Episode #9 David Brown: Building Ideas To Be Marvelous

David Brown is an alchemist, from the humblest sense of the word. He uses the furnace of  the imagination to create a quiet loudness from encapsulating some of Canada's urban centres into sensory illusions of time and space.

Having an award winning international career in Design and Art for 30+ years Brown graduated fom Ontario College of Art and Design University.  His encaustic paintings of crisp edged abstractions of translucent conscious thoughts, resonate with engineering exactness and childlike amusement. 

Join me as we take a deep dive on how these found objects, paired with these paintings, become sacred windows to the invisible temple of the mind. What is his creative process that crystalizes this form of expression? What triggers his imagination into sharing these secrets so modestly with everyone?

You can enjoy more of David Brown artwork on his website:

https://artistdavidbrown.com/

Podcast Interview Credits
Sound Effects from Pixby
Audio Links from https://freemusicarchive.org/
Podcast by Carolyn Botelho

Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Creatively Thinking Podcast. Join Carolyn Botelho as she uncovers the inspirations behind some incredibly creative minds that are orbiting our local communities. Hi David Brown, how are you? I found you on Facebook, so therefore we have never actually met. 
 
 I was intrigued by your work in encaustics, as well as your experience being faculty at OCAD, Ontario, well OCADU, Ontario College of Art and Design University. There is so much to unpack there, but let's get started. And first off, I'd like to ask artists, what made them choose this path? Was it working with your hands, your emotional insights, or something else? Hey Carolyn, thanks for having me here today. 
 
 So growing up, I knew that art was going to be a big part of my life, mostly because it was the thing that I was always the best at. My mother was an artist and an art teacher in high school, and my grandmother was a talented painter and she was a graduate from OCAD or OCA, it was called when she went there and when I went there. So I was always surrounded by people making art and I have really fond memories of when I was a little kid and going to the church down the street for art classes and rainy days at our family cottage, I would sort of be sat down with a giant pad of paper and just try and fill the whole page with little doodles and cartoons and stuff like that. 
 
 And then by the time I got to high school, again, it was always the course that I was best at. And in grade nine, I had a really good art teacher and he said to me, wow, you should think about going to OCA when you graduate high school. And that was long before I sort of started thinking about university or anything, but he planted that seed and by the time I got to grade 13 and we were picking where we wanted to do, it seemed like a good place to apply for. 
 
 And I went down, I lived in Unionville, which is north of the city. At that point, it was more like a small town. It's been swallowed up by the city now, but went downtown to OCAD, had my interview, it went really well. 
 
 And I got to go to the Ontario College of Art. So just all kind of lined up and the rest, as they say, is history. Yeah, yeah, it did all work out for you there, didn't it? But I was just thinking, wait a minute, you know, there may be some listeners out there that are like, grade 13. 
 
 What's that? Yeah, yeah, that's, that's how old I am. So in Ontario, we used to, high school used to go to grade 13. Then they changed grade 13. 
 
 They didn't call it 13 anymore, but they had a 13th year called OAC. Yeah, that's what I remember it as. Yeah.
 
 Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna get things confused with OAC, OCA. But they changed that. And then by the time, a year or two after I left high school, there was, they completely dropped the 13th year and they just go to grade 12 now. 
 
 So yeah, that's what the story is there. But I think, gosh, our son, he's 19 now. And he's just in his second year at university now. 
 
 But they're so young going to university. I just, I felt really bad for all these kids, you know, that they're making these huge decisions, what they want to do for the rest of their life, and what they're trying to study. And they, they're just, they're just so, so, so young.
 
 I know, there's lots of kids. Yeah, yeah. I just, I mean, smarter people than me have made those decisions. 
 
 But I, in my experience, I was glad to have that extra year of high school, for sure. Oh, I know. I think they should totally bring that back. 
 
 So it's a year for kids to, you know, figure things out and stuff, not just rush off. A lot of our son's friends ended up doing sort of a victory lap, you know, an extra year. Yeah.
 
 I think that's, you know, I think that that's great, because it gives them a year to really think about things. They can maybe get a little bit of a job and get some life experience and see what they're actually like doing in life. I don't think there's any, any reason not to do that, really.
 
 Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Anyway, we're getting off topic. Can you share with our audience in a condensed version, of course, how your creative practice evolved to this point? Were you always interested in building artwork in 3D? Or did you start somewhere else visually? I guess you kind of answered that, but maybe just go into that a bit more.
 
