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Episode 8 - Finding Your Artistic Voice w/ Keith Johnson
1.4k Plays6 months ago
How do we figure out WHO WE ARE as an artist? What is it that we want to communicate with our work, either visually or conceptually? Have you been able to define a style that is immediately recognizable as your own? For most, this is an evolutionary process consisting of much trial and error, taking risks, resulting in both failures and successes. Join us and our SPECIAL GUEST KEITH JOHNSON as we jointly discuss this most important topic.
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 to 'Woodworking is Bullshit' and Hosts
00:00:03
Speaker
Thank you.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello again, everyone. Welcome back to your favorite podcast that asks all the difficult questions and hopefully hurts feelings along the way. This is Woodworking is Bullshit. I'm your host, Paul Jasper, scientist by day, woodworker by night, and I'm joined by my two co-hosts. First off, Emmy Award winner, Eric Curtis.
00:00:37
Speaker
and furniture and cabinet making cover model, Mary Tsai.
00:00:54
Speaker
It's always fun to think of something every week to feature the two of you. Sometimes they're embarrassing. Easily your best intro. Hands down. Sometimes they're embarrassing. Sometimes they're praisatory.
Special Guest: Keith Johnson (KJ Sawdust)
00:01:07
Speaker
Well, this week we have a special guest.
00:01:12
Speaker
And that special guest is Keith Johnson, KJ sawdust. We asked Keith to be on the show for several reasons. First of all, because we love Keith. I mean, and when I say love Keith, I mean, Eric, come on now, admit it. And when I say we love Keith, I mean, the three of us love Keith. We care about this guy. He's amazing. He's an amazing friend. He's an amazing woodworker.
00:01:40
Speaker
And in addition to our communal love of Keith. It's my hamster like complexion though.
00:02:05
Speaker
Keith, that blue light in your studio does you no favors with that? It's transparent with that light. My blood type is mashed potatoes. Very, very white.
00:02:19
Speaker
Keith, that is not a scientific blood type. I'm sorry. Are you sure? Okay.
Main Question: How to Find Your Artistic Voice?
00:02:26
Speaker
So, you know, the reason we asked Keith to be on the show today, this is not your typical Keith Johnson interview type of guest podcast. We asked Keith to be on the show because we think he can speak uniquely and directly to the question that we have today. So let me start with a question and let me say why, you know, we think why we invited Keith specifically.
00:02:49
Speaker
As you know, we start with the question. Today's question is, drumroll, how to find your own artistic voice.
00:03:02
Speaker
So that's actually a quite difficult topic because I think a lot of us struggle with it. I think, actually, I think everyone struggles with it at some point. Now, some people find it eventually. They probably don't feel like they find it, but they do. And, you know, life is, you know, okay. But, you know, I think most of us are in the struggle. And so we thought this would be a good episode to talk about.
00:03:25
Speaker
Well, how do we find our artistic voice? What is the struggle? What are the roadblocks and the difficulties? And we thought Keith could speak directly to this topic, as of course the rest of us can as well.
Keith's Journey to Artistic Voice
00:03:39
Speaker
But, you know, Keith,
00:03:40
Speaker
You know, we've known Keith a long time and we've watched him and he's definitely, you know, well on his path of finding his artistic voice. And I think he's in the middle of it. I don't know that he's done, certainly not. I don't know that any of us are ever done, but certainly Keith's in the middle of it and we thought Keith could speak directly to this topic. So Keith, welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. This is great. Mary? Yeah, can we define what artistic voice means first?
00:04:08
Speaker
Okay, so great, great question. So I think there's two ways, there's two avenues to define artistic voice that I was thinking about prior to the show. One way was, are you talking about a visual aesthetic voice? Like I like plaid, I like patterns, I like dark woods, I like clean lines, or are you thinking along the lines of a conceptual or an idea voice? Like I like challenging dogma.
00:04:35
Speaker
I like to make people think about this topic. I like to make people question things about their own reality. So let's start by saying there's probably two paths, like one's a more visual aesthetic path and one's I guess like a little bit maybe more difficult to pin down conceptual path. Okay.
00:04:55
Speaker
So with that, we thought maybe we start with the beginning. So I would ask the listeners to think for a minute, like, how do you begin to start to find your artistic voice? Where do you even start? And I can speak to how I started later in the episode, but
00:05:16
Speaker
You know, I just want you to take a moment to think, you know, have you started? How did you start or have you yet to start? And now I'll ask Keith and say, Keith, you know, how did you start and what difficulties did that give way to shortly after you started?
Influences on Keith's Woodworking
00:05:34
Speaker
So I mean, I've been kind of woodworking for 30 years or so, started in seventh or eighth grade. And back then it was, you were assigned projects. It wasn't like, hey, come up with something and go build it. So we were almost given our artistic journey back then. I was like, this is what you're going to build and here are the plans for it. So when I was younger, you know, there was no such thing as the internet cable TV. So I watched New Yankee Workshop all the time.
00:06:03
Speaker
Yes, I know. I'm quite older than you guys. Back in the days, we had three family children. I literally had to walk two miles in the snow to the bus stop. That is not folklore. Tuna fish cans on the feet.
00:06:25
Speaker
So because I lived in New England in Boston, PBS was always on. So New Yankee Workshop, right? Which Norm is an amazing craftsman. I learned a ton from him, but his furniture style wasn't really anything extraordinary or something that you'd step back and say, wow, that's an amazing piece. It was just basic furniture. Nice, but simple.
