Lessons Of Creativity: Virtual Field Trip To Mexico City

1. Intro: Welcome to this virtual tour to Mexico City. This city inspired me so much. So I wanted to share that experience with you guys. Traveling ignites a lot of creative force in us. I know it's really difficult to travel right now. I hope this experience will give you the benefits of traveling. My name is 0by Vision. I'm a video creator and I make short docs, promotional videos, music videos. I interviewed top creatives from gallery Mooni. They are locally here from Mexico City and they talk about... their creative process and what inspires them to create. It will teach you who got more creative... yourself and inspire you and get fired up to create. So let's get started with this creative exploration of vamos. 2. Project: After watching the class, create something, can be a drawing, photograph of music, whatever you want, inspired by something in your own life. Or it can also be based on something that you found inspiring in this class. 3. Mexico City : I didn't paint much before I got here. The city is just very vibrant and there's just a lot of life. And I think that creates like a vibrancy. Anytime you go outside of your door... you just see people living excitedly. And just a different place with different noises and different colors. It's just, it seems cliche, but very, very inspiring to move here. And it's always something new and weird and unique and different from what I'm used to... which makes it very, very fresh in very inspiring. And there are people here who are doing incredible things with art and music. And I think it's art that has been created very much connected to the spirit. I'm thinking a bit of like all the movements that happened from Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and surrealism. Something in me feels as if contemporary culture has been pushed more strongly in the last 15 years in Mexico before some collections that have like really created spaces in the most recent years. And there's been lots of galleries and lots of museums that has been opened more recently. Mexico City is very great because there exist A lot of amazing things. Food, architecture, people. It is very easy... Just to look around. You see a guy walking or ride a bike or skating. And this moment you can transform to... something different and poetic in relationship with the context. I think faith, it's an important element of Mexico. Ancient Mexican culture also had a connection with just like many ancient cultures, like more connected to animism. Like the elements, like the rain... the fire, the earth. So also bringing in the gods of nature. I think it's part of our culture in some way, ancient but still vibrant... which you see a lot in indigenous cultures. I think it's the perfect place for me. Because I think in my art a lot of themes that I'm touching on revolve around the chaos of our world. But also how there's still beauty in this really strange world that we all live in. How we find comfort and companionship and love. and...you know...This city is crazy. Like it's this huge mega city built on top of an ancient lake. But it's still really cool, really beautiful... there's still tranquility in this massive city. It is this theme I work in my art a lot where there's this... where chaos and tranquility are together, they coexist. 4. Rilo two : Hello, I'm from San Francisco, California and I'm an artist working out of Mexico City. Worked with this director awhile ago. And he said, he said you don't need to go to film school to figure out how to make film. You just need to find something that you really want to talk about. And then you can use if you have something that you're passionate about and you want to talk about, then the other part of it, the actual making of it doesn't really matter a whole lot. Like I make really simple images, but that's because I know specifically what I'm talking about and what I'm passionate about. So if you wanted to do creative things, I mean, you first got to have something to talk about. And you've got to be passionate about something. It just comes out, how it comes out. You know, there's not a whole lot of premeditation or thinking about it. It just happens like, I mean, that's at least how it happens for me. I have an idea, alright, I got to draw this out, draw it out quickly and then you kinda refine it later. But the core and like the, the essence of that thing is there on paper and you're like, Cool, I remember this and I can, I can go from here. But you have that like that foundation to work off of. You got to start from somewhere. Very pure. And you've got to start within yourself and you have to start making art just for yourself. I mean, that's where I started just doing these little drawings that I thought were interesting. And then slowly show it to people and you got feedback and they say, oh, that's cool. You, oh, great, cool. But I mean, it all has to start from somewhere. Genuine. I mean, it's easy to like to see some to copy a style that's popular, that's trending and you just make this work. But I think people can see through that pretty easily. Like I don't think what I do is exceptionally, you