The Secret Life of TK Dutes

Burnout doesn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it just asks you to sit down.

In this episode of The Secret Life of TK Dutes, a late-night scroll turns into a flight to Minneapolis, an upholstery class, and a quiet reckoning with rest and healing. TK meets furniture designer/curator/editor Nicole Crowder, and what starts as a conversation about chairs becomes one about creative burnout, self-trust, and leaving hustle culture without making a scene about it.

They talk about making things with your hands, about why comfort feels political, about how Black women creatives have always known how to make home out of whatever’s available. About chairs as witnesses. About the right to rest. No big reveal - just the slow realization that burnout recovery might look less like escape and more like listening.

After the episode, TK sits with producer Tre’ Jones to briefly unpack what this episode shifted inside of them. The full post-episode reflection lives on Patreon.

This episode doesn’t rush.
It pulls up a chair and waits.

Welcome back to The Secret Life of TK Dutes.
Episode 2: An Invitation to Sit.

Special thanks: Nicole Crowder, Tre' Jones (Producer), Manny Faces (Engineer), Faybeo’n Mickens (Marketing), Pat Mesiti-Miller (Theme Music),  Gabrielle Smith (Art)

👉🏾 Follow Nicole Crowder on IG @nicolecrowderupholstery | nicolecrowderupholstery.com
👉🏾 Follow TK on IG: @tastykeish | @philosfuturemedia
👉🏾 Go behind the scenes on Patreon: patreon.com/c/SecretLifeofTK
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Creators and Guests

Host
Keisha "TK" Dutes
Host/ Executive Producer
Designer
Gabrielle Smith
Visual Designer/Show Art
Editor
Manny Faces
Post Production Lead
Producer
Tre' Jones
Producer, Episode 2

What is The Secret Life of TK Dutes?

The Secret Life of TK Dutes is the story of what it means to become when the system won’t let you be. One woman sets out into the world, looking for ways to get ahead as an Artist. Producer. Daughter, Sister. Partner.

Together with those who bear witness, TK throws away the scripts and looks for answers, in airports, dentists offices, across borders.

Each episode is a new world, pioneering the art of loose autobiography to build the picture of a life in a community of voices.

What happens when you stop doing what is expected of you and start doing YOU?

A better life can be a hustle. It doesn’t have to be a secret.

TK Dutes:

So I'm visiting my girlfriend at the time in North Carolina. Oh, wow. I see your post. I didn't even get to the bottom. I didn't get to the location yet.

TK Dutes:

All I saw was Nicole Crowder, upholstery class. It happened so fast. I look at 10 spots, then I go look at how many followers you have. And I said, math ain't math and I need to be in here, the ratio is too crazy. It's an upside down division.

TK Dutes:

You know what I'm saying? The numbers is crazy. I look at my girlfriend, I go, you see this? I said, this lady has like 30,000 followers and it's just 10 spots. I wanna go to this.

TK Dutes:

And she's a, what she call herself? A cheerleader for foolishness. So she goes, get it.

Nicole Crowder:

Come on. Come on. I am taking that. Okay.

TK Dutes:

Cheerleader I for got it. And then I said, well, now apparently it's in Minneapolis, y'all.

Nicole Crowder:

I am Nicole Crowder. I am a furniture designer, an upholsterer, a writer, an editor, a lover of all things craft and design, and I'm excited for the future and generating even more ideas in this beautiful industry that I love.

TK Dutes:

Welcome back to The Secret Life of TK Dutest. By the time I met Nicole, I was on a self imposed sabbatical. Now, how does that even work for a girl like me without a conventional income? Turns out you don't have to make everything complicated. Sabbatical is just a fancy word for not going to work for a while and focusing on yourself.

TK Dutes:

And I came up with like a remix version where I work all the jobs that come to me because bills, but I didn't go seeking any more situations or taking any more meetings with people or places I couldn't trust. And at that point, I couldn't trust anyone. So I had to get back to trusting myself. Trusting that the universe had my back, that the people around me wanted to help me, not hurt me. Step one was getting the F out of New York City.

TK Dutes:

Around this time, we're coming out of COVID sort of. I'm rediscovering slow travel. I took buses and trains up and down the Eastern Seaboard to reconnect with friends, visit museums, go to conferences, and that mode of travel, it gave me a lot of time to think. I wanted to stop trying and start living. So I did.

TK Dutes:

Step two was realizing on the days that you can't escape your surroundings, you have to make your surroundings. The heartbreak that I shared with you in episode one was just what I currently hope is the end of such drama and shenanigans. But a lot of those things have been building for a long time. Family stuff, having a double work life, housing insecurity, and some deep, deep friend breakups factor into all of this. And when I couldn't leave, before I knew that was an option, I noticed that I always turned to finding and making stuff with hands.

TK Dutes:

Let me tell you how I was addicted to Craigslist. At my overnight gig, I would scour it for items needed at my shitty apartment that was also the first studio space for Bonfire Radio, a community online radio station that me and my friends co founded. Yeah, I'd be working. And desperate to make a house a home at my insistence, me and my creative partner C would do crazy shit like pick up a bed frame and transport it on the subway. So picture me with a shopping cart just pieces of bed frame sticking out all crazy and C carrying the headboard and other random pieces of wood in his hand.

TK Dutes:

Was self medicating by finding the things that I needed in my physical life. Every time I found the perfect item for the perfect low low price and then pick it up, I got a hit. And maybe that's a metaphor for what I wasn't getting in my real life. But I was going to make a house a home by any means necessary with or without help. Eventually, my attention would turn to tables and chairs.

TK Dutes:

I love chairs. IKEA was cool, but vintage was better. Chairs were small enough to carry myself, but big enough to make a statement. Once in a while, I would fancy myself a reupholsterer and Lord forgive me because listen, when you don't have the right to it, you get creative. I would literally glue some fabric down to the chair frame.

TK Dutes:

It was a wallet. But chairs were a portal to a life that I was dreaming up and reupholstering them was a testament to the life that I could make out of what was already there. Something new out of something battered. And that's when I saw Nicole Crowder's upholstery and furniture design. Bold, classic, thoughtful.

TK Dutes:

I didn't know it then, but her chairs were avatars for the type of woman I wanted to be known as. Bold, classic, thoughtful. To do that, I had to allow myself to learn from someone that represented all of that and the best part of it, she looked like me. A beautiful black woman with braids and a kindness that I could feel through her Instagram post. And for the first time in a long time, I felt compelled in my body to do a crazy thing.

TK Dutes:

As I was scrolling on my phone in North Carolina, I impulse bought a ticket to a class in Minneapolis, Minnesota that I would have to figure out how to get to from 1,200 miles away in New York City. This episode, An Invitation to Sit, is produced by my friend and mentee, Trey Jones, a producer currently back and forth between Dallas and Mexico. We might get into that later. And like the previous episode, after this offering, me and him will sit down together and unpack what landed for each of us from this experience. Right now though, me and Nicole have a nice kiki of our rest, resistance and creative renewal.

TK Dutes:

We talked at the top of 2024 and so much has happened for the both of us since. But all of this, it started with a simple mantra. So I've been saying this phrase a lot. If it's not a hell yeah, it's a no. This is like my 2023 guiding mantra.

TK Dutes:

You know, it helps me decide, like, yo, check-in with my gut, see how I'm feeling. And if it doesn't radically excite me or if it doesn't make me feel radically good, and good could mean a lot of things. Right? Am I secure? Am I, like, literally feeling good?

