#371: Rich Simmons (Visual Artist) (pt. 1 of 2)

This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with Rich Simmons. He’s known for blending the rebellious energy of street art with the bold visuals of pop art, into his self-defined genre of Pop Punk Art.

Rich is described as a visionary, a cultural disruptor, and a dynamic communicator. His work resonates with collectors, communities and anyone who believes art can be a catalyst for change.

He’s also the founder of Art is The Cure, a mental health movement he launched in 2008, and Create Scene, a social network for creatives.

Join us to hear Rich’s empowering story—and visit his websites to see his eye-catching art! https://www.richsimmonsart.com/, https://www.artisthecure.org/ and https://createscene.com/

Transcript

Welcome To Making Art Work

Announcer 0:18

Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast, Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion, and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent, or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts, Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.

Andy Heise 1:01

Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise.

Nick Petrella 1:04

And I'm Nick Petrella. We're excited to have British contemporary artist Rich Simmons on the podcast. He's known for blending the rebellious energy of street art with the bold visuals of pop art into his self-defined genre of pop punk art. Rich is described as a visionary, a cultural disruptor, and a dynamic communicator. His work resonates with collectors, communities, and anyone who believes art can be a catalyst for change. He's also the founder of Art is the Cure, a mental health movement he launched in 2008 and Create Scene, a social network for creatives. We'll have Rich's websites in the show notes, so make time to see his eye-catching art and read about all of his initiatives. Rich, it's great to have you on the podcast.

Rich Simmons 1:47

Thanks for having me.

Nick Petrella 1:50

You began painting on the streets about 15 years ago, and now your art is it's in over 30 countries around the world. Walk us through your journey because that doesn't sound typical.

Rich Simmons 2:02

Yeah, I mean I'm self-taught as an artist. I've always um thought outside the box, education wasn't my thing. And I started going to London when I was a teenager, seeing the street art, and just fell in love with it. I didn't have to go to galleries, I didn't have to go to museums, I could see a Banksy, a Shepherd Ferrier, whoever it was, the storytelling, the accessibility of it, I loved it. And I went away and I taught myself how to cut stencils, how to paint, and uh went self-employed. I was in bands when I was younger, so that whole punk rock mentality, going out, doing my own shows, booking them, marketing it. Uh that's how I kind of discovered how I could market myself as an artist. So yeah, doing street art opened up a lot of doors. It taught me how to tell stories, it taught me how to communicate, and also doing all of the promotion around graphic design, selling t-shirts, selling gig tickets, and then it was kind of uh the right piece at the right time, and I did a piece of Will and Cake dressed up as the Sex Pistols right before the royal wedding, and that just captured the imagination of people in the UK combining sex pistols and the royal family, and the next morning it was in all the newspapers here, but we watched it travel around the world, it was in the Himalayan times, uh it was crazy. Uh but I knew how to market things, I knew that this piece was gonna tell a story, it was gonna capture imaginations. I did it at South Bank Skate Park, so it was a really accessible area and uh told the press there's gonna be a really interesting piece of street art happening. Come down by the end of the day. We had the BBC, we had Japanese TV, we had five paparazzi, and it blew up, and that got me opportunities in galleries. And a couple months later, I'm exhibiting next to Banksy and Picasso in opera gallery.

Nick Petrella 4:19

That's that's fantastic. So, yeah, quick quick follow-up question. You said you taught yourself. Did you do that? Did you go to the library, did you go to YouTube? What where did you how did you do that?

Rich Simmons 4:30

I'm always um fascinated by how things work. So as a kid, I was that kid that took CD players apart and rebuilt them and took Lego apart and rebuilt things into something completely different. So when I would see Banksy pieces on the street and I would see other street art, I would try and figure out how they do that. So it's stencils, how do I cut a stencil, paper, knife, then you learn how to draw, then you learn how to Photoshop, how to do design work, how to tell stories, how to put all of these different elements into it. Uh so yeah, it was a lot of practice, trial by error, not accepting that I couldn't do something, right? Uh watching videos online, just deconstructing things, and then I found my own technique, my own path, and I think by not learning from someone else, it allowed me to figure out my own techniques, my own uh style, the way I wanted to do it, the way I want to engineer it. And uh that gave me something unique.

