Highway 62

Summary

Grace Alley, owner of Nomadic Ceramics, shares her journey from corporate America to pursuing her passion for ceramics. She discusses the challenges and rewards of running a small business and the importance of connecting her art with a greater purpose. Grace also talks about her second location in Durango and her plans to create an eco collective. She emphasizes the value of personal interaction and offers classes for those interested in learning ceramics.

Takeaways

Combining passion with a small business can be challenging but rewarding. Creating an eco collective allows for collaboration and a greater purpose. Personal interaction and connection with customers is important for small businesses. Offering classes can be a way to share knowledge and engage with the community.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background 02:19 Transitioning from Hobby to Career 03:36 Opening a Shop at Art Queen 05:21 The Nomadic Ceramics Experience 07:15 Expanding to a Second Location in Durango 09:05 Creating an Eco Collective 10:27 Balancing Time Between Locations 12:17 Volunteering and Planting Trees in Ghana 13:37 Long-Distance Relationship and Waiting for a Visa 14:42 Durango's Cycling Community 16:22 Website and Online Presence 17:38 Traveling Between Joshua Tree and Durango 19:29 The Rewards and Challenges of Running a Small Business 21:04 Conclusion

Instagram HERE

visit the webiste HERE

Danny (00:00.654) All right, Grace Alley, thank you so much for joining me here on the Highway 62 podcast. How are you today?

Grace Alley (00:07.832) I'm good. are you today, Danny?

Danny (00:09.453) Doing great. I'm down in Irvine here. I got to fly out Friday to go to Canada for a show for the weekend and staying down here a little bit during the summer just to, you know, enjoy a little bit less heat. So yeah, it's actually been good. So got the pool right out here and just living life. So, you know, you are the owner of Nomadic Ceramics and you have a location in 29 Palms and

Grace Alley (00:24.984) Yeah. Yeah.

Danny (00:37.152) Yes, also have a second location we're going to talk about in a little bit. But before we get kind of deep into, you know, the shops and what you're doing there and all that stuff, give us a little bit of your background and where you're from and, know, and how you kind of ended up doing what you're doing now.

Grace Alley (00:53.269) Okay, yeah, I'm from Colorado. I was born and raised in Golden.

group traveling and you know long story short it took me quite a while to graduate college. I kept coming in and out of college and traveling and that's where I first went to Africa and then I ended up in corporate America up in Seattle after college and that's where I started doing ceramics as a hobby.

And I always was trying to figure out this balance between my passion and making a living. So I was trying my hand in corporate worlds. And that was a couple of years of a total disaster because I am definitely not meant for a conventional path. And I did everything you're supposed to do wrong times 100 in my corporate life. But luckily that's where it.

sort of learned a little bit of business acumen and ceramics was always a hobby and it just sort of took over. I moved from Seattle down to Desert Hot Springs to work in Cannabis Corporate and that didn't work out either. So my hobby became my career, I guess, about a year and seven months ago.

Danny (02:19.103) so pretty recent, okay.

Grace Alley (02:21.227) It feels, it sounds very reasoned, but so much has happened. But the company I was working for in Desert Hot Springs dissolved and I was like, let me try my hand and see if I could turn this interest of mine, this passion of mine, ceramics, into something I could rely on to make money on. So I wasn't sure what I was gonna do and I just, I came up here and I started doing the pop -up markets at 29 Palms and...

Danny (02:25.586) Yeah.

Grace Alley (02:48.616) got to know the community really well through that. You're interfacing face to face with people every Saturday morning and you're out there with your ceramics and introducing yourself to the community. So I got to know people that way. It was such a great experience there.

Danny (03:01.895) How did you originally get interested or get started doing ceramics?

Grace Alley (03:07.134) I took two semesters of it in college and I shouldn't have been allowed in the class. I was an anthropology major and the art department only wants art majors. So I begged the professor to let me in and I said, this may change my life. Please let me in the class. And lo and behold, it did. So now I think I'm doing it for a living. It still hasn't sunk in, but...

Danny (03:09.274) Okay.

Danny (03:34.842) Hehehehe

Grace Alley (03:36.105) The pop -up markets in 29 led to getting a little shop over at Art Queen. And Art Queen's right in the heart of Joshua Tree, as I'm a lot of your viewers and watchers know and listeners know. So I got super, super lucky and super blessed to get one of the little shed shops at Art Queen. And I still have that shop and I've had that shop for a year and three months now.

Danny (03:44.675) Yeah.

Danny (03:48.463) Sure.

Danny (04:02.019) Gotcha. And Golden, Colorado, that's that's where the Coors plant is, right? OK, yeah. OK, I I've spent a lot of time in Colorado. Actually, I just got I was just in Denver to Wigan two weekends ago. And but when I was younger, my uncle, who was originally from Wisconsin, I grew up in Chicago, but my uncle went to school in Boulder. So we would come out and visit and.

Grace Alley (04:06.418) That's right. Yeah, grew up across the street from Coors, actually.

Danny (04:30.422) Yeah, I remember going up to Golden and going to the Coors factory and it had that smell, that brewing smell like every everywhere.

Grace Alley (04:36.476) Yeah. Yeah, I grew up smelling that smell every single day. I love it, by the way.

Danny (04:44.362) Yeah, I'm sure you get used to it and whatnot, but I love that area. It's beautiful. Beautiful out there.

Grace Alley (04:52.003) is really beautiful. Colorado is an amazing place. There's plenty to do if you love doing things outside. And it's developed a lot and changed a lot since I was little. There's a lot of amazing microbreweries, amazing restaurants. now that I've opened my second shop in Durango, that's like the southwest corner. I had never gotten to explore Telluride, Silverton, Durango. It is so beautiful down there.

Danny (04:54.709) Yeah.

Danny (04:58.027) Yeah.

Danny (05:17.649) Okay, yeah.

Yeah, it sounds like it. Tell us a little bit about your shop that you have in Joshua Tree there. You know, what is it exactly you sell? What all do you do there?

Grace Alley (05:31.27) I've always been unable to be a production potter, which means everything I make is a one -off or a small set or like something big and complex. luckily having the opportunity over at Art Queen afforded me the opportunity to be experimental in ceramics. It's harder to do that if you're just selling online or at pop -ups because you can't cultivate an audience plus you can't fail. You can't try things.

Danny (05:39.524) Okay.

Grace Alley (06:00.888) mess it up and have it not work out if you're always hustling and trying to get to markets and trying to get in front of your audience. So this is why I say I'm incredibly blessed to have the opportunity over at Art Queen. And that's what they're all about over there too. They're all about giving artists access to customers and access to a brick and mortar or a between. I have a little shed shop over there. It's affordable. It allows me to experiment and bring in things I never knew would sell.

Danny (06:00.892) Mm -hmm.

Danny (06:25.745) Mm

Grace Alley (06:30.435) and see the reaction on people's faces when they want to consume these products. So it's been given me a lot of direction as an artist and a great foundation of clientele to build relationships with. Art Queen is an amazing place. I got it before and now it's been transitioned into new ownership. It's owned by a nonprofit now called AHA Projects and they are doing some massive renovations over there.

Danny (06:42.681) Yeah.

Danny (06:54.81) Okay.

Grace Alley (06:59.172) And it is just so exciting. Everybody's so excited. It's under construction right now. If you're used to this area and you drive by, it looks really crazy right now. They've torn out everything and come fall it should be really nice to walk around in there.

Danny (07:01.495) Awesome.

Danny (07:15.858) Now, so you're primarily just selling ceramics that you create, not anything from any other creators, is that correct?

Grace Alley (07:24.714) I used to just be me, but I actually have a couple people on my team now, some amazing and talented people who want to help out and want to see other things do and it gives me the opportunity to help them too.

Danny (07:26.733) Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Danny (07:35.882) Yeah, gotcha. Okay, do you do classes or anything for people that want to learn how to do ceramics? Okay, great.

Grace Alley (07:45.419) Yeah, I do classes. do things at people's Airbnbs where I'll come have a custom class for them. Sometimes an engagement party and the ladies want to get wild and make pinch pots. Other times it's people who want to do energy work and healing and all the things. So luckily with Clay you could do all the things.

Danny (07:52.362) cool.

Danny (08:03.297) Gotcha.

Danny (08:06.838) Gotcha. And again, I mean, a year and seven months seems like a really short. mean, it is a really short period of time that goes by in the blink of an eye. And, you know, I'm still a small, I've had a small business for 20 years now and, know, just planning things and it just. Everything just seems to be upon you so quickly all the time. And so in that short period of time, then you have also opened this second location in Durango. Is that correct?

Grace Alley (08:36.204) That's right. And I attribute that to what I've been given at Art Queen. Having an affordable space and the opportunity to develop my skill set in both creativity and the business side. I have been running around the desert like a chicken with my head cut off for a year and a half because of the perception of the demand of running a business and what you think you need to do and what's enough.

Danny (08:48.862) Mm -hmm.

Danny (09:01.512) Yeah.

Grace Alley (09:05.969) And luckily I could spin my wheels a little bit because, you know, owning a small business and being creative, you might go in the wrong direction a little bit here and there before you figure out, I don't want to be doing that. But I've been putting in the effort and trying to grow the business and trying to take care of others too. The things I'm ready to progress on from other people are excited to do. So.

Here's a good example. I have a thrower. So I have a guy who throws for me because I want to do more of the embellishment and more of these carved vessels. So I've got a kid who loves throwing.

Danny (09:45.298) What is that exactly for someone like myself that knows nothing?

Grace Alley (09:51.264) That's when you put the clay on the wheel and make it spin and pull it and create the item. So that's throwing pottery.

Danny (09:53.617) Okay, okay, gotcha.

Gotcha, okay.

Grace Alley (10:01.01) Yeah, and that's what I kind of want the Art Queen store to be now, is I want to be able to bring in artists who want to learn how to learn how to talk to people, how to learn what to make and how to sell their things. as I'm moving on and changing my focus into the Durango location, I'm sort of opening up the Art Queen store to other artists who want to contribute and see how their things do over there.