 Yeah, yeah. Well, when I was at OCAD, I was studying more in the design field. I did, I had a very broad education at OCA, but my diploma was a double major in graphic design and industrial design. 
 
 So when I first graduated, I was actually a practicing designer. But I always made art as a way to sort of fuel my creative side, and it informed the design work that I was doing. And I made more and more art along the way. 
 
 And then around the time our son was born, I switched from sort of designing full time to painting full time. And at that time, I was doing more collage based work that was probably more, more derived from my design and typography. There was a lot of typography and found images and found bits and pieces, and I was collaging them all together. 
 
 And in doing collage, I started using wax as a kind of a glue, and then wax as a cover. And then somebody suggested, hey, you know, you could put some color in that wax, it might be a really interesting thing. And so I went down the rabbit hole of learning about how to color wax. 
 
 And lo and behold, they call that encaustic painting. And at this time, encaustic wasn't nearly as popular as there wasn't nearly as many people doing it. And it was like there was one book on encaustic painting, and there was very, very little information. 
 
 But I was able to learn enough to teach myself how to do it and became really intrigued with the encaustic process. And that really sent me down this sort of painting path and doing different kind of abstract paintings and abstracted landscapes and whatnot. And then recently, well, in the first year of the pandemic, when everything was shut down, we're all huddling at home. 
 
 I took a great online course with a young photographer from Toronto named Jessica Tillman, who's just, she's incredible. She's very young, but she does. She's an incredible lecturer. 
 
 She just did a Master's of Architecture, I think, but she's mainly a photographer. Anyway, she was giving some online courses at the time, which was a great way to pass the time. And in her work, she does really interesting things with her photographs, where she folds and pleats and does really neat three-dimensional things to the prints. 
 
 And she was encouraging us to try that with our photos. And it occurred to me, wow, I have been making these encaustic monotypes, and I wonder if I can fold them. And that then just opened up this whole new world of making my work in 3D. 
 
 Often when you're making two-dimensional work, you're sort of faking three dimensions. You're drawing shadows and you're making things have the illusion of three dimensions, but adding the actual real third dimension really spoke to me, I guess it's because of my background in industrial design. And I like to build things and that sort of stuff. 
 
 So it's really resonated with me. So I guess that's about, what, three years now since, yeah, because it's 2020. I've been really experimenting and pushing three-dimensional work, sort of wall hung sculptures, all incorporating my encaustic monotypes and my encaustic paintings. 
 
 And that's really dominated a great deal of my practice. I still have been doing some of the two-dimensional work, but the 3D stuff is what I've been most interested in, and the galleries that I work with have been very excited about it too. So that's really dominated my time. 
 
 So that's how we got to be where I am now. And that's what, I guess what you saw initially was the 3D stuff. That's why you mentioned that.
 
 Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you were talking about 3D. 
 
 It just made me think of a 3D teacher I had at OCAD. And he said, he asked all the students to think of something that wasn't 3D. And everybody would say, well, you know, like paper. 
 
 And he says, nope, it's still 3D. So really technically, pretty much everything is 3D. So I mean, but it's not really, really 3D, right? So when you said that about 3D, I just got me thinking about that picture.
 
 Isn't that great? We have all these lovely memories of our time at our school and stuff. There's things that are really ingrained. And probably that teacher had no idea that that thing would leave such an impression on you, right? Yeah. 
 
 Well, because no, it surprised the whole class. Nobody could come up with something that really wasn't 3D. And I think it probably stuck in a lot of people's memory. 
 
 It was like, oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. 
 
 Yeah. Well, we're in a three-dimensional world. So everything is three-dimensional in some way, even if one of the dimensions is very, very, very, very, very thin. 
 
 How has your time as an OCADU professor impacted your career as an encaustic painter? Would you say teaching has opened your practice to new ideas, or did you see it as a way to enhance your CV? Well, it was more of a, my time at OCAD as a student was, and it sounds like a cliche, everybody always says, but my time at college was just so special. It really was sort of the best time of my life. And it was the first time when I really realized, oh, I belong here. 
 
 I can do this. Yeah. This is where I should be. 
 
 Yeah. Yeah. I was never a great student, particularly in junior school and stuff. 
 