TK Dutes:

But either way, if it's not a sure shot, then just let it be a no. Even if you change your mind later, it's a no right now fam, it's a no for me dawg. So if it's not a hell yes, a no. Right, okay. So let me tell you how I got to you.

TK Dutes:

So one day in my whole quest to follow my bliss and this was also like, this show is a response to that, all that trauma that I was telling you about, and just trying to figure shit out and being a person, a black woman for the first time with the opportunity and privilege to try things. Keep seeing my contemporaries of other ethnicities, they just gallivanting. And I'm like, I want a gala. I'm a gal, can I vent? I'm just trying to be outside.

TK Dutes:

So I was like, what is my outside and what does that mean? So all the 2023 was, if it's not a hell yeah, it's a no. When I tell you how I saw your upholstery class, it hit me, it was like a ball of lightning. Today is the day of this crafting class that I'm taking, this upholstery class with the illustrious Nicole Crowder in Minneapolis. But first, we gotta find a chair.

Nicole Crowder:

The fact that you flew in from New York for this one day, a half day, a three hour workshop, I my mind was just blown. My mouth was agape. The same feeling you felt in your gut when you saw that post, that's what I felt when I saw your message, because it was just like, thank you, Lord, you know, this work is resonating and not just for me. Like the feeling that I had of this work almost feeling like a calling was resonating with the right people, the right person. For it to reach beyond even the circle, you know, I'm here in Minnesota thinking it will reach people in Minnesota.

Nicole Crowder:

Yeah. And for you to resonate with that, it just meant so much to me. Was like, floored. Truly, that was the best note that I got that day, probably that week. And I was just writing off that energy.

Nicole Crowder:

So it translated fully when you got here also. It was beautiful.

TK Dutes:

Don't let them tell you targeted ads don't work. Like

Nicole Crowder:

Let me tell you. I was like, alright, Instagram. So the algorithm is algorithming sometime. It's hitting the right people.

TK Dutes:

It was hitting. I had tried my hand at like some bootleg version of upholstery. And it was something I wanted to do for a long time. But it was like time to learn from a professional. And I'm glad you were the professional, the conduit.

TK Dutes:

And so it felt almost manifested.

Nicole Crowder:

Oh, I'm just so grateful for you. And I was gonna ask that too, if that was your first time doing upholstery, because so many people have said, it's intimidating. They're like, I have no idea where to even start. But the energy that you brought to that class, you were like, I want to learn this. What's the technique?

Nicole Crowder:

How do you cut this? But there was no sense of like, fear about it. Was a lot of people who come and they don't wanna, you know, make a mistake, which I'm like, hello, I've doing this for eight years. I am still making mistakes. Like, without question, that's going to happen.

Nicole Crowder:

But you came in and like, just bodied that chair. Like you needed that, you know, you needed to do that handwork. It was almost very visceral for you.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. I'm gonna go back to my chair.

Liz:

This is fill.Cardboard. And let's just see what happens.

Nicole Crowder:

And the piece, like, it had its energy when you were done

TK Dutes:

with

Nicole Crowder:

I

TK Dutes:

was like,

Nicole Crowder:

no, this is this is fly right here. And this person is so fly and just such a great spirit.

TK Dutes:

Thank you.

Nicole Crowder:

So I'm just grateful that you came, you know, to the class came to Minnesota, and that we're here right now.

TK Dutes:

So then let's go back, how did you get into upholstery and design? And we'll go into the magazine a little bit after that. But what was your upholstery journey?

Nicole Crowder:

Yeah, it was very, very nonlinear. I had started in the publishing industry, I was working as a photo editor for about five years. And then I was getting kind of, just an itch to work in a different way, staring at my screen all day, not really being on photoshoots was just, I was missing this connection to creating. And, I was freelancing with apartment therapy doing photo shoots at the time for people's homes and getting a list of all the objects in their homes. One of the homes that I went to, a woman and her husband had these beautiful chairs.

Nicole Crowder:

And it was almost like I had seen chairs for like the first time, you know, I obviously grew up with this very practical, functional object, but I was like, where'd you get these from? And they pointed me to some shop in Baltimore. And I, the very next day took my little car out there, picked up like five or six chairs of just different eras, Victorian, mid century, eighties and stuff, and no idea how upholstery worked at all. It was just like a sense that I needed to get my hands on this in some way and transform something. And the first chairs that I stripped apart, it was like an awakening, know, I was like, no, I need more of these.

Nicole Crowder:

So I'm on Craigslist at like one or 02:00 in the before going into work, looking up fabrics and you know, stripping things before I'm going into work and after work. And it was just this like affinity, know, that I felt right away with oh, you can, the frame is like, you know, once you have that intact everything else is kind of cosmetic about this, you can make this as beautiful as you want, and it was like getting dressed. And so I started doing that, marketplaces, farmers markets, anywhere I could really sell my pieces just to get my name out there, my face. And my reputation was just kind of growing because I was in DC at the time, and there was no upholsterers really in the city. So many folks who found me were like, I've been looking for somebody, can't find anyone who's doing this work.

Nicole Crowder:

And also there's no classes showing people how to do this work. And so my sort of hobby became like this niche filler. And I started getting a bunch of clients that way, moved to Baltimore, because I assumed it was going be less expensive than DC. I was not accounting for like, just the hidden cost of entrepreneurship in every way like

TK Dutes:

right

Nicole Crowder:

driving gas, you know, overhead, all kinds of stuff. And I jumped into upholstery as a full time entrepreneur kind of prematurely, I would say. I was eager to leave my full time job, frustrated with that, but I didn't have any sense of like, okay, what's my structure here? What are my hours going to be? How am I going to charge?

Nicole Crowder:

What am I going to charge? Who is my client? I just was like, you know, 26, 27 and gung ho. So my first year getting into this field, it was super, super tough. I just like burned myself out quickly.

Nicole Crowder:

And everything that could go wrong did in that first year, honestly, it was just taking such a toll on my body and my mental. And I I felt like I was a failure honestly I was I remember coming home to Minnesota for Christmas and telling my mom I was sitting on the couch just crying like saying wow I failed at this. My pride was hurt like my ego because I didn't want my parents to feel like I had, you know, started this thing, put myself in the situation, I couldn't take care of myself, and that I needed to go back to having them take care of me.

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

But, she was just so supportive, and she was like, you know, go back to work. And so that's what I did. I went back to work, but upholstery just never left me. It was always there. It was just like, take a break, do what you need to do to recover.

Nicole Crowder:

Yeah. But like, this is the work that is calling to you.

TK Dutes:

Just something you said about, you know, you didn't want to go back home, but also your mom was like, well, still you got to work. You know, like this thing about, like, we have so much in us, right? We have so much skill and potential and we need support, and we just want so badly to, like, move beyond regular life. Right? Yeah.

TK Dutes:

I feel that, like, as a people, Black people and just Black women, there's so much more for us out there than what feeds us. The thing that's out there right now is not feeding us. Yes. This is why me and you are talking. Because I had to was hurt, you were hurting and you found a thing.

TK Dutes:

And I'm wondering if, does some of the upholstery and just the design and the style stuff, does that come from like home? Like, did you see people making a home, you know, when you grew up a certain way? Or did you desire that? Was there a lack?

