1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:48,882 --> 00:00:51,718 I think it started as like a kid. 4 00:00:57,140 --> 00:01:00,894 Being at home really wanting to build a model. 5 00:01:02,896 --> 00:01:04,647 And it's like, "Yeah, because you're a kid, 6 00:01:04,731 --> 00:01:08,318 you like building models." But it was like, "No, no." 7 00:01:09,194 --> 00:01:12,489 I need a way out of life today. 8 00:01:15,784 --> 00:01:17,619 Having that control... 9 00:01:19,496 --> 00:01:22,123 it gives you a taste of something. 10 00:02:14,175 --> 00:02:16,553 Recognized for deftly relating design 11 00:02:16,636 --> 00:02:18,555 to Time-based considerations 12 00:02:18,638 --> 00:02:21,015 and welcoming graphically charged 13 00:02:21,099 --> 00:02:24,435 outsider street subculture into mainstream conversation. 14 00:02:24,519 --> 00:02:27,272 His work has been mounted on institutions and galleries 15 00:02:27,355 --> 00:02:30,650 and includes paintings, installations, furniture. 16 00:02:46,624 --> 00:02:49,711 Who's Geoff McFetridge to somebody that didn't know? 17 00:02:49,794 --> 00:02:52,255 He is a man of many talents. 18 00:02:53,506 --> 00:02:55,425 Foremost, he's an artist. 19 00:02:59,637 --> 00:03:02,390 You'll see a Pepsi billboard, 20 00:03:02,473 --> 00:03:04,350 a Apple Watch face. 21 00:03:04,434 --> 00:03:07,729 But you don't know his name necessarily. 22 00:03:08,813 --> 00:03:10,106 He's like a hero 23 00:03:10,190 --> 00:03:13,651 or like a Zen master within the creative industry. 24 00:03:16,112 --> 00:03:18,656 If I want to communicate something in a new, fresh way, 25 00:03:18,740 --> 00:03:19,824 I think of Geoff. 26 00:03:19,908 --> 00:03:22,702 It's almost like he's an inventor of how to communicate. 27 00:03:22,785 --> 00:03:25,747 Everyone's kind of, like, desperately trying to be Geoff. 28 00:03:25,830 --> 00:03:27,749 But no one's quite hitting the mark. 29 00:03:29,626 --> 00:03:31,878 He's just done everything his own way. 30 00:03:31,961 --> 00:03:34,172 He hasn't listened to anyone or anything 31 00:03:34,255 --> 00:03:36,758 except what feels right and true to him. 32 00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:57,362 I was interested in geometry ever since I was a little kid. 33 00:03:58,821 --> 00:04:02,700 Geometry was almost like a, like a tic. 34 00:04:02,784 --> 00:04:07,455 I would lay in bed and look at shadows for, like, hours. 35 00:04:07,538 --> 00:04:11,042 I would see connections between lines in the room 36 00:04:11,125 --> 00:04:13,211 and have to like step over them. 37 00:04:23,429 --> 00:04:25,556 Everything is thought through with drawing. 38 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:29,602 I draw with a pencil because a pencil moves at a certain rate. 39 00:04:31,271 --> 00:04:33,439 I do a lot of drawings that are this big 40 00:04:33,523 --> 00:04:36,317 because basically that's about as fast as I think. 41 00:04:41,197 --> 00:04:43,866 I continuously draw and draw. 42 00:04:43,950 --> 00:04:47,870 Once there's enough out of the way that's expected, 43 00:04:47,954 --> 00:04:53,543 you'll start to get to a place where it's like that thinking led to this new place. 44 00:04:53,626 --> 00:04:56,504 But it's like small steps. You don't just go like unknown. 45 00:04:58,589 --> 00:05:00,091 You travel downward. 46 00:05:00,174 --> 00:05:03,303 I call it the White Well, 'cause it's like, unlike a well, 47 00:05:03,386 --> 00:05:05,972 it gets lighter the deeper you go. 48 00:05:28,286 --> 00:05:30,496 We're even aware of our growing up. 49 00:05:31,748 --> 00:05:34,834 It was a mystery. I remember looking at a painting, 50 00:05:34,917 --> 00:05:38,129 someone sitting in like a French café. 51 00:05:38,212 --> 00:05:39,714 I remember this feeling of like, 52 00:05:39,797 --> 00:05:41,924 I'm never going to be able to make this. 53 00:05:42,008 --> 00:05:44,469 How am I going to go to, like, a café in Paris? 54 00:05:44,552 --> 00:05:46,095 Like, I don't know. 55 00:05:46,179 --> 00:05:49,432 I felt like I should make logos 56 00:05:49,515 --> 00:05:52,226 and do design because that's my world. 57 00:05:52,310 --> 00:05:55,563 I am from the suburbs and I have friends in bands. 58 00:06:13,748 --> 00:06:17,126 We put a dent in your car as quiet as a mouse. 59 00:06:17,210 --> 00:06:20,338 Did you notice graffiti the same color as your house? 60 00:06:23,549 --> 00:06:25,885 Oh, come on. That's so rod. 61 00:06:29,013 --> 00:06:32,517 We went out all night to see if anything was there, 62 00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:36,646 but the streets were just scribbles drawn in thin air. 63 00:06:36,729 --> 00:06:40,358 We did all sorts of stuff because no one was around. 64 00:06:40,441 --> 00:06:44,028 Might as well scream if you want to hear sound. 65 00:06:46,989 --> 00:06:49,951 It is a little bit extreme to grow up in Canada. 66 00:07:06,134 --> 00:07:09,095 One of the advantages of being parents 67 00:07:09,178 --> 00:07:13,349 at such an early age is that we were very idealistic. 68 00:07:15,184 --> 00:07:16,811 Were you guys hippies? 69 00:07:19,689 --> 00:07:22,483 - Kind of. Yeah. - Wait till you see our pictures. 70 00:07:25,570 --> 00:07:29,282 My mom was a teacher. My dad was a lawyer. 71 00:07:29,365 --> 00:07:30,950 Everyone's houses looked the same. 72 00:07:32,076 --> 00:07:33,995 It was like, very understandable. 73 00:07:35,621 --> 00:07:37,123 There's the things you control, 74 00:07:37,206 --> 00:07:39,459 and then there's things you don't control. 75 00:07:39,542 --> 00:07:42,378 You're born into a family, you're born into a racial identity. 76 00:07:42,462 --> 00:07:44,464 You're born in a place. 77 00:07:44,547 --> 00:07:46,507 I didn't know I was half-Chinese. 78 00:07:46,591 --> 00:07:48,468 I was just like my mom's white mom. 79 00:07:48,551 --> 00:07:51,679 I went to a big high school that was almost entirely white. 80 00:07:51,762 --> 00:07:54,557 Both sides of my family were super westernized. 81 00:07:54,640 --> 00:07:55,725 It was all about like, 82 00:07:55,808 --> 00:07:58,186 how can you assimilate as fast as possible? 83 00:07:58,978 --> 00:08:01,105 I never found my Chinese roots. 84 00:08:01,981 --> 00:08:04,817 It was like, I'll just be part of a new culture. 85 00:08:09,030 --> 00:08:11,657 Skateboarders were brown. Skateboarders were Chinese. 86 00:08:11,741 --> 00:08:15,912 They were Hawaiian. They were black. I did gravitate to places 87 00:08:15,995 --> 00:08:17,413 that were super accepting. 88 00:08:17,497 --> 00:08:20,416 What a glorious day for skating. 89 00:08:30,218 --> 00:08:32,595 In my teens into my twenties, 90 00:08:32,678 --> 00:08:36,182 I was really angsty and deeply unsatisfied 91 00:08:36,265 --> 00:08:38,476 with everything I was doing. 92 00:08:39,894 --> 00:08:42,438 Yeah, I was like a wreck for years. 93 00:08:44,398 --> 00:08:50,112 Really struggling through finding my personal identity, 94 00:08:50,196 --> 00:08:52,406 finding a place to belong. 95 00:08:52,490 --> 00:08:55,868 And is that from life being an outsider? 96 00:08:55,952 --> 00:08:58,579 So you just are like, I'm outsider for life. 97 00:09:41,163 --> 00:09:44,667 In grade one, he's got these little doodles all over the place. 98 00:09:44,750 --> 00:09:46,002 They're no different 99 00:09:46,085 --> 00:09:49,714 from all these other little boys who love to draw. 100 00:09:49,797 --> 00:09:53,551 It's a mystery to me when it started evolving. 101 00:09:53,634 --> 00:09:56,512 I think it was very gradual. 102 00:09:56,596 --> 00:10:00,224 He literally drew three hours an evening. 103 00:10:02,602 --> 00:10:04,645 In high school, I made, like, a poster 104 00:10:04,729 --> 00:10:07,440 where I would just put this drum kit on a piece of paper. 105 00:10:07,523 --> 00:10:11,193 That was like the light bulb going off. 106 00:10:11,277 --> 00:10:14,488 I was just putting something together. 107 00:10:14,572 --> 00:10:16,991 Someone said, that's graphic design. 108 00:10:23,289 --> 00:10:26,083 My dad never worked like a five-day-a-week, 109 00:10:26,167 --> 00:10:29,879 like he worked like a six-day-a-week my entire life. 110 00:10:29,962 --> 00:10:33,716 And then on Sunday, he would be building something in our house. 111 00:10:35,134 --> 00:10:38,304 I remember digging a hole for my dad in the yard. 112 00:10:38,387 --> 00:10:42,099 I dig and hit rocks, then have to tunnel around. 113 00:10:42,183 --> 00:10:44,101 I cringe to think of that clink, clink sound 114 00:10:44,185 --> 00:10:48,648 all the way to China was what I thought. 115 00:10:48,731 --> 00:10:51,817 All the way to China was when I would stop. 116 00:10:51,901 --> 00:10:56,030 I imagined a sliver of light as I broke through the ground 117 00:10:56,113 --> 00:11:00,868 all the way to China without going around all the way to China. 118 00:11:00,951 --> 00:11:02,536 And the going was rough. 119 00:11:02,620 --> 00:11:04,997 Then my dad came outside and said, 120 00:11:05,081 --> 00:11:07,958 "That's deep enough." 121 00:11:08,042 --> 00:11:09,210 True story. 122 00:11:20,846 --> 00:11:23,391 Growing up in the world that I was in 123 00:11:23,474 --> 00:11:27,478 drugs and drinking, and that was like the heart of it. 124 00:11:28,479 --> 00:11:29,939 The worst part of not drinking 125 00:11:30,022 --> 00:11:32,441 is when it makes other people uncomfortable. 