I Wasn't Going to Do This. Then Something Happened.

Oh boy, I'm so excited to start recording this finally because this channel has been in the works for a couple of weeks. Actually, it's been a lot longer than that, but I honestly didn't see building a YouTube channel on my 2026 bingo card anywhere before the year started. And then something happened, and I'm going to get to that in a second. But first, I want to welcome you to a brand new channel that is going to be around for a very long time. So, if you are catching it right at the beginning, welcome. And I am so excited to have you here. I'm really excited to be here. I'm finally turning the camera on myself. I have been on YouTube watching videos for a long time, but I've never really had a great reason to start one until very recently. And I'm going to get into that in a moment. But first, I want to just tell you what this channel's about. One of the big reasons that I built this, and I'm in it for the long game, is I want to create a space for us to make stuff, plain and simple. Cuz the thing is, sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes the world feels really heavy and it's hard to make. Sometimes it seems like our attention is needed elsewhere and that elsewhere is forever. And it can feel nearly impossible to carve out time to make. Even if we know the value of creating, it can still be really hard to carve the time out. So the seed of this channel came out of the idea that I really miss having a group of people to make art with. I miss being surrounded by artists and just carving the time out to make sure that I am doing something. I don't have to make a masterpiece every single time, but carving the time out allows for, as beloved Bob Ross would say, happy accidents to occur. So, what I really want to do is make space for myself and for you. I'm inviting you to come make with me. And when the world feels heavy, as the title of the channel suggests, we got to make anyway, even when it seems hard. And the reason for that is because making art brings life back into our life. It brings vitality back to us. It gives us something tangible to work on that we can put our emotions into so that we can externalize all of that density and we can process it through the canvas or the paper or whatever it is that we are making. I'm an artist. I'm also a writer. I create things. I like crafting. I like making stuff with my hands. I paint. I draw. I dance. I make music. I occasionally build sculptures. I love to just make and I do it in lots of different ways, but it took me until pretty recently to understand why. I even went to art school and I really struggled to answer the question, why do I make? Why do I draw the things I draw? Why do I paint in the first place? And my answer to that question, maybe this rings true for you too. I really struggle to say anything other than because I want to. Something just draws me to want to make. But if I'm being really honest, it also seemed like it was pretty self- serving. It seemed a bit frivolous. And lately, I've been noticing in art communities, there are people talking about really struggling with understanding what the point of making is when the world seems like it's on fire. And this channel is coming at a time when I had taken a pretty substantial break from making. And part of it was because I felt like, oh god, I need to respond to the world. And so I've been really active in other areas of my life, responding to the chaos in the world in lots of different ways. And then someone on threads said, "To be honest, it seems absolutely ludicrous to be making art right now." And they posted that at the same time that something really big happened in my life. It's not a happy something. What happened was I lost a close friend, a friend who was a prolific artist and he made so much art. He was making art every single day and I loved it. It was like I got to live vicariously through my friend who was making art and sharing it and inspiring tens of thousands of people at the time that he passed. and he had without even really trying created a community of artists. And many of these people hadn't picked up a pencil or a paintbrush or anything to create with in decades. He was a really big champion for them. And then when he passed away, I realized immediately in my grief that this bright star had faded away, was just out. His legacy continues. People who followed him are still inspired by what he had been doing, but he could no longer do it. And so the inspiration that he could have continued to generate, poof, suddenly gone. And then it clicked for me that I had been a tremendous brat when it came to art. I was privileged to grow up surrounded by it. My grandmother was an artist. She had tremors and she still made oil paintings. She taught music. I grew up in a very musical family and I just sort of thought it was nice to have. But then when my friend just suddenly wasn't there anymore, I realized what he was doing was vital because without him there, yes, there's other artists on threads. Yes, there's other artists on Instagram. Yes, there's artists all over YouTube, but he isn't. And so much of our feeds is chaos. It just is. And I also happen to believe that in order to build the world that we want to live in, we have to be building it. And so that it might sound really silly and obvious, but in retrospect, I realized one person has so