Coffee Sketch Podcast
Coffee Sketch Podcast
167 - Exploring Portraits and Kintsugi
New Year, New Sketches: Exploring Portraits and Kintsugi
In this episode, the hosts reflect on the new year and dive into their latest creative endeavors. They discuss the college football playoffs, their dogs' antics, and a unique coffee find. The talks shift to Jamie's recent sketches, including the Hockey Hall of Fame building and experimental hybrid portraits that weave in architectural elements. The conversation also touches on the concept of Kintsugi and the influence of AI in art. Additionally, they discuss the national significance of Evelyn's recent article and Jamie's participation in AIA Governance Week. The episode wraps up with an exciting announcement about an upcoming lecture by Evelyn at Lawrence Tech.
00:00 Introduction and Banter
00:06 Football Playoffs and New Year
00:32 Dog Talk and Tech Nostalgia
03:23 Squid Game Discussion
04:22 Streaming Services and Season Breaks
06:25 Coffee Talk and Recommendations
12:14 AeroPress and Missing Parts
14:01 Curated Sketches and Content
14:43 Sketches and AI Generated Images
15:29 AIA Governance Week and New Roles
15:54 Evelyn's Inauguration and Article Highlights
17:07 Live Stream and Podcast Updates
18:13 AI Image Prompt and New Year Fun
22:06 Hybrid Portrait Sketches
35:19 Exploring Kintsugi and Artistic Influences
38:50 Architecture and Personal Reflections
42:09 Upcoming Events and Announcements
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so you want to move on to the show show?
Jamie:Cause it's yeah, let's do the show. We did the homework. We did the college
Kurt Neiswender:football playoffs starting soon and people want to do watching that and probably don't want to be watching us and all that stuff. We got some sketches and some current events, so I guess it's a new year and a new year. This is, you know, tech. Well, yeah, this is. Week two, 2025.
Jamie:Yes.
Kurt Neiswender:2025. Yeah, I did the math. All right. I'm going to hit the the intro. Oh, hey, Jamie, how's it going?
Jamie:It is year seven.
Kurt Neiswender:I heard the dog now. Oh, come on. Tink. She's like, how many more years of this? How many more is
Jamie:this? The
Kurt Neiswender:story. Yeah, it might. Yeah. The other. Other other co host is over there. Yeah. You know, just, just given up, totally given up on their, on our, on their owners. Right. Yeah. You know, I think, don't you ever think that Ellie and Tinkerbell have their own little. Oh, they've got a private chat. Yeah. Private chat going. Yeah. Talking trash.
Jamie:Yeah, there's like an old iPhone around here that they've stowed away and they're just like,
Kurt Neiswender:yeah, that's, that's probably true. You know, I, I, you know I, I was an early adopter. I have the, well, I had a first generation iPhone. And it's been, I kept it, right? Except I can no longer find it. And I'm sure Ellie has it stashed away. Yeah, she's got it stashed.
Jamie:So, I mean, you're thinking museum, museum piece. And she's like, that's my lifeline.
Kurt Neiswender:The lifeline. Exactly. Oh, the dogs, you know, you keep us sane. Drive us crazy. I saw this great, I won't be able to repeat it, but it was you know, Instagram little real, I get a lot of dog reels. I'll probably get more now that I'm talking about it, but it was just like this, this dog saying, you know, I'm like the source of my, my, my parents. Joy and also stress something to that effect.
Jamie:Imagine if he had a cat too. There you go.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah. Well, luckily I'm allergic and, and so it keeps the animal population down inside this house. So no, I like cats, but I, they, I just can't, I just can't, I can't breathe. You know, I think, you know, I think all cats like me probably cause they know I'm allergic. And so they always tend to rub, rub on my legs and, you know, Befriend, befriend me.
Jamie:Yeah. They're trying to kill you.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah. The snipers, the sniper attack. They're like, this is a weak one. Yeah. They be knowing they'd be known. I know. So yeah, we're, so this is week two of the new year. It is you know, football playoff night. So in this live stream recording, I don't expect too many visitors unless they're not super interested in. Sports, but unfortunately small. Yeah. The two hosts of this podcast are Yeah, we do, we do like the sports. So, so we, we are gonna try and keep a nice little concise window. So therefore this, the, this banter session is, is now over.
