Almost Everything with Jeffery Saddoris

Recently, the closing of my former web host inspired Sean and I to take a step back from our respective websites — and it’s allowed each of us to see the work we do and, maybe more interestingly, the work we share in a different light. Also, Sean reveals an exciting new direction that his life will be taking in the near future.

LINKS
Carrd
Andy Adams
CJ Chilvers
Squarespace Wells template
Sean’s retreat in June
Morning pages

CONNECT WITH SEAN
Website: http://seantucker.photography
Twitter: @seantuck
Instagram: @seantuck
YouTube: Sean Tucker

CONNECT WITH JEFFERY
Website: https://jefferysaddoris.com
Twitter: @jefferysaddoris
Instagram: @jefferysaddoris

You can also connect with both of us by sending an email to [email protected].

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MUSIC
High Line by Duffmusiq

Music featured in this episode is licensed from Artlist, which is a terrific music licensing platform for YouTubers and filmmakers. Use the following link to get two additional months of Artlist free when you sign up: https://bit.ly/JS_Artlist

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Several years ago when I wasn’t really sure what direction my life was taking, one of the ideas I kept coming back to was getting a Volkswagen Westfalia van and just driving around the country, allowing the universe to put interesting people and experiences in my path rather than trying to follow a specific plan. I hadn’t started podcasting yet, nor had I picked up my paint brushes again, so the “what I would be doing to actually support myself” aspect of it was pretty nebulous. Still, I loved the idea and for years it was a running joke between my friend Jude and me. Whenever one of us was dealing with some sort of personal or existential challenge, the other would respond with “well, you could always get a Westfalia van and just drive around.”

For Dutch photographer Maarten Rots and his wife Anne, the dream of van life has become a reality. For 6 to 8 months a year, they trade their home in the Netherlands for a Ford Transit camper van and travel throughout Europe, often without a fixed destination. For Maarten, this way of traveling almost by instinct has proven to be the catalyst for some of his most compelling work both as an itinerant solo artist and as a collaborator with other artists he meets along the way.

While I know the reality of it is not always as romantic as the way we see it from a distance, I can’t say I’m not just a little envious. In this conversation, I caught up with Maarten in Portugal where he was preparing a pop-up exhibit of his work, appropriately titled In Transit, at a local gallery.

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CONNECT

You can find Maarten on Instagram @maartenrots, or on his website at https://maartenrots.nl. Also, be sure to check out his magazine March & Rock.

If you have an interesting story to share, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at [email protected] or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Earlier this week, Adrianne and I watched the first episode of the new season of Abstract on the Netflix . For those of you who haven’t seen it, Abstract is a fantastic show about art and design. It follows roughly the same format as something like Chef’s Table — which is also an excellent show — where each episode profiles a specific artist or designer. Last season included Tinker Hatfield, Paula Scher, and Platon among others and this season starts out with someone who I’ve never heard of by name though I have seen his work. Olafur Eliasson is an artist and architect whose large scale works are focused and really dependent on the user or viewer’s experience of them. Many of his works center around light — specifically, the effects and manipulation of light. For example, one of his earlier pieces is called “Beauty” and it was his attempt to create a rainbow by lighting a gentle waterfall of very fine mist. The effect was such that no two people experience exactly the same rainbow, since the color and intensity are based entirely on your viewing angle relative to the mist.
“This is a space totally dependent on you being there,” Olafur says. “When you leave the exhibition, and there’s no-one in the room, there’s also no art.” This idea is really core to Olafur’s art — the Why of his art, if you will. Each piece he makes is a sort of challenge. As he puts it, “do I trust my own eyes and my own capacity to engage in the world?” His work is completely dependent on the spectator. It’s a collaboration –maybe even a conversation – between him as the artist and us as the viewer. Even his episode of Abstract is a collaboration, beginning with Olafur breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the camera — to us — as he presents the conditions of our collaboration.

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LINKS

Abstract: The Art of Design
https://olafureliasson.net

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

– William Arthur Ward

I have been drawing as far back as I can remember. My mom used to tell me that I could draw before I could talk. I’ve spoken on previous Iterations about my childhood love of art supply stores, which is still kind of true. All I ever wanted to be as a kid was an animator at Disney and I drew constantly. That changed a bit in high school when I was introduced to photography, but I didn’t stop drawing. In fact, I wanted to go to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena to study photography and illustration. As it happened — and this must have been my sophomore or junior year — Art Center was awarding scholarships for weekend classes, and one of them was being taught by a real Disney animator. All you had to do to be considered was submit a portfolio of your work. I told myself that I didn’t have a shot, and even if I did, there was no way we could afford the $40,000 a year that it cost to go there. On top of that, there was my dad and his repeated “artists are a dime a dozen” speeches echoing in my head. So I didn’t even try. In fact, I went the other way and started making up excuses for why I no longer even wanted to go to Art Center. To borrow from The Book of Pressfield, it was Resistance plain and simple. But my high school art teacher, Mr. Andrew, didn’t agree.

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The new issue of Time magazine which is called The Art of Optimism – 34 people changing how we see our world. The editorial that begins the issue is called “Why art is the antidote for our times” by Director Ava DuVernay and the issue includes articles by Laverne Cox, Bill Gates, and Guillermo del Toro. There’s also a terrific article called “12 Leaders Who Are Shaping the Next Generation of Artists” which features interviews and commentary on where art is at and where it’s going.

Flashbak posted a really great series of photographs of New York taken by Too Papageorge in 1966-67. One of the things that makes them so special — other than capturing New York in a way that many of us have never seen it — is that the photos were all taken on Kodachrome and they just show what an amazing film Kodachrome was – the colors, the shadows – and for many photographers that film stock was what defined their style.

In honor of Black History month, the New York TImes has launched a terrific new project called Overlooked, which begins “Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries: of heads of state, opera singers, the inventor of Stove Top stuffing and of the Slinky. The vast majority chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones. Now, we’re adding the stories of other remarkable people.” The site is really well done and new obituaries will be added weekly. There’s also a form to allow users to nominate candidates for future entries.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Last month, we lost Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was an absolute monster of an artist and since hearing the news I’ve been going back and listening to a bunch of his catalog, which is not only massive, but it’s also incredibly diverse.

There are certain artists whose work allows you to see the world differently. If they’re really good, they might even allow you to feel it differently. Ryuichi Sakamoto was one of those artists. He worked across multiple musical genres and he was able to tap into and even affect different aspects of the human experience. I think the first piece of Ryuichi’s music I heard was Forbidden Colors, which is a vocal version of the theme to a film he scored and acted in alongside David Bowie called Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. It was also the first of what would be decades of brilliant collaborations with former Japan frontman David Sylvian. A friend in college had reintroduced me to David, who I was familiar with from Japan, but it was his solo record Secrets of the Beehive, which featured Forbidden Colors as a bonus track, that introduced me to Ryuichi and I’ve been a fan ever since.
LINKS
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Brandon Stosuy
Documentary about the piano that was damaged by the 2011 tsunami
asyncAsia
Roger Dean
Tales From Topographic OceansHugh Syme
Storm Thorgerson
Mick Rock
Eric Meola
Hipgnosis
Reid Miles
CONNECT WITH ME
Website: https://jefferysaddoris.com
Twitter: @jefferysaddoris
Instagram: @jefferysaddoris
SUBSCRIBE
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MUSIC
Music For Workplaces by Jeffery Saddoris