Vault Episode 13: Howard Lyon

A good life in art rarely follows a straight line. We sit down with fine artist Howard Lyon—whose work spans Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and the worlds of Brandon Sanderson—to trace a path that runs from a tech-filled childhood in Mesa to global conventions, cathedral-quiet studios, and a thriving creative home in Utah.

Howard unpacks the moment tabletop fantasy turned from hobby to compass, and how video games quietly trained him for a painter’s life: mastering color, texture, and collaboration while learning to deliver on deadlines. He shares the Venn diagram that guides his career—where passion meets market need—and the two jaw-dropping calls he turned down: art directing Diablo 3 and joining early League of Legends. Those no’s weren’t about ego; they were declarations for oils, story, and the long game.

We dive into how Magic changed everything. Unlike hyper-specific RPG scenes, card art builds personal bonds through play, creating a rich secondary market of prints, signatures, and playmats that pays forward for years. Hear the backstory of Harmless Offering, why Death’s Shadow won’t stop resurfacing, and what happens when you sign cards in Tokyo, London, and Rome for the same smiling superfans. That credibility led to collaborations with Brandon Sanderson, whose visual, empathetic storytelling cultivates a fanbase as generous as it is passionate.

Why Utah? Howard explains the secret sauce: world-class painters, open studios, and a refreshingly uncompetitive culture that lifts everyone. We explore a shifting art market—Western staples endure while fantasy rises with the Star Wars and Pokémon generations—and why museums like George Lucas’s story-focused collection will anchor that future. Along the way: travel-fueled plein air trips, baking bread as a healthy non-monetized hobby, and a simple rule for creatives everywhere—show up, be ready, and keep choosing work that keeps you alive.

If this story sparked something, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review—then tell us the bold no that made room for your best yes.

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Transcript

Vault Intro And Howard’s Origins

SPEAKER_02 1:14

What is up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Nilsen. Now, this week we are going back to a Vault episode with Howard Lyon. Now, Howard is a world-renowned fine artist that has had quite the career in his lifetime. Now, from a young age, his parents championed him to lean into his creative and artistic side. Now, this has led him to work on some amazing projects from some of your favorite video games to the artwork for some of the best Magic the Gathering cards and even artwork for some of the Brandon Sanderson books that you know and love. So let's get into it and hear from Howard. It's a great interview and one that I still think about a lot to this day. So hope you enjoy, and I will see you on the other side. Cool. Yeah, there we go. Cool. It's so funny too. Like on your sorry, on your topic of podcasts, it's so interesting because like I've had enough people on now, and like the two examples I use is the first per oh, so the second person I interviewed, name is David Garbett, uh to Garbette Holmes, but also runs a nonprofit Call O2 Utah. And he has a podcast, but like his main goal of the podcast is oh, don't want that, don't want that.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

But we do want that. Okay, cool.

Childhood Drawing And D&D Spark

SPEAKER_02 2:16

But like his whole goal is to get like subject matter experts and people that he wants to talk to. Yeah. And so he's like, I'm not trying to grow this thing, I just want to get people's attention. And then similarly, someone I record, I think it was episode six or seven, with his name is uh Stuart Anderson, who's kind of like leader of a bike club, kind of like over on the Lower East Bench. And his goal is to like understand everybody on the team, especially like people in leadership roles. So if someone's like, Oh, I'm kind of interested or I want to get to know everybody, there's a way to do it. And I was actually talking to John Darley uh about it as well, because he's like, I kind of like the way like you talked to me about paintings and like like I like he in the episode I did with him, he um hit one of his famous paintings that he has, one of his personal works, uh The Bearing, is like talking about this like two-year period where he had where it was just like he's like, I was depressed, I was working from like five to three in the morning every day on commissions. My wife was working full time because we had to pay for a house, like and he's like, all of that energy is in there. He's like, I hate it sometimes because it's like such a dark painting to me, but I had to paint it. Yeah, and so because like I love art, I appreciate I appreciate art. I always try to understand art more. But in like my opinion, like it when you can look at something and see it at face value and say, Oh, I appreciate this, this is cool. And there's sometimes I don't want to know the detail because it has like a specific meaning to me. But then at the same time, if you understand where the artist was at, what was going on, it's so much more meaningful and actually gives so much more context and meaning to it compared to just saying, Oh, I appreciate how this was done.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

So I've I've always appreciated that approach. Here, move that mic just a little bit closer to you. You yeah, you can get like right up in there if you want to and just make sure. Oh, there we go. That's a lot better. That's better. Um, cool. Well, I kind of want to well, all right. So just to uh before we get like started started, um I assume you haven't listened to any episodes or really like uh looked at the outline, but it's pretty simple. Uh kind of breaking into three parts. Uh how did you get to Utah? So we'll kind of talk about growing up in Arizona and coming here, and then uh I mean BYU, going to school, get into becoming an artist, the art you work on, definitely want to touch on uh kind of like the magic stuff, the Brandon Sanderson stuff, and then you know, obviously a lot of the stuff you've done for the church, and then also just the stuff that you prefer, some fun stories in there, and then wrap up with why you stay here, what makes you excited about the art community. Um it's all stuff that you've known and have talked about probably way too many times, but we'll at least get it down one more time. But I've I've also like I was talking to you when we were walking up, I always like to start these with kind of how we ended up in a room together. Yeah, because they they they become very interesting. And actually told you this on Friday because I was at uh your uh Christmas party. But uh so I was leaving the the gym at Edison where we are now, and one of the a lot of the people that work here know I do the podcast. I'm like, oh, have you met so-and-so here? Like, have you met this to try to help out, which is really fun and appreciate them a ton. They're all super nice. And one of them, Kenzie, was like, Hey, do you know David Bingham and Belle? I was like, Yeah, I know David. I've seen Belle almost like five times a week for the past four months, but never said a word to work because we all we go to the gym at the same time. So we like we see each other, but we don't say a word. And then so I'm like, Oh yeah, because when I talked to David once, because he is a Salesforce um developer administrator, and I work in tech doing similar things. So we talked one morning when we were working together downstairs, and so Kenzie's like, Oh, like, do you know them? Like, yeah, yeah. And she's like, Well, do you know her dad is a famous artist? I was like, My ears perk up. I'm like, go on, like, like, like, tell me more. And she's like, Well, there's this like card game called Magic that he's done some artwork for, and there's this like guy who writes books that's fantasy in Utah. And I was like, in my head, I'm like Magic the Gathering and Brad and Sanderson. Like, that's the only thing that makes sense, right? And so I'm like, okay, cool, whatever, put it in the back of my head, figure out what I'm gonna do with it. And then I was recording an episode here uh with uh restaurantur Mateo, and I was walking in, I saw David there, and he was working with someone. So walk this guy out, come back and like, hey David, like talk to Kenzie. Sounds like your father-in-law uh is an artist. Like, do you think you'd be interested in a podcast? He's like, Well, as dogs are not like roasting him, probably. So I'm like, yeah, definitely not. So he's like, let me text him. 20 minutes later, sends me your number. And I'm like, Cool, I am way too busy right now. Let's reach out in January, we'll we'll figure this out later. Fast forward the next day. I see uh Belle and David in the gym. First time I ever talked to Belle. She's like, Oh, nice to meet you. Sounds like you're gonna interview my dad in like small world. And then David's like, well, just so you know, they're like leaving in January to go back to Arizona and gonna be traveling for a while, so it's kind of like now or never. And I was like, okay, like let's do it, okay, we can do this. Make it work, make it work. And so yeah, it started texting you, got it all scheduled, and then yeah, it saw you at the party on on Friday, saw your family. It's funny because like I was at the party, I was like, I wonder if Howard would see the beard. I was like, yeah, and like just because me and you, uh, if we were to uh quote unquote commit a crime together and they're trying to draw us up, we would be the exact opposites. Yeah, I have long hair on my head, I have zero beard, and if I tried to, it'd be terrible, and then you have little hair on your head and a and a big, thick, healthy, mild jealousy from me beer. So it's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

I definitely I I should be careful if I commit any crimes. I'm a little too easily identifiable in this area. There are not a lot of beards running around, or at least not long ones.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

So as long as it's not like the mid-1800s where that look was more common than that.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

I could blend in back then.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Totally. Well, Howard, I'm so excited to have you here. I'm so excited to hear a lot of your story. Um, I love talking to artists and about their craft and what they do because I, as someone who like my day job is very quantitative, very numbers, very logic based. My other side of my brain tends to gravitate towards art and and understand it better because it's such a more abstract thing and keeps me a lot more grounded. But uh kind of want to start from the beginning. I know that you're not a Utah native, but uh from I believe Mesa, Arizona.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

I mean, what was it like growing up there? I mean, were you painting from the womb or or how did it how did it get started? What was home life for you?

