Sabrina Ward HarrisonThis is Room in the Trees, a podcast about living a creative life. Room in the Trees is hosted by Trent Reynolds and me, Sabrina Ward-Harrison.
Trenton ReynoldsShow notes including pictures, links, video, and more for every episode can be found at roominthetrees.com.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYou can follow us on Instagram at Sabrina Ward Harrison and at Trent Reynolds Art.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd now, here's this week's episode.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat's your creative life been like or what's it been on your mind?
Trenton ReynoldsWell, there's a couple things that I was kind of thinking about this morning, just thinking about talking with you. I've kind of paused because, you know, we just started back at school back up and there were two or three events that are, you know, responsibilities that I had that came one right after another that I've made it difficult to schedule a workshop or a class online. So I've got, I've got six, uh, um, people that I'm working with privately, uh, online, which has been fantastic. I, they're, There are some ways. So what I've been calling it studio mate, then the whole idea is that it's like having a studio mate. It's like having somebody who can pop into your studio and just like- Oh, I love it. You can chat about your work and get response, you know, and- you know, but it's not meant to be like this, you know, heavy on instruction or heavy on demos. It's just meant to be a kind of a coaching and support, you know, type of interaction. Anyway, that's been going really great. And, and there's something about that format that's really resonated. But I just haven't had time to, to fit in, to schedule a workshop and, and I've been doing more projects and work with people on the laser. Yeah. I don't know if I told you. Did I tell you that I connected with a surfboard maker?
No.
Trenton ReynoldsHave I not told you about that? Well, a couple things have happened, actually, and it's kind of been unsolicited. So on Instagram – this guy direct messages, direct messaged me about my resin class. Yeah. He was interested in the epoxy resin class and we exchanged back and forth a little bit, just talking about resin. Turns out he's a really well-known surfboard maker. Oh my gosh. Name is Dennis Jarvis and he's got this company spider surfboards, right? I'm not a surfer, don't know much about it. So I wasn't really tuned into that, but my studio mate who is a surfer, knew exactly who he was. And anyway, so turns out he's trying to, he's wanting to push more into making art because that's something that he's always loved and, and just wants to spend more time doing that. And for one of the projects, he was wanting to use epoxy resin, but then we got started talking about lasers and he was interested in working with me on, having some stuff that he's doing cut, laser cut. Anyway, so I ended up going down to his studio. He's got an amazing space. Oh, so he's in California too. Yeah, he's down in Hermosa Beach. So it's like a 30-minute drive. Yeah.
Um,
Trenton ReynoldsBut we're collaborating on this project and it's been fantastic. A really totally cool guy. Really interested in what he's working on and, you know, just fun to talk to. He's got a lot of cool experience, obviously, and stories to tell.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo is the project involved with surfboards?
Trenton ReynoldsNo, it is using... He creates out of some of the same materials that he uses to make surfboards. So there is poly resins that he's working with and like surfboard foam and... images and paint, like acrylic paints and stuff like that, but he's also using canvases and panels and stuff that are more kind of traditional art materials. So it's kind of a cool combination of his experience in materials of surfboard making and more traditional materials.
Wow.
Trenton ReynoldsSo that's been cool. And then there's another friend of one of my studio mates who wanted some templates cut for some paintings that he's doing. And so I cut those, these big kind of two foot by four foot templates of kind of half-tone dots. Do you know, like in a newspaper? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know all about that. What would be a template?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat does that mean as far as a laser cutter?
Trenton Reynoldsgoes? So we got styrene, just a kind of a thick, maybe two millimeter plastic sheet. Okay. And then we just cut the holes. It's like a big image of a wave or water, ripples on water, but done in halftone. And then they're really big dots. So I just, you know, use the laser to cut out all the little dots that comprise this picture of a wave. Okay. and then he's going to use that, and then he'll put the template down, the plastic down, and then just use either spray paint on it or... Oh, neat. Right, so just either a spray paint template or just, like, painting on top of them.
Wow.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd then I'm also cutting out stickers, these foam stickers for one of my friends.
Like...
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat kind of foam stickers?
Trenton ReynoldsIt's kind of hard to describe.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonPuffy stickers. I remember puffy stickers.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, kind of like that. But you know, like the craft foam? I'm trying to think of what you... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like... Yeah, it's just kind of a spongy, maybe like two millimeter really thin foam. But you can get it with adhesive on the back. So it's basically a foam sticker. And I'm just cutting this graphic out of the foam. I'm making a thousand of them, little foam stickers of a logo of my friend's company. And he's going to pass them out at a conference that he's going to. His company is a DeFi company, a distributed finance blockchain type of technology company. Oh.
So, yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo can people hire you to do some laser kind of projects? Is that...
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, eventually. I mean, that's kind of where things are headed. I've been taking it slow just because it's still fairly new to me, so I haven't been really advertising. And I'm really liking collaborating with people on art projects, so that's especially interesting to me. And I think... Soon, I'm going to have a workshop that's focused on showing people ways to integrate using laser cutter and engraver into artwork. That would kind of... The idea would be to jump start potentially doing more collaboration with artists and on that. If I can do, that would be preferable than just doing lots and lots of foam stickers or other projects as art related. Which, and nothing wrong with foam stickers, I like those too, but also would love to collaborate with people in art projects.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat's the most time involved aspect of using work
Trenton Reynoldswith the laser? It really depends on the project. So sometimes like with this surfboard material, it's a material I'd never worked with. So it does take some time to figure out what the right settings are for the laser to be able to cut through the material. But you can also experiment with either running the laser hotter to cut through or running it slower to cut through. and you'll get different results based on kind of what combination of settings you get. So dialing in the right settings for the material, and then sometimes if it's a complex graphic, that can be time-consuming, but really it's not a hard... Like, for an artist, you could just take a black and white drawing, and the program that runs the laser can trace the drawing, make an outline that the laser can then cut. Okay. So it can happen in 30 seconds you could be cutting a drawing. Okay. It's really, there's, that's one of the magic things about it is like you can go from a little doodle to cutting a two foot by three foot piece of wood, you know, with that doodle graphic. You can be doing that in less than a minute.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd would it be cutting it like... engraving it or is it literally like would it be cutting it like you're cutting out either or like say i take one of my ink faces like me either or or both right so you could do
Trenton Reynoldsan engrave of like you know your ink face drawing and then auto generate and you know a little outline around that drawing to you know cut it into a shape that conforms to the drawing circumference does that make sense yeah So you can do a combination of engraving and cutting in the same project.
How neat.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, there's so many cool things you do. I'm such a fan. Anyway, so that's kind of going on. But there's an opening for two different full-time professor positions at UCLA.
Wow. Which I am...
Trenton Reynolds99.9% would not get, chances are. I mean, I don't have a good exhibition history. You know, my teaching history, I taught at SMC, but, you know, there's a lot of reasons where I'm not an ideal. I'm not your diversity hire, which is a really important thing right now. Right. I'm white, middle-aged, come from a privileged background, heterosexual, conservative background. There's a lot of reasons why I'm maybe not the model candidate for these positions. And there's a lot of language in the application materials saying that they're looking specifically for diverse candidates. So anyway, I... But it was just kind of a turning point for me, realizing that it's probably not going to happen. I'm probably not going to get this job. And this, I think, is the job that I have always wanted, you know? Right. So this kind of...
Sabrina Ward HarrisonBut teaching painting or...
Trenton ReynoldsOr one of the positions was for mixed media, which would be awesome, which would be ideal. Anyway, and recently I applied for a job over at USC in their art department fabrication fab lab and got a callback for that, but didn't end up getting the job. Anyway, I'm just having this moment where... you know, where I'm kind of just reflecting. Like, what's next? What does my life look like? This kind of end game, this goal of getting a job, teaching full-time at a university, I don't know if that's going to happen. Like, just the climate. And like a lot of, most schools aren't even hiring full-time. It's all adjunct. This game is, and that's not going anywhere, especially with the economy the way it is.
Wow. Right.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd anyway, so it's been, I'm in this moment where like, I don't have any, any workshops planned. I got this laser thing kind of happening and I'm teaching private lessons, which are, which are fulfilling.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsBut obviously not enough to sustain my family. Right. So, and I don't know what the future is with teaching in the way that I've always kind of envisioned I would. So that's kind of, I'm in this meditative moment, I guess is the point.
Yeah. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsOr just re-evaluating. And I've been through this cycle before. This certainly is not the first time I've had to regroup and reflect. But that's kind of where I'm at. Anyway, I've been talking this whole time. Tell me where you're at.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNo, I just appreciate your transparency about that. You know, kind of adjusting to thinking how it's also when you came out of school and to where things are now, how much has changed as far as... university and what people are, what the shape of education has changed so much.
