Good Life Project - Art, Expression & Elevation | Sam Kirk

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

Sam Kirk (http://iamsamkirk.com/) was born and raised on the south side of Chicago and spent most of her childhood jumping from neighborhood to neighborhood with her family. While she loved exploring new communities and cultures with each move, she was also grappling with her identity as a biracial, queer woman, especially attending religious school. So, she turned to art as a way of both expressing herself and also processing her struggles and awakenings. She eventually found her way into the world of advertising, where she’d rise up the ladder, before the call to paint and create would begin to call her back to the world of being a full-time artist. Now, established with her work in galleries, permanent collections and large-scale public murals around the country and world, Sam creates artwork to celebrate people and to inspire pride and recognition for underrepresented communities that celebrates a wide blend of culture, identity, and speaks to the politics and issues that define so much of the public discourse today. Part autobiographical, and part fairytale, her vibrant color palette reveals profound stories laced with optimism and endowed with the fullness and complexity and joy of all parts of who she is. -------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today, Sam Kirk, was born and raised on the south side of Chicago, spent most of her childhood jumping from neighborhood to neighborhood with her family. And while she loved exploring new communities and cultures with each move, she was also really grappling with her identity as a biracial queer woman, especially while attending religious school. So she turned to art as a way of both expressing herself and also processing her struggles and her awakenings. She eventually found her way into the world of advertising after school, where she would rise up the ladder before the call to paint and create would begin to bring her back into the world of being a full-time artist.

And now established with her work in galleries, permanent collections, and large-scale public murals around the country and world, Sam creates artwork that celebrates people and inspires pride and recognition for underrepresented communities that really celebrates a wide blend of culture and identity and speaks to the politics and issues that define so much of the public discourse today. Part autobiographical, part fairy tale, her vibrant color palette and her art reveals profound stories laced with optimism and endowed with the fullness and complexity and joy of all parts of who she is. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die.

Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. I'm a firm believer of the idea that you can taste somebody's heart and intention through the food. Without a doubt, yes. I'm usually a really rational person. For some reason, I have that belief. I've just experienced it too many times. Oh, yes.

I agree with you on that belief, without a doubt. You can just tell how much joy somebody had in preparing a meal for you or in cooking the food. And I'd say in our trip in Morocco, the women in the homes that we visited definitely probably put a little bit more into it. They were watching us paint the side of a building, and we were the only women participating, the first women to ever do it. So I think there was a combination of them interacting with us and engaging with us in a way that they hadn't with women really before. And there's this curiosity and just interest in really getting to know each other. We were interested to talk to them.

They were interested to talk to us. And to have a meal together was like one of the best ways to do that. Yeah, that's amazing. Do you think part of the interest was the fact that you were, I mean, you were doing this incredible thing, but also the fact that you were women doing that in that culture? Absolutely, yeah. Because my partner and I were the first women to ever participate and produce a mural in their annual street art festival.

And so that had never been done. And there weren't any murals by women in Casablanca at all. And we were on a 50-foot scissor lift operating it on our own. Yeah. So just to see women in a way that they never saw women, that operating a machine that was, you know, typically operated by men and only surrounded by men. I think there was definitely a fascination there for that reason. And then just trying to understand, I mean, some of the questions that came up was like, you know, how is this possible? How did this happen? What is it like?

You know, just the flood of all the questions. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, our listeners can't see, but you had the biggest smile come on your face when you just sort of talked about that part of it. It seems like you engaging with people sort of like in different communities is a big part of why you do what you do. Oh, without a doubt. I mean, that's the main reason I continue to participate in public art. I think definitely putting the work out there and being the person to put the work out there is one thing, but also having the opportunity to talk to people while we're putting the work up.

We get some of the most honest responses. We have the work up. We get some of the most honest responses. We have the best conversations. People really, you know, they go deep and, you know, asking why we're doing it or, you know, what the process is like. And that's without a doubt the fun part. I mean, my work is inspired completely by people and life experience and that engagement. So to be able to do it for a career and just engage with people as I create and even sometimes change my work based on those conversations, it's like one of the best positions as an artist.

Yeah, I love that. So let's take a step back in time too because we've kind of jumped into like all the way up just recently and we'll come full circle back here because there's still more I want to explore around the idea of public art. But you grew up in South Side of Chicago. South Side of Chicago.

But it sounds like you bounced around a lot as a kid. Yeah, we moved around a lot. My parents were both working class, worked in restaurants and for warehouses, you know, forklift driver, retail stock clerk. So we moved whenever paychecks were increased or there was a better opportunity to live somewhere else. I think my parents were always trying to get us into better neighborhoods so that we were in a position to go to schools that were better for us for our futures or just in a surrounding where there was more resources, more opportunity. Growing up on the south side of Chicago and still living there, it's very easy to see what neighborhoods are neglected. So in growing up, my parents were always trying to, you know,

find spaces where there were parks that were taken care of and they didn't have to worry so much about us, you know, being out on the street doing the things kids do, riding bikes, playing, you know. Yeah. So we moved around quite a bit, and that really sparked my interest in culture. Chicago being as segregated as it is, you kind of have to navigate the city and be open to exploring the city in order to understand just how much culture exists there. Because if you only stay on the south side, you'll never discover the cultures that are on the North Side.

And they're very different than what the South Side has. So it sparked my interest just being able to move around a lot. And I'm grateful that we had to do that in many ways. Yeah. And this would have been like early 90s-ish? It was 80s. 80s. Okay.

