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I think it started as like a kid.

Being at home
really wanting to build a model.

And it's like, "Yeah,
because you're a kid,

you like building models."
But it was like, "No, no."

I need a way out of life
today.

Having that control...

it gives you a taste
of something.

Recognized
for deftly relating design

to Time-based considerations

and welcoming graphically
charged

outsider street subculture
into mainstream conversation.

His work has been mounted
on institutions and galleries

and includes paintings,
installations, furniture.

Who's Geoff McFetridge to somebody that didn't know?

He is a man of many talents.

Foremost, he's an artist.

You'll see a Pepsi billboard,

a Apple Watch face.

But you don't know
his name necessarily.

He's like a hero

or like a Zen master
within the creative industry.

If I want to communicate
something in a new, fresh way,

I think of Geoff.

It's almost like
he's an inventor of how to communicate.

Everyone's kind of, like,
desperately trying to be Geoff.

But no one's quite
hitting the mark.

He's just done
everything his own way.

He hasn't listened to anyone
or anything

except what feels right
and true to him.

I was interested in geometry ever since I was a little kid.

Geometry was almost like
a, like a tic.

I would lay in bed and look
at shadows for, like, hours.

I would see connections
between lines in the room

and have to like
step over them.

Everything is thought
through with drawing.

I draw with a pencil because
a pencil moves at a certain rate.

I do a lot of drawings
that are this big

because basically
that's about as fast as I think.

I continuously draw and draw.

Once there's enough
out of the way that's expected,

you'll start to get to a place
where it's like that thinking led to this new place.

But it's like small steps.
You don't just go like unknown.

You travel downward.

I call it the White Well,
'cause it's like, unlike a well,

it gets lighter
the deeper you go.

We're even aware
of our growing up.

It was a mystery. I remember
looking at a painting,

someone sitting
in like a French café.

I remember this feeling
of like,

I'm never going to be able
to make this.

How am I going to go
to, like, a café in Paris?

Like, I don't know.

I felt like I should
make logos

and do design
because that's my world.

I am from the suburbs
and I have friends in bands.

We put a dent in your car
as quiet as a mouse.

Did you notice graffiti
the same color as your house?

Oh, come on. That's so rod.

We went out all night
to see if anything was there,

but the streets were just
scribbles drawn in thin air.

We did all sorts of stuff
because no one was around.

Might as well scream
if you want to hear sound.

It is a little bit extreme
to grow up in Canada.

One of the advantages
of being parents

at such an early age is that
we were very idealistic.

Were you guys hippies?

- Kind of. Yeah.
- Wait till you see our pictures.

My mom was a teacher.
My dad was a lawyer.

Everyone's houses
looked the same.

It was like, very
understandable.

There's the things
you control,

and then there's things
you don't control.

You're born into a family,
you're born into a racial identity.

You're born in a place.

I didn't know
I was half-Chinese.

I was just like
my mom's white mom.

I went to a big high school
that was almost entirely white.

Both sides of my family
were super westernized.

It was all about like,

how can you assimilate
as fast as possible?

I never found
my Chinese roots.

It was like, I'll just be part
of a new culture.

Skateboarders were brown.
Skateboarders were Chinese.

They were Hawaiian.
They were black. I did gravitate to places

that were super accepting.

What a glorious day
for skating.

In my teens into my twenties,

I was really angsty
and deeply unsatisfied

with everything I was doing.

Yeah, I was like a wreck
for years.

Really struggling through
finding my personal identity,

finding a place to belong.

And is that from life
being an outsider?

So you just are like,
I'm outsider for life.

In grade one,
he's got these little doodles all over the place.

They're no different

from all these other
little boys who love to draw.

It's a mystery to me
when it started evolving.

I think it was very gradual.

He literally drew three hours
an evening.

In high school,
I made, like, a poster

where I would just put this
drum kit on a piece of paper.

That was like
the light bulb going off.

I was just putting something
together.

Someone said,
that's graphic design.

My dad never worked
like a five-day-a-week,

like he worked like
a six-day-a-week my entire life.

And then on Sunday, he would
be building something in our house.

I remember digging a hole
for my dad in the yard.

I dig and hit rocks,
then have to tunnel around.

I cringe to think of that
clink, clink sound

all the way to China
was what I thought.

All the way to China
was when I would stop.

I imagined a sliver of light
as I broke through the ground

all the way to China
without going around all the way to China.

And the going was rough.

Then my dad came outside
and said,

"That's deep enough."

True story.

Growing up in the world
that I was in

drugs and drinking, and that
was like the heart of it.

