How can you take ownership of your creativity and quit waiting for someone to tell you what to do and how to do it?
In this episode we discuss staying true to your younger self, taking charge of your path, leaning into that unicorn energy and holding onto the goofiness.
Collaborative art by Andy J Pizza and Sarah Walsh. See instagram post for all phases of this collab from sketch to final.
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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
---Sarah Walsh---
Website: http://www.sarahwalshmakesthings.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahwalshmakesthings/
Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Tigersheepfriends
'I can be ok even if you're not ok' Teacher Quote
Mentioned:
Problemista movie & Julio Torres
Illustrated Wildlife Treasury
Vampire Weekend and Rostam
CPT Rostam episode is #311
'Making Comics' book by Lynda Barry
'Bird by Bird' book by Anne Lamott
'Working it Out' Podcast with Mike Birbiglia https://www.birbigs.com/working-it-out-pod
---SPONSORS---
Uncommon Goods
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http://uncommongoods.com
Miro
Miro is a collaborative virtual workspace that syncs in real time for you and your team so that you can innovate an idea into an outcome seamlessly
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Squarespace
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[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 best-selling 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. Miro is a collaborative virtual workspace that syncs in real time for you and your team so that you can innovate an idea into an outcome seamlessly. We talk a lot on this show about the idea of how creative research shows that playing with the problem is essential to innovation. Now when I think of play, I don't think of documents and email. So if your team is often working remote, you need something more dynamic and collaborative. I think that Miro's mind maps and flow charts where team members can edit and play in real time has a lot more capacity for innovation in playing with the problem than traditional ways of collaborating over the internet. Whether you work in innovation, product design, engineering, UX, agile or IT, bring your teams to Miro's revolutionary innovation workspace and be faster from idea to outcome. Go to Miro.com to find out how that's M-I-R-O.com. Illustrator Sarah Walsh is on the show today. Sarah is a longtime friend of the show, one of our first guests ever on Creative Pep Talk all the way back on episode 79 and she returns today. Sarah has illustrated a ton of books, hats of faith, a gorgeous illustrated version of the book Matilda, which is a family favorite of ours and countless others. She's also worked with a ton of well-known clients and brands like PBS and Flow Magazine, Hallmark, the Guardian, et cetera, so on and so forth. Her handcrafted art is so beautiful and we both have an affinity for the likes of Mary Blair and that kind of chalky, gouache vibe and my favorite thing about Sarah beyond her brilliant illustration is she's just super fun to chat with and I cried laughing in this talk and I was moved and inspired and it was just so much fun. She has a new project out, it is called Horse Girl and it's a zine that she wrote and illustrated and it is moving and it's a cinematic zine. I kid you not, it's just really brilliant, I highly recommend picking this up, especially if you're a horse girl. Even if you weren't, I wasn't a horse girl but I got tons from it and I was really inspired by it. This episode has more of that indie spirit that we've kind of been harping on about and ranting about in almost every episode lately, I feel like the way that tech and Silicon Valley has just moved into the creative space and kind of owned it means that we need to get the DIY spirit, the punk spirit, the zine spirit back and start owning our own creative projects in the real world and on the internet but we need to take ownership over our creativity and this zine that Sarah put out I think really is a great example of that. We talk about stuff along those lines, we talk about why you should quit waiting to be picked by a publisher or record label or whatever and just start making and there's also inspiration in this episode for how to get more of yourself, more of your substance into your work by mining everything that happened and what you were like and what you're obsessed by as a kid and stick until the end and I'll be back with our creative call to adventure called BMT. Big meaty taste like the Subway sandwich, how to make your work bigger, meatier, tastier by packing it full of the good stuff, not just making fashionable stuff but how to give it real heart, real substance by tapping into your own personal symbolism. I'll be back with that but for now enjoy my fabulous chat with my friend Sarah Walsh. I don't necessarily care what people think but I'm definitely like a modifier and I want people to feel comfortable around me and so I immediately mold, not mold but you know what I mean I'm just like and I think I'm a mom, like I've been a mom since I was very young so I'm just constantly picking up you know cues on like are they having a good time or are they you know but you know what when we're adults I'm like it is on you if you're not having a good time that is not my responsibility like I'm trying to like step back from that but it's hard for me it's very hard I mean I think if you're a sensitive person then you're sensitive to other people's emotions and their states of being and so you're there like I want to feel good right now but I can't feel good and you're feeling so bad it's very unhealthy but it is the way that I that's my my nature I've had to learn a lot about I know my husband and I went to the back-to-school night where the teachers give presentations these three teachers were on it I felt like I was at a TED Talk and one of the slides I'm serious and one of the slides was like a crow cross stitched plaque that said I can be okay even if you are not okay that's good and it hit me like a brick and I like fumbled from my phone and I took a picture of it and I was like can I have these people as teachers in life like I just it was like what was it a poster it was like a cross stitch like home sweet home type thing but it said I'm I can be okay even if you're not okay yeah and I just seeing that I realized that that is something I struggle with and yeah I still think about it and that was like a year and a half ago so yeah there's a lot there I also you know I think the there's two things that I've heard someone say like you can carry these two piece of paper in your pocket and this could I feel like this could apply to any polarizing truths where that one was like you are meaningful and important in all the universe and then the other piece of paper that you put in your other pocket is like you are a speck of dust I know no and you just pull out whichever one you need because totally to me I am the type of person that needs to read that sentiment because I I get crippled with empathy oh for sure yeah and you know and get taken advantage of for that whereas there are other people who need to hear the exact opposite which is like you know the opposite sentiment comes to mind that's also true it's like you know justice we need everyone needs justice or none of us have it like yeah so there's like this very yeah what teacher teacher teacher you just said something and I because I was thinking about how you know I was like excited to see you today and talk with you and I thought about you as a person and I thought about me as a person and I think about how much you've accomplished and done and I think about my journey and how much I feel like you've done I'll just say I'll just I've accomplished some cool things yeah but at the same time you know whatever but I thought about just what our industry like values and what it doesn't value and I think when you get invited to go on a podcast you sort of especially one as fantastic as yours and you know has a lot of listeners and I think most of the listeners are pretty sweet nice people too yeah um but like there's part of there's a part of me that always feels like little time to put on my serious art business hat you know and I have to be serious yeah and it's so silly and I I was thinking about how like I'm a goofy nerd uh weirdo and I and I say this as a compliment I feel like you're the same I am and most of my friends are goofy and here's my point I swear to god I'm getting to it I wonder sometimes if our industry doesn't they don't value like goofy people like design illustration maybe when you get into more comics like the funny people are like the rock stars yeah but I feel like the children's book industry and design just humor and goofiness as a person I feel like it's like it lacks authoritative vibes yeah and therefore is not perceived as to me maybe this is maybe just a little chip I have I mean you're I think you're totally right yeah but I wanted to talk to you about it because I know I've wondered if you've had similar thoughts as like you're on this path and you've done you've done things your own way and I tried to do my two things my own way too because in the end like you can't you have to just be yourself and sounds cliche but especially when you're freelancing you have to put out there who you want to be and what kind of work you want to be you can't you can't I'm gonna just channel dad energy right now but I had this like really I have this here's my dad energy coming out I was like cheesy metaphor of like when you're freelancing and you start out you have this brick and you you decide to make a house out of it and you're like oh cool and you get you're really good at making that house and people are like I want you to make that house for me but you have to make sure that you like the brick see how dad energy that is just like it's like so like I mean that's it's just my party but that's just what you're right but it's like if I tried to be the serious artist I would hate what I'm doing and I would hate my I hate everything what's the point of that so anyway I and um you know it's a great segue and to one of the main things I want to talk to you about is the horse curl zine oh yeah you got it absolutely love I love that you did this hilarious I want to talk about specific things in it that are super great oh man that makes my heart like thank you so much it's so nice and I'm excited for people and you know the people that listen to the show to see it and hear about it because it's really really good and I think it's a great example of exactly what artists need to do which is just you know triple down on the thing that makes them them for whatever reason and I think that you talking about goofiness it brings up one of the things I wanted to say which was in the we'll talk about like um well let's just do this you talk about it because it makes more sense I don't know what to say now everyone like he likes the thing