Yeah, I was born in 81. Got it. So, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, South Side of Chicago is sort of legendary, especially through different windows of time. Totally. And very often from the outside, looking in, the story that is told is not a great story. Right. You know, it's a story of a lot of violence, a lot of underserved and underrepresentation. And certainly in politics these days, you know, people sort of blast the area regularly. Were you aware of that type of perception when you were a kid growing up there?

Or was that sort of just like the way that people from the outside sometimes spoke about what was going on? I was definitely aware of that. It's a combination because some of the neighborhoods we lived in, there was tough times. There was definitely gangs that were around, and there was definitely drugs that were being trafficked and different acts of violence that were happening. My parents, I'm also biracial,

so my parents being mixed and looking completely different from each other, that brought up different issues and different levels of discrimination I think my mother did a really good job at helping us to prepare for that and making sure that we attended schools that weren't filled with a majority, but more so where we weren't the majority, we were the minority, truly, so that we were put in a position where we had to learn about others and had to learn about the backgrounds of others. And I think that really helped us, you know, to just kind of see more of a bigger picture in Chicago. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that your mom was sort of like so proactive and really, I mean,

when you were sort of like conversations around the dinner table and in the house, was sort of like navigating different worlds a part of the conversation? It was with my mother. Yeah. Not so much with my father. I think my father really enjoyed being in his comfort zone. And my mother never really was ever in a comfort zone. You know, she's a Afro-Latina and she grew up in Bridgeport. And growing up in Bridgeport. Bridgeport's a neighborhood in Chicago.

And in the 60s and 70s, it was predominantly Italian, Irish, mostly pretty much white population. And she's one of like two of her siblings that have a fairly dark complexion. So I think she was also very comfortable with being uncomfortable often. And she tried to prepare us for that as much as she could. Yeah. When, when for you, like, when do you start to get the bug for creativity and art? Oh, as a kid, I was, I was totally that kid that was drawing on my napkins at dinner and drawing on the sides of my homework and everything. And thankfully, I went to a school that was focused on the humanities and I didn't get in trouble for that. So it was actually encouraged. But yeah,

since I was a kid, my father used to draw quite a bit. And there's artists on both sides of my family. In Puerto Rico, we have some artists that do more of like sculpture and work with clay. And my father was always drawing. So it was just something that I naturally gravitated towards. As a teenager, it became a channel for me, though. It was something that I used really to try to figure out how am I going to talk about some of these difficult things that I'm experiencing. And in my junior year, yeah, my junior year, I started to paint about what I was feeling about my identity in being

queer. And I still have that sketchbook. I look back at it and there's so many sketches that are really dark, somewhat disturbing sketches because I was in a private high school, Catholic high school. And the combination of what was being told to us with religion, along with what I was feeling about myself was just clashing. And it was coming out in these drawings. And I had no one to talk to about it.

I didn't know how to approach the topic with my family because there was no one around. Like being gay never even came up. So I had no idea, you know, how to even bring up that topic. And art became the source to explore that and to, you know, really try to figure out what is this that I'm feeling, especially going to an all girls school. You know, my mom wanted us to go to this school so that there was no distraction from boys. And I was like, no, this is the opposite. Backfired a little bit. Just a little bit. So it was, so I mean, for you, it was, I mean, it was something that you just kind of did all the time, but then it sounds like once you hit that window, it really became a way

for you to just process a lot of, I don't know if you would call it struggle, but just like really questioning and exploring, like, like who am I and how do I figure this thing out? Totally. It definitely became something for me to process. And it continues through to today. It's the main, some people write, they journal, you know, they write about their experience. I would just draw. I would try to sketch out what I was feeling through my relationships, you know, when I was having struggles with girls or heartbreak and

just trying to figure out how I was going to manage my emotions. Art would always become, that's the source. That's where I'm going to go to try to get through whatever struggle I was dealing with. When you flip back to that journal now, does it bring you right back there? Or do you feel like, oh, well, that was a part, like I can relate to that. That was a part of my past, but I'm in such a different space now. It's sort of like you can create a real sort of separation. Yeah. You know, when I look back at it now, I realize how much I suppressed over the years, more than anything. It truly is a journal in many ways, because there are references to people who were in my life at that time who maybe weren't the kindest people or who possibly didn't really help me in figuring out this part of my identity.

And there's almost like comic-like stories about what that experience was for me. And I still have relationships with a lot of these people today, and clearly I've forgiven them, but I didn't realize how much I suppressed or put to the side and really chose to forget about. That was very present in the beginning stages of figuring out who I was. And I think I really enjoy looking back and being able to look at that book, but then also looking through a lot of my art over the years because it shares my history with me.

It lets me know some of the obstacles that I've overcome and really what my perspective was then and how I approach things then versus how I do it now. So I'm grateful that I've been able to keep those things and not discard them thinking, oh, they're useless. How far back do you have those? I have work from as early as 13. Oh, wow. Yeah. Which is surprising because the artist that I am now, I try to donate as much of my inventory as possible.

If I feel like I have too many things and I'm not going to or my style has changed, then I have a couple different nonprofits that I donate work to. And some of my friends and even my wife will say, oh, there's some things you shouldn't donate, Sam. It's like, just hold on to this one thing. Donate it all, yeah. So thankfully, I've been able to keep a few things over the years. Yeah. Were these journals a blend of writing and art

or was it really just primarily visual? Mostly visual, but there was definitely a good amount of writing as well. A lot of just writing about my emotions, and you can even see in the writing the confusion that I had. And just like this search for clarity and wanting to understand who I was and what I was feeling and a need for just someone to be there with me in that journey. But yeah, mostly visual, definitely a combination though. Yeah.