Jamie:Yeah. Yeah. No more banter. Let's get, let's get to the main event. Well, not the main and main event. Have you seen the but the other main event,
Kurt Neiswender:right. Have you seen the uh, first, the quickest aside squid game two?
Jamie:Can I. Can I tell you something? I never saw Squid Game 1.
Kurt Neiswender:Hmm. Well, therefore
Jamie:But I know, I mean, I know My story won't fly. I mean, I know what it is. You should watch the first one. I think I should. So was the second one disappointing? Is that what you're telling me?
Kurt Neiswender:There it's a tough one. Well, once you know what happens in Squid Game from the first season, definitely desensitizes a lot of the second season. Mm hmm. But there are some twists in the second season that, you know, I still watched it. And and now I got to wait for season three, because the other thing, and this is not a knock because obviously Netflix is not going to change their business model for me yet, our podcast. I'm not a huge fan of when companies put out a, a C quote unquote, a season, and it basically ends. At what would be the halfway point of the season, right? Right. So this is an example of season, and I'm not spoiling anything. People don't, I mean, it's out long enough, I feel. Anyway, they get to the end of the quote unquote season, and they're definitely not finished, so.
Jamie:So, as a phenomenon. First
Kurt Neiswender:season, start to finish, boom, boom, boom, boom, you're
Jamie:like hooked. So, as a phenomenon. Like, did that sort of like, let's break it at the mid season mark. Did that like, am I wrong to remember that that happened with game of thrones? Like they were the, like, they were the ones who started that sort of phenomena, like the, like a, like season five or am I just,
Kurt Neiswender:yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, yeah, there's definitely been plenty of shows that like, Oh yeah. Call it. And sometimes they'll announce to the. The 1st part and the 2nd part is going to come 6 months to a year later, right? Or whatever their time frame is. But I don't know if it was the 1st, but I know with streaming, right? I mean, it's sort of this give take, right? They've given us all the episodes at once, so we don't have to wait for him except for HBO. They don't do that, but Netflix does. But that so they'll give you all the episodes, but they're going to give you half of the of the story and they're going to make you wait for the other half. So they're taking. the full experience from give take anyway. It's you know, anyway, we don't need to, I'm
Jamie:not sure it's that simple, but what, but, but I, I like that you're trying to explain,
Kurt Neiswender:well, they taking my money too.
Jamie:Okay. There's, there's, there's, there's the real truth here. Okay. So speaking of taking money trying to transition us back to the, the pre main event, which is, well, we talk about the coffee. So new year season seven. I was bound and determined. to before this episode to find a coffee that I had not ever had before or a company I'd never had before. I don't know why it's like one of those, like, you know, I don't know. It's, it's another artificial rule. It's like, it's like a mental challenge. you know, which, you know, not a high, high bar there but I did find one. I even brought props. Sounds exciting.
Kurt Neiswender:Nice, nice, dark, dark, dark
Jamie:bag.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah. Kicking horse.
Jamie:Kicking horse coffee. And it's just, I think it's, this is the kick ass blend. So does that make it a donkey? It is a donkey. That's a, that's a little donkey. Oh, it is a donkey Yeah. It's a little tiny donkey, right? Well, I
Kurt Neiswender:guess a kicking horse is a donkey,
Jamie:right? Yeah. But it it does, it's, it's got like a really, um, it, it, on it, the flavor notes on the bag are sweet, smoky, audacious. I don't know if that's like their tagline. Maybe. I like that.
Kurt Neiswender:It's, wait, is it? Have you opened it and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it looks so full. Well, I, I, for those watching, yeah, I had a little bit, we're doing some
Jamie:measurements, I didn't make a big batch. But yeah, cause it's the beans.
Kurt Neiswender:So not good, but challenge accepted, even though you didn't propose a challenge, but now I'm going to go try and do the same thing, but it's good. I I'm pleased. So, so you like it dark roast? I like it kick ass, but that's a, it's a good, it's a good starting point. You know, I want to just give a quick shout out to Chris. Who's who's watching our friend, Chris Novelli up in, in the Boston area. So
Jamie:probably equally cold.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah. Yeah, I would assume so. Let us know, Chris, for as long as you're watching. Give us the weather report. We tend to do this for the
Jamie:We, well
Kurt Neiswender:We ask for weather. Of friends.
Jamie:Yeah, I think we're, I think we're getting old.
