Discovering Ikigai Through Art and Martial Arts: A Conversation with Baptiste Tavernier

Start with a vision, test it in the dojo, and forge it in a studio where code becomes sculpture. That’s the journey we explore with Tokyo-based French-Spanish artist and independent curator Baptiste Tavenir, whose life bridges Japanese martial arts, musicology, and 3D-printed fine art in ways that feel both unexpected and inevitable.

We talk about the leap that changed everything: leaving a Paris lab for Budo University and discovering that discipline, patience, and community dynamics aren’t just for the mat. Baptiste shares how years of training in tankendo, jukendo, and naginata sharpened his focus and taught him how groups actually work—lessons he carried into his creative practice. When tinnitus undermined his work with sound, he translated composition into space, building a unique visual language from Polaroids, carved plastics, and modular 3D-printed forms. He explains why plastic can be beautiful, how open-source culture shaped his “modules” collection, and why he set intentional limits to keep quality high while still inviting others to play.

We also confront the “made by a machine” objection to 3D printing. Baptiste unpacks the design decisions hidden inside CAD, the handwork that follows printing, and the broader history of tools in art—from cameras to presses—that mediate but don’t replace human intention. The thread running through everything is a grounded take on ikigai: the joy of making something uniquely yours, without compromising under pressure. His line lingers: fear is the enemy of ikigai.

If you’re curious about where craft meets code, how martial arts can rewire creative focus, and what it takes to defend a niche against doubt, this conversation will resonate. Listen, share it with a friend who loves art or Budo, and leave a review to tell us what fear you’re ready to face. Subscribe for more stories at the edge of art, technology, and purpose.

Transcript

Vision, Ikigai, And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:37

If you have a vision, if you know what you want to do and if you know who what kind of person you are, it should be part of your Yiki guide to make that vision true.

Calligraphy Stamps And 3D Printing

SPEAKER_01 0:52

My guest today is Baptiste Tavenir, a Tokyo-based French-Spanish artist and independent curator, bridging art, technology, and speculative futures. Baptist moved to Japan in 2006, where he first immersed himself in martial arts and later returned to his artistic pursuits, integrating his experiences into his innovative work. Welcome to the podcast, Baptiste.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Yeah, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah, it is a pleasure too.

unknown 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, we we caught up only a few months ago, so it's good to see you again. And we first met in Tokyo at my workshop of my Ichiga retreat last year, when you accompanied your wife, calligrapher Naoko Mikami, who's been a guest on this podcast, episodes 88 and 95. And you kindly 3D designed and 3D printed a stamp for my participants so they could stamp a seal to their calligraphy work. And we've caught up, uh, yes, I just said a few months ago for dinner in Tokyo. So yeah, it's good to be talking to you again.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yeah, well, I mean, at that time we thought that since your guys or your students were doing calligraphy, it would be good to have the the wall thing, you know, not just a bunch of ink on the paper. So part of the calligraphy important thing is the stamp, you know, the rack cam, as they call it in Japanese. And but to make a rack cam, basically normally text time, expensive. The real ones are made, you know, with stones that need to be carved and everything. So since I work with 3D printers, it was pretty easy for me to just make a bunch of yeah, um, 3D printed seals with everybody's name on it. So and then I think they were they were pretty happy, they liked uh the seals and it was kind of a good surprise for them. So yeah, it was an interesting morning, very interesting um retreat for your Ikigai project.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, it was an interesting morning and day, and the participants really appreciated your Incon or Lakan?

Moving To Japan For Martial Arts

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Uh that's a good point. So I don't know actually. I mean, uh I'm not a calligrapher, I would say Lakan. Ikkan is more like the seal you use for you would say like um administrations and stuff like that. Bank. I think Lakkan is more like it's more like the artistic seal. Uh I'm you know, I can speak Japanese, but I'm not an expert in Japanese language, so don't ask me the difference. Uh definitely the the kanji are different, but uh yeah, I don't know. But I think for art they say Lakan more of an income.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

All right. Well, I've learned a new word. I might do some research. So thank you for that. Now you've been living in Japan for 20 years, so what brought you to Japan and what has kept you there for so long?