Danny (10:24.005) How are you splitting your time between these locations?

Grace Alley (10:27.901) Right now I have a couple people doing things for me over at Art Queen and I've been focused on Durango. I've only had the Durango store for about a month and a half now. So I'm back in the desert right now to get things to bring up there, but I've been focusing on Durango and both shops are intended to be part of the eco collective. So up until very recently, it was just me, just my work and just me experimenting in creativity and business. But now that I've got a little time under my belt

Danny (10:37.38) Gotcha.

Grace Alley (10:57.343) business is growing a little bit, decided to bridge my two worlds. And like I talked about in the very beginning, I've been going back and forth to Africa for 12 years. I've been going to Ghana. I've gone to Ghana like eight times now. And I volunteered over there. There's a whole story in there, but I've always been wanting to connect the two worlds. And what I decided to make happen was to create each business, the art queen business and the Durango business into an eco collective. So that means

Danny (11:15.873) You

Grace Alley (11:27.358) whoever's art is in there, mine and my team's art, inherently within the purchase price of some of the items is the $10 to plant a tree. So we add $10 on to some of the items and we give clients the option to give us increments of $10 over the asking price of the art and that those funds go directly to my husband who's in Ghana and he plants trees with those funds. So they can plant a tree for $10 anytime.

Danny (11:39.926) Mm -hmm.

Danny (11:52.811) you

Grace Alley (11:55.901) And sometimes on the larger pieces, maybe I'll add 20 or $30 onto the price or maybe even $100. And they're planting 10 trees. So when they take this home and they have it in their home forever, they know that their trees are out there growing as reviewing this item.

Danny (12:07.457) But yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. How did you originally get interested in going to Africa and doing work there?

Grace Alley (12:17.085) Towards the end of college, I did a child labor and trafficking mitigation project with a college group. And it's a non -governmental over in Ghana. I just went and did six months. It was like an extremely abrasive and life -changing event. And that's where I met Safo. And 13 years later, we're married now, and he's got his non -governmental. They've planted 15 ,000 trees. And he just opened a school.

And we're waiting on his visa so he can come to the US for the first time he's ever been here. But in the meantime, I'm collecting funds for him and sending it to him so he could continue planting the trees.

Danny (12:44.074) Wow.

Danny (12:48.383) Okay.

Danny (12:55.134) Wow, so he's there full time and you guys have been doing this long distance and thing for quite a while. That's gotta be a challenge.

Grace Alley (13:02.328) Yeah, for a very long time. It's like so ingrained at this point. I don't even think too much about it. But right now, it's been over two years since I've seen him. And the Ghana visa office is extra, extra backed up because of COVID. And plus, they don't have the infrastructure we have.

Danny (13:27.909) Yeah.

Grace Alley (13:28.931) So we're just waiting on the visa, we're planting trees and making art, and we know we'll see each other again someday, but it's just the nature of what we're doing. But there's no alternative for us.

Danny (13:31.021) Okay.

Danny (13:37.649) Sure.

Danny (13:42.075) Gotcha. Gotcha. What made you choose Durango for your second location?

Grace Alley (13:48.588) it wasn't that I chose it. It's that I was coming up on summer here in the desert last year and I was trying to get a strategy together of how to supplement with the seasonality. We all know up here in the summer, there's a bit of a drop off. So I just started looking around for retail locations and I, it was pretty serendipitous that it was in my home state. It was on, at a main street location with big, huge windows and it came with a bigger rent.

Danny (13:56.571) Mm -hmm.

Danny (14:12.208) Yeah.

Grace Alley (14:17.986) So I was like, can I do this? I gave it a go. It's always a risk growing your business. And it's been a month. So we have no way to know if my risk is going to pay off yet. But I'm here to try. And I'm here to make art.

Danny (14:26.521) Yeah, yeah, sure.

Danny (14:32.622) Okay, gotcha. Yeah, wonderful. Are you a cyclist by chance at all? you into cycling?

Grace Alley (14:40.474) I need to get a bike or not show my face in Durango.

Danny (14:45.795) Exactly. I mean, it's home to Sep Kuz who's like, you know, this amazing American cyclist, winner of the Vuelta a España Tour de France stage winner. I'm a cycling dork. So, you know, you said Durango, the first thing I said to my girlfriend yesterday, I'm like, that's where Sep Kuz is from, you know, and like most people are like, I've never heard of this person you're you're talking about. So but yeah, it's a hotbed of the cycling community and

mountain biking and whatnot. So it's, it's, it, you know, it's one of those places that has, you know, I have a soft spot for, so I love all those, those mountain communities that are, you know, have such a cycling, background. So yeah, you'll be riding, you'll be mountain biking and riding bikes in no time.

Grace Alley (15:20.967) Mm -hmm.

Grace Alley (15:29.229) That's right. know it really is amazing. It's everybody around there just loves nature. Everybody's really happy, healthy. It's a really big blessing to be able to have a shop there. I maybe should turn it into a ceramic, like a bike themed ceramics.

Danny (15:34.623) Yeah.

Danny (15:40.617) Yeah, that's great.

Danny (15:45.986) Well, yeah, yeah, definitely. I think you got it. You got to got to work some cycling into the ceramic shop for sure.

Grace Alley (15:52.81) Yeah, I'll park little bikes into the side of the cups or.

Danny (15:57.404) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You do a Tour de France edition. So, you know, something every every July during the Tour de France. So what is so beyond visiting the shops? Do you have a website or is there? Is that not work within the model since everything is kind of one off creations?

Grace Alley (16:07.97) Yeah?

Grace Alley (16:22.315) I do have a website. I'm working on being better with the computer and updating the website. My focus has always been person to person interaction. And I tell all of my clients, my customers, just call me, just text me. I'm small enough to where if you want something, you can literally just text me. I'm making it special for you. And that's how that goes. But if people want to plant a tree,

Danny (16:33.214) Mm -hmm.

Danny (16:43.006) Yeah.

Grace Alley (16:47.415) It's nomadicceramic .shop. It's $10. We plant the tree and we watch it for two years and make sure it grows up nice and strong. And it's $10 anytime. So if anybody wants to get a gift for somebody or plant a tree at any time, it's $10. The funds go directly to my husband, Safo. And that's also a place where you might find some of the things I make once in a while updated to my website if I have time.

Danny (17:14.737) Gotcha. When do you think you'll, you'll be back out in Joshua Tree?

Grace Alley (17:19.83) I'm here now for the Leo Party and I'm wrapping up some work at the studio and then I'm gonna head back to Durango and kind of see out summer there. And I'm just gonna bounce back and forth. only a 10 hour drive and the drive goes through Navajo Nation, which looks like Mars. So I'm intrigued by the nature between. Yeah.

Danny (17:21.552) Okay.

Danny (17:37.243) Cool. Yeah. That sounds like a nice road trip.

Grace Alley (17:43.989) It is, if you like 118 degree heat.

Danny (17:47.259) You're used to it. Come on. You live in the desert, you know.

Grace Alley (17:51.145) I know, I actually really like prefer the heat. So I know that I'm a desert dweller. I know that my spirit is happy here. Cause even Colorado in the summertime, I'm like, it's not quite hot enough.

Danny (18:05.125) my God. Yeah. You know, it's so weird. It seems like the older I get, the less I'm dealing with like really hot as easy as I used to. But in general, if I got to choose hot or cold, I'm definitely, I'm definitely a hot person for sure. I definitely would rather deal with a little bit of, you know, warm temperature versus cold weather. I hate the cold, but that is a...

Grace Alley (18:23.04) Yeah. Well, it like it offers that in a nice spring and fall out here, huh?

Danny (18:34.617) I know God, I used to do so much spring skiing in Colorado when I every, you know, when I was in Chicago, I'd always make that pilgrimage in the spring to go skiing out there and always just, that, that was great. Great, great weather and just such a great time. Yeah, I'm to have to come out for sure. grace, thanks so much for taking time to be on the show. I really love what you're doing. you know, combining these.

Grace Alley (18:49.097) Welcome come shred and drink. anytime.

Danny (19:02.23) two things that you really have a passion for. I mean, you know, again, I'm a small business owner and I know how hard it can be. It's always up and down, but you know, the other side of it is you're, you know, how keeping, always keeping in mind how lucky you are, you know, to be able to do these two things when somebody else, you know, has to go off to work. you know, every day, you know, I'm down here at my girlfriend's house. She's a nurse, you know.

Grace Alley (19:03.011) Absolutely.

Yeah.

Danny (19:29.703) Every day she comes home and she's like, God, you're so lucky. What'd you do today? And I'm like, well, you know, I did some stuff on the computer, but I went for a bike ride around two in the afternoon. And it's like, there's all these positive elements of working for yourself. And then there's the negative, you know, sides of it as well. But you know, I think you're real lucky to be able to combine these passions and do something you really love and do something good with it at the same time. I think is really wonderful.

Grace Alley (19:58.601) Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more and I think that that has to be part of it for me I can't just sit here and be a ceramist living in the desert having two shops I had to connect the two worlds because it's such a blessing to have worked for myself to be able to do this that I cannot just

Danny (20:08.863) Yeah.

Grace Alley (20:17.902) enjoy that by myself. And enjoying something by yourself, it just isn't as fun. Thank you.

Danny (20:19.541) Yeah.

Danny (20:23.61) That's great. Grace, thanks so much. I will put in the show notes. I'll put the website, the Nomadic Ceramic Doc shop, said, correct. If people want to donate to plant a tree, I'll put your Instagram, all that kind of stuff down there so people know where to find you. yeah, for anybody that's listening to the show that isn't in the area, because I do know I look at the demographics and we do have a lot of.

Grace Alley (20:42.117) Right on.

Danny (20:50.225) you know, listeners and a lot of people following the Instagram that, you know, live in LA and stuff like that. So, you know, make sure when you're coming through town and you know, you make a stop there at the art queen, you can't miss it and, check out the ceramics. Thanks so much.