much potential depending on what they choose to put forward to make a massive difference in the lives of those who encounter their work, who encounter them and their and their spark and their light and even their grief. you know, because if we experience someone else's grief, we feel less alone in ours. So then I got thinking, what can I do to help fill that hole, to help fill that void? And the obvious answer is to do something of my own. I can't replace him. There's no replacing any single person. And that's my message to you as well. It's my message to me. I'm irreplaceable and so are you. And it doesn't matter what I make. The point is that I make it. And if I'm very brave, then I'll share it. And again, YouTube is not something that I thought I was going to do. But here I am showing up, pushing myself outside of my comfort zone so that I can show up and I can communicate this to you because I have air in my lungs. I have hands that can set up all these things. So, for the last few weeks, I've been really reflecting on this idea of what is art for? What's the benefit of art? And we're going to talk about that a lot more in other videos, but for now, I I want to just share some of the big points. First and foremost, art creating, it doesn't even have to register as art to other people, but creating anything changes the creator. It doesn't just change the creator, it changes anyone who comes into contact with whatever they created. Art in practice transforms the artist and then it ripples outward into relationships, into community. It makes space for grief. It makes space for joy. The world without art would be pretty benal. When I say that creating changes the creator, it's because it's a recursive process. When we are feeling something and then we create with that feeling, we learn from what we create. Then we become something new. We transform because of what we've learned from the process of creating. And then we create again. And so we enter this loop, this feedback loop where I make something and I see what I made and then it changes so many things within me that I've come to understand it isn't so much the the finished piece that we're looking for. It's the process of creating it that we derive so much value from asking ourselves what do I make and why do I make it? Why do I have this feeling that I want to create something? What where does this idea come from? And the more that we dig into that, the more we get to discover ourselves. And it's beautiful. If I had to die on a mountain, my mountain would be I'm going to stake my flag in the ground and I'm going to say that when the world feels like it's on fire, making is not selfish. Making is stabilizing. It brings us back into our body, especially when so much of our life is just consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming. Making is the opposite of that. Making is how we get back into our body. You can make cookies. You can make a painting. You can write in your journal. You can strum on a guitar. You can make a mud pie. You can make a puddle and splish around in it. You can make anything. The point is that you are putting energy into something that isn't consuming. And often when you least expect it, you're also going to find that you are inspiring other people. So when my friend passed away, I had a lot of time to think about what do I want to do with the time that I have here and what kind of an impact do I want to have for the world as it is right now? What timeline do I want to be helping to develop? What do I want to leave for my grandchildren and their grandchildren? And I came back to an answer that it seems to always be my answer. I have a dream of starting a sanctuary for artists. It has outdoor and indoor elements. It has a little cafe. There's outdoor spaces where artists can find privacy in nature or uh larger areas where they can gather and co-work if they want to be around other artists. There's gallery spaces so that artists can showcase their work. There's a shop so that they can also sell their work. And artists can host workshops. They can teach and share their skills so that those who are curious and want to learn a new skill have a place where they can sign up for a class. And I'm sure that there are some places that are like this, but that always has been my dream. That's what I want to make in the world. And so I figured, why not start small? That's a really big plan. That's a really big project. And it's going to take some time to get there. But what I can start doing now is cultivating community. And I happen to have the internet. And so I can invite you. You don't have to live within 30 miles of me. You can live anywhere and you can participate in this community. So again, I'm really excited to have you here. I'm really glad that you found me this early because I'm we're not doing perfectionism here. And you get to witness me grow while I learn how to YouTube while I also reemerge from the cocoon where I needed to figure out why I was making in the first place. So I put my practice down for a long time and I'm going to be picking it back up. I'm going to be making stuff. We're going to be doing a live every week. I'm starting with Friday at noon Pacific time. So put that on your calendar. And also subscribe and hit the bell because then you'll get notified when I'm going live or a new video comes out. I'm going to be talking about art. I'm going