Inside Budo University

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Yeah, it's a good question. Uh, and it's probably a very long story. I'm gonna try to make it short, as short as I can. Well, basically, um I was doing and I'm still doing a bit, but but at that time I was doing a lot of music, and I was a musician, I was a composer in Paris. I was in Paris, and uh I was also doing my PhD in musicology, and I'd been working on human machine interfaces and how do you transduct uh data into sound and this kind of very, very heavy, I mean heavy, kind of heavy scientific type of research uh with music and sound, a lot of acoustic and all that stuff. So I was doing my PhD in Paris, and I don't know, I think I got bored at some point. I was like, it's very interesting, and you know, we used to have a more than a studio, we had we had a lab and we were doing a lot of experimentation with music and sound and stuff. It's pretty cool. Um, but I don't know, something was missing, I guess. And I at the time I was already doing martial arts as a hobby, and I was asked or offered the possibility to come to train to Japan for one year, kind of out of the blue, actually. Uh I met some people one night, and they said, Oh, you know, we have this program, and maybe it could interest people you know. And I was like, Academy, it can actually interest me. And just like, when does that start? And when I mean, when do people need to go then? And I was like, Oh, you know, in six months from now, I had to make a quick decision. And um, yeah, I guess I don't know. I like to try, I mean, try new things more than trying new things, I like to uh explore new directions. And after spending many, many years doing music research and uh composing music and doing this acoustics and all that stuff. Uh, I think I needed somehow to explore something new. And so I could do a bit of martial arts, but I couldn't speak any word of Japanese, so it was kind of you know very exciting. You say, okay, in six months I go to Japan for a year doing a martial arts boot camp, kind of, you know, like it's the international martial arts university, so it's pretty heavy on training, so yeah, kind of a boot camp, I would say. It's like, yeah, so I don't know anything about Japan, I don't speak Japanese. I can do a bit of martial arts, but my level is so, so it's gonna be fun. And I just yeah, I just uh gave my apartment back and pack up all my stuff and went to Japan, basically.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

And sounds like you never left.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Yeah, well, I actually I did left at some point, uh, but then I came back. No, I stayed uh at least I stayed at the um international martial arts univers or international Bodo University as it is called in Japanese. I stayed there for at least seven to eight years training um and teaching too at some point because I I already had my I mean I'd never completed my PhD, but you know, I had at least a master and I I was at a PhD level, so I could kind of teach and do some research there in Japan. I mean at the Buddha University. I could stay longer than the just one year type of thing. Why did I stay? I'm not sure. I I I think I liked it there. I think doing martial arts was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

And you did study for seven years at the International Buddha University, is that right?

What Martial Arts Teaches For Life

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. About seven to eight years. The Buddha University is. I mean, I don't know. Uh I don't know what people think when they hear martial arts university. Uh, it's not like you're just training from morning to night. I mean, that too, but uh, there's a lot. If you want, there's a lot of research that can be done there. There's a huge library about martial arts, not only Japanese, but like Chinese, Korean, all over the world. And you can do historical researches, you know, there's a lab for biomechanics and tons of stuff you can do there if you want to. And also, you have the opportunity to train in many, many, many martial arts. I mean, people think that there's karate, there's judo, maybe they know kendo. Um, maybe some people might know kyudo eventually. But actually, there are many, many more martial arts. Uh there are like nine modern martial arts in Japan, at least uh official, recognized by the Nippon Budokan, which is kind of the top structure for martial arts. There are more modern martial arts, but they're not necessarily uh affiliated to the official structure. And then there's like hundreds of old schools or classical schools, so there's a lot of stuff you can do. And when I arrived there, it's like a bit like a kid who's in Disneyland. You you have so many rides you can take. Uh, so you want to try all the rights. So I went there for um mostly at the beginning, I was there for Naginata, which is a weapon-based martial arts, but then I ended up doing Kendo, Kenjutsu, uh Ainkido, a bit of Kyudo, I mean you name it everything. Uh because you can, so why not? So yeah, seven years, I guess it's enough to try a lot of stuff, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Well, your martial arts crew is well documented online, and from my research, I discovered you're a seventh Dan in Tankendo, Kyoshi, so that's short wooden bayonet fencing, a sixth dan in Jukendo, so that's rifle and bayonet combat practice. Uh, you just mentioned Naginata, so a pole weapon with a curved blade, and then batodo, a sword art focused on drawing and cutting in a single motion. So you're pretty qualified to practice and teach martial arts or various forms of martial arts, which leads me to the question what has martial arts given you, or what's the impact it's had on your life?

