Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Kristina King
175 Plays4 years ago
Kristina King is an amateur weirdo based out of Portland, Oregon.
Professionally, she is a former English teacher who now manages a technical support team for a leading developer of effects plugins and 3D software. While she’s had a video camera in her hands for much of her life, she is most passionate about making community and getting folks to create together.
She’s been producing for Fetus in Fetu Productions for a dozen years and will say “Yes" to any project a Fetoid asks her to take part in, whether it’s acting as a fighter in a D&D play or opening her house for some pickup shots for a schlocky vampire movie. Creating art with any medium is awesome, but it’s even better when you build relationships at the same time—at least, that’s how she copes with existential crises.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host Ken Vellante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with Something Rather Than Nothing. And this episode we're welcoming Christina King.
The Nature of Creativity
00:00:25
Speaker
And Christina just wanted to welcome you to the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast.
00:00:31
Speaker
Thank you, Ken. I'm very excited to talk to you. But one of the things I want to jump in right off the bat, getting into your creativity and your artistry. When you were born, were you an artist when you were born? I love this question. And I would say everyone is an artist when they're born. So of course, I was an artist when I was born.
00:01:01
Speaker
The reason I say that is because, well, I've been thinking about this question a lot lately and it just pops up in weird places. I manage a support team at a 3D software company who also makes a bunch of cool effects plugins for Adobe and Final Cut products.
00:01:24
Speaker
I'm adjacent to other artists all the time. And yesterday we were interviewing somebody for the team and he mentioned why he was interested in this position. And it was to be around other artists or around artists. And he's like, I don't consider myself an artist, though.
00:01:43
Speaker
And I think so many people put artists on this pedestal, which I mean, you definitely should based on some of the amazing things that are created, but it's like you shouldn't diminish your own energy and potential either. It feels like some people are struck by a lightning rod and it's creativity pouring out of their soul all the time.
Inspiration from Nick Cave
00:02:08
Speaker
But I subscribe to this newsletter from my favorite living
00:02:13
Speaker
rock performer Nick Cave, and people constantly ask him about his... So for the listeners, we have to interrupt this important interview. I am able to see Christina, and as she said, Nick Cave, I did a gesticulation of glee because I adore Nick Cave. Sorry, Christina, keep going.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, so the the red letter files He has been communicating with fans for the past few years via these emails and he gets thousands of letters and questions a year and he answers a lot of them and a recurring theme is creativity and how are you so prolific Nick you've been doing this for 40 years and
00:03:05
Speaker
I've seen him live, I don't know, five times maybe, and every time it's a religious experience. And I'm not a traditionally religious person, but it feels like being in a big mega church where everybody's putting their energy to the sky, except he's taking it in and giving it back. Anyway, so one of the things that he writes often about is it's a lot of work. I don't
00:03:31
Speaker
get struck by a muse and and write all these wonderful songs like he I laughed when he wrote his how he works but he's like I put on my suit I go to my desk you know I I have my tea I I write and sometimes things pour out sometimes they don't it might start with a single word that came to my mind or a line and I felt that that really resonated because
00:03:58
Speaker
knowing somebody like him who I do see as so prolific and talented.
Art and Effort
00:04:03
Speaker
I mean, he's acted. He writes songs. He writes books. He plays a bunch of instruments. He surrounds himself with other creative people. It's not an accidental thing. It's very intentional that he's creating art. And because of that, I think it's an empowering notion that these people we do put on pedestals are actually working hard at it. It's not just something that
00:04:29
Speaker
happens. And so, was I born an artist? Yes, I think everybody was born an artist. It's just whether or not you dedicate time and energy to it. And you might suck at painting, but if you keep painting, you're going to get better. And on the other hand, we're, you know, usually our own biggest critics too. So that doesn't help.
