On this podcast (recorded over three weeks), I share my highs and lows, break throughs and frustrations with a drawing class I’m taking at the Danforth Art Museum in Framingham, MA.
Overall, this experience reminded me that the creative process often involves pushing beyond simple exercises. It’s about synthesis — connecting ideas — and allowing for unexpected discoveries. The key is to continually experiment and to lean into the structure of your art practice for support.
An Artwork Statement is a piece of writing that gives context to a specific artwork. It often explains the meaning, inspiration, techniques, and context behind a specific artwork or series. Your statement may address the materials used, the process, and the narrative or concept behind the piece.
The purpose is to provide deeper insight into a particular piece, helping viewers connect with and understand the specific artwork on a more intimate level. It often accompanies the artwork in exhibitions, galleries, or online platforms.
On the podcast, Mom and I give you lots of tips for how you can write amazing artwork statements!
162: Why Do You Host This Podcast with Your Mom?
Jul 25, 2024
This episode covers the Adventures in Arting podcast’s origin story, technical challenges, evolution, ups and downs, and the significance of surpassing 21 episodes, and most importantly: a bit about Mom’s upbringing and relationship to art.
And as always, you get to enjoy the dynamic between us — our banter, shared experiences, and future plans for the podcast. The podcast blends personal anecdotes, technical insights, and reflections on the growth and dedication that drive us both!
From her home in northern British Columbia, Canada, through her video lessons on her website and YouTube, Angela Fehr has created a community of watercolor lovers that spans the globe.
She wants every painter to know the freedom of fearless self expression and she has made it her mission to share this empowering message through lessons in heart-prioritizing watercolour technique and loose intuitive painting.
More than anything she demonstrates that the most important thing you bring to your art is you.
On the podcast we discuss Angela’s art journey and why she does what she does.
Today on the podcast we’re chatting about Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset:
Growth Mindset:
Definition: A growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed with effort, learning, and persistence.
Characteristics: Embracing challenges, persisting through setbacks, seeing effort as a path to mastery, learning from criticism, and finding inspiration in others’ success.
Example: A person with a growth mindset will likely believe that they can improve their painting skills through practice and learning.
Fixed Mindset:
Definition: A fixed mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence are static traits that cannot be significantly developed.
Characteristics: Avoiding challenges, giving up easily, seeing effort as fruitless, ignoring useful feedback, and feeling threatened by others’ success.
Example: A person with a fixed mindset might believe that they are either naturally talented at painting or not, and no amount of practice can change that.
Be sure to listen to the podcast where I share 10 Fixed Mindset Statements (such as “I can’t draw”) that you can easily transform to Growth Mindset Statements (such as “I don’t know how to draw yet, but I can improve my drawing skills with practice and dedication.”)
Lydia Leonard left this comment on my YouTube channel:
“I’ve been following you for years and always marvel at your genius! Moving walls? So smart! I sort of have the same thing but I have a hard time putting everything back where it belongs! I’ve been trying to reorganize but I get distracted by all the cool things I find. Do you have any focusing ideas to keep me motivated?“
Specific to her magpie issue, which is also an issue I have, is the notion of “future me.” I do things for future me.
“Tomorrow me will love that this is all put away. Tomorrow me will be glad that I did this today.”
But I thought we could wander into a larger conversation about focus. One of the tenets of my art practice is “consistency.” I think consistency and focus are deeply intertwined.
Focus is a point of concentration. 2. : directed attention : emphasis.
Consistency is conformity in the application of something, typically that which is necessary for the sake of logic, accuracy, or fairness.
Consistency is running a steady 6 minute mile during a marathon. Focus is thinking about your breathing, the finish line, how your body is moving.
All of that is to say that focus is part of consistency and consistency requires focus. On the podcast, we talk about why focus matters to an artist.
I like to think of the podcast as a conversation — between me and Mom — between me and Mom and a guest — between me and Mom and YOU! Thank you so much to all of you who leave comments and send emails. We read them all and appreciate them all. This Listener Mail episode is packed with so many thoughtful comments from you guys! Thanks!
As I mentioned in the previous podcast, Mom and I snuck in the night before the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) here in Boston — The museum’s annual Art in Bloom event at the end of April. This is always one of my favorite events of the year.
In case you don’t know what Art in Bloom is: It’s a weekend festival that transforms the MFA’s galleries into a floral showcase, with floral designers and garden clubs from across the region carefully crafting arrangements inspired by the museum’s artworks.
The MFA invented the “Art in Bloom” idea in 1976. Since then many other museums have taken up the idea (it’s a good one) and there might be a museum near you that does it!
“Visitors are treated to a sensory experience as they wander through the galleries adorned with imaginative floral interpretations. The captivating aromas of freshly cut blossoms fill the air, while the visual delight of artfully arranged blooms against the backdrop of world-class art stirs the imagination. The juxtaposition of natural elements with centuries-old masterpieces creates a dialogue that transcends time and medium, inviting visitors to see art from a fresh perspective.”
It’s also an invitation for selfies galore and just tons of photos in general. This is why we went the night before.
The main feature of Art in Bloom is the collaboration between floral designers and the museum’s curators. Each floral arrangement is carefully placed next to its corresponding artwork, enhancing the aesthetic experience and creating a captivating conversation between the two art forms. And a fun conversation to have with a fellow visitor about how/if the floral arrangement captures the artwork’s essence. There is no other time of the year when strangers are so willing to talk to you!
Art in Bloom is always a super fun experience. If a museum near you holds an annual “Art in Bloom” festival, be sure to attend. It’s an experience you won’t want to miss! Because these are real blooms, it’s always a short exhibit – 3 or 4 days. So don’t miss out!
Here are the photos from the podcast, in the order we discuss them:
Mom and I snuck in the night before the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) here in Boston — The museum’s annual Art in Bloom event at the end of April. This is always one of my favorite events of the year.
In case you don’t know what Art in Bloom is: It’s a weekend festival that transforms the MFA’s galleries into a floral showcase, with floral designers and garden clubs from across the region carefully crafting arrangements inspired by the museum’s artworks.
The MFA invented the “Art in Bloom” idea in 1976. Since then many other museums have taken up the idea (it’s a good one) and there might be a museum near you that does it!
“Visitors are treated to a sensory experience as they wander through the galleries adorned with imaginative floral interpretations. The captivating aromas of freshly cut blossoms fill the air, while the visual delight of artfully arranged blooms against the backdrop of world-class art stirs the imagination. The juxtaposition of natural elements with centuries-old masterpieces creates a dialogue that transcends time and medium, inviting visitors to see art from a fresh perspective.”
It’s also an invitation for selfies galore and just tons of photos in general. This is why we went the night before.
The main feature of Art in Bloom is the collaboration between floral designers and the museum’s curators. Each floral arrangement is carefully placed next to its corresponding artwork, enhancing the aesthetic experience and creating a captivating conversation between the two art forms. And a fun conversation to have with a fellow visitor about how/if the floral arrangement captures the artwork’s essence. There is no other time of the year when strangers are so willing to talk to you!
Art in Bloom is always a super fun experience. If a museum near you holds an annual “Art in Bloom” festival, be sure to attend. It’s an experience you won’t want to miss! Because these are real blooms, it’s always a short exhibit – 3 or 4 days. So don’t miss out!
Here are the photos from the podcast, in the order we discuss them:
The title of this episode is a bit of a double entendre. We’re going to discuss my personal art practice and the parts I’ve devised for it, but in doing so, we’ll also be discussing the framework I’m using for the online community: My Art Practice. On the podcast I begin by talking about where the idea for My Art Practice came from and then I talk you through the vision…
…the various parts of the core curriculum…
…and then what I think you’ll take away from the membership:
Reaching your art goals takes more than just techniques. It’s about creating an art practice that suits you, your schedule, and your goals. Don’t just learn art, make it a sustainable lifestyle. Create your unique journey with My Art Practice, because your art is about you. Join today.
154: Inspiration to Action with Carolyn Dube
May 23, 2024
We have a very special guest for this episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast: Carolyn Dube!
Carolyn Dube is a mixed media art explorer and educator who found freedom through play.
She explores the colors of the rainbow, avoids rules whenever possible, and lets the little kid inside her free as she shares her colorful journey.
You can find her sharing the play at aColorfulJourney.com, designing stencils for StencilGirl Products and teaching workshops.
On the podcast we discuss how to turn inspiration into action. Carolyn has been a guest on the podcast before – back in May 2020 on Episode 99: Carolyn says Oops. So, if you want more, go back and listen to episode 99.
And don’t forget that Carolyn is the Guest Artist during this cycle at My Art Practice.
This is your reminder to visit MyArtPractice.com on Monday, May 27, 2024 and sign up.
Ask yourself if what you’re doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow.
Let My Art Practice help you reach your art goals. The sign up period begins on Monday, May 27 and runs for one week. Membership won’t reopen until August 2024.
“Art can help us with our most intimate and ordinary dilemmas, asking: What can I do about the difficulties in my relationships? Why is my work not more satisfying? Why do other people seem to have a more glamorous life? Why is politics so depressing? The purpose of this book is to introduce a new method of interpreting art: art as a form of therapy. It’s the authors’ contention that certain art works provide powerful solutions to our problems, but that in order for this potential to be released, the audience’s attention has to be directed towards it in a new way (which they demonstrate), rather than towards the more normal historical or stylistic concerns with which art books and museum captions are traditionally associated. The authors propose that the squeamish belief that art should be ‘for art’s sake’ has unnecessarily held back art from revealing its latent therapeutic potential. This book involves reframing and recontextualising a series of art works from across the ages and genres, so that they can be approached as tools for the resolution of difficult issues in individual life.”
This is what he said about the 7 functions of art:
“art works can help us to remember what matters; they also lend us hope; they dignify sorrow; they expand our horizons; they help us to understand ourselves; they rebalance us; and lastly they make us appreciate the familiar anew.”
This is the Matisse painting I referenced during the podcast, “Woman on a High Stool”:
I stumbled across a post from Dr Louise R Mayhew on Instagram: @louisermayhew that blew my mind.
She shared a post with a cover slide that says: “Did you know that there’s more than one art world?” There are at least four she goes on to say:
Experimental
Traditional
Retail
Community
On the podcast Mom and I discuss the details of the categories as Dr. Mayhew lays out and add our own thoughts to the mix. I find it to be a really useful rubric. What do you think?
You guys leave so many great and thoughtful comments. Mom and I wanted to discuss them and I hope to make this a regular feature of the podcast. Keep the great comments coming!
Talking about your artwork effectively can enhance how it’s perceived and understood. Talking about it ineffectively can make people less interested in your work. One of the big keys is to consider your audience. Generally speaking, you’re going to be speaking to: Fellow Artists, Art Folk (Curators, Gallerists, Collectors, Etc.), or the General Public. During the podcast, we go over how to handle each type of conversation so that you’re understood and of interest to your audience.
“Putting yourself out there” refers to various strategies artists use to gain exposure, connect with audiences, and advance their careers. During this podcast we’ll talk about some ways to make the process of putting yourself out there easier – especially if you’re an introvert or insecure. Remember that putting yourself out there is a gradual process, and it’s okay to take it at your own pace. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small, and acknowledge the courage it takes to share your creativity with the world.
145: Abstract Art Likes & Dislikes: Part 1
Mar 21, 2024
In this episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I are discussing our likes and dislikes when it comes to abstract art. Here’s a peek at some of the art we are looking at in part one:
I recently asked my newsletter subscribers what was the biggest obstacle to their creativity and many people said: time.
Nobody has “free time.” But we all can make time for art. Even though my job is art-related, it doesn’t mean that I get to make art all day. I try to set aside at least 10 minutes a day to do some personal work just for me.
Let me help you figure out how to make time for art in your life. There are two stages of this process: identify the problems and make the art habit easier.
IDENTIFY THE PROBLEMS
Identify your priorities.
This is where you have to have a real talk with yourself. Would you rather scroll TikTok in bed or go make some art? It’s fine to scroll TikTok, but then don’t beat yourself up about it. Ask yourself what are your priorities? What would you sacrifice for time to make art? Is making art a goal or an aspiration?
Log your time to see what you really do in a day.
Keep a detailed log of your activities throughout the day. This can be done manually with a pen and paper or by using time-tracking apps or tools. Be sure to record everything you do, even small tasks or breaks.
Pay attention to what distracts you during the day. This could include notifications on your phone, social media, emails, or interruptions from colleagues or family members.
Review your time log at the end of the day/week.
Based on your analysis, pinpoint specific activities or behaviors that are wasting your time. This could be excessive time spent on social media, unnecessary meetings, procrastination, multitasking, or inefficient processes.
Make a Plan.
Once you’ve identified your time-wasters, take proactive steps to reclaim that time. Set boundaries around activities that consume too much time or are not essential to your goals. For example, limit your social media usage to specific times of the day or disable notifications.
You can also experiment with different time management techniques to improve your productivity and minimize time-wasting habits. Techniques such as the Pomodoro Technique.
Get a to-do list and a timer.
Set your timer for 25 minutes, and focus on a single task until the timer rings.
When your session ends, mark off one pomodoro and record what you completed.
Then enjoy a five-minute break.
After four pomodoros, take a longer, more restorative 15-30 minute break.
The 25-minute work sprints are the core of the method, but a Pomodoro practice also includes three rules for getting the most out of each interval:
Break down complex projects. If a task requires more than four pomodoros, it needs to be divided into smaller, actionable steps. Sticking to this rule will help ensure you make clear progress on your projects.
Small tasks go together. Any tasks that will take less than one Pomodoro should be combined with other simple tasks. For example, “write rent check,” “set vet appointment,” and “read Pomodoro article” could go together in one session.
Once a pomodoro is set, it must ring. The pomodoro is an indivisible unit of time and can not be broken, especially not to check incoming emails, team chats, or text messages. Any ideas, tasks, or requests that come up should be noted to return to later.
I use a variation of this method with a timer and art time. Just 10 minutes of truly focused time – usually in my art journal or sketchbook. My class “Art Journaling: 10 Minutes a Day for 30 Days” is based on this idea.
MAKE THE ART HABIT EASIER
Do it early in the day.
Every day starts with the best intentions, but it doesn’t always end the way I expect it to. I’ve learned that it’s best if I start my day with whatever art project I want to get done in order to ensure that it happens. The later in the day I wait for those ten minutes, the less likely they are to happen.
Truth be told, I’m most creative at night. But waiting until then has too many negative life consequences. So I make an effort to make art in the morning before I can start to feel guilty about the dishes in the sink or the phone starts ringing or I get sucked into a vortex of e-mail.
It’s not dissimilar from the theory of exercising in the morning. You have to do it before you have time to make excuses for why you’re not doing it!
Don’t try to create great art.
Pressure can be good. After all, they say that necessity is the mother of invention. But pressure can also be paralyzing. Don’t let yourself stare at that blank page, canvas, wall, whatever. Just plunge in and try something. If it doesn’t work, great! That means that you’ve learned something. This is where an art journal, a studio notebook, a sketchbook, or a bullet journal can be a great companion — a place for experimentation and risk taking, not a place to create beautiful finished art. Keep the focus on play.
Leave your art supplies out, if you can.
I recently rented space in a print shop with a press and it took me thirty minutes to set up and almost 45 minutes to clean up. Out of a four hour block of time, that’s significant. Taking things out and putting them away is super time consuming. If there’s any way you can find to leave a project out do it. If you don’t have a dedicated space, these are some solutions:
Baking rack and baking sheets – or even a tray that can be placed on a shelf or under a couch/bed
A rolling cart or desk.
A closet that becomes a workspace.
Do it in fits and starts.
Remember, ten minutes of art doesn’t all have to be in one block — two minutes here, five minutes there, it all adds up! And you don’t have to be in your art studio to make art. Car rides, waiting in lines, at a meeting, etc. The trick is to have projects ready for when you’re standing around:
What can you do on your phone or tablet? Analyze art?
Carry a notebook.
Have project bags packed and stashed.
Turn on artist mindset.
Take photos and use the notes app on your phone.
Give yourself accountability.
Join a challenge, grab an art buddy, come to Group Coaching with me. Find a way to create a deadline for yourself.
143: Is it time to change your social media diet?
Mar 07, 2024
You know how they say that you are what you eat? Well, I think you are what you consume on social media. Just like a diet you eat, what you visually and mentally consume can affect your mood, energy, and general health. And just like a regular diet, it’s personal.
On the podcast, Mom and I discuss WHY you might want to change your social media diet as well as HOW you can do it.
142: Personal Style & Self-Knowledge
Feb 29, 2024
Everybody always talks about finding their personal style. The single biggest key to that style is you. So your knowledge of yourself and understanding of how to put yourself into your art is key to having a style. So who are you?
I think there are five key pillars.
During the podcast I give you an activity — a series of 5 questions to answer – to help you discover your personal style.
The reason so many people say that the key to finding your personal style is to make art is because it’s true. But making and making without reflection is simply not that useful. The key – in this podcast – and for me – is to make art and reflect. And change because of that reflection.
140: Start Before You’re Ready
Feb 22, 2024
Embracing the Unknown: The Power of Starting Before You’re Ready
Starting before you’re ready is a mindset. It’s about the courage to dive into creative projects without the safety net of full preparation. During this podcast we will explore this concept and delve into its pros and cons. So grab a cup of coffee and let’s talk about mindset.
The idea for this podcast came from a simple email I received: “Review your personal creative ‘why’. Take some time to reflect and journal on why you create art and why you are committed to your creative journey. Display your why so you can see it every day.”
I had no idea why.
So I went on a journey and I finally figured out that I think it’s a Venn Diagram.
I actually learned a lot about myself through doing the exercises I suggest in the podcast. Here’s what I discovered:
Why I Create: Connection. I’m interested in connecting with other people. I’m interested in connecting disparate elements. I’m interested in connecting techniques. I’m in interested connecting ideas. I’m interested in connecting with myself.
As always, I hope you find the podcast both educational and entertaining.
141: Ellen & Karen on Design Boot Camp
Feb 08, 2024
On this episode of the Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I chat with Design Boot Camp grads, Ellen Goodloe and Karen Hall.
Ellen GoodloeKaren Hall
Ellen Goodloe is a painter. Not only does she use paints, but sometimes she incorporates textiles, threads, and papers into her creations, and uses a variety of techniques to include printmaking and collage. She is inspired by the world around her, desiring to transform the everyday, the seemingly mundane, into the extraordinary. Ellen lives on a lake near the ocean on the coast of Virginia in the US with her husband, 3 Maine Coon cats, a blind Pomeranian, and a toothless Chihuahua.
Karen Hall is a collage artist and bookmaker. The tactile nature of her hand-made art stands in sharp contrast to her actuarial career. As a Christian, Karen uses her art to support her spiritual journey, embracing the challenge of visually representing subjects that are not inherently visual.
These two talented ladies discuss what they learned in Design Boot Camp and who they think it’s a good fit for.
138: Julie’s “Constructed Exhibit” at the Library
Feb 01, 2024
If you’ve ever wondered how an art exhibit comes together…this podcast details all of the things that went into planning mine.
You can visit the exhibit webpage HERE to see all of the art in the exhibit and read a bit about each piece.
Some thoughts I have on what makes a “good” exhibit:
It’s good for you and good for the venue – meaning: you both get what you want. So what do you want?
It’s authentic to you. Andy J. Pizza/Creative Pep Talk Podcast – True not New.
A cohesive and well-defined theme or concept helps create a narrative or connection between the artworks. It gives the exhibit a sense of purpose and coherence.
Thoughtful presentation, including proper lighting, framing, and spacing, can significantly enhance the visual impact of the artwork. The physical environment should complement the art without overshadowing it. Organizing the artwork in a way that enhances the overall viewing experience. This includes thoughtful arrangement, consideration of flow, and creating a visual or conceptual dialogue between pieces.
Variety can make an exhibit more interesting and appealing to a broader audience. Diversity in artistic expressions adds richness to the overall experience. I did this really well by accident.
The quality of the artwork is fundamental. Exhibits that feature high-caliber, innovative, and well-executed pieces are more likely to capture the attention and admiration of the audience.
Museums often try to provide opportunities for the audience to engage with the art, such as interactive installations, artist talks, or guided tours. I’m hoping the guest book is a little bit of an interactive opportunity.
Educational Components: Including informative materials, such as artist statements, exhibition guides, or wall labels, can provide context and help visitors better understand and appreciate the artworks.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? There needs to be some effective promotion of the exhibit.
Ultimately, a good art exhibit is one that creates a memorable and engaging experience for the audience. As always, I hope you found this podcast both useful and entertaining.
Defining the skill levels of artists, whether they are beginners, intermediate, or advanced, is somewhat subjective. But here are the divisions as I see them (it’s important to note that you can be an expert in one area and a beginner in another):
Technical Skills:
Beginner: Limited Technical Skills
Intermediate: Solid Technical Skills
Advanced: High-Level Technical Proficiency
Composition:
Beginner: Limited Composition Understanding
Intermediate: Improved Composition
Advanced: Advanced Composition Skills:
Style:
Beginner: Exploring Phase
Intermediate: Developing Style
Advanced: Established Style
On the podcast we discuss some learning goals you might have based on your level:
Beginner: For a beginning artist, the focus should be on building a foundation and exploring the fundamental aspects of art.
Experimentation with Materials: Explore how different materials interact with each other.
Explore the basics of color theory. Understand the color wheel, primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Experiment with color combinations and how they evoke different emotions. Start with a limited color palette to avoid overwhelm. As you gain confidence, you can gradually expand and experiment with more colors.
Experiment with different shapes in your compositions. Consider both geometric and organic shapes and how they interact with each other.
Begin to understand basic composition principles such as balance, symmetry, and asymmetry. Explore how the placement of elements can create a sense of harmony or tension.
Embrace the notion that mistakes can lead to interesting outcomes. Be open to unexpected results and see them as opportunities for creative exploration.
Study the works of other artists. Observe their techniques, color choices, and compositions to gain inspiration and insights.
Reflect on your own work. Consider what you enjoy creating and what elements you find most interesting. Use this reflection to guide your future explorations.
Join art communities, either online or locally, to share your work, receive feedback, and connect with other artists. Remember that the beginning stage is about exploration and finding your artistic voice. Enjoy the process of discovery and don’t be afraid to take risks and try new things as you embark on your artistic journey.
Intermediate:
Explore and experiment with various composition techniques, such as balance, asymmetry, and focal points.
Develop a deeper understanding of color theory and experiment with creating harmonious color palettes.
Consider how the scale and proportion of elements in your artwork contribute to the overall visual impact.
Work towards developing a consistent style that reflects your unique voice as an artist.
Reflect on the meaning and intention behind your work, and consider developing an artist statement that articulates your approach.
Study art movements and artists throughout history to gain inspiration and insight into different approaches.
Advanced:
Continue experimenting with innovative techniques and processes. Develop your expertise in specialized techniques within chosen mediums, pushing the boundaries of traditional methods.
Develop a deeper understanding of the conceptual aspects of your work. Consider the underlying themes, narratives, or philosophical ideas you want to convey through your art.
Reflect on and articulate your artistic philosophy. What drives your creative process, and what messages or emotions do you aim to communicate through your abstract work?
Experiment with large-scale works and installations. Consider how the size and placement of your artwork influence the viewer’s experience and engagement.
Engage in research relevant to your artistic practice. This could involve studying art history, philosophy, or contemporary trends to inform and enrich your work.
Deepen the use of personal symbols or motifs in your work, creating a symbolic language that is rich in meaning and resonance.
Engage actively with the art community. Participate in exhibitions, residencies, and collaborative projects to expand your network and gain exposure.
Participate in critical discourse about abstract art. Attend conferences, write articles, or engage in discussions to contribute to the broader conversation within the art world.
Stay curious and continue exploring new ideas, themes, and techniques. The journey of an advanced artist is one of perpetual exploration and discovery. Remember that artistic growth is a lifelong process, and the most advanced artists are those who continually challenge themselves and remain open to new possibilities in their creative journey.
In this episode of the Adventures in Arting Podcast, Julie and Eileen delve into the intricacies of developing an artistic practice, emphasizing its dynamic and personal nature. The discussion unfolds in four parts, covering various aspects of an art practice.
Part 1: Introduction to Artistic Practice
Julie introduces the concept of an artistic practice, highlighting its multifaceted nature. She draws parallels between her art practice and other daily practices, such as exercise. The importance of consistency, routine, and the inclusion of both creativity and business aspects in an art practice are emphasized.
Part 2: Documentation and Capturing Ideas
The second part centers on documentation as a crucial aspect of an art practice. Julie stresses the significance of recording thoughts, ideas, and the creative process itself. She introduces the concept of a “thought feather” — fleeting ideas that need to be captured before they disappear. The importance of understanding one’s artistic language and building a visual vocabulary is explored.
Part 3: Field Trips and Gathering Inspiration
Part three delves into what Julie calls “field trips” in her artistic practice. Drawing inspiration from Julia Cameron’s artist dates, Julie emphasizes the necessity of stepping outside one’s comfort zone and engaging with the real world. Museums, nature, networking, and community-related activities are all considered as potential field trips. Julie encourages processing these experiences through writing or drawing to integrate them into the art practice.
Part 4: Reflection and Developing an Artistic Lifestyle
The final part explores the often-private nature of artistic pursuits and the challenge of finding a strong artistic community. Julie and her mom discuss whether everyone needs an art practice, with the consensus being that it depends on individual goals. Julie provides six steps for developing an art practice:
Define your artistic goals.
Consider your preferred process.
Balance routine and flexibility.
Embrace continuous learning.
Build a supportive community.
Evaluate and adapt.
In summary, the podcast offers valuable insights into the nuanced and evolving nature of an artistic practice. It underscores the importance of documentation, gathering inspiration from various sources, and the role of reflection in fostering artistic growth. The steps provided by Julie serve as a practical guide for individuals looking to develop their own unique and fulfilling art practices.
Be the boss of color. Join me for Practical Color for Painters! “Don’t try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.” – Matisse
In episode 135 Julie and Eileen discuss the importance of giving and receiving critique, emphasizing the need for both parties to be in the right mindset to hear and give feedback. They also highlight the balance between listening to feedback and not taking every comment to heart. The episode is packed with specific tips you can use for both giving and receiving feedback about your artwork. You can listen to the podcast or watch the video version:
Receiving a critique is an essential aspect of artistic growth, and how you approach and process feedback can significantly impact your development as an artist.
Giving a critique is a nuanced process that involves a combination of empathy, insight, and constructive analysis.
Empathy: Understand and appreciate the artist’s perspective, intent, and effort. Recognize that creating art is a personal and often vulnerable process. Approach the critique with sensitivity, considering the artist’s feelings and the significance of their work to them.
Positivity: Start with positive feedback. Acknowledge the strengths of the artwork to create a supportive atmosphere. Highlighting what works well helps build the artist’s confidence and encourages them to be open to constructive criticism.
Respect: Respect the artist’s individual style and creative choices. Avoid imposing your personal preferences on their work. Consider the artist’s intentions and the message they are trying to convey. This understanding allows you to provide feedback that aligns with their goals and helps them refine their expression.
Open-mindedness: Approach the critique with an open mind. Be receptive to different perspectives and interpretations of your work. Recognize that feedback is an opportunity for growth, and being open-minded allows you to consider suggestions that may enhance your artistic expression.
