Trenton ReynoldsIt is December 7th 2017 Yeah This is Room of the Trees.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonA podcast about continuing to make things, even when things are really busy and hard.
Trenton ReynoldsToday is a podcast just to check in with you all and say hi. It's been a long time since we've been able to record anything, and we just wanted to let you know that we're here. And we miss you. recording these podcasts and hope to get back to it very soon.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonRoom in the Trees is hosted by Trent Reynolds and me, Sabrina Harrison. Show notes including links and so on and so forth can be found at roominthetrees.com. And we'd love your support and any comments or feedback or ratings would be wonderful on iTunes.
Hi.
Trenton ReynoldsHoly crap, things got busy fast.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, they did. Yeah, they did. Yeah.
What is going on?
Trenton ReynoldsWell, California's on fire. That's one thing. My wife is going into labor. That's another thing. My school almost burned down. That's a third thing. Got in the worst car accident I've ever gotten into. Turned 40. let's see oh my god
Sabrina Ward Harrisonoh my gosh
Trenton Reynoldsstack this stuff up stack it up about to have another girl four girls
Sabrina Ward Harrisonoh my gosh oh my god
Trenton Reynoldsmm Nothing's making sense. Nothing's making sense in this world. Let's just say that the fan has gotten bigger and the poop that is hitting it has the quantity has doubled and tripled.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonoh my gosh oh my gosh
Trenton Reynoldswhat's going on what's going on with you first of all I feel terrible
Sabrina Ward Harrisonthat I forgot it was your birthday I forgot our birthday no you had a birthday didn't you have didn't you have a birthday too yep when's your birthday again November or something yeah
Trenton ReynoldsNovember 1st
Sabrina Ward Harrisonoh way back then November 1st I'm December 2nd
Trenton Reynoldsway back then we're almost exactly a month apart I didn't realize that
Sabrina Ward Harrisonyeah by a couple years
Trenton Reynoldsby a couple years yeah
Sabrina Ward Harrisonwow when's Laura due
Trenton Reynoldsdue date is officially the 8th but she starts I started having some kind of preliminary pains, labor pains. So could be, could be.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNo, it's just now. I'm so sorry to be bothering you. I thought it was in January or something. Oh, gosh.
Trenton ReynoldsNo, man. It's like. tomorrow. Tomorrow is the 8th.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh my gosh, how stressful. And then the fire's everywhere. Oh, are you still, are you doing a home birth again?
Trenton ReynoldsThis will be our second home birth. Yeah. So, uh, yesterday the fire, the smoke from the fire was just, uh, It was really thick. It was really bad. Laura was coughing a lot. And so we just decided that we needed to get far enough away that we're just constantly inhaling smoke. So we went. We drove out to those dinosaurs from the Pee Wee Herman movie. movie, movie, movie. Movie. Do you remember those? - Nope. - Oh, it's this dinosaur park. It's the craziest thing ever. It's off close to, oh crap, I'm gonna forget the, anyway, there are these like life-size foam dinosaurs.
- Wow.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd it's pretty fantastic. So we went out to... Oh, Palm Springs. It's close to Palm Springs. Oh, okay. So we were far enough away and we ended up getting a hotel close by there. And... Anyway, got back this morning, and the smoke is all there today.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonGod, were you nervous she was going to suddenly go into labor or wait?
Trenton ReynoldsWell, that's the thing is we were going to go to Arizona to stay with her brother for a couple days to let the smoke dissipate. But then we just realized that the further we drive, the further we have to drive back, and we're getting far away from her midwife. And because we're having a home birth, that kind of adds. adds a level of stress to it. So we just stopped a couple hours away, and that was enough.
That's your heart.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's stressful. That is stressful.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. And my school is canceled for this whole week, pretty much. Because my school is right next to the Skirball Museum, which is right across-- the street basically from uh well i mean it's skirball it's called the skirball fire a is like that's where the fire was is right where my school is and uh it's right across the 405 so if the winds have changed a little bit and i think there's even still a little bit of concern that it could it could i mean fires can jump freeway way is no problem. So it's just very, very fortunate that my school didn't burn down. That is terrifying.
Yep.