Nicole Crowder:

Oh, that I love that question so much, because I have been thinking about that a lot over the years, honestly, and trying to figure out like, where did this seed come from? You know, the seed of creating, and specifically like in this medium with upholstery that is so tied to handwork, weaving, repurposing, so tied to also my ancestry, our ancestry, you know, and the more historical research that I'm doing, the more that I'm uncovering and learning like, this is, this is passed down through some spirit person DNA, and I am a vessel, you know, to bring forth these ideas and sharing, you know, this labor, but this labor of love. And growing up, my mom was a very big homemaker like she, she came up in a family of, know, two siblings, her mother, stepfather in Chicago. And she was just very big on like place making place setting to this day. If we ask her what she wants for Christmas, it's just the family in her house, you know, eating food together.

Nicole Crowder:

There's no gifts, it's just being together and she creates these really wonderful warm environments. But there was nobody in my family who was into art, crafts or design by any means. My father was in the military, you know, since he was 18. And my mom also joined the military, I think shortly after he did. So I grew up as a military kid traveling all over the world.

Nicole Crowder:

I was born in Germany. We lived in Japan and South Korea, all along the East Coast, South, Midwest. We just traveled a lot. And I've been doing a lot of, you know, thinking and research into even how those experience have colored my curiosity about design. And it makes so much sense because being exposed to different cultures, textures, patterns, ways of doing things, different homes, you know, there's so many homes that influence how I design.

Nicole Crowder:

The one home that holds the greatest weight, the biggest influence is my grandparents' home in Southern Virginia. It's this red brick house in a small town and continuing, you know, to sort of dwindle in population, like in the deep country, but that home is so, it was more like a hodgepodge of just the things they've collected through family and friends visiting. It's such a mixture, this like incredible melange of jacquard and chenille and damask and like all kinds of prints and patterns on the sofas and the dining room chairs, the bedding. So that house, it just feels like this painting to me, almost like a Mickalene Thomas. You go in there and it's just pattern everywhere.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. Did they cover the chairs with plastic?

Nicole Crowder:

Listen. Let me tell you about the plastic. Okay? The dining room chairs, they will not take that plastic off for anything. Let me tell you that.

Nicole Crowder:

But it's like that kind of texture even is something I've tried to replicate, I've noticed in my chairs, know, through like incorporating vinyl. It's just these elements of home as I'm trying to make it. Yeah. Being someone who kind of grew up in this unrooted kind of way, traveling every three to four years, and trying to figure out where is my home and realizing it's all over the place, you know, there's different parts of me sprinkled all over this world, and I get to kind of recollect them through this work, and also define, you know, what my future home space can kind of look like, and what kind of work that I want to create now that can live in someone else's future or their child's future.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. Me ask you, because you just you're talking about your grandparents and I think about, especially when I look at your chairs and the different things you do, you pull out the very big graphic designs. It's giving tribal sometimes, contemporary, modern, but also familiarity, right? And I know me and you from two different places, but we from the same place. You know what I'm saying?

Nicole Crowder:

Yes, indeed.

TK Dutes:

You know.

Nicole Crowder:

We are here. Yes, that's it.

TK Dutes:

We right here. And I think about epigenetics, right? Like how to pass down all those feelings, because I don't want to always use the term generational trauma, but generational things that are passed down to us, feelings. Right? Because it could be we have generational good feelings, right?

TK Dutes:

Exactly. The way your grandma laugh, you might laugh the same. That's a good feeling. The way you make the chairs, like that's a good feeling that someone probably had in the 1800s. So I think about, I don't know if I'm going too deep here, and I didn't even have a J today.

TK Dutes:

Let me know. But I think about the right to sit. I think about freedom, I think about Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks. Two questions, why chairs? And was there a time you needed to just sit down?

Nicole Crowder:

Oh my gosh.

TK Dutes:

Come on. I'm looking at Brett here.

Nicole Crowder:

TK, the way like I'm emotional right now at for this many reasons. So at first, thank you for asking both of them. And I've never been asked that before. It's been hinted, you know, there's like, there's this ancestral tie to the pieces through the fabrics, but that question of like, why this medium specifically and in a time where that right, not even something that you have to, that you should have to argue for was denied. I feel so viscerally that me getting into this medium, and I say calling because my background was nowhere near involved with this, but I felt very much called to making modern heirlooms for people who looked like me, coming from a people who are so much of our life is predicated around movement.

Nicole Crowder:

Yeah. And having to be uprooted quickly and leaving spaces to build new spaces in foreign cities or foreign lands, I think so often about like those soft landings, know, those places where, you know, whose homes were we staying in as safe havens? What were the sort of mediums that we used to help facilitate this transportation, right? And I think about the dining room table as a gathering space, and it's, I'm trying to articulate it slowly because I feel I have so much to say and it's so poignant. Because I'm literally working on an exhibition now about the great migration and the objects that black families would have brought with them that were most valuable to them, of course, because when you have to make quick decisions, you think about what am I gonna bring?

Nicole Crowder:

Like, what stays close to me? And Yeah. Before people left their homes, they were sitting around the dining room table. They were gathering together.

TK Dutes:

Present day TK here popping in to tell you that exhibit Nicole was working on. Yep, she finished it. She manifested the vision and it was conveniently located at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City for the making home Smithsonian Design Triennial from November 2024 to August 2025. And I couldn't not show support. So I gathered up a bunch of homies and took them to go see it.

TK Dutes:

The exhibit paid homage to the great migration and was called The Offering. And it was created in collaboration with decorative artist, Hydeea Williams. For me, it was like seeing the old world and the new world colliding, bright, bold contemporary patterns meeting wood paneled walls and passed down mementos that adorned the mid century home of every ancestor that came before us. But don't just take my word for it. I also got my friends reactions.

TK Dutes:

Let me get it official. Okay. What does this remind you of, this exhibit?

Liz:

Room actually reminds me of my mom's house and my grandma's house.

TK Dutes:

There are

Liz:

pieces in this room that harken back to my grandmother's house and the furniture that she used to have.

TK Dutes:

Liz, is this your first view? What do you think?

Nicole Crowder:

It's stunning.

Liz:

Yeah. Absolutely stunning.

TK Dutes:

Doesn't this remind you of grandma's house? The Yes. The beaded curtain. The beaded curtains. Elodie, what does this exhibit make you think of?

Elodie:

Reminds me of my grandma house. Even if it's not from the same country, I feel like some photos reminds me of some family reunion we had.

TK Dutes:

Hey C? What are your first impressions?

Rikshaw:

There's a lot of design patterns happening. There's a lot of color, fuck anything being the way it should be or supposed to be, and it all makes sense. It always makes sense when you put together a lot of things. Right?

TK Dutes:

What does it remind you of?

Rikshaw:

I mean, I see some interesting shapes that remind me of African fabric.

Rikshaw:

Hey, Rickshaw. Hey. What's up? I was just wondering what your first impressions of this scene. What does it make you think of?

Rikshaw:

Mostly, I love the diversity of colors. That's the first thing. And then just you get so many different shapes and variety.

TK Dutes:

Does it remind you of, like, I don't know, things?

Rikshaw:

I I mean, I don't know. It just it would be wonderful to have family around this table.

Liz:

It's an installation, and it feels like home.