Aside from your wife who are sort of like close friends now, was there a time where, especially the journals from around that time in high school, where you felt compelled to share those with either friends, like siblings or your parents? No. I tried to hide them more than anything because I felt like who I was was so wrong. Definitely the combination of having religion in my life every day in high school. I just really felt like who I was was wrong. And it was such an outlet for me just to get rid of what I was feeling in a way that it was the last thing I wanted anyone to find. I didn't know how to come out. I didn't

know how to even approach that topic with my mother. And it was weird because I didn't grow up with religion. We didn't grow up with religion. We didn't grow up going to church. My parents had different views on religion. So they decided that they would let us decide what we were going to do. And as far as if we were going to make a choice to practice a religion. The only reason we really went to a Catholic high school was because my mother was concerned about us going to public school. It was something that would provide more discipline and more focus and structure. So that was the main decision. So it was strange how as soon as I got into high school, I had all of this feeling and kind of fear about religion when that hadn't really been in my life at all growing up.

So it was a very quick, you know, turn for me, like one, two years. Right. And it's like the reason that you went there in the first place had nothing to do with that being a part of it. It was sort of like a different reason. Have you talked to your parents or to your mom sort of like about what was going on more recently? I've tried to talk to my mom sort of like about what was going on then in more recently i've tried to talk to my mom um my mom's a tough one though she's um i don't know she she's very quiet and um doesn't give away too much information uh so i still have some digging to do for sure. I do know though, when the time came, so when I was 15, my mother approached me and told me that she knew about

my identity. And I remember it crystal clear. I thought I got in trouble for something else because I was a little bit of a wild teenager. But she brought me to the kitchen and just told me, you know, Sam, I know we'll talk about it later. It wasn't the time. But eventually she just told me that I was going to have to have some thick skin and that she wanted to talk to me about how people in this world treat others who are different from them. And I think when she recognized that, she recognized something similar in me that she experienced as a child. Just dealing with being different, you know, and growing up having to deal with, you know, discrimination constantly surrounding her. So, and we eventually had that conversation. Yeah, it sounds like she was coming at it more from the place of just concern for you, for your ability to be safe, to flourish, to feel like a sense of belonging and love. Yes, she was definitely concerned. She was afraid of what I would experience out in the world. And if harm would come my way, which it did several times.

And I think she was worried that I wasn't prepared enough for that. Because up until that point, yes, we experienced some discrimination for being mixed kids and having parents that look different than some of our peers. But it wasn't to the degree where I think she would have a reason to feel like truly fear for her child. Yeah. So you go from this place to sort of having a, it sounds like kind of like a quote, understanding with your mom and her also just being concerned about you. Totally.

What was, I mean, was there a shift in you once she approached you? And like from that moment forward, was there a sense of relief or I'm going to be okay? Or was it the opposite? Because she was kind of sort of like telegraphing the opposite to you. There was a sense of a little bit of relief because I felt like my family, at the very least, I can come home. And within the doors of my home, I was accepted. I definitely felt more free to explore. Because in high school, every year you look at my yearbook and I look completely different. I had no idea what I was supposed to look like because I think I was looking up

different images or trying to find images of what being queer looked like or being a lesbian looked like. And there were all these photographs of, you know, women with short hair or dressing more manly. And I hadn't felt like I needed to do that at that time, but I was like, well, what mold am I supposed to fit? And her acceptance allowed me to feel comfortable with doing that. She didn't always approve what I did. I could also welcome to being a high schooler no matter what. New year, I went to the hair salon and I shaved all of my hair off and my hair was probably down to the middle of my back. And she was like, what have you done? And she did not approve of that. But because I knew she approved of who I was, I wasn't worried about her saying, oh, you look like a boy or you look like this or you look like that. And I felt like I could explore a little bit and do that. Yeah.

Did your, if you look back in your journals, in your drawings, do you have any sense for whether the art that you were creating changed after that? It became a little bit more colorful. Yes, it actually did. I stopped drawing and I started painting between there. And my paintings became much more about revealing my identity.

And there were rainbow flags included and portraits of myself before I cut my hair with short hair. So it was just exploring the different ways that my identity could look or what I would look like. And there were also paintings about society and being very open about how I felt in society and being isolated and different and not being accepted or being a part of it. And before then, I wasn't, there was no way I was going to paint about that and publicly put it up, you know, at the school. And I faced some challenges with that as well, because my work, I think because I felt so vulnerable, my work had a lot of nudity in it. And it was nudity as like a self-portrait there was never anything sexually explicit but because I was in a catholic school a lot of the nuns

thought you know anything with nudity or anything with you know any kind of um just figure or form being shown in that way that wasn't very realistic or very, you know, traditional was wrong. So I definitely faced that. And I had a high school teacher who really stood up for me and really helped me to get through that period and helped me write some artist statements and things to explain my work and kind of fight for it to stay up when they wanted to take it down. And it stayed up, you know, the whole time, but there had to be a statement next to my work. Nobody else's work required a statement. My work had to have a statement next to it.

And it was frustrating at the time, and I felt like it wasn't fair at the time. But it's, you know, it's strange how things prepare you for your future. And I was really grateful that I had to do that at a young age then to help to explain some of the work that I started doing a couple years afterwards. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting also at that age to sort of have the experience of, okay, so, you know, in theory, this is like big picture, not allowed in this culture. But, you know, if I fight for it, it'll be allowed. But also understanding that at least in this context and maybe in other parts of life, there will have to be some sort of explanation or like there's an educational burden that goes along with it, which, you know, not fair at all. Right, right.

