001Do we need headphones? No. Good. Can we wear them anyway? Hello, this is a sharing wheel for a special presentation. We have a Main Streets and we're live at uh Artsfest. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're happy to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you guys like juggling like 12 different things right now. 13 different things actually. With a ball always being thrown in, right? We take turns throwing it to each other actually. Yeah. Right now it's in her court, so I'm I'm taking a moment to breathe. But I'm playing tennis and she's playing basketball. So, it's very very confusing. And we're following the rules of football. I don't know what to do. Yeah. So, like what's what's uh what's going on now? I've heard a talk of like a live mural
002and all sorts of different things going on. Yeah. Yeah. So, um so the festival is about to open to the public. I feel like we're just a Oh, we're open 10:05. So, all of our vendors are set up and ready to go. Um the food court will open at 11:00. We have live performances starting at 10:30 and going till 4. And yes, there is a live mural being painted down the street on the wall of Organic Garden Cafe. Um, Masiel Grulan is the artist. Um, she's Boston based. Um, but she went to Monzerat. She's an alum. Um, yeah. And she's doing phenomenal work. So, definitely check it out if you can. Yeah. If you look at it, I firmly believe this. you're going to see that mural and 10 years from now you're going to
003say that is a Mossio mural. She's so distinct in the way that she does her design and her work and it's just it's such a nice uh start to the Beverly Cultural District which actually begins right uh down in that general area. So excited to have it. Love it. Did you say she uh was a TD Garden involved? Yeah, so she's the 2025 artist and resident for TD Garden. She painted a fantastic mural uh focused on women in sports. So you can see that there that just went up a few days ago and Becky mentioned she's a Monzerat alum and really wanted to give back to the community of Beverly that she loves so much. And it's on the side of Organic Garden, also owned by a Monzerat alum. I love it. Yeah, it's gonna
004be great. I love it. Yeah. And uh the live music, where's that taking place? So, a couple of places actually. Um so, at the corner of Winter Street and Cabbat, we have our Winter Street stage um which will have several bands performing. We're actually kicking things off too with um Beverly Youth Football Cheer. Um they're going to be doing a little performance over there and then it will be music after that. And then in Ellis Square um we have some movement and dance performances and then a little bit of music as well. That's right in the middle of the food court so folks can get a snack, sit and enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And then uh so how many like people are involved in like setting this all up? Well, we're a staff
005of two, so we rely really heavily on volunteers. Right now we have 40 volunteers that are making this event possible. Um we are a a staff of volunteers in a lot of ways. You know we have over 100 volunteers that work with us whether it be on our committees for events like today. It really is um a total community effort. And then for the event itself we have 125 artist vendors that are vending today which is a jured process. So, we're really intentional. Our committee uh is really intentional about selecting artists, not only on their own merit, but also we want people to walk through and not feel like they're seeing the same thing or something they're going to see at any other place. You know, you're not going to walk down and see 50
006of the exact same design. So, this is really an elite arts festival and people are going to find stuff they can't find anywhere else. And one note um that's really important to keep in mind, you'll be able to see green flags on tents and that notes someone who is vending with us for the first time, which is really exciting, which is a feat considering we're in our 22nd year. And then yellow flags actually dictate or indicate uh which ones are Beverly based artists because that's a really important aspect of the work as well. I love it. And uh so what you the kickoff was at Endicott on Thursday. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. So we do a community art exhibition every year with Endicott. They're a fantastic sp sponsor of ours. I cannot say enough good
007things. We work really closely with them. Their students are going to be performing today on the Endicott stage which is at Winter Street. And so we do a community kickoff event. And I know my predecessor Jyn Wallace had always wanted to make it a multi-day event. And we were talking about it. We're like, why don't we be crazy and add something else? And so, we wanted to bridge that. Thursday and Saturday. So, last night, we actually launched our first ever art party. We had live music by Gold Velvet Sofa, a a two-piece band out of Salem. Uh, we did a community art making, which will carry over into the event today. Um, and we actually had additional Beverly based artists that were selling their items. Several artists sold out of their pieces. And so, we
008just wanted to again continue to highlight the creativity that's in Beverly. It's just it's an unbelievable place. It's turning into a like a three-day festival. It is. It is. Without closing the roads down multiple days, you we're still trying to keep people happy. And uh tell me a little bit more about your sponsors. Yeah, sure. So, our sponsors, I mean, they really they make our work possible. So, we could not do this without the support of the city of Beverly. Uh Mayor Kah Hill has been incredibly supportive of Beverly Main Streets and Artsfest. Cummings Foundation uh awarded us a multi-year commitment which we're really grateful for and then Endeott College is another visionary sponsor for us and you can see on all of the materials whether it be Goldberg Properties Power Home Remodeling um Essex
009County OBGYn and actually Beverly Hospital just joined us as another multi-year sponsor. It really is indicative of corporations and businesses that recognize the value that we bring and recognize how important it is to support the economic vitality of our downtown. Yeah. Wow. Um I like the fact that they do like a multi-year commitment. Yeah. We like it too. We like it too. Yeah. And there are so many great inind sponsorships as well. um community partners who really their goals are aligned with us and they work really hard to help us produce these events and to bring the community um the Cabbat and Monserat just a few off the top of my head um who we work closely with and we're really grateful for their support. Wow. So it's like this creative web of like volunteers
010and sponsors and artists and Exactly. and uh bringing the community together, creativity, I mean it just uh goes on and on the benefits of what you guys are doing. Yeah. Fantastic. There really is something for everyone, too. That's what I always love about this. I We use that analogy a lot. I played football for a number of years, and football's great because you can use big bodies on the offensive line or like tiny bodies as wide receiver. And events like this, there's something for everyone. If you want to be like that brute force lifting that stage and setting it up, great. If you just want to babysit a tent for a vendor while they get a bite to eat and relax, like there truly is something for everyone. And we just have so much talent
011and treasure in this community. It's nice that we're able to offer so many ways for people to get involved. Yeah. Yeah. You're really tapping into like uh Yeah. creativity, expertise, volunteerism, and Yeah. That's great. And we had Beverly High School students here at 6 a.m. this morning. We got them all. Yeah. So, it's great. So, um we are having an event uh in July. Uh July 26 is our Cabbage Street block party. So, there'll be vending opportunities there, too. I don't want to look too far ahead because today is going to be great. But I definitely encourage people to reach out uh and get involved because it's it's really a great day and it's just there's so much energy. Yeah. Amazing. Uh you guys do amazing work. Thank you. Thank you. I love your Instagram
012posts every week. You got the celebrity. Yeah. I often find out what what's going on around town through you guys, you know. So that's the whole goal. That's amazing. It's fun to walk down the street with her. We get stopped all the time and they're like, "You're Beverly Main Street." I'm like, "Hi, me too." I'm like, "I just hide in the back." No, no, she's a rock star. She's Yeah, I know. She's a rock star. She's been kicking butt and um this event is not possible without the hard work of Becky. So, really great work. Well, you both did tremendous job and it must be very satisfying to be game day and everything's coming together and the tables are up and people are here and and if the artist are happy and the public is
013happy, we're happy. We got to put our credit cards to work. That's what we're doing, right? We have some spending to do. It's Father's Day tomorrow. Yeah. But the business debt is generated from what you guys do, too. Is not Yeah. Yeah. $300,000 in revenue is generated each year for independent artists through our events. Fantastic. So, we do year round events. Um, we support our small business community. This event is great. It's wonderful. It brings so many people downtown, but our efforts continue, um, you know, throughout the year. So, I really encourage people if you miss this year or you can't come in a future year, just stay engaged with us because there's always something going on in Beverly. Sure. And and if someone wanted to volunteer with Main Streets, how how would they get
014in touch with you? Yeah, they can email us at infobevmain.org or they can check out our website. There's a volunteer form. So, we're actively soliciting for volunteers for our block party on July 26th. Okay. And we also we're a an organization that relies heavily on volunteers for our committees. So, if folks want to volunteer on a monthly basis, we have a variety of committees all on our website. Anything from design to promotion to downtown 2030 planning for the future. Um, we really do have something for anyone that would like or for everyone that would like to get involved. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for uh coming on and uh just such a amazing work that you guys do and real like leadership like being local leadership and and the ripple effect that what you
015do right after the event the community building that you do and the the monetary, you know, the stimulus and just it's probably hard to um track it all, but it does ripple out into the community and that's awesome. Yeah, some of it's intangible, but it's just it's an overall feeling and it's great. But we're really appreciative to Bevcam. They're a great partner of ours and so I would encourage anyone that's watching this, come out and shop local and support, but also um support your local nonprofits because we couldn't do this without the work. So without your support, we couldn't do this work. So if you visit the Beverly Main Streets booth, we're giving out Schubert pins for folks that would like to make a donation. Okay. But again, would really encourage people to support nonprofits
016like Bevcam because they're integral to our city's success. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I um Amen. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Wonderful. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Hi, this is Shearing Whale. Uh, we have Cat Scoly. Hey, Cat. Hi. How's it going? Good. And, uh, Cat, you're an illustrator, author, uh, artist, uh, live here locally. I do. Yes. Yeah. But originally from down south. I'm from Atlanta originally. Nice. Yeah. I got my career started at Cartoon Network. I worked on commercials, moved up here, worked in game development. Still working in game development. Yeah. And I have an art studio here on Ran Tulle for Hansen Hollows where I put my art not just on prints but clothing, accessories, bags, tote bags, uh glassear and whiskey glasses. Nice. And where where um on Renul are
017you? I am at the Porter Mill studios. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's a good space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. And then like so the name uh haints and hollows the um you said you had like a healthy I forget healthy respect for hints and hollows. Uh is that like a a thing in the south where or Appalachia maybe or like the kind of you you you Yeah. H is a type of spirit that's full of pain and it's kind of a call back to my southern roots to say my art's a little bit on the spooky side. So and so are my books as well. I just had a book release called Blow the Grand Hotel. Congratulations. Thank you. Awesome. Uh it's available here at Copper Dog Books. I've signed a whole
018bunch of copies and it's The Great Gatsby meets Hellraiser. I love it. Fantastic. And is it like a southern southern gothic type novel or there? Yes. So, it's technically a horror romance. It's gothic romance and horror. And my lead character is also from Atlanta, Mabel Rose Dixon. I love it. Uh, and uh, so ho how how did that come about? Uh, when did you start writing and and and did you immediately go into into horror or did you dabble in other areas or? Sure. Yeah, I wrote uh, young adult first, Jennifer Strange, which takes place in Savannah, Georgia. It's two sisters that can um see the dead and they're ghost hunters, but they're also being chased by demons because they have the ability to bring back a ghost from the other side and give them
019life again, but every time they do, they lose a bit of themselves and they get pulled over to the other side. Yeah. Yeah. So, that was my first book. Um and then Below the Grand Hotel was a short story. I sold it to a magazine. Okay. But then the editor passed away and the magazine folded and my agent was like, "This needs to be a whole book." So the first two chapters are the short story that I sold. Yeah. That's great. And so how many books in all do you have out? I have two out, but I've written seven. Wow. Wow. And then if someone was to uh purchase your book, I mean, obviously they can p purchase it today. And uh you you sell online, I'm I'm sure. And do you have like a
020a website that you sell off of or is it uh on Yeah, so katherncully.com is where I sell all of my books and everything has the links right now. There are signed copies at Copper Dog and Beverly, noturn in Salem and Lovelruck down in Harvard Square. And Love Struck, is that is that a similar uh theme type books? uh loved or they are the new romance bookstore down at Harvard and they are so cute. They even have like a little wine bar coffee shop really and they have everything by different categories of romance and it's so cute and so wonderful. They were great. I went into signing there with a bunch of other authors and they only just launched this spring but they're already doing great. Uh that's awesome. It's always fun to go to
021Cambridge too. Mhm. Um, so yeah, tell me like a little bit about uh southern gothic. What what constitutes like southern gothic? What's So it's basically a genre that takes place in the Gothic homes in the south. That's kind of the the hanging moss, the the sweltering heat, and it's very haunted in the south. And there's lots of places that have like been standing there since forever and they're dilapidated, falling apart, right? But there's all these different cultures that have mixed in the south and they all contribute to kind of the stories. So in the movie Centers that just came out, they talk a lot about that that like there were obviously like the black culture influenced like jazz music there and then you also have the immigration where you have the Irish and the Scottish
022coming in settling the south and they created this blueg grass and around that there's all these haunted stories, stories of pain, stories of loss, stories that um I love telling because that's where I'm from and I like that because up here in the north, you know, it's not as familiar and I like being able to tell those stories and bring them here. Yes. Yes. And then reading New England stories because it's also haunted here, but it's like a different kind of feel. It's got Sleepy Hollow, Salem. Sure. Sure. Sure. So, um, so how's Yeah. How does it like the the Southern Gothic when it meets Salem? What sort of hybrids in in a way? like have you sort of merged the two kind of cultures or two vibe the vibes of the places or Yes,
023for sure. I I feel like I brought my southern charm up north and um I fed in right away in Salem, but I kind of brought my own thing with it because it's a totally different like influence of art, music, culture. I have sweet tea and biscuits, all of that. Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then it's the same kind of spooky because I feel like you go across America, all of it's haunted in some way. There's all these stories of the past. There's all these things that you work through by telling stories about ghosts, for example. And we all have that in common, but there's just a different flavor to it. Right. Right. Yeah. Each culture kind of u develops around it in a way. Yeah. Um really cool. And I I would like to
024go down there and visit some of like the southern gothic places like what other like southern gothic writers are there and and did they influence your writing? Yeah. So one of my favorite books that's to me it's southern gothic is ringshout and it's basically what if the KKK were actually demons and there's a black demon hunter and she kills them and it is one of my favorite books ever. So there's a lot of specfic being done around that set in the south that they're like centers set in Mississippi and they're taking vampire stories and going okay well what if there's a southern or even all the way back to True Blood those take place in Louisiana. So there I'm seeing more and more pop up that's like where I'm from both not just in books
025but in like movies, TV shows and it's so good to see. Yeah. So, can you envision your your book um working its way towards film? Yeah. Yeah. So, I've been pitching film for about five years. I started as a screenwriter. That was my undergraduate. Oh, no kidding. And so, Jennifer Strange was a TV pilot I turned into a book. Really? Oh, wow. And so, I know how to write like a pitch deck. I know how to do film. I I took broadcast classes. I I know how that side works. And then I also know game development. So when I wrote below the Grand Hotel, each level of the hotel was like a Florida video game to me. So I planned it out that way. Okay. Yeah. And I'm in the middle of um that is
026being it just got pitched to a video game studio and they love it. So we're in talks right now about making it into a game. Oh wow. That must be exciting. Very exciting. Especially because I come from game development. I'm like I know exactly how to lay this out. I did some level design. So yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. like how a um like a a novel can be go in that direction, game development, you know. Um Wow. Um so you do u maps. Yes. And um so you're doing maps for other other writers. Is that correct? And explain talk about that a little bit. Sure. I got started doing world maps in 2013. So, I've been at this in the publishing business for 10 years, a little bit over. Yeah. And I fell into it
027because back in the day, Twitter, you could go post your art and people would find it and go, "Oh, I want to hire you." Yeah. And that was where I got most of my business. And there was an author, Claire Lrand, who was with Simon Schustster, and she had a retelling of the Nutcracker coming out. Okay. And she wanted me to do character cards because she saw me posting my art online and she said, "Can you do maps?" I'm like, I don't know. And so, I'll try. I'll try. And I I did it. And then she said, "Oh my god, this is great." And then Simon Schuster said, "Oh my god, this is great." And it was in the book. And then the word of mouth spread. And then before I knew it, I had
028done like 40 world maps between then and now. And they were for middle grade, young adult, adult fantasy, some science fiction. I've done some space maps. I've done one that was a coliseum arena where every floor was like Jumanji and it was a middle-grade book and uh the characters had to fight their way from level to level like in a video game way. And so I cut out the coliseum and did all of the levels for it was called the gauntlet by Karuna Riyazi I believe. Wow, that's really interesting. Yeah, I've been asked to do a lot of maps so not just Lord of the Rings fantasy. Yeah, I never would have thought like that but of course now that you it you know of course someone does the maps like for the books like
029I think of a map like uh JRR Tokian like the map of the middle earth you know but if if it's fantasy a lot of times like these worlds new worlds are create created right and then you it requires a map for the reader to orientate themselves is that kind of like the thing for a lot of the time my maps are like Lord of the Rings they are for fantasy novels And the author has an idea in their head of like maybe Westeros that they want to show and it's huge and expansive with a lot of characters, right? And big epic fantasy. Yeah. And they're like, I would love to have a map because one, it's helping me orient and write this book, but I think it would help the reader. Sure. And so
030they come in with like already kind of a game plan of exactly what they want and where they want it, and they'll send me like a pencil sketch and say, "Can you do this?" And then I send a pencil sketch back of like, "Is this accurate?" before I ink this and it's done. So that way I know. Okay. So, so do you do you read you might have mentioned this, but do you do you read the material first, the the writing first and then or orientate yourself and then make the map from there or I used to back when I first started I was like I'm going to read every book and then it got to a point where I was there was one fall I did eight maps in a row and I went
031I can't I can't keep up. I've got two kids. There's no way. And so I asked for synopsis. I ask for pitch. I ask for Okay. Um similar maps that they like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes it's more efficient. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um that's that's really fas fascinating. And uh you also have like um um like clothing that you sell and and uh well that's that would be more um your store on rental. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Different types of items. Um, so you have this whole like uh all these little spin-offs from from your are they are they the items related to the novels or are they just uh this something like a one-offs that you that you do? Sometimes they're related to my novels and then other times I just have an idea
032like I've been doing this series of witches and they have different hats for each of the seasons. So like spring, summer, fall, winter, and I was hand painting them in gouache on wood. And I've sold out of them about four or five times. So I decided to start printing them on bags, on sipper glasses, on different items because they were so popular and I'm like, I can't keep up with painting all of these by hand. Um, but it came from a lot of people were buying my prints and they told me, I'm running out of wall space. Wow. Can you put your art on stuff? Sure. And I've been going through the process of putting my art on stuff cool that is either wearable or usable. Right. And then um so map maps um and
033uh outlines I guess. Do you do you map out or outline your your novels or do you just start? You know I am such a plotter. Okay. I absolutely write it out and I do it in a beach sheet way for my screenwriting days. Everything is bullet point chapter to chapter to chapter and I do the entire book. Wow. Wow. Okay. And if I get stuck with I don't know what I want to happen next. I start writing. Okay. And I write to where I'm stuck and it will I'm like it will come to me. Yeah. I can't be afraid of the blank page. And the best way for me is to just I'm going to jot down my thoughts of what this chapter's going to be. Yeah. and just look at it from a
034distance and say, "Does this make sense?" And then I'll write it and go, "Oh, I figured a little bit more out about who they are and what they want to do." And so I make sure my outline isn't super strict because then the characters kind of come alive, right? You want to leave some flexibility for for for the magic to happen in a sense. Yeah. Yeah. And then they start directing where they're going to go by their choices. Yeah. Yeah. And so it could look wildly different at the end. Right. Right. You kind of birthe the character and then the character informs you in a sense. Yeah. Exactly. Then they start talking back and I'm like, "Okay, fine. That wasn't the right direction. You want to go this way." And then the book uh I
035always imagine books as like living entities, right? Like Yeah. The uh you think of the Beverly Public Library and all those books, stacks and stacks, and they're all kind of have lives of their own, you know? Um great. This is a wonderful conversation and um thanks a million for coming on, Cat. And I really appreciate you talking about your uh your work and your Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been great. And I'm a local. I live like two blocks from here. So Oh, cool. Yeah. I moved here two, three years ago. Okay. And I've loved living in Beverly ever since. So Atlanta, right to Beverly? Is that was there any stopoffs between Atlanta and Beverly or I lived in Haveril at first. Haveril and then came into Beverly and
036then I came I was coming down to Salem all the time. Okay. You pulled into the area. I was pulled into the area. Absolutely. Like so many people. Yeah. That's great. Awesome. Well, thanks very much. Well, thank you so much. Sure. Yeah. Pleasure. This has been the sharing wheel. Thank you. That's fun. All All right, we're back with the sharing wheel and uh we have uh Justin Whiting. Hello. Hi. Thanks for coming on, Justin. Thanks for having me. Sure. And your um soap box and that's like a an umbrella for many artistic things. Yeah. Yeah. The things that I do depends upon the day of the week, I guess. Um, soapbox was kind of, you know, anything I do, it's it's always now a sort of representation of the ideas I have, whether it's art,
037design, or comic books. Um, so I'm getting up on my proverbial soap box. Yeah. As we all do. Yeah. So, yeah, it's an umbrella for a bunch of things. Nice. And, uh, one of the I didn't realize because when I when I initially looked at you online, I I saw your your comic book And that's uh uh Sam. Um yeah. Yeah, it's Sam. He uh he's the son of the devil. He's born and raised in Well, I I would have loved to have made it Beverly because I'm here, but we're right next door to that other town that people might have heard of uh you know, cross the bridge. Sure. Yeah. Um so it was fitting since he he's you know, the son of the devil. Um he's born and bred here and I kind
038of made him like a a gen alpha kind of thing. Always on his iPad. He's got so um sorry I go into that but he basically he's got all this uh family pressure to lead the family business but he doesn't want to he doesn't want to you know go into the family business. Okay. And he just wants to do his own thing. So it's kind of like he's trying to avoid all that and he's and he's in a local high school and um it just kind of goes from there having fun with the idea and yeah you know growing up the stuff that comes into my head. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you have copies of that at your booth. I do. And that's just down down here. We're in front of the cabin
039YMCA pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. And then I I saw some of your uh other artwork uh of the um the illustration of like the Is it a painting of the of the alleyway at the church there? Yeah. Yeah. I um I I walk around Beverly a lot. pretty much almost every day. Um, and there's a lot of it's it's an interesting town. It's a beautiful town. Um, you know, I moved around. I wound up settling here because I loved it a lot. Um, and as I walk around town, there's these interesting little corners that I wonder if people may or may not see in a different light. So, I tend to try to capture them. You get that is like an interesting spot there. The the alleyway. Yeah. Right. It's a great shortcut. And
040um you've really captured the Oh, thank you. Yeah. And there's also a figure standing there, right? Yeah. Well, it's behind the church and the thing is you go out front and you know it has this beautiful facade, you know, out front, but in the back there's always people kind of standing around there walking through there. They're taking that shortcut and there's a there's a whole livelihood behind the church that's happening. Right. You know, I want to get that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you captured it really, really well. And uh you have other uh paintings of um of downtown Beverly. I'm thinking the uh is it the Oh, it's the bowling alley. You have one down there. River Street. River Street. River Street. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I kept passing that place every
041day and I wasn't here when it was open. Okay. But it just looked like such a place that if I could I if I could open that up and have it be what it was, Yes, probably I would. It seems like one of those spots I would do it even though I'd never been there. And I had done the painting and people had seen it. Uh and I got a lot of locals that talked about their memories there. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone birthday party or party there, bowl there. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're familiar with it? Oh, sure. Yeah. We brought our kids there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, it is kind of sad to see it there, you know, because not used, you know, so now it's just like a box of
042memories in a way, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've seen other artists like do I think there's another artist locally that he did do the it was called Bolo Mat or stuff like that. And yeah, I I feel bad if I'm going to do it where it's closed down and you do you get the juriness of like, oh, it was once nice. So, I think the sign Yeah, there's there is beauty to that too. Yeah, there is. And I think uh that that area too is like the um they have the uh the bridge that's in like in a a decayed state, you know. Yeah. Working on it. I think it's like a decade long. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. But uh that that might be something uh that you might be interested in
043painting. Now, what was there a uh one of a maybe of a laundry mat? Was there Oh, uh yeah, the Salem uh laundromat uh here on Cab Street. Mhm. Um it's just going by it every night because that it's it's close to the end of my street. Um coming out and it, you know, darkness, but those all those floor ceiling windows and the light just pouring out of there. It just uh that's called nighttime oasis. Okay. Just because it looks so bright and shiny in the midst of all this dark and Yeah. And it's a laundromat, you know, and I kind of want to go in there even though I don't have any laundry at that point. But yeah, it's just what what would be a good reason to kind of go in there if
044you didn't have laundry? Like how would you uh you know, I I actually had somebody come to my table today and they said, "Uh, we we use that as our comforter night." So we we go, "Oh, the comforter looks looks dirty, right?" Wink wink wink. Yeah. So they bring the comforters there to wash them and they go next door to the indo. Yeah. So that's their comforter indoor. Right. Comforter Guinness. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Um Yeah. And then do you have your eye on anything else uh in the downtown to work on? Yeah. Uh well, there's the the hotel on the corner. Yeah. Lodge. Yep. The lodge. Yeah. Uh there's that. There's um what else? Uh oh. Well, there's I I I just recently did one of a bear park and there's the little bridge over
045there and there's some stuff in that area which I I have that I want to capture. Um, I will do I will do a seascape here or there. I I've stayed away from seascapes just because I feel like we're right next to the ocean. It's like everybody does them. Yeah, sure. Try not to, but eventually I'll get to that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, uh I have a friend uh George Martin who's an artist up in Beverly Farms and he uh he did a series of paintings of underneath the bridge uh to Salem. Yeah. And just like the pillars. I have one I'm working on now. Yeah, I it's it's 75. I wish I had had it done for here, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I love his George Martin. George Martin.