Nicole Crowder:

I think about the furniture that supported us. I think about the furniture in the home, on the trains where people were being transported to the cities in the North. I think about my grandmother's home and all this like mixed fabric and sofas and accent chairs and benches in the living room all just kind of crowded together. And it's just like, that's what we do when we gather together, you pull up a seat, you share your table, but also your spot with someone to say to them, I want you to linger, I want you to, I'm inviting you to sit It's with not just an open call of like, come whenever you want, but I'm inviting you to come and share space with me. And that's a very different level of love and intention.

Nicole Crowder:

And when I think about furniture and chairs specifically, it's such a medium of function practicality, but I love its history too, especially with lounge chairs.

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

Like the Bergere chair, one of my favorite chairs, The first chair ever made specifically for lounging, for resting. And I wanna create as many of those chairs as possible as heirlooms because I I want it to be an invitation for more of us to like. Rest. And even if that's your chair to work in, let it be the softest chair with the widest bottom, the broadest arms, the tallest back, the softest cushion, and all of my pieces, I'm thinking about them as artworks, but I'm also thinking about them as like, someone is really going to do work in this piece. This is going to enhance the quality of life for somebody or their comfort, know, even just for fifteen minutes, an hour, however long they're occupying this space.

Nicole Crowder:

And for myself, they are this way that I was also able to ground myself as a kid who bounced around, went to like five, six different schools growing up, you know, between like first grade and high school. So always trying to orient myself, always trying to figure out, okay, you know, which seat is mine? How do I make myself the most comfortable in an environment where I am just not, you know? Yeah. And I think about things that I want to change too with seating.

Nicole Crowder:

I want it to be more comfortable for schools. I love to re upholster pews for churches because I was raised in the church, my grandparents were deacon and deaconess. And even though my own relationship to the church has changed very much and I'm not active in it in that way, I just did a church project here in Minneapolis and it was like the quickest yes I've ever said to something because anytime a church is reaching out or a school or a shelter, those are the places where I want most to leave the impression of like, you all deserve comfort, you deserve beautiful fabrics and this gathering space. I just want to help facilitate more of that energy of like, this is safe haven for black people specifically, everybody But can my focus is for black people to have soft landings and soft, you know, beautiful things in their home. And chairs were that medium that I just took to and feel most imaginative in, and that I always always go back to.

TK Dutes:

I see it, you know, like I see it, I see the vision and also like, I'm a, what do you call it, enthusiast, I guess I would say, you know, like, I see chairs, I see a lot of things in the wild and I want them and I call them street blessings. And the rule, so here just for you for Lei, the rule of street blessings, if if you're on your way and you you don't have a car or you don't have anywhere to put it or you don't have no room, the rule of street blessings is if you come back the same way and it's there, it's yours. You should

Nicole Crowder:

give it.

TK Dutes:

That's the Moolestreet to I

Nicole Crowder:

will take a cute little u-turn anytime I see something on the street. Like, that's literally why I changed the type of car that I have so I could have space for picking up stuff off the curb when I find it because that is gold. As long as the wood isn't, you know, stripped or it's not been out in the rain, we can revitalize this. We can transform and repurpose this. Absolutely.

TK Dutes:

I wanted to tell you about this artist. Her name is and I'll send you, like, a link to her later. Her name is Ilan Kadiz, and she's a friend of mine, but also just she's an amazing artist. She was doing this project where she depicted her family as chairs on two d pieces. It was like tufted.

TK Dutes:

So it was almost coming off the page. I'm a send you a link.

Nicole Crowder:

Send this to me ASAP because that right there, like people pushing even the imagination of furniture and what it can look like and how it's created. Oh, I'm like getting goosebumps even thinking about that.

TK Dutes:

I can't wait to send that to you. Yes. When I'm out in the world, a thing I love to do is make home and take it with me. I collect ephemera, napkins, postcards, candy. And I make a cozy space that grounds me when I'm living out of a suitcase.

TK Dutes:

And while I'm there in that place, I decorate my area with things like souvenirs and fabric and art. I mix it in with my jewelry and my makeup so it feels like I'm part of this foreign place. And when it's time to pack up, I take it all with me. And when I get home, one by one, I take them out and I get to remember where I've been. In this half, Nicole and I, we get into how we both trap.

TK Dutes:

Not just to see the world, but to make home

TK Dutes:

wherever we touch

TK Dutes:

down. Nicole talks about the little rituals and texture she brings back with her and how being on the move feeds her creativity. We talk about her work as editor at large for Minneapolis St. Paul Home and Design. How she's using that seat to spotlight black artists and create rooms where our folks feel seen, safe, and celebrated.

TK Dutes:

We also talk a little about the elephant in the room. The balancing act that we all struggle with. Actually having an experience versus documenting it. Like when we're away from home, how do we move past vacation mode and step into creation mode without turning the whole trip into a job? And listen y'all, the next clip you're about to hear is a perfect example of how I absolutely did not turn off content mode when I was in Minneapolis.

TK Dutes:

I don't know if TikTok appreciated my insights, but maybe y'all will. Is a light rail a train or a tram or a trolley? Is a train a light rail? It's very confusing. But first, let me show you how to take the light rail from Minneapolis Airport to the Mall Of America.

TK Dutes:

I love to travel when I can, but I love to nest. Man. Hello. So my brother lives in Mexico now and I go visit him and I go to the markets and I'm like, oh my God, I should get that for his like, I wanna make home everywhere. Period.

TK Dutes:

Thank

Nicole Crowder:

you. That is it right there, like making home everywhere. I love that.

TK Dutes:

How do you make home everywhere?

Nicole Crowder:

So a big thing for me when I travel, and you mentioned Mexico, which is great because I went there for the first time a few years ago, Mexico City just

TK Dutes:

Yes.

Nicole Crowder:

In every way, food, the art. And anytime I'm traveling, I always collect textiles where I'm going like of that place. And typically I'll gather like maybe two to four yards, no idea what I'm going to do with them, but with that much fabric you can recover almost anything. And I've done that, I remember I went to Germany because I was trying to retrace a little bit of, growing up and so many incredible textiles there, which I didn't really think of Germany as like a hub for textiles. Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

I mean, I know that it is. There's obviously tons of design and art there, but fabric specifically, there's just some beautiful prints that are very unique to like the sixties and seventies style. Mid century, lots of geometry in those prints which I gravitate toward. So it's just really fun to travel and also expand your perception, you know, of a place through something as specific as cloth or as varied as cloth, you know?

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

I really like to stay in in neighborhoods if I can, if with friends or if it's a small boutique hotel, I like to stay there because I find that those incorporate more elements of artists that are local. And so you're getting a vibe of the people who live there. Similar to you, I'm a very like extroverted, curious person, so I love to just talk to folks and in a way that's like respectful and mindful of space and everything, but just to get a sense for, you know, what goes on here and what's kind of like the vibe and the flavor and textiles are my way of bringing that back home and incorporating that into my own space.

TK Dutes:

I'm going back to Mexico City, so I'm gonna get three, four yards of something.

Nicole Crowder:

Yes, please do. Like I had to learn, you know, my Spanish, brush up on my Spanish when it comes to like meters and yards because I went some place, it was a few years ago, had no idea how much I was trying to order, ended up ordering like 10 yards and I was like, oh, I did not mean to say that. But you know

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

I had to get my numbers right so that I can know how to negotiate at these shops.

TK Dutes:

Right. And next thing you know, 10

Nicole Crowder:

I'm yards here.