SPEAKER_02 10:26

It's hard to quantify um the impact it can have on the life. And I think for myself, I would say that it gave me focus in a way. Uh I used to do a lot of stuff. I still do a lot of stuff, but I used to do a lot of stuff and getting lost doing a lot of stuff. Now I still do a lot of stuff, but with a very clear direction and a clear sense of focus. And I think probably that's what martial arts gave me somehow, I would say a better understanding of group and community dynamics. Because when you train in martial arts in the dojo, it's not just you training, you train with a lot of people with different background, different level. Um, some people are very good, some people are beginners, some people are beginners, but learn super fast, some people are beginners, and it takes them two years to just you know be able to make one proper move or technique. And so you have very different people in a dojo, and they all have their own dynamics and idiosyncrasies. And if you're a student or if you're a teacher, you need to be able to kind of like blend in, but at the same time still cultivate your own I mean character, I would say your own in Japanese we would say um like personality, I would say maybe in English. And so that group or community group because in one dojo, but then if you take a martial arts at a national level or international level, it's more like a community. And so those group or dynamic dynamics or community dynamics, I think um Japanese Buddha can teach you that very well. But that being said, I guess any sports or any it doesn't have to be Japanese Budo. I mean, any if you do football or if you do rugby, um it's a group, and then you need to deal with other people in that group, and it can teach you a lot. So I think Japanese martial arts is the same. It may it just has maybe a slightly higher level of philosophical um values, I would say.

Curiosity, Niches, And Ikigai

SPEAKER_01 12:56

I think you're articulating it, it can be a ebashol, like a place to belong, uh, communicate, learn from others, grow, have a positive future. And I I did martial arts a few times.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

No, I didn't know. What what what did you do?

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Twikondo?

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Okay. Which is Korean, but I mean it's the same.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Oh, so you you you can high kick very well. No, I cannot. It was a long time ago. And I did learn a little bit of uh Yido from a friend, which which is fascinating, the the art of drawing the sword, I guess. So you're a man of many interests or niches, I would say. We we talked about this um before we decided to do the podcast, and you seem to follow your curiosities and wherever they lead you. So I see you as someone who really lives their ikigai, and we've talked about ikigai, and we both agreed it's it's not a word Japanese use very often. Um and it's it's something rather personal, they keep to themselves. But I saw strong parallels between you and a few items of something called the Ikigai Nine Scale, and that's things such as being interested in many things, wanting to develop yourself, and having a the desire to learn something new or start something. So these three items you seem to have naturally embraced all your life.

