Nic Steenhout on quilting, sketching, and photography

Nic
Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and this is The Work Between.

Nic
In case you didn't know, I provide transcript reviewed for accuracy by a human for every episode at the time of publishing. There's a text-only transcript that you could read if audio isn't the best media for you. There's also a time transcript you can follow along while listening if that works better for you. You can access those directly on the podcast's website if they aren't displayed by your podcast aggregator, that's the workbetween dot show.

Nic
Before I get into what the show is, I want to say whose land it's made on. This podcast is recorded on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Stó:lō Coast Salish people, the people of the river, whose presence in the Fraser Valley stretches back 1000s of years. I name this territory because it belongs with what this show is about: the ways we decide whose lives are valued, whose work is taken seriously, and whose experiences are treated as problems to be managed. Those decisions shape everything. This show sits inside that. This is, was, and always will be First Nations land. That's not a formality. It's consistent with everything I, and this show stand for.

Nic
My guest today is me. A couple people told me they'd be interested to learn more about my creative processes. I thought about it, and concluded it could be fun to have me as a guest on my own show. To make it more interesting, I invited a friend and colleague to be the interviewer. Mark Miller is someone who, like me, works in digital accessibility and inclusion. He is a photographer and majored in art. He also is a martial artist, and he co-hosts the Inclusion Impact podcast. I have tremendous respect for him, and was chuffed when he accepted to play this game. I gave Mark carte blanche. I didn't know what questions he was going to ask or what direction he was going to take. It was great fun, and I hope you enjoy our discussion as much as we did. Mark, thank you so much for being a good sport and agreeing to play the role of the host for this episode.

Mark
You are very welcome, and I want to thank you for inviting me to do that. It's it's honestly an honor. I think you and I have long been fans of each other's content, so for you to think enough of me to invite me in is a huge honor, and I really appreciate it. And I'm very excited for this opportunity to get into your brain a little bit, and not not just around this accessibility subject that you and I tend to talk a lot about, but to understand you, your art, your creative process, all these really cool things that you and I haven't had a chance to really dig into quite as much yet. So this is this is going to be great. On that note, why don't we get started right away and just tell me a little bit about the artwork that you do and what you know your processes around it?

Nic
I would say I'm a serial hobbyist. Over the years, I've tried so many things, from leatherworking to bone carving to wool felting, but I would say the three main creative endeavors that I'm doing regularly and that are sustained are around wildlife photography, particularly birds, around quilting and around watercolor and sketching.

Mark
What would you say? Like, you know, at heart you seem to be a maker, right? And you're getting your hands into anything where you can express yourself creatively. What through that process? What caused you to land on these three three things as your primary outlets?

Nic
You know, I'm not too sure. Maybe in parts is if you try enough pair of shoes, you're gonna find one that actually feels comfortable, but also, if I think around the sketching and the watercolor, I know if I go back as far back as being 7, 8, 9, I always wanted to do drawing and painting. My parents even gave me an oil painting kit. My grandfather built an easel for me, and I gave up at the time because it was too hard. My cousin, who was a couple years older, did stuff that I thought, "Oh, it's so wonderful! I'll never be able to do as good," and I kind of gave up. So over over the period of my long and venerable life, I've come back over and over and over again to painting, and suddenly I decided, well, okay, enough is enough. I'm gonna actually do the hard work. I'm gonna do the practice. People say, "Oh, Nic, you have talent." No, I don't. I have zero talent. There's not a talented bone in my body. It's all about perseverance and skill building. Around sewing and and quilting is a little bit similar that my mother taught me how to do sewing when I was a kid using her old Singer sewing machine. It was really more about being self-sufficient and being able to mend my clothes more than anything. But I had that exposure back then, and then I worked with leather, doing hand sewing leather, and I don't know. It kind of evolved in when I started doing quilting with fabric. It kind of like the piece of puzzle came together. And photography. Well, I've been playing with photography on and off since I was a teenager, and always wanted to do wildlife, but never really had the funds to have the gear that would allow me to do half decent shots. And and as I get older, that became a little bit easier. But it's certainly not a cheap hobby. So once you get your gear, you you keep the gear and and work it to death.