know, technical or I'm not doing anything crazy. But I think it's coming from a very genuine place and people see that and they're like, yeah, I like it. Like, I think that's the most, the most important thing. Like in college, I studied a lot of Neolithic and like pre-Columbian art history. And I always thought that stuff was the coolest. And I don't know, it all kind of came out of this idea of, I want to, can you go back far enough in art history where we all have something in common. And I think that's this like super simplified kind of Neolithic style. So it all came from this idea. But honestly the first one I did, I was just having fun. And I just do a little something, some simple kind of basic figures. And I did it the first time I was like, Oh cool. And that's all just evolved from that first little drawing. And usually I, We'll go like weeks without making a new piece, but then I don't know something will happen, something will happen to me or I'll see something. Some interaction on the street auto. Oh, that would be a cool painting. And then I'll come up, I'll build a whole concept off of this experience with this feeling or this thought. And I mean, it's also like the excitement of developing new things, trying new things out. You know, you kinda feel like a scientist in some sense where you're like, I'm inventing something new. There's something kind of fires you up when that, when that happens, you're like, Oh, I'm going to try this new thing, a work. Maybe it won't. But either way I'm really, I'm fired up about it. I want to try it. Be genuine. That's that's the most important thing. And I don't know, I think it's important to say something in your art. And I think if you start there and it's genuine and people, people get it, then you're going to be totally fine. 5. Tatiana Musi : Tatiana Musi. I am born and raised in Mexico City, but I've spent a lot of time outside of Mexico City. And my biggest inspiration... it's in nature, archetypes, dreams. It's very healing and transformative and supportive. For a lot of time in my life... it was just my creative practice and.. eventually I realized that it was actually my biggest support. Also emotionally. I guess it's the connection with myself. The connection with nature. So there's also a big element of connection. The last two years I didn't... I didn't have much of a creative space because I have... a two-year-old daughter so I was immersed in motherhood. And right now I'm starting to have my creative space again... and it feels like it just wants to explode. Most of my work is very linked to personal processes. So there was a time that a lot of my work was based on being... immersed in national parks and just the experience of being in nature. I've also done an art therapy training. And when I was going through my art therapy training... a lot of my work was focused on a lot of dreams and even like animal guides... This painting, it's part of that process... for example. That was like the Guardian for example. So this cover snake. Sort of protecting of the feminine space. I think that I really like, It's also a naive approach to my art. I enjoy a lot being able to be in life and see life. In q humble, simple way. So sometimes it's just sitting in a garden and seeing birds, eating mangos. And there's, I find a lot of sweetness in that. Sometimes bringing out like simple sweetness... of everyday life. What do you do if you're in.. a creative rut. Before I used to be scared of those times. And in time I know I trust my creativity and I trust the flow of it... and I know it's always accessible. So now it never feels like that. Even when it's like that I know that i'll.. I'll just sit and paint and sometimes I'll do a few drawings that will be crap. Sometimes. I mean. It's not crap but it's not something that I would show. It's not something that I feel proud of. It's something that I even feel aesthetically could be senseless. But I just trust the process of staying there and working through it. The exploration is about a personal process and not about... the composition or the technique or anything regarding aesthetic. And sometimes that informs the other explorations. This is me trying to understand the story with the father of my daughter. It's complicated? It's very complicated. I did this painting when my child was born. The first months, I worked on it. A little bit and then I left it. It's only been back in my life recently. But the whole composition was already there. Before getting pregnant, I feel sometimes the paintings become constellations in themselves. Like something of whorthy energy. Of everything what is just comes out. Shows itself. So I wasn't sure why I was portraying him away from us and sort of... We separated and he lives in France and we live in Mexico. So it's become a very distant and difficult relationship. And I didn't really know that was going to be that way. But yeah, I feel this painting speaks a lot of the process with what we are going through. I'm not sure. I guess that's why it's also difficult to yeah. It's nice. I feel just putting it there. It makes me feel like I'm gonna work on it. He's visiting right now. He's