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Vibes Drop In
"Drop In" is where the Santa Cruz Vibes team slows it down and leans into real conversation. Around here, we believe stories have the power to connect us — to each other, to our community, and to the place we call home. This isn’t about quick soundbites or surface-level chatter. It’s about intimate, thoughtful exchanges that dive into what matters: creativity, culture, resilience, and the people shaping life on the coast.
True to the Vibes ethos, we’re creating space that blends storytelling with community impact. Just like in our magazine, on SCVM TV, and across our platforms, 20% of what we do is always dedicated to uplifting local nonprofits and causes. On this podcast, that spirit carries through. You’ll hear voices that inspire, challenge, and remind us why Santa Cruz is more than just a backdrop — it’s a living, breathing community worth celebrating and investing in.
"Drop In" is your invitation to join us in the lineup of conversation — honest, local, and grounded in the belief that when we share our stories, we build something bigger together.
Vibes Drop In
Episode 2: Ethan Estess
What happens when scientific knowledge meets artistic vision? In this intimate conversation, Santa Cruz-based artist Ethan Estess reveals the fascinating journey that led him from marine biology to creating influential environmental art using reclaimed fishing rope.
From his West Side studio, Ethan shares how a pivotal moment of burnout at the age of 24 pushed him to pursue his creative passion full-time. The breakthrough came after a trip to Japan in 2017, when he began experimenting with discarded fishing materials to create Japanese wave patterns – pieces that immediately resonated with viewers and paved the way for artistic sustainability.
There's remarkable depth in Ethan's approach to environmental advocacy. Rather than relying on simplistic messaging, he embraces the nuance of sustainable seafood production, explaining how his interactions with local fishermen have revealed the complexity behind the fishing industry. "California's fisheries are the most regulated and also the most sustainable in the world," he notes, contrasting this with the unregulated foreign operations whose abandoned gear washes up on Hawaiian beaches, material he now incorporates into his work.
Fatherhood has profoundly shifted Ethan's perspective, heightening both his appreciation for Monterey Bay's natural beauty and his concern for future generations. Walking West Cliff with his young children has reconnected him to the everyday wonder of local wildlife, while simultaneously intensifying his awareness of environmental urgency. As he puts it, these moments force presence and balance in an otherwise hectic creative life.
The conversation highlights remarkable success stories, such as the recovery of the bluefin tuna population and Monterey Bay's transformation from an industrial wasteland to a thriving marine sanctuary. These examples fuel Ethan's practical optimism – a conviction that, while environmental challenges are immense, thoughtful, community-based solutions can create meaningful change.
Visit Ethan's studio on Santa Cruz's West Side, follow his work on Instagram @EstesArtAndScience, or check out his installations at Outer Known stores to experience how discarded materials can tell powerful stories about our relationship with the ocean.
Thank you. I think I mentioned to you I've got my eye on a few people that we want to do this drop-in series which is a little more thoughtful, a little more intimate conversations that we don't have a lot of times in this space. This is, I think, the preferred form of social media for Santa Cruz Vibes, which is engaging in conversation, stretching out, and then we can always get our 15-second little bits that we want Ethan out of it. But really what this is about is you and I just kind of catching up on what you've been up to, and I'll open the floor a little bit. The hard thing to do sometimes is talk about yourself, but in this platform it's a little bit easier to do. This will go out to a brand new audience. This is the Spotify Amazon distribution. So just tell me a little bit about yourself as if I just met you.
Speaker 2:Right on, brian. Well, thanks for having me on. I've seen some of the vibes drop in so far and they're awesome, so thanks for catching me. I am Ethan Estes. I'm a local artist. I grew up on the south side of Santa Cruz. I now live and work on the west side. I live downtown, work on the west side and I mostly try to tell stories about the ocean through visual means sculpture and printmaking and I try to use my background as a scientist to kind of inject more complex narratives and some science into the artwork. And I've been doing it for a while. This is my studio here on the West side and I think I've been in here for almost 10 years in this space, paying the rent and it's I pinched myself that I'm still doing this because it's my dream job. That doesn't make it any easier, but I'm just stoked to still be doing this and getting a few waves every once in a while. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you and I have spoke before, and one thing I think it's interesting to speak about as far as following a passion is I think for a period of time you had art in your life, art in your mind, but it was sort of a career versus art, what it is. Was there a kind of a tipping point moment where you realized art and science could merge together?
Speaker 2:It cut out a little bit, but I did get the end of the question about how art and science merged together and I'd say for me personally that's been just kind of like a little bit of like a mental health thing is how it started that when I was working full time as a scientist, I knew that there was a part of my life that wasn't getting any attention, part of my brain that wasn't getting used and that was just making stuff, because my whole upbringing was just making surfboards in the garage with my dad and friends and when I went down the science road it was just all computers or on a boat and you know, catching tunas, doing research, and it was very dominating, my dominating my life.
Speaker 2:And I knew that I needed to, at least at some point in my life, try to make it as an artist and to follow that that dream. And I kind of just burned out at like 24 on science, didn't want to go get a ph, didn't want to go farther down the rabbit hole and I was like screw it, I'm going to quit my day job and just go, and I'd saved up and been making smart on the side. But I got this space in about end of 2015 and started just going full on, and I, honestly, it's been nonstop effort since then.
Speaker 1:And so many different mediums to choose from, and it ended up being primarily, at the beginning, rope. Was there an aha moment? When did rope come into your life, or when did that idea kind of hatch?
