Andy J. Pizza (4:38)

Hey, Phoebe. Okay, so first of all, I just wanted to say I just want to recognize that there are seasons of your life where creativity isn't possible. You know, at least making art, making stuff, you can always be creative in all of the aspects. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, whatever. You know what I mean? And I want to acknowledge that because I think it's important to acknowledge that there are life circumstances that genuinely make it impossible to be creative. And that's okay. And actually, sometimes that's exactly what the doctor ordered, this doctor included, that sometimes you got to really step away for a while and let the ground lie fallow, I think they say. And that's okay. I think that's great, actually. Sometimes that's exactly what you need. That aside, I want to just offer some different thoughts because that exact scenario I found myself in, not full time, but close to full time. When I was starting out in illustration, I'd gone full time as an illustrator for a little while, then had to go back and get a job. And I had almost no time to make stuff. And what I had to do was not say, well, this is making it so that how I make stuff isn't possible. I had to say, how I make stuff has to change. Given this scenario. And so I get you have a rich practice and a long history doing this. And I totally understand that you have learned a tremendous amount about what it looks like for you to get in the flow state and for what and for you to get great results in your work. But I would encourage you and maybe challenge you to say this phrase that you hear. There's a business expert named Michael Hyatt, and he says when things happen, bad things happen. One thing that you can do is say, what does this make possible? And so what it makes possible is you have an opportunity to streamline your process. You have an opportunity to reinvent your process, to try something you never tried before. Maybe this is exactly what you need to look at the season you were in before and where you had this open wide space and you were exploring the full possibilities of what it looked like to do what you did full time in that huge canvas of time. And now say, now I've got a smaller canvas, maybe, literally, what could I do if I only have this amount of time? And what I would do and what I did do in that time was I said, what is a project that I can create? What can I create given the time that I have? And create a commitment to a small body of work going in a particular direction, take a bet in that direction and say, okay, at that time, all I wanted to do was make band posters. But I only had about a half an hour a day, sometimes an hour, half an hour to an hour a day to make any creative stuff. And I needed a half a day at least to make a poster, if not a full day to make a poster or longer. And so what I could do, what that made possible when I no longer had that time was say, what other things have I wanted to explore that take way less time. And for me, it was character exploration. And so I did that character drawing project where I did a new character every weekday for a year. Another way this came up was I was working on a project in my mid-20s, like a book project, where half I was already behind in my schedule, you know, shocking. And about halfway through the project, maybe 3/4 of the project in, I lost all of my work. I lost all the files. Like my hard drive died or something. And at first I was just completely panicking because that work had already been so time consuming. And yes, I mourned it and I needed to, and I was frustrated. But then I also had this deadline. I also knew I have to make this stuff. And now you might not have a deadline, but If I know you and I've watched you make all this work, I have to believe that you also have this imperative, you have this intrinsic motivation that says, I have to make this work. And so you're in a similar scenario. So there I was, I'd lost all the work and I thought, okay, there's no way I can make all this work the way that I was working and get it to the finish line in time. Are there any ways that I could streamline this process? Or was I just going about it in a way that however I wanted to, or was I going about it in a willy nilly way where the process just was whatever it became? And if I stop in this moment and say, how could I achieve the same result in a much quicker way? And I redid all of those illustrations and all the rest of the illustrations I had to do in. So it was so much more efficiency than I had starting. And I did it a totally different way. It completely changed my process during that time. And so, first of all, sometimes you need seasons where you're not making anything that's legit. And I get that. Sometimes, even if you wanted to, you can't. I understand that and I respect that. So that's the first thing. Second thing is, yes, grieve that things have changed. That you had a whole season of your life where you were making things in a certain way and assuming you were doing so because on some level it was successful, it was meaningful, it was joyful. That's important to accept and grieve. You know, that's. That's legit. And I think it's important to create that space for that. But the third thing is