Thinking Cap

“What do you find scary?”

It’s a deceptively simple question—until you realize that the things that terrify us aren't random noise. What if your deepest anxieties are actually a direct map to your creative process and the work you're meant to build?

In this episode of The Thinking Cap, we explore how horror cinema and high-contrast portraiture serve as mirrors for our own lives, relationships, and creative routines. Tracing an arc from childhood thresholds with fear to the relational brilliance of Get Out, Barbarian, and Hereditary, we dissect Stephen King’s three levels of terror and examine how photographer Richard Avedon transformed lifelong personal anxieties into a groundbreaking artistic practice.

Everything in life—our friction, our relationships, and our deepest fears—points back to our creative process. When you stop running from what makes you uneasy and start building a controlled environment to interrogate it, you move past surface-level work and start making something undeniable.

In this episode, we’re talking about capacity: what it means to hold things in a phone, in the cloud, and in ourselves, and what it looks like when that storage is full. We look at how it shows up in the creative process, from panic-driven making and rushing to clear the way for new ideas, to being intentional about what we capture, making room to revise, and holding our work with an open hand. Along the way, we ask whether we create capacity as we go or wait until we feel completely full.

If this episode sparked something, share it with a friend and follow Thinking Cap. I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, or your answers to the questions we asked, leave a comment or DM me.

Substack- https://rianl.substack.com/

This episode is dedicated to Elsie Hill.

In this episode, we're talking about natural rhythms and how we have to pay attention to observe ourselves in order to be more aligned in our process.

Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/@rianlmobley

Substack- https://rianl.substack.com/

When your art starts feeling like a product pitch, something has gone wrong. In this episode, I talk about pulling consumerism out of the creative process — and making work that feels true before it feels marketable.

We’re tracing the full evolution of Yall Ain’t Hot, What started as a concept inspired by Topicals eye patches became something bigger: a meditation on heat, southern identity, absurdity, and the pressure artists feel to build for brands instead of for themselves.

I share how I:

• ​Built the project from product research, color theory, and cultural references

• ​Rewrote the film when the original version started feeling too commercial

• ​Used wardrobe, location, and a custom playlist to shape the world of the piece

• ​Learned why some ideas need to be stripped down before they can become real

I also get into the practical and emotional side of making experimental work — the frustration of waiting on external sources, the challenge of trusting my own voice, and the relief of finishing something even if it’s not perfect, viral, or fully “complete.”

If you’re trying to make meaningful work without letting algorithms or consumer habits dictate your process, this one’s for you — a behind-the-scenes breakdown of Yall Ain’t Hot, and a challenge to ask yourself what you really need to make the thing.

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IG: @rianlmobley