[MUSIC PLAYING]
Thank you for joining us at today's program, presented
as part of the Wignall Museum's Home Edition--
a series of curated artist talks, workshops,
and discussions featuring artists and cultural workers.
My name is Rebecca Trawick.
I'm the director and curator at the Wignall Museum.
The Wignall Museum is a teaching museum and interdisciplinary
arts space that introduces Chaffey College students,
faculty, staff, and community members
to innovative, contemporary art objects and ideas.
By fostering critical thinking, visual literacy, discourse,
and empathy, the museum seeks to enhance
the intellectual and cultural life of our community.
We want to take a moment to recognize that we are situated
on the Rancho Cucamonga campus of Chaffey College, which
resides on the traditional and unceded lands of the Tongva
people.
We offer our respect to the elders, both past, present
and future.
Hi, and I'm Roman Stollenwerk, the assistant curator
here at the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Chaffey
College.
A few notes-- we are recording this session and all
of our Home Edition sessions.
So please note we ask that you meet your audio, which
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That will help us get a nice, clean recording of the session.
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The recording will be transcribed and captioned.
We will be sharing these recordings
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www.chaffey.edu/wignall.
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Also, one other note, if you have questions,
please do share them.
You can use the chat function to share your questions with Andy.
And we'll be taking note of any of the questions that come up,
and then toward the end of the session,
there will be a lot of time to have a questions and answer.
Thank you.
Hello, everyone.
And I'm Andy Hadle.
I'm the preparator of the museum.
And today I'll be helping with the presentation.
Here in a moment, today's presenter,
Leonardo Santamaria is going to present for about a half
an hour or so.
And then, as Roman mentioned, the remaining time
will be available for question and answer.
So I'll briefly introduce Leonardo Santamaria,
and then we can dive into his presentation.
So Leonardo Santamaria is a first-generation
Filipino-American freelance illustrator.
His work has been published as editorial illustrations
for the New York Times' Disability Series,
cover illustrations for NPR'S Invisibilia podcast,
and an ad campaign for The New Yorker.
He has also contributed to motion design projects
with the creative studio Buck.
He currently lives and works in the Los Angeles area.
So welcome, Leonardo!
Hello.
Thank you guys so much for having me.
So my name's Leo, and I'm actually about 40 minutes west.
I live in Alhambra.
But basically, I'm going to talk about my life
as an illustrator, and the path to get here,
and what it is that an illustrator does.
So I'm just going to mention that after high school,
I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.
And so I actually spent three years in community college,
and this was where I was actually
able to take pop art classes for the first time.
And it was also where I was able to figure out
what it is that I wanted to do.
And basically what happened was, for the first few years,
I was just taking painting classes and figure drawing
classes, just to hone my skills in.
But I didn't really know where I was going with it.
I didn't really figure it out until one of the figure drawing
classes I was in took a field trip to an art school
called [? Davina ?] College of Art and Design,
over in Laguna Beach.
And that was when it hit me that you
can have a career in illustration or in design,
and there's a proper pathway to get there.
And so that was kind of when the moment was a mark for me,
and when I realized that this was what I wanted to do.
And so what I started focusing on when I was in community
college was finishing up my GEs--
my general education classes--
and then fleshing out my portfolio
to submit to different art schools.
And so these are some of the pieces that
were in my etching portfolio.
And what they usually look for in a lot of the art
schools is-- and just portfolio requirements--
are basic figure drawing skills, so
that they know that you have the technical abilities down.
They also want to see that you can play with some ideas
and think about concepts in your work.
And so I submitted about 13 to 15 images,
and then I ended up going to ArtCenter,
and this is an art school in Pasadena.
And I ended up going here because out of the three art
schools I applied to, this was the one that
had ended up giving me the most scholarship money.
And it was also the most prestigious one
out of the bunch.
So I was really surprised by that
because I really wasn't expecting a scholarship,
or didn't really know how much I could have expected to receive.
But yeah, even though they say that the tuition is
so high at some of these schools,
it can actually be a lot cheaper than you realize.
So in the first few years of art school,
you're basically doing more foundation work--
or the first three semesters.
I'm sorry.
And so these are where you start honing
in even more of your drawing skills and your painting
skills.
This one was a painting from a photograph.
It slowly transitions over the years
to making work that is more idea-based
and really celebrating your voice.
