Artistic Accomplices
by Eric M. Scott
We all could use a little creative nudge every now and then that will prod us, encourage us, and give us a shot of inspiration. Artistic Accomplices is the podcast that gives you small doses of motivation and creative encouragement as you make, create, play, and live. Join Eric Scott as he shares his thoughts on art, creativity, and learning and interviews artists, writers, educators, and more. Like the gym buddy that motivates you to hit the gym on a regular basis, Artistic Accomplices is that little voice in your ear telling you to hit the studio, or pull out the paints, or pick up the pen.
Episodes
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Episode 47: Inspiration
Inspiration can feel mystical and hard to understand, and we can feel like we are merely copying or imitating others. But if we look at the things that we consume — the artists and designers, the music, the movies and tv shows, and the books — we can get a firm grip on the things that really...
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Episode 46: Pushing Your Creativity
It’s easy to feel stuck or stagnant in our creating. It’s easy to feel like we don’t know how to move ourselves forward. In today’s episode, I share three strategies for moving yourself forward creatively. These three ideas are great for creators at any stage, and though they may seem simple…
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Episode 45: Intuition
The magic of creating may be just tapping into our intuition, and by tapping into our intuition, we give ourselves permission to play — to try new ideas and to explore new territory. We get into a flow that can take us in new directions. I take a look at the role of intuition in making and...
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Episode 44: Flexibily
I continue my look at the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. I’ve already gone into the earth, fire, and air elements, and today I dive into the water element and how we need to stay flexible. If we are rigid and stiff and if we know exactly what we want to make and create…
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Episode 43: Ideas
How do you come up with ideas? In today’s episode, I continue my look at the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. I’ve already tackled the earth and fire, and today I discuss the air element. The air element is all about our ideas and our imagination, and I share a few ways of...
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Episode 42: Passion
In today’s episode, I dive further into how we can understand our creativity through the lens of the four classical elements — earth, fire, air, and water, and focus on how we can focus on the fire element and think about our passions. It’s the things that we are passionate about that drive our...
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Episode 41: Grounding - Part 2
In the second part of talking about this notion of being grounded in our creativity, I talk about some of the practical things that we can do to get ourselves into a sustainable creative practice. I touch on setting up routines and talk a bit about routines, and I discuss grounding ourselves in…
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Episode 40: Grounding - Part 1
Keeping ourselves balanced as we create can be a difficult task, but thinking of a readily accessible framework can make it easier. In Episode 38, I talked about the four classical elements of art, fire, water, and air in relation to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and suggested that these four ideas...
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Episode 39: The Hero's Journey
We’re all heroes of our own story. Recently, the Hero’s Journey has been popping up in my life. I’ve heard it mentioned on a couple favorite podcasts, and I’ve been contemplating it a lot in my art, my writings, and my musings. How can understanding the Hero’s Journey help us on our creative...
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Episode 38: The Force and Bending Air
I still have balance on my mind, but I take a look at it from a couple different points of view. As a fan of Star Wars and Avatar: The Last Airbender, I look at a framework for creativity and finding balance through the lens of The Force and the bending of elements. Like a spinning top, we can…
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Episode 37: Balance
When the pandemic hit back in March, it was like hitting a big pause button. As everything was cancelled or postponed, I hunkered down in my house, making art, creating videos, livestreaming, and working on podcasts. It was a great time to reconnect with all of these things, but then I pivoted to...
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Episode 36: Crystal Neubauer
I interview collage and encaustic artist Crystal Neubauer. Crystal shares her artistic journey and discusses how many of her ideas and themes for her works develop organically as she works. We also, dive into making art and teaching art workshops, and we discuss the impact that the coronavirus...
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Episode 35: Walk Through the Fire
We are walking through the fire now, and recent events have me pondering what’s important. Even though the pandemic, protests, marches, and political turmoil have stirred up a lot of overwhelming emotions and ideas, creating and making allow us to process our emotions, our reactions, and our...
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Episode 34: Spirituality
In the simplest of terms, creating is a spiritual act. Creating is a way that we make sense of the world and discover understanding and meaning. Author Brené Brown says, “As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.” I share some ideas on how art and creating can help us discover meaning...
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Episode 33: Amanda Jolley
I interview Kansas City artist Amanda Jolley. We talk about her journey from accountant to artists, and we discuss how she come to her main passions of encaustic painting and paper folding and where she gets inspiration for her work. We also talk about how the pandemic has helped many folks focus...