The worst part of not drinking

is when it makes other people
uncomfortable.

Clear-headedness has always
been my sort of goal.

Um, so I've never, yeah,
I've never really have, never...

really been that guy.

In the art world

with a lot of cigarettes
and alcohol and joints...

it hasn't been normal
to take care of yourself.

Social Distortion were wasted.

Minor Threat had ideology.

I could way more relate
to Minor Threat.

What was sort of admirable
was very different.

Nothing was worse
than Jim Morrison.

Nothing was worse
than Led Zeppelin,

like drummers
who twirl their sticks.

Even the notion of
being like a heroic artist

drinking and painting
and womanizing or something,

or whatever, you know,
the equivalent is for a woman.

That was sort of corny.

Growing up in Calgary,
it was fairly isolated.

What you're making is
existing in this void.

There was a local art college

that had a commercial
art program.

I wanted to pursue design.

I was just sort of like
a goofball...

making this very poppy
image-based stuff.

A friend of mine
became a pro snowboarder.

He asked me,
"Oh, will you do my graphic?"

That was like
working in snowboarding

and starting to make
skateboards.

I came down to California
to meet the guy I was doing snowboards with.

And I remember coming to
the door of his house in L.A. he laughed.

He was like,
I thought you were a man

because I was like 21 years
old or something.

Okay, If I'm doing this now,

what am I going to do
in 20 years?

Being drawn to Cal Arts
was about like

this is like a world of making
thing that was unknown to me.

I was in grad school
with people who had had careers

and they were coming to Cal
Arts to sort of get the new language.

I was outgunned
and overthought.

So I sort of disassembled
myself.

I stopped doing everything
that I was good at.

I stopped drawing and I made
work that was focusing on like,

how am I thinking?

The computer arrived.

I was just, like...

making the ugliest I've,
you've ever seen for two years.

Just like failing,
failing, failing.

The legible design
was a product of great thinking.

What can I do to make
this type of thinking clear?

Instead of having like,
10-20 layers,

can I just present this,
like, singular thing?

I had the most to say
in the simplest work.

That's the essential
turning point.

The minute I graduated
I got flown to Microsoft.

Where does that leave?
To a better job at Microsoft.

Like it doesn't go anywhere.

That conventional life.
It wouldn't have worked.

Took a job just to save enough
money to buy a computer.

Okay. Now I'm going to, like,
pursue these things I wanted.

I did a series of skateboards
for a girl.

I was supposed to go work
at Girl and Chocolate Skateboards,

and then it fell through.

Then I'm just like,
"Oh, I have no job now."

Drawing to me
is like an incredible thing.

The world is fluid in it.

So, for me, it's like,

"Oh, great, like,
I'll use this language."

I'll surprise myself
by making 100 things

and one of them
is like a keeper.

It's like looking for rare
mushrooms in the forest.

In skiing I'll be at the top
of like a really difficult run

and I won't know
where I'm going to turn.

There's too much data
and drawing sort of like that.

Like it's like super infinite.

If you tell yourself, I'm
going to just fill this page with drawings of the same car,

and the second time you draw
it a little bit different.

At some point the hand
starts doing the thinking

and there is a moment
as you're drawing the car over and over again.

You sense it?

And that is then it's like
sort of like, this, like door opens and you go through that.

You go like,
the car just became a horse.

After the job
at Girl Skateboards fell apart

and it's like, oh, shit,
what do I do?

Yeah, I don't know.

There was a lot sort of
happening at that moment in L.A.

Sonic Youth, the Beastie Boys.

I was on the edge of it,

figuring out
what I needed to do.

You know, we're all, our
mid-twenties and making stuff

and helping each other
make stuff.

Trying to navigate
which way to go and what to do.

Everyone was just making stuff

because they wanted to make it
for themselves

and for each other.

And it wasn't about like
branding or really making money.

Glitter Rock was right before
being overproduced stuff.

We were so into being indie.

It's like, yeah,
let's start a magazine,

start a skate company,
start a label.

The worst thing anyone
could be was like a corporate sell-out.

There was a time

when you could be defined
by like what you made.

Andy Jenkins
is this pivotal character

that I knew from the world
of skateboarding,

and he introduced me
to the Lewman.

Mark Lewman is awesome.

So Lewman became the editor
of Grand Royal magazine,

and it was
the Beastie Boys magazine.

He called and he says,
We need an art director. So I was like, "Sure."

He met
good people, cool people,

which wouldn't have happened

if he'd gone working
for a big agency.

To get to where the
Beastie Boys it was like the best magazine in the world,

best band in the world

that actually like seemed
like the coolest guys ever.

