Jeffery Saddoris

Latest Episodes:

In Between 09: Who Owns Your Happiness? Aug 23, 2019

Show notes

Are you happy? If not, why do you think that is? For a lot of people who make things and share what they make online — myself included — we have a tendency to abdicate our happiness to the fickle whim of the mob. Not enough likes, or hearts, or dollars can send us careening into a creative tailspin, questioning what we do and even who we are. If this sounds familiar to you, hopefully this conversation with Jon Wilkening will help you find your way back to making first and foremost for the joy of it, and not simply for the return.

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I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

You can catch up with Jon on Instagram @jonwilkening or on his website at jonwilkening.com.

Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Show Updates — July 2019 Jul 25, 2019

Show notes

Last week, I asked a deceptively simple question on Instagram: What are some of your fears around creativity? Dozens of responses came in ranging from fear of running out of creative gas, to being judged by an audience to not being seen or heard at all. Your responses reinforced how much I miss interacting with an engaged community around making art.

I’ve been noodling around what to do about it for quite a while and I think I have something that may be interesting, but it doesn’t work without you. In a nutshell, I want to hear from you. I want to hear what interests you, what inspires you, even what you’re struggling with. Chances are, whatever you’re going through — the good or the bad — someone else out there is going through something similar and by sharing these things with one another, maybe we can help each other to become better artists and maybe even better people. By sharing something with me on this new endeavor you’re giving me permission to share it with everyone — and maybe even to reach out to you to have a deeper conversation about it. I don’t know if this will be a few random one-off episodes or whether it wants or needs to be a new show, but regardless, I think there’s something there and I’d love to see where it goes.

So if you’d like to participate, and I hope you will, reach out to me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com and let me know what’s on your mind. I think everyone has a great story to tell. Let’s work on telling yours.

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Music in this episode: Step On (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 54: Find Your Pepper Jul 02, 2019

Show notes

Not too long ago, I was having a conversation with David duChemin about subject as it relates to photography — specifically, some of the differences between photographs of a subject, versus photographs about a subject. It can feel like a tricky distinction but moving from one to the other can really elevate the work that you produce.

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LINKS

Daniel Rozin is an artist and professor at NYU who builds incredible mechanical mirrors out of materials like metal, wood, and even trash that respond to the viewer’s movements.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon and to mark the occasion, NASA has completely restored mission control at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas to exactly how it was in 1969, down to period coffee mugs, ashtrays, rotary phones, and carpet to recreate it as accurately as possible. Johnson Space Center director Mark Geyer said “I’m thrilled this facility will be open for the public to view. It is my hope that it will serve as inspiration for generations to come.”

NPR posted a fascinating article about a team of scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who are investigating the amount of micro plastics in the Deep Ocean. According to chief scientist Kyle Van Houten, data suggests that there’s actually more plastic in the Deep Ocean than there is in the giant floating patches on the surface, which is pretty staggering.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 53: A Different Kind of Interaction Jun 17, 2019

Show notes

I had something else planned for this episode, but I got a little surprise in the mail and decided to go in a different direction. On Wednesday of last week, as I went to take Cooper on his ten o’ clock walk, I noticed a big padded envelope on the front porch with the words “UNSOLICITED GIFT” written on the outside. Now, I can be a little strange about gifts, even the ones I know are coming, so when one just shows up anonymously I sometimes don’t know how to react. Fortunately, Adrianne was working from home that day and was able to offer some sage advice that wasn’t as obvious as it probably should have been as I stood there staring at the package. “Well,” she said, “the only way you’re gonna know what it is is to open it.” Right. Inside, wrapped in newspaper, was the gift itself and an envelope that contained a card. I’ll get to the what in a moment, but first I want to address the why, because without the why, the what isn’t nearly as meaningful.

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LINKS

Here’s a terrific article from The New York Times Magazine called The Day the Music Burned, which tells the story of the 2008 Universal fire that destroyed the original analog and multitrack recordings of nearly a half million songs, some dating back to the 1940s.