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Episode 32: Priorities
We are in an unprecedented crisis that has left many of us panicked and scrambling. But can we find the time and the energy to figure out what is truly important and reprioritize some of the things in our lives right now. I speak straight from the heart as I talk about how this difficult time has...
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Episode 31: Steve Loya
I interview good friend and artist Steve Loya, and we talk about our current situation with the coronavirus and stay-at-home orders. Steve gives some advice on how he’s dealing with the crisis and how he’s finding time to stay creative and keep his sanity. Steve is an artist and an art teacher…
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Episode 30: Amplify
What a crazy time right now! So many folks are affecting in so many unpredictable ways. Things are unpredictable, and there’s a lot of stress and anxiety in the world. Instead of closing down and shutting ourselves in, I am encouraging people to open up, connect, and share — all in an attempt to...
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Episode 29: Artistic Actions
Instead of setting out to make a work of art, or to write a novel, or to create a symphony. What if we simplified our approach? What if we set out to have at least one artistic action each day? Instead of overwhelming ourselves with grand notions, and deciding that we’re just not up to the task,...
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Episode 28: Discovery
“Your hand needs time to wander enough to be able to find something you weren’t aware of…” Lynda Barry There might be a fundamental misunderstanding about making and creating. Many people feel that creating is about making some thing — that the creative person simply imagines this thing — a...
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Episode 27: Stories
We all have a story, and that story helps us navigate the world. It shapes our world and how we view it. And I think that story is how and why we create the things that we create and share the things that we share. In this episode, I share more of my story as I get a bit personal, and discuss the...
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Episode 26: Talent
Talent is a word tossed about a lot when we talk about creativity, and in this episode, I dive into the topic and how I believe that a lot folks use the notion of talent as an excuse to not even try. They believe that you either have the talent or you don’t. But like Bob Ross, I believe that…
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Episode 25: Resonance
In this short episode, I discuss the notion of resonance and how something can resonate with us as it vibrates with the right frequency and pulls us and moves us, often quite literally. Though we all have different things that resonate with us, we know it when we witness and experience it. We…
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Episode 24: Clutter
Life can easily be thrown out of balance, and we can feel like we don’t have enough time to do the things that we want. Perhaps we simply clutter our lives up physical, mentally, and emotionally. In today’s episode, I share how my life has been cluttered up recently, and how I am beginning to...
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Episode 23: Transformative Power of Creativity
The act of creating can have a very powerful and transformative impact on our lives. I’ve seen it in my own life with my work in the visual journal, and I’ve seen it with others in the work they do. Creativity allows us to connect with ourselves, to connect with others, and to find meaning and...
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Episode 22: Seek Connection
We could do this creativity thing all alone, but it can be very lonely. It also can be hard to grow and to keep ourselves motivated. When we seek connection with other creatives, we can impact we can impact the lives and creativity of others and have our lives and our creativity impacted. I…
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Episode 21: Authentic Making
How authentic is the creative work that you're making? I discuss the idea of authentic making in this episode and talk about how in schools, studios, and artists’ workshops, many instructors teach projects where they make all of the decisions, and leave little to no decision making to students.…
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Episode 20: Stuff
We often can get overwhelmed with sheer amount of stuff that we have or that we feel that we need. The materials that we use are vital to our creating. Artists need paint or clay or pens. Bakers need ingredients, pans, and baking sheets. But many of us fill our creative spaces with a lot of stuff…
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Episode 19: Keep It Simple
Bob Ross once said, “Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything that you're willing to practice, you can do.” Too often people use the notion of talent as a cop out to not even try anything creative believing that you either have the talent or you don’t. I like the notion of talent as...
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Episode 18: Pinterest Perfect
Social media is such a part of contemporary life, and for anyone trying to make a living as a freelancer, it is a business essential. But too often people try to create Pinterest perfect posts that show an idealized version of reality, and sometimes, individuals project a persona that seems...
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Episode 17: Limitations
Getting started can often be difficult, and it can feel like we haven’t got any ideas. But often it’s the opposite, and we can be overwhelmed with too many choices. It’s very important that as we move forward with our creative endeavors that we learn to set limitations. It’s this act of limiting...
