The Right Questions with James Victore
The Right Questions is designed to help you get paid to do what you love and stay sane in the process.
The Right Questions with James Victore
Episode 59: Fearless Friends
If you are a stuck or frustrated creative and want to get paid to do what you love, let's talk. https://yourworkisagift.com/coaching
What happens when the people who made you braver step into the same room?
We trace a creative life through friendships that challenged our taste, sharpened our voice, and taught us how to make work that lasts. From early days on the AIGA board to classrooms at SVA, I unpack the small acts that compound into confidence: record the first try, record the last try, and honor the miles between.
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I don't know if you know this or if I've ever shared this with you. But I enjoy doing this podcast. It takes a lot of effort because I have to write all the episodes, and then I have to perform them. And then I have to perform them as if I'm not reading, as though it feels completely natural and unscripted. And then I have to give it all away free because, you know, as uh Gillian Welch says, everything is free now. That's what they say. But this episode of the Right Questions I particularly enjoy because it's a story about friends. I've been blessed in my career to meet and get to know some amazing creators on this planet. Some people I bumped into at a party, others were on professional organizations and boards together, and others I made the great effort to travel across the country or across the world to meet and break bread with. I've been doubly blessed in my career to cut my teeth as a designer in New York City, where there was a wealth of creative souls to grow with, to share with, sometimes get drunk with, and to build careers and lives together. My creative friends challenge me. They make me better. They make me envious of all their accomplishments. But I also know that their wins, like mine, come at the expense of a lot of work and effort. And I want to take this opportunity to share about a few old friends of mine, even a new one, and all these people who I've met along the way. So let me introduce four pals of mine and how I got to meet them. And I guess the best way to start is just to do it uh chronologically. So right now I feel a little bit like Wayne's World with a flashback coming on. I met Debbie Millman early in my career. It was early in both of our careers. She was working as the creative director for a branding group called the Sterling Group. And I was a poster designer, hellbent on changing the world. We had both been newly elected to the New York AIGA board, along with some other folks, some whom I've completely lost touch with, and some who, like Debbie, have become lifelong pals. I was impressed by Debbie right off. I remember we were organizing a holiday party, a sale of graphic and designed materials, and even cupcakes to support the AIGA. And I could tell that she was not only a good helper, but she was a great leader, an organizer. Even then, she had already perfected her iconic black and white style of dressing. We both taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and she would later become one of the originators of the MFA program, the Masters of Fine Arts program there with her branding school. My undergrad students would often funnel into her class. One of the projects she had students do was something that I always thought was particularly fantastic and life-changing for her students. She would record them on the very first class, speaking and presenting nervously, right, in front of the group, and then during the year take them through lessons and experiments about presenting their work and ideas in public. And she would then record them again at the end of the semester and show them their progress. The cool thing was that there were always tears. The students were so proud of how far they'd come. I think that is an incredible teaching tool and a really great gift to the students. It was at SVA that Debbie started her podcast, Design Matters, which has gone on for more than 20 years and to become one of the best and most important podcasts, designer and otherwise. I highly suggest you take a listen if you haven't. On Design Matters, Debbie has interviewed well over 250 guests, artists, musicians, designers, writers like Malcolm Gladwell and Roxanne Gay, culinary creatives like Christina Tossi and Gabrielle Hamilton, artists like Adel Rodriguez, Brian Ray, Marilyn Minter, even popular culture icons like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth Godin, and David Lee Roth. Kings and Queens, all of them. I could go on and on about Debbie's accomplishments, but I will leave you with her newest one. Her latest book, Love Letter to a Garden. In it, she waxes philosophically about being a bad gardener. Love Letter to a Garden is out and available now. Take a look for it. My next pal is Gary Hustwit, and he's somebody I'm truly proud and humbled to know. Here's how I got to meet him. A number of years ago, I was speaking at a conference in either Germany or