Early Training And BYU Path

SPEAKER_00 8:06

It kind of feels like that. Um, you know, I every once in a while I'll take the opportunity to go into elementary schools and talk about art. And uh in Arizona they had a program called um art masterpieces, and people would come in and talk to the kids about art. And when I go into like the first and second grade classes, I always ask who here likes to draw. And every kid in the class raises their hand. As I go up through the grades, it gets less and less, you know. So by the time you get to like sixth grade and you say who likes to draw, a handful of kids will raise their hands. But by that point, a lot of the kids have found other things that they're passionate about. It might be music or sports or whatever. So I was one of those kids that just never got tired of drawing because almost all kids draw, you know, at some point pick up a crayon and and love to color and and and to sketch around. Um so it just continued to be something that I was really passionate about. Um when I had free time, that's almost always what I was doing. And then when I was 10 years old, a friend of mine, um Jamie Darger, he introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons. And the first night we started playing at like 6 p.m. And we played through to the next morning, straight through the night. And my it was just like this is home, you know, this is amazing. Well, looking at the books, seeing all of the drawings and art that were in the books, it occurred to me, well, someone does this, someone gets paid to draw monsters and creatures and characters. And uh from then on, it was like I want to be a fantasy artist, you know, I want to draw dragons and trolls and and that for a living.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

So before the Dungeons and Dragons, I mean, what were you drawing primarily? Just kind of whatever you saw, or like dinosaurs and more simple things until you were.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

I definitely, yeah, I definitely drew a lot of fantasy before it. Um I I loved drawing dragons and you know, fairies and elves and all of that. Uh, you know, I had read the Hobbit. Okay, I was gonna ask if it came from like any literary works. Uh Chronicles of Narnia, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings. Um, I'd read some other fantasy in there too. Um but it wasn't until D D that it that it was real to me that this could be a job. Um, seeing that someone did that and assuming, you know, they got paid to do the work as a kid. And then DD quickly turned into just me drawing my characters and maps and creatures, much to the frustration of my friends, because it was we'd get together to play and it'd be like, hold on, I gotta draw this monster for the campaign. And yeah, and it would always turn into this big long drawn-out thing. So uh when I was prepared for it, we had a lot of fun. When I wasn't prepared, they it was an exercise in patience for my friends waiting for me. But uh yeah, it when I wasn't drawing fantasy stuff, I loved drawing airplanes. Um my dad had a great love of airplanes and built a lot of model planes, and I grew up going to air shows and that. So I drew a lot of uh P-51 Mustangs and Spitfires and F-15s, and I just loved drawing that. I still have a great love of airplanes, especially of fighter jets. Um I just they're this weird combination of beautiful design and destruction, you know. Um but um yeah, so I still love it. But my real the the primary focus of my art is drawing people. Um that's been a lot of my study is is around being able to draw people, and from a very young age, that's what I was really enthralled with was drawing people. And fortunately, I had very supportive parents. So growing up in Mesa, wonderful place to grow up, and turned 12 and told my parents this is really what I want to focus on. Um, I don't want it to be the piano because we all have to take piano lessons in my family. Um so they let me stop piano and um get enrolled in some art lessons. Had a neighbor who was a very nice uh man, um, Eric Eliason, who I believe is a professor at BYU now, uh, but not in art. But he had taken art lessons um and uh had some things to share, and so I learned perspective and some other fun drawing skills from him. And uh had great teachers that really believed in me in all of my schooling, and they were very supportive, and um went from high school to a community college in Arizona, Mesa Community College, and had some wonderful teachers there that I still consider profound influences on me, um not just because they believed in me, but they were very good teachers. And uh then went from there to study illustration at BYU and Provo. And again was fortunate to have exceptional teachers that really helped me along the way. And while I was at BYU, I got a job working at a video game company, uh a company called Sapphire, and uh took me in a different path than I thought I was gonna go on. Ended up uh working there for a few years, and um, when we had our first child, Belle, we moved back down to Arizona.

First Game Jobs And Tech Roots

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Got it. And when you were so I'm so so Abe, I I love that you have the hindsight now to realize you're like, I was that kid that kept drawing. I was a kid who's who was never told to put your um uh imagination away or go play outside or go do something else because when I look and like especially because I have a lot of young nephews and nieces and seeing them grow up and like I'll see them draw like sometimes I'll be like, no, no, like cultivate that. The people who I know are the happiest, like I mean, quote, success, however you want to define success, usually creativity and just having an imagination and thinking like outside of the box is very important, no matter what you do, and especially with art, like and I because I love that you have this understanding of where you were and like did want to draw, but then you also had um great parents that are like, we will support you, we will do this. Like if I had a kid and they were like, Hey, I really just want to play the cello. Like, I don't really care about soccer after school, I don't care about this other stuff. Like, I just want to play the cello be like, all right, so here's your cello. Here's like like I'd be like, Yeah, I will get out of your way, I will do this. But I know some other parents like may not have had that same foresight or like wanting to do it, it's like, no, we're gonna do this because of that. And so it's it's so great that you had this system that got you there. Um, and especially to the point where I mean you obviously studied it in school, but I mean, in your studies at I mean, uh community college and at BYU, did that kind of solidify that you're like, I do want to work on I mean, figures and people, especially in this fantasy world, and especially with this kind of out of left field video game opportunity come in. I mean, how are you thinking about what you wanted to do at that point?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

You know, it that's it's an interesting question. Um I feel like I've always had plans as to what I wanted to do with my career, but um, those go out the window when opportunities arise and you think, well, I this this might be a good opportunity to take. And at the time it when I was a student at BYU, I um got offered a position making like$50 an hour uh back in like 90 96, you know. And uh that was far more money than I ever like I I quit college, I'm out of here, we made it. You know, and um I actually did. Like I I didn't finish school going there. There was no one ever asked for a degree, no one still asked for a degree, they want to see my paintings and they want to see what I can do. But I thought I would just do that while I was going to college, and it was a great way to earn some money. And um uh, like I said, that we had a bell, and we were like, well, we want to be closer to family, and Shari's family and my family were still all down in Arizona. Yeah. Um so Shari's family and my family were all down in Arizona, and we wanted to be closer to grandma and grandpa, and family is great to be, especially that first child coming from Leftfield. Yeah. And so we moved down there and I got hired um to be an art director at a video game company down there and worked there for a few years and then started my own video game company where we were making um educational games for kids.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

And how was the so how was it going from because I imagine mediums growing up is like I mean crayons, color pencils, whatever, to probably get more to school and probably when like oils and acrylics start to come in. I mean, how was that transition from like such a tangible medium that's traditional to being like, oh hey, we're now starting video games, like this is such a new way of creating. How did that, I mean, like kind of like paradox work for you?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

That's a good question, and it's a kind of fun backstory because my dad was the chair of the Department of Technology at Mesa Community College. And he was, my dad was a brilliant man, um, was always involved with technology. He did some really cool things in his career. He helped write the code that um determined how the tiles on the space shuttle would be arranged to cover all of the compound curves on the space shuttle. Every single tile was uniquely cut uh to fit on the space shuttle. So he helped work on that. He designed the radio that Houston would use to communicate with the astronauts on the moon and was awarded a patent for it. Um, so some really cool things. And so technology was always a big part of our household. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Well, it's like interesting because it's not just like technology. It's not like he's writing just software and that's it. Right. He is have this almost like perfect intersection between technology and art to be like, okay, well, how are we gonna cover the spaceship? How are we gonna so it's the he still has this creative mind that you were talking about? He has this artistic approach, but then also has this technology where it almost feels like this perfect, almost like handoff between this kid who grew up that wanted to draw and paint, but then finds himself here. It's almost like the perfect person, like give you a hand and boost you into that.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, and he was a very creative person. Um, the easel that I work on in my studio, he designed and built. It's amazing. And uh my cabaret he built for me and um, you know, just continued supporting me, you know, through his whole life. But um that kind of engineering mindset he definitely passed on um in my art. Like I I approach my art in a very methodical, process-driven way, and I think it comes from my parents. Both my parents were teachers, and and uh particularly my dad with that kind of engineering background. Um I feel like I learned problem solving through my dad. And I see a lot of art as a problem to be solved. You know, there's something you're wanting to convey, a narrative or an idea. And uh so you work on on resolving that problem. Um but uh yeah, they were they were always just immensely supportive.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Um I forgot where I was going talking about going from mediums like painting and drawing to not doing it all digitally.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So we always had computers in our home, like from the very beginning. And I remember we hand built a 286 um computer at one point where I got to help. We were like soldering all of the parts onto the board and assembling it. It had a little like five-inch monochrome amber screen uh that I I remember I would hand type in uh code to uh uh create games, you know, like little programming games where we'd get this magazine, I think it was called Analog Magazine, and it would have games in them, the code for it. Yes, and you type it in and basically and get it to work. But before that, we had an Amiga, we had an Atari ST, a 1040.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

So this is not this isn't like completely new territory.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

You're like I've been I'd been painting digitally, drawing digitally from like six years old, using a mouse. We had the very first Mac. We uh so we always had computers, we had scanners and digitizers and fun things in the house to play with. So by the time I started working on the city.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Your college sounds like the perfect just all these fun toys and gadgets to just play through creativity. That's awesome.