I made I love it it's so good oh thanks and it's got so much heart and it's got some like it's juicy and it's funny and it's got like emotions really really good it's good right oh man that like means the world for real I I don't it's weird like I the last several months have been just such a blur that I'm like I don't I I don't know like what to say but um I am really proud of myself and I but I'm really I guess part of it was like I had the idea kicking around for like a year but sort of a long story as to how it came to be but I've just been wanting to write an illustrate forever like many many illustrators that you know we're little kids we have picture books it's like it's it's everything picture books are everything and um just telling a story especially as like a just as a human being and um they're like these portals to another world and they can I mean illustration as a profession is so powerful we can literally create realities that don't exist yet that should exist that don't for stupid reasons yeah injustice all that jazz but like I think it's just always been such a powerful medium and so I think I put it on this ginormous pedestal yes and then you go back to like being a serious artist like I was like well I think picture books are my my route like obviously I didn't even question it but as I tried to write them and develop my voice for them it got really unfun and then I had to put it away and then I took some classes and I was getting closer to like the voice but I was still making things really complicated um honestly I feel like at one point I was like I have two kids I was like I feel like writing and illustrating a picture book I think I'd rather like I think having another human child like giving birth to another human child might be easier than doing this like I sort of got I was like this feels so impossible for some reason and I think it felt impossible because I was forcing I was forcing a voice that I wasn't meant to have yet um I wasn't listening to my just my voice I guess I was trying to fit me and and this voice I didn't know what was yet into a shape and it wasn't fitting and so I was about five years into like trying to figure that out meanwhile I was illustrating everyone else's books which I am so grateful for and I've learned so much I mean I was able to illustrate a role role doll book and that was like insane and um so so many wonderful opportunities but at the same time as you know the publishing industry there's lots of you know you don't have a lot of autonomy sometimes and as I've been doing this for a long time like I'm just wanting more and more of my weirdness to come out um because it gets harder and harder to like do it over and over again unless more of you is in that thing um so basically uh long story short it's already long too late um I'm taking this class or I'm taking classes I'm trying I'm hitting my head against the wall and I'm learning things I'm falling I'm getting up blah blah blah and then my agent uh Lila she was like she was teaching this class called Artie book pitch and it was more like non-fiction maybe some memoir graphic memoir whatever but not like a traditional picture book yeah and something told me I was like you know if I if I take this class I'm like sort of feeling like it's going to derail this path I've been on and I'm like fitting this in on top of client work being a mom all this other stuff that we juggle so as we all know that kind of stuff can just lead to like a bunch of um open-ended trails that never finish yeah so I was like is this just going to be another one of those things but I just have this feeling and I was like I have been posting on Instagram forever and I've always heard like I've gotten some really nice comments over the years of like you really explain how you feel so well and like what you say resonates with me I realized I was like posting a picture and then my caption would literally have nothing to do with the picture but they were two separate statements I mean it would it would be a segue yeah but I was like I need to how can I figure out like I can write you know imposter syndrome times a thousand but I was like I have I've written over 2,500 Instagram posts most of them are very personal why can't I figure this out so I took the class because I had a feeling that I could maybe explore that voice and then I got the idea for this like love letter to horses um we had to submit our ideas I had a few ideas kicking around but I didn't love them enough and I was really frustrated I was like this doesn't feel right I don't love this enough I know I'm gonna get sick of this and I was texting a friend like um I don't know what the hell to submit for my idea I was kind of venting and I found this like horse meme that was like perfectly expressing yeah how I felt and I sent it and I was sitting on the floor like just hanging out with my husband he was like playing a video game and I was just like blah blah blah I was just totally like in a weird mood and then I just it hit me I was like why the eff am I not oh I can't cool okay why the fuck am I not doing a book about how much I've loved horses because I've always kind of pushed that away I I was uh watching my I was being like a really I don't know I was like watching my husband play video games because I needed to not like think yeah and I was like what was he playing it's so boring to watch other people playing games I know that I don't even know some Mario games yeah like from time but in a way it's like comforting because I don't play video games but I like the graphics and I like the vibe but anyway so I was like speaking of memes though I've heard people say that there's nothing more like in power than the person watching the person person play they don't even have to play they can just be like go over there oh you shake why don't you go over that's what I do it's like it's like back seat drive for yeah it is it's like being the you know the the monarch and the back seat it's very go that way boyer it's funny yeah I was voyering I was complaining I sent a meme of a horse that perfectly explained my frustration and then I'll just now I can't repeat it uh I was like just it just hit me I was like why am I why am I like not doing a book about horses and and I guess it seems it seemed obvious to me if you look at my work I'm not like drawing horses all the time or anything like that they pop up every now and then yeah but I kind of shy away from labels I'm not like I'm a this person I'm a that person and I also I think growing up I loved them so much and they were this weird identity to me but I was but I wouldn't own that identity if that makes sense it was like this current like running through my existence but it wasn't it was internal it wasn't like this external thing but anyway I was like okay I think I'm gonna just do a love letter to horses and it and I it felt really good and then this is where I was like oh wow you have been forcing it this whole time the past five years because then what happened was so cool all of a sudden I just had the the book sort of wrote itself and then I know that sounds so cliche when people say that but it was like whoa it just kind of exploded with all these childhood memories of horse just horse related whether it was like with my grandmother or just my obsession movies um just the horses that I would draw yeah and I don't remember a lot from my childhood but it was interesting to see this like through line yeah and so it just felt so good to feel like oh wow I know what I'm gonna write about I know how I'm gonna write it because it's just me so I did the pitch and everyone really liked it and that was cool and everything but then I kind of just felt flat and I ran out of steam it just felt like something else was missing and I sent it to a friend who's a writer and she had suggested a main character and like a graphic novel memoir and I was like oh main character I don't know and um so basically I kind of put that aside but I was still working on the idea and developing it but I was I kind of put this thing on like this isn't going away I'm gonna show up for it and it's gonna show up for me but we are not perfect for each other yet but we're like still gonna be friends and I'm gonna nibble away at this even if it's like while I'm walking my dog if that's all I have time for that's all I have time for and then it hit me I was thinking about my son who's 10 and I was like man 10 is such a weird cool age like it's so like coming of age and like you're at this precipice and I thought I wonder what I was like when I was 10 and then I was like oh my god what year was it because I love the 80s and 70s and I was like oh my god it was 1984 and I looked up all the things that came out and it was like never ending story the prince purple rain prince album chicken McNuggets like all these things that are basically my personality and then I was like oh my god I'm the main character I'm 10 in this story and then it was over I was like oh shit I I know what I have to do now I know the story I want to tell I know how I'm gonna tell it and then it was just a matter of me showing up every day and working on it without that external pressure of a client deadline so I had to create that whole environment for myself because I know that's what I need to get things done yep so I linked up with a local printer a risa graph printer because I wanted that like neon pink for the 80s vibe yep and then I also thought well the icon conference is coming up I've been sort of slow I'd like to shift the ship of my career into more of this kind of work and this would be a great opportunity if I bring the zine with me I can hand it out to people I can sell it and so it just provided this environment for me to make it my job basically and that's how I was able to finish it which I've the horse girl zine is basically for me I've never been able to do something like that before and it felt really at a reach like two years ago I'm not gonna lie like just felt impossible yeah I honestly that's that was one of the big things that I wanted to talk to you about because I've heard you talk about that and I deeply relate to that that is the mental game of you know I think about my particular struggle with getting myself to do anything mainly through the lens of ADHD but I think whoever you are wherever you are creative people have these different challenges everyone has challenges on self-motivation and I thought about how for sure for me it's never about you know could I come up with ideas or you know do I have the skill or whatever all the reason that these my to-do list intimidates me the real the reason my projects intimidate me is because it's never it's never about I was gonna write a comic about this it's never about the things on there no it's not how do I it's the there's another to do in front of that which is getting myself to do it the most the hardest opponent to be the one that's beat me so many times I don't know how this guy works he's so tricky I do he kind of like he