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Episode 10 - Creative Burnout: Signs, Symptoms, & Solutions
1.2k Plays6 months ago
Have you felt creative burnout as an artist/maker? You feel exhausted, uninspired, and maybe even a bit cynical. What do you do in these moments? What do you do when you hit that moment of not caring or not having the energy to keep up with your job or creative work?
In this episode, we share our experiences identifying and dealing with creative burnout, and discuss what research suggests for possible solutions to this very real and common problem.
To watch the YOUTUBE VIDEO of this episode and the irreverent & somewhat unpredictable AFTERSHOW, subscribe to our Patreon: http://patreon.com/user?u=91688467
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Backgrounds
00:00:03
Speaker
Thank you
00:00:20
Speaker
It's a great start. It's a great start. Here we are again! Welcome everyone to your favorite podcast. Woodworking is bullshit. And if it's not your favorite podcast, well it damn well should be. I'm your host Paul Jasper.
00:00:35
Speaker
Scientist by day, a woodworker by night, and I'm joined with my two fabulous, amazing, courageous, and honest co-hosts, Eric Curtis, full-time woodworker and content creator, and Mary Tsai, AI designer by day, contemporary woodworker by night. We have another arousing show for you
Creative Burnout Discussion Begins
00:00:54
Speaker
today.
00:00:54
Speaker
And Eric suggested this topic because he's got an audacious and authentic perspective to share with us today. Eric, why don't you start us off? Audacious is one congratulatory word. Authentic. Sure. Sure.
00:01:12
Speaker
I love the start, by the way, just giggle fit right off the top. It's really great for a podcast with no one can see anything. It's a visual medium where you're doing mime faces to make us laugh. This is not a mime face. This is my normal face. I was drinking prior to the episode. You guys were making dumb Google faces in the video. I'm insulted. This is my normal face. Hey, you know what? You didn't say it. You said it.
00:01:37
Speaker
A lot of people who are less brave than us use a canned record opening. We do it live every time. So you have no idea what the hell it's going to bring. One take, Jake, baby. That's it. All right. Let's dive into it.
Eric's YouTube Journey and Its Impact
00:01:50
Speaker
So here's what's been on my mind to shift to kind of my personal experience over the last month or so.
00:02:00
Speaker
As some of you know, as you two certainly know, for the last year in change, year and a quarter, I've been primarily focused on YouTube as a means to kind of grow the business.
00:02:15
Speaker
And in that time, things have been going well. It's certainly grown the exposure of the business and that has become the central focus of the business rather than the objects, right? It's been the videos rather than the making of the things. And about a month ago, when I was down in Austin teaching a class, I made the decision that I wasn't gonna put out a video that week.
00:02:42
Speaker
now for the last year and a quarter. So I've put out a video every week. Did you hit that last year? I did hit it. I missed one week when we started filming a new project, but I made that video up. So I did hit 52 videos last year. Wow, that is a lot. I'm very aware. And coming into April, I still had the intention of doing 52 videos this year as well.
00:03:10
Speaker
But when I was down in Texas, I made the decision to skip that week because I needed the time and the space to teach and to attempt to like be in that moment with the students, right? To enjoy the process, to be a good teacher, to have a moment after a year in change where I was not split in two different directions at the same time.
00:03:37
Speaker
Simultaneously, as that week was unfolding and I made that decision not to put out a video, I got an email from a gallerist I work with who's putting together a new show. And she asked me if I had anything that I wanted to submit. And I realized that for the last year and a half, I've not made any objects that I would feel comfortable submitting to a gallery show.
00:04:02
Speaker
And that was kind of a real, um, it was a gut punch, you know, to, to recognize that the thing that I do that I love the most, the thing that I identify as is a furniture maker is a maker of things. And for the last, we'll call it 16 months, 18 months, I've not made anything that I think is up to the level that I am capable of making things.
00:04:30
Speaker
And I just kind of hit this wall like those two things happening at the same time I hit this wall where and I know this very much about myself like I will push and push and push and do a thing until the moment I stopped doing it and I stopped giving a fuck about it. And I think I hit that wall where it was a
00:04:52
Speaker
Not that I don't care about YouTube anymore, because it's a component of the business. And I enjoy the conversations that can come from it. And I'm grateful for the opportunities that have come from it. But I hit that wall of, oh, this is not my primary focus anymore. And I'm currently in this mindset of trying to figure out how to redirect my creative energies to regain the
00:05:20
Speaker
creative momentum that I had prior to the decision to focus on YouTube.
00:05:27
Speaker
The last piece that I think is gallery worthy that I made was October of 2022, right before I started doing YouTube. That was the ponchet cabinet, the violin cabinet. That's exactly what I thought. And that piece was in a gallery. And after that, like I've made a table that, I mean, listen, I sit at every day, I eat dinner at every day. It's a table, it functions, it's not bad, but it's not a gallery piece.
00:05:56
Speaker
I made a commission that took six months because of all of the things that were happening in life. And it's a wonderful piece. And it's very specific to that client. And I'm, I'm just thrilled. Yeah. And I'm thrilled that they love it and that they'll have that forever, but it's not a gallery piece. How did you, um, can I ask, how did you feel after you didn't release the video that week? Like, did you feel mentally less burdened or like, were you like happier or less,
00:06:24
Speaker
There was still way too much going on for me to kind of process how I was feeling. I was still teaching. My girlfriend was with me in Texas, so we were trying to spend time together and enjoy Austin. Then we got back and then 30 of my closest friends descended on my house and on my city, and we were there for a weekend. And there's just been so much happening. But I think that's precisely part of the issue is
00:06:51
Speaker
I find the most fulfillment in the allowing of time and space to develop an idea and then try to execute that idea in a project and I've not had that. And so I feel like I've been dealing with creative burnout.
00:07:08
Speaker
But I'm going to pull a Mary here and ask you both for a definition of burnout because I don't know if the thing I'm dealing with is burnout or if the thing I'm dealing with is just the attempt to reclaim some kind of creative freedom.
Exploring Creative Burnout
00:07:25
Speaker
Okay, well, the first thing I want to point out, Eric, that was a very interesting story and I almost, I could feel the tension, like the pressure of having to put out a video every week for 52 weeks. But what I want to draw our users to is we're at the seven minute 45 second mark and the introduction to our episode is
00:07:48
Speaker
creative burnout. Usually we lead with a question. Well, the question is burnout. Eric said this week, he's like, I feel burnt out. I'm fucking burned out. Let's talk about burnout. So that's, um, that's the prelude to today's episode. Uh, do you feel burnt out? Um, what makes you, how do you identify when you feel burnout? What do you do about burnout? Uh, so Mary, I suppose
00:08:16
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I suppose my question would be if we were to put it in the form of a question if I could back this shit for a moment. I'm wondering.
