You And I Make A Thing

Thomas Beutel
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Tune into You And I Make A Thing, where host Thomas Beutel and a guest make something they have never made before. Each episode starts with Thomas and his guest hashing out what they’ll create—be it a collaboration or each working solo toward the same artistic goal. In the latter half, they reflect on their experience of trying something new and conquering the unknown. Experience the power of starting from scratch, overcoming self-doubt, and embarking on a new creative journey. You can reach Thomas on Instagram at @beutelevision.

Episodes

  1. Audio Collages with Teri Karl

    01/01/2025

    Audio Collages with Teri Karl

    In this episode, I'm joined by my friend and fellow creative explorer Terry Karl, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at this year's Everything Conference in Minneapolis. The conference is a wild, vibrant gathering of multipotentialites. It's people who thrive on exploring their many passions and pursuits. It's also a place where curiosity takes the lead and unexpected connections spark new ideas. For today's episode, Terry and I are creating audio collages, something that neither of us have tried before. And just like at the conference, we're embracing the unknown by figuring out what to make in the first half of this podcast. We'll brainstorm, compare ideas, and then settle on the one that excites us the most. From there, it's all about pushing ourselves creatively and getting past our inner critic. Stick around for the second half of the podcast where we share our experiences and discuss the roadblocks we encountered along the way. You'll be delighted to hear what we came up with. I hope you enjoy joining us on this journey and getting a taste of what it's like to dive headfirst into creating something completely new.   Links   TK n Earl RV Life YouTube channel by Teri and Brian Sony ICD-PX470 Stereo Digital Voice Recorder * Audacity Audio Editing App Tutorial on editing sound in GarageBand Everything Conference   *Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them

    58 min
  2. Laffing Sal Marionette with Alison Cowell

    03/19/2024

    Laffing Sal Marionette with Alison Cowell

    Are you old enough to remember Laffing Sal at Playland? In this episode, my guest Alison and I set out to make a marionette based on Laffing Sal, and it was something that neither of us had ever done before.   Photos     Links mentioned in this episode   alisoncowellish Alison's Instagram Josh Bayer website Inking class online with Josh Bayer Musée Mécanique in San Francisco Playland at the Beach Wikipedia page Laffing Sal Wikipedia page The Lonely Goatherd marionette show in The Sound Of Music Altoid boxes into wallets YouTube video Barbapapas YouTube video Boudica Wikipedia page Sculpey Amazon link The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin Jonni Good website Jonni Good YouTube video Many Faces of Laffing Sal website by M. Winslow Playland at the Beach website by M. Winslow Tillie’s Punctured Romance Wikipedia page Pseudobulbar affect Wikipedia page Some of the above links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them   Transcript Thomas: Welcome to You And I Make a Thing. Joining us in this episode is the multi-talented Alison Cowell, a passionate urban sketcher, zine maker, and sometimes spooky storyteller. A familiar face at local zine fests, Alice is deeply immersed in the art community, constantly exploring and sharing her passion with others. Alison’s work has graced several local galleries, and her unique art style is a blend of mediums, including ink, watercolor, and colored pencils, each adding a distinct texture and depth to her creations. Alison’s ability to transform ordinary scenes into extraordinary pieces of art is truly remarkable. And you can find her on Instagram at alisoncowellish. Welcome to the podcast, Alison. Alison: Thank you, Tom. Thomas: Alison, before we get started on our You And I Make A Thing quest, I'm curious to know if you are working on a creative project at the moment, or you're looking forward to working on one? Alison: I am. So right now I have a few projects going on. So my main medium is comics and I’m taking an inking class online, with an artist. A comic artist. His name is Josh Bayer. And so I'm doing some projects for that class, but they're also sort of my projects and they're really like short format comics, where when I'm working on comics, it's usually I'm doing a story about something that's, kind of an idea that's really kind of out there and wacky. Thomas: I like that. Alison: And possibly also slightly tragic. One of the more wacky ones is I sort of have this idea about failed businesses, and that's something that amuses me. And one of the ideas I came up with was, what if you didn't have enough gravy in a meal, and do you remember those old Fotomat drive throughs where you could drop off your film? Thomas: I remember. Alison: So what if there was something like that where you could drive up with your plate and get gravy and it was called Gravymat? So I usually do things that are sort of like these ideas that are a little out there with made up characters, you know, just sort of like these wacky little characters that I create, but I'm doing some more personal stories in this class as well. And all this work I'm applying the different techniques that Josh Bayer, this teacher is breaking down for us. Then the other project that I have that is really a little bit of a rabbit hole and you can really kind of spend hours and hours and hours is like, I bought myself a button maker, and I collect paper ephemera, vintage paper, vintage books. If I see people have cleaned out their kitchen and put all of their old weird pamphlets from, you know, different companies and whatnot from the 60s and 70s, the 50s, those are priceless. and I love the way paper ages. Like it has this yellowishness to it. Thomas: Mm hmm. Alison: Really beautiful. It's so hard to buy paper like I've bought paper like that. It's hard to find in a sketchbook. It's usually really expensive. But anyway, so I have been making buttons out of vintage ephemera and weird, like old comics. And I feel bad I'm cutting things up, right? But, in a way, I guess like I'm giving it new life. And I'm trying to think of ways to display buttons, you know, people put them on their backpacks and whatnot, but I'm trying to find different ways to present them as sort of like assemblages, like an assemblage of buttons, like on a tote bag or something. Thomas: Now these buttons, they're the type with the pin on the back? Alison: Correct. Thomas: Okay. Got it. Alison: It's infinitely fun. It's just such instant gratification. I highly recommend a button machine. Thomas: Well, that's great. Wow. You are doing quite a bit then. With the, exploration of doing comics and stories and buttons. That's fabulous. Alison: Never enough time, but always trying to, you know, I need that creative outlet. How about you? What are you working on? Thomas: Well, I, of course, this podcast, I'm having a lot of fun with this podcast. I'm also right now working and learning block printing. Alison: Whoa, that is like, okay… disclaimer, that was one of the things on my list, so I'm so sorry. Thomas: That's all right. We can go there. You know, there's so much to learn. For me, I jumped right away into two color prints. That means that you have to have it registered, and a lot of my prints are not registering quite right, and it gives it kind of a little funky look to it, but I'm learning, I'm really, having a lot of fun with it. There's just something really, really tactile about creating a design. Like this latest one I actually created in Procreate on my iPad, and then I printed it out on a laser printer and then I transferred it to the linoleum with acetone. Alison: Okay. Thomas: Because acetone will loosen all that laser printer ink. Alison: Oh, Thomas: And then it's carving and then you spend half a day just, you know, making all these cuts and then the tool goes too far and it's like, “Oh, I wish I didn't do that,” you know, all that. So it's a very tactile medium. But I'm having a great time with that. Alison: Wow. Love the look of linocuts and wood cuts. That's so cool. Thomas: Well, you already mentioned something from your list, but why don't we do this? I know that I've asked you to come up with three things that you might want to do that you haven't done before, and I've come up with three things as well, so why don't we bounce back and forth, and Allison, why don't you go first? Tell me what you have in mind. Mm Alison: Okay. Well, one of the things that was inspired by this is an idea that I've had but it was further inspired by on Thanksgiving Day, I was down by the wharf. I never go down to Fisherman's Wharf, but I happened to be down there because I was meeting a friend for dinner at North Beach. And so I was bumbling around, you know, killing time and I stumbled into the Musée Mécanique. Have you been there? Thomas: Oh, yes, definitely. Ha ha ha. Alison: Gotta be like the one of my favorite places on earth is just. So incredibly strange and just a way to travel back in time to all of those weird carnival amusement park games from, oh, well, you know, they look like they're from the 50s, 40s. Thomas: And even earlier. Alison: Really? Okay. And the encasements for them is just like this gorgeous furniture, you know? And I've always had this idea about, I love the idea of merchandising, but I get really tired of the way that art in our culture, you know, we have these icons of things that get merchandised, right? Like Disney, Pixar, and it's all so formulated and whatnot. But like, I was kind of toying with the idea of a fictitious amusement park. Thomas: Ooh! Alison: What if you come up with a fictitious amusement park? And then the fictitious characters for it, and then ideas for, I guess not necessarily merchandising, like t-shirts or whatnot, but it is kind of like a funny way to think about it, like… Thomas: Posters? Alison: Posters, I guess like figurines, dolls, coffee mugs, whatever, but like not that we would actually make the actual thing. I mean, I guess we could, but I was just thinking of like, the way these characters get pushed on kids through like cereal and toys and things like that. Thomas: So you're thinking more of design, basically coming up with a whole like a design catalog or a design portfolio. Alison: Not like a whole, I guess that, that seems really like so much more than I think I would have the bandwidth for, but maybe even like, I was thinking like two or three characters… Thomas: Okay. Alison: …from an amusement park. You know, have a name for the amusement park, a couple of the characters and some of the, I guess, design for it. Yes. Thomas: That sounds fascinating. And that's, I love that because it's very collaborative too. It's like, okay, let's get together and think about first of all, what is this amusement park about? Alison: Right, right. Thomas: I'm going to ask if you have given any thought to Playland at the Beach as a prototype? Alison: That would be amazing. I love all of Playland, you know, all of the design around the characters and it's just so much like sort of a creepy strangeness to a lot of the place. Thomas: It was. Alison: Which I think is just so fascinating. And I just missed, I kind of missed that. I mean, it scared me as a child. I'm sure that Sal the… what was her name? Sal, the… Thomas: Laffing Sal. Alison: Laffing Sal. She's obviously terrified, you know, the sign says terrified children for decades, but like, it's just so funny. Thomas: Well Alison I think this is a wonderful idea and it actually is a great segue into one of my ideas. Alison: Okay. Thomas: And it actually is about Laffing Sal. Alison: What? Thomas: Yes. I was thinking what if we designed a Laffing Sal marionette? Alison: What the hell? That would be amazing. Thomas: You know, I've never made a marionette before, but I've seen them and I've held them. And, t

