Last Updated
April 22, 2020
Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Mica Scalin & Noah Scalin, Another Limited Rebellion. [Live show recorded: April 21, 2020.]
Guests: Mica Scalin & Noah Scalin
Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin
Guests
NOAH SCALIN is an artist, author, and activist. He founded Another Limited Rebellion in 2001 with the idea that he could make a living doing what he enjoyed and effect positive change in the world. Since then, Noah has traveled the world bringing his message of creative practice to everyone from incarcerated teenagers to Fortune 500 executives. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts, Noah started his career as the Art Director for Troma Entertainment and Avirex Clothing. Noah's artwork is collected internationally and has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Mütter Museum and NYC’s Times Square. He is the author of six books — most recently Creative Sprint which he co-wrote with his sister/business partner Mica. Noah is also one of the co-hosts of the VPM PBS television program The Art Scene. In 2016 Noah was chosen as the first ever artist-in-residence at the Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business and was named the "The Region's Most Creative Individual" by Richmond magazine in 2017.
MICA SCALIN is an innovator in the use of art and media for community engagement and creative development. She was among the first producers hired by NBC Universal Digital Studios, she launched social media strategy at Showtime Networks and consulted on CBS Interactive marketing. She was VP of Communications for the groundbreaking non-profit JDub and has produced documentary films, art exhibitions and cultural events. From grassroots to broadcast, her passion lies in creating cultural experiences that make meaningful connections between people. She has a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC and studied with Douglas Rushkoff at The New School in NYC. She is the co-author of Creative Sprint: Six 30-day Challenges to Jumpstart Your Creativity. She is also one of the humans behind dOGUMENTA: America’s First Art Show For Dogs.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren and I are joined by Mica and Noah Scalin. Mica and Noah lead Another Limited Rebellion, an arts and innovation consultancy. They are our first of several guests duos joining us on the show in the next few weeks. They know each other well and have been collaborating together their entire lives, as, in addition to business partners, they're also siblings. They've done a great deal together and separately, and I pulled a random selection of things from their bios for this intro, including they co-authored the book Creative Sprint: Six 30-Day Challenges to Jumpstart Your Creativity. Noah's Skull-A-Day year is chronicled in his book about it. And Mica is one of the humans behind dOGUMENTA: America's First Art Show for Dogs. Without further ado, Mica and Noah, welcome to the show.
Noah Scalin:
Thanks so glad to be here. I'm still laughing from the green room.
Mica Scalin:
I've never been on a morning show before. This is awesome.
Lauren Ruffin:
We're doing a whole bunch of things totally differently today. The two of you are going to start off by leading us in a creative sprint, right?
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. Micah, do you want to explain what a creative sprint is real quick before we do it?
Mica Scalin:
Yeah, sure. I'll even use the book, which is an out of print, but this is the Creative Sprint book, Six 30-Day Challenges. Not a plug because the book is not in print. But this came out of an online challenge we run and a program we do with our clients that is using small, very small, creative prompts to spur a short, say three-to-five-minute creative action as part of a daily creative practice development process. In other words, do something creative every day for 30 days. We give you a bunch of ideas for what to do. And we're going to do it right now. We thought that's a great way to start this podcast. And we're really exploring themes around creative connecting, which we'll talk about a little more. So here is your prompt. Noah, you want to say the prompt?
Noah Scalin:
Sure. So if your life right now was a Netflix series or some other show or TV show, movie, what would it be called? That's the question. You don't have to answer, you can just ponder that and then answer as you want in the chat or some other way.
Mica Scalin:
So your life right now as a Netflix series title, title for your life.
Tim Cynova:
So say it one more time.
Noah Scalin:
Okay. So it is if your life right now we're a Netflix show or series, what would it be called? We have some of our own thoughts about what these answers could be for ourselves already. So we can share some or we can wait and leave you in suspense till the end.
Mica Scalin:
I think we should wait.
Noah Scalin:
Okay.
Mica Scalin:
I think we should put that out there, just [inaudible 00:02:45]-
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. Oh, tantalizing.
Mica Scalin:
... prompt in the chat. And if you come up with one that's good and you want to share it in the chat, go ahead and put them in there as we go. And maybe we'll respond to them or we'll just collect some of the best ones and share them at the end. And I want to hear from Tim and Lauren. And Noah and I, we'll all share ours at the end.