Grace Alley (21:01.701) Right on.

Thank you so much, Danny. was such a blessing and an honor to be here. Thank you. See ya.

Danny (21:08.241) My pleasure. All right. Cool.

Rob Han is a photographer known for his landscape and portrait photography. He started his career in fashion and portrait photography but eventually shifted his focus to capturing the American West. Rob finds the landscape and subject matter of the American West appealing because of its romantic and minimalist qualities. He plans his road trips by researching areas of interest and also enjoys stumbling upon unexpected locations. Rob shoots primarily on film and takes a limited number of shots, focusing on capturing the essence of the scene. He reviews his shots after returning home and selects the best ones to develop and edit. Rob recommends specializing in a particular subject or style to develop a unique voice in photography. He sells his prints through his website, galleries, and local shops in Joshua Tree.

Visit Rob's webiste HERE

Purchase Robs work at

Clic

Visit Very Very in Twentynine Palms to Purchase Rob's work

HERE

Chapters 00:00Introduction and Background 02:58Transition to Landscape Photography 08:00Shifting Focus to Portraits and Personal Projects 11:01Thought Process and Approach to Framing Shots 14:53Reviewing and Editing Process 24:04Settling in Joshua Tree and Future Plans 29:01Where to See and Purchase Rob's Work 32:01Conclusion and Farewell

Danny (00:03.037) All right, Rob Han, welcome to the Highway 62 podcast. Thanks so much for taking some time out. How are you today?

Rob (00:10.414) Great, thanks Danny and thanks for having me on.

Danny (00:13.853) My pleasure. I'm a big fan of your work. I actually purchased one of your photographs from Very Very over the Christmas season. So I think I showed that in that Instagram reel, but it's just right up my alley. And so before we get real deep into what you're doing with photography now, give us a little bit of your background. I know you've wore a lot of hats.

Rob (00:22.569) you did? cool.

Rob (00:27.694) Mm -hmm.

Rob (00:43.118) yeah, yeah. So I was born in England, grew up on a farm very close to Stonehenge in the south of England. yeah, I left school at 16. I'd done tons and tons of jobs. You know, I was a firefighter, like every restaurant job. I was a bike messenger. I've been a, I've been like a, a doorman bouncer. I was,

Danny (01:00.765) Ha ha ha.

Rob (01:12.045) I was a model, which that started when I was already 30 years old. And I did that for about 10 years. But during that period, early on, actually, I was kind of wondering what I could do next. And I was in that world, you know, surrounded by photographers. And I'd also always kind of had an opinion on, I like looking at photographs and kind of developed a taste.

Danny (01:17.502) wow.

Rob (01:41.132) before I even bought a camera and I bought a camera thinking, well, maybe I could be a photographer, you know, and just sort of just started shooting, shooting friends and sort of went from there.

Danny (01:54.772) So, and I was reading a little bit in your bio. So when you first started doing photography, you were doing like portrait photography, is that correct?

Rob (02:04.587) Yeah, I was. I, you know, initially because I was in that world, I thought I might kind of do fashion or, but, but then I went to see this big show of Irving Penn that originally was at MoMA in New York. And, but I actually saw it in London and it was just fantastic. You know, I bought the catalog and I just was fascinated by all the portraits that he'd done.

And not only were they wonderful pictures, but he'd met all of those people. He spent time with them. And I thought, well, that would be a cool thing to do, you know? And he photographed everyone you could ever think of. And they were beautiful pictures. And so, you know, I kind of went in that direction. I was already, you know, I'd been in that kind of fashion world for a while. And initially it was, you know, it was exciting and it was fun.

Danny (02:58.657) Yeah.

Rob (03:03.69) but I was getting a little tired of it. And the whole portrait thing seemed like it might be more interesting to me. So that's what I pursued. And after several years of just shooting friends and getting my act together, then I started showing my work to magazine editors, this sort of thing. And I got my first breaks in music.

Danny (03:08.993) Yeah.

Danny (03:13.825) Gotcha.

Rob (03:32.937) In England, there used to be at least this weekly rock paper called NME, the New Musical Express. And when I was growing up, I used to get that, you know, it used to get delivered to the farm like a day late. And I would read every inch of it. And I was just fascinated by that. And so it was cool to actually start shooting for them. And I would shoot, you know, three or four things a week.

Danny (03:40.931) Yep. Sure. Yeah.

Danny (03:48.867) Ha ha!

Rob (04:02.729) for them, a lot of portraits, band pictures. I also had to do live stuff, which wasn't really my thing, but it was fun to go to festivals and that kind of thing. So that was where I really got my breaks. And then later on through that, I started shooting stuff for record companies. And then I started getting work for other kinds of magazines. And I did quite a bit for...

Danny (04:11.876) Mm -hmm.

Rob (04:30.248) like national newspapers, like Sunday supplements, you know, shooting, doing portraits of all kinds of people. You know, mostly in the arts, directors, writers, actors, musicians, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Danny (04:36.485) Yeah.

Danny (04:41.669) Mm -hmm.

Very cool. So I'm sure you met a lot of interesting people doing that.

Rob (04:49.831) Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, you know, usually for a very short period, you know, but it was still, it was still interesting. It was still real interesting to be in a room with them. Yeah.

Danny (04:55.461) Right, right.

Danny (04:59.718) Yeah, yeah. How did you get interested in make that shift into these, you know, the landscape road trip type photography that you do now?

Rob (05:11.302) Yeah, well, I, you know, I was kind of, so all that period, I was shooting stuff and it was all work. It was all commissioned work for other people. And I was sort of aware, I really wanted to do something for myself, something like a personal project. And I thought that would be a way of kind of advancing things. But I really couldn't think.

what I wanted to do. And I was living in London at the time and nothing was really exciting me. And then one night I was at home watching the TV and there was a show called This is Modern Art. And it was this kind of thing telling the lay person about modern art, you know. And this guy was out in, he went out to Marfa, Texas.

I'm talking about Donald Judd, who is this kind of minimalist sculptor who relocated there from he was in New York, he went out there, bought up an old, with some help, I think, bought up an old military airfield to show his work, you know, in the hangars and the buildings, his work and his friends work, and gradually bought other places within the town, this little tiny West Texas town that was kind of, I guess,

Danny (06:13.287) Okay.

Rob (06:37.864) you know, maybe kind of going nowhere and turned it into this real center for art. And it's kind of a hip, arty place these days. Anyway, so this guy who was presenting the show, he was in a, like a open top car driving towards Martha, this big wide open landscape, you know, and it looked, so I'm at home.

in England and the rain's beating on the window and it's the winter time and I see these big open blue skies and I'm like, wow, I want to go there. And so I had spent some time in America before, so I sort of had an interest in it, but I thought it would be great to take a big road trip and take pictures along the way.

Danny (07:07.752) Hahaha!

Danny (07:13.993) Yeah, that'll do it.

Rob (07:33.448) And so that's what I did. I flew to LA and I drove down to Marfa and back. I had rented a car for a couple of weeks. And that was the start of that. And that was, I wasn't really sure what I'd be doing, but I've really got into it and I've been doing it ever since. And that was like, it was October 2001, actually.

Danny (07:56.81) okay, so you've been, yeah, but you've been doing it a long time then, huh?

Rob (08:00.04) Yeah, yeah, I have.

Danny (08:02.059) What is it about the landscape and the subject matter in this American West that you find so appealing to photograph?

Rob (08:11.625) Well, first of all, I guess there's, you know, I was coming at it with a European romantic idea of all that stuff. You know, I've been for years and years, I've been listening to music, reading books, you know, I got excited by Carowaks on the Road and movies, you know. A big movie for me was Paris, Texas.

Danny (08:20.514) Yeah.

Danny (08:34.379) Mm -hmm.

Rob (08:41.257) that I saw in the cinema in like 84. And that really struck me. And I keep going back to that one actually. And so I had this kind of romantic idea of the whole thing. And then when it comes to photography, I've found it really suited me because I like a lot of space and I could sort of get that feeling of wide open spaces and...

Danny (08:49.036) Yeah, that's a great movie.

Rob (09:11.081) and just finding something within that space. And I don't know, there's something that's really attractive to me about that. You know, I spend a lot of time in New York now, and I know people that walk around every day with cameras shooting in New York, and I've tried it, but it's not for me. It's very busy, it's complicated, and it's just not my thing. You know, I guess I'm a kind of a minimalist, you know. And...

Danny (09:25.708) Mm -hmm.

Danny (09:36.461) Gotcha. Go ahead. Okay. You know, one of the things I was thinking about is, so you're, you know, you're out there, maybe you find a old building or cool signs or whatever the subject matter is that you're going to take that picture. When you're framing that shot, I was kind of interested into the thought process of, you know, are you,

Rob (09:40.584) No, no, sorry, you, you, you.

Rob (09:53.352) Mm -hmm.

Danny (10:05.87) Is there a feeling or almost a story that you're hoping to capture that the viewer would later relate to? Or are you really thinking more about just kind of framing the shot from a visual standpoint? Yeah, just kind of interested in your thought process with that.

Rob (10:22.698) Yeah, well, I mean, I guess when I'm standing in front of a thing, it's mostly a visual thing. And I can, you know, every now and then I'm looking through the camera and I just get this feeling like, yeah, this is good, this one works. But having said that, it all kind of fits into a greater idea of, you know, I'm not shooting.

Danny (10:31.053) Mm -hmm.

Rob (10:52.683) I'm not really documenting what's out there. I'm not shooting, you know, all the box stores and all of that kind of stuff. I'm looking for other stuff that is kind of magical and romantic and, or might be funny, you know, but it has to, I see it all as like one big body of work and it has to fit in with that, you know. So it is a visual thing when I'm looking at a thing and just trying to.

Danny (11:01.646) Mm -hmm.

Rob (11:21.227) you know, should I get a bit closer? Should I do this angle or whatever? I'm also looking at, you know, maybe the colors and things like that, but it's also has to fit in. It's like I'm shooting a big movie and it has to fit in with that movie, you know? So it's both, I guess.