you can stop and say, what does this make possible? Because now is the time to explore curiosities that you had that didn't fit into that old way of working, that you have moved from a closed mode of executing a way of work in a certain way into an open space because of these constraints. These constraints, these closed doors have created a new space and that new space. You get to determine if you paint stuff that you'd never painted before. That determines if you throw paint out the window and you start creating in a totally different medium, whatever it is. What I would encourage you to do is to do it through the lens of curiosity and do it through the lens of what does this make possible, and do it through the lens of what Ryan Holodeck and the Stoics call the obstacle is the way. Because also when I moved to the UK to study illustration design I did that to make screen printed band posters. I couldn't find anybody in my city that could teach me how to screen print onto paper. They were all only T shirt shops. Acted like I was, I'd lost my mind trying to do it onto paper. You know, I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get anybody in the whole time that I was there for three years of my college experience. Their college experience is three years, okay, I finished the degree judgy people that whole time. It took me to the end of that experience to say, okay, I can't make band posters, which is the thing that illustrators are doing in that space. I can't do that. But what does this make possible? And if you're watching on YouTube, you see right behind me the indie rock coloring book. That's right. That's what I did. I created a coloring book instead of posters because that's something I can print at home, black and white. That's what made, that's what was made possible to me. And that's what you have to. You have to see those obstacles as the brief. That's the constraint. You got a brief through the door from life. It said, the next body of work you're making, there's one constraint that you can't defy and it's, you only have 20 minutes to make it. And once you create that project and at first you could do, I'm going to do five pieces in this direction because I'm not that sure about it. Create this commitment. And once you've decided now you've also dealt with that analysis paralysis. Because you don't have to show up to the the canvas and say, what am I going to make? You've already decided because you've decided it, because you've made it a project. So that's what I would do. If you haven't taken time off and taken time to grieve, do that first. But after you've done that, ask yourself, what does this make possible? What is the obstacle? That's the way. How is life giving me a different brief to get a different type of creativity and see how even if that's not the ideal result, it might actually come full circle and impact your old process and your old way of doing things as well.

Candace (13:13)

Hello, Andy, how are you? I hope that you are doing well. My name is Candice and I'm currently working as a graphic designer. But my true passion is illustration. So somewhere around last year I started to pick up my drawing and I draw on my free time. It's been almost a year now that I finally feel a bit comfortable and want to share my illustration on my social media. But every single time when I was about to share this fear of the AI scanning thing really prevents me from posting because I guess I'm just not a fan of this using other people's intellectual without permission. But at the same time I know that this is unavoidable. So this is a constant struggle for me and I wonder if you've ever thought about it and if so, how do you make peace of it? Like, how do you eventually be okay with it? What's that conversation like in your mind? Thank you. Keep up the good work and I hope you have a great day.

Andy J. Pizza (14:32)

Hey Candace. So I really like this question and it's a really important one, I think. Should you put your stuff out there when we know these AI models are training on different platforms? Stuff is a super complicated question. It's really hard to answer, and I don't have an exact answer. But I do have something interesting to add to the conversation that may be of use to you. And I'll start it by saying that although we are experiencing this phenomenon of AI art for the first time, and it is really groundbreakingly overwhelming, I'll just say in all sorts of ways and unprecedented, we'll say our favorite word in the past few years, it is unprecedented. However, there are some things about your message that are incredibly familiar to me, and it reminds me of this quote that I heard from Eric Newsom, who's a guy that works in podcasting. He has a book called, I think it's called Make Some Noise, something like that. I'll put a link in the show. Notes he's worked in podcasting for a long time, worked at NPR and then worked at an Amazon company. I think it was Audible is where he worked. And during that time he heard Jeff Bezos say this thing. Now, just for the record, not a Jeff Bezos fan by any stretch of the imagination. However, you got to give credit where it's due and this particular insight I think is really juicy and applicable here. And I think it really a lot of creative