The State of Creativity

Who gets to call themselves a curator? And what if curating isn't just a job title, but a way of moving through the world?

Joining me in today’s episode is America Castillo, a curator and museum professional whose path into the art world has been anything but conventional. Born in Mexico City and raised largely in Puerto Rico, she trained as an architect before unexpectedly finding her way into museums. Her work challenges conventional ideas about who gets to curate, how expertise is defined, and what museums can become when they make room for a wider range of perspectives.

Over the past 8 years at SFMOMA, Castillo has worked her way from department assistant to project manager overseeing the museum's acquisitions program, and is now co-curator of her first major exhibition, alongside RM of BTS and SFMOMA’s Hyoeun Kim.

RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me is the first museum exhibition featuring artworks from RM's personal collection, and will be on view from October 3 through February 7.

In this episode, I'm joined by my friend and old neighbor, Joel Reske. Joel lived just across the street from me in Lower Haight, our houses sitting along the wiggle, the zig-zagging bike route that runs from Market Street to Golden Gate Park. That location makes his house the perfect spot for Sunday night line dancing, a weekly event Joel and his housemates have hosted in their garage for the past two years, drawing about 70 people each week. He's also the founder of the Lower Haight Local, a neighborhood magazine featuring art, articles, and community content from neighbors.

Everything Joel works on is rooted in bringing people together, and he does it with so much joy, energy, and consistent investment in those around him. It's been so cool watching his projects evolve over time, and I hope this conversation inspires you to bring that idea you've had in your head to life. You never know how it might unfold.

This conversation was recorded on my back porch in San Francisco, before my move to New York, so if you hear a bird chirp or wind chimes in the background, that's just the sounds of the backyard.

Thank you to Descript for helping bring this episode to life! If you make podcasts or videos, this is one of those tools that will absolutely improve your workflow. Try it for yourself: https://get.descript.com/stateofcreativitypod

Climate, community, and design are inextricably linked, and are something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. While it may be obvious (but absolutely blows my mind if I think too hard about it), design literally applies to every facet of life, shaping the spaces we inhabit, the systems we move through, the communities we build, and even what the future of our planet looks like. It’s also a response to the world we’re living in, and so climate is inherently a pretty big part of that conversation.

This episode with Marc O’Brien dives into that intersection of design, climate, and community. Marc is an award-winning creative director and strategist and has been a mentor, friend, and neighbor of mine throughout my time in San Francisco. He also spoke at CreativeMornings San Francisco in February. Marc is one of the most thoughtful voices I know advocating for using design to be a powerful force for good in the climate space.

From 2016–2022, he co-founded and ran The Determined, a design strategy and creative consulting studio that launched successful sustainability and climate-forward work. In 2019, he co-founded Climate Designers, a now-global community of designers taking climate action, with chapters around the world. He's also senior adjunct faculty at California College of the Arts, where he teaches climate design and social innovation.

In this conversation, Marc takes us from his punk rock roots to a nomadic post-grad journey that ultimately landed him here in the Bay Area. Our conversation explores how to design for climate, why today’s climate crisis is intertwined with our connection crisis, and how a prototype mindset can transform the way we approach both work and life.

We're living in a moment that rewards speed and scale above almost everything else. And while many argue that AI is finally freeing creatives up to do more of what they love, the pressure to produce more, faster, hasn't gone anywhere. Which is why, as we explore in today's conversation, one of the most radical things we can do with these tools isn't to move faster, but to go deeper.

Joining me is Branko Lukic, a cognitive architect, designer, and innovator. Born and raised in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia, Branko's career took him from some of the world's leading design firms, including frog design and ideo, to founding his own award-winning studio, nonobject, which was later acquired by Logitech. Today, Branko is the Vice President of AI Design and Innovation at VF Corporation.

Branko was also the speaker at CreativeMornings San Francisco in December 2025, where he explored the theme of INNOVATION and introduced the concept of Perfect Flaws: the idea that our imperfections and idiosyncrasies aren't limitations, but the very thing that makes human creativity irreplaceable.

In this conversation, we talk about the first time Branko used AI (an experience that moved him to tears), how decades of meditation and mindfulness have shaped his creative practice, and why our unique imperfections are our most valuable assets.

In a world that can so often feel heavy, choosing joy day in and day out can actually be a pretty radical act. So what does it take to build a life and a community around joy?

