471 - Is A World Of Inspiration Waiting In The One Place You’re Not Looking? With Sanjay Patel

0:02On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off, sometimes you just need a creative pep talk.

0:21Hey, you're listening to creative pep talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. And this show is everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice.

0:44Today on the show, we have animator, illustrator, and author Sanjay Patel. Many of you probably know him from his Oscar-nominated Pixar short, Sanjay's Super Team, which was the short before the movie The Good Dinosaur. I remember watching this short in the movie theater and just being like, whoa i have never seen a story quite like this that mixed kids media and some religious myth in a way that was so open and creative and it felt risky and beautiful and i was just super taken aback by sanjay's super team and um when sanjay then later became a vocal internet supporter of my project, Invisible Things, I was just like, oh my gosh, I do not feel worthy of this.

1:41And we've kind of stayed in touch ever since. Sanjay's latest project is an animated kids show called Gee Happy, G-H-E-E, which reimagines Hindu deities as children who discover their divine powers through daily adventures at Gee Happy Daycare Center. It captures some of the same spirit that was infused in that Pixar short, but it also has a little bit more of a preschool focus that is equal parts really, really creative as well as just super funny. Also, massive shout out to Joey Chu who worked on the show and you can definitely see his brilliant style shining through this project as well. And I know a lot of you will be fans of his work and get a kick out of that.

2:35Sanjay also has a lot of great books out there, including some gorgeous new board books based on the show, Gee Happy, from my publisher, Chronicle Books. Highly recommend you check those out if you have toddlers in your life. And I just got to say, I was so on fire after this chat. I was just beaming. I couldn't contain my excitement. It was just such a phenomenal chat and I can't wait for you to hear it. We touch on a bunch of juicy stuff, stuff like inspiration to pursue your creative work independently. I've kind of been on a thread of that recently because I feel like it's the future of creative stuff and the next phase of great creative work is going indie again and And Gi Happy being free on YouTube, I think, inhabits that realm really well.

3:33We also talk about how to tap into what makes you unique and deepen your creative work with symbolism from your own personal background. We also talk about Sanjay's biggest lesson from all of his 20 years working at Pixar, a.k.a. the freaking promised land of story. And it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but it was really inspiring all the same. Stay until the end for a creative call to adventure that I am calling Cut Up Your Green Sweatshirt. That is a prompt to help you find more authenticity and depth in your creative work using your own personal upbringing and background. All right.

4:18Without further ado, here is the great Sanjay Patel.

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6:12I wanted to talk to you about your latest project, Gee Happy. It's a phenomenal kids show. It's really funny and sweet, and I think it's just super great. But I feel like, and I also feel like it's creatively an interesting case study. So I wanted to see if you could start by just talking a little bit about what the show is. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, so Geek Happy is a preschool show that basically highlights Hindu deities as little kids that are going to a preschool. And, you know, it sort of creates this vehicle for it creates this vehicle to sort of introduce who these characters are, number one.

6:53And number two, to introduce their mythology in a way that's super basic. And and then most importantly, like that's it's fun and like kid relatable. Yeah, I think that's a good summary. And I think my favorite is Kali. Kali is the goddess of war or death. Is that true? You know, so many of these deities, I mean, here's what's so important here is that, Andy, like the tradition has been going on for like 3 ,000 years. And so Kali has been thought of as the deity of time as well as over time, you know, over the eons. She's also been associated with death because time brings an end to all things as well as a renewal.

7:44And so, yeah, so some people will see more of the death thing versus the time thing. And so, yeah, she kind of steals the show for me too. She was the most fun character to write for. I have to imagine also, she reminds me of my youngest daughter, just kind of like a troublemaker. And I love the skulls and yeah, just a great character. um but well well maybe your daughter's this you know so one of the things that we were trying to go for um with Kali in particular is that we have two girl characters we have Saraswati Swati and Kali and so the thing that we were really excited about exploring I was at least was you know it was like two versions of little girls but one version is Saraswati that's very studious and careful and more importantly or just as important polite yeah and Kali was everything that Saraswati isn't and so which is to say that she's the force of nature versus culture culture is Saraswati which is rules organized and nature is wild and free and so maybe your daughter is less a troublemaker and more wild yeah and free and says forget the rules I'm gonna do me That's hilarious.