00:04:55
Speaker
So yes, I was born an artist and then it's just a matter of pursuing it individually, which is a choice, or pursuing it with other people and surrounding yourself with weirdos and a community of people who also chose to continue a creative spark that I think we all have inside somewhere when we're born.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah. And thank you. I know, as far as I've mentioned it, on recent episodes, too, I think when a theme develops and talking to creatives, it's one I try to notice. And I think part of the show has been to look at that type of trajectory and that type of thing of talent, gift, development, hard work. And I really picked up on what you said, because I've seen in talking to artists, I think
00:05:45
Speaker
Um, a lot of folks in the public, you know, may consume art or take it in and it seems easy, right? It's always like they paid a lot of money and it's easy or however they view it. And there's so much effort that goes into art that I think we take for granted a lot. And I think that places the artist in the sense of like, Oh, I was around when the magic happened. Here's the object and now I'll transfer it to you, which if that happens.
00:06:13
Speaker
Lovely. That's that's fine. But it's that it's that creative work that I think we miss or isn't counted. Right. If it isn't measured measured and counted, it doesn't exist maybe or is less valuable. Gosh, I sound like I got on my high horse there. I didn't mean to do that, Christina. But
00:06:35
Speaker
We're already friends, so I know you'll indulge me.
Christina's Creative Journey
00:06:40
Speaker
So, Christina, I want to talk to you about your creativity. I know you've worked in video, and you mentioned as far as 3D software. I know in learning about your creativity that you
00:06:55
Speaker
kind of think about it in different ways, work with people in different ways, organize, hang around weirdos, creatives, whatever it might be. So can you kind of talk about how you see yourself as a creator and as an artist and where you manifest that? Yeah. So that's a wonderful question. And I like all the preface that you gave about what you know about me.
00:07:23
Speaker
In taking on this new job, which I've been at for about three months, one of the things that they had me do was write a brief biography. And they sent it to every employee. There's like 300 people in the company, maybe worldwide. And one of the things that I noticed about all the other new people when I saw their bios is that a lot of them
00:07:48
Speaker
came specifically to work at this company because they are artists and they are 3D artists. And it's like, I can actually get paid to do something that is related to what I do in my free time. Even if it's marketing or support, for example, you're still tied closely to the tools that make things possible. And when I was born, I think
00:08:17
Speaker
you know, go back to 1984. And we had much less access to this sort of stuff. And that's one of the things that I'm going to admit I'm a little resentful about, you know, growing up and not having access to these things was perhaps a little limiting. But then there's also just attitudes that maybe perhaps prevented me from
00:08:47
Speaker
being a different person. I don't know. That's a weird tangent. And maybe I won't go down that dark hole. But the exciting thing about it is that it is so much more accessible and people can still, you know, get into that capitalist grind and work a 40, 50 hour week, but at least they can do it in an industry that really excites and interests them. And so
00:09:14
Speaker
When I had the opportunity to get into this new role and be surrounded by people who were really excited to be doing this work and supporting artists who need these tools, I wrote in my bios, like, yeah, you know, I've been an amateur filmmaker since I was 10 when my dad let me use his RCA camcorder.
00:09:40
Speaker
You know, I think that was one of the turning points in my life is I was always, you know, a weird kid and it was great. I had that idyllic eighties, uh, growing up in a cul-de-sac and the suburbs sort of situation with a bunch of neighbor kids at the same age range as me, which it seems like that doesn't happen anymore. I don't know what changed, but it seems like that does not exist. And all of a sudden I had an entire cast.
00:10:09
Speaker
at my, you know, I don't want to say at my disposal, but- And hungry for the opportunity to enter the film world at the same time. Yeah. And so it was a, you know, I didn't grow up with a lot of means, but my dad bought a camera when my parents divorced because it was, I think that was an important thing to him is I'm going to take my daughters on trips and, you know, record
00:10:36
Speaker
what's going on. And so it was like, thanks dad, I'm going to take that. And going from there to, you know, continuing to do things with a silly VHS camera for years and then getting into high school. This was in the late nineties and digital started happening. And that is such an amazing turning point for all of humanity for so many reasons. I mean,
00:11:01
Speaker
more than just filmmaking, of course, has been impacted by this big switch, but it was, okay, cool. I worked at Key Mart for an entire summer, saved up $750, went to Circuit City, RIP, and purchased a digital eight camcorder. And, you know, that was my high school life was, I'm going to be a journalist. I'm going to do the school news. I'm going to record all my friends doing weird, funny things. And
00:11:30
Speaker
It was still, you know, this was pre-internet. This is pre-social media. This was before anybody was doing that with the potential for an audience. So I was just really doing it for myself and for my friends. And there's definitely power to that. I mean, that got me through so much. And then went to college, went to the University of Oregon. It still hadn't made the transition to digital
00:12:00
Speaker
In terms of journalism, I thought I wanted to be a journalist, but I took the class known as Info Hell, which is where you learn how to gather sources and stuff. And the professor on the first day said, no internet sources. And it was like that, what is this, 1985?