Danny (11:41.137) Gotcha. How do you go about planning one of these road trips? Do you research in advance maybe areas that you've, I don't know, heard about or seen through some other medium that you think will have a lot of subject matter that would be interesting to you?

Rob (12:02.283) Yeah, sure. So I'll often, you know, I'll, I mean, these days I'll see things on Instagram and think, that looks like that might be quite interesting, you know? And, so, but I've always seen stuff in whatever medium or heard about things. And so when I'm planning a trip, say, you know, like the most recent one I did was I went up to the Pacific Northwest from, from Joshua tree.

Danny (12:09.552) Mm -hmm.

Rob (12:32.396) And I will have a few places I want to hit. But the rest of it is just kind of wandering. And I'll have a loose plan. Quite often I'll change that like part way through. But I'll have a few. What I'm really hoping for is to just stumble on things that I had no idea was there, that I couldn't imagine, you know. But it's, so there's a kind of plan. And sometimes I'm just intrigued by the name of a place.

Danny (12:51.312) Yeah. Sure. Sure.

Rob (13:01.836) or something, you know. And I never really know if it's going to work or not. Sometimes when I'm out there, I just, if I haven't got anything for a day or two, I'm just thinking, maybe I won't find anything, you know. But generally I do, you know.

Danny (13:15.313) Hey.

Danny (13:19.411) Gotcha. Yeah, that I was going to ask you about that, that there must be some periods, you know, where you're going a day or two and just kind of going, man, I, you know, I'm not finding anything here. You know, is this going to be a bust or, you know, how, how long, how long are you out there? Usually.

Rob (13:36.621) usually a maximum would be a couple of weeks. I think I, the biggest trip I ever did, I think was like 19 days. but more often it's maybe 10 days to two weeks, something like that. it's pretty tiring. it can be expensive, you know, cause I'm staying in, you know, I'm, I'm not that young anymore. And, so, you know, I, I like to stay in a place with a bed and a shower and,

Danny (13:41.362) Mm -hmm.

Danny (13:50.354) Okay.

Danny (13:56.147) Yeah.

Danny (14:01.779) Me neither.

Yeah, the hostile days are over.

Rob (14:07.212) So, you know, that's all, yeah, so that all costs money and, you know, gas and all that stuff. So, and then also it can be, I don't know, there can be a period where you're kind of seeing stuff and you're getting inspired or whatever, but, you know, maybe if you go too long, that kind of runs out. I don't know. But it might be nice to just...

Danny (14:14.931) Sure, sure I can imagine.

Rob (14:36.716) If I was like super wealthy and also didn't have other commitments or whatever, did just wander for a long time and take my time and stay a few days somewhere. But that's not the way I've been doing it. No, I put in a lot of miles in that period, you know.

Danny (14:43.956) Yeah.

Danny (14:48.82) Gotcha.

Danny (14:53.301) Gotcha, gotcha. From a question regarding kind of the process a little bit, you're out for a couple weeks, you're shooting all these photographs, do you kind of review things every night, maybe update or backup files, or do you kind of do a big dump when you get home before you start that editing process to kind of have a little bit of time away from those shots you've taken so that when you do that photo dump at home,

you kind of get that, you know, reminded of these shots that maybe you've forgotten about or.

Rob (15:26.829) Well, I get a lot of time because I'm actually shooting on film. And yeah, I shoot with a medium format film camera. I just get 10 shots on a roll. But what I will do is when I, sorry, go ahead.

Danny (15:32.853) okay, gotcha.

Danny (15:41.622) Is that, I think, you know what, I'm wondering, I think I might have seen, it might have been your page that I saw. Do you use one of those, it kind of looks like an old timey camera. Do you use one of those or have you?

Rob (15:57.517) not really. I do, I do have, I think I know what you're talking about. You're talking about like a large.

Danny (16:00.981) Okay.

Danny (16:05.973) That's my technical term, old -timey camera. Yeah, there's an English company that has been making a camera that I've been seeing people do some really neat stuff with.

Rob (16:08.717) You're talking about a large format camera thing, like, you know.

Rob (16:18.094) but, but no, I, I actually use the camera I have, I've had for more than 25 years. It's a, it's a Mamiya, Mamiya seven, and it kind of looks, it just kind of looks like a big 35 millimeter camera. so it's not, it's not really old time. I mean, it might look that way. It might look that way, I guess. but so, but what I do is when I'll take a shot of something,

Danny (16:26.101) Okay.

Danny (16:33.494) Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha.

Danny (16:38.718) Yeah, yeah.

Rob (16:47.245) I will also take a picture of that thing on my iPhone. And that's to record what I did. And also, you know, when I'm out on the road, I'll send some shots to my girlfriend and say, Hey, I shot this today or whatever. So I kind of know what, what I've got kind of, sort of, and, and I will actually, you know, I'll carry a little journal and I'll, I'll, you know, make like a little

Danny (16:51.894) Mm -hmm.

Rob (17:16.012) very rough sketch of that picture. And I will kind of review it as I go along and say, yeah, I think I've got something. I think I've got two or three or whatever. But I don't really see it until, so, you know, I've been spending, you know, like four months out in Joshua Tree. And that's when I'm shooting in that period. But I don't get this film developed until I get back to New York.

Danny (17:18.264) Okay.

Danny (17:44.057) Okay.

Rob (17:44.555) And so I don't see that stuff, but some of it for like months. It's kind of, it's a strange way of working, I guess.

Danny (17:46.489) Wow. Yeah, yeah.

Nah, I could see that being kind of neat though, after so much time passes to then finally reveal the efforts of your work.

Rob (17:57.227) Yeah.

Rob (18:01.419) And then I get it all developed and I have contact sheets and more often than not, it's really disappointing. It's just because I've got this stuff in my mind. this is a good one. That's good. And I look at it and I'm like, my God, this isn't, you know, but I've kind of got used to that because it's just a, it's a, it's a contact sheet is it's just a, a very basic,

Danny (18:11.257) Hahaha!

Rob (18:28.395) Basically, what I'll do is then I'll scan the negatives with a film scanner. And so I've got a digital file, I bring it up on the screen, I'll make a few tweaks and it all kind of comes back to life. And then I'm like, yeah, this is a good one. This is it. But when I first started this whole doing it this way, I would be kind of devastated at times. I mean, I have done, spent all that money all the time and this stuff is just not good at all, you know, but I...

Danny (18:40.026) Gotcha. Okay.

Danny (18:50.586) Yeah.

Danny (18:56.858) Yeah.

Rob (18:57.834) But it comes back and it comes alive again, you know.

Danny (19:00.826) Wow, neat. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the expense of being out there and that was before I knew you were doing it on film. So that's gotta be quite an added, you know, financial element to the whole thing.

Rob (19:12.01) Yeah, so I don't shoot that much actually. I'm kind of careful. Sometimes I'll stop and look at something, I'll look through the camera and I'm like, is this really interesting? And sometimes I'm like, no. So I just don't take the picture. And then if I can, I'll take maybe one frame of the thing. If I find something that I really am excited about,

you know, I'm going to take more just to make sure I've got it. And then sometimes with the nighttime stuff as well, I'll do more because I'm just kind of guessing the exposures and I'm not really sure if I'm getting it or not. But I'm careful. And also I'm shooting less than I used to because over time you kind of get to know what works or what doesn't.

Danny (19:57.306) Let's see.

Rob (20:09.449) and whereas there are things I would shoot more that I don't find as interesting now. So it's kind of strange. I don't shoot all that much. But hopefully I'm getting the good stuff.

Danny (20:19.93) Gotcha.

Danny (20:24.506) You know, I'm sure there's a lot of people like me that are amateur photographers that just have that interest in photography. I've always been very interested in it. I'm kind of a gear head as well, like a tech gear head. So I love the technology of new video cameras and drone cameras and just everything you can do with it. Would you recommend in a way,

Rob (20:32.968) -huh.

Rob (20:44.776) Yeah.

Danny (20:52.09) you know, the wannabe photographers out there to try to shoot on film from the standpoint of that you have to think about that shot so much more versus, you know, when you're out there with a digital camera and you can just take a hundred pictures of one subject matter and just keep making setting changes and then see if you ended up luckily getting some.

Rob (21:08.81) Yeah.

Rob (21:15.85) Yeah, I don't know about that. I'm not sure that I would advise that. I mean, I just stick with the film camera because it works for me. I like it. I imagine if I was starting today, I'd probably shoot digitally. But if you could try to have that mindset as if you are shooting on film, that might be a good discipline. But I'm not sure. That would be hard to do, I think.

Danny (21:36.794) Yeah, yeah.

Danny (21:44.41) Gotcha.

Rob (21:44.747) But that might be a way to try to think of it. Because the other thing is, you know, I see people shooting and they'll shoot like a ton of one thing. And I just think when you get home and that stuff's on your computer, there's so much stuff to look through, so much editing. It's sort of, it's a lot, you know. But I'm not sure. I'm...

Danny (22:08.282) Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Rob (22:12.458) Because I haven't been a digital photographer, it's hard for me to say.

Danny (22:19.354) Gotcha. For somebody who is trying to find their way in photography, I mean, do you have any advice for somebody that's kind of trying to find their style or their format or, because I go through all these different things that I try. You mentioned, you see a lot of people just in New York just shooting tons of things. And I bought myself like a small point and shoot.

Rob (22:45.704) Mm -hmm.

Danny (22:46.074) camera to do like street photography with and I found that to be really interesting and but you know I'm kind of all over the place on these different things that I do as opposed to kind of like focusing on one thing and trying to really get good at that. Do you have any advice for somebody on kind of you know how to find their you know their niche or their style in photography?