Kurt Neiswender:So, so then, so yeah, let's segue back. Um, Chris is gonna be in Dallas, he says, in a few weeks. So Almost Texas. Almost Texas He's, he's asking for coffee shop recommendations though. Oh, I, I, well
Jamie:see. I can't, why can't I ever see these chat? Oh, there, that's why.'cause I had the full screen going on, so I didn't see the chat. forgot I was in the full screen mode folks. Yeah. So yeah, I will, I, I will send some recommendations your way. Sounds, sounds also, Dallas is a big city. So yeah,
Kurt Neiswender:25 and windy. You know, we're at 17. It was 9 degrees when I was driving 89 degrees when I was driving to a house site visit this morning. But anyway, we don't need to recap the weather and for at least my weather. People have already heard me complain enough. Okay.
Jamie:So I'm just
Kurt Neiswender:going
Jamie:to say, Chris because you, depending on where you are in Dallas like, you know, kind of, and if you're there for a little bit one of the, so we've talked about this on the show recently when I had my, and I think it actually is in the sketch that's coming up the Denny's mug. Right. So we were talking about the ubiquitous coffee shop and sort of, you know, you know, the throwback and, and whatever. One of the other, so, and Kurt told me about the concept of a diner explained what a diner was to me. Oh, east Coast Diner. Yeah. Coast. He's probably nice Coast Diner. So apparently my dog. You know, Tink really likes, she's like diner. That sounds like a place where food is. So anything about the dining or food experience, you know, she's, she's all over it. There's certain trigger words. But. That poor little pug. Well, she's part pug, but the point was that a really, another go to coffee joint that I really like in Dallas is Cafe Brazil. So also in Dallas, they have a Cafe Brazil in Dallas and it's sort of, it's kind of like a diner chain and it's, you know, but the coffee is always on point. And you know, that, that's, that's where I'm sort of, yeah. So good food, also multiple locations. So you can go to the Bishop arts one, you can go to the one in deep Bellum, you can go to the one kind of, you know, a little bit North. So there's a couple of different spots. So, you know, there's an Uptown one. But yeah, that's, you know, but it's very kind of classic Dallas, you know, diner. In a sense, so like it. Coffee's always great. So,
Kurt Neiswender:well, there we go. That's some real time advice, friend to friend.
Jamie:Yes. Highly recommend. There are definitely other coffee shops that are a little bit more boutique we'll say, but that really kind of depends on where you are in town. 4 coffee. Yeah. I mean, we're, you know, there's some ambience beyond just the diner ambience. So yeah.
Kurt Neiswender:So, so for me, since I didn't I didn't understand that we were venturing out to, to new coffee territory. I am just cracked into a bag of the coffee sketch podcast coffee. I try and I try not to, to do that. You know, try a whole turn, you know, it's, it's still a merge item. For sale. You know, link up there over there, over there. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Wait, that's right. Right up here. That's it. That one. Yeah. There you go. Anyway, so I, I did I did commandeer. I did, you know, I did the egg for Christmas. I got an arrow press coffee. I don't know if you're familiar with AeroPress. It's like a engineer made, designed this thing, and it, you know, makes a cup of coffee. Kind of like a French press, but it's, you know, It's it, it, it's like a plunger, an air type chamber, so it's like pushing air and, anyway. It's supposed to make a nice cup of coffee. I
Jamie:like how you said supposed to. Supposed to. Well, it's only
Kurt Neiswender:supposed to because I lost a part of it already. Oh god, Kurt. This is why we can't have nice things. I know! I wonder, now the parts is gonna really burn me is if I can't find just that part and then I have to rebuy more.
Jamie:The, the, there's a thing called the intranet.
Kurt Neiswender:Well, I'm gonna, yeah, I'm going, I, I, I just, I just haven't, I want to, I want to hope that I haven't given up hope yet that I'm going to find that.
Jamie:It's going to be with that first generation iPhone that. Your dog is hoarding.
Kurt Neiswender:Don't you ever wonder if people are people or ghosts or, you know, entities just take things away from you. Are you talking about the people in the walls again? Yeah. Yeah. You know, they just kind of, yeah, I'm just going to take that. You're going to look for it forever. It'll drive you crazy. Curt has a basement folks,
Jamie:you know,
Kurt Neiswender:in Michigan we have basements.