00:08:28
Speaker
What do you do when you hit that moment where you don't care? And we can label it as creative burnout. What do you do when you hit that moment of no longer caring or no longer having the energy to do a thing? And how do you approach the following steps? Oh, Eric, Eric, I have something that ties in perfectly to what you're saying. Because as the good little scientist I am, the first thing when you said burnout, I was curious whether this is an actual like recognized thing in the psychology literature.
00:08:57
Speaker
Like it definitely is. And so of course I downloaded some references, some reviews on burnout from PubMed and I read them. Of course you did. Of course I did because, you know, I mean, we all have anecdotal versions of, of whatever burnout is and how we dealt with it, but more globally, I like to think about things more globally in a more controlled manner. So burnout, let's start by defining it. And dude, I love when you're like, I don't give a shit anymore. Cause that's one of the pieces of burnout as
00:09:27
Speaker
as the literature has assessed it. So this is from the psychology literature, right? Straight out of a paper. I should as the good scientist I am. This is Christina Maslok and Michael Leder. They have defined burnout as
00:09:43
Speaker
a psychological syndrome, they actually call it a syndrome, okay? Which got my attention. It's a psychological syndrome emerging as a prolonged response to chronic stressors from your job.
00:10:02
Speaker
And they broke it. They broke it into and prolonged dude, 52 weeks. Okay. They broke that they broke burnout into three axes, like three dimensions, and they tend to follow stepwise. So the first thing that happens.
00:10:17
Speaker
is the first or the first dimension is exhaustion, an overwhelming exhaustion, all right? The second dimension is feelings of cynicism and detachment, Eric. Oh, that's my MO, dog. That's my MO. And the third axis
00:10:39
Speaker
is a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. So that follows
Mary and Paul's Burnout Experiences
00:10:45
Speaker
detachment. So it sounds like you were definitely at stage two, you were exhausted by the crush of having to put a video out every week. And you had you had cynicism and some detachment. And the question is, did you reach step three, which is, did your video quality decline?
00:11:03
Speaker
Well, I think so for me, I know my creative process well enough and I know my emotional processing well enough to know that step three usually comes before step two. So the quality will decline and that's what frustrates me to the point of detachment.
00:11:22
Speaker
And then what i do is i get frustrated by that lack of quality and i go well fuck you guys i need to do x anymore and so then the teenager comes and so i happen this week was you know finally everything kind of calmed down and i had a moment and i took a deep breath and i want.
00:11:42
Speaker
Fuck this. And I took Wednesday off and I haven't taken a mid week day off in, I don't know how fucking long, man. It's been a long time. And so I literally was just like, it's nice. What I want is a back patio space. Cause I haven't been able to, to find the time to work on the house. And I literally just took Wednesday off and I went and I just laid a new patio.
00:12:05
Speaker
Copied mine by the way. I did record it because I had zero interest. This is part of the separation. By the way, let's acknowledge that Mary lives in a house that has a patio similar to mine, but she didn't like to sort of call it her patio.
00:12:20
Speaker
You came to my house. You're like, this looks great. Listen, this is a great example of copying. I saw a solution to the problem I had and I took that and I applied it to my situation. But that's not the point that we're getting at here. Stop fucking bickering about your patios, you two. All right. So Eric, what was really interesting is that the third axis, which is the suffering of the product or the performance decrease, for you comes as step two rather than step three.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah. That's really interesting. Mary, how do you react to these three dimensions of burnout, like exhaustion, cynicism? Well, you're a cynic all the time. Excuse me. How dare you? Not wrong. I don't know what you guys are talking about. I've never been stressed in my life. I've never experienced burnout in my life. I am perfect. Mary resembles that remark. Okay. So Mary, how do you feel about this? How do you feel about narcissism coming in?
00:13:17
Speaker
That's step four. Okay, Mary, go. I think I, it's just, as you were reading them out loud,
00:13:30
Speaker
I was just like, oh my god, because this week has just been like a culmination of everything and like everything you read, I was just like, check, check, check. That makes sense. Yep. I mean, I already know that I've been burnt out for a while. And this week is probably like the worst point of it, I guess the thing is like when I'm
00:13:52
Speaker
I feel like at my age, I'm able to identify when I'm in burnout. When I was younger, I definitely experienced it. And then I like had to, you know, recover, maybe take some time off if possible. Like here, I'm actually able to identify I'm just being kind of a hypocrite by ignoring it. Like if there's anyone else, I'd like some any of the people that like I mentor, I'd be like, yeah, you're burning out, you got to like take some time off. But for some reason, when it applies to me, like,
00:14:18
Speaker
I seem to be ignoring it. So I guess the question is like, how do I actively not ignore it? That's been my major struggle over the past few weeks. And a lot of it is like me mentally thinking like, oh, I can just like deal with it. I'll be fine. I'll like get over it. But it's become a lot more clear, especially after this week, that that's not the case. So I took today off and just
00:14:47
Speaker
did nothing basically, or I went to the lumber yard, which is great. And just like had to take some time off and I have a vacation coming up, which, which will be helpful. But sorry to get back to your original question, I related to every single one of your points. And I can pinpoint when I hit that exact check mark, like on a timeline. Is this the most burnt out you've ever been in your life right now?
00:15:14
Speaker
I don't know, it's kind of hard to compare because I don't quite remember like what it was like before. It was bad for me at that time at that age. So I'm sure it's like a similar sort of thing. I think my level for burnout was probably higher now because I'm more capable at my job and more experienced. So I don't know if I can compare. So Paul, I'm curious. So I run a small business, which is notorious for burning people out.
00:15:40
Speaker
Mary works in tech, which I think is also pretty notorious for burnout. You do work in the medical field in science, which I don't think is not notorious for burnout.
00:15:54
Speaker
but I don't know it quite as well. Or at least it doesn't exist in the pop culture. Like have you hit a point in your career, not necessarily in your creative aspect yet. And we can get to like commissions down the road. Cause I know you hit that point where you were like, I don't want to do those anymore. But have you hit a point in your career at any point where you were just like, fuck this noise. I'm over it.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yes, grad school, it almost broke me. Like I was expected to work seven days a week. And if I didn't show up, because my parents were in town for a weekend, and my parents were visiting, my advisor would be like, Where were you on Saturday? I didn't see you. And I'd say, Oh, my, my family was visiting. And she's like, Well, if they really loved you, they'd understand your commitment to science.
00:16:35
Speaker
And she had full, she had, you know, there's no protection in, in academia. She has full say over whether I get my PhD or not. And I was already three or four years into it. So it's like either, either put up or risk not getting your degree after four years. And so I put up. And so it was very, very difficult time, but not that's not too harsh on my mentor. I have extreme gratitude and she had great integrity, but she was
00:17:05
Speaker
scientist through and through and through and she wanted that out of me and I did it for seven years but it almost broke me because I just enjoy life in many ways like I love science I love doing it but I wanted to do some other things so yeah that was the time I was most burnt out but I'm happy to say that my
00:17:21
Speaker
current scientific employer for the last 16 years. I've had one job my whole life and I'm still there. They are so, so fair and cognizant about burnout. They always, they've always cared, you know, so I've never experienced burnout since grad school.