And for me, I majored in illustration,
but I was also able to take classes in photography,
and graphic design, and fine art.
And so, for example, this piece was
done with acrylic, used watercolor and colored pencils.
But basically, they're not telling us
how to make the images anymore.
Instead, it's like they're giving us
the homework assignments or the class assignments,
and then we're applying our own methods
that we figure out on our own into these assignments.
So it really allows each student to kind of flourish
their own voice.
And so now we can start talking about the illustration career.
So five years later, I spent a lot of time in art school.
I also spent a lot of time in community college.
So basically it took eight years to graduate from art school.
But it finally happened in 2017.
I started to get my first assignments,
and this one was for The New York Times Sunday Review,
and it was about how first-generation college
students experience Thanksgiving.
So the story was about how the writer, she and her family
couldn't afford to fly back and forth all the time
from where college was to where her home was.
And so she was stuck on campus by herself,
and it was a very isolating experience for her,
while a lot of her classmates ended up going home
for the holiday break.
And so I did this assignment in my graduating semester, which
was amazing because when you're about to graduate,
you're kind of starting to worry about like, "Where am I
going to get work?
How am I going to get assignments?
When are they going to start coming in?"
A lot of those anxieties creep up.
So to have been able to do a New York Times
illustration right before graduating
was thrilling because--
one, these assignments are super fast; and two,
it was a big motivating factor because it reminds you
that this is all totally possible.
Don't worry too much.
This is in print.
So The New York Times usually prints in grayscale from Monday
to Saturday, but for the Sunday Review, they print in color.
And what I never had to think about when I was in art school
was how my works would be seen when they were printed,
or when they would be outputted.
And so this assignment, I really had
to think about really core ideas of value structures
in the image to make sure that it would print really
well or as best as we could.
Because newsprint is really known
to smudge your colors together, or make
all the mid-tones really dark.
So that's a new thing that I've had to think about since then.
I started doing some more illustration assignments
and my career started to pick up,
and so I started doing a lot of assignments that were
based around social issues.
And this one was for VICE and the nonprofit The Marshall
Project, which is a nonprofit journalism about incarceration
and everything that surrounds it.
And so this one is for an editorial piece
by a woman who talked about how her white privilege had
kept her out of prison a lot more than it should.
And no matter how many times she was arrested or went to court,
eventually all the people along the way--
from the police officers to the judges--
were surprised.
Like, how could she be in this position?
And so she would be freed every time.
But she was basically acknowledging her privilege
in those moments and talking about the disparities
between race and how different people are experiencing
the justice system in different ways.
So while all that is happening, while I'm
doing the online editorial illustrations,
I'm also taking on painting projects
and doing work for shows.
And this show in particular was a pop culture-themed show.
It was for a tribute exhibition for Hiyao Miyazaki,
who is behind Studio Ghibli.
And so it's essentially fan art, but it's
a painting of Princess Mononoke, or in that world.
The idea, and the composition, and everything else
is original.
I started to do a couple of these shows.
And this one is based on Spirited Away.
And if you guys have seen that, you might recognize that if you
look at this composition, when you look at it from bottom
to top, it's basically the narrative
of the plot of Spirited Away.
And then I'm also using the abstracted square shapes
to symbolize the different levels
of the bathhouse in that movie.
And then there it is framed and hanging.
And this is another drawing from one of those shows.
And I wanted to put this in here just
to show that you're not really stuck in doing
your images in a certain way.
Like, you have a lot of freedom in how
you want to do your own work.
Because, essentially, as a freelance illustrator
or artist, you're your own boss.
So this is a piece I did for The Hollywood Reporter.
And I was actually in the Philippines
when I got this assignment, and I was visiting family.
So I didn't really bring any of my drawing materials.
But what ended up happening was that the art director
from The Hollywood Reporter reached out
to me with an assignment to do this feature
illustration about this actress from Smallville
and how she was involved in a cult called NXIVM.
And so I immediately said yes to the job
because that was the biggest project I had gotten
so far in my early career.
And then as soon as I closed my laptop,
I realized that I don't have any of my drawing
materials with me.
But what ended up happening was that because it was a feature
illustration, it was a big enough budget
that the budget itself can afford me
an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
And so what I ended up doing was I immediately closed my laptop
and started going out and shopping
for an iPad and Apple Pencil.
And I would use this experience to learn how to use it
and basically transition to using digital mediums.