gets me so far off course before I even know what the hell's going on and and so that's that when every every single time I look at my to-do list I'm like well I'm like shit how am I gonna how am I gonna do it this time how am I get get this guy and you do it and I do it you you get that guy you're done right whoo yes you're doing it I'm doing it sometimes half the time I am the times I figured it out whoo do you do you do you procrasto work yeah I feel like I do that a lot and I it is so effective but then I still have to face the music at the end of the day and do that thing that I've procrasto worked away so I want to get into some of those things that you did to help yourself motivate in a minute but first because we go somewhere else let's go I want to talk about that's a good like overview of this project I think that there's a million good takeaways in terms of just yeah there's so many good things there but one of them was the idea of so the the thing at the start that kind of segwayed into this was you talking about goofy artists and I was thinking about there was there was two prompts that came to mind after I read your zine one maybe we'll go at the end but the first one is you know there's a moment in it where the past you is a 10-year-old and current you meet up and she's like past you is proud that you didn't let go of being a horse girl and I thought okay I know there are things that 10-year-old me would be super psyched on that I did and that I kept with but I also instantly thought what would 10-year-old may be disappointed in what would 10-year-old maybe like that's not really you and I know it's kind of harsh oh it is so hard to like think about but the first thing that came to mind for me was and people won't believe this because in our world design world illustration world I'm extremely goofy but the first thing that came to mind was he would be like dude why are you so serious all the time like what the hell I was no I I relate to this so so much I can't even yeah I'm like it's like a weird combo of traits to be it's like it's like you don't take yourself too seriously but you take what you do with the seriousness of every amoeba cell in your body like it's like I am obsessed with making things and I think about it all the time I I feel like the other person like if there was like you know the other voices in my head they'd be like girl you need to chill like it's like can you like think about other things and do other like you need to dial it back a little bit because it just gets it sort of could maybe gobble things up like it's a little bit of a gobbler it gobbles a little bit of joy even though I get so much joy from making and creating the longer I do it it's kind of like it feels a little imbalanced it's consuming but I don't know how else to be it's very consuming it's very consuming and I I totally relate to that and and I think my 10 year old would be like go eat a chicken McNugget and like watch some MTV you know just like chill out but I love that that could be the call to action at the end that's what would go watch MTV eat some chicken McNuggets you'll be fine and I think but and I yeah I totally relate to that then I just think what we're gonna say oh I just want to say I'm really glad you brought the growing up part up because I think I do want to how do I say this not that I don't want people to think oh it's about horses and it's you know my pretty pony and pink and all that and I I am part of part of doing this project is like embracing that and going yeah that's part of who I am what of it like it's it's powerful it's amazing I don't care what you think because it's always been sort of like in a way dismissed like oh unicorns and it's like they were everything for a second and then they weren't again and then blah blah blah but it's they're magical but my point is like the book is about the book is about that but it's also sort of not it's really it could though horses can be anything it's more about the fear of growing up the fear of what you think you'll become uh it's about being that 10 year old and I remember just thinking adults seemed like a 20 year old seemed so old they seemed so old to me like I didn't could not distinguish someone that was 20 from like 40 like they all looked the same seemed the same um my childhood was very chaotic there was a lot of great things about it but there was a lot of not so great things and just adults in my life uh you just absorb their behavior you absorb they set the tone for just how you're you're framing things in the world and so you know if I were to do a book version of this I would definitely want to dive a little deeper into that and um also just like how you perceive yourself with you know in the 80s if you weren't skinny you were fat and there was literally no in between and I struggled with weight I got teased you know just certain things like that and so part of you in a way does want to grow up because you feel like you'll get a sense of control you'll get more control and you'll be able to like defeat the bullies or whatever but we all know that's not really true now so you kind of resort to your 10 year old in a way you know like oh honey you know you that was that was an illusion you know there's no control but yeah I mean I just it's about growing up a lot of it and and just not wanting to and and also preserving that part of you because I think a lot of people feel like when they grow up they have to put a lot of their who they are like a side to fit in and to function in society and that makes me really sad it makes me kind of angry it makes me want to you know like scream from the top of a mountain like you don't have to do this like you know like a tray you like say my name you know it's just like no just be who you are and love the things you love and don't ever let them go like hold on to them for like dear life because it might save you sometimes you know I think uh what one of the things that I try to remember is that when I'm feeling the feeling of I wish I could put this on a billboard I wish I could like that that's great creative energy like that's that's what to write a story about and so yeah like I want to go get on a mountain you don't have to do this like okay we'll tell that story and why do you feel that way like what right what happened what are the what happened in your life that made you feel that way yeah and the plot of it too like what actually happened um and uh they're so uh man there's so much good stuff here because I think the through line of everything we're talking about is this image and masking and trying to be something you're not trying to and I and the thing that I think is really interesting is so I I never get tired of the hero's journey for some reason but I just like frameworks I like stories whatever I like all that kind of stuff but one of the things that I think is just a really good image is in the hero's journey like I think most myths and stories are there are really like psychological journeys you can read them as external things or you can read them as internal things and most of the the idea of the hero journey is you go away from home and then you return home and so psychologically it's about um the necessary journey of trying to be something you're currently not to find out what you really are no that's so true you just go through it over and over and I thought as you were saying that I thought you going through this forcing it period a lot of artists you know that they come out the other side and it reminds me of um the the metaphor the dad metaphor I have is it's like a slingshot like a lot if you do a slingshot and it flings this thing far into the distance and you say well what the thing that mattered like when did it really happen yeah you'd say when I let go and you're like yeah but it was the tension of pulling it back like and so that forcing that you did I the reason I bring that up is because if I'm in the listener's shoes and I'm or I think about myself hearing this 15 years ago I would be really I even now even now I'm thinking the goofy thing of like why am I why can I let my goofiness out in my books more some of my books have some goofiness for sure the pizza book and invisible things both oh yeah yeah but I could go I'm so much weirder than that I promise you but I'm trying to figure out like how do I get that into a book so I can hear that but then I thought that no like the forcing it is part of it because it it prett you know pushes you it grows you it shows you what you're not and that helps you understand like it's so true it's it's like context tension and context because if there's no tension yeah I remember my high school art teachers she's like where's the tension it's like I think I'm like now I'm like well I worked at a greeting card company for 13 years there's literally no tension in any of my work you know it's just like I've like was trained to not have tension can we get rid of the tension Hallmark does not want the tension like they don't get it on there this isn't a story like no no greeting card I mean that's that's not what we're selling we're selling like happy bags happy ending not that there's no you don't start with the problem like there's the conflict of the card but I wanted to get in there for tension so you're old okay let's deal with it but actually but there's not that the joke ones I guess actually the humor the humor ones do have tension you know so yeah because to be funny yeah so you have to bounce I feel like tension makes things like it just does and and I think too like if you were a blob and you were just hanging out with other blobs and everything was kosher all the time what would develop like literally nothing nothing just you would all just be blobs like hanging out and blobbing against each other and your blobs would be blobbing and nothing would form yeah it's true it's like yeah it's like way back in the past when it was just like one celled organism blobbing around like that the more complex it gets the more interesting it gets the more you gotta have some tension and conflict you bring in a really spiky cell now we're talking boom now I got the booba and the what's the other one you know this thing what's it what does it call this is a crazy conversation you know that thing kiki and booba you don't know this go look that up do you take that afternoon off kiki i can't believe you haven't heard this because i just feel like maybe i have i'm really bad i'm really bad i'm bad but it's like a blob and then like a spiky shape and it's basically like it's like a personality test it's like you can't it's you know you can say like oh which which one do i like which one feels more me it's basically like a little blob i'm both that's a problem spiky thing um i'm neither i'm gonna play kiki kiki and booba booba booba booba i don't know something like that like b-o-u-b-a that's okay but um i'm neither one of those i think and that's been something all my whole life i'm never i'm never one thing and i'm never the other i'm literally