134 - Archinktober Recap Part 2

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Is that, is that, is that how it goes? It's

Jamie: 0:35

a little bit more dramatic than that, but yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:41

Oh, well, yeah, because you are A and M, right? It's military, right?

Jamie: 0:48

It was. Yeah. It's not like it's a very small fraction.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:54

Yeah. So we have, we have actually we've got a few watchers, a few live, a few live watchers, Jamie. That's,

Jamie: 1:01

that's extra pressure, but

Kurt Neiswender: 1:03

also extra fun. I think some of them are from our, our, the, the discord channel for Archie Marathon, our friend Kevin over there in Australia, who you've been on. Juries for my classes with, I believe, I mean, Sean seems like he is familiar with, I think he's using, I'm gonna just throw this up there, Sean. I think it doesn't translate some of the emoji or emoticons or whatever, you know? Yeah. But you, you have the, the, the colon and that means like emoji, right? Science, math things, things, technology code, you know. Anyway,

Jamie: 1:42

thIs is the moment of the podcast where. Kurt geeks out over, like, weird technology things, thinking that, thinking that Jamie has no clue what he's talking about, but I totally

Kurt Neiswender: 1:53

understand. Oh, oh, right. There is a threshold at which, yes, Jamie learned. Oh, okay. I don't, you know, I actually, you probably knew that before I did. I I'll be honest. Yeah. And cause I'm using the colon use, you know, the colon bracketing. Some phrase, you know, like is basically how the thing knows it's an emoji or whatever, right? Cuz I am a little older than you. I think we just lost some subscribers because of my

Jamie: 2:32

Like colon blue face

Kurt Neiswender: 2:34

It keeps dropping a little bit. Well, they'll catch it on the recording. Anyway, Jimmy, so this is back to our episode 134 134 132 with Steven is up and we got, that was a lot of fun to record. And then 133 is forthcoming and, and now we're in 134.

Jamie: 3:03

So, so what's the coffee of the day?

Kurt Neiswender: 3:08

I actually, I was gifted a Starbucks gift card, so I used it to purchase. Have you had the green apron? Or green apron roast, you know, it's like an homage, I suppose, to the employee. I don't know. I wonder if they put any any proceeds of the sale of that into like a retirement fund or something that would be smart. You know, the, I heard on the radio that they in marketplace money, they're planning on opening up 55, 000. More stores next year and there are a lot a lot of them are going to be like drive thrus just drive thru because people See a long line and then they they leave so they want to recapture so that anyway That's that's a lot of green apron blend they could sell

Jamie: 4:01

well, and it's all that's a lot of cars.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:04

Yeah, it's a lot of cars Yeah, because people don't carpool. So there's 55, 000 stores with at least 55, 000 cars times how many cars per minute. Anyway, that's what I'm drinking and I don't mind it. I like it. I'll, I wonder if I'm drinking it. Too fast, because I'm already through most of the bag already,

Jamie: 4:28

so. So you must like it, yeah, that's pretty good for you. So this, I, I, I, I teased it on the last episode, and so this is the, this is the new one. Okay good. It's a, it's a, it's actually, it's actually sort of a light medium roast. The flavor, yeah, the flavor notes are chocolate, blueberry, and honey. Blueberry. The

Kurt Neiswender: 4:56

blueberry. Oh, you said boo berry. No, no, no. Count Chocula blueberry.

Jamie: 5:01

Blueberry. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we just passed Halloween. But yeah, they, and apparently they are also one of those I don't know if it's like what's that kind of corporation gives back? Yeah, yeah, B Corp. I don't think that they're that, but some of their profits yeah, are for disadvantaged youth programs throughout the U. S. So but yeah, it's you know, it's, it's a little bit different. Decided the the I'll tell you that they, they, the marketing on the bag, um, also sort of spoke to me. So this, this is like the second, I got, I've bought two bags but it had kind of a Basquiat esque, kind of

Kurt Neiswender: 5:51

the crown kind of thing. I was going to say, I was just going to say that.