And so it was it was a roller coaster
and anxiety-inducing because I didn't really
know how to use it at first.
But at the same time, that level of unknown
also really allowed me to learn it so much faster.
You'll see how it came out in print.
It was a full-page illustration.
And this is an illustration I did recently
for the Sunday Review.
And this one was about the idea of hell,
and why is it that we as human beings
are fascinated with the idea of hell.
And so just that short synopsis of the article is it's huge.
Like, how do you even approach illustrating hell and people's
fascination with it?
So what I ended up doing was really
just abstracting the idea of hell
into this simple circle, metaphorical shape,
and then just making it a pit of darkness,
where I use brush strokes and the color of fire
to represent the flames.
And then by having the person stare
into the eye of the abyss, it's like they're
thinking about the idea of it rather than being inside it.
And if you've seen the movie Annihilation,
I was actually really inspired by the climax,
by the end part of Annihilation.
And then this is a little bit of a look into what it
looks like for my--
So basically, when I do editorial illustrations,
it's usually accompanying an editorial.
An editorial is like a piece of writing.
And so they'll give me the document
and then I'll read through it.
And this is when I'll start to highlight
things that stick out.
I'll highlight core ideas from the writing.
And it's really when the gears start turning
and I start to put things together
and figuring out what is the core of this editorial piece
that I should make the work about?
We also see the next step, which is some of the sketches.
And so the sketches are basically,
instead of like telling the art director, who
is the person that's commissioning the work,
instead of telling them in sentences what the ideas are,
I'm describing the images by just drawing images.
By just drawing ideas, and different concepts,
and approaches, to the subject matter.
And from there, they can either select one and move forward
to final, or to take in to finish,
or we can make edits on a certain piece
to hone it in more and make it match the writing more.
This is the next step in the prep
phase, which with more edits.
And we ended up going with the left one.
So this is an illustration I did for TED, which
is the public speaking company.
And this one is about the idea, about the opioid crisis
and what we can do to lessen our reliance on it.
And so to represent the opioid crisis, I used grain
and I used raining pills to represent
an overflow of the opioids, to really show how much it's
being shoved down our throats.
And you have this person that's examining it.
And what's interesting about how we used the illustration is
that by not drawing the person in,
or by keeping them pretty generalized, I'm not--
for example, I'm not drawing any specific features
and you can't tell that it's any specific one person.
So instead, what it allows us to do
is it allows us to relate to the work more, to the illustration.
And so, the effect is that when we
look at an illustration like this
and the person is anonymous or you can't see their face,
it's a lot easier for us to put ourselves in their shoes
and then have more empathy for what it is the writing about.
This one kind of does it a little bit.
Instead of keeping them blank, they're
just facing the opposite end from us.
And so this one was about traveling to Mars
and looking forward to moving there.
And so, to represent Mars, I'm trying
to think about different conceptual approaches
to represent Mars without also being cliche.
I don't literally need to draw a red planet
to show a red planet.
Instead, if I just do a simple red circle,
that might be enough to represent it.
And so to really show the part of them
where this person is looking forward to moving to Mars.
I showed that by having the person filling
both spaces, where they're on Earth, in the park,
and then they're also in the red sphere.
But within the red sphere, you don't see any of those trees,
and that tells us--
As an illustration device, it tells us
that this is a separate space, even though the person is
in both spaces.
This one was for Oprah Magazine, and this one
is for a book review.
And the book was about how a young woman
living in the Bronx, her twin sister went missing.
And so she had to deal with the grief of trying to figure out
where her sister went.
And to really represent that, I was thinking like, how do you
represent having a twin without really showing the twin part?
And so I thought if we just duplicated the hands,
and so there's four hands.
The extra pair of hands can help push that idea of grief
while also showing the idea of having a twin.
So while these illustration projects are happening,
I'm also participating in some other shows
and doing personal work.
And this one, I was unfortunate because me
and my friends basically just had a show
together over at Giant Robot 2, which
is a small gallery over in Sawtelle,
on the west side of LA.
And most of the previous illustrations I was showing you
were all digitally created.
This one was traditionally painted,
and it's using really, really light graphite
for the hair, colored pencils for the lines,
and then layering acrylic that's really watered down
to build the values and color for the fills.
So back to illustration, this was
a piece I did for Believer magazine, which
is a literary magazine.
