Flow vs Friction

Come and listen to Host Gia-Raquel chat with today's guest Charles Cording.

Charles Cording is an artist, entrepreneur and creative visionary known for his pioneering work
at the intersection of art, technology and culture. Over the past two decades. Charles has established himself as one of the most in-demand creative technologists and designers collaborating with founders, CEOs and frontline leaders to innovate next generation platforms and experiences at the cutting edge of new media and emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, and digital reality. In addition to launching D8NGEROUS, he founded REEVOLUTION, an award-winning agency who’s portfolio includes brands like ESPN, the NFL, and the NBA and is currently Chief Visionary Officer of DigiTrax AI, a music technology company developing cutting-edge AI applications in music.
Charles Cording represents an extraordinary convergence of conceptual depth and multidisciplinary innovation, marking him as one of the most intriguing new voices in contemporary art. His multidisciplinary background in business and technology informs a unique artistic voice that is simultaneously rooted in traditional techniques yet committed to perpetual
innovation and experimentation, allowing him to fuse mediums and techniques to create pieces of rare depth and complexity.
Situating itself at the intersection of conceptual rigor and technical mastery, Cording’s work draws from a rich history of surrealism, abstract expressionism, and digital abstraction, while pushing these traditions into new, unexplored territories. His deft use of varied mediums allows him to confront pressing contemporary issues with an urgency that feels both timely and timeless.

Charles Cording, artist and Chief Visionary Officer of Digitrax AI, shares his philosophy of creativity as a lifestyle of receptivity rather than a state to enter and exit. He describes his process as being an "antenna to the universe," remaining open to ideas and allowing them to flow naturally through him.

• Approaching creativity as receptive rather than forced, viewing oneself as a vessel for ideas
• Balancing human creativity with AI tools in a "centaur" approach that leverages the strengths of both
• Recognizing that good ideas lead to more good ideas, creating branching opportunities
• Understanding the challenge of completion and letting external factors sometimes determine when art is "finished"
• Evaluating life choices through "flow versus friction" to maximize creative energy
• Creating uninterrupted blocks of time for deep creative work
• Passing creative wisdom to the next generation earlier than we discovered it ourselves
• Remaining humble and open to the invisible world of energy that surrounds us
• Trusting intuition as a muscle that strengthens with use

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Divas that Care Radio Stories, strategies and
ideas to inspire positive change.
Welcome to Divas that Care, anetwork of women committed to
making our world a better placefor everyone.
This is a global movement forwomen, by women engaged in a
collaborative effort to create abetter world for future
generations.
To find out more about themovement, visit divasthatcarecom

(00:25):
.
After the show.
Right now, though, stay tunedfor another jolt of inspiration.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Namaste and welcome to the Divas that Care Network.
I'm your host, gia Raquel Rose,owner of Heirs Above Yoga, and
you are listening to Above theGround Podcast.
This is your first time tuningin.
Our network is going into its15th year and is listened to in
over 30 countries.
I'd like to personally thankyou for giving me the gift of
your time.
As always, it is my honor tohold space with you, and today

(00:54):
we have a super special treat.
A friend of mine and avisionary in many different
capacities, mr Charles Cording,is here to discuss overall his
artistic bent as the ChiefVisionary Officer of Digitrax AI
and, more importantly, for ourpurposes.
Today we're going to be talkingabout the amazing artwork that

(01:17):
he creates, which you can seedisplayed behind him and just
kind of go through his creativeprocess and how he brings his
vision to life each and everyday.
So, charles, thank you so muchfor being here.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Absolutely.
So talk to me a little bitabout kind of how you get into
the.
We can talk about the mindsetof it, absolutely, but how it is
that you start your creativeprocess and kind of bringing
that idea of getting theinspiration, like having the hit
or whatever, whether you see itin your mind's eye, how does it
come through for you?
And then how do you, what arethe steps that you kind of take

(01:51):
to implement it into what I seebehind you now?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Oh, I mean into its final form, that's.
That's a long process, but Iapproach it kind of as a
lifestyle.
So I'm not necessarily tryingto get into the creative zone.
I'm receptive to all creativeideas, right, yeah, so I spent a
lot of years trying to honethat ability.

(02:17):
The best way to kind ofdescribe it is like being an
antenna right to the universe,because you don't know where
ideas are coming from, um, andyou're definitely not going to
catch them if you're not openand receptive to them.
So always be collecting, uh,ideas in notebooks or in
whatever form.

(02:37):
They come to you in like littlepieces, um, allowing ideas to
come to fruition, uh, you know,on their own, and then always
understanding that you are kindof a vessel for that idea.
You know, there's like a greatstory of like a Michael Jackson
not going to sleep and workingon an idea and because he was

(03:02):
scared that the universe wouldgive it to Prince if, if, he
wasn't there to like receive it.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
That's amazing, yeah, but I mean like I hope I don't
think the universe works quitethat way, but I don't actually
know.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, if you look at all great artists they've always
had the approach of beingsimply a vessel, I mean, and
those are when the best ideascome through.
You know, some ideas take along time to form.
And then there's that processof experimentation and iteration
and you know, I kind ofdescribe it as like water going

(03:34):
down a hill Right, like youdon't know which direction it's
going to take.
It may splinter A lot of timesgood ideas like the.
You measure a good idea by ifit leads to more good ideas.
Right, good ideas will branchoff and lead to more good ideas.
Yeah, the problem with that isthat, like, all of a sudden you
could be suffocated with a lotof mediocre good ideas, um.

(03:57):
So then there's that nextprocess of like taking 100 ideas
and refining them into you know, the 10 best ones, or you know,
to finally get to one idea, um.
So, depending on the project,um, and what the aim is, uh, you
know it demands a differentapproach.
A lot of times there's likethat brace like if I'm doing
something on a canvas andthere's no rules per se, like I

(04:18):
have to kind of implement therules of like what I'm trying to
achieve, um, and even then I'mnot sure where it's going to go.
But if it's like a designproblem, like I always say that,
like, design is about solvingproblems right, and art is about
creating problems, so it's likea very you know, contrasting

(04:40):
they go hand in hand though.
Approach, yeah, but they go handin hand.
So to kind they go hand in hand, right, um.
So to kind of run ideas throughboth of those filters, um, to
try to come up with somethingnew, right, combining stuff.
But like, always just becollecting, right, always be
collecting and open to new ideas, uh, being able to borrow from

(05:01):
something, right and and put itto something else, right, so you
kind of you're filling up a tonof glasses at once.
It's a lot easier when yourdomain of kind of expertise is
very limited, right.
But if you have a like, so forme it's like oh, I'll have a
music idea here, or a businessidea here, or a drawing,
painting idea here.
I want to just, you know, buildsomething with matchsticks over

(05:23):
here, or like something withcardboard over here.
You can kind of get lost inthat, in that play, right, uh.
But then it all comes down tolike okay, what's the aim of
this project, you know, and thencan you design whatever you're
doing to to that, to fit thataim.
But it really just comes froman overall mindset of being open

(05:44):
, receptive, receptive, uh,egoless, like that's a huge part
, um, one of the things that Itry to strive for in the early
stages of conceiving an idea oror, uh, bringing a product to
life.
Is that like knowing that Ican't make a mistake in the

(06:04):
first part of the process, right, like the best projects are
where I'll get 80% of the way toa final, you know, product, but
in like 20% of the time, andthen 80% of my time is spent on
that last 20%, which, honestly,nobody even really notices,
except for me and other artistsand stuff like that.
However, like, those are thebest ideas that they kind of