    52 min
  3. Embellished Photography with Carissa and Aaron

    02/18/2024

    Embellished Photography with Carissa and Aaron

    In this episode, I've invited my good friend Carissa to take the reins as guest host. She's brought along her friend, Aaron to embark on a fresh creative project, making something that neither of them has made before.   Links mentioned in this episode Aaron Chen’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/journomadic/ Carissa Ferdinand’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3cloudsstudio/ Air and Space Forces Magazine Minot State University Athletics Minot Daily News Carissa's Mad Hatter Carissa’s Cloud Guy Oklahoma City Asian district Textile artist Victoria Villasana Lao Gan Ma chili sauce KattGrass Studios Homestead Center for the Arts   Photos Carissa's embellished print, photo by Aaron Chen Aaron's embellished print, photo by Carissa Ferdinand     Transcript Carissa: Hi everyone, this is Carissa from Three Cloud Studios, formerly Koi the Creatrix, here with Aaron Chen on You and I Make a Thing Hi, Aaron. How are you? Aaron: Good, good. How are you, Carissa? Carissa: Good. Thank you so much for asking. Aaron is a passionate and accomplished traveler, lifestyle, and commercial content creator. He's known for crafting compelling visual stories that resonate with his audience and best reflect his clients’ values. Some of his work has been featured in publications such as Air and Space Forces Magazine, Minot State University Athletics newsletter, Reveille Music Publishing, and Minot Daily News. Aaron: That's a good intro! Carissa: Yeah. Okay. I wanted to keep it brief. Does that sound okay with you? Aaron: Yeah. That was awesome. Carissa: Thank you! So Aaron, I know that you have been on this bit of cross country photography experience. What have been some of the most memorable stops that you've made along your journey? Aaron: Yeah, thanks for asking that. It's interesting because the cross-country journey kind of ended up when I visited you guys. You guys are at the tip of Florida and that was the end of the journey there. Carissa: Yeah, so you went all the way from North Dakota down to the very end of Florida. Aaron: Yes. So North Dakota is where my journey started. And so same thing kind of as you, you know, North Dakota is kind of like our artistic, big breakthrough era. And I know we supported each other a lot in North Dakota. So I was very excited to go see you in Florida. Carissa: Yeah, in my hometown in like my natural setting here. Aaron: Yeah. Carissa: And Aaron was kind enough, he has done a couple photo shoots for various products that I have created, t-shirts and the like. He also was kind enough to stop by and take photos of my first art exhibit last year. And so I was incredibly grateful. And of course, the photos come out absolutely amazing every single time. Aaron: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Carissa: So any plans moving forward on your adventures? Aaron: Yeah. I have Hawaii coming up pretty soon, and then after that with Japan, and pretty much my plan is to travel all across Asia, capturing stories of people and culture, and then bring them back to the American audience. Carissa: Oh, I'm so excited hearing that. And I think that actually ties into one of the projects that I want to talk about here today. So leading up to this meeting, I've asked you to come with three ideas. I myself have come up with three ideas of projects that we can work on. We come from very different media backgrounds. And so I'm really curious to see where this goes and to see what we can come up with. T The idea is that we find a project that's a little bit anxiety inducing and maybe one that's feasible to accomplish within a month. So, typically what we do is a bit of a back and forth. You share one, I share one idea here. Would you like to start or would you like me to? Aaron: I think you can start. I'm very excited to hear what you come up with. I think you always have amazing ideas and it inspired me to keep spiraling and come up with more ideas. Carissa: Oh, yay! Okay. So as I mentioned, your upcoming journey throughout Asia reminded me of a project idea that I have here when we first started kind of arranging this meeting. It was right after New Year's. And so thinking about some of our past conversations, I thought about how important culture has been to the both of us. And I was interested in doing a project about the Lunar New Year, the Chinese New Year, because outside of calling it the Chinese New Year and knowing the animal associated with my year of birth, I really don't know much about the Lunar New Year. And so I thought it was a great opportunity to learn a bit more and to celebrate something that I know is important to you. Aaron: Yeah. I really appreciate that. That sounds really cool. Okay. Carissa: Well, go ahead. What is one of the ideas that you came up with? Aaron: So pretty much I just wanted to see which direction I wanted to take it in. Like I have kind of the Asian culture direction. Or even like a mental health direction. Or we can do a combination of both. But I really like one of your works which is the Mad Hatter. I really like that one. So I'm just thinking maybe we can combine the Asian culture and mental health awareness, into something like that. Either a portrait or a landscape and then add your elements into it, just like the Mad Hatter where it's kind of like a mixed media combined. Carissa: Okay. I like this idea. So some sort of portrait. And I've never done a portrait kind of thing before. But that way we get an opportunity to combine both of our strengths into a collaborative piece that would be new for the both of us. I like it. Aaron: And I feel like if we can add Lunar New Year elements into it, that would be really cool too. So maybe we can brainstorm in that direction. Carissa: All right. Well, let's keep going with the ideas here. Now I will say this next one is a bit off track from the ideas we've just shared here in that I was thinking of something like a lookbook, some sort of portfolio that was maybe a little bit more interactive. Something that I could hand to a potential customer, somebody interested in stopping by and looking at my art. Something a little bit more interactive than a gallery on my website and you know, probably similar to ones that you've had. And so I was thinking of something like a zine, a lookbook. And I actually have been dying to make a retro viewer with past work. Do you know what those are? Aaron: No, I'm gonna look it up. Carissa: It's really cool. So it's an object where there are like two eye holes. You hold it up and there's a switch on the side where you can flip through a collection of like six or eight images. It's a bit old school and so I really like that element. It brings back like nineties vibes. I'm obsessed with them and I thought that would be a really cool way to narrow down six or eight images of our work, make it interactive. And just a fun project that I've really been dying to do. Aaron: Yeah, that's so cool. I actually looked it up. I think I used to have that when I was a little kid. Carissa: I think I had one too. Aaron:  So on the content the inside of the retro viewer, what would you want them to be? Maybe something that's reminiscent or anything? What do you have in mind? Carissa: I found a site where you can choose and upload the images that you would want to see when you look through it. And then you can actually design the slide that goes into the retro viewer to represent whatever images are on there. And so I think that would be something that we could totally nail down, as far as what the collection might look like. When I've thought about this just in terms for myself, I've thought of one slide just being collage, one slide being just, maybe fabric or textile arts that I've made, fiber arts. So Cloud Guy and the tapestries and things like that. So, I think we would be able to really customize it into whatever applies to us. Individually, something that we can both take away as a demonstration of our skills. Aaron: Okay, awesome. I like that. Yeah, I like that idea of like a physical gallery that people can interact. Carissa: Yeah, exactly. Okay. So what was your next one? Aaron: I talked about a photography one earlier. So maybe this one, I was thinking more of videography. I know that way like we can integrate the mixed media elements into the videography. So it's going to be more of like kind of an animated video thing, if that's it. And I was thinking about the Asian culture side in Oklahoma City. I know there is this Asian district, which is not too big. I think they're trying to expand but it's a really good hub for the Asian community here. There's a ton of Asian restaurants and things that empower Asian businesses. So I was thinking the next project might be a video project, a YouTube project. But then in each of the places, let's say exploring the Asian district or something like that. And then each of the places, we would add in your mixed media elements and show an overview drone shot of the district, and we'll output your mixed media in different businesses. Yeah, I'm not really sure, but that's just an idea. Carissa: I like the video element because it's something that I have never tried before. And it's something that makes me a little bit nervous because I am so unexperienced with videography and the like, so I do like incorporating an element of that. And it sounds like this area of town is a space that maybe you haven't ever explored before? Aaron: Just a little bit. I mainly do some shopping and talk to some people over there. It's just some businesses. The reason I said the Asian district here is because it's accessible. Carissa: Yeah. Okay. Aaron: But we can do other video projects too, even if it's like a series of short reels. It doesn't have to be like a long video. Carissa: All right. So let's see. The next one that I have is kind of based on this one artist. I might have sent you her stuff befo