Focus on the Work, Not Yourself: Remember that the critique is about improving the artwork, not a personal attack. Try to separate your emotional attachment to the piece from the feedback you receive. Focus on the aspects of the work that can be refined or expanded.
Resilience- a kind of positivity: Cultivate resilience in the face of constructive criticism. Understand that receiving feedback is part of the creative process and not a judgment of your worth as an artist. Use critiques as a means to strengthen your skills and evolve as a creative individual.
Clarity: Express your thoughts clearly and concisely. Avoid vague statements and provide specific details about what you appreciate and what you think could be improved. Instead of general statements, pinpoint particular elements of the artwork that you find effective or in need of improvement. Specific feedback is more actionable and beneficial for the artist.
Clarification: If a critique is unclear or if you need more information about specific points, don’t hesitate to seek clarification. Engaging in a dialogue with those providing feedback can enhance your understanding and help you apply the suggestions more effectively.
Honesty: Be honest in your feedback, but do so in a kind and constructive manner. Honesty helps the artist understand areas for improvement and fosters trust in the critique process. Remember, the goal of a critique is to facilitate growth and improvement. You want to help an artist refine their skills but also encourage them to continue exploring and expressing their unique creative voice.
Reflect on Intentions-be honest with yourself: Consider the intentions behind your artistic choices. Reflect on whether your choices align with the message or emotion you aimed to convey. This self-reflection allows you to better understand the impact of your decisions on the viewer.
Constructive Feedback: Be specific and offer a path to success. Frame your feedback as questions or suggestions rather than right and wrong, allowing the artist to decide how to incorporate or respond to the critique.
After the critique:
Prioritize Feedback: Not all feedback may be equally relevant or applicable. Learn to prioritize the suggestions that align with your artistic goals and resonate with your vision. This discernment helps you focus on the most impactful changes.
Identify Patterns: Look for patterns in the feedback you receive. If multiple people highlight the same strengths or areas for improvement, it may indicate key aspects of your work that deserve attention. Identifying patterns helps you prioritize changes and improvements.
Take Your Time: Avoid immediate reactions, especially if the feedback is unexpected or critical. Take some time to process the information before deciding how to incorporate it into your work. This thoughtful approach ensures a more deliberate and intentional response. This is why I always try to write it down or record it.
Embrace feedback as a tool for improvement, and use it to refine your skills, deepen your understanding of your craft, and further develop your unique artistic voice. If you’re interested in regular feedback, you can join my monthly group coaching sessions, included with Super Learner Membership.
In episode 134 of the Adventures in Arting Podcast, Julie and Eileen explore the importance of creative reinvention, adapting to change, and connecting with new audiences. You can listen to the podcast or watch the video version:
Take Aways for You:
People Change: As people evolve, as time marches on, your perspectives, interests, and skills naturally change. Reinventing yourself creatively allows for alignment with these changes.
Circumstances Change: Covid was a great example. Embracing change and evolving creatively can help navigate new challenges and opportunities.
Staying Relevant: Stay ahead of trends, incorporate new techniques, and remain competitive. Lots of professions have continuing education. New inputs, new ideas, new techniques.
Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zones: Creativity thrives outside of comfort zones. Reinventing yourself creatively involves taking risks, trying new things, and exploring uncharted territories. This process can lead to valuable discoveries and breakthroughs.
Combatting Burnout/Rediscovering Passion: Long-term engagement in a creative pursuit may lead to burnout or a loss of motivation. Reinventing oneself creatively injects fresh energy into one’s work, preventing stagnation and rekindling the excitement and curiosity that initially sparked your creative journey.
Connecting with New Audiences: A creative reinvention can attract a different audience or demographic. By altering your creative scope, you may reach new people who resonate with your evolved style or message.
On today’s episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I are discussing making art in bursts. This is the concept that you don’t need two or three hours or a full day to get art done. You can make a lot of art in short bursts of time — 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there.
Be sure to listen to the end because we have a new segment: Listener Mail! I hope you enjoy the conversation. As always, you can listen to the podcast, subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch the video version on YouTube.
Here is the video that I mention during the podcast:
So many of you noted that you like the transcript. So once again, here is the podcast transcript:
Julie
Hello and welcome to the Adventures in Arting Podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I am a working artist and mother. On this podcast — together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsu-Balzer — We discuss all aspects of the artful, thoughtful life. Hey mom
Eileen
Hi Julie.
Julie
How are you?
Eileen
I’m good we’re having you know the snow is falling. The plow has come. I don’t feel trapped anymore so here I am. Where our topic today, which actually comes from a series of articles I’ve been reading about how even short really short bursts of exercise, meaning climbing a couple of sets of stairs or something, you know something like that only takes you 5 or 10 minutes, but it’s actually good for you in the way that doing a lot of exercise is good for you. They call it exercise snacks and I thought you can probably apply that to things other than exercise. Because I’ve always told you, for example, if something’s going to take 5 or 10 minutes, just go ahead and do it. Don’t keep putting it off like for example making your bed, or you know, putting your clothes away or making that phone call you’re supposed to make and then I thought, well, you can probably think of ways that it applies to art making. Because I think sometimes people are put off by the idea that they have to do like 3 hours…
Julie
Yeah, we’re really talking about art in bursts, right? And this is like the idea again that you don’t need two or three hours or a full day to get art done.
Eileen
Right.
Julie
You can make a lot of art in these little short bursts of time I’ve advocated for many years. The idea of 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. In fact, I think you can find a video on my YouTube channel — I’ll try to find a link to it — that’s probably about 10 years old where I showed how an art journal spread came together for me, doing basically 10 minutes a day over a week, which together is 70 minutes. Which is, you know, a reasonable amount of time to spend on making something, but I didn’t have 70 minutes altogether. I was able to just do it in the little bursts, which is a great way to do it.
And I also wanted to mention that we’re going to have a new segment at the end of the show: listener now. But I wanted to share one piece of the listener mail now because I think it’s relevant. Alice wrote in response to our recent podcast about organization and planning. She said: “Great talk as usual. Breaking organization down into small, manageable chunks is a big help for me. Otherwise, I get overwhelmed and just give up.” And so I thought that was right on point for what we’re talking about here. That basically, just like you were saying, you have always said to me — I’ve not always listened – if it’s going to take you less than 5 minutes, just do it now, and that’s what Alice is saying about organization too.
Next, before we actually get into the discussion, I want to just cover a couple classes that are coming up.
So design Bootcamp starts February 7th and I’ve got tons of stellar reviews that you can see from people who’ve been through the class. There are just a few spots left in the evening section. And this is a class that really teaches you how to understand how to make your art better, how to feel confident when you’re making choices. How to know what feedback from people is useful and what’s not? All that kind of stuff. So that’s a really exciting thing that’s happening.
I have a couple in person classes happening throughout the 2023 year, here in my home studio
Color Camp will be March 10 through 12. I was just prepping out some materials for that. We’re making some great reference books and all kinds of materials that you’re able to take home with you to be able to take everything you learned in class and really play with it.
Then Printmakers party June 23rd through 25. You’re going to be making stencils and stamps and screens for screen printing, and we’re going to be using them and layering them, and you’re going to take home all those tools that you make. All supplies, by the way, are included in these classes.
Eileen
These are gonna be the first classes you’ve taught in your house because you moved in and immediately you had a baby and then you had a quarantine, so…
Julie
Yeah, I actually scheduled some classes for 2020, but they didn’t happen obviously because of the pandemic though. Sad.
Finally the mixed media collage intensive in September. That’s a week or it’s five days the 11th through the 15th. It’s for intermediate and advanced students, so that means people who already know how to do collage and have some idea of where they’d like to go and this is a really intense class that’s focused on you creating a body of work during those five days. And there’ll be a lot of critique and conversation so I’m super excited about that, OK?
Eileen
People are afraid when you say the word critique. But they shouldn’t be.
Julie
There are, but they shouldn’t be, and I would say I would say the following: I mean, I grew up with the most the most….How do I say this nicely? You are so critical and yet so loving at the same time, and I think that that is something that I’ve learned about a critique, which is that nobody gets better if you tell them all the time, “Like, oh that’s so great, you’re so great.” But also, nobody gets better if you scream at them all the time. “You suck, you stink. Why are you doing this, why bother?!” There’s something in the middle. I should hope.
Eileen
Right?
Julie
Which is really about being able to say, like, listen: This is something I think is really strong about this and this is something where I see there could be some improvement. So for people who are in the group coaching program I run where — if you don’t know, once a month as part of the Super Learner monthly membership, we have a group coaching session. And when we do critique in the group coaching, one of the things is, I always ask people what is your question about this artwork? So it’s not like: “here’s my art. What do you think?” Cause like everybody’s got an opinion and you may not be interested, but you could say: “I’m really pleased with this piece, but I wonder if the orange line is too dominant?” That allows people to enter the conversation. That one is actually a conversation you want to have, right?
Eileen
Right.
Julie
And also to provide feedback in a sort of area that I think has like art terms in it that are not about taste.
Eileen
When I critique somebody’s writing, you know. I try to always say things like: Have you considered X or what do you think about Y? Because I think there are ways to say things that are more or less authoritarian. Nobody wants you to say: now do this.
Julie
Yes, so huge we talk all the time about how you shouldn’t say “you should put a red dot here.”
Eileen
Well, I remember one of your major complaints was when you took a….
Julie
I have so many major complaints how do you categorize them?
Eileen
You do. It’s endless. That you were taking a painting class at the Art Students League in New York, and the person — the teacher — actually just came over and started drawing on your drawing.
Julie
He painted on my painting! And I get it. Because like it’s the laziest teacher thing on Earth. It’s easier for me to just do it on your painting than to talk you through understanding how to do it. Because then I just…but I don’t think…at least I can’t learn that way.
Eileen
Right?
Julie
I can’t learn by you coming and fixing it. It’s like my son is in a in a place where he constantly says to me: “You do it, you do it. Can you do it? I need help.” And I am constantly saying to him: “You can do hard things. You can do hard things. Try it again.” And sure enough, if he keeps trying, he can unscrew the cap on the bottle. He can, you know, reach the thing. He can manage to get his shirt over his head or whatever the problem is, and I think it is that thing of…it sometimes feels better to have somebody kind of rescue you from the situation….
Eileen
It’s a lazy shortcut too.
Julie
It is, but then you don’t really learn how to do it.
You don’t get the sense of a accomplishment, and so I think that can be frustrating sometimes when I have students who are like, “well, what should I do?” And I almost always shoot it back at them in question form as saying, “What is your goal? What do you want? What do you think the problem is? Where do you…you know what I mean?” Because that, I think, is how you teach someone to be able to keep fixing it when you’re not there to answer the question. Anyway, we got totally off topic as usual.
Eileen
Back to art snacks.
Julie
Yes, by the way: The reason I didn’t want to call this episode “art snacks” is because there is an art supply subscription box called Art Snacks. And I thought that might get confusing, but it is a great catchy name for the idea of, you know, making art in little bursts. So that’s why I called it “art in bursts.” OK, OK, so art in bursts. Let’s talk about that.
So the example I gave previously was from art journaling, but I also — over the past like maybe three years — I’ve been using this “Art Parts” Theory to do a lot of the mixed media, collage, printmaking stuff that I do. And the theory of art parts is basically that you know, I know I’m going to need collage paper so I don’t sit down to make a piece of art and make the collage paper in that moment because, for me, that just is like a time suck. So I make the collage paper whenever I have time. The collage paper could be cleaning up a paint palette — like I was doing a video today and I ended up with extra paint. So I just made a bunch of collage paper because I have the paint out and I didn’t want to waste it. It could be the underpaper from where I’m working. It could be, you know, I feel like making…so I got some new stencils that I designed in the mail. I’ll make a couple of gelatin prints to just test them out and make sure they’re as fabulous as I know they are. And that will just become collage fodder so that when I actually sit down to create, I don’t have to do that step. Now, that said, there’s even more steps that you can shortcut, so I think a lot of people, for instance, think of having a sketchbook as a big fancy Michelangelo-esque experience, but a sketchbook can be a great place to just work out like a shape you want to use or a color scheme that’s interesting to you. A Design that you think would work. A thought that came to you in the middle of the night or in the shower. Random things that would be interesting pushed together. So that when…
Eileen
Right, and a note from something you’ve read.
Julie
Yeah, because I think…now this gets into the whole emotional labor conversation that I think this country is having right now about how women are doing the emotional labor, which is the idea that, you know, you may be 50/50 in terms of what you physically do in the house, but is the woman in the relationship putting together the list of who does what chores? Is she knowing, you know, the doctor’s name and the friends of the kids and the, you know, doing all that emotional stuff and I’m….
Eileen
She’s checking to see if you’re running out of toilet paper. Exactly that there are a lot of other items in her brain that she carries around.
Julie
Right, and that’s the emotional labor, and so there is an emotional labor to art making. And so the question is, like I think you can even offload that into bursts and that for me is the purpose of a sketchbook as opposed to an art journal. I think of an art journal. I mean listen, it’s all semantics. At the end of the day, but for me, the way that I have mentally divided my practice. An art journal is more of a place that, for me, is either a repository for sort of random thoughts that are personal, or I’m just sort of diarrhea, trying out, you know stuff to think about kind of morning pages. If you’re a Julia Cameron and the artist way kind of person. And it’s also a place to make things that are experimental but kind of more finished. A sketchbook is often a place for me to keep lists, weird little sketches I want….It’s more like a reference tool. I guess what I would say is an art journal is a place to like play and a sketchbook is like a reference place and so if I want to spend 10 minutes concentrating really in a focused way, I can probably draw out a bunch of thumbnails, think of some color schemes — like really think hard and then I don’t have to do that thinking the rest of the time, I mean, I find when I’m working on anything, I tend to work in bursts because it’s very hard to sustain your attention consistently, consistently, consistently, consistently, consistently over a huge work day. So like if I’m video editing, I could be intensely in it and then. I need to take a break. Go La La la around the room. You know or do a different activity and then come back to it because you just can’t focus extremely for, you know, a really long period of time so bursts can be a useful way just to sort of switch out of what you’re doing. You know what I mean? And to sort of trick yourself into coming back with renewed energy to whatever the task is.
Eileen
Actually, physically it’s better for you to get up and not just sit in one place anyway. A little walking around. You think you’re not doing anything or you think you’re avoiding, but in fact it’s better for your body.
Julie
Yeah, and I think a lot of people unfortunately have taken like. I mean, I do it all the time too. You take your social media break. You’re like: Oh my brain is overwhelmed. I’ll just look at my, you know, Instagram or my Tik Tok for like 5 minutes just to see what’s happening and then, like you know, an hour later, you’re like oops. We all have these weird pockets of time. So if you have this moment of time, how could you change it now? Often times right, I happen to be in my art studio, where I have that time, so I have my art supplies. But people have pockets of time all the time, so the microwave is going. 5 minutes. The air fryer is on for 10 minutes and you’re there. So like, one of the differences between me and my husband is I will use that time to wash the dishes, or you know, deal with the trash or get the counter cleaned. Or like do some other task and he somehow…
Eileen
Water the plants, exactly.
Julie
So it’s like he’s waiting for the microwave to end, he’s waiting for the air fryer to end. He’s just standing there on his phone and I’m just and, you know…I think people are the way they are and I’m not about to change him and I love him very much, but I’m always, like: What are you doing? That’s time you’re wasting. And so I think it’s like there are people who swear by: I brush my teeth and while I’m brushing my teeth I stand on one leg and then I stand on the other. And I’m doing exercises, you know, so I think, whatever it is that you’re interested in, you find a way to do it. I was actually thinking about meal prepping. Have you ever meal prepped, mom?
Eileen
Well, yes and no. I do meal prep, especially if there are things I can do in advance and then leave it for later, but if I’m doing a recipe I’m familiar with, I might not have to because I just know where this stuff is and I go there.
Julie
Well, I’ve gotten semi obsessed with some of the meal prepping videos and there are a lot of variations of how to do it right, and some of the things that I thought really correlated to art making, I’m just going to share with you. So one woman said she has three bins. And she only ever meal preps out three meals ahead because you just never know what’s going to happen further than that. And what she throws into each bin — She puts the ingredients — not made, but it’s like if it calls for tomato sauce, she puts a can of tomato sauce in it. If it calls for milk, she puts the milk in it.
Eileen
It’s too much effort for me, but I can see where for some people it would work.
Julie
So for her it makes it less effort because she like does it once every three days. She puts together whatever the dinner thing is going to be, and it takes her that time. Then when it’s actually time to make it, she actually like, has the recipe in the bin. She just grabs the bin. It has all the ingredients, doesn’t have to go looking for them. She also said that other benefit is nobody eats the ingredients for what she has planned.
Eileen
You know what? My version of that would be when I go to the store to shop because in my brain I’m not just randomly grabbing things, I’m prepping the meal in my brain as I shop.
Julie
Yeah, and I’ve seen a lot of people who have baker’s trays. Who have art studios and what they do is each project has its own tray and then it just slides into the slot. Or I’ve seen people do it with plastic containers or other things so that you just have like your project. You can stop halfway. Put it away. People who have — you know there’s all kinds of knitting baskets, ways to keep your knitting from unraveling or whatever. It is so you can stop it in the middle and move on to another project. And I think that that same idea people don’t think of that as a way of doing these kind of art snacks or art in bursts. But it is if you have a way that you can kind of have all the supplies for something or be able to stop the project part way. So maybe you don’t have the luxury of being able to leave it open on a table somewhere because you work in your dining room or in your kitchen or wherever else you’re doing your artwork. But you know, could you have a container that closes that, so that’s like a little sort of table and you put it away? Could you? Do you have space for a baker’s rack or some dedicated drawers where just a project could go so that you can just take the whole drawer out and bring it to the table when you’re ready to work? Part of the time that you’re wasting. And I don’t I, I mean, people don’t really waste time, but it is our most precious thing. So it’s like how can you more efficiently use your time? I guess is what I would say. And like if you can find a way to not be searching for your supplies. If you can find a way to not be wondering what the next step is — like, one of the things I do in my studio notebook, which is my version of a sketchbook, is if I leave the studio, I often just make a note to myself about what I was working on, what I was thinking. So that when I come in the next day, I don’t have to do the whole like oh, God where was I? You know it’s just there and I have found even that it’s easier for me at the night before I sort of plan out what I’m thinking of doing as opposed to coming into the studio in the morning and being like: There’s so much to do! It just makes for a more chill day if there’s already a plan, and that’s another way of — like it takes me 10 minutes to put together a plan for the next day, and it makes the whole next day better.
Eileen
That’s actually a plan for life also.
Julie
I think that’s true.
Eileen
It’s like thinking at night. What are you gonna wear tomorrow, and at least mentally getting it organized so that when you get up you’re not standing at your closet trying to figure it out.
Julie
Well, you used to tell me all the time: put it at the top of the stairs if it needs to go downstairs, put it at the bottom of the stairs if it needs to go upstairs, you know, put it at the door if it’s gotta go outside. If you’ve got mail you need to mail — like stuff it in the door so that you can’t open the handle until you grab that mail.
Eileen
It really works because if I see it, I’ll remember it.
Julie
Yeah, and so I’ve actually started to do that a little bit with things where sometimes I don’t feel like I can put everything away. This will be a big surprise to everybody who knows me, but I need to get my surface clean and I used to kind of just like make a big junk pile, but then I have like 50 junk piles and it was a big mess. And I know only if you’re watching this on YouTube can you possibly see the relatively clean floor with maybe only one pile behind me, which is fairly unusual in my world, and one of the things that I’ve been doing in 2023 — because it’s a brand new me — Is I have been trying to put piles in the general area where they go and then when I go to that area to take something out I see the pile and because it’s easy because I’m right there, I just go: oh, let me just take the 10 minutes and put this all away. And even though other people might be like: just put it away the first time, Julie! That doesn’t work for me, but I have found a way that it does work for me so that I can do it. And it is by combining like a small burst of cleaning the desk in an organized way, meaning just moving things out, sort of where they actually need to go, and then a later 10 minutes where I actually put it away. I don’t know why I can’t connect the two and make a little bridge, but I think this is the thing that’s so important to remember is you’re not going to change yourself. Like in some small ways, I think you can. But overall sort of who you are and the habits you have, it’s really hard to change. So the question is, can you find a system that’s going to work for you? Can you find a way to make it work for you? So for some people 10 minutes is not enough, although if I told you you have to run in place for 10 minutes, you have to hold your breath for 10 minutes or you have to hold a plank for 10 minutes…it might feel like a long time.
Eileen
I want to see you hold your breath for 10 minutes.
Julie
I want to see me hold a plank for 10 minutes.
So yeah, so I think like it’s, it’s all very relative. And the reason that I picked 10 minutes many years ago when I started “art journal every day,” which is where this whole idea of 10 minutes a day came from. Was because I was thinking, you know, if you say to somebody I’m going to be 10 minutes late, people are usually like: OK fine. If you say I’m going to be 15 minutes late, it somehow seems egregious. But 10 minutes doesn’t you know? If you’re going to a restaurant and it’s like gonna be a 10-minute wait. You’re like: oh, great. No problem. Somehow if they say it’s a 15-minute wait, you kind of like talk to your friend: should we stay? Should we go? And for 10 minutes — mentally at least – in my world seems like not that big a deal and everybody can find 10 minutes. I mean there was this whole 7-minute workout that I think they have — there are several apps that are the seven-minute workout and again, the idea is that everybody has seven minutes and that you can really create something greater with all these little bursts, you know?
Eileen
I have to tell you — I’ll have to reveal myself — that one of the things I do when I’m in zoom meetings….I usually have my camera off and my microphone off, except when I’m speaking. And you can do a lot of things while you’re listening to a zoom.
Julie
You can, I also often do. I often do cleaning while I’m listening to a zoom, because I feel like I don’t have to think a lot and I can still pay attention and I can interrupt cleaning at any point. You know what I mean?
In order to do it, I think again, like thinking about what are some things that you can do to break down a big task into little bites, you know. So to get back to the art parts. It’s not just the collage paper. I’ve also started to do things — like I tend not to use a white background. I tend to like something that’s colored, surprise, surprise, so I started to then pre-make backgrounds, because why do I want to have all that time where I’m waiting for it to dry? So I just get out the paint. And I make 8 at a time, you know. I mean, they’re done. Or I was talking to a client recently, a coaching client and she’s working on some wood panels, but she isn’t quite sure what the project’s going to be, but she knows she wants to be on wood panels. And I said just prep the wood panels now. It’s going to take you 3 coats of GAC. Don’t wait until you have the idea for the project. Do it right now so it’s ready for later, and I think there’s a lot of stuff like that. You know there are people who when they come home from the store, they immediately, you know, take half the chicken and put it in the freezer and the other half goes into the refrigerator and then they that’s their work done as opposed to sort of like having it in your refrigerator and then when you get out to cook it, then you sort of cook half, but then the other half you take put in the freezer and like it makes more work down the line. So if you know you’re going to do something, can you make your life easier by sort of prepping it out now in a short period….
Eileen
Or you make a….
Julie
…Of time.
Eileen
…Large pot of spaghetti sauce and then you put some in the freezer. And yeah, you have some. I mean I, I think applying those kinds of things to the making of art is really going to be handy for people who can’t just sit there for six hours.
Julie
Like we always make more rice than we need because we can always heat up rice or you know my son asks for pasta o’s every day of his life. So I just make him a big pot of Pasta, O’s and. We microwave as needed because it’s a lot faster than waiting for the water to boil every time because when you’re 3. Let me tell you, 10 minutes is a lifetime. OK, so you cannot wait that long for your pasta o’s.
So I think some other things that I do that I think are really helpful for sort of planning ahead of time and what did you do in those little snacky times? Is make a list. So the same way with like — if you had 10 minutes and you were gonna exercise, you might be like, well, what exercise am I gonna do? And that’s literally why all these apps were invented that will tell you what to do cuz people just don’t know what to do in their 10 minutes, right? So, and it’s the same reason people make the same meal over and over. It’s the same reason you end up arranging your kitchen the same way your childhood kitchen was arranged. Whatever it is, just because there’s a level of inertia there. You just know what to do so, you just need someone to tell you something different. So you can tell yourself –This is another thing you can write in your studio notebook, your sketchbook, whatever you want to call it, your bullet journal. What is a list of things that you need to do or want to do? You want to watch a YouTube video that you have saved? Great. You want to do some research into how to gelatin print? Great. I want to be clear that all of these are legit art activities that aren’t the making of art.
Eileen
I was just going to say, for example, ordering art supplies. That is a legitimate activity and it is something you need to do. But you may think that it’s not making art.
Julie
Exactly. Cruising Pinterest. If you’re doing it in a way where you’re looking for like techniques you want to try, a color scheme. You’re looking for patterns that are interesting. Whatever it is, you know? I mean, all of these things are art activities, but you can enhance their usability if you take the time to write things down. “I want to do this project that involves stenciling.” “Oh wait, I got this new soft gel gloss medium and I wanna do a couple of experiments to see what it will do.” So that the next time you have a weird pocket of time, you can be like: what’s on my list and you sort of glance down the list to see what’s interesting, and again, you didn’t have to do the emotional labor of coming up with that idea. It was just there for you and you went with it.
Eileen
And the important thing is, you took the time to buy or order the thing you wanted to try so it’s sitting there waiting for you and you don’t have to say: Oh no, no, I can’t do this for another three days.
Julie
Right! And I think the other thing about it is that you have now also created a situation where you can riff off of any of these ideas, because sometimes your first idea is not the best idea and one of the things is when you have a long time, you can kind of think down the train of ideas to get to the really good one that’s there, but when you don’t, it’s harder. However, if you have a written list you can come back later and be like: Oh well, I didn’t really just want to do stenciling. I particularly wanted to figure out how to do this reverse stenciling. Well, what do I need to do in order to do the reverse stenciling? I guess I need to go find a YouTube video. OK, well I guess I need to then get – they said you have to have this particular gel medium for this technique to work. So let me go get it. You know what I mean? It’s a train of thought that you can jump on to actually, I think, accomplish more. So in a weird way, I think that art bursts let you accomplish more because there’s not so much dead time in it. It also keeps you from being repetitive. We all get into ruts and doing the same thing over and over and over again because it’s easy and it’s comfortable. That’s why we eat the same meals. The same whatever. Wear the — I’ve been wearing the same clothes….
Eileen
Wear the same shirt right?
Julie
You know. And so the thing is…..
Eileen
I feel like if change your earrings, it looks like you’re wearing something different.
Julie
I’ll go there with you. I’ll go there with you.
Eileen
Even going to a museum, you know you shouldn’t have to think that: Ohh I have to go for like 2 hours to justify going. That’s what I like about being able to have some memberships.
Julie
Mm-hmm
Eileen
And I don’t feel compelled to get my money’s worth every time I go. But I mean they also have like free days, reduced admission days, various things. And I just think….