Lessons From Games And Market Fit

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I love that. It was it was great. We I made stop motion videos growing up, me and my friends, we were always making music videos and creating productions, and all of that creativity was very supported, kind of underwritten by my parents, you know, having the the gear to do it. So a great house to grow up in. And my mom taught preschool. She always had creative projects going on with our preschool classes um that seemed to feed what I was doing, and there were so there was an abundance of material as well as hardware to to work with. Yeah, very fun. Um, so when it did come time, um Sapphire was creating a game called Legends 98, and it was a football game, and the first job that they were having us do was taking black and white scans of the NFL football players and turning them into little color portraits, little pixel pixel art portraits of all of the players. I think they were maybe 128 by 128 pixels, so tiny little portraits. Well, the way they were doing it was they would scan them in and bring that image in, and then artists were painting on top of them, touching them up. When they hired me, I started working that way, but then realized I could write a little script that would take the black and white ones in and apply a preset palette to it and get it like 90% of the way there and eliminate 90% of the work than just going in and touching it up with a little digital tablet. This was before uh Wakeem had tablets. Um, it was some other company, uh, but it was the same idea where you had a little stylus and could work. And so they were playing, they were paying piece rate initially. And so I started making amazing money right out of the gate. Um, and then they switched me over to salary and it like cut my uh cut me down, you know, quite a bit, but it was still worth it, you know. It was still really great money working there, and I learned a lot. I learned so much about color, uh, texture, learned how to build things in 3D, texture them, animate, uh, do all of that sort of work. Even though in my heart I was wanting to be working in oils and working for gallery, but looking back on it, I recognized I wasn't ready. Um, we would have really struggled had I tried to make it in the fine art route right out of college.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Imagine you learned a lot of other like I mean just being at a company working, there's a lot of oh, you have there's deadlines that have to be met, you have work, you have responsibilities. So I'm sure that's some good lessons to learn at the very beginning of just how to do things in a like discipline.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah, work uh work a 10-hour work day, you know. Um, and that's a skill that that I needed to learn, you know, to have the discipline to do that. But I think one of the biggest things that I learned working in video games was learning to work with an art director. Um create a product that fulfills a need. And I think a lot of artists that struggle never learn how to create a product that fills a need or desire in the market. I always talk about there's kind of a Venn diagram of what the market wants and what you want to do. And you want to try and find some overlap there so that you're working on something that you're passionate about, you're working on something that you really care about and want to do, um, but you create something that there's a market for. Because I think every artist has things that they want to create that uh there might be a very limited market for. Um, so if you can find that overlap, that's very useful in working in video games, working on products and seeing things fail and seeing things succeed, and uh being able to do kind of a post-mortem on why, you know, why did this work and why didn't this work? And and doing that for 12 years on a lot of different products. I I think I've worked on about 42 different video games throughout my career. That's so fun. Uh most recently was Diablo 4. Oh, I mean that yeah, Diablo 4 that I got to do a lot of concept work on. Um, I did a lot of work on Star Wars The Old Republic. Um, and then going way back, I worked on uh StarCraft Brood Wars. Oh my goodness. An expansion for that, which was really fun. Clay Fighter 63 and a third was the first project that I got to be art lead on. That was a very fun one back on the Nintendo 64. But so I've worked on a range. I've worked from on the original Game Boy all the way to Diablo 4, you know, a big range. More and more pixels, different scripts. That's right. Uh that's right, where pixel art went from like 16 by 16, yeah, up to uh some of the icons that are designed. They're like, we want, you know, do these at uh 2048 by 2048, you know. Uh and transparent backgrounds, and you can they can animate and have effects on them, and you know, very, very cool stuff. Um I can I can only imagine where games will be in five years or 20 years. Um, it's incredible where they've come in my lifetime. Like I we had the original Pong console in our house, which was it was like this, you know, two-foot-wide console made out of hard ABS orange plastic, and and all it just plugged into the RF antenna on the back of your TV, like you'd screw it in, and uh you could play Pong on it. So I went from that, you know, to where we're at now with Unreal Engine 5 and just incredible to see where it's gone in my lifetime.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Yeah, I mean it's funny you mentioned that because so video games for me personally have always been very important. Um because I remember sixth grade Christmas is when we first got our N64. That was like the first console we ever got. We got Wave Runner 64, we got GoldenEye, and we got a couple others.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

And so hopefully Mario World.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Oh, yes, of course. That's a timeless class. Anyway, I could talk about those forever. But it was funny because like I started playing video games there, and there's this family that lived across the street from me. Uh, they're the Daniels. And so I grew up LDS, my family was all LDS. So they're really the first family that wasn't uh actively LDS, that I like spent intimate time in their home, like seeing how their home operated in a Jewish family. Like there was one time they're like, hey, we're gonna order pizza. I'm like, uh-uh. Hawaiian sounds great. They're like, hmm, uh we can't do that. Uh but but like anyway, I take it.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Hang on the pizza.

Big Titles And Industry Evolution

SPEAKER_02 28:15

So they in their living room they had like two computers where they're always playing either Age of Empires or StarCraft or something. And I would just sit over their shoulder and be like, Well, why'd you do that? What's this? What does this guy do? Oh, that's not good. And I would just learn. And they had this Sega Genesis and the dream, we'd always play playing video games. It was the first time I really understood like how people can connect, like playing the same thing, either the same or different areas, like, because I'm a very active mind. So if I can get involved, there's something strategic, something like um very engaging, like my brain just takes it, choose it, and it's kind of the way I can get things in like a single file line instead. Uh so it's always been a fun way for me. But I I mean I'm guessing I'm curious. Like, I mean, any funny stories about I mean, getting invited to to do the art for a game or a project that you worked on that was really fun that stands out to you?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Um so one of the things that and this kind of turned my career was there was a an author named David Wolverton. He wrote under the name David Farland for a lot of his books. And he came to Sapphire and wanted us to develop a game based upon a book that he was writing or that was just coming out called Rune Lords. And um it really captured my imagination. The book is fantastic, I highly recommend it. The first one in the series is called The Sum of All Men. And um he I started working on the video game proposal, and at the same time, he said, Are you interested in doing some illustrations for the book series? And so I did an illustration. It ended up getting into the hardcover on the end pages of the hardcover published by Tor Books, and that was my first published illustration post-university, post-college. And um I continued to have a relationship with him, a working relationship with him, and ended up doing the covers for three of his books, and um it pushed me to transition out of video games. It was like, ah, yes, this is really where my heart is, this is where I want to go with it. But before I moved out of video games fully, I ended up working with him again on a another video on another property called the Dragons of Frostbach. It was some guy had come up with this, these characters. We turned it into a uh video game called Wizmo's Workshop, and it featured all of the dragons and everything. But it was because of Dave Wilverton doing it. Um, so I continued to work with him. He was always supportive and encouraging me to break free from games and and become an illustrator. So finally, after doing my own company, um I did, I ended up um submitting some work, the Rune Lord's work to Wizards of the Coast and Paisel Publishing, and started doing work for Dungeons and Dragons. So at that point, I really had come full circle.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

I was gonna say, like because when I was looking at like doing some research, I saw there's like a video game in there, and I assumed it would be go to school, do this art, still studying the fantasy, and then somehow transfer there. I so it's funny that the the video games first and that led you to to do the books, which got you into Dungeons and Dragons and really comes full circle.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Right, yeah, which was which was amazing. And video games, I was passionate about games growing up, uh, loved working in the video game industry, um, maybe spent a little too much time in the kitchen, so to speak, meaning you make pizza all day, you don't want to make eat pizza when you get home at night, sort of thing. Um, and so I kind of have transitioned out of video games as a big part of my life. Um, may and I assume it's because I spent so much time making games. Um but maybe the real reason is is that I'm just so uh passionate and fulfilled painting. Yeah, I love it so much. It is what I want to do from the time I get up in the morning to when I when I go to sleep at night. And uh I love I love teaching painting, I love creating works, and uh so leaving the video game industry was a relief because it felt like I'm finally doing what I really am meant to do and really want to do. And the fact that my first real clients for it um after Dave, after Rune Lords, was DD was very fulfilling to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Well, and I like that too because I think there's like an authenticity to it and like following what you felt like you need to do and what brought you joy. Because I mean, going back to almost talking about like if they offered you a billion trillion dollars, you probably wouldn't have felt could have fulfilled, you probably would have had a lot of money, but you would still have this itch be like, Hey, I still really want to paint, so I want to do this. Yeah. And so I love that you followed that voice and followed that like true desire for what you needed to do to be happy, and it's led to this life of like, I now get to do this all day, every year, I get to teach it, I get to, I mean, be in some way, shape, or form of art and painting every day.

Pivot Toward Illustration And D&D

SPEAKER_00 33:20

I kind of had a uh approving moment in in my career where so I, you know, I talked about making my own company, made my own company, uh 9-11 killed it, like all funding dried up and everything. Uh that went away, and so I went from doing my own company in uh 2001 to freelance illustration and did that for a while. Well, a few years went by, and there was a company uh called Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, and they were getting fired up in Mesa, Arizona, and their focus was developing a game based on Stargate, and they had me do some freelance work for them, and they kept asking me if I would come in and art director at their company, and finally I agreed to, even though I said I'm never going back to video games, I I can't imagine it, but they were such a great group of people. I made some amazing friends there that I'm still in touch with. I worked with them uh for a few years, and the time came to leave the company, and at that point, I it having gone from working freelance to working, having a boss again, working at a company, doing that, it really did cement for me at that point that I'm like this is this is not what I meant to do, this is what I meant to do. Well, the week that I quit, Blizzard called me up and said, We would like you to art direct Diablo 3. Is that something that you would be willing to apply for? And uh I had I I said, you know what? I I Diablo 2 was one of the only games that I ever played through all the way. I said, I love your products, I love your games. I said, I think the only other game that I played through multiple times was Fallout 2. And they said, Oh, well, the writer of Fallout 2 is gonna be the writer on Diablo 3. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Um so I said, Let me get back to you. Hung up and thought, I'm gonna go home and have a discussion with my wife and talk about it. But about five minutes later, I I knew that it wasn't right for me. I called him back and I said, you know what, I this I'm I'm kind of on a different path now. Wow. And uh and turned it down. Then Riot Games called me up and asked me if I would like to come and work on a new game, League of Legends. Oh my goodness. And uh offered me uh a really generous package. I was friends with uh one of the executive producers on the game, and uh at then it was even easier at that point because I had already felt so good that this was the path that I needed to be on now.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

And it does always feel that way when you take like one big step in that way, because you have this one step, you're like, hey, I know I said I'd do this, but I I can't. Right. It's like you've ever watched Parks and Wreck, yeah. It's like when uh Adam Wyatt he keeps going back to the accounting for the one of record and he's like, You guys are gonna hate me again this time, and like leaves after he starts. Like that's it, kind of reminded me of that. But then also like like, well, let's try maybe his dream game and let's see if this works. Let's see if that's gonna be the dream producer. And he's like, no, and they're like, well, how about the game that's probably gonna be the known as one of the best games of all time?