It was crazy.

I saw the energy of,
like, backstage passes,

the afterparty,
this whole thing,

and I immediately was like,

I'll not to be
in the Beastie Boys office. I got to leave.

So I had a cordless phone that
like worked across the street.

To maintain my own autonomy
was like super important.

I was making
like $12,000 a year.

My girlfriend at the time
is now my wife.

She worked in a cafe and I had
to borrow money from her.

But living in a one-car garage
that I like built a bed in

and just like
super-basic life.

I'd be covered in like
eczema, rashes,

then realizing like, oh, these
things are caused by stress.

I was like, I'm bad at
art directing a magazine.

It looks terrible.

Yeah, I was like a wreck.
But I had Sarah.

How did you guys meet?

A mutual friend.

She just introduced us.

She was in the backseat,
and I got into the car and I was like,

"Hey, who's that?"

He had really curly hair,
like big curly hair.

He was wearing a sweater vest.

So I thought
it was really strange.

I don't think
it was love at first sight.

What's your
favorite thing about Sarah?

- Sense of humor?
- No. Not my looks.

At that age,
you're making a lot of mistakes.

I was, like,
burying myself in work.

I just remember not sleeping.

It's super-challenging.
You're really not in control.

He felt like it was really
important to have a job.

I was always like,
"You should do art."

Right then.
This way.

Art is so much more important.

I did have a sort of vision

that none of the Grand Royal
stuff fit with it.

How can I find an avenue

for this type of work
that I had a vision for?

Starting my own studio
it wasn't a business.

I had a computer on a board
and I was like, "That was it."

I was experimenting,

working in new mediums and
working with different people,

trying to find places
where I can exist.

It was difficult starting out.

Just being like a designer who
delivers product for a client.

You produce 30 things.

Someone else decides for you
that that's the one you keep.

It felt very unrewarding.

Even if I'm really successful
at this, I'm not going to be happy.

I had this type of work
that I felt was my best work.

But no one knew to ask for it.

The only way
to have people see

was I had to, like, slip that
work into presentation.

I remember working
for like a video festival

and I did an experiment
of like,

here's these things that sort
of address the themes of the festival.

And then I did one
that was just like a tin can.

And then it just had
worms on it.

She was like, "Oh, that one."

So then I started presenting
stuff that was like that for everything.

Having control it
came to define

what type of work
I was going to create.

Trying to find avenues
for that. It wasn't easy.

The downfall of design
is you're anonymous.

If you make a T-shirt
for the band,

you don't have to be up there,
but you can participate.

You do the graphic
of the skateboard,

but you never have to worry
about making the trick or putting your name on it

to bring yourself forward
and be visible in the work.

It felt like taking a risk.

There was a lot of like,
rejected work.

Instead of it being like,
throw it all out.

What more
could these drawings be?

I was doing stuff
for extra-large.

They start a gallery called
Georges.

I was seeing stuff in my
sketchbooks I wanted to make

and then showing that to them

and they were just like,
why not have a show?

My first shows were
just all screen prints.

It was the beginning.

To be able to show something

to your friends that has
like a personal truth within it,

even to have one friend
to say, "That's funny."

That's really a lot of
positive reinforcement.

The early artmaking
was about like,

"I'm going to fill the room
with me, stuff, like, my mind."

Then the room gets bigger
and you fill more. You do more.

Running on ambition.

Slowly showing it
more galleries.

The biggest thing in my life
was making art.

How do you like the park?

When Frances was first born,
it was really hard for us.

It's a full, crazy change.

And then
it's like Beautiful Losers is happening in Cincinnati.

And then he left.

And I'd have to make
an installation on the spot.

I'm trying to mold those,
like, thumbtacks out of, like, clay,

and I'm totally disoriented.

She was, like, super-freaked
out and, like, upset.

And I was like,
having a nervous breakdown.

There was this tension between
my expectations of myself...

trying to balance it out.
It gets strange.

Someone asked me
one time, like,

"What's the most precious
thing you own?"

And I was like,
"Oh, my memories."

But I don't know how long
they're going to last

so I feel like these kind of
are the permanent memories that won't go anywhere.

The Australian magazine Oyster
took a big, glossy fashion magazine,

asked me to go to his studio
in Atwater Village

to spend a day with him
photographing him.

What year was that?

This was 2006.

He was doing these
paper-weaving pieces, screen prints, textiles.

You could just see, like,
this guy's going somewhere.

Shortly after that he asked me

to come to Eindhoven,
Netherlands, with him.

He had a solo show
at the MU Museum.