Julie
And let’s not forget about art galleries. Art galleries are a fantastic art snack most of the time. Galleries are not huge, they tend to be one to three rooms. You can see a lot in a very short period of time and be filled with some inspiration, and it’s very possible that when you’re running an errand, you can make a 5 minute jog, you know what I mean? Find an art gallery and if you don’t have an art gallery, libraries often will have little art exhibits. Schools often have art exhibits. All the time you can find public art all over the place. You know if it’s a mural or something like that, that you could find statues, sculptures, all kinds of stuff. I think you know a lot of times, I also find a nature walk — just even for a few minutes in my own backyard – Re-stimulates me and gets me sort of into the mood, and I think that counts again as like an art scene. Back as this art burst, which is like: Can I go out, get inspired, take a picture of a leaf or do a quick little sketch of something? Bring some piece of flora in with me to print, you know, and then boom, I’m up and going, you know, into a new idea. Although I will say this. I have, in the past, tried to collect leaves ahead of time as kind of an art burst thing like I’ll be like, OK, I’ll collect leaves today and print with them tomorrow. They really have to be fresh, in my opinion, because like half of them end up like dried up, curled up the next day and they’re not as nice.
Eileen
Can you bring things in on a branch? And put it in water and then….
Julie
Well, that’s a good idea. I haven’t tried that. Maybe I need to go out with clippers, I’m sure the neighbors will appreciate it.
Eileen
Your house plants.
Julie
I mean do I have house plants? I have some succulents. I’ve killed them through overwatering. Anyway, let’s not talk about that. It’s hard to do, but I wanna be one of the proud people who is capable of doing it.
Eileen
Sad, it’s hard to kill succulents.
Julie
I have both underwatered and overwatered succulents.
I do want to mention, while we’re paused for just a moment, that if you’re not a monthly member, there are three membership tiers over balzerdesigns.com/Classroom.
There is the Member level which is $5.99 a month. You get a live tream every month. A real time video and then a personal vlog about sort of my art and family life and how that all coalesces or doesn’t.
Then, the Maker member: you get everything in the regular member plus you also get every month an SVG and printable download. You also get the library of studio Vlogs and studio Vlogs are basically a deep dive into projects I’m working on or a day in the studio or all sorts of stuff like that. Plus you get a monthly Creativity Prompt tutorial video. That’s $14.99 a month.
And then finally the Super Learners. You again get everything in the previous two levels, plus you actually get the full library of all the SVG’s that have ever been published, all the printable downloads. You get a live group coaching session once a month. You get access to 16 of my work-at-your-own-pace classes, including the entire Getting Started bundle, which is actually only available to Super Learner members, and you get my junk journal classes, which is like a $400.00 value with all those classes together. And that is just $34.99.
You can cancel your membership anytime. But why would you want to? Because it’s so fun!
OK, so back to our discussion, mom. Did you have any other thoughts of how you use this kind of like theory in your daily life?
Eileen
Well, I’m actually trying to be more healthy and one of the things is just to move a little bit more so just before we began the podcast, I went downstairs to get some stuff and brought it up, whereas in the olden days I would have thought OK. Later when I’m going to bed and I’m downstairs, I’ll bring it up, but I’m now saying, OK, make a special trip. You know which isn’t that special? Getting the laundry and bringing it up, but it’s like not trying to streamline your life to the point where you just do the least possible. And I think that’s one thing, and it also helps you get stuff…Uh, through the pipeline so you don’t get stuck. It’s like emptying the dishwasher of the clean thing so you’re not stuck at the point where you’re trying to clean up and you first have to empty it. I’m trying to think in a more holistic way about what I’m doing.
Julie
Yeah, I think that this is again the thing of I end up in a dish rack problem all the time where the dish rack is too full because I haven’t emptied the dish rack but I need to wash the dishes or I’m emptying the dishwasher and there’s wet stuff that I want to put in the dish rack.
Eileen
And it actually doesn’t take you very long when you get right to it. You know usually like under 3 minutes it’s empty.
Julie
It’s a mental problem, and like I’ve been trying to get better about like going for the just again that microwave time the air fryer time, the toaster, oven time, whatever it is like. Just like take some stuff out of the dish rack and move it on. And even if you do it that way in like one or two-minute bursts, it is then empty eventually, and you know, hopefully everybody is kind of contributing to that.
This is a total random path that I’m going to go down now, but I just stole the phrase that I just used, where I said “contributing.” I saw a video which really resonated with me, which was a woman talking about how she has a son and she made a conscious decision in the last two years. Changed the way that she was raising him. Right, and so I, I think the way she phrased is basically like she was trying to figure out how people like Andrew Tate and these other sort of famous misogynists. How they get a hold of young men to believe these things that basically women are worthless, you know? I won’t say the other words. You know to be used by men and sort of thrown away? Like how did that happen and she was thinking about it and this is something that she started to do that I think is interesting and sort of not the way I would have thought about it, but I really like, which is: She doesn’t give him a list of chores ever because she says that makes her the household manager handing out jobs and then he’s good if he does his job, that she the woman gave him. Instead, she’ll say to him, like, what can you contribute to the household today? What are you going to do to contribute to the household? So that he has to look around for the tasks that need doing and understand that it’s not a chore. It’s a contribution that he’s making to the household, and if she feels that he hasn’t necessarily done it like she’ll come by sort of later in the day and be like, hey, you know, I feel like you haven’t necessarily made a big contribution to the household today. What’s something else that you can do? And I thought: it’s such a good mental shift in so many ways about understanding that the household responsibilities are everybody’s in the household and that it’s not just your job to do the task you’re asked. But it’s also your job to think about what needs to get done. And to see yourself as part of like a family team. And it’s such an interesting idea that just the simple idea of like a woman giving out tasks isn’t — is not like a direct line, but like is part of what leads to people being willing to see women as sort of like less than and just household dictators. And blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I thought it was interesting and so I’m thinking. I’ve just been thinking a lot about that word: Contributing, but anyway, so, uh, I think there’s also this notion of what can you….You could take it a little bit like what can you contribute to your art project today? Like what has done, what can you contribute to your art space? What can you contribute to anything else? Like looking around and seeing the tasks and the things that need to get done to get to the eventual….
Eileen
Well, to your art practice, so maybe it’s taking a few minutes to look at an art book that you’ve had that you haven’t looked at in a long time. I mean, in other words: Redefine. Broaden the definition of activities that you should do, which will improve your art practice, but don’t involve necessarily sitting down at your desk and taking out your brush and doing something like that.
Julie
Yeah, one of the things that Book Club has really taught me is I do a lot better with retaining the information in the book and being excited about it if I work on it in small bursts over time as opposed to doing like a binge through. If I do a binge through the book or I do like: let’s do this and let’s do this and let’s do this and let’s do this. And da da da. And do it all in like 24/48 hours…It may be fine or fun or I may pick up something, but it didn’t stay with me. If I do like a chapter here and a chapter there and a chapter you know — I’m much more likely to have it stay with me, so I think that’s another great thing.
Are you bursting to tell me anything else?
Eileen
Uh-uh.
Julie
OK, OK, Well then let’s do a little bit of listener mail to wrap up here. So there was a lot of feedback on our conversation that we had about books, audio books versus physical books. So I thought I’d share a few of them.
Robin said: Is a book the words and ideas or is a book an object. If someone reads with another sense such as feel. For example Braille, does that count as reading? The more avenues of literary release, the more people who get the opportunity to experience a book. I thought that was a great point.
Susan said that she read a great column on audio books. It’s called: “is listening to audio books really reading” and it’s from Wired magazine and she said: it certainly changed my hubs point of view when I read while weeding my garden. And I did look at that article and I will link to it. I found the article but….
Eileen
I’m sorry you had a funny sound when you said that you found the article.
Julie
I found the article a little defensive like that the person who wrote it was feeling defensive about audiobooks, but I understand that because I, in fact, have attacked audiobooks and other people have too. But yeah, I agree. Reading is reading and you know: More power to you. I know I’m prejudiced against audiobooks. It’s a personal problem.
Eileen
You know what really makes a difference is how good the reader is too.
Julie
Yeah, you said that last time and actually somebody commented directly on that, which I’m about to get to…hold on.
So Daisy says: when I’m listening to audiobooks, I’m usually doing something with my hands. I’ve often been surprised to find that in a month later, seeing a piece of art or embroidery or whatever I was working on while listening to the book will bring me right back to that book, as though the memory of the book ended up embedded in the memory of creating that piece.
Side note: that has happened to Me too absolutely with like podcasts and stuff. I can like hear them in the piece.
She says: about half the books I read this year were audio. I used to feel a little weird about audio books versus reading print books, but all the art and craft stuff was really eating into my reading time and I was missing out on a lot of books I wanted to read.
Laura says: our Book Club listened to Paul Simon’s audio only book by Malcolm Gladwell to see what we thought of a book made for listening. And Oh my, it was terrific.
You know what’s interesting, nobody criticizes someone for listening to music in a recorded way.
Julie
Eileen
No, you know it is different from like being present when the actual music is being played in front of you. But nobody says Ohh. That’s not really listening to music.
Julie
I mean, I think there are some jerks who do go around being like, well I heard them in concert in 84 or I guess nowadays I heard them in concert in 2007. But what I was going to say is: I’ve been doing a transcript of the podcast, you know, and I’ve had a lot of feedback recently that people love the transcript, so that’s interesting to me, because people want to read the podcast instead of listening to it. Even though it’s intended format is listening so. Anyway, OK.
Eileen
I’m wondering about that whether people actually do read the transcript, or whether there’s just something to scroll through to get to the end.
Julie
They do. Because it’s a lot. I would not do it, because it’s a lot of work for me, it takes a lot of time to try to edit. And what I was going to say is I’ve had so many comments and emails from people saying they really like the transcript, so I’ve been surprised by that. But I’m glad to see it, because again, more people getting the information = great .
Robbie — they left a comment just for you.
Eileen
Uh oh.
Julie
She says, “I, like your mom, perform all kinds of household tasks while listening to audiobooks. Tor Eileen, may I suggest listening to audiobooks narrated by Davina Porter. Miss Porter has one of the best voices for audiobooks. I feel the same way about not being able to listen to a book if I don’t like the narrator’s voice.
Eileen
In fact, I’ve been so irritated sometimes that I can’t even finish, which if you know me, you know that’s one of my bugaboos is not finishing, although I’ve been getting better at that cause the older I get, the less time I have to listen to a book I’m not interested in.
Julie
Yeah, I think it’s hard. And possibly it’s not the reader. Maybe it’s the book is bad. You never….
Eileen
I wonder who’s…I don’t know?… Be interesting to find out who selects the readers. You know, is it the author? Is it the publisher? Is it the….
Julie
I read an article that said that people who listen to the audio version of Spare — Prince Harry’s memoir — had like a heartbreaking experience, cause hearing his voice talk about it was very different than them reading it, because certainly you can take statements and other things and put like a whine or anger into it that maybe when you hear him talking about it. It’s not like that.
Eileen
Right, I think you pick up clues about the sincerity or the veracity of someone. It’s like the difference between interviewing someone on zoom or in person. It’s very different.
Julie
Yeah, but I mean it’s also the old like Nixon, JFK, TV, radio thing where it was just at the beginning of TV. And like people who watched the debates were clear that JFK had won and people who listened on the radio were clear that Nixon had won.
OK, so I guess it’s time for us to wrap up so. You can find me at juliebalzer.com or on Instagram as @BalzerDesigns. That’s also my name on Facebook and YouTube and everywhere else. Every Friday I send out a free weekly newsletter and if you’d like to help the show grow: You can always leave a review, mention us on social media. I’m so grateful for that. Tell a friend. All of these things help other people find the show, which helps us to grow. So thank you so much for listening and subscribing and we’ll see you the next time on the adventures in arting podcast.
Eileen
Bye.
132: Planning and Organizing
Jan 18, 2023
On today’s episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I are discussing Planning and Organizing. They are two separate things, in case you’re wondering. During the podcast Mom and I go into detail with our tips for planning and organizing as well as our own struggles in those areas. I hope you enjoy the conversation. As always, you can listen to the podcast on this page, subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch the video version on YouTube.
Here is the podcast transcript:
Julie
Hello and welcome to the Adventures in Arting podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I’m a working artist and mother. On this podcast – together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsu-Balzer — we discuss all aspects of the artful, thoughtful life. Hi, mom.
Eileen
Hello Julie.
Julie
How are you?
Eileen
I’m good.
Julie
Well, I learned something important because I have been for the last few podcasts. I’ve done transcripts because sometimes I think people like to read through the podcast and it’s easier to sort of look for a quote or idea that you’re missing. So I use a free service. And it’s auto generated and then I have to go in and correct it by hand, which is a very long process because it’s very messy. And also I say several verbal ticks which turn out not to be the word interesting. But instead I say “you know what I mean,” “like,” “you know” constantly. So my goal for this podcast is not to say that anymore.
Eileen
Julie
But what we’re actually discussing is not my verbal tics, but rather we’re going to be discussing planning and organizing. You know it’s the beginning of the year. If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking about like how to make 2023 a good year. Maybe some projects you want to get done and so Mom and I are going to offer some tips on planning and organizing.
I do want to mention some upcoming classes before we get started. I do have Design Boot Camp coming up — that is an online class, but it’s live so it’s conducted over Zoom. It’s a five-week class. You meet twice a week. And it’s an intensive class where you’re really getting into understanding the building blocks of making art. This is a class for beginners or advanced students. I’ve had people in it who are at the beginning of their art journey. I’ve had people in it who have MFAs, so it’s really more about getting into the nitty gritty of you & your style. What the art building blocks are and how to make better art. So you can find all the information about that at juliebalzer.com. Then I have 3 classes that I’m hosting here in my home studio. You are going to come here. I live just outside of Boston and the classes are Color Camp — in which we’re getting into the nitty gritty of how colors work, how value changes everything, how colors are relative, how to mix the colors you want, how to harness the power of color, how to create a personal palette, all that kind of stuff. Then Printmakers Party where we are going to be making stamps, stencils, screens, layering them, talking about how to design them, actually making them all in the studio and you’re going to go home with a pile of stamps, stencils and screens that you have made to use in your artwork. And then finally Mixed Media Collage Intensive, which is a class for intermediate and advanced students, and this class is really about you. Come to the studio for a week Monday through Friday and we’re going to be working hard. You’re going to be working on a series. During this class, it’s about taking your work beyond the copying stage and really into creating independent, unique work with your voice in mixed media collage. So I’m super excited. I’d love to see you at any of these classes. And now I guess we can kind of get started.
And Mom, the first question is what do you think the difference is between planning and organizing?
Eileen
Well, it’s huge because I can plan, but I don’t necessarily find I’m able to organize. Planning is obviously you’re doing it without doing it. You’re doing, you’re saying what you’d like to achieve. It’s like goals. Actually, organizing involves something that I’ve zeroed in on as my major shortcoming. I know it’s amazing that I would even have one, but here it is. I hate to throw things out. I put off decision making about it, so even when you do that thing where you have like keep, throw, donate. And maybe. I can never get to the throw phase, especially if there’s nothing wrong with the item. I I used to think it was because ohh, I paid some real money for this and I don’t want to throw it out, but I’ve realized that’s really not it. Because if I’m not using it, I might as well not have it anyway. It’s like if you get wedding china and you keep it in your cabinet and never use it. You don’t really have it.
Julie
Right, the good soap and all that stuff. And art supplies are that way. People keep the good art supplies for later, but it’s like what’s the point then? What’s the point?
Eileen
Well and also art supplies degrade, they do. Still sits there, but I just remember….revealing something here, uh, reading an answer in an Anne Landers advice column — some may not know who Anne Landers was, but she was one of these….
Julie
And Dear Abby was her sister.
Eileen
Right, it’s an advice column and it turned out there was someone who wrote in because her mother first covered the couch with a sheet. Then covered the sheet with plastic covers and the final blow was she was now covering the plastic covers covering the sheet with another sheet.
Julie
What’s the point in having the couch?
Eileen
Well, yes, I. I think the real issue for me is once I throw something out, it’s not that I sit around mourning it all the time. I forget about it. It sounds like a relief. But to just get to that point. Sometimes donate works for me because then at least I feel somebody’s getting it. Who can use it? I do feel that’s my weak spot.
Julie
You’re going to be dragging all your worldly possessions behind you and being judged for it.
Eileen
How about a giant funeral pyre? Maybe a ship that’s floating me out to sea. Sort of Viking style and also the stuff is loaded in.
Julie
Well, I like that because I think here’s the thing: I read a little bit about planning and organizing and the conclusion that I’ve come to is that planning is theoretical and organizing is practical. And so one of the things that happens is — and they’re so intertwined, right? Because if you try to do the practical part without the theoretical part, it just takes you much longer. There are a lot of mess ups. You somehow have to go back and fix things if you….
Eileen
Make mistakes soon.
Julie
Or if you just do the planning but forget the practical part of putting the plan in action. The actual organizing well then it’s just dreaming and actually, hilariously — I showed you today — this great idea that I’ve been talking about all week that I wanted to do. And I grabbed a bullet journal off my desk today thinking it was my current bullet journal and it turned out to be last year’s Bullet Journal. Sitting at your kitchen counter today I realized that the idea that I had this week is actually an idea I had in November of 2021. Same idea. Similar I guess. I would say that I simply planned — for it was all there written down, but I never actually organized and did it, so that was a major failing. So now of course that we have confessed to everybody that we are…..
Eileen
Flawed flawed people.
Julie
Human human, let’s discuss some tips for planning and organizing right? What are some things that you do that have been helpful to you? So I wrote mine.
Eileen
Julie
Now I left my piece of paper over there so I’ll be right back but you go ahead first.
Eileen
There is a tendency among some people, and I may include myself in that, thinking that a solution will offer itself if you have the right container, the right spot to put things you know. And that doesn’t always work for me. And sometimes I have the same dilemma once I have the container. What goes in the container? And what does not and where does the container go once the stuff is in it so? I find that I cannot rely on finding the right container to make things work.
Julie
Yeah, but that is a little bit about almost having the planning not actually lead to organizing — you think that if you go to the container store and shop for it then it will magically change your personality and you will put everything away. So that actually gets to….Let’s work backwards because here are my organizing tips…..
Eileen
Organizing tips I will just say right up front you are much better at organizing than I am. I hate organizing.
Julie
Why thank you. Maybe I watched you and was like wow. My mom is such a bad organizer. I better be better than her at it.
Eileen
Or else I would just say this. I organize up to a point — like my spices are sort of alphabetical but not really. But you know that the the A’s are all at one end, and then the C’s, and then the D’s, but within those alphabetic letters, it could be a mess.
Julie
But I would say you’re a super planner, and I think that’s part of the reason that you’re not necessarily an organizer. Like when it comes to a trip or a meal or an anything, you’ve got a plan. I’ve seen the post its for the meal where you figured out you know what’s going in when. I know the index cards from when you would have dinner parties and you would know what you had served people, so you wouldn’t serve it again. You know, that’s a kind of planning. And I kind of thinking about things for trips when we were growing up and you would have to pack you and me and Matthew, you know. And sometimes dad too. It’s that is planning whether you know the organizing is there or not. I think sometimes if you’re a really good planner, you can get away with winging the organizing part of it because you have such a strong plan, you know?
Eileen
I also have organized things like a concert series for the town or which I used to do, or meetings various meetings for different boards. I mean, I can organize those things cause I don’t have to throw things out. I mean I really am giving this topic some thought before we came on here.
Julie
That’s it.
Eileen
That’s really the crux of my issue.
Julie
Well, I think that there’s the plan, so organizing community. Two things really right organizing can mean the arrangement of items, right? That’s sometimes what we’re talking about when we’re saying that donate throw away you know what size container drawer, but there’s also the organizing which is taking a plan and implementing it for people. Or for your….
Eileen
That I can do.
Julie
…trip or something like that, and I think those are two different things, so I think. That is important clarity. So I know I said we were to start organizing, but now I’m backtracking. Based on our conversation. So let’s talk about planning because that is I know, a strong suit and we talked a little bit about. I hinted at some of the things I know that you do for planning that are so good and I have three things for planning that I think work, whether you’re planning to reorganize your craft room, make a meal, go on a trip, start a video series — and the first is to write it down.
Eileen
Yes, and the older I get, the more I need to write it down, that’s for sure.
Julie
Well, the only thing is to remember that your plan may not come together in one brilliant flash of genius moment and you may need to build it over time and I find — back to the bullet journal. That writing it down means that I can refer back to it — that I can go back to it — that I can keep adding to it. That time can be a player — that I don’t need 12 hours to figure out the plan. I can have a burst of thought, a burst of thought. I think it works, yeah. A burst of thought. So I think that writing it down is really a key. And also sometimes — this is why I think we’ve discussed this before — but the reason talk therapy works is not because the therapist is a magician. But it’s partially because in trying to explain yourself or your situation to a stranger. It forces you to go into some thoughtful sort of detail about the process or why you’re there, or how this person is or. Any of that kind of stuff? So you kind of come to your own realizations in that process of trying to explain it, and I believe that writing is the same way. For instance, when I try to write a tutorial, I immediately — within the written instructions — realize the amount of specificity required. You know which layer to do first. You need to use your left hand to hold it while your right hand does something else because you have to really think when you write and so I think the fact of keeping a record…go ahead.
Eileen
You have to think about what the other person doesn’t know, yeah.
Julie
Yeah, when I first started writing my blog, you always said to me think about me.
Eileen
Meaning you the ignorant non artistic person.
Julie
And so that was the audience that I wrote for. I thought, well, my mom doesn’t know what this supply is? I better go all the way into what that means or she would be lost, but now you know too many things so you’re not useful to me anymore, see.
Eileen
I can go off into the woods.
Julie
So then sort of related to me, to writing a list, is my second tip, which is making a checklist and the reason that I think writing it down and making a checklist are two different things and I will use the example from today that’s a real world example: I made a list of 52 videos that I want to make in 2023. But it’s not in a format that is the order I want to do them in, or a format that is sort of like a very like. What are the steps that I need to make each of the videos. So a checklist is kind of once you’ve got your big brain dump out, it’s boiling it down into the steps that you need to take, right? That’s the planning.
Eileen
Well, part of the issue with that project is that you don’t know that people are going to be watching them in the order that you make them. Yes, and you so you are not setting up a class where they have to go through them in order to get to the point so each video has to stand on its own and people will pick and choose.
Julie
Right and yet there are topics where it’s kind of like a tree, so it’s easier if I do a video about collage to say if you want to learn more about gel medium, watch my video about gel medium as opposed to having to explain in the collage video also about gel medium. Or if you want to learn more about making your own collage papers in this collage video, watch my mark making video. So then thinking what skills might somebody want to have before they watch this video, even if they don’t watch it in this order. Being able to then refer people back, so it’s a whole. It’s a tree, right? Complicated tree.
Eileen
Well, let’s go back to your theater background. When you’re directing a play, you have to assume that the audience comes and they don’t know anything about the story or the characters or the time, and you want to and unroll things in a certain way.
Julie
Well, see we always used to joke that the worst plays start with exposition. “Oh, Cynthia was it’s not six weeks ago that we were sitting here chatting with Alfred and his wife, and now they’re both dead in the most tragic way.” And you’re like, OK, I understand. So Alfred and his wife died tragically. Let’s go.
Eileen
I think what’s interesting, you know, this movie that just came out, Glass Onion, which is a mystery, kind of and without giving a spoiler — halfway through, the time stops and you’re suddenly back in the previous time and so then you see things in a different way. When you do that, you’re conscious that that’s supposed to catch the audience unaware. To surprise them. You don’t just do that casually, and I think the point is, the point is to make a point that things are not what they thought. Otherwise you would never do that. I think one of the things that you learn if you watch Someone Like You directing a play. Or your brother who writes screenplays and has directed films, is that after they’ve finished, after you’ve finished, you actually look at what you’ve got before the audience sees it, and you figure out where are the holes? Where are the awkward places where it’s assumed that people understand something, but they don’t? What needs further explanation? You know what I mean? To make it make sense? So that’s a form of organizing thinking.
Julie
It is. I think organizing your thinking is what planning is, which is kind of a weird thing, since we’re saying that organizing is implementing planning. But planning is mental organization and part of that is just because these words get very overused right? So in fact somebody — I wrote this down — Somebody said that perhaps organizing should be called coordinating.
Eileen
Could be.
Julie
And that goes again back to the thing you were saying about you can coordinate like a trip or a big plan or an event or a party, but you don’t like to organize. Let’s say your junk drawer….
Eileen
Yeah, I don’t like to look through my closet and throw out things.
Julie
Right?
Eileen
And it turns out that some of that is working out in my favor because during this whole quarantine and pandemic thing, I’ve been shopping only in my closet. I’ve found all sorts of things that I forgot. And I like.
Julie
It can come back in fashion too.
Eileen
That makes you feel like, oh, I can’t throw things out because two years from now, I might want to wear that — which is idiotic.
Julie
Oh yeah, I have the artist version of that which is like I’m constantly afraid to throw things away because then I will immediately need it for some sort of art project, yeah?
So my third tip — we have, write it down, make a checklist. My third tip for planning is to plan for error. What does that mean? So chances are you haven’t actually thought of every mistake that could happen, but. Let’s say you’re buying bins at the container store. Plan for an error. Buy an extra bin or make sure it’s something that’s not a special order that you can get easily if you need it to run back to the store for one more or six more, you know, plan for error. You know, sometimes I will say I need 6 outfits for this trip, and then I’ll throw in a 7th. Because I’m planning for an error, a problem of staying later or whatever. It’s kind of a thing about we’re heading on a family trip. And do I pack one extra outfit for my son in the carry on or do I pack two — planning for error and hopefully never use either so that there’s no throwing up, no pooping? No, you know, major problems there.
Eileen
Don’t worry about that, he won’t do any of that.
Julie
OK, so you’re saying no changing. No change of clothes for him in the carry on. No change of clothes for me and Steve in the carry on. It’ll be 100% fine. He’ll be an Angel.
Eileen
As long as I don’t have to sit next to you.
Julie
OK, so those are my three planning tips. I don’t know if you have additional planning tips before we get into the organizing.
Eileen
I don’t know if it’s planning for error, but to avoid errors like don’t be lazy, measure things you know. Like the other day I was in Staples. And I started to say, oh, I’m looking for a bin for the kids. Is this bin big enough? Is it deep enough? And what I should have done was measure. So I didn’t get anything, I mean. The price I’ll pay is I’ll have to physically go back, which can be done right? Wasn’t my one and only chance to get a bin but measuring is huge.
Julie
It is and I also think troubleshooting beforehand, so this is something that I think teaching and teaching online has also really taught me because I have to kind of anticipate what people’s questions or problems might be. So one of the reasons….
Eileen
Although there’s always a surprise.
Julie
There’s always a surprise nonetheless. But for instance, one of the things I didn’t know that I needed to teach people, for instance about the ScanNCut, was you have to put the blade into the machine. I had just assumed that everybody knows how to put a blade into the machine, which of course is a stupid assumption. You know what they say about assuming things. So I have now learned that that has to be a part of my schtick when I go through something is putting the blade in and out. Or there are error messages that I never saw because I didn’t make those errors. But through teaching, I’ve learned what the error messages are. So now I can tell you if you get this error, it’s this. If you get this error, it’s this if you get this…and I will say all of that in a video so hopefully catching someone before they have the problem.
Eileen
One of the things that I learned, which is similar, was when I was running a children’s theatre and when you would have these registration forms, you have to say things more than once. And people still don’t read it. And they will ask you that question or they will make that mistake. So if it’s really important, it’s in bold and it’s more than once.
Julie
Yeah, 100% people don’t read and then as annoyed as I get when people don’t read and I write back with the instructions that I have already sent to them. I also am that person. So for instance, my son has been taking a dance class and I switched him from the dance class at the same dance studio to a tumbling class.