Rob (23:05.737) Yeah, I don't know. I think it can take a long time. You know, I think it's a thing that, yeah, maybe you do start out shooting everything and then you sort of, hopefully you can decide, well, this is good and I'm good at this. But I don't know really. I think it can take a long time to be really satisfied with what you're shooting, you know, and I think that...

you might need a lot of patience. But I think that is a, I think if you're trying to make your mark and get noticed, I think it is a good idea to, to maybe kind of specialize in, have some kind of subject instead of a bit of this and bit of that. And then maybe once, once you've done that, maybe then you can add something else. But, but I think that is a common, you know, I sometimes people show me the pictures.

and they're all over the place, like you say, and it's hard to get a handle on it. And I think certainly if you were trying to get noticed or if you had aims to be in a gallery or something like that, they want to know, they want to be able to read you and see what you do and what you're about. I mean, you're a musician, right? And I guess it's probably similar if you were just doing like a ton of

Danny (24:08.25) Mm -hmm.

Danny (24:27.386) Yes.

Rob (24:34.088) different style to be like, what is this band? You know, it's like, so maybe, I don't know. Yeah.

Danny (24:35.162) Right.

Danny (24:39.258) Sure, sure. Gotcha. That makes sense. Yeah. Do you have any upcoming trips in the works?

Rob (24:45.801) No, nothing in the works. So, you know, you never know, there might be something, but we generally spend, you know, like maybe four months after Christmas through to May out in Joshua Tree. And that's when I would do a big trip as well as, you know, local stuff. We might go visit sometime soon -ish.

Danny (25:02.01) Mm -hmm.

Rob (25:14.664) when I'd want to get out a day or two and shoot. But no, I'm kind of unusual in that I don't shoot all the time. Before we had the place out there, I would maybe take like one trip in a year where I'm just shooting for maybe a couple of weeks and the rest of the time I'm not. But what I am doing is, so I'm, I sell big prints through some galleries.

Danny (25:31.834) Okay.

Rob (25:44.745) but I also go out on the street in Soho in New York on the weekends selling smaller, affordable prints. And so I'm doing that like every week. And so I'm kind of like living with the work and I'm selling it, I'm talking to people and it's, so there's a connection to it. And I'm always thinking about what I'm doing. I want to, so I did a book.

Danny (25:52.186) Mm -hmm.

Rob (26:13.898) that you know sold out I did like a thousand of those and I want to do another book so I'll be putting that together with a view to have another book a different book new book so you know in that way I'm I'm doing the work as well but the actual shooting of it you know I I don't do it that often but so I probably won't take a big trip until like after Christmas which I know it's I know it's kind of wild but

Danny (26:22.586) Okay.

Danny (26:40.73) Gotcha.

Rob (26:42.889) But all this stuff, all this ideas about what I might shoot and everything is kind of, it's going on up in my head, ready for that to all come out. Plus I've been doing this thing, and I'm not sure where I'm going with it, but I've been doing this thing where I've started to place things within the landscape. And a lot of that's been kind of around the kind of high desert.

Danny (26:43.162) No, no.

Danny (26:53.082) Gotcha. Yeah.

Danny (27:06.81) Mmm.

Rob (27:12.746) So where I'm setting things up more and I enjoy it and I think some of it looks good but I'm not sure how much I can sell that stuff or where I'm going with it. But you know, who knows? Yeah, yeah.

Danny (27:23.79) Yeah, yeah, still figuring that one out. Cool. That's great. I know you live part -time on the East Coast and part -time in Joshua Tree. How did you find your way to settling in Joshua Tree?

Rob (27:36.713) Well, I've been going out there, you know, like since that very first trip, you know, I spent the first night of that trip in Joshua Tree, actually at the High Desert Motel, which was, you know, affordable place. And so, you know, I've been going out west a lot. And then my girlfriend, who is, you know, long time partner, she's a sculptor and she,

Danny (27:52.602) Yeah.

Rob (28:06.635) She used to be working movies, doing art production, and she'd be on the West Coast, East Coast, but she's always had this, both of us have this kind of a fantasy to have a place in the desert. You know, there was a big attraction to us. And then just a few years ago, you know, we were able to start looking at places and we looked for ages online and...

We came out a couple of times, looked around and then this one place came up and it looked just right and we flew out and we did it. But it's been a long time, you know, a fantasy that turned into a reality, you know. And I love it out there, you know, and I probably would spend more time, but you know, my girlfriend's kids and grandkids are...

Danny (28:43.051) Awesome.

Danny (28:47.947) Yeah, yeah, that's great.

Danny (29:01.067) Sure, sure.

Rob (29:01.194) are here on the East Coast and you know so there's we have to spend time here plus I do this thing of selling in New York as well but who knows in the future but it's but it's I think it's great I love it out there.

Danny (29:15.403) Yeah, Rob, where's the best places for people to go to see your work, purchase prints, all that stuff?

Rob (29:23.306) Okay, so I have a website where I sell the smaller prints and it's just my name's robhan .com. My Instagram where I post something pretty much every day is rob .han. And then I sell big prints through a place called Click in, well, I wasn't saying New York, but they've got like 12, it's CLIC, like,

Danny (29:39.179) Mm -hmm.

Rob (29:52.042) like chic but with an L. There's a gallery in Stockholm as well. And then Very Very and The Station in Joshua Tree have been selling my small prints too.

Danny (30:05.835) Wonderful. Yeah, I highly, for anybody listening that hasn't checked out your work, it's really, really great stuff. I mean, it's totally right up my alley of the type of stuff I love. And yeah, like I said, I purchased a nice print from Very Very, and there's quite a few more that I would love to get to kind of round out the collection in the home there. So definitely check out Rob's work. It's really great. I really appreciate your time.

I had to hold myself back from starting to go into like technical photography, you know, stuff, because, you know, like I said, I'm kind of a wannabe photographer, and, you know, it's always great to talk to somebody who, you know, really, you know, knows the stuff, but.

Rob (30:41.099) Yeah, well...

Rob (30:47.051) Well, to tell you the truth...

Rob (30:53.195) Yeah, but you know, Danny, I'm not the most technical guy. And so I probably, I've got like one camera, one lens. It's very simple. And you probably wouldn't learn much about that stuff from me, you know?

Danny (31:06.576) But at the same time, what I think is so great about that is like, again, because I run into this, just creating even like podcasts where people say, I want to do a podcast. And what they really always ask about is the technical, what microphone do I need to use? And it's like, you can use anything. It has almost no bearing on how this whole thing turns out. And.

Rob (31:25.515) huh.

Rob (31:29.515) Bye.

Danny (31:34.416) In your case, it's like using the tools that you have and learning how to create what you're trying to create. You know, and we see that in music all the time, you know. A great guitar player can take a really cheap guitar and a really cheap amp and make it sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, you know. And I had a friend who was a guitar player like that. And people would go, how do you get the sound so good? He'd say, tones all in the fingers, you know. So.

Rob (31:53.099) Yeah.

Rob (32:01.483) I think...

Danny (32:02.8) Because it is easy to just buy, well, I need this lens, and now I'm going to buy this lens, instead of just using those tools that you have and learning how to create art with those things.

Rob (32:13.771) Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. You know, it's, it's not really the equipment. It's what's in your mind, you know, it's that that's where it's coming from, you know,

Danny (32:23.152) Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Rob, thank you so much for taking time to be on the show. I really, really appreciate it. I really love your work, so keep it up. And yeah, I'd love to meet you in person one afternoon. I'm sure we'll bump into each other at an event or something out there.

Rob (32:33.579) Yeah, thanks so much.

I was just going to say that, you know, I'll get in touch when I'm back out there and it'd be great to meet up. All right, thanks, Danny.

Danny (32:43.632) Yeah. Thank you so much.

Summary

Ash Maharaj, owner of the Harmony Motel, shares the history and significance of motels and the Harmony Motel in the Joshua Tree area. The motel was built in 1958 and has a mid-century design with a large courtyard and open windows. The name 'Harmony' comes from the musical notes on the sign. The motel gained fame when the band U2 stayed there during the making of their Joshua Tree album. Other notable guests include Snow Patrol and the filming of the movie 'Crazy Beautiful'. Ash Maharaj, originally from South Africa, came to the US in 2000 and decided to stay after the tragic loss of her mother. She purchased the Harmony Motel in 2004 and has been running it successfully for 20 years. Ash, the owner of Harmony Motel, discusses the challenges and rewards of owning a small motel in a small town. She talks about the unique experience of meeting people from all over the world and learning about different cultures. Ash also shares the economic challenges she faced, including the 2008 crash and the rise of Airbnb. Despite the challenges, she appreciates the freedom and flexibility of being her own boss. Ash emphasizes the importance of booking directly through the motel's website to support small businesses.

Takeaways

Motels originated in the US as convenient and accessible accommodations along highways. The Harmony Motel, built in 1958, has a mid-century design and is known for its musical notes on the sign. The motel gained fame when U2 stayed there during the making of their Joshua Tree album. Ash Maharaj, the owner of the Harmony Motel, has successfully run the business for 20 years. Owning a small motel allows you to meet people from all over the world and learn about different cultures. Running a small business requires constant adaptation to economic challenges, such as market fluctuations and competition. Being your own boss provides freedom and flexibility, but also comes with the responsibility of marketing and maintaining the business. Booking directly through the motel's website helps support small businesses by avoiding high commissions from third-party booking platforms.

Harmony Motel Website for Booking

https://www.harmonymotel.com/

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/harmonymotel/

In this episode I seit down with Author William Hillyard, author of " Welcome To Womder Valley - Ruin And Redemption In An American Galapagos"

In this episode I talk to Heather Basile, owner of The Mojave Moon Apothecary in Twentynine Palms California.

Check out her shop HERE

Be sure to check out The Highway 62 youtube channel HERE

In this episode I sat down at The Out There Bar in 29 Palms with Author , Chris Campion and Out There Bar owner , Ian Riekow to talk about the new deluxe art book projectabout the lost Sci-Fi film, Saturation 70. The story of this film is an incredible one and the book that's coming looks to be amazing...You can back the project on kickstarter.

