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Alex Fine and Chloe Niclas
2.6k Plays3 years ago
Alex Fine is an illustrator living and working in the Baltimore area. He spends his time creating art for various magazines, book publishers, and advertising firms…and most importantly, dressing his cat Roger in fancy neck ties.
Chloe Niclas was a guest on SRTN 189.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Overview
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Delante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Labor Organizing and Union Challenges
00:00:17
Speaker
I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just a labor organizer. So I'm always like, I can't like I'm talking to workers like I can't do this shit by myself. What are your ideas? And then I've been I've been involved in
00:00:31
Speaker
some pretty pitched teacher union battles, and I worked for the teacher's union this week over here in Oregon, so sleepy old Oregon's getting interested. I wanted to, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, I can relate to that though. I know what's like negotiating, and that's, I remember I was doing that at Micah for a while, and it was, it's a full-time job sometimes. It's just, it's a lot of work, you know, just needing
00:01:00
Speaker
So you done some of that? Yeah, me and six other professors at Micah started the first adjunct union at Micah and it was
00:01:10
Speaker
It didn't go very well, unfortunately, but I can tell you more about that later. Oh, man, I've done the work for 24 years. Union brother, Chloe, union sister. So, yeah, I love that. That's absolutely incredible. I'm trying to merge. I have two identities, podcast art guy and labor guy. Those two identities, they're the exact same. I have to show others how they're the exact same.
00:01:40
Speaker
art, art, organizing, expression, it gets the shit done. So it's long to try to connect people with that idea. But we're we're on the way. There's a commonality. Definitely. Yeah.
Special Baltimore Episode Introduction
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:54
Speaker
I'm Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, a super exciting Baltimore episode. Chloe Nicholas, who was recently episode 189 of the show, fantastic episode, it was wonderful to meet Chloe, she's back, and is co-host, and we have Alex Fine, whose illustrations in art
00:02:19
Speaker
Uh, tap into my particular mind. And, uh, so I love, uh, looking at them all in the forms of, uh, you see, um, uh, with the concert posters and illustration that you do in, I've heard you describe the main task of.
00:02:34
Speaker
Taking words and what somebody's conveying and try to show what that is Alex fine Recording over here over there from Baltimore to Oregon. Welcome to the show and Happy to have you on.
The Art of Illustration: Process and Impact
00:02:53
Speaker
Thanks. It's I'm happy to be here. Thank you
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah and Chloe as well we're gonna drop into some illustrator type stuff I want to tell you on something. I haven't told either one of you when I uh My editor and producer Peter Bauer Who produces this show with union labor? He listened to Chloe's episode and he he was really fast and because he's listened to and produced every episode but every once in a while we've had illustrators on and both he and I have like
00:03:26
Speaker
I don't know, gotten into this illustrator vibe or something that feels different about it. So I like that we were able to do this here and to develop some of those points. But I wanted to ask you, Alex, when did you see yourself as an artist? When did you walk around and like, this is who I am? When did that happen?
00:03:48
Speaker
I think, like a lot of artists, I think it started when I was really young, when I was in elementary school. I was very fortunate. I had a really great elementary school art teacher. And in elementary school, you have the same art teacher from kindergarten through sixth grade. And she, at a very early age, she never talked down to us. She never treated us like we were incapable of understanding certain things.
00:04:14
Speaker
So she was teaching us lessons that I wouldn't learn again till college. And I think she understood something that a lot of elementary school art teachers don't usually understand. And that's when you're young, you absorb information really fast and you're able to learn and process things really fast.
00:04:34
Speaker
because of her lessons, not only did I become an artist, but there were a lot of students from that elementary school who went on to art, you know, art careers and won contests. And she really got me thinking like an artist as early as maybe
00:04:52
Speaker
six years old, seven years old, and she would enter us in local contests, national contests, even international contests. When I was in third grade, I won an art contest in Japan. She sent one of my colons. Absolutely amazing.
00:05:08
Speaker
I'll tell you this as a teacher myself, when you give a student a taste of real world success, it gives you motivation to keep pursuing it. It makes you think, okay, I'm validated now. There's someone other than my parents thinks I'm good at this.
00:05:25
Speaker
that think that I can actually do something with this. I'm more than just an average artist, you know? And that makes you want to almost become obsessed with it. You think, okay, if I've achieved this success, what's my next milestone? What can I achieve after this? And that's always been sort of my teaching method too. I think she was, her name is Ruth Gaynor. I should say her name. She's retired now, but just- Thank you, Ruth Gaynor. Thank you, Ms. Gaynor.
00:05:54
Speaker
No, I mean, it's you took my breath away when you're talking about that. I represent teachers every single day. And this show just drops back so much times when I asked this question of both.
00:06:05
Speaker
inspiring and less inspiring were damaging experiences in this realm. And one of the most powerful statements I ever saw on a poster shows up every once in a while. My teacher said I was smart and I was smart. My teacher said I was an artist. I was an artist.
00:06:25
Speaker
And there's just something so inspiring, I think, connected to what you're talking about. I just wanted to mention that. Thank you for that. I just had one quick question too, and you said you teach. What do you teach and what's that experience like?
Teaching Art: Experiences and Challenges
00:06:47
Speaker
So, when the pandemic started, I took, let's say, an extended sabbatical because I realized how difficult it was to teach any kind of art over Zoom or through, you know, kind of tele...
00:07:02
Speaker
methods. So, um, so right now I'm actually thinking about maybe starting to apply to different colleges again, but I taught at I taught Micah, I taught the Corcoran and I my first teaching jobs were actually at the Maryland College of Art and Design, which is well, it was a small art school in Silver Spring, Maryland. And it's the live in Silver Spring. Oh, yeah, it was right near the Forest Glen Metro if you know that Metro stop well.
00:07:31
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And it was a great experience. I was actually still a student at the school, and they gave me summer classes to teach the children. And it was amazing. And then eventually, I started teaching continuing ed classes to senior citizens at night. And keep in mind, when I was probably 20 years old when I started, and I looked like I was 12 years old back then, because I think maybe during the pandemic, I started my age and started to progress more.
00:07:58
Speaker
but he caught it caught up damn until about six years ago i still look like i was 12 years old i think and uh so it was a it was a fun experience teaching senior citizens why i looked like a 12 year old well 12 year olds with tattoos you know but uh it was a strange reality for these uh 80 85 year old uh art students
00:08:20
Speaker
But after one class, they realized I think they realized I knew what I was talking about, so it was okay. But teaching college was always my favorite teaching experience because when you teach college, it's almost like you take a mentor role too because these are students that you're going to keep instructing even after they're not your students anymore.
00:08:44
Speaker
These are people that you're going to stay in touch with the rest of your life, I think. And there's something there's something special about teaching college, too. But I'd say I'd be open to even teaching elementary school to do, you know, to hopefully be as influential as my elementary school teacher was.
00:09:00
Speaker
Because I know teaching elementary school, though, is also a lot more stressful than teaching college. I don't think they pay elementary school teachers nearly enough money to do what they do because you have so many students and you have so many personalities that haven't yet fully developed. And I think to be able to reach these kids at that age is a really special trait that these teachers have.
00:09:30
Speaker
Thank you.
Chloe's Illustration Work: The Golden Girls
00:09:31
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you so much Alex and Chloe in order to interrupt this bro fest and I'm sorry it just I mean things happen in Silver Spring and comic books and Golden Girls and amen so um Chloe I part of part of an approach in this episode. We're just talking about um, you know like illustration and as you know when we had our conversation Chloe, I was just I
00:09:59
Speaker
really enthralled by the ideas that were captured in your images and just really thrilled by those. So I've connected to recently just the power of illustration and just opened my mind and understanding your process and such more.
00:10:17
Speaker
So I wanted to thank you for co-hosting and in order to actually co-host, I have to let you co-host. I'm passing the baton because I just did a sprint there. Cool. Thanks so much, Ken. It's really kind of you to have me on as a co-host.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, so Alex, one of the things that I was noticing about your work, you did a magnet set of the Golden Girls and I was so excited by that. I was like, oh my God, that just excited everything. Like any young child or anybody who's beyond that age would be so, that would be such a fun experiment. What experience did you,
00:11:04
Speaker
What was it like doing that project?
00:11:07
Speaker
Well, it was really fun because I had just done a few other Golden Girls jobs. For a moment there, I felt like I was the Golden Girls illustrator, which I can't imagine a more fun moniker to have as Golden Girls illustrator. So I had done this job for Hulu and Tumblr, which was a promotion to celebrate the release of All Seven Seasons on Hulu.
00:11:34
Speaker
And it was sort of like a series of animated GIFs, which was a lot of fun to draw, too. And I got that job right as I was making the transition from traditional illustration to digital illustration. So I feel like I was kind of feeling my way around custom digital brushes at the time. And when I got another Golden Girls job, I was like, OK, now I'm a little more settled into digital so I can really, really make them shine now. And I can really do them justice. So my next Golden Girls job was a book for Harper. No, I'm sorry.
00:12:04
Speaker
It was a book for Penguin Workshop, and it was a Christmas book about the Golden Girls. It was like a night before Christmas, but it was taking place in Miami, and it was about a horrible rainstorm, and they were afraid it was going to be a hurricane.
00:12:19
Speaker
Blanche went out for the night because that's what Blanche does. So it was a really fun book and it was a great experience working with them. So right after that, I got the magnet job and I was like, oh, this is great. Just keep the Golden Girls jobs coming. And I felt like it was the perfect timing because I had drawn them so much that I felt like I could draw them from memory at that point.
00:12:41
Speaker
And when they told me the premise of the project, when I got the brief in the email, I was like, this is perfect because I got to draw all the characters full body. I got to draw all of their accessories, like their drinks and purses.
00:12:57
Speaker
you know, sport jackets with shoulder pads and things like that. And then, you know, wicker furniture, it was like a dream come true doing that kind of work. And what was also cool is they had me draw two backdrops. They had me draw the nigh with all of the patio furniture.