Jamie: 5:54

Basquiat. Yeah, so kind of, kind of jumped out at me. Jumped off the shelf. Into your heart. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:06

Well, good. That sounds good. I like, I like a light medium. I think I'm, I'm narrowing, I mean, all the years we've been doing this, it's not, it's not just for show. Like, we actually, you know, think about it. Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe you more than me, but now I'm starting to kind of narrow my understanding. It's, it's hard. It's not

Jamie: 6:30

that easy. Well, and I, and I told you that, you know, I'm going to get to meet the, the folks at A& M's coffee facility here pretty soon. So that's, um, I feel like I'm going to go to school, which is kind of, kind of good. Old school

Kurt Neiswender: 6:49

coffee school. That'll be fun. You should try and do some sort of live stream behind the scenes. I hope it's more exciting than the classes, the, the, the class that I teach, at least, you know, when I see some of the faces of my students in class, but I'm just teasing. But

Jamie: 7:14

so you're, you're back all, all in person or are there some virtual

Kurt Neiswender: 7:18

stuff? I'm a, I'm 50, 50, well, 50, 50, really. One of my classes is on zoom. And one's on on the studio's on ground and but then next semester I won't have that luxury all on ground. Although I might, I might try and hybridize a little bit of the lecture

Jamie: 7:39

class. Is that sort of all intentional with the school as a whole? Or is that something that.

Kurt Neiswender: 7:49

There, there's a little leeway they have in doing moving things to online. They have these strange percentage, like, so it's like zero to 49 and then 50 to 99 percent or whatever. So like zero to 49 percent hybrid, it's intended to be on ground. I mean, I'm probably getting this wrong, but, but then they, they pushed my current fall lecture class. The systems class to the 50 to 99 percent threshold, which then basically allows me to be mostly remote. And so, although I find that the students are kind of, it varies. This group that I'm with right now started in 2020 at, in college, right? So their whole, their whole life has been like finishing high school, online, going into college online. And so I think they're, they're kind of feeling the burnout of, of the, of the digital

Jamie: 9:05

and so, or, or they're the freak out of having to face you every day. So,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:11

look at that. I'm always smiling. Yeah. Yeah. Drinking coffee. I'm

Jamie: 9:14

always drinking. Coffee. Coffee, coffee. Like coffee. I got a podcast.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:18

Cheers. Have a, have a pin.

Jamie: 9:21

Yeah, have a pin. I, I, you know, I'm, I'm trying to be better about giving out the pins. So I, I,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:27

I did.

Jamie: 9:28

I'm down. I did offer up a sketch and coffee as part of a silent auction. Recently, so that was exciting. It went really well. You know it was and it was a fun night. So that's always good. But I think we've got tons and tons of sketches to talk about. So I don't want

Kurt Neiswender: 9:47

to delay. We should I

Jamie: 9:48

will say

Kurt Neiswender: 9:49

this is the part two. So part two. And, and I will say one, one thing, I got to, I got to be nice to our friends at Arky Speak, because I might need Cormac's help on Friday in class. There'll be two bags of coffee. Oh, oh, we're bribing

Jamie: 10:08

now. We're going, we're going away from the coffee feud, and now we're going into the coffee

Kurt Neiswender: 10:13

bribing. What do they call that? A mall, a mall you. Emolumations or emolu, emolulant, emol, emolate, we're not, it's the, it's the, no, not emulation. Yeah, the emoluments clause, emolument,

Jamie: 10:28

emolument, yeah, you're,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:29

you're going to, yeah, I'm going to create some sort of, you know, illegal gift, podcaster to podcaster, unsanctioned gift,

Jamie: 10:40

unsanctioned gift for reviewing

Kurt Neiswender: 10:42

students. Work. Yep. And it'll be very public to, you know, right. Very, you know,

Jamie: 10:49

here, here's coffee help

Kurt Neiswender: 10:51

be constructive. It costs you nothing. Yes. So, all right. Well, I guess you want me, let's share screen and we have, we didn't really talk about what, which ones. So do you want to do lightning round again and do a handful? Yeah, you can do a handful. I mean, yeah, I'll do that. And this time we'll just. On

Jamie: 11:17

the fly. Yeah. I mean, I, I think, you know, the, since the month of October is over, we are in November. And you know, and, and, and it today was. Today was the, oh, I went and did my thing. But yeah, so you know, it's a arc tober arc in Tober arc in

Kurt Neiswender: 11:41

Yep.

Jamie: 11:41

I know, I knew works. Yeah. I was doing it

Kurt Neiswender: 11:44

Ink tober in emoluments in Ments. 31

Jamie: 11:50

days in October. I got really close.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:53

Is have you ever gotten all 31? I don't, I don't know. No. Yeah. And this is probably one of the. Biggest batches of Arcingtober sketches. Fantastic. They're not in order. They're in some kind of order, but not in 1 to 20. I think you made it through 28 days. I think so. Yeah. Which so this is all of all of them from the month, which is fantastic. It's just. It just melts my heart. The the and you, you, you consistently... Oh,

Jamie: 12:28

no. Oh, what's oh, no?

Kurt Neiswender: 12:31

You did not consistently use the same mug.

Jamie: 12:38

Ah, yeah, I know, I know, I know.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:40

There's that one mug, right? You're using the black sheep. Oh, actually, too, though, that was day 16. This is the first

Jamie: 12:51

block here on the left. Oh, is that, that, that helps you

Kurt Neiswender: 12:53

out there. Yeah, so that's... Because I remember that day and the, the, the sketch on that day. Yep. And, and then this is, so at some point you washed... Oh, oh, oh, oh. That's the contraband number two.

Jamie: 13:10

Yeah, well that, that one, that one's got a story. That one's got a story, so...

Kurt Neiswender: 13:15

I know, it should be, it should be... They all have

Jamie: 13:18

stories. They all have stories.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:20

I love mugs. You know, this, this one, this one is, it, it, it reacts with the wireless charger to heat my, keep, keep it warm.

Jamie: 13:33

See, it's all, it's all gadgets with, it's all gadgets with

Kurt Neiswender: 13:36

you. Yeah, see that was a Christmas gift from Danielle. It's my favorite one. I've used it basically every single day. So, well, so we'll do our pseudo lightning round with the cluster here. This is so. Well, I suppose there, there was, you can, you can mute money that we,

Jamie: 13:59

you can go back. I mean, you are the curator

Kurt Neiswender: 14:02

today, so I do remember the ones that we did do, we did I think we did eight. I think we did half of'em already did five or six. Yeah. And maybe you can pick one. So if I pick a few and then you can maybe, if you feel like you wanna really not miss one, let me know. You know? So I'm gonna zoom right in here. Right. It had trouble deciding where to start, but I think I'll start here. bEcause, and it's, it's this sketch here because of the the high rise, the high rise form that sort of eroded in the middle. Did you freeze on me, Jamie? No, I'm here. Oh, you fell. So

Jamie: 14:54

did you freeze on me? No, no, no.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:56

So you've gotten very still on the, so the the. The high rise, the, the, well, the high rise among other high rises, but you have this fun little gravity, defying erosion in the middle of the building, which is a lot of fun. And actually the form of the, the overall mass of the building is really appealing to me. We've talked about this sort of, you know, these, these various affinities that we. We have individually like I think your form things that stand out to you are different than the ones I do, but this is a form that is one that I like the sort of tapered column or tapered tower. You know, I don't know how to describe it. But you know, that sort of bulge in the middle and I guess that's the sort of anti gravity sort of un, uh, the cantilever

Jamie: 15:59

is sort of an unbalanced form,

Kurt Neiswender: 16:01

unbalanced. And then there, the further sort of erosion or carve away in the center of it for a little micro city and the stalactite stalagmite, you know, what? Yeah, forms in the middle there.

