Creative Culture

Cassandra Aarssen the world's leading expert on decluttering and organizing. She helps people to understand why we have such a hard time dealing with all the stuff in our lives. In addition to general organizing advice, I wanted to have Cas on the show to help the artists and creative people who listen to this show with our workspaces. I've talked to thousands of people who seem to have the same struggles and challenges when it comes to their workshops and studios. We save every weird screw and fastener because "I might need that someday" or we save every scrap of plastic, because "I might be able to make an art project with that someday". We end up not knowing what we have or where anything is when we do actually want it.

Clutterbug on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Clutterbug

Clutterbug podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4NuPlpyet5LKQcM7bUCCw5?si=7802221e76734a45

Within 5 years, the U.S. is likely to reach a critical juncture where is will be difficult to hire anyone to fix a leaky pipe or worse, repair a structural problem with your house. Ethan James is a leader at the forefront of research and education on the trade labor shortage. In this episode of The WTS we discussed what is being done to encourage young people to learn a trade and fill the massive gaps being created by an aging workforce of skilled tradespeople who are reaching retirement age.

Plus, We discuss Ethan's list of the 7 most in-demand jobs right now. If you are a young person considering learning a trade, you are more needed now than ever. And you'll be able to earn some pretty high salaries in a short time.

Visit Ethan's YouTube channel, The Honest Carpenter: https://www.youtube.com/@TheHonestCarpenter

Support The WTS Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/thewts

Morgan Eckroth is the reigning US Barista Champion who finished second in the 2022 World Barista Championship. Morgandrinkscoffee is a blend of real world experience, practical advice, art, education, business, and pure entertainment: all revolving around coffee.

In a sea of angry videos, cynical videos, confrontational videos, endless clickbait and short-attention span noise, Morgan's short form videos are a breath of fresh air. These videos are brief vignettes recreating simple, quiet, slice of life moments in a real coffee shop. Morgan sets up the camera and performs the roles of both barista and customer. They're anecdotal scenes that all seem to be created from a place of honesty and observation. She's completely turned the script on what the internet has taught us to expect in a video. It's so weird how kindness is now radical.

Watch Morgandrinkscoffee on TikTok and YouTube

Support The WTS Podcast

Basia Adamiec is a metalsmith and silversmith who crafts fine jewelry and shares her work with the world on her YouTube channel, The Art of Metalsmithing, a great resource for learning the tools and techniques needed to make your own jewelry and become a jeweler. Check out her work:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheArtOfMetalsmithing

Support The WTS at https://www.patreon.com/thewts

Website: https://www.thewtspodcast.com/

Benjamin Sinclair is the bass player for The Beths, as well as a hand tool woodworker. He also plays saxophone and keeps a detailed online journal of his experiences touring on the road. In this episode, we talk about art, performing with The Beths, and the convergence of creative interests.

Read Ben's travel blog

Listen to The Beths on Spotify

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It was fun to catch up with Jason Hibbs from Bourbon Moth Woodworking and talk about the life cycle of woodworkers on YouTube, the Airstream cult, and why TV can't draw any audience for woodworking shows. We also have a formal statement from Blacktail Studio about the river table debate.

Bourbon Moth on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Bourbonmoth

Help support The WTS: https://www.patreon.com/thewts

Jon is a graffiti artist and teacher whose videos transcend mere education and touch upon other topics and philosophy in the world of art. In this episode we get into the future of art and how artificial intelligence can create art much quicker and, in many cases, just as good as humans. Will we really need human artists for most art creation, especially commercial art and graphic design?

Jon's video, The END of ART. https://youtu.be/x6cjWvjf220

Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/thewts

Help support The WTS: https://www.patreon.com/thewts

Kseniya Simonova's art is engaging, challenging, emotional, and inspiring…and she does it all with sand. Real-time stories, performed with sand.

I first discovered Kseniya back in 2019 when I saw her perform on America's Got Talent and was sent directly to the finals when Terry Crews gave her the golden buzzer. She also was a finalist on Britain's Got Talent, and the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent.

Kseniya has performed in more than 70 countries and presented her art to the Queen of Denmark, the Royal Families of Thailand, Morocco, Bhutan, Great Britain, Bahrain, as well as Presidents of Malta, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and many others. She's performed with symphony orchestras around the globe.

Check out her work on her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KseniyaSimonovaTV

Justin McElroy is a comedian, voice actor and podcaster known for long running podcasts such as Adventure Zone, Sawbones, My Brother, My Brother, and Me, and more. Woodworking has been his life's work since late May of 2020. In this episode we talk about woodworking, podcasting, comedy, and how I caught a cold.

Check out all the McElroy stuff: https://www.themcelroy.family/

How to fake in interest in woodworking: https://youtu.be/3atB76oL7yk

Support the podcdast: https://www.patreon.com/thewts

Support the podcast at: https://www.patreon.com/thewts

Cam Anderson from Blacktail Studio is back for the 3.5th time to talk about epoxy, big slabs of wood, and YouTube.

Blacktail Studio is still the most popular woodworking channel on YouTube, recently passing 2 million subscribers, a significant number of whom are probably hate-watching. (You know who you are.) Cam's got over 227 million channel views…and that's off the success of full-length videos, not shorts.

His videos feature really really big slabs of lumber, gallons and gallons of epoxy, and lots of dollar signs in the thumbnails. But above all the glamor and glitz, Cam is an artist and the furniture he makes is stunningly beautiful.

Blacktail Studio channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BlacktailStudio