people could get a lot from this idea. And so I try not to always judge something useful by where it comes from. Always. So the fact that it came from Jeff Bezos aside, let's just talk about this idea because I think it's a really powerful one in terms of getting anything done, getting anywhere interesting. And so Eric Newsom tells a story in his book about Jeff Bezos saying that he constantly gets asked to predict the future and he tries to always refuse to do so because anybody that does ends up looking stupid almost 99% of the time. Because predicting the future is actually impossible. We don't know how it's going to go. And the same goes for this. I'm not going to predict the future. I don't know how this is going to pan out. Is it the AI art apocalypse? I don't know. I don't know. Who knows? It's the art Magedon? I'm not sure. And it is scary and it is a weird time and it is a valid concern. So, you know, I can't tell you what to do there. It's beyond my pay grade and I'm not able to see in the future to the degree in which I know whether this is going to be risky or not. However, that's not the end of that. Jeff Bezos thought it is the beginning and he says he doesn't predict the future. But what he does do is lean on what he knows about the past and what he knows about the past, that's unlikely to change. And so in the case of Amazon, it's things that people like, cheap and convenient stuff. Okay, now that doesn't add to the equation, the cost of that, who's paying for that? And we don't need to get into that right now. But. But those two things are true. They are true that people tend to gravitate towards convenient things that are cheap. So they build their model off that. Okay, now I can do a similar thing with totally different value system and say one thing that is has been always true is that when you put your stuff out into the world, other people are going to be inspired, influenced and even ripping off that stuff. You are always running the risk of that. In fact, if it's any good, you are guaranteeing that some level of that's going to happen and some level of that is going to be phenomenal. I was listening to an interview today, long interview. I think it's the New York Times, some kind of pop culture podcast they did. Interview with Bon Iver. Pretty big Bon Iver fan. Really love some of the new songs from the new album that he's coming out with. It's just exactly what the doctor ordered, man. The happy. There's a song. Everything is Peaceful Love the thing has got so much good goodness coming out of it. I've been desperate for it for a long time. So I'm really pumped about that in this interview. One of the things they talk about is the influences that influenced Bon and Justin Vernon, the guy behind Bon Iver, and then people that were clearly influenced by him, like people like Dijon and McGee and these like newcomers that are doing these super interesting things in the indie music space and then how they then influence Bon Iver. And there's a symbiotic relationship of influence. That's kind of the best thing about being an artist like that. That right there, that community, that participation, that give and take. And I'm liking what you're cooking and you're liking what I'm cooking. And we're mixing it and matching it and it's having a good. We're having a great time. Like that is kind of the ideal. That's like amazing. It's what Austin Kleon talks about him reference referencing this idea from Brian Eno Senior. It's the genius of a scene. There's nothing more fun than that. That's great, but only happens if you're willing to put stuff out. Unfortunately, you also have the vultures of the scene. You have the corporate vultures of the scene. And no matter what you do, even for years and years and years before AI ever existed, that thing that you're afraid of was happening. And in fact, it wasn't just happening, it was stopping people from putting out stuff. And so I can't predict the future. I don't know if we are at an impasse like the likes of which we have never seen. And putting stuff out is just digging your own creative grave. I don't know. What I do know though is that you could have asked this same question 10 years ago when I started this podcast. And I know what answer I would have given you then, which is best case scenario, people are going to get inspired by what you're doing and it's going to add to the sauce and it's going to add the groove. It's going to add to the scene and it's going to make some interesting things happen. And the worst thing that could happen is it gets ripped off and people actually make more money on what you do than you do. Yeah. And that happens and always has happened and always will happen. And it is happening in a way that is unprecedented. So I'm acknowledging that there are ways in which this is a tale as old as time. And I have to feel I can tell you what I'm doing, which is I'm continuing to show up. I'm continuing to put stuff out because I believe if I don't, the scene ends and the fun ends and the the the forward momentum. In my own creative journey, regardless of capitalism, regardless of monetization, it ends if I refuse to participate. So that's what I'm going to keep doing. Not sure what you should do, but that's my perspective there.