TK Dutes:

Spanish yards

Nicole Crowder:

meeting this morning. I was like, I will take it. That was my bad. Yes. I will take all of that and find something to do with it.

Nicole Crowder:

But like, I love and it sounds very much like you travel so much. And I'm curious too if like a crux of that travel for you is for inspiration or are you going for like respite, but then finding, you know, something else unexpected there? Like, typically for you, how do you travel? And how does that influence how you create?

TK Dutes:

Yeah, I think at first it always is for rest. That's what I always think it's gonna be. And then the person that I am jumps out when I get there, I'm like, oh my god, I wanna bring everyone with me. Where's my phone? Oh my god, senor, Okay.

TK Dutes:

And then next thing you know, I'm doing an interview and it's on Instagram. Me tell you, the way the brand

Nicole Crowder:

just doesn't know, like, it's almost like natural. But at the same time, I'm like, oh, is this the work? Is this me? Am I on vacation? Am I resting?

Nicole Crowder:

Is this for future content? Yeah. Or whatever it is. I'm just and I don't know if that's curiosity or if that is being part of a culture that is so dominated by content creation.

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

I don't know.

TK Dutes:

I definitely think that's part of it. And I've been really trying to be careful. So like last year was my year of doing this kind of thing where I would just go and follow my urges. And I would say for me, took out the camera maybe 70% less, like on The urge that I was fighting when I came to your workshop to just holler at you and be like, sis, do you have like five minutes? Can we just like the urge.

Nicole Crowder:

Listen. Because

TK Dutes:

I wanted to make sure I was there fully to do the activity. We had questions. Absolutely. Is there a way are we just freestyling this cover with the staple gun or is there like a tip to like? There is.

TK Dutes:

See,

Nicole Crowder:

I was like, I wanted to have my phone out because I'm similar, know, also coming from like a photo background, but also just someone who really understands similar to you, the importance of like documenting and archiving things. Yeah. You know, like memorializing that and recognizing like this is something significant, even if I'm never going to showcase this, I still want to like document it. And after that workshop I was sharing with my girlfriends, I was like, I feel emotional talking about this because I realized that, you know, I'm doing this work and people have paid to come to this thing and so I'm in a professional capacity, but like, I feel like I have found a new friend at this workshop. And I was also resisting the urge to be like, do you wanna get coffee?

Nicole Crowder:

Let's, you know, let's get Yeah. Whatever it was, like drinks or something afterward. But it's just, that's one of those amazing bridges, you know, of creating. It's like, yes, it is to connect you with like minded people and souls and Yeah. Just like hosting some of these workshops too, the people who have become friends, I no longer feel I need to have that kind of distinction of work, Nicole.

Nicole Crowder:

It's like, I can bring myself to these things and that's what's allowing people to resonate It's you. With Yeah.

TK Dutes:

I love that. And then like to answer your other question about just because the creativity influenced like just different places. Yeah. Absolutely. And so much so, like now I'm trying to figure out that medium of like, do I carry supplies with me?

TK Dutes:

Like for my preferred medium, I do a lot of resin work and that could become cumbersome, but also my pieces are small. So last time I went to Mexico City was for five weeks. It was like literally my pet, my cat, she died a week before. And then the trip was coming. So half of my big suitcase was my stuff to make stuff because I felt I didn't want to be around people.

TK Dutes:

I wasn't ready yet. So I said, well, I'll just go. I'll make a few things. So here I am on my brother's balcony smoking a J, pouring out some resin. Right.

TK Dutes:

Listen, vibe. Location, vibing, the feelings, it was very busy. And I realized it was very busy because Mexico City is busy. The colors were extra vibrant, and my feelings at that time went right into it. And I pulled out some of the items that I made.

TK Dutes:

And I'm not sure if I'm fully really able to look at them yet because of the time that they were made in, but because of the place they were made in, I want to push past it. Because I wanna be able to go, I made this in Mexico City, it was during a hard time, but you can see the country in it. Oh, wow. So yeah, was all a melange of feeling and place and stuff.

Nicole Crowder:

I love that. It's like similar to how when people say, you know, if you like buy a perfume or something in a country, you kind of your memory is always attached to that place when you wear that perfume. I love that you are creating in these different places that you go, you know, it's traveling, eating, it's enjoying the environment, but you are making art there.

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

Gosh, I'm just thinking I haven't myself done that, but I can imagine how that can transform you because you're reacting to that inspiration kind of in real time.

TK Dutes:

It does something.

Nicole Crowder:

Yeah, because you know, so much on vacation, it's about we're doing, we're going to see, we're sightseeing, exploring, but like, how many of us are actually making, you know, pottery or painting or, you know, taking upholstery class when you're on vacation type of thing. Yeah. So yeah, you are inspiring me to like do that. So I'm gonna make something. You have inspired me to make something while I'm out, TK.

TK Dutes:

She's an artist, a designer, an entrepreneur, but it goes beyond that for Nicole. Together, we walk through a little bit of that hard work of how her craft has held her down through hard times and what keeps her going eight years deep into this calling. In the fashion of many black people before her, Nicole lifts as she climbs. And a lot of times, she finds that it pours right back into her. I wanted to get into this Minneapolis St.

TK Dutes:

Paul Home and Design magazine. So you are the editor, editor at large, what do you do?

Nicole Crowder:

Yeah. So when I moved back to Minnesota in 2020, 2021, I had reached out to the home and lifestyle editor here, mostly just to introduce myself and be like, hi, you know, repholstered in the area. And she's to my surprise was like, oh my gosh, I follow your work. So she and I were just talking and she emailed me afterwards and she was like, you know what? I want us to create a new position for you.

Nicole Crowder:

And I was just blown away because again, I'm just thinking it's gonna be a feature perhaps And on looking into the magazine, which is beautiful, and I love and I subscribed to even before, but I did recognize that there was, you know, kind of a dearth of people of color who were featured in our homes and apartments and just profiles. And so I grabbed that opportunity and I was like, absolutely, you know, I still get to have agency as an entrepreneur doing my own thing, but with the editor at large position, I get to write about pitch stories about any and everyone in the Twin Cities there. Well, Minnesota really at large, who I want to amplify and spotlight. And that is largely black people, but there are so many incredible who are here in general. And so I have a column called Creatives in Conversation where basically find someone who I wanna be in conversation with, whatever space that they're in in sort of the creative field or even creative adjacent, and just spend some time with them like you and I are doing.

Nicole Crowder:

It's in their home, workshops, it's in their studio, and just talk about process, ethos, passion, the conversation really can go anywhere and all these people I become friends with. And I think part of that is me and my curious nature and just gravitating towards people. But, I'm grateful that those friendships are open and genuine. Through those people, I also get to know other creatives in the area and just amplify more people. So for me, my biggest, like, fascination and I think strength is sharing.

Nicole Crowder:

Like, being up in service by introducing people, being that kind of connector. Anytime someone's like, oh, I'm interested in doing this, I'm like, oh, I know somebody who can do that. Let me put you in touch with so and so. Because it's that, you know, feeling that kind of gap and it's being part of this ecosystem of sharing resources, helping people to get further where they want to be and not feeling like, oh shoot, if I tell this, then maybe that's missing an opportunity for myself. Absolutely not, you know, the one candle helps to light another candle.

