Podcast – Adventures in Arting Podcast Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

On today’s episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I are discussing making art in bursts. This is the concept that you don’t need two or three hours or a full day to get art done.  You can make a lot of art in short bursts of time — 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there.







Be sure to listen to the end because we have a new segment: Listener Mail!  I hope you enjoy the conversation.  As always, you can listen to the podcast, subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch the video version on YouTube.







Here is the video that I mention during the podcast:



















So many of you noted that you like the transcript. So once again, here is the podcast transcript: 







Julie 







Hello and welcome to the Adventures in Arting Podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I am a working artist and mother. On this podcast — together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsu-Balzer — We discuss all aspects of the artful, thoughtful life. Hey mom 







Eileen 







Hi Julie. 







Julie 







How are you?  







Eileen 







I’m good we’re having you know the snow is falling. The plow has come. I don’t feel trapped anymore so here I am. Where our topic today, which actually comes from a series of articles I’ve been reading about how even short really short bursts of exercise, meaning climbing a couple of sets of stairs or something, you know something like that only takes you 5 or 10 minutes, but it’s actually good for you in the way that doing a lot of exercise is good for you. They call it exercise snacks and I thought you can probably apply that to things other than exercise. Because I’ve always told you, for example, if something’s going to take 5 or 10 minutes, just go ahead and do it. Don’t keep putting it off like for example making your bed, or you know, putting your clothes away or making that phone call you’re supposed to make and then I thought, well, you can probably think of ways that it applies to art making. Because I think sometimes people are put off by the idea that they have to do like 3 hours… 







Julie 







Yeah, we’re really talking about art in bursts, right? And this is like the idea again that you don’t need two or three hours or a full day to get art done. 







Eileen 







Right. 







Julie 







You can make a lot of art in these little short bursts of time I’ve advocated for many years. The idea of 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. In fact, I think you can find a video on my YouTube channel — I’ll try to find a link to it — that’s probably about 10 years old where I showed how an art journal spread came together for me, doing basically 10 minutes a day over a week, which together is 70 minutes. Which is, you know, a reasonable amount of time to spend on making something, but I didn’t have 70 minutes altogether. I was able to just do it in the little bursts, which is a great way to do it.  

On today’s episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I are discussing Planning and Organizing.  They are two separate things, in case you’re wondering.  During the podcast Mom and I go into detail with our tips for planning and organizing as well as our own struggles in those areas.  I hope you enjoy the conversation.  As always, you can listen to the podcast on this page, subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch the video version on YouTube.







Here is the podcast transcript:







Julie 







Hello and welcome to the Adventures in Arting podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I’m a working artist and mother. On this podcast – together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsu-Balzer — we discuss all aspects of the artful, thoughtful life. Hi, mom. 







Eileen 







Hello Julie. 







Julie 







How are you? 







Eileen 







I’m good. 







Julie 







Well, I learned something important because I have been for the last few podcasts. I’ve done transcripts because sometimes I think people like to read through the podcast and it’s easier to sort of look for a quote or idea that you’re missing. So I use a free service. And it’s auto generated and then I have to go in and correct it by hand, which is a very long process because it’s very messy. And also I say several verbal ticks which turn out not to be the word interesting. But instead I say “you know what I mean,” “like,” “you know” constantly. So my goal for this podcast is not to say that anymore. 







Eileen 







Julie 







But what we’re actually discussing is not my verbal tics, but rather we’re going to be discussing planning and organizing. You know it’s the beginning of the year. If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking about like how to make 2023 a good year. Maybe some projects you want to get done and so Mom and I are going to offer some tips on planning and organizing.  







I do want to mention some upcoming classes before we get started. I do have Design Boot Camp coming up — that is an online class, but it’s live so it’s conducted over Zoom. It’s a five-week class. You meet twice a week. And it’s an intensive class where you’re really getting into understanding the building blocks of making art. This is a class for beginners or advanced students. I’ve had people in it who are at the beginning of their art journey. I’ve had people in it who have MFAs, so it’s really more about getting into the nitty gritty of you & your style. What the art building blocks are and how to make better art. So you can find all the information about that at juliebalzer.com. Then I have 3 classes that I’m hosting here in my home studio. You are going to come here. I live just outside of Boston and the classes are Color Camp — in which we’re getting into the nitty gritty of how colors work, how value changes everything, how colors are relative, how to mix the colors you want, how to harness the power of color, how to create a personal palette, all that kind of stuff. Then Printmakers Party where we are going to be making stamps, stencils,

Mom and I sat down last week and recorded this podcast.  It’s a fun premise.  We each got to ask the other three year-end questions.  You can watch the video version on my YouTube channel, or you can listen above (or anywhere you get podcasts):







And, I did find a discount code for the Bombas socks.  New customers can use this link (it’s an affiliate link) to get 25% off your purchase. 







