(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Thank you for joining us for Art in a Year of Unrest with Teddy Phillips also known as Stat the Artist, Steven Miller and Monyee Chau, moderated by Brangien Davis.

Before we begin, thank you to our session sponsor Amazon.

Finally, thank you to our founding sponsor, the Kerry and Linda Killinger Foundation.

- Hello and welcome to the Crosscut festival.

I'm Brangien Davis arts and culture editor at Crosscut.

Thanks for joining me for the panel art in a year of unrest.

Where I'll be talking with three Seattle artists whose art shifted in 2020 as a result of the pandemic and the black lives matter protests.

My guests are Teddy Phillips, AKA Stat the Artist, a graphic illustrator app designer and muralist.

Monyee Chau, a multidisciplinary artist, illustrator and storyteller, and Stephen Miller, a photographer graphic designer, and former performance artist.

Thank you everyone for being here.

- Thank you.

- Hi, hi.

Okay, so let's start with the little bit of time travel.

We're just gonna briefly return to early March, 2020.

I know we didn't.

Nobody wants to go back there, but just for a moment, was there a moment when you realized that Corona virus was going to affect your life in a big way and affect everyone's life in a big way?

I know for me, it was as an arts editor.

When I started getting all these cancellations of events, all these emails saying, "Nevermind, we're not doing that."

It was became very clear that things are going to change forever.

So do any of you have that sort of crystallized moment?

- I'd say that it was when my entire company got laid off right at the beginning of March and it became real, awful fast.

- Yeah, yeah.

Teddy or Monyee?

- Yeah, for me, yeah.

Well, for me, I was just at work.

So I'll work as an engineer during the day at a tech company and we started getting, what you could work from home now.

So everything started going on, like really what's going on.

So then you started watching the news cycle and people were just really just in a super panic mode 'cause of what was spreading.

So from there I was like, yeah, I'm probably gonna be trapped here for like the next 12 months, just in my home.

So that's not what we're used to.

- Monyee?

- Yeah, so personally for me at the time I was living in the Chinatown-International District and that's a huge community for me.

And I definitely was feeling the effects before the virus even reached the states as like, there was a lot of anti-Asian hate kind of resurfacing.

And you could tell, especially because the entire neighborhood was super quiet even before the virus was here and people were stigmatizing a lot of our businesses and businesses were reporting like a 70% drop in business.

And so this started to affect me personally as like an Asian-American person before it even began to question like my art practice.

And I was working at the office of arts and culture for our new gallery and the king street station.

And we definitely had to close and just had no idea when people were gonna to be coming back and when we'd open again.

- Wow.

So, once you realized the impact of this, was there an immediate impulse to make art?

Did you immediately think I am...

I wanna something about this to connect with people or was there a hunkering down phase?

Did you just want to hide out for a little bit and figure this thing out?

- Yeah, I think, I think I really started feeling the impact once I realized that my mum had to go to work.

So my mum, she works as a nurse and my sister as well.

And I was like just talking to them every day.

And then we were still trying to figure out everything about the virus, but she still had to work it.

So just trying to provide them with encouragement, to be able to get on their feet and just go to work every day and just pray for them for their safety during the time was something that was sticking with me.

And then I created a piece to honor my mother who was out there fighting the pandemic and I collaborated with the amplifier on that.

So spread it.

So that was my first creative outlet inspired by COVID.

- Monyee?

- Yeah, I think first was a really emotional response.

I was feeling really, really scared and really tired.

And especially that I was in a neighborhood where there were a lot of specific things happening.

And even last year there were white supremacists who were sticking up, like these stickers that were from this like white supremacy, like organization.

And they were in our neighborhood and intentionally like intimidating a lot of the residents and community members.

And so that was when I was like able to have like some creative like flow where I wanted to respond to this.

And I wanted to take my emotions into a piece of art.

I really don't think I felt any sort of way until I was capable of like understanding and processing like this experience of yeah, racialized trauma and like the like resurgence of Yellow Peril.

Yeah.

- And then Steven, when did you get the idea to start going out and actually photographing people at a distance?

Well, I was, so I stayed basically alone and isolated for five weeks, which is I'm a social person and that was pretty much my worst nightmare, but I wanted to.