Nick Petrella 5:41

Yeah. So it really was on your own.

Rich Simmons 5:44

Yeah, I'm self-taught in art, business, uh, everything to this point. I didn't go to university for it. I pretty much failed art in school just because I was good at the practical side. Right. I was always having that natural talent to do that, but I didn't like again, maybe this is the punk rock mentality. I didn't like justifying it.

Andy Heise 6:06

Right.

Rich Simmons 6:06

I didn't want to write the essays, I didn't want to say this is why I'm doing it. Yeah, you figure out why I've done that. Um you need to do the essays to get the good grades in school, and then not go into university. It was how do I have a career in art? How do I forge a path?

Andy Heise 6:24

Right.

Rich Simmons 6:24

Because it's not laid out for you. So I had to do lots of different things. Trial by error, go out, learn business, do music promotion, work in different jobs, find mentors, go on courses. It's not just go out and paint on a wall and hope that something's gonna come to you.

Andy Heise 6:42

Right.

Rich Simmons 6:43

It's uh there's a lot more that goes into it. Entrepreneurial. That's that's the whole name of the podcast. Yeah, you have to be. Yeah, and we'll break that down.

Andy Heise 6:52

For sure. And and I love the I love this that how you talk about how you you were captivated by the street art and sort of your natural curiosity and how things work and and step understanding that process was really kind of that was your entry into starting to create some street art.

Rich Simmons 7:08

Yeah, I mean, I grew up wanting to be an animator. It was my dream as a kid to work for Pixar. I wanted to tell stories, I wanted to create characters that made people feel something. And I'm not good enough to go and be an animator. I don't want to sit behind a computer just doing one thing. I want to tell different kinds of stories, and it was finding Banksy and people like that that I discovered a new way to tell a story. It was uh put it on a wall, and it's accessible to everyone. It's a canvas for everyone to enjoy. That got me opportunities into galleries, and then I learned more about storytelling and composition and learned from the greats like Da Vinci, uh, Stan Lee, Walt Disney, all of these kind of people that want to tell a story, want to create character, want to move people in different ways. You can learn something from all of them and apply it to yourself.

Andy Heise 8:09

Absolutely. Yeah. Certainly the nature of the work of street art versus uh animation, as you as you pointed out, is very different. So um I'm also curious. You talked about um sort of building some hype around, hey, there's gonna be this this interesting uh art uh you know that's coming in this at the skate park um where you brought the Sex Pistols and Royal Family together before the royal wedding. Um, what was that hype like? Well, how did you do that? Was it was it press releases? Was it social media? Was it how how did how did that work?

Rich Simmons 8:39

So I had a very good friend. He worked in fashion and media. He used to be in the graffiti scene back in the 80s. He was one of the original guys, and we became friends. I showed him this design for Will and Kate as the Sex Pistols, because I just thought it was funny. He was in Australia at the time visiting his family, and he said, make the stencil, start cutting, I'll be back in a week. By the time he got back, I had the stencil 90% done. He came to my studio in South London, saw the stencil, and said, We have to go out and paint this ASAP. He started contacting people, I started contacting people. So cutting stencils, doing emails, calling people, turn up at South Bank a day later, I think it was 6 a.m. start, start painting it, and by the end of the day, we had paparazzi, TV crews, news, and it blew up.

Nick Petrella 9:45

Yeah. Can you uh can you get us a link to that? Because I'd I'd like to include that. Yeah, of course. Show notes, yeah. Great.

Andy Heise 9:56

Rich, do you remember the first time someone took your creative work seriously or or maybe outwardly dismissed it? And how did that shape the way or shape what you thought was possible as an artist?