00:17:40
Speaker
It's awesome. That's pretty wild. That's rare, I think. I love it. Yeah, it is rare. And I appreciate the hell out of my colleagues for that reason. They're awesome. So what about creatively then? So in your woodworking, I know I don't want to preempt you, but I know you got to that point where you were doing commissions and you were just like, I don't want to fucking do these anymore. Well, Eric, it comes back to what you were saying. It's like,
00:18:06
Speaker
I want to have a little bit of that free time to enjoy life on my own terms. I don't want to have to go in the shop every single night for three to five hours. I want nights where I can just be with my family. I want nights, Mary, where you can just have oysters on the porch and have beers and say fuck all to the shop. I want that kind of creative freedom to do it when I kind of feel like it and not do it when I don't, because then I have two jobs.
00:18:34
Speaker
And so I did commissions for about five years straight, like commission after commission after commission after commission. And they were wonderful. And I, you know, I don't regret the time, but having that pressure of always having a timeline and always trying to exceed your customer's expectations again and again and again and again. And it's just like too much, it became too much pressure and I just wanted a little bit of more breathing room. And so that's why I stopped taking commissions for a year. Now I'm back on the commission train.
00:19:02
Speaker
I have one due in June, the beginning of June. I'm stressing about it hard. It's keeping me up at night. I was laying in bed at 1230 the other night, thinking, because it's got puzzles and trick mechanisms in it that I'm not very good at. I don't know how to build these things. And I was sitting at night, I was up at 1230 at night, tossing and turning. It's a graduation present. How can I make this happen by graduation? I can't whiff on this.
00:19:30
Speaker
It's not an option. How am I going to get this done? And that's the stress I'm talking about. So the way that you're talking about it is very clearly you're experiencing stress, you're experiencing a negative emotion, right?
00:19:49
Speaker
But there's a very fine line between lying awake in bed at night at 1230, wondering about this thing because of stress and wondering about the thing in this kind of joyous, that zone, that wonderment, that thing. And I'm wondering if it's, what is the thing for you that's putting, taking it from the excitement to the stress? Is it the timeline? Is it the expectations? It's the timeline.
00:20:14
Speaker
It's time. Well, it's two things. It's the timeline and being forced to do something. I don't know how to do on a timeline. I don't know how to engineer puzzle mechanisms yet. Like it takes trial and error. I'll try this. Oh shit. That didn't work. I'll try this. Oh shit. That didn't work. I'll try option C and it's like not knowing what the timeline is going to be is stressing me the fuck out.
00:20:37
Speaker
I'll get there. I know I'll get there with time, but I don't have much time. That's what's doing it for me. All right. Sorry, Mary, I feel like we're monopolizing the conversation. Like you haven't really spoken too much other than to say I'm burnt out as hell right now. Have you had any creative burnout in the shop?
00:20:57
Speaker
Like I literally can. This week I've been so exhausted that I just like my brain is so numb to everything because of the burnout. I'm just like, I don't, I don't know what burnout is. Like, I don't know. I literally am so tired that I can't even like define what I'm feeling.
00:21:15
Speaker
At that moment, I have a question. So is your burnout primarily related to your job, your day job, or have you had burnout in the shop or is it spillover from your job and that burnout wipes out your creativity after hours?
00:21:31
Speaker
Um, try to think a little bit. To be honest, I don't think I've had burnout in the shop because I spent so little time in it these days. Like the part that stresses me out more is not being able to spend enough time in it and also like not having access to tools or you know, things aren't set up enough. That stresses me out more than actually
00:21:54
Speaker
But like being in the shop and obviously there's times like so I'm someone who really enjoys working through complexity and through problems like that is what I really like doing both in my job and you know, if I'm figuring out a design for myself, it's self inflicted and there's parts of that I enjoy so I wouldn't say that I've burnt out too much creatively in the woodworking sense. It's just
00:22:20
Speaker
Uh, there have been times where I've been frustrated. Um, I wouldn't say that I wouldn't call that burnout though. No.
00:22:28
Speaker
And Eric, Eric, I have a question for you about creative. We're talking about creative burnout in the shop. You know, you're a full time maker, right? And it's almost like you do creativity on demand, COD, right? You hit that button, you have to be creative on demand.
Managing Creative Pressure
00:22:43
Speaker
You don't have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. Sometimes you have commissions. How do you deal with creativity on demand when you're feeling burnt out?
00:22:54
Speaker
Oh, well, if I have to, like if I have to produce.
00:23:01
Speaker
I'm deep in it enough. I've been doing it long enough where I have a bag of tricks, and it works because I have a visual language. Cocaine. Sorry? Cocaine. Cocaine mostly. Definitely. Definitely a little bit of that book of sugar goes along. I've been wearing Philly. There's a crisis that's happening. Philly's got a great local strain of coke that's unbeatable. It really gets the job done. Oh my God.
00:23:28
Speaker
No, never touch the stuff. That's white magic will never will never go down that road. No, I it's I can produce on demand, but that's part of what's draining about it is that, like, if you
00:23:45
Speaker
Listen, I feel like our audience isn't necessarily Swifties, so I can maybe dunk on Tay Tay a little bit. Excuse me, I'm a Swiftie. Listen, I know. I'm not saying she's not great at what she does. She's a fantastic storyteller, but every story is put over the same chord structure. Yeah, I mean, yes. That's pop music. Yes. There comes a point, and I'm sure she'll hit that, but maybe not because she's making billions of dollars doing it.
00:24:15
Speaker
I feel like there comes a point where you go like, isn't there another fucking chord progression? Like I could keep doing this and making money and it will work, but is it interesting to me individually? So needing to change it up a little bit. It's the need to change it up and it's the need to like keep something sacred. So there is, and I think that's why I jumped on the patio this week is it's this thing of like,
00:24:39
Speaker
I needed to have some and figure out some problem like Mary was talking about find some creative solution to a situation that didn't belong to anybody but me there is this thing of like i love this thing so much and i love this this
00:24:56
Speaker
ability to problem solve and to think creatively and to create that when it gets sold every time, it starts to feel disingenuous. And it needs to have some kind of I need to have some kind of re input to re edify myself.
00:25:16
Speaker
So Eric, this reminds me, you told me previously that you've been reaching into your bag of tricks because you didn't really have the mental space or the felt exhausted creatively. So you couldn't come up with something new, which is what you really wanted because you want to challenge yourself. You want to extend yourself what you're capable of, but you keep reaching into your previous bag of tricks as a means to satisfy the deadline, but that's not satisfying to you as an artist.
