Create & Release 12: Half the Battle
I saw Nine Inch Nails for the first time in 1989 at a little club in Atlanta, Georgia. They were the opener for Peter Murphy and while I had never heard the name Trent Reznor before, by the end of…
creativity
Deep Natter 13: If You Can Predict It, It Doesn’t Work
In this episode of Deep Natter, Sean and I are continuing a previous discussion about finding our why around the things we make. Sometimes, it’s easy to lose our way and we end up needing to make a few tweaks or…
Deep Natter 12: It’s Really Not That Social
In this episode of Deep Natter, one of Sean’s Instagram accounts got hacked, which has us talking about to what degree we’re comfortable relying on social media platforms as the main place to share our work and connect with an…
Create & Release 11: A Subtle Shift in Perspective
When I was in college, I had a professor who used to say, “Being an artist requires one thing: the ability to see.” For decades, I’ve been interpreting that to mean the ability to see what it is that I…
Deep Natter 10: Moving Towards Something Meaningful
This is actually episode 10.5 or “10 Take Two” of Deep Natter, since we had a little bit of a power outage situation and had to record this week’s show a second time. It actually worked out for the best…
Create & Release 10: Knowing When to Pivot
If you counted up all of the hours I’ve spent recording conversations with photographers and artists — including six years worth of On Taking Pictures episodes — the number is somewhere north of a thousand hours talking about creativity and…
Deep Natter 08: Where Does Your Voice Come From?
In this episode, Sean and I are talking about collaboration and finding your voice and to help us illustrate some of this, we’re going to be talking about a terrific HBO documentary from 2017 called Spielberg. While the film is…
Deep Natter 07: A Narrow Representation
In this episode, Sean Tucker and I are talking about some of the challenges of bringing focus back from our various social media platforms to our own websites, which in many ways are the only places we have online that…
Deep Natter 06: Stuck on the Hamster Wheel of Good
In this episode, we’re talking about chasing objective good in art making and selling out to please an audience versus making strategic choices to keep an audience engaged with the work we make. We also share a few things you…
Create & Release 08: Sculpting My Story
A couple of weeks ago, I was recording a new conversation with Bill Wadman and he said something that I’ve been chewing on ever since (it starts about 47:15 into the conversation). He said, “We are both in some ways…
Deep Natter 05: Getting Beyond the Skills We Know
In this episode, Sean talks about a recent trip to London where he may have had his most productive day of photography ever, which is a pretty bold statement. We also talk about the importance of inspirational friends as well…
Some Sort of Self-Worth Value Thing (w/ Bill Wadman)
The other day I was on the phone with Bill Wadman and it didn’t take long before Bill asked “wait, should we be rolling tape on this?” When you’ve recorded 1000 or so hours with someone, the answer is usually…
Deep Natter 04: What Does Looking Back Get You?
In this episode, Sean and I are talking about the idea of revisiting older work. Some people find value in looking back over what they’ve done, while others never do and instead are always looking to what comes next. While…
Deep Natter 03: Perfection and Other Fairy Tales
In this episode of Deep Natter, Sean Tucker and I are talking about perfection. They say that practice makes perfect, but I think as makers, deep down most of us know that perfect really doesn’t exist. Good? Sure. Great? Maybe,…
Create & Release 06: The Thing About Inspiration
In this installment, I want to tackle a question that I get asked all the time that really doesn’t have a simple answer: “how do you stay inspired?” The short answer is that I don’t, and frankly I would be…
Deep Natter 02: Chasing Idea Fuel
In this episode of Deep Natter, Sean Tucker and I are talking about effort, specifically whether and how and to what degree effort is connected to the value of the things we make. To help illustrate how effort can affect…
Deep Natter 01: You Can’t Control the Response
In this debut episode of Deep Natter, Sean Tucker and I are talking about long-term projects and curating our own work. Each of us have been circling a personal project for years and as luck would have it, coming…
Create & Release 05: Hard Reset
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” — Gustave Flaubert On December 6, 2014, one of my favorite photographers, Richard Koci Hernandez, deleted all of his images from his…
Create & Release 03: It’s All About You…Except When It Isn’t
I have had a love/hate relationship with social media for years. On one hand, it has provided me with an incredible amount of thought-provoking inspiration and has introduced me to some amazing people who I never would have known about…
Iteration 65: When the Teacher Disappears
I think one of the things that made Father Bill Moore so important to me was the fact that he was one of a small group of non-family members and non-friends to say that I had talent as a painter…
Create & Release 02: A More Purposeful Practice
Over the past several years, I have learned to see everything I do creatively, whether we’re talking about podcasting, painting, writing, even taking photographs, as practice — with one caveat. It’s intentional practice. It’s purposeful practice. It’s practice with oversight.…
Create & Release 01: Let’s Start With Why
There’s a book on my wife’s nightstand that I look at almost every day, and think to myself, “I really need to read that.” It’s called Start With Why by Simon Sinek and what’s keeping me from reading it is…
The Value of Value
One of the hardest things about being an artist — beyond the actual making of the art — is deciding how to value the work we make. For many of us — and I’m putting myself squarely in the middle…
Iteration 64: Meaning and Value
If you’re listening to this show, or any of my shows really, chances are you are a maker of some sort. And if you are, I bet on at least a few occasions over the past several months, you’ve had…
Iteration 63: You Have to Plant a Foot
If you’ve listened to any of my shows before, you know that I spend a fair bit of time talking about creativity, both in the literal and in the abstract. I’m fascinated by how and why we create. Why for…
In Between 21: The Things We Hold Dear
When I was a kid, my mom used to say that if the house ever caught fire, the one thing she would grab before anything else was the box of family photos that she kept in her closet, which…
In Between 19: Too Many Distractions, Too Little Art
Last week, I decided to take a much needed break from social media. There’s just too much going on in the world that pulls my focus away from the areas of my life that really warrant – and frankly need…
Iteration 62: What’s Next?
What happens next? That’s the question isn’t it? It’s something I get asked a lot, especially lately, both from friends and from strangers. I wish I had an answer but honestly I’m still spending a fair bit of time…
In Between 18: Balance and the Dark Side
Back in January, I came across a terrific piece of writing by author Paul Jarvis. One part of it in particular really spoke to some of the things I’ve wrestled with over the years — loving what you do, following…
Iteration 61: Hang On Tightly, Let Go Lightly
Do you know the Serenity prayer? Even if you don’t know it by name, you’ve likely heard it. It goes: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And…