00:13:16
Speaker
and they had me draw the kitchen. And what I loved about drawing the kitchen was they had all of these cake molds on the wall. You might notice that if you look at the kitchen interior, they kind of look like copper cake molds and they're all over the walls.
00:13:35
Speaker
Unfortunately, the magnet set was really tiny, so I couldn't get too much into the details. But I loved to try to get as much detail as I could at the size that I was drawing. And I've never really been the kind of illustrator that draws elaborate backgrounds. So for me, it was kind of a challenge. And that was also fun, too. I love challenging assignments. I love it when I get an assignment that kind of takes me out of my comfort zone.
00:14:03
Speaker
And so I got to draw the wallpaper and the floor patterns and all the appliances on the countertops. And it was a lot of fun. It was a good experience. And I have to say, the best part of that job was going to my friend's houses sometimes and seeing them on their refrigerators and them not even knowing that I did the artwork. That just means they just bought it because they liked it and they saw it somewhere. And I know they were selling it at Atomic Books
00:14:34
Speaker
And I know a lot of my friends shop at Atomic because it's an amazing bookstore. So going to people's houses for dinner parties or just randomly being at people's houses I don't even know and seeing the magnets was a lot of fun. Just seeing my work out in the wild, as they say. I was going to ask you if you had done the backdrops to them too. So I'm glad that you let me know that you did.
00:14:58
Speaker
Oh yeah, it was so much fun. Just drawing all the plants on the lanai and the Miami background. And which part of that did you say was challenging? Was it just like all of the details or just fitting everything in there that was relevant that needed to be in there?
00:15:16
Speaker
Well, you know, for me, and this is something I really respect and appreciate about your work, is that being able to compose a scene with accurate angles, you know, with an accurate perspective, that's like, to me, the most challenging thing, because even if you have all of the background knowledge of one point, two point perspective, you know, horizon lines, vanishing points, things like that,
00:15:39
Speaker
When you actually have to execute a background, when you have to draw everything in correct proportions and perspectives, it can be challenging because it's all about consistency. You have to make sure that if there's shadows, the shadows are consistent. If there's lights, the lights are consistent.
00:15:55
Speaker
And so for me, I got way inside my head when I was doing these backgrounds where I was like, this doesn't really look completely accurate. But I also thought to myself, these are just going to have magnets that are not in scale whatsoever to the backgrounds. So I kind of let myself be OK with it not being 100% accurate.
00:16:14
Speaker
But if this was like an editorial illustration or an ad campaign, I would have probably made sure everything was 100% scale and I would have made all of my grids and made sure everything was perfect. But in this case, I felt a little more relaxed because the nature of this is like the purse magnet is like
00:16:34
Speaker
It would be a giant purse if it was going with the person because they wanted all of the accessories to be detailed enough to be large enough to be able to be recognizable, I guess. So that kind of put me more at ease. It doesn't have to be 100% perfectly accurate in terms of perspective and angles. Yeah. Very cool. It looked like it was a lot of fun to do.
00:17:02
Speaker
It was a great job. The more Golden Girls jobs they get, the better. I have to say though, maybe I've been doing a lot of Bob Ross jobs, and I feel like Bob Ross and Golden Girls are sort of like hand in hand. So I think the thing is, I've always considered myself a Mr. Rogers type person, so maybe I'm getting all of the wholesome content now. I don't know.
00:17:23
Speaker
I think I'm just like I'm not very I don't think people think of me as like an edgy artist. So I'm getting all the happy little clouds, happy little, you know, TV sitcom jobs. This this is like there's so much content in this episode in so many directions.
00:17:42
Speaker
and I Wow I That's just so fascinating to hear about and and for me Listening and learning from it. There's actually been like it for me. I just bought the book I found a hardcover copy of it. I had a paperback of must-be classic Perspective made easy. Oh, yeah
00:18:04
Speaker
this classic book. I thought it was a life help manual and I purchased it, but it turns out it's an illustration manual.
Artistic Process and Evolution
00:18:14
Speaker
So I was just looking at all these terms and I just want to tell you just so you know how I hear this.
00:18:25
Speaker
I've never shown proficiency in representing what's out there in any sort of way with representational. Once that's not part of any of my process or how I've developed my abilities and when I paint, it's abstract and not really controllable in a way I can understand.
00:18:47
Speaker
So one radical thing happened to me. I forget if I mentioned this to you, Chloe, but I was taking an art class, first time in my life, organized art class a couple months ago. I've never had an art class in my life. Or like little workshops and stuff. And it was over a couple months.
00:19:09
Speaker
Susie DeVille who's been on this show had the just you you you got a copy Illustrate draw. I don't want to make sure I get it right. Um upside down So the image is upside down. Yeah And you know, you know what happened what I could illustrate yes
00:19:32
Speaker
I had never been asked. I'm not in the galleries or nothing like that. I'm saying that I could do. I could do what was there and I could never do.
00:19:47
Speaker
What was there before? Somebody flipped it and my brain said, oh, oh, somebody turned it the right way. Whatever's going on in my brain, whatever. It's complicated. And now it's the right way. And I started and I've just done two or three. I did an elephant. I did. I would always finish what I was trying to represent that was out there by my hand and be like, I hate fucking hate this shit because I always wanted to.
00:20:11
Speaker
Like I didn't have a good relationship. I wanted to be what's out there. I want to capture down there with my hand. Maybe I can now with like whatever happened with that. It's that radical. So I'm like two months into illustration in my life and I'm 50. Yeah, that's a very common exercise. I had that one too when I was very young.
00:20:34
Speaker
And the way that that works is that you're kind of unlearning. There's a difference between drawing what you're actually seeing versus drawing what you think you're seeing. So when you're actually looking at something and trying to replicate it exactly, just beginning, it's likely not going to look exactly like that in the beginning because you don't know
00:21:00
Speaker
exactly how you don't know how all of the shapes, you don't know how all of objects work in 3D space yet. But when you're doing it upside down, you don't even know what the image is. So you're you're not your brain isn't trying to make you draw something that isn't actually what you're seeing.
00:21:20
Speaker
Wow, thank you. Wow, that's incredible. The one other thing connected to this too, that is just the only other thing that I would illustrate that would be completely obsessive, duplicated within environments, loved doing it, loved what I see when I did it, all geometric shapes, all geometric shapes. And my partner now, Jenny, we talked about this like when we were first meeting each other and we had
00:21:50
Speaker
like done that or shown it I looked at hers and I was like yo like what do you like what did you do there and she had done that and then somebody later explained to me they did a psychological read which I liked it was cool I love hearing about these ideas they're like
00:22:05
Speaker
Well, I'm in a union meeting. I'm like, got all these conflicts, nothing but conflicts sometimes. And I'm doing these geometric shape with perfect angles and cutting this way and trying to do shading that way. And you're ordering your life. You have no control of this fucking mess that's in front of you. Your brain's doing trying to show you that things can be pieced together somehow. I'm like, huh?
00:22:28
Speaker
probably, but I was fascinated. I'm just fascinated by that because it's just a reflection of my mind and in a very uneven experience with developing what you're all talking about. I just sit there and be like, keep talking for three hours about what you do.
00:22:44
Speaker
Well, it's funny, that exercise is really good because like Chloe said, it's partially about unlearning and it's partially about not coming up with your own image of what you think something looks like.
00:23:02
Speaker
And I've noticed that as an artist, I think as any artist, but specifically as an illustrator, for me, it's like, you know, as you get older, you don't want to have the same style your whole life. You know, you want to keep evolving, keep adapting to changing trends and things like that.
00:23:16
Speaker
And so I've noticed that being an artist is like a constant state of unlearning. You have to constantly get out of your own style or your own sort of rigid way of thinking and visualizing things because
00:23:32
Speaker
I can't name you one artist that just kept the same style throughout their whole career, their whole life. And you constantly have to, I think, it's weird, it's almost like a paradox. You have to unlearn to learn something. To learn how to see things different, you have to unlearn the way you've always seen them to begin with. And so it can be frustrating too. Like you were saying before, you felt like you were never an ulcer, you could never draw representational.
00:23:58
Speaker
And it's, you know, because it's like when you're younger, when you're a young art student, they make you do blind contour drawings. And basically you look at something and you don't look at your paper while you're drawing. And the whole point is you're supposed to be drawing what you're seeing, not just looking at your paper and trying to remember what you saw. Because if you remember what you saw, you're going to draw like, let's say you draw a hand. You're going to draw a hand like you imagine hands look, not what they actually look like. Exactly.
00:24:24
Speaker
And that's the paradox because when you do a blind contour drawing, it looks like an abstract drawing because you're not seeing what you're doing. You can't look at your paper. But what it's doing is it's training your brain to really make observations on what you're looking at and notice what that specific hand looks like, not what you think that hand looks like. And so yeah, I would definitely encourage you to keep doing these exercises. Yeah, yeah.
00:24:49
Speaker
really make you, you know, strengthen your observational skills because representational art, I think, starts with a foundation observation more than just learning how something should look. You have to kind of observe it yourself and figure those things out for yourself. Alex, when you were
00:25:12
Speaker
many people might not know about your graphite portraits. But like, when when you were starting out, did your work look more like that? And then you like transitioned into the look that you have now? Like, how did that come about? Because that was a lot more about representational. I mean, there's still like some stylization going on in them. But it's still like, a lot more like three dimensional feeling. So how did you like
00:25:37
Speaker
Oh, definitely. So it all started when I was a kid. I loved realistic illustrations. My favorite artist, it's like if you ask a painter who their favorite painter is and they say Picasso, you'd be like, well, that's a pretty basic answer. But for me, I always say Norman Rockwell. It's like Norman Rockwell is my favorite illustrator. I know he's like
00:25:57
Speaker
probably the most famous illustrator ever and it sounds like a very simple answer. But I just, my whole life, you know, up until college was me trying to recreate Norman Rockwell's style. I just, because I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand how someone could draw in pain so realistically and so naturally while still like exaggerating forms just enough to give life to these drawings.
