Arts Collective

Everything & Everybody
Ep. 8: Shawn

“To me, your history dictates a lot of what you are and/or what you don't want to be or what you want to be, right. So, when I'm designing for Good Neighbor, I'm always referencing my childhood, my wife's childhood, our backgrounds, our culture, or the countries we're from, the moments we had in different parts of our life that inform certain decisions. That's where you can find the most honest version of design is usually from those experiences, right. But it can be from a conversation. We could have an amazing conversation today, and I can learn something about you, and that could have formed the next projects. Spaces all usually have a couple of walls, you know. They usually have paint. And some spaces can have the same paint as another spot, right. But it just feels different based on lighting, based on what humans are in the space. It's hard to get a word around this, like, to me, it's like the feeling of design, and feeling of design comes when someone does something authentically. And if they do it authentically, which means that they're not trying to follow a trend, they're not trying to follow what they've seen in a magazine, or what they've seen in someone else's spaces. And you can be influenced by a lot of that, but you're really trying to follow your sense of what that is. But I think that's where you can kind of create the best basis. But also in the history of the space, right? So whatever, you know, whatever building, whatever room. What's the building? What's the space? Where's the history? Who lived here before? Who inhabited this space before? Good or bad? Right? What materials were used here?”

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Everything & Everybody
Ep 6: Kai
“I just was reminded why I started doing music. When I was younger, I didn't have any other release. Like I grew up in a family where it was like, you know, don't talk about what goes on. Nobody needs to know what goes on in this family, in this house, dadada. So it was like, we didn't express emotions. We didn't talk about what was going on. So I will put it in some music, and I'll put it into art. And then when I started getting good at it, and it became a business, I then was like trying to work it as a business, which has been like the last four years of my life and I've hated it. Like I've hated it so bad. It made me hate music. And then I just randomly started producing again, and being able to make music that is like fun. And I'm not making it to worry about the streams. I'm not making it because I want somebody to be impressed. I'm just having fun creating. It reminded me why I started it. And it's literally just like the outlet of... it goes back to why I used to write stories. I want to create a world. But like, I want to create the atmosphere that I live in too. I want to create the music that will be present in my universe. So like, that's what I've been creating right now, which has been fun for me because I'm like, Okay, well, what would my world sound like? So it's been, I've been having fun, just like rediscovering my passion for creating because it just makes me feel like a kid. I think that's the real answer. It makes me feel like a kid again. It's like meditation because I'm not doing anything else but creating for that time. It's testing my brain because when I'm writing, I'm like, Okay, but how can I say this more creative and like catchy, like, still cool? I don't know, it's like a big brain exercise. And I'm a nerd. So I just have fun creating. I can't explain it. It just literally makes me feel like I have a purpose.”