046Look him up. Yeah. Yeah. He's a really nice guy. He's um if you go on the Sharing Whale podcast, uh he's been on Okay. Yeah. Really interesting guy. Okay. Yeah. An excellent excellent excellent artist. Yeah. Very, very good. Yeah. I mean, we got a lot of great artists around here. I you know when I moved here and it took me a while but you know finding everybody and look at the bad Beverly Arts District and all that stuff. If you guys haven't seen this, look it up. We got a lot of great artists here. Abs. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um it's Beverly come a long way for for sure. Um so like how did you find your way to Beverly? Everyone has a story on how they found Beverly. Um long story. Well, uh, so I
047I wound up, uh, I went I got a job in Boston. Uhhuh. And I went through Boston like everything's so expensive. Sure. Sure. Yeah. So, uh, I had to go back. I I had lived in upstate New York. I moved to California. I was living in California when I got a call for here. So, I was coming back to see family. So, I looked at the apartments, ran out of time, went back to California, and I picked something offline that was online, sorry, that was uh in Lynn. Yeah. I'm like, "Oh, sounds nice, Lynn." you know, uh, it's mountly priced. So, I wound up moving to Lynn and my first I actually I didn't paint at all when I was in California. It's just so much driving. It takes so long to get it just
048it wasn't conducive. And my first painting when I got back was of just outside my window. Okay. In Center Square landm Yeah. So, I met uh who was to be my future wife here. Um, you know, and we're looking for a place to live. I said, "How about Denver?" She says, "I like I said, how about Marblehead. She like Beverly said, "Okay, how about Beverly?" Yeah. My my wife Michelle, who's here now, hi Michelle. Uh she also found Beverly All the way from Cape Town, South Africa. So what was it about? Can I ask her questions on what was about Beverly that drew you? Right. It's just It's cute. It's It's Yeah. Oh, she said it just Beverly has everything. It's cute and it has everything you need, which I will agree with. Yeah, it's
049uh it's sort of self-contained, right? You have uh you really don't have to leave it. There's enough enough going on. We're our our shores aren't commercialized. I mean, we're building up a little bit now, but it's not it's not really commercialized. You can take nice quiet walks all, you know, up and down the coast if you want. Um it has public beaches, which is a rarity these days, right? Like Yeah. So, it's a hats off to Beverly for having open access to ocean, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah. So, what else do do you do? Like, so um you get the book, the comic book, you got the paintings. Uh what other types of uh creative? So, so I created Soapbox was a way uh so I you know I do uh web
050design and development. So I created Soapex Soapbox as a house for that and then I started doing the publishing of these you know comic books which are ideas that I've had in my mind that I just had to get out. Yeah. Um then I started the Whiting Art because I needed a separate entity. So Whitingart.works is my website for my work. Okay. Um and I just now recently started um because I've needed motivation for myself. Yeah. Uh and I know we all kind of do whether you're an artist or not, but um a motivational uh motivation items for people who need a little bit of a boost. So Sure. Um and it's kind of funny. One of the quotes that I use from Twilight Tharp um art is the only way to run away without
051leaving home. Ah, Mati said creativity is courageous. Uhhuh. You know, and yeah, I saw a quote of yours. Imagination is the highest form of uh Yes. of That's a nice of research. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yep. So, yeah. I I it's just when you're when you're doing a lot of this stuff and you're you know we artists I mean uh I know you guys see the little art that comes out but there's a lot of work and um you know we we try different styles we test we have to pay I mean uh all those supplies you know they're not cheap and trying to set up a space for it and doing stuff like this it's it's because we love what we do. Sure. We want to share it. Um, and you know, we
052hope that you like, you know, so, um, hey, thanks for looking. Thanks. Thanks for Thanks, uh, Justin for sharing your work, uh, here, uh, during Artsfest and also, uh, Sharon, uh, your, um, talking about it and, uh, my pleasure. Exploring it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good luck today out there. Thank you. And uh the rain doesn't seem to be an issue today, so it's uh No, no. You know, I Yeah, I'm there's a lot more people out in the rain. I get New England, I guess, right? Yeah. You know. Well, uh pleased that you found your way to Beverly. Thank you. Right. Cheers. Thanks. All right. Hi, I'm Liz D Fury and I'm the community engagement manager here at Bevcam taking over for Sean Dublin. We're here at Beverly Artsfest. Still doing live podcasting all day.
053And today we're here with Laura and she's one of the uh one of the vendors here at Artsfest. Hi. Hi. So um You're a ceramicist. Yes. And I've been looking at your wares all day. Oh my gosh. They're they're like these flower cups that look like tulips. For for anybody who's not here today. If you are here, you're planning on coming down, make sure you check out her booth. She's right in front of Bevcam. Why don't you talk a little bit about your art and what it is you do and the stuff that you've brought today. Sure. Um, so I'm local. I live here in Beverly and I um um I'm an artist, but I have started doing ceramics out of Clay Dreaming Studio. So, shout out to them. They're amazing. And um I started
054making vas these funny little vases. I call them noodle vases because they were inspired by uh a bowl of noodles. And those I've been making for about two years now. And then the tulip cups I've been making for about a year now. They're super fun. They are each made by hand. They're they're pinch pots, which I'm an art teacher also. So, help me understand what a pinch pot is. A pinch pot is basically a a ball of clay. You start with a ball of clay and then you pinch it around in a circle with your hand. So, it's it rather as opposed to using the pottery wheel, you are just doing it by hand. So, um Cool. It it's nice because it will have a little bit of texture from the imprint of your fingers
055and it's also will be a little more that Yeah, that that certainly explains why they have that sort of like whimsical look to them. Yeah. A little more organic. Yeah. So, uh what you you started out of clay dreaming or how did you get your start doing ceramics? Well, I had done a little bit of clay work in um earlier in college, but it's hard to you don't if you don't access to a studio to a kiln and it's hard to work um in clay. So um when I moved back to Beverly a few years ago, I a friend told me about this the studio, I went in there and once I got my hands in the clay, I didn't stop. So Oh my god, that's awesome. Um uh so how long have you been
056doing like arts festivals like this? Like selling your wares? Um, well, this is my second Beverly Arts Fest. I did it last year. Last year was my first year and so that was awesome. And I don't do markets too often because I'm a full-time teacher, but the Beverly Arts Fest is such a special one because it's so big. It's in Beverly. I'm from Beverly and it's good vibe. So, what kind of teacher are you? I'm an art teacher. For what grade? For uh pre-K through 8th grade. Do you guys get to do any clay? But we do a lot of clay. That's awesome. Wait, so if you if you do clay, do you do you have like a kiln that the students can use? Uh we have a kiln at school. Yeah. So I fire
057all the kids all the kids work. Oh my gosh. Yeah. They love clay. So what inspired you to start selling your artwork? Well, I was making a lot of it and I have because I had this design that sort of worked that I was making over and over again. it made sense to sell it because I was accumulating them. I had a couple of friends ask about buying them and that's how I knew they were sort of a viable thing that people might want to purchase and so that's why I decided to start to start selling them. And I think it's a cool way to ceramics are a great way to put your art out there because of its functional nature. Um I think it's a little more sellable though I do 2D art as
058well. So, yeah. What kind of 2D art? Um, painting, drawing. What sort of subject matter? Do you have any that you're going to be selling tonight or mostly ceramics? Prints that are available for sale. Uh, they are it's a mix of pastel and watercolor. So, they're typically botanical in nature, flowers and plants, but a little abstracted. So, they're not like super highly realistic, a little painterly, but Oh, cool. It definitely fits the theme. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, do do you feel like there's uh do do you have like a preference between working in clay or if you're if you're going to start doing 2D stuff like or do you feel that there's um any particular subject matter where you're like this I want to do specifically as a watercolor or specifically as um more of
059a 3D piece or how do you kind of go about that question? Well, I think when I do uh painting, it does feel that each piece is its own thing. Whereas with ceramics, although because I'm making them by hand, they are each different. There's a more um it has a slightly more repetitive nature in that like I'm making for example the tulip cups, I'm making 12 tulip cups today. Whereas with a watercolor, I'm not making 12 of the same subject matter. Each one is different. So, um that feels different about it. And then also like the 2D work I can do in my home and my apartment whereas the the clay work is done in the studio. So, has a different feel to it. So, I know I can I obviously botanicals and nature are
060a big inspiration for you. Is there any like specific thing within like is there any like specific sort of flowers or season or anything that you find to be really like your muse? Um that's a great question. I love anything that's a little bit irregular, a little bit funky like a um so I love I love seaweed because it has such an organic and flowing nature to it. I love anything with vibrant colors. Um, I love orchids. They have such a sort of like there's anything that's has they've almost got like an alien look. Yes, exactly. Like I love anything like that that feels like it's sort of alive almost like a a little creature. Um, but you never know when something's gonna catch your eye. So, I don't know. That's awesome. Could be anything.
061Thank you so much for joining us today. It was really great to get a chance to talk to you. Where can people find you? Um, well, other than today here in front of Beth right here, but you can find me on Instagram at Laura Donworth Art and I do occasionally do online sales. So, I would post those um there if you want to find me. So, you can follow me there. If you can't make it down to uh the downtown today for Artsfest, please make sure to check out Laura online. Thank you so much. Thank you. So excited to be here. and we're just going to have a conversation. That sounds great. Tell me your name. I'm Liz. Okay. Yeah. So, uh I'm Liz and we're back here at Bevcam downtown with Artsfest and I'm
062here with Libby and she makes t-shirts. I do for babies. for babies specifically. Um, what about just really tiny adults? Really tiny adult. We could do that. I can accommodate that. I can put any design on any size shirt. But I do tell people over and over that I won't put the one that says I still live with my parents on an adult size. Okay, that makes up for sad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Different kind of humor. Different kind of humor for different kind of folks. Well, you know, parenting is really hard and I heard you you should be able to laugh at your kids. It's it's not going to be easy, but it can be worth it if you have a chance to just laugh. I have seen some
063of the shirts that you've put together and they are hilarious. Would you mind telling us some of your about some of your favorites? Oh, absolutely. Um, so I have one that says manual not included because the manual doesn't that was one of my favorites. Even when you think you've got it down after the first kid, you're totally wrong. Second kid will do everything differently. Um, I've got one that says make way and has a duckling on it. I'm I'm excited about that. Oh, that's one of my favorite stories. Me, too. It was one of my just formative childhood stories. And what I'm so really excited about is that I drew the duck in Adobe Illustrator. And then I got that printed on fabric. And I also have little baby leggings that have the duckling on
064them. So cute. Um I have one that says, "Don't panic." It's from Hitcher Galaxy. That's That's very uh appropriate. Don't panic. I've got one that says, "Keep calm and feed me." So, do you have kids? I do, and they're not on the baby stage any longer. I've got two adult children. They're 20 and 18. And I've got a 14-year-old and I still do get to sew for him because he's a theater kid. And so I've worked on costumes with the director at his middle school for the last couple of years. It's been a lot of fun. That's like the the um what is it? What am I thinking of? It's like the shortcut the the cheat the cheat code into like still getting to sew for your um more adult children even though you make
065baby clothes normally. Exactly. Well, I also made a whale shark backpack for my oldest. Whale sharks. Oh my god. You're so cool. Thank you. How long have you been doing this? Like as a professional? Oh gosh. Um I think I started doing this professionally in 2009. But I've been sewing since I was seven years old. I had a doll and my mom had patterns for doll clothes and I wanted to learn how to sew. So she taught me my grandmother taught patterning and draping at the college level and she taught me to sew without a pattern. Wow. So that's I feel pretty confident being able to make anything if I just know what I want it to look like. That's really cool. What a legacy there. Oh, it's so neat. Yeah. And I have my
066grandmother's old sewing machines. I've got her Bernina 830 record. And for those of you who are serious sewing enthusiasts, I have her 1935 featherweight. All three of you. Actually, there might be there might be more than that watching. There might be as many as five. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you are a sewing enthusiast to the level that she's referring to, please leave a comment below. Let us know. Uh make sure to like We should fight each other. We should fight each other. We should find each other. No, no, no. I was just imagining getting the knitting needles out and you just like go into mode is that you don't cut anything but fabric with the sewing scissors, right? That's why I said knitting needles, not scissors. I I have a friend who does costumes.
067I I understand the holy rules not to break. Yes. Um, very important. Yep. Yep. Yep. Very important. How long have you been doing Artsfest? I think I've been doing Artsfest. This might be my seventh year. Um, You are a veteran here. I love it up here. This is fantastic. I live in Belmont. Um, but I will happily come to Beverly. Yeah. Well, you know, it's close to the beach and lots of art to love about fun stuff. Yes. And I mean, really, Beverly babies do need more um humor in their clothing choices here. Beverly parents need more humor in the clothing choices for their babies. Yes. Yeah. Beverly's got a pretty strong um meme identity, I think. I don't know if you picked up on that having come here like seven years in a row.
068We've been doing this for a while. Yeah. Um so it it feels like this craft would just fit so well into into the community. So like I feel like if I ever opened a shop, a brickandmortar shop, it would have to be right here on Cab Street. All right, fantastic. Beverly Real Litters, reach out. Um, so tell me like uh what got you into doing this specific like theme of clothing? Like what inspired you to do these sorts of like jokes on baby clothes and to like you're I'm going to do baby clothes with meme stuff on them for parents who have a sense of humor. Like how does that all come about? It was actually like really a focused idea. We had next door neighbors whose baby was turning one and I really wanted
069to give him a onesie that said I can't even talk yet and I already hate the Yankees and I found one online but it was like 30 bucks and I was like I can make one cheaper than that. And so I did a little research and figured out how to do it and now I've got like five different heat presses and two sergers set up at the same time plus my sewing machine and Where do you have all this set up? This is in my dining room. It's in your dining room. This is in my dining room. So, where do you dine? Um, we host Thanksgiving every year. I have to clean up. Yes. Do you make the tablecloths for Thanksgiving? No. Thank goodness those are handme-downs for my grandmother's. Well, that's extra special. I
070didn't make the tablecloths for the birthday parties. So, you dine in the kitchen and you sew in the dining room. And what happens in the sewing room? There is no sewing room, but because my two oldest kids will be in college this year, I'm thinking of taking over their bedroom. Yes. Yes, that is the way to do it. It's also the biggest room in the house. So, there we go. Oh, man. Those man, those kids must when they come home for summer, they're really going to hate it. Yeah. But you know what? I think college kids usually I I feel like by that point, they they start to understand that they need to make sacrifices for their parents at this stage. And that often means giving up your room. I gave up my room for
071my parents to have a a bathroom. I I didn't have to give up my room until my sister decided that she wanted my old room and then she took it over and and then I knew I was done. But I think college students also realize that they can sleep anywhere on anything and it's true. They'll just curl up on couches or ramen discarded ramen boxes. Yeah, anywhere. They're fine. Yeah, we've got our um our recently graduated college kid who's uh teching for us right now and she's nodding aggressively. Sounds right. So, your one of your kids is in a theater like do do any of your kids participate in the business in any way? All of my kids have come up with different things to put on t-shirts. So, I do have an a larger
072size t-shirt that has a picture of my neighbor Todoro and it says, "Won't you be my neighbor?" And he's wearing a red zip up cardigan right in the fields. And that's from my daughter Sarah. Um and my oldest Leo designed one years ago that has a sword and says, "Fight like a girl." Nice. Nice. We love So, and and Leo's also doing entertainment engineering. So, that's going to be entertainment engineering, right? What does that mean? Well, this is I wish I had known about. You're an engineer, but also a clown. Well, in their case, it's you're engineering for a production, whether it's on stage or something virtual or something like Disney. Oh, that makes more sense. And and they also and build things and have built really great Halloween costumes in the past that have
073wings that move and Yeah. So So your kids have really like gotten into this over the years. They really have. My husband's a business professor and I don't think anyone's taking after him. It's so sad. No, I but like clearly there's some business acumen there on both sides. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly. I I realized when I started doing this that I was gonna have to make money off of it because there was no way he would put up with it if I weren't bringing in some money with this hobby. Um because if I honestly spent this much money on Oh, it's not a hobby anyway. Okay. I was going to say you've been doing this since what' you say 2013 2009. 2009. 2009. Yeah. I realized that if I were going to buy
074this much fabric and this much stuff um that he would want to see an ROI on that and and you'd want to be able to expense it. Yes, indeed. So, yeah, it's it's been a really interesting year with Joann's going out of business and all fabric sales there and I have an attic full of fabric. So, come see me. Yeah. So, where where can people find you if not here at the Artsfest in Beverly? Well, at the Artsfest, I'm down Kitty Corner from the cabin, but spot. Yeah, it's a great spot. Right by a bunch of restaurants. I'm really enjoying this. And online, you can find me at teases tees. Or www.tezies.com. Fantastic. So, um, what are some of your favorite fandoms to pull from? Oh, so my maiden name is Potter and I know
075JK Rowling is problematic, but I love the Harry Potter stories. So, I have one that says, "Expectto snugglium and one that says I'm a keeper and one that says my patronis is a teddy bear." Um, my husband is a huge Star Wars fan, just like die hard. A couple of years ago, I got him a picture of himself as a Jedi. Yeah. As a present. Uh, so I have some Star Wars stuff, um, including one that says, "Judge me by my size, do you?" Um, we're also Doctor Who fans, so I have a little baby onesie that says bigger on the inside. We have a lot of fun with this. Wait, I have an idea for you. Okay. Can you make Can you make a a shirt for uh like um a maternity shirt that
076says big girl on the inside? That's great. I have a whole stack of maternity shirts in my basement awaiting s such brilliant ideas. You can have that one for free. I love it. Well, if you ever decide to have children, you get yours for free, too. Oh, yes. Yes. You see that, guys? You come and you volunteer for Bevc camp to be an interviewer, you get free awesome baby shirts. Doesn't get better than that. Does it get better than this? Indeed. Well, I think that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for coming to join us. Please check her out here at Artsfest. Her name should be down at the uh bottom of the screen as well as uh online, you said, right? Online. Yeah. And thanks for having me, Liz. This
077has been delightful. Absolutely. Thank you. Good afternoon. Welcome to podcast at Bevcam. Whatever this is. That's right. We're just putting something together and um recognition of Artsfest. It's been I think 23 years now. Really? It's Yeah, it's been a while. I mean, I've been here since 98 as a business owner on on Cabbage Street and I believe it's I think it's in its 23rd year, but don't hold me to that. My name is Todd Ratando. I am a business owner. I am part of Beverly 400 plus. I am a city counselor and I just love the city alto together. I am here with Rob. Rob, please talk to me a little bit about you quickly. um as you have a cast and a boot and I you know as I come into this into the
078Bevcam studio he's rolling around in a chair. Yeah. So uh I am Rob Chapman. I am the director here at Bevcam and uh somewhere beginning of May uh you know I tell people that I fell off a ladder but I don't think that's quite appropriate. I talk about how the f the ladder left me very and gravity took me and I fell about six to eight feet and shattered my heel and as well as my elbow. Uh, and turns out those are kind of important bones, particularly the heel. I did not know that the heel was so important to your foot. It takes so much weight. So, I have to stay off my heel while it heals. Somewhere in the vicinity of 10 to 12 weeks. So, I'm looking at maybe sometime in middle of
079August or beginning of August, I might be able to get back out there and ride my bike and stuff. Well, Rob, I I think um as we and I and I put myself in this category as we age a little bit. Um I think we need to be a little more mindful on what we climb, whether it's a one-story home or or simply a a two-step ladder. Um I have been looking at whether I should tackle that roof and I think it's out of the question now. That would probably be a smart move. Uh you know, unless you want to uh take a few more bones with you, but you ever broken a bone, Tom? Oh, I've broken many. I've had a clavicle broke. I've had a compound fracture, broken wrist, broken ankle. I've had
080many. I was an accident and still adult from adult, but accident from a child. Um, yeah, many. This is actually my first time for actually having Yeah. So, I've I'm 62. I'm pretty happy that I made it this far. Yeah. Look at you've done great. Yeah. But but you did good on what you know, you did it. You whacked it up good. I really did a good job on my heel. And are you driving? I am driving. Luckily, it's it's the left side, so I'm right side. I'm right-handed. So, it took me about three weeks to get up the nerve to get in the behind the wheel of the car, but I did it. And I'm like, I feel like a real person. Like I'm on equal par with everybody else as opposed to when
081I'm actually trying to walk somewhere and like that with a car. I feel like I'm it's all natural again. So, so Rob, you're a transplant. Where are you from originally? Where do you live now? So, uh I have spent almost the major part of my life up in Vermont. I was uh grew up in Stow, Vermont uh and then went to school at the University of Vermont in in Burlington and really I spent most of my time in Burlington and then for 10 years in Montpillar but as my my daughters uh went off into college and I started thinking about I'm not tied to Rammon anymore, I started looking around and had always kept an eye on the Northshore of Massachusetts and was uh started putting out applications and was very excited when they offered
082me the position here at Bevcam. Uh it's and I've just been pleasantly surprised the whole time. It's just what a great community it is. Um I really do enjoy events like this. You know, the just meeting people like yourself or just open um and it's it's unique in on the North Shore. You know, I think that there's really a lot of uh camaraderie, a lot of community involvement that I I just I really appreciate and particularly because that's often my job as the as a community media center. I get to sort of work with people every day. people come in and I meet people. So, I've just been super impressed with Beverly. I enjoy what it has to offer as far as restaurants and and the arts and performing arts. Even just, uh, talking to
083my sister today about she came down for the arts fest and I'm like, there's a real good community of artists here on the North Shore as well. So, uh, just been really a wonderful time. I've been here now for three years. Uh, got in a place I I live on Goat Hill. Goat Hill. Yes. It's a I was just there actually. Um, about an hour ago. They just did a rededication of Gillis Park. Today is Flag Day. Um so and it's also the um you know anniversary or birthday of the American Navy uh Jesus, excuse my uh American Army June 50th. Um so it was it was a great attended ceremony there. So it was in your neighborhood. And it's interesting though is when I first met you, my first memory of you, Rob, was
084Halloween downtown trick-or-treating. And you were in a Dracula outfit, right? And I walked in and I walked up to you and there was some, you know, obviously the kids and you were trying to be a a a good Dracula. Very, you know, upbeat and not scary. Do not be scared. Yes. And of course me, I was the opposite trying to, you know, cause some trouble. But that was my first interaction with you. I mean, I think we have formally had been introduced, but really you on the scene getting out there doing the job. Um, you know, you've taken Bevcam with your board to a different level. It is really into the into the city. Um, you know, your predecessor was I, you know, I loved W. I think everyone did. He did a great job.