00:26:24
Speaker
And I just didn't understand. Back then, you know, before I really learned about art, I didn't realize that he was exaggerating. I thought he was just looking at people or photographs and just copying them identically. I thought that's how you do that. You just copy what you see. And going back to what we were just saying about representational,
00:26:43
Speaker
But what makes artists like Norman Rockwell and countless other illustrators so successful is they take an image and they exaggerate just slightly so that maybe an arm is a little longer or a leg is a little longer or an expression is a little more animated so that it really makes it come alive and actually elevates it higher than a photograph.
00:27:08
Speaker
a photograph you can edit in Photoshop and different programs. But honestly, if you just take a photograph and just alter the levels of things, you're not going to get a sense of what was like in the moment when that photograph was taken.
00:27:24
Speaker
But an illustrator has the ability to bring these representational images to life more by exaggerating a bit, by adding a little more life to them. And I think that's what Norman Rockwell did. He was just a master of like, if he drew someone running, they looked like they were running. It wasn't just a snapshot. It was like,
00:27:44
Speaker
you really felt the energy in his illustrations so i spent so much time trying to figure out how to capture that and it wasn't until later on that i realized what he was doing and by that time though i'd gotten into so many other illustrators like i loved like kent williams and james jean and
00:28:04
Speaker
Yuko Shimizu and Nathan Fox and all of these amazing illustrators. And so I feel like my style became almost a hybrid of all of theirs. And I don't want to insult them because my work did not look as good as theirs when I was in college. I mean, I don't want them to look at my work as a younger illustrator and be like, he was influenced by me. I mean, not to be self-deprecating, but you know,
00:28:29
Speaker
So what happened was, though, I think you become a combination of all of your influences pretty much. And so I feel like, you know, where I started out trying to do realistic and I like my work was very graphite based, you know, charcoal based. I love compressed charcoal and graphite. You know, I use like
00:28:49
Speaker
you know, from a 6H to a 6B pencil and my Neator Racer. And I have to be honest, I never stopped loving that. So as I got older, I developed that style more while I was developing a pen and ink style because my favorite illustrator when I got to college was Charles Burns. I just loved how he used light and dark. You know, you asked me earlier about comics. Black Hole was one of my favorite comics too. Yeah, rock and roll here.
00:29:16
Speaker
Oh, definitely. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I mean, there's so many great like kind of he made a lot of like small graphic novels, too. And, and so I got really into Charles Burns. And that led me to Daniel Claus. And I adore Claus. I adore Claus. Sorry for the showstopper piece.
00:29:34
Speaker
Definitely. I have a dirty semi-dirty story related to Daniel Claus. We have to get into that later on. Go ahead. Definitely. And I have to say, Daniel Claus, I met him at a book sign in D.C. and I was afraid to meet him because... I'd be. Just like a lot of artists, you kind of judge them based on their work.
00:29:55
Speaker
And when you're a graphic novel artist and a comic artist, you put a lot of yourself into these stories. So I was just like, man, based on some of his, I remember the first Daniel Clowes graphic novel I read was David Boring. And I thought to myself, it's like, man, the person who wrote this must be a really interesting person. And then I had the same thing with Charles Burns. And I thought to myself,
00:30:20
Speaker
God, I don't know. It's like, should I meet this person or are they going to be like really aggressive? Are they going to be really like eccentric? But Daniel Claus was like the nicest guy in the world. He had a line out the door all the way down the street. It was at Poetry and Prose in D.C. And it was just he stayed the whole time. I remember afterwards I went to Comic Ping Pong, which is like right across the street, I think, or maybe down the street.
00:30:45
Speaker
You're killing me, bro. You're killing me, bro. Oh, yeah. And after I eat my pizza, I went back to I was with my friend Rico and we went back to his car and there was still a line. He was still signing books. And I just think that's a good that's a good artist. That's a good person who's just going to stay until the line is done, you know, because a lot of artists don't do that. I've been to book signings where they're like, I'm going to be here for one hour. And then if
00:31:11
Speaker
If the hour goes by and you haven't got signed, tough luck. But he stayed there the whole time until every last person got through the line. And he was just really nice. It's weird because I have to do a little aside here.
00:31:27
Speaker
when I met my wife Chloe. Her name is also Chloe. I got confused there for a moment. Thank you. Unfortunately, we're separated at the moment and that's okay. We're still really good friends. That's great. But I remember when we first started going out, she didn't know that I had drawn all of these posters that were on her wall at her apartment.
00:31:55
Speaker
And so the first time I saw her apartment, I was like, oh, where'd you get these posters? Some of them were like five, six years old. I mean, they were from like 2000, you know? And we started dating in 2005. And I knew I had to be the one...
00:32:11
Speaker
that handed her the flyer because I was the only one passing out flyers to these shows. So she's like, oh, you know, you know, I did all of these. And she's like, I had no idea. And she's like, I always pictured the guy who did these being like six foot six with like a big green mohawk and like a tattooed neck and stuff. And I was just like, nah, I'm just like a dorky artist, you know. I mean, I do have tattoos and stuff, but I'm like a short skinny guy.
00:32:38
Speaker
who wears button-up shirts and is not a very shocking looking person. And that always struck me because I thought about that with other artists I know. Sometimes, I think artists use their work as an outlet for the things that they think that they don't say. And it made me wonder, it's like, am I thinking all of these things and I'm putting them in my posters, but I'm too inhibited to actually say these things out loud.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I think a lot of people are like that. I thought about that with Daniel Claus. I was just like, maybe his comics are an outlet for the things that he thinks. But in civil society, you don't actually say out loud. And it's not like anything is graphic novels are that over the top or anything. But I noticed that with a lot of artists, a lot of comic book artists, they put things in their stories that they probably wouldn't express in the real world.
00:33:36
Speaker
And, you know, I always wondered that about myself, you know, because I'm a, I'm a very polite guy, you know, very like, you know, as, as my grandparents would say, I think I'm a match, you know, I'm just like, I'm not the kind of guy that would be like, aggressive or mean to anyone.
00:33:53
Speaker
And, but my artwork was like, some of it was like a little like crazy. And, and I'm just like, man, maybe, maybe I'm part of that too. Maybe there's a part of me that I don't feel comfortable expressing in the real world. I put in my artwork, you know? No, it's, um, well, yeah, that's, that's, uh, I love all I'm, I'm a huge clouds, uh, fan myself. I get to tell the stories just so I don't forget it. And I'm not, this is a secret bookstore story. So I'm not going to.
00:34:23
Speaker
I'm not going to share a location now, but I'll tell you the what's what about the Daniel Claus and the smut. So Daniel Claus mom had an extensive collection of kind of kinky romance, the underground books, paperbacks, you know, like classic, like kind of cool looking, you know, underground, cheap ones. And so we get these
00:34:54
Speaker
In the collection, Klaus had drawn and illustrated in many of these books, maybe connected to what's going on in the story. So when you try to get these, you purchase them and be like, I'll buy Daniel Klaus mom's.
00:35:10
Speaker
smut book, you know, paperback, you know, pulp fiction, and maybe you'll get Daniel Claus originals within it. So I bought a few. No, I bought two or three. I didn't get any illustrations. So
00:35:28
Speaker
It would have been a better story without that. Maybe it wasn't such a great story. But anyways, there is a chance to get discreet young Daniel Clow's illustrations through purchasing pulp fiction.
00:35:44
Speaker
a collection of his mom. So I would love a young Dan Claus smut drawing in a paperback. That would be awesome. I mean, it's like I love seeing artwork done by, you know, well-known artists when they were younger. You know, it's it's fun to see like their evolution and see how they develop. That would be amazing. Yeah, it could be a book selling play, both of you. I mean, I don't know. They could be like, you know, keep.
00:36:08
Speaker
They didn't say one in a hundred. They just said it's from the collection used to illustrate in them. So Unfortunately, my my mom threw away. I think all my old artwork was a kid So there's no young young Alex drawings out there. I don't think all right. All right, so that they think there goes that market um Alex wanted to ask you this and
Philosophy of Art: Communication and Perspective
00:36:31
Speaker
I want to ask you, what is art? We're talking all this stuff. We're talking Golden Girls, Amen, illustration process, pencils, charcoal, erase. What is art?
00:36:42
Speaker
Um, that's like, yeah, that's always a hard question to answer because it's so specific to, to the person who makes the art, I think, or the person who interprets the art. But I think that, that, that actually is kind of what it is. I think to me, like art is taking a personal perspective, like a unique perspective and figuring out a way to communicate it.
00:37:05
Speaker
And that communication isn't always meant to be even fully understood. I think that as an illustrator, I feel like we're often interpreters for other people's perspectives. Someone else writes a piece for a magazine or a newspaper, and then our job is to read it, analyze it, dissect it, and then figure out a way to create a visual for that. So that's a very specific kind of art. But I think art in general, I think we're all just
00:37:34
Speaker
you know, it's hard, it's hard to be a human without interpreting everything around us 24 hours a day, you know, even in our sleep, we're interpreting things even, you know, in our subconscious, we're, you know, we're taking bits and pieces of our days and figuring out how to make
00:37:50
Speaker
sense of them. To me, art is just making sense of everything around us and trying to let other people know how we make sense of it. Illustration is a little different sometimes because you can be an illustrator that makes personal work. We're just talking about Daniel Claus. Even though he's a comic artist, his work I think is very illustrative. He's
00:38:12
Speaker
to illustrate his perspective of the world, and whether it's fictional or autobiographical, it's still the way he sees things. So I think we're all doing that, whether you're a filmmaker, whether you're a writer, whether you're a comedian. I think these are all art forms, and we're all just expressing our perspectives on the world.