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Yeah, still no, still doesn't drive.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Another trial, another test. Exactly. It felt like a Greek myth or something. You know, I kept get offering these tantalizing things, but uh oh, it just when you find something that you know is right for you, the um it makes life so wonderful. Like because you you don't feel like you're missing out on these other opportunities. You know, no, this is what is right for me. And I don't have to think what if. You know, I don't look back and think, well, what if I had taken that job and and ended up in Irvine, California, or end up, you know, ended up in LA, a riot or whatever. And um, my mind, it there's no sense of FOMO or anything like that because I know I'm doing what I I need to do for myself. And uh I I want that for everyone. I hope everyone can find that job, that thing that they do because I it's just eminently rewarding and fulfilling. I want that for my kids. Whatever they are passionate about and they want to do, I want them to pursue it with all of their energy and just really be able to throw themselves in it and go for it because the return on it is um that is what it life is about, is being able to find that sort of fulfillment. And uh I find that with my family, and I'm so fortunate to find that with my profession.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

Yeah. So because that's like to be honest, not a lot of people find that. I know, and like a lot of people just like not only do they not find it in like their work life, which I I believe it can be either good or a bad thing to not have that. I I wish it was like this level because then I think that is the good thing. Yeah, but if you anyway, TLDR is if you're forced to do something you love enough, you can start to resent it. And so I'd hate for people to lose it that way. Oh, sure. But at the same time, like even if people don't find it professionally, like a lot of people just live their whole life and never do find that amount of fulfillment. And it's sad because, like, and I it's funny because I as you were saying that, I like almost was like your dad, you either are a copy of your dad or you are being the perfect example of him to your kids, because I feel like if they were saying some of the same things or had interest in these same creative outlets or toy, like you'd be like, Yeah, yeah, cool, computer, this, do this. Like, this is what you're passionate about and want to move towards.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Let's do this. I we live in we live in a big world with a lot of people, and if you are passionate about something, you can find success, like the financial success that you need to be able to do it one way or the other. And if you um if you love what you do, then uh then the I I do feel like the money can follow, but whether or not it does, you still have that fulfillment of doing what you are passionate about doing. Um so it's a win either way. Now, to your point, not everyone does have the fortune. Maybe they don't come from a background or have the parents or the finance or whatever it might be to really pursue what they would love to do. That is the reality of the world we live in. I am very blessed, I'm very privileged to have been able to walk the path that I have. You know, I know of other artists whose their family was not supportive, and they had a harder fight to get to where they wanted to be. And some people the fight is too hard to be able to do it, and they have to go a different route, just out of practicality. So I acknowledge that. I'm very blessed to be able to get to do what I do. So for me to sit here and say, I think everyone should be able to do what it is that they're most passionate about, I recognize that may not be realistic for everyone. I want it to be. I wish it were, but to that end, I think it is also very important for people to have hobbies and hobbies that they don't even necessarily worry about monetizing. I think it's very healthy to have pursuits in your life that you find rewarding and fulfilling that you can just do with no external pressure to do. Uh mine is baking bread. I love to bake, I love to cook, um, but bread specifically has been a real passion for me, you know, to be able to do something like that. And it's very much like art. You create something, give it to someone, and feed them in a way. Um but uh I I that's something that I wish for all of my kids too, is that they can have something, if it's not their work, that they can have something outside of it that's passionate, that they can be creative and find fulfilling in that way.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Totally. No, I'm a big believer in that. Like I've been, I mentioned it on an episode a couple times ago, but like I think a lot about like mental health, something I've prioritized a lot in my life. And like if I were to write a playbook to someone, if someone comes to me and is like, hey, like I like I'm not in a good place, I could do better, and I had to give them like five quick bullet points. One of them is having a hobby that, and there's like nuance to it too, because I think everyone needs to have something that they can do alone, like that they can retract from the world and just be by themselves, whatever that like usually for me that's like hiking and running, but then also have a hobby that you can do that that you also you need something that you can just do. There's no pressure to get better at. No one cares. Because like there's also this weird like stigma in the world where if you're gonna do a hobby, you have to be good at it. Yeah. And don't you dare do something you're bad at.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

And so you have to have something where I don't care, whatever. I'm just gonna go do it and go and have fun. And then something that you actually can put mental effort into and try to grow and do better. Like, for example, like golf is that for me. Like, it is always gonna be that game uh that I'm gonna spend forever. And then for me, video games is like the I don't need to put like there's some I'll try more, but like I don't feel like I have to show off or like try to prove anything. It's just I need to go do something that I can can can withdraw from and do that. And so I like that you had it that way of saying like everybody needs a hobby to do something, even if it's not just entertaining your brain, but something where you can put energy towards growth and like I don't know, just like a good mental exercise for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Yeah, yeah, so valuable, very important.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

So I'm so I'm curious now. So you have this like sunset of video games, and you're like, I'm running off into the horizon, we're going to to DD. I mean, how did how did that experience go? I mean, was it as magical of an experience as you thought it was, or do you feel like you still walked into kind of this like corporate structure that you had in these video games? I mean, what was that transition like?

Turning Down Diablo And LoL

SPEAKER_00 43:08

It was fantastic. It really was literally, yeah. I mean, so the first work that I did was for a game called Paiso Publishing. And at the time, Paiso had the license from Wizards of the Coast to do the magazines Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine. And uh, they were print magazines that you could subscribe to if you played Dungeons and Dragons, and every month they would have adventures in them that you could use as a dungeon master, and uh sometimes they would add character classes, and it was very wonderfully geeky, you know, for people that were in that world, and it was kind of a gateway to getting into doing work for Wizards of the Coast because they paid a little bit less than Wizards paid. Um, so the artists that you were competing against maybe weren't as far along in their career because of the lower pay. So it made it a little it was kind of entry-level, and it was great for me. Um, I did probably 500 illustrations for DD over the years that I was doing work for them and started with Paizo, did some covers for their magazines, um, helped get my name out there, raise some awareness around what I was creating, and uh, but I was getting paid enough, you know, to survive.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

One thing I do love that I've noticed is you always have this reputation that tends to lead itself. Like you like you build it with those people, like, hey, like please come work for us, and then literally get a call from Blizzard. You get a call from Epic. Like, it just seems like you always hit it out of the park enough where people are coming to you for these big things and kind of making it happen and like it's worked for you, and you've kind of been able to use that to get to all these places you wanted to go.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

It um uh it is kind of a game of of leapfrog or climbing a ladder where um you know I was able to I was able to use my education and skills to that point to get into video games, and then I was able to use the video game artwork to do the illustration for Rune Lords, then was able to use the Rune Lords artwork to get work from Dungeons and Dragons, and then was able to use the DD work to um get work from Cheyenne Mountain, and then that led to uh being contacted by Bioware and Blizzard and you know EA and NCSoft and some of these other companies that I had done some consulting work for after leaving video games full-time. And um, so everything it it all builds. And uh that might be one of the hardest things as a new young artist um to have the patience for is to know that to get from A to Z, there it it's very hard to go from A to Z. Often you do have. To go from A to B to C to D, and for me, it was each project that I worked on helped serve as a stepping stone to step up and reach a little bit higher for some of the projects and clients that that I was hoping to do work for. Um but none of it was planned, you know, it all just kind of like organically led from one thing to the next. But I I there was almost kind of the invisible hand of my own passions that wasn't at the forefront of my mind, but was always steering things. And so of course I ended up back at Dungeons and Dragons because that was a passion of mine. But it happened, it fell accidentally along the way. But looking back on it, where else would I go, you know, to do freelance work? That's what I wanted to do. So I was I ended up being directed there. But the fact that it took, you know, 12 years to get there, that was the surprise. That was like something that I had the naive confidence as a college student to think I was gonna be doing the exact work that I wanted to do the day I stepped out of the university off the campus. Um, but no, it it takes a while to do that. And 12 years seems like a very long time until you're through it. And then it seems like a very quick amount of time, you know, to get to where you want to be. I love that. Um so it's yeah, it can it can be difficult as a young artist to have the patience to see it through. And I think it's why a lot of people end up giving up. Yeah is because they think I should be, they set up an arbitrary uh you know, finish line as to where it's like.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

There's like expectations that aren't necessarily grounded in much besides what they hope and think.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Right. I think everyone thinks they're running a hundred-yard dash when really you're on a marathon. And you know, you there's almost there is no finish line. It's like, well, just take things as they come and see where it goes. And um, but what you can do is train. You know, you you draw, you practice, you paint so that you're ready for the opportunities when they do come up. Um I think that's the important thing. You want to be you want to be in a position and ready to take advantage of the opportunities when they arise so that you can you can really grab hold of them. Whereas if you're not if you're not there working and practicing and doing the work, you might not even recognize the opportunity when it comes up, let alone be ready for it when it comes up.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Yeah, no, I'm a big believer in that. Um like even just like in my professional life, like I've always had like a kind of like a narrowing pendulum swing of like, okay, I like this, don't like this, getting narrower and narrower and narrower and narrower. But because like at the same time, like the jobs you did, were doing and will do are things that may not have even existed yet. And so to have this like rigidness of being like, no, no, no, no, I need to go here and do this, I'm on this path, instead of being like, well, like tell me more. This could be something, this could be an interesting opportunity that I don't know about. And so I think uh in it, it's like kind of the way I think about uh like just like an interview in general, you have to approach it like a walk in the woods where you're like, Okay, I'm gonna start on this path and this one I'm gonna hold on to, but like, oh, this this little like little detour sounds nice. Let's go over that loop's background. What do you know? Right. And and being able to have that, I think is an important skill because your point, like, if you're not doing all the things you should be doing, you won't recognize when it comes to you.

SPEAKER_03 49:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

And a lot of people think like life is really just one big decision and like five different times, and as long as you get those five right, it is. But if you don't make those other thousand decisions right or be preparing for it, then you might not know what to do.