Noah Scalin:
At the end.
Mica Scalin:
As a closing.
Noah Scalin:
The point being though, a creative prompt like that, it just gets your brain going, starts the wheels turning, gets you thinking laterally and spurs additional creativity in your life. So there you go.
Lauren Ruffin:
That's really awesome.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, that's terrific.
Lauren Ruffin:
I can do this. I think I can handle this. I'm going to be percolating on it.
Tim Cynova:
I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous. There's a lot going on this morning.
Lauren Ruffin:
We are nothing if not our personalities. So Tim gave you all the hodgepodge of an introduction, but can you tell our viewers sort of how you typically introduce yourselves, if you were meeting people on the street or just as you're going about your work, anything that you feel like is particularly germane to this conversation?
Noah Scalin:
I usually just say I'm an artist, author, activist, and space pirate. But that doesn't generally help anybody. Mica, how would you describe what we do as a company when you talk to people?
Mica Scalin:
We call ourselves an art and innovation studio, and it's a partnership between my brother and I, Noah, where we look for opportunities to raise the value of the arts in general and artists. And by value, I mean get people paid money. And the way we've been doing that in the past couple of years has been working in leadership development and professional development programs, mostly providing training and speaking engagements, but also sometimes art engagements within very large businesses. So we typically serve large organizations that are already pretty invested in training and development in that way. But we also serve the creative development of the individuals and those organizations, and just the larger community. We help those organizations reach out to their community, whether it's within the organization or outside the organization through creative and arts engagements. That's kind of wordy. Does that make sense?
Tim Cynova:
What does that look like when you work with organizations to do that?
Noah Scalin:
It takes a lot of forms. So we do a lot of work where I'm going in or Mica is going in sometimes and we're doing keynote speeches or we're doing workshops, usually a combination of those, and also then longterm engagements with organizations where we're helping them use the tool we just talked about, the Creative Sprint, to develop the creative capacity of everyone in the organization.
Tim Cynova:
I once had the unfortunate, also fortunate, opportunity to keynote next to Noah. So I'm like talking about arts administration and Noah's like, "Hey, I did this project where I made a skull a day and here's a lot of cool photos about it." I'm like, "God, this is really boring for me to be talking about [inaudible 00:05:23] software and stuff.
Noah Scalin:
Yeah, always go before me.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah.
Mica Scalin:
I mean we seek to entertain. I always feel like this might be a lot of really out there for a lot of people that we communicate with. So a lot of times I'm just like, "Well, we'll at least provide an interesting moment in their day. Maybe that's the best we can do."
Noah Scalin:
You know, at the same time, what I love to be is the weirdest person in the room for the engagements that we're doing. And that's actually a sweet spot for us. I've been in conferences where it's all people that are bankers or people who are doing programming, software programming. These are very serious, very linear types, and I'm coming in doing wacky stuff. But it allows people a way in to talk about the more deeper, important topics that we have to share. And I like that that's engaging in that way because we aren't coming in just doing a fun thing that is considered team building. We're really coming and doing something that's more profound and meaningful for an organization.
Lauren Ruffin:
Can you tell us a little bit about your name? I'm fascinated by the idea of Limited Rebellion. There's a lot in there.
Noah Scalin:
Yeah. Another Limited Rebellion started, originally it was at my design firm, and then when we shifted over to our work as consultants we kept the name. But the name really originated in the late '90s, and it was my sort of punk rock joke because I had been involved in the punk rock scene in New York City, Lower East Side and I was watching people in 1997 dressing like it was 1977. And I was like, "You guys, this is 20 years old and you're still doing this thing." And so I just had this idea about the self-effacing idea... My favorite music at that time, things like Minor Threat, that made fun of themselves and were aware and conscious, but also still doing it anyway. So how can you be an activist but also know the work you can do is but so much and don't give up and keep doing it. And so being funny about that made sense to me, and it's just rolled into our company. And somehow, I think it's still makes sense.
Mica Scalin:
Yeah. We considered should we change the name when Noah and I teamed up and really pivoted what the business was doing from graphic design to this training and consulting. And then we were just like, "No, actually it really makes sense to stay Another Limited Rebellion now inside the context, coming into a context of business, teaching them creativity. So thanks for asking.