    41 min
  4. Tunnel Books with Mel Anie

    12/11/2023

    Tunnel Books with Mel Anie

    Have you ever seen a tunnel book? I hadn't either, so in this episode my guest Mel Anie and I set out to create one. Listen in to hear how we did. Links Mentioned How to Make Raspberry Jam by Mel Anie Mel Anie's Instagram: @tumblingfumbling The B0ardside Stoke Fest Laura Quinn Bending the glass with a tea light YouTube by Laura Quinn Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms by Alisa Golden Some of the above are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission   Photos of Tunnel Books Mel's Book   Thomas' book           Transcript   Thomas: My guest today is Melanie. Mel is an artist and author living in the UK. She's active in the mail art community and runs the Society of Letters. Her correspondents are from all over the globe. Mel has also published Five Foot Story House's debut book called How to Make Raspberry Jam, a lyrical journey of anguish and joy. You may reach her on Instagram @tumblingfumbling. Hello, Mel. Welcome to the podcast. Mel: Hi, Thomas. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so excited to do this with you. Thomas: Oh, I'm excited too. This is wonderful. Before we get started on our ideas for You and I Make a Thing, I'm curious, do you have a current art project that you're working on or something that you're excited about? Mel: Well, I think at the moment I'm focusing on writing my big piece. That's like the core, most constant aspect of my creative practice. I've been working on something for about two years and now it's starting to take shape, but I have lots of little side projects. which a lot of those are participative. So for example, mail art correspondence in the past has been a big part of that. Yes, like you pointed out, it's mostly international. Whatever my project is, it's usually conversations. So at the moment there's a walking project going on. I do a lot of walking and I've started up a small online salon, but that's a really new thing. We've only done that once. And then sometimes these side projects, they turn into bigger things, more ongoing things. And I'm also joining a poetry writing group this month. But I've never really intentionally written to a form, so I don't think I've actually properly ever written poetry, so that will be a whole challenge for me. So yeah, those are some of the things I'm doing. Thomas: You are busy. Mel: How about you? Thomas: Well, I participate in a local art collective called The B0ardside. And we hold backyard art shows with music and whatnot. But there's gonna be a local community festival here in the neighborhood called Stoke Fest. And The B0ardside are going to have a booth at that festival. And I'm going to be leading some sort of do it yourself activity. Stoke Fest is all about surfing and the ocean and whatnot, so I'm kind of thinking of doing something with surfboards and surfers and like a little kinetic art project or something like that. So, you know, bring a bunch of materials and then invite people to build little kinetic art pieces with me. So that's, that's what I'm focused on right now. That's coming up on November 11th. And… Mel: I wish I was closer. Thomas: …you know, whenever there's a date coming up, it's always sooner than you think it is. Mel: Yes. Thomas: So, I'll be focused on that here pretty quickly. Mel: Yeah, that sounds good. You've sent me some of the B0ardside zines in the past. They're really neat. Thomas: Yeah, I enjoy contributing to them. Thank you for asking. Mel: You're welcome. It's always nice to know what people are doing. Thomas: Mel, I ask you to come up with three ideas of things that you might want to do that you've never done before, and I've done the same. How about we talk about them. Do you want to tell me what one of the things might be? Mel: Okay, yes. So one of the things I was thinking of is making some sort of food art assemblage. So they are maybe something like a croquembouche, which is an assemblage of profiteroles. Thomas: Right, right. Mel: Some kind of assembled piece of decorative confectionary in the sculptural form, or some sort of dish that is given to you between courses, something that entertains and also serves as a conversation piece. Thomas: Wow, I've never even considered making food as art. I mean, people do it all the time, I know that, but I've never thought about doing it myself. That's a wonderful idea, that's so out of left field for me. Mel: Ha Thomas: I'm loving it, it's like, make a croquembouche, and each little thing might be a different color or a different shape or something. Mel: You could do so much. I mean croquembouche has been on my bucket list as such for quite a few years. I don't make food art or anything like that. I'm not a baker. I have made profiteroles many, many, many years ago. But yeah, so that's something that I really like to do. And for me, I thought I would like to be able to finish something in a short time frame. You were talking about a month, and so I was thinking, let's see if I can come up with an idea that has a clear end point. Yeah, so that was my first idea. What's yours? Thomas: I was going in the direction of writing, and what I was thinking of is to create some form of kinetic poetry. Maybe something where you unfold to see the words, or you rotate something to reveal different meanings. Or maybe even something where you're pulling on threads, like literal threads, that then do something to this, whatever it is, it's on paper or cardboard or cardstock or whatever, and you pull it and it opens up something. This is not a very well-formed idea. All that I know is that I was thinking of like, how can we explore poetry in a kinetic form? Mel: That sounds great. Thomas: Yeah, so that was my first, idea. Mel: I like that idea. Okay, so my second idea was glass bending and writing. During lockdown, there was an artist called Laura Quinn and she basically makes art pieces using glass. But because people were in lockdown, she decided to come up with things to keep her students occupied so they could work with glass at home. And so she basically bends the glass with a tea light. And at that time she was making a project where you made words with them. So you were writing with bent glass really. But you know, you could do all sorts of things like that. Also it's something I want to do so I bought these glass tubes, so I have some glass tubes already. Thomas: Okay. Mel: So that again is like a rough kind of starting point, it's a particular technique. But that might link to your kind of kinetic poetry. Thomas: Actually, Mel, that's a lovely idea. I've always wanted to play with glass. And melting glass. Mel: Aha! Thomas: But, I think we're on the same wavelength here, because my second idea is very similar. It's basically word shadows. Mel: Okay. Thomas: I was thinking of like using some sort of cell material like the things that you get on report covers, they're transparent. But then building it into maybe a pyramid or cube or some shape, and then having words on there that then cast a shadow onto maybe other words that are on a piece of paper. I'm imagining some structure that's transparent with words on it and then as the sun shines on it, casts these words onto some other platform. Mel: I'm making notes while you're speaking. Thomas: I'm also trying to make mental notes because again it's not a particularly well-formed idea. Mel: No, I'm trying to picture that, but I'm getting it. Thomas: It’s sort of synergetic with what you're saying with bending glass to make words of some sort. Mel: It also fits in with my first idea of making, some sort of sculpture, a tower, because the picture I've got in my head of what you're talking about, word shadows, is you would be building something like a tower of some sort. Thomas: Yeah, yeah, it would. Mel: Am I right? Yeah. Thomas: It would definitely be a three dimensional object, because the light has to shine through the side, or through the wall, or whatever, and then cast a word shadow onto something else. It might be an image, or it might be another set of words, and as this shadow goes on it, it might change the meaning of what's on the surface that is being cast to. I love this idea of words as an actor, as something animated that modifies the space around it. Mel: Okay. But a visual word, rather than a spoken word. Thomas: Correct. A word that you read. Yeah. Mel: Text, I suppose. Thomas: What's your third idea? Mel: My third idea was a tunnel book, making a tunnel book, which is a bit like a tunnel theatre. I think it's basically an accordion sort of thing, but then it's got different layers, and so you can look down through it, like a tunnel, you know. I suppose it's not like a pop-up book, but it's sort of similar. And again, it's a 3D thing. It's interesting, me and you, the things we're talking about, I think every single one of them is probably 3D in some form or another. Thomas: It is, yeah. Mel: Yeah, so I'm saying a, a tunnel book, because I've never made one. I have, I have some books that have instructions on how to do them, and there are probably plenty of videos online on how to follow them. Thomas: So is a tunnel book, is it something that you hold in your hand, or is it something that you look at as it's just sitting somewhere? Mel: Well, you could do both with it, I suppose, depending on its dimensions. It would sit in your hand, yeah, it would if it was small enough. Do you want me to send you a picture of it? Thomas: Yeah, yeah, we can do this after and send some pictures back and forth. I've never heard of a tunnel book before. Mel: Ah, Thomas: It’s a very, very intriguing idea. I'm picturing in my mind something I saw in a museum once, where it was like a book with pages. But it was almost like Swiss cheese, you know, it's sitting there, and depending on which angle you looked at it, you saw different things, you saw people's

