Beyond + Back Podcast

Shepard Fairey is celebrating 30 years of being a groundbreaking and influential artist, designer and activist. He started his company Obey Giant with a sticker and he’s turned it into an empire, including but not limited to his fine art, murals all over the world, the Obey Clothing line, his design and branding company Studio Number One and an art gallery called Subliminal Projects. You can watch the 2017 documentary Obey Giant: The Art and Dissent of Shepard Fairey, pick up his books Supply and Demand and Covert to Overt, and if you’re in LA you can visit the exhibition celebrating three decades of Shepard’s art - it just opened at Over the Influence Gallery and is up until December 29th 2019. In this conversation Shepard shares some of the wisdom he’s gained over 30 years as an artist, including kept going when things got tough, how he infuses his ideals and values into his art and why he thinks that it’s important to pursue a creative practice. I spoke with Shepard at Obey Giant HQ in Los Angeles, CA. Shepard Fairey is celebrating 30 years of being a groundbreaking and influential artist, designer and activist. He started his company Obey Giant with a sticker and he’s turned it into an empire, including but not limited to his fine art, murals all over the world, the Obey Clothing line, his design and branding company Studio Number One and an art gallery called Subliminal Projects. You can watch the 2017 documentary Obey Giant: The Art and Dissent of Shepard Fairey, pick up his books Supply and Demand and Covert to Overt, and if you’re in LA you can visit the exhibition celebrating three decades of Shepard’s art - it just opened at Over the Influence Gallery and is up until December 29th 2019. In this conversation Shepard shares some of the wisdom he’s gained over 30 years as an artist, including kept going when things got tough, how he infuses his ideals and values into his art and why he thinks that it’s important to pursue a creative practice. I spoke with Shepard at Obey Giant HQ in Los Angeles, CA. There’s so much to admire about Shepard Fairey. I admire all that he has created and built while sticking to his values, how he expresses his ideals in his work, his activism, how he gives back to causes he believes in — From what I see, Shepard walks the walk, all the way down to the great people he surrounds himself with. He’s also grounded, available and a true fan and supporter of other artists.  For those reasons and more I find him righteous and inspiring. Shepard is a great example of how you can remain a true artist, while continually expanding your success. After this conversation, I’m inspired to do the work, to make changes when it’s necessary, and to keep the faith in my own creative drive and values.  This episode marks the end of Beyond + Back podcast Season 2, which is bittersweet for me! I’m looking forward to taking a break to reflect on the next phase of this podcast, but I’m also going to miss it. In the meantime, you can listen to past episodes with artists like Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Aimee Mann and Jakob Dylan, and then please give a listen to the people you may not already know, like WK Binger, Evelyn from the Internets or Kime Buzzelli.  My purpose to this podcast has been to celebrate what I’ve found both confounding and exhilarating about being an artist, and to explore the mental, emotional and spiritual highs and lows that other artists have experienced on their creative journey. I share these conversations to inspire you - to follow your own creative desires and to put time into doing the work. It’s worth it. Keep going. It’s guaranteed to give you, as Shepard says, that extra spark. There’s so much to admire about Shepard Fairey. I admire all that he has created and built while sticking to his values, how he expresses his ideals in his work, his activism, how he gives back to causes he believes in — From what I see, Shepard walks the walk, all the way down to the great people he surrounds himself with. He’s also grounded, available and a true fan and supporter of other artists.  For those reasons and more I find him righteous and inspiring. Shepard is a great example of how you can remain a true artist, while continually expanding your success. After this conversation, I’m inspired to do the work, to make changes when it’s necessary, and to keep the faith in my own creative drive and values.  This episode marks the end of Beyond + Back podcast Season 2, which is bittersweet for me! I’m looking forward to taking a break to reflect on the next phase of this podcast, but I’m also going to miss it. In the meantime, you can listen to past episodes with artists like Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Aimee Mann and Jakob Dylan, and then please give a listen to the people you may not already know, like WK Binger, Evelyn from the Internets or Kime Buzzelli.  My purpose to this podcast has been to celebrate what I’ve found both confounding and exhilarating about being an artist, and to explore the mental, emotional and spiritual highs and lows that other artists have experienced on their creative journey. I share these conversations to inspire you - to follow your own creative desires and to put time into doing the work. It’s worth it. Keep going. It’s guaranteed to give you, as Shepard says, that extra spark.