Show Up: Networking That Opens Doors

SPEAKER_00 49:48

Yeah. Yeah. We um Shari and I, my wife is Shari, she's an artist as well. Um we've always told our kids that one of the big keys of success is showing up. That um you if you just show up, you're already ahead of like 95% of your competition. Um, and uh my middle child Isaac, he really grasped onto that early on. Like um once there was a contest where you write an essay and the winners get to go see a Phoenix Suns basketball game in Phoenix, and then they fly you over to Houston to watch a game there, and then go to the NASA Space Center there. So he's like, Well, I'm gonna enter. Well, he was the only kid in his class that entered, yeah, and like one of only a handful in the school that entered, and then it went to region, and so he won because not many people entered. Yeah, so he showed up. So, um, and then my daughter Belle, who's a singer-songwriter, um, she wanted to audition for the voice, or she got asked to audition for the voice. And uh, but we had to drive down to Vegas, and so there was some planning, some effort, time put into doing it. And I wonder how many people were like, uh, you know, that's a little too much. You know, I'm gonna do something else. But she did it, you know, she went and did it, got on the voice, was on Alicia Key's team, and then got stolen by Miley Cyrus, made it to the live show, did absolutely amazing. And since then, she's like, she's had a few Super Bowl commercials. She had one with uh where Aaron Rodgers was in this busy, noisy room, and he reaches up and he taps his like bose earbuds, and Bell's music comes over. No way, that's okay. And the world just like gets really quiet. And uh, so that was a really that was a really cool one to see, but Belle has been very good about showing up. Yeah, you know, that uh when there's an opportunity, she steps up and and puts her name in the hat. So that's another thing that we've tried to instill, and that when when we'll teach, we talk about people too. You need to go out and be at events and show up. And almost all of my big meaningful connections have happened in person with someone, you know. So um I was at Gen Con in Indianapolis in 2006, and I was there talking with an artist, Lars Grant West, and he said, Hey, have you ever done work for Magic the Gathering? And I said, No, I've I've heard of it, vaguely familiar with it. And he said, Well, that's the art director for it right there, Jeremy Dravers. Let me introduce you. Introduce me to Jeremy. I showed Jeremy some of uh the work that I had done, and he said, Yeah, let me send you some some work for Magic. That's how I got started with Magic the Gathering. Um, had I not been there, had I not shown up to the event, I would have never made that connection. And uh I look at how good the art has gotten for magic and how competitive it is, and I wonder if I would have ever had that opportunity. But now it's been a huge part of my career doing work for Magic the Gathering, and I know that it's doing work for magic that got me in the door with Brandon Sanderson because Brandon's such a big fan of magic that um he recognizes that you come with a certain amount of credibility. If you've been a longtime Magic the Gathering artist, then um there's a good chance you'll be able to do the kind of work that he wants for his products. Yeah. It's a good testing ground before he signs up for the big game. Yeah. So it's just funny how like all of the steps, I couldn't have planned it. I didn't plan it, but I couldn't have planned it any better to get to where I wanted to be.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

You had to be in the right, again, you had to show up.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

You had to, and I mean that's again 95% of doing it, but then also to being there and having like done good work because again, like if you show up, it'll put you on the stage, but you still got to dance. Yeah, like you could have been at the Gen Con and they've been like, Well, there's Magic the Gathering, and like, well, I'm here too. And he's like, Those are stick figures, you know. But to be like, oh, like you there's reputable names, this is really good work. Yeah, you're interested, like let's yeah, let's make this happen.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Not had my portfolio with me. Yeah, like super. Back then, there was I didn't there was no iPad to show them on or anything. So I was I was there and ready and prepared, and and uh you know, there's certainly been times where I'm like, yeah, I don't want to carry my portfolio around. Well, maybe I missed some opportunities that day because I didn't have it with me. But um, if I go to a show, I'm prepared. Now it's a lot easier. Yeah, it's like here's my Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

Yeah, here's my Instagram, here's my website, here's wipe through my iPad.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah, there's no excuse now.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

No, yeah. If you don't have it now, now you think about something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of things people can do. But sorry, so I love that. So you have this uh the DD, um, and then work on those covers, and then you get introduced to Magic the Gather. I mean, what at what what time is this all happening? Are you kind of like ready to move on from Dungeons and Dragons, or are you just completely freelance at this point and kind of doing whatever comes your way?

SPEAKER_00 54:57

100% freelance and doing what was coming my way, but it was 95% Dungeons and Dragons. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Um is that mostly like they'll be like, here's a character, here's a little summary town.

Magic: Art, Community, And Secondary Markets

SPEAKER_00 55:11

So the the big difference doing work for DD is interesting. Um, it's awesome, but every illustration, um almost every illustration is really specific. So it'll be like four adventures in this hall with this monster, the uh fighter is doing this, the wizard is doing this, you know, very specific things. The upside of that is you have a really fun, cool scene to illustrate with some great direction. The downside of it is when works get so specific that they often don't have a great secondary market with prints unless it is for a big IP that people are wanting to collect the art for. So, like Lord of the Rings, you know, you uh illustrate a very specific specific scene, Frodo and Bilbo or you know, whatever, whatever. And um, if people have a connection to that IP, um then they're interested in buying it. With D D they have people when they play usually have a connection to their own character, you know, or their group that they play with. So the art that you create for them doesn't have as broad of a print market for it. I mention that because you switch to magic, and now people are playing your character basically. You illustrate a planeswalker, you illustrate a scene, that's what they play with, versus playing their own character and you know, in D D. So they they develop a connection to the card to the art that is on the cards that they love to play, that they build a deck around. The result of that is it creates a really robust and thriving economy around the artwork. So selling prints and playmats and getting those cards signed is a big part of being a magic player and a magic collector, you know, if someone's into the art.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

So transition And the magic um community is very active in all of it.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

It's huge. It's very active. I know when I first started doing work for magic, like so. I started in 2006, my first set was Lorwin in 2007 that my artwork came out in. Um, I quickly learned there were like 40 million active players every month that were registered getting points for tournaments. That's just the biggest part.

SPEAKER_02 57:44

Maybe that's just like competitive for the competitive part of it.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

And it's grown exponentially since then. I mean, I know last year uh Magic pulled in over a billion dollars for Hasbro, it's their biggest uh product that they have, more than the Transformers, you know, that have all the big blockbuster movies. Magic is bigger than that. Um and so it changed my life significantly doing work for Magic because it opened me up to the opportunity to make money with my art after I had created the artwork. Previous to that, every my money came from doing a commission, getting paid for the commission, doing the next commission, getting paid for it. With magic, I'd get commissioned to do something, get paid for it. And I still make money on the artwork that I did back in 2006. Wow. Um, and every piece since. And um that has been key to having stability and opportunity as an artist, is uh finding ways to have my artwork make money for me after I'm done creating it. Um and it um it's just grown in opportunity doing work for Sanderson and you know other IPs out there that already have a fan base. Yeah, you know, there's there's people immediately interested in what you're creating because they already love that property.

SPEAKER_02 59:15

Yeah, and yeah, that's such an interesting like spec detail of it all because yeah, like no one, it's like no one's gonna reach out and be like, hey, can you draw my character from DD? And you're like, well, maybe, but you're not gonna like how much it's gonna cost. Yeah. And and but then again, like with the Magic Gathering, everything is is what it is. No one has their own character, but they have their favorite cards and their favorite decks. And I there's uh two guys I work with that play Magic the Gathering a ton. I was actually talking to David about it because I think me and him are on the same, like I appreciate it because like in it and all that it is and all of like the world that it's created, but the thought of like jumping in is very, very daunting, especially once I start talking to people. Uh oh, I was gonna mention it, but totally forgot. So that Jewish family I was telling you about, they also got me into Magic the Gathering.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

And so we'd be like playing computers and we'd sit on the ground and we play Magic the Gather, and then we go play on the computers and we like it so it was it was fun. They got me into this, let's call it nerddom. I wouldn't have gotten exposed to it anyway. They were the first people to get me there, let's put it that way. And it yeah, it was such a fun world and such a fun way to get into because I'm a big, I mean, love getting lost in like these worlds. So I'd see these cards and all of a sudden get so attached to it. But I mean, are there any cards that you've did the art the artwork for that people would recognize and if they're Magic the Gathering fans?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

Um probably the card that I am most famous for is it's a funny one. It's called Harmless Offering, and it depicts um these hands. So you you just see the guy's hands, and he's offering you a little kitten. And the kitten's really cute. Um, but when you look closer, you see that there's some bloody bite marks on the guy's hand, and then you see there's a little blood around the kitten's mouth, and then you see his thumb is bandaged, and then you see the cat's tail that the cat's tail actually has a little monster mouth, like it's been transformed by the Eldrazi and you know the magic world, and that it's probably the tail that bit the guy on the thumb, and then you see its back foot that's like kind of turned into this little demon claw that's in there, and it's all painted fairly realistically. Um, so people have loved it for the cat, yeah, and then they love kind of the discovery of seeing all the little clues, and I'll still get people that have played with the card, love the card, and come up to my table at an event and they look at the art big and they're like, Oh my gosh, I never noticed the tail. Oh wow, look at his foot! And you know, and that sort of like discovery process with the art, I think has made that piece one of the like favorites um among magic players for my art. Um, the other card that lately, I say lately, for the past you know, five, six years that I sign a ton of is one called Death Shadow. And a lot of people build their decks around around the card, the mechanics of the card makes it so that um depending on how you play, it can it can end up being really powerful really fast. So those two cards I've signed so thousands of, thousands of the of those at events. And what's great about Magic is I signed them in Japan, Italy, England, California, you know, all over the world. Well, we get the opportunity as artists to travel to events and and sign cards and sell prints and all of that. And uh man, nerds are the same all around the world. They're they're my people. I'm a I consider myself a real nerd too. I love that I love that culture of being unabashedly passionate about something that you love. Yes. Um, and it's funny because now that like nerddom has become very mainstream for people to mean anime has never been more popular than it's never been more popular. I look back on my friends that were so into sports that would make fun of like DD and fantasy and that, and I'm like, being a sports fan is just another nerdom. Like you get dressed up as your favorite player, you know, you wear their jersey. Yeah, it's cosplay. You go with all of your friends, you cheer, you get angry, you get excited, all of those things. I'm like, man, you guys should really go to a Comic-Con or you know, go to some of these events. But now I really do think that line is is almost erased. It's it's like people recognize how healthy and fun it is to just find something you're passionate about and go all in on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:44

