The Space(s) to Fail

Next month, we will have been in this house for two years and it’s taken me all of that time to finally get around to beginning the build out of the two basement spaces that will ultimately become my studios — one for podcasting and digital media and the other for painting and printing. The previous owners of the house were both makers—he was a woodworker and an engineer and she was a painter. Together, they literally built the house in 1956 and in fact one of the downstairs spaces served as a wood shop where the living room built-ins and the kitchen cabinets were made. So there’s a history of making here and I knew before we even bought the house and moved in that I wanted at least one of the spaces downstairs as a studio, and I think I even told Adrianne that I would start building it out on day one. But here we are two years later and still no studio. What happened? I think like so many creative endeavors, it has something to do with fear, or what Steven Pressfield calls “Resistance.” And before I go much further, if you are a maker or a creator and have not read The War of Art, either pause this episode and go order yourself a copy or write yourself a note to pick one up after. It may take a couple readings to really get it, but once it sinks in, it will offer a ton of insight into the creative process and how self-doubt and fear can be debilitating until you get a handle on them. Filmmaker Brian Carlson made a terrific short film about lawnmower racing called 41x. Lens Culture recently shared a brilliant photo essay by photographer Michael Christopher Brown called Yo Soy Fidel. In the essay, Brown follows the “Freedom Caravan” that carried Fidel Castro’s remains across Cuba after his death. It’s a gorgeous set of photographs. One of my favorite artists, Shepard Fairey, just completed the largest piece of his career. It’s a 15 story mural of Johnny Cash that takes up the entire side of the Residence Inn hotel in Sacramento. The mural was inspired by a photograph by Jim Marshall of Cash at Folsom Prison and in this interview with Capital Public Radio, Fairey talks about how the piece came together. Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0