8:58And it also relates to the birth order thing because my firstborn, my daughter, my oldest daughter is very much the polite, you know, behaved one. It's probably something about just parenting. Once you get to the baby, you're like, okay, go. You can just be wild and be yourself. So I don't know. It might be that going on. But they're great characters and they're very relatable archetypes. But the thing I thought was really interesting as I dove into your story was people who know your work, whether it's your Pixar short or your books, they probably would assume that these topics were things that you've always been proud of, interested in.

9:44And I gather that that wasn't always the case, at least when you were a kid. Is that right? You're absolutely right, Andy. What a great setup for my apology tour. You know, man, like I grew up like a - This isn't gotcha journalism, okay? I just want to hear how it evolved. No, no, actually it's not a gotcha question, but it's a fun thing for me to be able to like talk about and an important one actually. So yeah, thanks for, you know, asking. Yeah, so growing up here in Southern California as a full-throated American, like I never felt like I fit in And, you know, it just always felt a bit different.

10:22And, you know, it wasn't helpful for the fact that there was like the only kid in my school named Sanjay. And there wasn't any Indian kids in my school. And so, you know, the idea that I would ever, ever, Andy, lean into being brown as if I could hide it. I was like, if I just put on enough Dukes of Hazzard stuff and know enough about the General Lee and Knight Rider, I could pass as like Andy from Ohio versus Sanjay from California. And so anyway, yeah, it was, you know, very typical. Like it pretty much was like I did not want anything to do with my parents' culture, let alone my own sort of, you know, cultural background.

11:00And so, you know, it took about 30 years to kind of grow up. And in many ways, you know, it was really helpful to sort of do all the great work that we did at Pixar. And you sort of, you know, you get older, you get bit wiser. And you sort of see like, hey, you know, all that stuff that, you know, mom and dad were interested in passing down to me. It's actually pretty cool. And, you know, unfortunately, I don't think they have the tools to sort of pass it on to me. Like they're deeply religious. I'm not. My religion is art. Let's just face it. OK. And cartoons. And so once I saw this book of Indian miniature paintings and I started to read the stories, I recognized the paintings because they sort of featured some of the devotional images that were in my parents shrine.

11:47And so once I saw that same image put in the context of a art history book, suddenly it was speaking my language. And it offered this opportunity for me to read about what the picture was showing. And so suddenly, once I read the story about the picture, I was like, oh, wow. Holy smokes. I mean, like the fireworks went off in terms of like, oh, this is a character. This is an archetype. These are stories and there's this great meaning here. And it really got me interested and excited. And so, but yeah, I think when I was a little kid and for a long time, about a good 30 years, I just wanted nothing to do with my own heritage, let alone Indian mythology, let alone Indian spirituality.

12:29Yeah. And I, you know, as an outsider, it's so funny for me looking in when I look at these images and I, you know, hear things about different religions, it's almost easier to see the creativity and the power and the presence of the work and the symbols. And so for me, I mean, I don't know if this is the wrong term for thinking about it, but a lot of this from the outside feels like almost psychedelic. It's so multifaceted and inspiring. And so it's funny that that maybe was unnoticed initially. Where were you when that happened with the art history book? yeah um so uh you know i i had spent about almost like seven eight years at pixar at this point and so we'd make some you know incredible movies that sort of done the things that i was really reaching striving to do andy which was to you know be an animator make great work and you know there's no you know just talk about dumb luck to wind up on a great company like pixar and talk about just utter dumb luck to be surrounded by these brilliant artists and filmmakers that were making these incredible movies but you know i will also say that while that was all happening you know the the the guy that just wants to draw um had never changed andy and um and even though we were doing computer animation i was still very obsessed with drawing and so i was always looking at art history books looking at art books not necessarily film studies actually and um and i remember being in irvine southern california and my um ex-wife was getting a haircut and right next to the salon there's a bookstore and uh and yeah sure enough i was poking around and you know the thing was is that you sort of have to be ready for new inspiration i would say that's the key thing the information was always there the art history chapters were there and books that I had in college.