But just to have this awareness that, huh, like there's this kind of weird middle ground type of thing going on in preparation for sort of like stepping out of that environment and then moving on. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. From there, you went on, where'd you go to college, to undergrad? I went to Columbia. Okay.

I had started at a technical school and thought I wanted to go into interior design. Where'd that come from? I've always had a fascination with architecture. And I think growing up, my mother always said, go for business or go for technology or something. And architecture felt like a little bit of business and creative to me. And I like, I have always enjoyed building things and getting my hands dirty. So I had a very different idea of what interior design would be for me. And strangely, I ended up doing it anyway in a lot

of ways. But I went to a technical school, but then I went to Columbia College in Chicago for marketing. And once I finished up that degree, I worked in advertising for almost 10 years. Yeah. What made you flip to marketing? Was it a genuine interest or just, oh, this would be useful type of thing? So my senior year, once I was studying design, I was presenting to a room of architects and they loved my work. And I graduated with a 4.0 with honors, but they said my work was too expensive. No one would ever build it. It's beautifully conceptually. But to try to get that built, the budgets would be too

high. And I had zero interest in creating boxes. Like once they, you know, started to present some of the work that they were doing, I thought, I do not want to do this. Like you're not going to be drafting complex HVAC systems. Right. Some people love that. That's great. Awesome for them. It's not your thing. Yeah. One of my peers when we were in class together when I was presenting, she had said, I love looking at your floor plans because they look like paintings. Just because the number of curves and there's not all these just straight walls, you know, and different materials the way that I was mixing them and using them.

And I thought, yes, this is, you know, I want to create work that gives people that feeling. But I was, my twin sister and I have an identical twin sister. We're both the first to go to college. So when somebody gives you that feedback and says, you know, what you've been working towards for four years isn't possible, and you have no one to go to and say, what do you think about this? Then individually you think, well, what do I do with this now? I spent all this time and money to do this. And it's not something that these professionals see as feasible. I don't want to do what they're doing. So then I'll figure out something else. So advertising was always a backup plan for me. It was always kind of in the back of my mind as

something that I could do. So I decided to go to school. I got the degree and decided to go to back to school and study marketing. Yeah. So then when you come out from marketing, like you said, then you step into the ad industry and you spend 10 years in that world. What were you actually doing? So I started off doing entertainment marketing. So it was a combination of sports sponsorship and entertainment marketing. So events, red carpet events, different events for brands, like some things you see at food festivals, music festivals, setting up the full production for that, working with different brands to figure out how they could sponsor events and what their role could be within it, helping them come up with those ideas.

But then I went into a rotation program for two years where I basically learned every discipline possible in marketing and became an integrated marketing specialist. After that, I went into new business. So I jumped around a lot within the same agency, but really got a good feel for all of the different types of marketing and advertising that were offered. Yeah. I mean, did you feel like it was scratching any, like the creative itch that you had in

any meaningful way? Definitely. When I worked in entertainment marketing and sports sponsorship, there was so much of the work that was hands-on that required me to travel and to get out there and build things, essentially. We would build them with the creative team in the office, but then I would physically go out there with a crew and bring it to life. So that part was great. Once I got into television and print and some of the digital marketing, no. Immediately I knew. And I spent almost two years doing that.

And I thought, this is not for me. It was too business. There was too much paperwork. I wasn't being creative. So when I left that, that's why I went into new business. Because it still allowed me to develop the concepts and gave me a different challenge than what I had already done in the earlier parts of my career. Yeah. It's so interesting too. I think a lot of, I get the sense that a lot of people are really strongly drawn to particular sort of like forms of creative expression, either really physical and manual,

you know, like in the way that you actually do things or where some people that are sort of like really digital oriented and non-tactile. Like for me, it seems like we're really wired very similar. Like I love the physical tactile process of creation. Like I like to feel it in my body, you know, like I love, I would rather work with wood or paint than, you know, like work on a screen, even though I know how to do both. And it seems like it does something different to you. I always feel like the physical process of creation affects me differently. Do you? It sounds like the same with you.

Oh, without a doubt. Every time I get into my studio, and I love when I have days that I don't have to look at email, because it's almost like meditation for me. I just get to be there and play with the materials, even though at this point I know exactly what I'm doing and, you know, how I'm going to execute it. There's still this sense of wonder that always comes up and my, I know my imagination drifts off and I'm like, oh, maybe I'll try this this time. Or there's just a lot more room for play.

