Transcript
Andy J. Pizza (0:03)
On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk. Hey, you're listening to Creative Pep Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. I'm a New York Times Best selling author and illustrator and this show is just everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice. Let's get into it I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. And I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro. And that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's Fluid Engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out squarespace.com peptalk to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code peptalk all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. Miro is a collaborative virtual workspace that syncs in real time for you and your team so that you can innovate an idea into an outcome seamlessly. We talk a lot on this show about the idea of how creative research shows that playing with the problem is essential to innovation. Now when I think of play, I don't think of documents and email, so if your team is often working remote, you need something more dynamic and collaborative. I think that Miro's mind maps and flowcharts, where team members can edit and play in real time, has a lot more capacity for innovation and playing with the problem than traditional ways of collaborating over the Internet. Whether you work in innovation, product design, engineering, ux, agile or it, bring your teams to Miro's revolutionary Innovation Workspace and be faster. From idea to outcome. Go to miro.com to find out how. That's M I R O.com illustrator Sarah Walsh is on the show today. Sarah is a longtime friend of the show, one of our first guests ever on Creative Pep Talk, all the way back on episode 79 and she returns today. Sarah has illustrated a ton of books, Hats of Faith, a gorgeous illustrated version of the book Matilda, which is a family favorite of ours, and countless Others. She's also worked with a ton of well known clients and brands like PBS and Flow Magazine, hallmark, the guardian, etc. So on and so forth. Her handcrafted art is so beautiful and we both have an affinity for the likes of Mary Blair and that kind of chalky gouache vibe. And my favorite thing about Sarah, beyond her brilliant illustration is she's just super fun to chat with. And I cried laughing in this talk and I was moved and inspired and it was just so much fun. She has a new project out. It is called Horse Girl and it's a zine that she wrote and illustrated and it is moving and it's a cinematic zine, I kid you not. It's just really brilliant. Highly recommend picking this up, especially if you're a horse girl, even if you weren't. I wasn't a horse girl, but I got tons from it and I was really inspired by it. This episode has more of that indie spirit that we've kind of been harping on about and ranting about in almost every episode lately. I feel like the way that tech and, you know, Silicon Valley has just moved into the creative space and kind of owned it means that we need to get the DIY spirit, the punk spirit, the zine spirit back and start owning our own creative projects in the real world and on the Internet. But we need to take ownership over our creativity. And this zine that Sarah put out I think really is a great example of that. We talk about stuff along those lines. We talk about why you should quit waiting to be picked by a publisher or record label or whatever and just start making. And there's also inspiration in this episode for how to get more of yourself, more of your substance into your work by mining everything that happened and what you were like and what you're obsessed by as a kid and stick until the end. And I'll be back with our creative call to adventure called bmt. Big meaty taste like the Subway sandwich. How to make your work bigger, meatier, tastier, by packing it full of the good stuff. Not just making fashionable stuff, but how to give it real heart, real substance, by tapping into your own personal symbolism. I'll be back with that, but for now, enjoy my fabulous chat with my friend Sarah Walsh.