Trenton Reynolds- If there just aren't, you know, there aren't the jobs, the jobs are not there for our teachers. And the boomers, they are not retiring. And maybe they will more now. So that's part of the equation. I've gone through cycles of being upset about that and just kind of accepting it. But there's just a supply and demand problem. There's way too many people needing art teaching positions and not nearly enough positions to fill. So it's the... just part of where we're at. But then also, you know, just how things are shifting online. And I think everybody's seeing a lot of the really compelling possibilities there, especially after this last year. Right, right, right. Some of the corresponding or correlated limitations of the traditional way of doing things. So I think we're also in this moment of like, well, maybe there's a better way of going about this that would get more people involved and allow more people to connect, you know?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd I just love what you're doing with the studio mates idea. It's so great. And I think that's such a great model and great. we tweet in different ways to have people more in small groups or it's just such a neat model that seems like when you talked about it, there's a really fulfilling element to it that, that goes to the heart and the soul of what you'd love is the concept of shared studio, studio conversations. And.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, totally. Yeah. I mean, I, that's, that's what I want Facebook groups to be. You know, it's like, it, There needs to be a social network just for that, you know, just for studio artists that want feedback from each other and want to mentor each other and want to support each other. And just Facebook groups cannot cut it. No, no. I mean, it's great. It's great in a lot of ways. I don't want to diminish how important Facebook groups are. They're wonderful. But for that particular thing, I just wish there was a more custom tool for it.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonRight. The app Marco Polo, I've loved it. Just keeping in touch with friends and family. But it's a free app that's kind of like video. video messaging so you're not having like facetime directly with people but you're
Trenton Reynoldsare we marco polo friends i don't know if we are we are do you use it yeah yeah oh oh cool i
Sabrina Ward Harrisonyeah i totally i totally use it and so this is the first time i've incorporated it in to one of my classes so this round of full color life we i tried out we have the facebook group but then we have this Marco Polo group and it has been so gratifying and for everybody to see each other's kind of sharing along and first started to like introduce themselves, sharing their studio spaces. And then, you know, as, as people are, you know, sharing more and getting more comfortable, just processing what they're, you know, after a session, what they've, you know, what's, what shifts are happening for them with their liberating of self, you know, creatively what's, what's happening. So it's been really neat to see. And then because it can be global, so people can be coming in from Australia or Tokyo or wherever they are. So it's been really, really cool. So it has a little bit more of that effect of just, coming from their studio and not need to like upload and post something, but just kind of have that immediate feedback.
Trenton ReynoldsSo stuff like that is, it's so clearly points the direction to me. Like, like I can see how that integrates into a larger system. Yeah. That could be so powerful, right? Like if you had that combined with, you know like some way to like connect people that are that want a more direct connection right want to kind of go off to the side of that main stream of information and have a more intimate relationship or a more direct relationship or some way to combine that with a history where you can go back and see people's work from the past so you have more context to be able to engage with their work. You know, like, how cool is all of this stuff that we've got?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, so that's just a matter of building something like that.
Trenton ReynoldsSo you've got the, you've got Marco Polo going on, you've got, have you started the most recent?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYes, Full Color Life, the second module week has opened today. So it really feels like a prequel to Liberate, like, because it really is the basis of how I work with mixed media and color and, you know, giving that bigger perspective, working bigger and looser and more. coming in to deliberate with that background makes the process so much more fluid of as far as working on spreads and working big and conceptualizing the process a lot more clearly. So just feels like it's really, like I just see people getting it, you know, so much faster. And then from that place, I mean, they're just one weekend and there are people that worked really small and detailed and precise are already like, "Bwaah!" You know, and having those transformational moments of like, "Oh my gosh, I've got it all over my floor. I've got like got the paper roll to get the whole thing going." There's a confidence that happens a lot faster, I think, artistically for people.
Trenton Reynolds- So if you were to summarize each individually and then the relationship between the two. How would you say that? It's like, why is it a prequel?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI think Liberate's about creating a visual memoir and bringing forth the book that's within you and your story. And it takes you through all of that. The process is so much of the process that Full Color Life has is but when full color life, there isn't that pressure. Like you have to be, you're making this big book. You're, you're getting yourself free through, through the writing process and through the creative process in a way that you start seeing connections and you start because of the, it's not just about creativity as far as the fine art goes. It's, there's writing, you know, writing circles every week. So there's a lot of free writing that kind of goes in conjunction with the creative process. So that's a lot more like how I, how, how I began was that bringing both to the forefront equally. And then from there, you understand, and I know I'm talking a million ways here, but so much about like color and memory. Again, like I'm so passionate about like the colors you use, having them connect to memory and association from your own life. So you're not just like, I like this color pink. I'm just going to put it on here. But really you're kind of through the writing and memory, memory explorations, you're coming away with just more references in your own pockets to pull from in a way that goes, I have a story to tell. I have a life that I've lived that needs to be shared with the world.