Self-Taught Wins And Costly Lessons

Rich Simmons 10:09

Until I had done that piece of Will and Co, I'd never put my name to something. I was doing commercial street art and graffiti for companies in London, painting people's bedrooms, and just doing things under a company name, learning from other artists, working in the studio, living in a warehouse. My bed was in a room that was their old office. It was covered in graffiti and street art. I had some of the best artists in the world coming down and learned from them. And then I felt confident enough to put my put my name to something. I felt it was the right piece at the right time. My skill level was high enough that I was willing to put my name to it, and I was lucky that that piece got me opportunities and and noticed. But I came from nowhere, according to everyone else. Did this piece, and everyone's saying, Who's this guy? Where's he come from? But I'd been grinding for years, exactly learning my skill, cutting stencils every day, painting in a studio, going out into London. There's an amazing tunnel called Leak Street under Waterloo train station, and it's a completely legal graffiti zone. You can paint there, not worry about police coming over to you. You can practice your craft. It might be painted over the next day. Sure. But those days going out and painting, practicing how putting up a stencil on a wall is doing it differently on a canvas. You're working at different levels, vertical, horizontal, you have to think spatially, 3D, scale, how the paint works, how to get it crisp. That's years of practice. So I didn't come from nowhere, but it was just the right time to put my name to it. Got it.

Nick Petrella 12:03

Yeah. Yeah, and it's a really good segue to the next question. You know, Andy, Andy and I have taught at uh universities, conservatories uh for a for a fairly long time. And uh we deal with students who are I I guess I'll use the term classically trained, right? So that said, I think a lot of them depends on the discipline, like if they want to do graphic art, things like that. Their path to a gallery, right, is through training and things like that. University, uh art schools, things like that. You're largely self-taught, right? Different path to uh pop art. So has being self-taught impacted your trajectory in any way, either positively or negatively?

Rich Simmons 12:54

100% both. Okay. It's not being taught a certain thing has allowed me to make my own rules. Being told this is how you do it can be limiting for a lot of people. I didn't know what the ceiling was, I didn't know what the limits were. So I believed anything was possible. If if Banksy can go out and put a stencil on a wall and become the biggest artist on the planet, why can't I? If I can uh figure out my own way to teach myself from learning from business people, from Steve Jobs, from Walt Disney, from Stan Lee, from storytellers, from musicians, actors. When you're taught all art, I think you're taught about artists. And when you're trying to hustle to pay your bills to keep living in a studio, you look at business people. You look at how do people make money, how do people build brands, how do people get their name out, and you're forced by maybe desperation, maybe uh necessity to think outside the box differently. Yeah, and that was an amazing thing because I'm a self-taught artist that is now I've exhibited 30 gallery shows around the world, I'm now signed with Castle Fine Art, I'm building a technology business, I've gone into schools all over the world talking about mental health. Um, someone of my skill set shouldn't have achieved what I did. But because I wasn't told the rules, I made my own up. Yeah, but it took longer. It took longer, there was more falling on my face, there was more uh fail attempts uh doing a piece, learning that this colour doesn't work. Maybe in London you can do a painting and put a resin finish on it. No one in New York buys things with a resin finish because they like a matte finish. You can do certain colours in certain countries, other colours don't work in those other countries. If you sold a thousand blue t-shirts with a skull on it in London, great. Let's take those to New York. Everyone in New York wears red t-shirts. I'm now stuck with a thousand blue t-shirts.

Nick Petrella 15:39

Yeah, yeah.

Rich Simmons 15:40

Should have done that research, printed the skull on a red t-shirt, shipped them to New York. Now you have the expense of shipping them back, reprinting them, taking so I I've been through that. I've shipped work to New York, and galleries have said, nope, not gonna not even gonna hang it. Put resin on it, we don't like it.

Andy Heise 16:01

Wow.

Rich Simmons 16:02

Okay, I'll remake those five pieces, not put resin finish on it, send them back. But that's now hundreds of pounds and dollars shipping back and forth. If someone had taught me that, maybe I would have learned sooner. But learning from your own mistakes, learning outside the box has got me to this position, and I'm grateful for the journey.

