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I Love Your Stories is a soulful conversation series hosted by artist and creative guide Hava Gurevich, where art meets authenticity. Each episode invites you into an intimate dialogue with artists, makers, and visionaries who are courageously crafting lives rooted in creativity, purpose, and self-expression.
From painters and poets to healers and community builders, these are the stories behind the work—the moments of doubt, discovery, grief, joy, and transformation. Through honest, heart-centred conversations, Hava explores how creativity can be both a healing force and a path to personal truth.
If you’re an artist, a dreamer, or someone drawn to a more intuitive and intentional way of living, this podcast will remind you that your story matters—and that the act of creating is a sacred, revolutionary act.
[MUSIC]
Welcome back to I Love Your Stories.
I'm your host, Hava Gurevich
and today I'm joined by
multidisciplinary artist,
videographer,
photographer, and writer, David Olson.
David's work lives somewhere between
observation and abstraction.
Whether he's filming legendary musicians
like Ornette Coleman,
or finding unexpected compositions hidden
in everyday moments,
he approaches art as a way of seeing
rather than simply documenting.
In this conversation, we talk about the
experiences that
shaped his creative path,
including a life-changing event that
deepened his commitment to creative work
and shifted the way he
sees both art and life.
We explore synchronicity,
process, experimentation,
and the idea that success
might have less to do with outcomes
and more to do with staying connected to
the daily practice of making art.
Help me in welcoming
David Olson to this episode.
Now, quick word from our sponsor, and
then we'll get right back to the show.
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a professional business.
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And tell them how I sent you.
All right. Welcome back
to I Love Your Stories.
And my guest today is a very close old
friend of mine, Dave Olson.
Dave is a multidisciplinary artist,
videographer, photographer, storyteller.
So many more things.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. It's fun to finally be here.
I know. I know we've been
planning this for a while.
So let's just start if you want to talk a
little bit about your background
and sort of how you got into arts and...
Yeah, it's funny because I listened to a
couple of your podcasts earlier today
because I realized just to refresh my
memory, like what's...
And I thought about that question.
I'm like, "Oh, God." Just like 10 minutes
ago, I was thinking like,
"I don't know. How did I? I
don't know what happened."
So there wasn't really...
There's certainly no plan.
And I didn't really even realize I was
pointed in that direction, I think,
until pretty late in my life or later, I
mean, like 40 or something,
where I was like, "Oh, this
is kind of what I'm doing.
This is what I've been
doing with most of my life,
is some sort of creative something."
And I think that's just the way it is.
But I did...
I mean, I think that that curiosity was
there because of my mother growing up.
She was an artist, although she didn't
really call herself an artist,
but she wrote poetry and
she was a very good drawer.
She can draw and she
did... She drew a lot.
And sang, she had a guitar
and she played music and sang,
and she was just... And photography.
I grew up in this house where she was
also a single mother,
so there wasn't a whole lot of time for
her to do those things.
But that's kind of my basic...
That's what I realized
sort of sent me on the way,
where it at least prepped
me to put up those receptors.
As I went out into the world, I was
already looking at it
as sort of through this
creative lens, in a sense.
You did... You were involved
in music earlier on, right?
Like when we were in our 20s or...
Yeah.
I did a lot of different things and
that's sort of the deal.
I realized the only thread
is that there was creative...
Creativity.
And that was with music and I was
promoting stuff then.
I mean, I was a DJ on WCBN, FM Ann Arbor.
It's part of the University of Michigan
and it's a freeform station,
which means it doesn't format, it doesn't
tell the DJs what to do.
The DJs look at it as
sort of an art form,
that putting what we now
love to call curating the music.
You got to make your own
show and you're what you...
The being a DJ was a creative act.
It wasn't just writing,
playing whatever was on your list.
So from that I somehow ended up doing...
Yeah, promoting record-lit
funk, European record labels
and working with some great musicians and
musical artists doing,
you know, in that world a little bit.
Would it be fair to say that like early
on, your passion really was travel?
Yeah, it was travel, it
was traveling and writing.
I mean, I thought I was a writer.