14:43It's just, I wasn't interested in them. Right. And so suddenly after sort of, I don't want to say somebody grubberist, I've been, you know, sort of had these great successes with these movies, I was looking for new inspiration. And so now I was suddenly interested in less in movies, less in cartoons and interested to go back into the well of art history to see if I could draw up new inspiration. And so, yeah, in this little bookstore, I found this book about, I think it was called Myths from India or Hindu Myths. And yeah, I recognized the imagery and I was like, you know what? Suddenly I didn't have an allergic reaction to the psychedelic imagery or the, you know, the sacred imagery really that my mom and dad had.

15:25And again, it was framed in, you know, in the place that I love, which was, you know, my parents liked to go to the temple. I like, my temples were bookstores, you know, and art books. And so it was just the right context at the right time in my life, really. And were you aware of like, did it feel like a moment at that time? Because I mean, it seems like so much of your journey since then can be pointed back to that bookstore. Is that real? So, you know, I would say it's less about the bookstore and I would say all of my journey is really pointed back to my parents, right? Yeah, sure. You know, it's like the bookstore was just a catalyst or it was just a place which gave the same information that my parents were trying to share with me in a different context.

16:07So, you know, the thing I'd like to say, and I really believe it, Andy, and the reason I've been able to sort of commit myself to the work that's so inspiring to me is, to me, like, you know, a subject might change, things that I fall in love with may change as well. But this sort of constancy in terms of like, this is my mom and dad, this is a base level of how I grew up and it has really informed everything about who I am, how I came to be as an artist. And so I don't think that's going to change. And it's just such a deep and meaningful place for me to draw inspiration from mom and dad and, you know, sort of that cultural assimilation that it's less about the book and more about like, oh, this is a way I could honor my mom and dad and honor, golly, you know, this huge sacrifice that they made from leaving their culture, coming to a different culture for me to ignore it.

17:03And then sort of for me to make amends, really. Actually, it's less amends, you know, Andy, like the thing I like to say is, you know, it's like my parents are trying to give me their hand-me-downs, you know, it's like the or like their favorite, you know, possession. But it's like, you know, I just take it as like, you know, it's like their favorite code or something like their faith. And it's like, that's fine. It fits you. doesn't fit me you know and it's like and the way i made it fit for me in my life was actually it's less about throwing away their code it's more like hmm what are the elements of their faith their culture their traditions that make sense for me which is a storytelling the meaning how do i sort of remix it and recontextualize it redesign it like as we do as artists to make it fit for my context for my generation for my you know insane psychology and so that's really been the work is respecting and honoring this thing that you know was so gifted to me from my parents and all of my community and then figuring out a way to make it make friends with all my art school and pixar friends like those two communities would never overlap you know the venn diagram so it just feels like a really fun bridge to sort of take my parents community and be like hey here all my art school nerd friends.

18:20I'm like, you guys should meet, you know? Yeah. That's that. I definitely get that. Especially as a dad now, I feel like, um, if I think of my, the comparison for me as a parent, I'm, I remember when my, when we first had our first kid just kind of pushing like fraggle rock onto them and then being like, dad, no, I don't like this, but Your lens almost feels like Jim Henson taking his grandparents' coat and turning it into Kermit the Frog and taking this thing that was given to them and making it their own. And it's almost like for me too, there's like a, in terms of story, there's like a spiritual home that you have, that your culture and your upbringing and where you lived at the time and what your parents were doing, that they have this network that they put in your head.

19:17And you'd love to escape it in some ways, but in other ways, it's just where so much power comes from. Um, what, what is it about Hindu myths that do it for you now? And why does this feel like an endless well? Yeah. Oh my God. You articulated that so well. Like I love that image of like Henson, like taking, you know, this coat and making Kermit the frog out of the map. It's beautiful. Thanks. And yeah, you know, I, I, I did feel that in terms of the lightning bolt of like, oh, this is an endless well. And that was reading that book and suddenly seeing a sort of less about seeing and more about reading who this character, who these characters are.