From Musicology To Fine Art

SPEAKER_02 14:31

So have you always followed your curiosities? I wouldn't say that following my curiosity is my icky guy, but it's something I kind of do naturally, and I'm not sure why. I mean, I there's I don't have an explanation why. For me, it sounds very natural to when you see something you don't know, to just jump into it. Or I would say even more than that, I think for me, I don't want to do stuff, or I don't want to do you know, on paths that have been trodden by millions of people. Like uh I'm interested in something which is not well known because that's where there's a lot of interesting possibilities. Um that's why, for example, like when you do martial arts, or at least Japanese martial arts, I mean you either do karate or you do judo or you do kendo, and kendo is already kind of niche. Naginata, it's ultra-niche, and my main martial arts nowadays is jokendo and tankendo, and this is even more niche. As like when I started in Japan, I was probably the only foreigner doing it. Like literally. That's what's very interesting because then not only you can you you have undivided attention from the masters because you're the only white idiot doing it in Japan. So it's like you're kind of a curiosity in a way. It's like, oh, who's that dude? Why why what is he doing here? But then so you you can get like yeah, a lot of information and you get a lot of attention, and you you can grab a lot of knowledge, and uh I've that makes it very interesting. Yeah, I think maybe my icky guy is to discover or explore terra incognita type of fields. Like, I mean, they're not incognita because some people are doing it, but they're so niche that yeah, it's it's kind of new, at least for me. For me, it's more exciting, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Well, that's the impression I had. So you you can go to Japan and study one martial art. It sounds like you've studied ten and you're proficient in in quite a few. You've studied music um and digital art. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about your art. It combines your diverse background in musicology, digital arts, and martial arts. And your work is characterized by the fusion of 3D printed elements and other materials like Polaroids, which are those wonderful photos you could take instantly and they would pop out of the camera. And you also use carved plastics. So that's again quite unique. So, how did that begin? How did your artistic journey begin in music? Why did you study music musicology?

Polaroids, Wabi Sabi, And Materials

Modularity And Open-Source Modules

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Okay, uh, that's an easy one. Um, music started because my parents uh sent me to the music school when I was three, so that's that's not a very conscious choice. Um I liked it, so I and I stayed. And um so when I was a kid, I studied percussion first, and then I um expanded with saxophone. When I was in college, I did a lot of um composition, and I chose musicology for my uh university uh studies because I was unsure what I wanted to do actually, and I was kind of lazy and I missed all the deadlines to apply to more serious stuff like mathematics, engineering, and all that stuff. And so at the end, where all the deadlines were passed, the only thing that was left was the musicology thing, and it was good because I like music anyway, and I think I didn't want to do math and I didn't want to do medicine, I didn't want to do scientific stuff, I think. And so having passed the deadlines was a very good excuse just to go and do music. Well, musicology is actually quite a very difficult or complex field to study. Uh, it's very diverse. And I guess that's why also it was good for me to do that because when you think musicology, it's not just like theory of music or just playing some guitars, there's so many stuff you need to study. Like there's ethnomusicology, so you need to study music from tribes in Africa or like from different cultures all over the world. There's of course music history, and there's like organology, how do you make instruments? Why do they sound and all that stuff? Uh, paleography, which how do you used to write music uh a thousand years ago? There's it's so diverse, and there's of course acoustic and uh computer-assisted music and everything. So, anyway, this is already super niche in a way, that's like uh again, as like you can do guitar and and play with your friends in a garage and stuff, but like when you do musicology, if you have to study how the Gregorian chant or the monks a thousand years ago used to write music and be able to decipher obviously, it's already very niche. So I really liked it, and um and as I told you, after a while, after doing that for like eight years or seven years. Because I went up to PhD, kind of got bored in a way and went to Japan and studied the martial arts. And uh, but what happened also is um at some point uh I had a problem with my ear, with my earring. Um, I got a very, very bad tinnitus, which I still have actually. Oh wow. So that kind of prevented me to do any not professional work, but like especially if you do like um sound engineering or composition and like having a strong tinnitus, it's a problem because you never know if what you hear, what you're hearing is the real sound that you're hearing, or it's just stuff in your ear. It's like uh so you can't really be good at mastering sound and stuff like that because you can't rely or you can't trust your ears anymore. So from there, I'm kind uh pivoting towards uh fine arts. Um gradually, gradually it wasn't done overnight at times. First of all, because I wasn't trained in uh fine arts, and I wasn't uh a painter, I wasn't a sculpture, I wasn't nothing, I was just a musician or a composer. Um, of course, music composition um gives you a sense of composition, like uh composition of a painting, I mean the way things merge, or um negative space, or all these kinds of concepts you will find in painting of fine arts, you can find them in music. Uh, and so it helps you, but it doesn't, you know, even if you play saxophone, it doesn't help you to grab a brush and paint a Mona Lisa, I would say. Um, so gradually I had to develop my own pictural vocabulary and uh starting from nothing. And yeah, it took about 10 years, I would say, to have something very consistent and um something which I can confidently say this is the stuff the kind of art I do. Before that, I tried many things, and some things were very good, some things were not that good, some stuff sold during exhibitions, some stuff didn't sell at all. And but now I think after 10 years, I completely switched from being a musician to being an artist to the point that I don't really do music anymore. From time to time I do it for fun, but yeah. So now my icky guy right now is uh doing culture with uh in but involves 3D printing, 3D design, and combining and merging 3D printed elements and um different types of media, like you mentioned Polaroids. Uh yeah, for those who were not born in the 80s, it's a picture that gets out of the camera instantly. That's pretty cool. The quality is bad, it has um I love Polaroids because it has yeah, it's it's not digital, it's pure analog, and it's always kind of blurry, and the definition of the picture is not very good, the colors not very good, it's perfect. I love it. It has a bit of uh a wabby-sabby type of I don't know, type of feeling. Uh it's the wabi-sabi of picture is Polaroid, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Yeah, I have very fond memories, and I used to love the the sound. The camera would make as it dispenses the the film, and then you would grab the film, which is basically almost a perfect square, maybe the yeah, the the image is a square.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