Mark
You know when I when I first asked you this question, you sort of gave I think the most interesting answer, and that was I don't know I don't know why I landed these things, and then and then of course you went through to clarify, but the reason why that's interesting to me is because I think it's an honest answer, right? Like if if you had asked me that question, I I don't know that I could have articulated out of the gate why I've chosen the things I've chose, and it just goes to to show that art is a lot about self exploration. The reason why you may not have an answer is because in some undefinable way that art is working inside of you to do to do something. So, what I'm curious about thinking about that, Nic, and you know the the subject that you and I do cross a lot is accessibility and and disabilities. And I have to feel I feel like there has to be some sort of a connection between you know disability, your work and accessibility, and that internal fulfillment and exploration and and discovery in all those things that art gives you. Do you find that it connects those parts of your life, or is connected to those parts of your life, or are they really independent things for you?

Nic
Well, they're connected because it's all about me. I mean, I'm not saying that because oh, look at me-it's all about me. But it really is part of who I am and what I do. So, in that sense, they're connected. But I think I'm feeding very different aspects of my self with the creative processes I do for enjoyment and the work I do in accessibility. There's a certain level of creativity, I think, around accessibility where you have to put your thinking cap on, and no, you you have a problem, and you try to solve it, and you figure it out, you nut it out. But for me, accessibility work is a lot more about making the outside world better for other people, whereas my creative processes is about making me better.

Mark
It's a great way to frame it.

Nic
So it's it's backward looking and inward looking.

Mark
Well, and then it seems to me that there's a bit of, and this is just my observation of you, Nic, but that there's a bit of an event horizon between those two. Things that comes in the form of some of the content that you create for the accessibility industry, you leverage that your deep ability to create and to, you know, I think when you create, you can bring things together. You particularly have a talent for for explaining complex subjects to people who may not be deep into that subject, but I think that when you create that content, I can see that creative nature in you as a component to that. So to me, that would be that that that event horizon. But it sounds like when you view it for yourself, you really look at it as something that is maybe a break from what you would consider to be a professional. Like that's another way to work the brain. Is that a fair?

Nic
Yeah, absolutely. As someone who is disabled, working in the field of accessibility. I used to joke that accessibility work is not a job; it's a lifestyle, and and in many ways, I can't not need a ramp when I go to the store when it's after 5p.m. and I've stopped working. So, accessibility. I always need to advocate for that. The sketching, the photography, the the quilting is for me a way to do things away from that. It's a way to relieve the the pressure of constantly being an almost fight or flight reaction. There was a great post from Sheri Byrne-Haber on LinkedIn recently, where she was describing the spike of hormones that you're experiencing when you're always having to advocate for accessibility, and then she took it one layer deeper and explained how these spikes of hormones and stress and everything gets exacerbated when you start talking to other people with disabilities that are experiencing their own their own things, and then you're working in a community, so you get very little relief from that constant constant stress reaction around facing a non accessible world. So because of that, I, as I'm getting older, I'm realizing I need to have a break to not burn out.

Mark
That cortisol management,

Nic
yeah, we need to burn it all

Mark
down at some point, yeah.

Nic
And because I work with computers so much, I mean it's it's 100% of what I do. Having activities that take me away from the screen is wonderful. A sketch, I can do that. I you know I have a pen of a pad of paper, a pen, a few watercolors. I can be outside in nature doing that. I can do this anywhere.

Mark
Yeah,

Nic
quilting same thing. Whether I do it with a machine or I do hand sewing, I don't need a computer or or anything to do that. The the wildlife photography is a little bit different because, well, actually, you know, I don't work in film anymore, and I need to process my photo, so it requires a screen at some part of the process. But the advantages of this creative practice can only happen when I'm out in nature looking at birds, animals, listening to birdsong, to the sound of the breeze and the trees and all that-that's all part of the experience that has nothing to do with my work.

Mark
Yeah, or or your disability. It's all stuff that you're doing. It's just yeah, and I think you know it strikes me. There's a lot of there's a lot of research, a lot of talk, a lot of ancient sort of wisdom out there around the mental health benefits of being in nature.