Kickstarter HERE

Chris Campion website HERE

In this episode I soeak with Matt Beurois who is the Program Director of The Yucca Valley Film Festival. Now in it's 5th year, The Yucca Valley Film Festival features some of the best indipendant films of the year. This event is sponsored by the city of Yucca Valley and is 100% free to the public.

The event takes plav=ce November 10th 11th and 12th

go to their website for details HERE

anny (00:00.914) All right, Matt Beurois, thank you so much for joining me on the Highway 62 podcast. How are you?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:09.187) I'm very good. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. I love the podcast and very happy to be here.

Danny (00:13.679) Thank you Yeah, I you know when I was

looking at the name and I'm always looking at somebody's last name like okay how am I gonna pronounce and you know just not having spoke to you at all I was like oh it's like Matt Berrios or something like that so when I asked you and you hit me I was like oh okay and offline we were just talking about Paris and I was just saying how I've met so many people out here from France lately it's crazy but so and you are would you say the director of the Yucca

Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:22.783) How do you pronounce that?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:39.423) Yeah, yeah.

Danny (00:48.048) Thanks for watching!

Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:48.651) I would say program director. My job is to find the movies, yeah, the UK Film Festival, I find the movies, I find the filmmakers. We have a very small team and my job is to get people into town to attend the festival.

Danny (00:50.742) Program Director of the Yucca Valley Film Festival.

All right.

Danny (01:05.346) Wonderful. Yeah, so we'll come back and hit all the.

the good details of the film festival, but I would love to hear a little bit more about your background, you're a film director yourself. I just like the end credits of The Barn are on my TV at the moment. I was going to watch over the weekend and I wasn't able to do it, so I was kind of getting through it today. I need to re-watch it. I was working a little bit today as I had it on. So, but yeah, give us the...

Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:17.155) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:23.938) Oh.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:32.974) It's...

Danny (01:37.59) the rundown of where you're from and how you came to be out here.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:41.545) It's a journey. It's definitely a journey. So I'm a director, producer, filmmaker. I made a lot of short films.

like 25-ish, a little bit more than that probably. And the last short film I directed and produced was a huge hit in Los Angeles and the US, and Asia and Europe, everywhere except France. So that was a French doc comedy with very famous people in France, and we got like 68 awards worldwide.

Danny (02:08.717) Hahaha

Matt Beurois | YVFF (02:20.375) everywhere except France and the first one we got

Danny (02:22.434) Hahaha!

Matt Beurois | YVFF (02:24.887) was the best international short film in a festival in Los Angeles. And that was the first award I ever had and I was the only French people in the room, only French guy in the room and I just got that small statue in my hands and it was like okay this is where I need to be, this is where I want to be. So that small success gave me the fuel and the will to

Danny (02:30.163) Oh wow.

Danny (02:36.432) Hehehe

Danny (02:44.276) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (02:52.851) to change a whole lot of things in my life. And to basically, it took a couple of years, but then to move to the US, get the visa, and then later on get the green card and move to Yekavalli. First Los Angeles, then Burbank, then Yekavalli. And once we arrived in Yekavalli with my wife, we...

Danny (03:02.951) Mm-hmm

Matt Beurois | YVFF (03:13.627) Our business is to make film festivals. We have a bunch of them. We have some in California. We still have two, three in France. We have one in Nashville. We have business ties in New Mexico, in the US. So everywhere we travel, everywhere we make friends, we try to make business and work in good intelligence with friends. So we had all of that and...

Danny (03:18.884) Okay.

Danny (03:27.401) Interesting.

Danny (03:34.93) Yeah. Let's, to, yeah, I was going to back up a little bit and just get a little bit more of your background growing up in Europe. How did you, you know, get into filmmaking? Did you go to film school or what was your background like?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (03:52.039) I did not go to film school. I learned to make movies by making movies. We were a group of friends when I was a teenager and one of us got a camera. It was the big tapes back in the days, VHS, and every weekend for years we filmed short films. And then we edited it with two big VHS recorders.

Danny (03:57.387) Yeah, yeah.

Danny (04:07.702) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (04:22.633) So we really learned the craft by doing, by making films. So one weekend it was at my house, the next weekend it was at another friend's house, the weekend after that it was at another friend's house. So it was sleepover, writing films, filming the movies, editing the movies, and the next weekend again and again.

So that was a whole adventure for years and years. And then some of us, the group of friends we were, some of us got to work into TV. Some others just dropped the whole thing. And I'm the only one who really kept going and started to make real films and feature films especially.

Danny (05:03.095) Yeah.

So and it was interesting I wanted to make sure I asked this as you were talking about the film festivals that it was an actual business for you So you're I never really thought about film festivals in that way So you and your wife travel to different areas and create these film festivals, huh? interesting

Matt Beurois | YVFF (05:21.267) Well, it's... Yes.

Yes, our company that's based in Yeka Valley, Colorado studio, we do marketing, pictures, video, social media, everything to help small businesses thrive. We do it for ourselves and we've been since we created our first festival in Paris, I think 13-14 years ago, it was just a small thing and then it became bigger and bigger and bigger and we were consistent enough and

Danny (05:29.896) Okay.

Danny (05:35.936) Mm.

Danny (05:39.201) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (05:56.089) enough to keep delivering year after year. So what we did in Paris, France became a rendezvous, a place to be for emerging filmmakers and we started to create this whole network of people, motivated people who wanted to make films, show the films, promote the films in hopes that someday you're going to go to the next step and go working for the studios, working for a bigger production

Matt Beurois | YVFF (06:25.809) I'm making independent films, I know what it takes. So when we do film festivals, we exactly know what it takes and the labor of love that it is to put everything together to make the film happen. And to then, when you have the movie, not to stop there, but to push it to film festival and then to push it to the streamers, distribution company, to show the movie to an audience as big as possible.

Danny (06:29.792) Yeah.

Danny (06:46.274) Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Danny (06:54.871) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (06:55.929) We started as an association in France, a non-profit, and then it became a small business. And when we moved to the US, that business became the business with which we got our original visa. So that was interesting to take everything we knew how to do and how to do well, and to transform it into something that got us the foot in the door to get and actually move to the US. So that was an interesting journey.

Danny (07:00.364) Mm-hmm.

Danny (07:10.175) Okay, gotcha.

Danny (07:23.382) Right. Sure. I bet. Now, and I was mentioning it. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (07:27.412) Today the UK Valley Film Festival

is very specific for us, it's very unique because that's the only film festival that we do not own. Every other thing we do, we own the copyright and the brand and the event, we do whatever we want. The Yokevallé Film Festival, the festival belongs to the town of Yokevallé, so we are here to execute their vision, the strategy they have and to work with the recreation department so they can

Danny (07:40.333) Okay.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:03.358) get the residents happy and get hopefully some people into town for tourism during the weekend.

Danny (08:11.118) Yeah, I was mentioning that I was watching a little bit of your feature film, The Barn, which people can watch on Amazon. And it's always amazing to me when somebody really goes through that process of making a movie. I've never really worked in the film industry. One of the guys in my band works in reality TV as a show producer. And so I'm always hearing the stories of

Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:17.927) Mm-hmm.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:27.826) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:35.538) Okay.

Danny (08:39.85) you know how they're getting a little bit of spec money to film this one you know pilot episode and just everything that goes into it and it just seems that like ninety percent of the time or more it never ends up going anywhere or it's a fail and it i'm just always blown away at you know having a little bit of understanding of what goes into it getting to that point of really finally creating a movie the funding and just

Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:44.138) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:53.899) I'm sorry.

Danny (09:07.65) putting it all together. Give us a little bit of a short story of what it was like doing that first feature film.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (09:16.219) Well, the financing of a movie is always the most challenging. It's a pain in the ass. Every filmmaker you're going to meet is going to be looking for money to make the movie happen. So what we did for the bond, we didn't wait for any money. We financed it ourselves with our company. And what we did to make it possible, we wrote a script.

Danny (09:23.3) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Danny (09:35.123) Mmm. Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (09:42.619) and we knew before writing the script the locations we were going to use and all the locations in the movie The Barn it's my mom's house she's got a farm and the house it's her house the bedroom it's her bedroom the living room it's the living room the barn itself back in the days when we filmed they had sheeps before we filmed in that place and now they have

Danny (09:57.404) Hahaha. Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (10:12.333) So we wrote the script knowing exactly all the locations we could use for free. The all the rooms, the forest, the barn, around the barn, the road next to the house. Everything was actually on location. We never walked more than five minutes on foot to go to another location for the next scene. So we did. She was helping.

Danny (10:20.118) Gotcha.

Danny (10:33.994) Wow, okay, great. How does your mom feel? How does your mom feel now living in a house that has had a horror film made there?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (10:45.407) Well, the barn itself, it's quite different now. When we filmed, it was a mess.

Danny (10:50.354) Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (10:53.555) We almost didn't touch anything. It was a mess because it used to be like I said the ships and then it was used as storage all my crap from all my teenage years all my sister's crap Everything was there. It was a mess So we almost didn't touch it because it was it was good for the movie to have some bunch of stuff around Since then my sister took over and now she's got a horse

Danny (10:59.144) Mm-hmm.

Danny (11:22.463) Oh wow.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (11:24.409) It's neat, absolutely clean, it's beautiful, you would not recognize the place, definitely. So every scene where we killed people, every scene where the zombies escaped, you would not recognize it, it's completely different. Yeah.

Danny (11:29.758) I gotcha. You had also.

Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. That's probably that's probably a good thing. You had mentioned in your email that you are working on another feature length film and you're doing it all here in, did you say Morongo Valley? You were filming.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (11:52.711) We filmed it already. It's called American Game. We filmed in Joshua Tree, Yake Valley, Morongo, 29 Palms, a little bit in Whitewater, down the grade, everywhere around.

Danny (11:54.406) Oh, okay, already done.

Danny (12:04.43) Oh great. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (12:10.575) Mostly in private lands because we didn't want to ask for permits and all this kind of stuff. So what we did we Called some friends in the community and was the hey you have a big space You have a lot of acreage. Would you help us and let us access the land for like two days and same process then the barn we Called a bunch of friends

Danny (12:20.103) Mm-hmm.