Jamie:Yeah. And that's, that's where, well, anyhow, this is, we're not going to next to the 3d
Kurt Neiswender:printer.
Jamie:Yeah. We're not, we're not going into the true crime podcast, reddit that. You know, we
Kurt Neiswender:should probably
Jamie:yeah, get to stick to the schedule. I think it's time to go to the sketches and I mean, cause we, you, you actually curated, this is, this is, we're back folks, you know, we're back to the momentum where Kurt, you know, starts to generate some curated content for us in advance of the episode. And yeah, we've, we've got, we've got a few different things to talk about today. And I think, I think it's, it's going to be a good one.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah. You know, we're, we, we, we always try and. Raise the bar right around, you know, right around the new year, just like new year's resolutions. And then by week three, we're back to our old way. Oh, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We're going to throw out the script yet. I know. I know. Right. So we have a few sketches. Well, I guess, depending on how you define sketch, maybe we have two and we have an AI generated image that I created. And then we also have a little link to an article of our dear friend, Evelyn, who is now a national president and And been on the podcast and we've been on her podcast and all this. So we, we're not going to read you the article per se, but we may chat about it in a summary form. Just, yeah, I think
Jamie:it's, I mean, I'm glad that you, you, you included it for this episode. Cause I think that you know, effectively you know, it's a new year folks, it's 2025. And I kind of casual update was I was able to participate in AIA Governance Week at the end of last year. So I'm actually a new at large Strategic Council representative for AIA National. And so I'll be doing that for the next three years. And so because I was in D. C. for government's week, I got to be at the inauguration. So the transfer from Kim to Evelyn and sort of celebrating both celebrating the end of 2024 and then the beginning of 2025. And this week, an article came out from A. I. A. Kind of highlighting kind of the start of this year for Evelyn and, and the things that she's kind of focusing on and, and, and sort of sharing with kind of the broader membership. And so, I'm, I'm glad Kurt sort of suggested it in here and, I don't know, Kurt's throwing out quotes. I don't know if there's a quote from the article. This is, yeah, I think this
Kurt Neiswender:is, this is one of, this is the first sentence that came out of Evelyn's mouth in the, under the question. What, what are we looking forward to in the, in the new year, right? Okay. But yeah, I
Jamie:just teasing just well, and for the folks who are listening to this podcast and don't know what Kurt has just put up on his whiteboard of magic,
Kurt Neiswender:the first thing, first, first point of that is you should be watching the live stream. Second point is. Jamie's right. I should have announced what, what I pasted into the, to the video. However, go ahead. Well, I was going to say is
Jamie:that, you know, it's, you know, we also ask her is, you know, apt to point out, you know, we do have a live stream folks. So, you know, season six. Am I correct? Was the first year that we did the live stream? No. Does that go to season five? I think
Kurt Neiswender:it's, it's already, I think five. Goodness. So we're in the
Jamie:third year of this. This is the third year of us, like, doing these episodes live. You know, there is no net. And so season seven, year seven you know, thank you buddy for doing this with me. But yeah, the quote that Kurt has put on the screen from Evelyn's interview was, I do think it is time for AI to address AI. She also goes on to talk about kind of housing and the business case for architecture. and thinking about, you know, the membership at large in a lot of those kinds of conversations. And I think that all that stuff's really kind of interesting. But I'm glad that you centered on this, especially with your sketch that you're, you know, putting in as sort of a, a casual prompt.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah. So I I prompted you know, prompted chat GPT to make me a image for the new year. And, and I can't, I don't remember exact prompt. I'm going to have to get better at kind of grabbing those, but basically you know, give me a new year's image based on what it knows about me kind of, of a prompt, because, you know, I talk a lot about architecture, sustainability and, and teaching, right. So it's sort of a, I asked it to make it, Make the 2025 fit in a college campus. And this is what it gave me. And I thought, well, okay, well there's solar panels. There's some cool, funky buildings going on. So explain
Jamie:to
Kurt Neiswender:me if
Jamie:that's sort of the context of this prompt, the carousel.
Kurt Neiswender:Well, it's like, it's kind of like a gazebo slash carousel. It doesn't really have, you know, yeah, it's a little, it's a little gimmicky, I suppose, in the front foreground. But, you know, maybe it's like a, you know, a gazebo in the middle of the quad. I think it's better as a carousel. I need, I need. Maybe it means that college campuses should have carousels.