And so all through my
20s and into my 30s,
I was trying to be a writer, you know,
and I knew that that meant I
had to go, you know, travel
and I had to suffer from my art, you
know, in Paris and be
poor in Paris and etc.
So I did all those things and yeah, at
first it was traveling.
I mean, there was just something about...
I mean, you know, you're a bit of a...
You've done a bit of traveling yourself
and living in different places.
There's...
Opens the horizons.
Yeah, and if your horizons
want to be opened, you know,
like you start moving around, you're
like, oh, this is what I want to do.
Like every day you...
It's a different language.
It's a different food that
you're putting in your mouth.
You know, I think that's
interesting to creative people.
Yeah, and one of the things
that it does, at least for me,
both the travel that I did when I was a
kid and didn't have a choice in it
and then also the travel that I continue
to do when I was older is
it really helps you step out of whatever
cultural norms that you grew up with
and see them as such as constructs.
Yeah, you realize right
away they're totally arbitrary.
You know, it's just what everybody has
agreed that they are, you know,
in the way that you do things.
And yeah, I agree.
And we were talking about
this the other night, I think,
but getting into the same mental rut
where you're sort of thinking
and doing the same things more or less.
And it's hard to, you know, get outside
of that because you just kind of
get into these patterns
of thinking and behavior.
And that doesn't really
help creative process at all.
It's actually the opposite of that.
Yeah, you need, you know, you do that.
Then nothing interesting will ever happen
because you already know
what's going to happen.
So I think even the even
things like just going to the store
and in a different culture, in a
different, you know, you
just realize every little thing.
Yeah, that was actually one of the big
attractions to me for France was
even as a 19 year old, when I went over
there to live the first time, 19 or 20.
And I was like, oh, like when these when
my 20 year old French
friends get together
for a party, they mean we're having
dinner, like we're cooking dinner.
And, you know, everybody brings something
and you're talking and cooking
and drinking wine. And
I'm like, oh, I like this.
Like this is fun. This is life.
Yeah. I'm like, this is
how I want to socialize.
So it's interesting if you travel and
especially if you
live in different places
a little bit, you can
pick and choose a little bit.
Exactly. And you can you can take
something from a culture that you really
that resonated with you and bring it back
and make it your own.
Because it. Yeah.
Yeah. So I know you have
a really great story that kind of.
Put you in a mindset of wanting to do
more with your life.
Oh, yes. Yeah, that's that's that's a
weird one, because it was I mean,
it sounds dramatic when you say it like
that, because I'm like, it's like, wow.
I mean, I've done a lot of stupid and
dangerous things in my life.
So I've been in like a lot of
people I've had times where I.
Think at the time or realize after like,
wow, I could have died or I might die.
You know, I'm doing I'm in the middle of
something and dying is on
the table for this, you know.
But that was the one
time I knew I was dead.
Thankfully, I was wrong, but I was like,
oh, and it was rock climbing in Sardinia.
And, you know, long
story short, me and a buddy,
guy who, you know,
Chris Thompson, chun boy,
we were out climbing, doing climbing
things that we shouldn't have been
climbed like serious rock climbing, like
what I found out after the fact was like
people from around the
world come and use ropes.
And we're just in our Chucky
tailors and T-shirts and climb.
You know, it was really stupid.
And we got stuck in a
bad place where, you know.
I was like pressed against this wall, you
know, of rocks with all my weight
on two fingers and my right knee.
And, you know, my muscles started shaking
and I didn't, you know,
so I'm like, all right, you're gone.
You know, like that's
there's no you're it's over.
And and the whole life flashing before
your eyes did happen.
It was like, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, like a
fast montage of everything.
Yeah. And there was this sort of feeling
like, wow, that was sort of that looks
sort of interesting.
But it was like, but,
you know, you didn't really
you didn't really try to do anything.
You know, you you didn't really, you
know, I don't know if I would say I
thought I had wasted my life.
But yeah, there was this that sort of
planted the seed of.
Well, don't don't
leave our audience hanging.
What happened? Oh, I made it.
So, yeah, so there was that moment.
And I told my buddy Chris to go ahead
because, you know, he had
gotten stuck at one point
and I stopped and was
sort of talking him up.