But this one is for a piece of writing
that was about the idea of borders,
whether they be literal, whether if they're digital or physical
or they're metaphorical.
So for this one, I wanted to show the idea of borders
by turning what we would usually consider a pathway, which
is, in this situation, a river, and just flipping it up
to form the wall that would block this family from moving
through that border.
And then this was a film review illustration for Parasite.
I did this last October.
And what was challenging about it
was that when you do an illustration for a film review,
the movie hasn't come out yet.
Because the review comes out before the movie,
and then you read about the review, and then you go
see the movie.
And so when I was doing this illustration, I was like, oh,
man.
I already knew that this movie was so good because it already
had received so many accolades by then.
And-- spoiler alert--
it went on to take so many Oscars home.
But basically, when I was doing this illustration,
I couldn't watch the movie.
So I was basically stuck to, or limited to,
watching trailers and reading reviews of the movie.
And so the challenge was how do I represent this movie
and make a piece of art that feels like it's of the movie
without actually having seen the movie?
Fortunately, this one ended up turning--
it actually feels like it's from the movie.
So that worked out.
And then these are the sketches for it.
If you recognize the left one, that's the one
that we ended up going for.
And so the sketches don't really have
to be super fancy or fully finished.
It just has to really tell the idea to the art director
and the editor of the magazine.
This is a glimpse into basically how my work gets communicated.
It's all through email, and I mostly work from home.
And this is another film review illustration
for The New Yorker.
This one was for Terminator, Dark Fate,
which was the most recent Terminator movie that came out
at the end of last year.
And what I thought was so cool about this idea
was using the idea of brushstrokes
and painting to represent the human physical side
of this Terminator being blown away
to reveal the robotic Terminator underneath.
And so it becomes not just about Terminator,
but then it also becomes an illustration that's
also kind of about illustration itself,
or about making art itself.
So it's like it does two things to me.
Like, it does a call-out, or it does
its job of representing the movie,
but it also has its own conversation or dialogue
with other artists.
These are the sketches.
And then this slide is the one that shows the brush strokes.
So what I wanted to show this for was that--
These are actually real brush strokes
that I did in real life, like ink on paper.
And then I scanned them in, and then I
edited the values and the levels,
and then I extracted it from the file.
And I was able to use these in my work
to have a more hand-done approach in my digital work.
If you look on the right, you can see each of those layers
is a brushstroke that represents a different stroke
on the portrait.
And so it's really like--
It almost turns into using brush strokes
to collage and form a portrait.
And then this was an illustration I did,
also for The New Yorker.
This one is for a play called Medea,
and it was about how the relationship of the couple--
It was about how their relationship
starts to break down.
And so because it was so much about, like,
the human experience and the interpersonal and psychological
narratives going on.
I really thought that painting it more lifelike
would really represent the subject matter a lot better
than a more stylized approach.
And then these are the sketches for it.
They ended up going with the one on the left.
And then this is another one for The New Yorker.
This was a feature illustration for an article
about how a woman who was obsessed with the art, theater,
dance-form.
Sorry.
The dance theater form of Butoh, which is like a Japanese dance
style or art style.
But basically, in this illustration,
she's made moves dancing, but she's also losing her mind.
And then her dance instructor is in the very foreground.
And to try to keep it feeling like it's
like it's a performance, because she's a dancer,
I'm using lighting to suggest that
instead of drawing a stage or curtains.
And this is an illustration I did
for ProPublica, which is a nonprofit investigative
journalism.
And this one was about how the consulting agency McKinsey
basically lied and put up a facade,
saying how they were making this jail.
Which, this jail in particular was Rikers in New York.
But they were basically saying that they
were doing a really good job in turning it around,
when in reality, they were making it worse.
And then this is a quick look into how it all comes together
digitally.
I use Procreate, so it allows me to record the process.
But basically, my work is very line-heavy.
And then if you really want to break it down, I use lines,
and then I use fills, and then I use gradients to build up
values and my [INAUDIBLE].
And those three things are basically
how you can start one of these images.
And then this one is for NPR'S podcast Invisibilia.
If you're not familiar with this podcast,
it is like a science-based podcast.
It's super interesting.
And I was really excited to get this job
because I know so many of my friends listen to this podcast.
So it's cool to make things that you know
your friends are going to see.
But this one, I don't even know how to describe the story.
It's-- the story is so complex.