Jamie:Yes, we need to have more fun. I think basically it's what we're saying is there needs to be more fun in 2025, you know Yes, you're doing some serious business and some serious schoolwork, but let's have some fun with it There's kind of like a fire pit next to it. So, you know, so fire and a carousel and I don't know. So what, what makes me
Kurt Neiswender:level is like a roof terrace that has no, it's just all trees on there. There's a lot of,
Jamie:there's a lot of green
Kurt Neiswender:roof going on there. There's a lot. Yeah. There's a lot yeah, just a lot to, to, to handle in, in the one image. So when I, when I saw it,
Jamie:no, but when I, when I did see it, I did think carousel. It also made me think of there was a,
Kurt Neiswender:It looks like an Apple store. Yeah, it could be that. I mean not not a Norman Foster designed Apple store, but you know.
Jamie:No, like a, like an Apple, like a Norman Foster knockoff. Like like we're going to get you in the carousel slash fire pit gazebo, and then walk down the steps in the middle. And then the genius level. They're going to sell you some first generation iPhones, you know, under the green roof. So now what it made, what it made me think of was South by Southwest, you know, here in Austin, and we were just talking about a lot of Texas stuff a moment ago with some of our live listeners and in Austin we have the South by Southwest annual festival in the spring. Definitely not spring right now, but one of the pieces of that is you often get these sort of pop ups with industry and technology. And the one that sort of make me think of when I saw that image was G. E. Decided that they were going to create an installation of a carousel. They painted the whole carousel, every inch of it in white paint. So all the, all the horses and lions and birds and poles and everything, all the decorations, but it was solar powered. So it was a completely off grid. In the middle of a parking lot in downtown Austin,
Kurt Neiswender:this
Jamie:white carousel that was free for anybody to get on and twirl around. So add that to your LTU campus and maybe, maybe you're there.
Kurt Neiswender:I'll, I'll, I'll propose it as a, yeah, the next, the next structure, structure added to the campus.
Jamie:Maybe you can 3D print it.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah, we got, we got that technology. So we, yeah, we don't have to dwell on the the fireworks. So I thought it would be fun. I'm going to try and as I told you off offline, I'm going to try and sprinkle in a little more. Ideation imagery from me, and then maybe riff off of your sketches a little bit, and we can go back and forth on, on some of these, but going back to, to, to the sketches that you've produced recently, we have to, I brought in to, we don't. Necessary need to dwell too long. Or, you know, I, I think they may, they may not for those that are watching may not seem related, but when working with Jamie, there's always from, from page turn to page turn, there's always some sort of. Th thread that that can be tied, tied through sketches. But on the left is the Hockey Hall of Fame building, which I thought was a nice, just a nice composition in general with a nice, a nice, you know, ink, you know, black ink on paper across two pages of the sketch. The building itself has a really nice sort of set of classical. Or neoclassical proportions and, and form, and it seems like an interesting corner building compact. Neoclassical in design doorway on the corner, which is a Seinfeld no no. But we'll, we'll let it go. I'm sure, but it looks great. As a, as a, as a composite, it looks like your photo has the water color in there as well. So I don't know if you're sneaking that in there.
Jamie:I was sneaking it in. Yeah. Yeah.
Kurt Neiswender:And on the right hand side, actually a couple of portrait sketches. But then if we zoom in, I'll zoom in a little bit. Real quick, and we can come back, but our, your Instagram posts sort of hashtag hybrid portrait and hybrid sketch. So you have overlaid like these objects the, what, what you you've done in a lot of your other, when, when the word hybrid landscape or hybrid sketch sort of comes in or is, is termed in the, the hashtags. You know, so these, these sort of abstract images or abstract shapes and forms are sort of overlaid on top of the portrait, which I don't know if you've ever done quite like that. No, it, it, it, yeah.