Nic
Yep,

Mark
and I think if you're anything like me, Nic, what you're describing is taking that a step further, and with something that's more tactile. It's not your not digital. It's not your computer. It's your paintbrush, your your your pencil, your sewing machine. In the case of photography, it's a little bit of in between, but and actually participating in nature, right? In in in drawing back and forth, like like engaging with it, engaging with it. Do you so? In full disclosure for your listeners, I'm a I'm a studio arts major. My background is in photography as well, but I've dabbled just like you in all of those things. Being a studio arts major, and so one of the questions or one of the things I always get curious about when I talk to other artists like yourself is the influences that they've had. Is there anybody that you would point to, either famous or within your own life, that's influenced the work that you do artistically?

Nic
I have so many different influences, and some I can tie directly, and some are a lot more vague. I think, in in large part, my my interest in art has come from the fact my dad is an arts collector, and had several friends who were artists. One. One of my dad's friends' name is Milienko Horvat. He's a he lived in Quebec, but he's a Hungarian modern artist. Was. He passed away. So I've been surrounded with pieces of art, mostly modern art, but also pieces or more classical paintings. So I I think that shaped an understanding of art is important. I recently had my a conversation with my dad, who is telling me, you know, Nic, you're doing these sketches, and and that's great. But really, you don't understand art. And yeah, okay, thank you, I, you're right. I do not understand art because I don't spend time trying to analyze it. I just want to make it happen. Yeah. So that, in part, is is why. drawing and sketching and painting is important in terms of more direct influences with what I like to do is is all the urban sketching movement the this idea of painting on location from life capturing a moment in time, and there's there's a certain style that comes out. I mean, everybody does it differently, but but there's a lot of line and wash that comes out of that. I I like to capture those those ideas. In terms of quilting, I don't know that I have any particular influences. I've just always liked quilt. I was lucky enough to to travel through the U.S. We were full time traveling in an RV, and we stopped in Kentucky, in Paducah, and there's a national quilt museum there. This was just before I started doing quilting, and we spent several wonderful hours exploring that, which is all around modern quilts. And then my wife surprised me with a book of how to make your own sampler quilt entirely from scratch, and I think I put in 12,000 stitches in that product, and I'm really happy with it. But that's that. You know, my wife jokes that she created a monster because after doing that one, then I had to do another one, and another one, and another one, and and I haven't had a chance to quilt in last 18 months because we were moving and work and all that, but we finally have a room that is a dedicated craft and gaming room. So I'll be able to go back and finish the projects I started a year and a half ago. Photography, I don't know. Photography, I, you know, there's all the masters of of street photography. Bresson, in particular, I like his style. Adams, I like his style, but I don't think I'm trying to replicate what they're doing. But it's more in terms of

Mark
Bresson, Paris, black and white.

Nic
Yeah, yeah,

Mark
yep. Okay, now you're talking about. I would not have pronounced it that way, but I think you're probably pronouncing it correct since you are speaking his native tongue.

Nic
Yeah, what I like about him is this this approach of, funnily enough, capturing real life moment snapshot of time, which in a way ties into urban sketching, but it's it's this

Mark
decisive moment,

Nic
decisive moment. Now, what we know of his photos, they're wonderful, but we also, if you dig into it a little bit, you realize that there's a lot of negatives that never made it to print, right? But to have that, what's the word I'm looking for? That it's that instant spontaneity. To have that spontaneity, whether you're sketching or taking photos, you you have to have taken 10,000 bad photos. You have to have done 10,000 bad sketches. You have to have put in 10,000 hours in in quilting before things start flowing. So to have that spontaneity, I think is is is what I'm hoping for at some point. To to have enough practice and skills and and muscle memory to not have to think about it and be spontaneous that way.