I knew, like,
I'm the type of artist

who's changing
and growing very publicly.

Well, this would be good to
have, you know, Andrew document.

His photographs
are really special.

What had really inspired me as a young teenager

a girlfriend gave me this book
by David Duncan, who, arguably,

shot the best photographs
of Picasso.

They felt warm. They felt
like they let this person in.

The pictures revealed
like a whole different side of Picasso's life

that I would have never known
his children, his studio, his home.

All that stuff was fascinating
to me.

And it's really
how I approached

but I didn't know enough
of Geoff.

When I asked him
to start taking photos.

There was stuff happening
in the making of the things

that was more interesting
than the things themselves.

To have moments shot on film
by a great photographer,

it's like gold.

Do you think your project with him will ever end?

I don't know.

Being part of art history
feels like a long shot.

So I feel responsible
for sort of like writing my own history.

I don't like that idea
of just being forgotten.

Geoff always wanted
to have a responsible setup.

Being a commercial director
in L.A., that's a great life.

Like you have insurance,
you have, you have stability.

How long were
you working as a director?

A few years.

It was in the rotation,
for sure.

Oh, good. Yeah.
Just dance. No smoking.

You look cool.

It was very easy
for me to write concepts

that would translate to film.

And then I was like, I wish
someone else could direct this.

Being a commercial director is very difficult

because you are a very small
percentage of what is happening.

Too many people to pleased.

And I don't think he felt like
he was good at it.

It was a conscious decision to give something up.

The reality of being
a director is like

having a passion for film
like I have for drawing.

I was sort of re-defining
how I worked,

what my work could be
and where it would go.

I was evolving, doing projects
for like music clients,

MTV and different companies.

I was in that water
on the east side of L.A.,

surrounded by people
doing interesting stuff.

I would struggle. Like early
on I would do a sketch.

The goal is really to make
the thing that's finished

as good as the sketch,
and often the sketch was better.

T-shirt designs
were something.

It was the first time
I did it for a company called Milk Fed,

which was
Sofia Coppola's company.

And that's when I first
experimented at the sketch for the thing was the thing.

So it would be
a little tiny drawing. And, I mean, that's the thing.

We just
were having fun.

There was like
a whole kind of rock scribble.

It was all very, like,
homemade.

I asked him to do the titles
for Virgin Suicides

when I was working
on my first film.

Geoff's drawings
have something different

than something that a team
of creative professionals do.

It's not about being perfect.

To take a risk of making art

and applying it to projects
was really working.

Andy Jenkins,
Spike Jonze and Mark Leweman.

They all worked together and
they did skateboarding stuff.

We were sort of moving
in similar circles.

Spike was like
the super effective guru,

like guy
that I could look up to,

making stuff that felt artful
within these constrained worlds.

It's sort of like
navigating systems.

For him the system
was Hollywood,

which was like the gnarliest.
It's like inspiring.

I was sort of
establishing myself.

I could ask him for advice,

and then he offered
legitimate opportunities.

At that time my wife, like,
she'd work on a Saturday.

I'd sort of work all weekend

or we'd work late
and, like, no schedule.

And then suddenly it's, like,
"This isn't going to work."

You don't want to, like,

get less and less control
of your time.

We want things to get better.

Hello.

At that time, I'd have
like a crew of people

helping with fabrication.

And I would have a drive
to the screen-printing place,

burn the screens, bring them
back to my studio, print it,

like screw a bunch of them up.

Okay. If I take
all that energy of, like

driving around
and making tons of stuff,

but I put it
into a painting, right?

Like, what does that mean?

Oh!

But you don't go and
just do the stuff you can do.

You go and do the stuff
you can't do.

So you fail to the point like,
that's how you learn something.

It's mostly slamming.

Whoa!

In the
beginning, you said when you first started painting

there was like
a three-month process.

- Six months.
- Six months.

I had a painting hanging here
for six months.

I didn't know
what type of paint to use.

I didn't know
how to prepare the canvas.

I would paint the whole thing
and get to the point where it was like not working

and I'd sand
the whole painting down.

I would scrape it all off.

I'm physically rocked,

frustrated and screwing up.

I've bought a giant
compressor. All these materials.

Right when I finished
it's like a terrifying like,

"Is this good or bad?"

And then I came in
a day later.

My wife had put
a post-it on it

and it was just like,
"This is awesome."

That sort of set in motion.

Oh, I'm going
to follow this thread.

I need to be outside
all morning.

This room is like
sun lamps from all sides.

I'm focused on making work
that, like, is satisfying for myself.

Well, so what?
What are you pushing away?

Geoff talks
about this solitary arts.