Danny (12:27.934) Sure, yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (12:34.235) And we said, okay, this is what we have. This is the list of locations, what we could use. And then we said, how can we write a script that fits within these locations? But that was a real, it was an excitement to film a movie right here because the landscapes are amazing. And in the desert, you could film a drama, you could film science fiction, you could film, we did an action, a short action independent movie. You could do anywhere you,

Danny (12:49.75) Mm-mm. Yeah.

Danny (12:58.778) Yeah

Matt Beurois | YVFF (13:04.329) you want in the desert. The way you're gonna film it, the way you're gonna write the script, you could turn it into anything and I love that about the desert. The same way we live here, the way you enjoy the desert, Danny, it may be very different than the way I enjoy the desert. It's not right or wrong, it's just we are two different people and I'm gonna see beauty here and you're gonna see beauty there and maybe I didn't notice and that's the desert. People

Danny (13:12.674) Yeah.

Danny (13:26.134) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (13:34.629) a lot and when you take time and when you connect to it it's really a very magnificent place with a lot of layers and that movie shows one side of it. The movie American Game shows the oppressive heat of the Sun in the desert and we use the wide landscape to trap the characters inside.

Danny (13:35.548) Yeah.

Danny (13:43.617) Yep.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (14:03.803) In the desert, one thing I said to the cinematographer, most of the time I said, I want to see the mountains in the background, but I never wanna see the peaks of the mountains. I don't wanna see the sky. I want to create an impression like, they will never go over that mountain here. They are always trapped in the game, the American game, except in the end when they try to escape.

Danny (14:14.326) Oh, okay.

Danny (14:19.01) Yeah.

I say.

Danny (14:27.414) Awesome. It sounds great. Do you have kind of a rough idea of when that will be available for people to watch? Or next year, okay.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (14:35.911) Next year, next year. We have a first draft of the movie. We need to do some sound, special effects, sound design on it. We still need to mix the dialogues and all of that, but the movie is edited. It's a feature length film. It's pretty impressive what we managed to do with only a few people and literally no money to make that film. The dedication of the team,

Danny (14:44.727) Mm-hmm.

Danny (15:02.476) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:06.655) It was incredible. It was challenging. Again, 11 days to film a feature film in the heat of June in the Morongo Valley. That was not easy every day. But the...

Danny (15:16.302) Hahaha

Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:21.619) The script made it possible and the dedication of the cinematographer, the sound guy, the actors, the performers, of course. And it was it was an amazing experience. Yeah, I'm really looking forward for the movie to be completed so we can release it next year.

Danny (15:23.691) Yeah.

Danny (15:33.666) Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. I'll be looking forward to that. And we'll make sure to, you know, let me know as it's getting closer so we can help to do our small part to promote and maybe even have you back on the show too to talk a little bit more about it. So the film, the Yucca Valley Film Fest, how long has that been going on? Five years now. Okay.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:40.107) Thank you.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:47.199) Thank you. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:53.802) Yeah.

Five years, we're gonna celebrate the fifth anniversary. So already we started in 2019, 2019 was the first edition and then COVID hit. So we...

Danny (16:09.885) Mm-hmm.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (16:12.659) We discussed with the town, the recreation department and the town manager and the council members and we said we don't want to stop. If we stop that means the festival is going to die. If you stop for something that it's not going to come back up again. We are building a festival, we are building a brand. We need to continue. So we built two amazing digital editions during

Danny (16:38.942) Okay.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (16:42.627) and we could feel the appetite from the filmmakers and the enthusiasm from the community to see the event coming back in person. We underestimated the amount of people who would come to the festival actually. We tripled the attendance compared to the first in-person year in 2019. So this year we are much more prepared. We have a process in place to

Danny (16:47.453) Oh yeah.

Danny (16:54.177) Yeah.

Danny (16:59.03) Hahaha

Matt Beurois | YVFF (17:12.861) know what day the filmmakers are coming, what time they arrive, all of that to get them to make it more smooth and make it a great experience for the filmmakers

who are going to come into town for just a weekend. So for a weekend, imagine you made a movie last year and you're trying to get it into festivals. And the Yerke Valley Film Festival says, hey, we want you to come to town and show the film and do the picture signing and the red carpet and everything. Everything the big festivals do, we do in Yerke Valley. So it's a mix between an ambitious event,

and something that's really community-rooted with a lot of people from around here who come to the festival, watch the movies, ask questions to the filmmakers. So for a weekend, when you are a filmmaker, Ukeveri becomes the center of your world because

Even if you're not famous, you're going to be the star of the festival. You're going to show your film. You're going to sign autographs. You're going to walk on the red carpet every night. If you want, you're going to be interviewed on the podcast of the festival. You're going to meet many other filmmakers. So it's really something that what we do today with the UKVLFM festival as the result of 15 years, almost of experience in creating events and creating film festivals, I've been to many,

Danny (18:11.423) Sure, sure.

Danny (18:34.642) Mm-hmm.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (18:39.342) and the bigger ones, the most prestigious ones are not necessarily the ones where you have the best experience because if you go to Tribeca it's amazing Sundance or South by Southwest it's amazing but you are as an independent filmmaker you are just gonna be a face in the crowd.

Danny (18:51.446) You know, like Sundance or something, yeah.

Danny (19:02.11) Yeah, yeah, small fish in the big pond, right?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (19:05.243) Absolutely. At the UKVLFM festival, you're going to be on stage multiple times. You're going to meet with the community, meet and greets, picture signing, photo booths, red carpet. You're going to talk with people who just watch your movie. You're going to have a feedback from the audience. You're going to meet other filmmakers and maybe you're going to make movies with them later. And all of that happened. I mean, we have multiple examples of filmmakers who came to the UKVLFM festival,

Danny (19:15.839) Mm-hmm.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (19:35.237) later on made movies together, producers, script writers, cinematographers, so that's a place the networking and the social impact in the community and in the filmmaking scene also is actually more important than what we expected to do in the beginning. So that's pretty, that's a very good feeling.

Danny (19:38.743) Sure, sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the networking must be amazing.

Danny (19:56.702) I-I-I-

I had a few questions just kind of about the film festival and film festivals in general. So you know, obviously, again, like we mentioned, you know, Sundance or some of these big ones out there, you know, everybody is submitting to those kind of festivals in, you know, like something at the size of the Yucca Valley Film Festival. When you first get it going, is it a challenge to get submissions? Or are do you reach out to filmmakers and request a submission from anybody?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (20:13.044) Yeah.

Danny (20:28.656) primarily, you know, is there just so many independent filmmakers out there that once they know there's a film fest that's like game on and you're going to get a ton of inquiries.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (20:39.943) It's not easy. It used 15 years ago, you could just put up a small event in a, literally in a cave, not a cave, a cellar in Paris, or an underground thing, and you would have 50 people showing up. Today, you have to, you have to give them something.

Danny (20:41.543) Okay.

Danny (20:50.551) Ha ha!

Danny (21:06.786) Gotcha. Okay.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (21:07.375) So the filmmakers, when they come to the Jokovare Film Festival, they know they're going to have the screening, they know they're going to have the Q&A's, the discussion afterwards. We have round tables, panels, we have a master class, we have meet and greets with the community, we have the red carpet, we have many things. Literally, I sent an email this afternoon to one of the filmmakers who's going to come to the festival and I sent her

Danny (21:24.866) Mm-hmm.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (21:38.009) detailed schedule almost minute by minute 15 minutes by 15 minutes and I told her at 6 p.m. you're gonna be doing this 6 15 you're gonna be on the podcast 6 40 you're gonna be on the red carpet 6 55 you're gonna be doing this and then we have the art opening and then screening starts at 7 so they need to show up on time because if they don't they're gonna miss out on something so

Danny (21:50.849) Right, right.

Danny (22:02.143) Right? Yeah, the whole thing's... Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (22:07.289) It became kind of a big enterprise, but when we started the Yokel Valley Film Festival, to answer your question, we already had a huge network of filmmakers that we were working with and involved with. So we do accept submissions, but my job for 10 months before the festival is to go online and to go to other film festivals in different states, mostly New York, Arizona, Utah, California.

Danny (22:16.373) Okay.

Danny (22:31.572) Mmm, okay.

Danny (22:37.367) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (22:37.569) and to watch a lot of movies and to say oh this one is interesting oh this one it was filmed in Joshua Tree I should get in touch this one oh that's a sci-fi movie I've never seen something like that let's try to get this movie so the Yikavadifim festival really yes it's really yes

Danny (22:45.94) Okay.

Danny (22:51.694) Gotcha, so you're kind of curating, you know Films that you would like to have at this film festival to create that experience. Gotcha

Matt Beurois | YVFF (23:02.415) Absolutely. If there is a connection to our Mojave desert, I'm going to be interested. But the film has to be good. We also get movies that are romantic comedies, filmed in a cafe in LA or Chicago, and the movie is so good and the performances are so good that we take the movie anyway. But it's really a mix between submissions,

Danny (23:07.848) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (23:26.271) that we receive and the outreach we do 10 months a year to get the best movies on The Secret to get them to come to Yorke Valley.

Danny (23:35.806) I see. Okay. Gotcha. Interesting. So, and give us the date of the event this year.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (23:43.731) The Y'Kabal de Film Festival is going to be November 10, 11 and 12. So Friday 10, Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 of November. And you have a...

Danny (23:55.114) And so what's the experience like then for just me as a film lover? How does it work? Do I purchase a ticket that works for the whole weekend? What do I get to do and see and all that good stuff?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (24:11.219) The Yekebade Film Festival is 100% sponsored by the Town of Yeke Valley. It is admission free. So you don't have to buy a ticket, just show up. And the first thing I tell everyone is, when you're going to arrive this year, you're going to have a tent outside, you're going to get the program, if you're a filmmaker you're going to get a badge, we're going to give you all the information, and then, first thing you do, you're going to walk the red carpet.