Then I got stuck and I told him to leave.
I'm just like, if you
can go, just keep going.
You know, I didn't
want him to see me drop.
And so I was about to drop, you know,
like my, you know, my muscles were
shaking and the whole shit.
And I just thought, you know what?
I'm going to go out scrambling up, even
though there's
nothing there to grab on to.
You know, I just there is nothing.
There is like nothing. So I was just
like, I'm not going to just drop.
You know, I don't want to.
This is the one decision
I have left I can make.
It was like I can either just wait until
my body physically won't hold on,
which was a pretty strong urge, actually,
was like, of course, I'm
going to bite into this rock
and try and keep
myself on it with my teeth.
You know, if I have to.
And then I just thought I'm going to just
scramble up and then
maybe Chon will see me.
And at least he can tell people, oh, he
was trying to climb up, you know.
So anyway, I just I just let go and
started moving my hands up and down.
You know, had bloody knuckles and but
somehow got got up to a little,
you know, ledge about that wide and, you
know, eventually got up.
And yeah, Chris and I
didn't talk the whole drive home.
So we had driven out into the desert and
done this and we went up, came down.
Didn't say didn't say a word.
We got halfway back to the village where
he and his girlfriend were living.
And he the only thing he
said was we can't tell Paula.
His girlfriend, who's
like that we almost died.
You know, it's like, but it did plant
that seed of of just thinking like,
you know, dig a little deeper.
Even if you don't know exactly, I didn't
have the thing like,
OK, now here's my plan
for the rest of my life
and I'm going to follow it.
But it there was it did encourage that
idea of like, if you like something,
it's like do more of that, you know, or
something's interesting.
Dig a little bit deeper.
Like just just you
don't have to go crazy.
You don't have to like move towards the
things that, you know, attract you
and that make you happy
or just seem interesting.
You know, there was a lot of blank time
in my montage at the end of my life,
you know, or a lot of sort of circular,
you know, like you really got it.
I really got a sense of like what I had
done with my whole life.
And in the end, it was just like there's
a lot you could have been doing
something else a lot of that time.
And I think that
serves making art well, too.
Just that idea of like,
just keep poking around.
Even if you and then and then you find
something and then you can run with it.
You know, you know enough to run with it.
But if you can't even if you're not
running with something,
it's like poke around,
ask questions, try something, you know,
like do both in art and just in life.
Like don't just stop. Don't stop.
And the art form that I'm most familiar
with that you do is videography.
And I feel like you are
really pushing the boundaries of
what that medium is
as far as an art form.
Where did that come from?
It's funny and thanks.
That's a I'll take that as a compliment.
And yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, the whole doing video really came
just slowly and sort of organically
over the years from doing, you know, when
I moved to New York,
I was doing what we called back then
radio, internet radio,
what we now call podcasts.
And so that's how I got into sort of
media and playing, you know,
I'd already done played around with
photography a little bit,
but that got me playing with media.
I sort of carried the aesthetic that I
had discovered for
photography into video.
I mean, that's one of the things which is
which is sort of abstract.
There's like this sort of abstract and
sometimes micro and sort of,
I mean, in a way, doing all the things
that video isn't good at
or you don't think it's, you know, it's
all the things you
usually avoid with video.
You know, look at it differently.
What if it's not just
documenting something?
Maybe that's it. That's the beginning.
I think that's the that's the kernel of
it is I had no interest in.
I mean, I've done some
documentary type stuff.
And so, yeah, I mean, I get it.
And and there's a lot of great creative
documentaries, you know, it's a thing.
But in general, like if
I'm doing my own video thing,
the last thing I want to
do is document something.
You mentioned your
photography aesthetic and
I know there's a story there.
There is a story. It was in Rome.
It was our last day. I was there with my
girlfriend at the time
and another couple in, you know, I'm in
my late 20s, I think.
And the last night we were there,
we were leaving in the
morning back to the States.
And the last night we were
there, we are in Aventine,
which is one of the
really old quarters of Rome.
It was on these five hills.
So it's one of the oldest parts in Rome.
And I just had this thing happen where it
was it really wasn't epiphany.