00:25:42
Speaker
Well, it's a means to satisfy the deadline, but it's also just a lack of bandwidth, right? Like when there's seven things on your mind at all times, you can't focus on any one thing. It sounds like our episode on boredom and creativity, by the way. Yeah, no, it's very much like- That's my question to you. When you were describing the burnout downstairs, you were saying like, or I was asking you like, is it burnout or is it
00:26:06
Speaker
lack of time, I guess. And I don't know how to differentiate the two, right? This is part of why I wanted to bring this question to YouTube because there is this component of if you constantly are just busy, eventually you burn out. But is it frustration with being busy all the time or is it genuine burnout? For me, it's different. I like being busy. I like always doing something.
00:26:34
Speaker
I guess personally, I would not say that burnout equals lack of time for me burnout though I'm experiencing now is more just like, like, if I had more time, which I technically do, I think I would still be feeling the same way. It's just exhaustion. Sure. But like, I like to keep myself busy as well. But I don't mean
00:27:02
Speaker
Busy necessarily mentally like for example laying a patio. I don't have to think about that. It's just doing the thing It's manual labor and there is a there is a mental boredom that happens there that and I don't I don't want to say boredom maybe that has a negative connotation and I don't mean to take away from folks who are doing the work day in and day out and that takes real craftsmanship, but there is When you know how to do it, you can do it without thinking
00:27:30
Speaker
Eric, you know that relates to an article I read about production turners I've mentioned this on the podcast before that when you're roughing out a thousand bowls because you you don't really it doesn't really take much brick It doesn't take a lot of your conscious thinking because you've done it a thousand times It gives you time in the back of your mind to think about other things Yeah, well, I mean it's it's like Listen, you've lived in your house for how many years? 18
00:27:56
Speaker
18 years. You can get up and walk from your bed to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning a goddamn light on. You know exactly where everything is. You're not going to stub a goddamn toe. This is true. Yeah, because you because because it's it's happened so many times. It's rote memorization. Yeah. And so you can do that and maintain some level of just like I'm still asleep. And that's what happens when you do that kind of work. It's this
00:28:22
Speaker
this physical thing that's happening and it frees your mind to do other things. And I think that's really... Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't interrupt. I think that's really important to have from time to time is this space to do a thing. I think for me, it's really important, this space to do a thing where you're still creating, but it's not mentally taxing. Okay, Eric, let me play devil's advocate with you because you and I like to do this to each other. You gave yourself one... I'll tell you to fuck off.
00:28:54
Speaker
And by the way, with your example of walking in the dark to the bathroom, you occasionally do miss the bowl, just FYI. Oh, sure, sure, sure. That's why I sit down when the lights are off. That's 101. Sorry, Mary.
00:29:12
Speaker
To play devil's advocate, you gave yourself one fucking day off the clock. Is that enough to ameliorate the burner? No, no, no, no. Of course not. Of course not. And I recognize that. But it is a
00:29:28
Speaker
it's giving yourself a moment to breathe, to figure out what the next steps are. And like, so I've already decided I'm gonna reinstate the month off this summer and probably do a road trip. I don't know if it'll be a full coast to coast road trip, but it'll be at least a moment. Cause I think it really is important to give yourself that span of time to get into, like the reason I drive, the reason I like those road trips is cause the first like three or four days you're like,
00:29:56
Speaker
this sucks. Like I hate being in a car for eight hours a day. But then by like the end of the first week, you just sit there with your thought like podcasts, your null and void. You've listened to the same fucking Chris Stapleton song 772 times and you're just over it. And you're just like, I'm just gonna sit in silence for six hours while I drive and you're in the plains of Oklahoma. So there's nothing to look at.
00:30:21
Speaker
And you just sit there with yourself and with your thoughts and ideas come and revelations, self revelations come. And I think that space to get into that mindset is equally as important as giving yourself just a single day, you know, to to enjoy some goddamn sunshine. I love that you do the road trips, to be honest. Can we go to falling water? Oh, we're going to fall in water. For sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:52
Speaker
You want to come? Yeah, I kind of do. Yeah, that sounds helpful. Pod just give me road trip. Do we do an on-site pod? Did we just get a trip? We go camping in Allegheny and we do a little on-site road trip. That would be so fun. Yeah, the ambient noise of the waterfall going just babbling water. That sounds so fun. Spear fishing in the background. Spear fishing in the background.
00:31:19
Speaker
Spearfishing. It just became Lord of the Flies, real quick. What the fuck? This is how I camp. Spearfishing? She was like, you want to wrestle a moose? Mary, they helped me to camp.
00:31:36
Speaker
Mary, they have too many tits! No relaxation! Hey, hey, there's an app for that now, don't worry, it's fine. Oh my god. Alright, so here we are, you know, we've talked about burnout, we've defined burnout, we've talked about occasionally what you do.
Solutions for Creative Burnout
00:31:51
Speaker
Let's actually refocus to...
00:31:54
Speaker
What are, and I'm sure our listeners actually, let me ask our listeners to pause for a moment. Cause I like that we do that. Um, some podcasts eliminate silence. I enjoy it. It gives you time to think about what was said. So I'll ask the question, are you burnt out? Do you feel exhausted? Are you cynical and detached and have, has your performance suffered? Mary's nodding yes to all three. Uh, so to the listeners.
00:32:25
Speaker
I'm curious what percentage of you are detached. I wish we could take a poll somehow and see what the results are. Anyway. Let's put up an Instagram poll.
00:32:34
Speaker
Okay, we'll do that. Second of all, that begs the question, how do you solve it? Now we started anecdotally asking how do you solve it? So I have a list that I've taken from various sources, but maybe you guys can say first and then we'll do the list after. So Eric, you're saying time off, time to regroup, you took a day.
00:33:02
Speaker
Mary, Eric, please. What else?
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have the answer for that. It's just something I would like to know. So for me, there's the ultimate solution of, I guess, extreme solution of taking time off and a lot of time off. And a lot of people actually in tech have to do that because they get burnt out. But what I want to know, and I don't have the actual answer, is how do you mitigate it in smaller steps so that you don't have to reach that point of I'm just so burnt out that I need to take?
00:33:34
Speaker
an extended period of time. Are there solutions that you can do in the meantime? And I'm sure there are. And how do you force yourself to do those?
00:33:44
Speaker
I think that's an interesting question and I don't know that I have an answer to that but I think that goes along with the point that I wanted to bring up about Paul and I know this was a definition but the lumping of cynical and detached, I want to separate those two because maybe this is the defense mechanism that I've developed over the years but I can detach without becoming cynical.
00:34:07
Speaker
And the detachment happens because I love this fucking thing so much that I want to protect it and just kind of like hold it in this space. And while a day is not enough time to really sit with it, it is enough time to give it a moment and just say like, yeah, this thing deserves a moment. Yeah. And then that.
00:34:28
Speaker
hopefully forces my hand to continue to sit with it to figure out the next steps. But I think that is that protective mechanism of saying like, no, no, no, y'all don't get to take this thing that I love so much. It is it's a thing that I'm not going to stop doing. So let's figure out how to not become cynical about it by detaching.