I was terrified like everybody else of this virus going around and after a month, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to photograph people through their windows, but I was also frustrated because I knew everyone and their mum was going to do the same thing and encourage me to do it anyways.

So it took me five weeks.

And then I put a call out on social media to see if any of my friends would be open to me, photographing them through their windows.

And I was stunned by the response.

It seemed like everyone was feeling really isolated.

So they wanted some form of contact, even if it was just a repleted glass.

- And just a note to the audience, you can see some of the work that these artists did.

It should be right below our faces on the page, the webpage that you're on.

So you can scroll through that slider to see some of the work we're talking about.

And so one of the things that stuck out to me about all of your work was this, it's rooted in community.

And so we've got Monyees', resiliency poster was I believe the first piece for the Chinatown-International District.

And then Steven, a lot of your photographs were of the LGBTQ and the artists community in Seattle.

And then Teddy, your posters, we're projecting this kind of united front both for health care workers and then a little bit later supporting the BLM protestors.

So what can you talk a little bit about what was driving you to sort of reach out in this community rooted way?

- I feel like that's all we had during the time, right?

I mean, we're a community we need to lean on each other when times are tough.

And it was a difficult situation that everyone was facing.

It was super new.

So, when you don't have anything else and when you're you think you're alone, you actually have community.

And that's what I wanted to connect with with my art.

I wanted to connect to people and let you know that, even hough you're going through a tough time, we still have each other.

- Personally for me.

Yeah.

I wanna echo what you were saying too, where it felt like the only sense of hope that I could feel was within some of the organizations in the communities that reminded me of what we've been through before and what we've experienced before and that we have each other.

And so I wanted to extend that to understand like the resiliency of Chinatowns and remembering that like we've gone through yellow peril before and this is nothing new and we're just having to go through it one more time.

And I felt like there was so much strength in being together.

And I felt like my project became so community powered, because I started to really think about the link between all of the Chinatowns in America and how we can be supportive towards each other because we're all experiencing the same things.

And so I felt like my posters had gone around a lot because of accessibility and being able to share them online and definitely due to folks who came out and this was in the beginning of the pandemic.

So I think we were really happy to be outside and be like wheat pasting and postering in community, but like still distance.

And I remember that being such a like a cathartic moment to be in fresh air with people.

- Steven, anything you wanna add?

- Oh, well, I'm gonna mirror it.

And just saying the community aspect really became important to me when I started posting these on social media just one a day, and then seeing how they resonated within members of my LGBT community and putting faces out there that aren't always in the media and just seeing how my friend has resonated with that.

It was amazing.

I didn't recognize how big a community binder would be until it happened.

- It was lovely.

- Wow, that's great.

So one thing we often hear is that artists are at their most creative under constraints, and these were some major constraints.

So I was curious to hear if you felt that that the pandemic or the protests inspired art, that you wouldn't have created otherwise, I mean, obviously the topic was unprecedented, but in terms of how you approached your art, how you created the art, was there something that totally new that came out of you that you never would have expected?

Monyee, you look like you want to say something.

- I just wanna make sure that other people had time to if they wanted to.

(chuckles) Yeah.

I think something that was really like really great that came out of this was I don't think that I ever thought to make my work so accessible before, as artists were forced to find out different ways to share art and make people see what we're doing when we don't have gallery spaces to be able to spend time together in.

So I thought about the ways that work can be mass shared.

And that's what I want with my art in general is like I don't want just the folks who can make it into galleries to be able to see it.

I want this work to be for everybody.

And so it really forced me to flex that muscle and learn how much like information can be shared through like social media.

So I made these like takeout menus that were like, meant to look like menus that you would get at like in a Chinatown restaurant.

And so inside of the pamphlet, it just shares all the information as to like what's the history of Chinatown's war.

Because I think a lot of people don't understand that Chinatowns are a direct result of racism and the exclusion of Asian immigrant communities.

And so how can we get that information to people and having it as simple as something as like magazine that you can like share with people or leave a stack somewhere.

I made them like on my website for people to download too.

And so I think that's something that I'll continue to carry on with my work is to make sure that anyone can access it, or like with my resiliency posters, even if you don't wanna see them, you're going to see them because they're on the streets and they're gonna be in your face and you need to know about our history.