    50 min
  5. Mini Zines with Koi The Creatrix

    11/27/2023

    Mini Zines with Koi The Creatrix

    In this episode I collaborate with artist Koi The Creatrix to make mini zines. The challenges we faced included our zines going missing in the mail for extended periods of time.   Links @koithecreatrix on Instagram Koi’s monthly Postcard Club @katcurio on instagram @brattyxbre on youtube @brattyxbre: Your Zine Sucks (And That's Okay) PythagoraSwitch Hedy Lamarr biography Emilie Wapnick’s TED Talk on multipotentiality B0ardside Art Collective When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön Some of these links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them.   Mini Zine: "Who Am I?" Mini Zine: Ren Soul     Transcript Thomas: My guest today is Koi the Creatrix. Koi is a mixed media artist who identifies as Japanese American and Queer. In her art, Koi engages in sociopolitical discourse. She enjoys using bright colors and bold patterns, invoking pop art vibes. Her exploration of emotional themes, coupled with her seemingly chaotic displays, offer a deeply personal feel. And her Instagram handle is @koithecreatrix. Welcome to the podcast, Koi. Koi: Hi, thank you so much for having me, Thomas. Thomas: Before we get started, I wanted to ask you, you just finished a solo exhibition. It was at the Taube Museum of Art in Minot, North Dakota, is that right? Koi: The Taube Museum, yeah. Thomas: The Taube Museum, thank you. Tell me how that went and also how you felt about it. Koi: You know, it was absolutely nerve wracking leading up to it as I think all events that I participate in tend to be, a lot of nerves and getting everything prepared and making it a cohesive collection. One challenge I face as a mixed media artist is that pieces may not have like a single theme or even a single medium throughout all of the art. And so it was a challenge to keep some commonality between all of the work. But it went over really well. I heard from the museum director that they received a ton of positive feedback, and the Taube Museum, I have to say, is like my artistic home base. This is the first space that I felt an artistic community and support for my work, and really for the first time, saw myself considered as an artist to someone outside of my family, you know. Thomas: Oh, that's wonderful. Isn't that a wonderful feeling when that happens? Koi: It was fantastic. And so I have very deep ties to the folks there. Thomas: I want to follow up on that. Did you have trouble saying the A word? Meaning artist? Koi: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely! Oftentimes I don't consider myself an artist, more of a creative. And I really resonate with… I'm racking my brain trying to remember the term, the people who are really into a lot of different activities. I know you identify closely with it as well. Thomas: Multipotentialite. Koi: Yeah. Thomas: Yeah. Koi: I think as a multipotentialite, I can enjoy many different activities and there's never really a sense of sticking with anything for too long or developing what I would consider, perhaps incorrectly, as expertise. And so there is definitely that imposter syndrome leading up to it. And even now, even after the show I'm like, “Was it good? Were they just saying that?” Thomas: Yeah, another term that I like to use for multipotentialite is Renaissance Soul. And it actually was considered a good thing in the Renaissance to have many different interests and try many different things. So in some ways, this idea of niching down or specializing is more of a recent phenomenon in our culture. So I've come to the conclusion that, at least for me, there's nothing wrong with dabbling here and tinkering there and trying this new and trying that new. And in fact, part of the reason that I'm doing this podcast You And With Make A Thing is for that exact reason, I like to try new things. I like to do something that I've never done before because it feeds our curiosity and it feeds learning and it just feels wonderful. Koi: It really does. I love learning new things. At times get frustrated with it. Absolutely, but it is so enjoyable. I tend to not like doing the same thing over and over and really do like some sort of variety. Thomas: Well, I think that's a great segue into jumping right into what we want to do. And I know that I had asked you to come up with three things that you might like to do, and I've also come up with three things. And, I was thinking we could do it one of two ways. We could either bounce back and forth, you say a thing, I say a thing. Or, we could just say the three things, you know, you could say your three things, I could say my three things, and then have a discussion. Do you have a preference? Koi: I think I like the back and forth. Thomas: Let's do the back and forth. Koi: Yeah. Yeah. Thomas: Do you want to start or do you want me to start? Koi: I am happy to go first. Thomas: Okay. Yeah, what do you have? Koi: So the first thing I came up with was a mini zine. And actually this idea comes from another artist who I've been seeing on Instagram. She's been sharing all of these how-to's about her zine making process, Thomas: Oh. Koi: It's been something I've wanted to do. And then every time I look at it, it looks so blank. I don't know where to start. And I had the idea that in the spirit of collaboration and in this show, we could possibly work on it together in a way that we could mail it back and forth via snail mail, possibly. Thomas: Yeah. I like that. Koi: Yeah and incorporate that as part of the art. I tend to like handwritten letters and postcards and  I thought it could be really a cool way to create together from so far away. Thomas: I think that's a fabulous idea. I like that. Koi: Yeah. Thomas: I have not done my own zines. It's actually been on my list. Now I have participated in, I've contributed to zines, but those were always like single articles or a picture or something like that. But actually creating a zine, I like that idea, that's fantastic. Koi: Yeah, yeah, it's one of those things that it looks simple in theory and creating it is not too hard at all. I just find all the white space very intimidating. I'm not sure where to go next. Thomas: Yeah, well I hear you on that. Koi: Yeah. Thomas: Alright, that's a great idea. Alright, let's go on to one of mine. I've always been fascinated by Rube Goldberg machines. You know, these things where you put dominoes and marbles do this, and then this flips, and that starts. And I was thinking about the collages you do, and it occurred to me that this is sort of like a collage in motion, Koi: Yeah. Thomas: And I've never done one before. I don't know, so the thing that I haven't come up with yet is like how this could be collaborative. You know, maybe we could prompt each other, we could say, find this item and incorporate it in the Rube Goldberg machine or something like that. So maybe that's how we could do it. But, anyway, that's sort of one of the things that was on my mind. Koi: That is so cool. I've seen all sorts of videos of those kinds of machines. They look so intricate and the idea kind of excites me hearing about it. I'm like, it sounds almost impossible on this end, especially having a pretty nosy cat who will be bound to knock things Thomas: Oh, Koi: Such a cool idea. Thomas: Alright. I'm curious have you watched PythagoraSwitch? Koi: No, I haven't. Where is it available? Thomas: NHK. It's on NHK. Koi: I’m not familiar. You said put dagger? Thomas: PythagoraSwitch. It's their name for Rube Goldberg machine, actually. They have this little thing called PythagoraSwitch Mini, which is like a five minute show. And they always introduce a show with a Rube Goldberg machine, and then they end the show with one. Koi: Oh, very cool. Yeah. I'm so glad that you mentioned this because I guess for context, my dad's side of the family is from Japan. I had lost contact with them for a significant amount of my life. And so much of the Japanese elements in my art is like re-exploring that. And so this sounds like such a cool thing. It's totally a rabbit hole. I'm going to get lost now. Thomas: Okay. Yeah. If you have a chance to go to YouTube and look up PythagoraSwitch. Koi: Oh yeah. I already have a browser pulled up. Thomas: Nice. Koi: Yeah. Thomas: Well, so speaking of that, I'm going to suggest my second one, which follows on the theme of Japan. There's this wonderful artist, his name is Iwasaki Tsuneo and he created these beautiful paintings all centered around the Heart Sutra. And the Heart Sutra basically says, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” the idea that nothing is separate from anything else. And the way he did his paintings, he took the words of the Sutra, the Japanese characters of the Sutra, and used them to form the thing that he was painting. So imagine he painted lightning bolts, and the lightning bolts were the characters of the Sutra. Or he painted the double helix of DNA, and the double helix was all the characters of the sutra. And he did beautiful paintings of the stars, and each star was a character of the Sutra. I mean, it's just an incredible way of meditating on the Sutra itself, because as he's painting each character individually, he would then sort of think about what that word meant in the whole thing. And his goal was also to sort of meld science with the Sutra. Koi: Yeah. Thomas: And so I was thinking that maybe we could come up with something that's similar. Now I don't write Japanese, I don't know the characters, but I was thinking maybe we could come up with something similar that is a meditation on maybe a poem or something, becomes a painting of some sort. Koi: Yeah. That sounds amazing. Like I think I was able to find some of his artwork here and it reminds me of another artist I came across recently who uses a typewriter for his paintings. Thomas: Oh, yeah. Koi: Have you seen that one? Thomas: I have not… well, I've seen things pop up on