00:12:19
Speaker
No internet, so get into the stacks, right? Yeah. And I actually ended up dropping, that was the first, that was the only class I've ever dropped out of. I dropped out of that class and I was like, I have a job. I have a full course load. I am not going to spend 30 hours a week, as you said, in the stacks when we have this unimaginable pot of resources, this gold right here in this computer. Why would I do this?
00:12:49
Speaker
So that pivoted things for me and I just became, I feel more like I lost my spark, I would say. I lost any momentum I had and decided, you know, I'm just going to do this thing that I'm supposed to do when I finish school. And I always thought I might want to be a teacher and that's
00:13:14
Speaker
I don't know if you call him your producer, Peter. That's how Peter and I really cemented our friendship was going through the teaching program together, even though we'd known each other forever. That was, you're in education. It's a different way to experience having a spark. Initially it was a bit of a, it was rough and it took a while, but eventually,
00:13:42
Speaker
I found my spark again, I was substituting long term for a teacher who had the I would say immense privilege of advising a student newspaper. And I got to do that for six months. And it was just so
00:14:05
Speaker
I don't know. I want to say joyful to be around these students who had so much potential and they at that point weren't disillusioned with the world. And it's like, okay, maybe maybe I need to get out of this funk. You know, how can I get out of this funk? And
00:14:25
Speaker
Around the same time I had started doing the 48-hour film project, my good friend Nate in Eugene, he was still in school. He's like, hey, how would you feel about doing this thing I heard about from somebody in class?
00:14:41
Speaker
This was also still in the early 2000s, so everything wasn't digital yet. I was like, whoa, I still have access to that camcorder, that digital eight. It's still on tapes. And luckily, we found somebody else who had a better camera, and we assembled a crew of six or seven people. But that was the turning point, I think, in my adult life, was you don't have to pursue this as a living to have it make a meaningful impact on your life.
00:15:11
Speaker
and you can still impact your own life, but also have an incredibly profound impact on the life of others. And it's not because we were making films about the Holocaust or something, some human experience that needs to be told. I mean, we're making stupid movies, but having six, seven, 10, 20 people on a set together just working to create something
00:15:40
Speaker
Like that's magic. And, you know, you started out with like, okay, we're going to prepare two weeks beforehand. We've got some spreadsheets. People are going to volunteer to bring food. You know, we're our own craft service. That's how it works when you're just a tiny group of people doing stuff like you're, you're wearing so many hats and.
00:16:02
Speaker
I like to wear like a producer hat. I do enjoy all the nitty gritty, getting people together and planning and spreadsheets and stuff. But I also, you know, enjoy just being a goofball. And, you know, probably took me 10 years to let go of a lot of pretenses I had and just enjoy being a goofball and not taking myself so seriously. But as the years went on, using the 48 hour film project as the primary vehicle,
00:16:31
Speaker
started absorbing a lot more people into our circle. So a few years ago, we made some film and had the biggest cast and crew to date and it was like over 20 people. And I have this wonderful photo of everybody squished into my living room, watching the film on Sunday night after we had spent all of the weekend working on it. And it's just like,
00:16:58
Speaker
To me, that is absolute magic. All of these people are here. They're not being paid. They're smiling. Some of them didn't sleep in the last 48 hours, but they're still excited to be here and smiling. And that's the power of creativity, I suppose, is even if objectively, you know, Rotten Tomatoes would rank most of our films, you know, we'd get a
00:17:27
Speaker
What is it, the green splat, the rotten? Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Well, I, I, I encountered that recently. This is probably not a good example, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna help indulge and you'll appreciate
The Challenges of Artistic Collaboration
00:17:43
Speaker
this. Um, you know, the, the, the terrible kind of movies I recently encountered a few months ago, uh, garbage pale kids, the movie, which is, uh,
00:17:54
Speaker
Is it a trauma flick or is it just? It might as well be. It's terrifying. The budget was running low. The masks and costumes for the garbage pail kids, per se, are, you know, it is a difficult film. Now, I thoroughly enjoyed it. That's that's not the point. But I was just thinking about like kind of like this collective fun or calamity and it kind of came, you know, came together.