Please let me know what topics you’d like us to discuss on the podcast in 2023. We’d love to know!







And here is the podcast transcript.  It’s automatically generated and I didn’t have time to clean it up as much as I would have liked, so apologies for any errors.







PODCAST TRANSCRIPT







 Julie 







Hello and welcome to the Adventures in Arting podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I’m a working artist and mother to a curious toddler and my business Balzer Designs is all about helping you to live an artful life through thoughtful art education. On this podcast, together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsu-Balzer, we ask questions of each other and our guests while discussing learning, the creative career path, finding balance, looking at art, setting goals, and why being creative matters. Our goal for this podcast is to stimulate your imagination. Hi, mom. 







Eileen 







Hi Julie. 







Julie 







How are you? 







Eileen 







I’m good and it feels good to be good because this has been such a winter of sickness for everybody. 







Julie 







Yes, that’s so true. And the theme today that I gave you is that we’re wrapping up 2022 and basically the format is: I said you come up with three questions that we both have to answer and I’ll come up with three questions that we both have to answer and we won’t know what the questions are before we start. And one of the reasons that I thought this was — I mean it’s fun to sort of like throw questions at each other, you know, a little bit. That’s always an interesting thing. I think that’s what so much conversation is about anyway, right? It’s not sort of like regurgitating information, but the second thing is one of the things that I teach all the time, like to my private coaching clients or my Boot Camp students. Or like we talked about it at this month’s group coaching — is about reflection and evaluation. It is the step that I think a lot of people miss when they make art or do anything really — write something? I mean, we joke about this because my husband right now is in school and I feel like I’m talking to a teenager when I’m like: OK, well if you finish the test early you have to go back and check did you answer the question? Do you know what I mean? And we talk about it all the time. And because there is a desire to just be done with the task as opposed to considering and so — for instance, I’m currently teaching this class, The Carve December Work Book and a huge part of that class is getting better at carving, not through me teaching you like, here’s a carving technique, here’s a printing technique, but through teaching you a framework. Or how to evaluate your work, what you liked, what you didn’t, where you had problems, and in fact, so we’re on day 23 of Carve December.

I love a good mash-up.  You know, a bit from column A and a bit from column B smushed together and suddenly you’ve got something brand new!  Historically speaking, mash-ups are how innovation works.  People rarely invent something from scratch.  It’s the brilliance of putting two things together (or twenty things together) to create something new and necessary.  Here’s the official definition from Merriam-Webster:













On today’s podcast, Mom and I discuss mash-ups and why they matter in art. We also wander through a lot of chatter about teaching, learning, and being lazy.  You can listen the audio version of the podcast here or wherever you like to get podcasts. Or you can watch the video version on my YouTube Channel.







Be sure to check out the mash-ups in The Artful Holiday class.







Thanks for stopping by!

Today’s episode of The Adventures in Arting podcast was fueled by an email I get almost every single day:







“I can’t access my class.”







It’s a statement that makes me crazy because there’s no way for me to help the emailer.  The questions I usually write back with are:







* What’s the class?* What’s the specific issue with accessing the class?* Is there an error message you’re seeing?







My frustration with this unspecific way of asking for help, led me to think about WHY asking specific questions is so important — not only in getting technical support, but also in helping ourselves make better art.  I truly believe that if you can ask a specific question, you can almost always get an answer that is useful. 















So, in today’s podcast, Mom and I are chatting about asking specific questions (and we wander off onto several tangents, of course!) and setting goals.  You can listen the audio version of the podcast or you can watch the video version on my YouTube Channel.







If you’re looking for the chat with Carolyn Dube that I reference in the podcast, here it is:



















If you’re interested in learning to ask better questions, I hope you’ll check out Design Boot Camp.  Payment plans are available.







Thanks for stopping by!

When I told Mom that today’s podcast topic was “failure,” she said, “Again?!”













Back on September 18, 2012 we published our very first podcast (almost exactly 10 years ago) and the topic was failure. 













I figured a ten year gap was enough time to chat about it again.  I hope you feel the same way.







During the podcast we share concrete tips for re-framing failure as an opportunity, along with strategies for defining your own ideas about success and failure. 







If you enjoy the podcast, I really hope you’ll share it with a friend or leave us a review. Those actions help other people find the show and that helps us grow.







Upcoming Classes:







* Monthly Membership: I offer both ScanNCut Club and a monthly art membership.* The Artful Holiday: Join me and 18 other teachers for techniques, techniques, techniques galore!  And so many cool projects!* Design Boot Camp: If you’re serious about improving your art and want the language and the road map to do that, then Design Boot Camp is for you.* There are only a few seats left in Friday night’s live online class: Mixed Media Collage: Embellishing a Basic Design — It’s going to be a good one!







I hope to see you in class!