Tim Cynova:
Well, and I want to add one thing. Actually, as you were transitioning from graphic design into the new version, Fractured Atlas worked with you to design this cool logo. So Noah, you actually designed the Fracture Atlas logo that's now in the upper whatever corner of the screen. So that's where we first worked together, in that.
Noah Scalin:
Yeah.
Tim Cynova:
It seemed like one of your last graphic design projects because I remember actually being like, "Yeah, can you do this thing?" And you're like, "I'm sort of starting to do this other thing right now."
Noah Scalin:
It's funny because, yeah, I was near the end of that period. But I actually designed your website too.
Tim Cynova:
The original website? Yeah.
Noah Scalin:
The original website.
Tim Cynova:
Or the version a long time ago. Yeah.
Noah Scalin:
Yeah. So it's just funny because I did a lot with you guys. And so I love to come back around, circle back around with this different point in my life and our lives.
Tim Cynova:
Well, and it ended up with someone, it must've been maybe the campaign that you were running, a fundraising campaign, got a print of the United Skulls of America that hung in our Fractured Atlas office until like a couple of months ago when we got rid of the Fractured Atlas office. And that was a big question. We were like, "Who's going to take the print from the office?," because we didn't need it anymore. I don't know who got it, but one day it was just off the wall and someone took it. So we have the logo, we had that print in our office for a number of years. So now that we're live, I'm just relaying that information to you.
Lauren Ruffin:
And if the person who has it is listening, feel free to drop us a line so we know where it ended up.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, please. I read this really interesting article about right before he died, Biggie left a belt in Vibe or Source's office. He had to change where shoot and forgot his belt. And this belt was passed on from staffer to staffer over like 10 years, and he died like three weeks later. It was like the legend of this belt. And so the writer put out this APB like, "Who of the many people who've turned over into this office have this belt right now?" And eventually, it resurfaced. It's being kept in an undisclosed location like somebody's momma's house basement. But I feel like this print could take on that life.
Noah Scalin:
I like that. If my print is as amazing as big as Biggie's belt, I have a [inaudible 00:09:37].
Tim Cynova:
I bet you didn't think that we'd be covering this on the live stream today.
Noah Scalin:
Not at all.
Lauren Ruffin:
I didn't think so either, but it popped in my head and I went with it.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. No, I think it's timely. One of the things I really enjoy about the work that you two do is that some of it's seemingly simple. I mean I think back to this Skull-A-Day and then some of the stuff that's come out of Creative Sprints where it's like, "I've just used these sugar packets and something that I interact with every day to create something new and beautiful and different," and I love that as an entry point to just the things that we're surrounded with. You don't have to have a studio and paints or quiet time to compose or space to choreograph, but that everyone has this in them.
Noah Scalin:
Yeah, that's very much on purpose. We really wanted our work to be accessible. We wanted it to be something that anybody could do, that anybody could find time for in their schedule, that anybody could benefit from. We really designed all of the things that we do as a company to have that quality so that it actually works. We don't want it to be something that's like, "Here's the secret sauce of some famous person and it's impossible to replicate because of their life experience and the benefits they had because of where they were born or who they are or who their parents are," whatever it is. That shouldn't be a factor in this type of work.
Lauren Ruffin:
I'm really curious to hear how your work has shifted or changed. Has it over the last couple of weeks?
Mica Scalin:
Noah and I have been thinking about this. We had to reflect on this last week as well. And it was interesting to think like, "Well, obviously there's no more travel to big fancy events with executives coming from all over the world." Because that was definitely something that Noah and/or I would be doing once or twice a month as of last year. Yeah, so that changed. We're not doing that anymore. At least probably not for the rest of two thousand... I don't know if that will ever be something that really happens in the same way as it used to anytime in our... I don't know. Who knows? So that's not happening. And so because of that, our delivery method, how we're getting our content to our clients and community and our language that explains the value right now, has to be changed, you can't keep saying the same thing, and our positioning around that.
Mica Scalin:
But ultimately, the cool thing is what's really stayed the same is that our values, our core message, and our process didn't change, which is cool. We could really rely on that to carry us through this. It took a minute for us to stop and address that. We did have a little bit of I would say an early warning. And I actually want to... This ties into this conversation, but Noah and I had already been talking to some friends and colleagues in Asia and and hearing that things were changing. As of February, I think daily life was already changing for them. And then we had a client that was organizing global events that had to be postponed. That was happening beginning of March. So this is all two weeks before everything hit everybody that it was happening here.