Trenton ReynoldsAnyway, but we're all alive and safe and home.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo good. Stay safe and sound. down at home. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, I hope so. And definitely the thoughts and prayers go out to all the people that have been affected by the fires. It's really, I mean, it's not just the Skirball fire. There are two other major fires going on right now in California.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsSo lots of people were affected. What happened to the car accident? Speaking of Pee Wee Herman, Randy's Donuts. Are you familiar with Randy's Donuts? No. It's the big donut. Do you remember? It's like you've probably driven past it many times. You drive past it on the 405 going toward LAX. It's just a giant donut that you can see off the freeway.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsIt's called Randy's Donuts. Anyway, it's been... been around forever. It's, uh, and the donuts are fantastic. You know, you know, when, uh, the oil thing went down and like, everybody's stopped using animal oil. Remember that?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI don't remember when that actually happened, but I know it did. Yeah. Right. It was like,
Trenton Reynoldslike, like McDonald's stopped using, it was the whole saturated fat craze. You know, it's like, that was. bad for you. Anyway, I don't think Randy got the memo on that. And the donuts are just really, really yummy. Anyway, this is all to say that I was at Randy's Donuts on a Saturday morning, pulling out of the driveway, and somebody else was turning left at a red light. And the driveway was really close to the intersection, so he turned right into my blind spot, and I didn't see him coming so it's we crashed and it was the worst worst wreck that I've ever been in his car was basically undriveable and mine I shouldn't have driven but I did was you were you hurt no luckily he wasn't he was just turning and I was pulling out so neither of us was going very fast and it was just one of those things where it was an unavoidable collision and just felt kind of dumb
Sabrina Ward Harrisongod oh that's scary that is scary
Trenton ReynoldsAnyway, this is real downer So, uh, ten minutes of me Talking about all the woes
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's a lot, that's a lot There's some gems in there It's just, we just haven't been We haven't been able to record for a while It's just been a lot going on And we wanted to be sure to connect And let people know that We didn't get in some fight or something we're just we're just been really busy and life has gotten busy and we both want to be able to continue these conversations but we we are at a bit of a loss for how to kind of do it without the help of some editing editing and the production help
Trenton Reynoldsyeah if there's anybody out there that has experience uh editing audio we could we could use some help for sure. Or has contact with somebody who does podcast or audio editing.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOr who has contact with people that would like to produce
our podcast
Sabrina Ward Harrisonor put it under an umbrella of another podcast distribution, that would be great. Because we have so many listeners. We do. We're at
Trenton Reynoldslike 7,500.
A month? Did I tell you that?
Trenton ReynoldsNo. That's what the numbers say. I don't know. I don't know how accurate these numbers are, but... That's great. Still a lot of people. Yeah, it is.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo, we're open. We are open to ways that we can continue to do this. But it takes so much your time to edit and go through and edit this and put it up that it's not realistic with your teaching schedule, life schedule right now.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. But I miss I miss the conversations. It feels so good to talk to you for a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI've been eating a lot of apples, it's just not the same to talk about apples just aren't the same apples just aren't the same although Corey makes this unbelievable apple crisp that is just so good he bakes he's cooking two meatloafs right now that are just
Meatloaf.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI never was a meatloaf person until... Oh, my God. Corey came to your life.
I know.
Trenton ReynoldsBrown sugar and meatloaf?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWell, it's like a whole thing. There's like all kinds of stuff in it. But like a tiny bit of brown sugar. It's like crazy good. It's so good.
Trenton ReynoldsI had never made... I'm a fan already. Put some brown sugar in that.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonBrown sugar and meat.
Trenton ReynoldsYes. Can't go wrong with brown sugar and meat.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWe'll post it in the show notes. We'll post the recipe. Actually, I'll send you the video right now. I actually just did a video of him because I'm like, that meat and what you're doing to it.
Sure.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's just a whole situation. It's like the sound was like... Yeah. It's cold here. It finally got cold. And it's not snowing yet.
But...
Trenton ReynoldsIt's just now getting cold to December 7th?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt was strange. It's been very strange. Just two days ago it dropped by about 30 degrees, 20 degrees. And we only got our first show flurries last night, but my mom's flying it for Christmas and I was just so, you know, "help it spin" or whatever that phrase is, on it being a snowy white Christmas. Like I'm sure it was going to be. I want that needs to happen.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, there's no cooperating. Got to get on that weather.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYep. So I have moved the studio inside into this other bedroom.
And.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonit's cozy but I'm working on these huge pieces though it's kind of hilarious because I have to kind of move big pieces out into the hallway and then bring a piece in work around a little bit
Trenton ReynoldsI've been noticing the some of the pictures you've been posting on on Instagram they look great so well done
Oh, thank you.