with my daughter. I will ask if he wants to come. And he's right there. And one thing actually that I've started to do since a few months ago. When I started to have my studio again is that I create an altar. And I decided... like my sacred space and my creative space have always been connected, but I've never consciously brought them together until now. And I just sort of make a little prayer of let my creative fire come with me. Every human being has a capacity of being creative. And it's just having the space... I think, time and space. It feels really important to develop creativity and just nurturing that part of ourselves. Yeah, I feel giving the time and space and disposition. Everyone could develop their creativity. I think it's not something inherent of myself. I think it's just that I've decided to give my life to that. 6. Flatboy: My name is Alberto Ruiz. I am Flatboy. My work it's very literal. It's very universal for people. We have a lot of experiences with our friends or family. Specific moments when you take the hand of your friend of... your girlfriend and you feel good and it's very simple to feel and understand. I think the simple things in life are the most important. Skateboarding is a very great influence for me because I skated since I was... very young and it's present in the major part of my life. The graphics in the boards and the graphics in the video and the music... and the lifestyle around skating inspired me. It's wild. I love it. So I try to put this sensation into my work. Yeah, yeah, like that. It's very peculiar. And you can take this moment and draw and it's very amazing. It's very cute for me. this is about the architecture (in Mexico City). I can see that and I can draw... my version of this. This book is one of my favorite about the brain morphology and the abstract thing about the mind. The illustration is very cute. Funny... simple and just two colors, red and blue. You can interpret the reality. And for me, it's crazy how we can see the colors... feel the textures. Feel different things around life. It's a bridge in reality and abstract things. Very interesting for me. One part is about the memory. You are your memories. We are like a building. One memory is a room. And there's an other room and another room. And in life all memories are building us. You know? 7. Matthew Anderson : My name is Matthew Anderson. I usually paint from photographs. I usually paint from my own photographs... but this series I'm doing from someone else's photographs. So I like to lay out how I want the image to look on the canvas. And then I use grid lines to kinda help me measure up... how I'm going to visualize things. I obviously like to work with.. lot of whitespace in my pieces. I found this guy because he does this series of NFT's with these photos. Alejandro Cartagena, he's a Mexican artist. He was in the same art fair that I'm going to be in... and I loved his work immediately. And my first thought was like this would be... great painting content for my style I think. But then you can also do an NFT splits where other artists... can do renditions basically based off of his base photographs. So that's what I'm want to do with this series. I had a friend once introduced the idea of the difference between processing and venting. And processing is more like... deep work of working through emotions. And venting is more the kind of blow off the top of bottled up emotions. And it's been interesting to think about that process because I play music and I paint. And it's become clear for me that painting is a process of processing for me. So I think it's very therapeutic for me to... A lot of the photos that I worked from are... from my family and from my past. So I dig deep into really raw emotional scenes and kinda pour over them. So it's art in form of painting for me is... very deep processing. And music I have found is more venting. Like I write songs quickly. And they just kinda like blow up out of whatever emotions I have been thinking about. Does your painting affect your music or music your painting maybe? I think thematically. Definitely. When I write songs... Like again, It's kind of this idea that whatever is going on inside of me... emotionally emerges through either song or paint generally. And when it comes out through paint... It's usually from like kind of... a deep meditation on photographs of my family and my history. Whereas when it comes out through a song... it's more of like a burst of emotion, probably based on those meditation's and themes from those meditations. I think they play off of each other in very complimentary ways... in the themes. It's very fun to see how... the approach of creating a song is almost similar to how I create... create paintings. By creating layers and layout and... viewing the music as a composition. As a painting compositions. It's interesting and new. Something I'm processing that's new. 8. Final Thoughts : I hope you enjoyed the class. That I will inspire you and ignite... creative force in you. Please leave a review if you liked it or if you didn't like it.. just give some feedback. It's always helpful. And I hope to see you in the next class.