Mark
Yeah. The... I want to dig into a couple things here, and in doing this, I'm going to challenge your father's statement that you don't understand because you you mentioned a couple of times you talked about the street, whether it's in reference to painting, whether it's in reference to photography and this sort of urban landscape, which is very interesting to me, Nic, because what I know of your photography, you've shared back and forth with me, or nature photos, which is very specifically the opposite of that urban. But one of the things that you said that was really interesting is that you liked that sort of street art in in the on location art, and I don't know if you've been to the last time I was in London. I was at the Leek Street Tunnel, and the Leek Street Tunnel is a place in London where it's okay to do graffiti. It's encouraged, and this idea of creating art on location and art that, in part and whole, is probably temporary because there's no rules, right? Or or or the rule is is that if somebody paints a picture, you can come right behind them and paint over it, or or somebody may never paint over your picture, like you don't know. But to me, that urban art, that temporary nature of it, that on location, all those things, all the things that you describe to me-that's the true nature of art, right? Because it's because it's evolving. It is temporary. It is when somebody paints over a part of your picture, they don't wipe out your picture, but they add the overall gallery, right? The overall impression. So now, what they did becomes a part of what you did, and then there's this like bracket of time. This bracket of time that moves through time, and then you know, in photography, there's the decisive moment. There's the it's sort of humans in nature. Do you why do you why do you think that you're drawn towards those urban landscapes that are moving and changing and temporary and and raw? You know, in in some ways. I mean, you're talking about quilting and nature photography in the same breath, Nic.

Nic
Yeah, yeah.

Mark
What's the what's the attraction there? Like, why that dichotomy in your in your in your esthetic? I'm asking hard questions, aren't I?

Nic
Yes you are, and that's wonderful. I think it feeds different parts of my needs, but ultimately, it's it's all about quieting my brain. My brain never stops. I have, I don't have a diagnosis, but I'm 99.9% certain I have ADHD, and part of that is my brain never stops. I go to bed, my brain doesn't stop. I go to sleep, my brain doesn't stop. It's always going, except when I sketch, when I quilt, when I take photos, so these are different expressions of how do I self-medicate without medication, if you want. Why urban sketching? Well, I've always liked architecture. I've always been interested in architecture. I've traveled a lot as a kid, and then been exposed to to architecture in in Canada, in Montreal, in the U.S. in in Africa, in Europe. So. I think there's beauty in buildings, whether they're 300-year-old buildings or newer ones. But also, more and more, I want to include people in my urban sketches because ultimately, like accessibility, it's about people. So it's tying the human experience to the environment. Quilting is a different beast altogether. I think it's especially the patchwork part is is making art that isn't related to the human experience, but in the end, the quilt is to be used. For me, a quilt is not something you put on a wall or put in a box and forget about. A quilt you you use it when it wears out. Well, you make another one. So yeah.

Mark
So you said something really interesting in there, and you know we've got a lot in common, Nic. And one of the things I think we have in common is sort of this diagnosed, undiagnosed ADD. I grew up in the '80s, and I'm self-diagnosed. Well, I'm diagnosed now with ADD, but ultimately I didn't have that diagnosis, and then also dyslexia, and so it really resonates with me when you talk about these different artistic endeavors quieting the brain, or almost to me, it's almost like just aligning thoughts that tend to be sort of all over the place, right? You know, do you find that, like, think about something like sketching? Is it hard in and hard out for you? And what I mean by that is sometimes I have a hard time through all that deciding I'm going to sit down and draw something, or that I'm going to go out and take pictures. But once I'm in that, I now have a hard time stopping, and I have a hard time not thinking. Like if I leave a work unfinished, it's on my mind until I feel like I've finished it. Is that your experience? Is that is that are you are you narrowing your focus once you get into it, on that piece of artwork, or is it something different for you? I'm curious if do we have a similar experience or if it's different.

Nic
Yeah, it varies for me. Sometimes I say, okay, I'm going to take half hour and do a sketch, And I just fiddle. I have my notes, my sketchbook, and my pen, and I'm not getting anywhere. And sometimes I kind of thought, "Oh, well, I'm just gonna doodle, and I end up sucked in immediately. And I lift my head, and oh, what do you mean? Two hours have gone by, right? And some days I I want to do these things. Some days I want to do sketching, or I want to grab my camera and go out. It's a beautiful day. the The light is nice. It's not too hot and not good cold, and I just can't. I don't have the spoons. I don't have the energy to to get going. So it's. I don't think there's a specific pattern about that. But most of the time, once once I start it, once I actually do it, then I'm so full in that you know the world could drop around me and I wouldn't know.

Mark
That's interesting. Yeah, I would love to have that experience where the world, but I never have that. My ADD keeps me on the surface all all the time. This is really where I wanted to end up here today because this is interesting to me. I was listening to your first podcast with Mia.

Nic
Yep,

Mark
and I was learning all sorts of things about you that I didn't know, and of course, there are things that we have in common, Nic. Right?

Nic
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark
Believe it, believe it or not, and one of them is that you mentioned a martial arts experience in your past, and I'm I'm wondering, you know, within the context of this discussion of art. So I've got a I've got a strong martial arts past too. Does that does that is that a part of this whole artistic experience for you? Does it influence it? Do the things that you learned mentally and physically do they do they play a part in your artwork at all, or is that yet another separate outlet that you had in your life or still do? I don't know if you.

Nic
Very different. I started judo when I was six years old because I was being bullied, and it was recommended that I do something that would give me the confidence to to stand up in a way, and I did judo for 18 years. I didn't like competition, and to reach black belt, you either had to do a technical approach, which was longer and harder, or go through competition, and people are brutal in competition, and that did not appeal to me at all. So I didn't quite reach my black belt in judo, but I did it for 18 years.

Mark
18 years is a lot of time on the mat for

Nic
yeah

Mark
anybody yeah, and I'm assuming. So I don't know a whole lot about your history of disability either, but I do know, or I think I know, that you're a wheelchair user. That that's correct, right? Was this prior to being a wheelchair user? Is this something that you did as a wage?

Nic
It kind of started fading out. The judo faded out when I, within about the same time range that I started having to use a wheelchair.

Mark
Okay.

Nic
But also towards the end of doing judo, I I was traveling a lot. I was a chef at the time.

Mark
Oh wow!

Nic
Which hey, guess what?

Mark
Another video there.

Nic
Yeah, and and I was slowing down the judo, but I started doing tai chi. I learned tai chi, which is a lot easier to practice on your own than judo is, because there's only so many katas you can practice. Although in in a way, Tai Chi is katas. But I started doing judo

Mark
judo is specifically designed to be to have an opponent in the

Nic
yes

Mark
practice.

Nic
There there are some katas you can do, but it's yeah

Mark
yeah. Tai Chi is is more of a inner

Nic
Tai Chi is is a more internal practice. I mean, outwardly it looks like you're doing movements, but it's all about the how the internal goes. And from that perspective, Tai Chi is is good for my brains as well because it's a form of moving meditation. I occasionally try to start tai chi again, but it's it becomes a question of juggling how much spare time do I have in my day and where do I want to focus my energies?

Mark
Yeah.

Nic
So at the moment, I choose to focus my energy in in sketching. And

Mark
I think the wonderful thing about any artistic endeavor, and and and including ones that where you move your body, like like the martial arts, is that you can bring it back in times in your life. So drawing's been that way for me, where I go through long periods of time without drawing, and then I, for some reason, I have a need and I come back to it. So I think that's a brilliant thing, particularly with something like Tai Chi, is that if it doesn't provide value for you at this time in your life, then it doesn't make sense to do it,

Nic
yeah,

Mark
but if but it may provide value in a in the future, and you there's nothing that says you can't circle back to it, you know. And then so and I don't want to stay on this martial arts thing too long because really we're here to understand you as an artist, but I've got one one final question because I can't1.

Nic
more thing. There was

Mark
one more thing because I can't help myself. But have you ever thought about retooling your 18 years of judo to be into a a wheelchair practice where you could use the same Principles adopted for adopted for wheelchair.

Nic
I do

Mark
or did I just come up with an idea for you?

Nic
No, I I I'm I think I'm actually doing that, but not in a martial art kind of way, because 18 years of judo and six years, solid six years of tai chi, forms how your body moves.

Mark
Yeah,

Nic
forms how you open doors. Even I mean, the way you open a door, you know. In a wheelchair, you can't just pull on the door because if you pull on the door, it's not the door that's going to open; it's your wheelchair that's going to move, right? So the way you you use that push pull that that equal and opposite forces, the way you're you're moving, all that is in a way integrated into my subconscious, and

Mark
makes sense.

Nic
It's funny because years after stopping judo, 20 years after stopping judo, I actually took a pretty nasty tumble out of my wheelchair. I was going down a hill, and my wheels locked on a rock, my chair stopped. I was going down, and I flew out of my chair, and I ended up doing a just a roll, judo roll.

Mark
Yeah, you came just,

Nic
and that was it. Didn't get hurt. Some people that saw me tumble said, "Oh my God, Nic, what the hell was that?" Looked very spectacular to people outside. But for me, it just came naturally.

Mark
Yeah, it was just another. How many times in your life had you done that? And this was just one. Yeah, that's. I mean, I think everybody should study at least the ukimi, which is the falling part of judo in their life, because I can't tell you how many times it's come into play for me, and if hopefully, if you're a martial artist, you'll never have to use the martial arts in your life, except for there's no way to to avoid falling at some point in your life. So you will. I always tell people, like tell my students, this is one of the most important things.

Nic
Yeah, I'll teach

Mark
you, and I can remember once running with my wife, and I tripped over a root, and it was just the same story. You know, I went headfirst to the ground, but I rolled up out of it, stood up, and she, "Oh my god, are you right? "I said. I looked at her, just smiled, and she goes, "Oh yeah, I forgot. Let's keep going,"

Nic
you know.

Mark
But but I probably fell four more times that day on the mat, you know, in practice or whatever. So it was just another moment of falling. So, swinging back into your your art a little bit, right? We've talked about you know you sort of have settled on these different things that that that resonate with you, and they're all very different. This is what's impressive, right? Is that photography and quilting could we get much more opposite than that, right? And then, and then these things like drawing and and watercolors kind of are somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. So I think it's wonderful that you figured out a way to kind of exercise this full full spectrum of of expression within within art. Is there anything that you is there anything that you you don't like about your art, or anything that you wished you had leaned into more in the as you were sort of coming up as an artist?

Nic
Several things. First, I wish I had persevered earlier. I really picked up watercolors for the first time, and when was in the late 90s? I wish I had kept at it back then. Yeah, because by now I would be. I assume I would be happier with what I produce. I am my own worst critic. I'm getting a lot of great feedback. People love what I'm doing, and and it's good for the ego. But when I look at what I do, I'm rarely satisfied with what I've done. I see all the faults. People told me, "Hey, your bird photography is great. Maybe you should sell calendars or or sell your art." And I'm looking at everybody else that I interact with that does bird photography, and I'm thinking, "Well, a the market is flooded, and b I'm okay, and maybe I'm better than people around me. But the reality is, I'm just a very, very basic bird photographer compared to other people. " So, from that perspective, I, you know, I like to share the work I do, but I'm not often happy with the work I do.

Mark
I'm I'm agreeing with you, Nic, because you're descri you're describing what I feel just about every time I produce something, and it makes me wonder if if we're wrong or if we're right about that feeling. You know what I mean. If if if everybody who's who's photographing birds or or or sketching looks at their work and feels the same way, and where I feel this the most in in that same sentiment of like I wished I dug deeper when I was younger is with like figure drawing. I learned to figure draw in school, but I kind of. Left it in class, and I've come back to it at certain times, and I'll do a drawing, and I'll be very happy with it, and then I'll look at it the next day and be like, "What? Yeah, what did I do? This is not good.

Nic
This is where, for me, art is about the process, not about the outcome. I am much more satisfied with spending an hour sketching a bridge than I am with the finished bridge sketch.

Mark
Yeah, that's a really great way to to think about it and to to put it. What are you most happy with when you look at it and you go, "This is in my art. I've accomplished. I'm so glad I've accomplished fill in the blank.

Nic
With sketching, what I'm working on most right now is perspective and values. So if I nail perspective and values on a sketch, it makes me happy. With quilting, it's sharp seams, points that are on points, and and when I say points that are on points, is is the corners where two different or three or four or five or six parts of fabrics are meeting that they're meeting spot on. For bird photography, it's it's it's getting close enough to the bird to be able to have the eye sharp at about level. I don't want the birds to be all the way up or all the way down, and I, I like to capture motion. A bald eagle sitting on a branch doing nothing is impressive. They are really big birds, but I've got hundreds of bald eagles sitting on a branch doing nothing,

Mark
right?

Nic
And and I said last year when when I was out looking at bald eagle migration, I said to somebody else, like oh yeah, they're just sitting there, they're boring. And the person says, what do you mean they're boring? Well, they are. What we're waiting for is the action they're taking off. They're splashing into water, grabbing a salmon. They're grabbing each other and swirling. That's what you're looking for. It's for the action, and what satisfies me most is when I have that action.

Mark
I think that yeah, what you described is is that evolution, right? And it's the decisive moment. So when you were first describing that, it was like, well, yeah, you know, I don't know how jazzed I would be about capturing a bald eagle. Probably pretty jazzed, you know, but just sitting there on a branch. But then I also don't know how big of a deal it would be to catch a bald eagle eagle soaring overhead, but to capture a bald eagle in that moment when it's just about to take off and it goes through that expression or whatever it is where it's not sitting on the branch and it's not in flight, but it's somewhere in that moment in between. I think that when the term decisive moment was coined. It was moments like that that that they were thinking about. That there's a particular thing about only at that moment could you click the shutter and capture that. If they're in flight, you could click the shutter 1000 times. It's going to look very similar. Or if they're sitting there, you know.

Nic
That's right.

Mark
So I I completely I completely understand, you know, and I think there's something when you hit that, like you feel it, you know it, and it's it's it's very very satisfying.

Nic
It it it's it's learning the behavior of the bird too, because you can capture that great photo by sheer luck, or you can know. Oh well, this bird has been sitting there for this long. It's starting to shuffle a little bit on the branch this way, and oh yeah, I know this is coming. I need to be ready to take that photo.

Mark
Yeah,

Nic
and it's

Mark
almost almost athletic in that sense of of you know if you're hitting a shot when people are trying to defend you in basketball-it's recognizing the movements in the moment to take the shot. It's a very similar thing, and to your point, it's the process. It's all the work that goes before it to allow you to do that. That that you do it for. If you had to, if you and I were going to meet on a deserted island and you were only able to bring one piece of artwork with you to show me, what would that be? I've never seen any of your artwork, but you have to bring one one thing to show me. What would it be?

Nic
One of my quilts.

Mark
Oh, that's very interesting.

Nic
Because I can't help being pragmatic and practical about life, so I'm going to show you this quilt, and we're on a deserted island, and we need to stay warm. So we're going to wrap up in my art and stay warm.

Mark
That is a fantastic answer. I absolutely love that. I'm thinking it's going to be like a picture or something, and you're like, "No, we got to stay warm. The so let's let's reverse that. I'm coming over to your house, and every piece of artwork you've ever done is laying out on the floor. What do you what do you before I get there? What do you hide so that there is no way I will ever see it.

Nic
My secret sketchbook.

Mark
Enough said.

Nic
I I have a sketchbook where I experiment, ink, colored pencil, gouache, watercolor, brush pens, whatever. I just do stuff in there, and it's for me only. I will never show that to anyone, and that relieves a lot of the anxiety about performance. So...

Mark
Are you hiding the imperfection in your art in that case, or are you hiding the parts of your brain that are coming out in that art, or both.

Nic
A bit of both, but a lot of hiding my brain. You wanted to explore my brain earlier, and I nearly said, "Oh well, it's not a very pretty place, and that secret sketchbook allows me to to express the often dark thoughts that I have that I don't want to a burden people with or b make myself too vulnerable about.

Mark
And that brings me back to your attraction towards that urban esthetic, which you you called human, right? Because you you said you know you don't want to take a picture of a a rusty fence in a brick wall. You want to take a picture of a rusty fence in a brick wall with a person leaning into it that's pensive, or with a person hitting it with a hammer, or you want that human human element in there, and I think sometimes those it it makes sense to me. Your answer makes sense to me because I think sometimes those urban landscapes and that locational art and that freedom is this the surfacing of some of that darkness, you know, like if you're painting a still life or nature or you're photographing a bird, it's not doing that. But when you're so deeply into the human condition that you're in a place that is 100% of a human environment, with 100% of a human reacting to that environment, you're starting to surface the that that that depth. So I think that there's a relationship between those things. Well, I hope that if we end up on a deserted island, that you bring that quilt because that sounds wonderful. And I hope not to ever stumble upon your secret sketchbook because that doesn't something I want to even get into, Nic. But I hope that the things that you need to surface out of that sketchbook and into your regular art, I I think that part of the process is finding out how to do that too. Yeah, you know,

Nic
yeah. There's there's certainly things that I'm figuring out as I'm doing doodles in my secret sketchbook that actually come out of there and that I'm using in in everyday things that I'm happy to share with with other people.