126 00:11:33,275 --> 00:11:36,570 Clear-headedness has always been my sort of goal. 127 00:11:36,654 --> 00:11:43,327 Um, so I've never, yeah, I've never really have, never... 128 00:11:43,411 --> 00:11:45,162 really been that guy. 129 00:11:45,246 --> 00:11:46,372 In the art world 130 00:11:46,455 --> 00:11:51,043 with a lot of cigarettes and alcohol and joints... 131 00:11:53,254 --> 00:11:57,383 it hasn't been normal to take care of yourself. 132 00:11:58,884 --> 00:12:02,430 Social Distortion were wasted. 133 00:12:03,264 --> 00:12:06,517 Minor Threat had ideology. 134 00:12:07,852 --> 00:12:10,521 I could way more relate to Minor Threat. 135 00:12:10,604 --> 00:12:13,649 What was sort of admirable was very different. 136 00:12:13,733 --> 00:12:15,860 Nothing was worse than Jim Morrison. 137 00:12:17,111 --> 00:12:21,115 Nothing was worse than Led Zeppelin, 138 00:12:21,198 --> 00:12:23,284 like drummers who twirl their sticks. 139 00:12:23,367 --> 00:12:27,663 Even the notion of being like a heroic artist 140 00:12:27,747 --> 00:12:30,583 drinking and painting and womanizing or something, 141 00:12:30,666 --> 00:12:33,544 or whatever, you know, the equivalent is for a woman. 142 00:12:33,627 --> 00:12:35,546 That was sort of corny. 143 00:12:39,258 --> 00:12:43,220 Growing up in Calgary, it was fairly isolated. 144 00:12:43,304 --> 00:12:46,724 What you're making is existing in this void. 145 00:12:51,020 --> 00:12:52,438 There was a local art college 146 00:12:52,521 --> 00:12:55,316 that had a commercial art program. 147 00:12:55,399 --> 00:12:57,777 I wanted to pursue design. 148 00:12:58,986 --> 00:13:01,322 I was just sort of like a goofball... 149 00:13:02,198 --> 00:13:05,951 making this very poppy image-based stuff. 150 00:13:07,453 --> 00:13:09,747 A friend of mine became a pro snowboarder. 151 00:13:09,830 --> 00:13:12,333 He asked me, "Oh, will you do my graphic?" 152 00:13:13,292 --> 00:13:15,044 That was like working in snowboarding 153 00:13:15,127 --> 00:13:16,837 and starting to make skateboards. 154 00:13:17,963 --> 00:13:21,175 I came down to California to meet the guy I was doing snowboards with. 155 00:13:21,258 --> 00:13:24,595 And I remember coming to the door of his house in L.A. he laughed. 156 00:13:24,678 --> 00:13:27,264 He was like, I thought you were a man 157 00:13:27,348 --> 00:13:30,226 because I was like 21 years old or something. 158 00:13:31,393 --> 00:13:33,354 Okay, If I'm doing this now, 159 00:13:33,437 --> 00:13:35,356 what am I going to do in 20 years? 160 00:13:42,905 --> 00:13:46,700 Being drawn to Cal Arts was about like 161 00:13:46,784 --> 00:13:49,578 this is like a world of making thing that was unknown to me. 162 00:13:51,247 --> 00:13:54,542 I was in grad school with people who had had careers 163 00:13:54,625 --> 00:13:57,878 and they were coming to Cal Arts to sort of get the new language. 164 00:13:57,962 --> 00:14:00,923 I was outgunned and overthought. 165 00:14:01,841 --> 00:14:04,218 So I sort of disassembled myself. 166 00:14:04,301 --> 00:14:06,846 I stopped doing everything that I was good at. 167 00:14:06,929 --> 00:14:10,516 I stopped drawing and I made work that was focusing on like, 168 00:14:10,599 --> 00:14:11,767 how am I thinking? 169 00:14:12,726 --> 00:14:14,061 The computer arrived. 170 00:14:14,854 --> 00:14:16,564 I was just, like... 171 00:14:16,647 --> 00:14:19,733 making the ugliest I've, you've ever seen for two years. 172 00:14:19,817 --> 00:14:21,735 Just like failing, failing, failing. 173 00:14:21,819 --> 00:14:25,114 The legible design was a product of great thinking. 174 00:14:25,197 --> 00:14:28,534 What can I do to make this type of thinking clear? 175 00:14:31,704 --> 00:14:35,416 Instead of having like, 10-20 layers, 176 00:14:35,499 --> 00:14:37,918 can I just present this, like, singular thing? 177 00:14:39,962 --> 00:14:43,132 I had the most to say in the simplest work. 178 00:14:43,215 --> 00:14:45,676 That's the essential turning point. 179 00:14:49,555 --> 00:14:53,183 The minute I graduated I got flown to Microsoft. 180 00:14:54,101 --> 00:14:56,562 Where does that leave? To a better job at Microsoft. 181 00:14:56,645 --> 00:14:58,647 Like it doesn't go anywhere. 182 00:14:58,731 --> 00:15:02,067 That conventional life. It wouldn't have worked. 183 00:15:03,652 --> 00:15:07,156 Took a job just to save enough money to buy a computer. 184 00:15:07,239 --> 00:15:11,201 Okay. Now I'm going to, like, pursue these things I wanted. 185 00:15:12,620 --> 00:15:15,915 I did a series of skateboards for a girl. 186 00:15:15,998 --> 00:15:20,085 I was supposed to go work at Girl and Chocolate Skateboards, 187 00:15:20,169 --> 00:15:22,254 and then it fell through. 188 00:15:22,338 --> 00:15:24,840 Then I'm just like, "Oh, I have no job now." 189 00:15:47,613 --> 00:15:50,574 Drawing to me is like an incredible thing. 190 00:15:50,658 --> 00:15:53,410 The world is fluid in it. 191 00:15:53,494 --> 00:15:54,662 So, for me, it's like, 192 00:15:54,745 --> 00:15:57,081 "Oh, great, like, I'll use this language." 193 00:16:08,342 --> 00:16:10,803 I'll surprise myself by making 100 things 194 00:16:10,886 --> 00:16:13,389 and one of them is like a keeper. 195 00:16:13,472 --> 00:16:17,142 It's like looking for rare mushrooms in the forest. 196 00:16:26,151 --> 00:16:31,115 In skiing I'll be at the top of like a really difficult run 197 00:16:31,198 --> 00:16:34,159 and I won't know where I'm going to turn. 198 00:16:34,243 --> 00:16:37,246 There's too much data and drawing sort of like that. 199 00:16:39,164 --> 00:16:41,166 Like it's like super infinite. 200 00:16:42,334 --> 00:16:46,588 If you tell yourself, I'm going to just fill this page with drawings of the same car, 201 00:16:46,672 --> 00:16:49,800 and the second time you draw it a little bit different. 202 00:16:49,883 --> 00:16:54,096 At some point the hand starts doing the thinking 203 00:16:54,179 --> 00:16:58,142 and there is a moment as you're drawing the car over and over again. 204 00:16:58,225 --> 00:16:59,727 You sense it? 205 00:16:59,810 --> 00:17:04,356 And that is then it's like sort of like, this, like door opens and you go through that. 206 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:11,071 You go like, the car just became a horse. 207 00:17:16,618 --> 00:17:19,830 After the job at Girl Skateboards fell apart 208 00:17:19,913 --> 00:17:22,624 and it's like, oh, shit, what do I do? 209 00:17:22,708 --> 00:17:24,293 Yeah, I don't know. 210 00:17:28,547 --> 00:17:31,467 There was a lot sort of happening at that moment in L.A. 211 00:17:31,550 --> 00:17:34,511 Sonic Youth, the Beastie Boys. 212 00:17:34,595 --> 00:17:36,013 I was on the edge of it, 213 00:17:36,096 --> 00:17:38,390 figuring out what I needed to do. 214 00:17:38,474 --> 00:17:42,227 You know, we're all, our mid-twenties and making stuff 215 00:17:42,311 --> 00:17:44,188 and helping each other make stuff. 216 00:17:46,190 --> 00:17:48,609 Trying to navigate which way to go and what to do. 217 00:17:48,692 --> 00:17:50,152 Everyone was just making stuff 218 00:17:50,235 --> 00:17:52,863 because they wanted to make it for themselves 219 00:17:52,946 --> 00:17:53,864 and for each other. 220 00:17:53,947 --> 00:17:58,619 And it wasn't about like branding or really making money. 221 00:17:59,411 --> 00:18:03,373 Glitter Rock was right before being overproduced stuff. 222 00:18:03,457 --> 00:18:05,667 We were so into being indie. 223 00:18:05,751 --> 00:18:08,253 It's like, yeah, let's start a magazine, 224 00:18:08,337 --> 00:18:10,214 start a skate company, start a label. 225 00:18:13,258 --> 00:18:16,303 The worst thing anyone could be was like a corporate sell-out. 226 00:18:18,347 --> 00:18:19,473 There was a time 227 00:18:19,556 --> 00:18:21,892 when you could be defined by like what you made. 228 00:18:23,852 --> 00:18:26,355 Andy Jenkins is this pivotal character 229 00:18:26,438 --> 00:18:28,774 that I knew from the world of skateboarding, 230 00:18:28,857 --> 00:18:31,026 and he introduced me to the Lewman. 231 00:18:31,110 --> 00:18:33,195 Mark Lewman is awesome. 232 00:18:33,278 --> 00:18:36,448 So Lewman became the editor of Grand Royal magazine, 233 00:18:36,532 --> 00:18:38,242 and it was the Beastie Boys magazine. 234 00:18:38,325 --> 00:18:41,453 He called and he says, We need an art director. So I was like, "Sure." 235 00:18:41,537 --> 00:18:43,831 He met good people, cool people, 236 00:18:43,914 --> 00:18:45,332 which wouldn't have happened 237 00:18:45,415 --> 00:18:47,334 if he'd gone working for a big agency. 238 00:18:48,377 --> 00:18:52,422 To get to where the Beastie Boys it was like the best magazine in the world, 239 00:18:52,506 --> 00:18:54,133 best band in the world 240 00:18:54,216 --> 00:18:58,303 that actually like seemed like the coolest guys ever. 241 00:18:58,387 --> 00:19:00,472 It was crazy. 242 00:19:00,556 --> 00:19:04,935 I saw the energy of, like, backstage passes, 243 00:19:05,018 --> 00:19:07,521 the afterparty, this whole thing, 244 00:19:07,604 --> 00:19:09,273 and I immediately was like, 245 00:19:09,356 --> 00:19:12,151 I'll not to be in the Beastie Boys office. I got to leave. 246 00:19:12,234 --> 00:19:15,237 So I had a cordless phone that like worked across the street. 