00:18:24
Speaker
But one of the things that when you were talking about that had I heard like magic and connecting with the crew in that piece. And, you know, I think that there's there's a lot of
00:18:38
Speaker
components to whether you're producing something that's with somebody. I've talked to filmmakers and I've made short film, never with a larger group of folks, but once you start engaging collective activity with art, there's such a power to it, but it's also so incredibly difficult to kind of keep that collective together.
The Purpose of Art
00:19:00
Speaker
Christina, I want to move to the big question when asking you about when you were born, you were an artist, but just speak specifically now to one of the two big questions asked in the show, and that is, what is art? What do you think art is? Wow.
00:19:17
Speaker
Sorry for me going off on so many tangents before. This show is predicated and structured on tangents. So if you listen to every single episode before this, that's its structure, so we're good. Wonderful. What is art? You know, it's silly, I suppose.
00:19:48
Speaker
I think it's anything that you intentionally create, especially if you share it, but you don't have to share your art. If you're writing poems for yourself in your journal every night, you're still creating art. But I think about it's
00:20:10
Speaker
It's just a worldview you can adopt, and it does make everything more beautiful if you look at everything as art, because it gives you opportunities to explore all the sides of your brain. And a very silly example is, well, I don't think it's silly, but it's not what you would normally consider art. But for the past like five years almost, I've been the
00:20:37
Speaker
copy editor for PDX Women in Tech, which is a collective of women in tech or women identifying trans. It's a very inclusive organization, but they've put on tons of events to empower and reach an audience. And so I've been the sole copy editor for years. And one of the small joys is looking at a paragraph somebody put together
00:21:07
Speaker
Excuse me, you write so you'll understand a little bit of this, but okay, this is good. It's got information in it. But the person was writing it with the intention of just providing information. They weren't trying to have an impact with those words. And so you can look at that paragraph and say,
00:21:29
Speaker
I'm going to spice it up. So it's all of these just small opportunities to make something more engaging, have a bigger impact on your audience. And again, you know, sometimes it's an audience of thousands who read a newsletter. Sometimes it's an audience of 30 kids in a classroom who you've created this assignment you're really excited about. Sometimes it's
00:21:52
Speaker
It's a support ticket where somebody writes in and they're like, I don't know what to do with myself, help. And you write down the steps and you're like, is this good enough for the person who's consuming this? No, I'm going to make this more clear. And you might say, that's not art. But I think every single occupation or task has the potential to be art.
00:22:17
Speaker
So it's obvious in some things like woodworking, where you could have a totally utilitarian table, or you could taper the legs, you could fill in some holes with a pretty glow in a dark resin. So some things are more obviously art than others, but it's certainly, I think it helps me get through the day
00:22:43
Speaker
kind of focusing on everything as art, as opposed to, oh man, another support ticket. I need to help a filmmaker who's at a deadline and they're stressed and angry. It all has potential. And so with that idea in mind and the creativity around it and what people put into it and framing art in that way, leading to the next question I have
00:23:12
Speaker
What is the role of art, given that that's art? What is the role of art? I don't want to speak for you, but I heard notions of communication and making better and what have you. But what do you see the role of art as we make it? What's it supposed to do? Art's primary role is to overcome human shortcomings.
00:23:42
Speaker
As a group of people, humans err more towards bad than good. And I'm just saying that based on the fact that the ocean was on fire a few weeks ago. We can't seem to get a pandemic under control. We can't work together. We're also very much separated in our own.