Mica Scalin:
So we were sort of already like, "Oh, this is already sort of changing our Q2 business planning. Uh oh, this is something percolating." I mean we both already work from home, so that wasn't a change. But yeah, the cool thing was we really spent time touching base and talking to people right away as those changes right away emerged. And not only that, people reaching out to us, like clients, friends, colleagues, students, from that corporate client, I mean all areas, reaching out to us and asking us for stuff, asking us to do stuff, asking us to do a program or just telling us that something they learned from us was valuable right now.
Mica Scalin:
So that also helped us see that we didn't need to change that core message. It was still hitting people. In fact, they were thinking about it now in this moment of crisis. So I think it really helped us to realize this core content and message and strategy is really helpful now. Let's just figure out how we can repackage it and deliver it in a way that is meaningful and still has the same value to people. So that's been our little challenge.
Noah Scalin:
I would say, in the first week, I personally got a dozen emails from people saying, "When are you going to do another Creative Sprint? We need something right now." I mean it was a real sense of what we did was on top of mind for people, which was wild to feel like, "Wow, this is how valid this stuff is." We knew it was valid. We knew it was something you needed when there was an emergency, and that's why we always tell people to practice and to do this stuff before there's an emergency. But to see people in the emergency going, "This is the thing we need right now." And we had a great client who wanted who we were about to do something in person and immediately said, "Yes, we can switch to virtual." And we were like, "We have never done that specific thing, virtual [inaudible 00:13:56]."
Noah Scalin:
So we did a really quick turnaround on ,creating a virtual version of one of our most popular workshops and presentations and that was amazing. Then we got a great feedback on it right away. What's crazy is that, literally in February of this year, I was in Portland with hundreds of people speaking to them. And it was just so weird to go like, "I was just in this hotspot area." And then a month later it seems crazy. It's scary to look at a picture of that many people that tightly packed together.
Tim Cynova:
And one of the things that we get a lot of questions about is how do you actually do the thing. I mean we get questions about how do you do the podcast. We get a lot of questions about what platform we use for streaming this live stream, which is StreamYard. We have no sponsorship deal with them, but would maybe take one. But lots of people are wrestling with how does this thing move online. What did you actually use to make something that was built for 3D and put it online? What tools did you use, how did you have to rethink the way you were interacting with people?
Noah Scalin:
Well, I think one of the first things that's really cool is that we had already been working virtually to some degree. So Creative Sprint was already something we used email for. And certainly, we love a live, interactive session. It's really fun to have people in the same room, there's a very specific energy that's generated from it. But we had already been practicing. And Mica and I, because we were working virtually with each other for years and we were not in the same city... So I'm in Richmond, Virginia and she's in Brooklyn, New York. We've been working virtually for many, many years so we were already used to this platform as a way to interact with each other, and we practiced and played in it. So it wasn't an entirely unfamiliar thing.
Mica Scalin:
I know you're talking about tools, but again, in terms of... Tools are one thing, you could have all the tools, but if you are not actually... You know what I mean? You have to think about content as it fits the tools. It's so interesting. But I feel like we've gone back in time for me. Because about 10 years ago, I was in the field of helping people get their heads around how to get content onto digital platforms in the very early stages, doing online video, pre-YouTube, and trying to work with arts organizations and eventually television and stuff. So to me, I kind of feel like we've gone back to the past.
Mica Scalin:
But on the other hand, pushed up against a wall, everyone's figuring it out and figuring it out really amazingly. So I think you can certainly use tools. There's no shortage of tools, and there'll be more tools, but I really think it's thinking about content and format. And Noah and I were lucky because a lot of the content we develop to share with our clients is based on experiences Noah and I had developing creatively using the internet and digital communication tools to develop creative content. So does that make sense?
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, I agree with you.
Mica Scalin:
Tool-wise, Zoom. What else? Email, Mailchimp.
Noah Scalin:
Mostly Zoom.
Tim Cynova:
Fax machines.