00:34:49
Speaker
Eric, you're very thoughtful. That's an excellent answer. I love how you separated this. Like, I know, I know. It's the whiskey, buddy. I love to shit on Eric. I do. I love to give him a hard time, but I can't. You're so very thoughtful about this thing you love. It's awesome. That was a great point.
00:35:06
Speaker
Um, Mary, uh, I love what you said because you're like, how do I, how do I not go to the extreme? How can I take baby steps towards solving this? So I'm going to read to you a very anecdotal list of solutions. It's partly informed by research, but partly from, you know, uh, people's anecdotes and you guys can react to them. Number one, you take a break.
00:35:30
Speaker
He'd take a break and it doesn't have to be long. Eric took one day, which solved nothing. But Mary, you're talking about taking an extended break, which is pretty extreme. But taking a break is obviously the first answer. Number two, you replenish your battery by doing something different. Variety. I mean, I definitely do that for sure, which is woodworking.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, variety is the spice of life, right? And my most appreciative and days full of gratitude are when I have part science, part woodworking, part family, part me, me time, part nature, you know what I mean? Where you just have a little bit of everything. It feels so good. Number three.
00:36:14
Speaker
Focus on enjoying the process rather than thinking about the destinations all the time, like the ultimate goals, because the ultimate goals can be very daunting and very large and very long term. But if you just sort of break it down into like, what is my mini goal today process? Enjoy just doing the thing today, as opposed to like, oh, I need that episode out by Friday.
00:36:36
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, I guess that kind of breaks it up into steps, you know, and just kind of say, well, and I think that it allows you to appreciate what you've accomplished in any given moment. So for example, if we go back to the patio example, I had solutions
00:36:53
Speaker
to what I wanted the flooring to be and how I was going to create seating out there. Right. That was it. That's all I had. Now, some people will be like, well, we can't like figure out a patio until we have everything figured out. I literally took a piece of wood that I had in the basement, screwed it to the fence that my neighbor spent and then created a gate.
00:37:13
Speaker
and it looks janky as fuck. Like it looks so stupid, but it functions and the rest of it gave me a space to sit outside and be in the sunshine while I like sit down and eat lunch or drink a cup of coffee in the morning. And that was all that mattered. And I'll figure out the fence later on. So that's part of just appreciating the process of like, this is where it's at right now. And it's good enough for this moment. And then when I come up with a solution for that particular situation, then I can venture down that road. I like it.
00:37:43
Speaker
Yeah, good example. Number four. And Mary, this one I'm going to be watching your face. Set healthy boundaries. I'm so healthy. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Yeah, I mean, I am aware. Like, I like to think I'm a pretty self-aware person. Like, I know that it's not healthy boundaries. It's just,
00:38:11
Speaker
It's all self-inflicted. I'm curious. Are you aware of how many times you've checked your Apple Watch this episode? Because I am.
00:38:22
Speaker
Uh, snap. Oh snap. Have I checked it a lot? I'll keep boundaries. And listen, this is not to toot my own horn because I struggle with boundaries as well. But my phone is on airplane mode over there right now. And I've seen you three different times. Look at the text messages come in in the 38 minutes we've been recording this episode. Um, excuse me, one was not a text message. One was my cat, my cat pooping and my, my phone notified
00:38:50
Speaker
And one was a booty call, so that doesn't count either, right? Well, two were booty calls if you count the cat pooping. I mean, okay, you're not wrong. To get back to the conversation. Yes, like the self-awareness thing.
00:39:13
Speaker
I guess that kicks in after a while. It is correct that it's something that you have to that you're that yeah that you just aren't aware of for a while until it's
00:39:24
Speaker
I don't know, something brings a tear attention. I guess like, when I was, I mean, you pointed out even like in February or on my birthday, you were like, are you doing okay? I worry about you. Oh, Mary, Mary, we've talked about you other times. I'm like, is she okay? I've been texting Eric. I'm like, is she all right?
00:39:44
Speaker
just a little busy. But I mean, it's nice to have those moments of realization from people being like, Oh, I got to like step back and rethink about myself. I'm married. What's one helpful? Go ahead. Yep. Go ahead, Eric. So I'm wondering, genuinely, is that helpful for you? Because I think this is different for individuals. Is it helpful for you when people do reach out and say like, Hey, I'm just making sure you're okay. Does that help you realign? And I suppose I'm asking more for like,
00:40:14
Speaker
Paul and I to be your friend but also i'm just genuinely curious like does that help you realign your your values or have some other input to recognize the situation.
00:40:28
Speaker
I think it helps because I'm not the most introspective person and I don't love to think about myself too much so I think it does help. When it gets to a point where I'm like truly exhausted and that's like when I reach a point where I'm like alright I gotta like
00:40:45
Speaker
see what what I've been doing and like make some changes if possible. If I can't make the changes, at least identify what has been the problem. So that at least is a step for me. But I do think it helps when I hear people ask like when you when you asked if I was okay, like I don't think I hadn't even processed it at that point, because it, it only just been like a few weeks and it's just like,
00:41:08
Speaker
Oh, I didn't even realize I was acting any different. See, I think for me, it's not helpful when people ask. Not that I don't care that people ask. I appreciate my friends who are checking in on me. Never check in on you ever again. But what I mean is I don't think I'm self-aware enough. If you were to be like, are you OK? I'd be like, yeah, I'm fine. That doesn't ring the bell for me to make sure that I'm OK.
00:41:33
Speaker
Eric, are you okay? Eric, you okay? I'm doing great, buddy. Are we all okay? Paul, are you okay? I'm better than okay. Mary, what's one healthy boundary you think you could set that would help with your burnout?
00:41:50
Speaker
Well, over the past week with the exception of one night, or past two weeks, I've been straight up stopping working at five and going into the shop. Like I, what is, what is, oh, it's the stupid Mac thing. Sorry. Yeah. And like, I've just been going to the shop every night, even if there's nothing for me to do, I'm just like organizing, cleaning, because we don't have 220 yet. So there's nothing I can actually make. That has been like, I think a good boundary.
00:42:20
Speaker
Excellent. Good. Eric, do you have a boundary you could set? Well, similarly, and I know this is my place of work, so it's not quite the same, but because the last month has been so travel heavy and I haven't been in the shop,
00:42:42
Speaker
The other day, a similar kind of thing. I just was just like, I'm going in the shop. I spent the day just organizing shit, like, you know, refixing jigs and fixtures that needed updating, cleaning the place up. Larissa and I had a couple of whiskeys and we're just catching up because we haven't hung out in, you know, three or so weeks. So I think there there is that thing of I'm just going to give myself the space to attend to my space rather than focus on the deadlines and
00:43:12
Speaker
you know, the emails and everything else that are coming in. Good. What about you? Well, I'm not frequently burned out these days, so I don't really have a problem with healthy boundaries. All right, all right. Oh, Mr. Perfect here. I remember when I was great at everything. No, I have other problems just burned out, it's not one of them.