Jamie: 16:17

It's kind of, yeah, well, I mean, I think for, for, for those, for those who haven't seen it, yeah, I know. Yeah. For those who haven't seen it or who aren't watching the, it, I have a sort of a fascination with Pomodoro, um, and his sort of sculptures you know, the, the spheres that have been carved. Sort of the mechanical, you know, innards that sort of get exposed and so some of that gets sort of expressed here, but from a tower form so it's, it's, I haven't really drawn one quite like this before you know, usually, usually those types of elements end up sort of being in the background. This is really kind of set foreground in in the image. And, and really what's interesting about this as a sketch is that it, it, it started out with a very, very rough outline of that sort of unbalanced tower form that you were talking about and immediately realized I was going to carve the center and then everything else about the sketch gets built out from that. So, the focal point of the drawing, you know, that sort of centered carved piece that kind of draws your attention is also really the genesis of the whole sketch as, as you see it.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:36

It's cool. It's also looks like there's like a roadway going through it on the bottom. Oh yeah.

Jamie: 17:41

Yeah. We've got the whole like, you know, road and carving through the form. And so this one, the prompt was dystopian.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:52

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for reminding to bring up the prompts because there'll be some interesting conversation there too. Yeah, that's cool. That's a good start. I suppose if we want to attempt this lightning round, we should, we should move. Yeah. Got to pick up the pace. We should pick up the pace. All right, let's see. Where do I want to go? Well, let's let's somewhat, let's follow a theme for a 2nd here. And maybe are they, are this considered 1 sketch with 2 pages?

Jamie: 18:26

Yeah, this was, yeah, this was a, this was a 1 sketcher facing pages, one of the things that's sort of interesting about the month of October for me is that this is you know, October leading into November is sort of when I was able to do my Creekshow piece, but it was also interestingly there was a precursor to the Creekshow piece, and, and then, So this whole kind of idea about installation art is always sort of runs through my sketchbook as different varying different ideas of that. And so this is one where. The prompt allowed me to kind of think through some of those installation ideas that I've had in the past and then newer ones. So this is about sort of vantage points and it's the prompt was modular man. But it was sort of. Exploring the idea of these sort of figure form and figure field in this hybrid landscape, uh, as an art piece, but then wondering what that's like if you could sort of break that down into a series of sheets that an actual viewer could view. so That you're that hybridized landscape, those multiple grids are almost on vellum or transparencies and sort of layering that in space, maybe an idea of projection just trying to get ideas down on the page, you know, as they're, they're still kind of formulating.

Kurt Neiswender: 20:00

Yeah, that's cool. I can see the relationship now between the panels and then the sort of the image on the right is sort of the combined. Effect. I can't, I can't remember there. I think there's a term, but I'm not going to try and remember it right now, but in the sort of this, this deconstructed manner of each element. I think, I think those are, are fascinating ways to explore perception, right? And space 3 dimensional, you know, object in space versus a photograph of a finished thing or something like that. Right? So it sort of forces the, yeah. The person to actually inhabit a space to fully understand it.

Jamie: 20:47

Well, and, and I think that's the, the beauty of art is that, you know, and, and, and when architecture meets art in an installation is there's that opportunity. to kind of explore those kinds of ideas. And it's just something I think that's always sort of fascinated me as an artist architect. It's kind of that relationship of the viewer to, to, to the actual individual pieces. In that one, it was sort of trying to figure out like, you know, what would that, what would that feel like in a gallery? You know, um, definitely not a fully formed idea, but just trying to get some stuff down on on the page.