00:24:03
Speaker
identities or nationalities. All of these things, I know there are a lot of good people and that, you know, like art, that keeps me going knowing that most people are good. Like I try to approach everything assuming everyone has good intentions. But the reality is the world is a very ugly place. And the role of art is to make things beautiful. So even if you see a photograph of
00:24:35
Speaker
a building that's been bombed. And there's clearly, you know, there were people living there. Did they survive that? We don't know. But, you know, four years later, somebody has tagged that building with graffiti. Like, that's beautiful.
00:24:49
Speaker
you're trying to turn something that was once just this blight into something that means something. It might just be to you, the graffiti artist. And maybe that graffiti artist is a bad person. I don't know. But they also might be tagging something specific for their community of graffiti artists. And that canvas of a decimated building, it was ugly before. And regardless of what you think of graffiti, now somebody has tried to make it beautiful.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost like you see that instinct towards it. I mean, that's kind of an example of that, of bringing color to where there wasn't. I wanted to just step back to Nick Cave for a moment.
The Spiritual Impact of Art
00:25:37
Speaker
So I think when you brought him up, and I'm a huge fan of Nick Cave, and I think he's such a fascinating kind of like subject as far as a creator.
00:25:49
Speaker
And you think in the terms, when I start talking about it, it's like in terms of poetry, music, performance, command of audience. And you mentioned the spiritual component of the live performance. Now, I'd say that experience like a very similar type of experience in the live music performance of that being towards a spirituality or a poetic
00:26:19
Speaker
of performance. How the taking the cave is something like that and talking about power and magic. How much power would an artist like Nick Cave yield in that type of like environment? And where does all that come from? How does that happen? How does art and power happen?
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if if if Nick Cave led the congregation to the, you know, to to to the next level, whatever he did, they'd follow when you're in that setting. Right. The power of of of of of art. And for you describing that as a spiritual experience or encountering the sublime for you, that being the church, how did that happen for you? No.
00:27:16
Speaker
I mean, it's the same sort of power as propaganda, in a way. Just listening to you describe what I said in different words. It's like, wow. It's like somebody's on a pulpit, and we're all convinced, or they're the Pied Piper, and we're all going to follow. And you know, it's funny. Sometimes I feel a little bit like a Pied Piper myself, because it's
00:27:47
Speaker
I've got this tremendous group of friends through filmmaking who we probably would never have become friends, if not for this thing that we have in common, this love of this particular art form. And it can be
00:28:07
Speaker
You know, there's there's certainly drudgery involved because you have to plan and you have to acquire resources and all that. And so that's why I say like, sometimes I feel like the pied piper because it's like, well, I have to play a magic flute or whatever and convince you to follow me. But
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's just some power. I don't think I'm answering your question. No, I mean, it's mysterious. But I wanted to pick up on it. And the component I was asking about and prompting, too, is because just for an example, I've studied art in aesthetics formally, university and by myself. And the biggest impact or idea for me that where I understood art
00:28:57
Speaker
particularly as an agnostic on spiritual matters, was the experience of the sublime, was the experience of something that just seemed bigger than the components of its parts. And because of that seemed spiritual, I was a philosopher with the great name of Jean-Francois Lyotard, who
00:29:16
Speaker
wrote about the sublime and the avant-garde. It was the specific experience of the sublime of when the human is in front of God, it is in front of the magic, it is in front of the Picasso painting of the blue guitarist. And trying to capture psychologically that moment is I'm in front of something very big and very profound. And I find significant artists with that power of the Nick Cave example is
00:29:45
Speaker
that magic is such a fertile area of like going into how did that happen? Why did I walk outside of the performance and feel like, whoa, like I'm empowered to do something. All right, Christine, I wanted to ask you another question. It was a little bit of a component of parts of who you are. The general question is who or what made you who you are?