Jamie:It thank you for describing it that way and, and sort of posing the question because that's exactly the case is that I have never done a portrait with that kind of element. of my style that I've, you know, slowly been experimenting with. And I think that that's one of the things that you know, these are actually, there's two in this, this image that Kurt has on the screen and done on different days. So there was one and then, and then a follow up the second day. So the first one was a real experiment. I was describing it to Kurt was, you know, just sort of Googling You know, I'm just on my phone just Googling like sketch portrait. And, you know, pulling up, you know, all the images and then just sort of doing the doom scroll through it. And, you know, in this particular case, didn't rest on any single one. But, you know, did that for, you know, a good little bit. And, you know, And then just sort of, you know, left the screen up and active, and then did a really, really quick sketch. And did the initial sketch with kind of a graphite pencil. So water soluble graphite, you can apply it just like you would sort of like a kind of a hard pencil. But the, You know, similar to like a Conté crayon or something like that, where you get sort of some other tones to it. You can use your watercolor to kind of, you know, kind of get that. Anyhow, the, the, the, the, this one in particular was sort of a hybrid, a, a, A hybrid of different elements from different photos not any one in particular, and then going back in with, with a pencil over the top of it and sort of pulling out some of those pieces of the face and sort of the, the structure and in doing that, also starting to add in these layers. of kind of the hybrid reality kind of the, the regulating lines that sometimes we'll do when we're thinking through plan, section elevation and an architecture kind of world. But doing that kind of over the top of this landscape of a face. And the first one, literally an experiment. The second one actually, you know, settled on an actual person's face and actual, you know, tried to, you know, found in, in that doom scrolling, saw a portrait of Ana de Armas, the actress and said, okay, well, tomorrow I'll do that one. And so this is one of those situations where I was already sort of setting myself up for the next day. And. I think that it, what's interesting to me is sort of the difference between the two. But also still trying to kind of play with all those ideas. And, you know, I think it was just a good experiment. I'm glad, I'm glad I tried it.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah, I like it a lot. And I actually think, well, there's a few things that I will suggest. But the first thing to point out is the first image, the left sketch, the left portrait, as you described offline, and then as we, as you just described now, that it, the sketch itself is sort of a hybrid of multiple portrait images of, of, of persons, right? So then, you know, you're not actually drawing. one person, but the influence of multiple images generated or was generated through the, your sketch into this image, which technically I don't necessarily say technically, but it is. One of the ways AI uses to develop images is the diffusion model, which basically starts out as noise and then filters it down into what it perceives as or understands as a portrait. So in your own brain, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're sort of developing that generation or that image generation, which then moved through your hand. Which is kind of interesting. I think that the, the, the analog to digital comparison. So it's not too far farfetched, even though my drawing was not a portrait, but I think, I think that, that that's kind of interesting. And then, so now you have this, this image of a person as what, what our brain can perceive as a portrait of a person. And, and, but it may not be somebody that. You know, exactly some person.
Jamie:Right. Well, and I, and I, and I like the way you kind of, you know, frame that because I think that it's when you sort of sit down to sketch the blank page. And we've talked about this is, you know, if you don't have something necessarily in front of you, and you're sort of working from imagination or. Or in this case, you know, multiple images and trying to kind of, you know, ascertain what you're going to do, it's kind of like giving yourself a prompt. But then also at the same time, like you're describing, it's almost like this machine learning where you're, you're, you know, taking this diffusion model and, and, you know, pulling pieces of it to eventually sort of render. You know, a concept or an image it's what was, I think the, what I found myself doing with it as opposed to the second one, the second one, because I'm working directly from an individual portrait was similar to situations where you're looking at a building or a scene or a setting and you're trying to render what you see. Is there's a freedom in the first one and sort of a, and you can sort of see it in the sketch too. There's a an increased looseness of, you know, using that graphite pencil and then coming back in with the wash on pieces of it and then layering on top of it. Whereas the second one you know, same, same materials, but didn't do the wash. So all that is graphite and pencil. And what I found was that it was a slower but also but I still was able to get to the kind of hybrid landscape of the, the, the face as a feature. And kind of pulling in some of those lines and that, and that was sort of the other thing for me was like, you know, could I keep up this kind of concept and, and sort of test it in multiple situations for myself? So happy with that as an experiment, but definitely there's more to come with it. I think,
Kurt Neiswender:I think I'm trying to find my little. I guess I'll have to just, yeah, please, I'm just going to draw on this thing. But the so the the, this, this sort of the, the, the shape that's coming out of the regulating lines, the hybridized, you know, sort of overlay. It's starting to look kind of like a mask, like either a superhero mask or some other kind of, you know, another shell or a layer over top of, of the person. Right? It's just a very hint. It's the hint of the shape because it kind of turns around the eye or it might be the hair, like a strand of hair that sort of frames a bit of the edge of the eye. So that, that I find is interesting because then it could be this, this sort of fragmented shell or, or, or another layer of beyond the face. And then I was going to suggest is that you, you could also, I don't know if you've done this before, but I have some other artists friends that are subtractive and not just additive. And so use those lines to be the boundary of what is erased. So then erase the portrait in parts of those, you know, where it you know, you pick a bound or you pick a side of it or in sort of just erase. And then, so then it starts to become this sort of erosion or decay of, of the portrait, which, you know, I thought could be interesting. Just an idea.
