002: w/ Arty Braud 🛋🎨📸 interior designer, painter, photographer and nomad + asking: are we actually insane???
Co-Host: Arty Braud @artybraud | Host: Xinyi Xan @xinyixan
Arty’s portfolio + website: https://www.artyb.art
Hi, I hope that you're having a good day and I want to thank you for making me/us part of your day? This is episode 2 of Don't Be Strangers, a podcast and social experiment for learning to create meaningful connections together via collaborative conversations! The way this works is that anyone of any background can apply to come on and chat with me about anything they want. The goal is to raise awareness of social isolation and to narrow the gap between all of us as humans. Today, I'm talking with my friend Arty (I hope it's ok that I call you that if you're listening, because he told me that only his close friends call him that but... LOL). I got some feedback from episode one and people were insisting on an introduction of some sort of the co-host, so I'm going to be super extra and not only introduce him from my point of view, but also ask him to introduce himself!
So, I met Arty in Chicago May of 2021 (so pretty recently if you're listening in real time) via this FB group called Asian Creative Network. I was spending 5 weeks out there which is pretty long for a nomad like me so I felt like I needed to establish some friendships so... I just searched the term "Chicago" in said FB group and dm'd anyone who had ever mentioned Chicago in a post or comment up to 3 years back asking for local recommendations as I'd just moved to town. So yeah, that's how Arty & I started speaking and we've only met twice in person and today's conversation will actually be the 3rd time we've ever talked and we cover a lot. It was really apparent to me from our first meet up which was an urban hike through the Boystown neighborhood that took upwards of 2-3 hours, and I was so intrigued because he's a multi-disciplinary artist who does it all, has a free nomadic soul that I completely relate to, and thinks about things profoundly. Highlights of this upcoming conversation includes (1) an analogy of why it isn't healthy to draw all your energy from one thing or hobby similar to how you shouldn't depend solely on one person, (2) upcoming travel plans to California and an extended work from home situation in Mexico, (3) Arty's potential future business plan for a creative space in Chicago, (4) my top cities I've traveled to and what is the commonality between them, and (5) are we actually insane? I'll include all the timestamps and more in the show notes and if I've piqued your interest... here's Arty, introducing himself...
Questions & Highlights [ Timestamp Index ]
00:51 - Xinyi’s intro of Arty
02:28 - Arty’s personal intro
02:45 - Q Xinyi asks: What is your medium of preference as a multidisciplinary artist?
03:54 - Arty: “You can’t get all your energy from one person. Each relationship from a different person gives you a different value… Which is why it’s probably unhealthy to focus all your attention on one.”
06:18 - Xinyi: “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of that concept applied to my arts or hobbies!”
06:42 - Q Xinyi asks: How do you balance your time across all your art outlets?
07:09 - Arty: “Society insists that we can only focus or be good at one thing.”
09:20 - Q Xinyi asks: Are you generally pretty good at keeping your own commitments?
10:24 - Q Arty asks: Are you good at balancing your time?
12:52 - Arty’s solution to filling your free time when you have so many interests and want to do everything!
14:40 - Arty: “He’s been painting for 8 years!! How does he still have the motivation to keep painting?!”
Book Rec: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
16:19 - Q Arty asks: Do you find that creating a schedule for yourself is beneficial?
17:06 - Q Xinyi asks: Do you feel like chasing productivity is detrimental to your mental health?
18:22 - Q Arty asks: Do you feel like chasing productivity is detrimental to your mental health?
18:49 - Xinyi: “I don’t necessarily think that productivity equals happiness. Chasing perfectionism just leaves you feeling unhappy all the time.”
19:29 - Arty: “Traveling to gain perspective and to learn to enjoy your time”
20:18 - Q Xinyi asks: where are you going in September?!
24:41 - Q Arty asks: You’re going to Mexico for 2.5 months??
Lingoda for language learning (Spanish, French, English, German)
39:34 - Q Xinyi asks: what is this potential business plan you have?
45:34 - Arty: “I want to be able to provide a place where people can talk creatively. And feel creative and feel themselves.”
48:04 - Q Arty asks: Top places you’ve visited and what is the commonality between them?
55:37 - Xinyi: “The commonality is that while all these places are foreign to me to some extent, made me feel at home.”
58:17 - Q Arty asks: Given these cities are such diverse selections — can you pinpoint why they give you the feeling of home?
60:39 - Q Arty asks: Do you think the time spent in a city or the cultural context influences your ability to establish a routine?
62:02 - Q Xinyi asks: How do you define a stranger and at what point do they transition from being one to not?
63:34 - Arty: “I think it’ll always be an internal feeling of comfort…I could be an acquaintance with someone in 10 mins, where I could be strangers with someone I’ve known for years or months…Disclaimer: how you perceive someone can always be inaccurate.”
67:37 - Arty: “I do think though through art and other forms of communication, you are able to feel more deeply connected to someone where you don’t necessarily need to meet them.”
68:12 - Arty: “And I guess these tacked on labels of strangers, acquaintance, friend, good friend…they don’t undermine or establish the possible connection you could have with someone. I think in technicalities because words are so technical, there’s how we feel, connections of how we feel, and labels of how we feel.”
74:13 - Arty: “I feel like you can be deeply connected to someone who is just a stranger, and you can feel honestly not connected at all with someone who you’ve been friends with for 5 years.”
75:02 - Xinyi: “I love that you got so meta. That’s what we actually feel vs our language (which is just a tool) and an abstraction of our feelings and hence may not actually accurately portray how we feel…”
76:29 - Arty: “I feel like there is a negative connotation when it comes to that word ‘stranger danger’”
76:57 - Arty: “I think within strangers or people we don’t know we see a part of ourselves in them… And then of course there are the ones who are the ‘stranger dangers’…”
79:51 - “Everything is always based on what we see… which could be close to reality or really removed from reality”
80:07 - Arty: “We all have comfort knowing that we’re sane…”
81:30 - Q Arty asks: What inspired opening the podcast and what are your goals?
I am always so inspired when I meet people like Arty because they're just brimming with life and possibilities. As always, I'd love to hear if you had any thoughts on anything we touched on in the conversation. Please feel free to shoot a dm or leave a public comment and start a community thread @dontbestrangers on instagram! I will also link all of his socials in the show notes and associated instagram posts (if you want to reach out to him yourself) or I can always also totally make an introduction. Just reach out and don't be strangers.
Just as a reminder, anyone can apply to co-host an episode and if you were so gracious, I would love to hear your feedback or if you know anyone who is also passionate about making friends and community building, I would be floored if you said hi and/or even helped to make a few introductions. Thank you for being who you are and I just want to let you know that you make a positive impact on this world no matter how small it is, I promise you that you've most definitely changed someone's life. Until next time... let's talk again soon.