prime stories because the further I get into telling stories and you know just kind of loving storytelling the more I feel when I watch a movie where the protagonist gets what they want at the from the start I pretty much feel like I think this story's broken like I really do feel like that and especially if that's satisfying if they get what they want and they're satisfied well by what they want I'm like I'm not sure this is a story and so you know the getting in touch with these failures is both a learning experience also you know getting comfortable with it is a powerful thing yeah it's interesting I hadn't I mean I've definitely mined a lot of my failures because I'm always trying to find stories to tell on the podcast and on stage and stuff like that but it's a really interesting like collecting failures as a as a as proof of trying exactly idea yeah well like a like a good scout receives their their badges there um there's you know yeah I realized maybe I should have remembered to feed the goldfish you know I realize maybe don't carry my daughter's Lego set that we worked on all day with my own hands and really quickly on Christmas day and then drop it that's what can you imagine if that actually happened oh yeah if somebody did that that would be just I mean worst out of the year but are you gonna now you've got to do demerit badges that's basically for failures and speaking of the the goldfish one I was gonna ask you what there's so many funny failure examples in the book I wondered what both of your favorite failures were in there and then I'll share the one I liked the most. Well one for me was hugged the wrong grandpa. That's mine. Dang it. I have a memory of doing it with my aunt I thought I saw my aunt Shelby in a mall was not Aunt Shelby. I hope this wasn't like last year. That would be a real problem. Oh no that would be it would be. What are you doing? We were in a mall it's a lot of people and it was another of Brad's failures. She was like oh what is it? I was like you're not Aunt you know yeah it's a whole thing and yeah. Yeah when I read hugged the wrong grandpa I was packing up. And I love the goldfish one too. What do you remember what the line is? Oh he's giving a speech to his friends and he says and that is why you should always remember to feed your goldfish and his ball is empty. And I was just carrying the bowl around. That's another metaphor. Put down the bowl. Okay let's move past it. That is really funny. Kristi did you think of one? Yeah I think the kid that ripped his pants like while he was trying to dance in front of his friends. And so that one was fun too because we like just ripped the paper and so it's like his pants are actually ripped. Yeah he looks also like he's doing a pretty sweet dance move when it happens. So it kind of feels like it was worth it. It was marked. Judy is worth it. I want to. And ripped pants is always good. That's just a classic. You remember that part in Parks and Rec where Jerry rips his pants? Oh man. Oh man. Anything with him. This is the lamest joke ever and I'm crying. He just had this. You love him. You just love him. You wanted to be okay. And it's just all these just derpy things happen around him. It was really satisfying though to see that he had a beautiful family at the end. He's actually the happiest of all. I wanted to talk about you know I'm glad that I'm glad there was something to what I was perceiving about how this book really feels like it captures the worlds that you guys create online and your creative voice in a fresh way. Like in a way that I hadn't seen in a picture book and I'm glad that you guys were feeling that. I wondered for me every new creative project comes with it up with its own sets of failures but also hopefully most of the time there's something that feels like oh this is a breakthrough like this is a creative thing that I'm really like excited about. Was there for this project is there something that kind of shines as like this is a this is a new breakthrough moment for us creatively. I feel like the flow between us felt like the easiest on this book and I don't know if it just comes from working on multiple books together or if it was just the way we worked on this one but it just seemed like it really just like moved so easily and seamlessly I guess from from him to me and then back to him and I mean where we just kind of like we're able to work on it in such an easy way and without much communication even I feel like it it works out really well. Yeah it's like I was just level of trust gets built up over time and you know I have a friend who's a golfer I'm not a golfer you're not a golfer either. No way. I don't think I could possibly do that. I'm down with you know colorful pants. We can be team colorful pants. We can just get together. Like I could do a driving range thing maybe maybe let's just start a you know mid mid mid life guys who like colorful pants club will hang out. Okay I like that. My friend he plays golf a lot and he said what keeps him going back is he's just good enough like he gets just enough that he's kind of like next time and I felt that way with books where it's like it's almost like what was in my head almost like what we were going for and this this one did the same thing because the last book we had so many layers and textures and things that we were trying to create by hand and these worlds and characters and this and it's like we almost got it to what was in our heads and this one we got to do it again and