19:58So it was it was it was actually a depiction of Shiva, his wife, Bharati, and his son, Ganesha, the elephant headed son, as well as his other son, Karthikeya, the one with six heads. And it was like a really startling image, Andy, which was like the dad is basically kind of naked and, you know, unwashed, matted hair, the whole thing with snakes around his body. The mom is clad in these beautiful clothes and the kids are equally freakish. And so it was like, oh, my God, this feels like exactly like my family. Like dad is a total hermit like Shiva, you know, like wants to renounce the world. mom is alive and wants to you know fill the world with generosity and food and like life and that's symbolically what shiva and parpati represent and then here's me and my brother you know these you know ganesha and karta kea and so once i started to see that you know you know you learn at pixar very you know in a very sort of deep way stories meanings archetypes characters i just felt like man these myths have all of this and it's so rich and you know it's it's time tested as well andy it's like these stories have not gone away and there's a reason um they're really good and they really have something to say and i think the work that we were trying to do at pixar was to do meaningful work and to do work that said something you know and could help people and so it's not that i'm here to like i don't know prophesize or like sell a you know a tradition or a faith it's not at all what i'm interested in doing what i am interested is the philosophy behind what shiva represents what parvati represents what's ganesha represents the elephant head of god that you know like what is the symbol why the elephant head well god he's the remover of obstacle why is the remover of obstacle well he's an elephant what can what look and stop an elephant, not much at that time.

21:56And so symbolically just said so much. And then the more you sort of scratched on each of the archetypes, the deeper the well kept going. And so, yeah, I don't know. It just felt like here's some ingredients that my friends would never have access to because it's just so often, almost 99 % of the time is just locked up in, you know, in, you know, sort of arcane text or I don't want to say religion's not fun, but just in a very serious kind of context and I don't know and to me I just kept seeing it as stories and great characters and really just timeless meaning and I just kept glomming onto those things as my North Star and I don't know so long as those three elements are there I just feel like it's really important to continue to remind people and to share and and again make it into versions where, you know, like you and I and our kids or our colleagues can, you know, find a way in, you know?

22:55Yeah. And I, uh, I love what you said about seeing your family in it because that's kind of a middle ground to how I was experiencing the show where, and I wondered if you had this in mind. I'm really into like Jungian psychology and then also IFS is kind of a different exploration of this same idea, the eternal family systems of the mom and dad in your head and all of these characters. And I can see these different entities within me. And I love that you're tapping into a universal thing. Like you said, they're time tested. So you You have the macro of the out there in the universe, the middle of the family dynamics, and then the micro of inside you.

23:43So there's this universal side to all this stuff. And yeah, it definitely is super rich. Was that on your mind as you're making these different things? Yeah, for sure. I was very excited once I started to discover that. That wasn't at all apparent when I was growing up. My parents didn't really have the language to sort of share the philosophy. They had the rituals. Sure. And oftentimes, you know, the rituals can kind of overtake these great kind of, you know, meaningful like philosophy. And so I started going backwards and I started reading more about the philosophical intent for the artist to inspire these sacred images.

24:24And so, again, I was like, oh, this is incredible. And again, you know, for me, it's always like, well, how does it fit for me? and why is it useful to remind people? And to me, you know, it just felt like it's so important to show the Hindu pantheon is wonderful, in my opinion, because it just has all these, you know, perfectly flawed, you know, sort of symbols, you know, like Shiva's not perfect, Bharatiya's not perfect, Ganesha isn't perfect. And in that way, they're so perfect because they embrace these aspects that are within all of us. so we all have aspects of wanting to retreat and you know kind of be a hermit there's also aspects that we want to nourish and be in the world and you know as well as become a you know obstacle remover as well as you know be a sort of god of war like kratikeya and so yeah i just feel like all these energies all these personality types are within us all in varying degrees and seeing that sort of reflected in these myths and seeing how these characters used tapped into, you know, Kali's energy or Swati's energy to tackle a certain issue, at least in the Gygods episodes was just so fun.