085But, um, you know, seeing the interaction of your whole team out there and about and I know media has changed drastically. I'm a dinosaur, so for me podcast, heck, I still have I think a CD player maybe. Um, you know, I think my car does, but anyways, you know, I know we need to adapt and we're working towards that. But so that was really my first experience with you is was you know, it's it's really fun. Um, I remember that day uh with Kim who uh used still does work for us parttime doing the city council meetings and stuff like that. But he was um impressed that I could go. I think I did about and I told him, you know, I'll do the accent, but by, you know, about an hour, I'll start losing
086the accent. So, it's it's hard to maintain an accent, but it was just a lot of fun to do it and to meet all the kids that are coming in and just get Bevcam out there on the street. And the board of directors at Bevcam was really uh I I think um pretty adamant about the fact that they wanted to open a new satellite office and they were like, "It's they wanted to be on Cabbat Street." And I said, you know, Cabbat Street's kind of expensive. you know, we could look at something, you know, maybe ran to Tool, but even park where we could get some industrial space and maybe move a bigger studio down there, but they were pretty consistent on on Cab Street. And and I I I think they were right, you
087know, and just looking at our new location here. Um, people come in and walk in all the time. We we were trying to keep in evening hours and and weekend hours so that people who may work, not don't necessar necessarily have the time can get in and utilize some of the facil facilities that we have down here. So which is it's you know and it's funny as your chair of the board which is um Paul Earl y and I sit with Paul Earl in my capacity there's a city council I sit with him on Beverly Harbor management authority and him and I often talk and when this space or actually before this space was available I remember him and I discussing looking at various areas and I would keep a scope out of you know
088possible vacancies and fortunately or unfortunately depending on what angle you were coming from fortunately there were no vacancies which meant that the downtown was vibrant, right? And sort of that speaks volumes to the, you know, Beverly Main Street work that they've done, you know, the economics, you know, down, you know, bringing the people downtown as well as, you know, the, you know, chamber of commerces and what have you. But, you know, there were some spaces a little further out of the downtown closer to my business and they were too far out. And interestingly is this space came vacant and my restaurant was being considered for another operation and I called the landlord up here and I said hey and he's from Wuben I believe I said you have a space opening the vitamin shop's leaving
089I would love to you know consider the space and you know he said well you know we got already you know a food shop here I don't want to compete with them and of course I had mentioned it to Paul and I think Paul was also looking at it right and so it it's interesting how it kind came together and it is great. Which also from my selfish standpoint when you were working on this project at the very early at very early stages like literally it was still moving shelving units. I came knocking and walked into the front door and said, "Hey Rob, I got a proposition for you and maybe a community partnership. You know, we got this new organization called Beverly 400 Plus." Yep. And I said, um, I just spoke with some
090people up in Gloucester. They just did their, um, celebration commemoration. They had a nice downtown location. We don't have the ability to spend money for that. They were able to get one of the banks to donate spaces. I said, but you got a great location. I don't even want a lot of it. I want a little area so that we can put some swag and have people some visibility. And you were quick to jump on the idea. And of course, you know, then we were looking as who do we have to become part of the board and I didn't want to overburden you. And then of course, um, lo and behold, you're on the board. Yeah. And, you know, your function on the board has really been extremely helpful. Like people don't really like, you
091know, we got the chair of the uh, arts committee, the events committee, the historic committee, but the reality is it's it's the functionality of the G, you know, the Gmail account that you set up. talk a little bit about what you've done besides that little even actually I got to say this I remember texting you to get some information and I wish I could remember what it was about and you said I'll get oh it was the podcast that we've been doing with Lindsay Bach and I needed to get it so we could post it on our website and you were heading in for surgery which I think was the first I had heard but you managed to get it for me I will give you accolades for that you did get it to us
092uh regardless of the fact that you were going in for surgery I think it was on your arm on that one. And of course, I think the second time I we we you know, we reached out to you as you were going in for your heel. So, yeah. But anyways, I you know, it's it is a a labor of love to work with you guys on Beverly 400. You know, I'm as I said, a new person, new transplant to Beverly, uh and learning a little bit about the history of it, uh and just working with you guys. Um I didn't want to disappoint. So, I actually I had come down and I think I grabbed my computer so I could finish the editing and get that up because I know that Lindsay had had just
093done the second one I think with Al and I'm like I So, I was up in Vermont and I'm editing it out and getting it pumped out. So, it's great. I I think that you know part of the what you know I've been able to bring to the the committee is new media and thinking about you know so we were I mean originally I did work a lot on the on the Google account so that we could have a YouTube channel and stuff like that and host that so we do have a YouTube so we can host the stuff there because the idea was that even after we're done there'll be this whole uh archive of video that talks about the history and the celebrations that we did. So that took forever. I mean, Google
094nonprofits was just like I think it was two or three months of me trying to figure out and waiting for the next uh approval thing. But when that was done, we were able to start producing some some content. So, we convinced Lindsay that she'd be a great host. So, you and Lindsay did the first episode of it and now we've got three. I think we got a few more coming up, but and we sort of talked about each one will be a different topic, you know. So, you know, we're going to do history, we're going to do finances, you know, I want to do something on on the plus. You know, we we we had really some really some of the first discussions we had at that committee was like, what does the plus mean?
095Everyone thought I had some that was just off the mark of why I kept saying plus what Todd plus what Todd, right? That was the whole thing at that very first inception of the meeting is kind of organ. I mean, this organization's only been around for 19 months. I know. Think about the amount of work we've done in such a short period of time. The energy of these 15 people I'll volunteer on top of it, Rob. I mean, look at none of us get paid for this. We just do it because we love Beverly. Well, and that's what I was talking about the the community of Beverly, you know, that these people will step up. I you were telling me the Gloucester hired staff. It's 75,000 they spend. There's no such thing on the Beverly
096400. It's all volunteers that are out there doing the work, you know, spending the time. And so, it's great to be a part of that and learn and meet the people and know more about the community. So, I'm really appreciative of the fact that I get to be there with you guys. And and speaking of the media contents, I mean, you have created some things that we had discussed and even Liz, you know, who's on your staff, she's sort of kind of brought the idea of the podcast to look at. I told you I'm I I am old school. I really I still read a newspaper. You're not a podcast. No, I I don't I I had to get the podcast when you sent it. I had to look on the link so I could
097watch them. And it took me several months before I watched any of them, even my own. And it was finally one of the other board members like, "You really should watch them." I go, "You're right. I should, but I just it's it's finding time to action. I know it's really supposed to be a listening thing. Yeah. But I wanted to also look at it, right? And so we're able to put that contents. It's, you know, and I look at Salem 400 plus because they're commemorating, celebrating the same year. Now, however the state decided to designate each city and town as when they were founded, incorporated, became a town. So I that's not for my argument to have, but 1626 was the year it was designated. Yeah. And so we're celebrating, commemorating with them, which also
098puts us to a little bit of a challenge with the plus part, right? So we know the plus for those who don't know it's to recognize that before the English settlers were here and you know that they were the indigenous people but we were technically part of Salem and Salem has done extensive work um on recognizing the various tribes Native Americans that were here um chiefs for that matter and and Beverly I think sort of we're kind of just going to have to grab onto their coattails because I don't want to try to rewrite their history because our history is their history and their history is in that aspect. But I also want to make sure that we're recognizing it through some festival or commemorative event. And that's still to be determined. And and I
099got to tell you, it's been one of the challenges as trying to find people like we have someone from Ender College who's the diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging person or the equivalent who's on our board and she's having, you know, she's having to work hard to help us find our own person. Um, but I think someone from our own board may have found someone finally and I'm hoping will come to fruition with, you know, building out an activity or an event of some sort to Yeah. properly commemorate it. And I I I you know, I think it's wonderful that the committee is doing its work to try to to recognize that indigenous population that was here. Absolutely. I you know, I'm a history buff and I enjoy reading about the history of this area. I actually
100have ancestors from this area. I'm a descendant of one of the Salem witches. There you go. Rebecca Nurse. So, you know, learning about that, her daughter married a Russell and they moved up to Vermont and my grandmother was a Russell all the way down the line. So, it's a it's a a rich history of just learning about Look at that. You ended up on this side of the bridge, although you have significance to Dan, right? The Rebecca nurse is over there and history. I think it seems as everyone on this committee has an expertise of some sort, but the two things most of them have as well is a love for the city and its history, right? And I think that's what we all bring to the table. Um, sadly none of us can be
101fired. Um, which is also, you know, it's fun. I mean, really, it is. It's, you know, our first meeting, I don't remember if you recall, you know, we all got together and I don't even remember if it was at I think it was at the restaurant we had our first meeting, I think. So, yeah. And I said, "Look at look at the door. Leave your, you know, we're all type A personalities. Leave your ego there and your agendas. let's come together, work our tails off, and bring a great event to this city that can, you know, really enjoy it and and be proud of it, right? And just speaking, it's looking like it's going to be a great year. I mean, looking at some of the events that are coming up, I mean, everything that
102I'm looking at on the calendar, like I know this just like I'm really excited just to be in 2026 and seeing some of these things, the work that we the committee's been doing, putting together with the wall coming in to recognize the military history to uh just the whole thing going down at at Lynch Park with the the recognizing the family and so it's super exciting. Yeah, we have a lot of events going on and a lot of community partners. I mean, Bevcam's going to be is a big community partner with us. Main Street right now, I mean, we started a new event last year in December, which was the first event where Beverly 400 plus and Beverly Main Street collaboratively went together and we did the memory tree, which then also brought the veterans
103in right down at Odell Park and and it was also trying to help stimulate some economic activity down there. So, it was and you know, they're doing some other things down there, but that was the first that we all worked together to build and bring out. And you know, as we've all said as a committee is look at we're here till 26. We may be here a little after in 27 to dissolve ourselves, but what do we leave behind as a legacy? Like we're going to have a yearlong I mean every month has some sort of an event. 95% of them have a historic significance to it. And we need to always remind ourselves, you know, when we think of history, especially in this area, we're thinking about revolutionary colonial time because we're celebrating our
104250th anniversary of the founding of the United States and the fact that Beverly has a significant role in the founding of the American Navy. And I will still lay claim over Marblehead because we're celebrating first. But the battle's this year. It happened in October of 1775. But you know, it's Whiteall, New York, don't you? Yeah, I heard that's somewhere in one of those and there's a couple other places like I I don't Pennsylvania I think was the other one because I've driven through Whiteall that's how you get to like the rest of the country from Vermont is you go down through Whiteall and every time you go birthplace of the United States Navy and then when I got to Beverly they're like we're the birthplace of the United States Navy I'm like what are you
105talking about it's it's Whiteall and there so I guess there are some claims so I guess I I guess we can we can lay claim before that I believe we were before them too. Yeah. And you just to tie in, you know, I have a a quick anecdote about the the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. Um, if you ever been to the one in Washington DC, it's it's amazing. It's just I went down there for the first time and I decided to look up to see if there were any Chapman there. So, I did and I discovered uh there is a Robert L. Chapman, which is my name, who was born on March 3rd, 1943. I was born on March 3rd, 1963. Wow. In North Carolina. I was born in North Carolina. And it struck me
106that this kid, if I had been born 20 years earlier, my name could have been up on that board. So this it was chilling, of course. And you know, you just threw the good grace of God, you know, I was born in 63 and I didn't go off to Vietnam, but so many kids that did. So that history and recognizing is, you know, it touches everybody. You know, I know that Jim's been working on some of the of the historical aspects, telling stories about the history, and we don't want to lose that because you your your ancestors. I like as I said, I'm a history buff. Your ancestors, the people where you come from um is just some great stories and you don't want to lose those and I think that this is really one
107of the important work that Beverly 400 is doing. It is and you know I mean the Vietnam traveling veterans wall you know we were working uh with Endicott College is one of our uh sponsors but as well as a part you know look at you know we as a committee will go out looking for sponsorships of some sort but again when we go to these institutions these organizations these businesses it's not always well we know what we need we need money and volunteers to fund and put these events on but how do we work as a community partner Because that's what Beverly is great about. It's a community partnership. You have the richest of the rich of the city and some of the, you know, less fortunate in the city, but they all collaboratively work
108together and we have organizations like Beverly Bootstraps and Family Promise where we do really help each other. It really is a helping hand in this that, you know, it's it's the city that identifies as a town and I kidly say doesn't want to become like Salem, right? You know, because we have that townlike feeling still. Um, and it is great. And the Vietnam wall coming here is look at we as each generation as starts aging out, we're lo, you know, they're they're they're passing on. Um, and I think for me it's, you know, my my father, my my my father-in-law are both veterans. Um, you know, they're in their early 80s and, you know, how much longer do they have? But I, you know, I, you know, I've been a very big proponent of the,
109you know, the veterans council as a city councelor that those was one of, this was one of the things I wanted to make sure that we could recognize in our history. And it was Look, it it was a black mock in our history. These these soldiers came back to our country, you know, and they weren't welcomed back to this country. And I, you know, and to me it always in my head said, well, this is kind of a way of almost amending that, making amends um through our history. And the colonial piece, like you said, we're going to recognize that in the 400 plus part, but you know, it it goes a span of 400 years. you know, the the uh coming center now, which was once the United was built by Italian immigrants and
110it was the largest concrete structure in in in the world. Oh, really? You know what I mean? And so, you know, of that nature. And so, you know, we have periods in time that we make sure we need to recognize even our own history with slavery. And, you know, some of our forefathers in this, you know, this city or town at the time, you know, they own slaves and it's not to bury our heads and not to recognize it, but it's to learn from it, right? Absolutely. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Is that the absolutely the same? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I you know, I would just add uh you know, having served on this committee and I know you you tell everybody that it's the whole work of the
111committee, but Todd, you're a great driving force and you know, having you there, making sure we're all on task and doing it. I think uh I'm appreciative of the fact that you're there and doing it. So, I I would kudos to you for pulling it all together. And I know you're a humble guy who's going to say it's all the work of everybody, but it is. So, you know, Rob, I will first say thank you. I've been told just simply say thank you, Todd, and I will. But I also have to carry this it is really it's a group of all of us. It it is all of us taking our experiences, expertise, our ideas. There's no bad there's no bad ideas. Yeah. There is never there's been and I've come up with some last
112minute ideas and I throw it the at the um you know the committee or the board and they look at me and they're like you always do the store start because it just pops in my head at that minute and instead of holding it and maybe writing it down and waiting for the next meeting let's throw it out there right now because time is of the essence now I mean the reality is is it's now we're June I can't believe it we got less than six months yeah right and and think about it um you know this year so last in June 3rd we did the uh partnership sponsorship with the cab to retire its marquee. Again, it's a time in history and we did that and that was another event that we did and
113we'll start doing other events. Um we got the um trail run that we'll be doing over hopefully at uh Marine Farms and then as well as the golf outing on October 20th. Those are fundraising events because we need to raise funds to put these events on. But um you know working with Main Street, working with you, it's been a lot of it's it's been a lot easier to get these things done thankfully. Well, and just to mention fundraising, I think there's an opportunity. You can go to the website and and contribute, right? There's a there is code. Yep. So don't forget that part. We do it does take money to do this and so I hope that if you are able to contribute whatever you can. Yep. It doesn't matter. No no no donations small
114or large. Uh you know it's www.beyb Beverly Berl LY 400 the number.org and you know there there's sponsorships there's uh from 400 enough gives you a larger sponsorship but there's simple just a matter of $50 or or $100 and it is a tax exempt charitable organization. You can write it off. It's a 501c3 so you can contribute and it'll help you with your taxes next year. Absolutely. And it helps us to commemorate and celebrate. We will be mailing something out in the mail with so keep an eye on your water bill. Yeah. So the water bill will be getting in the next starting August, we'll start sending out similar to what the Beverly Homecoming does, you know, explaining and for an ask for those who may not be comfortable with online donations. I get it.
115I truly do because um not everyone's either computer literate or they're afraid of a scam of some sort. So this way it gives people the traditional ways of giving money to us, writing a check. Um, so we're hoping, like I said, it's, you know, we have a very robust schedule uh for next year. We're going to expand the homecoming by two weeks. Speaking of the, you know, Vietnam Wall is the kickoff of this event. Um, and then we have the Garden Fest. And the Garden Fest, interesting, is a newer event. It's a new event which is being chaired by Lindsey Bart. And here's a an event that we're hoping with the help of Beverly Main Street and as well as the city of Beverly where we recognize because Beverly is a garden city. It is
116clearly stated in its literature. So I'm just working on my Massachusetts accent. Did you say garden? Garden. I you know I guess I was told Rob I don't even have a Massachusetts accent. I have an Everett accent. So even even being from Boston area you know I'm a transplant as well. I moved here from Everett. And I'll talk to people like, "You got an accent." I go, "I grew up in Massachusetts. What are you talking about?" "No, no, you got an accent." I go, "Well, it's an Everett accent, I guess." You know, I don't know if it's It is fun to hear. I mean, I I love hearing the the We don't have an accent. We're here first. Yeah. Remember, we were here first. So, I always tell people that's remember, you know, you can
117come from Texas or Florida or Connecticut or, you know, Vermont. Vermont. Got to do the Vermont accent. I've never I don't know. Oh, is it much of a Vermont accent? Oh, freaking a right. Oh, well that's that's more of a Canadian than a No. Well, you get that you get that Kebeekqua influence from up there, you know. So, there's certainly, you know, we will hear the French Canadian, you know, but it definitely the Vermont access is pulling from from that Canadian accent. That's the Green Mountain State. We, you know, again, we welcome you here with open goat hill. Yeah. But, uh, you know, again, you know, we it's um it will be interesting. I And I I'll ask you right now is as we move forward and we start getting the swag and um we
118start getting various things being created, you know, is there an opportunity where we could we got a little over the area right in that window we've been talking about for a while. So as soon as it gets there, we're getting there. We're waiting for it. Betty Spack, who's one of our board members, fortunately is what she does for a living. Yeah. She she works with the uh you know, Fortune 500 companies. She's a local company, BDA, right across the street from this area here. And um I've known Betty since the time of the Rioside Civic Association when I was the president there. And she was instrumental in helping us to turn us around financially with the um getting us very, you know, lowcost quality things. And we're hoping to do the same thing for the
119Beverly 400 plus is to be able to, you know, use this as a another means of getting funds in to pay for these. You know, our budget for this year-long event is $435,000, which in comparative to 400 plus, who did theirs in 23, they raised $1.3 million, but they're like you had statement was 375,000 of that went towards um professional staff which they that's what the direction they went in. I almost look at our board and we're all professional staff. I mean you look as you know we got you as an executive director of an organization. Lindseay Bath was an executive director of Main Street for a period of time. I'm a business owner. I'll tell you like we all have that sort of business type experience but as well as look at I I
120I pride myself of being a PTO president for 10 years and I look at every if everything that I am a part of I say all right I got a bunch of volunteers who are making not a single thing and how do I keep them engaged you know and that's what we need to do right and so of course and I said this to Lindsay is sometimes it's the bribery of food I always say food food makes it food always makes it, you know, so with having the restaurant, especially from your place, that's good food. We're fortunate with that. And then Al's always been good. Al's stepped up and he'll um he'll get he'll get some food from one of the local establishments. And so we're able to, you know, feed us at least during
121the uh 6 to 8 hour fourth Tuesday of every month. One of my favorite things about Beverly is the food. It's the restaurants. It's just And we do we have a we're a mecca of restaurants, right? And you're bringing stuff like satellites for like A and B, you know, they're down by Northstation, but they brought up to Beverly and then I think uh Regina Bas now coming out of Rose. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and and that's the beauty like you said, Beverly Interesting. You look at it, right? We're a garden city, so we're going to recognize that aspect of it as the Garden Fest. Um but we're also an arts cultural center, right? We have no particular order. We have Kat Lockam off off Broadway or off off Cabbat rather. Northshore uh Northshore Music Theater.