I mean, I don't really know
anything about Zen,

but it's a Zen virtue.

A mindful skillset.

You have to be able to have
this focused dialogue with yourself

where you're making a bunch
of decisions in the moment.

It's constant practice.

You're not like,
I'm only a monk between nine and five.

When you leave the temple,

you're still mindful.
It's who you are.

I got interested
in trail running,

and the logical end is
running ultramarathons.

I'm scheduled to run
a 50-miler.

It's a long, long process
of extending miles,

teaching your body

there's no shortcuts.
You can't, like, fast forward.

When I show up for any race
and the minute starts,

I'm just like,
I'm fucking passing everybody.

I'm passing all these people,

and I'm going to run myself
into the ground.

There'll be one last person
that I'll be trying to pass till the very end.

I am bummed
when I finish a race

and I'm not completely
destroyed.

It's taking things to a level
like, no one would do this.

No one would take this
this far.

Working in design,

what's hard is like, setting
your own standard for what you expect of yourself.

I like to test myself.

Like I have an hour to make
this what I want it to be.

I am doing revisions.
No one's asking me to do it.

Feels like a similar thing
of endurance.

What if I go at this
heightened level an uncomfortable pace?

What happens?

Do you ever just, like, chill?

Nope.

The guy is non-stop.

He knows how to push himself
in all these different areas.

Discipline is great
for getting the work done.

It can also be a constraint,

almost as a Protestant cycle
where you keep on

like whipping yourself. I must
run further, I must do better.

Let's just say like, let's
just make a general blanket statement

that anyone in these fields
is pretty obsessive, you know?

When, it's like, how do you
manage your obsessiveness?

I've had moments where I think

Geoff is a control freak
for sure, you know.

Geoff is an anal control freak

that has a very specific
color code that he'll wear.

Process or routine,
it's a response to something.

To decide to make work

that's inward looking
was about like,

I need to confront
being human.

When you're just feeling down
or lost,

how do you work
through inner stuff?

The farther you go,
the deeper it gets.

And you walk till
just your nose is out.

You're on like
the tips of your toes.

You could swim
into the expanse or you could take a step back.

And there's that moment
in between those two states.

What I'm doing, because
I'm trying to go to that point.

I don't know that every artist
has to be tortured, but I think it can help.

There's definitely a lot going
on in his head, for sure.

You know, I have a friend
who has so much energy in her that she has to run.

It has to come out some way.
And Geoff is a similar way that if he didn't let it out,

he would be a kind
of tortured soul.

Maybe making such neat,
precise work

is suggesting that
he's started with chaos

and has managed to...
clean it his way of making the world right.

In my work, there is a
humanity that I understand is a sadness.

It's talking about like
a darkened quarter.

I had my first painting show
in New York.

Hanging paint on canvas
in Manhattan,

like, that's when you think
like, "Oh, well, this is like this new level."

Around the same time
our younger daughter Phoebe was born.

Having kids
is a lot of pressure.

Making these decisions
that have consequence to other people.

I'm just looking at the data
and I'm like, reset, reset, change...

like turning
stuff off, voiding this.

When you're with your family,
it is like a version of being more yourself.

Constantly thinking of,
"How do I find more of that in my life?"

But there's always obstacles
that make it seem impossible.

It's a super long game.

We've been together
since I started making stuff.

With Sarah I don't talk about

what goes on in the studio
day to day

because I save it for like
crucial moments of like, okay,

"Can I talk to you
about this?"

Because I'll be confused
or like, need advice?

I'm so deep in my world

that she has some perspective
that I don't have.

I operate purely emotionally. I will go dark.

I think when we first met,
I tried to meld him into my world.

Like, you should smoke.
You should suffer.

Art is vulnerability. Art
is putting yourself out there.

She wants there to be
like emotional content.

She's completely
disinterested in form.

Like, definitely.
I'm like, the form is the key.

She's the opposite.

It's like, it's not worth
doing anything unless there's...

I don't even know
where to describe it.

It's like emotional
and it's like, intangible.

It's like this fog.

She taught me how to open up
into new territories.

To express yourself
and be vulnerable

that was a big jump for him.

I paint, so few paintings
'cause I can tell

this I can make a painting
that's going to be better than the drawing.

And I'm not going
to paint that

because the drawing is going
to be better than the painting.

They're constantly failing.

One color just throws it off.

The only way to make them
as good as the drawing

is for the colors to make
the likeness of them disappear.

You can't just, like,
fill it in.

It's like an intangible thing.

The colors themselves
are not what they seem.

A painting that seems
to be bright colors,

the actual colors, they're
like very complicated, muddy colors.