00:43:35
Speaker
Okay, so the last three that people mentioned was seek nature. And Eric, your drive sounds just like seeking nature. You spend a lot of time with nature. Something about nature just speaks to the human soul. Obviously, biologically, it makes sense. Being outside, get out of that, get out of your house, get out of your office, be with nature. It seems to have this amazing calming effect and recentering effect. Someone mentioned cleaning.
00:44:05
Speaker
Cleaning up helps them like re-center themselves. Yeah. Yeah. You guys feel that? That's a big one for me because I think it comes like similar to seeking nature. Like it is the simplification of things and it's not allowing all of the noise and the chaos and the stress to impede upon your space. And what matters in that moment.
00:44:31
Speaker
And what matters in that moment is just like, just doing the basic human needs. And for me, that activity of cleaning is very like, I stress clean 100%. Yeah, I do the same. I think I definitely clean. But in addition to cleaning, I blast Taylor Swift. I don't do that. I just hotbox my kids. That's awesome. But I always blast music that I can dance to.
00:44:59
Speaker
when I'm cleaning. So that's a good stress reliever. I mean, it's along the same veins of like, I go on a run or something that is very helpful. That's the last one. That's the seventh thing that someone mentioned is exercise. It just seems to like, yeah.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we listed seven possible solutions to burnout. Mary, funny enough, you said, is there something I could do that wouldn't require an extended leave of absence? And we just listed seven things you could do. But you seem to have already known all seven of them. So are you looking outside those seven for some new magical eighth solution? I don't know.
00:45:43
Speaker
Maybe. I think like I do a lot of them. You just you exercise. You have like a yeah, you have a workout regime, right? You clean. Do you seek nature? Oh, man.
00:46:02
Speaker
Not as much as I would like to. When I go on a run, I usually try to go along the river or whatever. I will say the one thing since moving to Philly from San Francisco, that's the thing that I miss the most. All right, we get it. I miss going to the ocean or going to the Presidio every day. I used to just walk out my door and there would be a forest of redwood trees and now I have to drive 15 minutes. Well, that's the thing. I would like to have the time to drive to nature. I just don't have it in the day.
00:46:34
Speaker
All right, with that, we're at the 45, 46 minute mark. I feel like we've covered, we've described for now, we've talked about the theoretical axes of it, and we've gone through some solutions that we all have tried and literature suggests. So why don't we move on to our next segment, which is a rarity for us. It's the first time ever.
Woodworking Finishes Discussion
00:46:57
Speaker
We're actually gonna- First time, long time? Yeah, first time, long time. It's the first time we're actually gonna cover a technical issue on this podcast. What is the road coming to? So goddamn boring. Oh, God. We just lost half our listener base. We're gonna talk about-
00:47:16
Speaker
It hurt like I'm having trouble choking up finishing finishing Paul. It's fine. We're gonna talk about how finishing but we're not gonna do it like oh you should use 33 cups of this and one cup of that we're gonna talk about the pros and cons from like different points of view not how to apply it not how to get the best sheen we're gonna talk about like what matters for conservation
00:47:39
Speaker
toxicity, longevity, like those kinds of hot, you know, things that are lesser talked about. So yes, if you're worried about longevity, the key is hydration, you got to hydrate if you're going to finish. Oh my god. Oh my god.
00:48:00
Speaker
Okay, so. I said what I said. I stand by it. We're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about finishing wood. No, try to get through this without making a dick joke, Paul. Go for it, buddy. It's fine. Okay, finishes. We're going to talk about finishing pieces of furniture and woodworking, Eric.
00:48:24
Speaker
Um, since you actually recorded an episode all on finishing, do you want to lead off and then all of us will attack you? Oh, please. I would love to put myself on the crucifix. What's, what's your favorite finish and why my, the finish I use most often is a mix of, uh, oil, urethane and turpentine, which is unpopular. You can use mineral spirits as well. I go bullshit on that already. Go.
00:48:53
Speaker
The one that I use most often. No, I'm just, you call bullshit on it. No, I'm just kidding. So what is it to mix up again? It's, it's, it's essentially a variation on the Malou finish. It's, it's oil, urethane, turpentine. So it's a medium, a film builder and a thinner. Uh, and it allows me to create a wipe on poly basically that has all the benefits of a film building finish with all of the ease of application of a wipe off finish.
00:49:20
Speaker
Now, for conservation and for low VOC, this is not your jam. This is a high VOC, not easily reversed finish, so it has its limitations.
00:49:34
Speaker
When you apply it, you get a really lovely sheen that is coming up through the wood rather than sitting on top of the wood. And it is a thing that is essentially bomb proof. So when you're finishing pieces for clients and they want to have a thing that their kid can
00:49:50
Speaker
say it's a dining table and they want to sit at this and the kid's going to beat it up for the next 15 years. They want to finish like most clients don't care about whether it's going to be repairable in 100 years because they're paying you money for them to use it for the next 50.
00:50:07
Speaker
This is the trouble. This is the trouble. Well, it is short-sighted, but understand. If you're paying 10 grand for a piece and then they're like, hey, this is great. The finish is going to suck for you, but in 100 years, some old white guy is going to love to repair it. The finish doesn't suck for them. It just demands more of you, Eric.
00:50:28
Speaker
Okay, so give me an example of a finish that is more easily repairable and lower VOC and easily conserved that is not less durable.
00:50:43
Speaker
That is, well, that's the trade-off, isn't it? Okay. Yeah, but, okay. So the answer is, the answer is shellac. You know that was the answer. Shellac, of course, is the answer until somebody spills a bottle of scotch on it. Okay. I'm not sure how many people are drinking scotch around their whatever, but yeah, if it's a table, they're dining table. Sorry, sorry. Let's, let's take a, let's hit timeout.
00:51:09
Speaker
As you can probably tell, Eric and I have already covered this territory. Let's pretend as if this is the first time we've talked about it.
00:51:24
Speaker
is a wonderful, timeless, classic finish. Everything you see in museums is pretty much covered in shellac. It's a naturally occurring resin produced by bugs on a tree. It's non-toxic. It's reversible. It's easily repaired. The conservationists love it. It can be brushed. It can be sprayed. It can be padded. Go ahead, Eric.
00:51:51
Speaker
It's easily repaired by people who know what they're doing. Yes. But if you give this to a client, let's just use a dining table as a universal example of something that's going to get the shit kicked out of it. I would never use shellac on a dining room table. Exactly. This is the issue. Okay. But for everything else, other than dining tables, I use shellac for everything. Okay. So sorry, we haven't finished yet. You interrupted me. How rude of you.