Nick Petrella 16:28

Yeah, you know, as you as you're talking, and and maybe it's just you know, it's not just me, I think it's anybody of a certain age. We tend to say the same things, we tend to say quotes, and one of the quotes I always say is, you know, the answers are out there, you just gotta ask the right questions. You're the embodiment of that, sounds like I'm trying, yeah.

Rich Simmons 16:48

I want to inspire the next generation of kids that the roadmap isn't laid out easily for a lot of people. A lot of people don't go the education route, they don't go to university, they teach themselves. So I'm trying to maybe be a voice, be the proof that you can fail art, you can pick it up later in life, and you can still have success with it. You don't have to go by a certain rulebook. There's so many different ways to learn, mentors, courses, the internet has every answer on it for free. YouTube videos, tutorials, platforms, all sorts of things. There's no excuse. Yeah. None. If I can do it, as a self-taught artist, self-taught a business, and I've got into this position, anyone can. Yeah.

Andy Heise 17:53

Rich, you mentioned uh you learned and you drew drew lessons from um business people and artists. Um you've mentioned several of them. But I'm also curious, like, where do you think your independence and propensity for rule breaking came from? Was there some were there people in your life that you sort of saw doing that? Or you know, where where do you think that came from for you?

Rich Simmons 18:13

So I grew up on pop punk, blink one eight two, and bands like that. All my friends were skateboarders. We had garage bands all around, taught myself bass guitar. Um, so that DIY mentality of can't make it to the skate park, so let's build our own ramp. Yep, can't go to a gig, so let's start our own band in a garage. I think that taught me how to write your own rules, how to do it yourself. If you want to do something, just go out and do it and learn it. I wanted to be in bands, I saw other people playing gigs and how much fun that looked. Picked up a bass guitar, and a few months later I'm in a band. Yep. It's it's that mentality that stuck with me, and then I've obviously moved away from music a long time ago, but took those lessons and applied it to art. And writing your own rules is like writing your own songs. It's what's the story, what's the hook, what's the catch line, how do you perform it to an audience? How do you capture their imagination? How do you sell a ticket to come to the next show? How do you merchandise it? How do you make them want to wear a t-shirt with your band name on it? But now it's just art instead of music. It's it's transferable lessons from different industries, different creative scenes that I've been able to apply to my art. So, yeah, I blame punk rock.

Andy Heise 19:57

Kindred spirit. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, that that DIY mentality, I think, um, you know, I think it's sort of it's built into sort of the punk rock culture, right? This notion of you know, sort of anti-established movie. I don't need this because I can do it my own way. Um certainly, uh certainly that comes through in in your art and and certainly all the things that you've been talking about here today. I do want to maybe ask a little more about the like drawing those business lessons that you've that you've had to learn over time. And you said you've you've looked at what other people before you have done. I'm wondering, is there how do you how do you glean those lessons from from those people? Do you read about them? Do you you know watch videos or documentaries, whatever?

Rich Simmons 20:37

Anything and everything I can do to absorb lessons and information is what I try and do. I go to gallery shows, museums, watch films, listen to podcasts, read books.

Andy Heise 20:52

Yeah.

Rich Simmons 20:53

Any way I can absorb information is necessary.

Andy Heise 20:59

Yeah.

Rich Simmons 21:00

It's also thinking outside the box of you see my work and you see street art, pop art, what you don't see is Da Vinci.

Andy Heise 21:11

Right.

Rich Simmons 21:12

You don't see the lessons that I've learned from him. He's my hero. Learning about composition, golden ratio, yeah, all the things that he was pioneering 500 plus years ago are still applicable today.

Andy Heise 21:27

Yeah.