 I didn't do well at all. I really, really struggled in school. And I tried really hard in high school and I got pretty decent marks.
 
 And, but when I got to OCA, it was just like, wow, this is, I'm really good at this. And these people are like me. And this is, this, it was like the world, the door to the world, it just opened up for me. 
 
 And on top of that, I was, it was such a magical place where you could just run around and learn anything you want. I was in the wood shop, the metal shop, the plastic shop, you know, the print, the printing department. I was everywhere in that school, just like a sponge, sucking up everything that I could. 
 
 So it was such a great, great time for me. A few years after graduating, when I was asked if I wanted to come back and teach, it was like, absolutely. Like anything to give back to that school, that was such a great thing for me was very exciting to me. 
 
 So it was, it was more of a giving back to the, to the school and to the industry for me, rather than any kind of thing for me. Yeah. I got a lot out of it in that it's, it's very rewarding and it's fun spending time with younger people and stuff. 
 
 Although I wasn't that much older because I was a few years after graduating and I taught there for 10 years. So it wasn't like I was in my fifties and sixties and they were, you know, 1920 kind of thing. It was, I was at the beginning, I was only a few years older than them. 
 
 So I could really relate to them. And it was fun. It was great. 
 
 And I got to be there during the time that Oak had, you know, doubled, tripled its size and built a big box in the sky and then changed from a college to a university. And so it was also an exciting time for the school too. Did any of the students recognize that you're just a couple of years older or did they, or did they not even notice that? I don't, I don't remember having any kind of conversation about that, but I remember feeling like they were just colleagues more than a teacher student relationship. 
 
 But it was also like that when I was a student there. I think that that may have changed somewhat now in that, because it's a university and there's people that are, you have to have your PhD and, or the highest level of education, yeah, whatever, whatever. Yeah. 
 
 Masters. Yeah. So I think that the teachers are probably more separated in age and experience and they are now, but it was very much a collaboration and a sharing kind of environment. 
 
 It was, it was great. Yeah. That's really good. 
 
 Yeah. What was it like being honoured by the Toronto Design Exchange? Can you describe how the Type Culture Exhibition came about? How did your work influence Canadian typography? Did you design a recognised font? I didn't design a font, no, but, but that show was, was amazing for, for many reasons. One, one, it was, it was just a few years after I graduated, maybe three, four years. 
 
 And it was the first time that my work had been shown in any kind of a public sort of space like that. And I was being shown alongside of some of my very favourite profs from OCAD, you know, some of these guys that were like my heroes that I really, really look up to. And my work was sort of presented alongside of theirs.
 
 So that was super exciting. The work that they picked, it was, it was actually a collection of snowboard designs that I had done for a Canadian manufacturer. And I think, I think what the curators were trying to do was sort of put together a snapshot of what Canadian design looks like at this moment, you know, both aesthetically and how people are approaching graphic design and what sort of influences we're all drawing from. 
 
 They, they picked my piece, I think, because it was this real, it was very much an exploration. So the project I was hired by this company, this, this sounds crazy, but at that time, snowboarding was just a brand new sport. It's become such a big thing that you would never know. 
 
 But it was, there was Burton Snowboards had invented the first snowboard, and then it just started to catch on. And, but it still at this time, a lot of the ski resorts and stuff, you weren't allowed to snowboard. Or if you were, there was only one hill or one lift that you could use. 
 
 And so it was just very, very much at the beginning. And this company decided they were going to manufacture snowboards, but they had no idea what that meant and what the boards could look like and what kind of graphics would be on there and who might use the boards and stuff. So, so they hired me to sort of give a visual explanation of what the boards could be. 
 
 So it was like this massive project of, okay, if a woman's going to use it, this is, this is maybe what it would look like. If it's a kid, maybe it'd be like this, and it's a man, a young man, old man. So we just kind of went down this path and explored what kind of visuals and what kind of graphics and elements would speak to these different demographics and colors and typography and images. 
 
 So it was a super great project. And the project was, was, was incredible. And it was just lucky enough that that somehow got picked to be in the show. 
 
 So, yeah, it sounds amazing. Yeah. What was your product design company while you were teaching? Did you find they overlapped in concepts or content? And is this company still in operation today? And was it an invention of yours alone or a group project? So when I was in my fourth year at OCAD, right at the end of the year, I started working for one of my professors, who was the creative director at Irwin Toys here in Toronto. 
 