TK Dutes:

Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned, you know, it was like a lack of representation in the pages before you arrived there. Now, you know, my instinct, my first instinct was like, how does it feel to be a black blurb? Right? But my second instinct is, do you feel like in the three years that you've been there and that you've been bringing different folks to the magazine, that the readership and the people looking at their social media, like, do you feel that?

TK Dutes:

Because I think Minneapolis, I think white. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You being the right. Of I was so I'm like, have they noticed is what I'm saying?

TK Dutes:

Like, has that population noticed the shift, right, that there's more out there, you know? Do you give feedback like that?

Nicole Crowder:

I love this question. And it is absolutely the thing that I feel is my biggest frustration point with, not the magazine specifically in terms of like editors, but I think the reach to me has not been broad enough. I was at a a panel discussion. One of three black people that was there, and one was on the she's actually on the cover of the current issue of the magazine. So for me, I'm like, if there's this community that I can come in here and tap into, you know, within a couple of years, easy.

Nicole Crowder:

Right? There's there's not enough space in this magazine, enough issues a year to amplify Right. Number of incredible black people and brown people who are in this city. That means that there has to be another vessel to hold this. Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

And we have to figure out different ways to make sure we are getting them into the community and and the community coming to them also because I don't ever want it to feel like we are putting black people in rooms that are still mostly white people and you're still feeling othered, you know? It's like, okay, I'm I'm in here, but I'm still, like, not here, you know? I'm not comfortable or represented.

TK Dutes:

Sometimes you feel surveilled?

Nicole Crowder:

Very much. Heavy on that.

TK Dutes:

Watched. You're you're now in a fishbowl.

Nicole Crowder:

Heavy on that. Yeah. So I had you know, there's things I had proposed where I was like, well, let's take this column, right, and blow it up into a podcast so that we can talk to more people weekly. Let's do panels. Let's have events where we're asking people, what do you want to talk about?

Nicole Crowder:

And not just us saying, here's what we wanna discuss. You come be a part of this because there's needs that people have, they already know what they need. We can just be the platform to provide that and you know, it's the rhetoric of budget, advertising, Yeah. And none of that stuff sits in my spirit because, like, I'm familiar with all that. I come from that background.

Nicole Crowder:

It doesn't mean it's not possible to do. It's just there's a lack of will to do it. There's a lack of intention to do

TK Dutes:

it. Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

If you wanna create space, you will make that space. It happens in any medium. And so I'm in a space now where I'm trying to build out my own kind of platform, my own space where I can amplify more of our voices. And I'm branching into different areas of working, which I'm very excited about, that include doing more events. I have an event, which is a a wintering dinner that I'm promoting mostly for black creatives to come and talk about the internal winters that you're experiencing, but also this season and how do you self preserve in a climate that is very harsh.

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

Nicole Crowder:

And I'm thinking about even a physical event space where I can create my own environments and bring people in and let people do their thing in that space without feeling like you have to be given the invitation or the permission to do so.

TK Dutes:

Right. Yeah. Oh, and it all can be tricky, but I believe in your work and I believe that if you stay doing it, you know what I'm saying? It's going to achieve the goal that you want it to, right? The right people, the right time, the right place.

TK Dutes:

So I I thank you for being there.

Nicole Crowder:

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I, it was a moment where I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to go. And my partner was like, he was the one who was encouraging me to stay. He said, you, you have the mic, basically, you have the ability, you're in that space to do it, even if there is some, you know, back end frustrations.

Nicole Crowder:

Yeah, you still are in that position where you can bring people in, put people on and have that access to open that door even further. That's exactly what I want to do. Magazine is a great place for sharing stories, for distilling and distributing those stories out into the community. So as long as I can talk and type, I will be doing that for sure.

TK Dutes:

Awesome. Let me ask you, have you ever had moments where you've used your craft to heal and like, you felt just discouraged and down. How did your craft help you get up out of that?

Nicole Crowder:

Oh my gosh. There are so many times. One of them was I had moved to Minnesota and started hosting upholstery workshop retreats. Last June, I hosted seven women out in this beautiful house in Wisconsin. And this trip I had a mother and daughter team, two black women.

Nicole Crowder:

And the mother had brought her daughter because she wanted her to experience a different medium. She wanted her to see a black woman working in this space. And the mother, shout out to you Tanya, who has become a dear friend, but she

TK Dutes:

Prior

Nicole Crowder:

to this workshop, I had a lot of questions around motherhood. Going back and forth myself for years about, do I want to be, do I not want to be? Putting together this workshop, you know, don't know who's registering. I get there and in walks in the door, this beautiful black woman from Mississippi and her daughter, and she is a midwife. And we spend two and a half, three days, you know, we're upholstering, we're talking about my medium, we're talking about design and fabric, but she's also sharing so much of her experience and career in midwifery.

Nicole Crowder:

And also a lot of the sort of pushback that midwives get, you know, working in the medical industry. At the end of this workshop, you know, I'm like thanking everybody for attending and they're just saying how much they've enjoyed this experience and wish it were a whole week and people have become friends. And Tanya comes up to me and she just holds my hand. And she was like, if you ever decide in the future that you want to have a child, I will be your midwife. I want to be that support for you.

Nicole Crowder:

And I grab hold of her like she is my mother, like she is a life raft. And I just start bawling. I'm bawling.

TK Dutes:

You

Nicole Crowder:

know, I'm grateful for creating this space for people to come and have respite and learn and have massages and take care of their bodies and just be in community with one another. And here I am being poured back into by this woman, and then subsequently by all these women who are like, I didn't even know what this retreat was about when I first came here. Just resonated with you and with your energy. And I knew that I needed to do something, you know, to kind of break out of the rut that I was in. And this has freed up so much.

Nicole Crowder:

And I, being an empath, highly sensitive person, just crying because of the way this medium, this craft has opened up opportunities to meet with people, to reconnect with myself and my purpose, to be affirmed in the work that I'm doing. Like there are many, many times in the entrepreneurial journey where you have doubt and questions, not not if you can do it. Sometimes it's whether you even want to, you know, if this is the way you wanna keep working and showing up. And then those moments where you're able to taste some of that fruit of your labor that really changed my whole outlook and it changed I think the trajectory of how I work and how seriously I take those in person experiences and workshops. So I'm just grateful.

Nicole Crowder:

How's it going? It's good.

TK Dutes:

Good. Cutting some fabric, just a square, calling it a day. Perfect. Now I'm starting to get it, you

Nicole Crowder:

know? Yeah.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. It's not so bad. Which fabric are you going with? I think I might actually

Nicole Crowder:

do this for the seat, and I was gonna do this for

TK Dutes:

the back.

Nicole Crowder:

Would that be sort of fun?

TK Dutes:

Yeah. That would be fun. I support that. Take care. Sometimes we just need to hear it.

TK Dutes:

So I know you have to go. Have one last one. Top me off. Eight years in, what keeps you going?

Nicole Crowder:

Oh, what keeps me going is knowing that I am called to create. It is very innate to me. I am great at idea generation, I am great at starting and being able to execute a thought, I'm great at asking for help and tapping into other resources that I don't fully have. And I'm good at pivoting. That is something that this journey has really, really taught me.

Nicole Crowder:

You have to pivot. Yes. And whether that means pivoting out of something or adapting by adding something, I've been able to keep motivated in this space because I'm excited and I always have new ideas, bigger ways to enhance a vision for something. Yeah. It started with just wanting to do a chair for a client just to get my foot in the door.