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Episode 16: Play
How do you get started? I answered this question a few episodes back, but I dive a bit deeper into the idea of play as a way to get started. Using ideas that John Cleese discussed in a talk on creativity, I discuss closed mode vs. open mode, and how I use play and experimentation to generate…
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Episode 15: The Universe Conspires - Take 2
Feeling like the last podcast was a bit rambling, I want to come at this topic again, and see if I could wrap my head around this notion that the universe is indeed conspiring with us. I focus on the idea that positivity, generosity, and compassion bring about positive, generous, and…
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Episode 14: The Universe Conspires With Us
I go in a bit of a ramble about how we can often feel that the universe is conspiring against us when in fact it works with us to create our reality. When we become aware of this relationship, we can move ourselves toward the life we want to live.
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Episode 13: Getting Started
How do you get started? It can be difficult getting started on any artistic endeavor — from procrastination and laziness to feelings of uncertainty and being overwhelmed. in this short episode, I share a small personal struggle with procrastination and give a bit of advice on how to get started…
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Episode 12: Steve Loya
I sat down with good friend and artist Steve Loya for this week’s podcast, and had a good conversation about making art, being kind, and not seeing life and art as a competition. I have known Steve for nearly 30 years having met as freshmen at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1991. It has…
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Episode 11: Attachment
I conclude the discussion about creative blocks, as I delve deeper into the notion of attachment and how we cling to our identity, ideas, and materials as a way to stay in our comfort zone. We get in our own way by grasping at these notions and prevent ourselves from moving forward. By being open...
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Episode 10: Judgment
I continue the discussion about creative blocks, as I delve deeper into the notion of judgment. Our inner critic can rear it’s head anytime we create, and it can seem like it’s an endless loop of criticism. Unfortunately, it’s one of the ways the ego tries to convince us to stop creating and...
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Episode 9: Resistance
I return to some topics from earlier episodes as I explore the creative block of Resistance and how we often get in our own way as we create. Though I discussed this a bit in the episode on Creative Blocks, I delve deeper and focus on how we may overcome this resistance. By denying our…
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Episode 8: Process vs. Product
It seems that there’s a lot of emphasis on the product over the process in many cart classes, whether you go into a public school art room or you go to the nearest art studio or art center. In part this push may come from our own personal experiences as students. But how can we as educators,...
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Episode 7: Community
I’ve been contemplating community lately, especially since I’ve been feeling a bit lost and disconnected from my creative community. In this episode, I discuss how David and I became artistic accomplices and how important it is for creatives to have a community of support. Nothing takes the place...
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Episode 6: Sam Peck
Samuel Peck holds a BFA in Printmaking and Drawing from the University of Rhode Island, and an MFA in Printmaking and Drawing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Sam is currently a Phd Candidate in Art Education at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. I have known Sam now…
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Episode 5: Creative Blocks
If everyone is creative, why do so many people believe that they are not? This is the question that I posed in Episode 4: Creative Myths, but in this episode, I explore this question even further by taking a look at creativity as a spiritual act, examining the role the ego plays in creative…
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Episode 4: Creative Myths
If everyone is creative, why do so many people believe that they are not? In part people may have simply closed themselves off from their creativity, and over time they may have bought into some common myths about creativity. We live in a culture that speaks of creativity in magical, mystical...
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Episode 3: David Modler
David R. Modler is an artist, researcher, and professor originally from Baltimore, Maryland. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Education in Art Education from Towson State University and his Master of Fine Arts in painting from James Madison University. He currently works as an...
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Episode 2: The Rules
About ten years ago, I came up with some rules for myself as a reminder for me to get in the studio and make art. Now, these are not completely original and I borrowed heavily from the likes of nun and artist Corita Kent and writer Patti Digh, but I put my on slant on them and adapted ten basic...
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Episode 1: My Story
As an artist, educator, and a writer, I believe that we are all creative — that we all have this innate creativity, but we may have gotten disconnected from it. In this inaugural episode of Artistic Accomplices, I introduce myself and lay out the reasons why I wanted to begin this new venture. I...
About this show
We all could use a little creative nudge every now and then that will prod us, encourage us, and give us a shot of inspiration. Artistic Accomplices is the podcast that gives you small doses of motivation and creative encouragement as you make, create, play, and live. Join Eric Scott as he shares his thoughts on art, creativity, and learning and interviews artists, writers, educators, and more. Like the gym buddy that motivates you to hit the gym on a regular basis, Artistic Accomplices is that little voice in your ear telling you to hit the studio, or pull out the paints, or pick up the pen.
Hosted by
Eric M. Scott