Not too long ago, I was having a conversation with David duChemin about subject as it relates to photography — specifically, some of the differences between photographs of a subject, versus photographs about a subject. It can feel like a tricky distinction but moving from one to the other can really elevate the work that you produce.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iterations

Support the Show

Iteration 54: Find Your Pepper

Last week, I asked a deceptively simple question on Instagram: What are some of your fears around creativity? Dozens of responses came in ranging from fear of running out of creative gas, to being judged by an audience to not being seen or heard at all. Your responses reinforced how much I miss interacting with an engaged community around making art.

I’ve been noodling around what to do about it for quite a while and I think I have something that may be interesting, but it doesn’t work without you. In a nutshell, I want to hear from you. I want to hear what interests you, what inspires you, even what you’re struggling with. Chances are, whatever you’re going through — the good or the bad — someone else out there is going through something similar and by sharing these things with one another, maybe we can help each other to become better artists and maybe even better people. By sharing something with me on this new endeavor you’re giving me permission to share it with everyone — and maybe even to reach out to you to have a deeper conversation about it. I don’t know if this will be a few random one-off episodes or whether it wants or needs to be a new show, but regardless, I think there’s something there and I’d love to see where it goes.

So if you’d like to participate, and I hope you will, reach out to me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com and let me know what’s on your mind. I think everyone has a great story to tell. Let’s work on telling yours.

 Music in this episode: Step On (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Everything

Show Updates — July 2019

A couple weeks ago, I had a terrific conversation with an artist whose work I’ve admired for years. And while it was a treat to get to talk to someone who has inspired me for decades, the work was only a small part of the conversation. Instead, we just talked. We connected straight away and what was meant to be a quick phone call just to say hello ahead of a potential episode of Process Driven ended up being a two hour conversation about everything from family and our respective childhoods to love, loss, Studio 54, JK Rowling, and even musings on the nature of art. On more than one occasion and typically after a particularly interesting exchange, one of us would comment, “man, we should be recording this.” But instead we chose to just keep enjoying the experience — a one-off conversation between nascent friends.

I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 55: Sometimes It's Better Not To

Adrianne and I were in the car the other  day — I don’t remember where we were going but I do remember that we were listening to Classic Vinyl on XM because we both really dig Meg Griffin. Anyway,  “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” by Traffic came on and whatever conversation we were in the middle of stopped and we just listened to this incredible song written by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi. If you’ve never heard the track, it’s basically a twelve minute jam that ebbs and flows in dynamics and complexity with a 24-year-old Winwood singing over the top of it. The musicianship is fantastic and listening to it got us talking about creative complexity and how looking at or listening to something that is artistically or technically just out of our reach can be wildly inspiring, both as a fan and as a maker.


I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.



Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 56: Go Off on a Tangent

Earlier this week, Adrianne and I watched the first episode of the new season of Abstract on the Netflix . For those of you who haven’t seen it, Abstract is a fantastic show about art and design. It follows roughly the same format as something like Chef’s Table — which is also an excellent show — where each episode profiles a specific artist or designer. Last season included Tinker Hatfield, Paula Scher, and Platon among others and this season starts out with someone who I’ve never heard of by name though I have seen his work. Olafur Eliasson is an artist and architect whose large scale works are focused and really dependent on the user or viewer’s experience of them. Many of his works center around light — specifically, the effects and manipulation of light. For example, one of his earlier pieces is called “Beauty” and it was his attempt to create a rainbow by lighting a gentle waterfall of very fine mist. The effect was such that no two people experience exactly the same rainbow, since the color and intensity are based entirely on your viewing angle relative to the mist. 
“This is a space totally dependent on you being there,” Olafur says. “When you leave the exhibition, and there’s no-one in the room, there’s also no art.” This idea is really core to Olafur’s art — the Why of his art, if you will. Each piece he makes is a sort of challenge. As he puts it, “do I trust my own eyes and my own capacity to engage in the world?” His work is completely dependent on the spectator. It’s a collaboration –maybe even a conversation – between him as the artist and us as the viewer. Even his episode of Abstract is a collaboration, beginning with Olafur breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the camera — to us — as he presents the conditions of our collaboration.

I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 57: Asking a Deeper Why

In 2020, I’m launching a brand new show that will be my most ambitious project to date.

A Day’s Work is a podcast about how we spend our time when we’re not with family and friends. Inspired by the landmark work of Studs Terkel, I’m having conversations with everyday people and going beyond the small talk to really explore the deceptively simple question: “So, what do you do?”

Subscribe to A Day’s Work to get the first episode the day it drops. Or you can subscribe to Jeffery Saddoris: Everything to get everything I produce, including Process Driven, In Between, Iterations, and of course A Day’s Work when it launches next year.

I hope you’ll join me for the next chapter in my podcasting journey. I can’t wait to share it with you.

CONNECT
I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram or Twitter @jefferysaddoris.