00:06:46
Speaker
shaker style, things like that. And as I started to want to learn more and how to become a better woodworker,
00:06:55
Speaker
I started working for a contractor, which again, you're not going to find an artistic voice working, doing siding and replacing roofs and laying flooring and installing windows. So I started building a little bit of furniture on the side. Again, my influences were construction and television, which was simple designs. So back then, I really liked
00:07:21
Speaker
And I still do, I'm a big fan of cabinetry. I love kitchen cabinets, looking at the cabinetry, the clean lines, because you can really screw up a kitchen cabinet if it's not done correctly with proportions and rails and styles and all these things.
00:07:34
Speaker
So as I started to build more of that stuff on my own, I really thought that was it for me. Like this is where it's going to end. Like I had picked up issues of Fine Woodworking magazine and I would look at everything in there and say there is absolutely no way I could ever build anything in here. And everything I like to do is paint grade. So what's the point in even looking at this magazine?
00:07:58
Speaker
So even as as I got after college and was kind of building my own shop in my mother's basement at the time, I was still doing cabinetry and painted things. And that's just kind of was my comfort zone. And I because I didn't have any other influences, like now with social media and meeting friends like you have the creativity, like beyond I can what I can even imagine, like there's so many more influences out there.
00:08:25
Speaker
And I didn't really start finding my artistic voice or where I wanted to go with my furniture until Instagram about six or seven years
Impact of Social Media on Woodworking Style
00:08:36
Speaker
ago. And I saw what other people were building. And I was kind of blown away. I was like, holy cow, what? I need to start doing something better than building boxes and and doing built ins. Because I got to the point where I was
00:08:55
Speaker
you know, I keep you can always get better, but I really kind of maxed out on how rewarding things were and how creative I was getting. So as I started to see what other people were making, number one, it was very intimidating, because I'm like, geez, my brain just doesn't work that way. How am I going to come up with these designs? Like some of them look
00:09:19
Speaker
simple at first glance. So I'm like, why am I not coming up with these ideas of blending these different mediums and different shapes together? And it's because my background was in boxes and squares and rectilinear things. So
00:09:37
Speaker
It has been over the last five or six, seven years. And as you know, Paul and you guys, we've become better friends, you've probably seen me like completely shift away from things. And and a lot of it is because of the influence from you guys. And, you know, I don't like to look at things and just copy them. I think that's it's not a cop out, but
00:10:00
Speaker
you know we want to be original like if and we all want to be original in what we present to people so someone doesn't say I have already seen that you rip that off from somebody else it's very difficult because I know you guys have talked before like everything's already been done which maybe but
00:10:17
Speaker
There's still plenty of things I see that are quite original and that I've never seen before and just building off of other things that already exist. The term make it your own, which I think is still a very rewarding thing and very possible. Because you can take the smallest idea from someone else and just completely go off on your own and give your own spin to it.
00:10:43
Speaker
So how do you go about doing that, Keith? If you're saying that you don't think you're naturally creative, which I identify with, I don't think that my brain naturally works that way. I think it was a skill that I had to learn. But you're developing that skill currently, right? How do you take that seat of an idea and transform it, transfigurate it into something that is unique?
00:11:06
Speaker
Well, Eric, that gets into the solutions to the problem. We haven't even fully fleshed the problem. Ah, it's getting greedy. You know, I love Keith. Sorry, I got to put the brakes on that. You're a friend of mine, so I'm curious to hear his last question. All right, so I promise we'll get to his answer on how he handled
Hosts Discuss Their Artistic Struggles
00:11:25
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that. But before that, I want to ask all of you, Eric, Mary, Keith, can you tell me
00:11:32
Speaker
what you feel like was your biggest obstacle or struggle with finding your artistic voice. So Keith, you know, since you started, why don't you say what your, you know, number one most difficult struggle has been. It's coming up with the initial design, not the project I want to build. Like, hey, I need a coffee table. I want to build a coffee table, but I want it to be the
00:11:54
Speaker
badass coffee table around. And, you know, I'm not an artist at my sketches look like my frickin cat did them. And even if I come up with a rough sketch that has even the remotest limited legibility, I just I don't have the like the brain power to come up with 10 other iterations to keep refining that design. And this is why I make prototypes a lot.
00:12:19
Speaker
And Mary, I know, has spoken to this too. I only have limited time in the shop, even though now it's my full-time job. I have plenty of time out there, but I don't want to spend all this time building something and at the end go, well, that sucks. I really wish I had spent more time initially refining the details before coming out here and wasting all this labor and lumber.
00:12:39
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I've got no problem at this point in my life making a piece of shit. I think Keith, it feels to me emotionally like you are the perfect in between.
00:12:57
Speaker
to me and Mary. I know Mary likes to iterate and I know you can talk about your process in a second, but I can't iterate because I'm not capable enough as an artist to make all of these renderings, to draw seven different ideas. They have to live in this kind of purgatorial existence for a while. I come up with a concept, I come up with an idea, and
00:13:17
Speaker
it has to just iterate in my brain until I see the form in my head in this kind of ethereal thing that I go like, that's the idea I can play off of. And then I go do the best thing, the best version of that that I can. And that's why I'm okay with it being a piece of shit in the end, if that's what it ends up being because I'm like, that's, I did my damnedest attempt at that. But for me, Paul, to answer your question,
00:13:40
Speaker
I think it's finding the concept or the direction, the initial idea that pushes me forward into excitement. It's that struggle of like, I know the thing that I want to express, and especially early on,
00:13:58
Speaker
I didn't know how to identify what was good from what was bad. Like, what's a good idea? What's a bad idea? What will work and what won't work? I didn't have the tools or the skill set to identify those things. So that was the biggest struggle. And at this point, I have that skill set. So it's that long, sometimes very aggravating process of like seeing the thing in my brain and going, that's not the right idea yet.