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Andy J. Pizza (24:02)

Hey Andy, how you doing? Zach Stuf here. I'm thinking about starting a newsletter on Substack. However, my extremely small following of like 1600 people, they don't really know me by my written word per se. They know me more by my visual voice and my imagery. So I wanted to ask you, how did you go about cultivating a written voice for yourself to appeal to your following on Substack? I would find that advice extremely helpful, especially as you know I'm Not. I haven't written much since college and it's been a while, so appreciate all the help I could get in that area. Thank you. Hey, Zach, Love the question. I think it's a very relevant one. It's one that a lot of creative people find themselves wrestling with. It's not just illustrators. It's also people like actors that are not responsible for writing the words, or musicians that are not writing the lyrics or doing the vocals. A lot of us get into these scenarios where we are, you know, in a position where we need some substance to work with, that our medium maybe isn't the starting point of a creative endeavor or a finishing point. And we get into the scenario where nobody is passing us the ball in such a way where we can play our position. One thing that we've talked about on the show a few times, whenever this comes up, being asked to stretch and do things beyond my skill set, beyond my comfort zone, but beyond my medium of choice. The way I always think of that is through this little story I heard about Paul McCartney getting to the studio to record for his band Wings, and none of the other studio mates showing up and having only this limited period of time for this particular studio and just deciding that he was going to record all the different parts himself. And I think there comes a time where you have to play parts that you're not an expert at, that you're not comfortable with. And it doesn't really matter too, because if you can pair that with something that you're great at or you love or you are comfortable with, it can really outshine all of the imperfections of the other stuff that you're doing. So if I were you, and I definitely, if I were you, I would be starting a newsletter of some kind, be it substack or some other place. I think it's really, really essential to building a thriving creative practice. Have ownership of your connection to other people. People that want to hear from you can hear from you if they opt into doing so. And you can't do that on all these different social apps. So I think it's super important. And I think if I were you, I would be trying to lean into the way in which illustration is writing with pictures. We've talked about this a lot. It's my favorite definition of illustration. A lot of people think illustration is synonymous with drawing, but I actually think that writing with pictures is a much better term that works in both, like, narrative as well as conceptual. So narrative speaking, you know, you could have a page of words that's describing the room. And a lot of novels do that, or you can just show a picture. And so every time a picture book artist is making pictures, they are writing the story, like literally, they are adding to the narrative, they are describing the room. And in fact, there are times where you're illustrating a story and they will actually delete parts of the text because you don't need the words and the pictures to say the same thing. In fact, John Classen, one of my favorite illustrators and picture bookmakers, who I just think does great work in the space, he talks a lot about this, like this mismatch of having the words say one thing and the pictures say a different thing. And that actually creates a really interesting moment. You see this in picture books. So that the pictures saying something that means they have to be writing, they have to be telling a story. And it's even more interesting when they're telling their own story. And great editorial illustrators do that too. Anyway, I'm getting into all of that to say that you probably are a writer, even if you're writing with pictures. And I would lean into that. So use text sparingly, like my favorite substacks to follow. A lot of them are illustrators that are mostly picture heavy. You know, they're writing comment comics or they're supplementing their words with pictures and tell the story that way, tell the story visually, but then on top of that, don't be afraid to play someone else's part if nobody else will show up to the studio. And so for me, I see a lot of illustration is like the way less glamorous, good looking version of acting. Actors have to wait for a script, illustrators have to wait for a text or a manuscript of some kind or a brief and to illustrate it, to make it come to life. And so we're in the same camp as actors. And the people that don't wait for someone else to decide their fate take their destiny in their own hands and they start writing, even if they're terrible at it. If you write one movie, if you're an actor that helps tell people the types of roles that you do, you might not ever have to write another movie again. It might not even be made. But the people that read it, the people that see it, you turn it into a one man show or whatever it is, like it just can get the ball rolling. And sometimes the only way to do that is to play the parts that we're not comfortable playing. And so those are two things that you can do. One is you don't have to be a great writer, be a great illustrator and supplement the writing, but do the writing. And this, the last thing I want to add to this is speaking of Substack, I saw a little rant from a guy I know. He's a, you know, I would say we're, we've been friendly with each other over the years. Like, I don't know him super well, but his name's Roman Mirador and he's incredible illustrator, really hilarious person. His energy in the world and on the Internet is kind of the opposite of pep talk. And I, I'm a big fan of that. I feel like the world needs these, you know, opposing energy sometimes because he's kind of cantankerous and cynical and whatever, but