Art · The Creative Process: Artists, Curators, Museum Directors Talk Art, Life & Creativity

How can the arts inspire us to lead lives of greater meaning and connection? What kind of world are we leaving for future generations?

Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of children's books. Executive Producer of Common Ground and its predecessor Kiss the Ground, which reached over 1 billion people and inspired the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The natural world and indigenous people are also the focus of Lennon’s other documentaries Whaledreamers, and Women of the White Buffalo. In 2007, Julian founded the global environmental and humanitarian organization The White Feather Foundation, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous culture, causes he also advances through his photography, exhibited across the US and Europe. His latest album Jude spans a body of work created over the last 30 years. Julian was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020.

"I don't honestly know entirely where I'm headed musically. I still have a lot of songs that I haven't finished that are relatively recent and some that go back to 40 years ago, if not more. You know, projects like this last album Jude, partially songs that never had a home, you know, that didn't quite fit on an album or another project. And so, I mean, strangely enough, what I've been doing personally for the end of this year has been going through trying to get all the admin out the way, so to speak. For instance, in the last six months to a year, but intensely so in the last few weeks, I've been archiving over 100,000 photographs of mine so that I can put more collections together, so I know where things are, et cetera, to get on with the creativity of photography next year and hopefully get around to a few more charity trips. Same thing with the music, getting that under wraps on the admin side. I don't want to do work with another label again, I think. I prefer to be in a position, where things organically happen, creatively speaking. So, the idea is to be in a position next year where if I write, record, and produce a song in a few days or a week, that within a week or two or a few weeks, I can press a button and release it out to the world. That's my plan for the future. Probably no albums, probably. EPs and singles, as they come. That's the idea for the future. And to just be as happy and present and as creative as possible next year. And help the projects and people that need help. That's my goal for the future. That's how I am. Because, again, if I'm not in a position of focus and in a position of love, then, you know, I can't help anybody else. So that's my goal is to be fully in that headspace next year."

https://julianlennon.com
https://commongroundfilm.org
https://kissthegroundmovie.com
https://whitefeatherfoundation.com
https://julianlennon.lnk.to/JudeWE
https://julianlennon-photography.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Q: Who is David Byrne?

David Byrne: ...I have no idea.

Most people know me through music, but when I was in high school I saw science and the arts as being equally creative fields. More recently, I just started taking an interest in how the brain works, and there's been this explosion of literature. As much as I love reading about neuroscience, I realize that experiencing some of the phenomena is just on a different level. I wanted to create an experience that shows us we're not who we think we are. Theater of the Mind is an immersive Science Theater project. With this show, I've tried to marry a narrative to the experience of different scientific phenomena that reveal how malleable our perception memory, and identity really are.

To make a production like this work, it's a big invisible team. There's actors, lighting designers sound designers, technical people so it's a really complicated system. This is the Theater of the Mind. How do we operate in a world where we're not sure what's real and what's not. If things are unreliable, then what do we trust? People think of science as being intimidating, but it also doesn't mean that you can't understand it or can't enjoy it. Our emotions, our sense of self, our relationship to other people is all connected to our perception, that you can't separate one of these things from another. They all work together to make us what we are.

What is consciousness? The mind produces thoughts, sensations, perception, emotions. How can these inner felt experiences be produced within the darkness of the human skull?

Nicholas Bruckman is founder and CEO of People's Television, a production studio and creative agency that produces independent films, and video storytelling for brands. Collaborating with the The Simons Foundation through their 'Science Sandbox' Initiative, he directed Theater of the Mind, which takes audiences into the creative inner workings of Musician and Artist David Byrne’s brain, showcasing Byrne’s immersive theater performance, which attempts to conceptualize the idea of our sense of self and how malleable the mind truly is.

He directed the award-winning healthcare justice documentary Not Going Quietly, executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass.

John Tracey is Program Director of Science, Society and Culture projects at the Simons Foundation whose mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences to unravel the mysteries of the universe. The foundation champions basic science through grant funding, support for research and public engagement.

Ian Moubayed started his career as a cinematographer, collaborating with Emmy, Peabody, and Oscar-winning filmmakers. His work includes Netflix’s The Great Hack, NBC Peacock’s The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show, and HBO’s  The Vow.

www.youtube.com/@sciencesandbox
www.davidbyrne.com
https://nickny.com/bio
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/people/john-tracey/
https://peoples.tv/director/ian-moubayed/

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What is consciousness? The mind produces thoughts, sensations, perception, emotions. How can these inner felt experiences be produced within the darkness of the human skull?

Nicholas Bruckman is founder and CEO of People's Television, a production studio and creative agency that produces independent films, and video storytelling for brands. Collaborating with the The Simons Foundation through their 'Science Sandbox' Initiative, he directed Theater of the Mind, which takes audiences into the creative inner workings of Musician and Artist David Byrne’s brain, showcasing Byrne’s immersive theater performance, which attempts to conceptualize the idea of our sense of self and how malleable the mind truly is.

He directed the award-winning healthcare justice documentary Not Going Quietly, executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass.