(06:27):
like make themselves, yeah,through the refinement process.
Yeah, like it's very clear thatlike, oh, my god, I'm just a
conduit for this idea to comethrough me, right, right, and I
think that I understood thatfrom a very young age.
Like, uh, I was raised on likejazz music, right, so, like and
like improvis and likeimprovisation, stuff like that.
So my dad would always, youknow, point to somebody on stage

(06:49):
and be like, you know, see himwith his eyes closed, make them
weird, you know, movements, likehe's in the zone and like
that's where your ideas come tolife.
You don't know what you'redoing when you're in the zone,
right, cause you can't kind ofbe, you know.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, you're purely in, you know, in contact with
that.
I call it like the higherversion of you or like you are,
like I talked to.
You know, sandy Roth, I thinkyou do, but she and I had a
whole conversation about thesame thing in yoga, and we
actually talked about jazz musicon that episode as well, and
just talk about the fact that,like those musicians, there's an
element of your expertise as apractitioner, whether it's in

(07:27):
design, whether it's, you know,with a paintbrush, whether it's
vocally, whatever it is.
As for us, she's a yogainstructor as well.
You know, we practice yoga forhowever many years, and then we
don't necessarily practice oursequences for class because you
have one person, one student,come in.
They can't, you know that theirbody's not going to be
comfortable in a certain thingand your entire class plan goes

(07:48):
out the window.
So she and I joked about how,like, there is nothing but
improvisation, kind of, at life,and so the ability to be in
that receptive the thing aboutthe receptive state, though, and
I love your antenna thing butwhat do you?
As we are all, our, all ourvessels, I also think that we
are all filters, right.
So there's that, there's thatperspective, or that idea that

(08:09):
no human perspective is the same, because everyone is viewing
the world around them throughtheir own unique filter, based
on their experiences, how theywere raised.
You know the nature and nurtureall of that.
And then, as you become thisreceptive vessel and I'm going
to throw back to what you saidabout, uh, michael jackson and
prince like their filters, ifthey had the same idea, yeah,

(08:30):
that idea would not come out inthe same way, no matter what.
Even if it was the exact samesong lyrics, if it was the exact
same melody, it would becompletely different.
So, while, yes, we are allvessels, I also think that we
are all individual filters andthat, in some divinely
orchestrated way which I wouldnever pretend to comprehend,
either our higher self orwhatever it is that you believe

(08:51):
in that is bigger and greaterthan us, kind of feeds us those
things, because we may be, onour own special snowflake way,
the best vessel to bring thatinto reality as the greater
expanse of consciousness wantsit to be in reality, if that I
may have just gotten a littletoo out of left field but you

(09:11):
know what I mean when I say thatthe competitive nature of being
an artist comes in because,like I want to paint something
better than you, or I want tomake something better than you.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
So I mean like, yeah, there's a lot of like technique
and skill that comes into play.
You know when you receive anidea and the ability to receive
the idea, you know in differentforms, is definitely a skill.
Yeah, but going back to whatyou said on the jazz stuff, as
somebody who has worked in AI,you know specifically creative

(09:44):
AI.
Since its inception, a jazzband improvising on stage is
kind of looked at as thepinnacle of human creativity and
something that an AI will neverbe able to replicate.
And that's a really cool thing,because when you have like four

(10:09):
musicians on stage playing inunison, improvising together,
it's not just that they'reimprov, they're reading each
other's body language, rightlike there's a human element to
that, yeah, yeah, um that wedon't think ai will ever
comprehend.
And even creative AI.
What's cool about it?
is that it definitely breaksdown the creative process into

(10:32):
these kind of stages where youcan see where the human element
will still exist and alwaysexist AI will never be able to
replicate or do certain thingsand then where AI is like really
good at stuff.
And I think that's where thingsare going in the near future,
which is a really cool kind ofmoment in human history where

(10:54):
we're able to like we're reallygood at asking questions and AI
is really good at answeringquestions, if that makes sense.
And we saw, like with chess youknow the best chess teams are
now what are like centaurs right, where it's like human and ai
working together.
Okay, so like, uh, a great lensto look at ai.

(11:16):
Uh, technologies is likeelectricity.
Okay, like it's kind of ineverything.
Now, can you imagine a worldwithout electricity?
It fundamentally changeseverything.
So at the dawn of electricity,factories didn't know what to do
.
Some factories took 20, 30years putting electricity into

(11:40):
the process.
It's a lot quicker timeframenowadays in terms of integrating
, you know, new text intoprocess.
But like that's like what we'reon the dawn of right now is
trying to figure out.
Okay, yeah, you could type in aprompt and have an image for
anything or, like you know, dodeep fakes and stuff like that,
but like AI is really going tofundamentally transform

(12:04):
everything from the ground up.
We're starting to see some ofthat changes now, so I'm
definitely not one of thoseartists that's like anti-AI or
anything like that.
I don't think artists reallyhave a good technical grasp as
to what it can do and how it cantransform things.
And that again goes back intointo the creative process of

(12:25):
being open-minded.
If we look at these things astools, your process adapts to
what tools you have availableand what you can do.
And if you approach somethingwith a bias, instead of just
like, I love just getting in andexperimenting and seeing where
these things, or you know how Ican re-approach things, right,

(12:49):
like I could do a drawing now,knowing that I'm going to be
able to animate that drawing andbring it to life in 3d space,
right, just something static ona page.
So I think we had a really cooltime in human history where we
have this kind of convergence ofa lot of cool tech and I think
in the next 10 years it's reallygoing to be eye-opening in

(13:10):
terms of, like, what spatialcomputing can do.
You know, like, right now I'mtalking into a phone, I'm
looking into a computer screenright, it's very screen based.
Yeah, that's like the computingplatforms become spatial.
Everything becomes a potentialscreen or surface.
With AI, information begins tooverlay everything you know

(13:50):
around you, or a really coolkind of brave new world where,
if you have the proper approachto creativity and innovation and
experimentation, who knows whatwill emerge.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Right, right, and even that can be, you know, a
double edged sword, because youknow there are people who think
very positively andconstructively and there are
people who think a little bitmore selfishly and destructively
.
And so we hope that the powerthat these tools have are
harnessed for the highest andbest good and highest and best

(14:21):
use, as they will be, I know.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
They will be.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
No, no, it'll be, don't put that out into the
universe, right like we're gonna.
We're gonna.
I'm gonna focus on the positivebecause I have to um for my my
it's, it's.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
It's on that, it's on the part of people like me,
like of artists, to toexperiment and then bring it to
market in a way that showspeople what these different
things, these different toolsand experiences can be.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, positive implications.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Because it is magic.
Like some of this stuff ismagic, yeah, and that's really
cool.
It's a really cool time to becreating Like I majored in hip
hop and built a studio in mydorm room and was rapping and
producing, you know, and I didthat all with pirated software
from like napster and like I was.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I kind of came of age in that like at a beautiful
time when it was like you hadaccess to like every single.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
So it was like learning how to drive but being,
but being given a Ferraribecause you have all of those
tools now and they were so easy.
So I'm definitely grateful foryou know, coming of age right at
the dawn of like the internet,like I can still remember life
before the internet, I wasblessed to start my first

(15:42):
business, uh like during theMySpace era.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
I started one of the first daily fantasy sports
platforms, like before fantasysports was even known as a thing
, so like 2009.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Um, and then I was in that, you know, in the tech
space, for the rise of socialmedia, yeah, uh, and I hate
social media and I it's becomelike a necessary evil, evil.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
I was about to say the exact same thing, yeah it is
yeah and uh.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
You know, I watched an entire generation of kids
trade power for influence, notunderstanding the difference
between the two um and I.
I've just never been been aboutthat um, but I've seen the and
I regret that, to be honest withyou, like I probably should
have put more, like I put a lotof effort into my space and then