now we've got that itch of oh we almost had it feel like like they're in the workshop with us and so the next book will have even more of that so kind of hooked on that feeling of ah almost got it. I love that because I feel like it gets into that kind of creating for the sake of creating energy that's that intrinsic motivation that keeps you going and by the way your other books are fantastic they do really different things but I did just notice like oh this is a little bit of the humor side that I know there's some funny stuff in the other ones too but this is just they're every step of the way you're adding another layer. What was afraid you know I'm always been afraid because humor can be perceived so differently and I didn't want it to distract from any messages before and I didn't want in and yet when I'm reading in a classroom with kids or with people I add the jokes or these little aside and so more and more you're going it needs to feel like it's as if we're with them and and my favorite books are funny like they just are and they're the ones we reread and reread over and over and my favorite drawings are funny drawings my favorite you know and and so that's his favorites are funny things yeah yeah yeah so you know there's actually a whole thing a whole back and forth because I just kept adding mice to every page like wanting mice and and editors like you know I mean it's just humans we don't need it's like it's so I started a a whole PowerPoint presentation of why the mice were vital to keep the animals and finally just wrote a like you know I just like them that that was a thing that I'm learning to chase and defend more as joy and and leaning in towards those things that you know oh this just is is is lighting up every light in my brain of this is fun this is this is what I want there to be more fun and if the book is an invitation to have less fear and more fun and the sea sea failure is not catastrophic but as a catalyst for creativity and goodness like I needed to be silly too I the other thing that came to mind a lot when I'm reading it was oh this is a this is very adjacent to the really important literature around things like growth mindset fixed mindset that I think is really powerful and important for everybody including kids and I think this the thing that you brought up about how much more seamless the process was in the collaboration reminded me of how in my own collaborations how over time that happens as you learn how each other works what each other is good at and what your preferences are all that stuff and you know when I first started working with Sophie there were some it was really choppy and awkward in the way that we were trying to do a per creative process and I was trying to tap into that growth mindset that said hard isn't bad and that it doesn't mean that it's not right and trying to hold on to yeah but every time we do it it gets a little bit better like it every time everything we've made is better than what I could make on my own and better than what we made before and so you know I it reminds me of the kind of the themes of the book because that's one of the things I always say when people try to collaborate with people that are close to them or or not it doesn't mean that it's supposed to feel easy from the first go or that it's supposed to just work like Kismen and so I'm glad that you brought that up some tension that tension is good and and it can be healthy and it means that you're chipping away at the unnecessary and finding the vital and you know it's interesting to you along the way as we're like working on this you know growth mindset came from this researcher Carol Joach and and and her student actually just wrote a book that furthered that study to you know growth mindsets about individuals and this new book is is cultures of growth I always say the title you caught it and the whole spirit is it's it's you know how does an entire culture grow and that's with through communities of growth where it's safe to share things that weren't safe to share and grow and mess up but have a collective growth mindset and classrooms are the perfect place to model that and and and my hope is that you know the kids growing now will you know their imaginations will be furnished with an image of what it looks like for people to grow together and it's not just an individual growth mindset but how can we you know have everywhere be a place where you can dream and help others dream grow and help others grow and and that yeah it doesn't mean it's always going to be utopia it's going to be but but there'll be problems but we will work through them together and then that's the idea of it's not about not failing it's just us all failing better and that means not doing it alone and one of the first images that I worked on for the book is the it's a spread of a kid who's wrecked his bicycle and and I was thinking about the like the those those religious paintings or it's a strip you know of a whole bunch of people in different poses or whatever but where it's it's the drama is not oh he's not being picked up he wrecked his bike and it's a tragedy instead it's this group of people just waiting for him to realize they're there they're they've also failed too and that they have something to offer him just as he has something and so that was like this image that I thought I've seen that stories can create more stories and I've seen that the images we put out into the world can become more images like it so that's an image