Music in this episode: Algorithms (Chad Crouch) / CC BY-SA 3.0

A Day's Work

A Day's Work Trailer

If you listen to any of my other shows—particularly Iteration 52—you know that earlier this year I had surgery on my eyes to correct a condition called Strabismus. About a month ago, I got an email from a listener and a photographer who recently had a similar surgery although I’ve since learned that her condition was much more dramatic than mine. I’ve never met anyone else with the same condition, let alone had the surgery to correct it. I responded to her email and asked if she would be willing to have a conversation about how her experience compared to my own, specifically around how it shaped her approach to art, both as a viewer and as a maker.

If you enjoy listening to In Between, please consider leaving a review or a rating on iTunes to help others discover the show.


CONNECT

You can find Jo on Instagram @jomackby or on her website at jomackby.com

If you have an interesting story to share, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.


Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

In Between

In Between 13: The Eyes Have It

My dad and I never really did a lot together when I was growing up. I mean, yes I spent summers with him and my stepmother Linda in Arizona but it was always with a group of people - and don’t get me wrong, it was a terrific way to spend the summer. But rarely was it ever just the two of us.

If you enjoy listening to Iterations, please consider leaving a review or a rating on iTunes to help others discover the show.

If you have an interesting story to share, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 58: Only One Way to Find Out

We’re getting close to the end of the year and if you’re like me, you’re already looking ahead to 2020 – maybe you have been for a while – trying to come up with some great new project or maybe multiple projects that will make the next year better than this one.

I love the idea of big projects and in fact I’ve already started laying the groundwork for what’s looking more and more like the biggest solo project of my career – but while I’m more excited about it than I’ve been about anything in a while, I’m also terrified that I won’t be able to pull it off or that it will end up being less than what I think it could or should be. Big projects are great when you finish them but, man, they can be a slog. And typically the bigger the project, the more we hope or expect from it in terms of response once we actually finish it.

If you enjoy listening to Iterations, please consider leaving a review or a rating on iTunes to help others discover the show.

If you have an interesting story to share, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 59: Big Projects, Little Victories

In the last Iteration (number 59) I talked about the importance of giving yourself little victories in the work that you do — tiny wins that you can finish in a day or two that will often re-energize you or jumpstart your creative momentum on larger, more time consuming projects. In this Iteration, I want to share a couple of examples of little wins that I’ve given myself in the last week. You may have noticed — or you may not have, and that’s okay too — but I’ve given the cover art for each of my three current podcasts a slight redesign. They still have a similar feel to the previous versions, but they all work together a bit better and feel more on point with my overall design aesthetic, if that makes sense. I’ve also made some tweaks to my website — again nothing really major, but I’ve tweaked the fonts and the color palette so there’s a bit more visual cohesion between the design of the show covers and the site.

If you enjoy listening to Iterations, please consider leaving a review or a rating on iTunes or share it on social media to help others discover the show.

If you have an interesting story to share, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Iteration 60: Are You Overdue for an Update?

The recent death of Rush drummer Neil Peart hit me like a ton of bricks. While I consider myself a visual artist, I can’t think of a single painter, or sculptor, or photographer whose death has or would affect me as dramatically as Neil’s has and I can’t really reconcile why that is. It’s just not a simple answer. I’ve been a Rush fan since about 1982, but as I’ve said before, it wasn’t the music that grabbed me initially, but the lyrics. Yes, the musicianship was superb, but the themes and the language that Neil used to explore those themes was unlike anything I’d ever heard or more to the point read before. There was also the timing of it all – that time in my life when who I was or was becoming had not yet solidified and I was still malleable and curious and full of wonder. All of this has gotten me thinking about the ways and degrees that others inspire us throughout our lives and I thought it might be interesting to spend some time unpacking it a little.

If you enjoy listening to In Between, please consider leaving a review or a rating on wherever you listen to podcasts to help others discover the show.

CONNECT
Connect with me on Instagram and Twitter @jefferysaddoris or on my website at jefferysaddoris.com. If you’ve got questions, feedback, or an interesting story to share, email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com.

You can find Jon on Instagram @jonwilkening or by visiting his website at jonwilkening.com

Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

In Between 15: Input, Inspiration, and Possibility

As of the end of this week, I will no longer be publishing new episodes of Process Driven, In Between, or Iterations to Soundcloud. I’ll go into more detail in a future Iteration, but the short version is that if you’ve been enjoying the shows and want to continue listening, you can find them on my website at jefferysaddoris.com or — better idea — consider subscribing to "Jeffery Saddoris: Everything" on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or pretty much any other podcast app. 
If you have questions or comments, you can connect with me on Instagram and Twitter @jefferysaddoris, or you can email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com.
I can’t thank you enough for your support and I hope you’ll come along for the next part of the story. I’ll talk to you on the next one.

SUBSCRIBE
Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jeffery-saddoris-everything/id1438550795?mt=2
Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS94aU9SWXY5aw%3D%3D
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/26vN7ll6JlWTp53ArBUQDd?si=GtpO2erJS0ipMfrwKKRxtQ
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/jeffery-saddoris/jeffery-saddoris-everything


Music in this episode: Brain Power (Mela) / CC BY-SA 4.0

I'm Leaving Soundcloud

I'm no longer publishing new episodes on Soundcloud. If you'd like to keep listening, please subscribe to "Jeffery Saddoris: Everything" in your favorite podcast app.

http://jefferysaddoris.com.

Jeffery Saddoris

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