I mean, there's been you have little
epiphanies, I think, when you, you know,
work in the studio or do, you know,
you have these little things that just
seemingly come out of nowhere.
But this was like a full blown.
It's like, oh, shit, I started.
I saw the world in a different way.
And so we were in walking around this old
part of Rome and I, the wall,
like we walked by this theater that had
been there probably a thousand years.
And on the wall, there were all these
cracks and posters that for,
you know, hundreds and hundreds of years
they've been putting for.
So there was all these weird sort of
shapes and colors and cracks
and fragments of things.
And I started noticing
it all around the quarter.
And I suddenly saw like these
are little abstract paintings
that are all over this
place that are about this big.
And they should be
blown up about this big.
And it would be the
greatest abstract painting.
You know, it just hit me.
I'm like, there's all
these compositions everywhere.
And I couldn't stop seeing them.
But the light was wrong
because I just had a little, you know, I
had a K100 or K1000,
whatever it is, Pentax, great camera.
And, you know, they're
teeny little streets, you know,
even smaller than most of Italy in Rome,
because it's the oldest part.
So there's there are
shadows on everything.
And I realized I was going to have to
come back the next morning
if I was going to take photos.
And we had to get on the plane, though,
so I was going to have to.
So I ended up I went and
six o'clock in the morning,
I was waiting there when the
sun came up, sitting in a cafe.
And as soon as it hit the walls, I
started taking, you know,
I shot three rolls of film.
And got them back and and had a great
little walk across Rome, too,
you know, from the hotel to Aventine.
You know, weird at night and right as it
started getting light.
Sort of priceless.
But so I got back to got back to the
States and got the film developed.
And there were some good shots in there.
They weren't all great, of course.
But, you know, this, you
know, just cracks in wall.
But it's like, OK, I got something to to
do, you know, to follow.
And that sort of idea of finding weird
compositions or somehow fulfilling
compositions in weird places and
sometimes, you know,
sizes like, you know,
micro and macro and stuff.
And I think that that sort of aesthetic
comes came I carried
with to the video stuff
and just at a certain
point, just think about.
Stop thinking about it narratively, stop
thinking about even the elements of it.
Once you get all that stuff together,
like your palette of images,
then just make it look good,
like then make it look great.
And don't worry about what it means or
what, you know, if it looks great,
that's it. And then and then you and then
you will end up with a composition
that hasn't been ever on video before.
You know, I think part of it is the it's
sort of like the not it's where that idea
of I don't want to document comes from.
You know, I mean, you found an
interesting way to to
to the same conundrum
that I have, which is like you say, your
your stuff looks and feels organic.
You know, you think, oh,
I'm looking at a flower.
Or is it a squid? You know,
or and then wait a second.
Then you realize, well, wait a second.
No, this is a painting.
It isn't any of those things, even though
even though it even
though it's referencing them.
So that's sort of, you know, it's a
different way of
getting out of the same box.
Yeah. Because I think that that's the
best my best reaction to art,
whether it's mine or someone else's is
when you think like,
wow, this is amazing.
This is beautiful on some level.
I'm old fashioned that way.
I like art that on
some level is beautiful.
I mean, doesn't have to be
conventionally beautiful.
But what is it like?
What am I looking at?
Like that idea of like, I don't even
quite know what's going
on, but I'm getting some.
To me, I think about how perception works
and how what we perceive, we perceive
everything and then our brain filters out
just a very small sliver of it.
And there is something really exciting
about having this
kind of like intuitively.
Like I recognize something or I see
something, something is there,
but, you know, it didn't
reach my logical brain.
So I don't know what it is,
but I know something is there.
And that's really exciting.
I think that's something that art can do.
That's that's that's really rewarding if
that is something that
you pay attention to.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
And just it's that thing again about your
brain doing something new.
And you're right, it
happens on both ends.
There's, you know, I tend to gravitate
towards abstract things.
And I would say things that
are it's like composition.
I've somehow and that's
what I like about abstract.
It's like if you get rid of total
anything literal or
narrative or anything.
And it's just composition or, you know,
there's a few other
things, texture and color.
You know, of course, but there's
something about that.
That's how I see the entire world.