always fucking in between things and i've talked to some friends who feel the same way and it makes things complicated especially as an artist and i definitely relate to that for sure and i maybe it's i think it's more common than not actually but i think we're just sort of trained to think well i'm this and i'm that but i'm like i don't you know but okay yeah go check it out it's interesting it's interesting to me especially because like kind of gets into there's a lot of that kind of thing and invisible things we're trying to personify abstraction so like part of it is like part of that test is about um like um it like is i can't remember how i can't remember it exactly but it's something like categorizing flavors as either smooth or spiky like these synesthetic leaps and what happens is like these things that are kind of nonsensical but when they categorize in this way if you ask a hundred people is that sound spiky or smooth they'll answer pretty consistently okay so it's like the the the connection between um feeling and shape and yeah yeah yeah oh yeah it's all the connections of the senses you know um anyway have you have you watched have you watched that movie of problemista yeah no i haven't even heard oh my god i can't stop i can't stop thinking about it what is it the reason why i bring it up is because he has also a stand-up show and he i think it's called i'm gonna i'm gonna butcher this i'm really bad at memory remembering certain things like yeah but it's about shapes but basically uh it's hulio torres but the movie is autobiographical okay and he's an he's an artist but did you see everything everywhere all at once yeah okay so do you know the the the perspective on that just kind of like a very visual like adh pers adhd person like making a film and how they perceive the world and like how you're making me think about because he in in the show that he has also called fat there's like three things that he has out there's like the stand-up and then there's phantasmus or phantasma but he does this whole bit about the letter he started he does this whole bit about the letter q he does this whole bit about the health of it and like their personalities okay yeah it's so i'm just it's so in between like how he is picking up on senses and how things are explained and like how a sound would look visually like the way that everything you're saying is very much like how this person's brain works to me but but cute it was so good the cute part it just they all i don't want to give anything away i know i'm gonna i'm gonna butcher it and do a horrible job so i don't want to like ruin it but just yeah i'll try to find it i did an episode and i think a talk wants about how it's because that the personalities with uh letters or numbers is a recognized type of synesthesia yes i think it's one of the only ones that i genuinely have and i did a talk about not to talk about it but i mentioned it in a talk as like an example of something as a joke of like i got an advanced math later like if i had as much time as i and i'm not good at it i always talk about math and numbers are like in the back room of my brain i can get them but it's like i have to like it's not easy um and so but especially like times tables were a nightmare because it's but the times times tables i'd be like uh that all the numbers had personalities they genuinely do it's i'd be literally find myself thinking about like oh seven and four yes oh man they're in the same room don't go there good don't get them don't get those two together don't get them started but why is why is eight like just so reliable and like oh yeah like a big bear hug like i feel like eight would give you like a bear hug CMS yeah exactly that's it's yeah the smooth whole like yeah like a wholeness times too that's why it's two circles like come on um i totally agree [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 sub stack 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 andyjaypizza.substack.com and i hope to see you at this month's meetup it's holiday shopping time y'all it's time to freak out not because uncommon goods is here to make it easy listen all i did was click the for her section on this site and i instantly saw five things that i could get selfie don't tell her but i'm thinking either the national park sweaters the tea advent calendar there's also just below that little bubble tea kit for my oldest and then i saw one of these you know the retro little viewfinder orange real viewer things but you can make it your own photos okay it might not make sense just you have to go check it out yourself here's a thing i have seriously never seen so many good options for gifts online in one place and unlike lots of other convenient options shopping uncommon goods actually support small businesses to get 15 off your next gift go to uncommongoods.com/peptalk that's uncommongoods.com/peptalk for 15 off don't miss out on this limited time offer uncommon goods we're all out of the ordinary i want to go back to some thing but it's escaping me now we are so far out on limb right now we are so happy it's the hero's journey thing it makes me very happy because it gets it's right what we're talking about which is this thing of you know putting yourself into the work in a way that it's not forced getting out of your out of your way and i feel like the the hero's journey thing i just wanted to add one little bit was instead of worrying about whether you're at the at home in yourself or are you currently on a journey out trying to be something else i think looking back in the moment i could never know which one i was in no way but you could always be trying to make progress towards yourself and sometimes that progress looked like i think so getting away and sometimes it actually like was returning does that make sense yeah i mean 100 i feel like every time i i um make art like i did this quick little zine to get like a sense of satisfaction i can't i can't say enough about zines i will talk about them all day in the power of like but i did the i end it with um i make things so that so i can know myself and like just the idea of getting lost in your work to be found and it sounds corny or whatever but it's just kind of like that's kind of what i do like over and over again like a lot of people and um just it's weird it's like i know myself but then i also kind of don't you know i i of course i know myself but then i'm like i don't know who this fucking person is honestly i i i i do and i don't and i and i'm becoming more at peace with that it used to make me feel uncomfortable and like think that there was something wrong with me because of that and then now the older i get and i think there's more conversations centered around the like normalizing that especially as a creative person which i love um i feel like i'm yeah i'm i'm okay with that and it's i think it's honestly helped me become more of myself by so now i feel like this is so meta but i i feel like i've become more myself by being okay with sort of knowing who i am and not knowing yeah i totally i better my brain i totally i totally relate and i and i think that the i genuinely think that um that that's really what the zine is about there's two pieces for me that really um that i wanted to talk about um one was that there's a lot of like there's a lot about image in there i think for instance this notion of can you be a horse girl if you don't own a horse and it reminded me of like how many albums do you have to have memorized to wear the t-shirt of the band yeah you know and what does it and in that right there is like a you can't trust your identity you can't trust that you love this thing because of how other people may criticize you well i then also it sort of becomes like this pissing contest like well i like horses more yes like i was doing when i was creating the zine i was like do i love them enough like i know i love them and they're part of like the fiber of my being like i swear to god when i look at horses i see myself and i know that sounds so weird to say thank you for saying that i can't believe that i just said that i love that oh my the podcast just got 10 times better because you said that but that's a weird talking about that please it's just a weird thing to say but i think because when you love something so much when you're a kid yeah you just project so much on the thing that you love like the thing you love sort of becomes your home and i think too i'm sort of i'm glad i didn't own a horse or like because i think um the idea of it became more important to me than the thing itself like i lived in the idea of the thing and that became my home when things didn't feel safe or i wasn't comfortable um and i think that's what i want to clear the air about about this little zine because i think it's easy to sort of write it off like oh pink and purple and horses where and i want to be like oh no hold on a minute because it really is so and the people that get it they get it and i so i can't tell you how much i appreciate you getting it it makes me feel really good and seen and um and i've been i've just just i've just enjoyed so much like the dms and when we're we're tabling at events like people will just look at it and like they like i see this like sea change on their face of just like the shift and i'm like and then we just like have these sweaty intense conversations about like oh and it just it's it feels like so in galvanizing to me like i feel like okay i'm not a joiner and i'm i've never been a club person but like whatever this is i'm in like this feels so real and good to me and and again it's it's not a it's about horses but it's not it's like a deeper thing it's like a mentality i guess like a nerdy like because i don't think it was like i think horses are sort of perceived as feminine but they're i don't know how to explain it but they're like really strong they're really strong and they're really but they're also very vulnerable you know and they break something in a certain way you know there's that cliche like oh gotta put her down you know they are hard workers but they're also like really free there's just a lot about them as an animal that like i mean i think there's a lot of people in the world the animals are just so great like animals in general just so they're like everyday magic to me like they're so wonderful they're amazing i love them so much and so yeah i think part of it is that too but i'm gonna stop talking now because i could just i could just go on and on you have the floor if you if you're going but it's i feel like words are just going to start coming out of my mouth and it's going to be like mushy and not really though like well you can i like keep do you have more i think that's it for now okay all right okay well we'll see you know if you can change your mind take a little take a little break right you talking now okay i feel like i'm gonna do a whole um series on animals i just had a conversation with Julian Glander and we were talking a lot about ducks because he has pet ducks