that I want there to be more of the kids realizing they're not alone and there's a whole bunch of people ready to help pick them up and they can be part of either side of that and they will be some days they're the kid direct the bike some days are the kid helping together so yeah we take turns I love that I was thinking about one of the things that I've tried to develop in myself and then I've talked about on the show is that I've noticed like a lot of values that work to your benefit creatively are kind of contradictory and they require like muscle memory and discernant to know which is needing to be accessed at this moment so if you read about like success the two things you're going to hear that are in theory kind of polar opposites are grit and pivoting you know they're like and so how do you know when you grit and when you pivot like what it's very complicated and I've learned like oh you yes you can like learn the kind of difficulties that are the good kind and which are the bad kind sometimes it's just like experimenting you know creating little tests so that because you can always know but I love what you said because it adds to the tool belt for discerning the difference between the good hard and the bad hard and it's having people around you that can help you notice like you're banging your head against the wall and it's not really going to help anything like you're just that's just bad that's bad pain versus you know I know this doesn't seem like a book but and it might be hard to do that but Brad could we try could we make it into something could we try it like I think that that is such a good a really good tool is having that outside point of view yeah creatively what has changed things for me is when I have decided to involve more people and open my arms and welcome people in instead of being closed off and inviting people and playing and playing together and letting that lead to somewhere whether it's a video whether it's an event whether it's a book that that becomes the place where it can grow from really with it's healthy ground for for something really good to grow from when you've got a lot of voices that you believe in they believe in you and they bring an interesting view to it then all right let's play together let's see what we can do and we're trying to do that more I want to do it more Christie do you when you notice that the collaboration isn't in the healthy difficulty stage have you learn things that help kind of jump start it back into the right direction I think time is helpful and if we're not procrastinating then we have that yeah sometimes with deadlines and everything it's like okay we got to figure this out you know like and and you're accidentally writing another book yeah yeah like oh I have like two months to get this done and so trying to make sure we have enough time built in that we can kind of work through problems like because I feel like a lot of times especially when we're butting heads over something if we can just step away from it even for just a day and then come back to it and look at it again it's like oh okay yeah okay I see what you're saying Matt let's do it this way you know whatever but yeah I don't know with this one I don't feel like we even really had much of that like there were times that you were like oh it's fine and I'm like no it needs to be reworked like I gotta read you the spread like the bicycle when he was talking about like when I first photographed it I had like two of the characters overlapping and it was driving me crazy and I was like no like it's blocking you know this one character and I'm like the way they're overlapped it's gotta be fixed and so I ended up like redoing that one right before we turned it in like we had already turned everything in and I'm like wait okay there's one more spread that I've got a new version of it in the ground we even we switched out because it just yeah only matter to us one of those things we like that this kind of happen but yeah that that was a huge learning curve for me where sometimes I'll go in with my we're going in with our own standards and what happens there is you can have a misconnection in your mind where it feels like you're arguing like this is the important thing and that that person like no this is the important things like we need to just finish this bread no that you know we need to get the bit like and then you I realized over time like oh the what's good is that we're taking care of the standards of separate things like we're both and that's what actually makes it better we're not needing to argue about this is the main thing this is the main thing that can be your main thing and this is my main thing we recognize that it's really it was difficult for me to learn yeah sometimes even like finding a balance in between them because like there are things that Brad does a really great job with sketching of like creating like a personality and creating kind of a feeling or things like that where he can capture the energy of something but then like I'll look at it and be like okay but a body can't actually be in that shape that's it like some things off like the legs is just not working and so it's like trying to capture what he captured but also in a way that actually makes a little bit more sense it's like okay you know like if I can change the knees a little but still you know make it feel the energy ahead I don't want to lose that but trying to find a way that yeah your body can actually get it and though you you