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I mean, if you look around my shop right now, there's like I'm not even gonna show you because it's a disaster. There's rope fishing rope everywhere and it's a lot. Some of it comes off the beach in Hawaii. I work with some nonprofits over there to collect it and get it from them, and then I also intercept it from local fishermen who are ready to throw it away, cause there's no recycling for plastic fishing rope locally.
Speaker 2:When I first got started making art, I was really giving it my best shot. Um, I was doing printmaking using a japanese printmaking technique called gyotaku and uh, printing fish and printing on trash and stuff and seaweeds and they were cool, but it really wasn't paying the bills like they. People like those are cool, but they weren't like moving and it wasn't enough to keep the business going. So I was working part-time um, as a rain biologist through the first three years up until the pandemic, to pay the rent on the studio because the prints were just not really. I enjoy making them, but it wasn't like my bread and butter, right, it wasn't doing it.
Speaker 2:And around 2017, after a trip to japan, I was like what if I tried to make a japanese wave pattern, literally this piece right here uh, what if I tried to make that out of old fishing rope and figure out how to attach it to plywood and figure out how to cut it clean? And it was like years of r&d, honestly, and it finally kind of clicked. But pretty much from the start people were like, oh, those are cool, I want one of those. And it was like years of R&D, honestly, and it finally kind of clicked. But pretty much from the start people were like, oh, those are cool, I want one of those in my living room. You know, I was like really.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then it was just turned into this game of like now I need a lot of rope, you know. So I started going to the harbor up in Halfon Bay, leaving my business card at the dock and just on people's like uh, storage yards and saying, hey, if you're gonna go to the dump, call me first. And I started getting phone calls and I'd be like hey, I'll pay you for your rope, like, and they're like nope, just six pack, just take it. And so all of a sudden I started stockpiling all this material and it gave me more of a vocabulary because I had different colors, different thicknesses to work with and it just kind of snowballed Like my studio is a disaster because there's just rope everywhere now. And it turned into a thing where it's like oh, this is working, I'm going to keep going.
Speaker 1:No doubt, and it has like sort of a you know there's in the world you came from, in the world that you were in. You can't get away from some of the capitalistic nature of what we do and that's where the rope comes from. But then there's that sustainability part of it and there's a message in your art. Clearly there's a message in your art. You know where this rope is, has a particular function, but then it can also be. You know, there's a message in your art. There's a message in your art and I guess the question I have is, artistically, when you, where do the message and sort of the beauty of the art, how do those meet between what's in your head artistically? And I don't know if you're sending a message with every piece, but I kind of feel like maybe you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that was my my aha moment, for wanting to be an artist in the first place was coming out of just the surfboard mindset of making something that's like rad looking and like works. That's like that's where my head was at going into like my first art class. I just wanted to make like rad things. And then my teacher was like, okay, what if instead you told a story? What if you instead tried to think about the past life of this material and then bring that into the conversation? And I'm like it was literally a light switch, like I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense, because I was taking all these science classes, learning all these heavy things about how the world's going down the drain and stuff it's really interesting things too about how complex the Earth system is, and I was kind of like getting loaded up with all this science. And then this teacher was like we'll just tell a story about it in a way that you are used to visually. And uh, so that was the. That that's everything I make.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to acknowledge the, the, the memory of the material and its life cycle basically, and that's kind of the broader narrative of all my work is just trying to get people to think more critically about the materials we use in our daily lives, the supply chains that bring us things, the supply chains that take things away, wear us away, and I think that art is a really powerful and kind of sneaky way to do that, because it's fun, like people. People like to look at art, they like to live with art, and it's a subtle reminder is how I see it in our day-to-day lives that every little thing we do has this ripple effect and, uh, that that's kind of the broader goal is to get people to live with a little bit more intention. Try to remind myself to live with more intention in terms of resources and, uh, you know, and also just think about the people that our decisions impact yeah it's not just about the animals and environment.
Speaker 2:There's this whole um global supply chain that impacts everybody, you know I was gonna jump.
Speaker 1:I had one follow-up question on the colors, but that leads me to another one I was thinking about, which is um, you basically you're highlighting this particular, you're reusing this rope, but you're also a staunch supporter of you know, basically local fish. You know both can happen at the same time. Right, you can understand the complexity of here. You are basically recycling gear, waste, right, you know, in a big fashion, kind of understanding what the you know ramifications of that is on the planet Earth, but also you are a supporter of local fishing and you're a supporter of doing it the right way. How do you? Is there a balance there, or is that? Is that it doesn't? I don't think it's a conflict, ethan, so much as I think it's an interesting path. You know that, that you can do both.
Speaker 2:No, it's a deep question. I appreciate that Cause I think it'd be easier for people to look at my work on the face of it and say, oh like, fishing is bad, it's polluting the ocean. And you know, I think unfortunately that's the view that a lot of people have. They're not really looking at the issue a little bit more, in a more nuanced way. I'll just tell you like more of a story of how I got to that perspective. Part of it is just like talking to local fishermen and understanding how hard their lives are.