Nicole Crowder:

And now I'm dreaming of my own space. I'm dreaming of my own collections. I'm dreaming of books and all these different vehicles for expressing this craft. And that comes with a deep love for it and a knowing that it is expansive and there's just still so much to do within it. So I'm motivated by my own, you know, ideation and the people who I have yet to engage and interact with who are going to receive that work too.

TK Dutes:

Amen.

Nicole Crowder:

I cannot thank you enough for also allowing me to start off this year, you know, processing a lot of the questions that you asked and having space to think about them in new and different ways because so much of what you asked really hit with me and I feel compelled to like just write that down a bit and reflect even more on this journey. This will mark eight years that I've been doing upholstery. Wow. And eight years and a year that already signifies, you know, a completion in a lot of ways. There's so much power and I feel full of it.

Nicole Crowder:

Like it's it's surging to this kind of head. I'm just really, really grateful that this conversation starts all that. So thank you, TK.

TK Dutes:

I'm happy to be Yes. The Y'all, I just got to Chicago Union Station with my upholstered chair. I was not leaving it and I'm ready to take on this next leg of the trip. Me and this chair going all the way back to New York in a few days. And that's where me, Nicole and my chair are gonna leave it for today.

TK Dutes:

Conversations like this remind me that craft isn't just work. It's a way of living, a way of healing, a way of remembering who you are and what you're capable of. Pivoting, motivation, expression, community, creating, resting, restarting. That's Nicole Crowder and that's The Secret Life of TK Dutest. Now, how about you?

TK Dutes:

Think about it and call me, like seriously, call me at (929) 551-4363. I wanna know how you're healing and what a new chapter looks like for you. Alright. Now y'all gone with me on this random ass train trip to and from Minneapolis for a one off upholstery class that I took as an impulse buy, and we made it all the way back to New York City, custom chair in hand just to tell the tale. So now let's talk to the man who helped me put all of this together.

TK Dutes:

He's degreed up in the arts of broadcast journalism. Six years deep in the podcast world. My former corporate world colleague turned freelancing friend, the one and only Trey Jones. Come on down Trey, come on down.

TK Dutes:

Hey. I don't

TK Dutes:

know why. Hey friend. I don't know why I like feel like making it sound like you're coming into a boxing ring, but I am obsessed.

TK Dutes:

I was thinking either I'm a contestant on The Price is Right or, yeah, you're introducing me to, like, come down to the ring for a fight.

TK Dutes:

Well, this ain't gonna be a fight, but come on down to the ring, friend.

TK Dutes:

Attack team match. You know, we're teaming together against, the corporate world of podcasting.

TK Dutes:

Yes. The isms. Thank you. And the Obias.

TK Dutes:

And the Obie wiz.

TK Dutes:

That's what I say all day now to myself. But you know what? Let's tell the people, you know, like what you're doing here. Well, you're the producer of Yes. This Yes.

TK Dutes:

Thank you so much. First of all, have we been producing this episode for like, it's been over a year?

TK Dutes:

Yes, yes. Because the Nicole Crowder interview that we did was January 11, I believe, of twenty twenty four. Then And of course we were talking about it before then.

TK Dutes:

Yeah, just lifing it. So, well here we are in a new year, in a new time, in a new like season of this podcast. And actually, I want to throw it to you first because I would love to know what you took from this or where you want to go with this conversation that we're just rocking with right now.

TK Dutes:

I think first and foremost, what stuck out to me from this episode is just like the sheer boldness and courage you had to just like on a creative whim. I mean, Nicole said it, just, like, take a one day, three hour upholstery class all the way in Minneapolis. Yeah. Just Just because the spirit moved you to do that, like, that's something I don't know if I would have had the courage to do in my life. We've talked about this before, like, I think people would be surprised to learn that you consider yourself an introvert.

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

TK Dutes:

But you're good

TK Dutes:

at I'm a love a good ass liar. Yes.

TK Dutes:

But you're good at turning it on when you need to.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. Yeah. And you are an introvert's introvert.

TK Dutes:

An introvert introvert. Yeah. Like and it's not that I don't, like, enjoy being around people and talking to people. It's just like, you you have your social battery and when you're an introvert, it drains quicker. So I feel like in my introverthome bodiedness, it's been difficult for me to like, even though there's been things that I've wanted to try, a lot of the times I'll let that fear of putting myself out there get in the way of actually doing the thing.

TK Dutes:

So I'm a person who's dealt with a lot of regrets about things that I didn't try. And then like you say in the top of the episode, like, you're determined to try things. Yeah. That's what you're up to in this season of your life. So I think that is something I really resonated with.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. And it it's so interesting because this was, like, one of the first, quote, unquote, adventures, you know, like, things. And and when you say, like, you know, like, you're identifying me as a as a introvert or what I guess people would, you know, like, I like to be in the house. Mhmm. When I need to turn it on, I turn it on.

TK Dutes:

That's for sure. And and I'm probably more an ambivert with introverted tendencies. Tendencies. But, like, you know, like, that's the boring part of me that I think people don't want that. Right?

TK Dutes:

Like, I I think people want outside TK. And like, that's part of the quote unquote mask that I've been working to let down. And I think the exercise in us working together and like kinda sharing shit like that is for me, letting that mask down with someone that I trust. You know? Like, we like like you said, we've been talking and talking.

TK Dutes:

We've been talking about this show. We've been talking about the different themes, what's coming up in our lives, like, you know, a lot. And I think that just helps us get more, like, closer and, like, be able to work on something this sensitive. Like, the entire series is sensitive for me. Yeah.

TK Dutes:

Every episode has a different level of sensitivity. But what I also seen from you is a growth because as you identify yourself as an introvert, you've been going outside a lot. So where did that come from? And like, does this making this play any part in that?

TK Dutes:

Definitely. Definitely. Like, I feel like the timing was kind of perfect because, like you said, we we started, like, working big on this in 2024, and not to take it political, but of course that was an election year, and it's been on my mom's mind for a while that she wanted to experience living abroad, so we knew, like, no matter what happened with the election, that at some point she was going to try out living in Mexico, a country I know that you're getting quite familiar with.

TK Dutes:

One of my faves, yes.

TK Dutes:

Yes, yes, of your Adventures in Mexico City. So that was on my mind too all throughout the year, knowing that that was impending, and she wanted me to experience living in Mexico where we are right now as well, and but it was something that I was kind of nervous about because like I was saying, like, I have historically been a homebody. I've had that desire to travel, but like as far as living somewhere else, that's never stricken me as something I wanted to do. I think largely because I am an introvert and homebody, I like familiar spaces. Yeah.

TK Dutes:

But hearing you and Nicole's conversation about how rewarding it can be to get out in the world, experience different places and how that can inspire you in not only your art, but your healing as a person. That resonated with me.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, yo. Like, you know what? Speaking of Nicole, I would love to know because a major theme, I think in the second half was making home wherever you are.

TK Dutes:

Mhmm. And since you're outside of your, like, main comfort zone, right, Dallas, Texas is your that's your home. That's your comfort zone.

TK Dutes:

Yes. Yes.

TK Dutes:

You are in Mexico. You are you are speaking another language on a daily basis or trying, you know, trying Spanish. I try and just like how do you how have you made Mexico your home now and and like even down to the space that you like are talking to me from?