Jamie:Well, it's, you know, the thing that it didn't. It didn't register when I was doing the first one but the way you're sort of describing the second one I will admit that there was, I think because it was an actual portrait that I was like trying to render properly and then also do this experiment with kind of the, the lines and the shape and the shadow and the, the texture that you're talking about at that point when I was doing the second one, it did sort of click in my head that I was clearly being influenced by this Montreal artist this woman, I forget her first name, but I think her last name is Chevalier and she does these amazing kind of faces that are collages. Similar to what you're sort of sketching over the top of this about sort of some of those areas and as maybe subtractive, what she does is she has sort of a portrait that is either painted or drawn. And then there's collage of other material over the top of it to kind of fill in and sort of flesh out. the, the volume of the face and it becomes sort of a whole nother composition. I'm not, I'm not describing it and doing it justice. She does, she does some really, really interesting work. And she's worked with we've talked about her before on the podcast briefly. She did a mural in Austin with shepherd fairy. And but yeah, I, I, I didn't catch myself sort of thinking that way in the first one, it probably was in the back of my mind. But on the second one, the next day, I think because I was, had sort of set up these rules for myself, I kind of, as I'm drawing it, I realized that the influence of seeing some of her work is, is definitely evident in this. Kind of mode of drawing and what you're doing over the top of it, I think is sort of even highlighting that even more for me and maybe, you know, the impulses to, to get back up this, you know train the
Kurt Neiswender:drawing. Well, you know what, it's sort of, so. See if you can follow I think it'd be pretty easy to follow so I I was quickly trying to paste in this image Partly because it was part of my 2025 AI Trying to create a New Year's image and I I started with and I sent you a couple off I didn't post them on Instagram. I thought you might I was thinking that you might use it because from our first episode of this season, you know, we always pick our words, a word to describe thought process, things that we're kind of going through and wanting to explore. And you chose Kintsugi from, you know, the Japanese art of sort of repairing broken things with gold line work. So now that we, the way you explain Chevalier and And then your sketch and, and the sort of thought process, it's sort of is, is, I think subliminally is, is this, kintsugi is is a sort of exploration of Kintsugi in, in, in how the hybrid, hybrid components and these lines are, are sort of abstracted. And I, I think it could be really interesting to keep going down keep going down that path to it for a little while or maybe let it be and revisit. Especially as we, we kind of work through the year of our words, right? And you know, I, I was trying to, my, my image that I popped in here real quick was the I was trying to say, you know, I, I wanted a robot polishing. Kintsugi piece of pottery with the word, with the, with the numbers 2025 for the new year in it, what I really wanted it to be was I wanted the numbers to be the pottery. And the robot polishing the numbers. But it couldn't, it kept screwing up and it couldn't get, it kept separating the concept of the pottery and the number. And then for some crazy reason, when it would get, make numbers as pottery with the robot, it would drop the five. So then it was 2002 or 202. And, and then there was one image where the robot was holding up its hand and I was like, maybe that's the five is in the hand. And then it went to 203 for some reason, it just added a number. It went up, you know, and I was like getting so frustrated. So I stopped and then I went you know, and I just let it go. But anyway, I kind of thought it had different every, every time I did it, it did a different kind of a robot.