The image is a square, but then you have the frame, so it kind of makes it a rectangle a bit.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

And then you'd you'd wave it to help the film develop. And then yeah, you've got this instant photo within 30 seconds. So it was great. But of course you had very limited film. Um probably what 10 five or ten photos were only possible. So with the the film, you had to quickly replace the film. Probably not the cheapest way to take photos. So, yes, let's touch on one aspect of your artistic expression. You explore themes of modularity and create complex futuristic collections you call cura kurisa.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah, cura curiosa.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

And that seems to be your your staple at the moment, what you're creating. So, do you want to touch on that?

Is 3D Printing Real Art

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, sure, sure. Um, so the um the modulus thing is um how can I say there's different aspects of what I do. Uh I'm a my I'm a commercial artist, uh, so I need to create artworks that go to galleries and the galleries gonna sell them and go to art fair, blah blah blah. So that's the the usual thing most artists do. But because I use 3D printers as a medium, uh I thought that to honor a bit the medium, uh there should be a bit of at least a small part of open source um thing in what I do. Because a lot of um 3D printers enthusiast communities uh revolve a lot about open models and a lot of open source philosophy. So I cannot obviously do everything open source because then there's nothing else to nothing left to sell in galleries. But uh I have uh a small collection of I think 40 modules which are free, open source, and you can download them if you have a printer, play with them, modify them if you want a bit, and it's a modular thing, so you can just arrange them in any type, uh kind of you know uh a maximized version of Lego. So you have like 40 bricks, and then you can just reassemble them and make your own layout. And at first I was thinking to do the entire project entirely modular, but after spending a year or two on it, it became kind of evident that modularity has some limits. I mean, hey, you can make it you can make a modular system and use the same um dimension or specs, so they can kind of um merge into each other or connect to each other um and with no limit. But the problem with the no-limit thing is um the more you produce and the more you tend to the no-limit, the more I thought the the quality was dropping. And so in order to avoid this quality drop, I decided to limit how much modular the entire project would be. And so now there's the yeah, 40 modules that you can just play around, and then all the other artwork that I make, they're still in the same um aesthetics, in the same kind of storytelling and lore around them, but they don't interface with each other anymore. Uh, in order to yeah, to have a different type of quality and a different type of uh level of exigence. I don't know if it makes sense what I'm talking about. For it in my head is very clear, but if you have no idea what I'm doing, then maybe it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

If it's okay, maybe we can put some photos of your artwork on the show notes and people get an idea. I'd like to actually quote you from your website because this this is interesting, it is an interesting art form, and most people would be thinking, oh, um using a 3D printer to express yourself is quite unique. Hence you are a man of uniqueness and a man of uh these unique niches. So the quote is from you I often meet people who struggle to see 3D printed work as real art. The most common objection is simple. It's made by a machine. So how do you handle this objection?