00:30:15
Speaker
Ooh. Well, as we were joking about before we started recording, certainly He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Early Influences and Existential Reflections
00:30:25
Speaker
I'm hoping you'd say that, yes. So this is, you know, time to be sad for a moment, but my earliest memory
00:30:34
Speaker
is my parents fighting and me sitting on a little patch of linoleum by the front door in an apartment or duplex we were living in. I just remember it was a small place and you know they tend to where the door swings open there's a patch of linoleum and then there's like standard you know multi-dwelling apartment carpet. And I remember hearing yelling and I remember
00:31:01
Speaker
them arguing, I don't know about what, but I had Orko. So Orko, for those of you who are vaguely familiar with him, or not at all, is a little magician. He's a little red guy, red outfit, kind of a sort of witch's hat. And he's the court magician, ostensibly his job is to cast spells that might protect
00:31:27
Speaker
you know, Eternia or something like that, but he's terrible at it. Like Orko's a failed magician, but people keep him around because he's fun and he's supportive and he's great. And I just remember my little Orko toy had a ripcord in it so he could spin around. And just focusing in on that while there was chaos around me, I had this wonderful little dweeb of a magician to
00:31:57
Speaker
entertain myself with. And it's those little things that are so powerful. You know, for me, it was my parents probably never should have been married. You know, I probably shouldn't exist, but I do. They did. And, you know, I think they're happier now in their current stations in life without each other. But I had a younger sister.
00:32:24
Speaker
Well, I still have her. Sam, she's two years younger than me. And so we were like each other's rocks essentially. And we had toys and I think most of my life was spent playing Barbies with her, honestly, which as a feminist, I should say, oh, Barbie, she's so bad. Look at that unrealistic, you know, body expectations that Mattel thrust upon so many generations of women
00:32:53
Speaker
But at the same time, in the second grade, I thought I could be president because Barbie was president. So I have nothing but good things to say. But going back to influences and such, pop culture is so important for these reasons. At a young age, most kids aren't attracted to classical works. They need something.
00:33:23
Speaker
you know, not necessarily at their level, because I think kids are way more intelligent and creative than we give them credit for. You're talking about like the chaos that was around and just kind of like something that you that you focus on at that moment. And you know, that's that's one of the things as far as whether it's playing, I've had conversations recently with with artists and
00:33:48
Speaker
One, which was startling, I might have mentioned a couple times in recent shows, Raven Juarez was my 100th episode and she works with students. And she made just a comment as I was talking about how I would always make these shapes.
00:34:08
Speaker
I didn't see myself drawing things loosely, but it was always geometric shapes and just the psychological idea of ordering that I never realized that I was trying to do. It's like I couldn't do these type of things. I didn't want to express wild things in what I was drawing.
00:34:24
Speaker
So consciously, I was creating order and I could create rectangles. And I do it right now. I just did it two days ago of like, okay, I need to go into the structure where everything does have an angle and they're 90 degree angles. But I didn't know why I had done that for 40 something years in my life until it was like, you're kind of showing when you're doing that and you're doodling, you're trying to show what you need or whatever. And I was like,
00:34:49
Speaker
Whoa, I didn't know the mirror was there and I hope you've had fun with it, whatever you've seen. All right, Christina, a big question, the titular question, maybe sometimes intimidating, is why is there something rather than nothing? You know, I was thinking I needed to brush up on existentialism
00:35:18
Speaker
and absurdism because I sometimes confuse the two a little bit. But I mean, it boils down to that is I don't think we're born inherently with a purpose. I don't think humanity is here inherently with a purpose. And there is something because we we choose to create something or we choose to find something. I'd say that the
00:35:44
Speaker
The thing that I've been thinking the most about lately in terms of that is synergy. And COVID was huge. It had a huge impact on all of us, psychologically, physically. Some of us lost people. But the fact that we were isolated for over a year, if you were lucky, you weren't alone. I was not alone, so I feel very lucky.
00:36:12
Speaker
you've lost all those moments of casual synergy where you say something, maybe you're telling a story, someone has a related experience and you can connect and you can bond even if you've never met this person before and that something is
00:36:34
Speaker
is connection. That's what we need. And if we're ever going to fix this planet, we need to connect as human beings and focus on it. And we tried. So the film crew that I work with, we sometimes call ourselves Fetus and Fitu Productions, which if you Google Fetus and Fitu, it's terrible and gross. But we came up with that name.