122We have Monzerat College of Art. We are an art city which we need to really really work towards that. I mean I know the city many years ago with with Main Street was working towards that. Artsfest sort of came out of that, you know, the you know activating the downtown the block party and the downtown trick-or-treating. The first downtown trick-or-treating, I will never forget it. It was like Frogger because when it was first started at the inception, it was by Main Street and you put a simple, you put an orange and if you wanted to volunteer, you put your, you know, sign up that you were, you know, working with the U main streets to give out candy, but the road wasn't closed. Yeah. And so you'd be going back and forth dodging cars. Unfortunately,
123as um as this event grew over time and I I I want to say it was Mayor Cahill who ended up closing the road down and now uh you've witnessed it. There's thousands of kids now that enjoy it. You know, it's a family event and economically speaking, I can speak for my own restaurant. You know, I'm outside of the downtown area closer to the Salem Beverly Bridge, but there's not a night when that Halloween bash happens that I'm not getting reservations for families to get pizza afterwards. And so that's kind of what the idea of these events are to be family fun events, but as well to be an economic driver for downtown businesses, Ranchul included. Well, shout out to Beverly Main Streets for the events that they do. I know today just seeing with
124the activity out there on on Cabbage Street with all the artists and I know the block party's coming up and then it's just a great organization to be a partner with uh we we love those guys. you know my hopes and I always you know again talking from as an organization from Beverly 400 plus when we had a discussion on what what do we leave behind as as an organization now we can leave actual infrastructure behind we can do a time capsule and you know there's a talk of possibly a pollinator garden down at Beverly Commons and as well as the possible project at Independence Park to enhance that whole aspect of the battle between the h and the nautus as well as the reading of the Declaration of Independence was uh held there. But
125um you know what do we leave behind as organizations whether you know leaving historic Beverly a better stronger organization as well as Main Street you know and you know where Main Street's been charged with the downtown area of really economic driving force. It really has been also part of the arts cultural piece. you know, they've managed that, you know, like I said, we got Monzerat College there. Um, and it's my hopes that with the energy as well as the, you know, board members who have had, you know, whether they're affiliate with various arts part of this, you know, in their lives that we just did Porchfest last week, you know, I just just donate. We did Porchfest last week, which was in Riyside, and it was it was fantastic. Even though we had, you know,
126that this is the 13th Saturday of rain. Yeah. Right. So, we've broken records. Uh the forecasters are excited. Um if it's not a if it's it's not a Saturday, if it's not raining now, but it rained out last week. Yeah. But I got to tell you, I drove around and it didn't really open up until 2 o'clock. And so the way the arts committee with Lindsay was they did blocks of 12 to 1, one to two, and then two to three. And it was 25 bands hosted by 25 locations and they had tents up or they were on the porch and they were well prepared but the crowd that it was attracting was phenomenal and even though when it poured out people just popped their umbrellas up it became a party. Yeah. You know so
127it's been great and you know interesting having it in you know Riy side um you know so we got two broken bridges. Yep. And so, you know, recognizing what can and can't happen, you know, it was nice to see the vehicular traffic has been lessened for this particular event. So people were in the streets, you know, listening to the music and although their block went may have been for an hour, you know, these hosts end up making it a bigger event for themselves, you know, and the idea is I had talked with one of a member of the Hastings House or the Beverly Farms Committee over there is they heard when that we were doing this porchfest in Ryside and they were a little jealous, envious, right? I don't want to say jealous because they
128do a lot, but I'll say envious. And it's interesting, you know, for me, you know, how did we do it? And look at I think, you know, several members are are riiders. I'm a riider, you know, that's my neighborhood. Um, we had the, you know, association was well organized, so it seemed to make sense of doing it that way. And Ryside is a walkable neighborhood still. And it was successful and we're hoping for next year. And seeing that the farms acted that way, that means well there's interest throughout the whole city because next year is when we want to do it. Yep. you know, and that's hopefully when, you know, Bevc camp can be a part of that as well. And, you know, speaking of the arts, talking about the music that's here in Beverly,
129you know, it's there's I'm been impressed at just how much musical talent there is on the on the Northshore and particularly in Beverly. You know, there's just groups that can play. You know, I I met Estelle's husband who's part of and I was like, he's in my neighborhood at Go. She plays the saxophone, I believe. Oh, does she? Yeah. There's so much talent, you know, you just you find out things that people do. So, and the Porchfest is just a great idea having these people come out and play and letting people come through and hey, I didn't even know you guys played. And so, that's awesome. Yeah, it is. And it exactly. It will be a great opportunity for neighbors to get to know each other. Yeah. You know, I mean, with all technology, we
130tend to bury our heads in tablets and computers and our smartphones and, you know, sometimes we miss that disconnect. And that was what was the beauty of seeing it in Ryside where seeing the neighbors walking the streets and getting to see each other and bump into each other, whatever, you know, whatever the case may be. And that was that was part of the energy of it. Despite the rain, it was still a fantastic event. Like today, I mean, despite the rain, you know, downtown Cab Street is packed. It is, you know, and it's great to see people walking around. It's nice to see, you know, these vendors. These are small vendors. These are mom and pops who do it as a hobby and are able to sell their, you know, their goods on the street.
131Yep. It's there's great stuff out there, too. So, I think if you're out there and you haven't been down yet, get in the car, try to find some place to park nearby and get down here and uh Secret you can park at City Hall. Oh, is that the secret? Yeah, it is. The city hall parking lot is available in the weekend and you know maybe maybe you too can park in the mayor's space. I did not. And the library No, the library is library is open. I mean look you you don't want to discourage people go you know you don't want to have people not going because it's being filled but it's a it's a public parking lot right? You know but uh you look at we have a lot of municipal spaces that are
132downtown. Uh, you know, interestingly, it's funny, you know, being in Beverly and we talk about parking being a challenge. Is that accent? Um, it's funny that, um, if you go into Boston, you don't mind parking a mile away, two miles away and walking to your destination, but when you're in Beverly, if you're not like within hundreds of yards, you keep driving, you know, and it's amazing. But we do have, you know, I mean, look, it's just finding parking on off streets and even then you got to be careful of not invading the neighborhoods, right? Because it is, look at this part of the city is the oldest part of the city, right? And it's been around forever. Um, so we got to be mindful of our neighbors. But 400 years probably. Yeah. Right. Well, at
133least then it was all fields, right? But, uh, you look at we had, uh, you know, your neighborhood was very vibrant. Think about it. Well, people from a historic state the Hava the Manhattan project was over in your neighborhood. Oh, yeah. You didn't know that? I think I do remember something about that. Yeah. So, the metal hybride was over there. It's now Sedna. Yep. And so, it's been cleaned up according to the federal government and but that was where that took part in the Manhattan project that helped to build a nucleon. Um, you know, I I kidding. I was at an event in your neighborhood today to rededicate our park, Gillis Park, which um you know there were a lot of Gold Hill people who served in several of them not coming back from World
134War II rather. And I I was talking to some of the neighbors there and some of the names and I said, "Well, I said, you know, look, you had, you know, you had the Manhattan project here, but I don't know, maybe the uranium here has preserved many of these people like you have like the Mirandes, you know, the mother's been here, she's still alive, 101 years old. were 100, you know, like longevity in that area. So, I'd say something in the water, but I don't know if I want to. It's a great neighborhood. You know, I really enjoy it. I, you know, I I kid, I had my nephew up in Vermont who kept asking me like, "Rob, how are things in Salem?" And I'm like, "I don't live in Salem. I live in Beverly.
135I can see Salem from my apartment." So, uh, but I am so, uh, I am a proud Goatill resident. It's a fantastic neighborhood. First of all, there's not much traffic there. People don't kind of go over there. They're coming down 1A headed for the bridge. Unless you're going into that neighborhood. Yeah. There's unless you know the back roads you're not taking. Yeah. And then but I can get anywhere. Yeah. You mean in, you know, if I want to go across the bridge into Salem or if I get to downtown? Well, let me ask you this. How has it been the past two years with the national grid transmission line? How's that? I, you know, I I'm a big fan of upgrading infrastructure. So, I am always appreciative of the fact that we're getting So, I'm
136not one of those people who like, you know, I'm like, "Go ahead, rip the street up, do it as quickly as possible." Yeah. Uh and and let's get some infrastructure in place because, you know, you need to update that stuff for for as we move on. You know, you got stuff that's antiquated. You got to get in there. So, um no, it hasn't been that bad at all. You know, I can always find I always find parking. Don't let your neighbors know and hear that. I think they'll disagree with you. It could be, but it's, you know, I recognize the fact that we you got to get in there and do the work. You know, it's just it's just needed. Well, and it's nice too is, you know, where you do live, you know, you're
137so close to the waterfront, you know, we get Glover's Warf. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's all been done over, you know, to the credit of the Harbor Management Authority and and our own, you know, DP, you know, Department of Public Service, the work that they've done, you know, it looks fantastic. we get, you know, you that can be debated because of the parking problems of having, you know, the new restaurant on the waterfront. Um, not that that's what makes a waterfront because we have some natural beauty there, right? We have Dane Street Beach and Independence Park and Lynch Park just in this area alone. Yeah. Um, you know, as a Vermont boy who spent most of his life over in the mountains, to be a half a block from the water, I I'm like, I
138I really do think I could spend the rest of my life on by the water. Yeah. You know, look, we got Prospect Hill. There's a, you know, so there's a hilly area. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to get a little hike in it, but it's it's not a it's not a mountain like Green Mountain. No, no, it's not a mountain. Um I I totally agree. Well, you know, I grew up in Stow, which is Mount Manil is the tallest mountain in Vermont, which is not very tall. It's, you know, it's 4200 peak. You know, you're talking to a person who grew up in Everett that basically is all asphalt. um my neighborhood there was a little area that we called the valley because it was overgrown trees and shrubbery and stuff. The real reality of
139it was a uh dirt road to a person's driveway that was you know so many thousand yards or something like that but you know it was the forest and really was just probably just someone's backyard but as a kid that was our green space. No, I mean I grew up the back of my house was a cow pasture. Yeah, we didn't have that. So I out in the woods running around barefoot, you know, into the trees. But yeah, we didn't have that. And it's it's a nice thing, you know, but you know, didn't get the diversity and the in the arts and the things that you do when you're down here. You just kind of Yeah. I mean, Beverly Well, look, you have Ben and Jerry's up in Vermont, right? Ben and Jerry's all over
140the world now. Well, that's true. But it did start up there. It did start up there. Yeah. The macar you do have the uh the marble factory up there, right? Yeah, I'm thinking of the things of my trips as a kid with my dad. Well, there's the granite, but I but there is marble in southern Vermont. I just learned this on one of some documentary I watched where they're down there pulling these slabs of marble out in Dorset, Vermont that I was just incredible. But yeah, the trip to the granite place in Barry. You have some things up there. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Vermont. It's a It's a wonderful place, but I you know, staff got me a new uh a new sign. It said home and it
141had Vermont and Beverly on it. So Oh, nice. Yeah. Well, you know, you look at Beverly and most people do realize, I think, is especially if they hear the planes and now that we have some of these bigger planes coming in with the fact, you know, because we have some companies up in Cherry Hill and down over coming center. But I always say is Beverly has basically the same amenities that Boston has. Think about it, right? I mean, in regards to we have an airport, we have a waterfront with the harbor management authority. We have the trains. We have four train stops. You have an ex, you know, many ways. Well, one of them is no longer though. Which one? So, prize crossing, I believe, is no longer. Oh, really? So, you get the farms,
142Monzerat, North Beverly, and downtown. Right. So, so those is I thought I didn't know. There was five. Yeah. And then I think we have the second or third most train crossings in the state. There's lots of those which Well, being in Goat Hill, I know which streets go under or over. Right. As opposed to which one have the signs. Right. Right. And then, you know, obviously I don't know if you've had any, you know, now that you're back driving after your injuries and with the Kernwood Bridge being uh closed for a period of time getting in what I've witnessed because I'm coming from Ryside to go to my restaurant in, you know, over into the downtown area and I have to kind of plan my day not to hit the McFerson traffic, the MC McFerson
143drive traffic, right? which basically runs where the new cent's being built stop and shop and you see the cars all the way down around Elliot Street going up there certain times of the day. Obviously, I'm sure the neighbors up in your neighborhood are not happy trying to get there unless they go down street. So, you got to learn those little side streets. Well, from now I go down to the water and come down that side down the water street instead of, you know, because I've been stuck in that merson. Right. It's like it's crazy. There's no traffic light there. No, it's just a fourway stop. I was surprised. I think I did it at like 3:30 the other day in the afternoon. I was like, "Oh, I thought I would beat it, but it was
144there." Yeah, it Well, sometimes you do it. There is a hit or miss on that. I I've made it a um thought in my head that I don't touch that area like 3:15 till about 5:30. It seems to be the the right time of the traffic in that area. Yeah. So, well, I think we we're just about out of time though. Wow, look at that. And we sit that with Blue Vine. It was great sitting and talking with you. Fantastic. It was great catching up with you. Yeah. Oh, shake. Oh, no. You can shake your hand because you have a good hand still. Right hand works. Yes. Well, thanks for joining us. Uh, my name is Todd Ratando. Um, I'm happy to have had Rob with us today. Kind of just reminiscing over what's going
145to be happening, what we've done, what's going forward, uh, some of the past, where Rob's come from. Well, hopefully he'll stay injuryfree um, for a while for the next year. Anyways, we need him. I'm selfishly needing him for the next year and a half. Stay tuned. We have more podcast people coming up. I think gardening with hot people's up next. So, we'll be here for the rest of the afternoon. All right. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Thank you. So we can start anytime we want. Hello. Hello. Are we live? Live live. Um live from Bevcam. Live from Bevcam. Uh welcome to Gardening for Hot People. We are at Artsfest. Yes. Artsfest Beverly in Beverly, Massachusetts. We're at
146Bevcam where we always record. And currently from 10:00 to 4:00 today, uh, Artsfest is happening. And what is Artsfest? Artsfest is a festival of arts. Uh, they shut down all of Cabry and we set up we they set up 150 different artists, makers, vendors all along the street and it's a party. We've got music and food and handmade art and the whole town comes out to support. So, we thought this would be a good time to do a live AMA for the podcast. We heard Becky said that she was gonna come because it will be fun. Um, and uh even if uh we don't have a ton of people come through because this is a brand new thing for some questions. Um, so our podcast uh we usually don't do we'll pick a topic or
147we'll have a guest and we'll talk about gardening. We'll talk about climate. We'll talk about um how those two things interact. And the main thing is we tell you how to do things the right way. Um which there are like many many different ways to garden correctly. Um there's like you know it's one of those one of those things that you can do and do correctly um that you don't have to worry about like messing up too because plants are very forgiving. Um, but we try to help you like understand like the background of plants like you know what is a native plant, what's an invasive plant, like those things actually have like real definitions. Um, and you want to put the right plants in the right place because then you you know your hardearned
148money goes to the plants that are going to survive and not just, you know, a bunch of junk in your garden and praying. If there's one thing I've learned from doing this podcast with you or even just having you as a friend, it's that it's gardening is one big experiment. And so it's really helping me to shift my perspective about it so I don't get too precious um in the garden when I like because it's going to bum you out. I think there's going to be things that bum you out and you just have to move on to the next thing and try again maybe uh in a different spot or next year, you know. And then also patience is a big part of it too. What I always like to tell people is that
149um in terms of plants and if they pass um they have if they unal alive themselves different idea of life. So plants will actually you know they'll be dead and then they'll decompose and then they'll go back into the earth and then they'll come back up as a new plant through nutrients. It's a totally different life cycle. We have our first question from a live listener. What's going on? enjoying the arts. Oh, nice. While they colored this Oh my gosh, she colored a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. Um, you can talk right into that microphone. Actually, you can pull that up if you want. Walking around with a hot dog. There you go. Walking around with a hot dog is This is the essence of arts fest. Yeah, this is the way to live through a
150Saturday. All right. Um, this is totally unrehearsed. That's how it should be. That's why it's awkward. You're No, you're doing great. What's your question, my friend? Uh, I I am a member, a new member. Uhhuh. And of Bevcam. Yes. Okay. Oh, wonderful. And I would like to do a podcast. I want to know what are the steps. We've got a podcast related question. By the way, this AMA can be about things other than gardening, I think. No, ask me whatever. We are versatile people. This is so This is gardening for hot people. Welcome. But that's my favorite title. Oh my god. Of all the programs. Oh my god. That means so much to us. Favoriteism. We can we can talk about how we got started cuz it's kind of fresh in our minds. Yeah, because
151we just started this year. Oh, I see the questions. They can be whatever you want. It doesn't have to be about anything. We do podcasting. So, we could talk about podcasting. So, do you have a topic that you're thinking about doing for a podcast? Because that's kind of, you know, kind of where it starts. Not sure, but I do standup comedy. Oh, and I did 15 minutes. They asked me to do 15 minutes of clean comedy. Clean. I did it, I think, three weeks ago. Was Was it fun? Did you like it? Yes, I did. Yes. Do you have a joke that you want to tell us right now? It's okay. We're putting you on the spot. Well, this is what standup comedy is. So, how about this? If you want to start a podcast,
152I think the first thing you'd need to do is to think about exactly the topic that you would like to kind of dive into. If it's going to be a comedy, call it funny, you should mention it. Oh, that's fun. I love that. So, you'd have like guests and stuff. Yeah. So, I mean, what really great about Bevcam is that really if you already have kind of a podcast setup, um Bevcam can actually help you um with recording, with editing. Um, they even do like the video portion. Um, and all you need to do is just like book some time. Um, and if you contact Bevcam, you can start a membership. And since you're already a member, you don't need to do that part. You can just set it up. Honestly, what I would recommend
153is just um laying out like an outline, like writing it out or typing it out and having it with you and then just keeping an eye on time while you do it so that you know I think the the multitasking that happens during podcasting is you kind of have to keep an eye on the time and talk about whatever you want to talk about and that's like the main skill I think you need. Does that help? So, when Cheryl and I were first starting, we immediately, we're both business owners, so we're very we're kind of type A like super organized. So we immediately started an Excel spreadsheet that we shared with each other. So that that was important when you know when having multiple people that's important but it's helpful even if you're doing it
154by yourself just so you can keep your thoughts organized. We have a tab for topics you want to talk about and then do like a template layout of um uh like what you want to talk about during the podcast so that you can stay on track. So that would be the tips that I would have during like during the podcast. Before that, Bevcam has been very helpful in getting you started before you even start the podcast. They'll they'll walk you through all of that. Well, thank you for your kindness. Yeah, of course. I am interested in gardening, but I don't own my own dirt. Oh, listen. It's hard. It's hard when you don't own your own dirt. So, you know what? That was the joke. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much.