LAND Studio & Gallery is a unique nonprofit day habilitation program that teaches life skills through the modality of art. Located in Brooklyn, NY, LAND was founded in 2005 and serves 16 adult artists with developmental disabilities. I spoke with six of the artists at LAND before visiting the co-founder Matthew Bede Murphy at his home in Brooklyn. This is an episode for close listening.  In my conversation with Matthew, we discuss how art can have a role in our discovery of Self. He shares his struggles in understanding his own identity as a young gay man, and how art therapy helped him to know his whole self. Trigger warning, there is a very brief mention of suicidal thoughts, but the bulk of our discussion explores the healing potential of having a creative practice and a safe space to express yourself. I’m so grateful for Matthew’s candor and inspired by his empathy, and I was truly honored to visit with these six artists at LAND: Rudy Bansraj, Michael Pellew, Kenya Hanley, Stephon Bryce, Robert Lachman and Myasia Dowdell. I’m so grateful for Matthew’s openness in sharing his metamorphosis as a natural art child who had a long journey to meet his destiny as a free thinker.  I’m inspired by how he survived his own traumatic struggles with identity, to continue on to create a safe space for sixteen artists to be exactly who they are.

Bonus episode: I'm sharing the full episode of my appearance on the This Song podcast hosted by KUTX's Elizabeth McQueen. This was my second interview ever and the first one I did before a live audience. Naturally, I was nervous. In my introduction to this bonus episode, I talk through how I managed my nervousness so I could show up for the live interview. Then I share the full episode where I talk about my love for Jeff Buckley, followed by Elizabeth McQueen interviewing me about my journey to see myself as an artist and  why I started the Beyond + Back podcast. Thank you Elizabeth McQueen for your permission to allow me to share this episode. Listen to all the This Song episodes at https://kutx.org/category/this-song.

Luke Storey wears many hats. He’s a former Hollywood Celebrity Fashion Stylist, motivational speaker, kundalini yoga and meditation teacher and world-class biohacker. He is the creator and host of The Life Stylist Podcast, a show for people who are dedicated to living life at the highest level of human potential. Prior to this, Luke was a musician for 15 years and then co-founded School of Style, a fashion school for aspiring stylists. In this episode we talk about what it’s like to create your own life, to re-create it when the time comes, and the challenges that presents when people want you to explain just exactly what it is that you do. Luke is an eternal seeker who approaches life with an open-minded curiosity, which is key when you want to engage your creativity. We talk about authenticity, vulnerability and influence. This episode is for you if you’re on your path, but you don’t know exactly how to explain that path to everyone else around you. Theme music by David Garza. For detailed show notes and song credits, visit www.beyondandbackpodcast.com.

Kelli Mayo is 19 years old and Peyton Bighorse is 23, but their band Skating Polly has already existed for 10 years. During that time they’ve played hundreds of live shows, toured with many of their heroes and released five studio recordings. They are a family band, Peyton’s mom and Kelli’s dad are a couple, and a few years ago they added their brother Kurtis Mayo on drums. This is a story of two women who were encouraged to be creative and express themselves, from a very young age. If you’re a parent, this episode shows the importance of sharing your love for creativity with your kids, and to encourage theirs. We all were kids once, so if you didn’t get encouraged as a child, this could be a vicarious pleasure to hear about Kelli and Peyton’s experience.

Davíd Garza hails from Texas & has been making music and writing songs since the late 1980s. These days he collaborates with all sorts of artists; you might find him making music with Fiona Apple or scoring the recent Beto O'Rourke documentary. He just released a book called Lost Rhyme which pairs 100 of his paintings alongside 100 poems, or song lyrics, he’s written. Davíd has generously allowed me to use several pieces of his music for this podcast, including the theme song. I never see David without a pad of paper or an instrument, he has a creative practice that’s a daily devotion. So in true Davíd fashion, he had a guitar and a book nearby so you’ll hear some readings and some strumming during this episode. In this episode we talk about his approach to creativity and what it’s like to choose to be an artist in 2019. We talked in his brother’s kitchen in Austin, Texas.  

  Danielle MacKinnon, is an intuitive, animal communicator, and coach. She has two published books, Soul Contracts and Animal Lessons, and she teaches animal communication classes at the Omega Institute, the Kripalu Center, and also through her own online school. Today we’re hearing from someone whose creative work might go beyond your comfort zone of what’s real or acceptable. Many of us are open to the idea of psychics or intuitives, but the notion that humans can communicate intuitively with animals is still pretty controversial. We’re not here to talk extensively about what it means to be an animal communicator, or even to change your mind if it’s closed to the idea of it. I’m here to talk about creativity in its many forms, and what it feels like when you follow a path that the mainstream doesn’t really believe in. Danielle grew up in an environment that didn’t support her intuitive gifts, but she has come to embrace them fully and she now teaches others how to awaken their own. In this episode we talk about what it’s like when you take a left turn that the people around you don’t necessarily support, what it feels like to tune into your own intuition, and how staying present in our creative process allows it to flow and change in ways that benefit us. I personally have benefitted from exploring ideas that are beyond own my beliefs and comprehension, I find it stimulating to my inspiration, so please open your ears and your mind and I hope you enjoy listening. Danielle and I spoke over our laptops from Austin to Boston, so please forgive any strange audio quality. I hope this episode expands and inspires you to tap into your own inner knowing and venture bravely toward whatever it is that makes your heart sing. 