    55 min
  6. Self Portraits with Michael Tarnoff

    09/13/2023

    Self Portraits with Michael Tarnoff

    In this episode I collaborate with artist Michael Tarnoff to make self-portraits inspired by Chuck Close.   Links O'Hanlon Center for the Arts Michael Tarnoff's Instagram Chuck Close Website Wikipedia Entry for Chuck Close Procreate for the iPad Interlude music: https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2017/13/1497796312321798   Michael's Self Portrait Thomas' Self Portrait Original Photos   Thomas: My guest today is Michael Tarnoff. Michael is a painter, a mixed media artist, as well as a photographer and all-around creative person. Welcome Michael. Michael: Thank you for having me Thomas. Thomas: Yeah, I'm glad to have you, Michael. I'm curious, before we get started, I'm want to know if there's some creative project that you've been working on or you're planning to work on right now? Michael: Well, you know with COVID, things changed for me artistically  as far as access to my painting space and such, and I've been doing more photography and small works. And right now, we're in the mountains in the Utah area and I've been fascinated with ice and snow and cold and what happens with nature with that. So I've been thinking about, in the back of my mind, a series of photographs and just thinking about them as a series of what nature does in the cold. Because I never really lived in the cold and witnessed it. Thomas: Right. Michael: There's just fascinating things like when the fog comes in and then the cold comes in. If there's just the right amount of humidity, ice crystals form everywhere and it looks, it's just, it's magic. So I'm just kind of keeping my eyes open for that and just being witness to the magic that nature creates. Thomas: Well that's great, that sounds like a real process of discovery. Michael: It is, it is. I love that you say that because where I got most of my art learning from, not so much teaching but learning I'll call it, was at O'Hanlan Center for the Arts in Mill Valley. And the founder Ann O'Hanlan, one of my favorite sayings of hers was, “Exploration comes first, discovery perhaps later.” Thomas: Ah. Michael: And it’s just, it's so true when it comes to art and life. So it's really, this really is a process of exploration and discovery, with, I mean the medium is nature and the cold and what, how it's so much different from the temperate Bay Area. Thomas: Right, right. Michael: Yeah. Thomas: And I've been following you on Instagram, and your photographs have been just brilliant. Michael: Thank you. Thomas: For my listeners, I'll put a link to Michael's Instagram in the show notes. Well, exploration I think is a good segue into what we're going to be doing today, which is You And I Make A Thing. And as you know, what my goal here is to come up with something that we can do together, either something that we do in parallel or something that we actually collaborate on. And Michael, prior to our conversation today, I've asked you to come up with three things that you might be interested in doing, and I've done the same. And what I was thinking of is that we'd just bounce back and forth with our ideas and then we'll see if we can coalesce on something that sounds like fun. How about that? Michael: That sounds great. Thomas: Why don't you start with something that's on your list. Michael: Okay. Let me preface it with saying that when you asked me to think of these things, it actually was harder than I thought it was going to be. And I couldn't because I'm just I'm so spontaneous with my art. I actually never think about what I want to do ahead of time and just sort of let the process flow with that in that moment. Thomas: Okay. Michael: I mean, I might know ahead of time I'm going to draw just because of, you know, whatever's happening. Thomas: Right. Michael: So this was, this was very different for me. So the first thing I thought of, and these were all things, at least a couple of 'em were things that I've always thought about, but I have never done. Thomas: Uh huh. Michael: The first one was doing encaustic painting. Which is painting with paint that is mixed with wax and it sort of creates, on like a panel, it creates this dreamy kind of thing. And I've never done it before. I don't know how to do it. and I don't even know if it's practical, but it was the very first thing I thought of because I've always wanted to try it. Thomas: So I do follow a number of artists and I've seen a number of encaustic paintings, and they are sort of dreamy. They're sort of lots of different colors flowing and mixing. And that's what you're talking about, right? Michael: Right. I mean, you can do realistic stuff. I'm not a realistic painter, but one could do that with encaustic painting. But it just sounds like so much fun. I it would be quite an exploration and discovery process. Thomas: So I'm curious, is the wax hot? Michael: Yes. Yes. Thomas: Oh, it's hot. Oh it's hot wax. Okay. Interesting. And then you're mixing maybe like oil paints or something? Michael: Yeah. I think, or acrylic. I don't, I actually have no idea. I think you can do acrylic, may have to wear a mask. Thomas: I would imagine. Yes. It sounds interesting. Michael: Yeah. Thomas: I mean, I love sort of dreamy and very colorful palettes and drawings and, they don't need to be realistic at all. I just, I don't know about you Michael, but I really respond to color a lot. Michael: Yeah, I'm a colorist. Yeah. Thomas: Yeah. All right, well let's bookmark that one and let's see where this goes. So on my list, I've been fascinated with assemblage. You know, like box assemblage, Joseph Cornell type. Michael: Mm. Thomas: And I've noticed that there are at least a couple artists out [00:06:00] there that are doing, I guess what they call small box assemblage. They'll take, these little boxes that your iPhone comes in, or even smaller, like little jewelry boxes and then using found art, they'll put an assemblage together. Michael: Oh, wonderful. Thomas: Yeah. Michael: I've dabbled in that a tiny bit, maybe one or two in my Saturday art class at the center over the 20 plus years that I was there. And it was fun. Thomas: It's an interesting process to use found art as opposed to, I guess the best way to put it is, is like starting with an idea. Michael: Correct. Thomas: It's that exploration thing really. It's like, okay, let's see what happens here. Michael: Mm-hmm. Oh, love it. Thomas: What's, what's next on your list? Michael: Okay. My next one is, I've never worked with Sculpey Clay. Thomas: Uh huh. Michael: I've felt it and played with it, but I've actually never [00:07:00] taken it, sculpted something out of it, baked it, and then painted it. Thomas: Oh. Michael: As simple as that sounds, I've never done it and I think it would really bring out my child, and my adult at the same time to kind of co-create something, again abstract. But, I even looked into like, can you buy bulk kind of uncolored sculpey and you can. So simple but kind of. Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I played with clay but I've never fired anything before or hardened it before. So that sounds interesting. And then, you know, and not painted it after. Michael: Right, and that's the beauty of Sculpey is that you can… I guess I maybe you might even be able to paint it beforehand, I don't know. But you harden it in the oven. So it's, you don't need a kiln to do it. Thomas: Right, exactly. I like that. All right,[00:08:00] well, my next one is not very well defined. The note that I have here is mail art collage. The idea is to combine the idea of mail art and collaging together. So it might be just a collage postcard, or something that we put in an envelope and then just send to each other Michael: Oh, that's fun. Thomas: Yeah. Maybe as almost like a call and response type of thing. Michael: Oh my goodness. Huh. You know, that I could envision doing it together where you start one and then you send it, partially completed. Thomas: Right. Michael: And then you respond and we go back and forth. Thomas: Uh huh Michael: Yeah. Thomas: Maybe like a little folded book where the pages are things that we fill in with collage. Or [00:09:00] like a zebra fold? Not no, what's the name? Where they, where you fold it? Accordion! Like an accordion fold. That's what I meant. Yeah. Michael: Right. Thomas: Oh, okay. Michael: Yeah. I don't know. It sounds like a neat idea. Thomas: Alright. What's the last one on your list? Michael: All right. Hopefully you know the artist, Chuck Close? Thomas: I don't, no. Tell me. Michael: He did self-portraits, huge self-portraits, and what he did was he narrowed down and magnified into little, he would make a little grid pattern. So maybe it would be a nine-foot by six-foot self-portrait. Right. But he would make grids that were maybe one inch by one inch, or two inch by two inch. And he would zoom in on the photograph and see what the swirl pattern or color pattern might look like. Thomas: Right. Michael: And he would paint that in each little box. And so he would, [00:10:00] he would abstract. Build this grid with swirls and colors, and then when you step back, it became a portrait. Thomas: Wow. Michael: Which was, I was always fascinated by it. And I thought that would be fun to do, like self-portraits of each other. Thomas: Yeah. Michael: And you know, obviously we're not going to do nine by seven feet, so maybe a nine by 12, or something that can be mailed easily. Thomas: Right, right. Michael: But you can get a small grid on a nine by 12 and just kind of zoom in on a photograph and instead of drawing, as though you're drawing a face, you just draw what's in that grid, the kind of the shapes and the colors as best you can, and then you move on to the next. And then you sort of end up with, you know, it's not always going to be this pretty image, which is kind of fun. Not all of his were either, he celebrated the ones that were kind of goofy looking too. Thomas: Ri