 Sadly, they've now gone, gone. But at the time, they were a really big company. They had all their toys and games and stuff that they'd made for quite a long time. 
 
 And that's what I think they were the third or fourth generation of Irwins that were running it when I was there. So I was hired to be part of their design team. And I was responsible for designing their sports equipment. 
 
 So they had two lines of baseball equipment and hockey equipment. So I was designing all of the gear, the way that it looked and worked and fit and feel, as well as the branding for the products, the packaging and the display. So right from very initial beginning of a product right through to how it's presented in a store, everything in between, which was great. 
 
 That was exactly what I learned in school. And it was amazing. So I worked there for three, four years. 
 
 And then after that, I started my own small business. It was basically me and a team of freelancers that I had known. Many people were my colleagues from OCAD and then also people that I'd met after working for a few years in the industry. 
 
 I had a studio that I shared with some other freelancers. We had a nice space that we shared. And then we had a big wood shop where we can build prototypes and displays and all that kind of stuff. 
 
 And then we also hosted networking nights for creative people during that time. And then as far as how it related to what I was teaching, I was teaching a course that basically was about how to get an idea out of your head and have it come to be. So I had to teach them how to draw the idea, present the idea, make a prototype of it, and then do some little bit of branding.
 
 So it was an incredible reflection of exactly what I do. And I gave the kids just enough knowledge of every step of the way that they could then sort of take that and add to it as they needed to. Wow. 
 
 Yeah. It seems like you were part of every step of the process and you sort of passed it on. Yeah. 
 
 Yeah. Yeah. It was good. 
 
 Basically, when I was given that course to teach, it was like, okay, great. This is what they're going to need. To me, it was the most practical course that they were ever going to have. 
 
 So I wanted to make sure I armed them with at least a basic knowledge of everything, a basic knowledge of how to do initial concept sketches, basic knowledge of how to present your idea to a client, basic knowledge of color, typography, graphic design. We just scratched the surface of everything, but it was enough so that they could know what they needed to know, or they could either get some help from an expert or give the beginning of an idea. And get them inspired to know more. 
 
 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
 
 And we'll be right back. When you say you think of your work as internalized landscapes that reflect the experience of living in Canada, does that mean you have traveled across Canada? Or do you see these landscapes as urban cityscapes, more connected to cities and people rather than the vastness of our great outdoors up north? I have been lucky enough to travel from coast to coast. I haven't been to every single province, but I've been to most. 
 
 That's great. I haven't been far north. I haven't been really, really far north. 
 
 I did go to Moose Factory once when I was a kid. That's as far north as I've been. But I have been to most places, especially the east coast for vacations and for work and stuff. 
 
 But, so when I'm, well, let me back up. As a Canadian, we're living with these many sort of interesting and contrasting ideas. You know, Canadians are all very much huddled in large urban centers that are right along the southern border of Canada, right? And we tend to be a real sort of urban nation, even though we think of ourselves as living in the wilderness, you know? And whenever you go somewhere in the world, even when you go to the States, they think that we live outside and in nature and stuff, you know, even though we're living in cities and stuff. 
 
 So I've always been really struck by that. I think we always have this sort of backdrop of the nature, even though we live in large urban centers. And then compounding that, we have the group of seven who have painted for us this idea of what good art is. 
 
 And it's all about, you know, the Canadian shield and the wilderness and the mountains and stuff. And that's often when people, particularly non-artists, when they think of art or Canadian art, they think of something made by Tom Thompson at a group of seven. And that influence is so strong that it's almost a battle to fight against it, right? But what I try to do when I say I'm painting internalized landscapes is I try to paint the essence of a place. 
 
 So I'm trying to reflect the surroundings. I'm trying to paint the idea of a tree or a structure without literally painting a rugged pine tree or a babbling brook or, you know, or even just a concrete high rise. So I'm trying to turn the lens around instead of looking out and painting what you see. 
 
 I turn the lens around and look inside and paint what I'm feeling inside so that it captures the essence of the landscape. That's the idea. That's just, yeah, I'm like, what do I say to that? Like, I can't think of a response to that one. 
 
 It's just like, wow. I wish that I could say I completely invented that idea. There's lots of other artists that work in that way. 
 
 But I think about it a lot. And that's what I'm always trying to sort of work on. Well, when you say, like, I think when you said the internalized landscapes, I think that is kind of like a trigger. 
 