155I really appreciate you coming and chatting with us. Who's next? We've got a whole line here. Were you going to show me something? Oh, no. Um, thank you so much. Take care. All right. So, now that we've had our dress rehearsal with our very first um question, um, can you give us your name and if where you live? That was only question one. That was question one. You're only question two. We're just starting. Well, okay. All right. So, name and where you're from, please. My name is Wayne Miller. Cool. Hey, Wayne. I'm from Beverly, Massachusetts, where I have lived for 70 years. So, I I'm a native. Oh, yeah. I think you are. You natives. You're a native. You got a native right here. I'm a native. Yeah. Been here for So, what's your question,
156Wayne? Well, I uh serve on the open space and wreck committee and I am also and I am also co-founder of Green Beverly. Oh, you're that Wayne. Okay. I I've heard of you. Yes. Well, and I no longer am on the board of Green Beverly Temporarily. I think I'll go back someday hopefully to the board, but I'm I don't serve on the board currently. And I don't know what your connection with Green Beverly is or has been or might be in the future. Maybe you want to address that. Oh, yeah. So, um I actually um so I run Plant Magic Gardens. Um it's a local gardening company. We focus on eco-conscious and native gardens. We design, install, and maintain them. Um and so I function as um a consultant for Green Beverly. Actually I work
157really closely with um with um Shelley if you know Shel. Um and so I do a lot of consulting. I actually also uh have um organized the invasive plant task force that we that's me and a bunch of very amazing volunteers. I cannot take all the credit at all. Um, I work uh with a few really amazing people who um like Becca and George and Joy who um helped us really get started and um put together some uh task force teams over this past winter. Um so we've been doing that over at JC Phillips. Um and right now we're actually discussing doing something called a biob blitz um in partnership with Grow Native. Um it's just in the planning stages, but what a biob blitz is is you actually you get a bunch of people
158who all download something like I naturalist um an app that can ID different plants and animals seek. Um yes, so seek um by I naturalist and you have everyone just go and take as many pictures of as many things as possible so you can have a much better idea of what is in a forest. Um, and the reason why we want to do that is because, um, we actually might be coming to both the open spaces committee and concom um, to talk about, you know, some longer term goals for JC Phillips because the invasive plant problem in that forest is so bad. Um, so that's that's the main thing I work on right now with Green Beverly. And then just through Plant Magic, I I answer questions. I'm one of the people that they call
159up once in a while and go, I got a question about native plants. Um, and I just like to be able to, you know, help the community, um, understand, you know, that planting native is actually really easy. Um, I've been helping out, um, Alistair with some of the, um, plantings that he's doing around uh, the community center near him on Hill Street. And, um, you know, I just answer a lot of questions for for Green Bev, actually. So, very involved with Green Beverly. No, me and Green Beverly, we're like tight. Great. Well, here's a little shameless plug then. If you go to greenbeverly.org, you can put in any question you like about anything relating to sustainability. I was the solar coach. Oh, awesome. For a while. I'm now in the solar business, so I can't
160be coach anymore. Oh, yeah. But if you go why you left the It is. I I decided I can't put more glass on more roofs by going out on my own than than what we were pursuing. Snaps for Wayne. Yes, love to hear that. I love that. greenly.org for any questions to if they're to do with composting or EVs or anything, just go there and you will get people sometimes nearly as competent as you to answer those questions. There are some really, really cool coaches and we speak on behalf of the open space and rec committee. Would love to have you come and present to us. Oh yeah, we're still looking forward to that planning stages, but you will definitely be hearing from us. Great. Thank you very much for all your your work. Thank
161you so much. Just so you know, I'm not affiliated with Plant Magic Gardens. I just come on the pod to ask her questions and to be here as the layman person to be like, "What does that mean?" But Katie is business. I am a green business. I own So much brighter candle company on Ransul. I also run the vegan market. I think you rent that building from my cousin Tom Alexander. Yes, I do. I love Tom. He's your cousin. Oh, no way. This is a small city and I've been here for a long time. He is. Yeah, I love Tom. He's really a great landlord of all the landlords, you know, that Tom is great and he's a good dear friend of mine as well as a relative. That's great. I love to hear that.
162Hi, Tom. Beverly is about the size of a thimble. Thank you again very much. Thank you. Enjoy Artsfest. All right, we have another question from Bevcam's own. Um, hi, my name is Liz and and and I work at Bevcam and I I have a question. How do I go viral? Oh, okay. Um, so, um, first you have to get really sick. Oh, we've never gone viral. We've never gone viral. I got to be honest. That's not one that I like. I mean, I think that um uh the the idea of going viral to me um matters much less than creating quality content. Um, I think a lot of people have a a want for fame. Um, which is totally fair. That's me. I would like to be famous. Yes. Um, I mean, I totally understand.
163Um, but so I don't watch this show, but um, I think a really good um, little sound bite that I saw from the commercial, you know, like Logan Paul, that little piece of crap. Um, so he he has a show with his family and one of the the little sound bites they have in the commercial that's advertising it is like the real currency in America is attention. Um, and honestly he's correct. Um, I hate to say that, but I think that if if you want to go viral, I think the main thing you need to do is do something that just catches people's attention. Okay. um the that doesn't necessarily mean that it's quality content or that it's something really valuable or that it's something even very good sometimes. Um but I think that the
164the main thing about going viral is just keeping people's interest and it doesn't have to be for long but it has to be like you know uh interesting enough that someone goes oh my god I have to share this. I think uh niche is really what you're looking for here. niche, maybe even never done before, something interesting, educational, funny. Um, I would say value actually also. Yes, I would say value. Um, the thing about virality though is that it most of the time it's going to be temporary. So, it's like once you get that one viral thing, whether it's on social media or whatever it is that you're doing, um then you feel the pressure to keep it up and uh continue with that and it's almost impossible to um Liz just ran outside, just
165left us. The beauty of live podcasting. Anyway, for the listeners who are still here, um I I don't know. That's just my opinion. I feel like going viral is kind of like um It's a It's a lost cause. You get it once, it becomes addicting and then you can't really achieve it again unless you're like a rich and famous person. Did you catch all that, Liz? Yeah. Did you get all that? I did. Thank you. That was really helpful. Oh my gosh. Hello. Hello. We have another live question. I was just pulled right off the street. Oh yeah. Can you tell us your name and uh where you from? U My name is Lindsay Bar. I am from Beverly and um I guess I have a gardening question because I literally just put all my
166plants in yesterday which I feel like it's already late. Am I late? No vegetables. We're still planting so you're good. We're doing a lot of planting. I'm like late. What? No. Um the planting season um has also uh lengthened in our area due to that beautiful thing called climate change. Yes. So um you actually you have plenty of time. Fantastic. Okay. Great. Um, so I have everything in the ground. How the hell do I keep all the weeds out? What should I be putting on my on the floor of my garden? Ah, yes. Um, so the depending how big is your garden? Um, is it like a 4 by8 raised bed? Is it like It's like um it's about half the size of this room. Okay. So, it's for the people listening. Yeah. Yeah. So,
167um I would say that's probably what like 30 by 15 or something like that. All right. So, it's it's big. It's a good guy. Um, so the thing about weeds, um, is that if you don't pull them, um, and they go to seed, you'll just end up with a bigger issue, right? Which I'm sure you're finding. Yeah. Um, number one, don't weed whack them. Um, that's something that people do. Um, and what happens is if it's already gone to seed, you're effectively just giving them like a really good way to spread. Okay. Um, and uh, the the main thing you want to do is is preventative maintenance. Okay? So, if you have a garden that big, you want to lock down like a whole Saturday and weed that garden and then I would mulch it.
168Um, if it's a new garden, which it sounds like it is, it's fresh, it's new, newish. Um, so you're going to have a lot of space between the plants. Um, so while those plants kind of get bigger and fill in and, you know, do that thing where they fill in enough that you don't have to worry about weeds, um, you do have to have something on the ground to prevent them from crowding out the things that you've planted. Okay. Um, so you're already doing something right then because I did put some mulch down. You did put mulch down. And I also bought a hay bale because it was cheaper than mulch and I just threw a bunch of hay around all my asparagus. Yeah. Great. So that's salt mare. Um, I don't know what kind
169of hay. Um, so it salt mar tends to not have any seeds in it. Did you take it from Pepe? That's really from under him. Oh my god, poor Peppy. He's no snacks. Um, but yeah, so I mean when you use hay, like you want to make sure you're using I mean I like salt marsh hay. If you just use regular hay, sometimes there are seeds in the hay. So you may have inadvertently be just gave it more gave it. All right. Love it. Um I mean mulches can be, you know, they can be chipped leaves, they can be chipped wood. Um, I actually tell people, you know, as you're weeding, as long as it doesn't have seeds on it, some weeds you can just pull and like throw on the ground and then it
170kind of, you know, starts to create its own mulch. But really, you have to be sure that there's no seeds and it's not like an aggressive weed that's going to rroot just from laying on the ground. How do you know what the seeds of a certain weed looks look like? Well, if it's already flowered, um, like if you've already seen flowers, there's a good chance that there's already seeds because seeds form after the flowers, um, after they've been pollinated. Um, so seeds a lot of times, um, like for grasses, you're going to see like little the little tails sticking up, um, or you'll see, um, if it's flowers, um, like little little pods almost at the tops of the stems. Um, so if you already did some mulch and it's um the weeds are popping
171up. I mean, you might also just have like a lot of weeds in your seed bankank. Um, so you might have to spend some time weeding. If you're if you're still finding that, you know, if you weed a whole bunch one Saturday morning and then they're all just back the next week. Um, my favorite thing to do is put down um uh either cardboard or uh pet paper weed blocker. Yep. Um, and we have actually used um like if you just go to like your local hardware store like the the painters paper that they put down that like craft paper in a roll. Okay, it's very sim it's maybe it's not like you know like certified organic paper but it works. Um you can put that down. Um and then you can put mulch on
172top. Um so then you're what you're doing then is suppressing that seed bankank. Yeah. Um so then really you would only have to worry about weeds when you dig a hole and plant a plant and kind of disturb the soil a little bit. Um, so you'll see in our garden sometimes, um, it'll be like pretty free of weeds except for like right where we've planted some stuff and then then it's a lot easier to just go through and like we just around the new plantings. Yep. Um, because you know the rest of it is like really suppressed. Um, good places to get mulch. Um, if you are having weed issues, I would not recommend getting city compost. City compost is not heated enough to kill the weed seeds. Um, so you know, you just have
173to be aware of that if you're getting city compost, it is free, so that's the trade-off. Um, but if you do want good mulch um, locally here in Bev, I really enjoy the mulch at um, Brick Ends Farm. I've used it many, many times throughout um, the past several years of my business. Um, and uh, what I usually tell people is if you've got a buddy, that's the best way to do it because then you can just get a bunch of mulch delivered uh, in a pile and just kind of like take what you need. Yeah. Um but yeah, using that is going to be um really helpful. And their wood mulches are organic um and will keep the weeds down more than just like a light leafy mulch. What about leaves? Can you use
174leaves? You can use leaves. Um but the if they're really new plants, sometimes you don't want like leaves can be kind of like fluffy and blow around and you don't want them to accidentally cover your new plants. Gotcha. Okay. Does this help? This is very helpful. Yes. Okay. Good. I'm gonna go buy a bunch of mold right now. I love that. Thank you so much. Best of luck. Good to see you, Lindsay. Happy art day. You, too. Hi, Mikey. Hello. Hello. How you guys doing? How you guys doing? I'm good. I'm good. Wait, what is your name and where are you from? Uh, for the audience. Hello. Uh, my name is Mikey Lugo Jr. I am the mad man in the box, of course. Um, yeah, I definitely have a title of my own. I
175live in Beverly and I do enjoy my presence around here. So Mikey is a famous local who bops around to all the stores and the arts fest and gets to know everyone. He's everybody's friend. I didn't know that. Hi Mikey. I'm Cheryl. It's great to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Yeah, I uh I keep forgetting Katie Katie Katie Katie is not wrong about that because for a very long time every uh Saturday and Sunday I go walk uh around the town and say hi to all the lovely people and that's so nice and it's like my it's like my exercises and stuff and it's like my like my own personal time thing to do because my mom and dad has their own thing and they allow me to do all this for the
176funds funds and stuff which the funds Uh yeah, gardening. Yeah, actually, you know, uh well, I do have a question. Uh what do you think about podcasting? How do you think podcasting would work in this day and age? What do you mean? Be more specific. Like if people wanted to get interested with, you know, with the topics that people would like to hear and see in the modern age, like, you know, anything that is revalent or anything new. Do you are you wondering if it's worth it? Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Okay. I would say yes. Uh we're currently doing a podcast called Gardening for Hot People and it's about gardening. Cheryl owns a gardening business. Um and even if nobody listens, I would still do this podcast because it's a lot of fun.
177Yeah. But people do listen. It's one of the main I think avenues of um uh consuming content these days, podcasting, because you can bring it anywhere with you. you know, you can take it on a walk, you can listen to it in the car, you can listen to it at home when you're cleaning, you know. So, I think it's worth it if you're thinking about starting. It's also like on demand content. I think that um to me, this feels like um an evolution of radio because a lot of the younger generations don't listen to, you know, AMFM. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because here here, if you want my I'll I'll go in depth with myself with this because here's the funny thing. Um, as a person who grown up with radio and on demand, a
178lot of people nowadays would be like, "What the hell is on demand? What the hell is the radio? What is all of this?" I I have been taught with this knowledge by my dad, which by the way, we're everyone can hear me with this, right? Yes. Hello. Hello people. Um, yeah, I'm telling my stuff. So, um, yeah. So basically my dad and my mom have given me the knowledge of what the radio is and what like all these other things are. I personally think that us having this type of knowledge of you know the radio the on demand all these streamings and stuff it's so interesting because we are like evolving so quickly with television and like with like with programs and stuff because I remember in my day which yes I'm 23 turning 24
179just so you all know right now I am a young person. You're ancient. Yeah. So so yeah yeah yeah back in your day. Yeah. Yeah. Like like I'm just telling you this because um because I remember watching like a lot of shows on TV before streaming having the physical DVDs and stuff and and like the boom boxes. You guys still know what the boom boxes and stuff. We're a little older than you. So yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because from what I remember is that uh with the boom boxes and everything, it was it was so fun. It's so fun. And I started to do like CD collection collecting and vinyl collecting as well. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, I think that even though um podcasting is not like a physical media, I
180think that um the the knowledge and the content is really what matters. Um I think that it's one of the few ways that people can kind of like go deep on a topic with experts um without having to pay anything. Like you can learn a lot from podcasts. I think it's very accessible on both ends. It's accessible these days to start a pod and it's accessible to listen because you don't have to pay to listen unless you know somebody has a subscribe channel or whatever. But it's easily accessible on both ends too, which is a great feature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And and funny enough, I was trying to get into podcast for some time and and it's been like my go-to thing once in a while if I wanted to, you know,
181take a break or like meditate or just, you know, do my art. Sure. But yeah, cool. I think do we have a couple more people in here with some some gardening questions? No, no problem. No problem. Thank you so much, Mikey. Take care. Hello. Hello. gardening or podcasting or anything you'd like to ask about. Ask me anything really does mean anything. I am a gardener. You are a gardener. It's a very avid gardener. Oh, wow. What's What's your name? Where are you from? Um from Beverly, very local. Right down the street. Um my name is Deanna. Hi Deanna. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I have a bit of a challenge in my garden. I have a very large maple tree. Like a Norway maple? No. Oh, okay. So, those are gone. Oh,
182good. Love to hear it. Yes, I know. Um, I have a very large sugar maple. Oh, beautiful. That I love. And of course, under a maple, what do you do? I have a very blank space. We prefer natives. If you may have any suggestions of what could grow under a dry shade. Yeah. So, um, one of my favorite things to do underneath maple trees, um, or any native tree, um, is to do something, it's called soft landings. Um, so if you're kind of like trying to do more research after this, if you look up soft landing, um, gardens, um, the idea is that whatever like bugs and creatures are supported by that native maple tree, they then do need somewhere to land. So are you are you currently taking all the leaves away from the
183area underneath? Is it just like you know do you like leaf blow under it or like chop the leaves up? Usually. So part of a very thick thick blanket. So I do try to take some away because so the the thing about the leaves dropping off of trees is that they do disintegrate and then work on the soil. So, when you take away too many of the leaves, you ultimately will end up with kind of a compacted, really dry, like not too good soil to plant in. Okay? Um, so if you just, you know, take a plant, throw it in there, water it, hope that it lives, it's not really going to have the kind of nutrients that it needs in order to survive. Um, because the tree is then kind of taking up all
184of the nutrients, and if not all the leaves have been disintegrating there for the past several years, okay? um it's kind of running on a deficiency. Mhm. So, what I generally recommend is um because a it's so hard to kind of like dig in the soil. Yeah. I really try not to. Yeah. Um it's so hard to dig in the soil that um we do um a couple different things for a garden like that. Um number one is we may actually till the first couple inches. Um we're not really a tilling company. Um we like to do like layering and not destroy the myelium network, all that stuff. But if there's some like a spot like that where it's been kind of, you know, neglected for a while, sometimes it is worth breaking it up
185so you can plant more easily. You don't want to till down too far obviously because you're trying not to hit tree roots. But um and if you're like tilling is really not for me, not super interested in renting a machine um from Home Depot. Um then I would recommend using plant plugs um which is when you get like a plug tray. You you're nodding. You seem familiar. Yes. Um I am very I just put a bunch of um speaking of plugs uh uh geraniums u like wild deranium wild in there to try to So did you put any like mulch or anything around them? I no well this year I um I just did a light layer of compost. Okay, very thin layer of compost over the area. So that may work. Um, my favorites
186for something like that are um, aers and hay scented fern. Um, geranium maculatum can do okay in in like a dry shade area. It's a great choice honestly, but the more plants that you plant, the more likely it all is to survive. Um, which kind of feels a little scary um because you're like, cool, so I have to invest more money. Excuse me. I do have some hostas living under there and they actually are doing pretty good because the the area is actually on a slope. the area is on a slope. So when it rains a lot over that area so it you know so I would say this year um try to leave the leaves like try to like leave it in that area and maybe if if you're worried about them blowing around
187or things like that like you could um you know put some sticks over the top of them so that they don't blow off blow away all over your yard. Um or you can also put compost over the top of them. I understand if you want to take out some, but they will disintegrate so much over the winter that you're probably not going to end up with as much as you think because maple leaves disintegrate pretty quickly. Yeah. Um, so the geraniums are going to need something like that in order to make it to the next season. If you're like, I don't know that I want to do the the leaves, my favorite mulch for this kind of thing, especially for compacted soil, is the Terra mulch from Brick Ends. Um, it's made of uh composted
188horse bedding. So, you can try that, but you have to get it in bulk. The other thing you can do is just get a manure-based compost and lay it on a little thicker. Um, because you because what you're trying to do is just add as many like nutrients to that soil as fast as possible. I'm not sure. I got I I got my compost from Essex Co-op. It is organic, so I'm pretty sure it was manure based. Oh, great. So, I mean, it might You get it from a place in Gloucester. Yeah. Yeah. it might be worth adding like even more of it um over the top of leaves so that the leaves don't move. Okay. Do you know what I mean? So then so then and also because you're adding compost that already has
189microbes that will help break down those leaves as well. Um yeah, so that that could really help work on the soil in a way that's like not too expensive too. Um but yeah, no, I mean 100%. I so the with the geranium maculum, the plants that I would add are like hay scented fern, Christmas fern. Um this is under the the sugar maple. Under the sugar maple. Yeah. With the geranium maculatum. And then I also really like um white wood aster because it recededs like crazy and it's too bitter for the bunnies to like it. So usually they don't eat it. Lots of bunnies. Yes. So the white wood aster is one of the only aers that the bunnies don't nibble. Really? Amazing. I did pick up some natives at the plant giveaway. So those
190are in that area. But Oh, great. From Green Beverly, right? Yes. From Green Beverly. Yeah. I was very excited. But yeah, I will. The only question I have about the wood aers because I was tempted to buy them. My issue is I have a neighbor who's actually present and I'm very good friends with and um our yards are open, okay, to each other. Uh and they have a beautiful lawn in that area. Um and I don't want anything that's going to invade too. Like I would love for it to recede here and there, but it needs to be like okay if it goes in the spot. I mean it's they're easily pulled. They're easily pulled. Okay. So we have a bunch more questions. Um so unfortunately we've we got a roll on. But this was
191a great question. Thank you so much for coming. You too. Take care. I also had those questions. So Oh, great. Next. Oh, hello there. He's a baby. How are you? I'm good. This is a friend of mine. This is Becky's mom. Oh, hi. um with baby Henry. I have and yes, hi baby. And we have a question about hydrangeas. Oh yeah, ask away. So how I have four hydrangeas and three are not blooming and haven't bloomed in a few years. How do I get them to bloom? Okay, so have you ever fertilized them? Yes, you have. What are you using for fertilizer? Says fertilizer on the bottle. My husband is the Norm is the fertilizer. Okay. All right. Cool. Um so I really like using Holy Tone. Um and so that's one that I would
192use um both in the spring, in the middle of summer, and then once in the fall. Um if especially if um there are hydrangeas that are struggling. Um do you prune them at all? Yes, we've tried both. The not pruning and pruning. Yes. Um so it can depend on the year. Um do you have any blooms this year on them or nothing? Nothing that I can see. So, um, that is surprising because this has been like a pretty If you haven't pruned them at, did you prune them this year? No. So, that I mean that's pretty surprising that there's no blooms at all. But you do have one that's the same species that does bloom. I assume. I don't know. This sounds like I'm gonna have to swing by your house soon. I think you
193might have to because they were beautiful. Big, bright, beautiful. Are they in shade or something or Huh? Full sun. Cuz that's what's happening to mine. Mine are in shade. So, they're That is really odd. If you're doing I'm going to have to ask him what he's using for fertilizer because they do need like um a kind of acidic fertilizer in order to function. So, it maybe a different fertilizer would help. Um the ones in the in the beds along my house are blooming. Yeah, that's really odd. I mean, also the thing about um some older hydrangeas is if they had been pruned a lot, sometimes it takes them a while to recover. So, if you've been like kind of swapping year after year, sometimes it's like not giving them enough time to like figure it
194out. Um, that's really odd. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to swing by on this one, Sue. We're going to have to come look at your hydrangeas. Awesome. It's a mystery. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for bringing my favorite baby. Don't tell the other babies. What's up, Becky and Eddie? Eddie, do you remember what we're gonna ask here? Can you speak into the microphone? Say hi. Oh, are you shy? That's okay, Eddie. Hi there. This is uh Becky and this is Eddie. Eddie is four and he loves playing in his yard. Um, you might have answered this already, but he wants to know what plants uh we can plant so that he can see more bees. More bees. Oh, that's exciting. Eddie, I didn't know you wanted to see more
195bees. You like bees? Yeah. Yeah, we love bees. Um, so that would qualify um as a pollinator garden because bees are really important pollinators. Um, and they're super [Laughter] Aren't you a silly goober? Oh yeah. No, listen. A microphone is too much fun. But I have to answer your question, bud. So plants that I like to plant are Agustachi. Do you know the purple? Do you like purple, Eddie? Yeah. You love purple? Okay. Well, Agustachi is a purple flower that the bees love and they're super friendly when they're on it. And sometimes the bees actually nap all night on the flowers and then you'll be able to pet them in the morning when it's still cold. So, I think you should plant some Agistas finiculum. Is that the one with the long It's got Yeah,
196it's got a long kind of purple tail. Um, that's one of my favorites for bees. You're like almost guaranteed to see bees if you plant that. Yeah, I think that's going to find a home in my backyard. Heck yeah. We're going to have to find it for you. There was a bunch I just got a bunch at um oh gosh, what's that one? Northeast nursery nursery or something. Yeah, they have a lot of full grown ones, native plants. Um you can also go to the Monarch Gardener and uh on Topfield Road in Ipsswitch. Um, yep. So, we'll we'll have to go garden shopping, which is going to be fun. I love that. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Eddie. Thanks, Becky. Good to see you. All right, we've got another question. Can you tell us your
197name and where you're from? Uh, I'm Will. I live in Beverly. Go Bill. Oh, awesome. Here, speak in the microphone so everybody can hear you. Okay. Um, I have a question about podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. How do you find like how do you manage to keep a conversation going for the length of an entire episode? Um Katie and I, we are friends. We talk almost every day on the phone. And so when we're podcasting, it's just like we're having a personal conversation just broadcasted to the world. Um, if you don't have that, if you plan to do one by yourself, I would say get a script ready and work on it before you even get on the pod. I think that once you get started, I assume this is what's happening with people who are doing
198it solo. I think that once you get into it and if you know what you're talking about, you forget the microphone's there and you just keep going. Um, but for us, we're lucky enough that we've got a predetermined friendship of 10 years that is allowing us to keep a heavy stream. Also like if you've got some blank spaces, pauses, whatever, there's editing, you know, you can edit it out. Yeah, I think um and I mentioned this to um our first question asker. Um also having some kind of outline so that you know if you're like, okay, I know that this topic I'm going to have a lot to talk about. I'm not really sure about this one. Because then you can kind of like go through and be like, okay, I'm going to talk about
199all these things. You kind of see where your gaps are. Um, and in that way it makes it a little bit easier to plan. Um, I think just jumping in front of a microphone, yeah, it can be hard to kind of know what you're going to do. I mean, we do a lot of planning um to even though we do we do have a good back and forth, a good banter. Um, I think also once you get started, it's less daunting than it seems because I was wicked nervous before we started this and 10 minutes in I was like, "Oh, this is no big deal." So I think once you start doing it then it starts to flow. Do you have a buddy that you want to do it with? I mean I have just
200few friends that might be interested. Also you can practice too. Like you could just you know phones record like you don't have to do like a real serious one. You could just kind of see how it goes first. Yeah. And um I think one of the pieces of advice I've heard is if you want to start a podcast, you want to make sure you have enough content for 10 episodes. And if you can't figure out enough topics or um guests, guests can help you to kind of keep things going, keep it interesting. Um if you don't have enough for 10 episodes, then maybe you should go back to the drawing board and maybe think a little harder before you like jump in. But yeah, just think harder. Yeah, just think harder. Okay. No, just kidding.