And yeah, I enjoy that. So during this tenure window, were you also, were you doing your own thing on the side at all? Like, were you painting and developing other stuff just on your own? Or was the work kind of all-consuming? So I stopped painting for about seven years. Wow. Between finishing up my second degree in college and working in advertising. And I picked it back up again because I found myself very stressed and I was working really long hours and I didn't know what to do with kind of the buildup of, you know, just stress and

energy that didn't feel very positive to me. Exercise wasn't working. And so I thought, you know, I used to paint. Let me try that again. And I picked up the brush again and was really frustrated the first couple of years because, you know, you lose the skills. But once I got back into it, I started to paint more. and then I eventually was promoted several times, got an office, put some work up in my office. And from there, that's when the organic growth of where I'm at today kind of began. My coworkers started to ask, where'd you get those paintings? And I'd say, oh, I painted them. So then eventually I set up an easel in my office and in between projects, I would start

painting and I would paint paintings for some of my coworkers. And I thought this is going well. So I spoke to the office manager at the agency and asked about possibly doing an art show. And she was like, I think that's a great idea. Let's do it. We love to showcase our employees' talents. Put up a bunch of my work, sold several paintings. And I thought, well, maybe I'll show in a gallery. So in 2009,

I showed in a gallery. Right. So wait, because it's sort of like in the world of art, showing in a gallery is this massive aspiration. T know, tons of people go and get degrees and they study and they become, and like the aspiration is one day, like either I'm going to get representation or I'm going to show in a gallery somewhere. And tons of people want it and very few people get it. So how, you just like, and then I showed in a gallery. Yeah, no big deal. It's like, how does that actually happen? Was it a very organic, easy process for you?

It was a very organic, easy process. A friend of mine who I had grown up with, no interest in art, happened to know somebody who decided she was going to open a gallery in downtown Chicago. And she was looking for artists to show their work. So he showed her my portfolio. She decided to include my work in the group show for the launch of her new gallery. So it was a new gallery, nothing that was established, looking for very entry-level emerging artists. And I thought, you know, this is a good opportunity for me to see what this is like.

So she accepted my work. I sold several pieces during the opening show. Were you surprised by that or did you expect it? I didn't expect to sell as much as I did, but I did expect to sell. I think I just always go into different opportunities, more optimistic. I don't walk in. I don't feel like walking in with an energy of like,

oh, if I don't sell, oh, well, you know, like I always think if I bring in an energy that's positive and is hopeful for a good outcome, then like that's the likeliness that it'll happen. So I did go in thinking I would sell. And at this time also, you still have like your full-time gig. I still have my full-time job. So here's another curiosity of mine. Do you have a sense for whether knowing that you had yourself

covered financially with this other thing allowed you sort of the psychological freedom so that when you actually like stood in front of your canvas or whatever you were working on, you felt like you could be completely unbridled and free and true to who you are without reference to whether this was quote commercially viable work because you didn't need it to be? Without a doubt. Yes. I noticed things and I think about that often, actually. I think about the freedom that I used to have when I painted earlier in my art career versus now. Now, I find myself often thinking about the viewer or where this work is going to go. And I try to tell myself, don't do that. But it's just, it's natural. I mean, I'm completely sustained by my art career now. So I have to think about some of those things as well. But yeah, back then, I definitely had a lot more freedom to just paint. And you know, if people liked it, they did. If they didn't, then I wasn't so worried about it. I was also in a position where I was happy to keep some of my work because I didn't.

I was still fairly new at painting again. And if it didn't sell, I was happy to put it up on my own walls. Yeah. So you're painting as much for you as for anyone else. Totally. Maybe more for you than anyone else. Yes. What were you painting then? I was painting a lot of work about my own culture

and different characters and figures that celebrated who I was. Yeah, just really focusing on different cultural elements and painting pieces about that. Yeah. What happens that leads you to make the decision to say, okay, you know what? After 10 years of doing my full-time thing, being promoted, having my own office, it's time for me to actually close that door and go 100% into the art side.

So in 2010, I was offered two commission projects outside of my advertising career. And one came from a woman who I had been working with for the last six years. I did end up going into some interior design. In addition to my advertising career, I continued to do side projects, and I designed this woman's home for her, her main home, a vacation home, a restaurant. So I did these small, semi-small side projects. But she asked me to design two homes for her from the ground up. They would each be on their own acre of land,

and she didn't want to buy something that was existing. She wanted it designed from the ground up, and she wanted me to design the concept for what her house would look and feel like. She would hire an architect and engineers and everybody to follow my lead, which was rare, right? And- That's almost exactly what everybody told you would be impossible. Exactly. Oh my God, the smile that's on your face right now. It's like, told you so. Yes. And at the same time, a music venue that was opening outside of Chicago commissioned me to

create 15 very large scale original pieces of work for the space that would be permanently in the space. So that was really my first introduction into kind of public art. It was a private space or a public space where people would go, but it was indoor. So 15 original pieces, and the smallest was four feet by eight feet. Oh, so these are big pieces. These are very big pieces, yes. And there was no way I could do both of those while I keep my job. And while I loved my job and my career in advertising, I was just at a point where I wasn't really challenged anymore. Social media started to play a role and myself, along with

some of my peers, were doing more reverse mentorship than just mentorship directly. And it didn't seem like anything was going to change right away. So I thought, you know, I can leave advertising and give this a shot. Both these projects would probably take a year, year and a half. I can see where they go and if anything else pops up. And I could always go back to advertising if I want to. Like, I've built a strong resume. So I left my career in advertising and went for this. The project with a woman for the

house ended up turning into a three-year project. The houses got changed. So she decided she wanted to move to the city. So I ended up redesigning a three-story penthouse for her and custom designing some really cool things and completely custom elevator that I drew from scratch and she had built. It was just, you know, it's like the dream project. Somebody who has enough money to spend on things where she's like, I want to live in a space that feels like your paintings. You know, like it was literally like what you said, the opposite of what the architects were saying to me at the time.