get to like I love the spontaneity of a line like and sometimes yeah it's just impossible to replicate and yeah and and so so keeping that pure while finding where the other parts are that you can articulate or switch in some way where the spontaneity is still there so that that it it doesn't have two knees but you still have kind of some flavor yeah I get I mean I you know I get that yeah yeah so that's like our next book will just be a multiverse kind of thing or this it's multi-need like yeah the guy 18 fingers in that universe yeah yeah that's great so okay we usually end with a call to adventure something you can act on and the thing that I am really inspired by from you guys is this it's so I'm noticing how unusual it is for creative people to make something that causes other people to make stuff especially in the world of where art meets commerce it gets really scarcity and really it's easy to get in this place where what you made you want to be the final thing in this direction like that like I did this so nobody else can do this and this notion of I made this book so other books like this will be made I made this party so that other people would try parties like this it's such a flip and I think it's served you all really well over the years it's been a beautiful thing I wondered if you could give any tip on how to notice how to turn that up with an idea that you have and let it be something that people can run with like it reminds me of like the Grateful Dead one of the things that's attributed to their success an ongoing success was like early on they made a decision not to crush their fans bootlegs yeah and it really caused this ownership and this pride and and togetherness around it and obviously that's just what's made it endure even past the band members being alive like it lives on with the guitar the guitar strap from the band is released now there's a lot of things so I wondered if you could because you guys have a lot of experience doing this you've done these kinds of things a lot I wondered if you could talk about either how to recognize an idea like that or how to take an idea and maybe inject some of that into it I think a big part of it is perspective and I think one of our friends wants to scrap Brad as the pipe Piper they're like promises like the pipe Piper like he just constantly is creating things for people to follow and like get behind them and I'm in like they were like yeah like whatever he does I love it that's like stories in a good way but story is tragically you know don't teachers don't read into that okay but I think one of the big things with Brad is like everything he creates he wants it to be a party that everybody's invited to and so I feel like a lot of the words that like kid president said that you know Brad created we're just about you know I'm not in a party I am a party but like that's you like you want to create that party and you want everybody to be there and so I think his perspective on everything is just to approach it that way do you think Krista's very nice have you noticed though like even if that's Brad's nature because this is the one one of the things sometimes like I can train my brain to see things like you know something in my brain that tells me when I'm moving through life notice that kind of thing and all it's like the yellow car thing where you're like there's no yellow cars and then you think that and then you see like ten you think yeah do you think because of Brad's nature being that that you have also learned to pick up those kind of threads oh yeah definitely and I think that's something too is I think he pushes me out of my comfort zone a lot I mean I think there's you know the whole dreamer and realist thing there's a lot that I would have just been like oh no there's too many things like that would make that difficult you know like yeah but he pushes me to see the possibilities and to you know figure out like okay yeah we can do this like let me think through it you know but we can do this well that's that's one of the things that um you remember the show Pete and Pete right yes Nickelodeon 90s the adventures of Pete and Pete best show is Brad energy right there okay I'm obsessed with it love it I believe it's the best show there's an episode of that where little Pete hears a song and and it's this band he loves it and then the the band is playing in the garage and he hears it and it's just like obsessed with that well then he can't find the band he can't find the song so the whole episode is about him being so obsessed with hearing that song again and it is so beautiful because then it ends with him just finally creating a band like and it's the happiest most joyful ending of him creating his memory of what that song was there's another movie a Rambo - or what is it a son of Rambo or it's a kid who saw Rambo like through it so it's him trying to recreate seeing Rambo from his memory there's something about like Robert Frost talked about poems began as a lump in your throat that you have such a strong desire for something to exist that it overwhelms even your abilities to bring it to life like like so that's what drives me because I I am not the best illustrator and yet I want this thing that's in my head to exist and so it it I'm overwhelmed with the dream to to bring it to reality and so like and also loved like the liner notes to the Velvet Underground album that when they did a re-release of the the self-titled Velvet Underground and Nico where somebody wrote that