(16:36):
when that went the way of thedinosaurs, it was like, why
would I?
do that again for a differentapp, for that app to disappear.
Right his concept of likefollowing people and stuff.
And then I saw how fake it wasbehind the scenes, working with
influencers, and I was just.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
I've always been turned off from that yeah, it's
very disillusioning the realityof the facade, because yeah,
it's really, it's a, it's a,it's an entire way of.
It's honestly like a way ofliving that is just creating
false falsities yeah, it's gross.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
It's gross and I try to keep my daughters off of it.
Um, yeah, a lot of people areignorant about how it kind of
works too uh, like you knowright, so like just just knowing
how these platforms are builtand the methods.
I was never hooked.
They never got me with theunconscious hooks Right, so I

(17:33):
was never trained behaviorallyto respond to notifications and
I have a hard time responding totext.
Yeah, so my hope is that, inbringing all that up, is that we
do have a generation of kidswho see it for what it is and
kind of can recognize hey, it'snot about likes or follows or

(17:55):
whatever, but really like let'sexplore this domain right and,
you know, pioneer new things.
New types of apps, new types ofexperiences, let's think outside
the box, even if that meanstaking a risk, you know, and
doing something you know that iscontroversial or that hasn't

(18:18):
been done before something likethat.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, there's an element to it too of of trying
to kind of like play thealgorithms against themselves
and, you know, like, cultivating, cultivating content that you
know you do want to see, whichhas a double-edged sword of also
limiting, you know the.
The problem with all of theplatforms and all of the social
and the internet kind of ingeneral, is that you can really

(18:42):
and people do move themselvesinto a vacuum of their own.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Oh, yeah, we saw this with like amazon book sales
before.
Right, it was like what, yeah,what books?
And that was like 2008, right,right, like we knew it was going
to happen with social media.
We knew, like none of thisstuff happened by accident, like
all the problems that haveemanated from social media no
it's by design.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
I mean all of this, I mean that's, that's a whole can
of worm topic that that I'msure we could dive into.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Those are the types of things, though, that I try to
uh play with in your art right.
So, like as an artist, right,can you look at that from a meta
uh, the company meta, but for,like, from a you know third or
fourth degree, right, and thentry to create work that makes
people think or confronts themwith that reality.
Yeah, um, and I think that'swhat the best art is is stuff

(19:36):
that, like, makes you feelsomething yeah like I love when
people hate my stuff Right.
I almost like that just as much,if not more, as somebody who
likes it Right when hate is likeapathy or indifference.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
And I think, like you know, that's where the artist
goes to die.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, no, you're not wrong.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
But like that mean in the middle is where everybody
in your life will tell you to goRight.
So it's like.
Oh, dude, you can't make apainting or an artwork of that.
You know it needs to be toneddown or something it's like
everybody tries to push you intothat middle box.
Yeah, no that's not where realart exists.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Right?
No, of course not, and it'salso a matter of when you're
talking about, and one of thethings that I love about your
artwork is it's very provocative.
It's very, very provocative inin a very powerful way, because
it's not, it's it's not reallyin a box and you know, art is so
subjective, um and, and to thatend, it's like when you know,

(20:44):
when we're looking like I'm justgoing to take, take the ones
that I can see behind you.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
there's so much emotion in your artwork and I
think that let's add a link sothat people can actually see
some of the stuff that we'retalking about yeah, absolutely
yeah, of course we will.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Um, so you know it's in my mind, it's like when, when
you talk about apathy and youtalk about the ability to create
emotion, you know music becauseI know you, you have a base in
hip-hop as well, but music is avery evocative and powerful way
to create emotion visually, um,statically, I think it.

(21:20):
It is so much more challenging.
And so when you can do that inan image prior to the ability
now that we're seeing, toanimate that image, et cetera,
but when you can create tears,let's say, for example, in a
person based on a static image,to me that is exemplifies like

(21:42):
the peak of artistic I don'teven know what the word is, but
just the pinnacle, because youare creating an emotion on from
a, you know a, one screen, oneimage, one, and you've created
it, you've put it together andthere's no, there's no old there

(22:05):
, it's purely visual.
In theory, right, I know art isexpanding much beyond that, but
I'm talking, let's just for amoment hone in on the painting
aspect of it, and and it's it's.
It's so powerful to be able tocreate emotion in another human
being and it's almost like analignment, potentially not of
where you are going, becausethat's the other kind of flip
side to the beauty of it is thatyou know what your intent for

(22:27):
that image and what it can evokein someone else can be two
entirely different reasons.
Maybe one emotion, but twodifferent reasons, and to me
that's very similar to jazz, tofour people on a stage right,
yeah, it's out of my hands, youknow, and there's two parts to
the emotion that you bring intoit.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
It's like one, can I channel that emotion into
something right, concrete, likea visual metaphor or something
like that, and then like, canthe person, the viewer or
participant, uh, can they cleanthat emotion or a similar
intensity of emotion from thepiece back?

(23:05):
Now, that's a process thatkills a lot of artists.
To be honest with you, how socool it's like and I say this to
my daughters bringing them up.
It's like, you know, if they'reupset, draw me a picture of
somebody crying you know whatI'm saying, like nobody wants to
listen to a song and this isthe problem with, like ai in

(23:26):
music as well, right, likenobody wants to listen to a song
about love if you've never hadyour heart broken.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
That's fair, yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
I mean, if you've written a love song but you've
never had your heart broken, Ireally am not going to put too
much into that love song.
That's true.
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
So, yeah, you kind of have a double-edged sword here
and, like, my uncle is a poet,right, so he's dealing with
words, right, and then his sondied and he had to write poetry
about that experience and I'mlike, oh my God, I can't imagine
a more difficult process.
And I can't imagine a moredifficult kind of situation as

(24:03):
being somebody who's tasked withputting words to emotions and
then being given those emotionsto make sense of Right.
So it's almost as if, like thedeeper you go into the box, you
know like the darker it gets thehole yeah, the hole yeah.

(24:25):
Like there are stories aboutlike Stanley Kubrick.
when he died he had been workingon like a Holocaust movie for
like eight years and his hiswife was like he was miserable
right, like if you're gonna goto a subject right and or, if
you're gonna explore an emotion,you have to do it with uh, to
do it with a vulnerability yeahright and an honesty that uh you

(24:50):
have to let your boundariesmakes real life harder yeah,
well, but so, and that's like adifferent, so that you know
we're, on the one hand, we'retalking about creating from
nothing, right?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
or from divine inspiration, right, creating
from your own mind's eye orwhatever, however you interpret
it.
When you're talking about thekind of that kind of a creation,
where you're, you're actually,you are becoming the thing that
you are trying to create,whether it's documentary,
whether it you know what I mean.
But whatever it is, if it's, ifit's an occurrence that you are

(25:21):
trying to bring a perspective to, to illuminate a certain
viewpoint on what, however youwant to frame it, point on what,
however you want to frame it,it's like I would, I would say
it I don't know much about it,but I will make it akin to like
method acting, where you becomethe very thing that you're
trying to display and if youchoose something like the
holocaust that is going to be, Imean, one of the arguably one

(25:42):
of the most atrocious thingsthat have ever, has ever
occurred in human history, thatwe're aware of, that we have
documented, and so to die, todeep dive down that rabbit hole
is, I mean, I, I would never, Iwould never want to drop my
boundaries around something likethat to allow it in, to feel