So that turned into a three-year project. The music venue finished that within a year, but then I started to get other commissions and other requests. And in 2012, I really dived into public art. So while I was still working on her home and also taking some of these smaller painting commissions, I started to get involved in murals. And mostly because I felt like when I did do shows in galleries, the people that I wanted to communicate with weren't who was showing up. And the topics that I started to address in my work, once I decided to go full-time into art,

then I thought about, well, what am I going to create? I started to get worried if I would have enough content. And I had to take a look at myself and think, you know, what could I create about where I won't get tired and I feel good creating about this work. And it really came down to people and social justice issues and all of the things that I was facing, either myself or my family was, and figuring out how I could communicate about these things differently. And public art really became kind of like the billboard for that. Like it was a space where I felt like I could put this mural up almost as an advertisement and try to get people to talk about this topic in a way that I am not able to do or I don't see happening in a gallery space. So in 2012, I started playing with, you know, producing murals and trying to learn that craft. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. What was the first thing that you did that was sort of like on the mural, on the public art side?

I did a piece on gentrification in Pilsen. Tell me about Pilsen. So Pilsen. in Chicago. Definitely the space you want to go if you're going to find murals. But it had a history of murals being created there as part of one of the spaces on the South Side where murals started to pop up in the 70s. It's not the only space, but one of the main spaces. And murals were welcome. And murals were often about community and the struggle and about the people's experience. So I thought, you know, this is a good space for me to explore this part of my creative career and figure out if this is something that I want to continue to do. And the first one was so hard. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I just had brushes and rollers and wasn't as familiar with the process.

Most of my friends who had painted murals usually use spray paint and I didn't grow up, you know, doing graffiti or anything. So it was just a very different, more labor intensive process than using spray paint. So did you do it alone? Was it all you? I did most of it alone, the first one. And my youngest sister, who, man, I don't even know how old she was at the time. She was probably 11 at the time. She came out to help me. She was like your assistant? That's awesome. And she actually ended up assisting me for several years.

Oh, that's amazing. And now she's in college, so not anymore. Yeah. When you finally did that, it's like your first time ever, 2012, you're doing this big public thing outside on a wall where everybody can see it. It's the subject matter that you want to talk about, and it's a community who you want to be in conversation around it and step back. How did you feel knowing that you just put this up and looking at it? And then what was the conversation around it once it was up? I felt really good once I put it up, but what I didn't expect was to feel the amount of pressure that I did.

Huh. The biggest difference in my studio and on canvas, I can paint things that don't really impact people, right? So in deciding to paint this mural, that hadn't really dawned on me until I was actually in it and completing it and people were coming up to me and asking questions. I didn't realize how much people cared about having some of these pieces in their community and the importance of the engagement. And I was glad that I did the mural in Pilsen at that time because there was so much community engagement that it allowed me to realize that right away. And from that point forward, then I continued to involve the community

in the conversations for my murals. But looking back at that piece, I was very happy with it because the conversation that I wanted to spark was happening. But I felt a little intimidated because I recognized there was a lot I needed to learn about the process and materials that I was using. And also just asking the opinions of people around me before deciding, oh, this is my idea. I'm going to go create it. So it was a great, you know, learning lesson for me to really understand how to engage with community in the process of painting murals. Yeah. I mean, it's such an interesting process too, right? Because there's you as an artist,

there's the thing that you want to say, there's the voice, the style, the craft, and you want to be true to that because that's what makes you happy. That's what lets you feel fully expressed as a creative person. And at the same time, because part of what you're doing is an act of service, you know, and in service of this community to a certain extent, you know, and you want them to be a part of it and to feel like this is landing in some way, shape or form. It's like to then invite them in, not just to have the conversation about it afterwards,

but to potentially be sort of like to make it almost like a partially co-creative process. I mean, on the one hand, it's really cool. But on the other hand, there's this, I would imagine there's this really fine, like there's like a dance that you do between wanting it to be what you want it to be and also honoring the curiosities and the input of the community

for whom you're partially creating it. Totally. Yeah, absolutely. Was that tough for you to navigate? Initially, it was a little bit tough. And I think part of the reason it was tough, especially with that mural, and actually almost all of the murals in Chicago, because I was talking about gentrification in that mural. And some of the questions that I was asked was, oh, how long have you lived in the neighborhood?

Right. And as a person who has moved around so much in Chicago, I've never felt like Chicago wasn't my home or like I couldn't claim Chicago as my city wherever I went. It was the first experience I had where I realized as an artist and as a public artist, people really care if you are from that area. You can't just be from the south side of the city. So it was a wake-up call for me to really think about how I can become involved before I just go into a neighborhood and create a piece. And even though I'm asked to do that quite often now, as part of my process, I also try to figure out, you know, if I'm not as familiar with an area or if it's in another city, how can I engage with the people that are there before I just show up and start, you know, painting?

And it stems from that first experience. Yeah. And I think it's interesting, right, if you bring them into the conversation at a certain point, like you said, engage with the community beforehand. But then I wonder if it's interesting to sort of like do that in advance and then kind of just fold that into what you want to create. But it's not so much like you're saying like along the way, hey, what do you think of this? What do you think of this?

Right. I would imagine that would be kind of a brutal way to do that. That would be definitely a brutal way to try to. Like painting by committee basically. Right. No, go left, go right. Right. Yeah.