00:52:16
Speaker
So, shellac, you don't hear a lot about it because there's no companies pushing it. No companies are getting rich off shellac. You don't have the guerilla marketing campaigns that you see for some of these hard wax oil. They're offering money to everyone. Nobody's offering money to anyone to espouse the benefits of shellac except
00:52:37
Speaker
like tried and true long time makers find furniture makers conservationists everyone knows that that's the finish it's like there's no options and you can even make it you know when you buy it at the big box stores it's dissolved in in nasty denatured alcohol which has methanol which can cause blindness if you drink it I love methanol
00:52:59
Speaker
So good. And other additives. You can actually just dissolve shellac flakes. You can buy them as flake, and you can dissolve it in your favorite thing that you and Mary know a lot about, which is ever clear grain alcohol. That got me through college, buddy. Oh, absolutely.
00:53:18
Speaker
So, I show up like a good alcoholic to my local liquor store and I buy a case of Everclear and they fucking look at me. I get looks. I'm not kidding. Yeah, they're like, sir, are you okay? Seriously. Why are you buying fucking cases of like two liter bottles of 95% ethanol?
00:53:40
Speaker
And the reason I do that is because if you buy, if you buy pure ethanol, a hundred percent, it's lab grade and it's very expensive, but 95% ethanol, which is ever clear, uh, that 5%, I don't know what it is. It's probably water or some other distillation products.
00:53:56
Speaker
Anyway, it doesn't bother the shellac one fucking bit. You dissolve the flakes in that, you can spray it, you can drink it, you can do anything you want because it's non-toxic shellac mixed in non-toxic alcohol. Alcohol is by definition toxic alcohol. Is Everclear curious? Is Everclear cheaper than denatured?
00:54:20
Speaker
No, I don't think so. Because denatured is cheaper because they put the chemicals in it so they don't have to pay the liquor tax. Denatured is not allowed everywhere. I couldn't get it in California. Really? You can't get anything in California. Yeah, it's not good. If you're spraying, I spray shellac now on everything. And if you're spraying it, you're inhaling all that mist, that's a lot of methanol and other products you do not want to be inhaling. Sure.
00:54:43
Speaker
I buy shellac flake dissolve it in ever clear and you're good to go. You don't have to worry one bit about toxicity. The finish can be reversed, repaired, anything you want, brush it, pad it. Okay. So I love, love, love shellac. I've been using it for many years. However, Eric, let's talk to your point. It's reversed by alcohol. So if you put it on a table where there's alcoholic drinks, you're fucked. Don't put it on tables.
00:55:09
Speaker
This is, so the table that we're sitting at right now, I finished with Chemvar, which is the nastiest of conversion varnishes. It feels like shit, it looks like shit, but it will not dissolve for anything on the fucking planet. And so this is the thing of like, I was spraying that in a booth for three days. I probably took a good year off my life.
00:55:34
Speaker
But also, I've had, this has been my work desk. It was my dining table for probably three years. This thing's not going anywhere. What did you put on your dining table? No.
00:55:46
Speaker
Uh, that's the urethane mix. Okay. Okay. We need to get to how you feel about being allergic to Rubio, but we'll get there in a moment. All right. We'll get there in just a second. So Eric, actually, you know, my go-to finish for all table tops is the general finishes oil plus urethane. So it's basically what you're using. Yeah. So it's essentially that minus the turpentine, which, you know, if you want to cut down on the VOCs, that's the way to go. Yeah.
00:56:11
Speaker
Okay, now we're gonna turn to Mary, who's definitely allergic to one of these finishes. We're gonna talk about the hard wax oils, which is basically a mixture of a bunch of different oils with wax and a solvent. Mary, would you like to lead off on the hard wax, your experience?
00:56:29
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I mean, I, uh, I typically actually use Osmo because I have found that it's easy to apply and I like how easy it is to apply. Plus it's faster for me. But yeah, I am like very allergic to Rubio, which I'm not allergic to anything in my life, except barely this. It's the, is it the accelerator? It's the accelerator. It's not, it's part A by itself. And that's fine.
00:56:56
Speaker
It is the accelerator specifically, and I don't know what it is in there. I'm not the only person who's allergic to it, but it gives me, and it's not like contact. It is literally, I don't know if Paul with the right word is like the fumes, I guess, so anything that is not exposed, the vapor. I break out in such bad hives that I had to go to the doctor for steroids. As soon as they saw me, they're like, oh, you need something.
00:57:23
Speaker
So it's like, yeah, I am. It's literal hell. Like I'm, it's so itchy. It's really bad hives. And I don't have that reaction to anything else in my life. So I don't know what it is. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I like the Rubio finish. Like, I think it feels really nice when it's applied. I just can't do it. Well, let's talk about what the finish is. Well, let's talk about the finishes, right? It's a, it's an oil and it's a wax.
00:57:51
Speaker
And then it's an accelerator, right? And what the accelerator is doing is it's hastening the cross-linking between the oil molecules, like the fatty chain. Obviously. The oils are collections of fatty acid chain molecules that have to get cross-linked to one another through bonding. Yeah, totally.
00:58:11
Speaker
When they do, oh my god, you guys are so fucking rude. Yeah, you're a fucking science nerd, bro. Cross-linking. Cross-link the fatty chain acids, man. When the oil's not cross-linked, it's liquid. When it cross-links, it gets hard. How's that? Obviously it does. That's 101, right? I cross-link all the time.
00:58:36
Speaker
So then this is where we go off the rails. The accelerator is hastening the oxidation cross linking, right? And that's, that's the purpose of it. So it dries real quack, real quack.
00:58:51
Speaker
Too much alcohol. It quacks real good, brother. No, you guys are like confusing. You're like, you're distracting me. It's not used to being made fun of in a science context. The oil dries. Usually, we listen very straight. The oil dries real fast from the accelerator. It hastens the cross-linking. Now, oils can cross-link without the accelerator, but with oxygen, right? Just oxidation. That's like your Osmo, right?
00:59:17
Speaker
your osmo is in mineral spirits or odorless mineral spirits. As that flashes off, you get the cross linking, find it doesn't have an accelerator. So the accelerator actually belongs to a fairly toxic group of compounds. Yeah, it hastens the cross linking, but as a negative, some people react to it. The hard wax oils are nice, right? Because they have that depth of color of the oil.
00:59:44
Speaker
And they have a layer of wax that like drives real hard on top. So they're good utilitarian finishes, but they're not they're a conservation nightmare in the future. I believe that because it's yeah. How do you remove both the wax and the oil?
00:59:58
Speaker
Well, and I recognize that my finished mixture is similar, right? Because ultimately, it's a plasticized finished on top of a piece of wood. But what I'm doing is I'm thinning that out so that that plasticizer sits within the top layer of pores. So that is a conservation nightmare. It is. And it's not a thing. It's a thing that I think about relatively often trying to figure out if there is a way to work around that. But again,
01:00:25
Speaker
when clients are paying you money to have a piece that they can enjoy for their lifetime, they want to enjoy, they don't give a shit what happens 100%. But Eric, it depends on the item. If it's a table, I agree with you 100%. I use your thing. Of course. Listen, listen, for boxes, I'm using a soap finish. I'm using shellac like every day. Sure. Sure. Yeah. But so the things that are going to get the shit kicked out of them. Yeah, I agree. Is there a solution that actually works? That's not a, you know, Danish oil, which also has plasticizers in there.