201We're kidding. If you're doing this with friends, I'm sure like you'll have an easy time like like we did. All right. Thank you. Good luck. I love your hair. It's very cute. Love it. Thank you. All right. Take care. Thanks for your question. All right. All right, we've got another one, I think. Is this our last one, Liz? Our last Liz, I'm sure, has a question. Um, more question. She already asked a question. Where you been? I already forgotten. Hi there. What's your name? Hi, good afternoon. Keith Sonia. I'm on the uh board here at Dev Cam. Have heard of. Amazing. Have you? Oh, that's very Oh, I'm running for city council. That's why I've heard of you. All right. There we go. No, I know this isn't a political show, so we'll keep it
202light, but um you know, being on the board of Bevcam, we obviously want to attract folks who want to make great content the way you folks do. Uh and we want those folks to feel like they can grow an audience. From what I understand, you folks have the most downloads of Oh my gosh. any of our podcasts. And I'm wondering how you guys think about the marketing side of it. I mean, obviously, your content itself is great. So, the lady who was here entirely too long was actually my mom. Oh my god. No, she's No, she's great. She would have been here. I don't think anyone was Wait, who? What's their name? My mom. Uh, Deanna. Oh, Deanna. No, no, she was great. That's actually the perfect kind of question that I like to answer.
203So, I probably kept her here, honestly. She would be here till like tomorrow. She Oh my gosh. I'll have coffee with her later. Yeah, exactly. Uh but uh yeah, just wondering about like the marketing side of things because there's folks like that like my mom who are maybe lowhanging fruit for this type of stuff that you folks are putting out. How are you all thinking about reaching them? And if um you know I was I or someone from the community was hoping to start a podcast, what sort of tips would you kind of give on that side of things? Sure. So this sounds like a two-part question. So I'm not sure. So, we both have businesses. Okay. Cheryl comes from a marketing background, which is very helpful. I've got 10 plus years of small business
204like behind me. So, I know a little bit about marketing. So, I think because we're both coming from that, it's kind of natural, second nature for us to to know how to jump in and do marketing on social media. Newsletters are big um and things like that. um specific audiences is a little bit trickier because this is so niche. I still am not sure how to reach the older crowd except Oh, I haven't think about it. Except other than Facebook, which we've done a little bit of marketing there, but I'm sure Cheryl will add. But um uh so what I'm thinking about mostly is how do we reach the people sort of like in our region and what kind of keywords can we use on social media that they would be searching for. So this
205is directly on social media and then once we've got them get them onto our newsletter and the newsletter is where they're going to be you know most engaged. What do you what do you have? So, um I have been thinking about this actually a lot because um so I run Plant Magic Gardens as I've mentioned. I don't think you were here for that. So, it's a garden company. Um and so I have an existing um audience as does Katie with her business called Soy Much Brighter on Ran Tool. And um so partially our audience is because we already have existing people who are like they have a podcast now. Cool. Um, and so that's I think one part of it that the reason why our podcast has been kind of immediately a little successful. Um,
206I think that what I've been thinking about is so I do um like library talks um for gardening just through my my business. And so I just had a slide at the end and I'm like, "Hey, if you like this, if you think I'm entertaining, go listen over there." Um, and that's where I've gotten um, a lot of the like kind of older crowd. Um, they love a library talk. So, um, and I mean, I don't blame them. It's free. It's awesome. Um, speaking of I was speak I was at um, there was Salem Arts Fest last week and I was talking to a few older folks who were there to watch their um, kids play and I mentioned the podcast to them. So, word of mouth. Word of mouth. Also, I'm just remembering I
207printed cards for this day with a QR code on it with our branding and totally forgot to bring them. That's okay. So, that's where we're at with I know. I mean, we just show up and pray. Um um I think our our current level of um following in Beverly has led to to the quick audience building. But I also I think that the other thing though too is that um when we're putting together episodes, we try to make sure that um Oh, it's okay. It's live. We're doing it live. We can have toddlers in the background. It's all good. Um but I think that when we're posting too, like we're in the how-to section. Um so that means that like anyone looking for like how to garden, right? Um and that's actually where um a
208couple of people who are now my clients found the podcast and then are working with me. So, I mean, it's it's um and I I we do a lot of stuff within the community, too. Um and we talk a lot and we mention our podcast and there's good spaces like, you know, like Green Beverly events and things like that where there's obviously a lot of interest based on just like general I think also because it's so incredibly niche. Uh, I think a thing that people miss out on a lot in marketing and things that they're creating is that your thing needs to be very niche in order for you to to we reach a wider audience, which sounds counterproductive, but it's not. Right. Right. Um, well, because then, you know, the people who are really
209focused in on gardening and a little pinch of comedy are going to love it. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, in the show titled That's perfect. That's going to reel some folks in. That's going to reel some folks in. I have been sitting on that for a while. Um, but yeah, it's your time to shine. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, good talking with you folks. What was your name one more time since you are Keith? Sonia running for office. City Council City. Thanks so much. I need the endorsement of the show. On the progress progressive side, I am. Yes, I'm actually the chair of the Beverly Democrats. Yeah, I had a feeling. Yeah, I give that off. I give that off. Well, thank you so much. Enjoy. All right, see you folks. All right, we've got
210a couple more questions. It looks like one more. One more. We're sneaking it in. What was What's your name? Where you from? My name is Rich. Rich. Hi, Rich. You guys work in gardening? Is that what we do? Yeah, we run a podcast called Gardening for Hot People. My wife has just started getting into gardening. Uhhuh. And uh she's trying to grow some tomatoes. Do you have any uh Oh, yeah. Um so, so you're are you growing them in a raised bed? Uh it's a little thing about that big. It's on a small deck. Okay, cool. So, it's like a raised bed on a deck. Um, and did you do them from 2 by two or something? I did not do it from seed. So there that's okay. No, there's Listen, I don't do anything
211from seed. I plant plants that my suppliers give me. Um, so um, with tomatoes, um, are they do you know if they're determinate or indeterminate? They're early girl tomatoes. Okay, that's all you know. Um, so there are two different types of tomatoes. There's determinant and indeterminate. determinate does uh like one like big kind of crop and then they you know stop growing. The indeterminate kind of just gives you tomatoes forever. Um so like a lot of the little tomatoes it'll just kind of like keep going and going and going and going until it frosts. Um so um what I would say about tomatoes is um do not water the leaves. Um water at the base because if you water the leaves they tend to be susceptible to um disease. Um, so you know, if it
212rains, it rains, but like when you're like watering every single day, if you're getting the leaves, sometimes that can cause issues. Um, if you are uh worried at all about like if it's growing and it feels really like wobbly, you can actually plant it a little deeper. Um, tomatoes have this really cool thing that where they'll just grow roots a little higher up on the stem. Um, not all plants do that, so you can do that if it's like since you said it's up up higher. Um, and um, one note from my grandpa actually who's an avid vegetable grower, um, is he will use Epsom salt because, and I don't tell people to tell people to salt the ground, um, with like table salt, but Epsom salt is different, um, and it has magnesium in
213it, which tomatoes desperately need. So, that there's two things that you can add to the soil that tomatoes will love, which is eggshells and Epsom salt. And you don't want to do a ton. You don't want to like take your whole like eucalyptus scented Epsom salt and dump it in there. If you want just plain Epsom salt, sprinkle a little bit around the bases. Um, and that's going to help um your buds not rot. Um, so if you've got flowers and then they just drop off instead of forming tomatoes, sometimes a little bit of Epsom salt is super helpful. What about staking? Do you stake them? You can. You can totally stake the tomatoes up, especially when you've got indeterminate tomatoes that just kind of keep on creating a crazy vine. Um, but yeah, so
214I mean tomatoes are one of the easier plants to grow. They almost grow like a weed. As long as you know you keep them watered when it's dry and um don't overwater so they don't rot, like you should be all good. Um do you know what kind of soil you planted them in? Nope. Nope. Potting soil. Well, it was if it was new potting soil, it probably has a ton of nutrients in it, so you don't really have to worry about like, you know, a ton of fertilizer. Um but if you are kind of like, you know, reusing any soil ever, like if you do the same thing next year, you don't have to get new dirt. you can just mix in some more compost into the dirt you have as long as it's not
215like you know crunchy like when it gets um hydrophobic sometimes dirt can get really weird and then you have to soak it with water but um that's a good tip but yeah no you're you're going to be just fine tomatoes are easy easy peasy thank you so much all right take care we have any other questions I think we need to wrap it up soon did you have a question sir okay great just just double checking all right I think this is it for us Yeah. Do you want to update people on We're sort of taking a hiatus with our at the moment. So, this is um our last podcast for a little while where Plant Magic is deep in gardening season and we are very very busy and I am trying to survive. I'm
216very tired. Um and uh so uh we will be back when we're back. Um which hopefully will be sometime in August, I would say. Totally. Yes. Can't wait. Thanks everyone. Bye. See you. [Music] What you think? [Music] Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Artfest here in Beverly. My name is Anthony Davis. I am a podcaster here at Bevcam. I have a show called Footprints that we film on Tuesdays. And if you like our content, please go to channel 22. Check it out, subscribe also to uh my my actual um website which is footprintsimpact.com. You'll love it. Uh today with me is a guy who is an artist. He's a painter. And this guy's name is Arthur Anderson. Welcome, Arthur. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Hey, listen. That's what we do. So, let me ask
217you a couple of questions uh right off the bat. Yeah. First of all, uh, how did you get into painting? What was the inspiration? So, I've been drawing pretty much my whole life. Um, and then I went to college in conquered, New Hampshire. That's where I'm from. I went to the community college there. Got a little bit more into drawing and decided like I really loved it. And then I'm also partially color blind. So, like painting I was kind of scared of at first. like kind of makes sense, right? Uh but then I worked a lot digitally and then learned a lot of more like with color theory. So that kind of helped me uh not be as afraid to use color. So Okay. Started painting probably like fiveish years ago now. Okay. So you
218started painting five years ago. When you were a kid, did you can you foresee yourself actually ever like becoming an artist and painting certain things? I did not. You color outside the lines like most of us did when we were kids? Yeah, I could I could color I would pick up like I thought it was brown and it turned out to be red, but I love it. Disappointing, but Okay. All right. Give us a little bit about uh your background history. Like uh what do your parents do for a living? Do they do anything uh fun and exciting like you? Not not totally. My mom's a math teacher. Okay. Which is cool, but that's all right. Not super exciting. Um, and then my dad was a kindergarten teacher and then a bus driver and then
219a driver's ed teacher. Okay. So, that's cool. So, they kind of influenced you a little bit to to go into this. Um, do you have any um siblings? Any brothers or sisters? I have an older sister and two younger brothers. Older sister and two younger brothers. So, that's pretty cool. Any of those guys artists like you? Uh my my older sister, yeah, she was pretty artistic and then she kind of went away from that. Um and then one of my younger brothers is more musically artistic. So yeah, that's interesting. He's a musician. He's in a band. Yeah. Rose Park. Shout out. All right. Shout out to them for sure. Well, you know, it's funny. I I I love music, but I can't carry a tune in a bucket, so I I DJ. I do that
220thing. Oh, there you go. That's always That's always a fun thing. Um, so where do you see yourself maybe in in five years from now with your art? Do you think it's going to go any place? What do you what do what do you envision it being? I don't know. I guess like I want to keep doing it obviously. Um, it would be cool if people liked it. Okay. But I like the way I look at it is I'm going to do it either way. So, I figure I'll do stuff like this, like the Beverly Arts Fest, um, and let people at least see it. Okay. So, now, do you have anything in on display here today? Yep. You do. Now, look at this. So, I did this shirt. Let's look at the shirt, ladies
221and gentlemen. Right there. There it is. All right. You can zoom in on that. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So, yeah, it's just a bunch of little drawings that I did in the shape of a flower. So, yeah. Okay. I do a lot of like weird little characters. Nice. Um, so now where do you get your inspiration from, Arthur? Um, a lot of like cartoons, I guess. Uh, I skateboard a lot of skateboard artwork. Um, I really love that stuff. Okay. Um, and then just like other artists I'm inspired by. Like for instance, who who who inspired you to really kind of do your thing? Um, there's this artist Kim Jong. Um, he does amazing work. It's a different style from what I do, but um, he does do some weird stuff, so it's like kind
222of fun to look at his stuff. He does a little bit more realistic things, though. Okay, nice. Um, and then another somewhat local artist, um, Jeff Wheeler. Okay. He's done some skateboard artwork in New Hampshire. So that kind of caught your eye a little bit and gave you a little inspiration as to like kind of I'm gonna that's the jumping off point for yourself. Okay. He does really cool work. Um I like it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. So now as you're sort of creating your art and doing your thing, right? What kind of goes through your mind? What do you like? What's the process? Take us through the process of a day in the life of an a painter like yourself. So most of my process I will start out like in a sketchbook
223I start out with like random shapes and then I look at the shape and I'm like oh it looks like it could be a guy like doing this or this is a huge nose and then I'll turn it into a face. Um, so I don't really always go in with a direction of where it's going to end up and I think that's kind of makes it a little bit more fun too because I can start with something and then end with something I would completely have never expected. Yeah. So that that's see that's the cool part, right? That's the process you go through, right? The creative part where you're like thinking like, oh, it started like this, but it actually ended like this, right? Right. How cool is that when you're going through the process,
224right? And then sometimes afterwards after like I have a finished painting or drawing, I'll look at it and maybe I'll see that I had like a subconscious meaning to it that I didn't put in intentionally, but I can pull out of at the end, which is kind of cool, too. That is cool. That is really cool. So, I mean, if you think about it, right, as you're creating your art, you're you're kind of leaving these footprints on people, right? because you're you're like influencing them to look at it in a different way and everybody interprets things differently, right? Which is really kind of cool, which I love. Um, and so as you as an artist, you're doing that for other people. You're giving them that a different perspective, a different view, which is what we
225really love. Yeah, I love it, too. I love like just being here and seeing the people that will come into my booth, they'll look at my artwork and like brings a smile to their face and like even if they walk out not buying anything, like that's still fun. Yeah, no doubt. For sure. We We love that. We love actually influencing people and and having them like look at your art and be like, "Wow, you're influencing them by visually looking at it and saying, "Wow, look at that. I maybe I can hang that up in my kitchen or my in my living room, right?" And they can take a look at it. So now as you're going through the process of creating and doing all these things that you know you're you're going through that process,
226what are you really thinking about as you're going through that process? What's like think take us through the mind of of of Arthur? What is it like to really kind of it's like a landscape. Take us through that landscape of of developing like where where do you see yourself? like you're not a kid like 5 years old fingerpainting and all that stuff, right? You're a guy that's really creating something for visually so people can be influenced by that. So, take us through that process a little bit like how that works. I think um because not everybody can do it. Yeah, that's the thing. Okay. Right. I'm terrible at at drawing and sketching. I do stick people pretty good. Okay, there. There you go. That's something. Um, so yeah, I think it's I have an idea
227of what I think looks good and so then I just try and make something that I think looks good and hopefully other people would think it looks good. Okay. Um, and so with the process of like a character where I started with a random shape, um, I do I have like a pretty unique style, I guess. Um, all right. All right. And I do like a similar style each time I go into doing a character where like I have a certain way. I'll do like their eyes or their mouth or like the nose. Okay. or different um just different things you're doing going through the process. Tell us uh what what booth number are you? I'm number 11. Booth number 11. So ladies and gentlemen, if you're you're walking by the Artfest, please go stop
228by booth number 11th and uh see Arthur Anderson. He'll take care of you. Um I I love it. Um two things. one. Where do you see yourself in maybe like 10 years from now? Right. You're a young guy. You don't have to tell us how old you are. I'm guessing you're in your 20s. I'm in my 20s. Yeah, you're in your 20s. So, you know, so so that's cool. So now now you're in your 30s, right? And you're you're creating art. That's scary. Is it different in the 30s than it would be in the 20s? Like take us through that. Is that is that like what's the metamorphosis of that? I think it it'll probably be a little different. Um, maybe not a whole lot different, but hopefully better. Um, because even looking back at
229some of my old work now, like from a few years ago, I can see my improvement. So, okay, hopefully I'll continue to improve. Um, maybe hopefully be doing it full-time. Right now, I'm I have a full-time job and this is this is kind of just a a little of a hobby like type of a thing that you do. Not more of a hobby, but more I'd say it's like it's a passion. Yeah. The way I've started thinking about it recently is that my full-time job is my side gig and this is this is what I want to do full-time. So, I got to be honest, that's the way you got to think about it, right? Because if you do that and now you start to pour pour it all into what you really love to
230do, eventually it's going to turn into what you want it to be. Right. Right. And that and that full-time job is just going to go away and that'll be your full-time gig. That's that's the goal, right? Yeah. It's all it's all mindset. Of course. Listen, everybody wants to be happy and they always want to do the certain things that they love to do passion wise, right? Which is really important. And I think if you pour into that and you continue to do that, it's only going to blossom. I always say you got to water it, right? And that's what you're doing. You're watering planting those seeds down, right? And then as you're doing that now, hopefully it'll it'll spring into something that you really love to do and continue to do and it'll pay you
231for doing that. Yeah. Which is really what I want to do. Yeah. Hey, there you go. I've been teaching I've been in teaching for 25 years and and I got into podcasting about a year ago and and here I am interviewing you and uh and I'm loving it because it's because of you. No. Well, listen, it's it's I enjoy it and and if you find a passion, I always tell that to my students, right? please pursue it. Just just go and do it because you just never know where it's going to lead and how it's going to take you and how it's going to manifest itself, right? Yeah. I would say the exact same thing like find your passion and follow it. Like don't worry about other people what other people will say cuz when
232Yeah. When I found out I was passionate about drawing and artwork, everyone's like, "Well, you're going to go to art school and like, are you going to get a job?" I'm like, "I don't know, but I want to do it, so I'm going to do it." Exactly. And that's the thing. It's like um imagine now if you didn't do that, right? Imagine if you didn't face your fear about that, right? And you you'd probably still to this day be thinking about, "Oh, I probably should have done that." And and I always say opportunities are like sunrises, right? You wait too long, you can miss it, right? So So you you didn't miss it, right? You jumped right in and you did what you thought was necessary to do to become the artist that you you
233want to become today, which you really love. You know what I mean? And uh congratulations to you. Thank you. Yeah. And it's starting to look good, too. I I'm doing a design for a skateboard, a local New Hampshire company, which is like has been a dream is like wanting to design a skateboard. So, super excited about that. See, that's the thing. I could never skateboards, man. I I I see people riding them all the time. And I'm still amazed at Tony Hawk, the age he is that he can ride a skateboard and bikes and all that stuff. To me, that's really amazing. I'm I'm lucky I can walk. I got a I got a new hip a couple of years ago, so I'm good with that. You know what I mean? I play hoops, too.
234So, every now and then I hack around doing that, so that's always fun. But, uh yeah, I mean, you got to follow your passion. Yeah. You know, and it's and it's awesome to be able to to be able to do that. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think, uh that's our guy. Uh this is Arthur Anderson. Yep. Homies. Booth number 11. 11. Booth number 11. Ladies and gentlemen, please make sure you stop by. check out all his art. He's not just a painter, he's an artist, and that's the biggest thing that we can take from him being here with us today. Thanks for stopping by, Bev Cam. And uh appreciate uh all all the things you're doing and continued success and passion to you. All right. Appreciate it. All right. See you later. See you. Byebye.