And I got two emails saying your child is currently enrolled in…and one was for the dance class and one was for the tumbling class. So I immediately, you know, emailed back and said this is wrong. He should only be in tumbling and the woman wrote back right away and she was like. “Yeah, he is only in tumbling, this is an automated thing because his dance thing expires, you know, at the end of the year and the tumbling begins at the beginning and there’s just this weird overlap here.” And if I had really read the e-mail and like looked at the attachment, it does have the dates on it, but I just saw the words enrolled in and enrolled in and you know, sent off my e-mail saying this is wrong, so yeah, people. You don’t read and I think one of the most interesting things that I did in 2022, and I think this is a fair use of the word interesting. Is I participated in a branding mastermind and the first exercise that we did as a group, is we looked at each others’ websites & social and said this is how I see what you’re saying about your brand. And for a lot of people they were shocked. That’s not my brand. That’s not what I meant, that’s not what you should see. We don’t always realize what we’re putting out there, and as we as we talked about it more, we all realized that, Oh yeah, I have this in my about section, but it’s not on my homepage or it’s on my homepage, but it’s not in my things to know or shop policies needs to be on every single page of the website. Even a non-shopping page. There are these things, and so I mean another example I’ll give you is, I’m staying at an Airbnb. I had to sign this whole thing about it. I contacted the Airbnb person today and I said oh it has a whole thing about not being able to have visitors. I said, you know, possibly like my brother, who you know, lives in the area will come by with his family and she was like yeah yeah yeah no problem. It’s just we’ve had a bad experience. So we had to put the rule to avoid parties, but that again is about like people not reading. You know the fine print, whereas now in this case I was like very sure to read the fine print and her being like oh, you don’t need to read the fine print, so it’s always so hard to know when to do it and when not?
Eileen
But that’s getting back to organizing. I sort of think of this list part. In the beginning, as like making an outline, you know when you are in elementary school and they teach you to make an outline of an answer or an article you’re going to write, or whatever a paper. And that forces you to think in this logical sequential way, and I think the way that’s useful to me writing this list is to kind of. For you know these are the three major things I’m going to do, and within each section, this is how I’m going to achieve that. Or this is what I’m going to look for, or this is what I have to buy so. I think actually, people who can do that have more facility at computers because computers actually force you to think in that way too.
Julie
That’s interesting that you think that I’ve never thought of a computer as forcing me to think in a linear way.
Eileen
Oh yeah, yeah, first you click this and then you will get this message and then you have to decide you want this or that. And then I mean it, it really does. It’s a kind of thinking.
Julie
It’s so interesting because I often think the thing about computers that’s fun is that there are multiple ways to get the same thing done.
Eileen
Yeah, it’s like make your own story, but that is multiple ways is different from the way you choose and what I’m saying is it’s not it, it force it, or at least it forces me. Like filling out a form. Which I did the other day. It forces me to go in a sequential way or this signing up to get your COVID tests in the mail from the government. You have to go in a sequential way or….
Julie
OK, so speaking of sequential, last night, I was editing the transcript from the last podcast we did and I was starting to get really tired and bored so I needed to trick my mind. So instead of going sequentially, I started editing backwards. From the end of the podcast, so that I would read like one sentence and then go up one sentence. So like we and it actually by going non-sequentially, it kept me more actively interested and able to do it even though I was tired. So yeah, sequential thinking versus non sequential is kind of an interesting — There’s overuse, maybe of the word again, but is a compelling difference to look at.
Eileen
That’s true.
Julie
But some of that also comes into the way that people work on art. I think there are people who like to have a system and a plan when they go into working on a piece of art. And there are other people who are all over the map. Kind of doing whatever. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong about which way works. It’s very much about how your brain works. Does it take the pleasure out of it, if you have to have a plan, a road map going in? Or vice versa, does it take the pleasure out of it, if you feel out of control and sort of don’t know what’s. Next or what to do?
Eileen
Well, one of the things that forces you to have somewhat of a sequential plan is knowing what their products can do and cannot do so. If you know that something can’t go on some other substance, you will know you have to do it in a particular order.
Julie
Yeah exactly well, now that we’ve sort of jumped into organizing. I got 3 tips for organizing too, and again I think that this kind of organizing works for any kind of physical organizing. I’m not talking about organizing like people or anything like that, so the first tip is to — it’s related to the write it down — and the first tip is to label. If you were to open my refrigerator, you would see labels. Not that my husband pays attention to them. But he’s supposed to.
Eileen
You know your Brother does that. He came once and organized all the shelves and put labels and wanted to strictly keep people from put….You know you can’t put the dairy thing here. It has to go here and I just thought Ohh God.
Julie
Well, that’s your refrigerator. He can’t tell you what to do in your refrigerator. He can do what he wants in his refrigerator. But I think I do it in my art studio, which I’m in every single day. And even though I know where everything is, it’s still labeled because there are other people than me in this space, and I do forget about some things, and I think it’s useful always to label, label, label. It also helps you to really drill down to what is in that container. Is it paint? Is it fabric paint? Is it Jaquard fabric paint?
Eileen
Yeah, you’re categorizing.
Julie
Yeah, you’re categorizing and I think that’s really important. So label label label because it makes it easy to find, easy to put away and it helps you to mentally categorize what it is that you’re doing in that organizational space. The second tip I have is making it easy to put away, which I kind of already mentioned. A lot of people make beautiful systems. Gorgeous systems things that are so lovely, but are so arduous to clean up and put away that I just will never do it. Then it will end up in a pile on my floor and I’ve absolutely found so…whether it’s my closet or my art studio or my kitchen, if it doesn’t have a place to live where it can easily be put away, it immediately becomes a barrier of junk, a pile of something that’s just there, and so you know we had a problem in our bedroom where we just kept having piles of clothes dripped over the edge of the bathtub in our bathroom. And we finally figured out it’s because we didn’t have enough storage space for stuff and we had to get another dresser in order to just not constantly have the problem of just clothes everywhere cause you just couldn’t fit anything. And I think I’ve noticed it in my art studio all the time. If I get something new, especially if it’s big, it’s a huge: “Where where does it go? I don’t know.” So it has to have a home where it’s easy to put away.
Eileen
Julie
This alphabetizing space thing, as long as you can do the alphabet and put it away, generally in the right spot then. It’s easy to put away, right? But if you have to reach behind the L’s to get to the P’s Like it just doesn’t work. OK, so then my third and final tip for organizing is to use a system that works for you and in my sentence here I wrote system in capital letters because I think that there’s sort of two tips in one. The first is to. Use a system. As opposed to a random Piggly Wiggly, the system could be rainbow order. The system could be alphabetical. The system could be numerical order, the system could be your own special brain power. How you know, however, it works for you, but I think a system makes everything a little bit easier and then that works for you. This is back to: it’s your refrigerator, not Matthew’s. He can organize his refrigerator the way he wants. You can organize your refrigerator the way that you want. I like to put, for instance, in my suitcase. I like to put everything in those little zipper cubes. For my brain then I just know, oh, this is the cube that has pants. This is the cube that has shirts. This is the cube that has underwear and I don’t have to think about it. Everything goes into the suitcase and out of the suitcase super easily. Steve just shoves everything. Into a backpack. That’s his organizational system. It works for him.
Eileen
I feel like it might work for me. I might need to buy some cubes.
Julie
They’re awesome. They honestly. When I was traveling a ton a ton a ton, they saved my life all the time because I immediately could tell what was missing or I knew where something was. I could unpack into, you know, 20 seconds and repack just as quickly. It was so convenient for like sizing up sizing down on trips. So it’s great cosmetics, jewelry, whatever it is can all just go in a cube. I love it. I’m a cube salesman now. OK, so those are my 3 organizing tips. Labels. Make it easy to put away. Use a system that works for you. Do you have other organization tips?
Eileen
Well, I have a tip that works for me. Get someone….
Julie
Someone else to do it.
Eileen
…Patient person now to help you because it’s what’s intimidating. Doing things alone becomes slightly less because a lot of my thing of throwing things away. Is not. Realistic or logical, it’s kind of emotional and this person a very understanding person considers you really think you’re gonna wear that again, you know what I’m saying and I used to save things, for example for that children’s theater. And I would say, oh, I don’t wear this anymore. But it would look great in a play on a stage and I I have to now stop myself from saving things for other people, so I mean. The other person is a good kind of Talisman. Reassuring person who can say it’s OK, throw it out.
Julie
I think that’s true, and I think like I believe in professional organizers. I think they can be really helpful. My only caveat is again with the system that works for you. Some organizers have a single system that they just slot on to everybody and tell you to use it. If it’s a system that doesn’t work the way your brain works, you will never use it and it will fall apart and this goes back to the idea of a personal trainer could give you a program. A great program that is guaranteed to make you lose weight. If it has to start at 6:00 AM and you’re not a 6:00 AM person, or if it takes an hour and a half and you only have 40 minutes every day to do it. Or if you don’t, you know what I mean. Like if it doesn’t fit your lifestyle and what you’re willing to do. You’re just not going to do it, no matter how fantastically perfect it is. It’s the same thing as I always warn people before Design Boot Camp. I say this is intensive, that’s why it’s called boot camp. It is an intense experience. If you are not ready to really have that intense experience, this is not the class for you and the reason I do that is once again because, it has to work for you. If it doesn’t matter that it is the greatest class on earth, if it doesn’t work for you. So always just being aware that you understand the system that’s going to work for you or at least have a general idea, and that’s maybe the planning. You might not need help with the planning, but you do need help with the organizing or even help with the planning. Maybe it’s thinking about the planning, but not somebody giving you the plan.
Eileen
Right, no being emotional support and answering your questions. And encouraging you and the good impulses and….
Julie
And maybe doing the physical labor of it.
Eileen
Are you volunteering?
Julie
I did remember when Caleb and I helped you after your closet. Maybe when I was….
Eileen
That was quite a while ago.
Julie
Long time ago, maybe 20 years ago.
Eileen
One of the things also is break things down, because if you go and you see this whole room full of stuff that you have to organize, you’re never going to do it, or I’m never going to do it. But if I say OK, this drawer, the junk drawer I’m going to just organize this one. It’s more doable. Last year I had a thing where I was throwing out like 1 Magazine or two magazines a day because I have a million of them. I mean, it’s not so bad that I have like tunnels to walk through, you know?
Julie
Not quite a hoarder house, but yes.
Eileen
But I but. I have a lot of magazines. And this year I’m still throwing things out.
Julie
I have to tell you there is an item that was, so I’ve been the auctioneer at my local quilt guilds auction for like. The last three years, and there was an item that I wanted to bid on, but I think it’s bad form to bid on an item when you’re the auctioneer and a woman had….It was a lot, like a laundry basket full of tins, as in like old cookie tins and all sorts of nice old tins and I can imagine 1000 different things that you could do with them. And I suppose I’m young enough that I just don’t have any, and they also don’t sell a lot of things in tins anymore, really.
Eileen
Right, right?
Julie
So I just don’t have any tins and I thought that would be great. And it was amazing to me how negative people were about all these tins and part of it is that I’m at least 30 years younger than 90% of the Guild, and so maybe they have accrued more of these tins and don’t and see it as just more of what they already have, but that that laundry basket of tins has been like….
Eileen
It’s haunting you.
Julie
A white whale. It is. It’s haunting me because I often — when I’m looking for a container or storage I’m always like, I wish I had…I wish I had bought that laundry basket of tins. Which is so stupid, but it is again that person who had them obviously couldn’t throw them away. There’s nothing wrong with them. Someone would have liked them. They’re generally not the kind of thing that people will take as a donation. You know it’s a very specific kind of thing, and figuring out how to not let them go to waste?
Eileen
You can have some of mine.
Julie
Oh good. I will take you up on that then. Yay. Presents for me! OK, anything else you want to say about planning and organizing?
Eileen
I just feel like it’s not a wasted effort to plan, even if you never move to the organizing because it….It means you’re thinking about problem solving in your life. And maybe you don’t end up organizing, but you start to realize: Well, so I don’t save all these magazines. Because I know that eventually there’ll be a problem and I’ll have to throw them out or I just think it’s not bad to assess and every assessment of whatever it is doesn’t have to lead to immediate flamethrower on the whole thing. You know what I mean? You can take your time and then you will get to it. The other thing is, as I get older and I think about when I die, I’m going to leave this house full of stuff. It’s going to be an incredible burden on my loving children.
Julie
I mean, not Matthew, he’ll flame throw it, but me, yes, I’ll pick through everything. And weep over it.
Eileen
So it’s another thing to keep in mind, excuse me.
Julie
Well, so several New Years ago, many many years ago now, I guess, we went to a fancy resort spa place and we went to a lecture there that was about resolutions, which is a normal thing that people do around years end and also certainly a fancy health retreat spa thing to do as well, and something that the guy said has really, really stayed with me. He asked each of us basically to write down an intention, something we wanted to do that next year, and then he gave us envelopes and we addressed them to ourselves and then he said he would mail them in about a month or something like that so we could see whether or not we had….
Eileen
Longer than that, even.
Julie
Was it? I don’t even remember how long it was, but yeah, so and the thing that he said to me though, that was the most powerful was, He said basically: don’t kick yourself if you don’t get it done. Because the failed attempt is actually part of the process of getting it done.
Eileen
And sometimes you have to take the time and think about the failed attempts at to get motivation to do it.
Julie
Right and each time, it’s like you inch closer in some way. It’s almost like OK so I mean what is the number one resolution that most people make: to lose weight or to get healthier or to exercise more, to eat better? Or some version of that right? And so the thing is, maybe you run into an obstacle so you stop doing it and the obstacle might be that you’re starving when you get home from work and it isn’t until six months, a year, two years later that you change jobs or you figure out how to prep meals so that you can have something healthy or that you weren’t able to identify that obstacle until you had the goal and failed. And so I always think of that, whenever I make a plan, whenever I’m thinking of something like that. Because I realize that — again, it’s not a waste of time, it’s not a wasted effort. It’s not even a true failure. It’s a learning and a preparing for a future attempt. You may also discover that that wasn’t your goal when you said you wanted to lose weight, what you actually meant is you wanted to feel better about yourself and going to therapy was a lot more helpful than fitting into a size 2 pair of jeans you know? Or whatever the issue may be. So I happen to have here on my desk. This is my Carve December workbook.
Eileen
Julie
And part of what we do is we create goals at the beginning of the book and on my page that has the goals. There’s a whole bunch of red crossing out of where my goals changed during the month of December, and that was OK. And instead of being mad at myself, I adjusted the goals that I had written down rather than cursing at myself, which of course is something you know that I think is important, yeah. To shout from the rooftops, it reminds me a lot of the time that I went shopping with my friend Nat Kalbach and I came out of the dressing room and. I was like oh, my boobs are too big for this dress. She said no. That dress is too small for you, that dress does not fit you correctly and I was putting the blame on me. And she was putting the blame on the dress and that has been a mental shift that I have forever taken gratefully as a shift. So again, it’s not that I was not hitting my goals. It’s that I had misstated what goals were realistic or achievable, or even that I was interested in? How many of us have gone down a path discovered it was not for us, and then persisted merely to save face. So stupid, right? So why do that? So yes. So cut your losses. Perhaps we can shorten that.
Eileen
Well, don’t feel it’s. Like written in blood that you that you have to go for this goal. Your goals can change.
Julie
I agree.
Eileen
And you can get smarter about yourself and you can know yourself better.
Julie
Yeah, and things change. My gosh, if one thing is constant in life, it’s change. Things change and I think it’s really — if the pandemic. I listen to a lot of business podcasts and one of the things that has been like drummed into my head now because everybody says it and I think it’s true is: What the pandemic has made everybody realize is that when you are an inflexible company, you fail. You lose money. You can’t pivot quickly enough. You can’t change when you are in an inflexible hierarchy. There’s no ability to get things done in a way that’s quick, et cetera. Et cetera. So I listened to both a marketing podcast yesterday and the Harvard Business Review Podcast yesterday and a LinkedIn podcast yesterday, and all of them were talking about the idea of this leadership that exists now is about being flexible. That is the number one word that they all kept using across — you know, many different sort of businesses and so I think while that applies to business, I think it also applies to life, right, motherhood.
Eileen
Parenthood teaches it, yes, and you know, during the pandemic, if you became more obvious more quickly that you needed to. What you were doing, but in fact when I listen to these podcasts about how I built how I built this thing, is that what?
Julie
Right?
Eileen
It is and people are talking about their companies or their businesses and how they built them. Almost always there’s some kind of miscalculation or disaster, you know. They successfully dealt with by shifting things that they thought were tenants of their business, and I think that’s right. It’s true in life too. Alright, you didn’t? You didn’t get into the college you wanted to go to — get into another one, you know?
Julie
You didn’t get that job or what are you gonna do about it? You know you didn’t? The chicken didn’t turn out right? Well, how are you gonna fix that, you know? Whatever the problem is, what is the improv? I mean OK, so we go back to Viola Spolin, who’s a famous improv teacher and one of the quotes that is lasered on to my heart which is “improvisation is the moment when planning….” There’s that word planning “…and opportunity meet.” And so it’s not that improvisation is just waving your hands wildly and running around in a circle and doing anything you want. It’s that you’ve planned for this — you’ve practiced for this. You have ideas for this. The opportunity comes and you walk through that door. It’s why do you do the lifeboat drill? The fire drill. The active shooter drill any of that kind of stuff. It’s so that the moment that it happens, you’re not….It’s not new, and so I think in a much less high stakes way. There certainly is in art. You’ve practiced, you’ve done this 1000 times. You’ve tried it in your sketchbook. You’ve done some studies so that when it comes into the moment, you can do it. Because you’ve practiced because you have a plan because you’re there and it is improvisational. But it’s not just based on nothing.
OK, so planning. Organizing here they come 2023 I’m excited for that. Shall we wrap this up, yes?
OK, so you can find me at juliebalzer.com or on Instagram as balzerdesigns and every Friday I send out a free weekly newsletter. So I’d love to have you sign up for that. It’s an e-mail newsletter. I don’t usually e-mail the list at all, except on Fridays. And finally, if you’d like to help the show grow, you can leave a review. Mention us on social media or tell a friend — all of those things help other people find the show. Thanks so much for listening and subscribing. We’d love to know what topics you’d like to hear us cover in 2023? If there are any guests you’d like to have us talk to? We’ll see you the next time on the adventures in Arting podcast.
Thanks for stopping by!
131- Looking Back at 2022
Dec 29, 2022
Mom and I sat down last week and recorded this podcast. It’s a fun premise. We each got to ask the other three year-end questions. You can watch the video version on my YouTube channel, or you can listen above (or anywhere you get podcasts):
And, I did find a discount code for the Bombas socks. New customers can use this link (it’s an affiliate link) to get 25% off your purchase.
Please let me know what topics you’d like us to discuss on the podcast in 2023. We’d love to know!
And here is the podcast transcript. It’s automatically generated and I didn’t have time to clean it up as much as I would have liked, so apologies for any errors.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Julie
Hello and welcome to the Adventures in Arting podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I’m a working artist and mother to a curious toddler and my business Balzer Designs is all about helping you to live an artful life through thoughtful art education. On this podcast, together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsu-Balzer, we ask questions of each other and our guests while discussing learning, the creative career path, finding balance, looking at art, setting goals, and why being creative matters. Our goal for this podcast is to stimulate your imagination. Hi, mom.
Eileen
Hi Julie.
Julie
How are you?
Eileen
I’m good and it feels good to be good because this has been such a winter of sickness for everybody.
Julie
Yes, that’s so true. And the theme today that I gave you is that we’re wrapping up 2022 and basically the format is: I said you come up with three questions that we both have to answer and I’ll come up with three questions that we both have to answer and we won’t know what the questions are before we start. And one of the reasons that I thought this was — I mean it’s fun to sort of like throw questions at each other, you know, a little bit. That’s always an interesting thing. I think that’s what so much conversation is about anyway, right? It’s not sort of like regurgitating information, but the second thing is one of the things that I teach all the time, like to my private coaching clients or my Boot Camp students. Or like we talked about it at this month’s group coaching — is about reflection and evaluation. It is the step that I think a lot of people miss when they make art or do anything really — write something? I mean, we joke about this because my husband right now is in school and I feel like I’m talking to a teenager when I’m like: OK, well if you finish the test early you have to go back and check did you answer the question? Do you know what I mean? And we talk about it all the time. And because there is a desire to just be done with the task as opposed to considering and so — for instance, I’m currently teaching this class, The Carve December Work Book and a huge part of that class is getting better at carving, not through me teaching you like, here’s a carving technique, here’s a printing technique, but through teaching you a framework. Or how to evaluate your work, what you liked, what you didn’t, where you had problems, and in fact, so we’re on day 23 of Carve December. And a lot of people in the class been talking about how they’re losing steam. It’s hard to carve a stamp every single day. It really is — to carve it, print it, post it, all that stuff and people are talking about how they’re losing steam. And one of the things I said is. I said: you know that’s fine, and I think what you need to do is not beat yourself up about the fact that you’re losing steam, but kind of make a note of it. Physically make a note in the workbook, because that’s important and then figure out how you’re going to stop that from happening next year. Not the fatigue. But the bad carving because of the fatigue. So for an example, one of the things you could do is say like, oh, I always tend to lose steam around like the 21st because like you know I’m preparing for Christmas or whatever. So maybe a solution is to plan out my carves really carefully in October, November when I have lots of energy so that by the time I get to those days in December, I don’t have to think. I just have to look at what I’ve written that I’m going to do. Pull it out of my pocket and do it. You know what I mean? Because I think the fatigue is not the physical act of carving. The fatigue is mental.
Eileen
You know what I’m thinking while you’re doing this? As you know, it’s not art for me, but you get fatigue from having to think up a new dinner every day. Yeah, and it’s exactly the same kind of procedure of finding a way to make yourself. Able to make dinner while you’re feeling totally blah about everything that comes to your mind so you can. Have certain things that are just your go tos you can figure out OK today somebody else is going to make dinner. You can just….
Julie
Call the Domino’s guy yes.
Eileen
Well one of the things I’ve done with you when you were a little kid was — remember when I would just say OK today we’re having lemon meringue pie or ice cream for dinner or lunch.
Julie
I do remember that.
Eileen
That’s it. I mean, sometimes you have to just change it up a little so that you or your mind gets to relax and the other thing is just like with your art thing. Sometimes you just look in the refrigerator and whatever you’ve got. You use it like this.
Julie
But I I also think like I’m a big system person and that’s why I think like meal planning or meal prepping or even talk to Steve about maybe we just have a rotation of like 6 easy meals and like when we get tired of 1, you bring in a new one, but just taking the thinking out of it because so often — I mean this is what they talk about the mental load with women — is that it isn’t even necessarily the physical act of doing the thing. It is the mental load. Of being the one who’s worrying. You know, so for instance, we’re taking a family trip in January and I’m already, you know, making packing lists and thinking about like how it’s going to go and trying to plan out if anything needs to be bought. And da da da da so it’s like it’s already stressful, even though it’s several weeks away. But I think that that’s just — that is what they mean when they say mental load, right? OK, so let’s get to the questions. So do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?
Eileen
I’ll go first.
Julie
OK, what’s your first question?
Eileen
Give me some pluses and minuses that are now in your life as a result of the COVID lockdown.
Julie
Ooh, pluses and minuses from the COVID lockdown. OK so….
Eileen
Which in your case coincides with having a baby, so it’s important to yeah, figure out where that goes.
Julie
Yes, it does, so it’s sort of hard for me to tell. I mean, the big minus to me is like. I just feel very socially disconnected. I feel like — I just I miss socializing and I feel like I haven’t made a lot of — I mean, I guess I’ve made a couple new friends from my son’s like friend’s parents, but I haven’t met anybody who’s like a “let’s go to coffee” or “let’s whatever” because we’ve just been so cautious and even a couple of times when people have reached out to me. I’ve been very scared. To like, say, OK, sure, I’ll go to a meal with you because I just you know. I mean, we’re just avoiding COVID so hard and it’s been so many years and now I feel like I’m sort of in a hermit place where I’m like just — I just have my little bubble with people and that’s kind of it, you know, and so that has been kind of. I would say the biggest negative for me. The biggest pro — and this is incredibly fortunate — thing is: I used to travel all the time, I mean there were times when I would be home five days in a month. You know which is crazy, especially when I was paying New York City rents. That was really crazy, and so I was not sure what it was going to be like after having a baby. But the pandemic basically stopped all my travelling and then the big question was, is my business going to die? Are we going to not have any money because I’m the breadwinner for our family and I just didn’t know. As a freelancer, you’re not guaranteed anything. So if I don’t work, we don’t make any money. If I get sick, we don’t make any money. If I get hurt, we don’t make any money, so I was like, gosh, if I don’t travel. Do we not make any money? And I thought that you know, I had tried to plan for a baby as a freelancer because of course you don’t get any maternity time off, right? Because there’s no boss to give you maternity time off. So I tried to like work really hard leading before the birth and I sort of hadn’t calculated how long the recovery would be. So to a certain extent, the pandemic was really lucky for me because the best thing to come out of it is that I figure that I can do 98% of my business virtually. I miss teaching in person, which is why I am teaching some classes here at my home studio in 2023 and I’m really excited about that. And if you’re interested in that, you can find all that on my website at juliebalzer.com, but it’s great to know like I can teach zoom classes. I can teach virtual classes, I can have meetings with people online. I can make videos I can, you know, share things through the membership program and I can do all those things. And still, you know, pay my mortgage and stuff without getting on an airplane. So that has been the biggest pro. So con, lonely and isolated. Pro = business works virtually and I think definitely I’ll take lonely every single time — I mean, because I think the fear of not having enough money to like pay your mortgage or buy your groceries is a much greater fear than wishing I had someone to talk to when I have a perfectly nice, you know, husband and a perfectly great 3-year old who’s becoming quite a good conversationalist.
Eileen
Never stops talking.
Julie
So what what’s your biggest pro and con?
Eileen
OK I have on my phone right now a message from someone saying let’s have lunch next week and I haven’t done that. In probably 2 1/2 years. And I’m thinking I haven’t answered yet. I like her and I’d love to have lunch with her, but I’m thinking. I haven’t gone to a restaurant to have lunch with someone in so long. But I will tell you this because you and I are actually in some ways opposite, I know you don’t accept this, but I have discovered that being a hermit suits. And that. Uh, I used to go to a million meetings. Some of them are on zoom, which is very helpful. Sometimes I may be the only person on zoom in the meeting cause other people have shown up now, but I just really feel like I don’t wanna be in a room, especially a smallish room with a bunch of. People who might be sick. I will say I used to not think about sickness all the time, yeah. And now it’s become a part of my life. An ongoing part where I always think about it.
Julie
Well, see like Steve had a cold the other day. It wasn’t COVID — we tested like constantly but he just had — He had a cold and he was coughing and stuff and we canceled all kinds of plans with people because…I don’t think I would have pre-COVID because I was like I’m not, you know, like we were supposed to go to Maine for a birthday party of one of his best friends and I was…and we had to call and be like we can’t come we had we had booked a sitter and a hotel — the whole thing and had to cancel. We were supposed to have a Hanukkah party. We called everybody to cancel again because he had a cold. And so I think I have definitely become more conscious about not giving anybody any germs, and that, I suppose is a very good thing.