247 00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:20,534 To maintain my own autonomy was like super important. 248 00:19:21,243 --> 00:19:24,413 I was making like $12,000 a year. 249 00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:27,124 My girlfriend at the time is now my wife. 250 00:19:27,207 --> 00:19:30,544 She worked in a cafe and I had to borrow money from her. 251 00:19:32,004 --> 00:19:35,549 But living in a one-car garage that I like built a bed in 252 00:19:35,632 --> 00:19:38,802 and just like super-basic life. 253 00:19:40,179 --> 00:19:42,973 I'd be covered in like eczema, rashes, 254 00:19:43,056 --> 00:19:45,893 then realizing like, oh, these things are caused by stress. 255 00:19:46,685 --> 00:19:50,230 I was like, I'm bad at art directing a magazine. 256 00:19:50,314 --> 00:19:51,648 It looks terrible. 257 00:19:52,649 --> 00:19:56,445 Yeah, I was like a wreck. But I had Sarah. 258 00:19:57,196 --> 00:19:58,739 How did you guys meet? 259 00:19:58,822 --> 00:19:59,823 A mutual friend. 260 00:19:59,907 --> 00:20:01,950 She just introduced us. 261 00:20:02,034 --> 00:20:05,037 She was in the backseat, and I got into the car and I was like, 262 00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:07,247 "Hey, who's that?" 263 00:20:09,458 --> 00:20:12,628 He had really curly hair, like big curly hair. 264 00:20:12,711 --> 00:20:14,546 He was wearing a sweater vest. 265 00:20:16,131 --> 00:20:18,008 So I thought it was really strange. 266 00:20:18,091 --> 00:20:20,510 I don't think it was love at first sight. 267 00:20:23,472 --> 00:20:25,766 What's your favorite thing about Sarah? 268 00:20:25,849 --> 00:20:28,560 - Sense of humor? - No. Not my looks. 269 00:20:34,650 --> 00:20:37,861 At that age, you're making a lot of mistakes. 270 00:20:39,696 --> 00:20:42,241 I was, like, burying myself in work. 271 00:20:42,324 --> 00:20:44,326 I just remember not sleeping. 272 00:20:45,869 --> 00:20:49,706 It's super-challenging. You're really not in control. 273 00:20:52,459 --> 00:20:55,087 He felt like it was really important to have a job. 274 00:20:55,879 --> 00:20:58,298 I was always like, "You should do art." 275 00:20:58,382 --> 00:21:00,342 Right then. This way. 276 00:21:01,677 --> 00:21:03,220 Art is so much more important. 277 00:21:08,308 --> 00:21:10,602 I did have a sort of vision 278 00:21:10,686 --> 00:21:13,522 that none of the Grand Royal stuff fit with it. 279 00:21:13,605 --> 00:21:15,232 How can I find an avenue 280 00:21:15,315 --> 00:21:17,693 for this type of work that I had a vision for? 281 00:21:28,537 --> 00:21:31,540 Starting my own studio it wasn't a business. 282 00:21:31,623 --> 00:21:35,460 I had a computer on a board and I was like, "That was it." 283 00:21:37,629 --> 00:21:39,214 I was experimenting, 284 00:21:39,298 --> 00:21:42,843 working in new mediums and working with different people, 285 00:21:42,926 --> 00:21:45,595 trying to find places where I can exist. 286 00:21:47,139 --> 00:21:49,099 It was difficult starting out. 287 00:21:50,809 --> 00:21:55,439 Just being like a designer who delivers product for a client. 288 00:21:56,606 --> 00:21:58,400 You produce 30 things. 289 00:21:58,483 --> 00:22:01,570 Someone else decides for you that that's the one you keep. 290 00:22:01,653 --> 00:22:03,488 It felt very unrewarding. 291 00:22:05,490 --> 00:22:09,703 Even if I'm really successful at this, I'm not going to be happy. 292 00:22:11,204 --> 00:22:14,791 I had this type of work that I felt was my best work. 293 00:22:14,875 --> 00:22:17,669 But no one knew to ask for it. 294 00:22:17,753 --> 00:22:20,255 The only way to have people see 295 00:22:20,339 --> 00:22:25,093 was I had to, like, slip that work into presentation. 296 00:22:25,177 --> 00:22:27,387 I remember working for like a video festival 297 00:22:27,471 --> 00:22:29,514 and I did an experiment of like, 298 00:22:29,598 --> 00:22:34,227 here's these things that sort of address the themes of the festival. 299 00:22:36,313 --> 00:22:39,941 And then I did one that was just like a tin can. 300 00:22:40,025 --> 00:22:42,361 And then it just had worms on it. 301 00:22:42,444 --> 00:22:43,945 She was like, "Oh, that one." 302 00:22:45,489 --> 00:22:49,451 So then I started presenting stuff that was like that for everything. 303 00:22:50,744 --> 00:22:53,372 Having control it came to define 304 00:22:53,455 --> 00:22:55,707 what type of work I was going to create. 305 00:22:57,376 --> 00:23:00,879 Trying to find avenues for that. It wasn't easy. 306 00:23:05,926 --> 00:23:10,013 The downfall of design is you're anonymous. 307 00:23:10,097 --> 00:23:11,640 If you make a T-shirt for the band, 308 00:23:11,723 --> 00:23:14,393 you don't have to be up there, but you can participate. 309 00:23:14,476 --> 00:23:16,228 You do the graphic of the skateboard, 310 00:23:16,311 --> 00:23:20,440 but you never have to worry about making the trick or putting your name on it 311 00:23:20,524 --> 00:23:24,027 to bring yourself forward and be visible in the work. 312 00:23:24,111 --> 00:23:25,404 It felt like taking a risk. 313 00:23:28,949 --> 00:23:32,035 There was a lot of like, rejected work. 314 00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:35,372 Instead of it being like, throw it all out. 315 00:23:35,455 --> 00:23:38,041 What more could these drawings be? 316 00:23:39,543 --> 00:23:41,503 I was doing stuff for extra-large. 317 00:23:41,586 --> 00:23:43,338 They start a gallery called Georges. 318 00:23:44,381 --> 00:23:47,467 I was seeing stuff in my sketchbooks I wanted to make 319 00:23:47,551 --> 00:23:49,803 and then showing that to them 320 00:23:49,886 --> 00:23:51,972 and they were just like, why not have a show? 321 00:23:57,811 --> 00:23:59,938 My first shows were just all screen prints. 322 00:24:01,606 --> 00:24:03,066 It was the beginning. 323 00:24:04,860 --> 00:24:07,070 To be able to show something 324 00:24:07,154 --> 00:24:10,115 to your friends that has like a personal truth within it, 325 00:24:10,198 --> 00:24:13,785 even to have one friend to say, "That's funny." 326 00:24:13,869 --> 00:24:16,913 That's really a lot of positive reinforcement. 327 00:24:17,873 --> 00:24:20,500 The early artmaking was about like, 328 00:24:20,584 --> 00:24:24,463 "I'm going to fill the room with me, stuff, like, my mind." 329 00:24:24,546 --> 00:24:28,467 Then the room gets bigger and you fill more. You do more. 330 00:24:31,761 --> 00:24:33,972 Running on ambition. 331 00:24:34,055 --> 00:24:37,476 Slowly showing it more galleries. 332 00:24:38,393 --> 00:24:40,645 The biggest thing in my life was making art. 333 00:24:47,444 --> 00:24:48,862 How do you like the park? 334 00:24:53,575 --> 00:24:57,162 When Frances was first born, it was really hard for us. 335 00:24:57,245 --> 00:24:59,664 It's a full, crazy change. 336 00:25:00,665 --> 00:25:04,920 And then it's like Beautiful Losers is happening in Cincinnati. 337 00:25:05,003 --> 00:25:06,213 And then he left. 338 00:25:07,797 --> 00:25:10,300 And I'd have to make an installation on the spot. 339 00:25:10,383 --> 00:25:13,470 I'm trying to mold those, like, thumbtacks out of, like, clay, 340 00:25:13,553 --> 00:25:15,680 and I'm totally disoriented. 341 00:25:15,764 --> 00:25:19,059 She was, like, super-freaked out and, like, upset. 342 00:25:19,142 --> 00:25:21,478 And I was like, having a nervous breakdown. 343 00:25:23,355 --> 00:25:26,900 There was this tension between my expectations of myself... 344 00:25:28,193 --> 00:25:31,655 trying to balance it out. It gets strange. 345 00:25:50,006 --> 00:25:51,508 Someone asked me one time, like, 346 00:25:51,591 --> 00:25:53,552 "What's the most precious thing you own?" 347 00:25:55,679 --> 00:25:58,890 And I was like, "Oh, my memories." 348 00:26:00,517 --> 00:26:02,727 But I don't know how long they're going to last 349 00:26:02,811 --> 00:26:06,731 so I feel like these kind of are the permanent memories that won't go anywhere. 350 00:26:07,857 --> 00:26:11,695 The Australian magazine Oyster took a big, glossy fashion magazine, 351 00:26:11,778 --> 00:26:15,031 asked me to go to his studio in Atwater Village 352 00:26:15,115 --> 00:26:18,285 to spend a day with him photographing him. 353 00:26:18,368 --> 00:26:19,911 What year was that? 354 00:26:19,995 --> 00:26:23,081 This was 2006. 355 00:26:23,164 --> 00:26:29,337 He was doing these paper-weaving pieces, screen prints, textiles. 356 00:26:30,213 --> 00:26:32,757 You could just see, like, this guy's going somewhere. 357 00:26:34,092 --> 00:26:36,261 Shortly after that he asked me 358 00:26:36,344 --> 00:26:38,805 to come to Eindhoven, Netherlands, with him. 359 00:26:38,888 --> 00:26:41,349 He had a solo show at the MU Museum. 360 00:26:42,392 --> 00:26:44,561 I knew, like, I'm the type of artist 361 00:26:44,644 --> 00:26:47,397 who's changing and growing very publicly. 362 00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:51,234 Well, this would be good to have, you know, Andrew document. 363 00:26:51,318 --> 00:26:53,236 His photographs are really special. 364 00:26:56,740 --> 00:27:00,285 What had really inspired me as a young teenager 365 00:27:00,368 --> 00:27:03,913 a girlfriend gave me this book by David Duncan, who, arguably, 366 00:27:03,997 --> 00:27:06,249 shot the best photographs of Picasso. 