Noah Scalin:
Well, it's funny because Skull-A-Day was a blog. And so talking about pre all of the current technology, it's amazing that we've got so many ways now and so many rapid, easy tools to use and that. I mean Mica and I both have done live video stuff with our various projects years ago, when it was really hard to do, instead of be able to just jump on this and do this now. It's amazing.
Lauren Ruffin:
I think you're right around the... There's something about having to do things virtually that really strips bare the quality of your content. And to me, that's such an opportunity because the networking and the co-presence that happens in events. If someone doesn't like your stuff, they're still going to hang around the convention hall, or whatever, talking to people, and they're going to leave feeling good even if they hated every single one of your formal presentations. But I think the opportunity here is organizations getting really, really tight about how the quality of their content and the way things are structured, and then perhaps take some of that stuff back out into the real world with them, while also I think maintaining this digital piece hopefully forever because of the accessibility components.
Noah Scalin:
I think the hardest shift for me, just as somebody who is a public speaker and does a lot of presentations to large audiences, I'm used to that audience feedback. And so just my first few talks where there's just this silence and people are staring at you like you're on TV, I want an expressive face to show me you got what I just said, or a nodding head. And sometimes people are just so used to looking at a screen blankly. And so we did do some work to build in some tools to create a little more of that noise so that we get a sense of whether or not this was hitting, this was resonating. If you're going to do something live, you want it to connect with that audience instead of you can just watch a video of me giving a talk. But I want to have a live experience with you when I'm doing a live presentation to a client.
Mica Scalin:
Yeah, and I think we're still exploring. I think, like you said, I love this, you guys, it's two people talking. That provides that thing so you don't have that awkward you're just riffing and it's getting weird. So it's that having another person.
Tim Cynova:
I mean it still happens, Mica.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, we still have plenty of awkward, like three minutes.
Tim Cynova:
[inaudible 00:18:23].
Mica Scalin:
Having another individual live with you rather than just you and this void. Yeah, and we definitely worked on, again, we're still learning and collaborating with people to figure it out, which is great because we get to work with these really, really big companies that are often very technical anyway. They're game. We're like, "What are your best practices right now? Let's explore some of them together so that we can learn new stuff." And that's I think also what it was always about with our clients, this collaborative mindset. I'm excited because I think it has the opportunity to even be a little more so right now because they're also open to that. And I think we'll-
Noah Scalin:
I mean Mica is just doing a practice or an experiment right now on Instagram, which I really was excited to see. She's doing collaborative art making. I shouldn't speak for you. You can talk about it.
Mica Scalin:
You know, I see these spaces. Noah and I have always used the web as a creative development tool. And it was something I always tried to hammer into people's heads 10 years ago. And I think people are getting it now too. What do people like? The rawness, the authenticity. Like you said, if it's too polished on the internet, it seems fake and people actually don't like it. It's actually not what they want. They want to have a nice, polished streaming experience when they sit down and Netflix for seven hours. But when you're on the internet, it needs to feel live, authentic, or else people are going to drop off if it's not this insanely-crafted experience. So I think that liveness and that question mark of, "What's going to happen next?," is crucial to creating this content.
Mica Scalin:
So I think it's a space for experimentation, and I hope that other artists and creatives... I think they are doing that now and I think that's exciting. So I'm doing it myself. I'm [inaudible 00:19:55] just Creative Sprint prompts with people. We have a big community on Instagram from those Creative Sprints. So just calling on folks, and we just do one of the prompts together for about 20 minutes on Instagram live. And that's the experiment this week. We'll see where that goes next week.
Tim Cynova:
Nice. That's great. I've had conversations with my classes that I teach around what does the online experience look like. Unfortunately, we started this early in the semester about what's an online meeting look like, how is it different or similar from an in person meeting. And it's been interesting now that everyone's gone online in classes and meetings, and thinking about how do you manage your energy, how do you include different voices. When you used to be in the room, you could see people shift. It's been really interesting to watch late night talk show hosts who you can see this evolution of, "I'm just talking a screen, there's nothing coming back at me." And over the past couple of weeks how they've had to adapt the content and the way they interact to adjust for 500 people not giving them immediate feedback.