I’ve just picked up Adam Savage’s new book, Every Tool’s a Hammer and one of the reasons I did is because I read an article on Wired that featured an excerpt from the book all about the power of making lists and how Adam’s list making life changed when he started working at Industrial Light & Magic.

In an article on Witness, Lewis Bush addresses “why there is such a poverty of theory about storytelling in photography compared to other fields, and why there is so little precision about the terms and techniques we use. Why, for example, are so few photographers able to differentiate between such fundamentally different things as story and narrative.” It’s a fascinating read that definitely has me thinking about the type of work I’d like to produce moving forward.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 52: Like Seeing Myself for the First Time May 24, 2019

Show notes

As many of you know, three weeks ago today I had surgery on my eyes to correct a muscle imbalance and while the physical recovery has been fairly uneventful, the emotional and existential healing has been incredibly profound. The condition is called Strabismus and basically what happens is that the eyes don’t focus or track together. Let me explain…In the center of the retina, there’s an area called the macula which is basically the functional center of the retina where straight ahead images are processed. Within the macula is a spot called the fovea where the cones are at their highest concentration and it’s here where the image is meant to focus at its sharpest. In most people, if the eyes are tracking together, those two sharp images are combined to create binocular vision. In my case, my right eye was off axis—it was turned in—so the image didn’t focus on the fovea and when my brain tried to combine the two images, since they didn’t match up, I didn’t have binocular vision. Think of it like this—if my left eye was looking straight ahead, my right eye would be looking about 20-30 degrees off axis to the left. My brain would then try to combine those images into one, but since they didn’t match up, it would leave me with this somewhat fragmented almost double exposure type of view and would finally just give up and basically disregard the image data from my right eye. There are a number of different types of Strabismus, depending on what the eyes are doing. When one or both eyes converge in, it’s called esotropia. If the eyes point out, it’s called exotropia, and if they are misaligned vertically it’s called hypertropia. Bottom line, I was cross-eyed and for most of my life, it was a constant gut punch to my self-esteem and self-image.

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Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Nothing to See May 01, 2019

Show notes

I’ve always tried to be honest with you about what’s been going on with me—from the deaths of my parents, to my struggles with depression, to what led me to ultimately leave California for the East Coast. Today I want to share something that I haven’t really talked about but is something that has affected me for years and in many ways been at the core of some my darkest days.

You won’t find a mention of this on Instagram or Twitter, but I wanted to share it with those of you who subscribe to Everything since you have been so supportive and generous with your time and with your ears.

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Music in this episode: The Shine (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 51: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Do Something Apr 30, 2019

Show notes

Let’s talk about inspiration-specifically what to do when you can’t seem to find any. Generally, there seems to be two schools of thought around it. In one camp are those who more or less wait for inspiration to strike, which is sort of in line with the Greeks who believed that inspiration was basically an unconscious blast of creativity, either from the muses or directly from the Gods. To be fair, I actually know more than a few artists who insist that their particular muses drive much of their creative work. For example, my friend Gareth has his muse Melissa—and while the work he does with other models is terrific, there is just something, oh, I don’t know…special about the work he does with Melissa. Muses in one form or another have inspired art, music, film, and poetry for thousands of years, so who am I to question their validity. In the other camp are those more in line with Chuck Close who famously said “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Now, I understand what Chuck is saying, and on some level I agree with him. The work isn’t going to make itself and at some point, you need to stop the navel gazing, roll up your sleeves and do something—whether or not you’re comfortable calling it work and really regardless of whether it’s even good.

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LINKS

Huck magazine posted a fascinating article—it’s the story of Adrian Street, an androgynous and incredibly flamboyant wrestler who inspired Marc Bolan, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan.

An interesting article on The New York Times that suggests that the music we loved as teenagers tends to be the music we still love as adults.