367 00:27:06,333 --> 00:27:09,169 They felt warm. They felt like they let this person in. 368 00:27:09,252 --> 00:27:12,422 The pictures revealed like a whole different side of Picasso's life 369 00:27:12,505 --> 00:27:16,343 that I would have never known his children, his studio, his home. 370 00:27:16,426 --> 00:27:18,428 All that stuff was fascinating to me. 371 00:27:18,511 --> 00:27:20,513 And it's really how I approached 372 00:27:20,597 --> 00:27:23,141 but I didn't know enough of Geoff. 373 00:27:23,224 --> 00:27:25,977 When I asked him to start taking photos. 374 00:27:26,061 --> 00:27:28,813 There was stuff happening in the making of the things 375 00:27:28,897 --> 00:27:31,358 that was more interesting than the things themselves. 376 00:27:32,192 --> 00:27:36,655 To have moments shot on film by a great photographer, 377 00:27:36,738 --> 00:27:37,989 it's like gold. 378 00:27:41,368 --> 00:27:44,162 Do you think your project with him will ever end? 379 00:27:45,705 --> 00:27:46,748 I don't know. 380 00:27:49,668 --> 00:27:54,297 Being part of art history feels like a long shot. 381 00:27:54,381 --> 00:27:57,550 So I feel responsible for sort of like writing my own history. 382 00:27:59,177 --> 00:28:02,097 I don't like that idea of just being forgotten. 383 00:28:16,820 --> 00:28:20,782 Geoff always wanted to have a responsible setup. 384 00:28:20,865 --> 00:28:24,119 Being a commercial director in L.A., that's a great life. 385 00:28:24,202 --> 00:28:27,539 Like you have insurance, you have, you have stability. 386 00:28:38,133 --> 00:28:40,593 How long were you working as a director? 387 00:28:40,677 --> 00:28:42,303 A few years. 388 00:28:42,387 --> 00:28:44,347 It was in the rotation, for sure. 389 00:28:47,475 --> 00:28:49,519 Oh, good. Yeah. Just dance. No smoking. 390 00:28:50,687 --> 00:28:52,063 You look cool. 391 00:29:00,613 --> 00:29:03,742 It was very easy for me to write concepts 392 00:29:03,825 --> 00:29:05,452 that would translate to film. 393 00:29:05,535 --> 00:29:09,080 And then I was like, I wish someone else could direct this. 394 00:29:12,167 --> 00:29:14,919 Being a commercial director is very difficult 395 00:29:15,003 --> 00:29:19,591 because you are a very small percentage of what is happening. 396 00:29:20,842 --> 00:29:22,510 Too many people to pleased. 397 00:29:23,678 --> 00:29:26,055 And I don't think he felt like he was good at it. 398 00:29:30,018 --> 00:29:32,854 It was a conscious decision to give something up. 399 00:29:32,937 --> 00:29:34,814 The reality of being a director is like 400 00:29:34,898 --> 00:29:38,902 having a passion for film like I have for drawing. 401 00:29:45,408 --> 00:29:47,619 I was sort of re-defining how I worked, 402 00:29:47,702 --> 00:29:51,873 what my work could be and where it would go. 403 00:29:51,956 --> 00:29:57,170 I was evolving, doing projects for like music clients, 404 00:29:57,253 --> 00:30:00,590 MTV and different companies. 405 00:30:00,673 --> 00:30:03,968 I was in that water on the east side of L.A., 406 00:30:04,052 --> 00:30:06,721 surrounded by people doing interesting stuff. 407 00:30:09,307 --> 00:30:12,101 I would struggle. Like early on I would do a sketch. 408 00:30:12,185 --> 00:30:14,813 The goal is really to make the thing that's finished 409 00:30:14,896 --> 00:30:17,398 as good as the sketch, and often the sketch was better. 410 00:30:17,482 --> 00:30:18,858 T-shirt designs were something. 411 00:30:18,942 --> 00:30:21,736 It was the first time I did it for a company called Milk Fed, 412 00:30:21,820 --> 00:30:23,363 which was Sofia Coppola's company. 413 00:30:23,446 --> 00:30:27,033 And that's when I first experimented at the sketch for the thing was the thing. 414 00:30:27,116 --> 00:30:30,286 So it would be a little tiny drawing. And, I mean, that's the thing. 415 00:30:30,370 --> 00:30:31,996 We just were having fun. 416 00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,666 There was like a whole kind of rock scribble. 417 00:30:34,749 --> 00:30:37,627 It was all very, like, homemade. 418 00:30:37,710 --> 00:30:40,964 I asked him to do the titles for Virgin Suicides 419 00:30:41,047 --> 00:30:42,799 when I was working on my first film. 420 00:30:43,758 --> 00:30:45,635 Geoff's drawings have something different 421 00:30:45,718 --> 00:30:49,722 than something that a team of creative professionals do. 422 00:30:49,806 --> 00:30:51,641 It's not about being perfect. 423 00:30:58,439 --> 00:31:00,316 To take a risk of making art 424 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,778 and applying it to projects was really working. 425 00:31:06,531 --> 00:31:09,325 Andy Jenkins, Spike Jonze and Mark Leweman. 426 00:31:09,409 --> 00:31:12,829 They all worked together and they did skateboarding stuff. 427 00:31:12,912 --> 00:31:15,540 We were sort of moving in similar circles. 428 00:31:17,041 --> 00:31:20,670 Spike was like the super effective guru, 429 00:31:20,753 --> 00:31:23,631 like guy that I could look up to, 430 00:31:23,715 --> 00:31:29,429 making stuff that felt artful within these constrained worlds. 431 00:31:29,512 --> 00:31:31,598 It's sort of like navigating systems. 432 00:31:31,681 --> 00:31:33,308 For him the system was Hollywood, 433 00:31:33,391 --> 00:31:36,436 which was like the gnarliest. It's like inspiring. 434 00:31:38,897 --> 00:31:41,274 I was sort of establishing myself. 435 00:31:41,357 --> 00:31:43,568 I could ask him for advice, 436 00:31:43,651 --> 00:31:46,404 and then he offered legitimate opportunities. 437 00:31:52,118 --> 00:31:55,330 At that time my wife, like, she'd work on a Saturday. 438 00:31:55,413 --> 00:31:56,873 I'd sort of work all weekend 439 00:31:56,956 --> 00:31:59,334 or we'd work late and, like, no schedule. 440 00:31:59,417 --> 00:32:02,420 And then suddenly it's, like, "This isn't going to work." 441 00:32:16,392 --> 00:32:17,393 You don't want to, like, 442 00:32:17,477 --> 00:32:19,479 get less and less control of your time. 443 00:32:20,563 --> 00:32:21,981 We want things to get better. 444 00:32:23,900 --> 00:32:25,151 Hello. 445 00:32:30,949 --> 00:32:33,117 At that time, I'd have like a crew of people 446 00:32:33,201 --> 00:32:34,369 helping with fabrication. 447 00:32:35,787 --> 00:32:38,331 And I would have a drive to the screen-printing place, 448 00:32:38,414 --> 00:32:40,959 burn the screens, bring them back to my studio, print it, 449 00:32:41,042 --> 00:32:43,586 like screw a bunch of them up. 450 00:32:43,670 --> 00:32:45,838 Okay. If I take all that energy of, like 451 00:32:45,922 --> 00:32:48,049 driving around and making tons of stuff, 452 00:32:48,132 --> 00:32:50,218 but I put it into a painting, right? 453 00:32:50,301 --> 00:32:51,469 Like, what does that mean? 454 00:32:53,137 --> 00:32:54,514 Oh! 455 00:32:55,974 --> 00:32:58,935 But you don't go and just do the stuff you can do. 456 00:32:59,018 --> 00:33:01,020 You go and do the stuff you can't do. 457 00:33:01,104 --> 00:33:05,733 So you fail to the point like, that's how you learn something. 458 00:33:05,817 --> 00:33:07,568 It's mostly slamming. 459 00:33:07,652 --> 00:33:09,112 Whoa! 460 00:33:09,195 --> 00:33:12,407 In the beginning, you said when you first started painting 461 00:33:12,490 --> 00:33:14,158 there was like a three-month process. 462 00:33:14,242 --> 00:33:15,368 - Six months. - Six months. 463 00:33:15,451 --> 00:33:18,913 I had a painting hanging here for six months. 464 00:33:18,997 --> 00:33:21,124 I didn't know what type of paint to use. 465 00:33:21,207 --> 00:33:23,167 I didn't know how to prepare the canvas. 466 00:33:23,251 --> 00:33:27,130 I would paint the whole thing and get to the point where it was like not working 467 00:33:27,213 --> 00:33:29,465 and I'd sand the whole painting down. 468 00:33:29,549 --> 00:33:32,093 I would scrape it all off. 469 00:33:32,176 --> 00:33:35,221 I'm physically rocked, 470 00:33:35,304 --> 00:33:40,351 frustrated and screwing up. 471 00:33:42,437 --> 00:33:47,025 I've bought a giant compressor. All these materials. 472 00:33:49,527 --> 00:33:53,281 Right when I finished it's like a terrifying like, 473 00:33:53,364 --> 00:33:55,533 "Is this good or bad?" 474 00:33:56,743 --> 00:33:59,579 And then I came in a day later. 475 00:33:59,662 --> 00:34:01,873 My wife had put a post-it on it 476 00:34:01,956 --> 00:34:05,585 and it was just like, "This is awesome." 477 00:34:07,170 --> 00:34:09,213 That sort of set in motion. 478 00:34:09,297 --> 00:34:13,051 Oh, I'm going to follow this thread. 479 00:34:25,855 --> 00:34:28,733 I need to be outside all morning. 480 00:34:28,816 --> 00:34:32,278 This room is like sun lamps from all sides. 481 00:34:32,361 --> 00:34:38,284 I'm focused on making work that, like, is satisfying for myself. 482 00:34:38,367 --> 00:34:40,661 Well, so what? What are you pushing away? 483 00:34:58,387 --> 00:35:00,807 Geoff talks about this solitary arts. 484 00:35:00,890 --> 00:35:02,975 I mean, I don't really know anything about Zen, 485 00:35:03,059 --> 00:35:05,186 but it's a Zen virtue. 486 00:35:06,354 --> 00:35:07,939 A mindful skillset. 487 00:35:10,066 --> 00:35:14,904 You have to be able to have this focused dialogue with yourself 488 00:35:14,987 --> 00:35:17,490 where you're making a bunch of decisions in the moment. 489 00:35:17,573 --> 00:35:19,575 It's constant practice. 