Welcome to 2015, everyone! Last year’s first podcast, also our inaugural Gutter Talk podcast, was a conversation with Adam, the host, and Patrick Yurick, the CEO of Making Comics Worldwide. This time around, however, the tables are turned. In this episode, the host becomes the guest. In this extended podcast, Patrick talks to Adam about just what makes up Adam and his experience with the recent NaNoWriMo challenge. Also included are a couple tunes by Adam’s dear friend, Andrew Havey.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:55:53 — 106.1MB) | Embed
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Andrew Havey’s songs:
Henry (Instrumental):
Your Tune (w/ Miles Kean on upright bass) :
Adam’s Website (@SDGreeny)
Other Links:
Intro & Outro Song:
“RetroFuture Clean” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Transitions:
InceptionBrassHitMedium.wav: Herbert Boland / www.freesound.org
Old Fashion Radio Jingle 2.wav: club sound / www.freesound.org
makingcomics.com
It’s kinda nice to hear that I’m not the only person dealing with a job that takes up way too much time, though I don’t I’ve got it quite as bad as you do, Mr. Greenfield. And I totally get being thankful to be able to have a job that pays for stuff, and a place to live, food to eat, etc. etc. It’s an unfortunate necessity for the time being I guess.
Good to hear that’s its not keeping you from being creative though! And I’d bet the podcast helps with that, I found I was able to commit more to making comics when I had more contact with our people who did the same or similar things. Anyways, keep on writing dude!
James, thanks for the encouragement. I hope these podcasts do the same for you.
Yeah, being around and interacting with other creative types on a regular basis is one vital link in the chain, for sure. Before I started working with Patrick a year and a half ago, I was spinning my wheels with no one to bounce ideas off of. In that time, the fire has grown. Which is a good thing.
As for the job, I think it’s alright if we’re thankful for them, even if they stomp out creativity. I sometimes like to say my job pays for my writing habit. I hope yours at least does the same though I hope more at some point we both can support ourselves by simply being who we’re meant to be: Artists.
Thanks again for the support, James!
BTW – as a complete aside – I used Adam’s original artwork for the design of this week’s banner.
And he said he isn’t an artist 🙂
Great episode guys!
I’m inclined to agree with you, Adam. When I’d submit art assignments in high school and college classes the teacher would often give the work back to me and tell me I did a great job. It was very rare that they would point out the faults and tell me how to improve. It was nice to hear that I was doing well but I was too young to truly understand how much improvement I still needed to make. If a teacher told me “it’s amazing” I wouldn’t ask for further help because I felt like I didn’t need it and I had some fear of constructive criticism back then (which is very understandable for young artists). It didn’t mean I didn’t want to improve, I often just didn’t know what questions to ask or how to ask them. What would have helped me a lot more would have been “it’s amazing….but here’s how you can make it better.” I was always one of the top students in my class which I think hurt me overall because I wasn’t challenged enough. I’m sure it would have been different had I gone to an actual art school, but that’s not the route I took after high school. If I had been challenged more early on I feel like I would be a considerably better artist today. But I understand that a lot of students don’t learn the same way I do and treat mandatory art classes as just another class, so part of me does agree with the “it’s amazing” approach. I think the key is just figuring out which students are serious about the work.
I agree with a bit of what you are saying because it resonates with my own personal experiences as well. The most challenging aspect of the American public school system is that there really is no opt-in for students to pursue mastery before the age of 18. To be clear, that’s what we are talking about. Michael, you and I probably knew at an earlier age we wanted to be artists. Wouldn’t it have been great to get a quality education towards mastering those skills? Well it isn’t an option. We needed to do loads more schooling “requirements” to get to graduate as seniors. (There are actually options but the likelihood of 16 years olds having the support base and comprehensive knowledge to take the GED and successfully enter into community college is unlikely).
But we do have to make a clear delineation between someone who has the support structures to pursue a path to mastery. In a masters class you can give clear and constructive criticism so that art can move towards a desired end result.
In the podcast I was speaking to my challenge as an art teacher to educate a general population of high school students under a compulsory credit requirement to take my class. They were not there for mastery, they were there for exposure. It widened my eyes to the fact that very few people choose the path of mastery. In those classes I taught, 300 students each year, only about 2-5% know definitively that they want to enter into an art related field after the completion of school. They are the minority population, and therefore could not be the students explicitly taught towards.
The most interesting element was that the experience of teaching every member of this facsimile of the larger population was what I was reflecting on in the podcast. I wholeheartedly believe that, as a society, the majority of us are traumatized by our early experiences with art. This early trauma leads us to devalue it as a larger society as we get older. With mystical fame to those whose art we value (celebrities) as opposed to learning how to take their example and integrate it into our lives. We cut art programs and make the economic state such that artists are the least paid members of our society. My teaching methods, as discussed, were more targeted to addressing a larger societal issue. The focus being to heal the general population as opposed to reinforcing its belief that it “can’t do art” – which is what happens when master classes are imposed on to those who are not ready for them.
Question from this reflection:
– Is there a way to give the path to mastery to those who have the supports and self determination to pursue it as well as balance the needs of the larger population of learners?
I didn’t get enough time to explain all of that in the podcast so I figured I would expound here. Cheers! 🙂