TK Dutes:

Yes. I mean, we've talked about this before. When you don't have like the actual location of where you call home, you can bring things that either remind you of home or take you to the experiences that you're used to at home. So like, I'm starting to and this also ties into, like, getting back into creative pursuits that I think this also helped inspire. Like I got myself a guitar so I can get back into playing music, which is something I used to enjoy doing.

TK Dutes:

I brought my console with me so I can play some PlayStation, get back into gaming, brought my drawing book so I can get back into sketching. That's something I used to enjoy. So yeah, I'm trying to rediscover that fun creative side of myself that I feel like I kind of lost being in the nine to five working world, having to hustle, you know, if I wasn't doing the day job, a lot of my free time would be out side gigging, like doing deliveries. But of course, you know, need a work permit to do that here in Mexico.

TK Dutes:

Right. A

TK Dutes:

lot more free time on my hands. So I'm having to find other ways to use my time and trying to do that by getting back into the creative and renewing myself that way.

TK Dutes:

Dope, dope. Hit me with one more before we head to the Patreon.

TK Dutes:

So, okay, so one thing in the conversation with Nicole that I just couldn't let go of, like, we we went through different iterations of this episode, but like, the conversation So there was a point where we had taken out the conversation about her role as editor at large and being this facilitator of safe spaces for black artists and providing a platform for them. I don't know if I feel like that really resonated with me because I know you as someone who in my own life has been that facilitator for me. Like, you've been an advocate for me. I feel like you've believed in me in ways I haven't believed in myself sometimes as far as like, no, I feel like you really are ready to step into the role being like full on producer, no associate, full on producer. And like like you talked about in the episode with Kristen, like being that protector for us on your team when like clients were maybe trying to blur that work life balance.

TK Dutes:

Yeah. And, like, I know that's work that you said it feels rewarding to do, but I know it also has to be tiring. And so Nicole's been in that, like, noble pursuit of providing a safe space for Black artists, and I feel like that's something that you're familiar with, too. And I'm wondering, having gone through the burnout of it all, how has this journey and the conversation with Nicole affected the way that you want to show up in that role? Do you still see yourself wanting to do that or in a different way?

TK Dutes:

Yeah.

TK Dutes:

Well, I will say it's it's like my second nature. Like, you know what I'm saying? Because when I feel like I I have mentors now because I think the world, the community, you all, we mentor each other. Right? I have mentors now.

TK Dutes:

Right.

TK Dutes:

But when I was your age or even younger, like, you know, like, I was just trying to come up and I'm, like, trying to talk to people and people are like, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Right? Like, so like all of that and a lot of things that like black people, you know, like all those things, it's like, it's a lot of times we do stuff because the generation before lacked it.

TK Dutes:

My generation, I lacked it. I lacked that. So now I I'm maybe overcompensating. Right? Like, I I don't know.

TK Dutes:

I can't help it, though. Like, I'm like, oh, I can if you wanna be better, I can help you be better. And, you know, if you wanna listen, then I'm here to fucking say words at you, you know? So it does burn you out though. It's a part of the burnout because it's a part of the work, right?

TK Dutes:

Because not only are you trying to build your own thing, you're helping to build other people up. And then it also pigeonholes you low key because people don't think of you now as like the person that can do the thing. Right? You know how they say, those who can't teach? And I'm like, no, baby.

TK Dutes:

I can. And I teach. Like, I do

TK Dutes:

both. People

TK Dutes:

be I think it's a ingrained this is gonna sound wild, and maybe we go to the Patreon right after this. I don't know. You know what? Let's go to the Patreon right now. Those of y'all that wanna keep listening, hit us up.

TK Dutes:

We're gonna put this full conversation on the secret life of t k, Patreon page for our paid members. So we'd love to see you there. If you got five on it, we got more to say. So meet me and Trey over there.

TK Dutes:

Alright. Please put five on it.

TK Dutes:

What he said. So on that note, let's wrap it up, Trey. Where can the people find you? Or are you or do you wanna be found?

TK Dutes:

It's funny you say that I created a link tree just for this thing. Was like, dang, I guess I should allow people to find me.

TK Dutes:

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. So is there so well, you know what? We'll put

TK Dutes:

it in the thing.

TK Dutes:

We'll put it

TK Dutes:

in the thing.

TK Dutes:

Find Trey where where I say you can find Trey.

TK Dutes:

There you go. Because I cannot remember them all off the top of my head. I think fresh iced tea with the t e e on IG. Fresh iced tea y'all.

TK Dutes:

On on Instagram and all the places and also check the notes, but I just gotta say bro, man, it has been a pleasure. Like it has been more than a pleasure and we have a mini episode coming up.

TK Dutes:

Yes. Yes.

TK Dutes:

Right? Yes. So we're gonna we're gonna do that. I'll all will be revealed later. But it's it's tied to something we mentioned in the episode.

TK Dutes:

And when y'all get it, y'all get it. But you have been like just such a joy to work with, to grow with, to also trust with this part of my story. And, ah, thank you. And thank you.

TK Dutes:

The feeling is completely mutual. Like, you have been a key part of my growth professionally, like not even just professionally, like in life. Like, you've brought me back into a love of the creative process that I thought I kind of lost after the experience with the layoff. Yeah, so most appreciation for you friend right back at you friend. Alright, y'all.

TK Dutes:

Just give me your money now. Okay. Bye.

TK Dutes:

Capitalism. We gotta get paid.

TK Dutes:

Capitalism, baby. Thank you to the amazing, wonderful, uplifting Nicole Crowder. I appreciate our budding friendship. I appreciate all the beautiful things you post, and I appreciate every piece of encouragement that you gave us in this episode. You can find her and her work and her workshops at nicolecrowderupholstery.com.

TK Dutes:

Please do not hesitate. Run. Don't walk over to Nicole's stuff. It's beautiful. This episode was executive produced and hosted by me, Keisha TK Dutest.

TK Dutes:

Who else? And produced, sound design, and co written by the two time that's two time Webby Award winner, Trey Jones. But you only get your first capital p producer credit one time, and that's right here on this episode. Yep. So thank you, my brother.

TK Dutes:

I appreciate you. Congratulations. You are now a capital p producer. Wear your crown. Additional audio support and engineering comes from my homie and yours.

TK Dutes:

Hip hop can save America's own, and he's trying to save you too, y'all, many faces. And thank you to the man of a thousand whispers, Pat Macidi Miller for providing our intro and outro theme. Marketing support is by my day one. Fabian Mickens of FM Digital, well, she'll always be liquid to me. And let me tell you, sis has gotten me places with this podcast that I never thought I could get myself.

TK Dutes:

So listen to her. Show art and episode art by my fellow Caribbean queen Gabrielle Smith. Can you find the chair in this episode's artwork? Special thanks to my friends that took me on friend dates to the museum Melissa, Liz, Elodie, Nas, Charlotte, C, and Rickshaw. I love y'all.

TK Dutes:

Thank you so much. And if you would like to go behind the scenes of my secret life, join my Patreon for special BTS episodes and moments from paid members. Yep. Go ahead and put five on to y'all. Come on.

TK Dutes:

It's a lot of work to do this damn show. Patreon.com/secretlifeoftk.

TK Dutes:

Present day TK popping in here to tell you. I sound like a white male. Hold on.

TK Dutes:

So you're gonna have to come up with what? Eight different versions of these?

TK Dutes:

Fuck. I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna do my best.