    44 min
  7. Ephemeral Art with Tara Bahna-James

    09/06/2023

    Ephemeral Art with Tara Bahna-James

    In this episode of You And I Make A Thing, my friend Tara and I decided to go into nature and create ephemeral art, something that both of us had never done before. It was quite an open-ended idea and we both struggled a bit before we found the inspiration to guide us. Join us as we discuss how it all unfolded.   Links mentioned in this podcast Tara’s SoundCloud album: My Favorite Things, Sacred and Secular Seasonal Music Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Issa Rae Teaches Creating Outside the Lines on Masterclass Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron Some of these links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them.   Photos The fallen cypress tree in Golden Gate Park   The fallen tree in Westchester NY near the reservoir     Transcript Thomas: My guest today is Tara Bahna-James. Hello, Tara. Tara: Hi, Thomas. Thomas: How's it going? Tara: Great. Great. Thanks so much. I'm happy to be here. Thomas: Yeah, I'm happy that you're here. Tara is a playwright, singer, and performer, educator and essayist. She's co-authored six musicals and her shows and songs have been performed at theaters and festivals across the United States. And [00:01:00] about a year ago, Tara released an album on SoundCloud called My Favorite Things, Sacred and Secular Seasonal Music. And I've listened to it and it's wonderful. It's so beautiful. You have a, you have a beautiful voice, Tara. Tara: Thank you. Thomas: Before we get started with You And I Make a Thing, I want to ask you, Tell us about a creative thing that you are making at the moment or something that you're planning to make soon. Tara:  So right now, I've been spending a lot of time outdoors recently, in all seasons just because, just before the pandemic began, I moved to sort of a more rural area than I was living before. And so there have been actually surprisingly, lots of opportunities to just sort of get out and hike and, so I've been thinking about trees a lot. So at present, a previous collaborator of mine, Jonathan Portera, who I've, worked with several times on musical season, brilliant composer. He and I have been talking for a long time about beginning a new [00:02:00] work together and we don't know a lot about it, but we know that we're both fascinated with the life cycles of trees and the connections of trees to fungi. Thomas: Mm-hmm. Tara: And so I exactly where that's gonna take us. But I think that's kind the direction that we're going in right now. Thomas: That's great. That's wonderful. I mean, there's, there's a lot there to study and research and talk about and create from. Trees are like us and they're also very different from us in some ways. And, you know, in the sense that their lifespans can be much, much longer than ours. And they have these, beautiful connections. You mentioned fungi and many trees have that symbiotic relationship with fungi. The fungi give them nourishment and the trees give the fungi nourishment in a different way in return. It's very [00:03:00] interesting. Tara: What I'm also, what I'm in particularly fascinated by is that, just like from what I said, from spending time outdoors more often, just the way that wilderness affords you simultaneously a real stillness and also company at the same time. And I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass right now for the first time and there's this beautiful quote that I just came across. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm not gonna get it right, I'm sure. But it was something about how the land recognizes you or knows you even when you don't necessarily recognize yourself. And immediately that resonated for me as something that I feel like I experience, even if I'm in a very new place. There's when I'm out hiking, if it's by myself or with dogs, I always, there's just this, this sort of sense of being recognized and not alone in the world. You know, even when in one's solitude. And that's [00:04:00] just, that's something that feels, um, it's funny, I wanna say it feels very songful to me. It feels very musical, but that's not quite what I'm getting at because it's actually the stillness and the quiet of those moments that I so love. But there's, there's something in there I guess, that speaks, that I want to give voice to that experience. So I think that's where that's coming from, that desire to write to that place. Thomas: A little bit of like validation of the self when you're with the trees, Tara: I dunno if it's the self, it's the family, I guess. Right? It's like the, yeah. The connection to all things. The mystic nature that poets love so much. So, yeah. Thomas: Well, wonderful. I'll be looking forward to seeing how that evolves, and I'm sure you'll let me know when you've manifested it. Tara: Yes. Thomas: Well, [00:05:00] Tara, I'm so excited to be doing this episode with you. And specifically the idea of You And I Make A Thing. And I have to admit, I have some butterflies at the moment, which of course is the whole point of this exercise is to get together with you, to collaborate with you on something and we don't know yet what it's gonna be. So, for those of you listening, Tara and I have not decided on something ahead of time. The point of what we're doing right now is to be in the moment and to improvise an idea. But I did, Tara, I did ask you to think of three things that you've thought about doing at some point and you haven't tried yet, and maybe it's something you might want to try. And I've also have three things that I came up with. And I was thinking that we could sort of bounce back and forth. You could say a thing, I could say a thing. And then, you know, once we have both of our three things said, then we can sort of, I guess just sit with it and say, [00:06:00] oh, you wanna try that? Tara: Sounds good. Thomas: Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? Tara:  I don't mind going first. I don't know if my ideas are meant to, well, I just, I felt a lot of freedom in the invitation, I'll just say that. Thomas: Yes. Tara: In terms of whether what I pick is thematic or about form or technology. so I just sort of riffed on that. I think my three are very different from one another. So the first. also inspired by the book I'm reading right now, was for us to make some kind of natural art existing in either time or space. And the ideas that we would create it as kind of a call and response. Like either outdoor art, and it could be temporary art. It could be the kind of thing that maybe we document with a photograph or something, but then it sort of gets washed away. Or perhaps a ritual that is, informed by our [00:07:00] distance. So the ideas behind this are basically the two ideas are, one, that it exists outside in some way. And two, that our working from so many miles apart collaboratively enhance the experience and the project rather than be you know, any kind of debility in creating what we're creating. So that it sort of informs the whole process. The fact that we're, we're doing this in two different times and places. Yeah. Thomas: I love that idea. I mean, there's already like sparkles going around my mind here. That's a fantastic idea. And we are on opposite coasts. I'm on the West Coast and you're on the East Coast. Tara: Right. This way. Thomas: And are, are you, are you close to the shore. Are you close to, to the Atlantic? There where you are? Tara: I'm not too close. I'm close enough. Certainly. It's about an hour's drive for me, I'd say. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Thomas: All right. I think [00:08:00] that actually sort of, ties into two of mine, believe it or not. Tara: Oh, great. Great. Thomas: So I've had this idea, so thank you for that. And let's bookmark that and let's see what shows up with these other ideas. So I have this thing that I've been thinking about wanting to do, and I call it skewer quotes. And in my imagination, what I do is I take an old typewriter. I actually have access to an old style typewriter. And type out a thought. Cut it out, paste it onto a skewer, you know, like one of those, things that you get Maraschino cherries in a cocktail, or a small skewer. And then go out to the dunes here at the beach and just plant it in the dunes for somebody else to find. Tara: Oh my. I love that. That's interesting. That does feel very close to what I thought, doesn't it? Thomas: Yeah. Tara: [00:09:00] So what do the skewers part come from? Is it just for a way so that you can sort of, so that they won't blow away basically, so that you can attach them to something? Thomas: Yeah, so you can stick 'em in the ground. Tara: Okay, got it. Thomas: So in my craft shop, my garage, with all these materials that I have, I have a lot of crafty items. And whenever I go to some of the local little tchotchke shops, we have a lot of Asian stores that sell teacups and bowls and, and strainers and you name it, right, for the kitchen. And it's all very inexpensive because it's just, hey, you know, this is for daily use. It's not fine China or anything like that. And in those shops, I'm always looking for things that I could repurpose for crafts. So in my craft box of tongue depressors and swizzle sticks and all that, [00:10:00] I have like bundles and bundles of skewers that, you know, normally would be in the kitchen, but they're here in in my craft studio and waiting to be used. So that's where the, skewer comes from. And I just thought skewer quote also has a ring to it. Like there is a little bit of tension when you say skewer. Tara: Mm-hmm. Thomas: Because you're poking something. Tara: That that, honestly, that's what strikes me too, and it sounds aggressive in that way, I guess. Or not aggressive, but you know what I mean, or something. I don't know. I guess I'm trying to find a way of interpreting that. But why? I'm not gonna look for ways to interpret anything. I'm gonna le