 If people are like reading about your artwork, that may be a trigger for people that are understanding Canadian art, as you're saying, and through the lens of the Group of Seven. Yeah. So that may just, yeah, get them to take notice of how you're turning, like you said, turning the lens around. 
 
 And yeah, it's really cool. In your painting constructions, you use a range of materials like beeswax, spray paint, and a variety of printing techniques. How did this range come about? Was it an exploratory evolution? Or did you come to them from copying contemporary artists that you admire? Yeah, it's very much another sort of evolution. 
 
 So I've been making art professionally for 30 years. I've been making art my whole life, but professionally for 30. I graduated in 1992. 
 
 So it's 31 years. And I've been working in Caustic for about 20 years now. And over those years, I really sort of gathered lots of skills and techniques and experiences. 
 
 And now what I try to do whenever I'm making a piece, whether it's a drawing or a collage, an encaustic painting, or one of my encaustic wall sculptures, I'm trying to combine as many of those experiences and skills together. So I'm sort of piling one on top of the other in a thoughtful way, trying to just sort of build on my life experiences, tell the story through those things. And one of the things I've learned over the years, particularly working with the beeswax, is that beeswax has a really strong personality and it tells you what it can and can't do and won't do. 
 
 So you have to really be willing to let go of a certain amount of control and then collaborate with the medium. And I love that. A lot of artists can't stand it. 
 
 The first time they try it, they're like, I can't, you know, because they're used to working with acrylic paint or something where you, most times you're sort of 100% in control. Whereas the beeswax just, it doesn't relinquish the control like that. It always wants to be in charge. 
 
 So as long as you're ready for that and accepting of that, then it's good. So I really love working within those parameters and then having this sort of dance of can and can't do. And then you end up with this magical solution that's better than the single thing, you know. 
 
 So by combining all of the tricks and tips that I've learned along with the personality of the wax, you end up with a much better solution in the end. When you said in your bio that your imagery resonates a childlike joy with an engineer's exactitude. Does this stem from when you first fell in love with creating drawings and paintings as a child? Did you gain the exactness of an engineer from your education? You learned, is that right? Yes. 
 
 Yes. Yes. I definitely developed this sort of, as you call it, an engineer's exactitude along the way. 
 
 I think I've always had quite a mathematical brain, which you wouldn't think of as an artist, but I love working with a grid and making things exact or as precise as you can. But you know, over the years I've had some amazing teachers and mentors and stuff, but the best teacher that I ever had was my son when he was about six to eight years old. And he would come to my studio quite often, you know, always on PD days or holidays and stuff. 
 
 He'd come with me to my studio and he loved making art with me right beside me on my little workbench and stuff. And watching a little kid make art is just, it's like nothing else. They're so free and open and untouched, you know, it's just magical. 
 
 They're not worried about making mistakes or trying anything. They just do it. And they have this just pure creativity that sadly, it's literally like taught right out of us. 
 
 And just as he aged and got older and went into grade one and all of a sudden they have to color in the lines and it's such a cliche, but it really is true. And it's because they're trying to teach them how to write and, you know, have other skills that they need, but they literally hammer all of the beautiful creativity that we all have as a child. So what I like to do is try and remember that just pure idea of working with a kid and having that whimsy and just openness and excitement.
 
 They're always excited, right? No matter what it is, it could be the most mundane thing, but they're just excited about it. So I'm always trying to sort of catch that, but then it's backed up by my sort of love of math and science and exactness. Yeah. 
 
 Like that's what I was thinking. They sound like opposites almost. Yeah. 
 
 So my folded monotypes, for example, is a great example of this. So the monotypes that I make are very, very loose and free and intuitive where I'm just literally moving molten wax around on a hot plate and then I put a piece of printmaking paper on top of that design that I've made and it sucks it up and you've got this then printed image on a piece of paper that's very, very, you know, loose and free and it just has lots of scribbles and textures and lines on it. And then I take a structured grid and I draw it up and score the paper and then fold it into a tessellated pattern. 
 
 So you've got this mathematical pattern over top of that very loose, abstract design. It's a really interesting contrast of the two. Yeah. 
 
 It's like they do sound like quite opposites, but somehow you make them work together. Yeah. Yeah. 
 