Rich Simmons 21:27

Learning about the science, the mathematics, the engineering of how to cut a stencil. Da Vinci was a stencil artist. Michelangelo was a stencil artist. That's how they did the Sistine Chapel. That's how he did the Last Supper. It was drawing on paper, pinholes, rubbing chalk through. That's how you get the image on the wall. They were the original street artists. I mean, you go back even further. Cave people painting on walls, using their hand as a stencil. To leave their mark, to tell stories about the animals they saw, using inks and ochres and things to put on a wall to tell a story that would inspire and educate others. It's storytelling. That's how people that's that's how humanity has learnt is passing on stories. Being a storyteller is the greatest thing humanity's done because it's taught us the lessons from previous generations, the dangerous animals, the the people to avoid, the people to love. Storytelling is the most human thing there is. How do you market it? How do you get it published? How do you get it in front of people? How do you excite someone to pay attention to your story? Those are all things that whether you're an artist or a musician or a storyteller or whatever it is that you're trying to do, those are the things you should be learning. Because you could be the best artist in the world, and if no one knows about you, what's the point?

Nick Petrella 23:24

Yeah. Did you spend a lot of time at the National Gallery? You mentioned Da Vinci.

Rich Simmons 23:30

Yeah, I um it's a pilgrimage I do a lot.

Nick Petrella 23:34

Yeah.

Rich Simmons 23:34

When I'm in London, if I've got an hour free, go and see the Madonna of the Rocks. Uh I've been to Paris multiple times just to hang out with the Mona Lisa. Um, yeah, Da Vinci is my hero.

Andy Heise 23:48

Yeah, it's great. Um now that now having getting to know you here through this interview, it makes perfect sense. There's this natural sense of curiosity and not being pigeonholed into one thing and realizing that the ant but back to what Nick said earlier, the answers are out there. You just have to know which questions to ask, and and and sort of rejecting status quo and saying, well, no, this is like why are we accepting like let's do something else, like let's do it the way that that I see it or the way that it could be, or imagine imagine a future or a vision of something that that doesn't yet exist, and let's build it based on what we have available to us and what we can do.

Rich Simmons 24:24

And I think Da Vinci is the original misfit. He comes from a family where he was a bastard child. He couldn't go to traditional education in Florence. He went and taught um or worked with Vorocchio and got into the studio and saw how they were engineering and painting and drawing.

Andy Heise 24:46

Right.

Rich Simmons 24:46

He had to make his own life, he had to make his own rules, and that deep sense of curiosity, questioning everything, questioning his place in the world. Today he'd be a punk. Da Vinci would be the curious one that would say, Why do I have to wear that? Why do I have to go to this place? Why can't we think outside the box? Why can't I fly? Why can't humans go up in the sky and underwater? And that deep, immense, passionate curiosity is something every creative person should have in some way. If you can have a percentage of what Da Vinci had, the world would be a better place.

Andy Heise 25:35

Yeah, yeah. That's great. And now, and as you've alluded to, the democratization of all these tools and information that we have available to us, it's like, well, why not? You know?

Rich Simmons 25:45

Yeah, I mean there's less questions that need answers to necessarily that compared to Da Vinci.

Andy Heise 25:52

Sure, sure.

Rich Simmons 25:53

But the answers are all out there. You just have to go out and be curious and have to ask them.

Art Is The Cure And Art Therapy

Nick Petrella 26:00

Yeah, yeah. So, Rich, you had mentioned this earlier, and um I think I also mentioned it in the introduction. Mental health advocacy is very dear to you. Tell us about art is the cure and why art therapy is important.