Kurt Neiswender: 21:25

Yeah. Great. So let's see, where do we want to go next? Just going to keep keep moving. How about. Well, you know, this was interesting. I don't, I don't know if it is following any longer a theme, but I thought this was kind of nice because it seemed like an outdoor scene and the sort of pencil shaped rocks were these, these you know, hexagonal or pentagon. I don't know. I don't know what you were working on. There's five sides, six sides. I don't know. And, and then it's sort of like a pier or some sort of outcropping that people are walking along. So I don't know. What was the prompt on this

Jamie: 22:12

one? Ireland. Oh,

Kurt Neiswender: 22:13

so is this a real place? Yeah.

Jamie: 22:16

So this would be the giants

Kurt Neiswender: 22:18

causeway. Oh yeah. Okay. Now it starts to make sense.

Jamie: 22:22

Yeah. A place I've not been, but a place that I would like to, to go.

Kurt Neiswender: 22:27

Yeah. I don't know if we made it out there. I heard a lot about it. I've seen, I've definitely seen pictures of it. And so, yeah, the way the, the rock sort of.

Jamie: 22:40

There's, I like how you were like, I'm not sure if we made it out there. It's like one too many Guinnesses, but Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 22:46

well, we, we had a very prescribed,

Jamie: 22:48

what is the plural of Guinness? Guinness. I

Kurt Neiswender: 22:52

Guinness Guinnesses that go with Guinnesses Guinness. It does taste better over there too, by the way. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sure it does. But like in California, there's, by Mammoth Mountain, there, there's a, a rock outcropping they call Devil's Postpile, which is, I think, the same type of rock, because of the way it sort of fractures in these geometric,

Jamie: 23:25

or angular, so what, no, I just think it's fascinating and it was you know, with, with a prompt like that. It was, you know, like I've said before, is that, you know, some of the prompts immediately, um, you know, so for those who are just tuning in to part 2 and not part 1 explaining what ARC Inktober is, so there are literally 31 prompts. One for each day of the month, and I have tried to do my very best to follow along in order and so this one, the prompt, Ireland, this was the first image that popped into my mind is, is a place there that, that I certainly would love to visit and then you know, kind of Googled, you know, some images of it just to kind of pull some stuff up on the screen and then just rendered a version of it. Quickly myself, you know, not necessarily from a photograph. So this is sort of partially they're partially imagined. Very quick sketch.

Kurt Neiswender: 24:29

Yeah, that's an interesting prompt to have a country. I don't know if you

Jamie: 24:36

remember if they've done. I don't think they've ever done that before. Yeah, this is it. It was but I played along. It didn't it didn't stump me this time. So that was good.

Kurt Neiswender: 24:46

Let's see. All right. How about, how about, well, I'll can't leave out Batman. We're going to go here. We'll do these two. There's two of them. There's two. Yeah. Yeah. So we can do it quick. So this is, you know, I don't know, you know, honestly, um, so I don't know what the prompt was. Oh no. Back those cave. Right. There you go. This is the back cave of the Christian bail, Christopher Nolan directed. Batman series and honestly, I think this Batmobile is my favorite, even though until this one, it was the Tim Burton version of Batman one or well, his first Batman, you know, the Michael Keaton. Batmobile. That thing was pretty sweet. And then no other Batmobile was, well, this is good. This is, this is not my favorite. The Robert Pattinson Batmobile is pretty sweet too, because it's kind of gritty. Like a, it's more of a, a jalopy

Jamie: 25:57

kind of DIY it. Yep.

Kurt Neiswender: 25:59

Yeah. So, so good. Good sketch. Did you do, did you have to use any visual references? No visual references. Or, or did you pull this from memory?