490 00:35:20,409 --> 00:35:24,247 You're not like, I'm only a monk between nine and five. 491 00:35:24,330 --> 00:35:25,873 When you leave the temple, 492 00:35:25,957 --> 00:35:28,376 you're still mindful. It's who you are. 493 00:35:41,889 --> 00:35:44,600 I got interested in trail running, 494 00:35:44,684 --> 00:35:48,271 and the logical end is running ultramarathons. 495 00:35:49,313 --> 00:35:52,275 I'm scheduled to run a 50-miler. 496 00:35:52,358 --> 00:35:56,821 It's a long, long process of extending miles, 497 00:35:56,904 --> 00:35:58,573 teaching your body 498 00:35:58,656 --> 00:36:01,826 there's no shortcuts. You can't, like, fast forward. 499 00:36:02,785 --> 00:36:07,540 When I show up for any race and the minute starts, 500 00:36:07,623 --> 00:36:09,792 I'm just like, I'm fucking passing everybody. 501 00:36:09,876 --> 00:36:11,335 I'm passing all these people, 502 00:36:11,419 --> 00:36:13,546 and I'm going to run myself into the ground. 503 00:36:13,629 --> 00:36:17,842 There'll be one last person that I'll be trying to pass till the very end. 504 00:36:17,925 --> 00:36:19,927 I am bummed when I finish a race 505 00:36:20,011 --> 00:36:24,056 and I'm not completely destroyed. 506 00:36:25,850 --> 00:36:31,063 It's taking things to a level like, no one would do this. 507 00:36:31,147 --> 00:36:34,734 No one would take this this far. 508 00:36:36,611 --> 00:36:37,737 Working in design, 509 00:36:37,820 --> 00:36:42,867 what's hard is like, setting your own standard for what you expect of yourself. 510 00:36:43,868 --> 00:36:46,162 I like to test myself. 511 00:36:46,245 --> 00:36:50,499 Like I have an hour to make this what I want it to be. 512 00:36:50,583 --> 00:36:54,670 I am doing revisions. No one's asking me to do it. 513 00:36:55,379 --> 00:36:59,592 Feels like a similar thing of endurance. 514 00:36:59,675 --> 00:37:05,264 What if I go at this heightened level an uncomfortable pace? 515 00:37:09,227 --> 00:37:10,561 What happens? 516 00:37:12,021 --> 00:37:13,940 Do you ever just, like, chill? 517 00:37:17,693 --> 00:37:18,986 Nope. 518 00:37:21,072 --> 00:37:22,990 The guy is non-stop. 519 00:37:26,202 --> 00:37:30,539 He knows how to push himself in all these different areas. 520 00:37:30,623 --> 00:37:33,459 Discipline is great for getting the work done. 521 00:37:33,542 --> 00:37:35,044 It can also be a constraint, 522 00:37:35,127 --> 00:37:37,672 almost as a Protestant cycle where you keep on 523 00:37:37,755 --> 00:37:41,008 like whipping yourself. I must run further, I must do better. 524 00:37:44,971 --> 00:37:47,848 Let's just say like, let's just make a general blanket statement 525 00:37:47,932 --> 00:37:50,851 that anyone in these fields is pretty obsessive, you know? 526 00:37:53,688 --> 00:37:56,524 When, it's like, how do you manage your obsessiveness? 527 00:38:00,111 --> 00:38:01,612 I've had moments where I think 528 00:38:01,696 --> 00:38:05,741 Geoff is a control freak for sure, you know. 529 00:38:07,034 --> 00:38:09,203 Geoff is an anal control freak 530 00:38:09,287 --> 00:38:13,165 that has a very specific color code that he'll wear. 531 00:38:14,750 --> 00:38:19,046 Process or routine, it's a response to something. 532 00:38:28,055 --> 00:38:29,265 To decide to make work 533 00:38:29,348 --> 00:38:32,143 that's inward looking was about like, 534 00:38:32,226 --> 00:38:34,812 I need to confront being human. 535 00:38:36,188 --> 00:38:40,484 When you're just feeling down or lost, 536 00:38:40,568 --> 00:38:44,071 how do you work through inner stuff? 537 00:38:49,869 --> 00:38:52,997 The farther you go, the deeper it gets. 538 00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,876 And you walk till just your nose is out. 539 00:38:56,959 --> 00:38:59,128 You're on like the tips of your toes. 540 00:39:00,588 --> 00:39:06,177 You could swim into the expanse or you could take a step back. 541 00:39:06,260 --> 00:39:09,263 And there's that moment in between those two states. 542 00:39:09,347 --> 00:39:12,975 What I'm doing, because I'm trying to go to that point. 543 00:39:20,107 --> 00:39:23,861 I don't know that every artist has to be tortured, but I think it can help. 544 00:39:25,905 --> 00:39:28,616 There's definitely a lot going on in his head, for sure. 545 00:39:28,699 --> 00:39:32,161 You know, I have a friend who has so much energy in her that she has to run. 546 00:39:32,244 --> 00:39:36,999 It has to come out some way. And Geoff is a similar way that if he didn't let it out, 547 00:39:37,083 --> 00:39:39,293 he would be a kind of tortured soul. 548 00:39:39,377 --> 00:39:42,546 Maybe making such neat, precise work 549 00:39:42,630 --> 00:39:46,342 is suggesting that he's started with chaos 550 00:39:46,425 --> 00:39:53,015 and has managed to... clean it his way of making the world right. 551 00:39:56,852 --> 00:40:00,981 In my work, there is a humanity that I understand is a sadness. 552 00:40:01,732 --> 00:40:04,443 It's talking about like a darkened quarter. 553 00:40:32,430 --> 00:40:34,849 I had my first painting show in New York. 554 00:40:36,308 --> 00:40:39,228 Hanging paint on canvas in Manhattan, 555 00:40:39,311 --> 00:40:43,065 like, that's when you think like, "Oh, well, this is like this new level." 556 00:40:46,068 --> 00:40:50,698 Around the same time our younger daughter Phoebe was born. 557 00:40:59,665 --> 00:41:02,251 Having kids is a lot of pressure. 558 00:41:03,461 --> 00:41:07,756 Making these decisions that have consequence to other people. 559 00:41:10,092 --> 00:41:13,387 I'm just looking at the data and I'm like, reset, reset, change... 560 00:41:13,471 --> 00:41:16,474 like turning stuff off, voiding this. 561 00:41:18,267 --> 00:41:22,271 When you're with your family, it is like a version of being more yourself. 562 00:41:23,647 --> 00:41:26,734 Constantly thinking of, "How do I find more of that in my life?" 563 00:41:28,194 --> 00:41:31,864 But there's always obstacles that make it seem impossible. 564 00:41:35,326 --> 00:41:37,495 It's a super long game. 565 00:41:54,970 --> 00:41:58,224 We've been together since I started making stuff. 566 00:41:59,475 --> 00:42:02,603 With Sarah I don't talk about 567 00:42:02,686 --> 00:42:04,563 what goes on in the studio day to day 568 00:42:04,647 --> 00:42:08,192 because I save it for like crucial moments of like, okay, 569 00:42:08,275 --> 00:42:10,194 "Can I talk to you about this?" 570 00:42:10,277 --> 00:42:12,988 Because I'll be confused or like, need advice? 571 00:42:20,788 --> 00:42:22,790 I'm so deep in my world 572 00:42:22,873 --> 00:42:26,210 that she has some perspective that I don't have. 573 00:42:26,293 --> 00:42:30,631 I operate purely emotionally. I will go dark. 574 00:42:30,714 --> 00:42:35,427 I think when we first met, I tried to meld him into my world. 575 00:42:35,511 --> 00:42:38,097 Like, you should smoke. You should suffer. 576 00:42:38,180 --> 00:42:42,351 Art is vulnerability. Art is putting yourself out there. 577 00:42:46,063 --> 00:42:49,400 She wants there to be like emotional content. 578 00:42:49,483 --> 00:42:52,278 She's completely disinterested in form. 579 00:42:52,361 --> 00:42:55,239 Like, definitely. I'm like, the form is the key. 580 00:42:55,322 --> 00:42:56,532 She's the opposite. 581 00:42:56,615 --> 00:43:00,160 It's like, it's not worth doing anything unless there's... 582 00:43:00,244 --> 00:43:02,079 I don't even know where to describe it. 583 00:43:02,162 --> 00:43:05,416 It's like emotional and it's like, intangible. 584 00:43:05,499 --> 00:43:07,501 It's like this fog. 585 00:43:07,585 --> 00:43:11,630 She taught me how to open up into new territories. 586 00:43:13,340 --> 00:43:16,051 To express yourself and be vulnerable 587 00:43:16,135 --> 00:43:18,387 that was a big jump for him. 588 00:43:55,674 --> 00:43:57,801 I paint, so few paintings 'cause I can tell 589 00:43:57,885 --> 00:44:01,055 this I can make a painting that's going to be better than the drawing. 590 00:44:01,138 --> 00:44:02,598 And I'm not going to paint that 591 00:44:02,681 --> 00:44:05,476 because the drawing is going to be better than the painting. 592 00:44:06,435 --> 00:44:07,728 They're constantly failing. 593 00:44:08,687 --> 00:44:11,482 One color just throws it off. 594 00:44:22,534 --> 00:44:25,746 The only way to make them as good as the drawing 595 00:44:25,829 --> 00:44:30,751 is for the colors to make the likeness of them disappear. 596 00:44:30,834 --> 00:44:33,587 You can't just, like, fill it in. 597 00:44:33,671 --> 00:44:36,256 It's like an intangible thing. 598 00:44:36,340 --> 00:44:38,884 The colors themselves are not what they seem. 599 00:44:41,470 --> 00:44:44,056 A painting that seems to be bright colors, 600 00:44:44,139 --> 00:44:48,185 the actual colors, they're like very complicated, muddy colors. 601 00:44:50,104 --> 00:44:52,731 When I'm like put a little bit too much blue in it 602 00:44:52,815 --> 00:44:55,943 and I see how it sucks 603 00:44:56,026 --> 00:44:59,571 everybody knows, the UPS guy knows 604 00:44:59,655 --> 00:45:01,990 and my mom knows and my wife knows 605 00:45:02,074 --> 00:45:04,743 and my kids know. I mean, my kids totally know. 606 00:45:04,827 --> 00:45:08,247 They'll be like, "That one's not that good." 607 00:45:08,789 --> 00:45:10,958 Yeah! 608 00:45:14,962 --> 00:45:15,963 Hey. 609 00:45:26,056 --> 00:45:27,349 I think when you have kids, 610 00:45:27,433 --> 00:45:30,436 the most you can teach them is just by showing. 