Well, it's like it almost goes back to your previous comment about like hobbies of like having something and because like I was always the kid growing up, like because I remember I would always watch like Dragon Ball Z and Aruto, and I would be playing video games, and like I was the kid who was always playing Pokemon on his Game Boy, no matter how old we got on the road trip, you know? And so I like I leaned to do a little bit more, but like it's so fun today where I don't know what it is, but so me and my uh best friend slash roommate, his name's Tanner. We for some reason, whenever we're apart, we don't really watch anime, but then we'll get together. Like, even if you sit in town when you used to live away and live town for a week, we'd be like, Have you watched Demon Slayer? Be like, no, I'm like, well, maybe we'll watch it. Just like these little things. Like, we're watching Attack on Titan right now, and it's it's but it's funny. And like, but I talked to a lot of people, and like one thing I love hearing from people is like, oh my gosh, I'm the biggest nerd about blank.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Because it means you're passionate about it and you love it and you don't care.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

It can be any definition of nerddom to me, is is having something you are like on you're unashamedly passionate about something. Now this is this is me. This gets me very excited. It's one of the things that also maybe this is a weird segue, it really intrigues me about Japanese culture. Is um you'll find like I love watching the videos of this guy who has dedicated his life and followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and great-great-grandfather making ink or making dumplings, or you know, something that their family has made for generations. And I feel like YouTube's full of videos of that. The ink one, I I watched like this hour and a half video of this guy making ink from scratch. Wow. And it was just so cool. And they're like, Yeah, my family's been doing this ink for like 1200 years, and he's taken it up. There's um, I think in Western culture, we've lost some of that. You know, there are there are places in Europe where you still find these artisans who have been, you know, like an Italian shoemaker, this cobbler, that it's that's been their family business for generations, and they take great pride and love in it. I know when we go to Venice um going out to Murano, where they make the glass, they're very famous for glass and glass bowing. It's all a family business. You can't get in unless you're family. Like it's they embrace the nepotism of it, and they're like, Well, yeah, of course. Like, why would we not? Yeah, why would we not? We've been doing this for generations. Who why would we trust someone else? But uh, it to me, it just that's the sort of thing that really captivates me is seeing these people have create the greatest writing ink that they possibly can, and their life is dedicated to it. Yeah, that's really cool. I love those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

So just severe nerdiness of ink. Yeah, that's right. Because like there's so much beauty in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

Yeah, there is. And um, I seem to find when I find a lot of um when I go searching for that sort of thing, a lot of it shows up in Japan. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:46

You know, that their crafts, they they love their craft, whatever that craft may be.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Right. Yeah, so it's I find a lot of inspiration there. I've been there a couple times, went there with David and Bell. Oh, interesting. Um, as well. David is fluent in Japanese, and so it was really fun to travel with them there, but uh, but uh David shares that enthusiasm for um that kind of cultural kind of dedication to doing something to the very best of your ability.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:15

Yeah, there's always some like one term I use a lot, like both professionally and personally, is like finding nuance. Where once you feel like you understand something super well, like tell me the nuance behind it, where do the rules break? Yeah, and if they can't tell me like where the rules break, or like, oh well, it's not true in these situations because always and never are never true. Uh but um but like once you can start to find nuance, that's when you start to understand something appropriately. And so, like for the example of ink, like let's say like, oh, well, all ink works like this. This guy's like, actually, no. When you put ink to this temperature and this temperature, and actually when the human gets from this and this, that's when it doesn't work anymore. So that's not 100% true.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

Well, any skill that you learn, I feel it's it's like learning a new language. And when you're first learning a new language, your focus is on remembering the rules, remembering the words, and then you can learn to communicate in it. It's not until you're fluent that you can write poetry. Yes. And it takes a long time to develop the capacity to be able to write poetry. And with art, you first you learn to draw, and then you learn color, and then you learn composition and design and value and edges and contrast, all of those things start to apply. And you have to learn all of those. And it needs to become second nature enough that you can communicate without thinking about every you know word that you're saying. And it's only when you get to that point that you can start to write poetry with it, you know, where you can really start to create art. And I'm sure it's true with everything, you know, like a basketball player to like you look at Michael Jordan, and he was an artist out there, you know, doing things with the way he's like. That's right, that's right. And so um, with anything, you need that mastery of it to get past the point where you are just struggling to communicate, and then you can become a poet with it. Then you can create something where you are adding nuance and depth and layered meaning to what you're doing, and it becomes something really beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:27

Totally agree. And so, yeah, I love that those magic stories because yeah, like the nerdiness of magic is like uh yeah, we're actually on a work haul. Actually, I don't want to go there. Essentially, like our boss is being like a little condescending and my like I was slacking my coworker. I was like, Oh, how uncomfortable you are now. He's like, I love this enough, I don't care why he's going to nerdiness. Right. Um, did you ever play magic at all, or mostly just uh don't stick to the art?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

I do play, I I play a little bit for the first like probably five or six years of doing work for magic. I'd get people coming up to the table at events and being like, hey, you know, what kind of deck are you playing and that sort of thing? And I'd be like, I don't really play.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:07

Like that means nothing to me. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

Yeah, and seeing the disappointment, I'm like, ooh, I I should learn how to play this. This game gives so much back to me. I need to I need to learn how to play it so that I can uh relate a little bit better. And um, it is a time-consuming game, and it is a a it's part of what makes it gives it enough depth that people have played it for you know 30 years. This is the 30th year of magic. That's true, yeah. And uh, it's that kind of depth that gives it the longevity, but it also can make it intimidating to get into. So I decided I'm going to learn how to play well enough that I can do what's called a draft, and that's where you don't build your deck ahead of time. You all open the cards at the table, you pass the cards, you take one, pass them around, take one, keep passing until you have a full deck. And so you plan it and build it in that moment, and then you play. Very fun, very low pressure. Um because I know with my personality, if I'm gonna do it the other way where I'm building my deck, I probably will lose time painting. Yeah, it's going to it will start to be obsessed, it will adversely impact my career. So, what I tell magic players is I do play, I like to draft, I decided I can either do the art for magic or I can play the game. So I'm gonna focus on doing the art for it. And they've uh been great at accepting that as a as a reasonable answer. That's so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:43

I think that's a good way. Because like I imagine there's some sort of aspect of like, if I can at least understand the basics of this game, there's gonna be part of that's gonna translate to like how I can make the artwork a little bit better.

From Magic To Brandon Sanderson

SPEAKER_00 1:11:53

That's exactly right. And I did find that as I learned the rules and and how the cards work, how the game is played. Um, when I would get a brief for artwork, it doesn't include the mechanics of the card. That's never that's rarely included. And that really the only time you know for sure if it's like um a card that's already been printed, sometimes they'll create new artwork for it. Yep. So you can go and see what the card actually, you know, does. Um but knowing how the game works, you can infer a lot in the briefs as to what you should depict in the cards. So it definitely has helped.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:32

I love that. And so I like also how it seems like you've been you were making these Magic of the Gathering cards, being very successful about it. And I feel like Brandon Sanderson's almost in the wings being like, all right, is it time to draft this guy into my team? Or how did you get introduced to it?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:45

That is a good story. I like telling this story. So when I was 15 in Arizona, I started teaching art lessons to kids a little bit younger than me. Of course you did, like 10 to 12 years old. Yeah. Um, because at that time, the difference between a 12-year-old and 15-year-old, you know, feels significant. It's not, but you know, at that age. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:05

At that age, 25% older, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

Right. Yeah. Um, so I taught this kid named Carl Agron. Um, Carl, fun, fun kid, really enjoyed uh teaching him, um, loved that family, the Agron family. Carl grows up, goes into business, moves to the Middle East, and uh working for a company over there. Well, you know, continuing forward in time, uh, Brandon and Isaac Stewart. Uh Isaac is Brandon's creative director, VP over art, um, they go over to the Middle East, and while they're there, they're meeting with someone, but while they're there, they go to church. They're in church, they meet Carl Agron. Carl Agron says, Hey, I have this friend. He's a fantasy illustrator, he lives in Arizona, but I know he's moving up to Utah. You should go meet him. I he's going to Salt Lake Comic-Con. So I went there, Isaac Stewart came and met me, and um said, I'm the art director for Brandon Sanderson. Would you like to do some work for Brandon? And uh I didn't know who Brandon was at the time. So he gave me a bunch of his books, read them, and uh I did the first thing I did for Brandon were a couple covers for a published short story, one called Dreamer and one called Snapshot that were published together. And uh that went well. And um, they've kept sending work my way after that. So when I get asked how did you how do you how do I do work for Brandon? I say, well, when you're 15 years old, teach art lessons to a kid that will meet Brandon in the Middle East and introduce you and send them your way. Um because that's exactly how I got started with them.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:49

So that's all you gotta do. Yeah, that's all you gotta do. You've got to make a friend here. They've you gotta ship them over to the Middle East, that's right, and the rest writes itself. That's right. Piece of cake. I mean, how is working for Brand? Because so it's interesting because you have like video game art, then you have these couple of different uh avenues uh like fantasy art, and then I mean, how does that compare to like novels or working with Brandon who's just like I mean, this one person who really needs this one or like this artwork? Right. How did that change for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:15

You know, Brandon is kind of unique in the publishing world because artists don't usually have a massive team of people that they have hired and uh built up to create merchandise and um artwork to flesh out their world. Usually an artist will work with the publisher, and then the publisher hires the artist to do the cover for the book and the interiors and all of that sort of thing. Well, Brandon has created his own publishing company. He still works with traditional publishers, but has his own publishing company and has uh, I don't know how many employees, dozens of employees that work for him full-time just to fulfill orders and create merchandise and products. So he's created this kind of empire of his world where he is hiring many artists to do work for him. Um but they he's wonderful to work with. He loves art. You see it in a lot of his books because a lot of his characters are artists. In almost all of his books, there's someone that is an artist that that draws, um, and um he gets it, you know, just the way he writes about it. He gets that whole process and and what that's like and how valuable it is, which isn't super surprising. You know, writing and art have a lot of overlaps.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:42

Um, I mean, especially with someone who is such a creative writer like that. The you think about the artist in his context, he's the one who brings it to life almost because he can see in his head, but in order to communicate with the artist, and then to put it down in the right way, it's like, yes, we speak the same language, this is exactly how it is. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:59