No, exactly what you said, meeting with them first and then folding them in and coming up with a concept. I usually try to now create a concept and show that to community members and get their feedback before we start painting. It's inevitable whenever we start painting, you know, we're going to get opinions. But unless there's something very strongly that comes up or an opinion that somebody has, and there's a majority that feel that way, we don't typically change things in the process. So in the background through all of this also, you're navigating and getting comfortable with your identity, you're out in the world. Eventually you fall in love, you get married. And I would imagine that this whole very personal, very private process for you also has got to really influence

your creative process and your creative output and what you want to say and how you want to say it. Yeah, definitely. You know, for a long time, I almost put my identity behind me. And actually, I did. I did put my identity behind me. I believe because of the amount of times I've experienced rejection and discrimination, I felt like the last thing I should do was include that in my art. So for years, you wouldn't have seen anything about my identity in my work. I'm trying to think when it started to come back up. It was probably around 2013, once I started working with some nonprofits, I think was when identity and any conversation about the LGBTQ community started to come up. And I remember working with some nonprofits

and focusing on sharing their story through visual arts and figuring out how to communicate that and still not doing that myself. I was never closeted. Like if people asked me about my identity and who I was, I was very open with it. But if you went to a gallery show and saw my work, nothing in the work would ever give you a signal that, you know, that was who I was. And I really had to, you know, take a look at that and ask myself if I was being true to who I was and if I was going to explore culture and celebrate culture but not celebrate myself and my own identity and my own community. Like, what did I have to get past or what did I need to figure out in order to overcome that? Because I felt like I wasn't just putting my best work out there. And there was a

part of me that was kind of blocked off. Yeah. I mean, when you say your best work, meaning like more like your truest work. Yeah. My truest work. Like I wasn't allowing myself to put all of my emotions into the work. And for me, that, that is the process of my art is just letting go and kind of letting the craft take me to whatever direction it does. And if I was, you know, keeping that door shut was what I was producing really true to, you know, everything that I was experiencing and the messages that I was trying to, you know, put out there. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting. It's like on a personal level, you're actually living, you know, like you're living a very open, true life.

But on a professional level, it sounds like what you were feeling was still a certain amount of hiding. Yes. Was there something, did something happen that kind of like made you be like, it's time? Or was it just a gradual shift? Like, let me just bring more of this to my work because it just feels like it's the thing I need to do. I decided in mid-2013, 2014, well, I met my wife actually in 2013. I think without a doubt, she was part of that. It was the first time I had experienced somebody personally in a relationship who just 100% had my back and where I didn't walk into a relationship where I felt like I had to hide from their family or from their world in any way. So that was one.

But two, I decided to spend more time in New York and moved here for a couple years. And I think living here allowed me to just open up myself. I didn't know anyone. There weren't all of these memories of bad experiences that had happened. And while I deeply love Chicago, there are a lot of things that have happened in the streets there that are vivid reminders of just the levels of discrimination that I've experienced throughout my life. And in some cases, events where I'm lucky to be alive. So coming here kind of gave me a clean slate in a funny way.

I was able to see people. And, you know, at this point I was 30, 31, and I felt like I was reinventing myself. I was able to see people who were living their truest selves and dressing in a way where the clothing was their armor or the clothing was the representation for who they were. And I didn't see that really in the Midwest that often. And even though I came here quite a bit before moving here, I don't think I was really in the spaces physically or mentally to take that in. And in that year, I was. I think part of it was because when I came here in 2013, I was working on a project for two months for a company where it was all about exploring culture and celebrating culture. So I had immersed myself in the New York entertainment scene.

And that alone will open you up if you've never done it. And I hadn't done it to that degree. And then also meeting Jen, my wife, and experiencing who she was in her life. It was just this combination of all these great things and kind of the perfect formula for me to be able to feel like I could, you know, take off some of the layers that I was kind of hiding underneath and explore a little bit more of myself. And that completely opened that door.

And from there on, it was like I'm not hiding anything. Yeah. Was the reception, once you started to share that side of yourself in your work, in your art, was the reception what you thought and hoped it would be? I didn't really have an expectation for it. Yeah. It was just like, this is the thing I need to do now. Yeah.

Yeah. It was just like, this is the thing I need to do now. Yeah. This is something I need to do. But the reaction was huge. I received so much love and appreciation from people who needed to see this kind of work and who wanted to see it from another woman, a woman of color, people in my own communities who I didn't think about or didn't even consider. Like there's so many people in the neighborhoods where I've spent most of my life that are living the same thing I'm living. Like I need to create this for that reason.

And it just completely turned my world around in my work and really made me realize why I needed to create not just work that brought up topics around social justice issues or around issues of discrimination or underrepresented communities, but more so to create work that celebrated these people in a positive way without all of the other attachments. And I mean, that's where my work is today. And it's extremely fulfilling to be able to do that. And I mean, I can't believe that I hid it for as long as I did or like, you know, pushed it aside for as long as I did. Yeah. It's amazing how we all do that with different parts of ourselves. And so often, especially if we have any sort of creative inclination where the output of what we create will be publicly seen and judged, there's so much fear that so often wraps around it that we just end up stifling so much of who we are, not realizing that it's that. Right. and just end up stifling so much of who we are, not realizing that it's that. That essence, that quirkiness,

that thing that makes you different sometimes, that is the thing that so many other people would resonate with. Would you be willing to actually share it? Yeah. So this kind of brings us pretty recent. And when we started a conversation, we started with you in Morocco doing this big public mural and being on like a giant lift painting the side of a building. Yes.

Sounds like you're also, you know, this has become, your work has also become fairly international. Yes. Yeah. Morocco is the first international mural that I've done. But now I'm painting more nationally and just starting to travel a lot more to do public work and then also to do other projects and teaching workshops as well. But Morocco was, I felt like it was this wild test in some ways because I get to this point in my career where I'm very open and comfortable with being open with my identity and my work and myself and everything. And then I get this project where, one, there hasn't been any women who have ever done anything like it there.