00:38:31
Speaker
Thanks so much. I'm I get I run into the problem chatting with you. Alex is I do get I get so enthralled and I have like a proper role of hosting. So I'm always like pulling in and I like I got to make sure that that that they were still running this thing, you know, the right way. Chloe, when you look at Alex's stuff as an illustrator and you'd be like, you know.
00:38:55
Speaker
I want to I want to talk to him and we want to talk to Alex. What is it? What is what is it when you look at his stuff as an illustrator? You're like, you know, that's dope. Like what's going on there? Yeah. Well, I mean, one thing I think and this is something that most illustrators go through when they're, you know, developing their work early on is like you have such a consistent, distinctive style. And and yet like you also
00:39:23
Speaker
kind of try different things out too. And I'm just curious, like there's a few different things going on with your style. Like there's like these kind of clean lines and then there's like some like more subtle like broken up lines. And then there's like sort of a, I don't know how to describe it. Like I don't want to say grunge, but like there's like a, like some roughness going on in the background sometimes too. Like,
00:39:48
Speaker
subtle things like that. And I'm just curious, how did that all come together? How did you land on these things that so clearly identify your work?
00:39:59
Speaker
Oh, so it's like when I was saying earlier that my work, I think a lot of artists work sort of like a hybrid of a lot of different styles that influence them. I think that's kind of how I landed where I am at my current style is that when I first started out after art school, I was really into artists like Charles Burns and I wanted everything to be clean. One thing about Charles Burns is his lines are super clean.
00:40:26
Speaker
It's just like, you can't even believe a human being made that with like a paintbrush and ink, but, cause it's just so precise. It almost looks like vector work, you know? And so I was obsessed with cleanliness back then. I want my lines to be clean, but the problem I was coming into was there's only one Charles Burns and as hard as I tried, I couldn't get my lines to be as clean as his as precise. I feel like they were clean. There were good lines and everything, but it just, I wasn't getting to where I wanted to get. And I noticed that my work just
00:40:56
Speaker
It had a flatness to it. It just wasn't really coming to life. But I started to realize that all of my favorite artists were silk screen print artists. And the great thing about silk screens is there's always an unintentional texture to a silk screen poster. If something's a little off register, maybe the ink doesn't completely attach to the tooth of the paper. And I started noticing, it's like, how can I recreate that digitally? Because I knew, like,
00:41:25
Speaker
I was toying around with dry brush before and trying to get that effect, but I couldn't control it that well. And it was always just hit or miss. So once my friend Kyle Webster started developing his Photoshop brushes, I noticed that he had a whole dry media set. I was like, wow, this is like dry brush, but I can control exactly how I want to look. So I started getting more into textured effects through digital illustration on my tablet in Photoshop.
00:41:53
Speaker
And then when I realized that I could use textures to make my lines too, I kind of ditched trying to do the clean lines and I kind of doubled down on the messy lines. And what I realized was I could create work that almost looked like etchings too. Because one of my favorite artists of all time is Franklin Booth.
00:42:15
Speaker
loved Franklin Booth's, just the way he saw the world, the environments, the way he drew clouds. He drew these really puffy clouds with tons of layers. But the great thing about him was, and I didn't realize this, was that he wasn't an Edger. He was a pen and ink artist. But he loved artists like Albrecht Durer and thought that those pieces of art were done with pen and ink.
00:42:39
Speaker
So he became obsessed with recreating etching styles, but by hand, because he didn't know how to do it with etching. And so I kind of got really into that kind of challenge of trying to create like broken line illustrations, textured line illustrations, but still have it be clean in the sense that the lines are still precise. They're just textured and broken.
00:43:04
Speaker
And so for me, nothing makes me happier than when I print my own work and it looks like something that was off register a little bit like the ink got dry or the colors are a little pulled off the paper. And we live in a wonderful time right now where you can do these things digitally, where you don't have to have happy accidents. You can have complete control over what you're doing.
00:43:29
Speaker
If you don't like the way your texture looks, you can erase it and put new textures in. You can actually add filters and stuff after. And some might say, well, that's cheating. It's the happy accents that make art exciting and unique. But the thing is,
00:43:45
Speaker
There's a poster artist, Frank Kozik, and he was being interviewed once, and the person interviewing him said, it's like, you know, well, what do you say to people who, you know, think that you're just like, you know, you're taking the easy way out, you're cheating when you're coloring in Photoshop or you're tracing images or this or that?
00:44:03
Speaker
And he said, all I care about is what the final product looks like. I don't care how I get there, as long as the final art looks good to me. And I think that's what it's all about. As long as you're not infringing on other people's copyrighted artwork, their intellectual property, if you can create an original piece of art,
00:44:24
Speaker
I've always been of the mind that I don't care how someone creates the art, as long as it's original and it looks good. And that's always been my mentality. So when they create a new technology to have you create original art, I'm all for it. I don't care if it cuts corners or is a shortcut. Now, I have a totally different
00:44:45
Speaker
uh opinion on ai art you know because i i think ai art is infringing
AI Art and Human Creativity
00:44:51
Speaker
on people's original content but i think you know when it comes to um using tools that are actual tools for making art i i think all tools are fair game you know it's i i just don't see ai as as you know a tool i think is i think a bit more as like you know
00:45:07
Speaker
uh when you click a filter in instagram and change your face you know it's like i wouldn't call that art i would call that just something fun to play with but it's not really like i don't know i i guess i get a little upset when someone's like i i typed in words that that i want my art to look like and just create a piece of art i'm just like well you're using a lot of other artists work to create like uh and you're having a computer collage together because it's not even a collage that's made by like an actual person it's just
00:45:42
Speaker
No, I've been this has been coming up on on on the show and it's really in this territory around You know AI and where it's derived from I mean I even became fascinated with the the ideas when female
00:46:01
Speaker
you know, artists would report because there's there, you know, within some of these formats, there's such a male gaze. It's like I didn't type in brass, but everything is like came out like this. So it's like a duplication of kind of social constructs or whoever's putting that together. It's I don't know. I guess we could drop into that that whole thing. Chloe, I think you have something to say. Oh, I was just going to say, I mean, it. Yeah, I mean, it's
00:46:31
Speaker
The thing about AI is it can only pull from what has already been made out there. It can't come up with something new. So I think the strong case for humans is that we do come up with things that are new. And AI just pulls from everything that already exists out there. So yeah, it does feel repetitive in that sense.
00:46:59
Speaker
You can't even draw hands. I mean, you've seen the examples, Alex. I don't know if you've seen them, Ken, but there are examples where a piece of AI art, everything about it looks like it was executed well. And then you zoom in on the hands and it's like a bunch of broken fingers.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah, like there's just because like a boy all of a sudden you look closely because it's thinking differently than humans are thinking because if a human were drawing that they would be like, you know, thinking it through all the way with the hand and everything. That's how you tell the difference right now at least.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, one day the technology, I mean, it could be one day really soon that they improved the technology, but the only way they can improve it is to look at other artists' work. You know, AI still can't think, you know, it doesn't have a consciousness. It can't really, like, it can't think of why the art should look the way it does. It just copies the thousands of other illustrations. And, you know, I found out that my illustrations, I'm sure yours are too, Chloe, are in these databases.
00:48:05
Speaker
that they pull from to learn how to make the art.
00:48:11
Speaker
There could be a day when the AI does replace us commercially, but the thing is the AI won't be able to interpret the world like I was saying before. It's not going to be able to know why it's doing this. It's not going to have a unique perspective on the world. It's just going to have a perspective based on some algorithm that is based on other people's perspectives. I think there's always going to have to be a human component to everything, technological.
00:48:38
Speaker
But it's still scary as a commercial artist, though, because as we know, everything is about a bottom line. You know, a company, if they can get an illustration for half the price because it's AI, unfortunately, they're going to do it, you know, as long as it saves them money. And so I'm a little afraid about the future, I have to be honest. But right now, I still think there's no, they haven't perfected it enough to replace human artists, I think.
00:49:06
Speaker
Yeah, a big, such a huge topic. And I remember, you know, talking about maybe in philosophy class quite some time ago, you know, to kind of artificial intelligence, you can in science side, and all that. I tell you one thing I was thinking of amongst this conversation and
00:49:25
Speaker
Thinking about a whole bunch of things, but one thing was pretty cool that I had forgotten them. I had interviewed April March Whose name as an animator illustrator was Ellen Blake and I just became fascinated because I forgot about this whole component because April March she does she works
00:49:49
Speaker
It does like French pop like French pop songs. And if you see the movie Deathproof by Tarantino, she did the chick habit song singing in French very catchy groove and all that type of stuff, but she was the lead animator illustrator for Ren and Stimpy.
00:50:09
Speaker
Oh yeah. As well. And it was just so mind-blowing because I was such an audio. I'm just listening to her songs. I think her French pop songs are just so groovy. I'd want to talk to you. But then there was this whole illustrator, animator. I'm not familiar with the terms. I would say drawing, animator.
00:50:29
Speaker
Lead animator for Ren and Stimpy was just bizarre, surreal, you know, display. And I think after I haven't done so many episodes, I've just remained like deeply fascinated when like I'm having this one type of conversation and then it's like, whoa, it's like way over here and like that too with high proficiency.
00:50:52
Speaker
And it's just it's just it's just really thrilling. And it actually it's really thrilling to hear about your process and thinking like the A.I. And when I've talked about this, it's like. There is no autonomous A.I. hand yet unless I don't know something, an autonomous hand.
00:51:14
Speaker
that is digital that creates without what you're saying pulling from Chloe's work, Alex's work, other illustrator's work that's in its database. And that's like, so when we ask what is art for, it's like,
00:51:32
Speaker
I think one of the responses is like, art's made by humans, yo. There's like a political angle to it. I always try to look at things from both sides and when I think about AI, the way AI learns is the way a human artist does learn too. I mean, it is pulling from other people as art, but the difference between AI and a human is we're not actually going to take actual components of someone else's art and put it into our illustrations.
00:52:02
Speaker
But we remember other people's art. I don't know if you've done this, Chloe, but there were times when I was learning illustration where I would have folders on my computer of artists I was inspired by. And if there was one artist who was, let's say, good at drawing trees,
00:52:20
Speaker
I would open up an image of their tree and I would try to kind of be influenced by it when I would draw my own trees. So it wasn't that I was actually taking the actual art, but I was looking at someone else's art just to kind of figure out how they see things and how they execute drawing something specific. And I think that's what a lot of us do as illustrators is we're inspired by certain artists
00:52:46
Speaker
And then eventually, when we develop our own style, it doesn't look like there is any more. But when we're learning, I think we have to see other art to learn how to make original art. And I think that's what AI does in a sense. But what they're doing actually is taking the actual art and putting it into theirs. So when you see a portrait that's AI-generated, you can sometimes even see signatures from artists in the portrait. Oh, wow.
00:53:13
Speaker
Literally pulling a chunk of that illustration and putting it in theirs. So I think that's what's so offensive to me when it comes to AI art. It's not that they're just learning by looking at other people's art. They're actually taking the actual art and putting it into their imagery.
00:53:31
Speaker
And so, you know, and that doesn't fly in the illustration world. You can't just, you know, you can't take a Jane's gene illustration and be like, hey, I like that face. I'm just going to put it somewhere in my illustration. But that's kind of like what AI does, I think, from what I understand. I might be understanding AI wrong, but that's kind of how I see it is that they're just, they're just collaging, you know, the illustrations from other people's work and making like one kind of like collage
00:53:57
Speaker
you know, original else, but not original, like illustration, that's kind of like collaged from older illustrations. It's like a new image or new concept, but like with actual like chunks of it from others. Yeah, I think you're right that like we all do learn from each other, like as we're developing and everything. And then
00:54:19
Speaker
And then I think you reach a point where you're like, well, I would do this and this differently. I think this and this could be better about the way that they did that. And I would like to do this, this, and this. You start to develop your own set of goals for your own work and your own visions that you have. And you might still have similar interests and influences to somebody else, but you still have certain things that you want to do in your own work.
00:54:44
Speaker
that are most likely going to be different from other peoples who might share some of the same influences into yourself.
00:54:50
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah, I think that's what's great about human-made art is that it's like every illustration is like a fingerprint. It might look like, if you just look at a bunch of fingerprints, you're like, these all just look like fingerprints. They all look the same. But there's little nuances to everyone's work that's different. And that's why no two illustrators are exactly alike. Even if you tried your best your whole life to recreate someone else's style, it's never going to be exactly like someone else's.
00:55:19
Speaker
Right. And that's what's great. Yeah. I thank you for this thrill. I wanted to talk about just before we jump into why is there something rather than nothing, I want that. I'm reaching you. I'm over in the woods in the strange territory of Oregon.
Baltimore's Art and Music Scene
00:55:42
Speaker
Boy, I could tell you some stories. It's the most proper place for me at sometimes, but far across the country. And it's cloudy.
00:55:49
Speaker
The sun came out for the first day in about 10 days out this way. I ran around like a maniac all day. I got some electric scooter. I was going down the road as fast as I could. I mean, it was wonderful. I love Baltimore. I used to visit. I've lived in D.C. I'm from Rhode Island. And I'm a Red Sox fan. I'm going to drop that in there. Full disclosure.
00:56:16
Speaker
But I adore Baltimore. I grew up in an industrial city, Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I feel comfortable around Baltimore. I used to visit Fells Point. I remember taking a train to visit Pose Grave, Johns Hopkins, just going up there for that. I really love the city. Part of the reason I bring this up is as I've talked to
00:56:41
Speaker
artists in different places like I had a an episode with Nick Friesen up in Winnipeg because I happen to be fascinated with Winnipeg and I'm a big Winnipeg Jets fan for reasons that are probably confusing but I like to get into the scene
00:56:57
Speaker
or hear what the feel is a bit about what's going on with the illustration or music and art. I live near Portland. It's an hour drive from me into Portland. I go to Portland at least once a week, see a lot of shows, a lot of art. Portland's a weird place, but there's a vibe and I try to express some of those things.
00:57:21
Speaker
What's going on in Baltimore? What do you see there nowadays with your sensitivity as an artist? Do you pick up on some of that? Do you transfer some of that in your work? Both of you. Do you want to go first? No, I'm going to let you go first because I'm very much a hermit, so I bet you know more about this than I do.
00:57:40
Speaker
Well, I'm a hermit nowadays. I lived in Baltimore City for about 16 or 17 years. And then I moved up to the county. I'm in Pikesville now, which is a little bit north, like 20 minutes north of the city. But yeah, when I was younger, though, I felt like I also I've played in bands since I was like 14, like a lot of punk bands and
00:58:03
Speaker
garage rock bands. And yeah, Baltimore is like the music scene and the visual arts scene kind of go hand in hand. And my first art show ever was at a music venue here in Baltimore called The Auto Bar. And it was all just my posters for shows because one of the owners of Auto Bar asked me if I would just be their exclusive poster artist that year. So I made it my senior thesis at Micah, I just did all concert posters.
00:58:31
Speaker
And then it kind of like culminated in an art show at the upstairs bar in the venue. And it was such a great night though, because I hadn't done any real professional work up until then. I mean, I was being hired to do these posters for the venue, but I hadn't done any editorial work yet or anything like that. And so I have this show and
00:58:54
Speaker
My band, but I had a rockabilly band back then. Yes. Love that rockabilly. She called it psychobilly It's kind of like more on the punk side. I'm down. I'm down So yeah, we were called the alphabet bombers and and we got our name from the movie cry baby the John Waters movie The source materialist sound I'm seeing okay good
00:59:19
Speaker
Definitely. So Johnny Depp's character, Crybaby, his father was a serial bomber called the Alphabet Bomber. So we called our band that. I had a huge pompadour back then. I had the Johnny Depp look back then. And so at this show, at my art show, my band played. And as soon as we got done playing, I saw John Waters was at the bar.
00:59:39
Speaker
And I was like, this is awesome. John Waters is at my art show with my band that was inspired by his movie. So of course, I had to go to the bar and be like, hey, I didn't even care about my artwork at that point. I was just like, hey, my band's called the Alphabet Bombers. We got it from your movie. So he was really nice. And he went to a whole history of, there was a real Alphabet Bomber, apparently, who wasn't, it wasn't such a nice story because he was bombing airports and barbershops or whatever, all in alphabetical order.
01:00:05
Speaker
But then after that, I actually, I think I actually grabbed his hand and dragged him over to my artwork so I could show my artwork too. So I was like a really excited super fan. Yeah, get over here, get over here. He was like, I really regret coming to this art show now. So after he left, there's this guy shooting pool. And he was just like,
01:00:27
Speaker
I said, yeah, I liked your band a lot. I was like, oh, that's cool. I also did the artwork on the walls. You should check it out. So it turns out he was the art director of the Baltimore City Paper. And yeah, and he that night he gave me my first editorial job. Lovely, lovely. I do a cover for the city paper for their holiday issue.
01:00:47
Speaker
And I was freaking out because the year before, Shepherd Ferry did the cover for their holiday issue. And I was a huge Shepherd Ferry fan back then. And this was like four years before he did the Obama Hope poster. I just knew him from Andre the Giant stickers that he
01:01:03
Speaker
Love that. Rhode Island as well. Yeah, definitely. I was really excited to do that. It was just a great opportunity. I started working for City Paper for 14 years after that. It was my weekly client. Joe gave me a lot of work. I'll always appreciate Joe for that because I didn't know if I was quite ready to be an editorial illustrator because I'd just done punk posters.
01:01:30
Speaker
But he told me that night, he's like, no, these are illustrations, you're telling stories in these posters. And it's just like a static image that's telling a narrative, it's a story. So yeah, I guess my point is that that was a situation where the music scene and the art scene and all kind of came together.
01:01:50
Speaker
And I don't know, it was an exciting time to be in Baltimore because I was constantly playing Baltimore venues. I was constantly doing art for bands. And I felt like back then I knew where every venue was. I knew where every show was. I knew who every artist was. Because my band used to practice across the hallway from this group called Wham City that they were like an art collective. And that's, I don't know if you're familiar with Dan Deacon.
01:02:15
Speaker
But he's like he's I don't even know how to describe his music, but it's kind of like it's like electronic and pop and party music. And I just describe it that way is going to get me blacklisted from every Baltimore venue, probably because I just I'm not going to.
01:02:33
Speaker
articulate in these states. You're an illustrator. I'm an illustrator, I don't know. You're a musician too, so you're in both groups, they could give you some heat. Yeah, I hope they give me some slack here. But yeah, our first show ever, my old band, the Lexington Arrows, our first show was with Dan Deakin at this warehouse called the Copy Cap building. And all these bands came from there. Also from Wham! State came out, that band Future Islands, they came out of that.
01:02:58
Speaker
And just like YOAK and all of these great Baltimore bands, like all used to play at this place, the Copycat building. And so it was just like, I felt like back then I knew more. But so I played a show a couple of weeks ago and I was telling my friends, it's like, yeah, I noticed that everyone at our shows is like in their 30s and 40s now. And all the shows start at like 7 p.m. and end at like 10 p.m. now.
01:03:24
Speaker
Yeah, you know what? I bet there's still really cool venues that we just don't know about because we're just not in the know. We're not in our 20s anymore. One of my friends is like, yeah, there's just no venues in Baltimore anymore. The scene is just not what it used to be. I'm like, no, it probably is. It's just we're older.
01:03:43
Speaker
Older people are coming to our shows because they've aged with us, like our following has aged with us. So we're playing the same venues we always played and we love these venues, but there's probably like house shows and basement shows and small like venues with no names that
01:03:59
Speaker
You know, you know, more has a lot of that has a lot of the D.M. the person to get the address. Yeah. I'm definitely not cool enough to go to their shows. So I'm just like, you know, I'm 43 years old now. I have no idea what's going on. And like, dude, I'm 50 and I got a podcast. I don't get every invite.
01:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's, you know, it's totally fine though, because I think that's kind of just how it should be. Well, not how, I'm not saying that's how it should be. You should be able to be 80, 90 years old and have fun and go whatever shows you want. But what I'm saying is, I think that, you know, people my age, back when I was in my twenties,
01:04:33
Speaker
We're doing their own things too. And that's totally fine. You know, I don't think it makes you any less cool to like, you know, be older and still have your older followings. But I just don't, I just, I have to admit that I kind of miss those days when I go to these random warehouses and see shows and I just don't know where those shows happening. I still like, what's weird, what's, what's weird for me on this point is like,
01:04:57
Speaker
My, my, me, like, however I'm constituting my habits, like, haven't changed. As a matter of fact, in certain areas, they become more extreme, not like in a negative way or anything, but more extreme with music and venues and times. So, um,
01:05:14
Speaker
I need the, on Monday night, like I'm doing union organizing, dealing with all these issues all day, about on Monday night, I saw screaming females and, uh, uh, generalization suicida open up. Holy shit. I didn't even know. And, and, and it was Monday night and I was like in my vibe and all that stuff was going on. And I find it interesting cause like.
01:05:35
Speaker
I can't have regular conversations of being like, you know, I'm trying to lead this worker revolt and like at night I'm doing this shit and like there's not a lot of people that do that and just like the way that I'm Constituted I need that that's why I asked like the local scene stuff because like for me that's the juice Chloe you had indicated that you're like yo, um, I
01:05:56
Speaker
You know i think you referred to yourself as a hermit so i'd like to hear your thoughts or if not just tell us like what music you vibe on because we're talking music and illustration and stuff and i do a ton of music in the show so you have an out if you don't want to get into the hermit stuff in your life tell us what music you like at least
01:06:19
Speaker
Oh, I mean, I seriously, I am very much a hermit. I don't know. I was not as cool as Alex was or is at my age. It's subjective. It's very subjective. I would not classify myself as cool at any moment in my life. Actually, Alex introduced me to the magnetic fields via his stories on Instagram.
01:06:44
Speaker
And I'm really into that really really been so I have a Pandora station for that now and and actually The singer had also done that same band had done the soundtrack for the audiobooks for a series of unfortunate events the kids series and I so that's how I was like introduced to that as a kid I was like I knew that band and
01:07:09
Speaker
They were under the name the Gothic Archie's and that's right. So I was really into that really in I have that soundtrack and I would listen to it as a kid and like even sometimes now even though it's like more geared for kids, but yeah, that that was such a gateway into the magnetic fields, so
01:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's fine too, because, you know, you said you weren't you didn't even know that was magnetic fields, but there's so many magnetic field songs I loved when I was younger, and I didn't know who they were. And I didn't get into them until the pandemic, which is really weird, you know, because I was always like in the punk rock and stuff like that. And I just I always knew they were always like on my periphery, you know,
01:07:56
Speaker
And I had friends who liked them, but I just never took that deep dive. But during the pandemic, I just fell in love with this band. And I totally forgot that I drew a portrait of the lead singer, Stephen Merritt, for an interview he did with a blog probably 15 years ago. And I don't know why I drew this, but I drew him playing the Brooklyn Bridge like a harp. He was just this giant, and he was playing the little
01:08:24
Speaker
Spindle things on the on the bridge and and I didn't even realize that was Stephen Merritt I remember doing the illustration and and I probably at the time I was like III read the interview and do you know it was magnetic fields and all that stuff But that was how detached I was I just like it was just like any other
01:08:42
Speaker
illustration I was commissioned to do. I'd read the interview, I'd be like, oh, that's a band, I'm drawing this from a band. And I didn't realize how much of a genius he was, how much of a great songwriter he was. And now I wish I could go back in time and just redo that that assignment, because I'm just like, his songs, I mean, it's just like some of his songs out there, it's just like, just kill me, you know, I mean, they're just amazing. And they like, you know, we're talking about communicating and how that's what the foundation of art
01:09:12
Speaker
That's the way he communicates his thoughts. It's like it's comforting because it's like I'm thinking some of the same things, you know And it's cool when you like listen to a song and you're like, oh I can relate to this. This is yes Sorry, I had to go on a little magnetic fields tangent because I just I love them so much, but I'm sorry. Sorry I'm back to You know schedule programming
01:09:34
Speaker
Not at all. That was great. And actually, I wanted to ask you because you have drawn so many public figures and celebrities and musicians and all the rest. I was just curious, have you ever received feedback from them or heard anything that they said about how you drew them?
01:09:53
Speaker
Every now and then, there's a moment where someone, like, I've heard feedback sometimes from musicians that, you know, I didn't really know much about, and I appreciate the feedback, but it didn't hit me the way it does when it says someone that you really love. And so, a couple years ago, I've done a drawing of Annie Clark from St. Vincent.
01:10:15
Speaker
for an interview she did in
Memorable Artistic Encounters
01:10:17
Speaker
Newsweek. So it was like a full page Newsweek illustration. And it's funny, like I've worked with Newsweek exclusively for about four years now. And I have a great relationship with the art director and we usually do political stuff. So when he gave me this assignment, I just like, I wanted to send him a gift basket because I was so excited to draw this. It's like St. Vincent's one of my favorite groups, Annie Clark.
01:10:39
Speaker
For my money, it's the best guitar player who ever lived. I think her guitar playing is just like, it's different. She's not like a metal guitarist that can play really fast, like tons of notes and stuff. It's just the way she plays. Her style is just phenomenal. And so when I got this assignment, I put everything into this illustration. I was like, all night.
01:10:57
Speaker
trying to make sure everything was exactly how I want it. And when the article came out, when the interview came out, she shared it on her Instagram and gave me credit and said she liked the artwork. And I was just like, okay, I can die happy. I was calling everyone I know.
01:11:16
Speaker
Because it's not like it's going to result in me getting any more followers or making any more money, but it's just like validation from someone that you respect, like as an artist, like more than like anyone in the world. It's just like that felt really good. And maybe on the other side of the music spectrum,
01:11:33
Speaker
Another time when that happened was, and I'm not trying to name-drop or anything like that, I feel like kind of stupid saying this stuff, but I had done, I used to do these baseball cards for the Mann Center in Philadelphia. And every time they, it was with AEG Live that became Bowery Presents, they would promote these shows. They would organize like, you know, tours and things like that.
01:12:00
Speaker
So whenever their shows would come to the man, they would ask me to do baseball cards. So every summer I'd probably do about 20 to 25 baseball cards for different concerts. And one of them was Weird Al Yankovic. And I've loved Weird Al Yankovic since I was like, you know, in elementary school. I just think he's like, he's one of those people that he does parody songs that sound better than the originals in my opinion. American hero, American treasure, he'd be knighted in Britain.
01:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, oh, definitely, for sure. I mean, he's just, he's a national treasure. He's an angel. He's amazing. And so, when I did that card, I drew a little spatula in the corner because that was my little UHF history because they had this sketch, or this part of the movie about something called Spatula City. It was like a store that only sold spatulas. I just always thought that was like the best thing ever.
01:12:49
Speaker
a baseball card and that week he was coming to DC too. So Washington Post had me do an illustration of him for his tour and they did an interview with him. And so I had to do two weird out illustrations in the same week. So my friend, Jen Corsoli, who was working for AHE at the time, I asked her, is there any way I could just like come up to Philadelphia and meet weird out? Because that would be like a dream come true if I could just meet him.
01:13:17
Speaker
And she was like, yeah. So she got almost like front row seats. And then afterwards, I got to go backstage and hang out with Weird Al. And this is a moment where I was like, oh, yeah, I could die happy now. This is amazing. Just me and him was great. But when he saw me, I said, hey, Weird Al. I did the artwork for your baseball card. And he said, oh, you're Alex. It's like it's good to finally meet you. And I was like.
01:13:45
Speaker
you are familiar with me. That's like, you know, joking up moment, you know, because, you know, it's just like, I don't get starstruck by that many people. And it's not, this wasn't even a case of being starstruck. It was just like, I just love everything he does so much that he's really, really happy to know that he was even aware of who I was, you know. And I think every now and then as as illustrators, I think we all have those moments
01:14:11
Speaker
where we connect with someone that you never thought you would connect with. And I think being an illustrator, it puts you in these scenarios from time to time where you're like, okay, the world just got a lot smaller, you know? It's easy what you see on TV and when I was a kid, you'd see them on MTV or something and you'd be like, oh, well, they're living a completely different universe than I'm living in. It's like they're breathing different air
01:14:37
Speaker
They're just like they're not in the same world, but I think art kind of like brings us together sometimes through these like opportunities that we get and Yeah, I just it's there's been a handful of times in my life where I'm just like You know high school Alex or elementary school Alex would be like losing his mind right now I never thought I'd get to meet this person or work with this person Yeah, that is that's just incredible incredible to hear I yeah, I thought um
01:15:06
Speaker
Just recently I had an interview with Susan tomorrow who heads the Clinton street theater classic film theater over 100 years old in Portland and just do amazing projects. I just saw an image and a graphic illustration of a John Waters festival at least four to five films that they have coming up. He's going to be there.
01:15:27
Speaker
in person in Portland. I'm not sure when that is. But the other piece is when I talked to Susan, we dropped for a bit into Weird Al and UHF and her showing UHF and the contest and stuff that were related to the show. So I'm like, it's been interesting to hear about these type of things. Like I had this conversation recently with Susan. Let's say Alex, tell us about this horror film.
01:15:53
Speaker
Okay, so the movie is about, I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to say the title yet, because it's so- Do everything legal. I don't always say that. I'm a union organizer. Do everything legal for now. Yes, yes. So it's a friend of mine's a filmmaker, and him and his wife are both co-directing this movie. And it's a horror film, well, horror comedy, I guess, because it's about a couple, a young couple who is buying a house.