01:00:54
Speaker
or a boiled linseed oil, which I'm going to tell a client, you have to apply once a year for the next 50 years. Like nobody's going to do that. So what's the solution? Yeah, the solution is to pick judiciously what finish you pick based on the use case, right? Yeah. Which is what you do. And I guess there's this.
01:01:15
Speaker
Oh, I just kind of curious, do you know like those UV finishes that are starting to become popular now? Like what's the deal with those? I think the UV light hastens the cross linking instead of a chemical catalyst is my understanding. But it's so it's the same problem then.
01:01:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to be on conservationable. It's just like, yeah, it's a disaster for conservation, like a hundred years from now. And most of the pieces I make, I mean, I'm a weird case because I'm getting asked to make very like heirloomy, like super passed on to your grandchildren type items. I always use shellac and I always use hide glue. All of that can be conservationed, like, you know, repaired and restored without damaging the item because that's my use case. But if it was a dining room table, there's no fucking way I'm using that.
01:02:00
Speaker
So I think, Mary, to answer your question, it's use case-based. What do we know about those nano finishes? Because I don't trust them. Oh, they're like Adam thick, whatever. Yeah, I don't trust them at all. Well, Keith used it on that. Well, aren't they used historically on cars? That's like the ceramic finish that they put on cars. And it's, yeah, so it's supposed to... Yeah, cars last 20 years. Yeah.
01:02:26
Speaker
You guys, I've looked it up. I've had a real hard time finding a lot of chemistry about them. Like, I don't really know. Hmm. In fact, so shellac is the answer. Well, no, what I'll say is there's many, many, many finishes, convergent varnish finishes, ceramic nano and all these other finishes that I just, I don't think we know what the story is over a hundred years. We just have no way to know yet.
01:02:54
Speaker
Sure. Were you thinking like shellac with the nano on top of it? No, I'm just curious about them because I know that people are using them. Yeah. And this is part of the Luddite in me is I see something like that and I go, that's going to be the next like, what is it? What are the forever chemicals? PFAS. PFAS. PFAS. Yeah. Yeah. Like those are going to be the next PFAS, right? Yeah. 100 years from now, people are going to be like, what the fuck were you thinking?
01:03:25
Speaker
I could be wrong. That's just, that's a feeling I have. I'll let you know. I'll still be around. Oh my God. So, you know, what's our summary? Can we like roll this out? Each of us gets a summary statement. Eric, what's your summary on finishing? Like, where do you, where does that shake out for you? God damn, that's a hard question to answer. The way it shakes out is, um,
01:03:54
Speaker
I love traditional finishes, oil based finishes, shellac based finishes, but I also realized that the application or the case use for my clients is often difficult to sell them on a high maintenance finish for a thing that's going to be, you know, beat up a chair, a table, a cabinet, et cetera. So.
01:04:25
Speaker
I almost hate to admit it, but there comes a point where you just have to say, I need to pay my mortgage, and therefore I need to give the client what they want. Good answer. And that's a real shitty way to go about a lot of things, but in this case, I feel like it's applicable. Okay, I'd like that answer. Mary? I'm not as well versed in finishes as you. I just use what I know I like.
01:04:53
Speaker
I go through things that I try trial. Yeah. And then the ones that I use are, you know, general finishes, Osmo. And I need to be able to apply it easily and fast. That's my priority. So I don't know, as long as it doesn't give me like a severe allergic reaction, that would be great too. You know, a model one, maybe that's okay. But
01:05:18
Speaker
No, I just have the ones that I fall back on every time. If I try branching out, sometimes it's OK. But I don't know. I have the ones that I like.
01:05:28
Speaker
Well, Mary, that speaks to the point that finishing is its own field of study, honestly, besides what's working, right? It really is. It really is. All right. My summary statement is, yeah, shellac all the way on every project except dining room tables, because it's non-toxic and it can always be fixed easily in the future, which preserves the piece. It's that simple.
01:05:51
Speaker
It's fair. So what do you use on dining room tables then? Uh, the oil and your thing. And once in a while I'll just use Osmo, which is the oil and wax just for like simple, quickie, you know, things that you don't expect to like live for centuries, you know, nothing wrong with it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well.
01:06:09
Speaker
I hope you enjoyed our first technical segment ever. We've tried to always keep this about the philosophical side of woodworking and making, but we thought, you know, once in a while we can throw in a little technical segment and we tried to speak to larger issues about toxicity and conservation.
Community Engagement and Thanks
01:06:24
Speaker
A quick thank you to our patrons since the last episode. We have Aaron Wood, Luke Emrick, Scotty Walsh, which Mary, you know Scott. Scotty!
01:06:34
Speaker
All right. Maris. All right. Maris. He's great. I love him. That's great. I wish I knew him too. That's great. That's great for you. I don't know him yet. Scott, Scott, reach out to me, buddy. We're going to be friends. You know him too. I know. I know. A little bit.
01:07:01
Speaker
We also have Marisol Beck and last but not least, Phil Evans. And Phil, funny enough, invited me to give a design talk coming up about a month from now at Lexington Arts in Lexington, Massachusetts. And Phil and I have become fast friends and he became our patron. So thanks, Phil. Okay, Uncle Phil, right on. Yeah, I appreciate the invite to talk about design. A lot of my talk is going to come from these podcast episodes. Thanks to you and Mary, obviously. You're welcome.
01:07:31
Speaker
Okay, uh, with that, I think that concludes this episode. God, we went long today. It's an hour and seven. Damn right. You guys are so full of shit. I couldn't keep you. That's all right. Listen, woodworking is all about bullshit, buddy.
01:07:48
Speaker
All right, everyone. Well, thanks for tuning in. I hope you liked our discussion about burnout. I hope it helps you as you think about your own personal case scenario. And if you are finishing woodworking, I hope this gave you some food for thought. Thanks, everyone. And we'll see you in the after show. What is our after show question?
01:08:06
Speaker
Oh, sorry, I forgot. You're just gonna not leave him with a cliffhanger on there? Oh, Jesus Christ, Eric. Damn, bro. So we're gonna answer two questions each, and we're gonna guess each other's answers first. First of all, who's your favorite woodworking content creator? And second of all, I feel like this is gonna be a racial thing here. There's two answers, and one of them is not racial, but now you made it racial.
01:08:33
Speaker
Everything's about race with Mary. Sorry, Mary. And the second question is, what's your favorite genre outside of woodworking, Mary porn? Also know that answer. I'm very uncomfortable. What? We're going to talk about this later. Bye. Okay, bye.