Eileen
I will say this, it’s really difficult to go back once you’ve found certain things, you like. I really like Zoom meetings, frankly, I’m that person who often turns off the camera because why should I sit there and look at the screen? I turn it on when I’m talking but — I just — as I say, my hermit-ING instincts have just….
Julie
I think that’s great! So does that mean? This is the pro? For you is figuring out that you can do meetings. And stuff via zoom and that you’re a hermit and the con is that you’re scared to go to lunch with people?
Eileen
I just think I’m more cautious. I’m more aware of the exposure if I go to the grocery store. For the whole first like year-and-a-half, I didn’t go to the grocery store. Steve went to the grocery store for. All of us so. It’s kind of nice. It’s like having personal service.
Julie
Except he would call from the grocery store with, like, what is this? Is this what this looks like? anyway, but, yes, it was good.
Eileen
A few minutes, what can I say?
Julie
He’s learning, he’s learning he’s. OK, well then my question for you. I’m actually going to tell a story about it first. So I have always considered myself to be a reader. It’s like if you ask me, what’s something I enjoy doing. I would say reading right? And so people always do sort of end of the year book things where they say like how many books they read and I have seen two things that kind of blew my mind. So one: there’s a podcast I listen to, and she mentioned that she had read like 60 or 70 books this year and I was blown out of the water. I was like “whoa” and then she mentioned that 90% of them were audiobooks. And I had an immediate reaction where I was like “that’s not reading,” but then I was like, wait a second. What about it isn’t reading? It’s not like watching the movie right? Because it is still the book and like what’s the difference between being read a book versus reading it yourself? And then that’s sort of me thinking me about like processing it and blah blah blah blah. And so I have some weird prejudice against audio books, because at first I was like oh, I read like four books this year. I’m pathetic, but then I was like. Oh, if you count audio books…Well, I’m getting you know up there right into like 20-30 books this year and then this woman said she was like, “oh, you guys have read 100 books this year. You’re not even trying. I read 1000 books this year” and I was like. How is it possible to read 1000 books in a year, right? And she holds up her kid’s books. She’s like “this one alone I read 100 times last month” and I was like whoa. If we’re counting the books I read at bedtime — Books I read to him in a restaurant — books I read to him. Whatever I was like, I’m pretty close to 1000 too, because then we’re talking, I read 5-6 books a day. You know, and then I was like wow. But I don’t count that as reading books. Even though it’s reading a book because it’s like not a book for me. You know what I mean, and so it turns out I have all this prejudice. Didn’t realize. So my first question to you, now that I’ve given that whole story time, there is. What is your favorite book that you have read this year and how did you consume it?
Eileen
I think. I too have gone through a lot of audio books. Partly because I can multitask so I can listen while I wash the dishes. I can listen while I, you know, fold the laundry. I can listen when I’m doing lots of other things. The one thing I can’t do I’ve discovered is I can’t listen while I’m writing checks for bills and things. I mean I have to concentrate in a different way. But then I couldn’t read a book while I was doing that either. I think one of the things about audio books is I I’m very responsive to the voice of the reader, so there are certain books that I’ve started and then just haven’t finished because I can’t stand the voice of the reader. And it takes — my irritation with the voice takes me out of the book. Because all I do is think, oh, that’s the way you say that or that was mispronounced. Or, you know, you don’t sound like I feel….
Julie
But I think that’s the part of my prejudice against audio books. Just jumping on that — is audio books feel filtered through somebody else’s imagination — what they imagine that voice sounds like — what they imagine the accent is, what they imagine the speed of the conversation is — what they imagine for some reason. Like I have less of an issue with an audiobook that’s a non-fiction book. And more of an issue with someone when it starts to get into feeling like they’re doing different voices and there’s pauses in certain places and not in others, because I don’t know if I would have read it that way. I don’t know. So who knows what. I make voices when I read my son books. All the time so….
Eileen
Yes, I know and and it’s actually pretty wonderful. Also, I find that I used to feel like I could never stop a book. I had to finish it. I had to read like a newspaper or magazines start to finish. I couldn’t skip articles or skip around and I don’t know why I felt that. But I just have no patience now for that, I’m not enjoying it. It’s gone.
Julie
I feel that way about people now I’m like I don’t know. Are you like worth a babysitter? Are you worth like amount of money it’s going to cost for a babysitter? Are you worth like what I’d rather be doing? Are you worth the lack of safety of? You know, whatever sickness you have, I mean. I know that sounds terrible. But I would say even when I started dating Steve, one of the things I said to him — I said from the very first date — I said “I am a workaholic and I will tell you this, the day that I would rather be working than hanging out with you, that’s the day that we’re break up.”
Eileen
Wow, what a sword that Damocles to hang over him.
Julie
And he still stuck around.
Eileen
Exactly. To his credit, right?
Julie
Right, well I was trying. I was at a period of my life where I was still very much hurting after my divorce and I basically was trying to push people away. So I was just like I think in a way it was good because I just was like brutally honest with people. I was like here’s my deal. Take it or leave it because I’m all about leaving it right now.
Eileen
Now, well, actually this goes to something you often say about art and finding an audience for your art. Which is you should — you don’t chase the audience trying to do things that will please them. You do what you do and your audience will find you. And I actually think that’s same with a lot of things in life.
Julie
Yeah, and I think people will understand it when it comes to like if somebody didn’t want to be like — what would you tell your kid if somebody didn’t want to be their friend? Would you be like “no stand next to them every day, smell them, rub yourself on them” or would you be like “I want to be your friend, right, that’s their loss like yeah, don’t waste your time worrying about it.” And so the same thing is going to be true whether it’s like Internet trolls, people not liking your posts, people who, even if it’s people in your family who tell your art is no good or whatever else, like they’re not worth your time. They’re not your art people and I think that’s part of the way that the Internet, I mean, in order to get back to the COVID thing. But why the Internet has been so connecting for people is because you can find that other 1% of people who think like you out there. You can find those other fabulous weirdos you know? I mean, who are weird in the way that you are. Which is great.
Eileen
Harder for some than for others. I do think that. I do a lot of reading on my phone, so again, that’s a different thing. Not audio books, but it’s not the physical book. In my hand. So how do you feel about that in your very judgmental mind?
Julie
In my prejudice — my reading prejudice — I have, so I have a Kindle. And I often feel that I have fake read a book when I read it on the Kindle, which again. I don’t know why it’s not a book. There’s text. I’m reading it, but it’s. But after I don’t know, I will say this. I think that I remember audio books not as well as I do books that I have physically read, and I think that there is something about the physical like holding of a book and turning the pages and like — that is different than a Kindle where it’s kind of like swipe, swipe swipe. I’m just a very prejudiced book person I think. So I mean, in the end what I’m going to say is all reading is good reading. I think it all counts, you know, Hooray for all of it. But like in my heart of hearts, if I were the human being that I wish I were. If I were a sparkly Princess full of all things good, then I would be sitting on a pile of physical books that I had read. I’m not so I’m not. But I I wish that. I could live in that world, you know.
Eileen
No, you don’t. You’d be bored.
Julie
No, I have books. How could you be bored when you’re sitting on a pile of books that you could read.
Eileen
I think you need people. You’re a very people person, you know.
Julie
It’s so interesting because everybody always tells me that I’m an extrovert and I and I think I’m an introvert. I always say, like I’m an extroverted introvert like I like to be by myself and I need my space, but I do also enjoy seeing people but I don’t want to like….
Eileen
Lick them.
Julie
Well, I don’t want…I don’t want share a bathroom with them and I don’t like to have a roommate. You know what I mean? But like I’m happy to go to a party and like talk to some people. Mostly, I think that’s because I find people interesting and I’m always like my favorite part of a party is not even like the being at the party. Whether it’s a dinner party or like…
Eileen
I know what it is, it’s afterward dissecting it, breaking it down, comparing notes with your significant other, or whoever was there. We had a meeting, a family meeting on zoom with a business person, and afterward we all went on another zoom where we just talked about it because we all like to do that.
Julie
Because you want to know like what did you find out? What did you observe? What were the interesting…people are fascinating and like the stories they tell. I mean, I still remember this one dinner that we all went to and the way that the seating was arranged. We were sitting separately. So like Steve was in one place, you were in another. I was in another. And he was actually so far down the table that we had a completely — because it was a long skinny table — We had a completely different experience of the event, and so we were….
Eileen
Is this a dinner at the MFA that is?
Julie
…With MFA and. So we were kind of like chatting. About it afterwards. And he was telling us all about like at his end of the table there had been crying and like a friendship blow up and we were like what?
Eileen
It was a totally different experience.
Julie
Exactly, and I was like — That’s so one of my favorite memories because it was like you can be at the same event. But have such a different experience based on the ecosystem that you ended up in. I just. Anyway, fascinating has nothing to do with any of this, but I’m sorry to tell you that I’m book prejudiced. If you are book prejudiced too, I’d love to hear about it and you can let us know sort of what you think? What is reading a book?
Eileen
Anyway, I don’t think you should be bound — this is my last remark on it, but I don’t think you should be bound by what category the book has been put into because, for example, I have read and enjoyed a lot of YA young adult books.
Julie
OK, so that brings us to favorite book, favorite book, favorite book of the Year.
Eileen
Very well written.
Julie
What is it?
Eileen
Uh, Crying in HMart.
Julie
Oh, really, what did you love about it?
Eileen
Well, in this case I could identify a bit. With the writer who’s talking about HMart is a a chain of Korean, and every Asian culture, food. But mostly it was thinking about her Mother because a lot of times food from our childhood leads us back to thinking about our natal family and….
Julie
I often go to HMart and think of Grandma.
Eileen
Right, and I think one of the things is I’m in a funny place where I am. The mother, but I’m also a child. I’m also a grandmother and I’m also probably thinking more about let’s not be a downer here, but death and what my family will be like when I’m not here. To see it. Uh, and what? They’ll you know? What will remind them of me? And what will cause them to say? Oh God, thank thank you be gone. That’s gone, so, uh. So the book.
Julie
Steve always jokes that you will haunt us and the way that we will know that you have been there as a ghost is we’ll find snacks and little bits of food at the foot of the bed.
Eileen
Well, that’s not a bad thing.
Julie
I don’t think so. So my favorite book of the year was actually a YA book and something I listened to on audio. So I don’t know if it counts as having read it, but I enjoyed it. So it’s called The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, and it’s a book that was recommended on another podcast that I listened to and I was skeptical because I often find my problem with YA is that often the stories are lovely, but I find the writing is not always magical, you know, I mean, and part of what I enjoy about reading is that there is language that just sort of like carries your imagination, right?
Eileen
Many Dragons, maybe sometimes.
Julie
Yes, so this is kind of a fantasy book and the interesting thing is I liked the book so much that I actually listened to two other books by the same author and didn’t like either of them. So I thought that was interesting, but this one really hit it for me. So The House in the Cerulean Sea is like a — It’s a fictional world that sort of runs parallel with ours, in which, on this island, right at the House in the Cerulean Sea, there lives there is. It’s like a home. For magical children, basically. And a guy who is a worker — who’s a human worker, you know. Basically is sent to like assess the school for Magical children. And of course, as you can imagine, you know, like any other good, you know, story about how children can open you up, is opened up by the experience right, and it’s obviously….
Eileen
The assessor is opened up?
Julie
Well, it’s a very clear metaphor for racism, and like everything else, and like they have prejudice against these children because they’re magical. But in fact, they’re just children and blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah right? And so I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the world and I thought the person who read it was really good and all that kind of stuff and it is a book that oddly, the reason I say it’s my favorite is because I’m not sure was my favorite while I was in it, but it has stayed with me, yeah?
Eileen
You really like parallel worlds, by the way.
Julie
Yes, I do.
Eileen
Which I don’t at all. You really love parallel worlds.
Julie
I do I do? I do, and part of the reason I think I love it is I mean I think it’s part of the reason I’m an artist. I think it’s part of the reason that I worked in theater for years. Is that I’m, I’m sort of interested in this idea of like.
Eileen
Creating a world.
Julie
Creating a world or what you see as ordinary is actually extraordinary or what you see isn’t actually real, or that there could be something more beyond, you know what I mean? If you could just put your hand through that wall – looking glass – like whatever. I’m endlessly fascinated by it.
Eileen
Put your. Oops, I can’t do this. Put your finger. I can’t get it.
Julie
I know because the screen is reversed.
Eileen
I can’t. Where it goes there, yeah.
Julie
You got it, yes. So I mean, I think like that to me. If they say, like the job of an artist on some level is to show you the world the way that they see it. Right, and so writers are artists, and so what they do when they create these parallel worlds is they’re saying like this is a world either that I believe is here, or that could be, or that you know is a metaphor for the society that we live in. And so I think because of that, like again, it is endlessly fascinating to me. And now you have a background in anthropology right? You’re an ABD in anthropology. And I think, like anthropology is a study of culture and it’s very much based in like observation of reality. And you know, I mean, trying to decipher what’s actually happening and trying to like figure out the rituals and the culture of you know various groups, and I think like that makes sense to me. To be rooted in reality as opposed to being interested in this kind of fantastical thing. But I do kind of think of a lot of science fiction as an anthropological study, right? You create a world that has customs. It has rules. It has, you know, all that kind of stuff and it’s like digging into something that’s familiar and yet not. I love that.
Eileen
It’s an interesting conversation. There are so many different human approaches to solving problems that are fascinating and sometimes surprising, and I guess I don’t feel a need to invent any.
Julie
Yeah, the world is amazing place.
Eileen
Yes it is.
Julie
What’s your second question?
Eileen
My second question is if I could read my handwriting, ohh. Let’s talk about something that you would like to do more of in the year to come, and something you would like to do less of. And I will….
Julie
Well, so our third, my third question is the same thing, so we overlap here OK?
Eileen
Well, I got to ask it first so you have to invent a new question in the time between now. And the end.
Julie
OK, most embarrassing bodily fluids? Go!
OK, So what is something? So here’s something that I would like to do more of in 2023. It is a resolution that I’ve had for more than one year, but I feel like my son, who is now three. He turned 3 this fall — I feel like he is finally old enough for me to maybe get a hold of this, which is. I have very much felt like I’ve been chasing my business as opposed to sort of like directing it and so I’m very interested. And this is a grammatical point. But let’s say I’m very interested in working ON my business and not just IN my business.
Eileen
Yeah yeah, I see what you’re saying.
Julie
Right?
Eileen
This is something you’ve actually wanted for a long time.
And I think you’ve done this in fits and starts. Yeah, each time it’s been useful and you’ve come up with a nugget, but I think what you’re saying is you’d like the time to draw back and really take a more holistic look at all the parts of your business. Because what’s fascinating about your business? Is it’s not just one thing you don’t just do one thing and you have a lot of different buckets. Or a lot of different balls that you’re keeping in the ari.
Julie
Yeah, and like the pandemic happened. It’s like I was so — I mean just to paint the picture. like I’m a new mother — I’m the breadwinner in the family. The pandemic starts. My biggest client cuts my salary essentially in half and I am running. For my life. You know and….
Eileen
You bought a house too, which is part of it.
Julie
I bought…I had bought it. I had bought a house, had a baby — pandemic, biggest client cuts my money in half. You know what I mean and now I don’t know how my business goes. So I was so busy pivoting. And hysterically trying to figure out where the next dollar was going to come from. That I think a lot of things just sort of happened because I was like I just need to like make this work right? So now it’s like I would love to take a minute and be like OK. Now that things are OK and we’re sort of on track here like, what do I really enjoy doing? Because I think like people understand I mean. People give all that like lip service to authenticity and blah blah blah but. In the end, like. I think what being authentic to me is like is doing things I enjoy doing like I get a lot of pull from people who — or not pull — but a lot of like push back from people who want me to do specific things. They don’t want to see any ScanNCut. They only want to see ScanNCut. They are only interested in art journaling. They are only interested in stamp carving and they would like me to sort of like niche niche, niche and like I understand that. But I do enjoy a wide range of things so I would just like to take the time, which I think of like planning out like what are the things that I enjoy so that I can translate that passion and that enthusiasm I have for it. Do you know what I mean? On to other people? And I think naturally, like any human being, it changes over time. I’m not going to be interested in the same things now that I was ten years ago, even though somebody else might be, you know. And so that there’s always a balance there, so I’d like to take some time to assess what I’m really excited and passionate about and want to pursue and sort of you know, figure that out. That’s my big, that’s my big 2023 I’m insisting to my brain that it’s got to happen.
Eileen
That’s the sort of thing you can do in little bits. Or do you need like a gigantic enormous amount of time and space?
Julie
Well, so the answer is, I probably could figure out a way to do it in little bits. I often find that little bits are ineffective, even though I think that is the best way always to attack a problem. But the reason I find it effective ineffective for this particular reason is there’s often a big swing pivot. You know what I mean? So for instance, if I was like you know what I want to do, I want to start a new series on YouTube where I post once a week with, you know, advice about how how to be a better artist, right? That’s fine, and that’s an idea I can come up with in 30 seconds and then I can write out a list of 52 videos that I should do? Right, But then the bounce off of that. It’s going to be OK, now I have to make time in my schedule to do that and are these videos also things that are going into blog posts or newsletters? Am I posting about them on Instagram on TikTok on Facebook, am I? How are these affecting like the things that I’m selling throughout the year? Who is the customer that this is aimed at? what level of student? Like you know what I mean? and so it becomes this thing which is like. Yes, you can come up with the quick idea, but to sort of make it work as part of your business, it’s really thinking about like how does it fit with everything else? And then it sort of necessarily shifts things in different ways. So then you have to like readjust it. I think about it a little bit like last night Steve was trying to build a track for our son out of these little bits and every time he put one piece of the track down, something else would pop off right and it was like – It was hilarious to me, less so to him. Especially as our son kept going “daddy fix it.” But like it, it is that thing about like every time you make an adjustment, something else pops and you need to like look at it.
Eileen
Yes, yes.
Julie
So for me it’s like in a dream world scenario, this is the one where I’m a Princess sitting on a pile of books, I would also like to be like in a white board room and have like a week where I’m just thinking and planning and like drawing diagrams and figuring things out and like if “A” moves to here then “B” moves to there, then “D”, then “C.” You know what I mean? And figuring it out because it is a puzzle and also partially because I don’t have any employees.
Eileen
I was just gonna say because then after the week and you emerge from the whiteboard room you have to do it all, as opposed to saying OK, now we’re going to have this department that does this and this group of employees who does that so that makes it harder and then decide.
Julie
That’s right. Yeah, so it’s like exactly.
Eileen
Your kid wants to come to the studio.
Julie
To do art. So yeah, so not only do I have to do it all, but I also have to think of it all and thinking as we talked about before, emotional labor is the hardest part, but more than that, if I spend a week doing it. I’m losing a week of other work that I probably ought to be doing. Because like I said before, if I don’t work I don’t make any money and you don’t make any money.
Eileen
You’re fixing the up with the movie.
Julie
Yes, so that is always the problem, which is I’m always loathe to give the time to the things that are developmental but don’t have a direct payoff sort of immediately because I’m like, ohh, but like I need to get those blog posts and I need to write this thing for the class and I need to get this person’s e-mail returned and I need to. You know what I mean so. It’s sort of like I’m thinking about this family trip that I mentioned that we’re taking in January and I’m already having like a meltdown about how am I? How can I be present with my family during that week on this trip and not the whole time be hysterical that things are burning down. I mean on the other side, there are people who are very lovely and understanding when you say you’re on vacation, you’re out or whatever and there are people who are terrible. Four letter words who just expect you to be Amazon or Target or whatever and have staff of hundreds of people who can help them right when they want it. And like I get it. But it just it’s very stressful to me, so I’m going to figure out how to make it happen.
Eileen
OK, so is that the more of or the less of because it’s sort….
Julie
That’s I mean so. The more I’ve is, I want to spend more time working on my business and less time working in my business. That’s the succinct answer to that. But I think like. I think the also less so for 2023. Which is sort of less art related and more just personal, which is also about, I think getting older is, I just want to spend less time like hating myself. I just want to….
Eileen
That would be a good goal.
Julie
I think it’s a good goal always, but it’s less time being like mad at myself for not finishing something I was supposed to do or less mad at myself for like missing a meeting or not responding to something? Or did I mean less mad at myself for not cleaning up. I Feel like it’s it is the great desire to do everything which is all consuming and very difficult. You know and the older I get it is a little bit easier to — you know, you got to make a choice.
Eileen
Talking about guilt.
I will say as you as I have gotten older, I feel less yeah, no. As I’ve gotten older, I do feel responsible for things which makes me feel less guilty and that’s great. Yeah, you know, if I. If I miss a meeting. So what, uh? So I don’t have to be part of everything.
Julie
Right, I was listening to an interview today with a woman whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. And one of the things she was saying is the advice she gives to young writers. She’s an author. Is the advice you can see in writers is like do more of the things that are important and less of the things that are urgent. And I was like, wow, that’s such an interesting distinction between important and urgent. And I was thinking like there are a lot of things. For instance in my business that are urgent, but if you ask me what’s important, it’s spending time with my 3 year old. It’s being there to like build Legos with him. It’s you know. I mean, I think it’s one of the hardest things for me, so when well I remember when I was probably like a preteen, Bambi was re-released in the movie theaters and we went. And there was a kid behind us with his Mother, like a little kid….
Eileen
I hate to tell you this, Bambi’s mother dies.
Julie
Yeah, so hold on. So in the movie when Bambi’s mother dies right? He says in this tearful voice to his mother. “Where did Bambi’s mother go?” And she says “Ohh, honey Bambi’s mother is…He’s not going to get to see her for a long time. She’s gone away, you know.” And the kid says. “Ohh she went to work.” And at the time I was like “ha ha ha ha that’s so funny.” But now my son if I — because I work on the third floor studio — and like if I have to go do something, I’ll be like OK I have to go to work. You’re going to stay with daddy. You know he grabs me. Like I don’t want you to go to work and like, sometimes we’re at the playground. You know he’ll walk up the stairs. Like the play structure and say “I’m going to work, you can’t come.” And like it’s, it’s like a knife in the chest every single time. Even though like I know that I have to work and I know that as a reasonable and rational thing to do, and I know that the agreement his father and I made is that his Father stays with him and I work and. Like blah blah blah blah but like it’s. Crushing, and so I thought, I think. A lot about that, which is like. Doing things that are important rather than urgent.
Eileen
I just want to ask about what happens after he says “work you can’t come.” Then what?
Julie
Then usually I say, oh, I’m so sad. Can I please come with you? and then he says OK, you can come up. And then we go up the stairs or….
Eileen
Have you ever changed that scenario to say OK, have a good time at work and I’ll see you later.
Julie
I could do that. That’s a good idea.
Eileen
It’s modeling some other ways to feel about it, right? You know the only solution is not just to join each other at work.
Julie
That’s true.
Eileen
There are other possible.
Julie
That does explain to me now why he’s constantly like “can I go to the studio too.” Because clearly I do that at the playground.
Eileen
I mean, what’s interesting? I won’t say interesting. That word has gotta go. What’s fascinating is that he doesn’t expect you to stay at school with him. He doesn’t expect you. There are lots of times when he’ll he, he’ll say OK, goodbye or you know. Go now, I mean. I think just thinking of other ways to model that the resolution of that situation might be helpful.
Julie
OK, I’ll give it a try.
Eileen
OK, what do I want to do more?
Julie
Are you hoping, yeah.
Eileen
And less of and. What I’d like to do less of is scrolling through my phone because it’s a waste of time, but it takes an enormous amount of time. You start it and you say oh, well, just do this little bit and the next thing you know, an hour has gone by, which frankly you’ll never get back, and most of the stuff that you pick up off the phone is nothing. And what I’d like to do more of is — I am reminded because I’ve started doing this a bit — I don’t feel like I have to wait for 2023 to show up to do this — Making phone calls to my friends whom I haven’t seen. Many of them I used to like see. You’d run into them at the library or on the street. You’d have dinners you’d go to, you know, school events or social events in town and you’d see them. And now you don’t because everybody’s hunkering down at home. But I have found that you can get a lot of good feeling both ways from calling people and I’m trying to do that more. I want to do that more because when you reach out like that. It really feels like connecting and one of the things — Somehow because we’re all hunkering down at home — It’s harder to pick up the phone and call people because you’re interrupting them because they’ve planned their whole day around what they’re going to get done without seeing anybody or talking to anybody, so when you call — and you’re obviously prepared for a longish phone call — It feels right so, but I I do want to do….
Julie
Just to make an appointment.
Eileen
More of that.
Julie
That’s funny because you also said you’re a hermit and you like being a hermit, but you’re it’s not that you’re a hermit you just don’t want….
Eileen
It’s not that I hate people, right?
Julie
You don’t want to have to put on pants.
Eileen
Good point.
Julie
OK, so. Then I will ask you my second question, which is kind of related, which is what is the biggest obstacle that you overcame in 2022.
Eileen
I think the biggest obstacle I overcame was I was so bored with you and your family. No, that’s tough. I think the biggest obstacle is. One of them, which was demonstrated when we tried to start this podcast. I’m not a person who grew up with technology. I’m a person who at my age. There were no computers in college. People didn’t have computers at home in. Fact you didn’t get a computer….
Julie
Told me about the computer that with the big thing with the cards that you….
Eileen
There was a class I took which was a very advanced class and what we got were the punch cards, the old IBM Type punch card. But that was like 1 experimental class and it wasn’t that you had a computer at home in your dorm room and you didn’t have a computer at college until part way through college. And I never took a real computer class you know which you would you took starting in kindergarten, first grade. So every time there’s a new technology for me, it’s a giant barrier psychological barrier that I have to cross and I don’t upload, uh, new software a lot because it means another learning curve and I don’t upgrade my equipment. I mean, there’s been this pattern of new stuff comes out your brother’s the 1st to get it, you get it ,and then some of the old stuff that you guys have may trickle down to me. Or when I have a problem I call one of you. You’re my IT department and you’re very kind and helpful about it, but it’s not a consistent way of learning stuff is just solving one particular problem. So I’d like to….
Julie
From a technology point of view, like you’re actually older than the Boomers, right? You’re too old to be a Boomer. Yes, yes, which is interesting right? And like I am at I’m too young to be Gen. X but too old to be a millennial. I fall in this weird xennial category, which is also Middle Rd. where I didn’t grow up with technology, but then I kind of had it. All you know what I mean, and so I think there is a weird technology gap thing in that generational sort of weirdness where you’re kind of off generation with the majority of people.
Eileen
I remember once a week in your elementary school. You would have keyboarding class. Keyboarding was a separate class. And it wasn’t integrated into your other academic subjects, and one of the family jokes is in high school. You took keyboarding as an elective.
Julie
I took typing on a typewriter.
Eileen
And you got.
Julie
A B. I got a B minus working to potential. Usually. It would be unusual if I came home with an A minus.
Eileen
Very unusual, yeah, that’s what they said, we’re working to potential.
Julie
My Asian mother had a long conversation with me about why I was doing so poorly. So to come home with a B minus working to potential was traumatic. To say the least. Threw my whole GPA off for my entire, you know, high school career. C’est la vie, so I’m not a very good typist, apparently.
Eileen
What’s interesting about — also related is that I have learned things as you have learned things because then I have to learn them in order to be able to help you. So you were editor of the high school newspaper. You had software for that and I had to learn the software in order to help you and there are — It’s similar to I didn’t grow up loving football, but your brother played Pop Warner and high school football. And so I learned football because it was an important part of his life. So if you hadn’t been a computer person. I probably wouldn’t even know how to turn it on.