235[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] to Bevcam Artfest. My name is Anthony Davis. I am a podcaster here at Bevcam. I'm also a educator at BHS. Uh my podcast is called Footprints and uh we film it every Tuesday here at Bevcam. Um and you can subscribe if you love our content, channel22. Also, you can go to my website www.footprintsimpact.com. We're on all the streaming apps, Spotify, we're on um Apple Podcasts and also YouTube. With me today, ladies and gentlemen, uh here I have someone who is an artist and this is Sam Atoule with me joining me today. Thank you so much for having me here today. Well, you you're quite welcome, Sam. You're quite welcome. Um couple questions. Let's let's ask. How did you
236get into uh what you're getting into? By the way, ladies and gentlemen, it's uh called Print Lab. It's Yeah. Myar Printmaking. Myar Print Lab. Um, so Myar Print Lab is a printmaking studio, uh, where we make and teach the traditional art of mostly relief printmaking, also known as wood block and lino cut. I I run this business with my husband, Adrien Rodriguez, who's working the festival outside right now. Um, and we both studied print making back in art school. Uh, me at the Rhode Island School of Design and him at the School of Museum of Fine Arts. Wow. So, this is some history here. I like this. It's a long history. A long history, right? Yeah. Okay. And and what made you decide to go into this particular type of field? What what makes you
237decide to get into? So, I think print making um if you really like to draw specifically print making is really nice for being able to draw versus like um sculpt or paint. Uh it just kind of lets you kind of be really close to that first sketch in a certain way. The other really lovely thing about print making is its history of sharing and spreading because you're always working to make multiples. So you're it's always been about sharing ideas with many people as opposed to the like elusive one-of-a-kind that a lot of just by the nature of how you make art much art is. Okay. So interesting enough that you said that you said some things that I'm interested in in in finding out about. So, couple things. Number one, um you said you were
238interested and you gotten interested when you were younger in this or or so this is an advocation that was put on to you by somebody else. So, um I probably did a little bit of print making like a lot of people do back in like elementary and high school. It's print making. Relief printmaking specifically is from the first century and it's it's an extremely old uh form of art. So most of us in school will do a little carving, something easy. Um, when I was in art school, I actually started in architecture and did not love it. Um, but okay, still wanted something with like process and community. So print makers often share a print making studio because of equipment that you might need. Okay. So you still have that community, you have a little
239bit of process, and I think I really liked that. Okay. All right. So as you're going through the process, like take me through a day, Sam, of of how you would sort of get to like some sort of like art like for you for print. What's that look like for you? So in Myiramar, because there's two of us artists and we're working, we're selling together. Um, and he and I have very different styles. We will start first with an idea, like a theme. uh this springtime we're doing just kind of loose nautical and once we kind of have given ourselves some parameters um we sketch and we create drawings or I will watercol often and then what we do is we take that initial sketch and we transfer onto a block of wood. Um, so
240now I have like a basic idea on a block of wood and I have to decide there what will be positive and negative and I carve that wood and then I ink it and I press that to the paper. Now that doesn't all happen in a day. I was going to say that's there could be a lot of days there going that can happen but you know and and iterations along the way but once you kind of get to your final stages you can addition it and so you can have 50 of that same image and they're all right from the block and they all only exist in that way. It's not a copy of another thing. It is its own thing through the process it. So this this these are original art like things
241that you're creating. Yes. Right. This is not something that you're you're actually like copying. This is like original. This is that's amazing. That's really kind of cool. Um, ladies and gentlemen, just so you know, you are booth number 103. 103. So, if you come down here to the arts festival here and we have right here on Cabin Street, please make sure you stop by booth number 103, right across from Bev Cam. How about that? Right across from from us from Bevcam. All right. Tell me a little bit about um are you actually going to be sort of teaching this thing to other kids? So I teach it to kids and adults. We're in Salem on Artist Row right now. We just moved there. We'll be there for about two years. And we do classes mostly
242in relief print making, also monotype, calligraph, um and drawing classes because as I mentioned, drawing is kind of the heart of the whole thing. Um and they're very good for like just learning if you're brand new to it. You don't have to come with a lot of skill uh or experience. Okay. It's an introductory kind of lesson. So then you can take it from there. I love it. So how do you how do you sort of choose the idea? Take me walk me through the process of how you would think about like um I'm going to start with this but maybe it'll turn into something different. Right. So take me through that process. How does that work as you're going through? So because you are having to carve a block to make your image, you
243can start to see how there might and your block is usually one color. So if I want I work in color so I will need to have three or four blocks to build my image but I have to make decisions. Watercolor I can have a million colors but I'm inking three colors now. So your image will start to shift on if I want red here and blue here. What are other decisions I have to make? And and that's what's kind of uh a lot of problem solving in in print making. You really have to be planning and kind of figuring it out. And it can shift from that first image because again you might have just had color everywhere doing whatever and now you're looking at it in this in this positive and negative in
244a balance and then production-wise how you would actually be able to build it. So you're putting restrictions and constraints on yourself. No question. My goodness. So what would be the time frame? Let's say I came into and I took a class. I came into your class. What will be a time frame between the time that I drew something that it actually is now in print? How does that work? Like so a lot of that depends on your drawing. Okay. To be honest, well, I draw stickman really well. You're actually carving a lot of negative space then. Um so we do these mini classes that are four nights. They're uh two hours each. So that's a total of eight hours. And people will create their drawing, put it onto usually easy cut, so like a softer
245block. They carve the whole thing. They ink it. They get to play around with inking um and maybe some other techniques and they'll have a suite of their prints by the end of the fourth class. Wow, that's pretty cool. Now, um this this sounds so awesome. You could probably partner with different companies and print some things for them, right? Which are you thought about doing that? So because we are doing this so traditionally and there's so many really excellent ways to reproduce things these days, we don't often partner with other like companies that would do a large scale. Our additions are generally around 50 um which is pretty small, but we certainly have other print makers who one work with artists to create um suites of prints or screen printers who will do t-shirts, etc.
246Okay, nice. Um, I I love it. So, you started young and now here you are teaching this whole thing to kids. Yeah. Right. And you're sort of paying it forward to them a little bit, right? Giving them a little little little like sort of like peeking into the future. This is what we're doing. This is how art is created, right? Um, tell me a little bit about you personally, like um where you from, where'd you grow up? So, I'm originally from upstate New York. Mhm. Uh, and I grew up in a little town, Waterford, New York, right on the Eerie Canal. So, I have lots of facts about that I want to talk about. Um, and then I give us some facts about Erie Canal right now. Uh, it was the largest uh man-made canal
247built at the time and it was hand dug. That is correct. Uh um and then I went to school in Providence um at Rhode Island School of Design as I mentioned and my husband who I was dating during college was up in Boston. So that's how I came up to Boston and now we're in Swamcott and that's where we opened up Myiramar and a lot of us starting with youth classes is also because I'm a parent to two uh now teenagers um but they have been coming to Myiramar with their peers and other students for the last going on seven years and it's been really amazing to watch the children grow up but also their talent and the flexibility of their minds and how they're able to all the problems problem solving that I'm talking
248about like they get it and it's been a lovely community. I've been really thankful in that way. Wow. That that's awesome. I'll tell you something. It it's beautiful thing when you get to do your passion and you enjoy it and you're able to make a living at it and you know and and the best part about it is think about all the people you're influencing right the kids now and that and you're keeping that passion alive and they influence me which is also really nice. I mean, that's the benefit of communities that it's you're sharing, but you're receiving so much from the other people that are coming in and and letting the space really exist, right? Because you're dependent on the community and participation for something like this to exist. Oh, for sure. I mean,
249the best part about it is as you're influencing those kids now, think about them as they grow and they love it now, they'll probably start to influence other kids. It's like a ripple effect basically, right? And and that's the beautiful part of doing what you do because, you know, not everybody has a chance to to find that passion and do that and you're able to do that which is really kind of cool. I really applaud you for that. That's that's awesome. Um, same with me. As you know, ladies and gentlemen, I think I've said this before, I'm I've been in education 25 years and I love it. But I came to podcasting um not out of necessity, but more out of curiosity. And now as I I'm into it, I absolutely love it. And so
250here I am uh interviewing Sam Atoule and who who was a wonderful artist at Myiramar Myiramar Printmakers. Print makers. Okay. Awesome. Um couple more questions. Sure. Um you and your husband probably work tons, right? Yes. A lot. So let's say you have a little time off and you want to go on a vacation. Where would you go and why? Where would go? Oh my god, there's so many ideas that you have. Um, we actually just went to Puerto Rico for a printmaking conference, which may sound like a interesting thing. It was so beautiful. That's like the kids want to go right back and have a little bit more time to explore all the nature and all the art. We often will do vacations that are art related so that we can see an exhibit or
251or see a museum that's far away. Um, but we love getting into nature and being able to hike. So, places that have that like a little city and then a little nature. Um, so we're hoping that this summer maybe we can do some hiking in Maine somewhere close because we'll be here in Salem on Artist Row. Nice. I love it. I love it. So now, who influenced you basically to get into doing what you're doing? Like who who sort of gave you those that that sort of lead like, "Hey, I want to do this. I think I I I might want to get involved in this." When you were younger is when it started. My um my mother is uh well she was a woodshop teacher. She's retired at this point. So she was always
252very hands-on creative. She also did a lot of photography. So she was signing my sister and I up for art classes, art camps, and also just had materials in the house and had art in the house which I think was very influential. She had friends that she had collected pieces from and that makes it feel like a real thing you can do like just seeing that somebody else has done it and I always was encouraged not from her also in school. It was a really safe space for me. Um and that allowed me to kind of just keep building on it. Yeah. And I Yeah, I think that like those influences kids need to be able to see that this is a real thing that grown-ups do. You know, it's not just a thing for
253kids to do. Grown-ups do it. That means you can have this as part of your life forever. Um, and I think that was hugely influential. Oh, for sure. For sure. I love that. I love that. Now, in your field, there's probably certain artists that have done certain things, right? Um, now this is a loaded question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So, uh, if you and your lovely husband were able to sit and have dinner with anybody, okay, in that field, uh, dead or alive. Okay. All right. Who would it be and why? Well, I can't speak for him entirely. Uh we would well we both really like uh Paula Rego who is a Portuguese printmaking artist and why I speak about her specifically in this moment is that she did a lot of
254fairy tale art and a lot of political art around women's issues and I think her being a printmaker that we both respect her taking these kind of feminine issues some of them politically very uh important but mixed with some of the fairy tale stuff uh hits you in an emotional way that is very powerful. But everything I've read about her is that she was otherwise a little more softspoken. Her art hits hard. Um but not but like so I wonder privately yeah how would she be to have a conversation with so where would she get her inspirations from? all that stuff, right? Yeah. And that and that'll trickle down toward you so you can kind of get your you pull that information from her and like, "Oh, wow. That's where she got the I can't
255believe she got the inspiration from that." You know what I mean? And then you can actually do that as well, right? How great is that? Well, ladies and gentlemen, booth number 103. Make sure you stop by. Sam Atoule. Yes. Right. We love Sam. Thank you for stopping by today. Thank you. And uh you know again my name is Anthony Davis and I am a podcaster here uh at Bevcam. Footprints is my podcast. So please make sure you subscribe channel 22. Uh also Apple podcast we have that as well and we're on Spotify ladies and gentlemen. And this will air so that everybody who loves Mara print can also see see and uh hopefully get some inspiration from that and and sign up for some of her classes. Yes. Which which would always help, right? It's
256a good thing. Thank you for stopping by. Appreciate it, Anthony. All right. It was great talking to you. It was good talking to you as well. Have a good day. You too. And I'll see you later. Thank you. Bye. Bye. [Music] Well, hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Artfest. I am your uh Anthony Davis. I am a podcaster here on Bevcam. Uh I host uh Footprints. You can look that up. I'd love that. Subscribe if you love our our content. Uh I am here on channel 22 that's posted here every Thursday or every other Thursday. And then uh I also have u a website called www.footprintsimpact.com. Go to that sign up if you want to be a guest on my podcast. It' be awesome. We're also on Apple Podcast as well as YouTube. Joining me
257today though at Artfest is someone who is an artist who we love. This would be Haley Doyon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Haley Doyon. Haley, welcome to uh Bevc Camp. Thanks for having me. Uh listen, that's what we do. We love to have anybody who's an artist. So, tell us a little bit about yourself, Haley. How did you get involved in what's it called? Gemcast Gem Cadet. So, I'm now um Northshore Locals ornaments. So, I was Gem Cadet Art. Oh, okay. Now little rebranded. Rebranded. All right. So, tell us about how that came about. Yeah. So, um, I started making ornaments based on Beverly Businesses and Landmarks last fall and I literally threw up on the local Facebook page the um, an ornament of the cabin and one of the anchor and the bean trust
258and they blew up. I um sold between the beginning of November and Christmas about 250 ornaments. These are all hand painted. Wow. And I was I wasn't expecting it to. Yeah, I kind of put it up there. I was like, if I sold 30 of them, that'd be cool. That'd be fun. Um, but it totally blew up. I was also um at the time that I started that was 34 weeks pregnant. Wow. So, I had my talk about some challenges. I had my second son on Christmas Eve last year. Oh my gosh. So, I was um enormously pregnant and pumping out tons and tons of hand painted ornaments at the same time. And it was a complete blast. and um transformed into a new a new brand new business for me. My goodness. So So
259tell us h how how did that come about? Like what was the inspiration for you getting involved in that in the brand new business you say? What was that inspiration? So I guess I just I I knew I wanted to do something different. So I was doing gem cadet art which was sort of all kinds of different crafting things but I wanted to do something different. And I had invest in invested in a laser engraver, which is what I use to make the ornaments. Um, and I I guess I I almost kind of like fell backwards into it. I just happened to make this this one thing that became really popular that I really enjoyed making and uh was getting a great response from the community for it. So, it's really propelled into its own
260little animal and it's really, really fun. Wow, that is so cool. Yeah. So, tell me a little bit about early on when you were younger. Was art such a thing in your house? %. All right. So, tell me about that. Give me give me a little information about that. Yeah. So, I knew very very young that I identified as an artist. It was something that came very naturally to me. I probably knew when I was in middle school that I wanted to go to art school for college. Um, I grew up um painting with my dad. He's a house painter, so literally like painting houses. Um, so I've I've just I've always had a a paintbrush in my hand. I went to school for fine arts painting. I went to um Rhode Island School of
261Design. Um and it's just been something that I've I've always wanted to do and have loved and have enjoyed. So nice. Awesome doing it. So now at you you mentioned you have a couple of children. How old are they now? I have a six and a halfyear-old son and an almost six-month old son. Okay. And so your six and a half year old. Does he get involved in some of the decorations? He loves it. Um he's not quite ready to paint ornaments with me yet, but he um he's definitely very interested and he's very artistic himself and Okay. Yeah. All right. We love that. Yeah. So, you're paying it forward to him already, right? I hope so. Yeah, we like that. We like that. All right. Tell us a little bit about the inspiration you
262get from making some of these these ornaments. Yeah. Um I So, I moved to Beverly in 2013. Um and I really I love this town. I just I think Beverly is such a unique fun um fun town and uh part of this project um I've really gotten to know the people of Beverly um like uh you can do pickup at my house so I I get to meet a lot of these people that find my ornaments which is really fun. It is great. I get to know the um the business owners of the businesses that I represent. Um, it's really it's um it's shown me a whole new side of Beverly that I really just love and appreciate and I have such a soft spot for small businesses. Both my parents own small businesses growing
263up. So cool. Um, speaking of that, so what do your parents do? So my father's a house painter. He's been a house painter for like 45 years or something. And then um my mother um ran a nanny agency for about 20 years. Wow. Nanny. How about that? So kids in in painting have always been a certain thing for you, right? Right. You even when you were younger, you were probably that kid that did that finger painting thing, right? Yeah. Awesome. I love it. Um, tell me a little bit more about you. Where do you think maybe this is heading in maybe five, 10 years? Where do you see that happen? Yeah. Um, I mean, I hope I'm still doing this in 5 to 10 years. I am uh trying to carve a bit of a
264niche with um realtors for buyers and sellers gifts. I have a custom home ornament option where you can provide me with a photograph of your home and I do um just a personalized custom piece of your home. It's a great keepsake. Yeah. So, that's something that I'm I'm getting into. I just I really I love making these ornaments. I love doing the hand painted pieces. I hope that people want to continue buying them for a long time. Um, and just to continue adding more locations and custom and Yeah. Awesome. So, Haley, do you have any siblings? I have a younger brother. Younger brother. Yeah. And And what does he do? Um, he's a house painter with my dad. How about that? Huh? So, the influence is right there. There it is. Right. We're all moving
265that moving that forward. We always love that. That's a good thing. Yeah. Right. Um, so tell me a little bit more about you. Do you think you might teach this as a class to kids to maybe influence them to get into ornament painting and and in and developing? So, actually um my my inclination was to say no, but I um are you are you familiar with um Friends Forever Studio? Um with so much brighter. Oh, so she's a candle shop. I might be. Yes. Okay. Yes. So, um she's a friend of mine, Katie. She's awesome. Go buy her candles. They're fabulous. Go buy those candles, ladies and gentlemen. So, she has a studio in the back of her shop where she has um artists come in to do workshops. And I do plan on doing
266a workshop there in the fall for these little um votive houses that I make. So, it's the same. It's they're made of wood. I use my laser to engrave them. But, um I want to do a workshop where I I build the houses, but people come in and they can paint them themselves. Wow. How great is that? So now you can make it and then let's say you have a design or whatever they make and then they come in and they just paint whatever it is they they want. Oh, that's so cool. I am so terrible at painting. I got to be honest. Awful. Yeah, I got I Well, you know, yeah, I have to practice, but I I I'm more like I'm a I'm a good guy. I can draw stick stick figures really
267well. I'm I'm good with that. You know what I mean? Um, so tell me about the inspiration you get though from making these certain like ornaments like how is that and how that inspired like where does that come from? Is that like a process that you go through where you sit down and say I want to make this particular design or that particular design? Like what's that process? So, I think like um mostly what I've been going off of is like when I pick a business or a landmark um for me it's something that I have a personal tie to something that um that I uh either have enjoyed about in Beverly or have um have gone to so like the Cab the Anchor I can't even tell you how many times I've been in
268the anchor fbers. Um all those places are places that I've gone to a lot. So the initial ornaments that I've made are all or the roller palace. I used to play roller derby. Like that was a that was a big place where I used to go to practice skating. Um so a lot of them are places that have a special place in my heart. But a lot of them have come to me um by people requesting those locations. And okay, I'm a visual person. So if I see a sign and I like it, I'm like, "Yeah, I'll definitely make that ornament. That's fun." Yeah. So that's that's really cool like to be able to do that. Like I I wish I I was like that can just be inspired by seeing something and all of
269a sudden create some art. You know what I mean? That's a that's a really good talent to have. Yeah. Um, you know, unfortunately I don't possess that, but uh Haley does. And uh she does a very nice job with it. Um so again, you're probably what, uh I'm guessing in your 20s, early 20s, late 30s. Oh, you're so nice. Late 30s, 39. Oh, okay. All right. So, I'm thinking, where do you see yourself in like 10, 15 years with this particular business? Maybe. Is it going to be something you're going to leave to your your your kids and have them carry that mantle on or what do you think? What do you think? I mean, my son would really have to prove himself. We practice coloring in the lines a lot. Um, I don't know.