their first album didn't sell that many copies but every person who bought a copy of it started their own band and it's like what is more powerful you know and that that is that that they they tapped into this well of creativity and said hey you're invited you can do it too and and it unleashed more music on the world and so that that's cool to me that's like like hey the the well of creativity is deep like there's so many stories that though and so many things so let's tap into what is that thing you want to exist what's that feeling what's that lump in your throat what's that song that you just can't shazam's not gonna dig it up for you you can't so you've got to make it that leads to really weird places nobody asked for it but here you are yeah usually anytime we do anything Brad starts it with being like oh nobody asked for this but we did feel a bracelet like the very first one we're like getting everything ready and we have pulled in a friend holly to help us like create this like whole stage scene and all this stuff and he's realizing like how many people are now involved in this and how many things are happening and he's like nobody asked for this nobody asked for this and I'm like but it needs to exist like it's so you have to play it any journey where you're just like oh no like like what how did we get into this I didn't ask like nobody you know that documentary where Werner Herzog's trying to pull a boat over like the mountain a burden of dreams the title of the documentary about him making Fitzcarral though and you know he's he's roped all these people into doing this and it's dangerous people are exhausted they're yelling at each other they're in the middle of the jungle but he has this vision of the boat must go over the mountain and it's insane but I get it I am really inspired by that because whenever I speak to creators that are in situations that feel uninspiring you know maybe they're at a in a job where the creative problems are solving or they're not even creative problems um they're you know that's a stretch are not exciting and inspiring um I always talk about like the biggest opportunity to really exert your creativity is the least inspiring situation it is the place where yes you know when if if Nike comes and says hey can you do a 10 story mural with a team of people like it doesn't even take that much creativity to do that like in that moment when you get that really juicy creative opportunity you're just like all right let's go like play easy but the things that totally turn my career into a different direction were the times where nobody was asking me to do that and it was the least inspiring scenario because I'm making a t-shirt or I'm making a podcast that nobody said they wanted that um and that's a very uh trusting the voice inside that's asking you to do that is a really difficult thing to do yeah and then like um I see so many truly brilliant people get stuck on thinking they have to get it perfect the first time and that that even it doesn't have to be fully formed just iterate you know like we would do the thing make it like yeah you know um and and I keep learning that of okay I don't have to really knock it out of the park this first time let's just fake that's we just want to throw a party okay well let's do it and then if the worst that happens we get together and we had some snacks that sounds like a great night yeah but if it grows into a movement where there's people in how many countries know yeah I think we're up to 20 countries 20 countries every state except New Hampshire and Rhode Island get with it you know anybody that's a perfection there though yeah throw a celebration there but um but it grows and and and so it's it's it's following that that um desire to add beauty or to add joy to add something that lights you up that you want to transfer that and and add it that always leads like the stuff that I I resonate with that people are creating whether it's a song or an image or book an album uh whatever it's usually something somebody was like ah if only uh I could I could add this noise this this joy to the world and then uh they find they're not alone and I think that the book is a great example of this I think uh you know I think teachers and parents are gonna love it but even better kids will love it it's funny there's ripped pants in there there's just ripped dimensions of dead goldfish like it's really good and uh and I'm really uh proud to know you too and to be able to watch you know I've got to watch so much of your creative journey and it's been really inspiring so uh thanks thanks for the new book thanks for um continuing to show up and fail and succeed um thanks for being here dude any time any and we got to hang out with Christy too I know it's the most great it really you know soften your edges really helps really really help just just really good thanks guys thanks so much (upbeat music) okay y'all don't forget to go get a copy of fail-abration wherever you get your books hopefully an indie bookseller if you can make that work for you but wherever you get it go get it wherever you get those books go get fail-abration it's a hilarious book and it it illustrates such an important idea that I think is important for adults and kids alike I'm back to talk about our creative call to adventure this week we're calling it the first worst and the idea here is that it's the opposite of the last word you know I think when I go to make something or um when I see other people go to create