Speaker 2:Uh, when I would be, you know, trying to collect rope from from people, I, I would just be like hearing stories of like, uh, you know, they have to change out their rope every year because they don't trust it, and if they lose a trap then they lose their money, and uh that they've all these challenges. There's this crazy regulatory environment that's like really puts a lot of pressure on fishermen and you know, basically California's fisheries are the most regulated and also the most sustainable in the world, basically like full stop. So that was one experience of just kind of like getting the fisherman's perspective and that kind of popped my bubble as like an environmental science kid from stanford like, oh, let's go save the ocean. Like it made me see, like more the when you get down to brass tacks, like if you want sustainable seafood, we have to produce it here, we have to source it here. Because the alternative is what I saw in hawaii basically all the material washing up on the beaches there comes from foreign fisheries that are operating illegally throughout the western pacific.
Speaker 2:So, uh, crazy masses of fishing rope and net and buoys all that stuff's coming from completely unregulated fisheries, uh, mostly targeting tunas, but you name it, and I would start sourcing those materials, partly just because the colors were rad, but also because of all all this heavy narrative embedded in it that this is the alternative to doing it right. This is what happens when we support cheap, imported seafood instead of local, responsibly sourced seafood. So that kind of dichotomy is something that the material brought me to, just by um, by getting experience with it, and I will say to your question earlier, the material always is the thing that's making the decision for me. Like I don't have that much input if it looks, if a piece looks cool, like a piece of rope looks cool or faded, I'm like, oh, that's gotta, it's gotta be there, you know it. Just hopefully it's like it all starts to fall into place, because the material is um kind of speaking to me, so yeah.
Speaker 1:No, that that's. I mean, that's fantastic. I don't think you and I have gone down that path before, and that's sort of stoked to hear that. The other thing I was thinking of as you were talking here right now is you, do you ever read that book or have you read it to your kids?
Speaker 2:the giving tree oh man, it's been a long time, but thank you for the wreck because I I got two kids, one and three, and we are burning through all of our kids books so that the, the.
Speaker 1:I think the essence of the giving tree is, you know, the.
Speaker 1:The narrative of that is that you know the tree will keep giving without any question right until it can't give anymore and eventually, you know the the end of the story is it's a stump and it's still giving a place to sit.
Speaker 1:And there's this narrative, and I think about the ocean in a lot the same ways, and this fishery question in a lot of ways that, um, this ocean until it can't anymore, we'll keep giving this planet, we'll keep giving Um, but it doesn't mean we can have that ambivalence.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think, sort of when I, whenever I talk with you, whenever in these moments, I think you're, you're striving for finding a balance between it's a burden you have, in a way, when I talk to you, because the science is a burden that a lot of us don't carry. You know, the urgency in your message is there's a lot, it's like anything else, it's like understanding a language and not understanding a danger because they're speaking a different language. That's sort of where we are on the planet, but I think, in a weird broad stroke way, it's like the ocean and our environment is sort of like that book and it's sort of like that giving tree and we need to recognize that imbalance a little bit. I don't even know if that's a question, but it's sort of a feeling I had as you were talking there.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's a really strong grounded perspective in it, that you know we do have all these gifts. You know, if you surf, if you fish, like it's hard to even wrap my head around the the how special this place we live is this, this place we call home, like it is ridiculous, how cool santa cruz is and the gifts that monterey bay has for us. So, like, on one hand, if you're accepting these things, if you're accepting these gifts like, and you're not doing anything to give back to that resource, to make sure it's there for future generations to enjoy, or or just being positive with people around you and making sure they get to enjoy it, bringing people into it, like it's just not a you know. You know it's selfish.
Speaker 2:So I I think that's part of what brought me into like wanting to continue on this path of talking about environmental issues is that it's it's uh, we're just lucky here, and it's part of my gratitude. Practice, maybe, is just trying to highlight and remind people how lucky we are. So, um, to your point about the giving tree and like how I kind of think about these and balance these issues, part of it just comes from this experience of knowing that, like common sense, um management strategies work right. So when I first started working in japan with the monrovia aquarium in 2016, tagging uh pacific bluefin tunas and studying their movements, the stock level was down to about three or four four percent of their historic level. Um, and so that's really gnarly right. Like that means they're.
Speaker 2:They were heavily overfished and they were for a long time, and over the like four years that I worked there, basically we saw this new wave of of of recruits, of baby little tunas like this big um coming in by the thousands, and what had happened was the japanese government had instituted a rule that they weren't going to allow fishermen to keep uh fish under 30 kilograms.
Speaker 2:So little little baby tunas, right, can't keep them anymore and, honestly, that's what we do here, for it's a very standard practice. Um is a size limit and just implementing that basic rule, the bluefin tuna population is currently exceeding the model projections for recovery. Like they've bounced back massively and now fishermen up and down the state are benefiting from that. And so it's one of those stories that I really like to tell, because it's a positive one, that simple decisions, simple common sense rules have massive effects on economies and quality of life, because now fishermen here get to go catch bluefin with their kids and have this whole experience that you know, 10 years ago wasn't really as accessible. So that's, that's one of my firsthand experiences that just I try to hold on to because it reminds me that common sense management is the way forward. Like, if we're just going to be black and white, like no such thing as sustainable seafood, don't eat fish that doesn't check out. There's more nuance to it than that, you know. No, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1:There's more nuance to it than that, you know. No, there's no doubt about it. I think that's. I think there's sort of that head in the sand sort of mentality. Where the reality of it is is we sort of need to meet the challenge in the middle. And I, you know, I think we need to meet the challenge in the middle where, again, I say a lot of times, two truths can exist at the same time. You know, we can basically protect the planet and be responsible, you know, with even in those small dynamics.