to be sharing process notes, doing a series on things that I learned in art school, things that I learned outside of art school, uh, and a bunch more. There's going to be there's going to be lots of goodies here. Okay. Okay. Cuz I go big when I commit to something. This is something that I am deeply committed to. So, I'm inviting you to build this community dream with me. We're going to start here and then it's going to continue to grow. And when it grows big enough in 5, 10, 15, 20 years, that magical community space is going to happen because what else am I going to do with my time? If I didn't start it now, then 20 years from now, I'd be like, "Dang it, why didn't I start that 20 years ago?" Because then I would know what I'm doing. All right. So, how'd I do? Was my first first attempt, and it was totally my only take that I did. And I'm going to get it in probably one take. As a thank you for making it to the end of this video, I have prepared something special for you. And as I said, I don't think I cut it out, but as I said, uh we don't do perfectionism here. I'm learning what I'm doing in the interest of transparency and non-perfectionism, just doing the thing and learning as we go. And as an homage to being a huge dork, I have prepared some outtakes so that you can see what this process looked like in the couple of hours leading up to me recording this. Also, how many of you were subconsciously counting how often I looked uncomfortable on camera? I certainly wasn't, but that's going to go away. Does it Does it ever go away? Do you just get comfortable with this? I don't know. But anyway, I did Zoom school. I I'm a millennial who did Zoom school. Anyone else? Anyway, without further ado, here are your outtakes. Oh boy, this is great. All right, blooper reel. Okay, so I'm going to go on a walk and then I'm going to set up the microphone because I have a feeling that this is not going to cut it. And then I'm going to hook that up and make sure that it's working. And then I'm going to record again with my notes because I took notes. I've already recorded this whole thing one time. And then I took notes on the things because my brain does this thing. And I go over here and then I go over here and then I go over over here and then I and then I go down here and back to here. And I'm gonna not do that in the final take. And I'm gonna get it in probably one take. Okie dokie. We're trying out the microphone. And I couldn't get this swingy arm to work because I don't know where this little guy is. I've moved twice since I've used it. And so I don't know where it is. What am I going to do? I don't know. Probably replace it. But for now, I'm seeing if the gain is appropriate given how far away from my mouth the microphone is. Go find out. Well, that didn't work at all. Okay, now we're doing a test to see how it sounds. Do I have to cuddle it? Do I Do I have to cuddle it? Do I have to go right here and eat it like ice cream? That was worse. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. We're getting We're getting somewhere. And I think that the closer I am to the microphone, the better it is. But that means that I have to sit here awkwardly talking right into my ice cream cone. But we're getting somewhere. Oh my goodness. Okie dokie. We're going to do a little test. This is the sure sound on. Then it's going to be muted. And then we're going to try the one that it's probably just my my computer sound. And we're going to see what the difference is so that I can hear it with my own ears before I push any of this to production. All right. Now we got we got the other audio on and uh this is what we get. This is what it sounds like. Awesome. Let's switch back to the Shure MV7. This is the Shure MV7. Look, my very first product review that convinced nobody. Okay. Okay. So, how do we feel about this? Let's see. Can I move this over here? Yeah, kind of. But I'm off center. I'm off center. But you know what? Sacrifices must be made. Oh boy. I'll make it real nice. M camera shake. All right, I think that this will work. This is my ice cream cone. I'm going to decorate it. I'm going to make it look like ice cream. Yes, we're in podcaster mode. I don't know what voice this is. I haven't done my voice acting lessons, but I know that there's many voices inside of me that I can tap into to make my self more interesting. I'm plenty interesting. I don't need multiple characters. I can just be me. I'm going to have so much fun with this. I think that's framed well. I'm doing this thing where I don't get haircuts and I cut it myself and I just see how long I can how long I can do that. This is me not caring what I look like on camera. I'm going to just delete this one. The little fear voice in my head is saying that these bloopers are probably going to be Excuse me. These bloopers are probably gonna be a lot more interesting than the content that you write ahead of time. And my fear voice is probably right. But this gives you incentive to stay until the end because you know that that's where I am a biggest goofball. That is where I am the biggest ham. Oh, hi Baboo. And I'm going to get around to recording a video one of these days instead of just messing around. I have some quality content to produce. I have some thoughts. I have some words to say and we're going to go say them. I'm going to give my hairs these little brushings and uh then we're going to start.