Yeah. Right.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonDoes that make sense a little bit?
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, for sure. And actually relates to something that I wanted to bring up and ask you about that's kind of – that struck me and has been something I've returned to and thought a lot about. And that comes from a conversation I had recently on Dabalon on the podcast that I do about art materials with an artist named Elaine Spafford. And she, her work is wonderful, and if you haven't seen it, you should go check it out. Elaine_Spafford, I think. Anyway, her paintings are fantastic, but then she's got these sketchbooks. And the sketchbooks, I thought maybe they're similar enough to the big paintings that I thought maybe it was preparatory type stuff, you know? But in talking to her, I find out these sketchbooks, she doesn't really think of them as preparatory work. It's like these are pieces themselves. And when I asked her if she displays them or how she displays them, she says they're not really for display. She's shown them on Instagram, but she hasn't really shown them in a show. And that's not really what they're for. But anyway, it kind of got me thinking about like this idea that she would be doing these really refined, wonderful works of art in these sketchbooks that were just for her, right? They weren't meant to be shown or displayed and that they served a purpose and had meaning to her that was just her own. And that to me is kind of, it feels like part of what you're saying is that before you get to making a... this book that you're going to put out into the world for display and for consumption by other people, you first have to be really locked in on what makes, has meaning for you, right? Exactly. Like what is that product? What is that thing that you would make that, that would be joyful to have and meaningful to have just for yourself, like regardless of anybody else knew it was there or saw it, right? Right. Like the audience is you and that you want to have, you want to possess, you want to, you know, have in your life. have in your life, right? And then once it seems like to me, the relationship between that small work and the big work was that, and she said like the sketchbooks were to her more meaningful than the bigger work. Like that was the most meaningful work were these sketchbook pieces.
Right.
Trenton ReynoldsAnyway, there's something so profound to me about that and kind of what I feel like you are so good at and what ultimately you're trying to do is connect people with that thing in them and... that is most alive and most connected or like most authentic I don't know like all these words that always come up right is like what is ultimately meaningful to you and find find that first because that is what that's what the generative force is exactly I was gonna say like
Sabrina Ward Harrisonthe gasoline exactly yeah yeah yeah it's generative force right Right.
Trenton ReynoldsI don't know, there's something that was so profound to me finding out that she'd done these sketchbooks just for her, right? And there was no external validation necessary for them to have meaning. Anyway, and that's kind of what I hear you saying about the relationship between these two classes. It's like first you got to really dig into what's meaningful to you before you start trying to tackle the project of making this thing that's going to be pushed out into the world.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonRight, right, right. it's an exciting, I love witness every time. I love witnessing the process of people's unfolding for sure. It's so gratifying. Like seeing people who are like, um, I don't want to get my hands and get anything on my hands. Um, I don't know if I want to, you know, this and just seeing the breakthroughs that happen are just so exciting. One woman has this that she shared. She had like come in and she has this state of the art studio with beautiful skylights, you know, gorgeous big space. And she had to build a couple of years ago and then just seeing she said, I've painted on the wall piece twice and she's all her like paints color coordinated color you know with like the paint color on the painted on the lid of it so it's all matched and everything and she's been working primarily in like in a journal and just stuff at her desk, I guess, in a chair. And she started the first exercise. And by the end of it, I said this Marco Polo of hers. And she just had this huge piece on the wall that had already started from the mark-making process we started with. but it just was amazing. She said, I've always wanted to just like, and it wasn't, we weren't even at that stage of the course yet where we're working on working big and loose yet. And she just already had been like propelled into just like working with their hands and the physicality of the working. And like, just she said, I've always wanted to work big and loose and get my whole body into it and get out of my chair, get out of away from my desk and actually really, being it and just seeing the glow in her face and the excitement in her eyes and just really being an artist the way she always wanted to be
Trenton Reynoldsyeah how fulfilling is being able to see that happen in somebody right sometimes it's a very subtle shift where you're like oh my gosh I think you found it I think there's something there in the tone of your voice and the way your posture and the work that you're producing like there's something there where you've And found, you've connected to that, to that gasoline, right? Yeah. Found, found the spark of something.