Rich Simmons 26:19

Art saved my life. When I was a teenager, classic story, broken home, struggling to process that, struggling with the education system, um, not realizing I was on the autism spectrum, learning was difficult for me from a textbook. I'm a visual person. So all of those struggles kind of combined, being bullied, being picked on because I was the misfit, I was the punk kid, I was the weirdo, the same things that maybe Da Vinci was picked on for, being the misfit, drawing on everything, not fitting in, that impacted me in ways that I didn't realize at the time. And a lot of people would self-harm, they would turn to drugs, they would turn to alcohol, they would turn to suicide. I was always so enamored with art and creativity that that's how I channeled that pain. I didn't realize it was art therapy. I was just getting that pain, that negative energy out of my system, otherwise it festers. So I would draw and I would paint, and that's how I got more into art because it helped. And it was then speaking to friends, speaking to other people, they said, You're doing art therapy. That's when I realized art therapy wasn't a big thing, it wasn't being taught in the right way, it wasn't being um, it wasn't inspiring enough people like me. The tools weren't there, it was a natural instinct for me to do it, but for other people it might not be. And I'd been doing the music and promoting gigs and doing my clothing line and learning business, and I thought there's a bigger purpose here, there's a bigger calling. What if I go out and try and market art therapy? What if I try and turn inspiration into a product and see it in that way? So go to schools, run workshops, teach people about art therapy, mental health, and I use this equation to try and teach people it, where pain in whatever form it is, it could be mental health, it could be being bullied, eating disorders, that the list goes on and on and on. Plus creativity. For me, that was painting, it could be writing, it could be skateboarding, music, any kind of creativity. Pain plus creativity equals art therapy. Getting it out of your system in a healthy way can save your life. You don't need a drug to escape the pain. You can channel it with art. I I liken it to being in an invisible straitjacket. That's how mental health feels for a lot of people. You can't see it, you don't know who's struggling, but people feel trapped by their own thoughts. It's an invisible straitjacket. When you teach people that art creativity can be a key, picking up a guitar can be a key to unlock that straitjacket. Picking up a pen, a paintbrush, whatever it is that helps them can unlock that feeling of trapped. So going to schools, teaching kids this from a young age, even if they're not struggling yet, they might at some point, their friend might at some point, their family might at some point. And if they can say, hey, let's go do something creative, let's start a band, let's go skateboarding, let's go and do some street art, whatever it might be, that's that changes lives. That saves lives. And it's a free piece of advice. I'm not doing it to sell some fancy formula or or try and sell a product. It's how can I give people access to something that came naturally to me but doesn't come naturally to other people.

Andy Heise 31:01

Right.

Rich Simmons 31:02

That's my that was my purpose. That's the thing that has kept me going all this time is how do I inspire more people.

Nick Petrella 31:11

And I imagine because you went through that journey yourself, you have sympathy with literally everyone who needs something like that. How how's it going? How is uh Art is the Cure going?

Create Scene And A Legacy Of Impact

Rich Simmons 31:26

So Art is the Cure has been part of my journey and part of my messaging for it'll be 18 years in February. Um, I started it on my 22nd birthday. I'm about to turn 40. So it's been a message rather than a movement. It's not something where I'm working on art as the cure every day. If there's opportunities to talk about it like this, if I can do other press with my art, if I can go to a school and give a talk, if I can make a film, if I can do something that gets this medi out there, other people might listen to it and feel inspired to pick up a paintbrush, pick up a guitar, whatever it might be, and help themselves. It's now part of uh so I'm building a social networking platform called Create Scene. And the more that grows, and the more that gives access to different kinds of creative people from different creative scenes to come on and network as we grow that business. Hopefully, I'll have a bigger platform to talk about art as the cure, to inspire more people, to get invited on more podcasts, to use my voice more, to inspire the next generation, to give them the roadmap that I didn't have when I was younger. Here's all the skills, here's all the tools, I'm building the technology for that. And here's all the inspiration to go and have your own journey with creative therapy. That's the legacy I want to leave behind. It's not gonna be selling the most expensive painting in auction. That's not my legacy. Being an artist professionally allows me to have a studio, to keep painting, to keep having a voice, to keep telling stories that try and inspire people. But at the core of it, it's how do I inspire people in the most ways, and I think that's the ultimate goal for me. A lot of artists might go, I want to make the most money possible, I want to make the most uh gallery shows, I want to do the biggest thing. Maybe inspiring the most people is a better legacy, is a better mission. That's what motivates me. That's wonderful.

Andy Heise 34:04

Yeah. If um if if if something like Art is the cure had existed when when you were younger, when you were experiencing this, um what role do you think it may have played in in your life?