00:37:05
Speaker
15 years ago when we were in our early 20s and we're obsessed with weird medical things. So lately, some of the crews like, you know, I want to put this on my LinkedIn. I want to let people know who could possibly employ me that I've been involved with this film
00:37:22
Speaker
team for so long and have have grown so much. Can we rename ourselves to feetoid? It's a because we've called each other feetoids for a decade. Like, that's kind of our rallying cries, like, all right, feetoids, let's do this. And
00:37:39
Speaker
And that's helpful for the synergy and the connection too is like identifying with your community and your group and finding a common, you know, you have your common activity, but now you have a common identity and it's, Hey, we're feetoids. And you know, some people find that with their sports team or their band or whatever. And for us, it's, Hey, we're feetoids. And so during COVID, when we were all isolated, it was, well, we used to have all these.
00:38:07
Speaker
touch points during the year of film, you know, we get together in August, we get together in October, we work on short films here and there that had no time surrounding them and in terms of like due dates and stuff. And we've also been in place together. You know, some of the people in the group are artists all the time, like they don't
00:38:33
Speaker
They don't exist in the nine to five world that a lot of us do, myself included. And, you know, they're the greatest enablers because they have this idea, they have this world they want to explore, but they can't do it alone. And so they need other people and the community, the synergy. And during the pandemic, it was very hard because we didn't have those sorts of opportunities. It was got to stay here in our apartments, our houses, whatever. But, you know,
00:39:01
Speaker
we realized we could still do something. So we, we were going to do like a, I want to say a regular show, but we ended up only doing three episodes just because it was a lot of work and the pandemic, at least it's still, I mean, it's ongoing, but the isolation, the required isolation, you know, the government imposed
00:39:25
Speaker
stay away from people, and we didn't have a vaccine and all this stuff. That lasted a lot longer than any of us anticipated. We kept telling ourselves, in another few weeks, it's fine. It's going to be another month, and we'll have this figured out. And three episodes of creating this show that we were live streaming, I don't have the energy anymore. I am just so sad and worn out and depressed by this.
00:39:57
Speaker
I can't go on. And so I often think about the dark, and for me it was
Creativity During the Pandemic
00:40:03
Speaker
fine. I had a good job. I have a great partner. I have two wonderful cats. I have a great family. I've got everything. But even I was distraught and more depressed than I've ever been. And so
00:40:22
Speaker
just thinking about how the people who are are much less privileged than I how did they handle the pandemic and it's just every everything is so weird now I fear that we're going to have to go back into isolation and all those those moments of of synergy and connectivity and the something is going to be much harder to find yeah the um
00:40:50
Speaker
It's that connection, right? Work in a movement, the labor movement and connection amongst people. And yeah, I mean, it's significant, right? And I think I think you're mentioning of the casual pieces about the human experience, right? The fact that you mentioned
00:41:08
Speaker
like to somebody who's a political opponent, but you don't know anything about it. And you're like, you have a 12 year old kid and you realize you both have a 12 year old boy or whatever. And you're like, Hey, they both play baseball, right? Like, so we don't have to like get a knife into each other. We're just going to be like, we've got kids who play baseball and I'm not trying to be idyllic or absurd. I'm just trying to say there isn't even those casual opportunities for us to engage with each other without being
00:41:34
Speaker
You represent the wrong party. You represent this. And it's like just a casual humanity and connection. And without that fear, you know, I think we're kind of in a fraught position and still still are. So in how that connects to creativity, as you mentioned, right. So about in in in the
00:41:59
Speaker
Question now is for ways for those who are listening to connect with your creativity or what you do or your interest and whatever level of comfort, just because you do a lot of different things. And I'd like folks to be able to connect with those if you'd like them to. Yeah, certainly. This whole thing has been surreal. So thanks, Ken.
00:42:27
Speaker
You know, it's probably better than a therapy session, really. No, I mean, I've worked in the labor movement for 21 years. I've handled thousands of hours of phone call. I'd have you take a guess at how much of that has been therapy. How much is that? And this is Article 7 of the contract, and here we'll file you a lot of therapy. So we're good.