So yeah, that's something that I feel was really exciting for me.

- That's cool.

Teddy?

- Yeah, for me.

So someone that's a series kind of came out of this one and it's where I highlighted people that have just been killed and I saw them on Aubrey story.

And then I kind of identified with them the most because black male of the lights running he's from the south.

And then I saw everything that happened with him.

And so I created that piece first and I didn't release it.

It was just too painful just to look at it just everyday.

And it was going back through your feed.

You're kinda reminded of everything, even now my feed is kind of painful to look at, but I think what got me through it was when I saw the whole George Floyd killing.

And I was like, these people can't talk to themselves anymore.

So I wanna be the voice for the voiceless and really try to elevate and advocate for justice on their behalf since they can't any more.

So that's what got me through the hump of actually trying to push for that.

And then just, unfortunately, and still now we're still coming up with people got have been wrongfully killed.

But that kind of helped me understand my voice as artists providing light and shine a light on movements and trying to elevate information to help get justice.

- Great.

And Steven, I know, well, I don't know, had you been out on ladders photographing people before?

- No.

I mostly create giant sets, do elaborate photographs and they're almost always male centric.

And so everything shifted with this with me, basically becoming a portrait photographer and photographing straight and gay and trans folks.

And basically my friend group, regardless of gender or orientation.

And I have to say that this process dominated my entire waking existence.

If I wasn't making photos, I was editing them.

And I was basically unable to take in any other sort of media.

I didn't watch TV or movies for four months.

I was basically in shock.

And then when the black lives matter marches started happening, that was a whole other awareness awakening in me.

And that influenced the art in other ways as well.

Yeah, it was big deal.

It basically changed everything for me.

- And so on the flip side of that, I felt there was also kind of this...

I experienced the longing to see what are the artists have to say.

And that can be kind of a pressure right on artists like to create something amazing during this time.

So I wanted to do a little sort of mental health check-in to see did any of you experienced that sort of feeling like, you know what, I'm exhausted.

I can't make any more art, but I know people want me to make more art right now so, and what did that feel like, and how did you deal with the pressure?

Monyee you wanna start us off?

- Come back to me, I wanna think about my answer accurately.

- Steven is smiling.

So I'll go to him next.

I'm gonna say, yeah, I did this project for three months, every day, posting something and it was exhausting.

And at a certain point there's only so many, well, there's only so many friends and so many ways to say the same thing.

So I kinda gave up and then I didn't know how to say anything online for a good five or six months after that.

- Teddy, how about you?

- Yeah, I mean, yeah.

I mean, just watching the news and just the nature of our work.

I mean, it gets exhausting a lot.

So I mean even, I mean, I go days without even going on Instagram and looking at anything.

So, just going in and creating is something that is very, very cumbersome, but I mean, what gets me through it is the mission in a motive.

And like, if anything were to happen to me, I would want somewhere to be able to speak up and speak for me.

So, yeah, you go through that, but then you figure out the overall goal of what you're creating and the impact of it, then that pushes to get through it.

So, I mean, the movement, it's more important than how I'm feeling at the time.

- Hmm.

Yeah.

Another question.

And so this is about sort of artists as a group.

We always glom you guys into a big group.

Artists are in dire, straights, artists get more creative.

I'm guilty of that as well, but I wanted to hear more about you as individual unique artists.

What has been your sort of the loudest, the thing that resonated loudest for you in this experience?

Not as a block of artists, but in individually, what are you coming out of 2020 into 2021?

Let's be honest.

What's sticking with you the most?

In terms of creativity or what you wanna do next, when you, I think you started to say what you, how you were gonna carry it through.

- Yeah, last year I felt like I became really politicized in my work.

And especially in terms of how we can get like information out to people, how we can promote mutual aid and how like personally, like how, what Asian folks can do in solidarity with the black community, knowing that our liberation is tied together.

And so kind of tying back to like what you were asking in the last question too.

Like, I have been wanting to make a lot of art, but I feel like the creative flow is still there, but the... my physical body is really exhausted.

Like my hands and wrists are in a lot of pain from my constant, like iPad use of like drying.

And so like knowing that I got to take a rest, like I've been making sure that I am doing loads of research and understanding histories of like my people and how our experiences have been here.