very funny and super talented. And he went on a rant recently after the AI just this supercharged run of AI doing Ghibli style. If you didn't see it, OpenAI made it so that you could with ChatGPT, feed it images and spit out versions of it that look somewhat like Studio Ghibli made them. If you don't know Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Totoro, what are you doing with your life if you don't know that? Stop what you're doing. Watch those movies. They will make your life so much better. But anyway, so there's this AI that's doing this. It's this trend. And Roman Miradov got on Substack the other day and his argument was, I agree 100%. Something we've said on the podcast a bunch of times that style isn't just aesthetics is what he said, it is substance. And he went on, I'll put it in the show notes so you can check this little post out. But I 100% agree. In fact, the next course that I'm going to make is going to be connected to that because we did a course a few years back about style on Skillshare. You can go take it. It's a really well taken class. Like a lot of people on Skillshare have taken the class and I'm really passionate about it. But there's a hidden part to that where we really start with substance. We're really starting with what lights you up, what connects you, what are you all about? I've been working my way through the book Master and His emissary by Ian McGilchrist and it's all about the left and right brains in a really detailed, really research backed, not pop psychology way, which makes it hard to work through, but also is really valuable and really interesting. And one of the things he talks about is the left side of your brain is so much more concrete, and the right side of your brain is so much more abstract. And I wonder if creative people that tend to be more in that abstract camp, if that's why they're obsessed with adjectives. Like, when you ask an artist about what. What is your work about? You get things like, it's whimsical, it's colorful, it's. It's evocative, it's. You know, these adjectives. Whereas if you ask a fan of someone's work what is about what, what is it about the back, oh, they're the sober artist or they're the plant lady illustrator. You know, they give you a noun, they give you something concrete. And so I always challenge creators to get concrete. Get not just aesthetics and style, but get substance. Get a topic that you're going to explore. Be known for your topic, be known for your nouns. Let your nouns, let your messages, let the people, places, things that your work is about influenced and determine your aesthetics. And the reason I say all of this rant and why it's connected to this question is you need to have the substance. You need to have, not the stuff that Demi Moore's taking that makes horrific things happen. The substance that you build your esthetics from, that you build your images from. You should have something to say if you are making illustration. And forcing yourself to write is going to help influence and impact and shape your aesthetics. And so I think just challenging yourself to do that is really, really essential. I highly recommend it, even if it's uncomfortable. And it also reminds me of something I've said a billion times that I don't know if I got too excited and didn't say, but I'm going to do a new course that's really about building your substance, like building your stories and then letting the aesthetics, you know, emanate from that. It's a. It's a thing that I've thought about a lot. It's been true in my own craft and career. I love this thing that Timothy Goodman said. I can't seem to find where he said it, but I know he said it. And it's something about, like, quit thinking about how you're going to make it, how it's going to look, and think more about what you want to say. Like, that's what we do when we talk. That's what we do when we communicate. We don't think how am I going to say this sentence? Should I say it loud? Should I say it quiet? No, you start with, what am I saying? That actually impacts how you say it. And so I highly, highly recommend, if you're an actor, you're an illustrator, you're a bass player, write lyrics, write. I think it's one of the reasons Morning Pages is such a huge deal for artists is because it's getting all artists, all creatives, to have to get concrete in the written word. And it also goes back to this thing of left brain versus right brain thing. Left brain is not completely responsible for word choice, but it is verbal and it is like the. It's the concrete element of words. And I think forcing yourself over there, forcing yourself to find vessels to put these adjectives and feelings and abstractions into, is such an essential part of anyone's creative practice. And it's one of the only shots you have at getting a chance to play your individual part is by playing, playing all the parts before anybody asks you to or anybody says that they want that. All right, you know, I don't like to leave you without something you can do with these ideas. It's not enough to get jazzed out of your fricking mind. You got to put it to work. You got to put it into practice in your creative practice. So we give you a call to adventure, a creative call to adventure every single week where you can take these ideas and instantly apply them to what you're doing. This week's CTA is called constrained, afraid, or uncomfortable. Those three words are the words that we addressed in each of the people that we talk to. So your job, your action, is to figure out which of these things do you relate to and then take the action that we suggested to these individuals. So constrained. That means your circumstance has all these obstacles. Your circumstance is such where your creativity isn't what you wish it could be. If you have, you know, a care situation, whether it's kids or parents or siblings or foster, whatever it is, maybe you have all these constraints on your time and your creativity. Your question is to say, what does this make possible? How can the obstacle become the way? Look at the obstacle and see what is inspiring about this. What is creative