the UK, I forget. And I was firmly rooted in my handmade DIY phase. And on stage I was railing against all things technological or computer driven. And I remember there was a moment in my talk where I was trying to drive home my point. And I said boldly, fuck Helvetica. Of course, the audience cheered at that. You know, we all love it when someone tries to buck the system, right? Unbeknownst to me, the speaker coming right after me was another young upstart named Gary Hustwitt, who was about to debut his new film project called, of course, Helvetica. Today, Gary is the CEO of Animorph, a generative media studio and software company. He has produced over twenty documentaries and film projects, including the award-winning I Am Trying to Break Your Heart about the band Wilco. Also an HBO documentary called Mavis about the gospel singer and legend Mavis Staples. Gary has gone on to do a number of films about music and culture. His most recent project is a bio about the life, creative process, and impact of the influential producer, musician, and visual artist Brian Eno. This is a must-see. And you can view the film a number of times, and it will always be different. Because it was created with generative software designed by another friend of mine, Brendan Dawes. I'm starting to sound like a dirty name-dropper. But he and Brendan created a program that produces a different version of itself for each screening, meaning no two viewings are ever the same. It draws from hundreds of hours of interviews and archival footage of Eno to explore his life and creative process. I will spare you my ramblings and longtime love of Brian Eno and his work with Roxy Music, Robert Fripp, and of course David Bowie. Bowie? Ugh. To me, Gary is a really great example of creators, designers, and artists who put everything they love into their work. For Gary, it's film and music and typography and design. I recently told Gary that one of my favorite memories of living in Brooklyn was going to a party he organized. And about halfway through the party, he and his delightful wife got out their guitars and sang a fucking fantastic rendition of the song Jackson. If you don't know it, you actually do. It is the song Johnny Cash famously duetted with his wife, June Carter Cash. It goes a little like this. We got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout. We been talking about Jackson ever since the fire went out. Oh I'm going to Jackson. I'm on a mess around. Yeah, I'm going to Jackson. Look out Jackson town. Didn't know I could do that, did you? Yes, because I can't. Before I was a designer, I was a punk student. I attended meaning I attended for a little bit the School of Visual Arts. And did very poorly there. And I was asked to leave properly. But I was not an idiot. I knew that I needed an education, and I sought one out. So I started reading. I read everything. I read poetry and art history, books on psychology and sociology. I was hungry. One of the books I read was by a Renaissance artist named Giorgio Vesari. It was titled The Lives of the Artists. And it was exactly that. He wrote biographies about his friends, who happened to be Quattrocento artists or the artists of the fifteenth century, like Giotto, Brunelleschi, and even the Titanic figures of Michelangelo and Raphael. Yes, he wrote about all the turtles. The lives of the artists, the book, is considered among the most important sources on Italian Renaissance art. A quick side note, Vasari was the one who invented the term Renaissance. Pretty interesting, huh? So why I bring this up. This book sparked something in me. It made me much more curious about the artists themselves rather than their work. What interests me is what pushes or drives them, who they are and how that shows up in their work. So let's move on to Brian. When I first had my studio in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, I worked alone and often felt distance and hungry from my community of friends who worked in studios in the city. So I would often go and visit them. And a few of my friends worked together at a branding agency named Collins, named after its creative director and its chief, Brian Collins. Brian had previously served as chairman and chief creative officer of the brand and innovation division of Ogilby and Mather for 10 years before he went out on his own. At the time, I did not know Brian, but I knew a bunch of his crew. And I would show up after hours with a six-pack, and we would hang out in their studio and talk about design and creativity and probably girls. Brian's was the studio that I had always wanted for myself. You know, the lower Fifth Avenue address, a busy hub of wildly creative assistants. I even loved how the elevator opened to a glass anteroom or vestibule with a little buzzer to let you into the main space. I thought that was cool. It was a mark that you had made it. One evening, after hanging out with my pals, and I was as I was leaving and waiting in the glass vestibule for the elevator, I was looking at the beautiful blank white walls and the tasteful silver raised letters of the name Collins on the wall. Well, I was maybe