And he's a very visual writer, you know, very descriptive of the worlds that he's creating. So he's wonderful to work for. Um, previous to working with Brandon, my absolute favorite crowd to meet with at conventions is the Magic the Gathering crowd. Very intelligent, um, very capable players. It's a difficult game, complex game. You you need to be smart to play it. Um and uh so you'd get this crowd that would come in that was usually um like had a measure of success and and intellect and very fun to talk to, very good, supportive crowd. And I thought this is the best audience that I'm ever gonna work with. And then I started working with Brandon and meeting his fans. And Brandon has done something that um I think speaks to his writing style and the way that he writes, where his audience that he has cultivated is so kind and so generous and enthusiastic about what Brandon writes. Um Brandon's work deals with real issues, even though it's fantasy, it deals with um issues of um identity and depression and anxiety and trauma and things that are common to the human experience in a way that makes it very accessible and relatable and um in an in an un in a very safe way, you know, because you relate to these characters and and their flaws but also their successes. And the the end result of that is what a wonderful group of people that come to these events. They are empathetic and uh patient and wonderful to work with, you know, as as a creator of things for Brandon's worlds, um I couldn't ask for a better audience of people to create for. I just love them so much. And I I s the magic community is still incredible. Um but wow, kudos to to Sanderson and and uh the world that he has cultivated because it's it's really wonderful to do work for.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:35

Totally. And I'm sure there's some overlap between the two. There's a lot of a lot of magic gathering fans that curl up to a Brandon Sanderson book at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:42

For sure. For sure. We see a lot of that. So I know one of the things you wanted to talk about is why why Utah. Like how about to pivot there? So perfect, go for it. Cool. We were living in Arizona and doing a lot of work.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:55

That's right, because you were there and we never talked about the return of the king.

Why Utah: Skill, Openness, Community

SPEAKER_00 1:19:59

Yeah. Um we found ourselves coming up to Utah over and over for art events. Um I had done some religious work, and so we were coming up here often for those sorts of events, uh, but also finding ourselves up here for a range of other events. In fact, one year we realized we had come up to Utah every month for something. And um we both, Shari and I, we both just started to get this feeling like um maybe we should just move back to Utah. And then a year later, we kind of fought it for a while. We didn't want to move back to Utah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:37

Everybody fights to move back to Utah. You don't want to, but it it fights back on her.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:41

And we were both grew up in Arizona. I had my roots there, my family there, uh, you know, my mom and dad and my sisters, and at that point, uh, all of my family but one brother, they were all there, and then cousins and like deep roots in Arizona. And then about a year later, my kids all said, I think we should move to Utah. And they were in high school at the time, you know, in junior high and high school. And you want to move now?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:10

No, yeah, we do actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:11

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:11

I'm okay, making your friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:12

Like, all right, well, here we go. And so we did, and we moved up here, and the art community here is something special um for a couple reasons. One, the skill that is represented in the art community. Uh, Shari and I are active with the Portrait Society of America, and we go to the conference every year, and they will choose about 20 finalists every year in their conference. One year, five of the finalists were from Utah. Wow. And usually, usually they have multiple finalists, and those finalists often win or place, you know, in the top four or five for the conference. Uh, same with oil painters of America. I was back at Portrait Society one year, and Peter Trippie, who's the editor for Fine Art Connoisseur and very prominent in the art world, he was like, Man, what's in the water in Utah? Like, what's going on back there? The Utah Punch is way above its weight in the art world. Um, I wouldn't say Utah dominates, but uh pretty close. You know, I mean, they're winning. Artists from Utah are winning regularly at Oil Painters of America and Portrait Society and are represented in galleries on both coasts, up and down, you know, very prominent. Um, you know, the Art Renewal Center salon has been won by Utah artists multiple times, and it's an international competition. So we've loved that. Being among artists here that are painting and working at such a high caliber. But the other part that is unique to Utah, and this probably goes hand in hand, is we find it as a very non-competitive market or non-competitive community. Meaning almost all of the artists that I know are ready to open up their studio, make friends, network, be with other artists, talk about their art, share what they're doing. And we've found that is unique. Um I'm sure that it exists in other places, but I don't know where. Um but I do know it exists here, and it was worth moving here just for that. Um, to be among other artists who are generous and kind and um willing to share their insights and network and all of the things that are quite important to being successful as an artist that you often have to fight for or create yourself already exists here and is ready to help artists. So it's interesting. There are hundreds and hundreds of professional artists working in Utah, but most of them sell outside of Utah. Yeah, um, there is a good art community here, a good art market here. Um, but most professional artists that I know working here sell their work outside of Utah. Interesting. So um the maybe the the customer base hasn't matured here to the point where I I feel like the art market here, broadly speaking, because there's big exceptions, but broadly speaking, are more interested in buying prints. It's a fairly frugal market. Yes. Um more interested in buying prints than they are original works. But as money ages, that will translate into buying uh more original works and seeing and feeling the value in having an original work of art in your home versus a print. Once you switch over and you start collecting an original work, it's hard to collect prints. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:56

I think you hit it on the head, and I think we're seeing it change. Actually, I'm gonna go back to one thing really quick. I love that you're talking about the community of art because I've heard that from so many different people. And to me, it's like this the ultimate uh I mean, Salt Lake Deseret, right? Deseret beehive working together for the betterment of the hive. And I feel like it is a lot of that because I do hear, I mean, especially like with um our mutual friend John Darley, uh, he does so much to give back and is always around all these other artists, where a lot of people in other markets would probably like, oh, well, why would you work with them? You're about to like you're fighting over anyway. Like there's so many reasons to be competitive, but at the same time, like here, it's like, hey, like don't stab me with your brush. Like, we can do this together, we can all win. And I and I do I do love a lot of that. And then um, oh shoot, where are we going with this? Art. Oh, yeah, the frugal markets. Yeah. So I mean, I think a good comparison of what's going on in Salt Lake and Broader, Utah, like food, for example. I mean, I'm not until the past like five or six years. I mean, food was fine. I mean, we would we had a lot of great chains that were starting here, a lot of really fast casual, which is makes sense. I mean, young population, a lot of young families just get food and go, but now we're starting to see again, like a lot of fine dining, a lot of really good food start to show up, and people are willing to pay for it because they appreciate it. And I think art is almost like that next sort of realm where I think I feel like I've had a lot of friends recently, as we've kind of like, I guess to your point, like matured and started to get older, but like wait, I do kind of want like art that I want in my house. And I do, and that does drive me to have opinions. If I do want art in my house, what does it look like? How do I want it to feel? What's the space? You know, like in a lot of these questions that start to come up that I mean, I'm if I'm gonna put a big piece in my living room, I'm not gonna go buy a big print, you know. Like I want it to be everything there that I wanted it to be and have that actual painting. And so I I totally agree. I think there is this wave of of art and appreciation coming, especially when there's so much of it here already.

Art Markets: Western To Fantasy Shift

SPEAKER_00 1:26:46

Yeah, and and to that end, I feel like the fantasy market is maturing. Yes. Now, in America, um, the Western market is huge. And in terms of total sales, it still dominates. Um, the money put into it, um, the auction, the records that are being set at auction for living artists right now are usually being broken by Western art. Now, the people that are buying it grew up with John Wayne, Gunsmoke, Bonanza. Um, that was their fantasy, you know, growing up were the Westerns. Well, now we're starting to see people that grew up with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, even Harry Potter, more recent, who now have disposable income. Now are in a position where they own their business, they have the ability to buy what they want. And we're seeing a shift towards fantasy art. And I think that will continue to grow uh for the next 30 to 40 years. It'll be interesting to see if um there is a fine art shift to superheroes, you know, with the Marvel Wave continues, yeah. With that, it I I don't know if that'll have a profound, broader impact on um the art market, the way that I've seen the shift to fantasy away from Western. Western art is still huge, still massive, and it and it will continue to be for a long time. It um I think there's something about it that has a resonance um that will continue for a very long time. But um, but we will we will see more and more fantasy art achieve prominence, and maybe the the linchpin to that is going to be George Lucas' museum that will be opening up in California, that is like a museum. I can't remember the exact name, but it's basically a mu museum of visual storytelling. And Lucas's collection has been of uh golden age illustrators and the art that supports uh movies and commercial products and uh fantasy, really.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:05

And we're gonna have a billion-dollar museum dedicated to it, and uh people will eat it up because it's I mean, it's like interesting with Star Wars because and like there's a couple things that are getting there, but once you can make something carry on the same passion towards the next generation, yeah, it's never gonna stop.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:20

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:21

Like that's happened with Star Wars now. It's happened with like the one that comes to mind to me is like Pokemon, where it's like that keeps kids perpetuating. So I think those are these waves that we see storming forwards, like, oh, yeah, it's headed towards like the art that people are gonna be purchasing five, 10, 20 years from now.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:35

I yeah, I agree that um it'll be an anchor that is not going to go away. You know, it's big enough that a hundred years from now that museum will still be around, you know, the the way it's being built and and funded and we'll have the money behind it. And so um to me that is that is incredibly exciting because fantasy as a genre is very important and very valuable. It allows you to experience things. It allows you to read and empathize empathize with things that are fantasy, but in a way where you get to vicariously um experience them and create um I don't know, I'm not expressing it really um eloquently, but it gives you empathy for someone. Um you can go on the adventure with with Frodo and Sam and see the sacrifice that's made and read about all of the adventure that they go on and come away with it and feel like you got to be part of it. Um it's the value of of any book and any writing of gaining knowledge, but fantasy in a way um I think is eminently accessible to people because you can put yourself into those roles, and people often do. It's when you see people dressing up as them, and exactly they feel so attached to this person, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:09