And so the politicization of like where my work has been is just, I feel like has been just the beginning and I feel like it will just continue on from here.

- That's great.

Teddy.

- I kinda echo what she saying, but yeah, just trying to use my art as more of a vessel for information.

So seeing a pretty picture, but having an actual behind it and then having a cause or a movement inside to it, there's always gonna be challenges within life that we're going to face, but continuing to educate people and pushing those movements to the forefront.

So we can actually create a better world.

Is definitely a thing that I'm gonna stick with.

- Steven, how about you, your ladders?

- So the question is, how has this affected me personally?

How, what am I going to do moving forward?

- Yeah, kind of, yeah.

What is as an individual, you've already talked about it some, but yeah.

What will you sort of carry forward?

Well, I definitely want to carry forward working with all different types of folks instead of such a limited range that I used before.

And then my work has been political the whole time.

So that's going to keep on staying present after a year of intense political conversation on the daily.

I do have this desire and I don't know what to think about it, but to get a little surreal, basically I want a break.

(chuckles) I'm not gonna deny everything that's around me, but at the same time, a little beauty and a little strange sounds really good to me right now.

- Yeah, that was another question kind of connected to that.

The pressure of people expecting something big out of artists right now.

I want, I was gonna ask about, do you feel like all your work going forward now has to be sort of more in the activist vein?

Do you want it to be political activist art?

Do you want to just make some beautiful stuff every once in a while?

Do you experience any conflict in that area?

- I think it's interesting you ask three political activist artists this question because do any of us get to walk away from this?

I don't think so.

- I think that all of the work, I was like a politicized person will always be in your work just overall.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

- No - No, I think we all wanted that question.

I think, I mean, I saw it as myself, right?

So just the politicization.

I mean, I guess that's ingrained in my body.

So, I mean, it comes out even in my art for the culture, it came out in that.

So I wanted to educate people on the black community and things like that.

You saw the same thing going on with the Latin X community, I wanted to create a game with people from the community to celebrate that culture, things like that.

Now, I mean, I have a fun game now called a Weather Zodiac, that I'm releasing, but it's about Zodiacs.

So I'm just trying to figure out a way to celebrate people and celebrate life and just be creative in whatever ways I can.

- Yeah, I'm glad you brought up your app Teddy 'cause that, I mean, there is sort of a playfulness, right?

There's a playfulness to the act of activism as well and Monyee, even your, the takeout menus, there is sort of, there's an accessibility to that, but there's also, I mean, it's fun.

I've seen those takeout menus and yes, it's a very serious issue, but it's also the way you presented it is wonderful because it is something we all can recognize and we've all held in our hands.

This is very different way to get at it.

And then Steven, I feel like your work, you always have a little sly hint of humor in it too.

So, I think that's why I'm drawn to your, all of your work is because there is this layer of sort of wisdom and then, and wit as well, wisdom and wit both.

That's just me talking.

Anyone can jump in on that or are you trying to do that on purpose or does it just come through 'cause that's your personality?

- Yeah.

So I mean, the way I was taught, it was always put the medicine in the candy, right?

So that's what I was trying to do for the culture.

Trying to make a fun game that was engaging that people wanted to play, but then you actually learned something too.

So when I saw kids playing it within schools and everything else, I was like, okay, it's actually getting through it.

And you know the messages actually spreading stuff.

So that's.

Yeah, so you're right about that.

- Yeah, I want to say that like, as an artist, like I don't think that I feel any pressure in terms of like having people expect work out of me because I know that my work has always been a process for me, or like a way to process, like information that I'm learning and research that I'm doing and the emotions that I'm feeling.

And so on the other side of that, like I want people to enjoy or like find ways to connect with me or to resonate with me.

Even if I talk about my grandma, like people will come and share stories about their grandma with me.

And so what is that point of connection that we can find within each other?

And I think there's so much, like you can find so much empathy and connection within stories and embedded that into your work and like who we are just like kind of molds into what this art piece becomes that you wanna share with the world.

And you wanna share with people like you wanna talk about some of these things that are really heavy, but like how do you even get them to start talking about it?

And that's like also where the takeout when you came from, because we all love to eat food.

And how do we like connect over these restaurants that have such a like deep, deep history?

- And you had a, you did a comic too, right?