 But when you smash opposites together, often you get a really magical connection. When you said in your bio that your imagery resonates a childlike joy with an engineer's exactitude, does this stem from when you first fell in love with creating drawings and paintings as a child or did you gain the exactness of an engineer from your education you learned? Is that right? Well, I've been lucky enough to have some great professors and mentors over the years, but the best teacher I had during my sort of art journey was my young son when he was six to eight years old. And he used to come to my studio on PD days and all the time, stuff like that.
 
 And making art with him was just incredible. Children are just, they're so free and they're open and unafraid. And unfortunately we kind of lose that as we go through school, they literally teach it out of us. 
 
 And I tend to have a very sort of mathematical mind, partly, I guess, because I studied design and industrial design and I've learned lots of various sort of technical skills. And I love gathering all those skills and putting them together into my work. But I always try to do it and remember that sort of childish whimsy that kids have. 
 
 So when I say that it's trying to portray the child, you know, or that child whimsy is coming through, I'm trying to have that energy and excitement and innocence always shining through, even if there is sort of a calculated, finished piece. Sort of like capturing the wonder of... Yeah. Yeah. 
 
 It's just so incredible working with kids. And like you say, the wonder, it's just a pure creativity, you know, that we slowly get chiseled away. And schools don't mean to do it. 
 
 They're teaching us, you know, how to hold a pencil properly so that we can print and write properly and read and stuff. But you just, as we learn more and more and more, this innocence and excitement that we had slowly dissolves. And I think it was Picasso that said it took him 70 years to paint like he could when he was seven, you know. 
 
 Years like when he was six, I forget what the exact quote was. But it takes a lifetime to sort of get back to that innocence, which I think we all have in there. It's just been forgotten and buried.
 
 It's good to be able to find it again, right? When you can. Yeah. Yeah.
 
 In your bio, you say your paintings result in a thin sculpture of long forgotten messages. Are these messages from your consciousness? Or more like the consciousness of Canada or the globe? In keeping with the current climate crisis, would you say they are an unfolding of our natural potential? Yeah, the idea is more like I'm telling a story through the layers that I've been piling up. So in caustic painting, you work in layers, sort of like you would with watercolor, but they build up and pile on top of one another. 
 
 And each layer has its own message and its own history in there. And as you're covering it with the encaustic medium, some parts are more transparent, some parts are more opaque. And as you're building and building, building, the history shows through both literally and figuratively where because the wax has piled on top of another layer, even if it's an opaque state, you can still see the previous layers behind. 
 
 So when I'm actually building the piece, and when you're finished, what you end up with is quite a thin sort of sculpture that hangs on your wall. And the history is coming shining through in those layers. And it's very much like this sculpture that has its own story that is telling you.
 
 Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That's quite interesting. 
 
 Yeah. To think of those layers and how they talk to each other and how you see them through each other. And yeah, it's something that's particularly prevalent in the encaustic medium, because the layers are so defined, you can melt them together. 
 
 And I often scrape into the previous layers, and you can add and subtract. And like I say, you can work in a opaque or translucent way. So you can see the layers in many, many different ways. 
 
 But it's something that's very, very specific to the encaustic painting more so than most of the other painting mediums. Because your painting is so steeped in industrial design, has this in any way swayed your taste in music? For example, have you mirrored your love of industrial design into the music you enjoy also being industrial? Yeah, industrial design is sort of a funny title for product design, three dimensional design. And I do love having music in my studio all the time when I'm there. 
 
 I can't really can't stand it if there isn't some kind of music playing, but it tends to be more in the background. And it's usually classical type music. I find that the most soothing and the most inspiring. 
 
 I've been told many, many times that my work has a sort of a lyrical feel to it. And it's probably because the music is always there. And I often find myself kind of, you know, swaying and moving with the music. 
 
 And I'm sure that that comes through as I'm working on pieces. But no, not a not a huge fan of industrial music. No, no, it's quite different from from the work that I make.
 
 They don't really work together. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't know. 
 
 I don't know how industrial design. It makes you think that you're designing tractors or industrial equipment or something. But, you know, industrial design encompasses everything in our day to day life. 
 
 From the moment you wake up, your toothbrush has been, you know, designed by an industrial designer, the car that you drive, all of the doorknobs in your house have been designed by an industrial designer. So it's the design of everyday things. Working with encaustics, where you build your artwork, have you considered delving into the architecture field? Is there a way to branch out into that discipline? Or are the heavy years of mastery more of a deterrent? I mean, I would love to. 
 