Speaker 1:And I have some more superficial questions about the palettes and the colors. But I'll circle around because I want to kind of keep grooving on this urgency we're leading towards. So I'm going to jump down on my thought process a little bit. To the you, I'll start this simply even before you had kids and we'll get to that I think you had seen a pathway, working with communities and working with kids. You know, as far as I think you and I talked years back, there's we are. There's two different ways to handle this. There's that reactive state of what's occurred because of, basically, neglect, and then there's also an ability to be proactive with what's being handed right now, before we get to like your perspective that might've changed over the last few years. Talk about some of the work you do in communities with kids, things like that, to kind of like get that knowledge out there through some of the organizations.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man. That's a cool question, brian. I think working with kids has been the most rewarding part of my career so far and, honestly, I haven't done as much of it as I would like to, especially in the last few years, having my own kids. The bandwidth for, like you know non like essential things like just making art and trying to pay the rent has slipped. Things like just making art and trying to pay the rent has slipped. But prior to that, I would say like, one of my favorite projects was this piece on the North Shore of Oahu called the Plastic.
Speaker 1:Free Pipeline yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was a big barreling wave, eight feet tall, 30 feet wide, and people could stand in it and you know it's still like a small pipeline wave, but it was like immersive enough that people could like pretend to get barreled and get this view and then be like, oh, this is all trash that's collected on the beach around the corner here at kahuku, like this is, uh, not the side of hawaii people usually see, right, but it's the reality. On the windward shores is all this material washes in from the great pacific garbage patch, and most of that material is coming from tuna fisheries operating illegally in the western pacific and so that's pretty heavy right, and so I was trying to drive home that narrative. But it turned into this huge community project thanks to a number of different non-profits, like sustainable coastlines hawaii, who collected all the material, jack and Kim Johnson Jack is the musician, obviously Everybody knows and they have a bunch of different nonprofits and one of them is called the Kukua Hawaii Foundation and it's all about they have like a school garden program, ina and Schools, and then they also have a Plastic Free Hawaii initiative and that one is trying to get kids to bring reusables, uh, getting more, uh water fountains in the schools for refilling bottles, kind of just simple common sense stuff that uh kind of increases capacity for kids to just ditch plastic and um, they, they jumped in to help support it. I ended up building the whole sculpture in jack's driveway next to his recording studio, and it was an awesome, like crazy project, did it in like four weeks and got it done. And then we did afterwards, we did a school tour.
Speaker 2:We went to every public school on the North shore and talk story with kids about plastic pollution, about fisheries, and it was just this crazy moment. And then the world surf league also kind of broadcast the whole thing at the Pipe Masters and so it had like a lot of viewership online too. So it just turned into this crazy thing, snowball of like a community, like effort, and uh, it was the coolest thing I've done. I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm stoked on it. I don't know if I'll do another one like that, but uh, I'm stoked on how it came out.
Speaker 2:And uh, you know those kids are really lucky. You go to sunset beach elementary school and these kids know a ton, they have a ton of exposure. They're right across the street from from pipeline and aokai beach park and you know they have, they kind of get. They're right across the street from Pipeline and Aokai Beach Park and they kind of get it. They have this incredible healthy ocean and they also know that they're stuck in a system, like we all are. That's making it hard to do the right thing. So working over there really puts a fine point on the waste issue that we generally have, and the kids get it and we'll see what comes of it.
Speaker 1:All right. So this is a perfect segue now to where I wanted to go, which is, um, we've kind of laid the foundation of who you were finding your way into art, sustainability, all of the different um you know paths you've taken. And then the world changes. A few years ago and now you're a dad, and I know we've had this discussion before, but I guess the easiest one. I doubt if being a dad has changed. It can't change particularly the science, but it can change the emotion of how you feel, in an urgency possibly. Or I'll just stop talking and let you tell me how, that's how it's changed everything for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say being a dad has, um, made me appreciate even more how special of an area we live in. Like, very simply, I just go walking with them a lot, like I I used to like be driving the studio, driving home, like driving everywhere trying to get stuff done, and now I'm on daddy daycare. It's all morning. You know, I'm watching these kids and I'm like let's go walk through neary lagoon, let's go walk west cliff and check the waves and uh, you know just getting a different view of our town and uh, the wildlife it's, it's insane how much wildlife you can just see walking west cliff and uh, that's, I'm really grateful to have that. But on the other side of it it's like, okay, like these kids are inheriting a lot of baggage, like they're inheriting all of our issues on every level. And how do you not overwhelm a kid while also trying to get them to understand these things early enough to kind of give them a conscience? You know, growing, growing up, I didn't really think about environmental issues at all. It just wasn't on my radar. I knew I loved the ocean, but I didn't really think about that. I didn't really know there were problems with it. It seemed great and I will say that traveling for as a surfer, that's like a real like sneaky way to get a kid to care, is like get them out of their bubble and see that, hey, like not everybody's got it as good as we've got it, like we've got great clean beaches. And go down to ecuador like I did when I was 17 and I spent a summer down there by myself just cruising and I was like this place is gnarly like. They have no infrastructure for waste, so, um, it pretty much opened my eyes that the ocean is not doing doing that well. And we're in this bubble in the monterey bay national marine sanctuary where we have pretty just good management, and that's a model that I think could be, could be brought in and groups like save the waves coalition uh, are really good at getting into communities around the world to kind of bring in local leaders, to like uplift local leaders, to start to fix some of these things at the community level.