But to summarize it up, there's a group
of people that are using AI--
artificial intelligence-- to try to learn
how different animals speak, and in particular whales.
Because they have this idea that once
we understand what whales are saying and how they talk, only
then will it be easier for the majority of the population
to have more empathy for these animals.
And why that's so important is because if we
were to have more empathy with, let's say whales,
then to hear them and to understand what they're saying,
it would be a lot easier for people
to understand the gravity that is climate change.
And so it's essentially using AI to learn
how different animals speak different languages,
or their own language, or communicate,
and using that to hopefully solve climate change.
And it's such a desperate move because everything else
hasn't worked yet.
So it's like, what else can we do?
And then this one is another illustration
for NPR's Invisibilia podcast.
So basically, I did the whole season, the whole last season.
It was about seven illustrations and six episodes.
But this one happened to be another piece about climate
change, and it was about how a person was
using sound to record and document animals
leaving different forests.
So this person was recording sound, let's say, in the forest
in the '80s.
And it was like lush and they would hear so much life
in the recordings and some of the different animals.
But then when they came back there 30 years later, and then
they recorded in the same spot.
And then they listen to the new recording,
they realized that what used to have so much life and so
many different animals, a lot of it was missing,
and the sounds were a lot more shallow and a lot more quiet.
And then these are just to show how it looks on Spotify.
So I want to show these because it's like in the beginning,
we saw how The New York Times piece looked in newsprint,
and then a lot of the digital editorial pieces
are seen on the website, and then now we see it on a phone.
So the majority of the work I do, I think, is seen digitally.
And a lot of things still get printed nowadays,
but I think the vast bulk of things is all digital now.
And this is the illustration I did for The New York Times'
Disability Series.
This one was for a piece of writing by a man who basically
compared his experience being disabled with how
his parents would talk about him being black,
in terms of it being an inconvenience in life.
And so to basically show that inconvenience,
I'm not really showing it in terms
of his experience on the bicycle,
but instead showing it as more of an external factor where
other people are the ones that are like alienating
and/or othering him.
For example, in this illustration,
the other biker's looking back at him
like he's like something to look at.
And this is another one for the Disability
Series on The New York Times.
And this, you may recognize--
Well, just the idea of it.
It is basically when COVID was starting to get really bad.
I think I did this illustration in about March.
But this one was a piece of writing
by someone who had already been relying on ventilators
before the pandemic.
And so when supplies were starting to get limited,
and hospitals and staff had to start to talk about,
"Who do we give ventilators to?
This is basically a plea from a person who's asking, you know,
"I needed ventilators before this,"
and, "Don't take it away from me."
And what it really comes down to is
how do you prioritize who lives and dies?
So essentially this piece of writing
is like a plea for life.
And so to really just represent that moment,
I'm using photographic elements, like that to feel,
and then I have some like dust in the air,
that is highlighted around the figure
to really emphasize the quiet stillness of the moment
and what is at stake here.
And then this one is more autobiographical.
This one is for the Washington Post,
and it's also about COVID.
And when the death count started to get really close to 100,000,
they interviewed me and asked me to do
a piece on my own experience with COVID.
And so I took the opportunity to talk
about my partner's experience.
And she's Chinese, and basically with COVID, there's
been a huge bias and anti-Asian, or especially
Chinese, racial sentiment.
And in addition to that, there's also
been a huge number of immigration challenges brought
forth by the Trump administration.
And so this illustration basically represents that.
And wading through the water and trying to figure out
where to go from here.
So usually I am illustrating for other people's writings
and other people's thoughts.
And so when the table--
when the positions turn around and I'm
the one doing the writing, it becomes a very different piece
and a very different relationship with the art.
But yeah, this one actually surprised me
because they said they were going to interview me,
but I don't think it's going to be a real interview.
So I kind of was like, "Whoa, I had no idea.
That's awesome."
But they interviewed a couple other illustrators, too,
from different cities, and then we all
shared our own experiences with COVID.
So this is the last piece I'll be showing.
And this was an ad, an advertisement for The New
Yorker that I did recently.
And originally, it was going to be printed
and for billboards and bus stops and whatnot.
But what ended up happening was that coronavirus happened
and social distancing happened, and so the executives
and the art director were like, "Oh, you know,
we have to actually pivot this ad campaign
because people aren't going to be walking around or commuting
as much.
Like, no one is going to be taking the trains anymore."