oh my god and the first time i talked to him we did like a pre-talk and i was like geeking out about animals and my wife had listened to it and was like laughing at me and she's like you're you're like a five-year-old kid like animals man and you just did that no for real okay i have to show you something and i don't want to make i don't want to make too much noise okay um but like this might be a little bit before your time but i i got this this was like pre-internet it's called illustrated wildlife treasury i don't think i've seen that it looks great i love the box you would you would sign up for it and then every month you would get a pack of cards oh look of course i pull out a donkey you would get a pack of cards with a picture and like stats on the animal and then like coloring paint like you would get stuff and it was like the coolest thing ever to me it doesn't look very cool like i'm showing old old school subscription box totally totally yeah and you got the collecting you got the box that you would collect and um but i just i loved it and like i would watch you know national geographic now i cannot watch any of that it makes me too sad too violent i can't yeah there's a lot of bad news around animals too just i can't i can't handle it being a wild animal is so hard like it's so hard like we think we have problems i do feel that we think we have problems it's so funny to hear you say that those two things hearing you say it is so funny because it's externalizing feelings and thoughts that i have that i'm you know like one of the i okay the only way i can explain what i mean is i heard a comedian on a podcast talking about how such a huge part of knowing what your material is is just being around other comics that are good at what they do because your best stuff is stuff that you're so close to that you can't even see what's funny about it totally totally totally totally how hard it is to be a wild animal and you then you said it like you've done it that right there i think this all the time i'm like looking at animals thinking shit god your life your car think about it i learned that it's true it's like i totally i'm so glad you appreciate that i don't have to be a squirrel today well i was just gonna say like did you hear that thing about how squirrels don't even find like they find like 30 percent of the nuts they vary or something yeah something something so disappointing a terrible step yeah can you imagine like you're just literally spending all your time i mean it's just kind of like thrown out 70 percent of your groceries which basically okay i'm dying it's like it's true oh my god it's like go ahead oh no i'm not i'm good okay i was gonna say about the the horse thing i i was thinking about um you know i'm so passionate about getting uh every creator writing because i think it is that i'm sorry i'm crying dude i'm like trying to hold in my laughter i'm just thinking about these squirrels now and i hate them so much sometimes because there's such jerks in our backyard but now i feel so sorry all right hold on please no don't wait you don't need to move on let's just enjoy it i just i had to let that little bit extra that it was like i was holding it in because i wanted to keep up but i just can't i can't uh it's hilarious don't you feel it's so you saying that just made me realize how often i'm thinking that which i know is not i don't think comment people should comment about this because i want to know do other people think that oh i know i know that are no no they do okay i am i am i am 100 certain that they do i i would put money on it because because i think a lot of creatives love animals yeah and and also just have so much empathy for like every living thing yeah so i know i know we're not even non-living things that's the thing a lot i know i have the same thing okay please i'm like now i'm gonna worry about my drinking cup over here like i know exactly like you're neglecting it you haven't used it in an hour here let me take a sip now it's feeling better about its purpose um they what was there was one the other day where Sophie and i were dropping off something i don't know if it was like something at goodwill or something and i just caught her like grieving for it and i was like it's not a it's not a lie but i can feel like that too sometimes we project we project but that's but that's the cool thing i mean uh that's the cool thing about that's exactly what i was gonna say about the horse thing is the projecting element is where the symbolism comes from that is for sure that right there is the juicy part and what i was you know getting into when i started getting serious again was this um was that i'm always encouraging creative people to write myself include it's really hard for me to get myself to write but i i write pretty frequently but um even so when i really get into the groove of writing i'm like oh i haven't done this in a long time i mean why did i not get there and one of the encouragements i have because i think um a lot of creative people if you don't consider yourself a writer which is most most creative some so obviously they're writers but then like musicians actors were so in the abstraction in the image and the feeling of it that the specificity it's similar to what i think you're saying about like the label like yes it feels difficult to do that yeah it does and you're i think i so agree with what you're saying as far as like i mean calling i was in a band for six years and i would never were you a musician yeah i didn't know that i wouldn't i wouldn't and i still wouldn't i learned like by myself and i don't read music i would play by ear and whatever and that doesn't disqualify you again you're going right back to that thing of i'm not a horse girl because i didn't i know it's it's stupid i mean i just maybe somebody else could say i was but i just you know it's just not something i'm especially i don't know how like musicians to me like the people that could like drink like a bottle of vodka and then go up on this not that's a good idea but just like pure well like there's people that are so they don't remember they don't forget notes they just like uh like we saw vampire weekend uh like a month ago and at the end of the the encore they got back up on stage and this is a fan that i think people either love or hate i'm like like they're uh i was a fan from the beginning i haven't listened their new album but their new album is so good the modern vampires is like one of my all-time favorite yes it's a it's a go-to and like yeah the first two and then this one is such a such a um kind of throw back to that but like mixed with like new stuff yeah but anyway long story short like he they got back up on stage and you know this band is like perceived as like indie kind of like cool guy blah blah blah but if you really appreciate them you know that's not really who they are yeah like fratty or whatever but they got up and they were like okay we're taking requests from literally anyone would raise their hand or like put their phone up and they were doing sweet carol they were doing all the annoying wedding songs and like joking and like they were trying to just play the first couple bars of it and laughing they would stop in the middle and every time they did it at the end they go apologies to cv wonder apologies to blah blah blah and it was so great but i i i we my husband and i were just like just blown away by their musicianship and how good you have to be to just do that in front of a zillion people and like not even maybe know the song that much but just kind of pick up on the essence of it and then just rip it out like right there in real time so i guess that's what i'm like no i'm not a musician but i think you know just i honestly feel like being a musician can mean so many different things and there are yeah people that are performing musicians and then there are people that are recording musicians that i know people that have written some of my favorite songs of all time that have a hard time learning their own songs to play in front of people like oh see i'm the opposite i i feel like we we always wrote our own and yeah it's like i don't call myself a writer per se but i wrote little pop songs with my friends and i wrote i've been writing all my life and i i've written 2,500 instagram posts that makes me a resume i think i'm saying that number just because it was something i said to myself to go will you shut up about this imposter syndrome like you've written a lot of stuff over the years including that which can be maybe valued or not valued by other people but it was my time and it was my my sincere thought so i had to put it in there for my own personal resume to kind of boost myself up to be like you can do this you know like you've been doing it and i think that there's something i think we could have a looser relationship with the labels and the packaging because i think the artists that do really well if you think about i was you know just to take vampire weekend for example they when they i think a lot about the mismatch thing like so a lot of pop or like mainstream stuff the packaging and the essence of it are the same so it's like what you see is what you get where's a lot of alternative stuff is like what you see is the opposite of what you're gonna get and so like my example i always say is the cure but the cure is like sounds like it's dancing but it's actually really sad or flaming lip sounds like drug music he didn't do drugs like most of his life and was almost anti-drugs and religion and so but that's interesting and the same goes for vampire weekend where they're doing this like oh we're like frat guys but there's a they're doing the label is they're doing it for a different reason and they're using the symbolism of it to say something you know yes yes yes and so anyway it's like i guess prep school i don't know i i feel like well yeah when i listen to their music they're influenced by so many different genres and and then i learned like a weird fact fun fact the ezra guy the lead singer yeah he's like part uh they're not married but rachida jones is new i know like what i'm like that's cool yeah pretty wild i love learning weirds i had you know just a brag i had rostam on the show he was one of the only musicians i remember that i was like one of the coolest things that were happening um oh yeah that's right so anyway so i am a fan big fan uh but i yeah the thing that i would the thing i've been trying to tell you and i can't get it out is uh the the horses what i was gonna say was that um just blabbed in different directions and i was gonna say that when i encourage you know people that don't see them creatives that don't see them are intimidated by intimidated by writing is start with the symbols and then trust yourself that there is meaning behind that and that as you make it you find it and it seems like you had a lot of realizations of like what are horses about for you yeah i mean it kind of doing this i can't even say how cathartic it was about just