When I'm like put a little bit
too much blue in it

and I see how it sucks

everybody knows,
the UPS guy knows

and my mom knows
and my wife knows

and my kids know.
I mean, my kids totally know.

They'll be like,
"That one's not that good."

Yeah!

Hey.

I think when you have kids,

the most you can teach them
is just by showing.

They were
in a Montessori school.

The director of the school
decided that

she was going to have
a theater program and that it was serious.

So I was like, "Oh, I'm going
to make a poster for each play

that's up to the level of like
how the school views the plays."

So "How the Camel
Got his Hump."

Which I remember,
Frances was the camel.

Which? "Selfish Giant."

There would be times
when I'd be like doing this

and spending effort on this
and I'd be like,

I spend more effort on the,
you know...

the school poster than some
project, you know, but...

When you read
artists' biographies,

then they get divorced

it's like a single line
in a 300-page book.

None of this is possible
without my wife,

my family, my marriage.

It's like an essential part
of my whole everything.

Time. Its value is so
ethereal,

it cannot be compared
to any other thing.

I systemize
to try to take control over.

The stuff that's important
is all the small stuff.

What's up?

We have a serious artist.

Super-serious artist.

Well...

That was a good one, actually.

You're matching.

We dust her.

You hungry? We'll get food.

Hold on.
You'll get a hamburger.

My wife says
you're never more unhappy

than when you're just
working on painting,

where I'm like,
deciding colors.

And I'm like, "Oh,"
and I'm challenging it.

And it's like,
"What am I doing all day?"

Going into my studio
and painting. Sounds nice.

It's like, how lucky.

I don't want it to be like,

I use inks
to make better paintings.

So I was like, okay,
I'm going to like,

release that angst

and I'm going to use
like a color I just had.

Like I'm like, "Ah."

Let's use that because I have
it. The work became clearer,

and so much of it came
from hearing that from my wife.

I love when all the work
is in the studio,

when I do all the paintings
and they're all together.

That feels great.

But this showing,
it's nerve-racking

and, yeah,
it doesn't feel good.

It's way easier
to be just visual.

Like, I just make this stuff.
I said it with the painting.

To have a show
is to agree like,

no, I'm going to be there too,
you know,

like, so it's like to be
in the room is like,

to be like, "Well, I'm
an actual person, not a visual person."

What are you thinking of
when you're posing these?

Do you go
to the Poop Restaurant?

- Café. I didn't think of it.
- No, we've just heard about it.

That was one of the reasons
I actually were staying over them.

I was like, oh, Poop Café.
Yes. Yes. - You’re welcome.

It’s something I always love
working with him,

just going over to his studio,
and it ends up being 4 hours

of just talking,
hanging out, drawing.

Can you give
a high level of this stuff

that you've done with Geoff?
I know it's like 20 years of work.

I had, everything, I think.
I think everything on.

I worked on his film
Being John Malkovich ,

so I did like the logo
for like the production,

the logo for adaptation.

He did
Where the Wild Things Are.

I did the titles
and the poster and like all the marketing materials

and got really involved in it.

We had fought with
the studio a lot on the movie.

They did not like the movie.
We just sat there and just like

took out our angst
on their logos.

When they saw it,
they kind of got it.

They're like, "Okay."

Definitely. Spike is
like, he's super demanding

and he keeps making
the projects harder.

Her was the first time
I really had worked.

that was like in the movie
besides like the title sequence.

It was a love story of a man

falling in love
with his inner face.

So it was like designing
what this user interface was.

If I had to invent this
plausible world that was like a character in the film.

He just hones in on what the
feeling is supposed to be.

That's why the conversations
is always so good, because he asks the questions

that make you articulate
what it is it's supposed to be.

The only description Spike
gave is like, The future's nice.

It's nice.

Which is great because, like,
you couldn't look back on

a screen world
in a futuristic movie

That was nice.
It was always dystopic.

It was always like, like...

Like, a lot of numbers
and lines and all this stuff.

If anyone else
asked me to do it,

I would never have taken
on the project.

I'm not going to be able to do
it like it'll fail.

But I knew that we could
improvise our way there,

creating this sort
of back-story,

how AI would have evolved
over time,

how screens would project
themselves into the future.

I've had an iPhone in my
pocket

for like the majority
of my adult life,

having any kind of visual
vocabulary or language

to be able
to communicate on that battlefield is important.

There's something like built
in to the way that he uses graphics

that is particularly legible

in this time
and in this part of history.

It's not an accident

that the largest corporations
in the world want to pick his brain

about how to communicate
with visual language.