611 00:45:30,519 --> 00:45:32,646 They were in a Montessori school. 612 00:45:32,730 --> 00:45:34,648 The director of the school decided that 613 00:45:34,732 --> 00:45:39,236 she was going to have a theater program and that it was serious. 614 00:45:39,319 --> 00:45:42,156 So I was like, "Oh, I'm going to make a poster for each play 615 00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:46,285 that's up to the level of like how the school views the plays." 616 00:45:49,580 --> 00:45:52,833 So "How the Camel Got his Hump." 617 00:45:52,916 --> 00:45:54,835 Which I remember, Frances was the camel. 618 00:46:01,425 --> 00:46:02,926 Which? "Selfish Giant." 619 00:46:15,105 --> 00:46:17,357 There would be times when I'd be like doing this 620 00:46:17,441 --> 00:46:19,401 and spending effort on this and I'd be like, 621 00:46:19,485 --> 00:46:22,488 I spend more effort on the, you know... 622 00:46:22,571 --> 00:46:25,657 the school poster than some project, you know, but... 623 00:46:32,122 --> 00:46:34,416 When you read artists' biographies, 624 00:46:34,500 --> 00:46:36,752 then they get divorced 625 00:46:36,835 --> 00:46:40,088 it's like a single line in a 300-page book. 626 00:46:41,590 --> 00:46:45,594 None of this is possible without my wife, 627 00:46:45,677 --> 00:46:47,679 my family, my marriage. 628 00:46:47,763 --> 00:46:51,141 It's like an essential part of my whole everything. 629 00:46:52,726 --> 00:46:56,980 Time. Its value is so ethereal, 630 00:46:57,064 --> 00:46:59,608 it cannot be compared to any other thing. 631 00:47:01,151 --> 00:47:05,739 I systemize to try to take control over. 632 00:47:07,407 --> 00:47:11,245 The stuff that's important is all the small stuff. 633 00:47:44,194 --> 00:47:45,988 What's up? 634 00:47:47,990 --> 00:47:49,575 We have a serious artist. 635 00:47:51,743 --> 00:47:54,037 Super-serious artist. 636 00:47:58,542 --> 00:47:59,626 Well... 637 00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:06,592 That was a good one, actually. 638 00:48:22,399 --> 00:48:24,693 You're matching. 639 00:48:31,533 --> 00:48:32,701 We dust her. 640 00:48:51,803 --> 00:48:54,014 You hungry? We'll get food. 641 00:48:54,097 --> 00:48:56,350 Hold on. You'll get a hamburger. 642 00:49:12,574 --> 00:49:15,452 My wife says you're never more unhappy 643 00:49:15,535 --> 00:49:18,413 than when you're just working on painting, 644 00:49:18,497 --> 00:49:20,290 where I'm like, deciding colors. 645 00:49:20,374 --> 00:49:22,751 And I'm like, "Oh," and I'm challenging it. 646 00:49:22,834 --> 00:49:24,503 And it's like, "What am I doing all day?" 647 00:49:24,586 --> 00:49:27,339 Going into my studio and painting. Sounds nice. 648 00:49:27,422 --> 00:49:28,590 It's like, how lucky. 649 00:49:29,341 --> 00:49:30,550 I don't want it to be like, 650 00:49:30,634 --> 00:49:33,011 I use inks to make better paintings. 651 00:49:33,095 --> 00:49:35,013 So I was like, okay, I'm going to like, 652 00:49:35,097 --> 00:49:36,682 release that angst 653 00:49:36,765 --> 00:49:38,767 and I'm going to use like a color I just had. 654 00:49:38,850 --> 00:49:40,477 Like I'm like, "Ah." 655 00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:45,148 Let's use that because I have it. The work became clearer, 656 00:49:45,232 --> 00:49:48,068 and so much of it came from hearing that from my wife. 657 00:50:09,798 --> 00:50:11,717 I love when all the work is in the studio, 658 00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,720 when I do all the paintings and they're all together. 659 00:50:14,803 --> 00:50:16,430 That feels great. 660 00:50:16,513 --> 00:50:18,890 But this showing, it's nerve-racking 661 00:50:18,974 --> 00:50:22,060 and, yeah, it doesn't feel good. 662 00:50:23,854 --> 00:50:27,149 It's way easier to be just visual. 663 00:50:27,232 --> 00:50:32,154 Like, I just make this stuff. I said it with the painting. 664 00:50:32,237 --> 00:50:33,947 To have a show is to agree like, 665 00:50:34,031 --> 00:50:37,117 no, I'm going to be there too, you know, 666 00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:39,745 like, so it's like to be in the room is like, 667 00:50:39,828 --> 00:50:44,291 to be like, "Well, I'm an actual person, not a visual person." 668 00:50:45,292 --> 00:50:51,214 What are you thinking of when you're posing these? 669 00:50:59,931 --> 00:51:01,516 Do you go to the Poop Restaurant? 670 00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,561 - Café. I didn't think of it. - No, we've just heard about it. 671 00:51:04,644 --> 00:51:07,481 That was one of the reasons I actually were staying over them. 672 00:51:07,564 --> 00:51:10,567 I was like, oh, Poop Café. Yes. Yes. - You’re welcome. 673 00:51:23,288 --> 00:51:25,373 It’s something I always love working with him, 674 00:51:25,457 --> 00:51:28,210 just going over to his studio, and it ends up being 4 hours 675 00:51:28,293 --> 00:51:30,170 of just talking, hanging out, drawing. 676 00:51:31,171 --> 00:51:33,632 Can you give a high level of this stuff 677 00:51:33,715 --> 00:51:36,510 that you've done with Geoff? I know it's like 20 years of work. 678 00:51:36,593 --> 00:51:42,015 I had, everything, I think. I think everything on. 679 00:51:42,099 --> 00:51:44,392 I worked on his film Being John Malkovich , 680 00:51:44,476 --> 00:51:47,229 so I did like the logo for like the production, 681 00:51:47,312 --> 00:51:49,648 the logo for adaptation. 682 00:51:49,731 --> 00:51:52,192 He did Where the Wild Things Are. 683 00:51:52,275 --> 00:51:55,779 I did the titles and the poster and like all the marketing materials 684 00:51:55,862 --> 00:51:57,781 and got really involved in it. 685 00:52:02,202 --> 00:52:04,830 We had fought with the studio a lot on the movie. 686 00:52:04,913 --> 00:52:08,208 They did not like the movie. We just sat there and just like 687 00:52:08,291 --> 00:52:12,254 took out our angst on their logos. 688 00:52:12,337 --> 00:52:14,214 When they saw it, they kind of got it. 689 00:52:14,297 --> 00:52:17,300 They're like, "Okay." 690 00:52:17,384 --> 00:52:21,388 Definitely. Spike is like, he's super demanding 691 00:52:21,471 --> 00:52:24,432 and he keeps making the projects harder. 692 00:52:26,810 --> 00:52:29,896 Her was the first time I really had worked. 693 00:52:29,980 --> 00:52:33,608 that was like in the movie besides like the title sequence. 694 00:52:33,692 --> 00:52:36,611 It was a love story of a man 695 00:52:36,695 --> 00:52:39,072 falling in love with his inner face. 696 00:52:39,156 --> 00:52:42,993 So it was like designing what this user interface was. 697 00:52:44,119 --> 00:52:48,874 If I had to invent this plausible world that was like a character in the film. 698 00:52:50,375 --> 00:52:53,253 He just hones in on what the feeling is supposed to be. 699 00:52:53,336 --> 00:52:56,965 That's why the conversations is always so good, because he asks the questions 700 00:52:57,048 --> 00:53:00,427 that make you articulate what it is it's supposed to be. 701 00:53:00,510 --> 00:53:03,889 The only description Spike gave is like, The future's nice. 702 00:53:03,972 --> 00:53:05,432 It's nice. 703 00:53:05,515 --> 00:53:08,393 Which is great because, like, you couldn't look back on 704 00:53:08,476 --> 00:53:10,687 a screen world in a futuristic movie 705 00:53:10,770 --> 00:53:12,898 That was nice. It was always dystopic. 706 00:53:12,981 --> 00:53:16,693 It was always like, like... 707 00:53:16,776 --> 00:53:19,654 Like, a lot of numbers and lines and all this stuff. 708 00:53:19,738 --> 00:53:22,032 If anyone else asked me to do it, 709 00:53:22,115 --> 00:53:23,992 I would never have taken on the project. 710 00:53:24,075 --> 00:53:26,286 I'm not going to be able to do it like it'll fail. 711 00:53:27,078 --> 00:53:31,166 But I knew that we could improvise our way there, 712 00:53:31,249 --> 00:53:33,335 creating this sort of back-story, 713 00:53:33,418 --> 00:53:35,837 how AI would have evolved over time, 714 00:53:35,921 --> 00:53:39,925 how screens would project themselves into the future. 715 00:53:45,055 --> 00:53:47,182 I've had an iPhone in my pocket 716 00:53:47,265 --> 00:53:49,559 for like the majority of my adult life, 717 00:53:49,643 --> 00:53:52,896 having any kind of visual vocabulary or language 718 00:53:52,979 --> 00:53:59,277 to be able to communicate on that battlefield is important. 719 00:53:59,361 --> 00:54:04,449 There's something like built in to the way that he uses graphics 720 00:54:04,532 --> 00:54:07,911 that is particularly legible 721 00:54:07,994 --> 00:54:11,248 in this time and in this part of history. 722 00:54:12,415 --> 00:54:13,917 It's not an accident 723 00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:18,672 that the largest corporations in the world want to pick his brain 724 00:54:18,755 --> 00:54:22,217 about how to communicate with visual language. 725 00:54:27,138 --> 00:54:31,643 The practice. It relies on concepts that reoccur. 726 00:54:31,726 --> 00:54:36,022 One would be human connection, human intimacy, 727 00:54:36,106 --> 00:54:38,733 humans interacting. Humans like... 728 00:54:38,817 --> 00:54:40,277 Like that, you know? 729 00:54:42,529 --> 00:54:44,906 The world is made of inconsequential moments 730 00:54:44,990 --> 00:54:47,409 and Geoff is taking out from the trillions 731 00:54:47,492 --> 00:54:50,036 than going like, just look at this for a minute. 