00:14:20
Speaker
And then just waiting and being patient enough to stumble upon the idea and go, ah, there it is. Okay. Now I'm going to go forward. Yeah. That's a frustrating process sometimes because it can take hours and days. Sometimes it takes weeks and months. Yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me, I mean, I risk sounding a little arrogant, but I can usually tell when something's a good idea or a bad idea. However, my biggest obstacle is making sure it is living up to my own standard. So, yeah, I'm often like iterating, iterating and just saying it's not good enough. It's not good enough. And like he said, I don't want to build something unless I am really happy with it because I don't have enough time in my life to make things that I'm not happy with.
00:15:04
Speaker
That is, that's been the biggest issue. So I can get stuck in a cycle of just keep redesigning and redesigning. And that's when I do need people like Eric to tell me to like, go start making things or like start modeling, like little prototypes or whatever. And that helps kick me out of the cycle sometimes. Um, but yeah, overall, that's been my biggest obstacle, I think.
00:15:23
Speaker
It's okay, and Paul, I want to hear your process too, but I just want to say for all of the people out there who are like Mary, it's okay to make a mediocre object. That's totally, totally fine. Yes, I know that. I've been doing it lately just because I have to get in the shop and do something, but it's just hard for me to accept.
00:15:47
Speaker
Sure. All right. What are your hurdles? My biggest struggle to design is that I have to, well, either Eric, like you, I just don't have the nugget to start it. But then when I find the nugget, it all rolls. So sometimes it's like searching for the nucleation point that like starts everything, right? And the other thing I struggle with is like, I have so many ideas that come so quick.
00:16:16
Speaker
What did you say? I said, they're scientists. Nucleation. This is a perfect job of our educational background. And I hit purgatorial. Fine, fine. That nugget to start with. It's either that or it's like I get the ideas start coming so fast. And then I'm like, fuck, who's going to build it?
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to build all this stuff. Yeah, I got it because it's going to take me the next month. I want to see how it turns out because it's an exploration. I don't want to have to build everything myself. I want a little I want a little elf out there who can just I'm just like talk to the elf. Hey, Dobby, go make that shit.
00:17:05
Speaker
Hey, Bobby is a free elf at this point. You know whatever clock you want, okay? He's a union guy, actually, so you don't have to talk to the shop storage. Yeah, they're in the rolling waves these days. They're all in a union.
00:17:20
Speaker
All right. Now that Dobby's a free elf. So I've thought about some other obstacles and struggles and I want to list them. You know, I like categorizing lists and kind of condensing things into like frameworks that we can think about. So I have like five other struggles and obstacles that I think maybe our listeners can relate to and I want your reaction. Let me read the five of them and then you can pick and choose which one you want to react to because I think they're all worthy of reaction. Number one,
00:17:50
Speaker
I just have no original ideas. It's all been done before. Everything I think about is just like something that's been done before. Or ideas just don't come to me. Like it's just like a blank piece of paper and nothing comes. All right, so that's like one.
Common Obstacles in Artistic Development
00:18:04
Speaker
Two.
00:18:05
Speaker
I have self-doubt and imposter syndrome. Like even if I design something, it's probably stupid. People think it's dumb. I probably don't deserve, I don't belong in this community of like really heavy duty artists. They're all so much better than me. And that leads to like, that feeds into like fear of failure and perfectionism. And the perfectionism then leads into procrastination because you don't want to start or over preparation where you're trying to like safeguard yourself against criticism.
00:18:33
Speaker
by over Mary, why are you smiling? Mary, maybe you could speak to that after I'm done listening. That's number two. Number three.
00:18:48
Speaker
lack of interest in general or lack and I think it's like I don't I don't care I don't want to make my own stuff I don't give a shit like I've heard people say that and I think you know that may be that that truly is not your interest or it's just a lack of fluency and a lack of training because I think if you were to have those tendrils of excitement and interest you know touch touch you you would be interested number four
00:19:12
Speaker
Uh, this was contributed by Keith. I tend to waffle. I have too many ideas and I go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And I can't make a decision. I just can't commit. I just get like analysis paralysis dizzy to buy the array of different possibilities. And number five, there exists a significant gap between your skills, which are capable of making and what you see in your head. So you're like, shit, what do I do now?
00:19:41
Speaker
Okay, so those are the five. That was no original ideas, self doubt and posture syndrome, lack of interest, I waffle, there's too many options or a gap between your skills and vision. Who would like to comment first? So early on when I was in school, I had no experience designing.
00:20:02
Speaker
And looking back at my sketchbook from those days, it's very clear that I was just pulling whatever influences I could. The most basic stuff, just not interesting stuff. But I go back and I thumb through it every now and again. And there's like two or three really interesting ideas in there. And they're conceptual. They're the seeds of a conceptual idea. They're not even fully conceptual ideas.
00:20:30
Speaker
And it's a clear example of the last point that you made of, I had this thought and I was like, that would be really cool, but I had no idea how I could actually execute it. So I just put it out of my brain. And it's one of those things that's been percolating. Like since I've gone back and seen it again, I've been percolating on it for like 12 years. I'm like, one day, one day, but that day is not this day. But in the, the,
00:20:55
Speaker
clearest example of that in that sketchbook to me is I had this idea of like think of like a stick figure man kind of like sitting on his butt with like his elbows on his knees kind of thing. And that was a chair in and of itself. So it's like a man sitting is the thing you're sitting on. And it just like
00:21:14
Speaker
Like he's spooning you? He's spooning me. He's spooning me. There you go. It's a clear example of like, I had this thing that like, it's got layers, obviously, you know, you're a man sitting. But I didn't, I couldn't build that back then.