01:16:22
Speaker
But the real estate agent tells them it's haunted and there's a sort of like a poltergeist or a demon in the house that can possess people. So it becomes like sort of like an exorcist type movie, but it's also kind of funny. And so all I'll say is this, because this was just a crazy thing that happened. I thought it was going to be a pretty low key. Like, you know, I don't know why I thought a horror movie would be low key.
01:16:47
Speaker
but they blacked out all of my windows, so because it was supposed to take place at night. Throughout some of the scenes, there were screaming, like loud screams. It was actually like a love scene that was very verbally graphic. I didn't watch the actual filming because I felt like I should be in the other room because I'm not actually in the film crew.
01:17:13
Speaker
But the sounds, I can't even imagine what my neighbors are thinking today. It was just way over the top, very explicit in the way it sounded. Then there was a film crew camped out in my front yard all day. I think there's a good chance that my neighbors think I'm shooting porno movies in my house now. But not just porno movies, like exorcist porno movies or religious porn.
01:17:42
Speaker
Well a priest and he was doing an exorcism so you hear like sex noises and an exorcism going on at the same time and it was so bad because I was outside during a lot that you could hear all the way down the street so
01:17:57
Speaker
I think I might have to move. I think I just have to pack up my things. This is a significant event and I'm glad you have Chloe and I here for this because you told us so much in such a short amount of time and we just met and I could not be more thrilled and fascinated.
01:18:15
Speaker
First of all your your your your true lifestyle has been uncovered to your neighbors It doesn't matter whether it's related to you or not They now understand what has happened as that's the thing that that we didn't quite get about that guy So you got that going on? Yeah, you got the you got the it's complete black you got screams you got Catholicism mixed with sex which it always is I don't know where we're going with this so um
01:18:43
Speaker
Chloe, you had some sort of big question for Alex. Oh, is this the big one? I don't know. You had a big question you told me for him. OK, Alex, why is there something rather than nothing?
01:18:56
Speaker
I think there's something rather than nothing because I think we're always thinking about something. I think being a person, we can't turn off our brains, so there's always something to think about. As long as we're thinking about something, we're always going to be making something. I don't know about you both, but for me, I don't sleep that well at night because I'm always thinking
01:19:19
Speaker
of something. Something that happened during the day, something that I'm having anxiety about, something that I'm excited about. And I think that manifests into your real life. It's like whatever you think about, you're going to create something about it. And it might not always be good, but it's something that is created because you're thinking of it. And so for me,
01:19:43
Speaker
If we were robots, if we didn't have feelings, if we didn't have thoughts or consciousness, even then there's still going to be something because life has to keep continuing. So I guess in a sense, you look at bees and ants and they develop these civilizations, these colonies and hives,
01:20:03
Speaker
And they might not have a consciousness like we do, but they're still creating something, something beautiful. So I feel like there's something just because we're living things that have to keep living. So we just keep creating things to survive, to be happy, to be sad. I don't know. Chloe, was that answer correct? Yeah.
01:20:32
Speaker
When I was thinking about it, I was just like, okay, I don't want to overthink this because there's times I was watching an interview today with Jessica Chastain and she was talking about filmmaking and the answer was so like
01:20:46
Speaker
So Schmaltzy, that was like, I hope I don't sound Schmaltzy. Yeah, don't, don't. Just think about the camera looking into your soul. I'm like, okay, don't mention souls. Don't mention like, you know, just, I don't know. I tried to throw it down to his, you know.
01:20:59
Speaker
Well, there's an easy there's an easy out. I've been announcing it more regularly. This show is done in the spirit of Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series in the 1980s science fiction. And in the book, The Life, the Universe and everything, there's an answer to the question of why is this all about, which is basically the why is there something rather than nothing?
01:21:24
Speaker
The answer to this can be 42, and it's the last thing you need to say. So it's a tough question, but I've dropped it a few times on the episode now that you can say 42, and I'm going to move into the next question, which Alex, where the hell will you find your stuff? Like website, where's all your stuff?
01:21:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, my main website is just AlexFine.com. And my Instagram is at AlexFineillows.
Social Media Preferences and Challenges
01:21:58
Speaker
That's with an S at the end. And yeah, that's basically like all
01:22:05
Speaker
No one places that really exists online. I kind of gave up Twitter. It was even before Elon Musk took it over. I just wasn't really going Twitter for a while. I've never successfully used Twitter. It's the only account that I've had hacked multiple times, barely used it. I don't know. I never got a start there.
01:22:25
Speaker
For me, Instagram is great because it's mostly just about visuals. I love visuals. Internet trolls have found every way possible to start an argument on every social media. I find arguments on Instagram seem to be shorter and more concise. They're shorter and concise. Or in Facebook, you'll read whole novels for people's thoughts.
01:22:49
Speaker
That's none of my business. I mean, I'm all for arguing with someone about politics and stuff like that if it's in the real world. But I've never changed anyone's mind on social media, and I don't think I ever will. So I saved my political discourse to real-life situations.
01:23:10
Speaker
I've done that myself. Chloe, I haven't talked to you in a few weeks before this episode here. Anything going on or what was the experience like doing the podcast? I talked to you at the time and it was such a great experience and I love to get into it. It's had a bunch of downloads, I think 3,500 downloads so far. I know you like podcasts as well, Chloe. What's been happening just lately with you?
01:23:40
Speaker
Uh, I'm preparing for a lecture at, uh, York college, the York college of Pennsylvania. So, um, I just, you know, recently finished putting together the slideshow for that and I'm, I'm practicing for that. And, uh, yeah, so my workspace is sort of, um, had a lot of flood damage recently from like the passive plumbing.
01:24:05
Speaker
issue. So there's no floor and my workspace is kind of very chaotic at the moment. So I'm just focusing on on the presentation and preparing for that at the moment. Yeah, sorry to hear that. That's like, that's not proper in the world. That's not proper. That needs to be fixed. That's working working conditions issue. Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:31
Speaker
Alex is shaking his head. And Alex, it was great to hear we were chatting a bit before on the show about some of your union work too. And it was really nice to connect with you on that. And I get to tell you one thing on the show is
01:24:52
Speaker
I've had great experiences in labor. The job at present is more difficult than it's ever been. And I also have a developed art side and doing those type of things. But one of the things on the show is I just really want to just stop and say,
01:25:11
Speaker
that you've done work as a union member, you've been involved with the union, created a union where you've worked before. And I just really want to honor that. And I also want to say that I believe there's such a tide. There's a generational shift with the attitudes towards unions. And I try to tell everybody who's one generation before me and one below me that
01:25:33
Speaker
This less than 30 in the United States of America are not as polluted as a lot of our heads were in Cold War, Skier, all this type of weird politics. And there's a bunch of stuff going on right now. But the number one pro union generation since the time that unions were illegal in the 1920s is this generation.
01:25:57
Speaker
So I feel that on labor and labor is always saying this, but I feel the shift is on. I feel that.
01:26:09
Speaker
younger workers have seen some of the working conditions and things that people have experienced. And on some level, it's being shown that they're saying, fuck that noise. Like, I won't accept that. And for me, that's that's very inspiring. And I just point a personal privilege or just like the union work that I do and what's going on. I just I thought it was a great thing to talk to you and mention that about the work you've done as a union person.
Union Formation Struggles in Art Colleges
01:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, you know, when the union started coming about at the college I was teaching at, the thing is, you know, I think the reason personally why there's more union activity and support these days is because I think people who patronize
01:26:56
Speaker
I mean, we live in a capitalist society, and the people who are the customers or the people who are partaking in our society are realizing that the people who work as teachers, who work as
01:27:11
Speaker
manufacturers, and even doctors, are realizing the quality of the product that we get isn't what it used to be, but it's costing more. So they're seeing this inequity firsthand, and they know that they're going to graduate into this society where they're going to be likely affected negatively by it themselves.
01:27:35
Speaker
So, you know, when I was teaching at this art college, I mean, it was a fine college, don't get me wrong. But the thing is, a lot of these students are going to go on to get master's degrees so they can teach at colleges. And when they see that their professors aren't being treated in an equitable way,
01:27:53
Speaker
They're gonna think, well, am I gonna suffer that same fate? Because very few college professors become tenured professors or full-time. Nowadays. Yeah, a majority are adjunct professors and it's done that way very intentionally so that the school doesn't have to offer health benefits, retirement funds, things like that.
01:28:14
Speaker
As an impact on academic freedom, what the hell are you going to say in the classroom when you're contracts, the non-contractor of your job? You have no job security whatsoever. I remember an English professor at the school, he actually used to be one of my favorite punk bands from the 80s, too. He was in a band called Government Issue.
01:28:36
Speaker
And he told me he was in government issue. I was like, oh, I knew the singer, the singer and I go way back. And I was like, small world, this is awesome. He's like, well, we're starting a union. And all of a sudden I start hearing like Billy Bragg songs in my head. I was like, okay. It's like, I'm, I got really into, I was with one of my friends who was also a teacher at the school and he wasn't as into the idea. He was, I think he was more like, you know, it's, I get paid by, I think it's fair. And I'm, you know, that's totally valid. You know, if he feels like he's being treated fairly. It's America. You can cut your own deal.
01:29:06
Speaker
Exactly. But for me, I was like, you know what, you're right. Because I never really thought about it until then. Teaching was like a side thing for me. It was just like, it was something I did not for money, but just because I love to teach. But then I started realizing, I started doing the math in my head of how much money my classes were generating. You know, each student was paying $5,000 to take my class. And I was teaching a class sometimes of 20, 25 students.
01:29:28
Speaker
you know, multiple life, 5,000 times 25. I'm just like, wow, you know, that's a lot of money. And of that, I'm making three or $4,000 a class, you know, I'm making less to teach the class than one student is paying to take the class. And so I thought to myself, there's something wrong here because the school gets an endowment, they get donations, they're getting a lot of money to keep the lights on. And the president of the school is making over a million dollars.