Tim Cynova:
But I think from a participant standpoint, how you can actually signal this through a Zoom call. You might need to nod a little bit more than you would, make sure you're not scowling. But it's been in real time really interesting. Well, it's been a really interesting time period. And one of the things that's come from that is, how do we figure out how to engage virtually now and what does that look like? And then I think, what does this look like going forward? I think Laura and I, this is one of the questions that we really have been sitting with a lot. What does live creativity look like for our sector, broadly speaking? When things start to open up, how can we hold onto the things that we think are really valuable right now that were "impossible" to do two months ago to make the world, this sector, a better place so that it's more inclusive, people can thrive?
Tim Cynova:
And that's one of the really promising things I think that we have an opportunity to come out of this with. Also really challenging as we're all going through this as human beings and just the uncertainty of life and what's happening to hold these at the same time.
Noah Scalin:
I mean obviously what's hard is we don't know what the other side of this is going to look like at all. So to guess what anybody's going to do in it, it's hard. But I think the opportunity here, and we talked about Creative Sprint, and when we do them we usually do this 30-day length of them. And part of that is because of that connection to this idea of habit forming. And I've been thinking a lot about the fact that this is happening long enough that we can develop new habits within it. Because if it was two weeks, we'd go back to normal. But with many months of it, I feel like, "Hey, these will become ingrained things," and ingrained things that are real good opportunities, right?
Noah Scalin:
Which is like, "Hey, we've been really like, "No, this has to happen in person.' Well, guess what? It doesn't. Every job can suddenly be done virtually." And, "Look, people aren't going to be able to get their work done." They can, and then they can have a much better home work-life balance that was impossible for people. And I think not everybody wants to be home all day, especially if their kids are home all day too, and those circumstances, but that has given people the ability to see, "Gee." I just heard from somebody who said, "I might not be sick enough to take a sick day, but I might work from home that day." That's going to make their life a lot better to be able to have that flexibility.
Mica Scalin:
I think it speaks to questioning some of the choices that were maybe arbitrary or based on somebody else's other needs. It's always a good time for questions, if you ask me, but obviously there's certain things that are set in place for ease. We call it expanding your defaults, but there are certain default settings that we use for ease, which we need to just have things be a little smooth in our day, not think about every single thing. And right now, at a time where we're being forced to actually... I've been thinking about this. Behavior change is very, very hard. It's a whole science of studying adult behavior change. Very difficult to do. Got to intentionally do it. Right now, we're being forced to change so many behaviors, so many habits, so many daily things. It's obviously very taxing on the brain and exhausting I think a lot of brain resources of humans right now, for sure. But I do think once then you've established a new habit, it's very hard to go back. So I think about that. Some of those habits, once they're changed and established here, which ones are going to stay?
Mica Scalin:
Because I had a friend last night, he was like, "Oh, everything's going to go back. Six months, everyone's going to be like," da, da, da. I was like, "No, man. No, it's not," because people don't switch like that.
Noah Scalin:
Yeah, and to build on what Mica is saying, we see this all the time with our work. If we're going to a space and introducing the artists' set of tools to people who have not been practicing them and haven't been utilizing them in their lives, there's a lot of resistance. And we set up things to make it easier for people to try and take risks. But it's scary for people, and people don't like to get out of their comfort zone. And literally we'll say to people all the time, "Leadership's going to have to make this a requirement for you to do it."
Noah Scalin:
Well, guess what? Now it's a requirement. Everything's required. We all have to do it, no matter how much you didn't want to do it or learn Zoom, or whatever it is, you got to do it. And so that's been really cool to see that correlation there between what we were already doing and that people are forced to give this stuff a try. And when you try it you go, "Oh, it wasn't as bad as I thought," or, "Oh, I learned something or I gained this. Wow, this is a cool thing. I'm more creative now. I didn't realize-
Mica Scalin:
And seeing what limitations really are limitations and which ones are arbitrary, which ones are real, which ones maybe aren't that limiting after all.
Noah Scalin:
And when you say limitations, we should embrace limitations as part of our work. And the reason we say that is that really it's the boundaries that create creativity. It's the things that you bounce off of and push off of that give you those interesting responses. And so it's like this is just one more of those box-like sides.
Tim Cynova:
We have one question about creativity from our coworker Molaundo, who we need to give a big shout out to. Molaundo has been live tweeting all of our episodes for us so I'll make sure we slide in Molaundo’s question here. This is specifically to Noah. My introduction to your work was your artwork on Instagram, which I think is awesome. I'm a painter too and was wondering what is the inspiration for your style and color palette? And we're going to go with that question. Then Lauren and I will share with everyone, as well as you two, our Netflix series, and then we land the plane.