That's really cool. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsI think I've brought, I'm sure, I'm sure I've recycled a lot of the same ideas over the course of our podcast, but Have I ever brought up the scene in the movie Chocolat? I don't think so. So in that movie, I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that right, Chocolat, chocolate, there's this heavier heavier dude that's like I think he's some authority figure in the in the town and he's buttoned up you know the the picture of self-restraint you know like it packs his lunch and all in everything's orderly anyway there's a scene where he goes to destroy the the setup of this woman's chocolate shop and right in the front window where she's got this really ornate setup and a little speck of chocolate lands on his lower lip. Like he sees her as this disruptive force. So he's going to destroy her shop. So she, you know, goes out of business and this little bit of chocolate lands on his lower lip. And, All of a sudden, like you see him change and he starts just shoving all of the chocolate in his face. It's just like everything. He just goes hog wild on all this chocolate. Like he's trying to restrain himself from eating this chocolate anyway. And then he wakes up in the morning. He's in this front display covered in chocolate with chocolate smeared all over his face. But anyway, it's like that moment where that little bit of chocolate lands on his lip and the camera focuses up on that little bit of chocolate as it melts on his lip. It's so funny to me. Oh, my gosh. But that feels to me like that moment where somebody connects with- Yes. You know- It's like I've talked about before but like in a class where somebody finds a new material that is like This is what I've been searching for it does what I want it to do, you know And all of a sudden they're off to the races and it kind of feels like you know This woman who's got this awesome studio and like she's buttoned up but then she all of a sudden she gets a little taste of what it would be like to just Explode up onto the side of the wall and have this huge surface to work on and Right And I don't know, it's just like the floodgates are released and it's such a joyous moment.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonLet the chocolate flow. Eat the chocolate. Eat the chocolate, yes. Let it drip all over your face.
Trenton ReynoldsChocolate on your face.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonChocolate on your face. Oh, have you had any good snacks recently? Even any snacking?
Trenton ReynoldsWell, we've been actually we've got a bit of a snacking problem because the kids, you know, you got to put stuff in their lunch and it's every day. So it's got to be something that you don't have to reinvent every day, but it's also something that they don't burn out on. So one thing that we've discovered recently, and I'm not going to remember the name of the product, but it's I think it's a Trader Joe's treat. But there are these like rice cakes, but they come in the form of kind of a log. So they're easier to to grasp easily. And they're kind of a good munching size. Anyway, it's kind of these two rice cake logs, and they're sweet. A little bit of sweetness. I like them a lot better than typical rice cakes, but that would be one. I'll have to get the name of that.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah. They're these Midwest things. I don't know if they're in California, but they're just... they're just dangerously delicious they're like this salty sweet pretzel thing these pretzels in this bag they're called dots after some woman named dots who like makes them but the flavor, this honey mustard flavor. There's all these different...
Trenton ReynoldsDots Homestyle pretzels? Yes. Oh, I'm looking at them right now. They look awesome.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThe flavor honey mustard, it's like got this tang to it, but then it's really sweet and it's... really salty and it's spicy and it's crazy like i had that feeling like if i could only have one snack so i've just i've just polished off a couple bags of those the past couple weeks oh my gosh they look great they're really really good the other ones are a little bit stronger and a little too salty but the that flavor i don't know they're made with honey wheat um like versus the like like pretzel you know versus like the plain pretzel kind anyway they're just
Trenton Reynoldsso good and can you just pick these up at your local store or is this yeah we got them at that
Sabrina Ward Harrisonstore um fleet for i mean they're at the grocery store here but also that fleet farm place where they You can get horse halters to pretzels.
Trenton ReynoldsHorse halters to Dots pretzels. Yeah. Someday I would love to walk through that store with the two of you. It sounds like...
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsSounds like such a store that everybody would be pleased by.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonTotally. And it has that really Midwest kind of customer service friendliness of just... It's really like there's a lot of people that work that they're like you can tell they're in high school But then there's also people that are like seeing that they maybe retired 15 years ago Just as a sweet sweet like Neighborhood II feeling to it. They're really big stores. That's awesome
Trenton ReynoldsI forgot to tell you, on my podcast on Dabble on, I'm interviewing Robert Gamblin of Gamblin Paints.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh my gosh.
Trenton ReynoldsFantastic. It's crazy.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, I'm so happy for you.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, it's just kind of a weird, it was totally unexpected connection. Cool.
Life's happening.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYes, it is. I am... I want some dots pretzels right now. I want to climb under the covers.
Trenton ReynoldsDo it. That's what needs to happen.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please consider showing your support. You can become a subscribing patron at patreon.com forward slash room. In the meantime, you can follow us on Instagram at Sabrina Ward Harrison and at Trent Reynolds Art.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd check out the show notes at roominthetrees.com where you can also get in touch if you have any ideas you'd like to share. Please help us grow our audience by rating us or writing a review on iTunes. To do that, you can use the link roominthetrees.com forward slash iTunes. ♪ ♪