00:42:53
Speaker
We do have a website, so it is a featoid.com. Let me just double check that. Did I pay the bills is really the question. Yeah, but you changed the name and you have it in your head as you have it, right?
00:43:13
Speaker
Yeah, there is a moment sometimes where that for me with my kid, what's the child's middle name and my kids will hate me for this, but sometimes for a second, I'll be like, wait a second. Um, yeah, so
Connect with Christina and Featoid
00:43:29
Speaker
Uh, you can find any works that the feet toyed group of people have endeavored upon at feet toy.com. And that will link you to all of our videos on YouTube. And if you have any, you know, if anybody's local and they want to join us, hit me up. Uh, there's nothing I like more than growing the community of weirdos and.
00:43:57
Speaker
That's one of my favorite things, too, about my paying job is that as a manager of people, I get to hire for a team. I love building teams. And one of my driving tenants is, are you a weirdo? And so I think this goes for all team building. If I can give some unsolicited advice to anybody who's thinking of trying to build some sort of community is don't look for the people who fit in.
00:44:26
Speaker
You don't want to look at something and be like, I don't know if they're a good fit for us. You want to look at them and be like, what weirdness do they bring to the table? Is this person going to come to the screening and we're going to say, OK, everybody, if you're comfortable, take off your pants. We're just going to have a pantsless screening of this movie and drink. And they're like, OK, cool. Everybody has a great time.
00:44:51
Speaker
decide not to put their pants back on and they wheel their office chair that they were using all weekend at the editing station back to their house three blocks away, four in the morning. Like, you want to find those weirdos. And it's that's what feet toy, the spirit of feet toy is all about. Like we were probably on par with trauma, honestly, like it's schlock. But there's a lot of heart in it. It's there's a lot of earnestness.
00:45:20
Speaker
And that's, that's art. That's creativity is you deciding to put your heart into something. Well, and with, with trauma films, I grew up on the East coast and know the, uh, the, the, the hero, the greatest superhero that's ever come from New Jersey being the toxic adventure. Um, now I've from Rhode Island and New Jersey is not that far away. And let me just say as a working class kid,
00:45:47
Speaker
around some pollution or knowing of pollution. The toxic Avenger was an Avenger for me and for many kids of my age. So your reference to trauma and the toxic Avenger just empowered me as much as the Hulk with a kid nowadays. Yeah. And it's a bit more accessible too, like these nuclear
00:46:13
Speaker
stacks and you know, I can see in the horizon, I can't see any here in Oregon, but that you might somewhere else like, there's a superhero as a result of this, somebody's lurking, it's, it's cool. And, you know, I think it means we all can be that superhero, you don't have to magically be granted a sword by a sorceress in a castle, you don't get, you know, struck by lightning or bit by a spider.
00:46:40
Speaker
You know, you have it. It's it's there somewhere and the best way to bring it out is to work at it and find some people find your find your weirdos. Yeah, I are heartily and heartily endorse what you said. And I think, you know, just kind of like the variety of the experience. And I know I try on the podcast of being interested in a lot of different things to get the variety of thought around and see
00:47:07
Speaker
just really how powerful, how creative, how capable humans are. Many, all of us, a lot of that's been in a slumber, right, for a long time. So I just love talking to you and to artists to really engage on these questions and say, well, there is some power. There is something sublime. There is something psychologically useful. There is healing.
00:47:33
Speaker
And the weirdness and hiring the weirdos, like that's, you know, probably my primary job would be like.
00:47:42
Speaker
writing the contract for the perfect working conditions for the weirdos, like maybe that's my big thing that I helped create for. And I just started thinking about it now because of you. So, Christina King, it's been a great pleasure to be able to talk to you and learn about
00:48:06
Speaker
your creativity and just getting some of these big questions for you. It's been great to chat with you. And I just want to thank you for coming on to the podcast. Thank you, Ken. I wish I could talk to you for hours. This has been super fun. Well, thanks so much. And I'm sure we'll be able to chat again because I love these conversations and we'll keep them going. Thank you. Thanks, Christina.
00:48:38
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.