Money, Recognition, And Integrity

Fear As The Enemy Of Ikigai

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Well, yeah, it it is the ultimate step is made by a machine. And actually, it's not necessarily the ultimate step. Like everything before, like the 3D design and like let's say it's a sculpture. Uh let's say like recently I just made a kind of a giant jellyfish. I mean, you need to make the jellyfish, so it's sculpted and it's programmed on a computer, on CAD, but me as an artist, I design it. So that's kind of uh the first point. And then, sure, once you have all the design and everything created, then the machine uh kind of make it real or incorporate it uh into an object, and that step is machine made. But then if you think about it, so is a photography, a photograph. Um, the photographer, the cameraman, have an has an eye for the light and the angle and how much depth of field he wants and how much bouquet, blah blah blah, which lens he's going to use. But at the moment he pushes on the on a button when the machine makes the picture, technically. So and then of course the photographer can use post-processing, uh analog one, or he can use Photoshop to do further edits. But in my case, it's true too, because once I fully print something, and so I have this sculpture which is made of plastic mostly, um the sculpture is ready. I can always take uh a burner, or I can take um uh what you say, a welder, uh uh um an iron. Umdering iron, yeah, yeah. Um to carve into the plastic or to burn it or to or use even a heat gun to make the plastic bubble. And once and so you can change, actually, you can alter quite significantly um the results, um, and then change what the machine gave you into something even more um personal, I would say. So, but then again, um it took me like two or three minutes to explain that. Most of the time, people don't have time to listen to this kind of explanation anyway. So, and then also what I meant that I don't really address that problem anymore, is that at the beginning I wasn't very confident enough in what I was doing, and some people, like let's say professionals, like art galleries and stuff, really really pushed against the idea of having entirely 3D printed artwork. They wanted me to paint over it or to do some colors or to do some alterations with yeah, soldering irons and all that stuff. And yeah, I wasn't confident enough in what I was doing and to push back. And so for a while I spent a lot of time 3D printing stuff and then painting to create something more personal, but I just don't do that anymore because one, most people do that, most people who use 3D printing will do that. Uh, so again, if most people do it, I'm not gonna do it. Two, I think 3D printing is actually quite a beautiful medium. Yes, it's plastic, but there's some beauty in plastic too. Um, I got another objection from time to time, like, yeah, but it's plastic, so you know, pollutions and stuff, which I understand. I mean, uh, plastic pollution is a real problem. But then the people, the very people who tell me that are people who like generally they they're painters and they use acrylic paint, which is plastic too, anyway. So, I mean, you can't what do you do? You stop painting, you go back to oil. Sure, I mean, can you do oil? It's much harder than acrylic. Um, so sure, the medium of 3D printing, if you use plastic, can be controversial because of pollution. Although you can say that there's a lot of 3D printers nowadays that use recycled plastic. Um another thing is 3D printer is kind of uh it's not very old as uh you know as a technique. Um it's been there like for what 10 years, 20 years maybe? Yeah, I mean consumer level product that you know everybody now can buy a 3D printer, but 10 years ago that wasn't true. That was very expensive and really hard to use. So it's very, very new. And nowadays a lot of 3D printers, even consumer level starts to print other stuff than plastic. You can print metal, you can print carbon, uh, you can even print chocolate if you want. Uh, although for art, maybe it's not very suitable, but you can print concrete, even so uh a 3D printer that prints uh titanium. Well, I think the machine costed like two million dollars, but uh you can 3D print titanium, it's pretty cool. So maybe in the future, who knows? The this plastic thing won't be really attached to the to the idea of 3D printing anymore, but yeah, I know it is partially made by a machine and it uses plastic, but that being said, there's a lot of interesting things to do with that medium, and since not so many people are trying to push the medium further and to dig deeper with it, then I decided to do it to follow my my usual Ikigai thing.