John Tracey is Program Director of Science, Society and Culture projects at the Simons Foundation whose mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences to unravel the mysteries of the universe. The foundation champions basic science through grant funding, support for research and public engagement.

Ian Moubayed started his career as a cinematographer, collaborating with Emmy, Peabody, and Oscar-winning filmmakers. His work includes Netflix’s The Great Hack, NBC Peacock’s The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show, and HBO’s  The Vow.

Q: Who is David Byrne?

David Byrne: ...I have no idea.

Most people know me through music, but when I was in high school I saw science and the arts as being equally creative fields. More recently, I just started taking an interest in how the brain works, and there's been this explosion of literature. As much as I love reading about neuroscience, I realize that experiencing some of the phenomena is just on a different level. I wanted to create an experience that shows us we're not who we think we are. Theater of the Mind is an immersive Science Theater project. With this show, I've tried to marry a narrative to the experience of different scientific phenomena that reveal how malleable our perception memory, and identity really are.

To make a production like this work, it's a big invisible team. There's actors, lighting designers sound designers, technical people so it's a really complicated system. This is the Theater of the Mind. How do we operate in a world where we're not sure what's real and what's not. If things are unreliable, then what do we trust? People think of science as being intimidating, but it also doesn't mean that you can't understand it or can't enjoy it. Our emotions, our sense of self, our relationship to other people is all connected to our perception, that you can't separate one of these things from another. They all work together to make us what we are.

www.youtube.com/@sciencesandbox
www.davidbyrne.com
https://nickny.com/bio
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/people/john-tracey/
https://peoples.tv/director/ian-moubayed/

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"

You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.

In terms of The Church arts center. It's not a religious institution, but it had been an old Methodist church that was built originally in 1835, and we renovated it to be an arts and creativity center. The arts are deeply important and creativity in all its forms is equally important to encourage and extol. So it was a natural place to develop that way, where we have art and poetry readings, and we have dance performances and rehearsals. And all of our residents are from different kinds of creative endeavors, and we haven't quite enacted this as much as I would like, but we want to have people who are computer scientists, composers, environmentalists, and anyone who is using creativity to make a positive change in the world and to express themselves. So that's the basic idea."

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?

April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour’s arts district, and in this episode, we’ll also hear from some of the talented artists they’ve brought to their stages.

www.aprilgornik.com
www.thechurchsagharbor.org
www.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2
https://sagharborcinema.org/

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Kimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846
Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?

April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour’s arts district, and in this episode, we’ll also hear from some of the talented artists they’ve brought to their stages.

"I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"

You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.

In terms of The Church arts center. It's not a religious institution, but it had been an old Methodist church that was built originally in 1835, and we renovated it to be an arts and creativity center. The arts are deeply important and creativity in all its forms is equally important to encourage and extol. So it was a natural place to develop that way, where we have art and poetry readings, and we have dance performances and rehearsals. And all of our residents are from different kinds of creative endeavors, and we haven't quite enacted this as much as I would like, but we want to have people who are computer scientists, composers, environmentalists, and anyone who is using creativity to make a positive change in the world and to express themselves. So that's the basic idea."

www.aprilgornik.com
www.thechurchsagharbor.org
www.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2
https://sagharborcinema.org/

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Kimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846
Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

Additional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

"I've never wanted to be invisible. I'm voyeuristic, but in a purely intellectual way. I would suspect the reason for functioning in a vertical format is because the horizontal rectangle is the proportion of all narration, all visual narrative in all society now. In my case, the content is when I get my vision sufficiently stimulated to where I can perceive the corner of this desk with sufficient clarity to render it in some sort of monumental way. I want to make pictures of absolutely nothing purely based on the force of my perception and the power of photography."

How does the mind influence the mind? The mind cannot function without memory. And memory is just the mind aware of itself. So how do images tell us how we see and who we are?

Ralph Gibson is one of the most interesting American photographers of our time. His international renown is based on his work, which is shown and collected by some of the world’s leading museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J.P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Creative Center for Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland.

Gibson’s works reveal a meticulous aesthetic and visual territory edging on the surreal. His recent books include his memoir Self Exposure, Sacred Land: Israel before and after Time, and Secret of Light, which accompanied his exhibition at the Deichtorhallen House of Photography in Hamburg. He is a Leica Hall of Fame Inductee and has been awarded the French Legion of Honor. In 2022, The Gibson | Goeun Museum of Photography devoted to his work opened in Busan, South Korea.

www.ralphgibson.com
www.deichtorhallen.de/en/ausstellung/ralph-gibson
www.gibsongoeunmuseum.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How does the mind influence the mind? The mind cannot function without memory. And memory is just the mind aware of itself. So how do images tell us how we see and who we are?

Ralph Gibson is one of the most interesting American photographers of our time. His international renown is based on his work, which is shown and collected by some of the world’s leading museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J.P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Creative Center for Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland.

Gibson’s works reveal a meticulous aesthetic and visual territory edging on the surreal. His recent books include his memoir Self Exposure, Sacred Land: Israel before and after Time, and Secret of Light, which accompanied his exhibition at the Deichtorhallen House of Photography in Hamburg. He is a Leica Hall of Fame Inductee and has been awarded the French Legion of Honor. In 2022, The Gibson | Goeun Museum of Photography devoted to his work opened in Busan, South Korea.