about this? How can I apply my creativity to that? What is the brief that the circumstance is giving me? That's just one of the constraints in the brief that you've been given in your creative season. That's if you're in the constraint category, afraid. We talked to somebody who is afraid currently of posting for Good reason, I might add. But I think it is incredibly important to realize I did a post recently on Substack about self sabotage and someone chimed in in the comments and said that often self sabotage is just directly linked to fear. And I thought about that and I was like, yeah, I think that's completely true. Where a lot of the times that I kill a particular opportunity or endeavor before I even give it a chance is out of fear. And it's the way that I self sabotage. I don't even let myself have the opportunity of failing because I'm so afraid of it. And so ask yourself, is it an obstacle on the outside or is it something inside? Is it just fear that's holding you back? And the third one is uncomfortable? Is it that you have found a comfort zone like illustration, like making pictures and you're not willing to be uncomfortable? Or you're uncomfortable with the idea of needing to play the other instruments to play the other parts in order to get this thing off the ground and out the door without any other gatekeeper saying that you're allowed to do it? Is it that you're waiting for someone to show up and play the other parts and you're wasting all of your studio time? Is that you? Your job this week is to figure out which of these three things is holding back your creative practice and then take the action that we described in each of these answers. I hope that this brings you tons of excitement and motivation for your creative practice this week, and I really appreciate these people that sent in these great questions. If you have a question that you want to potentially be aired on an Ask Doctor Pizza episode, go to creativepeptalk.com and at the bottom you're gonna see this little microphone in the bottom right hand corner. You click that, you can do it on your phone, you can do it on desktop, you can record right onto your phone or your computer and you can actually record it and then listen to it and then submit it or redo it. And so it's really low stakes and we love doing it. You can remain anonymous or you can say your name and shout out your work or whatever and we will consider it for a future episode. We love doing them. These episodes are fan favorite as well because we usually hit a bunch of different things and something applies to everyone that's listening. So go check that out. We are regularly, every month meeting with our Substack supporters and Patreon backers. We do a pep rally, a creative pep rally on Zoom. Once a month, the last Monday of every month we're adding in, we're experimenting with, it's not a commitment, but we're experimenting with also having some office hours where midway through the month I will show up on Zoom for a couple hours while I'm also doing other stuff, drawing, whatever, and just answer questions and have conversations. And it has been amazing. We've been doing the meetups for over a year. The community is growing. It's incredible to see all the different disciplines and skill levels and journey phases that show up. We have professional published authors and dancers and journalists and we've had therapists and politicians that have become muralists shout out to Kit Collins, who is a supporter of the show. We just have the most incredible community there. And the best part for me is that it's so diverse in so many different ways. And it means that whoever you are, if you are interested in creative practice, if you have a creative practice, if you've had a creative practice and a career for years and years and you want to just get around some other people to talk about it or you're just starting out, you're welcome there, everybody's welcome. And you can sign up and be a supporter of this show on Substack or Patreon helps us keep the lights on, cover the cost of the show and, and support me being able to do this as well. And, and we just super, super appreciate it and it makes all this possible. So hope to see you there. You can go check it out patreon.com creative pep talk or andyjpiza.substack.com the content that comes through those two channels are virtually the same, so it's really just whichever one you prefer and hope to see you at the next meetup. Massive thanks to Sophie Miller for being the editor and co producer of the show. Huge thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for audio and video design and editing. Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for our theme music and soundtrack. And thanks to all of you for showing up. Hope you got super pepped. And until we speak again, stay pepped up. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the news cycle, you are not alone. I'm Emma Varvalukas and along with Progress Network founder Zachary Carabell, I host what Could Go Right, a podcast that looks beyond the headlines to uncover progress happening in the world, even in difficult times. Each week we sit down with experts to discuss today's biggest challenges without ignoring the hard stuff. We bring nuance, insight and a forward looking perspective to help make sense of the current moment. Fight the urge to do scroll. Tune in to what could go right instead.

Phoebe (43:07)

Wherever you get your podcasts hey everyone, it's Danielle from National Park After Dark, the chart topping podcast that's received over 42 million downloads. If you love the great outdoors or are just morbidly curious about what can go wrong out there, this is the show for you. Each week on National Park After Dark, my co host and I dive into the darker side of nature. Epic survival stories, tragic history, animal encounters, and yes, even some paranormal encounters. But it's not all chills and thrills. We also share inspiring tales and our passion for protecting the wild places we all love. So lace up your hiking boots and take a walk on the dark side of the wilderness with us on National Park After Dark.