Jamie: 26:11

Oh, no, I, I, this one, I did use a photo cause I was like cause I wanted, I, I wanted a good image of the tumbler. to Try and get my head wrapped around it I knew, I, I mean, I actually started to, to, to draw the sketch of the space without, without it, like, I was like, cave, I knew, I knew what I was going to be drawing that was like, you know, and so the, the, because that whole image of that subterranean cave, yet it's in sort of a corporate almost environment, you know,

Kurt Neiswender: 26:48

like, if Thank you. It felt like it's in the

Jamie: 26:51

skyscraper. Yeah. Like there's a skyscraper above this. This is like the, like the, you know, basement level six. Well, I

Kurt Neiswender: 26:58

feel like, I feel like it's like. In the skyscraper up high. Oh. Even though it's supposed to be a cave. Just'cause the, the, the, the interior environment, like you said, you know, this sort of infinite ceiling of light, the darkness beyond like as it so it, it, it, it, it most, most likely was underground space, but you know, yeah. It, it also had this weird corporate vibe like you were saying. So

Jamie: 27:24

love it. Agree on the Tumblr being like. Sort of a genius move for the Batmobile.

Kurt Neiswender: 27:31

That sort of thing that's not like a real thing. Is it the tumbler? Yeah. No

Jamie: 27:39

Well, I mean it is

Kurt Neiswender: 27:39

I mean it makes you think like the army's where they're not designing the right

Jamie: 27:45

things Yeah, well exactly, right? No, so we did get to see South by Southwest, there was one of them that had multiple bat vehicles multiple batmobiles including a tumbler. so That was pretty

Kurt Neiswender: 28:01

sick. The I think there's a, I watched the YouTube thing on some of the iterations of the tumbler. There's an interesting little pseudo documentary of, you know, behind the scenes production work and how they mocked it up in a, in a form and then they started skinning it and all that. So, so yeah, so the, so then we'll jump over to the Batman and, and Robin, I assume a Batman and a Robin. So. Which is this from a movie or, or

Jamie: 28:41

cartoon? So this is the prompt was the 1980s again. So it was 1980s, just like there was a 1980s prompt to start off this. Series but you had to pick a different image. So this was like a repeat prompt, which was another unique thing this time around for this month. Or this year's go around, but I thought, you know, and I think partially because of sort of, you know, what we've been talking about of late Batman caves, all that stuff. But now a Frank Miller. Dark Knight, the, the graphic novel and all that, that series came out in the eighties and really changed everyone's perception of that character and also sort of just the, the tone of that kind of detective story, kind of both in print as well as in film. I mean what's interesting is both Tim Burton and then Christopher Nolan, both point back to Frank Miller's work, even though both of them stylistically and from a direct, directorial vision, ended up with very, very different films both of them point back to that printed work and that, that art and writer, um, and for those who don't know Frank Miller, he also did like Sin City and 300, 300... And so it's, this was sort of a an homage to

Kurt Neiswender: 30:16

that. Yeah, I can see, I can see the Frank Miller style. In it and yeah, I do, I do like his work too, you know, it just, it just dawned on me as we will move to another sketch, but I wonder if the generation that's coming up now, like has the same, the same level of interest in graphic novels as say, we did, you know, say pre internet people.

Jamie: 30:47

I don't know. I mean, it's, it's funny because, you know, the, the first sketch.

Kurt Neiswender: 30:54

Oh no, I think I did lose Jamie. Are you still there? Oh my God. How does this happen? Jamie froze. Well, we will be with you in a second here. Let's make sure he's, oh no. Well Jamie's power went out. So I just got a text from him. I guess, I guess we might have to call, call it a day on, on the, on the lightning round, Arcingtober part two. And so Maybe if, if we can get him back, we can create a proper Sorry, hold on a sec here to getting a little info from Jamie. So, yeah, so the power went out over on Jamie's end of things. I wonder where

Jamie Crawley: 32:03

Jamie went. Oh, wow. I'm back. No, seriously though. Yeah, that was kind of weird. Yeah, I know it's, I mean, you know, I did leave you hanging there just a little bit. And strange power outage. How long did it last? Not very long, but long enough that it was like, it seemed kind of silly to like, start, hop back, hop back on and

Kurt Neiswender: 32:30

start over with. Kurt's AMD just yeah.

Jamie Crawley: 32:34

Yeah, it'd be like, hey, Kurt, can we go back to the beginning and, and let's. You know, let's just speed through these lightning round of part 2 of Arcingtober one more time.