    52 min
  8. Spirit Dolls with Tina Hoff

    08/30/2023

    Spirit Dolls with Tina Hoff

    In this episode, I've invited my friend Tina to come up with a theme or project that we could do together. We decided to each make a Spirit Doll for our respective studio spaces. I hope you will enjoy hearing about our project as much as we did doing it.   Links mentioned in this podcast Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock They Might Be Giants Scrap SF Some of these links are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission from them.   Photos Tina's spirit doll Cosmos Thomas' spirit doll Perserverance        Part 1 Thomas: My guest today is Tina Hoff. Welcome to the podcast, Tina. Tina: Thanks, Thomas. It's good to be here. Thomas: I am happy that you're here. Tina is a creative writer, a poet and a playwright, and she practices art journaling. Tina recently introduced me to the concept of the six-word story. The idea is to find six words that can tell a complete story. It's harder than it sounds, but it's really quite fun. Tina, when I sent you this invitation to You And I Make A Thing you wrote back, "This sounds fun and I'm honored that you would ask. It also terrifies me, which is probably why I should try it." I'm wondering if you could elaborate what you mean by that, what you were feeling when you got the invitation? Tina: Well, I guess I should start off by saying I'm usually terrified by new things. So I'm an introvert and, stepping out of my comfort zone is not easy. But you know, you and I talk regularly, and talk about creativity and share things. And that's easy because it's one-on-one. But I don't really feel comfortable talking about all this as if I'm an artist, talking about my work outside of just close friends. And also I think, even that introduction you gave me, I think, “Am I all those things?” Because I definitely suffer from imposter syndrome, you know? And over the last, oh, however many years, however old my kids are, I haven't done a whole lot of those things. And so, although I really feel like that's who I am deep down, calling me those things is a little bit strange to me. I think also Thomas, knowing you, you've tried so many different things and I am sort of just a writer by nature and that's where I kind of stay. I stay in that lane and it's a very solitary thing. And you sit there and you write something out and then maybe you share it. And even though I've done playwriting with a playwrights group and we did have our scenes performed for an audience at two different festivals that we held, which is fun, but you know, I get actors to do that for me, right? And we talked a little bit afterwards, took audience questions, which was fine. You've tried so many different things. When you talked about us trying to come up with something that we could both try that we hadn't, I thought, wow, I could try almost anything and I haven't done it before. But coming up with something that maybe you have not done, would probably be difficult. Thomas: I think we're gonna come up with something. There are so many things I'd like to try, so, but thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. You mentioned, imposter syndrome and my gosh, I feel that all the time. And you know, part of doing this You And I Make A Thing and trying something that we've never done before, is really a part of trying to deal with that, right? At least the way I feel is, the more that I try new things, I still bump up against imposter syndrome every single time. But it becomes like a practice, or a dance I should say. So that's really why I'm trying to do this, is to dance well with my imposter, I guess is the way to put it. Tina: Well, I think that's what your invitation felt like to me. And also I think my imposter syndrome comes from a place where it comes from for a lot of people, which is, well, I only do it sporadically in little spurts. You know, it's not a daily practice, it's not a regular thing. I fight with myself about wanting to do it badly and not finding time or being afraid it's not going to be good when I finally sit down because I haven't made it a regular practice. So actually having this event between us happening gives me a reason to do it and a timeframe to do it in. So that's probably good. Thomas: Well, let's jump in and find a thing to make. Tina: All right. Sounds good. Thomas: So Tina and I have not decided on something of ahead of time, right? The point of what we're doing right now is to be in the moment and to improvise an idea. So I've asked Tina to come up with three things that she might like to do, and I also have a list here of three things. So let's jump right in, Tina.  Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? Tina: I'll go first. So again, because I'm a writer and it's just a solitary thing in your head that you put down on paper, I don't tend to do a lot with my hands or rely on my hands to make art. That's kind of why I think I took up art journaling. It's just kind of free up that part of myself and be like the little kids scribbling in the coloring book again. And not worry about whether my hands do the right thing. So, I thought maybe trying something that uses my hands. And I have seen this before when I've been surfing around, watching videos and it's making a spirit doll. Thomas: A spirit doll? Tina: Yes. So it's sort of a spiritual exercise, but a creative exercise too, where you go out in nature and you find maybe some branches or twigs. And that's where you start. And they could be from a tree that you have in your yard or a place that you go that's sacred to you. And basically you form them into the shape of a body. And then you start decorating and making a real, 3D body out of that. So it might be strips of fabric or anything else you might have lying around. And you build up the body and make it a body. You might add a face of some sort, which could be just a disk of some sort, like out of wood. Thomas: Mm-hmm. Tina: Some people make a clay face and paint it. Whatever it is, arms which might be other twigs or branches that you find. And then you can just decorate it with anything that feels right to you. And then it can become a symbolic sort of figure for yourself or for your spiritual path or whatever, whatever calls to you. And then it's something you can keep on, if you have an altar, something that you keep sacred things on, or maybe just on your art table to remind you that you are a creative spirit, and you're connected to all these things. Thomas: Wow. I love that. And you know, there's a part of me that's really smiling because I have bags of twigs in my garage here. Because I make trees for my model railroad. So I probably have a hundred candidate branches already in my garage for this. I've never heard of this before. This is actually really great. I can imagine it coming together. I mean, I know that my spirit doll would be totally wild. I'm just imagining wild colors and stuff like that. I love that. Tina: Yeah. Thomas: I love that. Tina: And of course it's unique to each person, so that'd be fun. No rules. Except what feels good? Thomas: Right, right. Tina: Yeah. Thomas: All