like healing you know you're we're we're all basically kids still we're the same people inside that we were we have yeah we're not that no i don't want to say the same we have all of those versions inside of us at all times i feel like um but like yeah i just learned a lot about myself and just okay well what what is it about these creatures that has just compelled me all these years and sort of kept this little flicker going in in me this little spark that made me feel like when i was looking at them thinking about them drawing them that i felt like myself yeah um and the writing thing i just want to say one quick thing about uh like linda berry and um ann lema like bird by bird and linda berry like um making comics uh those two books i can't say enough about how both of these artists talk about that it's just our human right as people like as human beings to write and make pictures and that that should not be reserved for the elite or the special or the create like i think everyone is creative i honestly do i believe that with with every fiber of my being and that it's just our right to do that and express ourselves whether we're doing it just for ourselves or you know as a living whatever it's like a healthy part of being a human being and so that really just kind of gave me permission to well i'm just exercising my right as a human being like i'm i'm a cavewoman right now and i'm making marks on the wall i'm drawing my pictures and i'm just very you know i had to strip it down to that really baseline like i'm doing this and it's like it's like i'm doing this because people have been doing this for as long as we've existed so it's okay i can do it yeah and that really really really helped me um yeah i love that thing and that's exactly what uh i needed to hear when i first started doing anything related to writing was trust that there it's not random the things that you're drawn to the things that light you up there is it's speaking if it feel if you're feeling it viscerally it's because it's speaking a language that is that it's going beyond words it's not because you couldn't put words to it you can that's the writing you you will be able to put words to it but it'll be work but there's so much there will be it's that you know a picture's worth a thousand words whatever it is it's find those images find it's like the archetype thing of a horse there was something about it that was super charged for you if like you talking about looking at horses and being like man yeah like that's so funny yeah that's that look at me go like it's so good look at my man and it's so honest like i it really like inspires me to think about it because i'm like well what and i i did and that was the um the cta the call to adventure the thing to do something with the the conversation we're having the one i came up with other than like what would your past self be disappointed in but that um but the other one was um what were the archetypes from childhood that you obsessed over and i and i wanted to note that it took me a minute to think about this um to kind of for anything to come up and then a few things were coming up too for me were superheroes i was obsessed with superheroes obsessed with marvel and and also i was really obsessed with i i wish i would have kept a little bit more i've still seen a lot of marvel but i wish i would have kept some of that passion because a bunch of my favorite ones were turned into movies that nobody cared about when i was a kid like so dead person black panther and those two in particular i was like i didn't know much about them i just had like a card with them and like a toy i had one dead pool toy and i was like these guys were pretty sweet they're the b-side of superheroes you know what i mean very much so yeah they're not like uh it's not they're a little more nuanced nuance you know they like to say in every industry it isn't it doesn't sell whatever but i do think people are a little consumers are a little more sophisticated than people like to give them credit for and and and you know i want to ask you so many questions like what what it what it was about superheroes that like because there's so many different things about a thing and it's like what aspects it was that like that they were saving people was it that outfits did you just want to wear spandex and you like what's going on honestly the more the more slick that they looked i like spiderman dead pool all the one in black panther what i liked about them was that they were so like cool slick there was no like yeah it's like i just like i don't know it's just badass and then but i as i was thinking about this i thought it's probably something about the neurotypical neurodivergent thing i'm like i'm weird and maybe it's a superpower maybe it's a good thing that i'm a weirdo and i go to the school for mutants like that's probably what i was thinking like that like why i need to go to that school and then the other one is basically the same that came up later because i forgot about it which is so that's what's so good about this the same thing happened to me like when you were as you started pulling that thread you're like oh shit that was like a thing it was there like aliens was another one like the 90s aliens i had like a sticker collection of these 90s alien stickers that i got every time i went to pizza hut and they were just like certain line we were talking about pizza the other day it's gone it was legendary it's it's like not a thing anymore but aliens are the same aliens i mean it's the restaurants gone not the actual it's still around but so when you say 90s when you say 90s aliens do you mean like the movie alien or just like 90s i mean like aliens in general like any alien that was put out in the 90s people that are like listening to it on the podcast i don't know if the video will ever see the light of day but that alien the green alien had the raswell alien like that like that in the yeah like the images around that and i guess neurodivergent like that's a funny thing and i used to say i thought my parents were aliens my dad and my stepmom that's hilarious there's a kid's book there's a kid's book right there you know i thought i really thought this i didn't i didn't think this but i was like i'm not going to rule out the possibility because it it was not impossible i thought they have a device where when i get out of bed there's just like an they have super technology where they can just instantly transform back while they're watching tv so i'll never see him but but i i thought that funny part about that is that's a very common not that exact version but the feeling of being an alien is a very common thing in autism and ADHD and neurodivergent people yeah because i literally feel like an alien people say it's i say that when i go pick up my kid from school i go here i go i'm putting on my human suit i'm gonna go be a mom and pick up my kid and go hello and i literally feel outside of my body like i'm like yeah yeah and it makes me want to do something weird just to like get it out like yeah i don't fucking weirdo i'm picking up my kid but like i know it's not normal but i'm telling you i would yeah i get my my my skin's flapping off oh there's green let me come over oh yes did you ever watch did you remember that show v uh it's not familiar what is that i can't remember oh my god it was a it was a show about aliens and i loved it i don't know and it was like it was like aliens were invading the earth the theme song was so dope too it was like wow no wait that's sex filed never mind that's x files wrong alien show but like they were invading the earth but they they would like like penetrating earth in like a very like sneaky way and some of them would have like human suits and then it would start like flapping off and like they were snake they were like snake people i love snakes too by the way that was a huge one i gotta i gotta find this and i'll find the trailer and send it to you because i don't think i know that um uh the last thing i want to tell you it was uh my favorite part of the book or the zine by the way my first kids book started as zine too and i think zines are the freaking key i cannot i'm not in the creativity i honestly cannot like say it enough like i completely agree with that and like i just feel like they're kind of medium that i think if you're in the commercial art industry you're sort of conditioned to make this like product but as a creative person it kind of goes against that and if you're really wanting to home like writing and illustrating or just like exploring an idea that doesn't live in like one moment i can't i just can't say enough about them they've just been such a game changer for me i collect them i i tell people about them that don't know about them i i was like a fan girl of them for a long time and i thought i i sort of fell outside of it like oh i'm not i'm not cool enough to make a zine and i also just don't know what i would say like i just didn't have that part of my creative brain developed yet and so i was just like a fan um i think i bought a book it was like Todd Mark Todd and like Esther Pearl Watson had the zine called unlovable and then Mark Todd out of this book what you mean what's a zine and i was like someday i'll make my own i don't think and then i would just like buy it and then i would just buy them and then yeah i was like a couple of years ago i was like girl you love zines you want to write no straight you need to this is the key yes and i think i remember Rebecca Green like i didn't know that your book was a zine first i didn't know that well it's a different book but it was the first one that i ever it unlocked writing for me but go ahead yeah no that's exactly just she had the Rebecca Green oh how to make friends with a ghost i think her that was a zine oh really surely yeah it just it like kind of a light bulb went off and i was like just do that if you do that like things are gonna happen well i don't know what what's gonna happen but something's gonna happen if you just make your own just make it and then get your ideas out there to me that is the key i just did a thing on a past episode where the call to adventure was about like quit pitching stuff like for me if i'm making a pitch i what i'm making is a pitch i'm not making a book i'm not making a good book idea i'm thinking about what's a good pitch yes and you're selling you're selling and you're selling you're selling it's about them and that's that's why i did always pitch is it didn't work and i thought if i make it a zine then i'm actually making the thing that i want to make now i'm in the energy of the real thing and it just yeah it's it's real take us to church take us to church like it's like that is that is exactly why i was like i'm not pitching this i'm i don't want to have this be a half thing and it's also totally what you just said whenever i've tried to pitch things it just messes me up um and not that there are a lot of creative people that are so good at walking that line and pitching and it