Fresh Aesthetic with Stephen Garton

The ever looming threat of deadlines can sometimes feel so overwhelming. If you don’t tread carefully, this can lead to a loss of quality in your work over time as you try and meet the ongoing deluge of incoming work. Today's episode is a raw and honest look at the importance of boundaries in our lives while still aiming to stay playful in our creating. 

This episode is an interview I did with Jasher Drake. This conversation really inspired me to be more intentional about maintaining creative outlets in any way that I can in my life. Creativity and times of play can be the first things to disappear when we get busy or have really stressful weeks, but they are often the one thing that is actually keeping us sane. The recurring theme that kept jumping out to me in this conversation was to prioritise time to be creative! 

Go check out Jasher's Podzilla podcast here: https://anchor.fm/podzilla9

Vulnerability is very important for sharing our ideas with others, and healthy collaboration is an important part of progressing ideas and moving a creative project forward. In today’s episode we continue our discussion on the creative process by talking about how to progress an idea forward into a more refined version of itself. We also discuss the benefits of collaboration along with the vulnerability required to offer up your ideas to other people for critique.

This week's episode is an extended interview with Josh Peacey of @viloeyewear.  One of the many highlights from the interview is the discussion around  happiness compared to contentedness. We also discuss social media, the Metaverse, creativity outside the arts, and how to be present every day.

Resources from the episode:

Join us as we discuss the stage of the creative process where an idea is born. One of the things we talk about is that you have to have a strong balance between blind tenacity and teach-ability when launching into a new idea in order to keep yourself in a healthy position creatively. We also discuss the need to be open to critique when being creative, which is extremely difficult when it's something that is so close to your heart. 

In this week's episode I interview a good friend, Jeremy Tattersall, and we discuss life, theology, and the importance of living in community. 

A hook is the device used to reel a potential audience member into your art form. Crafting a good hook is a vital part for first getting an audience and then maintaining them. In the age of innumerable distractions, this is no mean feat! Join us in this episode as we discuss what it means to craft a good hook.

In this week's episode I talk to Kimberley Kilgour about the highs and lows of starting out on a new adventure in business, lessons from a single mum, and tips for living a more fulfilled life with better mental well being. 

Following on from episode one where we discussed the importance of showing up, this episode dives into the importance of increasing your range of influences in order to get inspired to make fresh art of your own. The premise of "stealing like an artist" comes from Austin Kleon's book by the same name, where he posits that in order to make good art you need to "steal from many", as opposed to disrespecting an artist by stealing from just one person. If this concept intrigues you then be sure to check out his book linked below. Whether we like it or not, we are all influenced by the world around us, so we may as well embrace it and expand the amount of art and content that influences us in order to make better art. 

Books referenced in this episode:

My Inner Sky - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55472612-my-inner-sky

Steal Like an Artist - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13099738-steal-like-an-artist?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=DfqglMwRn3&rank=1

This week on the show I interviewed Whangarei's Mayor, Sheryl Mai. She shared about some of her experiences leading a city and reflected on her time as Mayor. She also shared some insight into how to overcome some of the many criticisms that can come your way when in a place of authority or leadership. If you enjoy the episode, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving a rating on Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for the support as always!