And so it went from like a billboard campaign
and became very largely digital, because that's
where people are now.
And so what this illustration was about--
Well, what the project was about was
The New Yorker was trying to advertise
their most powerful and impactful pieces of writing
from last year, and so this particular illustration
was to go alongside the article called
"The Day the Dinosaurs Died," which
is when the meteor crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula.
So this is that moment when the meteor hits the planet and life
is forever changed after that.
This is it in motion and the advertising spot.
So I actually didn't do the motion part.
The motion designers at The New Yorker
are the ones that took my file and made it move around.
And that's it.
That's all I have for today.
I realize I kind of took my time with this,
but I'm happy to savor the opportunity.
Thank you guys so much.
Thanks, Leonardo!
We really appreciate you sharing so much about your process.
It's really cool to see all the iterations, or some
of the iterations, that some of your professional work
goes through.
So thank you.
Thank you.
I know Andy and I have some questions.
Although, again, those of you who are attending, feel
free to add your questions to the chat if you'd like.
Or raise your hand if you would like to ask it yourself.
Yeah, so, Leonardo, first of all,
let's just to say incredible work.
I really enjoyed your presentation.
Thank you.
You did mention--
Well, you kind of give us a little bit
of a peek, kind of a window view,
into what goes on in the back, behind all the work,
with your conversations with your clients,
essentially-- those that work at the magazines
and newspapers and such.
I was wondering if you would be able to, for some
of our students those that are starting out
as young illustrators and artists,
give us maybe a little bit of advice,
and how you might navigate some of those contracts,
or even getting some of the work in the beginning?
That's a good question.
Actually there's a lot of questions in there.
Yeah, it was kind of a three-in-one, yeah.
Yeah.
So where do we start?
OK.
So the very first thing you mentioned
that I think is super important, is that to be an Illustrator,
or even to be an artist, it's so much more than just
making the images.
Because essentially, you're running a business, right?
And you're taking on work to stay afloat,
so you can keep doing work and more illustrations,
and so you can draw for a living.
So basically, like when I was in school, what I really
liked about ArtCenter was that they really
emphasized the idea of learning how to learn.
And so I've taken that approach with drawing
and with illustration and learning how to paint and do
digital paintings.
But I've also used that approach to also learn about
how do I read and interpret contracts,
how do I promote myself, and how do I be a business
and do my taxes and do my write-offs and what not.
In terms of promoting myself as an illustrator,
the very beginning is the most challenging part.
And I think it's challenging for a couple big reasons.
I think the first reason being that,
one, when you first graduate, your income is like--
there's no income yet.
So you might have a part-time job.
And it really takes a lot of time
to get the steam and the momentum going
to have the assignments coming in
so that you're self-sufficient on illustration.
So once you start getting more work
or once you start getting enough work, every assignment you do
will also be basically promoting you
because other art directors, other art buyers,
will see those illustrations.
As far as, like, direct promotion,
I would email people that hire illustrators directly,
and I would send them samples of my work
and send them a link to my portfolio
so that they can find me in the future
when a project comes along that I might be a good fit for.
Thank you.
So this is sort of a related question.
When you were showing us the Parasite illustration--
which is incredible--
you showed us the email inviting you to take on that project.
And so, if I am not mistaken, that was a four-day turnaround.
So first, is that typical?
And how-- and if it is, or if short-term turnarounds
are typical, how do you manage multiple projects?
How do you manage your personal life and projects
as a freelancer?
OK, so-- OK.
Basically, I was talking about editorial illustration a lot
over the presentation, right?
For editorial illustration, those timelines
tend to be really fast because things get ran fast,
and then they get edited fast, and they
get published very fast.
Sometimes I might finish an illustration at 3:00 PM
and it'll be online at 5:00 PM.
But they can get-- it can be super quick.
Like, for example, when The New York Times calls you
for an op-ed piece on a weekday, they'll call you or email you
around, like, let's say 8:00 AM, and then
they'll give you the text to read.
And then you read the text, and then you'll do the sketches,
and then you'll send it back to them in, like, three hours.
And then they choose one or make edits.
[NO AUDIO]
You're muted.
Oh, sorry.
But basically, you have like three hours again
to think of the final.
So it becomes like a roller coaster
to get that work completed as fast as possible.
So sometimes it's not really about making
a really pristine piece.