"I've never wanted to be invisible. I'm voyeuristic, but in a purely intellectual way. I would suspect the reason for functioning in a vertical format is because the horizontal rectangle is the proportion of all narration, all visual narrative in all society now. In my case, the content is when I get my vision sufficiently stimulated to where I can perceive the corner of this desk with sufficient clarity to render it in some sort of monumental way. I want to make pictures of absolutely nothing purely based on the force of my perception and the power of photography."

www.ralphgibson.com
www.deichtorhallen.de/en/ausstellung/ralph-gibson
www.gibsongoeunmuseum.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What makes films memorable and meaningful? Great cinematographers are not only translators of a director’s vision but are involved in a dance between director and actor. When combined with personal techniques like handheld, the camera itself can become a character, bringing us back in time and behind the eyes of well-known figures like Van Gogh and Stephen Hawking, which is what Benoît Delhomme did in the films At Eternity’s Gate and The Theory of Everything.

Benoît Delhomme studied cinematography at the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière and went on to make his breakthrough as a director of photography for the movie The Scent of Green Papaya directed by Tran Anh Hung. The film went on to win the Caméra d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. Benoît has established himself as an international cinematographer and has worked with creatives such as Al Pacino, Julian Schnabel, and James Marsh. Over the years, Benoît Delhomme has worked on a wide array of films where his focus has been to tell a strong story through the visual. This focus has shined not only through his work as a cinematographer, but also his work as a painter.

"If you want to do your art well, you need to have some pleasure. If talking is not a pleasure, it's horrible. And when filming on a set is a bad experience, it's one of the worst things in life. As a cinematographer, if you can't make what you do personal to you, there is no soul. You need to make it personal.

I don't know if Julian Schnabel trusted me, and I had to prove myself. For example, he had another guy in mind. And for many weeks, he said to me, 'Maybe we should keep two cinematographers?' And one evening he said, 'I'm going to paint in my outdoor studio tonight if you want to come.' And, I went to see him painting and brought a small digital camera. And he had music on and was doing this incredible painting. I was kind of fascinated to be there. We didn't talk. He knew I was filming him. He didn't say anything. So I spent part of the night cutting my small documentary. And in the morning at breakfast, I put my computer on the breakfast table and showed it to him, and he was so focused and very moved by what he saw. And he said, 'Okay, you captured what I was doing. You've got the film.'"

www.benoitdelhomme.com
www.benoitdelhommestudio.com
www.instagram.com/benoitdelhomme

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"If you think Arnold is just some muscle guy, well go look in the book. Go see how Annie Leibovitz envisioned him. Go see how Robert Mapplethorpe saw him. Go see how Andy Warhol saw him. Go see how Herb Ritts saw him. He was inspiration for all of these people.”

“Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.” – ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Is there any better example of the American Dream than Arnold Schwarzenegger? What does it take to make your vision a reality? How do you cultivate iron focus to overcome any obstacle and realize your dreams?

On the publication of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s limited edition two-volume book published by TASCHEN, we sat down with Senior Editor and Writer Dian Hansen to discuss Schwarzenegger’s life, accomplishments, and history of unforgettable performances. The book has been a decade-long collaborative process and along with portraits by leading photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavullo, and Andy Warhol, it is also filled with photos from Arnold’s private archive and exclusive interviews. Dian’s other works include The Art of Pin-up, Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, and The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta.

www.taschen.com/en/limited-editions/film/03105/arnold-collector-s-edition

www.schwarzenegger.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Image courtesy of Taschen.
Photo credit: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER IN VENICE, CALIFORNIA. PHOTO BY ALBERT BUSEK, 1980

“Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.” – ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Is there any better example of the American Dream than Arnold Schwarzenegger? What does it take to make your vision a reality? How do you cultivate iron focus to overcome any obstacle and realize your dreams?

On the publication of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s limited edition two-volume book published by TASCHEN, we sat down with Senior Editor and Writer Dian Hansen to discuss Schwarzenegger’s life, accomplishments, and history of unforgettable performances. The book has been a decade-long collaborative process and along with portraits by leading photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavullo, and Andy Warhol, it is also filled with photos from Arnold’s private archive and exclusive interviews. Dian’s other works include The Art of Pin-up, Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, and The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta.

"If you think Arnold is just some muscle guy, well go look in the book. Go see how Annie Leibovitz envisioned him. Go see how Robert Mapplethorpe saw him. Go see how Andy Warhol saw him. Go see how Herb Ritts saw him. He was inspiration for all of these people.”

www.taschen.com/en/limited-editions/film/03105/arnold-collector-s-edition

www.schwarzenegger.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Images courtesy of Taschen.
Photo credits:
Cover
Arnold Schwarzenegger for the film End of Days. Sante D'Orazio, 1999
Governor Schwarzenegger with the Lincoln Memorial · Photo by Peter Grigsby, 2009
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lulu at his Los Angeles home · Photo by Tracy Nguyen, 2021