The practice. It relies on concepts that reoccur.

One would be human connection,
human intimacy,

humans interacting.
Humans like...

Like that, you know?

The world is made of
inconsequential moments

and Geoff is taking out
from the trillions

than going like, just look
at this for a minute.

One image that communicates
maybe weeks or months of thinking,

using the most minimal
amount of line and shape.

I think it's so much harder
than, than people think.

Somebody that's trafficking
in that kind of iconography.

We imagine them
not to be tackling big issues,

commentary about mortality
or existence or community.

In that way,

Geoff's kind of hiding
the medicine and the peanut butter.

The really
dark time is like when there's nothing to work on.

There's nothing
to keep your hands busy.

There's a kind of heaviness...

...that emptiness...

...when you're just yourself
and you're just there.

You don't want to create
an environment

where darkness thrives.

So what you do is
you have a process

that you can take a step away
from it.

What's the easiest way?

It's a pencil
and a piece of paper.

I need outside stimulus.
And part of that is like

working with different people,
working in different ways.

A lot of companies I worked
for are cultural brands.

People can be a bit snooty
about working as a designer when they also make art.

You're either one thing
or the other.

There's not many people
who do both.

To straddle that world
of design and painting

will be interesting long term

because the art world
in some ways

might be the most biased

or have the most gatekeepers
than any creative field.

Do you feel like
outside of the art world,

even though,
you are inside it?

Well, I'm not. I mean,
I'm not like a blue-chip artist.

Some people come fresh
out of Yale grad school

and they're the toast
of the town.

Sometimes it's more
interesting

if you kind of bubble up
over 20 years

and are everybody's
favorite underground band.

What's guiding him
is like being true to himself,

developing the word,
no matter where it ends up.

There's no like musician-type term for, like visual makers.

We've sort of decided

that artist isn't the same
as musician.

If you say musician,

it can be like drone or it can
be like birthday parties.

I want to do drone music
and birthday parties.

I do watercolors when I travel

because I know,
like this is the closest thing

to a memory as I can make.

And I just sit.

And I sort of just swivel
my head and then I start painting something.

There's something
that these will lead to.

Like, I'm not done developing
my painting.

Look at this guy.

How can you say no?

87% like,
"Yeah, definitely a lot."

Does that stress
you out to say no?

No. It's super easy to say no.

I find it really easy
to say no.

It's way more stressful
to say yes

because there's only me.
There's only so much I can do.

The most critical part
of what I do

is deciding what projects
to take or not take.

We'll be like calling him,

trying to get him
to do something

and we won't hear from him
for weeks.

And I'm like,
"What do you mean? We got to do this right now?"

No one does that.
Everyone's just grabbing what they can get

and they're taking money
for it and they're selling out here and there,

and they're losing
their integrity.

Like I don't have
meetings with people

because I hate meetings
and it's not a problem.

Like no one likes meetings.
And so I never had to have meetings

and I don't work in a way
that I need to have meetings.

How do you go,
like I have meetings all the time.

- I don't know.
- How are you? Are you like if someone's like,

- "Can you come here and meet?"
- No. I do not. Like I say, like I don't like meetings,

but I don't ever have to tell
people like, I don't like meetings.

So let's not meet, like,
no one wants to meet with me.

People know, though,
like I've talked to,

I've interviewed people and
they're like, I heard he doesn't do meetings.

Oh, maybe that's
what happened.

Yeah, I don't do meetings.
Really.

He's like choosing
exactly what he wants to do.

Many of us kind of look at him
and think like,

how do I do that?

When you come into L.A.
and you see people wearing masks

everywhere is covered
in like a layer of anxiety.

When your whole thing
is sort of like,

trying to be aware
or conscious of the present.

When the present is projecting
something powerfully anxious or intense,

you are you're very much
like, in it, you know.

In my neighborhood,

the sidewalks are filled with
people I've never seen before,

masked and staying
six feet apart.

These are not regular runners
or dog walkers.

These are couples and families
out for a walk together.

One of the appeals of living
in Los Angeles is the suburban,

normalness
of my everyday life.

Weeks into
the current situation,

waves of weirdness
continue to erode

the familiar rhythms
of my world.

Much of my day
has remained the same,

but enough has changed
to make time feel disassembled.

The days and nights feel like
a strange version of normal.

When this is over,
I don't want the traffic to come back.

I want all of this extra time
with my family.

I want to hold on
to this quietness

to see the people walking
in our streets

and not feel their presence

is somehow related
to the worlds falling apart.

This is capturing the moment.

Like when we sat down with our
daughters and we talked about.