Instead, for the really fast projects,
I think it's more important to emphasize
a strong idea that people can really
respond to and think about.
So may I ask a question?
So I was impressed when you had to buy that iPad Pro,
and you closed your laptop and something you never did before.
So what's your strategy for getting
over that fear, you know, that could paralyze some people?
And for just going forward and getting it done?
Oh, man.
That's, like-- That--
Yeah, that's the hardest thing.
I think-- Well, I mean, the most simple way
I can respond that is, I think, not really helpful advice,
is sometimes I just tell myself that I just need to do it
and I just need to start.
But that's a hard thing to tell someone because starting is
also the hardest part.
So what I found that has started to work for me
that might work for you is to break it down
into smaller, bite-size chunks.
Instead of, like, for example, that illustration project,
instead of me thinking about, I have
to do this big, grand thing about learning
how to use this new material, and do it as best as possible,
in the biggest assignment of my life at the time.
Instead of thinking of it like that,
if I just broke it down into more manageable chunks that
would be easier for me to swallow, I can think about it
instead as like, OK, I'll just buy the iPad,
I'll download the app, and then I'll just make some lines,
and I'll just start crying circles.
And really just breaking it down step by step
so it's more gradual, and I'm not thinking
about the big, overarching--
you know, trying to keep as stress-free as possible.
I hope that made sense.
It makes me think of what you said
about ArtCenter emphasizing learning how to learn.
So it sounds like that prepared you for that moment.
Totally.
And for what I mean by how they really
emphasized that is, for example, like they would give you
an assignment where if you were to take the colored paints
and then you're supposed to do a study [INAUDIBLE]..
But they would teach you, they would
emphasize learning how to learn by not really teaching you
how to paint it before.
And it was only after you brought the painting back
the next week and then you had the critique going on,
it was only then that you would hear the teacher talk about how
they would use the brush to make soft edges or hard edges
or mix the colors together.
So then, by just like having to do it yourself, and face
that challenge head on, it's also
like a moment where you're really
thinking about what you're doing and applying yourself
in a very different way than if someone were to tell you
how to do something in a very specific format or instruction.
We're asking everyone this.
I think it's really cool to see what people are inspired by.
So I'd love to know what you're watching, reading, listening
to, or looking at right now, that is giving you life
and keeping you inspired in this moment?
Oh, there's so much.
I don't know.
I started watching Community.
But in terms of how it actually inspires me for my work,
I don't really--
I can't really tell you how specifically.
But I think just to be an illustrator,
or to be an artist, for example, you really
have to be a person first.
Like, a human being.
And you have to--
because what you make is an extension of yourself.
So all the things that you take in
are also finding their way into your work somehow.
As for what I'm more directly inspired by.
I really like photography and photographers.
In particular, there's a photographer named Ren Hang,
and I am hugely inspired by him.
I'm sorry, can you repeat the name?
Ren Hang-- R-E-N H-A-N-G.
Thank you.
Mmhmm.
And then, finally-- well, I think
you may have answered this, but is there
an artist or artists whose work you'd like to amplify
and share with us all?
Um--
It may be Ren Hang.
[LAUGHS]
Yeah, well definitely Ren Hang.
Well, the thing with him, his work is incredible.
And at the peak of his career, about two years later--
and two years ago--
he actually committed suicide in Berlin.
And so it's like--
Yeah.
It's hard it's hard to say.
Like, I think his work still lives on.
I think his work has really affected a lot of people.
But yeah, I think if we just keep looking back at it,
it'll keep living on.
How has the pandemic affected your work,
your mental attitude, coping, and so forth?
In terms of, let's say the more immediate reaction
to the pandemic, which would be working from home.
I've already been working remotely to begin with,
so that transition didn't really change at all for me.
In terms of mentally, I think the challenging thing is--
and I think this is more relatable--
is not being able to see people as often
has been really challenging.
And so, fortunately I have roommates
and I also have a partner.
And so I have basically three people
I'm stranded on an island with.
But yeah, it's basically like Survivor,
except there's no drama.
It's like happy, fun Survivor.
Boring Survivor.
Yeah.
[LAUGHS]
No one's getting voted off this island.
Ah, well, I see we're at just about 6:00.
So I want to be respectful of everyone's time.
But what an honor to spend time with you today, Leonardo.
Thank you so much for your gracious presentation
and sharing so much with us.
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