270I So, I had renovated my garage into um a full studio last year. So, um, being able to work in my studio on a regular ba basis, on a daily basis is really, really important to me. So, um, to me, I just I hope I'm still making artwork in 10 to 15 years at a at a regular pace. Um, I love the medium that I'm currently working in, so I hope to continue to expand upon that. Nice. Well, let's hope that that that does happen. Maybe you can partner with uh certain folks in town and maybe Yeah. No, I think there's a lot of opportunities for partnership and for sure. I think that's probably the best advertisement for your business, right? Because as you see, you know, people be like, "Oh, who made that?" Oh,
271let me go talk to her. You know what I mean? And generally speaking, that that's the best thing you can do. Absolutely. Um, what booth number are you, Haley, today at Art? I think I'm 41. She might be 41, ladies and gentlemen. She might be 41. So, make sure you start on Federal Street. Oh, maybe. Okay. So, make sure you start by booth 41 and you see Haley and she'll get you all caught up on what she's doing. Maybe even design a couple things while she's there. Right. Right. Right. We can design something for you. Um I have a couple more questions. So, I'm sure you work really hard with what you're doing. You and your husband probably, right? Going crazy doing that, running around with the kids and all of that stuff, right? Um,
272if you had a chance to go on vacation anywhere in the world and money were no object. Money was no object. Money was no object. Where would Where would you go? Norway is big big Norway. Okay. Why Norway? Uh, the fjords are beautiful. Um, you've never been? No. I want to see the the night sky up there. I don't know. It looks like a magical place. Looks beautiful. Magical place. I love it. I love it. All right. So, she's taking her husband to Norway, ladies and gentlemen. That's where they're going. Go buy some ornaments. Yeah, for sure. Um, and then how about, you know, you being influenced by different things that you see in the city. If you were able to sort of sit and have dinner with say some one of your influences in
273the city, maybe like I don't know a statue or someone who of of like Cabin Street like um Mr. Cav or whoever, right? If you were able to just sit and have dinner uh with that particular person, um who what questions would you ask them about creating art because they've created something themselves? They created like a statue or something like that of themselves or a monument. What would you ask that specific person about creating art? Kind of tripped you up on this one. Yeah, that's a tough one. I guess I would ask them like what to them is special about Beverly. Yes, I like that. Yeah, you know, for sure. And Beverly does have a lot of special businesses and owners and and as you mentioned, you said your your parents are small business owners
274as well. So that's one of the biggest things I think that influences that you can take from that and continue to really push your art forward. Yeah. Using that medium. I love it. Yeah. Well, ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to visit booth number 41. This is Haley Doyon and thank you for stopping by Beth Cam today and much continued success at Artfest. Thank you. All right. See you later. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Bye. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey, [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey, [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey. [Music] Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Bev Artfest. I am Anthony Davis. I am a host here at Bevcam. Uh I have a whole a podcast called Footprints and you can check it out at uh www.footprints.com. Also all our streaming services uh
275posted here Bevcam channel 22 uh also Apple podcast and also Spotify and my YouTube channel Footprints podcast. Joining me today at Artfest is a guy named Aie. Oie, you got it. Oie. And Aie does something that's very interesting. He does glass art. And we're going to find out a little bit about what Oie likes with the glass art and why he got into it. Yeah. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show here at Bevcam. What's going on, guys? All right, Orie, first question. Glass art. Why? Why' you How did you get into it, first of all? Let's Let's talk about that. Yeah. Um, well, to be honest, uh, I tried having a real job for a little while. Oh, that sounds familiar. And, um, I completely failed. Um, well, I didn't fail, but Oh,
276good for you. Nice. No, I did. And so I ended up first being a a beekeeper for about a decade and um that was very interesting, very fun. Beekeeper, what what led you to that? I'm I'm curious about that. Man, I was uh I was in college. I was interested in in the environment, interested in um working with the environment and uh kind of found beekeeping and uh and then it spiraled, you know, like certain things in life like you you take one step and next thing you know you're 10 steps deep. Um that sounds familiar. Yeah. So, you know, I think I I pretty much um started beekeeping and I did the whole thing. I did uh I did commercial beekeeping. Um, I worked for the state of Massachusetts as an apiary inspector for
277about five years. Uh, started my own beekeeping business. Um, and I was kind of, you know, beekeeping is one of those occupations where you're working in the you're working in the summertime, but wintertime there's really not much to do. You know what I mean? It's it's uh it's so I that's around a time when I was um you know really uh my wife my at that point my girlfriend uh now my wife had moved in with me and she was a glass artist. Okay. And uh I was so there's the inspiration right there. That's where I got started. Right. There we go. That's why I got started beekeeping. And so we went down to uh a studio down in New Jersey called Weeden Arts which is in Millville, New Jersey. And uh I was actually
278not interested in glass. I was actually a potter at that point. Wow. And uh moved my way from the pottery studio to the glass blowing studio mostly because I was in the pottery studio. It was January. I was freezing and everybody all my friends were in the glass shop hanging out, loud music, what's going on here? I was like, man, you guys are partying every single night. So, I ended up starting to learn how to blow glass. So, my first teacher was my wife. Wow. Okay. Um, so, so take us through that process. How does it start? You have to heat it up. I I imagine, right? So, I mean, and you have to pick a specific piece of glass or how does that work? Yeah. So, uh, the type of glass that I do
279is I do uh a furnace working. So, imagine you have a furnace that uh holds a molten glass inside of it and the furnace is running at around 2100°. Okay. Now, what I do is I have these hollow metal tubes and I gather. So, I literally put the metal tube into the glass and I turn. And as I'm turning, I'm lifting out the glass out of the furnace, pulling it out of the furnace, and then I can start shaping it. Okay. So, the shaping process can be done in multiple different ways. We use, sometimes you can use a table called a marver. And so, the marver was actually a, you know, a lot of the words in English that we use for glass blowing actually come from the from Venice. Yes. The marver, you know,
280it's it's it's actually the marble, right? It's the mar marble table that they used to roll the glass onto. Uh the different tools we use uh you know the sophie it's it's a it's essentially a cone head shaped tool that you're able to blow into the glass to puff it up. Okay. So it's like sofa. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Sofa. So, you know, we're we're we're constantly shaping the glass by turning it using metal tools or wooden tools onto the glass and we can shape it in in various ways. Nice. Well, I'll tell you that that's a mouthful there, Ari. I mean, that's a lot of stuff going on. How long have you been doing glass blowing or glass? At this point, I've been blowing glass for about eight years. And um and my wife has
281been blowing glass for about 14. Wow. Yeah. My goodness. So, and and when it comes to working with glass, it is a it's a teamwork like we have to work together. Oh, no question. No question. Uh, and and by working together, you mean one person either has the glass in the in the fire and the other person's turning it or um and and let me ask you this, too. Yeah. Inspiration for like shapes in art, particular type of art. Where does that come from? Yeah, that's a that's a really good question. Um, you know, for a while when I was first kind of learning, I it was about mimicry, you know, like you find someone's piece that you like and you're like, "Wow, that is a skilled glass artist. Let me try to mimic that."
282Um, and then I try to mimic it. At this point, I'm less I'm not really going for mimicry mimicry anymore, and I'm actually going for inspiration from the natural world. Okay. So, it's different scenes. All right. So, how did that work out when you were mimicking the other other art? Did that work out okay or was it was it kind of boring? Oh, it got boring. It got boring. Oh, because you were able to do it so easily. Well, it took a while, you know, but the the reality is that like by mimicking something, there's only so far that you can go. I see. Yeah. Once once but it's it wasn't about trying to create the piece. Well, it is about creating the piece, but it's about trying to learn the hand skills in how
283to do that. Okay. And so now you can create pretty much anything from glass. I wouldn't say anything, but you know, I I consider myself a decent glass blower. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, what are some of the favorite pieces you've created? Yeah, so we do these really cool um we call it the portal series and uh they're all about inspiration that we see within the natural world. So, like for example, I got this one piece and it all came from this uh time where I was canoeing down the river and it it was sunset, the sun was coming down, the lotus flowers are blooming, the tree was overhead, you know what I mean? You see the image, right? Of course I can't. And then I tried to take that feeling and I tried to
284put it into glass. Nice. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I'll tell you something. That's a that's a skill and an art uh that I do not possess, ladies and gentlemen. Very nice job. Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to mention that we do have these lovely Bevcam mugs on sale out in front of Bevcam right now uh at the Artfest. So, if you are thirsty like I am, which I'm going to take a little bit of a swig right now, please go out and get yourself a Bevc cam mug. Now, uh getting back to this glass blowing thing a lot. Sure. Um is it something that you can teach kids to do and have you done that? Yeah, actually we have. Um, you know, I think that glass is such an interesting material because you take
285a molten blob and you can create anything from it. You know the the saying of the marble makers where they were they could take a piece of marble and they could chisel out the face of Hercules. I mean, it was it's it's that's kind of how I think about glass, but rather than rather than starting with a solid stiff form, you start with a molten blob. So, I think that like when it comes to teaching children, the main thing that I find is when there's no fear, anything can be created. Yeah. So, yes, like we have taught children like even at the age of six, seven years old, if they're interested, man, you should see their eyes light up and they they they are like, "No, they go full steam on that." And it's it's
286beautiful. I mean, and and and I find that the pieces that children make are like are just so creative and so um like I guess without fear. Yeah. You know, you bring an adult into the hot shop, I mean, it's scary. You got a furnace at 2100° fire, you know, you got metal tools, it's hot, you got to turn like it's it's the the adult mind. We have a hard time Yeah. kind of comprehending all that stuff. Yeah, for sure. I understand that. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. So, um, tell me about your parents. What did they do? What What type of work did your parents do? What was your dad? Yeah, my dad's a musician. Uh, jazz musician. Uh, plays pretty much every instrument, but his main instrument was the bass. Okay. Um,
287so you know, I grew up in a house full of art. Yeah, exactly. That that's the main thing. That's what I was getting at because I realized you being what doing what you're doing and being where you are, you obviously had some influence, right? And and I my podcast is called Footprint. So that means that your dad left a footprint on you, right? And it influenced you that way, right? And so that's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. That's that's awesome because you found exactly what it is you should be doing in life, right? And not many people get to do that. No, absolutely. You know what I mean? I I feel very I mean it's it's been a challenge for sure but I I do feel very um lucky to uh have
288had the uh ability to follow my soul my spirit to um to wherever I am going and that's that's great. Yeah. Absolutely 100%. Do you have any siblings? One sister. Yeah. One sister. Okay. Now do you have any other hobbies other than glass blowing? Do you do anything else? Yeah, I I do hand balancing. Like hand balancing? Well, tell me about that. Well, you know, it was like it's fun. You know, it's you got you you get to move your body, you know. I'm I from the very start, I knew I want to be an athlete, but uh soccer didn't really pan out for me too well. Okay. You know, it was it was too difficult. So, you know, it was it was I was trying to find something else to do. So, you know,
289you went into like bodybuilding, but then I got too stiff and I was like, I can't move. So then so then I kind of like found uh you know movement like pattern movement and and then gymnastics and and hand balancing has been um and it's been great because uh part of glass blowing and also beekeeping, you know, we're always using our shoulders and uh my shoulders can get really stiff and and painful. And I find that uh the hand balancing practice actually uh strengthens me in in both in mobility uh and flexibility that I am able to do my practice even better. Yeah. So that that part of my life that I try to do is it's a it's a holistic right you know the the way I eat, the way I move, the way
290I do my art. I is all around this idea of like I'm trying to create art. And so I have to be like I have to make sure that like I don't hurt because if I hurt I can't do my stuff. Yeah. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. So now where do you get the influence to make all these different sort of uh things? Where do you get that from? The influence. The influence. Yeah. Where do you So where do you get like the influence like who influenced you to sort of make this this art that you're making with the glass? Do you have certain things that you see visually? Oh, I see that. Let me see if I can make that. like what do you where does that come from? Yeah. Uh
291I think so I you know the part of with with my with my art which I don't want to say my art because it's my wife and I's art. It's our art. Um my wife is very like her work is very conceptual and my work is much more literal. Ah okay. You know what I mean? No you need to explain the difference. Yeah sure. Conceptual and literal. Go ahead. Yeah. So like like for example like what I see like man I love that piated woodpecker. Okay. Right. Yeah. But it's like it's like I will say all right I'm going to create a pied woodpecker on a piece of wood. Okay. So I I sculpt out the piated woodpecker. You know carve out the wood put it together. That's literal. That's literal. You know what I
292mean? Yeah. I'm digging that. Okay. Conceptual. Right. That's a lot. My my wife. She'll be like, "Oh, I have this emotion towards something I see." And so she'll create a piece that is um abstract colors, you know, shapes. I see the difference. Okay, I got you. Like textures, um flow, but you know, for me, the conceptual is much more difficult. Literal makes a lot more sense to me in my mind. Yeah. Um, so what we do as a glass blowing team is we'll take the conceptual aspect of it, combine it with the uh conceptual with the literal and then create really unique pieces that combine both of our styles. Yeah, I see that. That's that's pretty cool. And that's hard to do, by the way. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Because you got to have a vision
293of where that piece is going, right? In order for you to complete it. Nice job, by the way. and we have to work together. You know what I mean? It's like she'll she'll we'll be like she'll have something she'll want to do and like in a split second like we somehow together decide nah, we'll actually do this. So, it's it's very interesting. Wow, man. That's crazy. Now, you've been doing this, you said, for eight years, right? And your wife's been doing it for 14, you said. Yeah. So now where do you think uh it's going to go to in the next like what would be the next level for glass blowing hello probably in like five 10 years from now. What do you for ourselves? Yeah. For yourselves. What do you see that kind of
294metamorphosising to like sort of evolving to? Where do you think that's going to go? Yeah. Um I would love to um do more like sculptures for museums, for hotels, outdoor sculptures, you know, like indoor lighting um you know, all with like our artist vision and um and also create more of our sculptural uh uh series. Okay. Um, I would love to get a bunch more residencies in glass shops that will allow me to like push my boundaries and what I believe is pushing the boundaries within the glass industry. Um there's so much we can go and uh and also for my own sake, you know, like be as be as balanced of an individual as possible, not only in the art because like my art reflects my own psyche. If I'm not in a good
295place, my art's not going to be in a good place. Yeah, for sure. It's interesting you said that because my parents used to say to me every day, they're like, "Listen, when you get up in the morning and you walk into the bathroom and you stare into the mirror, who's looking back at you? You're looking back at yourself." And so my parents would always say, "You have to be good with yourself in order to be good with the world, right? In order to go out and and sort of impact the world, right? Give that that that goodness to them, right? And so you're doing that in a way with your art, right? You're doing that through kids. You're influencing them and showing them the the art of glass blowing. Your wife has been doing it
296for 14 plus years. Now you're doing it for eight. And you have different concepts that you're trying to implement and do. And it's probably been a a great journey for you to see the metamorphosis of the just the the the evolution of how things have gone, right? From from step one to now we're at step five maybe. Right. And for you it's probably been a great journey to see how it's all come about, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. What booth number are you guys at here at Artfest? Oh man. Do you remember? I don't remember. But you can check come check us out at Sheer Glass Works. Um 106. That's it. 106.6. So ladies and gentlemen, make sure you go to booth 106. See Ari and his lovely wife. What's your what's your name?
297Maline. Meline. And uh they'll be there to to walk you through all the art that they have there. And it's been my pleasure to have been with Ari today kind of covering and giving you a little peak about what he does and what his wife does for a living. All right, we'll see you next time at Beth Cam, you guys. Bye-bye. Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Artfest. My name is Anthony Davis. I am a podcaster here at Bevcam. I have a show called Footprints and you can find it at www.footprints.com. Uh also on channel 22. It'll be posted here uh at Bevcam. Uh Apple podcast, we have that. And also I have a a YouTube page called Footprints Podcast. You can find it there. And if you love our content, please subscribe if
298you want to be on the show. Also, that's cool, too. Joining me today at Bevcam Artfest is Dom, right? Did I say that right? Yeah. Dom. And Dom is a senior, about to be a senior at Monzerat College of Art, and he is into graphic design. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome Dom to the show, by the way. Uh, thanks for being here. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. First question I have right off the bat. Right off the bat, artists, you right. And you said graphic design. How did that come about? Where did where did that influence come from for graphic design? Well, so I like playing video games. And there's this one video game. It's called Geometry Dash. Have you heard of that? I have not. Geometry Dash. It's like a platforming game. Is it
299kind of like uh I'm into old school Pong. Like is it like that? You're this You're this cube, right? And it's a platforming game, so you're always going right and there's spikes and you got to jump over the spikes. Okay. But like this game, right? Right. Like that's what it looks like on the surface, but there's like a whole community about it. And that community makes different levels. Got it. So those levels, they have like different designs, right? So what I do is I would look at those levels and I would make basically thumbnails of those levels. Wow. So like if a level would be called something, I would take a screenshot of the level and I would design text on top of the level so it would it would look like a thumbnail, right?
300That's technical. So then I started doing that and then I just got into Photoshop and Okay. wanted to go to school for it. So as a kid, what were the some of the art influences you had coming up when you were younger? As a kid? Yeah. Did that did anything like that kind of get into your brain like, "Hey, maybe when I get older I might want to do this." Um, I as a kid I always looked at like movie posters and stuff like that and I would kind of look at them and I would be like, I kind of I want to make stuff like that. Okay. You know, I didn't know what it was. So, I originally in high school I started taking film classes. Oh, okay. So, I started I want I
301thought I wanted to make like movies because I also edit videos. All right. So, I do like editing and graphic design. Mhm. So I went to school for like video editing. I went to like a trade school for two years in high school for video editing. And then during video editing, I realized that I like Photoshop more. So then I'm like, you know what? I'm going to I'm going to pivot to graphic designing. So that's interesting too because right when you go to school for something else, you're like, oh, I go to school initially for this. And then all of a sudden you're like, well, I don't really like that. Right? and you find exactly your comfort zone, what you like. That's the beauty of being able to have that th those footprints implanted on
302you, right? Being able to like be like, you know what, I like this, but I'm going to go here. This I like a lot better. All right. Tell me a little bit about Do you have any siblings, D? You have a younger brother. Younger brother. And is he into art like you? Um, I I don't think he's really decided. He He used to be a lot into like space. Like he used to be like, I want to work at NASA. NASA. I don't know. I don't know what he's up to now. Like I don't know what he's really interested in. I'm I'm not really like I'm from Long Island. Okay. So, I'm not really home there often anymore, so I don't know. Maybe his interests have changed. It could be. You never know. How old
303is he? I think he's We're seven years apart. Oh, okay. I'm turning 21. So, that would make him like 14. 14. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Trust me, I have seven kids, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, in case you didn't know. Now you do. Uh my oldest daughter is going to be 40. My youngest son's going to be 20, so I know that gambit of the that teenage years between that all that stuff going on. So yeah, your your needs and and wants change quite quite a bit. Um, let me ask you this. As you're going through sort of thinking about designing certain things, what what interests you the most about graphic art artists? What what interests you the most about all that stuff? What interests me the most is like how easy it is
304to find a solution to like a problem, right? You you see like like you ever look at like a menu and you're like this is hard to follow like or like something like that or you look at text and you're like this is so overwhelming. Most of the time you can just rearrange it and it works. Okay. So it's like the alignment of things like like when I started doing graphic design like the thumbnails and stuff like that I was just kind of doing my own thing but then I like started going to college for it and it gets very technical. It's like this goes here and the hierarchy and stuff and like the different words and it gets it it really like gets super technical. No doubt. So take us through that process. Like
305so when you were a freshman and you took classes to now you're almost a senior, what what are the differences between some of the classes you took early on as a freshman and some that you're taking now? So when you're a freshman, you got to take like the the drawing classes and all those like um starting classes. But then once I got past that, I started taking stuff like typography one, which is like strictly like working with text and stuff like that, like text based stuff. And um then I would take graphic design one like the graphic design one, two and three and classes like that. And those graphic design classes really like took like advertising classes. So things like that like Okay. So now what did you learn in each one of those classes?
306Right. What when say you know you designed something, how would you advertise a graphic design that you made? What do you mean? So remember you said you took advertising as one of the classes. Yeah. So if you made something let's say you made a video game for instance for like I don't know Sega whatever. Yeah. Right. How would you advertise that specific video game in terms of what it does? You have to connect with the viewer. So what's the demographic for Sega? It would be like uh like younger kids, right? Like middle school maybe something like that. So you'd advertise, you'd make a commercial and it'd be like, oh, a kid coming home from school and you really want to play that new game and you know, all his friends are excited and stuff. You
307got to put it in, you have to really like in advertising, we really learned a lot about like you got to find the demographic. You have to know, you have to put yourself in the mind of that particular who you want to advertise. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You're right. And and it's it's important to be able to do that so that way you're drawing in the customer, right? and you give them a little trailer, right? Like a little movie trailer for instance, you know, like let's say you design a game. By the way, have you designed any games yet? Designed a game? No, I've designed like um not a game, but I've designed like mockup brands. Oh, okay. So, tell us about that. So, like in my graphic design 2 class, uh we had to
308make a brand and then we had to make a bunch of assets for it. So, I made up a brand. It's called Wishbone. Okay. And it's basically kind of like um it's like um what's that um dog food website? Oh, something or I don't know. But there was like a dog food site and kind of like farmer's dog or something like that. I don't know. Yeah. But I basically made like a logo for it. I made like a box design. I made like a an app prototype like you can see it on your phone and you can touch the buttons and all that stuff and Okay. Interesting. Cool. So, where did the inspiration from that come from? Is it just something you thought about doing and then I'm going to do it or Yeah. that
309was it? Just I'm gonna implement it. Bang. Okay. So, tell me about now you're going to be a senior at Monzerat College of Art, right? What are some of the courses you're going to be taking senior year that are going to kind of connect the dots from freshman year to senior year? So, the courses I'm taking next year are one of them is uh senior thesis, which is uh six credits. So, it's the credits of two classes. Okay. And then I'm also taking typography 2, which goes more into depth about like the, you know, text and stuff like that. And then, um, was taking one other class, but I forgot which one it was. That's all right. Don't worry about it. We're good. So, now after you graduate, are you thinking of maybe hooking on
310with a company to to do some sort of work? You interning at one of these companies that might help you sort of get into some more graphic designing stuff? What are you thinking? Yeah, I mean I would love to, you know, get Yeah, of course. You know, I I want to find a place and hopefully I'm I'm interning at Bevcam right now. Yeah. So hopefully after the internship I could maybe turn it into a part-time and maybe, you know, we'll see what happens from there. Yeah. No doubt. I don't really cuz like you know how like you said where it's like, you know, you can plan something for so long and it can change. Just like how I thought I wanted to do video editing and then I swapped to graphic design. Yeah. I'm not
311really thinking about what I'm going to do after college right now because honestly whatever I think's going to happen is probably not going to happen. Probably not going to happen. That's always how it happens is. Trust me, I know for a fact it's probably not going to happen. Yeah. Because I mean I went to Emerson College and I went for radio broadcasting and I did that for a while and DJed and did all that stuff and it was pretty cool. But um you know I got to education because I think my dad knew I was going to be a a teacher. Like this is what he would do. So I would be at football practice or basketball practice all day. I'd come home and my dad's like, "Listen, I know you've been in school. I
312know you've been in practice all day." But today's word, Tony, is fossil. I want you to use that in a sentence. I'm like, "Come on, Dad. What are you doing to me?" Right? And I didn't see the value in that then. But as I got older and got away from all the other stuff, I said, "Geez, my dad was kind of preparing me for that." Right. And so that's what you want to do. You want to prepare yourself for whatever comes your way. Right. And after graduation, like you say, you might be, "Yeah, I don't know. I'm I'm involved in this and that and maybe an intern in this, but what happens is remember like you said early on, you you went to school for one thing and you discovered you like something else. And
313that's probably going to happen once you uh once you graduate. Um, you know, I wish you much much success, Dom. Uh, and enjoy your senior year because then when the real world hits, oh boy, it's gonna be fun. Yeah, you'll be fine. I know you'll be fine. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Artfest today. My name is uh Anthony Davis. Again, make sure you subscribe to my podcast, Footprints, and check it out on channel 22 here and also uh www.footprints.com footprints.com and on Apple Podcast and uh also on Spotify. Don, thank you for joining us today. Appreciate you and uh enjoy your senior year, my friend. And I'm sure we'll see you again. All right. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Bye-bye. [Music]