It was for Wing Luke.

- Yeah, that was a comic that I also wanted to, I think I did that one before my takeout menu, but I wanted to have this like that, like a dusty pink paper kind of feel from like the takeout menus as well.

And then it was just a bunch of like illustrations that I'd taken from the neighborhood and also like my own family's photos from their restaurant that I grew up in.

So wanting to engage in stories and storytelling to make people understand that like a lot is happening in Chinatown, both like in being stigmatized and also used as like a prop against like the black community during the protest.

So how can we talk about all these things, but like let's talk about it in a comic, you know?

- Yeah, I love that comic.

It was really well done.

- Thank you.

- Steven, you wanna add anything?

- Well, for me, growing up in the '90s and being in a activist band to come and being lately associated with act and things like this sign, there's a power in and resistance movements that are angry and loud, but they often will get tuned out.

And so I've learned quickly that if you add some humor and some sexuality, different people will pay attention and just like everyone's saying, hopefully you slide into their subconscious and they start to think about things in a different way.

So yeah, that part will probably stay with my art forever.

- That's great.

I just wanna give a reminder to the audience that we will be asking some of your questions soon, so please add them to the chat.

And I've got a couple more questions for you guys.

So, this is something I always think about in my work as an arts editor.

What can artists tell us that the news and media can't?

Like we kind of get all this information and the facts about the stuff that you guys are making work about but what do you think it is that you're doing as creatives that helps us connect with it?

Maybe moreso than reading the news.

I'll give you a second on that.

(chuckles) - I'll go ahead.

- Okay.

- Yeah, I think that when we think about media sources, like we have to think about the biases and the who has access to tell those stories.

Right?

And so we know that there are so many attacks happening even on like elder Asian folks, but like, we know that that's not in major media either.

It's not on the same level as to how much it's happening.

And so the way that I wanna tell my stories is I want to tell stories for the folks who don't have access or don't have like that ability to share that.

And I know that art making is just another form of storytelling.

And as like a person who's very visual.

I have a hard time with my voice.

I have a hard time explaining and processing my emotions.

And so this is the way that I feel I can communicate best.

And so I'm expressing my family story and their experience while they, were in Chinatown and sharing the stories of like mutual aid and how important that is.

Because I don't think like it's known enough how much like people take care of people.

And so I believe that like it's important to elevate the stories that don't have access to like news outlets and to be interviewed because there is such a heavy bias within all of that.

And it's ingrained.

- Anyone else want to tackle that one?

- No, I think that was very well said.

There's a lot of stories that will get a lot of attention and a lot of attraction, but just as many stories do get that same attention.

There's so many stories that don't.

So I think us as artists, we have a platform that we can elevate other things that and make sure that they get the right attention case.

Artist point, I finished the piece from Mario Gonzales who was killed in the bay area and his story wasn't getting a lot of attention, but then I have a projection artist named Alan, Alan Marlin, who said, "Hey, look, man, this happened like, can you create something for it?"

So, yeah, so I mean, I stopped whatever I was doing and created that piece to help elevate him and I don't want to release that later today.

- Oh, wow.

Great.

- Steven, any other thoughts?

- Yeah, I mean, we keep talking about our individual communities because that is if we have the ability to make people interested in, I am all about helping trans and non-binary folks.

In a pandemic, now we keep hearing about how white men and women are dealing with it and their children involved.

What about the folks who don't have kids and who are alone at home and don't have the traditional network behind them?

So having a way to show that they're being seen and recognized and everyone wants to feel like they have a place in this society regardless of what the media, how the media would view them.

So yeah, I think it's.

Oh God, all of a sudden, I don't know what to say.

(chuckles) - Well, yeah, I think, I mean, for me, it's just consistently amazing that that artists can crystallize all these gigantic heavy thoughts into a poster, a takeout menu, a photograph.

I mean, that's maybe you don't even know how you do it 'cause you're just creative people, but it's just there's so much in these single images or maybe it's a song or maybe it's a dance performance, that's what I love about working with artists is the mystery.

So maybe we shouldn't answer that one.

We'll leave it a mystery.

I will move on.

Now we have a few audience questions here.

Let's see.

Oh, this is a great one.

I'd love to hear how each of these artists became artists.