Danny (24:17.223) Okay. Oh.

Danny (24:40.344) Cool.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (24:42.113) on Friday and Sunday and everybody is welcome. We want everybody in the community, the kids, the dogs, everyone, the families. We want fun pictures and all the pictures we do every day the next day they are on Facebook. So you can take your own pictures out of Facebook very easy. Everything is free. Then you walk in the main room, the community center, the Yucca room, the big room.

Danny (25:00.29) Cool. Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (25:12.233) and there is complimentary popcorn for everyone. It's free seating, we have an art exhibit during the three days, we have music playing. This year we're gonna have a podcast for the filmmakers inside the room. We have a photo booth also so if you want to take more pictures and not being under the slight light fun pressure of the red carpet. We also have a photo booth inside that's very cute

Danny (25:30.835) Mm-hmm.

Danny (25:36.866) Hehehehe

Matt Beurois | YVFF (25:41.013) Yucca Valley staff does an amazing job as decorating the full house.

Danny (25:42.281) Yeah.

Danny (25:46.042) it sounds like, I mean, a really fun event for just, you know, the local community and to be able to kind of experience, you know, a red carpet and just kind of the whole, you know, shebang, the whole experience of a film fest that they're not going to get to go do it at Sundance or Tribeca, you know, but they can get to experience that on a smaller level. And I, you know, would imagine it could also be really inspirational for, you know, younger adults and teenagers or whatnot.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (25:50.643) It is. Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:03.659) True.

Danny (26:13.266) who may really get inspired to go into filmmaking. And I've just always been such a film fanatic. I've talked about it before on the podcast and I hate repeating myself, but who knows? Maybe this is the first episode somebody listened to. But...

Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:17.684) Yes.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:29.515) Ha ha ha.

Danny (26:30.218) You know, I was lucky enough to go to a high school in Chicago that did a class called Cinema Study that I've rarely ever heard of any other high schools ever having anything like that. You got two teachers. It was a gigantic class. You had to be on you had to get on a waitlist like two years beforehand to get in the class. And it just from that class on.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:34.581) Yeah.

Danny (26:54.03) I have just been a lover of film and I often wish that I had gone into film instead of my music career. I know there's a lot of actors all have bands and they seem to want to be rock stars and a lot of rock stars, not that I'm a rock star, I'm a mid-level drummer in a punk rock band, but a lot of us are like, oh, I should get into some acting and getting into filmmaking and stuff.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (27:07.145) It's.

It seems absolutely.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (27:21.147) Yeah, a lot of actors want to be rock stars and a lot of rock stars want to be actors. That's what it is. But you're absolutely right. Absolutely. The learning experience.

Danny (27:27.992) Yeah. The grass always looks greener, I guess.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (27:34.843) about filmmaking, learning how do people write a script, how do you film that scene, how do you do that stunt, how was it to direct the actors, all of that. Any screening, any event during the festival, at some point we take questions from the audience and we do have a lot

Danny (27:56.226) Gotcha.

Danny (28:00.018) Yeah, that's great.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (28:05.297) implication and the involvement of the community. We have a community of people who love movies really and all the questions we get are always specific, smart, sharp and interesting and this is really it works both ways. The residents who come to the festival are gonna learn about scriptwriting, music composing for

Matt Beurois | YVFF (28:35.117) You're going to learn from the filmmakers on the making of the films, but the filmmakers also Come to town and we created we use the film festival as a platform So they learn about our community this year. They are going to meet with the wrestling team from the high school They're going to meet with the martial arts club we have in Ikebari American Adjiuji Suu Collective and Yeah, and on Sunday they are going to meet with Miss Ikebari

Danny (28:59.004) Yeah, Americana. Uh huh.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (29:04.757) scholarship so it's ready for them it's also an opportunity to see oh Yerkevare is a small town I've never been and then they realize how

Danny (29:07.106) Very cool.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (29:17.407) cool we are, the many things that happen in the community and we would love them to come back and maybe film some of their next scenes in our area. So it's really, it works both ways and that's again, that's very unique for the UKVFM festival because people show up and they want they want that experience and that dialogue.

Danny (29:19.092) Yeah.

Danny (29:44.018) Yeah, I, you know, it keeps kind of revealing itself to me more and more. It wasn't something that I thought about when I moved out here. You know, for me, it was like, I like the outdoors. I like to, you know, I'm going on my motorcycle, stuff like that all the time. Uh, but now as I'm here, like I am blown away with the amount of creative people. Like the art scene, it's like art film, like it's off the.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (29:57.183) Same, same, same.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:07.251) Definitely.

Danny (30:11.202) I mean, there's so many people from all these different backgrounds. And, you know, I guess we are slightly, you know, it's an advantage for what seems like smaller communities out here. But because of the proximity to Los Angeles, you know, there is a lot of, you know, I met some artists and stuff this weekend during the Highway 62 art tours, you know, that are, you know,

Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:29.707) to LA.

Danny (30:40.716) worked on big projects and big films and you know but we're close enough that you know at some point they're like I want to live in maybe a smaller community but I can still work in the industry if I want to and so it's a little bit different than a smaller community that's you know not near an epicenter for music and art and music and things like that so it's just like

Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:44.121) Yep, yep.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:51.071) Yeah.

Danny (31:02.946) It's like you go around a corner and all of a sudden you're like, Oh my God, look at this place and look at this, but this guy's doing, this is incredible. And it's a really exciting element of the area out here. It's in really just a vibrant scene. It's, it's really cool.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (31:11.84) You're right.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (31:18.883) It is a vibrant scene. I think we have exceptional artists around here We're gonna have once again this year at the festival many local artists competing for music videos for short films for Photography it's Every year we have more and more and I'm always amazed by the creativity of artists musicians

Danny (31:31.389) Mm-hmm.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (31:49.057) the mindset of people coming here? I don't know. Maybe it's because of the vortexes, because it's always been historically a place where you could be free. I think it's all connected and we all want to enjoy that and that's also a reason why we don't want the Yekavalefum festival not to become too big. It has to, I really believe, we have room to grow.

Danny (32:01.832) Yeah.

Danny (32:12.647) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (32:18.735) I understand that and I want that, but it's also a community film festival.

Danny (32:18.978) Sure.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (32:24.451) So I think to keep that and to keep a close relationship with the small businesses, with the artists, we need to keep that direct interaction between a filmmaker from LA, a photographer from, I don't know, Portland, and the local artist from Joshua Tree, the guy who does pottery in Pioneer Town. We all gather in the same place for three days,

Danny (32:46.69) Mm-hmm.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (32:54.345) festival has to be a platform for that. So when it becomes too big you can lose that and I really wanted the recipe of the Yikavere Film Festival to continue being, to continue serving the community. That's really the goal we have in making it.

Danny (32:56.694) Yeah.

Danny (33:13.062) Yeah. Well, I got to tell you, Matt, it sounds I'm like, excited and I'm jacked up to like come to the film festival. I'm really looking forward to it now. And I think it's just, you know, it sounds like an amazing event. Where is the best place for people to get more information about the film fest?

Matt Beurois | YVFF (33:24.799) Thank you.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (33:34.283) www.yukavadefilmfestival.com

Danny (33:37.579) Okay.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (33:37.867) website, www.yekevadefilmfestival.com. The program is going to be announced officially November 1st maybe a little bit before, maybe a little bit after, it depends. But we have a pretty good idea already of the program. We know we have secured more than 45 filmmakers and artists to come

Matt Beurois | YVFF (34:07.921) They are going to be coming with a cinematographer and the producer and a friend and the actress and the actor and the family members so it could easily turn into more than a hundred people Just artists flocking into town to attend the festival for three days So we know already it's going to be exciting and successful and we know that Whenever you attend Friday Saturday Sunday, you're gonna meet exceptional artists and you're gonna have quality

Danny (34:08.887) Yeah.

Danny (34:23.732) Yeah.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (34:37.841) time to talk with them and learn about filmmaking and of course watch great movies that's what it is at the end of the day the movies there's no movie we're gonna show this year that's not good every single movie is good has something to offer and a lot of them have been filmed around here so it's always like

Danny (34:44.535) Yeah.

Danny (34:51.782) Yeah, awesome.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (35:01.595) Amazing to see how filmmakers from the outside use our use the outdoors we live in every day and how they see that and how they put it into film We have westerns comedies science-fiction dramas We have it all and we have the kids program on Saturday animated films for the kids

Danny (35:06.538) Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Danny (35:26.942) Oh cool, wonderful. Sounds great. I will make sure for the listeners, I'll put the show notes and, or in the show notes, I'll make sure to put the website address so you guys can find that stuff easily. And Matt, merci beaucoup.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (35:40.395) Appreciate it.

Matt Beurois | YVFF (35:44.331) Merci beaucoup and I hope to see you, Danny, at the festival and all the listeners. It's free admission, compliments to the Turner Yucca Valley. They really want the festival to be a place for the community to enjoy and have a good time. So it's all free, popcorn included. So just join. Thank you.

Danny (36:00.462) That's amazing. I will be there.

In this episode i went to visit Seth Zaharias at his house , " Sethspool" out in Joshua Tree California. Seth runs Cliffhanger Guide services along with his wife, Sabra. What started out as 10k and a dream has turned into the largest climbing guide service in what as known as one of the worlds top rock climbing destinations. Along with running the guide service, Seth promotes emersive events in the Morongo Basin area. He is an old school Joshua Tree OG having moved here 24 years ago. He has a great take on the exponential growth that the area has seen as well as the health of the tourism market.

VIDEO VERSION of this episode is available on youtube HERE

Visit Cliffhanger Guide Services HERE

Luke Basulto is all things desert. In this episode we talk about his journey to working in the desert conservation world, the meeting of conservation and development and, his work with the Saving Slowpoke Project.

Luke's Instagram

Saving Slowpoke Project

In This episode we talk to Patrick Zuchowiki, founder of the inagural 20 Palms Book Festival

Website to the 29 Palms Book Festival HERE