Julie
Well, look at you. You’re doing so great. OK, so you’ve overcome technology. I think the biggest thing that I’m the biggest obstacle I’ve overcome in 2022, has been sickness.
Eileen
Hey hey.
Julie
So we’ve been lucky enough to not have had COVID, but….
Eileen
Everything else.
Julie
Have we had every single other disease that you’re going to have so there was a period of maybe 2 1/2 three months. That I was just sick and my son was sick and it was just sick, sick, sick, sick, sick and it was. I have never been so sick and we got flu this year. We definitely had RSV, we have had some other kind of. Gross just put….
Eileen
You you had strep, the doctor didn’t even believe that you could have strep, and you did.
Julie
The doctor didn’t believe I could have strep throat because I also had post nasal drip and active cough that was productive and he and he was like you can’t have strep on this, but the strep test came back positive. He’s like OK. You’ve got two things at the same time. My son had pneumonia like we….
Eileen
But he simultaneously had flu A too.
Julie
Yeah, and like anyway, we’ve had everything that you can have and like. At some point I had laryngitis.
Eileen
Except coldness.
Julie
There were — what — four days that I could not speak at all, which at least one of those days Steve had to go somewhere. And I was alone with our son all day trying to like get a 2 year old to like do things without being able to speak. We did a lot of hand signals, it was hilarious. We reverted back to some baby sign language. Uh, but I would just say like it’s it has and the other thing about being sick is besides the fact that you feel terrible and like, it’s very hard to do stuff and you’re tired and like everything is bad. I do so much stuff through video and so much of what I do is also talking. It’s one of the reasons we’ve had almost no podcasts in the back half of this year is I’ve just been sick for three months, you know, and so I mean, I’m afraid to say that I feel better. Let’s knock on everything that looks like wood right now. But it is like. It’s hard to talk and you…I’m like coughing every two seconds and I’m, you know, sound terrible and it’s. Just anyway. So that was just really difficult, both on a personal level and from an actually getting my job done kind of level too so….
Eileen
Talking is one of your magic powers. One of your Super powers, and when you lost it, you were devastated.
Julie
I was! It actually was an incredible like humbling moment for me where I was like. How do people do it? Who have lost the ability to speak? Who can’t like communicate? That way? It is so exhausting, although on the other hand I have to tell you: I carried around a sign the days that I had to go and do stuff — that said, like I have laryngitis, I cannot speak and if people started talking to me or doing something, I would just hold up the sign. Right and it was amazing how many people were incredibly kind. It was also hilarious how many people then started speaking slowly or loudly and I was like “I can hear. I didn’t suddenly not be able to hear, but. OK,” you know and like….
Eileen
You actually went to the doctor. You had prepared a whole written thing to tell him.
Julie
I did, I had my name, my date of birth like my patient number so that I could just hold it up on my phone. I had like the list of things I had written — an entire two-page synopsis of my illness so that they had a complete history that I did not have to speak it. I just handed the print out to the doctor. Who then read it out loud. I mean it was. But that was the thing is, I was realizing that like. How much preparation is needed when you can’t speak in the moment and I think because I have, for instance, I’ve always been a person who like if you said “hey, give a speech.” I would probably not prepare that much to be completely frank. I would just kind of like, think of like what’s my major point and then I would just go because that’s always been something that’s easy for me. And so it was so interesting to me to have to prepare for daily life tasks, not even like giving a speech in a very considerate way, and I actually think hear me out here. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s kind of like one of the reasons I like being a student because it makes me a better teacher — is I feel. Like it made me feel. Like I learned some things from that struggle that I have taken with me in terms of I teach a lot of classes where the students have to speak and I know that for a lot of people, it’s traumatic. Impromptu speaking is not their thing. I tend to speak really fast. I’ve often said, like I’m not being rude. Maybe I am to you, but I’m an interrupter. I come from an interrupting family. I come from an interrupting culture, you know, interrupting is my superpower. If there were an Olympic sport interrupting. I would be the 10. Yes, exactly we are. We’re interrupters and it’s always been culturally fine within our family. Within our network. But I do run into people who get really upset about interrupting, and then I’m always sort of like, oh OK, this is something I don’t get, but I will try to be respectful of your culture of not interrupting. You’re very boring. Slow culture of not interrupting.
Eileen
Actually, people who have come into the family like dating, you know and even marrying have often I had to adjust to this because they were thinking it was rude or it was hostile that. The two people who were talking and our family were angry when it wasn’t at all.
Julie
Yeah, it’s just a discussion. You’re just talking both at the same time and you’re having one conversation. Then you loop back to the thing that somebody else said, and then something reminds you of something. So you say your thing, but then you come back like it. You have to keep the multiple strands. It’s like a weaving of things going, and sometimes you’re you know grabbing a string from. Over here, but it’s. Not like you let. Go of the. String over there. So anyway, all of that is to say. I think that like I often. Think of talking as easy and it was a good reminder that for some people there’s a level of prep that’s required, and I think it. Has helped me. In teaching some of my classes to consider a little bit more what I can do to get the students more prepared to have those conversations, like what hints can I give them? What do I need to tell them ahead of time? Like it was not threatening to you at all when I said we were each going to ask each other questions and not. Know what the questions were before we did. This right that was not even remotely. Threatening because you are confident in your ability to talk about it and me too. I was like you could ask me anything and I feel confident that I can talk about it. You can ask me nuclear physics conversation questions. I won’t be able to answer them, but I. Feel confident that. I could say that due to mean and. Not feel embarrassed about it.
Eileen
I would judge you harshly.
Julie
But I think. Like that’s the thing which is. I was reminded how many people need. The confidence of knowing what the question is or what the lay of the land is before and so I think. Whereas I used to just sort. Of throw things out in class, I am now and. Being a little more careful. About telling people like what’s coming. Up so that they can prepare for it if they need to.
Eileen
Also, you’re actually doing that with your son. Because right now he’s at a phase where transitions are hard from for him. You know he doesn’t wanna stop playing or he doesn’t wanna. Have dinner or bedtime or bath time or whatever, and. So you’re finding I notice that when you prepare him a bit and say OK, we’re going to do this and then. You’ll have 5 minutes and I’ll put the timer on and then we’ll do this next thing that is helpful so you’re starting to, so you’re starting to think. That way with him. And that’s another piece of telling people in advance if he is opposed to just showing, I would say, OK, we’re going now.
Julie
Yeah, and I think it’s like I think the warning thing is important so he gives him some sense of control over what’s happening. Like I was saying, Steve and I were joking because I always say to him like before I put his pants on or before anything I’m like. I’m gonna put your pants on you and then I do it and he was like, oh, I just do it. I was like, well think about how weird that would be if somebody, just like, grabbed you and put pants on. Like you would be like what’s happening. You know what I mean? It’s like you want to know that they’re gonna do something to you, right? I don’t know.
Eileen
Just want to point out that’s the second time in this podcast that you’ve talked about putting on pants. You just want to mention it as a thread.
Julie
I am wearing pants just so everybody knows. I’m even wearing jeans.
Eileen
How do you know?
Julie
But yeah, I think I think that the other thing I. Think is really important about that is I try to give him multiple. Tasks at the same time, so I’ll be like this is going to happen then this, then this. Because I think that helps his thinking in terms of understanding consequences in terms of understanding that like if when I after I do this then that will trigger this next event, right? So after you put your socks on then you can get a snack and then we’re going to get in the car so that he understands you know. OK, socks go on, which triggers me being able to get a snack. I can’t get a snack unless I have my socks on. And that once I get the snack, that means that I have to head to the car, right? That sounds stupid. But it’s not any different than when you’re teaching somebody to make art, and you say you know there isn’t a right or a wrong choice here. But if you use that high contrast color, then it’s going to make the blue pop out and this is going to be the focal point of your painting because you put that orange over there as opposed to if you do it this way. You know, I mean, it’s constant understanding consequences. I feel like in life and art is like one of those really vital skills. And you know, the other day, Steve. Took our son to daycare and he said, oh, he insisted on taking your car this morning and I said why did he want to go in my car and he said. And Steve said, because he said, then you would come out of the house. And not know what your car where your car is.
Eileen
He said it cheerfully like that.
Julie
Right like ha ha joke and I was like well that’s so interesting because that means he understands like the series of consequences they take the car, which is mine.
Eileen
He was playing the clip on you.
Julie
I come out of the house. I don’t know where the car is. I am panicked, which then is funny to him.
Eileen
So you’re raising a psychopath, I’ve been.
Julie
And an amazing a psychopath.
Eileen
Watching this that’s.
Julie
But I was actually really proud that he understood like consequences like that that like A follows B follows C like.
Eileen
It’s a trigger of.
Julie
Events, because that is the beginning of understanding things. Like don’t bully people. Why don’t believe people? Because it. Makes them feel better. Don’t take that from them. Because that will. Upset them or don’t you know? I mean like if you don’t understand. Why not to do something then? It’s harder not to do it and and I do think like I recently had a business experience where somebody asked me to do something and it seems so arbitrary. And then a colleague of theirs explained why they were asking for it and immediately. I was like. Absolutely I will do that. I 100% get it because as soon as. I understood the why. You know what I mean? Not only. Was I willing to?
Eileen
Do it, but.
Julie
I haven’t forgotten about. It because now I get why I’m doing it. It’s not just some random thing that somebody asked me to do that seems to be for no reason whatsoever, and so I think again applying it back to Earth as everything in life does. If I tell you OK, now put a layer of white on it. I don’t know how that helps you when. The class is. Over if I tell you we’re putting a layer. Of white on it because. We want to. Only have the texture showing so that we can highlight the parts you know, I mean that. Are interesting then. You can go and do that in your own way, you know, translate it through your own filter because you understand the why. Wise in life are so important. But isn’t that the reason? I mean is the way my brain works, but isn’t that the reason that people get so upset when they don’t know why you broke up with them, why they were fired, why they didn’t get the job, why you know, I mean? You want to know the why? Why somebody got murdered? I mean it is. It is healing, even if it’s angering.
Eileen
To just know. Bit of a sense of control over the next time.
Julie
What does even understanding like if somebody was like I broke up with you because you snorting your sleep, I would be like, OK? Well, I literally can’t. Fix that, so that’s the problem, but.
Eileen
Bye bye.
Julie
You know like bye. You know what I mean? Whereas if somebody was like I broke up with you because your hair got in my. Food I’d be. Like Oh well I can wear. My hair back and make sure it. Doesn’t get in your food. You know what I mean? Like it’s just it’s helpful.
Eileen
Or I can decide what kind of idiot wouldn’t say that to me so that I could something about it. You’re just looking for an excuse. Again, bye bye.
Julie
Yeah, it’s not you. It’s me. People don’t like to tell you the why because they’re afraid the why is going to upset you, but in the end, I actually think the why is almost always healing. And like I do remember when I have ever in my life, been hiring or anything else. Telling people the honest why. Of why they didn’t get the job, it may be hurtful to them and they may wish that it was different, but it at least gives somebody information that they can choose to hear and work on, you know or say I’m never going to. The reason you didn’t get. This rule is because it’s for a 20 year old and you read as 45. So I’m sorry you know and you’re not going to change that. By yourself, and maybe it’s just accepting that.
Eileen
Occasionally they did tell you, oh, I can, I can.
Julie
Right?
Eileen
I can play 20.
Julie
Me too me too me too. OK, So what is your 3rd and final question, Madam?
Eileen
Final question. What would you tell yourself 10 years ago? Not your childhood, not like.
Julie
What would I tell myself in 2012?
Eileen
10 You the €10 ago you.
Julie
Well, 10 years ago me is a particularly interesting person because ten years ago me was still married to my ex-husband. 2012 is a year is the year our marriage hit. The divorce button, shall we say, and so 2012 is the year that my business was incorporated. 2012 is the year that I….
Eileen
I’m magical.
Julie
Left the theater. 2012 is like what what I say to myself I would say. You are amazing. Do what you love, be kinder than you feel, including to yourself. Your girlfriends are the best human beings on earth. And don’t settle.
Eileen
How about you in a certain way you did follow that advice? You just asked about it.
Julie
I did and I would say like part of the reason I would give that advice is because I’m happy with my life right now. There’s some ways. I feel like. I could have fast forwarded to get here a little Bit better, but you know what? Like they always say — all those bumps in the road, like all that stuff like that’s why I am who I. AM and….
Eileen
That’s right, they shape you.
Julie
They shape you and I like who I am. So why I mean, as much as I wish I could have escaped. So much of that pain. I like the person I am. In 2012 You would say eat only vegetables and stay out of the sun.
Eileen
No, I wouldn’t even say that. Now I. Will tell you this though, so at my age which is. I’d like to say venerable. Uh, there’s sometimes a a myth among some people that. You don’t change much when you’re older. Somehow, once you turn, I don’t know 60. It was long ago for me. You’re set. And and that you’ll just be that forever. That you and I’m gonna say there’s plenty of changing ahead. There’s plenty of new experiences ahead if you want it, and if you seek that, seek them out. There’s a lot of interesting things, and I really mean interesting things. If you. Make room for it in your life. So don’t worry about it. Whatever magical age you’re turning, you know you turn 60 and you think Oh my God now I’m 60 it’s over. There’s a lot ahead. You just have to continue to be as open to it as you were when you were younger.
Julie
Don’t you can. Change if you choose to change. You can learn if you choose to learn. I mean it goes back to.
Eileen
You can meet new people. You can have new conversations. You can have two grandchildren where when you were ten years ago they were not even a twinkle in anybody’s eye light.
Julie
That technology thing, yeah. 10 years ago I was in my 30s and I was like Oh my gosh, I’m getting divorced. I’m too old. I’m never going to have a baby and then I. Had a baby.
Eileen
In my 40s you just have to understand that. Your life continues. As long as you are open to it.
Julie
Yeah, you start dying the moment that you stop being willing to learn. I believe that whether you’re 20 or whether you’re 70 like the day that you decide you don’t have anything left to learn the day that you decide you’re not interested in learning things. That’s the day you start dying.
Eileen
And meeting new people and and you know, whatever, by the way, 10 years ago, I didn’t know you were. Gonna move here.
Julie
Yeah, that’s true.
Eileen
It’s been an enormous change I did not anticipate that either of. My two children. Would live here and now I can drive to your house in 5 minutes or less. True well.
Julie
I had lived in New York at that point for 12 years or something, so it didn’t seem like there was any chance that I was.
Eileen
Right?
Julie
Coming home. But here you go here. I am OK so I had to. Change my last. Question since you stole it.
Eileen
I don’t think that the fact that I said it before you means I stole it. I think it just means we’re on the same wavelength.
Julie
That’s fair, that’s fair, OK? So this one is simple and it’s something we’ve done in the past, which is just what is a recommendation. That you would give to people something from 2022 that brought you pleasure and you would like to share that joy with other people. And if you want so, you can. Think about it, I will go first. Since I had to come up with. This question and think of the answer OK.
Eileen
No I can. I can go. I will say this. Don’t you be afraid to cut things out? It’s funny because I just answered that other question about being open to things, but you can also eliminate. The noise, for example, I no longer watch any TV shows. Of certain genres because they’re upsetting to me. I don’t watch crying things. I don’t watch scary things. I don’t watch violent things it. Just it’s not. It’s not healthy for me and it’s not enjoyable for me. Uh, if there are things you don’t like. About yourself. Get rid of them, I just think you have to make room for the new things by eliminating some of the things that aren’t.
Julie
Yeah, I mean I. Think this is so true like. I didn’t know. I didn’t know how good this life could be until I had gotten rid of other things and had a hole that was able to be filled, and I think that’s true about a lot of stuff. I also think like in terms of turning stuff down, I’ve heard a million times and I think it’s true. “No is a complete sentence.” You don’t need to tell people why. You don’t need to give them a reason. You just say no, that’s a complete sentence.
Eileen
Ohh, I’m sorry, I just can’t.
Julie
Yeah, you also don’t need to say. That you don’t even have to be polite. About it, you can just. Say no, no no is a complete sentence. OK, my recommendation. Is so much less like, thoughtful and interesting. It is a simple consumer issue which is at the beginning of this year. I bought myself some bombas socks and I thought it was crazy because they cost 25 times more than any sock on the market and I was like how can a sock be this expensive? But I was like, I will use this 20% off coupon and I will give it a try. I literally cannot wear any other socks. I am mad if my Bombas are all in the laundry and I don’t have them.
Eileen
Clear indication that you need to buy more because that’s it would be a pipe dream to think you would do more laundry.
Julie
I mean, fair, fair. But I have bought my son some I bought. My husband some for. Christmas like because he also I was like oh do. You want somebody who’s like they’re so expensive I’m. Not buying those expensive socks. So I bought them for him for Christmas and I hope that he likes them. They have changed my life, because here’s the thing. I have terrible feet and like one of the things is. We don’t wear shoes in our house. But I have to wear like something because my feet hurt if I just walk around you know what I mean? Literally, and I often have had to have like inserts in my slippers or else and what I find is when I’m wearing bombas they actually have this kind of support in them and so my feet are much better now. In just socks you know, I mean than they ever have been, and it sounds so stupid, but I literally love them so much. I don’t even know what to tell you so they don’t.
Eileen
They also have this thing where for every pair that you buy, they donate one too.
Julie
Homeless shelters yes. And I will also say this. They have coupons and stuff all the time so. You know what I will look for a coupon code and I’ll try to post it with the podcast. Because I have. I’ve never bought them at full price, I’ve always got a coupon because there is always one, so don’t buy them at full price. They’re great, but. Don’t buy them at full price. Wait for the sale or I’ll look for a coupon. Code and try to post one OK. OK, so I think well this has been a long podcast, but a good one. We had a lot of catching. Up to do. I do want to remind you that there are lots of great classes that you can check out over at balzerdesigns.com. You can find me at juliebalzer.com as well or on Instagram as Balzerdesigns and I’d love to hear from you. If you want to help the show in any way you perform, if you like to see more podcasts in 2023, you know leave a review, mention us on social media, tell a friend about us, you know, send an e-mail to somebody about it. Leave a comment you know here on this video on. YouTube all of those things help. People find the show so thanks so much for listening and for subscribing and we’ll see you the next time on the Adventures in Arting podcast.
Eileen
bye.
—-
Thanks for stopping by!
https://balzerdesigns.com/arting/2022/10/20/652/
Oct 20, 2022
Mom and I recorded this podcast back at the beginning of September. But life has been so crazy that I only just managed to edit it this week! You can watch the video version on my YouTube channel, or you can listen above (or anywhere you get podcasts).
The focus of our conversation is on why keeping a sketchbook matters. We do wander into chatting about what makes for a successful art practice, as well as how cooking, construction, and yoga are similar to an art practice. And all of it really boils down to the notion of a “directed practice.”
I thought I would try sharing a transcription of the podcast today. The transcription is auto-generated so it’s a little bit wonky. I did my best to edit it for clarity. Also I say, “like” constantly. But for those who don’t listen to podcasts, it might be nice to get a bit of the flavor of the conversation. Let me know if you find the transcription helpful. It’s a bit time consuming to do, so if you’re into it, let me know that it’s worth the time.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Julie
Hello and welcome to the “Adventures in Arting” podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I am a working artist and mother to a curious toddler. My business, Balzer Designs, is all about helping you to live an artful life through thoughtful art education. On this podcast, together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsü-Balzer, we ask questions of each other and our guests while discussing learning, the creative career path, finding balance, looking at art, setting goals, and why being creative matters. Our goal for this podcast is to stimulate your imagination. So hi, Mom.
Eileen
Hello.
Julie
So we’re back in the saddle again in the studio. We’re here together. You have had a lot of construction going on at your house. It’s a big art project.
Eileen
It is a big art project. It started out because a car drove through my porch and then, as they opened it up, there was more and more rot under the porch.
Julie
And as always happens with an old house.
Eileen
There was a fence that needed attention, and before you know it, this one project has morphed into a gigantic, all-encompassing thing, and I simply brace myself for the endless onslaught of change orders and what, because it’s a big project.
Julie
Ball rolling down a hill.
Eileen
And a Victorian house. You can’t sort of do part of it because the whole porch is connected. So this is my project. I’m sorry Julie, but I have no time for you anymore ’cause I have to sit there and look through my window at this.
Julie
Yeah, it’s a big project. And I think this happens. I mean, everybody who’s renovated a house knows how things snowball. And it just changes and like, you know you uncover one thing. And suddenly everything is rotten and I think this has happened to me multiple times. But I think, you know, art projects are like that too, where you think you have an idea and you’re going somewhere and then you suddenly realize that it’s somewhere else you’re supposed to be. Or you’re in the middle of, you know, making something and things change. And so that actually brings us back to our topic today, which is really about keeping a sketchbook and why that’s an important practice. And I think — the biggest key — I’ll give you the bit of advice at the beginning of the podcast today instead of making you wait till the end. But the biggest thing I hope you take away is going to be the idea that if you want to get better at art — which, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to get better at art. Everybody wants to get better at art, right? But if you want to get better at it, directed practice is the way to do it. And a sketchbook is a wonderful, essentially free. I mean, I guess you have to pay for the sketchbook. Unless you make it yourself. But then you did pay for the paper. You know what I mean. It’s really a way for you to make yourself get better in a focused way. So I thought we could talk a little bit about directed practice. And sort of what that means as opposed to sort of — I think when people start talking about sketch books, the first thing they start talking about is drawing, and drawing can be a thing that pushes people away and makes them sort of uninterested in pursuing it.
Eileen
Well, because they start comparing what they’re drawing to a photograph. Or Michelangelo. What I would say is it, since I don’t keep a sketchbook, but one thing I might compare it to is recipes, cooking and some recipes have a lot of technique involved as well as a lot of equipment, and so the first time you try it, it might not come out like the picture, it might not come out the way you expected it. And again, people take notes. They write notes in the margins of the cookbook or the recipe, they alter things to suit their tastes and I think that’s a sort of same idea, which is you should get more comfortable and make it work for you personally. The more you do it, and if you keep the notes then you won’t keep repeating the same mistakes.
Julie
Yeah, I think that’s. A sketchbook can be many things. I mean, let’s get that started right there, right? There’s the kind of sketchbook that’s like a visual diary. There’s the kind of sketchbook that’s, you know, preparing for a project. There’s the kind of sketchbook that’s like practicing a particular skill. There are a lot of different kinds of sketchbooks. I think what I’m mainly interested in pursuing right now is something that I call a studio notebook, which I just think is an easier way of thinking of a sketchbook ’cause then you’re not focused on the idea that it’s like all drawing. Like Michelangelo. There’s more of an acknowledgement that in a notebook, you write things down. You might have lists. There could be a calendar, there’s, you know, to do’s, there’s sort of like random thoughts. This notebook can also be something that’s ugly, and then it has lined paper or something like that, so it doesn’t have to be this kind of pristine book, and I think all of it gets twisted a million times by seeing on social media people talking about, you know, “I hate all these ugly pages in my sketchbook when I wasn’t very good.” And then you’re looking at these gorgeous, you know, luminous drawings page after page of stuff and you just think, well…. And actually, I think that is a reminder to get back to the house renovation. Like when people show their houses…
Eileen
Their whole house doesn’t look like that.
Julie
That’s one corner that they cleaned out for you to look at for 5 seconds with really good lighting, dude. I mean, or any of that stuff, you know, people’s real lives aren’t like, constantly filled with all the perfect moments. Like for instance I don’t ever post anything where my toddler is like having a tantrum or a meltdown or anything like that, because I don’t think that kind of stuff should be on social media. But does he? Yeah. He’s a toddler, but if you saw the pictures, you’d think that all he did was like play all day and be pleasant, you know? And I think like that’s the thing about us too. We generally don’t show the things that we really hate, because that’s really hard to do. Most people just don’t want to if you really, really hate it right?
Eileen
Sometimes I think about what if there had been social media around when I had little kids. What I would have posted about you?
Julie
What would you have posted about us? That we were perfect all the time angels?
Eileen
Well, that would have left me with nothing. Well, I just think it’s interesting because from birth these kids today are used to being photographed and they just have a different idea, I think, of their childhood. They have a lot more pictures to look at and a lot of video to look at.
Julie
Well, you and I even discuss generationally between us, you know, when I’m on the cusp of a lot of the technology stuff. But you have an expectation of privacy in your life. And I kind of I’m….Like, I mean I have some expectation of privacy, but not a ton, and I think one generation away from me, they’re like: “What’s privacy?” That’s about how you grow up. I remember reading an interview with Anne Hathaway — who I think is similarly aged to me. She may be slightly younger — but she said that she was so glad that she had gone to college in the years before there was social media ’cause she could do all the dumb things she wanted and, you know, people have to break out the film. And you know, develop it in a darkroom in order for any of it to come to life. And I think that’s true. You know, there’s a lot of ways in which you can’t hide.
So to bring it back briefly to an art conversation: You know, there was a person that I interviewed on this podcast who was a stranger who I just approached on the Internet and said, “Hey, do you want to do an interview?” And one of the things that she said to me, she said. “ I researched you. I went back all the way through every single one of your Instagram posts, back to the very first one that you posted.” Now to be completely fair, I’m pretty sure I joined Instagram in like 2011. So it is 2022.
Eileen
So that’s a decade. She has too much spare time.
Julie
But you really do see where somebody came from. And like I’m not a celebrity. I don’t like scrub my social media and stuff ’cause I think my very first post was of my ex-husband and I just….I’ve never taken down any of those posts because they’re so buried. Why would anybody? But apparently….
Eileen
Well, even if they did, I mean.
Julie
It’s true. It’s not like it’s not part of my history. And I think that’s another thing too, is remembering that people erase things they don’t like from their past. In fact, you sent me an article today, didn’t you, about how now you’re going to be able to.
Eileen
UN-text people. The new Apple software that will be available starting Monday. Well, but you can’t erase your text forever. But if you immediately doubt it, there’s a little time lag you can.
Julie
Like you pressed it and like and….
Eileen
Get rid of it.
Julie
So you can text and I think that Gmail has something like that where you can — like if you hit send but then you had, you know, did something wrong to sort of immediately UN-Send it.
Eileen
I just think that one of the things you’re right about is this expectation of privacy also means that I’m very thoughtful, one might say guarded, about anything I put online. Like Instagram and stuff. And it’s private. My thing is private on purpose. I can’t remember the last time I posted anything on Instagram.
Julie
I’m more careful now than I would have been, like, if I had a kid 10 years ago. I don’t think I’d be as careful as I am now about it, you know. I think that we’ve learned a lot of the ways in which the Internet is great and a lot of ways in which it’s bad. But I do want to say like what I think a sketchbook is or should be in my mind: and it’s sort of like social media history, but without any edits. So you’re able to look back ten years and say like, oh. This is where I was. These are the thoughts that I was having at the time.
Eileen
But you’re using it for you.
Julie
Yeah, I’m using it for me. I mean, you know, I taught a sketchbook class maybe two years ago, and one of the questions that I thought was really interesting that someone asked me is she said, “uhm, I never see any pictures of your sketchbook online. Why don’t you ever share that? Like how, how is this a thing that you do since I’ve never seen any of it.” And I was like, “hey, it’s really interesting that you think I share everything that I do online, ’cause I don’t.”