01:29:53
Speaker
Something's wrong here. And so we had town halls when we were trying to, you know, get a contract going. Yeah. And then so we teamed up with SCIU and we would have weekly negotiations with the provost and the CFO and sometimes even the president, you know, and
01:30:13
Speaker
It got a little contentious at times. And in the end, we didn't get the result we wanted. And we got very little support from the full-time faculty because they thought that we were asking for too much. And even though we had no health benefits and we're making far less than the full-time, even per class. And I was even serving on committees, which adjuncts usually don't do.
01:30:35
Speaker
get paid to do as an adjunct. Yeah. You're serving. You're serving. Yeah. I was doing all of these things because I love teaching. I love education. I love art. But at a certain point, you have to ask yourself, it's like, even if I love doing this, am I being exploited by someone? And that's what it all comes down to. So that kind of got me thinking more in terms of unions in all aspects of
01:31:00
Speaker
every industry because I just thought this is what's going on in this country. If someone doesn't feel valued at their place of work, they're not going to do their best work. And if you're not doing your best work, it affects everyone around you. And if you're a teacher,
01:31:21
Speaker
thin because you have to work at three different colleges to make $30,000 a year, you're not going to be giving your students the full benefit of your knowledge. It's impossible. It's a fixed number of time. It's impossible. I remember when the outgoing president of this college was part of this town hall. He was trying to talk everyone out of starting a union, taking the steps to move forward because we had to have a certain number of signatures to start the union.
01:31:49
Speaker
He was basically union busting. He was like, let me tell you why this is a bad idea. You're going to lose your jobs. You're going to make less money. I'll take care of you. Don't worry. Get this third party out of the way. I've always meant to treat you better than I have. I'm learning. He's like, just trust us. You have job security. I'm like, well, no, because we've been told we have no job security in our departments. We've been told that you're disposable.
01:32:14
Speaker
So I stood up during this town hall because I was keeping it pretty cool during this town hall. I thought the guy was full of shit, but I was like, whatever. He's a president of a college. Of course he's going to be full. Of course he's. But the thing is, I wasn't offended yet until one professor stood up and she is Ivy League educated. She has a PhD.
01:32:39
Speaker
And she said, look, I'm teaching at three different colleges and making less than $30,000 a year. And it shouldn't be this way. And what are you going to do to fix it? If we don't start a union, who's going to have our back? Are you really going to pay me more money? Can I trust you?
01:32:54
Speaker
and she was crying and so his response oh no and then she closed her question with if i was your daughter what would you tell me if i if i had to work this major like what would you yeah your advice be so he said well if you're my daughter i'd advise you not to take uh part-time work
01:33:15
Speaker
That was his answer. After that, I had a lot to say. I think I talked for like 10 minutes after that because I was so pissed off. And then so after the town hall, he went up to me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, well, I'm really glad you're a successful illustrator because you'll never have a full-time job at this college. And I was like, well, I really feel like I'm happy by my side.
01:33:44
Speaker
Thank you for affirming. Thank you for affirming what I was saying to Mr. Smart, Mr. Smart, man. Yeah, it's a job with no upward mobility. You confirmed what I believe. This is why I got so upset, you know, and I actually appreciate his honesty, but I knew his intention was to make me feel bad. His intention was to let me know that I wasn't as valuable as the other professors at the school, even though my students were winning competitions constantly, they were getting work.
01:34:10
Speaker
It doesn't matter when it's about adult politics and other issues. It doesn't matter what the students are doing, unfortunately. And the incoming president was...
01:34:23
Speaker
way more in tune with, you know, sensitivities of the professors and everything. I think he is a better president, but it's still, it's like when you're part of an organization like a big college that generates a lot of money, it's hard for me to trust anyone completely. You know, I mean, it's like you can't take someone at their word because their job is to make as much money for that school as possible. Their job isn't just to
01:34:49
Speaker
provide the best education. If they don't show profits, they're going to lose their job. The board of trustees will boot them out. That was a very good experience for me because I always thought the president and the provost controlled the school, but it's the board of trustees. It's the people with the money that control the school. Once they feel like it's not a good investment, they'll pull their funds and the school will cease to exist.
01:35:13
Speaker
I had no idea about that. I thought we could make our impassioned case to the president. He'd be like, you know what? You're right. Give us a round of applause and say, you guys are being mistreated. We're going to fix this.
01:35:26
Speaker
You proved your point. We accept it. Yeah. They can't be denied. That was not the case at all because what happened was every meeting we'd have, every meeting we'd have with their lawyer, we had our SEIU lawyer, they had their private lawyer. We'd have these long one, two, three hour meetings where we would vent. We'd be like, hey, we're being mistreated and let me tell you why.
01:35:50
Speaker
By the time it was all done, it just wasn't what we wanted at all. And it wasn't SEIU's fault. There's not much you can do with the Board of Trustees. They can say, hey, if you want to strike, strike. We don't care. Because they knew that there'd be
01:36:04
Speaker
unlimited amounts of young, hungry teachers who wanted to take that job for less money. Tough labor situation. Yeah, because it's not like a job. If you work in manufacturing, if you shut down one day of manufacturing, that's
01:36:22
Speaker
That really screws up that business. But when you're an art teacher, they're like, OK, someone can walk in tomorrow. And we can just tell them, come up with a curriculum overnight. And a lot of young artists can do that. Because that's kind of what we do anyway, because our jobs are so unpredictable. You don't know if you have a teaching job from one semester to the next.
01:36:46
Speaker
So a lot of times I found myself writing a syllabus weeks before the semester started because I didn't know if I was going to have a job. And so I feel like in that case, unfortunately, we just didn't have the leverage we needed to get a good contract ratified.
Chloe's Future Contributions and Humorous Insights
01:37:04
Speaker
If we still tried and that's all you can do is try yeah, and then in as we know teacher working conditions our student learning conditions, so Chloe I'm excited to tell folks that You're gonna be back to co-host as well in the future. I think you have like a special leg and
01:37:30
Speaker
Baltimore illustrator like we're using a secret East Coast weapon all the way from here and in Oregon and I Know it should be quite enjoyable. Um, I this is special for me. I don't do a lot you know with the co-host and just haven't talked to Chloe just recently and getting into like
01:37:53
Speaker
all these, um, really, uh, amazing, uh, topics. I just, I wanted to thank you both for like an art conversation. And just to let you know too, like, you know, when you get into and talking to illustration and that stuff, like I'm such a deeply curious person because I don't have contact.
01:38:14
Speaker
with, you know, you're having that conversation with me. And so for me, like I truly learn, uh, during that. So that's my, that's how my interaction with you. And I just wanted to really appreciate, uh, your, your time and doing that. And, and, and to thank you both for coming on to, um, the something rather than nothing podcast. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you.
01:38:38
Speaker
is great pleasure uh... mad respect uh... for ball more i almost uh... i only almost got kicked out of can do yards wants and it was i should have by should have been uh... boston red socks fans of the most obnoxious people in the world on the boston red socks and i get attached to i'm showing you won't be able to see it on the podcast and noxious
01:39:03
Speaker
loud, and at that time I was a drinker, which I'm not anymore. So, sorry, Baltimore. Sorry, center field bleachers, 1998.
01:39:15
Speaker
It's totally okay. My father's from Brockton, Massachusetts. Brockton. His best friend growing up was Peter Marciano, Rocky's little brother. That's how old my dad is. He's 84 years old. He grew up, he ate dinner at the Marciano's all the time. He's a lifelong Red Sox fan. He spent
01:39:37
Speaker
many days in Fenway. And so he made me by proxy a Red Sox fan too. I'm still more of an Orioles fan, but I remember seeing, going to a game once where I always liked Dustin Pedroia a lot. He was always one of my favorite, you know, when he was playing, he was one of my favorite baseball players. So he hit a home run at the game I went to. I had to stand up and clap. I just, and everyone hated me. All my Orioles friends like definitely want me to sit down. They were embarrassed, but
01:40:05
Speaker
You have to give respect for it, Stu. And I still like that. It's just weird when, and I have a lot of respect for for for Baltimore Orioles and sometimes in a beautiful park. And, you know, and for me, it's just within the division, it's kind of like a pretty second cousin, like just, yeah, I know you're cool like and everything. It's just all like too weird. You're too close to like Rhode Island. Like it's all just so
01:40:33
Speaker
strange, but um Thank you from for reaching us from Baltimore Chloe. I hope they fix your working conditions here. I'm a union guy Maybe there needs to be a letter and get your your floor in how you work in your environment is not optimal right now But you're so skilled I'd imagine you're just gonna have to do your lecture and then get back to illustration, right and
01:40:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Apparently the clog was in the city lines because somebody was flushing rags down their toilet and there were like tree roots and all manner of other things and they had to clean it out twice before it was actually fixed. So
01:41:17
Speaker
I'm not sure if this is a metaphor for America or anything like that. Well, I'll leave you with this. Baltimore is the only city in America, I think, that had a problem with something called a fatberg. Do you remember this? I do.
01:41:35
Speaker
that just accumulated in the sore lines and was clogging the pipes. So I got to draw like a living batberg and I made it look like a California raisin and it was surfing out of the pipe. Oh my god, I have not seen this. I'll have to see that illustration sometime.
01:41:52
Speaker
We're gonna have it we're gonna have it in the show links folk as you can see, we could continue this for another couple hours. It's been a great discussion. Thank you Chloe Nicholas for co hosting Alex fine. Super pleasure to meet you everybody check out both of their both of their art
01:42:13
Speaker
their illustrations, check out their websites, just fantastic type of things, fantastical, Golden Girls on Alex Fine's side, concert, music, outer space concepts, Ocean with Chloe, everybody check them out. Thank you both for being on and Chloe, you and I are gonna be on again soon and we'll announce that episode. Chloe's back on as co-host.
01:42:43
Speaker
Love you both. Thank you. This is something rather than nothing.