732 00:54:52,497 --> 00:54:57,210 One image that communicates maybe weeks or months of thinking, 733 00:54:57,294 --> 00:55:01,631 using the most minimal amount of line and shape. 734 00:55:01,715 --> 00:55:05,176 I think it's so much harder than, than people think. 735 00:55:11,224 --> 00:55:15,520 Somebody that's trafficking in that kind of iconography. 736 00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:21,359 We imagine them not to be tackling big issues, 737 00:55:21,443 --> 00:55:27,324 commentary about mortality or existence or community. 738 00:55:27,407 --> 00:55:28,742 In that way, 739 00:55:28,825 --> 00:55:32,787 Geoff's kind of hiding the medicine and the peanut butter. 740 00:55:41,504 --> 00:55:46,009 The really dark time is like when there's nothing to work on. 741 00:55:46,092 --> 00:55:48,636 There's nothing to keep your hands busy. 742 00:55:50,930 --> 00:55:52,599 There's a kind of heaviness... 743 00:55:59,481 --> 00:56:00,982 ...that emptiness... 744 00:56:02,525 --> 00:56:06,863 ...when you're just yourself and you're just there. 745 00:56:17,791 --> 00:56:19,834 You don't want to create an environment 746 00:56:19,918 --> 00:56:22,045 where darkness thrives. 747 00:56:23,713 --> 00:56:25,382 So what you do is you have a process 748 00:56:25,465 --> 00:56:27,425 that you can take a step away from it. 749 00:56:29,219 --> 00:56:30,720 What's the easiest way? 750 00:56:31,888 --> 00:56:33,473 It's a pencil and a piece of paper. 751 00:56:58,164 --> 00:57:01,251 I need outside stimulus. And part of that is like 752 00:57:01,334 --> 00:57:04,504 working with different people, working in different ways. 753 00:57:04,587 --> 00:57:07,841 A lot of companies I worked for are cultural brands. 754 00:57:13,054 --> 00:57:16,766 People can be a bit snooty about working as a designer when they also make art. 755 00:57:16,850 --> 00:57:18,518 You're either one thing or the other. 756 00:57:18,601 --> 00:57:21,020 There's not many people who do both. 757 00:57:27,777 --> 00:57:32,198 To straddle that world of design and painting 758 00:57:32,282 --> 00:57:34,451 will be interesting long term 759 00:57:34,534 --> 00:57:37,162 because the art world in some ways 760 00:57:37,245 --> 00:57:39,372 might be the most biased 761 00:57:39,456 --> 00:57:43,960 or have the most gatekeepers than any creative field. 762 00:57:45,003 --> 00:57:47,547 Do you feel like outside of the art world, 763 00:57:47,630 --> 00:57:49,757 even though, you are inside it? 764 00:57:49,841 --> 00:57:54,429 Well, I'm not. I mean, I'm not like a blue-chip artist. 765 00:58:02,645 --> 00:58:06,399 Some people come fresh out of Yale grad school 766 00:58:06,483 --> 00:58:08,359 and they're the toast of the town. 767 00:58:08,443 --> 00:58:11,613 Sometimes it's more interesting 768 00:58:11,696 --> 00:58:15,408 if you kind of bubble up over 20 years 769 00:58:15,492 --> 00:58:18,912 and are everybody's favorite underground band. 770 00:58:29,881 --> 00:58:33,134 What's guiding him is like being true to himself, 771 00:58:33,218 --> 00:58:35,762 developing the word, no matter where it ends up. 772 00:58:37,764 --> 00:58:42,685 There's no like musician-type term for, like visual makers. 773 00:58:44,062 --> 00:58:45,480 We've sort of decided 774 00:58:45,563 --> 00:58:48,024 that artist isn't the same as musician. 775 00:58:48,107 --> 00:58:49,776 If you say musician, 776 00:58:49,859 --> 00:58:55,532 it can be like drone or it can be like birthday parties. 777 00:58:55,615 --> 00:58:58,701 I want to do drone music and birthday parties. 778 00:59:51,004 --> 00:59:52,714 I do watercolors when I travel 779 00:59:52,797 --> 00:59:55,883 because I know, like this is the closest thing 780 00:59:55,967 --> 00:59:58,886 to a memory as I can make. 781 01:00:00,263 --> 01:00:02,098 And I just sit. 782 01:00:02,181 --> 01:00:06,436 And I sort of just swivel my head and then I start painting something. 783 01:00:14,110 --> 01:00:16,696 There's something that these will lead to. 784 01:00:16,779 --> 01:00:19,949 Like, I'm not done developing my painting. 785 01:00:32,712 --> 01:00:34,505 Look at this guy. 786 01:00:44,641 --> 01:00:46,476 How can you say no? 787 01:00:48,645 --> 01:00:53,775 87% like, "Yeah, definitely a lot." 788 01:00:53,858 --> 01:00:56,569 Does that stress you out to say no? 789 01:00:56,653 --> 01:00:59,197 No. It's super easy to say no. 790 01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:00,865 I find it really easy to say no. 791 01:01:00,948 --> 01:01:02,992 It's way more stressful to say yes 792 01:01:03,076 --> 01:01:05,953 because there's only me. There's only so much I can do. 793 01:01:07,372 --> 01:01:09,457 The most critical part of what I do 794 01:01:09,540 --> 01:01:13,044 is deciding what projects to take or not take. 795 01:01:13,127 --> 01:01:14,712 We'll be like calling him, 796 01:01:14,796 --> 01:01:16,506 trying to get him to do something 797 01:01:16,589 --> 01:01:19,384 and we won't hear from him for weeks. 798 01:01:19,467 --> 01:01:23,221 And I'm like, "What do you mean? We got to do this right now?" 799 01:01:23,304 --> 01:01:26,057 No one does that. Everyone's just grabbing what they can get 800 01:01:26,140 --> 01:01:29,310 and they're taking money for it and they're selling out here and there, 801 01:01:29,394 --> 01:01:31,354 and they're losing their integrity. 802 01:01:32,397 --> 01:01:34,899 Like I don't have meetings with people 803 01:01:34,982 --> 01:01:37,110 because I hate meetings and it's not a problem. 804 01:01:37,193 --> 01:01:40,113 Like no one likes meetings. And so I never had to have meetings 805 01:01:40,196 --> 01:01:42,699 and I don't work in a way that I need to have meetings. 806 01:01:42,782 --> 01:01:45,535 How do you go, like I have meetings all the time. 807 01:01:45,618 --> 01:01:48,079 - I don't know. - How are you? Are you like if someone's like, 808 01:01:48,162 --> 01:01:51,666 - "Can you come here and meet?" - No. I do not. Like I say, like I don't like meetings, 809 01:01:51,749 --> 01:01:55,128 but I don't ever have to tell people like, I don't like meetings. 810 01:01:55,211 --> 01:01:58,464 So let's not meet, like, no one wants to meet with me. 811 01:01:58,548 --> 01:02:00,466 People know, though, like I've talked to, 812 01:02:00,550 --> 01:02:04,011 I've interviewed people and they're like, I heard he doesn't do meetings. 813 01:02:04,095 --> 01:02:06,264 Oh, maybe that's what happened. 814 01:02:06,347 --> 01:02:08,182 Yeah, I don't do meetings. Really. 815 01:02:10,309 --> 01:02:12,979 He's like choosing exactly what he wants to do. 816 01:02:13,062 --> 01:02:16,023 Many of us kind of look at him and think like, 817 01:02:16,107 --> 01:02:18,985 how do I do that? 818 01:02:52,226 --> 01:02:56,397 When you come into L.A. and you see people wearing masks 819 01:02:56,481 --> 01:03:00,777 everywhere is covered in like a layer of anxiety. 820 01:03:04,572 --> 01:03:06,324 When your whole thing is sort of like, 821 01:03:06,407 --> 01:03:09,786 trying to be aware or conscious of the present. 822 01:03:10,495 --> 01:03:14,874 When the present is projecting something powerfully anxious or intense, 823 01:03:14,957 --> 01:03:18,211 you are you're very much like, in it, you know. 824 01:03:20,296 --> 01:03:21,297 In my neighborhood, 825 01:03:21,380 --> 01:03:24,467 the sidewalks are filled with people I've never seen before, 826 01:03:24,550 --> 01:03:27,386 masked and staying six feet apart. 827 01:03:27,470 --> 01:03:29,847 These are not regular runners or dog walkers. 828 01:03:29,931 --> 01:03:32,934 These are couples and families out for a walk together. 829 01:03:33,017 --> 01:03:36,312 One of the appeals of living in Los Angeles is the suburban, 830 01:03:36,395 --> 01:03:38,648 normalness of my everyday life. 831 01:03:38,731 --> 01:03:40,233 Weeks into the current situation, 832 01:03:40,316 --> 01:03:42,527 waves of weirdness continue to erode 833 01:03:42,610 --> 01:03:44,904 the familiar rhythms of my world. 834 01:03:44,987 --> 01:03:47,406 Much of my day has remained the same, 835 01:03:47,490 --> 01:03:50,618 but enough has changed to make time feel disassembled. 836 01:03:50,701 --> 01:03:54,372 The days and nights feel like a strange version of normal. 837 01:03:54,455 --> 01:03:57,750 When this is over, I don't want the traffic to come back. 838 01:03:57,834 --> 01:04:01,045 I want all of this extra time with my family. 839 01:04:01,128 --> 01:04:03,714 I want to hold on to this quietness 840 01:04:03,798 --> 01:04:05,800 to see the people walking in our streets 841 01:04:05,883 --> 01:04:07,176 and not feel their presence 842 01:04:07,260 --> 01:04:10,555 is somehow related to the worlds falling apart. 843 01:04:14,392 --> 01:04:16,936 This is capturing the moment. 844 01:04:17,019 --> 01:04:20,773 Like when we sat down with our daughters and we talked about. 845 01:04:37,373 --> 01:04:40,293 Like we had heard that one of their... 846 01:04:49,218 --> 01:04:55,141 Sorry. One of their teachers had passed away from COVID. 