And also, it's illegal to be queer in Morocco. And not only are we going to paint a mural there, but we're also going to volunteer to work with some community groups for a week. My wife teaches dance and I taught some mural workshops and that's important to us. Whenever we go to other places, we always want to do some sort of a culture exchange and give back. So we knew we were going to be there for an extended period of time, which turned into a month. And essentially, in many ways, in public, had to go back into the closet. So I was really torn in many of the moments being there. having to physically fight with myself to not hold her hand and not break down from feeling like I had to put, you know, myself back in a closed space again, especially after I had experienced just being able to be completely free and free in my work to not be able to

to do that and know that there are other women and other people in this country and in this space that are dealing with the same thing and I think from experiencing also the power that art has in making people feel good about who they are, especially when you paint pieces or put public work out there that celebrates them in a way that they're not used to being celebrated. To not be able to do that in any way in the work or in who I am myself, being us, was extremely difficult. And I thought, like, it's a test, but it's something that I need to do and that I want to do. But it was very difficult to not be able to figure out some way to add an element of the LGBT community to that piece. And just to have to hide every day.

Yeah, I can't even imagine. I mean, I would imagine when you get the invitation to do something like this, it's probably pretty mixed emotions. Like on the one hand, you're like, wow, there's so many things about this culture that like I don't agree with. But then at the same time, like what a potentially incredible opportunity

to step into it, understand people living this life better. And even in the smallest way, if there's some way I can make a difference or contribute, it's like balancing those two things. It must have been. It was extremely difficult. I mean, Morocco just as a space, especially when you look at the arts and the creative industries there. And as somebody who is interested in architecture as well. It's amazing. It's like a visual heaven for me, you know.

And as someone who's also fascinated with other cultures and wanting to explore them, like I couldn't think of another place that I could have asked for my career or art to send me. But yeah, and then to have to do that with my partner and deny who she is and deny who I am in conversations daily over and over again. It was really difficult, but the main reason that I chose to do it was because despite having to hide my identity, being able to be a woman and the first woman to do something like that, there was enough to think this can change something. You know, this is going to change some perspectives and some mindsets, and maybe that's a step in the right direction. It may not be a complete step, you know, but if it's one foot into the right direction, then I'm happy with that. Yeah. Baby steps. Yeah. We're hanging out in New York right now, but you were also just recently up in Vermont. I was just up in Vermont. Tell me what was going on there. So I don't do many workshops, but I was asked to teach a arts activism impact workshop.

It's an art camp at a school out in Vermont. And I've been teaching for the last three weeks. I had a class of six students. They all decided the different topics that they wanted to discuss. And my role was basically to help them to understand how to research these topics properly and then also develop a creative concept around whatever topic they chose to discuss. So it was a little bit of a challenge because I didn't know what they wanted to explore until I arrived. So it was a great experience. All the students were teenagers. Very different experience. The campus that it was on was very privileged.

So I think for me the biggest difference was I've come from a place where people understand what their struggles are and what the struggles of others are because they know what it's like to be in that position. I'd never really been in a position where I was teaching students or working with even adults and students that didn't ever really have to worry about anything and having to convince them or help them to see why they needed to care about other people or other things that were happening in the world. It was a very different experience for me. Yeah.

Do you feel like you got there with them? With the students, I definitely did. It's like the grownups, it's a whole different story. Yes, the adults is a totally different story. But with the students, I definitely did. I was really proud because at the end of it, they ended up doing a final project on gun violence and they did an installation they put together an installation in the main cafeteria where they took over a table and turned all of the chairs into headstones and basically set it up like a

memorial around the table they created their own caution tape and the caution tape was filled with statistics for different shootings and gun violence that has happened within our schools in the United States over the last 10 years and how that compares to other countries. And it was wild because that ended last week, Saturday. And, well, this past Saturday is when that ended. And now we're facing two more mass shootings in the United States. And Chicago had one of the most violent weekends it has had all summer. So just to be immersed in that with them and to understand what their fear is as young folks and people who are growing up seeing this happen constantly.

And then to come out of it, and it's just, it seems like it's a constant cycle. But while it was something different that I don't usually do, I definitely found the value in it. And I'm thinking about, you know, other ways that I might continue to do workshops like that. It's like a whole new part of the journey, potentially the stepping into the role as a teacher. And then again, you know, like how does, how do you, how do you teach, how do you teach

really deeply important concepts and social justice oriented ideas to people of profoundly different backgrounds? Right. You know, cause you can't just show up and be the same person and say the same thing and do the same thing in every group of people. No, and every single student is different. And with these topics, it's really if they don't have a personal attachment to it, trying to, you know, get them to see why they should or why it's important.

And that was really different, very, very different for me, something I totally didn't expect. I think I had always thought up until that moment, somebody deals with something, you know, whether it's mental illness or drug abuse or even, you know, violence in some way. It was a shock, and maybe this is just, you know, for me growing up in some way. It was a shock. And maybe this is just, you know, for me growing up in the way that I have, it was a shock to meet so many people who hadn't experienced, you know, one thing or another when I've experienced like multiple

things in my own life. Yeah. So as we sit here, um, circle, name it, this is Good Life Project. So think about the journey that you've taken over the last few decades. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I'd say to live a good life is to enjoy the company of others. That's what I enjoy the most in my life is being able to spend time with people who make me laugh and have a good time with. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible.

You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don Tell me how to fly this thing. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot?