BEYOND + BACK PODCAST: Episode 20 with SHEPARD FAIREY of OBEY GIANT

TRT 1:11:02 // ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 11/16/19

In this episode, we go beyond and back with artist Shepard Fairey of OBEY GIANT.

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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 how he 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.

EPISODE SPONSOR:

OAKLAND COFFEE


This episode is brought to you by OAKLAND COFFEE!

Founded by Billie Joe, Mike, and Tre of Green Day, Oakland Coffee started through a search for the best damn cup of coffee. They’re the first company in the world to sell only 100% organic coffee exclusively in certified compostable packaging. How cool is that? 

They created first-of-their kind compostable bags of whole bean and ground coffee and compostable single-serve pods that work in Keurig machines. I think it’s so righteous that they innovated a way to cut down on the waste of all those plastic bags and pods of coffee. Oakland Coffee is available online at OaklandCoffee.com, and in over 700 stores on the West Coast. Visit OAKLANDCOFFEE.com to buy coffee and merch or to find a store near you.

Thank you OAKLAND COFFEE for supporting

the Beyond + Back podcast.

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SECONDHAND SEPTEMBER: Secondhand stove

It’s Secondhand September, so I’m sharing some of the many things I have purchased secondhand.

Allow me to introduce you to my adorable vintage pink stove.

My partner purchased this off of Craigslist and drove out to the country to pick it up. He got it moved into our kitchen before he realized it was set up for propane, not gas.

He called an “appliance expert out to our house only to be told it was impossible to convert the stove. But if you own anything vintage and mechanical, you’re not going to buy that answer.

It took time, patience, perseverance, and a few trips to a hardware store where someone who worked there knew a thing or two. The day my partner connected the gas to see if it would work, I’ll be honest: I hid in the other side of the house.

But it works now & I love it!

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The other gift this pink stove brought was the fact that it gave me the confidence to tell my partner I wanted to paint our bedroom a subtle pink, which I also love.

Read all the posts in my Secondhand September series

Sustainable Sewing: Secondhand Curtains

I can’t believe I spent the past 3 years waking up and going to sleep staring at dusty white miniblinds in my bedroom.

Recently I decided to finally get rid of those miniblinds. Over the course of a month or so, I searched for vintage curtains on Etsy. Since they’re for my bedroom, I wanted some semi-sheer curtains to let in light plus some more opaque curtains to shut out the light and give more privacy.

I also needed the curtains to play nicely with the current decor in my bedroom. My decorating style is to buy things I really adore and trust they’ll go together. But I put a little bit more thought into the curtains. I wanted vintage, beautiful, and not plain. And they couldn’t fight with some of the more modern art in the bedroom, and certainly not with the pale pink paint on the walls.

After several different search sessions on Etsy, I still couldn’t find what I was looking for. That’s when I remembered a lot of vintage yardage that I bought at the Alameda Flea Market several years ago. I pulled out the fabric, looked at it in the context of my bedroom, and realized it was perfect!

The yardage was hemmed on both sides and happened to be the perfect width for the windows. It was a continuous length of more than 5 yards, so I needed to cut and sew the two curtain lengths with top and bottom borders and curtain tape. Utilizing one of the ideas from my Sustainable Sewing online course, I decided to sew the curtains using only materials I currently had in my stash. That led me to using a random length of burlap in lieu of curtain tape.

The perfect outer curtains were ready, with zero extra investment other than my time and sewing skills. Hooray!

I still needed the inner, more sheer curtains. I’d searched on Etsy many times for those as well. I wanted vintage cotton lace, with some design in it, and no polyester, and it was harder to find than I expected. During one search, I saw a pair I really liked which was pricier than I’d usually pay. But the outer curtains were done, so I bit the bullet and purchased the lace curtains, figuring I still got away with a very affordable curtains solution.

I love my new bedroom curtains SO MUCH.

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Daytime

Daytime

They look so nice with the cutest lampshade ever made.

I’m never going to tolerate dusty white miniblinds again!

Read all the posts in my Secondhand September series