847 01:04:55,224 --> 01:04:59,145 And, you know, it's like we found out via email 848 01:04:59,228 --> 01:05:04,317 and it was somebody that was really special to our family. 849 01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:07,028 And she had helped my older daughter 850 01:05:07,111 --> 01:05:10,865 with, like, like almost like tutoring her with, like, math difficulty. 851 01:05:10,948 --> 01:05:14,368 And my younger daughter, she was like this sort of like class. 852 01:05:15,786 --> 01:05:20,458 A class, sort of, like sort of a similar person, like a counselor almost. 853 01:05:20,541 --> 01:05:24,420 This beautiful woman. And so this was like... um,... 854 01:05:25,671 --> 01:05:28,341 It's us. Like I never do this really. 855 01:05:28,424 --> 01:05:30,343 Like it's like our family. 856 01:05:30,426 --> 01:05:32,261 And it's like talking with them about it. 857 01:05:32,345 --> 01:05:36,223 And, you know, they were really, they took it really well, um, 858 01:05:36,307 --> 01:05:38,351 uh, but it was that moment. 859 01:05:38,434 --> 01:05:41,979 Um, and so in that moment, I felt like our house, 860 01:05:42,063 --> 01:05:43,689 like it felt like a bunker, 861 01:05:43,773 --> 01:05:45,900 you know, like so I made us like a bunker. 862 01:05:45,983 --> 01:05:49,737 So this is like a chamber holding toilet paper. 863 01:05:49,820 --> 01:05:52,031 This is like some sort of air filtration system. 864 01:05:52,114 --> 01:05:54,492 And there's like a ladder to go through this portal 865 01:05:54,575 --> 01:05:56,702 and this is the world above that looks normal, 866 01:05:56,786 --> 01:05:58,496 but it's not, you know, it's not normal. 867 01:05:58,579 --> 01:06:01,999 I mean, I look at this and it makes me cry. 868 01:06:02,083 --> 01:06:06,128 It's like, uh, capturing something, like, really 869 01:06:06,212 --> 01:06:09,215 obviously, it's like super personal. 870 01:06:21,769 --> 01:06:23,270 You know this show for V1? 871 01:06:23,354 --> 01:06:25,398 I never thought I was going to do this show. 872 01:06:25,481 --> 01:06:29,068 I wasn't talking to the gallery 'cause I was going to be like, 873 01:06:29,151 --> 01:06:33,614 I didn't do it, which is not my style at all. 874 01:06:33,698 --> 01:06:36,450 I was not confident 875 01:06:36,534 --> 01:06:39,537 that I was going to be able to make work. 876 01:06:40,621 --> 01:06:45,668 I didn't want to, I was very, like, hesitant. 877 01:06:54,593 --> 01:06:59,181 But like Jesse made the model and printed out four walls. 878 01:07:01,767 --> 01:07:04,186 I said, like, here's the drawings. 879 01:07:05,187 --> 01:07:07,314 Maybe there's something here. 880 01:07:24,999 --> 01:07:29,086 We filled the room with what we thought would be most useful 881 01:07:29,170 --> 01:07:30,755 the substance of living. 882 01:07:32,548 --> 01:07:34,341 It took the shape of the walls. 883 01:07:36,135 --> 01:07:38,179 And went to the height of the ceiling. 884 01:07:40,598 --> 01:07:43,768 Like a train that has grown to the length of its tracks. 885 01:07:46,812 --> 01:07:48,898 These days are nameless. 886 01:07:57,740 --> 01:08:00,868 We have no words to describe the state of things. 887 01:08:00,951 --> 01:08:03,079 And yet this is the title, the name. 888 01:08:07,666 --> 01:08:10,878 Full of images that exist outside of language. 889 01:08:13,380 --> 01:08:15,466 They'd give a name to the time. 890 01:09:24,660 --> 01:09:27,955 Geoff comes from an era of artists 891 01:09:28,038 --> 01:09:29,957 that looked at artwork different 892 01:09:30,040 --> 01:09:32,334 than just strictly a canvas and a gallery. 893 01:10:44,365 --> 01:10:48,702 This thing is like super involved 894 01:10:48,786 --> 01:10:50,037 and technical. 895 01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:52,581 And it happened in like no time. 896 01:10:52,665 --> 01:10:55,417 I don't think anything compares to this. 897 01:10:55,501 --> 01:10:57,920 This is like the guerilla art project. 898 01:10:59,255 --> 01:11:01,882 I submitted a whole bunch of ideas 899 01:11:01,966 --> 01:11:04,718 that ranged from just like images. 900 01:11:04,802 --> 01:11:09,223 Then this is like the craziest, like, magic water mousetrap. 901 01:11:13,269 --> 01:11:16,939 My goal is like, "Yeah, my daughters can take their kids to come see it." 902 01:11:18,065 --> 01:11:20,150 It was meant to be forever. 903 01:11:47,928 --> 01:11:50,723 Please welcome to the stage, Geoffrey. 904 01:11:55,060 --> 01:11:57,688 It's a huge honor to be here. 905 01:11:57,771 --> 01:12:02,443 Designers can really define what the future looks like, 906 01:12:02,526 --> 01:12:06,071 and we have to imagine how it will be nice. 907 01:12:06,155 --> 01:12:09,491 Everything about being a designer in our time is unique. 908 01:12:09,575 --> 01:12:14,246 We're designing for an audience that's the most literate visual audience 909 01:12:14,330 --> 01:12:15,873 that I think there ever has been 910 01:12:15,956 --> 01:12:20,085 that doesn't have the words to describe itself. 911 01:12:20,169 --> 01:12:24,381 These gaps, many gaps in our language, are an opportunity. 912 01:12:24,465 --> 01:12:28,594 As designers, we can fill those gaps 1,000 times. 913 01:12:28,677 --> 01:12:30,012 So thank you. 914 01:12:41,648 --> 01:12:43,359 Sometimes looking at Geoff's work 915 01:12:43,442 --> 01:12:45,778 and speaking to makes me feel bad 916 01:12:45,861 --> 01:12:51,533 because I haven't yet worked out how to spend my time wisely. 917 01:12:51,617 --> 01:12:54,453 I think everyone's trying to be able to just kind of 918 01:12:54,536 --> 01:12:56,622 live in the way that we all desire. 919 01:12:56,705 --> 01:13:00,459 Geoff's cracked the code and... 920 01:13:00,542 --> 01:13:04,254 Well, all us peasants are like, "Give me the code." 921 01:13:04,338 --> 01:13:06,757 Geoff realizes that there is a relationship 922 01:13:06,840 --> 01:13:09,009 between art and commerce 923 01:13:09,093 --> 01:13:13,305 in a way that seems very authentic and personal. 924 01:13:13,389 --> 01:13:14,723 I would say it kind of comes 925 01:13:14,807 --> 01:13:17,142 from a nineties thing of not selling out. 926 01:13:19,353 --> 01:13:24,066 We never imagined that he would have the life that he has. 927 01:13:25,275 --> 01:13:28,195 He knew what he wanted to do. Geoff knew. 928 01:13:32,074 --> 01:13:34,493 Is Geoff satisfied? 929 01:13:34,576 --> 01:13:36,036 Probably not. 930 01:13:36,120 --> 01:13:39,623 For anybody who is prolific or worked so hard, 931 01:13:39,706 --> 01:13:42,167 being satisfied would be terrible, 932 01:13:42,251 --> 01:13:45,921 but I think he feels super fortunate. 933 01:13:48,215 --> 01:13:52,886 He will have a career as big as he's comfortable with 934 01:13:52,970 --> 01:13:55,639 before it takes over too much of his life. 935 01:13:55,722 --> 01:13:59,476 So it's constantly like trying things and shrinking things 936 01:13:59,560 --> 01:14:01,395 and trying things and shrinking things. 937 01:14:02,563 --> 01:14:05,607 I look up the part of him that balances work 938 01:14:05,691 --> 01:14:07,901 and being an artist with life 939 01:14:07,985 --> 01:14:13,365 living and family and friends and just being alive, 940 01:14:13,449 --> 01:14:18,537 remembering that that is as important. 941 01:14:22,416 --> 01:14:25,252 This idea of like creative powerhouses 942 01:14:25,335 --> 01:14:29,756 being dismissed from all reasonable behavior 943 01:14:29,840 --> 01:14:32,885 in service of creativity, 944 01:14:32,968 --> 01:14:37,306 that's actually the easy road to be like everything comes second. 945 01:14:37,389 --> 01:14:38,515 You know what I mean, 946 01:14:38,599 --> 01:14:41,268 and it's like so much more interesting to be like that. 947 01:14:41,351 --> 01:14:45,147 Who can balance, who can create that hybrid-y thing? 948 01:14:50,527 --> 01:14:51,862 Hello. 949 01:15:03,415 --> 01:15:08,295 I definitely am conscious of turning 50. 950 01:15:08,378 --> 01:15:11,507 You have this moment to look back. 951 01:15:11,590 --> 01:15:15,594 And then look forward like what is possible now that I'm 50? 952 01:15:17,971 --> 01:15:21,266 They sort of invented my own way to, like, have a studio, 953 01:15:21,350 --> 01:15:23,143 which is just me. 954 01:15:23,227 --> 01:15:25,270 This idea of self-sufficiency. 955 01:15:27,064 --> 01:15:28,565 I don't want to be tied down. 956 01:15:34,696 --> 01:15:36,323 Oh, no. 957 01:15:47,125 --> 01:15:49,586 We are born in the world and we have this 958 01:15:49,670 --> 01:15:52,464 heaviness that we carry with us. 959 01:15:52,548 --> 01:15:55,509 It's just like the nature of being human. 960 01:15:56,552 --> 01:16:01,974 I've created this customized life to like mitigate 961 01:16:02,057 --> 01:16:05,978 deeper feeling of sadness or discontent. 962 01:16:07,604 --> 01:16:10,857 I have chosen a path that leads me through dark. 963 01:16:12,192 --> 01:16:14,111 It's taken my whole life. 964 01:16:15,362 --> 01:16:17,906 Becoming more clearheaded, 965 01:16:17,990 --> 01:16:23,328 becoming more present makes me make better work. 966 01:16:30,460 --> 01:16:32,629 Basically, if I made something that day, 967 01:16:32,713 --> 01:16:35,632 I was happier when I go home. 968 01:16:38,468 --> 01:16:41,972 Like I sort of create my own happiness. 969 01:16:56,194 --> 01:16:59,281 In that the thought passes through. 970 01:18:31,665 --> 01:18:33,291 Dance! 971 01:20:16,186 --> 01:20:18,980