Everything you interpret the
world in a in a certain way.
And it's like if you can just figure out
what that is and just embrace it.
It's like just listen to it and trust
whatever that is, because
that's the only thing you've got.
Right. It's different than anybody else.
You know, is whatever that thing is.
So what are you most
passionate about right now?
Hmm.
Well, I've got I mean, I've got three
projects that I'm working on
right now or ignoring, you know,
maybe I'm ignoring all three of them.
But one's a writing project and one's a
short film project and
those two are connected.
It's sort of the same thing.
Those are sort of the big ones.
And then actually maybe the thing I'm
more patter that's fun or maybe it's a
side thing or whatever.
But if you see back here, that's from
that or net Coleman.
Thing.
So just because this is a podcast, we're
pointing at a large
canvas, a very abstract shape,
but it's also not abstract if you know
what you're looking at.
Right. And it's a silhouette of a
musician or net Coleman
playing the saxophone, but, you know,
weird colors and stuff.
And and yeah, it's like if you can look
at it and almost think it's
a it's a klein, you know, or
motherwell, you know, like it's just just
and it's actually and
then when it once you
clicks or if you know what you're looking
for, you realize, oh, it's just somebody
playing the saxophone.
And yeah, that was a video project in
which I then pulled, you
know, did an installation
and a live performance thing and then
pulled those images into
the into these big stills.
And there's something about that that I
really like the capturing,
but not documenting using
the act of someone creating something
else, in this case, music
and then doing my thing on it.
And again, it sort of gives me the the
freedom to not I don't try and tell the
story about anything
I don't try and do, but I just keep
really tight on the musician or on the
instrument and think,
okay, how can I make this into a
beautiful composition?
Yeah, when you say that you see
compositions and you see everything like
you think in compositions
you pay attention to on some level,
there's very specific ones.
And so when you're looking at
a scene and you're you're recording it,
you're you are extracting
from it those compositions.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. I didn't
think about it that
way. But yes, that's true.
It's it's your it's your it's your if you
make art, it's sort of your opportunity
to show your bias or show your whatever
your point of view filter is. Yeah, yeah.
I think people react to that even when
that isn't their their view. In fact,
more when it when it's
not their filter, and they may not know
even that that's what it
is. I mean, that's one of
things about art. I think you were sort
of alluding to it when
you said something about it,
you know, resonating or, but I think a
lot of that's subconscious.
And we you and I talked about
this before, but it's just it's become
more and more clear to me that that the
idea of synchronicity
is really a big part in in in things that
I make. And it's that idea.
I read as a little kid, this
the introduction sounds crazy, but the
introduction to the I Ching,
and it was written by Carl Jung, and it
was about
synchronicity. And I was too young to
quite understand it. But I was like, God
damn, there's something
really interesting here,
because he's basically saying there's a
whole nother way to look at
the world or reality that isn't
about causation. And I just knew that,
okay, that's interesting,
but I didn't quite get it.
And then many years later, I got to read
it again, and I started clicking. And
it's the idea that each
moment contains in every detail of any
moment, contains the essence of that
moment. And I, and I,
I trust that in these this sort of video
and photography stuff, I
trust that that is true.
So that when I have a blurred picture of
Ornette Coleman playing
an amazing saxophone solo,
or James Carter, or anyone or any some
guy playing on the street,
that that even if you can't tell
that that's what's happening, that
someone's playing a musical
instrument, that the energy
of that is somehow its essence is still
in that image. So I don't
need to deliver that part in
a weird way. I mean, that's how I look at
it. And, and I that the word
that comes to mind to me here
is synesthesia. And, which makes sense,
because you are a multidisciplinary
artist. And it's, it's,
it's like what you're capturing is what
you're feeling when
you're hearing the music and
participating in that event. You know,
you're not you're not
capturing visually anything that's
visible for the eye. So there's there's
always this very kinetic and like musical
aspect to your videos. Cool, thanks. So
these, you know, one of
the things I'm doing with
that thing and some of the other
musicians I've shot is, you know, so
that's video, and then I'll
take a still from the video, and then
I'll put that into a multimedia
compositing software where
I can play with different levels. So I
can have like a put a still with
different things going
on behind it or in front of it or around
it and, and play around with
that. So sometimes what I'll
get those elements, I'll start with
video, turn them into
stills, then play around with them
while I'm listening to the music that
they played during the thing. So, and
then I will then pull a
still I can either turn that into a video
or pull a still from it. So
it's like this these stills
were made of musicians were were made
while I was were shot while
I while they were playing it,
making the music, but then they were
mixed and fucked around with
while I was listening to the
music. So there should be, you know, even
though you don't need or you
don't say anything about it,
but it's like, it's, you know, hopefully
it's instilled in there.