How old were you when you started thinking, Hey, I'm gonna be an artist, I'm really gonna do this thing?

Teddy?

- Yeah, so I think I really just blossom it.

So artist probably like over the past year but I went back and I started talking to my mum about my story.

And then she brought out like this award that I totally forgot about, but it was like a state art show in Alabama.

And I went outstanding student award for that.

And he said like, "No Teddy you've always been an artist."

I just play football at things and everything just fell to the background.

But just getting back and connecting with art is something that was a mere dare to me and just over the pandemic.

But yeah, so I guess I've been an artist since that was fourth grade.

(Indistinct) I guess I'm cool.

- Steven, how about you?

- I remember finding an Andy Warhol when I was 12 years old and reading about Edie Sedgwick and that between that and surrealists like McGreal, and I just was enamored with art.

I didn't actually go to school for photography until I was 30, but that was after I'd been a punk musician for years and done weird performance art.

So, it was when I was 30 that I really found my voice.

I guess.

- Great.

Monyee, how about you?

- Yeah, I have always wanted to be an artist.

I grew up, like I remember as a kid, I would draw these like animate cat girls or like I would take printouts of like these animated.

Yeah, these animated girls.

And then I would tape them on the window and then tape another piece of paper on them so I could trace and like learn how to like copy them.

And so I think it was.

just always something that I.

The difficulty I grew up in a household with like four different language being spoken.

So even though English is my first language, I feel really, I have a hard time with expressing how I feel or how I can process my emotions verbally.

And so I felt like art has always been the way to communicate for me.

And I just never stopped.

- Cool.

Let's see, what else have we got from the audience here?

So one thing that came up that is pretty important, how do we make all this art accessible?

Like when you were talking about making the stuff, like even if you don't even want to see it anymore, let's make art that's in your face and yet have artists get paid for their work.

So any thoughts about getting artists paid?

We can solve a lot of problems if you have.

A good answer here.

- Yeah, I think energy is emerging technology that I think a lot of artists can take advantage of setting up the files and then just making it accessible.

It's just so just celebrating digital art.

Another thing I think is a culture change, like pay artists for their work.

It's a mindset, it's a mentality, right?

So I just think just educating people on, look, we brought our time and energy to this and these things mean a lot to us.

So just appreciating art more.

But I think that comes with education and in a culture change.

- Yeah.

Steven, can you solve this?

- I can't solve it, but I can say that I am shocked at how effective Instagram has been at selling my art.

I was not expecting that, but enough viewers will have reached out to me that I have, I do all right with it.

Some paying all the bills, but I sell some art that way.

- That's great.

Monyee?.

- Yeah, I think that it's important that all artists should know that they deserve to be advocated for, even for yourself, when you are getting paid for a job, you were absolutely in your right to be paid for what you're worth.

And I'm saying this as a person who doesn't know how to take their own advice, but it's really important to advocate for yourself.

And then also, yeah, like I wanna echo that it is a structural change.

It is like a cultural change.

And like, especially with institutions, like I'm not gonna sit here and say that, you need to apply for grants because that's not accessible for everybody.

That's a really hard process and that's really difficult.

And even on that level, like I was really blessed to have received a grant this year.

I received like the art artists fellowship, which is specifically funds that are non-restrictive and to support an artist in whatever needs that I have.

And they're not asking for like an end product or anything, but just so that like they can support me and like literally living and surviving.

And I think that's really important that like, I don't need you to just pay me for my art.

Like I need you to pay me to survive and still be a person.

Because I'm also a person outside of an artist.

- Right.

Yeah, and I know a couple cities now have been talking about maybe a universal basic income specifically for artists.

I've heard about that in San Francisco.

I have not heard about that here in Seattle, but-- - I will say that for our culture came, they really came through for a lot of artists, myself included, needing emergency funding during this last year.

So that was really helpful as well.

Hopefully some others got that too.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

Great.

Let's see.

Oh, this is kinda juicy one.

Are there any topics you feel that you cannot address in your artwork?

Is there any taboo for you?

- And now you want us to talk about it?

(laughing) - All right, good point.

Well, is there anything that you steer clear up?

- I kinda see the fence to kinda think twice if I'm not representative of a certain community, like, but I do wanna display ally ship, but I don't want to take, I don't want my art going viral over a person from that community.