becomes a thing and i just don't know if that's i haven't acquired that skill yet you can also pitch after the fact you can pitch later that's the other thing is that yeah just make it make it without the pressure of pitching and see how that feels because i honestly was like well i would like to make a book of this but let me make the zine first and see if i enjoyed even making the zine and then i can go from there because again i think we like to glamorize and like put things on a pedestal like i want to write an ill street children's book or i want to do this and do that and then we actually that is one bit of unsolicited advice right now as someone who's been making you know art for a living for over 20 years it sounds i feel crazy saying that out of my mouth but like before you put something out of pedestal like just do it first and make sure you even like like doing it like just do the thing i heard uh jack black on a podcast say this and i'm sure maybe i've heard this somewhere else yeah he's a major hero of mine but i love him the way he said it was so perfect that i thought this is a thing that i want to remember for the rest of my life and embody and it was what you just said which is he said don't think about what you want to be so don't think about i want to be an actor i want to be a children's bookmaker i want to be this that and that other think about what you want to actually do yeah how does it do you want to do yeah and then do that and that's what the zenah mocks is do it you want to tell stories for kids do it you can do it there's nothing stopping you from doing that there really isn't like i just listened to us that working it out with Mike Berbelia oh yeah it's price steve in my favorite show i want i listen yeah did you listen to the steven merchant one yes yep when he and i feel like when i say this it's going to sound mean but he at the end he was like because he just has like a like a musicality to his voice and i'm like nasally just do it just fucking do it but like he was like there's no he said i know people work all day and it's really hard it's hard to squeeze in things but if you really want to do something you will find a way and you have to stop using excuses yeah he was like just don't just do it and again see it's so mean but i thought about that and i was like well that's that is so true but why can't so many of us figure that out like why and i i thought about it and i think what something i was able to finally do i was able to do the scene finally because i realized the problem for me was like i want to do too many things and and you talk about this a lot on your podcast like honoring seasons yeah for me it's like i want to do a lot of different things and i have this list but i thought about it and i was like okay i think for me what helped is like i want to be respectful of all the things i want to do and i want to pick the thing i want to do the most and i want to respect it and honor it and if i'm talking at a party and i'm like i want to do this but i can't and i'm saying it over and over again after a certain point i don't even want to hear myself saying it it feels disrespectful and it sucks and i i feel like i want to respect if i love this thing as much as i say i do then respect it and and honor it and know your limitations and know you you can't learn this this and this at the same time you have to take this one thing and you have to take a risk and spend time on that one thing and you have to invest in it and that's respect and so for me that got me to there's no excuse but there there is an excuse if you don't understand what's getting in your way and understand that you're for me it was like i need to risk i need to be more respectful that helped me my mental cue of like that triggered me i was like oh i don't i don't like being disrespectful to anything and so for me i was like oh i am by doing this over and over again and being stuck in this i am not i'm not respecting this thing that i say i love so much this thing that i want to do so i just said the same thing three different ways like over and over again just now but you know what i mean like that's my whole podcast i think i just hear myself saying it i'm just like yes you're doing that don't stop though yeah i like the angles because i think it helps it unlock and makes sense because sometimes those those things that really do unlock something it's hard to get at what what is it it is yeah but i totally i totally the excuses are there excuses are just sort of the covering of what is underneath that's getting in the way you know what i mean does that make sense yeah 100 yeah it's a set yeah you have to get past that um yeah the the conscious level to the subconscious level of like what's actually going on there but the uh you know the thing that you talked about with seasons uh that's there's a huge problem for me always so i have figured it out momentarily it's one of the reasons i talk about on the show is because sometimes i've managed to figure it out but it's a it's a lifelong problem and the way i used to think about getting over it was i we used to think okay i've got all of these all this creative food to cook i want to make all of these dishes which am i gonna put in the frying pan and which am i gonna throw in the trash those are the two options it's the only options and i the the metaphor that helped me figure it out was no some are going to go on the back burner some are going to go in the crackpot and but the front burner i can only have there's only one front front burner i love that metaphor so much yeah it really helps me and it also helped me to understand um you know learning tons about ADHD learning that there's an object permanence thing issue so like out of sight out of mind so and i know i have it i'm not saying but but that there's a thing of there's only two times there's only there's only now or never that's it there's only now or never so if i'm not doing all of these things now i'm never doing any of them and i know it's true it's it's how it's how yeah i mean i was tested for it they said i didn't have it but they were like on paper they're talking with you you have it but like i think i'm just like high like i've just used to functioning high masking but one of the things they say about it is both all neuro divergences um the further you go in your life the harder it is to test for it because you add app you're you have all your adaptations yeah i do yeah yeah everything everything everything you've said and you you told me we've talked about it i do yeah you're like i don't go around telling people that you're one of the only people i've said have you ever taught ever thought about that because you do have that a lot of the ADHD energy it made me feel better as yeah it's not a pro pre-op people shouldn't do that so i'm sorry i don't want to derail no no no i it you're we're friends and you were like very uh respectful about it and it wasn't you know but and i feel like i'm derailing i'm i am hearing what you're saying but you know what see i have ADHD i'm sorry it's part of the theme but i know but i go ahead go ahead i was just gonna say that um oh my god i was just gonna say that uh i wanted to make sure i said this that my favorite part of the zine and it's the so tons of really funny things i love the whole thing with the past you current you all of that was very powerful it also made me think like oh man there's like cinematic things that you can do on a page that i never let myself do but these are the ways i think like i i feel like the stories i like and the ones that kind of it doesn't matter it doesn't matter we don't have time for that i'm going to say this i'm just going to say like i you know i think a lot of the things that i the kind of things i want to do are like things like um that happen and like bluey is a good example i don't know if your kid's probably too old i need to see this show because everyone keeps talking about it it's amazing it's great and it's it's kind of like for a long time in picture books i was like well i can't tell the stories i want to tell because people don't tell these kind of stories in picture books and then bluey did that basically in in kids media when i was like oh i can do it i just have to figure out how you're doing this cinematic thing in the zine i don't know what you're talking about what page no just no no i'm going to tell you a specific page but the the part where she your your ten-year-old self builds this time machine goes to see future you everything about the scenes and it's also silent it just feels like i did that i'm putting a movie i did that i did i did that because i am a movie nerd i'm i'm bad at remembering like directors and i'm not like an an asshole film lover like not actually but i really appreciate the medium like you know like tv really well done tv shows like my partner and i watch a lot of tv and yeah i just i love the parts in a movie now i understand what you're saying um the the parts where it felt like dialogue was going to be take away from the feeling that i wanted people to feel yeah and i don't it was weird it was like right away i knew that was what i wanted to do because i started getting into the dialogue and i was like i don't like the way this is and that was the other thing i'm like i was really proud of myself i feel like i've grown as like a storyteller because i'm knowing now like oh my god like i have grown i've learned because right away i wanted to do that but i don't think like two years ago i would have not even known how to like deal with that and i recognize that feeling like that that thing of the more stuff i make in a certain direction the more second nature it becomes yeah it was like oh i can't have any i don't want any dialogue in this because i really want it to go silent and just uh you to read the body language and know that they met but you don't really don't necessarily need to know i wanted there to be mystery because when you get into the specifics it just takes out the magic of the moment yeah so yeah that was that was kind of fun to do and i'm so glad that you picked up on that that's so great thank you horse girl could be a movie i like i think there's a yeah i think that but that was so i love that and that was really inspiring me but my favorite thing in the in the zine though was something that at first i couldn't even put my finger on it's one of those things where you think about we start it's that's why i like like analysis of your own work and others because you have to go from the visceral thing just like with the horses go from the visceral thing then like pull at it till you like oh now there's like meat to it like i get like this thing and so as i was thinking about like what do i want to like what do i want to mention and i thought the thing i think about over and over is there's a page that is so funny and embarrassing and vulnerable and it and i feel it and it's when the kids are pretending to be your past you is pretending to be a horse yeah i'm just like i