Like, I don’t share my sketchbooks very often. I especially don’t share the note parts of them. Sometimes I’ll share the pictures if I think they’re interesting or worth it. Because I think that’s private. That’s your brain. That’s what you’re thinking of right now. That’s your moment. I’ve had this idea to do this sketchbook class for a while, which I’ve never put together, partially because I’m not sure how I feel about like dragging out the old books ’cause they feel they feel very much like me, like a very personal version of me.
Eileen
Very much like let’s all read my diary. Just because some of it is pictures doesn’t mean it’s not your diary.
Julie
Yeah, ’cause it’s like my thought process. Listen, we’re all guilty of this. There’s an idea that seems terrible at the time. Or a drawing that’s ugly, or a pink color that you can’t stand and then three years later or three months later, you look at it and you go. “Right!” And so the thing is, if you’re working on like loose papers that you throw away, or you know, you’re gesso-ing over everything to cover it up as you’re working, like you’re not ever keeping that record of where you’ve been.
I’m working on a new class right now which is kind of a sketch book class, I guess, It’s called “The Carve December Workbook.” And one of the videos I was making this afternoon…I was talking a little bit about this idea of when you’re doing your test prints and stuff, when you’re stamping — I used to have them only on a paper and I was sort of trying to keep them. But then they were just kind of like test prints and I would get rid of them. And sometimes I liked the stamp earlier in the carve and I carved too much and I messed it up. And I was going to make a mental note, which we know where the mental notes go — into the garbage.
I actually heard an interview with Jay-Z on Fresh Air and he was saying , “Do you know how many rap songs I’ve lost? By thinking that I just had them in my brain. And not, you know, writing them down.” And I was like: That’s it. That’s the thing. Which is if you have this brilliant moment, right? It happens to all of us. When you’re in the shower or laying in bed or in a place where there isn’t a pen. You know how it feels when you can’t remember it later and you’re driving yourself crazy ’cause it was the best idea you ever had. So that’s to me again with sketchbooks. Or write that idea down, and even if you don’t use it now, you might use it later. So even if you don’t use that drawing now, you might use it later.
But to get back to the carving, like the way that I find it really useful is, I can come back to the design at the point that I liked it and re-carve — not being something my feeling of what it was, but by actually seeing what was or trying to figure out like why I liked it or, you know, any of that kind of stuff. Which sort of gets us back again to the idea of directed practice and what that means. So I’ll just ask you, you’re the smartest person I know.
Eileen
Is that sad.
Julie
OK, you’re the smartest person I know in real life. In person. I mean, I don’t think you’re the smartest person on the planet, but she’s pretty smart.
Eileen
Ah.
Julie
So what does directed practice mean to you?
Eileen
Let’s go back to the recipe thing. It means getting some something — an idea in your brain that you want to try, but it means not feeling like that the directions and the recipe own you and and working around something so that it expresses what you want. And the same thing goes with clothing. If you are always dressing according to like what is the latest fashion? Too bad for you if you don’t have that kind of model body and that kind of expendable money. And you know the whole thing. I just think all of your life, you’re faced with making your own choices and the directed practice is a way of living where you take in lots of input, but you make selections and you get rid of the things that don’t work for you, don’t interest you, you know, don’t appeal to you, and so you steal some ideas from people. You reject some things from people and you don’t let other people tell you what’s right for you. You know you. You let people tell you, oh, that doesn’t look like a horse that you drew well. Maybe to you it feels like you. You got the essence of horsing.
Julie
Although I did show you my drawing today and tell you it was an orchid and you said it looked like an iris and then I read the caption and realized it was an Iris, so that’s…
Eileen
Yeah, that’s a whole lot of crap. That is an entirely different…
Julie
Another issue. OK, so I’m going to use a metaphor here, which is, if I said to you: “Tomorrow I am going to do athletics.” Yeah, you’d be like. “OK, right. I I don’t know what that means? But OK.” But if I said to myself, hey, tomorrow I’m going to go for a run, you’d be more like, OK. Well, I know what kind of tools and stuff you need for that.
Eileen
And you’ll be back in 5 minutes.
Julie
Since you need me to pick you up.
Eileen
At the end of the block.
Julie
The answer is yes. And the front of the driveway. Ah, so if I said to you in six months I’m going to run a marathon. So I need to start training tomorrow.
Eileen
I would accept that.
Julie
Wait, but all of those things, what you see is — like “athletics,” is too broad. That’s like saying I’m going to make art tomorrow, right? So you make a smaller plan, I’m going to go for a run. OK, well, even though you were joking. It is like, well, how long is that run? Where are you gonna run? Do you know what? But if I tell you I’m training for marathon in six months, that’s specific, that’s directed, right? So now I know for the next six months I know what I’m practicing for, which is the event is a marathon. I have to teach myself to run 26 miles. And then I also know that, like, there are prescribed formulas like your recipe metaphor for how to train yourself to run. You know that you do. This is how you do this. I know I can look up equipment. I can look at both things. It’s directed instead of just sort of a general idea. It’s kind of like, do you make your resolution, “I’m going to get healthy.” What does that mean? Or do you say like you set yourself a goal? So in art I think it’s the same way, and that’s what your studio notebook or sketchbook is so great for. You say, like, I’m going to paint 10 paintings, a series of 10 paintings, you know, over the next four months. Well, what are they going to be about. What is the content going to be?
Eileen
What are they?
Julie
How are they linked in a series? What’s the series going to be? That’s when you go to the notebook, so you’re not working it out across 10 expensive canvases. Or all of this time and energy and crying into it? You’re working out in the pages of an inexpensive notebook? Well, here’s what I’m interested in, and here’s how I think it should be. And this is what I think it should look like. And you know. You’re kind of figuring out. What are my techniques? What are my materials? You’re practicing. You’re warming up. You’re getting your muscles stretched. You’re doing the metaphorical art exercises that you would do to get ready for the marathon, which, is finally to get ready to paint those ten paintings. I mean, I think I have told this story before and I’ll tell it again — I have a friend who is a playwright and her husband always brags that she can write a play in six days. And she says to him, “You’re a moron. I don’t write it in six days. The physical writing time. Maybe that I sit down and go.” But she said, “I’ve been thinking and planning and working it out for a year and then I sit down and go.” You know, and I think writers have notebooks. Why don’t artists have notebooks to write? If you think about it like that, which is, you’re getting ready to do your marathon, to write the thing, to do the thing. You know what I mean? And so you’re doing the exercises, the calisthenics. It’s the race training to get you there. That’s what I think directed practice is.
Eileen
I just sent you a text today which you probably still haven’t read, so there’s a new book that was just published. By a woman. It’s a mystery murder mystery, and in it she imagines that the detective in it is an artist. Georgia O’Keeffe. She’s very specific ’cause she has knowledge of Georgia O’Keeffe and New Mexico and she feels that an artist would look at the situation differently. What I was interested in, and which is relevant here, is that she keeps all kinds of files. Like she has one whole file that’s all crime stuff. So in a way, she’s keeping notes about things that she might or might not use, but that way she doesn’t have to remember them and she has a place to go. And, I think probably people do this about everything. So everything in life is kind of like writing a research thesis. Because you keep notes. I used to keep — Really, this is dumb — but when I was very young and I started to cook for dinner parties, I used to keep these note cards. I still have them somewhere. When I die you’ll find them, and I would keep the note cards, and on it I would put what I had made and who was there, you know?
Julie
So that you wouldn’t repeat a meal to your guests.
Eileen
Well, exactly ’cause, imagine that. God. A second spaghetti, no! Uhm, but the thing is that….
Julie
This is what happens when you tell a woman with a Harvard education to spend her days cooking.
Eileen
Bad right? But I mean, I have a huge notebook where I put — like in the days when people had business cards — restaurants I liked or you know….
Julie
OK, so it doesn’t sound weird because you know what I have in my bullet journal? When I used to travel all the time, for cities that I repeatedly went to, like Cleveland, Tampa.
Eileen
Oh yeah.
Julie
I wrote down restaurants I liked and what I liked about them, so that the next time. I was looking for a place to eat, I didn’t have to remember what it was I had had three months ago, or where I had gone. I could just look at the list. So not crazy.
Eileen
Or I keep like, lists of contractors at what they do so that I could, you know, oh, I need a plumber. Oh, I need tiles. I have some place to start. I mean, I think that’s life if you’re if you are a person who doesn’t want to hunt around and make the same mistakes over and over. It’s very useful to keep notes, and that’s directed.
Julie
Yeah, that’s exactly it. If you don’t want to keep making the same mistakes over and over.
Eileen
That’s it.
Julie
Do directed practice. I mean, I think I can’t emphasize that enough. You hit it so succinctly and so perfectly. And that’s what a sketchbook does. It lets you learn from your mistakes. It lets you see where the problems are. It lets you grow. Because as I say, over and over, if you can identify the mistake or the problem? The opportunity? Why you don’t like it? Why it’s a problem? Then you can fix it, right? And so sometimes I find I don’t have perspective, right? Time has become the biggest partner in my art making process as I’ve gotten older….
Eileen
And as you had a child, yeah.
Julie
But I’ve learned also like how important it is to let time pass in order to digest things, you know. And so I can look at an old notebook and suddenly be excited with new. And it’s different from looking at Pinterest, which is exciting and is fun. Because instead of being inspired by other people’s ideas, I’m inspired by my own ideas. And I love that. Like letting time get in the mix of it, you know, is great. Like I actually had a funny conversation with Jaime from The Crafter’s Workshop. She asked me if I wanted to design some layered stencils, which is something I had done in my like first or second release, and she said it was too early — like people didn’t get them then.
Eileen
That is interesting.
Julie
But now everybody is making layered stencils. And I was like, that’s so funny ’cause I actually have no interest in doing layered stencils now. It was something I was very interested in. Then, and everybody was like, what is this? You know. And I just think if I were a smarter business person, it makes sense to revisit that idea.
Eileen
It would.
Julie
But, you know, I think, your passions are what your passions are. So who knows? I’ll try. I’m going to try to do some layered stencils. We’ll see. Ah, but again, like. That comes back to maybe you’ll…
Eileen
Do it in a different way than you did originally, and that will keep it fresh and interesting.
Julie
Then the 1st time around, yeah.
Eileen
Because what I know about you is you love solving problems.
Julie
I do.
Eileen
So you’re posing to yourself a problem. How can I do these layered stencils in a way that’s new and exciting to me? And I think because of that challenge you will start.
Julie
So I think that I don’t want to do layered stencils like other people are doing them, and I don’t want to do them like I did them, so that that makes it an interesting problem to solve. And speaking of problems, my two-year-old….
Eileen
Here’s a problem. I look so small on this screen.
Julie
Where is one and two are smaller.
Eileen
I mean I am shorter, but I do look like….
Julie
I mean, it’s perspective.
Eileen
I’m on a different scale in my human being, I’m just saying.
Julie
Get closer to the camera.
Eileen
I’m looking at this screen and I’m thinking darling….
Julie
Here, get closer to….I’m like also much closer to the table. Now do we look more?
Speaker
Better, but still. Like the same.
Julie
Brobdingnagian again versus Lilliputian. That’s it. It’s so I was can’t even remember what. Else to say. It’s probably not that important you were talking about.
Eileen
Your two year old I. Mean forget your child.
Julie
Oh Oh yeah, my 2 year olds, my 2 year old.
Eileen
It’s OK, I understand.
Julie
Almost 3 year old I guess. He was — he’s been talking a lot about clues. Like, he likes to follow clues. And it could be a clue. Like the other day we saw some tracks on the sidewalk and I said a vehicle made these and he said vehicles shouldn’t be on the sidewalk. And I said that’s true.
Eileen
So right.
Julie
And he said let’s follow them and see where they go. I said OK and then he said maybe it’s a clue. And we sort of…the conversation petered out when he couldn’t say a clue for what. But anyway, I think at the end he wanted to see the vehicle that had been on the sidewalk. Ah, but so I think that.
Eileen
Makes sense? It’s why you follow animal tracks and….
Julie
Right. You’re interested in seeing it and if it was a vehicle? He wants to follow it. Uh, so I think that a sketchbook is, sort of that, it’s clues. It’s like tracks that you leave for yourself, bread crumbs that you leave for yourself so that you’re not starting over. There was a teacher who told me something that has stayed with me for a couple years, which is, She said before she leaves the studio — Every day she leaves herself a note. About exactly what she’s thinking like right at this moment. And then the first thing she does when she comes into the studio the next day is she reads the note from the night before.
Eileen
A lot of mine would just say hungry.
Julie
Well, and it might be a repeat in the morning, but I think about what that does for her she was expressing is it allows her to like pick up where she left off, because then she doesn’t have to noodle it over or think about it when she goes with her family and does whatever, right? Because that time is free, because she knows that her brain has been left in the studio, ready to go. And she can just look at it and be like, oh I wanted to do blah, blah, blah, blah. I was thinking about. why X doesn’t work? Or I need to change the water or whatever.
Eileen
That will work for some, and for other people who need to be in the zone and working for like 5 hours in a row, it might not work. But I mean….
Julie
But it’s an idea.
Eileen
Yeah.
Julie
Again, about leaving yourself a clue. It’s kind of like you’re saying about writing in the margins of the recipe. Or for Harry Potter fans, you know when he finds the Half Blood Prince’s book — I’m probably getting this wrong — Anyway, he finds the recipe book for the spells, and it has the writing in the margins that fixes all the spells, and so suddenly he’s amazing at spells because he’s using somebody’s handwritten notes in the margin to help him. Because they’ve already figured it out. And I think like that’s sort of the idea here, which is you’re leaving yourself that note in the margin, you’re leaving yourself some kind of clue. So even when people give handouts or anything like I take copious notes, which to me are my notes in the margins. So even if I have like a finished project or something. Then I want to write about it. So even with like sketches that I do in my sketchbook, I’ll often write a lot about the process I used or why I liked it, ’cause I will remember tomorrow or maybe 2 weeks from now, but I won’t two years from now. And then 10 years from now. And I want these books to be useful to me, OK?
So one of the reasons I’ve switched over from using an art journal to a sketchbook ’cause people often say like what’s the difference? And I think sometimes there’s not a huge difference. For a lot. For me, there is. For me, my art journal was always a place to like plan, explore, yes. But everything I wrote about was just diary entry.
Eileen
Julie
I never like — and it wasn’t really directed practice. It was like practice and it was fun and I learned a lot. And I think our journals are fantastic, and I still do mine occasionally. But I have found since I started a really regular sketchbook practice that the sketchbook is such good space for learning that I just can’t give it up right now. I just get so much back from those notes and emerging after.
Eileen
Why do you have to give it up? You don’t have to.
Julie
I don’t have to give it up. So there. Uhm, so yeah, I really, I’m a huge fan of it. So if you wanted to start a directed practice. How would you start it? What a good question. Thanks for asking, Mom. Ah, so if you wanted to start it, what I would say is think about a goal you have. Let’s go back to the marathon metaphor. Whatever that goal is, I want to understand this.
Eileen
Either way, we are the two least likely people to run a marathon.
Julie
It’s true. I want to, you know, understand the color wheel, or I want to, you know. And then it’s the old joke about eating an elephant bite by bite. Break it down. What are the steps you’re going to have to take? This is something I do with my coaching clients all the time, and you’re getting it for free, which is we talk about what their goal is and then we back it down. Well, if you want to do this by January 1st, then how do we figure out, you know, how we’re going to do it? And then are you aware that this means you’re going to have to create 2 pieces of art every day from now until then? And then most people are like, “oh, I didn’t realize that.” I was like, OK, well then lets set a different goal or lets change the timeline.
Eileen
That’s why I came here. I was just saying of construction ’cause my house is currently a morass of destruction and construction.
Julie
Pile of rubble.
Eileen
That’s the whole thing. I mean, you have to get a permit, but before that you have to get an architect to draw up a design. You know that I mean? And then you do the steps and how long is it going to take for this to get delivered? It’s going to take twice as long as you thought and how much is it going to cost? It’s going to take four times as much as you thought. I mean, everything requires a certain degree of mental organization for you to do it.
Julie
Well, it’s also like if I told you, for your construction budget, you need to have some wiggle room, a contingency fund, ’cause stuff happens. Don’t plan it out to the dollar. Like understand that everybody would be like “duh” contingency fund. But if I tell you about your art goal, you have to have some sort of contingency fund. And usually that’s a fund of time in which you’re not so full throttle that if you get sick, if your child gets sick, if your parent gets sick, if your partner gets sick, if your house burns down, if you get busy at work, if you know you, whatever happens that you suddenly…your part is completely derailed and there’s no way to rescue it. So it’s like how can you build in those pockets? It’s like one of the things I will say to my coaching clients sometimes. I’ll say, like, realistically this is not a “I’m here to impress you.” I think a personal trainer would say the same thing, right? How many? How many days a week are you going to do this, and for how long are you going to do it? If you say to me I only want to do this twice a week and I’m going to spend an hour on it. Fine, I can work with that. But if you tell me you’re going to do five days a week, six hours a day, we will make a plan based on that. And then when you don’t do it, it will completely fall off the rails and you’ll feel like a failure. Or when actually you just need to be realistic with yourself. About how much time you’re willing to give.
Eileen
Right.
Julie
To it, you know. And I think a lot of us want to feel like. I’m all in this. Because, you know, we’re in this sort of emerging culture in which I think the most popular, like, social media feeds, are ones that are solely dedicated to a single idea. For endless hours, right? Partially because I think we admire people’s tenacity and sticking to it.
Eileen
Well, also, I know what I’m going to get. If I want to see eyebrows, I’ll go to the eyebrows. The eyebrow lady. I have two eyebrows, in case you were wondering.
Julie
Uh, so I think that. You just have to remember that. You can just do something for a little bit. I do think that a regular art practice is more important than like a binge artpractice. So if you were like, I’m going to spend 2 hours every week, one hour on Mondays and one hour on Thursdays, and I’m going to do this artpractice, I would say “bravo.” If you’re like, I’m just going to do it. Whenever I have some time. I will be like, well, that’s where we get into a little bit of a problem, right? It’s even if you do 6 hours one day and then no hours for two weeks, it’s sort of not as good as having the regular practice, right? You want that sinus rhythm of your heart right in your art practice so it’s actually kind of regular.
Eileen
Well, actually, they say that the reinforcement that you get from doing it regularly helps you learn.
Julie
And also just the fact that you keep showing up. I think that showing up is a really difficult thing to do for all of us in many aspects of our lives. And so I do, I do think that just the showing up is such the key. I mean, every time I’ve gone to a yoga class with a, like, grumpy face and a slouchy, you know, back. And then I finished the yoga class and I’m like: “Ah, I’m a temple of amazing glory, right?” So I think the same is true. You just have to get your ****. In their inner meeting, do it, and then, so that the time isn’t wasted, think about.
But in the yoga class, if you’re there and the person is like. OK, just do whatever your body feels. Like, and I’m going to sit here and you’re going to sit there and I’ll see you later. Like I would nap on the floor, right? I’m probably not getting any better or anything. I mean, maybe I’m chilling out and relaxing and that’s great. So the same thing is true when you come in for your hour of practice to do in your sketchbook or in your art space, which is what’s your goal? What are the, you know, just in yoga class where you hold different positions? What are the exercises you’re going to do? What are the things you’re working towards? And yoga? Am I working towards being able to balance on my feet better? Balanced on one side than the other, most people. So am I, you know, learning to balance better, you know, on my non-dominant foot. And that’s my goal. So I hold those poses longer, and I really think about it. And I really, you know, push, push, push and I make that a goal that I’m chasing and the same thing. Can be true in your art practice. What is that thing? That you want to get better at and you just keep chasing it. Small or big, right until you get there and figuring out the ways that you can do it. So maybe while I’m brushing my teeth. I stand on that non dominant foot.
Eileen
Oh, that says one of the things that’s recommended.
Julie
Right. Just to slowly sort of get it in and it’s not really a change. So maybe if you’re trying to get better at, like, colors. Maybe like the last thing you do before you fall asleep is you think about, like, you know, colors that are interesting to you today and what you might — what are some combinations you might think of? So that it’s just there as part of your daily life, but at times that you’re not actively in the art practice. And then you go to your notebook and you write some of this down and I think that’s part of what helps us get follow up.
Eileen
I’ve often wondered when they say last thing before you go to sleep, how you know it’s just before you’re going to go to sleep?
Julie
Well, for me it’s because the lights are out and I’m lying there. That’s the clue. I don’t know.
Eileen
You know what I mean?
Julie
I know, I know.
Eileen
I could do it in the bed, but I could be there for three hours. So do I wait until the three hours are up?
Julie
Well, maybe it would help you. So this is actually. I know this sounds crazy, but sometimes when I have trouble sleeping when I have insomnia. Yeah, the thing that actually helps me is to do some directed practice in my brain.
Eileen
Julie
And I have found that when I think about like what is the art project that I want to do next? Or I’m trying to work out the technical whatever of some sort of art project, or I start thinking through a list of supplies that, you know, for whatever, I fall asleep pretty quickly. And it almost always kicks me. I know not everybody works the same way, but it’s somehow. I think because art…making art is a pleasure thing for me and is not necessarily the business of art. Which, to be completely frank, is what I spend 79% of my day doing is the business of art. Not actually the making of the art. And so I think because the making of the art is a Pleasure Center, for me, it’s like, it puts me in a good brain space to fall asleep.
Eileen
It also may call on a different part.
Julie
Of your brain, yeah.
Eileen
So the, you know, the non-analytical the right brained part. Whatever you want to call it, and so you’re ready to sleep. Because you aren’t doing the very specific, you know, you’re not running the statistics.
Julie
And it’s distressing to me because I think. like, I worry about my business and I worry about the choices I’m making. And I worry about if I’ve gotten everything done and I worry and I worry and I worry and I worry, but I’m not worried about making. You know, I just want to do it, so I think that that’s relaxing, OK? So we’re probably at a good point to wrap up unless you have any other thoughts. Or advice for people?
Eileen
I have no advice.
Julie
That’s a lie if I ever heard a lie..
Eileen
I’m a blank slate.
I’m an empty vessel.
Julie
Fill me, OK!?
So a couple things to know about a monthly membership. There are three different tiers. You can be a Member, A Maker, or a Super Learner? There’s all sorts of exciting perks at every level. The Artful Holiday class is still available to purchase if you want. It’s packed with tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of techniques. I kept lamenting to Mom: I probably should have made it a year-long class. Got just too much content in it.
Eileen
I also think people got deceived by the Artful Holiday title and they thought they would be making Christmas decorations or something. It’s a technique class, not a project class that involves….
Julie
Well, it is a project class, but it’s not all making like tampon faries. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know.
And then Design Boot Camp is coming up in 2023. There are only two spots left in the daytime one, and the night time class has some more space. So if you’re interested in, well, if you’re interested in getting better, which is what we’ve been talking about today, right, ’cause Design Boot Camp is an opportunity to grow. If you’re not getting the results you want, if you want to refine your personal style. If you don’t know how to tell when your work is done. If you struggle with decision making during the art process, if you’re looking for an art mentor. If you’re seeking camaraderie from other artists, if you want to understand the structure of artwork and the secret language of artists, any of that. If you’re ready to work really, really hard, then Design Boot Camp is for you. And I’ll say that the second round of Design Boot Camp, oh, or the second level, I guess a design bootcamp is also starting up in 2 weeks for people who’ve been through boot camp, level one. And that one, we really do focus a lot more on a sketchbook practice and that kind of stuff. But I would say. Uhm, the feedback I always get from people on this class is that it’s life changing. It completely and totally obliterates any idea that you had before about what an art practice is as well, and that it just allows you to make the art that you want. And don’t we all want that? OK, so you can’t find Mom anywhere online because privacy, as we discussed before, but you can. Find me at Juliebalzer.com or on Instagram as Balzer Designs. If you like, take class with me or sign up for private coaching, I’d love to hear from you and if you’d like to help the show, you can leave a review or mention us on social media. Tell your next door neighbor. Whatever it is, all of those things help other people find the show. If you’re watching this video on YouTube, I hope you’ll give us a thumbs up and subscribe. And thanks so much for listening and subscribing. We’ll see you the next time on the Adventures in Arting podcast.
129: Julie Loves Mash-Ups
Aug 23, 2022
I love a good mash-up. You know, a bit from column A and a bit from column B smushed together and suddenly you’ve got something brand new! Historically speaking, mash-ups are how innovation works. People rarely invent something from scratch. It’s the brilliance of putting two things together (or twenty things together) to create something new and necessary. Here’s the official definition from Merriam-Webster:
On today’s podcast, Mom and I discuss mash-ups and why they matter in art. We also wander through a lot of chatter about teaching, learning, and being lazy. You can listen the audio version of the podcast here or wherever you like to get podcasts. Or you can watch the video version on my YouTube Channel.
Today’s episode of The Adventures in Arting podcast was fueled by an email I get almost every single day:
“I can’t access my class.”
It’s a statement that makes me crazy because there’s no way for me to help the emailer. The questions I usually write back with are:
What’s the class?
What’s the specific issue with accessing the class?
Is there an error message you’re seeing?
My frustration with this unspecific way of asking for help, led me to think about WHY asking specific questions is so important — not only in getting technical support, but also in helping ourselves make better art. I truly believe that if you can ask a specific question, you can almost always get an answer that is useful.
So, in today’s podcast, Mom and I are chatting about asking specific questions (and we wander off onto several tangents, of course!) and setting goals. You can listen the audio version of the podcast or you can watch the video version on my YouTube Channel.
If you’re looking for the chat with Carolyn Dube that I reference in the podcast, here it is:
If you’re interested in learning to ask better questions, I hope you’ll check out Design Boot Camp. Payment plans are available.
Thanks for stopping by!
127: Failure Again
Jul 19, 2022
When I told Mom that today’s podcast topic was “failure,” she said, “Again?!”
Back on September 18, 2012 we published our very first podcast (almost exactly 10 years ago) and the topic was failure.
I figured a ten year gap was enough time to chat about it again. I hope you feel the same way.
During the podcast we share concrete tips for re-framing failure as an opportunity, along with strategies for defining your own ideas about success and failure.
If you enjoy the podcast, I really hope you’ll share it with a friend or leave us a review. Those actions help other people find the show and that helps us grow.
Mom is under the weather today, so instead of chatting with her, I’m sharing portions of three interviews I did with artists who are a part of The Artful Holiday online class.
I’m chatting with Barb Smucker…
…about her daily art practice. This is a picture of the beautiful collage calendar she’s teaching you how to make in The Artful Holiday class:
…and I chat about being an art technique omnivore, and using what you’ve got. She’s sharing how to use resin to make this assemblage style necklace in The Artful Holiday Class:
You can watch my full interview with May HERE. May has also been a guest on the podcast before — way way back in 2013. Listen to Episode 11 HERE.
Finally, Rachel Greig…
…and I chat about designing stamps and being weird. In The Artful Holiday class, Rachel is showing you how to build up simple layers to create these gorgeous cards:
We chat about a topic that has come up several times – particularly during Book Club: why having a broad range of inspiration matters. In other words, why you should look to fashion or architecture or quilting if what you do is collage. I share one of my favorite quotes during the podcast and I took some time to track down its origins. It turns out that it’s from Dale Carnegie.
I’ll be sharing her full interview soon! Her video tutorial for The Artful Holiday class made me immediately put these plaster strips in my Amazon cart. I’m looking forward to sharing her project with you!