(26:02):
that horror, to then reflect itback in through my filter,
through my perspective, throughmy lens of the blends of my
vessel, if you will, because Ijust would want to, I that I'm
sure he was miserable and theprocess that that you just
described for the last 15, 20seconds would make for a great
painting.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
To be honest with you , yeah, I mean somebody trying
to undergo that process.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, well, there you go.
Maybe, maybe you commission adown boundary canvas, right?
You know what I mean.
Like, that's the and that'swhat it's all about.
But like, and so ourconversation now has created
this idea in your mind, right,and I will.
It flew through my mind whenyou're talking about AI, which,
I will be very candid with you,scares me on a on a visceral

(26:50):
level, the implications of it.
Again, things that have themost power for good also have
the most power for harm.
I believe that duality, very,very truly.
But I was thinking, all right,awesome, like, if I was teaching
a yoga class and I could havean AI of me as a, as the
muscular system, breaking downwhatever muscles in real time on

(27:12):
a holographic image next to me,showing my students what I want
them to do and why, so that Ican, you know, explain it.
That would be amazing.
There's an implication that Inever thought of, that I would
love.
And what if I was the firstyoga instructor to do something
like that?
Right, like, so, just in ushaving this conversation back
and forth, here are two ideasthat have come to us from the

(27:34):
other's perspective, the other's, you know, iteration, if you
will, and I think that that'swhat that's part of what the
creative process is all about,and it's why mutual back and
forth between people, just likethe jazz element of it, creates
beyond the AI and beyond, let'ssay, my stream of consciousness

(27:56):
and my connection with my divine, to your connection with your
divine, then creates thisentirely other, and you do need
that human element and to bounceideas off each other because we
don't live in a package.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
That's the centaur right there, where it's AI and
human working in unison doingwhat each thing does the best,
and that's a really coolempowering process when you get
it right.
You know like, as an artist, alot of jazz musicians that
worked with with music ai, youknow they have said I would have
gotten to that idea eventually,but this saved me, you know,

(28:30):
two, three days of work to getthere and I found that same
thing with AI where it's like.
It's never really blown me awaywith anything that is created,
because I know I would havegotten to that point eventually.
I could just get there a lotquicker now.
So it's kind of like asuperpower with being able to
sketch ideas or visualize thingsor mix and match things or
apply styles.

(28:50):
But you need to have that kindof play mindset right at the
beginning, right like, andthat's a really cool mindset to
have.
But then you need to have thetechnical expertise and the
experience with how to transformthat mold of clay that you've
been playing with into its finalform.

(29:11):
And there are a lot of stepsand phases along that way which
take continual learning andinput from others.
Wisdom from others.
Mentors will tell you how tofinalize stuff or what to look
for, just processes that comewith having done that so many

(29:33):
times.
Right, um, you know, like howto prune things like a lot of
times in the beginning.
You know, like you hear the theterm kill your babies.
Right, like I'm gonna bring.
I have this great idea, butit's not working.
In this context, you got tokill it.
Right, like, how to prunethings the best the best artist
will take.
That you know it's over here.

(29:56):
It doesn't mean it's dead right.
Three years may go by and allof a sudden you're like, oh man,
I have an idea.
And now all of a sudden, thatpuzzle piece fits with that
perfectly and it never wouldhave happened if it wasn't
discarded from the previousproject.
Right, you see that happen allthe time with.
And if you look at people whohave ever made something great,
they've always said the samething right, it's the
culmination of a bunch ofdifferent great things that came

(30:16):
together.
Right, a lot of those greatthings started off as very
simple ideas that gainingcomplexity.
Like complex things are just alot of simple things put
together yeah right, and it's askill with being able to kind of
discern okay, uh, what was,what are the foundational
building blocks?
Right, and that's also as anartist, where it's like you'll
never run out of good ideas.
That's not, that's anotherthing, right, it's like being,

(30:39):
when you're open to the source,right.
When you're open to theuniverse, when you're open to
nature, right, like always beingin awe of nature because nature
is the most amazing.
But like I don't understandpeople who are fascinated with
aliens.
I'm like yo just go outside andlook at a tree, I know, right,
like it's amazing, nature isamazing.
I try to teach my kids that Likealways being in awe of just

(30:59):
what awesomeness we live in andaround.
And when you connect with thatenergy, right, you understand
very quickly you're never goingto run out of ideas, right,
right, like it's an infiniteloop.
You know, make a great idea,execute on it and then kind of
let it go.
And in the beginning that washard for me to do as a

(31:20):
perfectionist, because somethingcould always be better,
something can always be better.
I can work on something foreverif you give me forever.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
And so that that's kind of, I think, leading me to
my next question for you is youknow, is we, we the inspiration,
right, how it filters through,how you begin to make it?
You know your own in quotes forthose people that are not
watching um, and then you knowthe process of execution, the
process of refinement, like thedevil's in the details, a little

(31:48):
bit there, right, becausepeople can't, you know, you can
go, you can micro until untilyou drive yourself nuts.
So how do you?
What is your let's?
Let's take a moment.
How do you process, how do youfine tune from, from the, from
the inspiration, from the idea,like where do you start and then

(32:11):
where do you stop?
How do you start and how do youstop in the physical?

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Starting with.
Usually, like I said, it'll bea lot of different things coming
together, right, and then itdepends on what I'm working with
, right, right?
Yeah, the process of stopping.
Yeah, let's talk about that.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
How do you?

Speaker 3 (32:32):
stop.
That's tough, right, it's tough, it's tough.
I usually look for, honestly,like a sign from the universe
that says like it's time to stop, right.
To be honest with you, you geta feeling when something is done
yeah, you know, like in musicmusic it's a little easier like

(32:52):
when you hear a final mix.
Like you get a certain feelingwhen it's done, or like when you
hit it and it's like yo that,and then you chase that feeling
for every single thing that youdo.
Um, it's easier when it's adesign project or something like
that, because design, again, isaround a certain problem.
If I want to communicate acertain idea, I know that that
idea, you know, can becommunicated.

(33:12):
The hardest place to stop is ona canvas, where it's just me
right and that's kind of andit's kind of like uh, I will
tell you that nothing that I'vedone on a canvas is done.
I need, I need to take photosof it, to make prints, because I
have a show and that's becausethat's why it's done.
Right, like, honestly, it's ananswer like that where.

(33:36):
I'm going to mess something upmore if I start doing it, you
know continuing it.
Or if somebody looks atsomething, like you'll look at
something and be like yo, that'sawesome, Can I put it on my
wall?
And I'll be like that's halfwaythere, yeah.
And then I start to think, well, what is that person, that
person's seeing?

Speaker 2 (33:52):
it.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
And then it really comes down to okay, are you just
trying to be a perfectionist onevery detail, or is this piece
communicating whatever messageemotion, is it doing so
effectively at this point in itscreation?
Right, and then, then you canlet it go.
Um, the other part is likemarket pressure.