Jamie:Well, I mean, you know, this could be like alternate logo for coffee sketch podcast, you know, you know, kind of combination of like, Kurt curatorially like, you know, bringing in that AI robot to, you know, play with the Kintsugi or Kintsugai pottery. Did I mispronounce it? I don't know. I mean, I'm not, I mean, you know me with pronunciation, that not my forte. You know no, thank you for, thank you for sort of indulging that one. Cause I think it's And, and, and bringing that up and sort of making that connection for me is, you know, I think you're right. I think there's some subliminal thought kind of going on and. You know, it's influences are certainly coming from lots of different places and taking a little time off time off during the holidays gives you some time to reflect. And I definitely was able to generate some interesting stuff in the sketchbook. I mean, the Canada sketch was, you know, usually around this time of year, I'm always thinking about home and things like that. You know, in this case, you know, it's. I do a lot of rehabilitation work and and adaptive reuse work in architecture, historic preservation. So you've got a building that's from the 1880s and you know, built as originally as a bank and and is now the Hockey Hall of Fame. The, the original architect I think it's Frank, Frank Darling. Was, uh, Ribba gold medalist. So you know, definitely an architect of note that was practicing in Canada. But yeah, I think that that's sort of the, you know, for me, it's like thinking about home and sort of this connection to architecture, even though, you know the definitely the first of my family to be in this profession, but I think connecting place and stories and buildings and things that are important to me. I tend to do this around this time of year anyways, probably it's cause hearing stories from family and spending time with family. Yeah,
Kurt Neiswender:sure.
Jamie:The books, interestingly enough, fun fact those books are ones that I've got while I was in architecture school as a gift from my uncle he sent them from Canada and said, you know, here's some architecture of the great white North. You definitely need to know your heritage. And so much appreciated. I definitely look at them from Canada. Time to time, always finding some interesting gems in there. Yeah, I, I, I brought this, you know, sketch to bear in the book at this time because it was, it's kind of what I do right now. And you know, this building I've been to it. It's, it's, it's very cool. Hockey's obviously important. Is it, is it Montreal? No, this is actually in Toronto. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. This is in Toronto, downtown.
Kurt Neiswender:Unawares. But that, yeah, that's cool. You know, the best, the best architecture book is the one that's gifted to you. I always, I always like I think, cause, cause in your case, it's family, right? So they're trying to encourage, encourage the craft, but I always I don't get them very often from friends or family. But I, when I. I did get two this year from, from Danielle in Christmas, and it's always fun when it's gifted to you because you're, you're not, you're, you know, you may have a list. I have an Amazon list of a lot of books that I'd like to have, but it's the ones, you know, that is chosen for you by the person. So they're trying to, you know, Well, which one do I think they will like for whatever reason? And that's the best part, the mystery of it. You know, that's
Jamie:the, it's the thought that
Kurt Neiswender:counts.
Jamie:Surprise. Yeah, that's so, well, thank you. Definitely the thought counts. And this has been fun.
Kurt Neiswender:Yeah, and give me a minute because I got to tee up the the old,
Jamie:get ready, get ready for your superheroing because you, you look ready. You're all dressed for it. So,
Kurt Neiswender:well, I'm just trying to stay warm, you know, that's the the name of the game. Oh, I should say one. I know we were trying to do the, the, the, the outro here, but you mentioned Evelyn or we, and we talked about Evelyn's inauguration. She is actually currently in somewhere in your backyard, not your actual backyard, but she is in Austin. And then for those that are listening, if any students of mine that are listening to this or watching the live is that we will have Evelyn at Lawrence tech next month. I'm giving you the news before even the Dean gives you the news. So this is the, the, this spill the beans moment. This is letting, what do you call it? Stealing the thunder, all the thunder.
Jamie:You are, you are, this is like, okay. So we've talked about this folks is Kurt. Kurt is the nice guy, right? He, he doesn't like to, you know, you know, get into the, you know, any of the shady territory, but he also is. He, like myself, both terrible at keeping secrets. So him, like the giddiness of him wanting to reveal this news and the genuine, like excitement about it, that's, that's all true.
Kurt Neiswender:100 percent 100 percent the genuine artifact. So yeah, so February 6th, Thursday, Evelyn will be lecturing and I won't give away what the lecture is going to be about cause I really don't know yet. So she asked for some ideas, so I gave her ideas, but anyway, yeah, we'll, we'll probably try and revisit, I'll try and maybe make a little bit more formal announcement. Again, I mean, come Monday, you know, the, the Dean's going to announce this. So,
Jamie:well, that, that maybe means this episode has to officially get published before then. Yeah. Ooh, challenge accepted,
Kurt Neiswender:which now I, but I have, I have, I have our other one to get done too. So
Jamie:that one, that one's in the past.
Kurt Neiswender:So it can come any, any, at any time. I guess it could now anyway. All right. We got to let people go. So, all right. Thanks, Jamie. We'll talk soon.