a bit tipsy, and certainly cocky. So I pulled out my Sharpie paint pen and right next to the word Collins, I wrote the name Victory. I signed his wall. I didn't hear anything about it until about maybe a month later, and I was at one of those fancy designer parties, and I met Brian Collins, and he came right up to me and he said, You signed my wall. I could tell he was a little pissed, but I also could tell that he thought it might have been a little bit cool. As a branding agency, Collins is a rarity in that they actually do wildly creative, even artistic work for million-dollar corporations. Companies like Spotify, Bose, the Tribeca Film Festival, Equinox, Vitamin Water, or MailChimp. There are very few branding studios anywhere in the world that can work with these massive companies and still pull off work that is tasteful and elegant. And Brian and his crew do that. Just last month, Brian and I held a creative workshop at his lovely home in Cape Cod. His art and design and book collection is museum worthy. He even owns a piece of mine, literally some of my best work. It's a one of a kind platter that I created. But he had not hung it up yet. It was sitting on the counter in the kitchen. So when I was there, I asked him if I could put a nail in the wall in the kitchen and hang it. And he agreed. So I found a prominent place and I hung the platter up. And then I thought, there's something missing here. So I signed the wall next to the platter. It seemed fitting. The last creative I want to introduce you to and talk a little about is my newest friend, the artist and writer Liana Fink. Liana and I have not even met yet, but I've been a fan of hers for years. I must painfully admit that this is one of the wonders of the internet, and particularly Instagram, where we get to see the wealth of creativity from around the world. And I knew of Liana's work through her Instagram profile. And generally, if I like somebody's work, I contact them and I applaud them and I say bravo, keep going, love ya, blah, blah, blah. And I fell in love with her delightful and loose, yet completely open and honest drawing style. What I gravitated to immediately was that her work uses a distinctive pen on paper style, still proving the power of ink on paper. Liana is a cartoonist and graphic novelist known best for her work in The New Yorker, where she maintains a monthly advice column called Dear Pepper. She has written graphic novels like A Bentle Brief and Passing for Human, and my favorite, Let There Be Light, the real story of her creation, where she reimagines the Old Testament with a female god as the main character. Liana has one of those careers that makes me jealous. But I really can't be, because it comes by work and effort. And it's fueled by the amazingly intelligent and soulful character behind it. Plus, she is wickedly funny. And I really look forward to meeting her and getting to know Liana better. The reason I bring Debbie and Gary and Brian and Lianna up is because I'm going to gather all of them in one room together. And along with myself, one by one, have us all share our stories, our struggles, and share what we feel it takes not only to be creative, but to lead a creative life. Without all that nasty fear getting in the way. Oh, hey, and you can be there too. I've created a symposium. I'm calling it a teaching symposium because out of all of my roles as a creator, the one that is most important and most dear to me is as a teacher. And quite frankly, a student. I want to learn. I have learned from these people, and I want to learn more from them. And I want to share them with you, my dear audience. So March 12th, 2026, put it on your calendar. It will be at the beautiful SVA Theater in New York City. And I'll be hosting a symposium called Fearless. And you can find out all about it at your workisaagift.com. Tickets are available now at the ridiculously low price of$300. And there are student prices as well, because I want to help usher in a new generation of powerful creators, the next Brian's and Lianas of the world. And for those of you who want more, come to dinner with us. There are two dinners with this fearless event. And we're calling it the dinner series. Come break bread, rub shoulders, and share stories directly with our speakers. Remember, this is how I met some of my lifelong friends at parties and celebrations exactly like this one. And the dinners are, of course, five course meals expertly crafted by our private chef Austin Farrell, with wine pairings by a Somalia, and orchestrated by head of culinary experience, Emily Pilkington. They're going to be grand. I'm really looking forward to it. I have had and am having a wonderful career. And I have a flexible and nimble life. And I've gotten to a point in my career where my work is not about me anymore. It's about the lives of the artists. It's about you and sharing with you and helping you have a fearless, flexible, and fulfilling career. And when you do, please come and say hello. I would love to meet you and introduce you to some of my creative pals. I'm James Victory. I love you. I believe in you even when you don't. Adios.