right, well thank you for that. Let's bookmark that one, and let's bounce back and forth with our ideas. So I'm gonna, say one right now that I've been sort of thinking about for a while. Are you familiar with the Mayan hieroglyphs? Tina: No, I don't think I am. Thomas: So what's interesting about the Mayan hieroglyphs or the glyph system that they use is that they're sort of square and they have some sort of image in it, and they put them on these, they're called stelae. It's like these upright pillars or whatever that they write, they also have the books that they wrote in, on bark I believe. And what's unique about their writing system is that the hieroglyph can represent either a phoneme or an actual idea, concept, or a word. But when they were drawing it, they had a great amount of freedom in how to express a particular glyph. So for instance, let's say a glyph consisted of a mouth and an arm and a couple of eyes, right? And that meant something. Let's say that meant, I'm just picking a word, like “tree”. The writer had complete freedom in deciding where to put the eyes and where to put the arm and where to put the mouth. And this is what stumped people for the longest time, because they would see all these different glyphs and they all kind of looked different. But what they finally realized is that as long as the glyph had an arm and eyes and mouth, it didn't matter what position they were in, it was the same concept. It was the same word. The reason I mention all of this is because to me, there's something like beautiful about being able to take a word and have total freedom in the way you design it. So let's say you take the word, love, okay. L O V E, right? You could take the letters, L O V E and you can just put them in, different orders or different places within the square, but it would always mean the same thing. So I was thinking to come up with some sort of a word picture using glyphs. Sort of inspired by the Mayan glyphs, but using English words or English letters or something like that. It's not an entirely well-formed idea, but that would be something that we could work on and how to, flesh it out and, and make something with it. Tina: Yeah. That's interesting. It just reminds me of writers can write a whole page about loneliness, but there's different words on every page for every writer about what loneliness is. Thomas: Right, right. Tina: That's interesting. Thomas: Yeah. All right. what's your next idea? Tina: Well, I've always loved pop-up books, and I've never tried to make a pop-up spread. And it fascinates me. So I would love to sort of learn how those are put together. You know, obviously we couldn't do a whole book, Thomas. We would be here for a year, but maybe one spread just to try it out. Thomas: Cool. I ha

    50 min
  9. Introduction to You And I Make A Thing

    08/26/2023

    Introduction to You And I Make A Thing

    Hello and welcome to You And I Make A Thing. I'm your host, Thomas Beutel. In this first episode, I want to tell you a little bit about why I'm doing this podcast. You might already know me from the Creative Shoofly podcast. And you might be wondering why I’m starting another podcast? Well, I've been enjoying making the Creative Shoofly and in particular episodes where I've invited guests to talk about their creative process. I'm also a fan of improv. And I wondered if there was some way to be more improvisational with my guests. One day back in 2022, I had a spark of an idea. How about inviting my fellow artists to make something that neither of us have made before? That spark is how You And I Make A Thing was born. But it still had to figure some things out. How would we come up with the idea? Would there be prompts? When would we actually make the project? Would the episodes be split up between idea genesis and finishing the project, or would they be combined? After mulling over the idea for a few months, I decided to use the following format: I invite my guest, and before recording, I ask them to write down three things that they might want to try making. Things that they've thought about, but have never tried. I also make a list of three things. And in the first half of the episode, we compare our lists and see what things are in common. The project could be collaborative, something we work on together. Or it could be something we work on solo, as long as it is something that neither of us have done before. Once the project is done, we record the second half of the episode. And we talk about what we made and the struggles we encountered. I can't tell you how exciting it was to land on this idea! Now that I've completed a few episodes, how much fun has been so far! Each episode is a surprise. I go into each episode, not knowing what project I'll be working on, only that I'll be working on something that I've never done before. And for someone like me, who loves to try new things, I get super excited before each episode starts. Now my original goal was to be able to finish our projects in a few weeks’ time, so that I could have maybe one episode a month. What I've discovered though, is that many of these projects take many months to complete. And that's the main reason the episodes are not split up between idea genesis and project completion. There would simply be too large of a gap between them. So for the sake of you, my listeners, you will hear us come up with the idea and then finish the idea in the same episode, regardless of how many months the project takes. That also means that episodes will be released sporadically. My plan is to have several projects in the works simultaneously. It puts extra pressure on me, but I would love to be able to publish one episode a month. We'll see if I'm able to manage that. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy You And I Make A Thing. I will be rebroadcasting a couple of You And I Make A Thing episodes that I had already recorded on the Creative Shoofly. And I also have a brand-new episode coming shortly. If you're on Instagram, connect with me @beutelevision. And tell me about your creative endeavors. And if you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a review and sharing the podcast with other art enthusiasts. Your support helps me continue to bring these creative explorations to life. Thank you for listening. And keep making, keep exploring, and keep surprising yourself.

    4 min
  • 9 Episodes

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About

Tune into You And I Make A Thing, where host Thomas Beutel and a guest make something they have never made before. Each episode starts with Thomas and his guest hashing out what they’ll create—be it a collaboration or each working solo toward the same artistic goal. In the latter half, they reflect on their experience of trying something new and conquering the unknown. Experience the power of starting from scratch, overcoming self-doubt, and embarking on a new creative journey. You can reach Thomas on Instagram at @beutelevision.

Information

  • Creator
    Thomas Beutel
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodes
    9
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    You And I Make A Thing