00:21:35
Speaker
And it might not even be interesting, but the idea, the thought that I had that at a point where I didn't have the technical skill to know how to execute it, that's always interested me. And I'm curious to see, like, part of my process is I can't really keep a notebook.
00:21:52
Speaker
Because like I mentioned earlier, I'm not a skilled enough illustrator of my ideas to really jot them down in a coherent way. I feel like you're selling yourself a little short. I've seen your notebook. You're a very, very good artist. I'm a tradesman artist at best. And I don't mean that to be derogatory towards tradesmen. I mean, I don't have an art education or background. But I like, I a little bit regret the fact that I don't have that
00:22:22
Speaker
paper trail because I'd be curious to look back in another 10 years and find out like what are the ideas that I have now that I'm not technically competent enough to build. Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah. You guys can probably guess what mine is. But I most identified by far with the second point of self-doubt imposter syndrome. I mean, I am a designer during the day and at night as well. And it is what I live and breathe for the past decade or so. And every day still struggle with imposter syndrome.
00:23:02
Speaker
it's just I don't know it's like a that is honestly probably the biggest obstacle just like it can be self crippling at a certain point um you kind of have to get over it and as I get older obviously
00:23:16
Speaker
it is getting better. I've learned to deal with it and acknowledge it more as opposed to letting it control me.
Exploring Imposter Syndrome
00:23:26
Speaker
And a lot of what helps is actually reaching out to friends and understanding your perspective and your voice as a designer and
00:23:36
Speaker
um I want to say like validation helps but that's not the only thing like it's not validation from others although I will say that that is actually important it's just you can't rely on that as your only sense of validation but um from yourself to just having the confidence to say yes I do actually think I know what I'm talking about I think that I experience enough and have made enough good pieces that I feel confident in this design so
00:24:02
Speaker
It's a learning curve. I'm still dealing with it every day. But imposter syndrome is something that I think most people can relate to, especially as they see these like, kind of intimidating pieces on social media or things that you wish that you could make, but you're just like, I have no idea how they even came up with that. And I guarantee you those same people struggled the same struggle the same pathway to like, it's all a process.
00:24:26
Speaker
Jeez, well, very well said, Mary. And you know, because I love to have some research. I actually looked up if there was research on imposter syndrome. And in fact, the research is actually in its like infancy, because it's not recognized as like a diagnosable thing yet. And people are making a case that it should be diagnosed as a thing.
00:24:49
Speaker
Does imposter syndrome have imposter syndrome? Mary with the singer. So Mary, you might be interested to hear some of the statistics on this that do you guys want to guess what percent of people identify in the general population as having imposter syndrome? Keith, you first. I mean, I'd say around 50%. Eric, I'm gonna say 35.
00:25:19
Speaker
Mary? 60? Between 60 and 80 percent. That's bullshit. I don't believe it.
00:25:30
Speaker
Eric, that's the beautiful thing about data. The numbers don't lie. That's the beautiful thing about data. It doesn't give a shit about your opinion. Neither does Mary, so here we are. Second of all, does it happen more in men and women? Keith? Oh, I think that's women.
00:25:56
Speaker
Eric, I would agree, but I don't want to get canceled. Mary, Mary, Mary, I would agree. I would say women. It's it's 5050. Oh, sorry. That's the right answer. That's what I think. I think the women are just more forthcoming about their feelings because men are emotionally stunted. Okay, next. Paul.
00:26:20
Speaker
Does it improve with age or not? Keith. I would say like what improves with age is not giving a crap. So yeah, I would probably say Eric's age. Yes. Mary? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it kind of depends. Like if you switch careers super late in life, then I could see it, you know, surging again. But yeah, I would say overall, you're more confident in your experience in life.
00:26:49
Speaker
All right, I agree with that anecdotally, although you're not going to like the answer. Some studies say yes, some studies say no, it's kind of not, it's not clear what the conclusion is about that. Two more points. It's more frequent in ethnic minorities.
00:27:05
Speaker
it's, it's often related to the parenting style of your parents. Sure. What? Yeah, yeah. That's not surprising. What is it? It's often related to either abuse in some form, either physical or mental or extreme criticism. Mary's smiling again.
00:27:27
Speaker
I think we're getting to the bottom of Mary's problems. Don't you lay on the couch there and we'll really delve deep into this.
00:27:43
Speaker
All right. All right. So Eric, you've talked about the gap between skills and vision. Mary, you've talked about self-doubt and imposter syndrome. Keith, you had no original ideas come to me, right? They just don't, I don't know. They're just not there. I guess I would say it's a little bit of ideas just don't come to me. And it's a bit about gap between skills and vision. Like I want to draw beautiful things. I want to draw like photorealistic shaded shit.
00:28:11
Speaker
I don't have the skills. I don't know if I just can never get them or just I don't have them now, but it frustrates me so much because there's things I want to put on wood that's like stuff and I can't pull it off yet. I've tried to draw a dragon like 15 times and they all look like they've been drinking too much on a street corner.