Jakob Dylan has been playing music for more than 30 years, touring all over the world and winning two Grammys with his band The Wallflowers. He’s released two solo albums and most recently he collaborated with his longtime manager Andrew Slater on the film and project called Echo in the Canyon, which celebrates the music that came out of LA’s Laurel Canyon in the mid-1960s. Jakob’s been surrounded by music his entire life, but that doesn’t make it any easier when you sit down alone to write a song. In this conversation Jakob and I talk a lot about his songwriting process, where inspiration comes from & why we both think it’s important to share encouragement with others. Jakob and I spoke somewhere in the basement of ACL Live at the Moody Theater, located off of Willie Nelson Blvd in Austin.

Kathleen Shannon is a designer, creative director and podcaster. For this episode, we flip the format and Kathleen Shannon interviews me, Krissy Teegerstrom, your host of the Beyond + Back podcast. Kathleen co-hosts a podcast for creative entrepreneurs called Being Boss, with her business bestie Emily Thompson. Since 2015 they’ve recorded over 200 episodes, racked up nearly 8 million downloads and published a book together. In this episode Kathleen and I talk about art, spirituality, authenticity, meditation, why I started this podcast and my business Featherweight Studio, the challenges we both face as creative entrepreneurs and lots more. We recorded it remotely from our laptops, several states apart from each other.

Storyteller Evelyn Ngugi, aka Evelyn From The Internets, and I spoke at her co-working space in Austin, Texas. Evelyn is a writer, speaker, performer and humorist with 10 years of videos she's shared on her YouTube channel, garnering more than 13 million views and 200K subscribers (Beyoncé is a fan!). We talked about the pros and cons of sharing your work online, how to separate yourself from your work, how learning new skills is a good way to combat inevitable self-doubt, and how we're comforted to know that all creatives grapple with similar questions.

Part two of my conversation with artist and designer Paul Frank. In episode one, we talked about the beginning of Paul’s creative journey and the initial inspiration behind some of the characters you know and love, including the beloved Julius the monkey. In this second episode, we talk about how those original characters grew into Paul Frank Industries, the hugely successful company that he co-founded with two partners. Paul eventually left that company and then returned, then parted again ... and we’ll talk about how his relationship continues to evolve as the company changes hands. We also discuss his creative process around building the brand, from designing award-winning trade show booths to thinking of every element of design and experience within a retail store. And we talk about how making art can save you.

Paul Frank is best known as the co-founder of Paul Frank Industries, a multi-million dollar company that found success in the mid-1990s with his iconic characters like Julius the Monkey. In this first of two episodes with Paul Frank, we talk about the beginnings of his creativity, what influenced his early work, where Julius the monkey came from and the fun and the function that comes from just figuring things out yourself. 

I speak with multiplatinum selling musician and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Billie Joe Armstrong of the band Green Day.  We talk about the solitude needed to nurture a creative seed versus the fortitude needed to share it with the world, the benefits of encouraging others, and what we can accomplish when we keep pushing past our comfort zones. I spoke with Billie Joe in his studio in Oakland, California.  

Singer, songwriter & musician Aimee Mann began her career in the 1980s. Early on, she had a breakout hit with her band Til Tuesday, but that has not defined her career. Since then she has created a body of work as a solo artist, winning Grammy Awards and nominations for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her work on the soundtrack to the movie Magnolia. She maintains her own signature voice and songwriting style, yet she’s adept at collaborations and transitions, including a successful move from a major record label to releasing work on her own independent label for over a decade. In this episode we talk about talent versus hard work, her approach to songwriting, and why Aimee thinks it’s important to say yes. We spoke in Aimee’s home in Los Angeles, California.

Talking with Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio in his art studio outside his home in Los Angeles, CA. We talk about giving ourselves permission to do more than one thing, how art can save lives, and how we can use our creative outlets to help process the difficulties and trauma we experience. In addition to being a musician, he’s also a working actor, often collaborates with other artists, and when we spoke, he was preparing for his first solo art show at a gallery in LA.