(34:16):
So it's like hey, this, thisneeds to sell, or you know
something like that.
Like those are other artificialconstraints like time yeah, and
I know and that's that's no fun.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
That takes the life out of the guy.
Guy, I know it's reality.
It's reality.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
I'm not going to be able to give you a very solid,
awesome answer on how theprocess stops.
Usually what I try to do islike okay, you know, I'll create
100 ideas for something, I'llcombine the best 10 into one and
I've done all of that otherwork that most people would
quote unquote, throw away orwhat a waste, right.
But like right, all of thosepieces are kind of ruminating

(34:54):
still, right.
So, like, one piece willusually lead to two or three
more pieces, right, like I'llhave, I'll start something and
have an idea while I'm doingthat and then start the next one
.
And the problem with that isthen you have like eight things
that are going right yeah that'swhy, like you know, the best
artists, that is then you havelike eight things that are going
at once, eight things that areright, yeah.
That's why, like you know, thebest artists that are doing this

(35:14):
at the peak, or like justcreating at the peak, they have
like a big warehouse, yeah,where it's like all of those
ideas are out in the open andyou can move effortlessly from
one to another, so like anywherethat that river's flowing.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, that's where you go.
Yeah, it's like oh, I have amusic idea.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Let me jump into the studio and do that.
Oh you know, idea for this overhere, um, yeah, and then you
try to.
You try to just go with theflow.
Yeah, right, then, fromexperience, knowing what's going
to work, what's not going towork, how to package an idea to
sell it, um, if it's in like abusiness context, um, or you

(35:51):
don't know what the hell you'redoing, and you try to put all
those pieces into your head anddo activities like lucid
dreaming or some of those otherkind of meditation, yeah, yeah,
esoteric things where, like you,you know, there's different
modes of thought.
The best way of thinking that ayou know a metaphor is like a
pinball machine.
So like, if you're actively,that pinball goes in and that

(36:14):
pinball is bouncing around tonsof different things, right.
If you're actively thinking, indiffuse thinking, right which
is the other daydreaming rightwould be an example of that
there are a lot less obstacles.
So when that ball goes aroundand the pin is bouncing around,
there are lots, lot less thingsfor it to hit, right, and that's
where, all of a sudden, ideascan make sense.

(36:36):
You know, that's where I'lljump out of bed or, like you
know, be like oh my God, I callit getting hit with the hammer
of God.
It really is Like when all of asudden the idea clicks, like
all of a sudden something clicks.
Yeah, it's like an, all mindconsuming.
It's a, it's a very specialfeeling yeah um, these are the
things, though, that take me outof the world.

(36:57):
Like if I have an idea likethat I'm in the studio for hours
and I'm in like my own world,right, and that that's where
girlfriends will be angry at meor frustrated, or, you know,
like my kids like dad dad dad,dad, dad, and I'm just like in a
different you're in the zone.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
That's the zone like that's you know and I it's.
I think it is synonymous withcreation, right?
You cannot, or if you do,create outside of that place.
I don't know if it's going tobe as pure and I use the word
pure loosely there but I thinkyou know what I mean when I say

(37:35):
that I think that's the here'sthe difference between being an
amateur and a professional.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
right, there is like, if you're like who's a great, a
great quote, that it was likeyo, like professionals don't
need inspiration.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Right.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
Right.
Like professionals don't needinspiration, Right, Right.
Like I have a process, I couldsit down with a piece of paper
any day of the week, dosomething creative.
Like I know the process, Idon't need inspiration, Right.
But when you get hit withinspiration and you have the
kind of tools necessary to bringthat to life very fast, like
that's when something specialhappens, Right.

(38:09):
So it's a lot of like you'renot going to be good at an
instrument if you're notpracticing that instrument.
You know, and, and the samegoes for anything you know,
skill-based.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
So no, a hundred percent.
I think that there's.
You know again, there's that,that, there's that intuitive
sense and I think that, like,the one thing that I took from
you, know, when you were talkingabout stopping, is it sounds to
me like it's a little bit fullcircle and that the kind of
hammer of God that strikes atthe beginning to give you the
inspiration, it's just asintuitive for you to find the

(38:43):
ending.
Otherwise, someone's finding itfor you because they're saying,
hey, I want to put that on mywall.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Yeah, it's usually someone finding it for you,
because I try to not stop right,like you.
Like you're thinking of it aslike, okay, what are you done
with the piece?
It's like no, I'm never donewith any of the piece.
I'm always just working onstuff and like when the piece is
finished, it's finished and I'mon to the next one.
There's never not going to be anext one right I'm not working

(39:10):
on a picture, I'm in a grave.
Oh, okay, I mean that that'sjust the way.
Like, like, like my fingersliterally are indented because I
just hold a pen in my hand.
So, like, the end of the day,I'm never doing an artwork.
You know, like art, art foranybody else other than myself

(39:31):
right like I'm drawing to stayalive yeah because if I'm not
drawing then I'm just gonna goinsane right and a lot of stuff
is oh, that's a lot of, a lot ofartists.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
I mean, listen, when you so, going back to the whole
Kubrick thing, like when you area true in my mind, a true art,
a true creative let's not evenjust pigeonhole it into artists
but when you are a true creativemind and you have that capacity
, I'm gonna throw it to a rootmetaphor as well, because we're
talking, you brought up a treeand I kept thinking, like you
know we talk about, you know, weever, we always, think about

(40:02):
the tree, from the, from the topdown right, because that's the
part that we see, but the rootsare where it's all coming from.
So if you that upside down, youthink about the fact that all of
this inspiration, all of thisprocess, right like the
inspirations coming from thesoil, up through the, up through
the root system, that rootsystem is our human filter, it's
our design, it's our this, it'sour perspective, it's all of

(40:25):
those things.
And then what we create, inessence, the process, is the
trunk, and then what we createis this is process, is the trunk
, and then what we create is isthe tree in in a very basic.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
You're next to another tree and your roots are
connected and then you have thefungi that connects all of the
roots into, like, its ownnervous network.
That's why, being around othercreative people, people, right
and and stuff like that, andthen also understanding too,
like that you're not, you arejust a vessel, like at the end
of the day, we are all the samestuff, right, and always keeping

(40:55):
that in mind too, yeah, youknow, like we're not so that's
why the best art will resonatewith a lot of people yes, either
positively or negatively.
Right, but the worst thing youcan do is just make boring stuff
that that won't, that doesn'thit.
Hit somebody you know, andthat's always like my mom is a

(41:16):
great litmus test, because ifshe likes something that I do, I
knew I made it too mellow,right.
It's like I need.
I need my mom to hateeverything that I do.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
It's like the ultimate act of defiance, I mean
the irony is I know you get atleast part of your artistic vent
from your mom.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
Oh, absolutely, when it comes to content and
messaging and stuff with thatshe's always like why can't?
You just do the flower.
Why does the flower have to begrowing out of a skull, in an
eye socket?
Well, it's like it's a metaphor.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
It's a metaphor.
It's provocative, right likeit's.
It's you're about you.
You two have very differentmarkets, very, very different.
We're going to bring theprofessional back into a very
different target markets.
But you know, it's your artwork.
Essentially, any kind ofartwork, any kind of medium,
it's a piece of the of theperson, it's a piece of you that
was the whole, like the whole.
The whole point of having thisconversation with you was

(42:10):
bringing like.
You are creating from the rootsthe source that, whatever you
want to call it, your creationis from your vessel.
It is a piece of you.
It is a piece of you that youhave created that was not in
existence prior to yourexistence yes, and that's a
lifestyle that is absolute, andif anybody wants to learn that

(42:32):
process, and the best, absolutebest resource that I've come
across for learning, that isRick Rick Rubin's book the act
of creation.
Thank you, I will, and then thiswill plug that there, but Rick
Rubin is the guy who started DefJam.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
He's one of the most famous producers ever.
Uh, he's got the big, hugebeard.
If I had an idol or somebodythat I like looked up to, it
would be he.
He kind of distilled a lot ofwhat I've said into very simple,
short, easy to read chaptersright in a book called the act
of creation.
It's about and he's been aroundthe greatest artists of the

(43:12):
last few decades and he's kindof just distilled those lessons
down into very easy to read.
Yeah, and I've definitelyrelayed a lot of the stuff
that's come from that book.
That's a lot of stuff that Iknew is.
You know, like any artist cantell you that you know what he's
saying is very similar.
But if anybody wants to learnmore about my approach and other

(43:38):
people's, approach.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
That's definitely the best resource.
All right, thank you for sharingthat.
I appreciate it, and so to that.
To that end, I think one of myone of my next questions for you
is when you're talking about,you're talking about the art of
creation creation.
One of my goals in in yoga, asan instructor, even with this
podcast, is to inspire otherpeople to create and to inspire
people to follow their ownguidance.