00:28:36
Speaker
It's terrible. This is an audio format, Paul, you don't have to talk about the way I look right now. Without criticizing Eric Moore, I would like to talk about what are some of the solutions now I think we've, you know, I hopefully the listeners, you know, I'm sure many of you have relate to or identify with some of those struggles about design. So let's talk about solutions.
00:29:06
Speaker
So Keith, let's start with what your solutions have been to finding, you know, finding your way with your struggle of I don't see things, it just doesn't come to me.
Solutions for Overcoming Creative Blocks
00:29:16
Speaker
What have you found for your solutions? I think in the beginning, a lot of it was copying, meaning I built a lot of furniture out of Norm Abrams book, like he had the plans. So I built them just to get me more into joinery and and
00:29:34
Speaker
you know, glue ups all these things, the actual building of furniture and how it should be built and wood movement. And once you go from there, then it becomes, you know, we talked about this before, Paul, like a pebble in a still lake where it starts to ripple out. So then you see something in the next ripple. Oh, I like that little detail. And then the next, oh, I see something over there. And then you just start gathering these little things that you like and want to incorporate into something else that you build.
00:30:02
Speaker
But beyond then you got then it's like the next step where you got to be original and come up with something of your own and that's I mean I turn to the internet I mean Pinterest I use Pinterest a lot for ideas and Instagram and you know dare I say an AI Generator where you have something in your head like I want to build a coffee table with curves and a hidden drawer You can enter that and then get a bunch of renderings Most of them will be like crazy
00:30:32
Speaker
fantasy builds that would never be able to happen. But it could give you just one little idea that you could incorporate into your piece. You know, I even at this stage in my career, I love taking classes took one last year with Eric and Larissa. I just signed up for another one at CFC in the fall, which I'm super stoked about curvature with Yuri Kobayash.
00:30:58
Speaker
Oh my god, I'm so jealous. Oh my god. For those of you who don't know who Yuri is, pause the podcast, go Google Yuri, and then immediately sign up for any class that you can ever have with her because she's one of the best teachers and kindest human beings I've ever known in my life. And her work is insane. She's also the badest mission woodworking, for sure.
00:31:22
Speaker
So yeah, classes and yeah, I can't wait. I'm super excited. Um, take a class, collaborate with a friend like, Hey, let's go build something together because you may have different ideas. You know, Paul and I are we're two and a half years into two whiskey cabinets, which will be completed this weekend, but
00:31:42
Speaker
But Paul and I spent, gosh, how many hours on the phone? We had an initial idea, and then we just kept refining it and coming up, oh, that won't work. What about this? That won't work. What about this? And just kept refining and coming up with different design ideas. But that also is what you just said, Paul. You wish you had someone you could build all this stuff for you and you didn't have to. I'm not going to go off on a tangent here. No, you don't like that.
00:32:06
Speaker
But that's where the CNC for you like changed the way you work because you didn't have to do it by hand anymore. You could camera out an idea like that sucks, throw it off to the side, throw it in the burn pile and you spent no labor on it. Well, to be fair, you did the shell of the whiskey cabinets. You were my little Al.
00:32:24
Speaker
But this is a point that I wanted to bring up earlier. This is the Wendell Castle rep, right? You're talking about a guy who has innumerable ideas and has built a career off of sculptural forms and got to a point where he didn't have the capacity to build the ideas that he had in his brain anymore because of age and the number of clients he had coming in. So he was one of the first guys in sculpture slash woodworking to incorporate a five-axis CNC.
00:32:51
Speaker
And people were all kinds of butthurt about it. And yet, he's one of the most prominent and influential furniture makers of the 20th century.
00:33:00
Speaker
Eric, that is an amazing lead-in to what I was going to say. That is like, what a better way. Okay. So first of all, Eric, I'm sorry, Keith, you said, you know, I'm missing that starting nugget of an idea. All right. So I provided in our collaboration of the stadium whiskey cabinet, I provided that through my, uh, what do you call it? Obsession with the stadium shape and about curves or, you know, do humans prefer curves? And it all started with a question and we've talked about this in a previous episode.
00:33:31
Speaker
So that starts to get it my answer for how you solve the problem or how I have solved the problem, which was develop a sense of curiosity. Some of you have it like well developed and some of you have some curiosity, but it's actually a skill. I don't think you either have it or you don't. I actually think it's a skill curiosity.
00:33:54
Speaker
So do you allow yourself to go down rabbit holes? Do you ask? Do you allow yourself to ask dumb questions? I felt like it was a dumb question. Do humans prefer curves or straight lines? Like it seems so stupid when I originally asked it. But in fact, the answer is anything but stupid.
00:34:11
Speaker
Make room in your brain give your life time to consider things and this comes to one of our previous episode which is creativity and boredom. Do you give yourself the mental space to go down rabbit holes? So I think all of that feeds into this idea of curiosity and curiosity leads to questions and the answer to those questions leads you down a path.
00:34:35
Speaker
a journey through your making and through your art. And that's what I like to call, and Eric was already talking about this, like a theoretical underpinning. You see many artists who have a theoretical underpinning, like a thread that moves longitudinally through all of their work. So I have a few examples in mind, which is like Jeff Koons, you know, he makes the balloon stuffed animal, many things, like he's made many, many, many things. But
00:35:02
Speaker
For example, he did this, Eric, I'm going to unleash you after I finish this. He made the gazing ball paintings where he took the Mona Lisa, he replicated it three times the scale and put a gazing ball in front of it. From the first glance, you're like, what the hell is that? He just copied the Mona Lisa and put a stupid sphere in front of it. But when you hear him talk about his theoretical underpinning, and he's a little bit of a salesman. He's a little bit.