Rich Simmons 34:19

I've lost friends to so hard and that's difficult because they didn't have access to this. They didn't realize that when they were being creative in whatever way, that was helping them because they weren't inspired or informed or educated that they should do it more. The negative took over, the drugs took over, the self-harm took over. I think if you can plant a seed in more young people, the creativity and art and all of these things has so much more power than just what you see in a gallery. It's a tool to inspire, it's a a channel to get negative energy out of your system in a healthy way, it's a vehicle to inspire not just you, but your friends, the people around you, the people that are struggling. The chances are you or someone you know will struggle at some point from mental health. Maybe if this message was out there more, maybe if more people took creativity and art more seriously than just how to draw a bowl of fruit. It's a mentality thing that needs to change. That's what I would love to do with the education system. I would love to inspire more schools to teach creativity, thinking outside the box, mental health, all of the different ways that art and creativity can be used. Yes, it's great to have a career in it. Yes, it's it's exciting to be an artist and do gallery shows and all of the opportunities that I've had, but it could have been very different if I'd gone down a different path, and too many people have gone down a path of no return.

Andy Heise 36:32

Yeah.

Rich Simmons 36:32

So if someone listening to this is struggling with mental health and they realize the power of art, creativity, it's not you don't have to afford to go to a therapist. You can pick up a box of crayons and scribble on a piece of paper and feel better. Not everything has to be a masterpiece. Sometimes it's just a way to get out of your system, and then once it's out of your system, throw it away, hang it in a gallery, put it in a memory box. It doesn't matter. It's out of your system, you're healthier, move forward, try and inspire the next person, be kind.

Nick Petrella 37:14

Yeah. Um, do you know who Sir Ken Robinson was?

Rich Simmons 37:20

Yeah.

Nick Petrella 37:21

Yeah. Because it kind of sounds very similar. And and interestingly, and you can explain who Ken Robinson was. One of the first people we wanted on this podcast, or at least I did, was actually Sir Ken, because a friend of mine actually worked with him. Uh, unfortunately, he passed away just as we were getting this podcast started. But why wouldn't you talk about him for a second?

Rich Simmons 37:44

I mean, I've listened to so many uh interviews, podcasts, people like him, other advocates for creativity and mental health and entrepreneurship and all of these different things.

Nick Petrella 38:01

Yeah.

Rich Simmons 38:01

I don't want to go too much into just him because I don't want to pretend like I'm an expert on him. Sure. But he was a voice that inspired me along with all the others. Um and it's a shame that you didn't get to have him on the podcast.

Nick Petrella 38:18

Yeah. Well, I'll I'll link to it. There's a TED talk he gave that is really fantastic. I'll link to that.

Andy Heise 38:25

Um it also strikes it strikes me that like what ultimately, not I shouldn't say ultimately what we're talking about, but one of the things that comes to mind mind uh when we're talking about all of this is this notion of self-actualization, right? How do you get through all of the other things to get to that point of like just being the uh whatever the purest form of yourself or whatever you want to however you want to describe that uh but to your point, um Rich, you know, there's a lot of things that help keep people from getting there. Uh and it sounds like um creativity art is uh was was was the a tool uh that you utilized to kind of get get beyond that into that more self-actualization area of whatever Maslow's hierarchy.

Rich Simmons 39:08

Yeah, I mean the path isn't linear, right? It's a very winding road, full of hurdles. One of the things that I try and teach kids about when I go to schools is they only think of the end goal. Right. I want to be in 30 galleries, I want to be on TV, I want to whatever it might be. And just having one goal becomes impossible. But if you break it down into lots of stepping stones, then it becomes much more manageable and you get lots of victories, and the path can change. It's not one set of stepping stones to get to that end goal. You might have to navigate different rivers, different paths, different hurdles, and you might get to that end goal by going around multiple different paths. But it's important to remember that I guess taking it one step at a time, savouring the small victories, taking on small hurdles and overcoming lots of them is a lot easier than trying to get over one big massive hurdle.

Announcer 40:38

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