Speaker 2:Because it's hard, it's hard to. You can't just parachute in and try to get people to change and live oh, more sustainably. Like us, right, americans don't have the best track record for sustainability generally. We consume a lot more than other people and we've also exported a lot of our products Coca-Cola, and a lot of our eating you know unhealthy foods. So it shouldn't be too surprising when you export all this Coca-Cola with plastic bottles to a community in Mexico or Costa Rica that has no recycling infrastructure and then all of a sudden the beaches are trashed right, like that's just the way things have gone, and now we have to kind of do a community first model where local leaders try to need more resources to fix the system Right, and I think there's a bit of resources to fix the system Right and I think there's a bit of that happening around the world. I could talk about some different projects, but that's the way forward, I think.
Speaker 1:I think so, and sometimes it feels like when we have these conversations there's an overwhelm that sets in a little bit. But I want to linger on one, because you introduced me to a guy up in Stanford, stephen, that you know. I did that article on death and life of Monterey Bay and I think one of the most positive things that can come out of this is you can speak to it. I don't expect you to speak specifically on it, but in general, you mentioned this amazing ecosystem we live here, this clean Monterey Bay environment. That is, it's a standard. It's a standard, but this would have been incredibly overwhelming in the late 1800s turn of the century. This was a cesspool, and I think it's not just that we live in this beautiful environment. What I learned from talking with Stephen was that it's a model for you know where. I guess the best way to put it, ethan, is where sort of like care, concern and activism meet political will, things can change right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a good example and it's the one that it's easy to forget about, because you walk around and it's beautiful out and the water is pretty clean and tons of wildlife here. So, yeah, I mean we used to harvest whales like crazy. We over harvested sardines and anchovies. I mean there's a lot with the ground fish population, like rockfish totally collapsed and got rebuilt in the 90s. Like there's all these success stories. The whales have like reached carrying capacity pretty much. So there's like, uh, there's more success stories than not right now and I I think that that's the perspective to have. It's it's, you know, there's a lot of reason not to be optimistic about the future. But the in context, historical context, we can make this type of change to keep, to keep things on track. And uh, yeah, I mean just on a personal level, my dad used to surf here in the 70s. When he moved here in like 68, he uh, you know sewer peak was there's a sewer outfall right there it was.
Speaker 2:It was disgusting yeah you know, and it's you know, after a big rain you still got to watch your sinuses. But um, it's, we've come so far, you? And doesn't mean there's not room for improvement, but as a model for progress, monterey Bay is pretty good.
Speaker 1:It's pretty good bit here because I know I think I know the answer to this question, but again times change over two or three years. The general question is in this like pocket, so you found this kind of like groove and you found your sort of medium, but was there a project that pushed your limits? You know, I think I possibly two different answers might come to me, knowing you, but is there a particular larger product that pushed the limits of your boundaries or changed the way you kind of looked at executing your art?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for that question. Yeah, the project that really pushed my limits over in, like recent years. I kind of got lucky maybe unlucky, depends on how you see it and I got this public art job down in huntington beach on the main street, like right up from the pier. Uh, the developer basically needed a public sculpture for this new building and, uh, I got the gig, you know. So I was like, oh dang, now I gotta figure out how to build this giant 12 foot tall, eight foot wide stainless steel whale tail sculpture and it was all made out of a half inch stainless steel cable that I had to heat and bend around a substructure that was fully engineered. And, honestly, I have my daughter Our daughter was born like right at the beginning of the fabrication and it was a full year of building this thing, like flat out, and it was the craziest time, for sure, in my life, like I can't even think about it.
Speaker 2:It was like so tense because I didn't know the entire time if I was able to be able to actually achieve the end result, like I'd never done it before, right, so I was super stressed, like heart palpitations, you know. Uh, so it was an experience that I won't forget. Um, I pulled it off, but I had I ended up having help at the end with, like uc sc students, uh, just to like crank it out and uh, it was a growth experience, kind of like a time management. You know, learning point, um, but you know also just a new material. So, um, I, I feel like if you're not a little bit scared as an artist like you're, you're, you gotta, you gotta be pushing your comfort zone for sure, otherwise you get stuck in the same thing and I, I don't, I don't want to be like that. But I also now like, no, this is balanced to that you can't push it too hard where you're like falling apart and you're like losing your mind. Um, right, so that, yeah, that one was I'm happy with how it came out.
Speaker 1:I, I'm just also happy it's done, yeah 100%, and the TED Talk part of it is like, I guess, because you always want to kind of get nuggets out of here, that other people, similarly different businesses, different industries, we all kind of get there. What, if you were to recommend it like, how did you unwind during that time? Did you lean into family? Did you lean into surfing? How did you manage it? So there's the practical nature of a deadline. With a contract with a city, that's different than a contract for somebody that's going into their living room, the budgets are different, everything's different. So it was a new form of pressure for you, a new form of stress. How did you end up sort of navigating?
Speaker 2:You know I have a funny relationship with surfing as a somebody who's self-employed I think any business self-employed business person can understand this that sometimes it stresses you out more. You know to go surfing, you know like I'll be out there and I'm like, if the waves are bad, I'm like, oh, like I totally played this wrong, Like I, I I could have cranked out a couple of things, and you know I really enjoy surfing now, if I like, in between projects, and then I'm like, oh, I earned this one, you know. So, yeah, surfing is a guaranteed stress release for me and I don't surf that much, unfortunately, anymore. But I'm trying to get that balance back because it's exercise generally, yeah, but I'm trying to get that balance back because exercise generally as anybody who's self-employed it's like that keeps your life energy going.