Like we had heard that
one of their...

Sorry. One of their teachers
had passed away from COVID.

And, you know, it's like
we found out via email

and it was somebody that was
really special to our family.

And she had helped
my older daughter

with, like, like almost
like tutoring her with, like, math difficulty.

And my younger daughter,
she was like this sort of like class.

A class, sort of,
like sort of a similar person, like a counselor almost.

This beautiful woman. And so
this was like... um,...

It's us.
Like I never do this really.

Like it's like our family.

And it's like
talking with them about it.

And, you know,
they were really, they took it really well, um,

uh, but it was that moment.

Um, and so in that moment,
I felt like our house,

like it felt like a bunker,

you know, like so I made us
like a bunker.

So this is like a chamber
holding toilet paper.

This is like some sort
of air filtration system.

And there's like a ladder
to go through this portal

and this is the world above
that looks normal,

but it's not, you know,
it's not normal.

I mean, I look at this
and it makes me cry.

It's like, uh, capturing
something, like, really

obviously,
it's like super personal.

You know this show for V1?

I never thought
I was going to do this show.

I wasn't talking to the
gallery 'cause I was going to be like,

I didn't do it,
which is not my style at all.

I was not confident

that I was going
to be able to make work.

I didn't want to,
I was very, like, hesitant.

But like Jesse made the model
and printed out four walls.

I said, like,
here's the drawings.

Maybe there's something here.

We filled the room with what
we thought would be most useful

the substance of living.

It took the shape
of the walls.

And went to the height
of the ceiling.

Like a train that has grown
to the length of its tracks.

These days are nameless.

We have no words to describe
the state of things.

And yet this is the title,
the name.

Full of images that exist
outside of language.

They'd give a name
to the time.

Geoff comes
from an era of artists

that looked at artwork
different

than just strictly
a canvas and a gallery.

This thing
is like super involved

and technical.

And it happened
in like no time.

I don't think anything
compares to this.

This is like the
guerilla art project.

I submitted
a whole bunch of ideas

that ranged
from just like images.

Then this is like
the craziest, like, magic water mousetrap.

My goal is like,
"Yeah, my daughters can take their kids to come see it."

It was meant to be forever.

Please welcome
to the stage, Geoffrey.

It's a huge honor to be here.

Designers can really define
what the future looks like,

and we have to imagine
how it will be nice.

Everything about being
a designer in our time is unique.

We're designing for an
audience that's the most literate visual audience

that I think there
ever has been

that doesn't have the words
to describe itself.

These gaps, many gaps in our
language, are an opportunity.

As designers, we can
fill those gaps 1,000 times.

So thank you.

Sometimes looking
at Geoff's work

and speaking to
makes me feel bad

because I haven't yet
worked out how to spend my time wisely.

I think everyone's trying
to be able to just kind of

live in the way
that we all desire.

Geoff's cracked the code
and...

Well, all us peasants
are like, "Give me the code."

Geoff realizes
that there is a relationship

between art and commerce

in a way that seems
very authentic and personal.

I would say it kind of comes

from a nineties thing
of not selling out.

We never imagined
that he would have the life that he has.

He knew what he wanted to do.
Geoff knew.

Is Geoff satisfied?

Probably not.

For anybody who is prolific
or worked so hard,

being satisfied
would be terrible,

but I think he feels
super fortunate.

He will have
a career as big as he's comfortable with

before it takes over
too much of his life.

So it's constantly like trying
things and shrinking things

and trying things
and shrinking things.

I look up the part of him
that balances work

and being an artist with life

living and family and friends
and just being alive,

remembering that that is
as important.

This idea of
like creative powerhouses

being dismissed
from all reasonable behavior

in service of creativity,

that's actually the easy road
to be like everything comes second.

You know what I mean,

and it's like so much more
interesting to be like that.

Who can balance,
who can create that hybrid-y thing?

Hello.

I definitely am conscious
of turning 50.

You have this moment
to look back.

And then look forward
like what is possible now that I'm 50?

They sort of invented
my own way to, like, have a studio,

which is just me.

This idea of self-sufficiency.

I don't want to be tied down.

Oh, no.

We are born
in the world and we have this

heaviness that we
carry with us.

It's just like the nature
of being human.

I've created this customized
life to like mitigate

deeper feeling of sadness
or discontent.

I have chosen a path
that leads me through dark.

It's taken my whole life.

Becoming more clearheaded,

becoming more present
makes me make better work.

Basically, if I made
something that day,

I was happier when I go home.

Like I sort of create
my own happiness.

In that
the thought passes through.

Dance!