 I love all things about architecture. I know many architects and I admire the work that they do. And my work, especially lately over the last few years, really evokes a kind of architectural feel. 
 
 I love working with light and space. And so I mean, it seems like a very kind of easy connection. I recently saw the documentary on an artist named Robert Irwin at Hot Docs. 
 
 And I was familiar with his work, but I hadn't I didn't know that much about it. And it's an amazing movie that they've put together. He's recently passed away, sadly, but he is an artist whose work is really a mix between architecture and fine art. 
 
 And it's incredible to see how he uses architecture as his sort of painting palette, where he just builds these incredible, immersive spaces using architecture and building materials and light. And it's incredible. I mean, the opportunity to do projects like that would be incredible.
 
 Hard to come by, but it's something that I would love to do. Absolutely. Architecture really is fascinating.
 
 And we'll be right back. Yeah, it is one of those things that can be done so mundanely, you know, strip malls and horrible things like that. But it can also be so beautifully artistically done.
 
 And I don't think it gets enough appreciation. Yeah. Your artwork, when shared socially, has a distinct articulation that is almost poetic.
 
 Have you considered writing as a career option? Or is it merely a subject in school you are good at that you never thought to take any further? Thank you. I appreciate that very much. But it couldn't be further from the truth for me, quite the opposite. 
 
 I've struggled with some learning disabilities for my whole life, particularly when I was in primary school and stuff like that. I'm a desperately slow reader. It takes all of my strength and courage to just write the simplest things. 
 
 I have to sort of overcome almost crippling anxiety just to write a simple greeting on a birthday card or something. So the thought of being a writer, I don't know. I don't know. 
 
 But I will say that social media does get a kind of a it's often associated with a really sort of negative feeling. But it in many ways has allowed me to read much more than I have in the past and also encourages me to write more and think about writing. So I appreciate what you said. 
 
 And I do really work hard at all my posts and all of the things that I write about my work and everything. But yeah, so it's amazing. Well, it just comes across that way. 
 
 It just really does. It's like, because you know, you can tell that with with artists, how much effort they put into their sort of their their bios and their and their statements that that surrounds their work, you know, like you can you can see it pretty plainly. And it just it just seems like you have you have put so much effort. 
 
 And yeah, well, I think you're and just just an awareness in your work that that you're able to write about it. And yeah, I just really found it different than what I've seen in the past. That's all.
 
 You're you're so immersed in it, right? You're thinking about it constantly is one of those occupations where you don't you never get to sort of park the truck and walk away from the job. You're always thinking about it, no matter where you are, what you're doing. If you're doing something completely different from making your art, you're still thinking about it or you're you're being inspired by what's happening around you. 
 
 So I do. I'm always you know, thinking about how I'm thinking about my art and then trying to put that down on paper is it can be difficult, but I try to I try to or lately I've been trying to approach it as using the same kind of problem solving that I would with my visual art. You know, I try and try and attack it through the same kind of process.
 
 I'm glad to hear that it's working because I appreciate that very much. It's funny. I never ever considered it. 
 
 But the thought of trying to write some kind of a book or some kind of a a record of my artistic journey or something would be would be an amazing feat. That's for sure. It would be incredible to do. 
 
 So, yeah, it's another avenue you could explore. Right. So maybe I'll give it a try. 
 
 All right. Well, thank you so much, David, for for being on the podcast. And yeah, I'll touch base in the future and maybe maybe do this again.
 
 I'd love that. I'd love that. Thanks for your great questions. 
 
 It was it was a real pleasure to exactly exactly to go through them and share what's banging around in my head. Yeah, you're often as an artist, you're kind of you you spend a lot of time alone, you know, in in the studio, just you're left with you and your thoughts and you're trying to get things out of your head. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. 
 
 And you're jotting down notes. And there's so many random things flying around all the time. But it's nice to be to, you know, put stuff down and and share what what you're thinking about, for sure. 
 
 That's great. Exactly. Exactly. 
 
 Awesome. All right. Thank you so much, David Brown, for being on the podcast.
 
 It was my pleasure. Okay, you too. Bye. 
 
 Take care. Join me next time as I go down another rabbit hole with another creative professional on their insights, their inspirations, and their ingenuity.