I hope you enjoy the podcast. I’d love to hear your thoughts on having a broad base of inspiration.
Episode 124 “Learning & Critique”
Jun 06, 2022
After a year-long hiatus, the podcast is back! Hooray!
I managed to traumatize my Mom by turning the video on. (You can watch the video HERE.) The good news is that she has forgiven me and we had a great conversation. There are a few glitchy sound and video problems at the beginning of the recording. But, like I said, the conversation is a good one and I hope you’ll chime in with your own thoughts on the subject. Today’s topic is “critique” and how it’s different from criticism. We also take a deep dive into the ways in which critique helps you to learn.
This is the quilt I refer to in the podcast — the first photo is for scale and the second photo is of the almost finished quilt:
I hope that you’re happy to see the return of the podcast. I know that I am. The plan is to deliver a new podcast every two weeks.
123: Sketchbook Habit
Jun 15, 2021
On today’s podcast Mom and I are chatting about sketchbooks! We share lots of tips for starting your own sketchbook process along with some of the reasons (artistic by mostly personal) that you might be interested in adding a sketchbook to your repertoire. You can either listen to the podcast recording, as normal, or you can watch the video:
There are two major categories of sketchbooks in my experience —
Workbooks which are used as a place to explore ideas for later works of art. They tend to be filled with scribbles, notes, color swatches, drawings, and aren’t usually meant for public viewing.
Visual diaries which share a glimpse into the creator’s daily life or travels. They tend to be filled with watercolor images and are often meant for public viewing.
As I mentioned on the podcast, I am teaching an online sketchbook class, which is now open for enrollment.
I hope you’ll join me for class, even if you think you can’t draw. Keeping a visual diary isn’t about perfect drawing, it’s about capturing a moment and expressing yourself! As Mom said on the podcast:
Thanks for stopping by!
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
122: 100 Days of Art Botanical
May 26, 2021
This is a very special episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast. We turned on the video cameras while we recorded the podcast and streamed a live video version to facebook and youtube. Mom wasn’t sure about it, but she did a great job and we’re definitely going to do it again! You can either listen to the podcast recording, as normal, or you can watch the video!
This episode focuses on my recently finished 100 Day Project: 100 Days of Art Botanical. The 100 Day Project is a world-wide phenomenon. People across the globe challenge themselves to do some kind of art related task every day for 100 Days. In this podcast Mom and I discuss my own experiences with the 100 Day Project as well as tips on being successful with your own 100 Day Project!
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show or leave us a review. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
This is the piece that changed the direction of the whole project for me:
Here are my takeaways, which I shared during the podcast:
This is the blogger I’m obsessed with. I linked the two articles I mentioned on the podcast in yesterday’s blog post.
Thanks for stopping by! Let me know what you think of the new format!
121: Tina Walker is Resetting Herself
May 12, 2021
On this episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I chat with Tina Walker about her obsession with details, antiques, art challenges, and how she uses art-making to reset herself. I really enjoyed our conversation and I think you will too!
Tina Walker is a creator, hobbyist photographer, and dog lover.
She loves all things mixed media, including art journaling, assemblage, and book making.
Her project selection and medium choice are always changing, and you will frequently see her hosting on-line collaborations and challenges.
She is a frequent contributor to various Stampington magazines and you can find more of her art in her various in-person and online workshops.
When she isn’t creating, you will often find Tina perusing local Antique stores looking for project inspiration or combining nature with art.
Some things we discuss on the podcast:
Whether your clothes and the way you decorate your house match the kind of art you make.
Being intrigued by the unnatural, such as Picasso in his Cubism phase or Klimt perched on the edge of realism.
Tina’s obsession with details.
The teeny tiny pots that Tina throws.
Mixing antiques/found objects into your work.
Tina’s day job as Director of International Trade for a major footwear retailer.
Tina’s “7 Ways” challenge to herself.
Tina’s studio (hint: it’s all over her house).
ELFA drawers from The Container Store.
“If you only have 5 minutes, do 5 minutes.”
Yes means no and no means yes.
“Nobody knows that you feel guilty about saying no unless you tell them.”
Boundaries.
And here are our recommendations for this episode:
Come and chat with me and Mom! Tell all your friends!
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
120: Mistakes Are Okay with Tania Ahmed
Apr 29, 2021
On this episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I chat with Tania Ahmed about her life in the craft industry. Tania is smart and insightful and totally down-to-earth. I really enjoyed my conversation with her and related to so much that she said and I think you will too. I didn’t want the conversation to end because there was so much to talk about.
Tania Ahmed is an art video maker and tutor based in the UK.
As a lifelong crafter, she has blended her multi crafts experience to hone her mixed media and papercraft work.
She draws her inspiration from diverse cultures, bright colors, bold graphic design, and eclectic patterns.
She has taught at several independent craft stores and workshops…
…demonstrated at international trade and consumer art and craft shows…
…been published in creative magazines, and currently designs for companies within the arts and crafts industry.
Some things we discuss on the podcast:
making videos without fancy equipment
creating daily Reels videos for instagram
setting goals
This fabulous thought from Ira Glass:
“Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.
And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal.
And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?”
We have more great guests lined up for upcoming episodes. You can expect a new episode every other Thursday!
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
119: Out of the Kitchen & Into the Studio with Edva Sims
Apr 14, 2021
On this episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I chat with Edva Sims about her pottery business, finding your personal style, and the belief that things made by hand are important. Here’s a little bit about our guest, Edva:
Hi, I’m Edva! I’ve been drawing, painting, sewing and sculpting since I was a little girl.
Inspired by my mother – a Potter herself, I fell in love with clay and its ability to tell a story. I thoughtfully sculpt and hand-build each pottery piece in my studio in Los Angeles.
My upbringing and roots are heavily present in my work, I was born in Israel, grew up in South Africa and now live in Southern California.
I love incorporating bold colors and unique clay textures into my pieces. Each piece I make, is filled with positive energy, which I hope will transcend from maker to buyer.
We have more great guests lined up for upcoming episodes. You can expect a new episode every other Thursday!
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
118: Bust the COVID Blahs
Mar 31, 2021
It has been several months since we’ve released a new podcast. There’s a good reason and I’ll bet that you can relate: the COVID blahs. But all hope is not lost, Mom and I have four solutions for you — ways to bust those blahs and get back to being creative.
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
Some things we discuss on the podcast:
The Gates. This is a photo I took of The Gates in 2005. I didn’t start blogging until 2006, so sadly there’s no blog post about it!
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
115: Lessons from Boot Camp
Dec 03, 2020
Today on the podcast I’m sharing a list of five lessons from my Design Boot Camp class. I hope that you’ll find the lessons useful in your own practice. (And speaking of practice, I just started reading Seth Godin’s book, The Practice, and my brain is exploding with thoughts. Has anyone else read it?)
If you’re interested in getting on the list to be e-mailed when a new session of Design Boot Camp opens in 2021, drop me a line.
And here are our recommendations for this episode:
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
114: Christina’s Lino Life
Nov 12, 2020
Today’s guest is Christina Richmond, aka Tweeny. Christina lives in Bath, and as a Jane Austen fan, I’ve always had a fantasy version of Bath in my head. We do chat about this at the top of the podcast, but then we get into the creative meat of the matter: when graphic design meets lino.
Meet Christina:
She is a designer by day, living and working in the beautiful city of Bath, and an artist-printmaker in her free time.
She has been print-making for around 9 years, mostly creating small lino prints packed full of detail.
Christina is teaching how she creates her stamp designs on her iPad in the #CarveDecember Class.
And finally, in case you’re wondering, she got the house!
Thanks for stopping by!
113: Ali of 3DottedPenguins
Nov 05, 2020
Today’s guest is Ali Baecker of 3 Dotted Penguins. Ali is one of the talented #CarveDecemberClass teachers. We discussed how motherhood transformed her creative passion and how she got bitten by the block carving bug!
Ali of 3dottedpenguins is printmaker, educator and pattern lover based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Ever since she stumbled upon block printing and stamp carving in summer of 2018, printmaking has become her almost daily (or rather nightly) creative practice.
Ali enjoys creating repeat patterns, loves quirky fishes and other maritime designs.
She mostly block prints on paper and likes to use her block printed designs as a basis for screen prints on fabric.
A selection of 3dottedpenguins’ original block prints, screen printed textiles (such as bags and shirts) as well as cards are available for purchase.
Ali regularly teaches block printing online workshops to students around the world, both in English and German.
She is a firm believer in monthlong (and longer) challenges or creative projects as they have helped her establish a sustainable creative practice and regularly push her to try new things or deepen her block printing and pattern design skills.
Julie: Moo Cards (business and postcards) plus stickers — you can get 25% off your first order if you use THIS LINK.
112: Learning During Covid
Oct 29, 2020
Welcome to our very first crowdsourced podcast! A while ago I asked for people to send in a short recording about their experiences with learning during the pandemic. We got eight thoughtful and interesting responses from Barbara Fox, Elizabeth Montano, Holly Thomsen Doherty, JoAnn Campisi, Joceyln Robinson, Lucia-Ann, Peggy Joyce, and Sue Carroll. Listen to what they had to say.
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” ― Dr. Seuss
I truly believe that life-long learning is the key to staying vibrant. Those who never make themselves uncomfortable by being beginners cease to grow. We may be stuck at home, but whether it’s art or a language or microeconomics, there’s an endless supply of stuff to learn!
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there are topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like us to invite, please let us know. Thanks for stopping by!
111: Sarah Matthew Printmaker Bookbinder
Oct 29, 2020
Mom and I had a wonderful long chat with Sarah Matthews. I’ve seen Sarah’s colorful layered prints many times, but I didn’t know about her extensive work as a bookbinder. On the podcast we talk about creating during quarantine, YouTube, artist books, and lots more. Sarah has four girls and still manages to carve, print, or bind every single day.
If you enjoy the podcast, please tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
Sarah Matthews is a printmaker and book artist.
Her work has been exhibited in the US and is a part of the permanent collections of Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, George Washington University’s Gelman Library, University of Puget Sound, and Samford University. She is also a YouTuber and a designer for ArtFoamies.com.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there are topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like us to invite, please let us know. Thanks for stopping by!
110: The Catch by Matthew Ya-Hsiung Balzer
Oct 15, 2020
Matthew Ya-Hsiung Balzer, my brother, is the guest on today’s podcast. His film, THE CATCH, is going to be debuting at the Austin Film Festival next Thursday. Tickets are just $10 and you can watch from the comfort of your living room! We had a great chat about his creative journey, filmmaking, and what it takes to be in a creative career.
MATTHEW YA-HSIUNG BALZER (Writer/Director)…
…grew up outside Boston and learned to fish in the waters around Vinalhaven, Maine. He began writing screenplays while working at a bakery, and the pursuit of a hands-on filmmaking education took him to Los Angeles, where he took every job he could get on a film or TV set.
Matthew’s feature script for THE CATCH received recognition at numerous film festival competitions as well as receiving Faculty Honors from the Columbia University graduate film program, from which Balzer received his MFA in Directing. THE CATCH will make its World Premiere at the Austin Film Festival on October 22. Balzer lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and their son.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there are topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like us to invite, please let us know. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
109: Marta Harvey Tessellations
Oct 12, 2020
Mom and I had the great pleasure of chatting with Marta Harvey. Marta has participated in #CarveDecember for many years and her tessellations have gotten more and more impressive every single year. On the podcast we discuss the tessellation lesson she has put together for the upcoming #CarveDecemberClass as well as her journey as an artist (hint: she had to raise her family before she could really get started).
Meet Marta Harvey:
Originally from Portugal but now living in the Boston area, Marta loves to draw and design patterns.
She creates hand-carved blocks that she then uses as a starting point for her art.
Each hand-carved block creates a unique pattern, ranging from simple iron-work inspired patterns to complex tessellations varying from flowers and leaves to whimsical animals.
Marta says: “I hope you enjoy my art as much as I enjoy creating it.”
Also, Marta sent me this information after the podcast:
“My first tessellation (the one that took days):
I learned stamp carving around 2006/2007 in one of the Yahoo groups I was mentioning; we were working together through Gloria Page’s book “Art Stamping Workshop”.
This is the next tessellation, created while going through your book (Carve Stamp Play):
This is what I meant by having to create 2 stamps as one of the shapes is the inverse of the other. I think I used this online tool to get the tessellation shape.
And here are some of the ATCs where I experimented with lots of different techniques – just so you have an idea of what I was talking about.
Fun to see some of the carved stamps – the flowers on the top left and right, and one of the first continuous patterns I created on the bottom right.”
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there are topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like us to invite, please let us know. Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
108: Little Rowan Redhead
Oct 01, 2020
I’m pretty sure that Rowan and I could have talked non-stop for about six hours. But we had to limit ourselves to just one hour. She’s smart, funny, hard working, thoughtful, and you’re going to love today’s podcast. Give it a listen!
Rowan Sivyer, AKA Little Rowan Redhead…
…is a NZ born, Sydney-based printmaker, painter, avid crafter and educator.
As a largely self-taught artist, Rowan believes in the power of a daily artistic practice, risk-taking and creative play.
She is greatly inspired by Australian flora and fauna which frequently features in her work but she is also drawn to colour and pattern.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there are topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like us to invite, please let us know. Thanks for stopping by!
If you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
107: Sandy McTier Designs
Sep 23, 2020
It was my great pleasure to spend an hour chatting with Sandy McTier recently. We discussed how she built her business and her core beliefs about people and business relationships. Sandy is smart and passionate and I think you’re going to love today’s podcast. Give it a listen:
If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a shout out on social media or tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
Sandy is a published artist, designer and International Travel Teacher.
Sandy creates in a variety of mediums, from acrylics to oils and clay to colored pencils.
Sandy is a proud DecoArt Helping Artist, DecoArt Art Ambassador and in 2018 became a DecoArt Creative Consultant working closely with Marketing and Product Development, Product Testing, Demoing and Representing DecoArt at a variety of trade shows.
She is also a Dynasty Brush Brand Specialist and ChartPak Art Ambassador.
She is a wife of 30 years to a U.S. Air Force Veteran and mom to three amazing young men, ages 25, 24 and 23.
You can find Sandy at painting conventions around the country as well as on Facebook at Sandy McTier Designs and on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram under Sandy McTier
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there are topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like us to invite, please let us know. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
106: Creativity & The Burnt Cookie
Sep 10, 2020
Mom and I have an argument on this episode — like a talking over each other and accusing the other of being wrong argument. Give it a listen!
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
105: Paige’s Pages
Sep 03, 2020
Depending on how long you’ve been reading this blog and listening to this podcast, you may or may not know that I am a scrapbooker. I still pocket scrapbook, even though I gave up the 12×12 layouts. The fact is, I love memory keeping and I thought it was time that we had a tried and true scrapbooker on the podcast. And so, Mom and I chatted with Paige Evans. Give it a listen!
If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a shout out on social media or tell a friend about the show. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
Meet Paige Evans:
My name is Paige Evans and I have been scrapbooking since I was 16 years old when I got my very first job at a little local scrapbook store in Redmond, Washington.
Now I’ve been scrapbooking over half my life and love it as much today as I did back then.
I have 10 signature scrapbooking collections with American Crafts.
I have taught classes in 7 states and 9 countries – I love teaching how to create eye-catching layouts as well as coptic bookbinding courses.
I live in the suburbs of Denver with my husband of 13 years, our son Fox, and daughter Jane, as well as a menagerie of pets – we have a dog, cat, bunny, and guinea pig (named Joey, Rachel, Phoebe, and Richard – we love the show FRIENDS!). I love to create something every day!
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If there are topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like us to invite, please let us know. Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
104: Willa Wanders
Aug 20, 2020
Mom and I had a wonderful conversation with Wendy Solganik, aka “Willa.Wanders” this week. We probably could have talked to her for several hours. Our conversation covers making a living, pricing, business killing creativity, Black Lives Matter, authenticity, love of instagram, and more. Give it a listen!
If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a shout out on instagram or facebook. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
Wendy Solganik is a life long artist and crafter, currently working in book arts…
…mixed media…
…and watercolor.
From production wheel pottery to scrapbooking to knitting and so many more passions, Wendy always dives deep to master a craft. After a fifteen year stint as the co-owner of Luscious Verde, a successful, award-winning, custom invitation design, printing and manufacturing company, you can find Wendy at home in her studio, crafting handmade, colorful, and highly custom art journals for clients…
…while caring for her large extended family. You just never know where she will wander to next!
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
103: Filming Things
Aug 05, 2020
Today I’m bringing you a podcast in two halves. The first half was recorded right after I came home from New Jersey and filming some videos about new ScanNCut product (which was released yesterday). The second half was recorded right after I came home from recording season 9 of Make It Artsy. The podcast covers travel during COVID-19, some thoughts on filming during these odd times, and much more. Give it a listen!
Here is a favorite project from Make It Artsy:
I made 6-foot vinyl banner, which we stuck to the wall. (Note the masks.) And speaking of masks, here I am in New Jersey all glammed up for the camera but keeping things safe:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Before you go, I’d love it if you’d take a moment to answer the survey below:
Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
102: Jackie Jimerson & Pass The Brush
Jul 15, 2020
Our guest today is Jackie Jimerson. Learn all about Jackie and her first time experiencing gelatin printing, gain insight into her thoughts on designing her own stencils, and listen in on our chat about paying for content or not, design teams, and a bit about being a black artist in the mixed media world.
If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a shout out on instagram or facebook. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
Jackie Jimerson…
…is a mixed media artist and designer.
She found her way to mixed media through papercrafting about five years ago, and it has continued to feed her love for learning and experimenting with no end in sight.
After a few years of creating mixed media art, Jackie realized that she also enjoys making for makers, so she opened The Artisan’s Caché on Etsy. There she sells her stencils, stamps, hand-bound journals, and carefully curated ephemera packs.
In early 2020, she joined the Gel Press Creative Team where she is able to let her passion for gelatin printing reach a wider audience.
Jackie lives in a south suburb of Chicago, Illinois with her son, where she works full time as an IT Data Specialist.
Here is some info about Pass the Brush:
“Pass the Brush” is the mixed media community’s version of “Share the Mic Now.” The objective of this event is to show solidarity within the mixed media community and to amplify black mixed media artists so their voices can be heard and their art can be seen by a broader audience.
On July 17 & 18 Jackie will be taking over my Instagram and Facebook accounts in order to share her art and her story.
As part of Pass the Brush, there will be giveaways of some fun art goodies, including a $200 gift certificate to my online classroom.
Jackie and I will be doing an Instagram LIVE together on Friday, July 17 at 1pm EST. It will last about 45-minutes and we will be making art and taking your questions. You can follow me on instagram HERE and Jackie HERE.
I hope that you will join Jackie and me for the live event on Friday. We’d love for you to be there!
Here are our recommendations this episode:
Jackie: imawonder/Tina Tran – her youtube on kintsugi:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
101: 3 Customer Questions
Jun 17, 2020
I had so much fun recording today’s podcast. Mom and I were actually in the same room and that gave the whole thing a different feel. I have to say that I feel so energized and excited after our chat and I hope that you do too!
If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a shout out on instagram or facebook. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
How have your customers changed in the last 2-5 years? (For your art, change it to: How has your life changed in the last 2-5 years?)
What are you currently not offering that would be interesting to your customers? (For your art, change it to: What are you currently not doing that would be interesting to you?)
How can you improve your customer’s experience? (For your art, change it to: How can you make your art-making experience easier?)
And here are the two map-making books I just ordered: this one and this one.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
100: Looking Back Looking Forward
May 15, 2020
As my mother says at the beginning of the podcast, “I didn’t think it would last.” But we made it to episode 100. Woo hoo! It took us 8 years, but here we are. On today’s podcast, entitled “Looking Back. Looking Forward,” we chat about earlier episodes, the future of podcasts, paying for content, and lots more. I hope you’ll give it a listen!
If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a shout out on instagram or facebook. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
We’ve had several headers & logos over the years:
In retrospect, I probably should have named the podcast simply: The Balzer Designs podcast. But who knew we’d still be doing this eight years later?
In any case, on today’s podcast I mentioned that Apple Podcasts only goes back about 75 episodes, but you can find every single of the 100 episodes archived HERE. And just for fun, here are 10 episodes I think are worth listening to again, with links:
Also, I had the great pleasure of being interviewed earlier this week by Hadley Powell on The GirlPow Podcast. So, you have a lot of options for things to listen to this weekend!
I hope you enjoyed this episode. And the eight years of podcasts. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
099: Carolyn Says OOPS
May 07, 2020
On today’s podcast we’re talking to Carolyn Dube about Art Sparks, the fact that there’s no one right answer, her former life experimenting with pizza dough, being the ugly butterfly, and so much more!
Carolyn Dube is a self taught mixed media art adventurer helping you let go and feel the freedom of play.
You can find her sharing the message of O.O.P.S. through her YouTube videos and blog, aColorfulJourney.com as well as designing stencils for StencilGirl Products, teaching in person and online workshops, and her articles in magazines such as Somerset Studio, GreenCraft, Pages, and Cloth Paper Scissors.
It was a great discussion about so many things. Carolyn’s laid back attitude and wise words of wisdom make for a delightful hour of inspiration.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
098: Julia Wester
Apr 30, 2020
On today’s podcast I’m talking to Julia Wester about being a working mom, quarantining with a broken leg, and transitioning from her job as Oh Joy’s Creative Director into her own business as a freelance stylist.
Julia Wester was a television producer in a past life where she won an Emmy.
After 10 years, she decided she wanted to make more pretty things and left for the life of a visual content creator and prop stylist…
…which landed her a job at Oh Joy!…
…where she was the Creative Content Director and Stylist for the past 7 years.
Today, she’s a mom of two young kids (Zealand and Bodhi), mama to a frenchie named Tuna, married to her husband Dave, living in sunny LA.
Here are links to some of the things we discuss on the podcast:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
097: Creativity in the Time of Covid-19
Apr 23, 2020
By my count, it has been almost six weeks of self-quarantine. It’s the new normal. It’s a lifestyle. On today’s podcast, Mom and I are chatting about creativity in these odd times. Why don’t people have creative mojo when they’re stuck at home? What makes creativity flourish? Listen in as we discuss escaping to HGTV, unfollowing on social media, and much more!
If you enjoy the podcast, please give us a shout out on instagram or facebook. This helps other people find the show. Thanks so much!
Here are links to some of the things we discuss on the podcast:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please leave a review on Apple Music so that other people can find the show!
096: Carol Knows How to Dye
Apr 16, 2020
On today’s podcast I’m talking to Carol Soderlund about her journey to becoming an expert in fabric dyeing, slow stitching, Nancy Crow, and so much more.
An artist and educator for 25 years, Carol’s curiosity about the range of color derived from yellow, red, and blue dyes led to her creation of her Color Mixing system for dyers.
Carol encourages the freedom of mixing color by eye with results-based samples to guide the student.
A former high school teacher, Carol was nominated for Teacher of the Year in 2013 and again in 2015 by the International Association of Creative Arts Professionals.
Carol is co-author of Playful Fabric Printing with Melanie Testa. She has shown her quilts in juried venues across the country, winning awards including Best of Show at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. This is an example of the stitching she’s currently doing, as discussed on the podcast:
Here are links to some of the things we discuss on the podcast:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
Lindsay is a multi-media artist living and working in Maine.
Her artwork and craft tutorials have been published in dozens of books and magazines including The Decorative Painter, Scrap and Stamp Arts, Bead Trends, Just Cards, Just Steampunk, Pack-o-Fun, Crafts ’n Things, Rubber Stamp Madness, The Stampers Sampler and other American and international publications.
Lindsay has illustrated two childrens books: The Rainbow Pants and Sea Glass and the Lighthouse.
She has several online classes in her own school at Lindsayweirich.teachable.com and at Craftsy/Bluprint in watercolor, drawing and mixed media.
She also runs a popular blog and YouTube channel called The Frugal Crafter which boasts thousands of free projects and video tutorials on the subject of painting, crafting and cardmaking.
Before jumping into online teaching Lindsay ran The Art Studios of Bangor and taught watercolor, drawing, oil painting and mixed media to students of all ages.
You can keep up with Lindsay on her various social media accounts and her website: the frugalcrafter.wordpress.com.
Find Lindsay Online:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
094: In The Lino Cave with Susana
Mar 25, 2020
On today’s podcast I’m talking to Susana McDonnell aka @linocaveprints about her relationship with Speedball Art Supplies, her previous life as a glass blower, creating with a kid, the instagram challenge #printersolstice, and her beautiful geometric art prints!
Susana is a Boston-based printmaker and textile designer.
She holds a BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
She has studied and taught many mediums through the course of her life, but is currently obsessed with printing geometric patterns on fabric.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Music here. And if you like the podcast, please post about it on your social media so that other people can find the show!
093: Nathalie’s Studio
Mar 12, 2020
On today’s podcast I’m talking to my friend, Nathalie Kalbach about her new art studio and her obsession with architecture and the history of the places she’s lived.
Nathalie is a self-taught mixed media artist, born in Germany and now living in Jersey City, NJ.
Nathalie’s projects have been published in several art, craft and hobby magazines as well as mixed media books.
You may have noticed a new feature on the podcast. We’ve decided to ask everyone for a recommendation each episode. It could be a TV Show, a food, a book, an art supply — anything they think is awesome. Here are the recommendations:
Julie: The current season of Project Runway. Watch online here.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for stopping by!
092: Art + Motherhood
Feb 09, 2020
On today’s podcast I’m discussing motherhood and making art and self-identity with Roxanne Coble.
Roxanne is a mixed media artist, illustrator, and maker of things.
Known for her detailed art journaling, her work fuses both mixed media and painted illustration.
Inspired by all things macabre, completed pages embrace a balance of humor and dark emotional themes – all while exploring topical events that occur within her personal life.
On the podcast we discuss how having a baby has changed her business and her mindset, as well as her priorities. We discuss the guilt of motherhood, the need to make art, and the struggle to find identity after baby. I hope you’ll listen to the podcast and if you like it, tell a friend!
Thanks for stopping by!
091: Life Changes
Nov 13, 2019
On today’s podcast I’m talking about two big life changes through the lens of art: moving into a new house and having a baby.
We spend a lot of time on the podcast talking about the gallery wall I’m in the midst of creating in my staircase. Here are two photos of it coming along slowly:
It’s still a work-in-progress, but that’s one of the beautiful things about a gallery wall. It can evolve.
Here are a couple of photos of the powder room I was talking about:
And finally — as discussed on the podcast — here is a photo of one of the eaves in my studio — packed with stuff:
Oh, and in case you ever wondered why we don’t film the podcasts, I’m usually in my pajamas looking like this:
Thanks for stopping by!
All podcasts are archived here. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. And if you like the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes!
090: Back to Business
Jun 06, 2019
Today’s podcast is all about working smarter, not harder. I’ve been taking my business apart — looking at how I spend my time and what my business actually does. On today’s podcast, I talk all about what I’ve been doing behind-the-scenes; the ways in which I’m trying to make my business fit my life. Working from home is complicated and I tend to be a workaholic. I’m trying to avoid burnout and do my best along the way!
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But for those who don’t listen to podcasts, it might be nice to get a bit of the flavor of the conversation. Let me know if you find the transcription helpful. It’s a bit time consuming to do, so if you’re into it, let me know that it’s worth the time.