Jerry Harrison may be best known for his work in The Modern Lovers and Talking Heads. He’s had great success as a music producer with bands including Live, No Doubt, and most recently Le Butcherettes. He’s been involved in film, start-ups, he’s in the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, he’s maintained a creative career for over 40 years and he has a knack for knowing where to invest his energy. In this conversation we talk about self-doubt, family bonds, ghosts, and collaborating with large personalities. I talked with Jerry Harrison in the recording studio at his home in Mill Valley, California.

From Seattle, WA, we go beyond and back with musician and entertainer Robert Lopez. Perhaps best known as El Vez, the Mexican Elvis, Lopez is a lifelong creator, starting in his teenage years in the Los Angeles punk scene and continuing to make art today with his latest creation, Mr. Bob and The Unhappy Hour. He is a singer, songwriter, actor, a sincere trickster. He'll make you laugh and cry. He’s calculated and spontaneous, regal, radical, and subversive, his personal is always political. He is many things at the same time. This conversation rattled me and I spent a lot of time reflecting on it. I invite you to listen for yourself, please forgive if I am more clumsy than usual, and at the end I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned. I talked with Robert Lopez in the kitchen of his beautiful Seattle home.

From Joshua Tree, CA, we go beyond & back with fine artist Kime Buzzelli. What would cause an accomplished artist to experience a creative block? Kime is an accomplished painter and owns The End Yucca Valley, a vintage oasis in the Mojave Desert featuring clothing, jewelry, textiles and art. I came to know her as a tastemaker, stylist, costume designer and a supporter of artists, but for a long time, I had no idea of Kime’s career as a painter, though she’s shown in galleries and had partnerships with major brands.  I was curious why she didn’t mention that sooner, and I wanted to see her new work. That’s when I found out she hadn’t been painting. In this episode we talk about that creative block, putting in the hours toward your creative practice, what we’ve learned from our work and much more. I spoke with Kime in her secret new art studio in the high desert near Joshua Tree, California.

In this episode, we go beyond & back with WK Binger. He’s owned a tree removal service for over 30 years but recently he opened the Vintage Sewing Center & Museum in Tulsa Oklahoma.  Sewing is very dear to my heart, in fact I named my company Featherweight Studio after my 1948 Singer Featherweight sewing machine. But this episode is not just for sewing enthusiasts. I invite you to slow down and listen and open your mind. This episode may inspire you to take a left turn creatively and remind you it’s never too late to learn something new. In fact, if you don’t try new things you might miss out on part of your calling. It’s about falling in love with a machine and giving back to a community.  It’s about creating without fear and being open to following the thread to see where it takes you. I hope that listening to this episode inspires you to open your mind or to open a new door — listen to someone or something you might not normally listen to, learn a completely new skill, maybe give something away, or somehow challenge yourself to find that edge of failure and see how it opens up your creativity.

In this episode we go Beyond + Back with award-winning independent filmmaker Allison Anders. How do I introduce Allison Anders? I will give you the highlight reel:  Her films include Border Radio, Mi Vida Loca, Gas Food Lodging, Sugartown, Grace of My Heart She’s received a Peabody Award and a MacArthur Genius Grant She's a loving mother and friend, a multi-faceted survivor And she's kind of a badass in my opinion I interviewed Allison at her home in Pasadena, California. Before I finished setting up the microphones in her cozy kitchen, we were already having a great conversation. I gotta tell you, we get real right away — In the first few minutes, we discuss her film Things Behind the Sun, which deals with the subject of sexual abuse similar to what Allison experienced in her own life, so be advised if that’s a sensitive or triggering subject for you.   Other topics we discuss include the state of the DIY ethic, how mentorships should come about, how to connect with actors, and how she often starts a project with a question.

 In this debut episode of the Beyond and Back podcast, I speak with my friend fine artist and musician Nathan Carter in his Brooklyn art studio. We're hearing from Nathan at a time when he's just spent about three years working on an entirely new project, a real departure from his previous work, and fortunately it's proving to be a success for him.  Nathan shares some formative memories he has about being a creative child. We talk about what it's like to have two parents who supported his creativity and believed that being an artist is a legitimate life choice. These types of experiences color our attitudes about creativity and whether or not we believe that we're allowed to be creative.  We also discuss Nathan's approach to creating, which invites some vulnerability, a healthy feeling of fear and an element of risk and recklessness. This conversation is free form and we use words that some people find offensive. You'll also hear two songs from The Dramastics that might whip you into a frenzy. So listen with caution.

Find out what to expect from the Beyond + Back podcast, and why artist and creative consultant Krissy Teegerstrom of Featherweight Studio created it.