Speaker 2:You can't just grind in the studio or you can't just grind in the computer. You have to keep yourself healthy and that's something I struggle with, for sure, and anybody who's self-employed. It's hard to take time for yourself when you're just trying to keep the lights on, Especially with kids. Now a huge chunk of time is going to them, so it's tense, I'm not going to lie, it's pretty tense.
Speaker 2:Stress is a reality of self-employment that I have no solutions for other than surrounding yourself with people who get it. And my wife is like an angel because she understands how much I care about this stuff and you know because it's not really for the money. The money doesn't make sense. You know doing this type of stuff. So having people who get why it's like what part of your core is the only thing that makes it um, viable. Continue on. If you had no support, people didn't understand. You know the reason why you're doing these things. It wouldn't be sustainable. So that's the community level, the relationship level. Having that kind of support is pretty much everything as far as I can say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, even like thinking of you mentioning walks in Neary Lagoon and Westcliff with your kids and those moments is, I think we're built, we're baked in with balance, we're baked in with perspective, and then we start loading things on and it unwinds as we. You know, unfortunately, in this particular arc of the species, we pile on a lot of complications, we pile on a lot of stress, but I'm sure when you're walking with those kids and you're looking at it, there's a simplicity to that that for me, during some of my busiest times in my career, when I was at my darkest moments my kids are much older, 34, 30, and 29. But I do remember leaning on the simplicity of their perspective and it did help balance me out a little bit. That way, I think we over, we tremendously overcomplicate this amazing thing that we've got.
Speaker 1:I think I talked to my wife all the time. I think we have a one in 400 trillion chance even to be here. You know, like, literally, like in the form of this Ethan Estes, brian Upton. I always listen to some meditation sometimes and I think we're wondering when it's going to happen for us, when is it going to be balanced out? And one of the great arguments is in one in 400 trillion. It already did.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that it's something that takes. You need that constant reminder because it's really easy, especially when you're self employed, to just get into the weeds of like I got this checklist, boom, boom, I got to do all this stuff, like, and it can ruin your enjoyment of the moment for sure. And with kids it just forces you, cause, like if you stop paying attention, like bad things happen, you know. So the kids force you to be present. And again they forced me to go on a walk like get some sunshine and look at ducks, like it's a cool thing. It really forces you to try to have that balance and you can't just contaminate those moments with this endless checklists.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I'm, I'm a little better than I was before at like partitioning work and life. Uh, you know, um, uh, doesn't make it a lot easier, but at least I'm, I'm like. You know, I would say having kids has made me a much happier person because I take that time to just be with them and be in a positive space and then I can get my windows of work in later. So, um, yeah, I'm grateful for that, man I I also know that it's going really fast, like my daughter's three now and all of a sudden she's going to be in school and like I'm gonna have all this like time on my hands again, I'm gonna be like damn, I miss them. You know I already right and that I see that coming already. So I feel it makes me feel more gratitude now that I get to be with them um as hard as it is, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think the last time I asked you this question it's funny, I'm going to ask you this question again because times have changed. I think it's been about three, three and a half years, but I think she was pregnant at this point and I asked you if you were optimistic or pessimistic for them. You know as far as where we kind of are on the planet and you you might not remember this, but you gave an answer and then we were packing up and you said can I answer it again? Um, and you came back on the camera.
Speaker 1:I think the question I asked is it too late? And you had given kind of a too late and I think it was in reference to the kids and you'd kind of given a, a balanced question. You came back on the camera and you said it is too late, but and it was super inspiring to me because it was more of a proactive stance but I'm going to ask you the question now, three years in, three and a half years in now you've got two kids and I want it from that perspective Are you optimistic or pessimistic right now for their future?
Speaker 2:Heavy one, and I yeah, I remember that. I I feel at this point it's about setting realistic expectations that the complexities that are coming are unlike things we've experienced before. I think that's the only way to say it. Things could get better in some ways and worse than others. That's the dominant narrative of climate change, right and of, I would say, just like the economy and like you know, it's like it's in the national direction, like I feel like it's just like buckle up at this point, like things are going to be wild.
Speaker 2:And my attitude with my kids is like prepare them as best as I can for complex decision making, because that's what's coming. Like it's the world's complicated enough right now, but it's it's going to get more complicated and more urgent is the way it's kind of like if you just defer solving a problem, it just gets more expensive to solve it, right. Like if you're, if your foundation, your house, is crumbling and you say, ah, whatever, like we'll get that next year, and then you let 20 years go by and then they're like the contractor's, like dude, we got to floor this, we got to level this thing, we got to start over.
Speaker 2:You know, like that's kind of where we're at and we've deferred so much action for like basic environmental protection and basic like climate management, and just like we're just kind of digging the whole bit deeper. But the job of our kids and the next generations is just going to be to manage that as best they can. It's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be easy, but I would say, like the core skills that person needs to know, going into the now and in the future is like negotiation, like and um, oh, I would say just like learning how to see things from other people's perspectives and learning how to um, to be a team player. Right, because like that's what it's going to take. It's that we're getting pushing these partisan positions and the only way to like get anything done is to to find middle ground.