Joining me in this episode is Stephanie Cowan, a friendship facilitator, community advocate, speaker, and social artist based in San Francisco, who is one of the most joy-centered people I know. Through her connection design studio, Mission Serendipity, and her gathering series, The Drop In, Stephanie has spent years fine-tuning a formula for large-scale human connection, and our conversation explores everything it's taken for her to get here.

Stephanie also spoke at CreativeMornings San Francisco in January, where she explored Coorsoo — a Farsi word meaning "faint glimmer of hope" — and coined the term glimmer maxing: the practice of infusing joy, whimsy, and positivity into your everyday life.

Please note: this episode discusses topics related to eating disorders and body image.

When I first discovered Submit Your Ick on Instagram, I was instantly hooked. Each episode is equal parts cringe, comedic, and relatable. 

The Ick is a weekly anthology series that takes real, crowd-sourced dating stories and turns them into scripted mini-films. Each one captures that very specific, very human moment when "this could be something" becomes"I'd rather be anywhere else." It's the internet's most unromantic romantic comedy, and in under a year, it's grown to 15 million monthly viewers and 580,000+ followers, making it the fastest-growing scripted social show ever.

Ari Cagan and John Connor Hammond are the co-founders of American Picture Company, a New York-based studio making television for your phone. They're the creators of award-winning films and viral series, including Keep the Meter Running and Boy Room, and The Ick is their first original series.

In this conversation, we get into The Ick’s origin story, what it actually takes to start up and run a production studio, and why they believe the future of storytelling lies outside the traditional film and TV distribution pipeline.

I sat down with Ari and John earlier this year during a trip to New York, and I left genuinely energized. They have such a sharp read on where storytelling, internet culture, and community-building are all heading, and this episode gets into all of it.

Oh, and I also share a little personal news in this episode. (I’m moving to NYC this summer—GAH!!!) Super stoked, a little nervy, and looking to connect with listeners based there. Hmu! 

I can confidently say that Creative Mornings has had one of the most profound impacts on who I am as an artist, storyteller, and creative professional. So sitting down on a snowy afternoon in Tina’s cozy Brooklyn home for a conversation about CreativeMornings, community, and building a radically generous world is something I’ll never forget. 

Tina Roth Eisenberg is the founder and CEO of CreativeMornings, the monthly breakfast talk series that now spans more than 270 chapters across the globe. What began in 2008, after Tina moved from Switzerland to New York City to pursue her career as a graphic designer, has grown into one of the most expansive and heart-centered creative communities in the world. 

In this conversation, we explore Tina’s journey to New York, the origins of her design blog Swissmiss, the early days of CreativeMornings, and how radical generosity can function as both a business model and a philosophy for cultivating a better world.

How can we, and should we protect human creativity as AI reshapes how art is made, valued, and distributed? 

In this episode, host Rachel Paul is joined by Abbi Press, a musician and the Global Lead of Business Affairs (Creative) at Uber, to explore the rapidly shifting creative landscape. Together, they unpack the tension many creatives feel today: fear of AI replacing human labor, the realities of making art under capitalism, and how the value of human-made work may evolve in an AI-accelerated world.

Drawing from her early life immersed in music and her current role bridging creatives, legal systems, and technology, Abbi offers a rare, nuanced perspective on authorship, creative labor, and why human craft may matter more, not less, as technology advances.

Abbi Press is also the author of The Double Helix, a Substack exploring the messy, evolving intersection of art, strategy, and technology.

If you’ve ever wondered who I am (hi, it’s me, Rachel Paul), this one’s for you.

For artist Risa Iwasaki Culbertson, softness wasn’t always the obvious tool for getting through hard things, but today, it’s at the center of her art practice. On the surface, her world is full of giant, whimsical needle-felted characters and objects, sculpted from wool into bright, playful forms. 

But as we hear from Risa, that softness takes on a deeper meaning. Growing up between Japan and the United States, navigating family illness and grief, and learning to turn big feelings into something gentle and inviting, she’s used her practice as a way to heal, connect, and create places of belonging. In this episode, we explore how art can help us metabolize the uncertainty and heaviness of a full-spectrum human experience, turning it into something joyful, tender, and deeply meaningful.

Risa is a fiber artist, illustrator, storyteller, and owner of Papa Llama, a playful stationery company based out of San Francisco.