And that's, that's, that's
the interesting thing here. I think
sometimes that question comes up, at
least in photography,
like what part of it is the art part? Is
it the, is it the part where
you click the shutter? Or is
the part where you actually work on the
image? And in, in what I do,
so much, the most important
part is the process for me. Like, it's
the most important part.
Like, what, what, what is left
after the fact that are, you know,
sometimes is great, sometimes not so
great, but it lives, it
has a life of its own. But what's, what's
most rewarding to me is
being able to go through that
process. And so what you're describing
here is part of that creative process
that starts when you
collect the video, the footage, but then
it goes all through all of
these other steps where you're
actually composing your, your, your art.
Yeah. And it's funny,
because it's, because the answer,
of course, is it can come from both, you
know, the photo, like, as
in, it's like, of course. Yeah,
I mean, you know, sometimes if you're
starting off with just a great
photo or a great composition,
or with you, a great idea, where I know
sometimes you work off of,
you know, you see something in
nature and you take a photo of it, and
then that's your work inspiration to
play. And of course,
it's, it's sometimes, it's great if that
beginning, whatever your
beginning thing is, you know,
in jazz, the melody that you're going to
start improvising or doing
your thing on, then you just
do work, work with that. And sometimes it
comes later, like, Oh, I
didn't think this photo was.
Right. That, that's the discovery or the
becoming that, to me, like,
the most, that's the exciting
part of, of the process and of art making
is you can have great ideas,
but in the process of making
them, like other decisions come in. And
in the process, you're
creating something that never
existed before. And that, that discovery
is just one of the most rewarding things.
It's almost, it's almost like a little
gift that you can get
sometimes, even if nobody else sees
it or nobody else likes it the way you do
or whatever, but where
you're, you're like, wow,
I've never seen anything like this
before, you know, and it
totally clicks with me.
So final question, and it's one that I
ask all my guests. What is your
definition of success
and how has it changed over time?
Wow, interesting. Yeah. Well, I think
it's still evolving. Number
one. Yeah. I mean, I think it's
always evolving, but I think I, I mean,
the one thing that sticks
out is the big evolution is
what you were just, what you just said
about that you liked the process
like that is that, and it took me a long
time to realize that that was,
that that's had, that that has to be
enough sort of, I mean, of course you
want to put things out
at the other end of your process, you
know, and it's better if you
can get them out into the world
and that someone else appreciates them,
but, but you're right. It's
the, but it's embracing that
and I think for a long time, I looked too
much at the towards what
the result was going to be.
Rather than just, I mean, it took a sort
of getting to a certain
point, you know, in my
late thirties, forties, you know, where I
was like, Oh, I do know,
like when I do get a good idea,
I know what to do with it. You know,
like, I know the, I know how
to put it through my thing.
And I do enjoy that, but it's, I think it
isn't until, you know,
lately where I realized
and that's enough, like, you can't, I
mean, that doesn't mean don't
care about putting things out
into the world and, you know, what have
you, but I think success has,
you know, has to be more like
you get to do that, you know, that you've
been able to create the
space in your life or make it
got handed to you or something, but
you're making use of it. Like you are
doing that. And it's just
a way, it's, and also I realized it's
just a way to go through life. I mean,
it's just sort of a way
of, of being, you know, participating in
the world. Yeah. Because
as we both said before,
it doesn't seem to really matter. Like,
even if I don't, even if I
say, okay, I'm not painting
anymore, I'm not doing anything, I'm not
an artist anymore, and I'm
not going to get in any shows,
I don't care, and I'm just not going to
do anything, you know,
I'm not doing that. You end
up doing stuff anyway. Yeah. So if you
say you're gonna, it's just a
way of sort of moving through
your life. Yeah. You're never gonna not
want to express yourself.