(44:01):
I have a personal.
I'm not going to go down that,but I have like a personal
reason why I try to develop mycommunication with my intuition
as my compass at life and to nothave to necessarily rely on an
outside influence other than youknow the daily grind or
whatever it is that you need todo to survive, but other than
that, I try to take my nextsteps in my every day from a

(44:22):
place of my own intuition, sothat I have no one to blame but
myself if things don't goaccording to divine plan.
So do you have a process foryourself to?
And it sounds like you don'thave a lot of creative blockage,
which is awesome, and but doyou have any?
And I'm not going to call itspiritual, but do you have any

(44:45):
tangible, just like the bookthat you mentioned, tangible
things, which is what I try toleave people with tangible
things that people can do For me.
I usually go with meditation toconnect to that, that intuition
within you.
But what is your process forconnecting into that space of
receptivity, or do you find thatyou live in it, which can be

(45:07):
overwhelming, I would imagine?

Speaker 3 (45:10):
live in it, which can be overwhelming, I would
imagine.
Uh, yeah, it's overwhelming, asa single parent trying to
manage that state of being witheveryday interruption, right, uh
, that is the daily struggle ofmine, to be honest with you.
Yeah, because like it couldtake two or three hours to get
into a creative zone, yeah,right and Right, and then all of
a sudden, like you'reinterrupted and it's like that's

(45:30):
start, stop, start, stop, start, stop.
That it's not conducive to anytype of creative thinking.
That's when I started to goinsane yeah, I it for me it's
just a lot of alone time,thinking, to be honest with you.
I mean I could sit there andstare at a wall for three hours,

(45:57):
but like my mind is moving athousand miles an hour as I
formulate pieces and try to putthings together, I've tried to
go back and study through timewhat people did to tap into that
zone.
Right, you have like Edisonsleeping on his couch, like in
his lab, like with a ball, wherehe can kind of catch himself
like in a lucid dreaming state.
Meditation is a great one,sometimes just doing like rough
sketching, like something likethat, like to get into the zone,

(46:20):
or like reading.
It's like something, though,where you're not, where you can
allow your mind to drift, put itthat way.
That's where, like having myphone anywhere near me, game
over Anywhere, like where you'regoing to be interrupted or you
allow yourself to be interrupted, like that flow state is going

(46:41):
to stop, it's gone.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
What I measure everything in my life through is
like flow and friction.
I found this to be very simpleLike this thing in my life is
going to bring me flow or it'sgoing to bring me friction.
The more things I can do in mylife to allow flow, energy,
right, it's like the better,right.
Relationships like really, uh, Ialways put relationships

(47:07):
through that kind of lens Likeis this person bringing I don't
want to say positivity, but likeis this person bringing
something forward, movingpositive energy, where it's not
like a black hole, vampireenergy, where you know we're
talking about people and dramaand stuff that like I just don't

(47:28):
want to deal with Right, anddrama and stuff that like I just
don't want to deal with right,right, um, and like I just
picture all of that just likeclutter and friction and starts
to feel like sandpaper.
To be honest with you, likegoing through that grind, uh,
and I'm extreme in that so likeif I just sit on hold for an
hour with something in themorning, like I know I'm screwed

(47:50):
for like three hours, like thatwill have just driven me so
insane where I need just, andthen I sort of isolate Right, so
like I don't I still haven'tperfected this process yet.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Right, I'm still dealing with that, but that's an
everyday struggle.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Yeah, and I try to just maximize, okay, big
blockages of time, yeah.
Right, so like, maybe I don'tyou know I could do something in
two hours, but like it's reallygoing to be good if I have six
hours to do it, right, becausethen I'll have time to like kind
of get into it and I'll be ableto work with the pieces without

(48:26):
that like little timer in theback of my head saying like, oh,
it's three o'clock.
You know like I work best.
I always say like no clocks, nocalendars.
Yeah, like if you could put mein a situation where I don't
know what time of day it is andI don't know what day it is
you're going to be getting greatart.
Yeah, I'm going to be thehappiest I am and you know, like

(48:48):
that that's the essence of meand that took many years of the
people around me learning rightwhere they're not.
Like you know where's Charles?
Like you're being a bad friend,it's like no dude, that's just
me and I'm working and that'sI'm not being a hermit.
You know, like come into thestudio.

(49:08):
Like I love that.
Let me play music for you, letme show you artwork.
Yeah, I'm used to people cominghere.
Right, I'll go out to a bar andjust sit down like I'm
miserable right now, um, becauseI don't have that that kind of
energy or flow.
And like sharing stuff too andgetting feedback from people.
That's a big part of theprocess.
Like I love sharing stuff that'sin process yeah and getting

(49:28):
feedback from people and whetheror not I let that influence the
final piece.
Yeah, like I'll respect otherpeople's stuff.
I'll also know why they'resaying certain things and I'll
be like, yes, I wanted that toto get under your skin.
Um, but the but, the flowfriction metaphor, and there's a
bunch of them right?

(49:50):
Yeah, I don't think it's uniqueto me, you know, trying to.
It's not an accident that mostgreat artists get money and the
first thing they do is buildthemselves like a warehouse and
disappear into it Like that's.

(50:11):
I think that's every artist'sdream, which is like.
I mean, literally every greatartist has done that to some
capacity, where it's like I gotpaid.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Now leave me alone right and I'm in my big open
space to now work.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
I'm in a bubble bettered by you know yeah, the
outside world, yeah, or thedemands of just an everyday job
or the demands of, like you know, uh, so being a single parent
has made that tough.
I hope that I'm showing my kidsall of this on an everyday
basis so that they can beincredible artists and they're

(50:39):
kind of shaping up to be theselike great little creative
vessels, yeah, um, and they cankind of internalize a lot of
this, these lessons that I'velearned the hard way over
decades.
You know very early on, when youlook at like great artists like
Picasso his dad was an artteacher so like I have that in

(51:01):
the back of my head, like yo, ifI feel like if I can instill a
lot of this stuff into them, youknow early on it'll benefit,
like they can be, you know, or10 times, 100 times the artist
that I am, um, and then you know, staying focused on the overall

(51:23):
kind of vision, which is likeyou're not attached to one piece
, just make as many as you canRight, like always keep moving
and always keep creating.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
And there's something like I can never imagine not
living a creative life.
I just can't imagine that Wellyou'd probably be miserable.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
to be honest, You'd be.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Yeah, the creativity would come out in different ways
I mean like yeah, I feel likeit's an energy.
That is, uh, very anti-fragile.
Uh, that's another book like ifanybody wants, it's not
necessarily a creative book, butlike understanding
anti-fragility, uh, in acreative sense.
You kind of have anappreciation for randomness or

(52:13):
or, uh, entropy, you know, andit being able to make certain
things stronger, um, and thenkind of going with the flow.
And I by no means have theanswers to a lot of these
questions, I'm still learning,um, that's the whole point,
right.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
I don't think we're supposed to have the answers.
If we had the answers, lifewould be pretty boring, or
everyone would just be perfectlysuccessful, and then that would
still lead to boring andmundane and the same and so yeah
, and that's.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
That's another thing like how do you, how do you
gauge success as an artist?
A lot of people will gaugesuccess as exactly are you
living a creative life and areyou able to produce things you
know daily on?