00:35:31
Speaker
He's kind of full of shit, but at the same time, at the same time. That's a skill. And that is a skill. At the same time, what he says is, I wanted to draw the observer into the work and make it a collaborative art piece where they are part of it. So they have to see themselves within the context of the artwork. OK, Takashi Murakami, one of my favorites, his theoretical underpinning was something called Superflat.
00:35:56
Speaker
where he took 2D art from ancient Japan and reimagined it. And he also says, you know, why are we distinguishing high art from low art, meaning like anime is like, you know, I think that was considered or commercial art, low art, as opposed to fine art. Like, why are we giving these different levels? Why don't we just flatten it all and just say it's art?
00:36:17
Speaker
And then there's like Mark Rothko, who I think many of you know, he made these paintings that were just like colored squares. And you see them and you're like, why did that sell for $50 million? And you're like, maybe it was 80. I don't know. He makes these colored squares. And you think, what the hell is he doing? Like, what is this, right? And then you read more about his theoretical underpinning. And he was trying to elicit different emotions by looking at colors.
00:36:45
Speaker
That was the theoretical underpinning. So my point is curiosity leads to exploration and leads to you going down these lines of theoretical underpinnings that then put a common thread through all of your work. And that has been my solution. I find myself very drawn to questions because as a scientist, I think that's just how my brain is wired. And so I go down rabbit holes without even trying. And next thing I know, I'm trying ideas in the shop that happen out of that.
00:37:15
Speaker
Eric, I promise to set you loose. I appreciate that, but I actually want to go last because you two hit on a common theme that I want to see if Mary touches on because that was the first thing that pops into my head. Mary, what's your solution to some of the difficulties we raised?
00:37:31
Speaker
My solution, I mean, there's a few, but the one that I know is really reliable is, Eric can attest, I'm not usually someone who asks for help often, but I have found that talking to friends or talking to people who inspire me or people who know me really well has helped me kind of get out of that cycle of self-doubt.
00:37:56
Speaker
It's not what I rely on as the solution to get me out of that, but I think that it does help, especially whenever I ask Eric, like, oh, yeah, I did some of these sketches. What do you think? He can usually tell. This one speaks more to who you are as a designer. And I think that is really nice to hear. So that's one solution. There's quite a few, but I think that one is something that I do rely on quite a bit.
00:38:25
Speaker
So what I've heard, and the first solution that popped into my head was time, right?
00:38:31
Speaker
Full stop, just time. Give yourself time and space, but mostly time. To grow. To grow. And you just touched on that. And the time to have conversation and to ask questions, to explore, is something that when you're working on commission, say, from my own personal experience, that most people are not afforded the time to ask those questions and to figure out a solution.
Importance of Time in Idea Development
00:38:57
Speaker
They just got to build a goddamn box, right? Build a cabinet.
00:39:01
Speaker
And Paul, you were talking about that same like be curious. The curiosity is so goddamn inefficient. It like you're just meandering down aimless paths and you might come up to a dead end and then you got to backtrack and figure out where the fuck you're going next. That's super inefficient. And Keith, you were talking about copying and growing from learning how to do a thing that somebody else did.
00:39:25
Speaker
and then iterating that into new things in the future, right? Like that's a time scale that we're not even comprehending because we live in an age of like, well, you got to turn it over and make a profit. But you don't get, you know, iterations? Are you fucking kidding me? You don't get time to do iterations. So like for me and the development of skill to achieve the idea that I have in my head that I don't yet have the capacity to make,
00:39:53
Speaker
is an issue of time. It's an issue of allowing myself to make other objects before I make that object because I don't have the technical capacity to make that thing or to remember that the thing that I'm developing in my head that's percolating, that's brewing, that's growing is not ready yet.
00:40:11
Speaker
So I've got a client right now who has been immensely patient. And I literally have my notes up from our meeting on May 10th, 2023. So it's coming up on, what, 10 months it's been since we had our initial meeting. And I literally this week sent them an email that was like, hey, I'm ready to start thinking about it.
00:40:36
Speaker
start thinking I knew that I didn't have the time in the space to consider what I wanted this object to look like and then I broke out the books today and I was looking through them and I was thumbing through them and I saw some visuals I was like that's an interesting thing how am I gonna combine these elements and I start pulling
00:40:56
Speaker
just elements of a design and then it's gonna take time, like literally, after this call, I'm gonna look at the weather and see what the weather's doing this week and I'm gonna go find time to go meander through the woods for four hours and just sit with the thing and see if it's an idea that can develop because that time is crucial to overcoming, I think, all of the things we're talking about because every one of you hit on some element of time.
00:41:22
Speaker
How long does it take you to kind of, or on average, I guess, to come up with an idea that you feel ready to make? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. It depends on the idea. If somebody's asking me to develop an idea, it's going to take a while. Like the last few commissions have been in the eight to 12 month range. OK. But also in fairness, it's a thing that I like set aside until I know that I have the time to sit with it.
00:41:50
Speaker
And if I had to do it in a period of time, I could probably do it in a week, like of intense like study, research, thinking about it, developing and allowed it time to develop and then get it to a point where I'm comfortable at least moving forward with a concept. Do you think that if it was that week one versus like the eight to 12 months one, do you think that one's a weaker design or no?
00:42:13
Speaker
Not necessarily. I think it's kind of a crapshoot. But the more time that it has to develop, either mentally or physically, I think the higher likelihood of a better result. Gotcha.