Mark
Well, I'm gonna also say secret sketchbook. Great great title for a novel, not a bad band name either.

Nic
I have so much musical talent in me that if I played musical instrument, I would kill all the vegetation around me. You know, they they say music like plants like music. Well, my music, they wouldn't.

Mark
I'm I'm right with you. I yeah. Don't ask me to sing. Don't ask me to keep rhythm. I'm not going to do it. I think we're we're we're getting close to the end of our time. Nic, is there anything that we didn't cover, or anything that you kind of want to bring up about you, your artwork? any of it that that that you think is important that we didn't cross over.

Nic
Yeah, I would like for people to think about me as a multifaceted kind of person. I'm not just that disabled guy. I'm not just that angry crip. I'm not just this digital accessibility expert. I'm I'm a husband. I'm a son. I'm I'm I'm human, and part of that humanity means that I'm going to be doing sketching, I'm doing to be quilting, and I'm doing photography. And who knows? Maybe, maybe a year down the road, I'm gonna say, "Hey, there's a new creative thing I've just heard about, and I want to try that. And I'm hoping that people that see me bouncing about from one to another to another to another type of creative practice. See it as exploring creativity rather than being aimless and not sticking to something, because maybe the practice I'm using right now is different than the one I'm using six months down the road, but I'm still practicing creativity rather than not sticking to one thing.

Mark
One of the sayings that we have in the martial arts that my group of people have in the martial arts is: we say, "There's nothing better than being a white belt. Everybody wants to get to that black belt, and we say the most fun that we have is being a white belt, and this oftentimes brings us to study other disciplines. Right? You said you did judo, you said you did tai chi, and I've got a bullet list, and I stick with ones, but I also try other ones, and I think it's that same thing, Nic. Like you, art is a process before it's a final product, it's about the journey. It's about the creation, and sometimes the most satisfying form of that is when you've got something brand new, a brand new skill you're trying to acquire, a brand new medium you're trying to figure out how to work with, but something that is returns you to the beginning and causes you to rediscover from that perspective.

Nic
Yeah.

Mark
So I don't think I don't know if I'm sure you're talking from a place of experience when you say you hope people think of you that way, but I, to me, it just makes sense. It makes a lot of sense, and I think that it's really one of the ways that we discover-we don't discover who we are and the things that we're good at. We discover who we are and how we interact and react to the things we're not good at, or to adversity, or or novelty, or whatever. So,

Nic
and I appreciate

Mark
you do that.

Nic
There's growth in discomfort.

Mark
Yeah. Yep, 100% Then that's where again, maybe we're a lot of like, like people say, "You want to go on vacation? Let's go to you know the all inclusive. I'm like, "Can we go right in the middle of town? Can we go find those people that don't want us to be there? I want to hang out with them, right? It's there is there is comfort for me in discomfort sometimes.

Nic
Yeah,

Mark
you know, into having your having the edge of your blade ground against a little bit, that that's what makes it sharper. Well, Nic, I feel like we could do 10 more of these, and I still wouldn't get to the center of who you are entirely. Nor do I think I ever want to be there because of the discovery is the point.

Nic
Yeah,

Mark
this was amazing, and I'd love to keep going. But I know we've got to. We've got to.

Nic
I had a wonderful time, and I'm so glad I picked you to interview me. This was so much fun.

Mark
I'm so glad that you picked me too, and it was an absolute honor. And if you if you feel like you've got more of a story, I'd be honored to step back into this role anytime.

Nic
Mark, thanks a lot.

Mark
Thank you.

Nic
If you enjoyed this episode, if you were inspired in any way, or if you learned something, please leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or whatever podcast aggregator you use. Ratings and reviews really do help. Thank you. And that's it. I'm Nic Steenhout. This is the work between. If this sounds like the kind of conversation you like, subscribe, and I'll see you in the next episode.