Speaker 1 (52:54):
a basis.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Other people, especially like in the social
media world, will be like it's.
It's how it's received.
Yeah, but that's not true art,it's not it Well, it shouldn't
be the driving force behind whatyou do and the value that you
attach to stuff Like job is toproduce work, to promote it and

(53:37):
present it to the world.
That's something I'm gettingused to.
I'm doing more shows and stufflike that.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yes, that's the necessary evil of the business
aspect of the creative space.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
It feels very weird.
I'll be honest, I've never been, even like with music back in
the day, like promoting music.
I just there's so muchmediocrity out there that like,
hey, listen to my music and lookat my art and give me a follow.
It's like nah, man Just sayingthat feels weird.
A follow, that's like you knowman like yeah, just saying that
feels weird.

(54:12):
But that's my own internal kindof bias.
I'd like to stay focused reallyon the on the uh producing and
just making the dopest stuffpossible, like that.
You know, like my companyslogan is like make dope.
I don't want to swear stuff,yeah stuff like that's, that's
that's the slogan.
Yeah, it doesn't matter whatdomain that's in.

(54:33):
Yeah, it could be in fashion,it could be in art, it could be
in music, it could, you know, bein tech anything um and it has
that.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
You know, just that intangible dope quality yeah,
but again that's like themanifestation of the zone right.
Yes, absolutely, it's thetangible, like it's then
bringing, driving it all home,wrapping it up in a nice pretty
bow.
Thank you for doing that,whether, whether inadvertently
or inadvertently, but you knowit's just that.
That is the idea behind thecreative process is bringing the

(55:03):
zone into reality and like youcan see it.
You can see it and I've alwaysused the sports metaphor a lot
as well with jazz, with sports,like top athletes, you see it
very easy in that visual.
But when you're talking aboutart specifically, or you're
talking about um, you know it's,it's like your uncle.
When you're talking about likehe had to complete that project

(55:27):
and I'm sure that was very, veryI'm sure he went through a
process not dissimilar to yours,as he was the.
The ending, the wrapping up ofthat, the selection process,
that's the painstaking, that'sthe to me.
I feel like the culmination isone of the hardest things that
you can do.
That you can feel complete inas an artist is the feeling of

(55:48):
completion Because, like yousaid, it doesn't stop.
You're always going to becreating and you're always going
to be manifesting that, thatzone, into something that is
actually separate and outside ofyou, which I think is the
distinction between somethinglike the written word, something
like painting versus somethinglike a top athlete versus a jazz
musician.

(56:09):
They are in the zone and youcan see it and in the room with
them, you witness it, you bearwitness to it.
Something like this is verydifferent.
You are exemplifying the zonein something outside of yourself
.
You are in the zone when youcreate it, and then you've
created something that is aphysical representation, a
manifestation of the zone inreality that someone can then

(56:32):
take and hang up on their wall,and to me that is effing
beautiful yeah, it's veryspecial, I agree with you.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
That's why I think I've been drawn to drawing more
so than any other thing, becauseit's kind of like yo you give
me a stick and like dirt and I'mgoing to draw something dope
Like it's like very primal yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
You know, it's like one human versus another human.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
We both have a stick.
I bet you I'm going to dosomething a lot more creative,
you know and like.
To me that's always been likeokay, it starts with that and
then from there, there, you canmanifest these things into final
form, whether it's a paintingor a song, or it could be like
with movement, like with yogaroutines and stuff like that.
Um, yeah, there's a, there's anentire world that's invisible

(57:21):
to us.
I think that's that's thebiggest thing.
Is that like?
being humble and, uh, open to aworld of energy that we barely
comprehend and, at the end ofthe day, we are just animals,
right, and like we're all fromthe same tree and from the same
universe and part of the samefabric of energy.

(57:42):
And the more you can be humbleand in that space, the more open
and receptive you are to theideas that pass through that,
and the best artists will havethe strongest antennas and being
able to make sense of thatenergy and manifest things that
resonate with other people andoutside audiences.
And, yeah, as stuff goes tomarket, it gets, you know,

(58:07):
transformed in different ways orwhatever.
But, like, that's not up up tome and there's stuff that's out
of my hands and the only thingthat I can really uh, control is
the root of that process, right, which is actually, can you,
you know, bring into form thesedifferent ideas?
Um, and the process isdifferent for everybody.
If somebody doesn't know whereto start, you know, I would

(58:29):
recommend, like like I run intothis with my clients a lot too
when they want to build like anew brand or a new logo, right,
so like a very narrow scope,right, but like, like I don't
draw or whatever, can you sketcha hundred different types of
your logo.
Well, I've never drawn anything, ever.
I don't kind of just forceyourself to do a hundred little
things.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
And like I guarantee you by the end of it, you know
exactly what you want to see.
Like there was no playbook forme to do any of this.
I majored in hip hop Right LikeI literally says hip hop
culture on my degree, and thething about hip hop was it's an
art form that started fromnothing.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Yeah, I mean, it was brand new, the essence of hip
hop is transforming nothing intosomething.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Right, we have no art classes.
We have no schools.
We're going to steal cans ofpaint and we're going to draw on
subway cars that go through thecity so that people could see
our artwork.
We can't make music, so we'regoing to take a record and we're
going to cut it into breakbeats.
Right, and we're going tocreate beats off of sample

(59:39):
records.
Right, I don't have amicrophone, I'm just going to
start rapping with somebody onthe corner.
Right, we don't have a dancefloor or a dance studio.
I'm going gonna take acardboard box and I'm gonna
start break dancing on thecorner.
Like, hip-hop is literally theessence, and this comes from,
like, the experience of americanslavery and that you know a lot

(01:00:00):
of the creative resistance,right, uh, like the seeds of
creative resistance that wereformed there, it's like a very
so.
Like in studying hip-hop, youreally have an appreciation for
there is no right or wrong wayto do this, but in a lot of
times, it's going to come fromdoing something differently,
right, like I'm going to takethis turntable and I'm going to

(01:00:24):
use it differently than to justplay a record and all of a
sudden, something new was bornright, so having, uh, you know,
taking some of the lessons fromthat, which was you don't need
anything to start right, justtake the same stuff and and make
it something different yeah andthen the third thing is teach

(01:00:44):
yourself.
So, like me, coming of age inthe internet, it was like web
1.0 and I don't think kids willappreciate this kind of stuff
anymore where it was like likemit, open courseware was like I
could go to graduate school atmit or I could just download
every course for free online anddo it myself.
I did that for three years.

(01:01:04):
Yeah, I took every course atMIT aerospace courses.
I didn't write the papers, butI did all the stuff on the
syllabus.
The knowledge for Web 1.0, theknowledge explosion that was
available was insane.
And next thing, you know,facebook and these other

(01:01:27):
platforms popped up and theycreated these walled gardens
that people, you know our kidsnowadays see the internet
through those lenses or whatever.
It's not like hey, this was likeall of the world's knowledge
for you to learn, whatever youwant, um, and I think that's
what you need to have thatspirit of kind of exploration.