Speaker 2:So that's like the ultimate goal of the next generation is to try to like, piece things back together and uh, yeah, I don't know how to teach that, but it's um, I think it starts at home and then it starts about respect, with respecting other people, other, and then acknowledging differences and trying to find common ground. I don't know. It totally shouldn't be that hard, and we're taught that it is, but it's, it's not.
Speaker 1:I know I've never asked you this question because it's been times change over two or three years, but you know I'm thinking of, like artificial intelligence and some of the problem solving that it's doing on some of the medical fronts and things like that, and it's 24-7 working on solutions. And I don't want to get into the controversy and some of the feelings people have about it, but from a science standpoint and an environment standpoint, the one thing that might not have been factored in 20, 30 years ago was our ability to partner from a problem solving standpoint, even with reefs and things like that with AI. Have you dipped your toes into that, or is that a conversation going on in the community, ethan?
Speaker 2:I'm not super active in the science stuff at the moment. During the pandemic, my role with the aquarium vaporized and the research in Japan vaporized, um, you know, it kind of run its course in some ways so, and it the timing was good. I was able to pivot to art at that time and I've been full-time on that ever since. So I don't engage much in that field. Um, both in ai or in uh.
Speaker 2:How it relates to science right now, yeah, obviously there's going to be huge breakthroughs at the end of the. We have to take that information to make decisions. It's still at this point for the foreseeable future, humans are going to be making the decisions and I think that's the part of it that gives me hope is that we can use it as a tool and not get used by it. And I will say that it doesn't matter in a way, if you still don't have that core skill of like empathy and understanding, like how to manage complex community views, like that is still. It doesn't matter how much information you have. You still need to be able to reach compromise and make decisions Right.
Speaker 2:So as long as that's still within the human realm and not fully exported, then I actually think I have a lot of hope because we'll be more informed and making better informed decisions, as long as we can kind of hold on to the reins and also come back together and find a middle ground. So that's where I'm optimistic. And then on the other side, raising kids through this time it's like you got to. I'm trying to focus on teaching them things that are AI proof right, like I want them to learn how to build things, I want them to learn how to to essentially still be human right To do the things that machines can't do, and I think that's something we should all think about right now.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great answer for one, that again it's not even a gotcha moment. I personally, from doing kind of the little bit more of a wide scope, I do think there's an assist coming there, even from monitoring, say coral reefs and things like that and things like that. You know there's anything that can be done on a high level 24-7, you know, and basically extract sort of data of you know. I think that's eventually going to at least give us an assist in how we can kind of merge with that a little bit and help out the planet. And this is the small little kind of jump over here, but it's one of the ones I know we had a pin in was the collaboration with Outer Known. You know, as far as like kind of going left here, you know, I know that you're you want to kind of speak about, you know, supply chain transparencies and things like that. But Outer Known is a pretty good. They're kind of match your ethos a little bit Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually not that that big of a segway, right, because the thing I was going to say about using ai to help protect the environment is, I think, at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's a good idea, but it also is worth bearing in mind. The again, the like the supply chain of that is that we're running server farms like, scaling them up like crazy. They're drawing tons of power from, you know, resources that we don't really have at this point, and so there's actually a little bit of a complexity there of, like you know, in my opinion, like, if you can use ai to help protect the environment and manage resources and, you know, study marine protected areas, all this stuff, great, because most people are going to be using it to try to make money and try to optimize their businesses and stuff. Like it's capitalism. First, you know environment. Second, as the way things have always been in this country. So, um, you know I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying that there's a.
Speaker 2:My attitude as an environmentalist is to try to look at the full picture and circling back to I don't know, and that's like baked into their ethos, and not just with environment, but like, basically, kelly uh slater, toured a quicksilver factory or like a supplier for quicksilver in southeast asia and was like super bummed on the conditions, like of the workers and of the, the local environment. It was like he was like I don't want anything to do with this. So he walked away from a huge lucrative deal with them, basically, and started his own thing.
Speaker 2:And you know, I I would say it's a it's a capitalistic endeavor for sure, but at the same time it's just got this energy of it of like trying to do the best they can totally and that's something I just don't see very often, and so I'm stoked on some of the projects we've done together to be able to like, uh, tag along with them, um, because, yeah, just simple decisions on like materials, they just have massive ripple effects on people and people and planet right. So, I don't know, I've done some some of their build outs in their stores, kind of like this piece right here but like 20 feet wide and seven feet tall and I don't know it's all just reclaimed rope. So it's cool to have a venue to share the work with a brand that gets it, because most companies don't really think about it. You see it, you're seeing it more and more. But that means you have to be even more careful of looking out for greenwashing and companies that are just doing the bare minimum to look like they're acting more sustainable.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it.
Speaker 2:There's a ton of that now and I'm not going to hate on that too much because at the end of the day, that's progress. If a brand can't afford to source organic cotton but they still want to do it in, like some of their, some of their clothing line, you know, it's a start and maybe that's where consumers have a lot of power. If you reward a company like for doing the right thing, all of a sudden they're going to say, all right, next season let's do more organic cotton and it'll sell well like, sell like last year. So that's like, uh, we don't have that much control anymore. Congress is broken, you know, and like our government is basically broken and so simple things. It's like a little bit idealistic, but like voting with your dollar which companies you want to support. Honestly, spending the money locally is even better. That's kind of like the power that we have right now is the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1:Totally. And speaking of local again, anybody in your mind on a local level doing it the right way? Sustainable seafood, things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean go down to Hans and Heidi, h&h Fresh Fish, real Good Fish, allen Lovewell's operation. We're just buying straight from fishermen, you know, dock sales Like there's, there's. We're lucky because we have local infrastructure for sustainable seafood. If we lived in Nevada, good luck. But we can choose it if we make a little more effort, pay a little more sometimes, sometimes pay less to get fresh seafood, you know, and just by cutting out the middleman and going straight to the fishermen. So there's, there's a lot of opportunities here for that.