Getting to highlight their work.

So it's kind of like you pick and choose.

I did stop eating hay because I had a lot of friends that were actually going through something I really felt that.

So I use one of my friend's pictures to actually illustrate that.

So, yeah, so I kinda of stay away things that I don't fully represent.

I was asked to do a piece for trans lives matter and I was like, there's so many other artists that can actually illustrate this.

I don't think I deserve this opportunity.

I think you should give it to this person.

So I just made a recommendation of who they should work with on that.

So, yeah, so that's it for me.

- Anybody else?

- I want to say that yeah, in a similar vein as artists, I mean, I hope that everyone is really genuine in their work and I think that's what can make art really successful is someone being genuine to who they are.

And so I think that things, I don't think of things that are taboo to me because they're not related to me or my experience, right?

Like I'm going to talk about the things that I experienced or my community experiences and knowing that like, I wanna amplify those things.

And if there is a way to support a different community, like where is my place in that, right.

Where like, if I want to talk about Asian solidarity within the protests of last year, like, what does it look like for Asian folks in the Asian community to question our positions of power and our relationship to power to be a supporter of this work.

And so, yeah, I think it kind of goes along with, if you are knowing who you are and how genuine you are to that.

- Great.

Steven?

- I'm gonna mirror the idea of there's certain topics that I just, I feel like an ally, but I don't feel like I have the right to claim any ownership over black lives matters, even if I feel passionate about it.

There's some things I just, I don't wanna photograph it, but if I feel like a black artist can do it in a better and more authentic way, so I wouldn't call it taboo, I would call it respectful.

How's that?

- That's great.

(Indistinct) - Yeah, so we are almost out of time here.

Just one last question for each of you, and that is what is something creative that you're gonna be working on in the next, I don't know, six months, one year or two years that you are excited to dig into?

Something positive emerging from this crazy last year?

- Teddy?

- Well, I want to work on collaborations with other artists and trying to see what we can do together on certain things.

So that's something that I really wanna place into my work.

And then I mentioned what the Zodiac game that I'm releasing this project for me.

So, yeah I'll be releasing that next week.

- Excellent.

- Steven, what do you got coming up?

- I recently secured an artist residency on Vashon island in October.

So I'm going to be spinning the summer, basically shooting a whole bunch of new photos to try to gather up all the information and then go spend a month freaking out alone in some tiny house and pull it all together.

And some crazy collage form that I've never worked with before.

And I am really, really excited.

- Awesome.

- And then working on a book of these pandemic portraits.

- Oh great, I heard that rumor that you were going to put all the pandemic portraits together.

That's excellent news.

Good.

- Yeah, for me, I'm gonna be using the grant that I received to personally be taking some like rests for my body, knowing that like, I think it's just been really tired.

And so using this time to do a lot of research specifically and individually on all of the Chinatowns on... Yeah, in the US and in Canada and in the same vein as my takeout menu, I'm gonna be producing just like some sort of like tangible item.

And I'm kind of playing with the idea of like, magazine and newspaper or book to kind of be talking about all the individual histories and histories of resilience that we've all experienced through it all.

And so I'll probably be spending the rest of this year, really focusing on research and the design of that work.

- Wow, those are all super exciting.

I'm really eager to see the results of all of that work.

And we are just about out of time.

So I wanna thank the artists for joining me for this talk today.

This was really great.

I really appreciate it.

- Thanks for having me.

(Indistinct) - Yeah, and I strongly encourage all of our audience members to seek out these artists' work.

And of course the work of many other artists, we have so many wonderful artists in Seattle and you can find out more by signing up for the Crosscut arts and culture newsletter on our website, which is a weekly newsletter.

And it'll give you all sorts of great ideas about what's going on in local arts.

So thank you for joining us.

And I hope you get a chance to see some of our other festival sessions on Friday morning at 9:00 AM my colleague Donna Blankenship, who is Crosscuts news and politics editor.

We'll be talking with pollsters, Stuart Elway, and breaking down our recent poll about how the region is feeling about the pandemic recovery and the future.

The session is called Washington State of the pandemic, and it should be really fascinating.

For now, have a great rest of your day, a great rest of your week and enjoy the Crosscut festival.

Thank you.

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