(01:01:48):
Yes, and it's a little hardernowadays because you've got to
fight through.
Like you said, you've got tofight through your own filter
bubble first.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
Right, you've got to fight through your own
algorithms, and it makes it alot easier when you understand
how these platforms work, rightfrom a technical standpoint,
like why your algorithm isworking the way it is, or you
know how to game it and stuffand then trying to escape that
so that you can kind of be kindof like set free in the library
of knowledge.
Right, like the internet iscrazy and people don't really

(01:02:20):
get that anymore, and what'sworse now is that like AI is now
learned on that and now justspitting you back like little
pieces.
So I do think I have like avery unique upbringing in terms
of when I came to learneverything that we've talked
about in the context of of likethe internet and new emerging
technologies right right, andyou know, it's really up to this

(01:02:43):
next generation, uh yeah, tofigure out.
it's funny it's like I look atall this stuff and I'm like I
want to create dope artwork tofigure out.
It's funny it's like I look atall this stuff and I'm like I
want to create dope artwork,right, and it's like the next
generation needs to look at allof this stuff and be like, okay,
we need to actually save theplanet with this stuff.
Right, I'm really looking at AIthrough the lens of like oh, ai
is making my pictures move, butit's like you know we need AI to

(01:03:06):
kind of like solve.
You know climate changeProblems?

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Yeah, extinction.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Yeah, you know that's happening a lot faster than
expected, right?
So yeah, you kind of have tobalance the big picture and the
small picture.
Yeah, balance the creativeexploration state with okay, I'm
done exploring andexperimenting.

(01:03:30):
Now I need to kind of bringthese ideas into final form.
There's the editing, selfediting process.
That usually hinders peoplefrom doing that, but off that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
so if you have a refinement process from the
standpoint of like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Okay, I can't make a mistake.
Like that gives a tremendousamount of like whenever I get a
new notebook right, like I'llwrite on the first page first
page is the hardest and then Iturn it and then now I'm off
right because, like everybodygets stuck on that first page or
like that self-editing, if yourealize that the first draft
that you make of anything isgoing to suck, then you, then
you make the first draft, nomatter what.
Yeah, um, I don't have anygreat answers on how to finish

(01:04:05):
stuff yet.
I don't know if I ever will,that's okay listen again.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
It's not about the finishing, it's about the
process.

Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
Right, it's about the process probably means that
nobody has a great answer tothat, because I have not found
one yet and I've been activelylooking for that because I am a
student of the creative processyeah, yeah but other than like
you, just kind of know, likelike your intuition.
It's intuitive, it's intuitiveand that's your intuition, is a

(01:04:33):
muscle.
Like people don't understandthat either, Like if you're not
listening to your intuition everor you question it, it becomes
a lot harder to work.
But, like, the more youexercise your intuition it is
absolutely a muscle in all areasof your life and then being
able to kind of like, catch yourown biases and thinking and

(01:04:54):
analyze yourself honestly andopenly, understanding that
you're not the emotion orwhatever but the essence behind
it.
So that kind of borrows from alot of different.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Well, that's a bit like I mean that comes down to
self-awareness, like all of allof the muscle of the intuition,
the entire thought processbehind you know, stopping right
like and, and the entire processbehind knowing, like the
intuition, that sense of knowingthroughout the creative process
, knowing that, knowing when thenext step in the process is

(01:05:28):
ready to begin, and and I thinkthat's part of the answer to the
ending is not necessarily theending but the new beginning,
right?
So it's like that next step,whether it's a net, whether it's
another painting or anotheridea that sprung from that idea,
that now you're off to that,maybe there is no true ending,
maybe it's all a new beginning,yeah, and maybe that that is the

(01:05:50):
culmination of it yeah, and ifanybody's listening to this and
they're like stuck in that spot,just starting stuff, starting
stuff, starting stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
This is where, like, the experience comes in.
Like you start enough projects,you can then step back and be
like, okay, now I need to startfinishing these.
This is what happens when Istart 10 projects at once.
Yeah, you know, like, and thoseare all just like kind of small
creative problems, but like ifyou're approaching everything
from being open and receptiveand understanding that you're an

(01:06:21):
antenna and a conduit throughthrough which ideas flow, um,
you know, you may be technicallybetter at bringing those ideas
to life, but, um, it starts withthat one well, not better than
just.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
It was meant.
I believe it was meant for you,like, whatever idea michael had
wasn't meant for prince, it wasmeant for michael.
If you're asking me about mybelief system, I believe that,
and the same for you.
Right Like there is, there aregoing to be visions in your, in
your mind's eye that are goingto come to you that would not
come for your mom.
Right Like, like there's.
Just that is, that is, and Ibelieve that that is our own.

(01:07:00):
Again, like unique, we're all,we're all individual.
We're all, we're all one, butwe're all a little bit different
.
And so bringing whatever yourdifference is into tangible
reality, and if everyone doesthat in their own way, whether
whatever medium and whatever itis, hopefully only uplifts, as

(01:07:24):
long as, again, you're using itfor the right, for the right and
the good right, yeah yeah, Ithink there's a tremendous
amount of empathy and uh thatcomes along with that

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
right and again the self-awareness yeah, yeah, and a
tremendous amount of like,respect for others and and
whatnot, regardless of what,like, the actual work is, um,
but yeah, it's a uh, it's agrueling process that I wish
schools kind of spent more timecultivating.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
That's another can of worms, conversation about, like
, about.
But yes, yeah, and I think thatyou know, one of the banes of
my existence was standardizedtesting.
I'm not a good test taker, um,I could write a paper any day,
all day long, but I cannot.
I'm just, it's not.
Multiple choice is not my friend, um, and so I think that you
know, like avoiding that rabbithole at all costs, other than to

(01:08:20):
say that I think a lot of theschool systems have gone in that
direction and away from thecreative mind, and I think that
that is potentially by design,and I don't want to get into my
thoughts on that because, likethe stem versus theme argument,
where like should art be addedto that um so we'll see yeah,

(01:08:41):
yeah, only time will tell, buthopefully, uh, hopefully, you
know, hopefully the parents andhopefully families will instill
all of that creativity, all ofthat channeling of the goodness
of the zone of the higherconnection, if and when schools

(01:09:03):
don't or choose not to, because,you know, hopefully you spend
more time with kids than theyare at school, or the long haul
anyway hopefully um, but I justwant to thank you so much for
all of this you and I both umand I just I want for all of our
listeners to be able to findyou and connect with you, and so

(01:09:24):
would you like to drop somelocations for where they can
best reach out to you, find yourartwork, find some of your
music and potentially hit you upfor commissions yeah, uh, at.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
The human animal on instagram is probably the one
that I promote the most, but any, any on any of the social stuff
the human animal, um, and thendangerous d8 and g-e-r-o dot u-s
um.
But you can find that link oninstagram.
That's probably the easiest wayfor everyone to perfect, hit me

(01:09:58):
up perfect, charles.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Thank you so much for sharing this for having me on
and it has been my ultimatepleasure and always, always deep
diving.
In this kind of thing.
You go on forever, but we will.
We will have the.
We will craft our own ending asa new beginning, and I am just
going to say to you and toeveryone who's listening how
much I appreciate each and everyone of you for sharing your

(01:10:21):
space with me and ask that youplease feel free to share the
same with your loved ones, Formore goodness.
Follow me on all the socials,at Above the Ground podcast, and
visit my website,heirsaboveyogacom.
As always, don't forget tocheck out my other episodes and
my amazing sisters atdeepestthatcarecom.
You can find us on Spotify,Odyssey, Apple, Amazon,
iHeartRadio and anywhere elseyou might feel guided.

(01:10:44):
Again, my name is Gia RaquelRose, owner of Heirs Above Yoga,
and you are listening to Abovethe Ground podcast, where every
day is a good one Thanks forlistening.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
This show was brought to you by Divas that Care.
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