Speaker 1:In front like I'm a fifth grader. What does sustain? What does that? What does that mean? Sustainable fishing what does that mean Like? What's the definition of that?
Speaker 2:Great question, brian. I appreciate that, because it's something that, as a scientist, I always want to do but often forget, is to just come up with some basic definitions of what is sustainability, and from a fisheries perspective. Interestingly, sustainability means catching the right amount of fish. It means if you catch too many, it's not, the stock will fall if you catch too few. You left meat on the table, you left money on the table. Catch more, you know. So there's this. It's a what's called maximum sustainable yield.
Speaker 2:There's a sweet spot where you're catching the right amount of fish and it's not hard, it's not harming the long-term growth of the stock and you're maximizing, you know profit and you're feeding people right. So say, sustainability in seafood terms means catching the right amount of fish, not catching, not catching too many, that's amazing because I'm 57 plus, whatever days old right now.
Speaker 1:Those are the questions that need to be asked, because you push for it, you're happy when you get it, you're looking for it, but I clearly didn't know what the hell it was until just now.
Speaker 2:Well, there's another restaurant downtown called Line Caught. Downtown they're offering up all sustainable seafood Again. We have it in the Monterey Bay. We would be not accepting a gift if we were and also kind of triggering the end of our local fisheries, if we weren't supporting local seafood production. And if it doesn't come from here, let's be clear, it's going to get imported, like 90% of our seafood does, mostly from Asia, with very little environmental oversight. I would much rather source it from the backyard and do it right. So that's where we're at and we're lucky to have it.
Speaker 1:Hey, again you're teeing these up for me Like it's a like a baseball game. So, speaking of speaking of Asia, speaking of Asia, uh, how does uh, how's this kid from Santa Cruz that knows some science and knows some art uh find his way to Japan? What's going on?
Speaker 2:It's a pretty funny story. It's. It's honestly like it's really. I'm having a full circle moment.
Speaker 2:This week I'm going back to an island in the Sea of Japan called Sado Island and I used to do tuna research there. It was my first place I ever went to in Japan and it's not a place most people go. It's really kind of out there and it's countryside and that means that not many people are speaking English and there's actually not a lot of surf on this island, so I would just walk the beaches a lot and I found a lot of trash and it was inspiring. All this art I make now is pretty much all inspired by this little island and my experience is there.
Speaker 2:Then one day I was picking through the trash in the local harbor and this guy is like what are you doing? And I'm like I'm making art. And he's like for the art festival. I'm like what art festival? This is all in japanese. So I was just like everybody's, I'm just confused. And I got in contact he's, he connected me with the local art festival and I've been showing art there on and off for like, like uh, was it 10, almost nine years so? And they, I got a government grant in the spring to uh to build a sculpture and they asked me for a whale sculpture, which I thought was kind of interesting that they wanted a whale sculpture, which is a hot button issue in Japan.
Speaker 1:Very.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, okay, let's do it. And so I built a whale sculpture, I cut it into three pieces, shipped it over there and I'm going to meet it in Japan next week. So I'm tripping out getting ready for that. That's incredible, but it's going to be a cool moment because it's been since the pandemic for me to have been back and seen a lot of these folks, so it's going to be an interesting experience.
Speaker 1:That's it. I mean, I think this was a great conversation. We went a little over where I wanted to, but I figured it would. The only other random one I had is just because, kind of going back to the core of what you do, is there any tuna facts you know off the top of your head that would blow people's mind? Is there anything? Is there any mind-blowing tuna statistics that were like man, I didn't know that about tuna yeah, yeah, I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of mind-blowing tuna statistics. They're amazing fish, uh. The tunas that we're tagging in japan, uh, on the southern islands, are. They're about this big, like banana size. Those little fish, within the first year of their life, will have swum to San Diego. It takes them about a month and a half to do it and they swim on almost perfect straight line across the Pacific over 6,000 miles. It's mind blowing that you know they've never been to San Diego.
Speaker 2:And so there's so much embedded in this species of this completely, what we would say is an international life, but they have no idea they're swimming across borders. That's why international fisheries management is a very cooperative enterprise. Science helps understand. Oh, if we're catching bluefin in San Diego, they were born in Japan. They don't come from anywhere else, they're from Japan. We have to work together. We have to collaborate and share data and find the way forward together.
Speaker 1:That's a perfect. You always seem to end on the perfect sense, ethan. There's always a pull quote right at the end. What are the normal handles and places they can reach out for information on what you're doing?
Speaker 2:I try to use Instagram. It's a struggle. Estes Art and Science, and my website is also not updated very often, but it's ethanestescom and, yeah, I'll try to keep things posted, but I'm on the west side here. If the door's open, just come say hi.
Speaker 1:Maybe you'll have more time when the kids go to high school. Ethan, that might be the next time you work on the website. Might be like 10 years from now.
Speaker 2:I think that's realistic.
Speaker 1:My brother. This was great. Thank you so much, ethan.
Speaker 2:Thank you, brian, really appreciate it All right, my dude. Talk to you soon.