I mean, that's just a human
condition. Yeah. And it's, and it's fun,
like you said before, like
in the end, the end of process
is fun. So I think, you know, success, I
mean, of course, I'd love
to be making a bunch of money
doing this. And that's one kind of
success. But I think just
doing, you know, that's,
there's nothing wrong with that kind of
success, of course, but
don't miss out on the other,
you know, the day to day, you can be
successful every day just by, you know.
Dave, how can people find you and your
work? It's impossible to
find me or my work. No,
that's not, David Olson Media. And I'll
have the, I'll have notes in
the notes. I'll have links.
You are online. I am online. I'm on
Instagram. I don't use my
Instagram very much, but there,
I'm trying to use it more. It's David Oh
Media, I believe, David Oh
Media on Instagram. And it's
like, I used to do, I used to do the
social media stuff for a
living. So at least partially,
you know, like do social media stuff for
clients. And so now when
it's for me, I'm just like,
I don't want to do it. Like feel that
part feels kind of like
work. But I'm trying to do,
I'm trying to be better at it because
it's a lovely way to do
things. So how about you? What
are you doing right now? What's your, you
know, I have a show coming up.
I do have a show coming up. It's a fun
little show. It's in Springfield,
Illinois, and it's in
a micro gallery. The gallery is like a,
you know, maybe two by two
by two, tiny, tiny gallery
that sits on a pole and artwork that goes
into that gallery is
miniature. And the owner of the
gallery contacted me and invited me to
have a show there of my, of
the miniature paintings of
the little betta fish, which it's just,
just a lot of fun. But beyond
that, I'm kind of in between
things. You know, going through that
incubator stage where it's a strange
place to be, I've been
in this place enough to know that I
always come out of it. And to also know
that some of the best
things that we do and some of the best
insights and epiphanies and
some of the best happens. And
you can trace it back to a moment that's
just a low, you know, the truth. Yeah.
And so I, so I just,
I know that the next thing that I'm going
to do is going to be really
exciting and it's going to be
a great thing to do. And it's, and that,
you know, not knowing what
it is or when it's going to
happen can be, can cause a little bit of
anxiety and frustration
because I'm a working artist and
I'm not making the art. But at the same
time, the fact that I don't
know what it is, that's what's
it will take, you know, when it takes
shape and it's just
going to be like, Oh, wow.
And yeah, it's kind of, it is kind of
exciting. That's gross
to me. Like that's the,
that's the becoming, you know, it's that,
you know, if there is a kind of ideal,
like higher self ideal Hava out there
who, you know, perfect,
like whatever accomplishments.
And I'm just fumbling, fumbling through
and, but towards that, and that's life.
Like if I can just snap my fingers and
get there, like why, why, why
go, why go through the life?
Right. There's nothing to do here. Yeah.
Well, and also, I mean,
I think it's cool. Like,
you know what, you know, you're set up
for when something
strikes your fancy, you know,
it's just like when, you know, if you're
a writer, you, you better
quickly start carrying around,
you know, pen and paper all the time,
because you got to be
ready to jot stuff down.
Well, it's just, and that's sort of like
what having a studio is,
or having a space to, to,
to work is, is that you, and if you're,
and, you know, as you well know, if
you're playing around,
even if you don't really have an idea,
that, that also allows those.
Exactly. That play. Yeah. Actually, that
play is so much more
important than we think.
Where all the good stuff comes from. I
mean, you can learn all the
other shit in school or just by,
you know, copying other people's work and
you can, whatever, but,
you know, it's when you play
around and then it gives that opportunity
for you to recognize the thing that
nobody else recognized
or thinks isn't interesting. You know, no
one else notices that. Well,
it's like, great. So that's
your, that's your thing. Well, I'm
looking forward to your new, your new
shtick as well. Whatever you
do, you'll know. Thank you. Thank you so
much. Thank you. It's
a great conversation.
Thanks again for tuning in. That's our
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