Trenton ReynoldsThere's no children there?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThere's no children here. There's a lot over there.
Yeah, there's a few.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThere's not the same amount of... There's not quite the same magnitude of... of stuff happening around here. And you've been doing some cool stuff with, it looks like almost, it wasn't encaustic, but you were doing some burning. It was encaustic. It was encaustic? Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsYes. So I've been lasering the crap out of these paintings. So much fun. I'm such a, I'm so smitten by the whole idea of lasers. So I take these little encaustic paintings that I've been doing and I'll take tracing paper and I trace out shapes that happen just naturally with the wax and whatever. I scan those shapes that I've traced out into the computer and then I make them into vectors. So essentially instructions, directions for the laser to follow, which so it can go and cut out very precisely wherever those lines are. So there's this kind of relationship between the painting and how it evolves and areas that I literally cut out of the painting. Does that make sense?
Yep.
Trenton ReynoldsProbably not. So anyway, I've just been kind of-
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWell, I can visualize it because I know what it looks. I've seen the picture of it.
Trenton ReynoldsRight. You've seen them. So anyway, just really enjoying the idea of-- it becomes more sculptural and shaped paintings and more of a process of not just 2D, but 3D.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonHow do you get it to go-- like if you're doing something in the middle of the painting, how do you get the laser? Does it just work going in from the sides?
Trenton ReynoldsNo, you can go-- the laser can shoot straight down in wherever you want it to cut. Wow. It's just hovering right above. I'll have to take a video sometime so you can get a better idea of what it looks like. So you're programming it into the computer and it-- Yeah, essentially just cuts wherever-- Oh, meatloaf. I just got the meatloaf video. Yeah. Which is funny because that little ding kind of sounds like meatloaf is done. Yeah, I'm waiting. Anyway, loving the laser and also experimenting with putting the laser different distances from the wood, which spreads the light of the laser in different patterns and makes the lines thicker or thinner, the burns a little bit different and... Anyway, so many cool things can be done with it. I'll try to post more of those on Instagram.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIs it something where it uses up a lot of memory? Or what's the downside of using it? Does it take a lot of programming? Or is it just pretty straightforward? forward and you just sort of do it and it happens.
Trenton ReynoldsI mean it's kind of fiddly but meaning you've got to go through a couple different programs and you have to know how to create vector art and get that from Illustrator into the the laser software and then get the laser set up right. So I mean there's just there are none of it's like really difficult like just to understand how to do it, but there's a lot of little steps and things that you have to figure out. But now that I kind of have the general idea, it's really not complicated at all.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonDoes it take a long time? Or just going to do, do, do, do, do, do, and that's done?
Trenton ReynoldsNot what I'm doing. What I'm doing is pretty straightforward, just based it cuts and it takes like a couple minutes. If I was engraving like photographic you know images on a large surface then it might take a while but not like the longest it's taken me so far on anything that I've that I've cut or engraved is like seven minutes. So go back up a second.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt can engrave a photographic image onto something?
Uh-huh. Wow.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonLike by subtly engraving into the wood?
Trenton ReynoldsBy either removing material. So say you have, they have different kinds of plastics that have like a white layer and then a black layer underneath so you cut out the the white layer to reveal the black layer underneath or you can burn so the the engraver can also just like burn an image or it can do like just making little dots it's like you know those stippling projects in high school where it's just like a bunch of little little dots so there are a couple different ways to go about at it but yeah it's awesome so very cool oh
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI was I'm excited because I want to transfer these videos from I realize I have 20 years of footage from when I was 21 to now and I haven't really gone through them and I've just so many places and making different projects and Bonnie Dune and Rome and New York City and just there's ballroom like footage from in there and the room in the trees and stuff and so I want to finally just transfer them and sort of start even doing something with stills from some of the footage and printing that out large and working on that. Thanks a lot everybody for
Trenton Reynoldslistening and we hope to be back very soon with another recording. As we said in this conversation, if you have any contacts that might be interested in talking to us about continuing this podcast or producing it or helping us distribute in some way, we would appreciate any information you have. You can send us any information or contact us through the website at roominthetrees.com.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd the email address is roominthetrees at gmail.com.
Trenton ReynoldsUntil next time.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonStay cozy.
Trenton ReynoldsStay cozy.