Check out the Instagram feed of Jude Allen, a San Francisco based travel and landscape photographer who recently returned from Japan with a stunning body of work.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 50: More Than the Raw Materials Apr 18, 2019

Show notes

Lately, I’ve been thinking about our connection to objects and how, at least for some of us, certain objects can represent a specific time in our lives or evoke a particular state of mind or, in the case of artists, inform the type of work we are able to produce. Painters often have a favorite brush or two — I still use a couple that I’ve had since 1988. Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt used the same Leica M3 for decades and in 1963 Cormac McCarthy spent $50 on a Lettera 32 Olivetti manual typewriter that he used to write The Road, No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses, and seven other novels. Objects can become more than the raw materials used to create them. They are somehow imbued with hope, with possibility, and something greater than ourselves. On Monday, we were reminded just how much one object can mean to so many.

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LINKS

Kenneth Clark’s landmark documentary Civilisation is a thirteen part series produced in 1969 for the BBC that looks at the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy since the Dark Ages.

Here’s a fascinating interview with Martin Gran about what it means to be a holistic designer and the idea of looking beyond aesthetics into the deeper meaning of design and how collaboration often results in stronger work.

Vice takes a look at seven photographers who are rewriting street photography’s rigid rules through clever shooting techniques, staged scenes, and a variety of digital manipulation.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

In Between 08: Going After it Tooth and Nail Apr 09, 2019

Show notes

One of my favorite photo documentaries is Darkness & Light, which is a fantastic look into the mind and work of Richard Avedon. A lot of people know Avedon from his photographs in the American West – bold monochrome portraits set against stark white backgrounds or “that poster.” You know the one – it features a nude Nastassja Kinski lying on a concrete floor entangled with a massive Burmese python. Originally shot for Vogue, the poster went on to sell millions of copies.

Avedon’s career spanned six decades and his work bridged the gap between art and commerce in a way that few others managed to do – either before or since – and yet still he felt dissatisfied with all that he had accomplished as a photographer.

“I’ve never been able to put all I know into a photograph,” he said. “A photograph can be an adjective, a phrase. It can even be a sentence or a paragraph, but it can never be a chapter. So it’s been a lifetime of frustration in terms of expressing myself because of the limitations of the visual image. I believe in it-but it’s limited.”

Avedon has been at or near the the top of my list of favorite photographers for the better part of three decades but honestly it’s still hard for me to articulate why I feel such a connection to his work. There’s an obvious technical mastery of the medium, but I could say the same for dozens of photographers whose work doesn’t hold my interest in the same way or resonate as deeply as that of Avedon. So what is it that makes his work so compelling to me? Does he deserve the accolades and if so, why?

I was talking to my friend Hugh Talman and happened to have my little Zoom H2 with me and asked if we could hit the record button since the odds are pretty good that at least one amazing story will emerge. Hugh recently retired from a 33-year tenure at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, first as a darkroom tech and then as a photographer. Before that, he spent 12 years at the National Archives where he printed many of Matthew Brady’s glass plates from the Civil War as well as the work Timothy O’Sullivan did as part of the Western Survey. His knowledge and experience in all things photographic is staggering and if anyone could answer the question, it would be him.

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I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

You can catch up with Hugh on Instagram @hughtalman.

Music in this episode: Gloom (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

In Between 07: Someone Else’s Middle Apr 02, 2019

Show notes

One of the struggles in making, regardless of what it is that you make is the tendency to compare ourselves to the artists who inspire us. But what do you do when the work you produce isn’t even close to the work of your creative heroes? Some give up, while others see slight missteps and outright failures as necessary components in the creative process. Disappointment with what we make can be creative fuel. Being creatively off balance can lead us to new ideas and directions that we never could have planned. Our appreciation of the work we do in the wake is often directly proportional to effort we put into it.

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I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

You can catch up with Jon on Instagram @jonwilkening or on his website at jonwilkening.com.

Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0