something often we're trying to get there first man we're trying to get there first and be the last put our stamp on it be like this thing is mine and nobody better touch it I got the last word on this topic or idea and I'm so inspired by the way that the monogues continually try to be the first word they try to be the the start of a conversation you know fail-abration has sparked all of these events throughout the world and I guarantee that people are finding ways of making it their own and making it meaningful to them and it reminds me like I said in the interview of bands like the Grateful Dead who let their audience participate who let their audience be part of the band and make merch and make bootlegs and all that kind of stuff and you don't even have to go that far for it to be worth it to you you know for me this has looked like things like when we post the invisible things poster which is a project that's really central to my work we'll often be like tag which one is you just finding this way to invite people in to have ownership and excitement about making it a part of their identity you know I think about this a lot like the bands that I love the most weren't just bands whose music I thought sounded good but they were things that said something about or taught me something new about who I am and I used those bands in a way as shorthand for my identity often joke like when I was a teenager I'd be like you know if someone was like who are you really I'd be like I don't know but I'm a modest mouse fan and that told you something about who I was and that kind of relationship with a band or creator is the kind of thing that we're trying to steward and cultivate in our creative practice because not only is that just good sustainable practice it's also a way to make the work a lot more meaningful because it becomes not just about me but my connection to my humanity and the humanity of other people and I think the monogues do this brilliantly so my call to adventure for you today is to think about how can your next post how can you next book how can your next song be the first word in a conversation that is ongoing how can it be just a conversation starter instead of a conversation ender period dot the end this is mind back off how can you flip that on its head and be someone who sparks other creations with your creation each episode of creative pep talk is designed to help you maintain a consistent creative practice if you're trying to transform your creativity from an infrequent hobby into a real discipline sign up to our newsletter at Andy J Pizza dot sub stack dot com so that you never miss an episode creative pep talk is part of the pod glomerate network you can learn more at pod glomerate dot com massive thanks to my team so familiar for content editing and co-writing to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for editing and sound design and thanks to all of you for listening until next time stay papped up hey y'all one more quick thing earlier this year I rebuilt my website using square spaces new fluid engine and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them and tell you about what they can do and bring you discounts as possible with social media going haywire I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience or your clients I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately and if you want to check that out and what I was able to do without any code check out Andy J pizza dot com if you want to test it out go to squarespace dot com slash pep talk to test it out yourself and when you're ready to launch use promo code pep talk for 10 percent off your first purchase thanks squarespace for supporting the show and for supporting creative people I'm wit missle dine the creator of this is actually happening a podcast from Wondery that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them from a young man that dooms his entire future family with one choice to a woman that barely survived her roommate we dive into what happened and hear their intimate first person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances followed this is actually happening on amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts or listen 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What if your art was an invitation rather than a gift?
What if this was an invite to a party that celebrated failures?
A FAIL-A-BRATION!?
What happens when we share our wins AND losses, happy accidents AND miserable mishaps?
In this fun and inspiring chat with Brad and Kristi Montague, we discuss the origins and inspiration behind their newest picture book 'FAIL-A-BRATION' and how an idea generously shared, can spark a movement.
SQUARESPACE
Head to https://www.squarespace.com/PEPTALK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code PEPTALK
SHOW NOTES:
Co-Writing / Editing: Sophie Miller sophiemiller.co
Audio Editing / Sound Design: Conner Jones pendingbeautiful.co
Soundtrack / Theme Song: Yoni Wolf / WHY? whywithaquestionmark.com
Web: https://montagueworkshop.com/hello
Brad's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradmontague
Kristi's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristimontague
Kid President: https://www.instagram.com/iamkidpresident
Their Books:
Fail-a-bration,
The Circles All Around Us,
The Fantastic Bureau of Imagination
Mentioned:
James Marshall Books
Sister Corita Kent
'Burden of Dreams' documentary
'Adventures of Pete and Pete' tv show
'Son of Rambow' movie
Robert Frost