Noah Scalin:
Oh my gosh. We could talk for another hour.
Lauren Ruffin:
You know what? We really could.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah.
Lauren Ruffin:
[inaudible 00:25:42].
Tim Cynova:
I mean we won't, but we could.
Lauren Ruffin:
Tim is going to use the powers of God to rip us apart.
Noah Scalin:
Again. Okay, fine. [inaudible 00:25:50].
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, so go with Molaundo’s question, yeah.
Noah Scalin:
Molaundo, thank you for that wonderful and very kind question. As an artist, I work with these days mostly everyday materials and I'm always just experimenting and practicing, trying different things. And one of the things that I developed was this idea of working with clothing to make portraiture, and so I started using clothing to do it. And when I did that, clothing comes in a certain range of colors. Obviously, it seems like every color, but when you get down to it, the clothing that I would collect would be these bright, colorful things and then this, whatever, blacks and tans and stuff. So that would become my palette just because of what I had to work with. And after I did a few of those, I really liked that pallet.
Noah Scalin:
And then I realized when I was going to do some painting that I wanted to stick with the palette that I developed. Because I liked the fact that when I've got this one set of colors, if I'm doing portraiture, which I like to focus on, it [inaudible 00:26:35] about skin tone and it becomes the same color palette for everybody. And so no matter whose portrait I'm doing, they all have the same sort of colors to create them, and I really like that. And I realized that part of what's happening when I'm doing this work, and I do this when I work with stickers as well, because stickers come in these really bright color palettes too. So it's a similar one in terms of all these really intense colors being used to make maybe more subtle colors or colors that you wouldn't necessarily expect them to combine into.
Noah Scalin:
But when I do that, I realized recently that I'm really seeing things in black and white and gray basically, that I translate color from hue to value. I think that's the right transition there, yeah. So it's basically light to dark rather than blue or red or yellow, et cetera. And so that's what's happening in my head when I make those pieces.
Tim Cynova:
Nice. Thanks for that. Molaundo, thank you for the question.
Noah Scalin:
[crosstalk 00:27:18].
Tim Cynova:
All right, so let's land the plane. If your life right now we're a Netflix show or series, what would it be called? Who wants to go first?
Noah Scalin:
You guys have an idea?
Mica Scalin:
I'll do one. Dance like three or four of your friends are watching on Zoom.
Tim Cynova:
Mine's a riff on a well-known show. Noah, it's called Who Wants to be an Introvert?
Mica Scalin:
Lauren?
Lauren Ruffin:
Mine is, first of all, shot in all black and white. It's a play on the first three letters in isolation and it is In Search Of Isolation because I am really accustomed to spending time by myself during the day. I'm now sharing the house with people I love very much, but who also are working my very last nerve, just because they're here. They're great people. I just don't want to be around anyone.
Noah Scalin:
Get out of my house.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. So yeah, I'm in search of isolation really.
Tim Cynova:
All I could come up with is this chair. It would be shot pretty much like you're seeing now. Just me sitting in this chair for 30 to 60 minutes each episode, maybe engaging with someone online or just staring at the monitor.
Lauren Ruffin:
[inaudible 00:28:21] of chair.
Tim Cynova:
Yes.
Noah Scalin:
Sort of a Warholesque [inaudible 00:28:24]. I like it.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, that's right. Exactly, Noah. That's exactly what I was going for, yeah.
Mica Scalin:
Noah, you one-upped mine, I just noticed on our thing. You wrote, "So you think you can dance with three or four of your friends watching on Zoom." That's even better. [inaudible 00:28:38]. Super offer. Zoom dance parties. Super offer guys, super offer. I tried it.
Noah Scalin:
And you shorten it, S-Y-T-Y-D or something.
Tim Cynova:
Well, I think that moment right there is how we should end this episode. It has been an absolute joy to get to spend 45 minutes with both of you. Thank you so much for taking time in your day to share the creative prompt and to share the time.
Noah Scalin:
Yeah, love it. Anytime.
Tim Cynova:
Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Caroline Woolard. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic and join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it, who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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