00:42:27
Speaker
That's interesting because like I have like, not the opposite, but I don't have the pressure of having to be in time constraints, because this is not my full time job. So then I'm just like, let me just keep iterating iterate because I have all that time to think about it. And then I like I said, it just starts to cycle again. And then I overthink things. And that's when you help me just like make something married.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah, but I guess, yeah, time can also be a vicious partner too. These are excellent points about time. I didn't even occur to me. Thank you. That's awesome.
The Necessity of Iterative Work
00:43:05
Speaker
I'm totally going to think about that moving forward. So I'm going to give one answer that I think we'll all agree on as a solution, which is put in the work. Yeah, that means like,
00:43:18
Speaker
iterate, explore, do trial and error. The more pieces you make, the more you'll figure out what works from a design point of view, you have to iterate. And I would just make a lot of fucking art, just do it, just make a line, you'll figure out if it sucks, you'll figure out if you like it, you'll figure out if you hate it. I think putting in the work
00:43:42
Speaker
is everything. So I know Mary, I know all of us are chomping at the bit to explain it. So I'll keep mine brief. I'll say I started copper pig when I wanted to about eight years ago, when I wanted to find my design voice. And I said, I can't make furniture that takes three or four and charge it.
00:44:00
Speaker
three or three hundred or four hundred hours each piece i need to make smalls because i'll never make enough pieces to figure out what i like and what i don't like that's why that's why i make smalls i used to make big furniture but it's because i knew i needed to iterate and mary i know you go through hundreds and hundreds of sketches
00:44:19
Speaker
That's you iterating. Like, I mean, you may not be iterating in making it in the real world because you don't have that, you know, that time because of, you know, me too, like because of our jobs, but that's iterating and that's putting in the time. Eric, go ahead.
00:44:35
Speaker
So I want to draw a parallel because at this point I get accused by Mary a lot of being very confident. But I've also been doing this thing professionally for 12 years. I've known I've wanted to be a furniture maker for
00:45:00
Speaker
15 16 17 years something like that But the thing that I decided last year and Paul you said smalls and this is like it's a volume game right so I want to draw a parallel to YouTube and I'll keep this as brief as I can because I Decided to put out a video every week
00:45:18
Speaker
for when I made the business decision to take on YouTube because I needed the data, I needed the feedback, I needed the raw information to tell me what was working and what wasn't working, what I was good at and what I wasn't good at and what would separate me from other people.
00:45:32
Speaker
And I think I'm doing okay. I think it's successful in that, insofar as it can be successful after a year and three months.
Eric's YouTube Career and Imposter Syndrome
00:45:43
Speaker
However, there was a recent conversation that Mary and I had where I had a real like bout of imposter syndrome. Like, am I good at this thing? Am I too verbose? Do I just say too much bullshit? Am I making interesting videos?
00:45:58
Speaker
And the answer is yes, because obviously. But it's a real thing. I think the more I've thought about it, the more I think it's just the awkward teenage years of any creative endeavor, right? It's the new beginning. When you are a child, you are not self-aware enough to know that you're not good at a thing. And then you at some point gain enough experience to know, I'm not bad.
00:46:24
Speaker
but I'm not good. And then this is where this imposter syndrome sits for a long period. And it takes so fucking long to get to the point where you're actually good, that you don't feel that self-consciousness anymore. And I've been doing furniture and woodworking and sculpture long enough where I don't give a shit if I make something mediocre because my overall body of work is strong. With YouTube, like,
00:46:52
Speaker
every now and again, most of the time, it's fine. But every now and again, like that knife just twists the wrong way. And then you just wince and you're like, I don't know how to process this because it's a different creative endeavor that I don't have enough experience in yet. Keith? Yeah, the YouTube thing is is is a totally different animal because you could be the most talented and creative person
00:47:18
Speaker
but if you can't find your audience or if you don't know how to play the game, meaning thumbnails, titles, getting people to click, it doesn't matter. And that's the unfortunate part about this. I stress more about the goddamn thumbnail and title than I do about the whole build. It's not, I'm not even kidding. I know, you sent me the thumbnail from your latest video and I'm like, why is he sending me the thumbnail? I'm just like, pick up the thumbnail. What's the big deal here?
00:47:46
Speaker
Well, you spend all this time, number one, building, filming, editing, and then you roll over a piece of shit that nobody wants, like a thumbnail that nobody wants to click on. What was it all for? Yeah, you made money on the commission, but maybe you got a sponsor and the video performed
00:48:02
Speaker
horribly, they're not coming back. So that literally, that thumbnail and title is sometimes the key to everything and it sucks and it's stressful. You better have a fucking good thumbnail for our whiskey cabinet. That's all I'm saying right now. Dude, I've been thinking and thinking and thinking because there's so many different ways you can go. I mean, we're not here to talk about YouTube. Eric knows it's a constant battle.
00:48:28
Speaker
after delaying me for two years on that whiskey cabinet that thumbnail and title better be amazing okay yeah i know right there is guys who's not going to do anything all right all right all right well um are there uh my huh
00:48:50
Speaker
You already answered just getting right I have another martini Eric Okay, so with that You know, I hope that you so we're gonna switch to the next segment which is lightning round and I'll explain that in a second but wrapping up on the
00:49:11
Speaker
Finding your artistic voice. This is a difficult and circuitous path through your brain and through your confidence and through your ego. And we all pave a different path. And I love how different everyone's answers were and how honest everyone was. Mary, kudos to you for about like the self-doubt. You're leading that conversation. That's a very difficult conversation. I admire you greatly for leading that because I think a lot of our listeners will be like,
00:49:38
Speaker
Yes, I feel that, like, I feel you, girl. And you know, so I think, I think too, buddy, you better be careful out here.