And especially something that's so like detached to actual reality, but also it's still so comforting that it is reality, right? And like, and that's one thing because like I've always been a big sci-fi and fantasy friend like fan, and I have a friend who isn't, and always be like, Oh man, you gotta watch this. He's like, Oh, it's like not real though, so I I can't really get into it. I'm like, oh, you poor soul, right? But then we have all these like examples of like again going back to our kind of points of like bringing like quote nerdiness back to the mainstream. Like, I mean, I think the biggest thing to help with all of that was Game of Thrones. Like, all of a sudden, there's these people who's like, I would never watch a show about elves and dragons and ice zombies. And then they're like, So, did you remember in season three? Like, and all of a sudden they're like, He's huge fans, and like right made fun of me in high school. I'll forget about it if you do, and we can just move forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:53

That's right. Yeah, well, I remember as a kid the first death I ever cried about was a character in a book. Um, it was a Dragonlance novel, and this spoilers can't really be spoilers when it's if they haven't read it yet, they probably are. Yeah, sorry about it. Um, this this dwarf character dies, and I remember breaking down in tears. It was like one in the morning, went into my mom, my mom and dad's room and crying, and they're like, What's wrong? What happened? And I'm like, Flint died, and you know, just remember sobbing. But dealing with that sense of loss through a book was very real to me, but very healthy, yeah. You know, to deal with that. And and that's one of the values of reading books, but I think especially with fantasy, with fiction in general, is that you can experience things like that. And when a good author draws you in and you are embedded and invested in that book, um, you can experience things that you wouldn't otherwise totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:00

It's a it's a whole do way to escape that uh it's fun to see how many people still go back to it. Like even with I mean audiobooks and everything, we can and all the content we experience, there's still something comforting about going back to a book and just going and escaping for a while.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:14

And we all I mean love having a reason to escape. So outside of I mean, painting, spending time in the studio, you know, how else do you like to spend your time?

Fantasy’s Power, Empathy, And Culture

SPEAKER_00 1:33:22

Um, my wife and I love to travel. And uh we've had the good fortune of being hired to lead some tours in Italy. Fun. And uh we're going back, I think, for our 10th one in October. Um, and so we get to lead a tour and see great art and eat great food and share kind of that passion with people. Uh, but magic has given me the opportunity to do a lot of traveling too. You know, I kind of mentioned that earlier, where we've been all around the world with it, from Japan to London to Paris to Italy and then all through the US going to events. I really love people. I love meeting new people and talking to them and hearing about their passions and the things they care about and and doing that as an artist has been just so wonderful to be able to do. So travel, that's definitely up there at the top of the list. Um I um it's kind of funny when I think about retirement, it's like, well, what would I do if I retire? Well, paint and travel.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:31

I was gonna say it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:32

Yeah, well, I'm okay, I'm doing that now. So one of the things that I've been trying to add into what I do, and I consider it a different skill, is what is called plan air painting. And that is where you take your gear and you go and you set up uh outside and you paint landscape or from life, it you know, can be a person. Um, so we recently put a trip together to in Hawaii where we had 19 artists. We all went over and rented a big Airbnb, it was right on the beach. Get that many people to jump in, and it's very affordable. Yeah, so we we did 10 days in Hawaii, I think it was like$600 per person to stay 10 days on the beach in this great house. We all painted. Um then I sold all the paintings and to pay for the trip, airfare and food and all of that while we're over there. Um that's something that I want to do more of, where we plan painting trips. So we're not just traveling, but we're traveling. You set up in a place, you really get to know it when you paint it. There's something uh the artist Soroya said that drawing drawing is a truth more, it is a more truthful truth. Something along those words, I'm paraphrasing. Um but basically it's like simplifying reality into a more distilled truth. And the where that becomes evident is you might say you're sketching someone's portrait, and they have a very distinct feature or mannerism or way that they naturally sit. And when you can capture that in a drawing, it removes all of the noise and distills it down to kind of this very beautiful simple truth. Yeah. And um plenaire work is kind of like that, where you're needing to look at something and distill from the massive amount of information in front of you down into a very simple, eloquent statement. And uh that's something that I'm wanting to get better at is um being able to just look at a scene and summarize it in a very quick expression of paint.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:47

Well, it's like it's to me after hearing like I've after our whole conversation, it seems like the perfect thing for you because you love traveling. Yeah, you love painting, you love being around people, right, and you love helping people become better painters and helping people around you. So I mean, if if you were to be like, hey, I'm taking a Muay Thai, I'd be like, you know what, good for you. If it doesn't, it doesn't a little if you are looking for something different than the norm, that definitely counts. But no, it's it's fun to see how people, I mean, like you said, just keep finding the the joy and the passion and and following it, no matter how nerdy or odd it might be. Like I always like one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone calls something weird.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:24

Because weird is like a word because I try to use words at the right time. Like we have such a great language and so many words to use that I hate using the wrong one at the wrong time. And whenever I hear someone say something weird, like, oh, Howard, that that elf is weird, it's automatically closed-minded, it's negative, it's condescending, and it's not a bid for connection of what it actually is. Right. Whatever when you just instantly change that word to interesting, like, oh, that's interesting. Now you're curious, you're curious, you're a bid to connect. Tell me more. I I'm interested. And so I I I try to be more interested in things than thinking things are weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:56

That's a good way to approach life, yeah, for sure, because um it re it usually is just a lack of knowledge that makes something seem weird. And um, well, Mark Twain had a great quote um that said, travel is the enemy of prejudice. And that when you learn more about something, then something moves from being weird to being interesting. Yeah, you're like, oh, that's why you hold those beliefs, or that's why you love whatever it might be. Um I always think I I always think of balut that that you know fermented duck, which to most American palates is like, what? You know, you see like feathered duck, you know, embryo, and think there's no way I could eat that. But for some people, that's a wonderful delicacy, maybe even a comfort food that they have in that. And so that's just it's evidence that it is um lack of exposure to culture or um proximity, you know, all of those things that come to make one person love a certain food, and other people go like, oh, I could never eat that. So it I want to be the person who can be like a sponge and go into other cultures and try and be open-minded, try and remove biases, and just fully experience what they experience and hopefully be richer. Um, that's probably impossible to do, but I want to do that. Try to do that, yeah. Because um, there's so many of us on this planet and so many varied and different experiences that it's it would be so narrow-minded and limiting to assume that I'm on the best path. Yeah, you know, because there's just there's too many other great experiences out there. Yeah, no, I totally, I totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:00

And if you're closed-minded, then and you if you honestly can look yourself in the mirror and say you are better than seven billion other people, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:07

Wow, right, yeah, to assume that that sort of arrogance of your own experience, the short time that we all have in this mortal life, you know, to live here, whatever your beliefs are, it's a short period of time. And to think that you've got it right, um is that's sad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:30

Yeah. Well, Harold, I want to wrap up with two questions I always ask everybody at the end. Uh, number one, if you could have someone on the Small Lake City podcast and hear their story, who do you think you'd want to have on here?

Travel, Plein Air, And Craft

SPEAKER_00 1:40:41

Um, so I have a good friend, um, Micah Christensen. Okay. And uh he is one of the owners of Anthony's Antiques and Fine Art. And he has this path where he studied opera, he has a PhD in art history, he works with some amazing clients through his job. Um, he is someone who um, like me, I will like he introduced me to fly fishing. And the first time I went fly fishing, I knew nothing about it. The second time I went fly fishing, I was I had like consumed like 20 hours of YouTube videos, read about it. You know, I get very fixated on something, and uh, he's the same way. And so it's fun because we'll like come up with something new to learn about. Like he bought a wood sauna. And the first time I'm in the sauna, he he had like the little wool hats from Finland to wear. We had eucalyptus leaks soaked in soaked in water where you could like beat yourself on the back and on your feet, and he's just passionate about whatever he does. And uh, like we talked about nerds, he is very much a nerd about the things he is passionate about, and I love those kinds of people. So that's someone who I think you should have on.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:08

So it's funny, the reason I smile and kind of chuckle is that's the same person that John Darley said. He's like, I want Mike attrition. So I'm like, all right. I mean, I always reach out to everybody that gives an example, but this one, yeah, I gotta do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:19

Micah would be great. Um, another artist, an artist that uh would be interesting to have is Jeff Hine. Yep uh works here in Salt Lake. He has his own very successful podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:30

Because you know John uh Apprentice under him, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:33

Yes, yes, okay, under Jeff. Jeff's very influential, outstanding artist, excellent teacher, really great guy, also someone who like he decided he needed a better leather sketchbook holder. So he learned leather working. And I I don't know how many versions he's gone through, but um learn that craft. Um, so he he'll that's like the I find this is a common attribute attribute among a lot of artists, but he'll like get into something and then totally fixate on it for a year or two and then move on to something else and really learn that. So, but Jeff's a fun guy, very intelligent, very well spoken, and uh so he would be someone fun to have on on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:20

Definitely. And then lastly, to wrap it all up, if you want to find you, your artwork, uh anything about you, or is the best place to find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:43:26

Yeah, if um probably the first place to start is my website, Howard Lion.com. So when it's L-Y-O-N, H-O-W-A-R-D-L-Y-O-N. And then on almost all social media, I am Howard Lion Art. So just my name and then ART, all one word stuck together. Um, it looks like Howard Lee on art.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:47

I did notice that on a tattoo in the first time.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:49

Howard Lion Art. I didn't even think about that. And then so many people say that. Oh, it's your name. I thought it was like Howard Lee on Art. Yeah. Like, what where did that come from?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:00

That's gonna be your podcast is Howard Lee on Art.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:02

Yeah, that's right. Uh so on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, uh, Twitter, X, um, all of those, that's that's how you'd find me.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:13

Sounds good. Well, thank you so much, Howard, for the time. It's been a great combo. Thank you for nerding out with me. I was like, as soon as I found out about all the things, I had so many questions and wanted to hear more. So thanks so much for the time. Excited for you to travel. Uh, I'll have to keep an ear out for these art trips and we can do some plenaire fun stuff somewhere. Thanks for having me. Uh, thank you, Howard.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:32

Man, what a story. Ugh.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:34

Yeah, I'm glad I didn't punt this one to January or bail on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:38

I'm glad it worked out.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:40

No, absolutely.