can't it's so like you could easily scroll past that and not really just not think about it like we're not pick up on it but there's something about you and i was a i pretended i think i told this i i played pretend whoa i can see you normal i i'm telling you and then even i pretended in my head all the way this i'll just defend myself all the way to college all me to get myself to sleep so at night i would go to sleep and i was like i can't sleep and i'd be like all right i'm going to come up with this whole thing and i just i love it i'm sickly pretending like and so i but i pretend i had to get a brother inside i think the inside of your brain should be a movie about that you know what that i okay i know this is me and we're not doing a good job of staying on track but and i that's fine but everything everywhere all at once when i watched that i thought i told Sophie i was like and i didn't know he was ADHD one of the guys is ADHD i didn't know that but i said this is what it feels like this is what it feels like i literally feel like this where i um there's a lyric uh this i'm doing a tear this this is heightened ADHD because as soon as we start like talking about it it starts to like i'm out of control with it oh i know are we are we both having a manic episode i think so it happens uh and i okay let's breathe but that thing of um like i i live a lot through the lens of like which am i in the best timeline like am i in the best version of myself like i think about that is kind of a thing that i like live all the time and it's a very it's a weight um i you know what i feel that too but i never really verbalized it like that but i feel like i'm a lot of time living in like the troll timeline the troll version of my timeline like just grunting through shit you know what i mean like yeah and i don't want to be i want to be in the unicorn timeline yeah but i and i i check myself i'm like you are not you're you're giving off troll energy like so hard right now and we need to like like art troll like greasy art troll i don't remember when i washed my hair and i got a lot a lot to do and i feel that a lot and i and it feels it doesn't feel very kind i think honestly doesn't feel very like we're doing our best yeah we're trying and and and i think even in our worst version of our timeline selves i think we're still probably a lot cooler and more fun and caring than other people in their best timeline i don't know yeah i'm just throwing that out there i mean you're just a very warm i just feel like even on a bad day you're still pretty great so i wouldn't yeah same to you but i wanted to say that i want to say i love that page it captured that and it really captures that thing of you're just starting to get self-conscious about should i be pretending and that's really sad it's really sad i know i that there's a lot of really uh 10 is like that age right it just it feels like there's so many stories in it from a 10 that was the other thing i want to share really quick about writing and just whatever whoever's listening to this and they're trying to write or whatever like we're trying that word i've just heard the other day like don't say you're trying just people who are writing exploring their voice i want to say that it's gonna look so different for everyone and that what we perceive as writing it's just like forget about all that like fucking forget it and what helped me so much was thinking about how my 10 year old would write like that helped me sort of get my voice like because i'm a grown i'm like a 50 or i'm like older than middle age at this point and i'm writing but i'm like a weirdo little kid inside but when it's coming out it doesn't match but helping me channel my 10 year old it just like smoothed out i could relax and if i was starting to write something that was like over complicated i would be like well what would your 10 year old say what would you how would your 10 year old think of that and it just helped and whether it's accurate like oh actually a 10 year old really doesn't think like that well i'm like well this 10 year old does so whatever it works it just really helped me and so if you think about maybe some kind of device that you can channel that will get you to a creative place that feels more comfortable and less like strained or like you're trying too hard or or you need to like temper a part of yourself to just kind of not get lost in the woods yeah does that make sense like um yeah that helped though a lot and that that's a great that's a great action to end on as like create from your 10 year old self and i think it there's the it makes sense because i think the teenage years is kind of the hero's journey of leaving yourself that's where you really start to feel like you're losing yourself you're trying to be something else you're trying to figure out how to be that and i think that that's such a good prompt to get back into the timeless part of yourself the part of you that maybe hasn't changed some of the changes are good some are bad whatever but that part and create him from there like that's i think that's really good for sure thanks you're so good at this hey i i'm just having a blast and i hope you know i'm thinking the only thing i'm thinking is man the editing on this thing i've just gone out of control sorry and i talk to somebody like you and we both have these this energy i can get it just riles me up and then it's but you know i'm trying to get comfortable with it you know it's okay i mean i had a really great time i i always love talking with you and i just really appreciate you having me on thank you so much and thank you yeah i'm just really grateful so massive thanks to sarah wall for spending so much time with me and inspiring me and making this incredible zine horse girl go check it out sarah wall makes things dot com she is also on instagram at sarah wall makes things highly recommend going and following along with her work it's gorgeous and i'll add some great stuff to your feed as well as your heart and soul and mind i'm back with a creative call to adventure the bmt the big the big meaty taste if you don't know an Italian bmt is a sandwich at subway a lot of people don't know that bmt stands for big meaty taste and i just thought that it was appropriate for what we're going to talk about here at the end big meaty taste how do you make your work have some meat and that could be vegetarian meat vegan meat it could be an impossible meaty flavor that is in your creative work but i am sold out on the idea that in order to make great creative work that resonates on deep levels enough to build a practice on you have to make stuff that's not just fashionable or timely you have to tap into the timelessness of archetypes and things that move you on a deeper level and i think there's no better place to get started on that journey than going back to your childhood and finding what were the symbols that i was obsessed with what were the things that i just couldn't stop thinking about what were the stickers i collected what were the cards i collected go back to that time and just start making a list on all of the symbols and archetypes that you can find and if you have a hard time thinking about like what's an archetype that sounds scary and weird it is but also it's not the way i think about archetype says it's what people call a thing you know when someone's like oh yeah it's a thing that's an archetype horse girls were a thing right like superheroes are a thing aliens are a thing those were my two that came up and i started to dive deeper into what possibly drew me in to these symbols because it wasn't just fashion it wasn't just because they were timely like these are things that sure they were of the time but they spoke to me in a timeless way they spoke to me in a deeper way where i nerd out on these things much more than my peers or maybe i just had a couple friends or one friend where we both were like this thing we're freaking obsessed with right and then i start thinking about that beyond the noun but beyond the superhero what is a superhero all about it's about being different in a positive light what's being an alien about being different in a extra extraordinary extra terrestrial kind of way right and i think it was speaking to the ways in which i felt different than everybody because of my neurodivergence and so those are symbols that i think about and put in my work and inspire me as i go to make stuff i think finding these personal archetypes and building your own personal symbolism and mythology is key it's really really hard to make art when you only think about the adjectives when you only think about the style and and the surface but you need some big meaty taste to sink your teeth into and so does your audience they need nouns and if you go look at your favorite artist you can probably write down nouns you can write down things that symbols that show up in their work over and over again because those symbols are are things we can see they're things we can interact with are things that we could literally hold in our hands and that helps us put our hands around the work in a more literal fashion and um and have more to go at so think back to your childhood see if you can find some big meaty taste to inject into your creative work 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 andyjaypizza.substack.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.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 pep talk. 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 andyjaypizza.com if you want to test it out go to squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out yourself and when you're ready to launch use promo code pep talk for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace for supporting the show and for supporting creative people. I did consider Barney a friend and he's still a friend to this day. The idea of Barney is something that I want to live up to you know I love who you love me. I call it the purple mantra. Barney taught me how to be a man. Generation Barney a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]
How can you take ownership of your creativity and quit waiting for someone to tell you what to do and how to do it?
In this episode we discuss staying true to your younger self, taking charge of your path, leaning into that unicorn energy and holding onto the goofiness.
Collaborative art by Andy J Pizza and Sarah Walsh. See instagram post for all phases of this collab from sketch to final.
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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
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'I can be ok even if you're not ok' Teacher Quote
Mentioned:
Problemista movie & Julio Torres
Illustrated Wildlife Treasury
Vampire Weekend and Rostam
CPT Rostam episode is #311
'Making Comics' book by Lynda Barry
'Bird by Bird' book by Anne Lamott
'Working it Out' Podcast with Mike Birbiglia https://www.birbigs.com/working-it-out-pod
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