00:49:48
Speaker
And all of us, all of us know, all of us feel that. I mean, all of us have felt self-doubt at one point or another. And there's no straight line to the answer. I think it depends on you and your experience and your upbringing, your tendencies, your abilities. All right. So with that, we'll wrap up our segment on that and we'll go to lightning round.
Lightning Round: Artistic Journeys and Struggles
00:50:08
Speaker
So what is lightning round? Well.
00:50:10
Speaker
Mary hates this segment. So it's basically like... So much paralysis in my answer. And we're going to make Mary go first. Mary goes first now because she hates it so much. And Lightning Round is where I ask a series of questions. And today it is related to our topic, Mary, so you don't have to worry. You've been thinking along these lines. And you've got to answer quick.
00:50:40
Speaker
And it can't be set a timer every time you ask the question for five seconds. So that you can't just look at us blankly for 42 seconds. And your answers, your answers gotta be like, your words do not matter. You just have to say words after five seconds. Just fuck you. That's always the right answer.
00:51:04
Speaker
All right, so one or two sentences. I don't need long novels, novellas novels. Okay. Are you ready for lightning round?
00:51:12
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Ready? Mary, you go first. Eric, you go second. You go third. Are we all answering like the same question or is it different? Okay. Same question. Ready? Mary. Yeah. This is called not fair. Welcome to life. Mary. Are you ready? Eric gets set to timer. Oh, I got it right here. Mary. Mary is struggle a necessary part of the process of finding your own voice.
00:51:41
Speaker
Yes. A hundred percent. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Keith. 99.9%. Yes. Yeah. I guess that's, I kind of gave you an easy one to tee that up. Yeah. Struggle is definitely like part of it. Mary, you're ready. Oh, that's a good one. Have you found your artistic voice? Yes and no. Or what percent? Uh, I would say yeah. Percentage, probably 60%.
00:52:10
Speaker
I love having a timer on her. She's really like, she's on it right now. She's good. I think for on the whole, from a three dimensional visual perspective, I think I found my voice. Keith? No, I have not. I think I'm under 50. I think I'm just starting to find. I think I have been finding it, but I'm probably at about 40 or 50%. All right, third, Mary.
00:52:40
Speaker
Is it important or not to find your artistic voice? Depends on what you're looking to be as like an artist. So yes and no.
00:52:53
Speaker
Is it important? I would agree with Mary is it a thing that you aspire to because there's also value and I don't want to degrade people who just enjoy building things to give their lives enjoyment in their in their off time. That's totally fine. So important, entirely dependent on your perspective and goal. Okay. Yeah, I totally agree with that statement. It doesn't it does not have to be if you're just
00:53:18
Speaker
building furniture, you have a line of furniture that you're just building to make a living and you wanna go home, punch out and go home at the end of the day, it's not important. Okay, for me, it was very important for me personally, but to others, hey man, you do you.
00:53:33
Speaker
Livio, let's play, boy. All right. So that concludes our lightning round. Mary, you're off the hook. You're off the hot seat. Relax, buddy. You're fine. You made it through. But not a single timer hit five seconds. All right.
00:53:49
Speaker
All right, so now before we move to our after show, I just want to thank our new patrons this week, Metro Sauper. And then second is Waffle Beaver. Oh, yeah. Good old Waffle Beaver. And finally, that's a good one. Derek, man. So many layers and textures on that one. We're not going to go there. Derek?
00:54:17
Speaker
Not till the after show We appreciate the three of you joining our our patreon in the last since the last show I know we're a few weeks delayed but Make no mistakes. Our our appreciation is not delayed. It is now and current so With that
00:54:40
Speaker
We're going to transition to the aftershow, which you can be part of if you're a patron.
Aftershow Topic: Alternative Content Creation
00:54:48
Speaker
And we decided today that we would let Keith decide what we discuss in the aftershow. Keith, please do the honors. Now this question was posed to me and I thought it was very good because the answers could be very different between all of us.
00:55:05
Speaker
If you could no longer make woodworking content, but still had to be a content creator as a full-time job, what would you focus on? Is OnlyFans on the table? It's probably under the table. I thought you already did that though. It can't be your name. Ah, damn it. All right, all right. There's always room for a second channel.
00:55:32
Speaker
On that note, thank you, Eric. You're very welcome. We're at the 55 minute mark. We will conclude our episode today on finding your own artistic voice. I want to thank you, Keith. You're very sincerely. The three of us absolutely adore you. We love you. We think you're an amazing maker. Eric?
00:56:02
Speaker
Right exactly we're man here It does not matter
00:56:14
Speaker
I thought you were a tough love father. I am, but you know what? At the end of the day, people have to know how you feel about them, Eric, you little bitch. I tell things all the time I love them. I'm not going to talk about them. Yeah, you want me to show you my DMs from Eric? Yeah. Yeah. You know how many big pics are in those fucking kids? My wife loves them, so keep them coming. Okay. Okay. No, no, no, no. That's... Yeah.
00:56:43
Speaker
Off the rails. Okay. On that note, thank you, Keith. Seriously, thank you for exploring this topic with us. We enjoyed having your voice in the group and we look forward to seeing how your journey develops moving forward because all three of us are definitely invested in you as a person and as a woodworker and designer. So with that. Thank you.
00:57:08
Speaker
I will say hi, everyone. Oh, yeah, you were very welcome. Later, everyone.