Closing And Where To Find Baptiste

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I think it's wonderful. I mean, it's a form of creative expression, and your medium happens to be a 3D printer combined with all these other elements. So it's unique. And if we're going to segue a little to Ikigai, the mother of Ikigai, one of Japan's research pioneers, talks about self-actualization as the joy of creating something. And if you create something new that is unique to yourself, that's how you actualize. And I I love that interpretation rather than this idea of having to be the best version of yourself, we often hear in Western culture. So that's what you're doing, I guess. You're expressing yourself, this uniqueness through a unique medium. And so, what's it what's it feel like when someone does buy a piece from you?

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Uh well, it's good for the bank account, first of all. Uh, because um that's the thing is art is art to sell, and art costs a lot of money to make. I mean, it depends what type of art you do, but generally, yeah. So first of all, if you don't sell, then it's really hard to continue to make new stuff. And you also want artists want to do bigger stuff all the time, you know. Rarely, it's uh it happens, but it's rare when you you hear an artist or oh, I want to do smaller stuff, like you know, I want to go smaller and smaller. Some guys, yeah, because they go so small that you need you need some kind of a microscope to see the sculpture, and it's very amazing. This is even more niche, this is very crazy. But most guys want to do bigger stuff, larger stuff, uh heavier stuff, more impact. And so the bigger you want to make art, the more money it costs. So, yeah, uh, that's very, very basic, but that's true. I mean, when you get money in, you say, Yosh, then I can do a bigger artwork next time, so that's a good thing, and two, um well, it's kind of a form of recognition, I would say. Um, so it's like, oh, people like what I do, and thank you very much, and you like it so much that you're ready to you know spend a bit of your money, which is a bit of your time, which is precious, just to acquire that. So it's thank you very much. It's a feels very nice, of course. And three, I think it also encourages you to kind of try to do an even better artwork or an even better work for the next one. You need to sell who you are and everything, and a lot of people preach that and a lot of people listen to that, but um, I guess few really have uh the courage to actually do it. Um because as soon as you see that your stuff doesn't sell, then you say, Oh shit, I need to you know change something, so I otherwise what can I do? If you have a vision, if you know what you want to do, and if you know who what kind of person you are, it should be part of your ikigai to make that vision true. So I don't know. Uh I'm just thinking out loud right now, but like maybe the the worst the worst enemy of uh Ikigai is fear, I guess. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Well, I think what you say is very valid. I think you don't want to compromise on what you care about, especially when you're expressing yourself. That's in a way, that's why Ikigai's personal, subjective, and art is so expressive. So I guess yeah, you definitely want to be true to yourself when it comes to Ikigai, whether that is art or your relationships, uh the things you enjoy. So I think that's a perfect way for us to to end, actually. Like fear is the enemy of Ikigai's. That's very quotable, and don't make compromises on your Ikigai. So I'd love to share your work on the show notes. So feel free to send me some of your latest work or your the work you think is most expresses of of of you, and we'll we'll put that on the website. And I'm sure we'll be catching up soon. Hopefully, I'll be back in Japan and we can have a meal, and maybe I can view some of your artwork in person.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Yeah, well, uh with pleasure. Any time you want.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Thank you. Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for. having me and um yeah I hope um it was easy to understand what I was talking about because maybe we digressed a bit I don't know but uh anyway I hope um your listener will enjoy the the the show I'm sure they will and if they're interested in your work or what you do what's the best place to contact you or reach out to you? Oh yeah my website uh my website also is very strange and hard to navigate but that's the point. Um if you're not afraid please come to the website.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

All right so that's that's your name? Uh yeah battistabani.com okay and we'll put a link to that awesome my friend so thank you again for your time today yeah thank you very much and see you in Tokyo