25:34And I thought would make a really fun way for both adults as well as kids to like, oh, I see what this character is about. Oh, I understand what this, you know, where I could use a little Swati power, where I could use a little Kali power, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And also, it reminds me of in the first episode, it kind of explains why they're called the gi gods. And I love that you're saying this thing of, you know, they're not perfect. They have all these like complexities, which is really unique, I think, to the Hindu mythology because that's not always the case in other, you know, the Greek gods kind of have that, But, you know, the Jewish history is a lot more like this is the perfect one and we are the imperfect ones or, you know, whatever, something in between there.

26:24I'm not a scholar in Jewish studies, but that's kind of the vibe that I get, at least maybe in the manifestation of modern day Christianity that kind of built on that. But again, not an expert, but it seems unique. But it relates to, I really picked up on something powerful and valuable about the name of the show. It kind of got me into this mindset of positive psychology, seeing yourself as, especially your kids, as not having that, being good inside that kind of thought process. Could you explain a little bit about what the name means? Oh, yeah, sure. So, yeah, you know, that was definitely the first question when we took that when we were first creating the show, we sort of shared it with some colleagues in India.

27:14And they're like, Sanjay, show's great, totally fine. But why are they called Ghi gods? You know, most people in America might not know the word Ghi, but in India, Ghi means butter. It's like calling them butter gods. It's like, what the heck? Why are you calling them butter gods? And so, you know, the explanation I give in the show is slightly different than the one that sort of I experienced, which was, you know, my experience with Gi was sitting next to my father every morning. You know, the rituals that are, you know, my father sort of practiced that I was sort of forced to participate in practicing as well was, you know, every morning you sort of wake up and what do you do?

27:46You turn on a light, you know, you feed yourself breakfast and you get yourself dressed. That's exactly what he would do for the Hindu days, these little stone statues in his shrine. He would light a dia. He would offer them flowers. He'd offer them food. But it wasn't just any kind of light that he would offer. He would offer a lamp made with ghee. So ghee is purified butter. Basically, you boil it and you get all the impurities out. And so I like this word Gi because it sort of also reminded me of be happy, Gi happy. And the meaning for me meant this idea that, you know, there's just a lot of stuff that you don't need to, you know, it's this idea of when you boil things down to its essence, you create Gi.

28:33And the essence of these little deities are they're pure and perfect, just like all of us really. and anybody that sort of tells you otherwise, I don't know, it just makes me sad. You know, we're all sort of these luminous, pure, perfect beings, in my opinion, especially little kids, I'm sorry. Yeah, totally. Yeah, and I love that. I think that is a great thing to build on and put out into the world of preschool television. I thought that was fantastic.

29:25A lot of creators have this journey of leaving home, going out into trying to belong in a different world. So for you, it was animation and then Pixar. And you really got to do the work to belong. That's a big part of like getting the chops and all that stuff. But sometimes that process can really kind of grind you down to lose your flavor of who you are. And so I know a lot of artists get stuck on this moment where they want to start incorporating things that are different about them. But all the things that are different about them come with like self-consciousness. And so I imagine as you were moving through some of these stories, things like I remember seeing Sanjay's super team and just thinking, I've never seen anything like this on the big screen like this.

30:18And it was incredible. And I thought, you know, if I were in your shoes, there had to have been some hurdles moving towards that, right? So do you have any insight about like when artists are finally like, I want to be my own thing, but not like that. Not like the way that's actually me. Do you have anything you can speak to on that? Right. You're absolutely right. It does feel like every artist will kind of hit that, not hit a wall. It almost says, the words that we use, like hitting a wall, you feel stuck. All these words that we sort of use almost kind of imply that it's a very negative place versus like, I like the Kurt Vonnegut thing, which is like, it's the cracks that let the light in to let life grow really.

31:04And so it's the stuck is a signal of actually you're ready to grow. It's not that you're, it's not a pain, it's not a bad place. It's actually a signal that it's like, oh, you're actually willing, you're ready to, um, to keep growing, you know? And so, um, in terms of tips to sort of get to, um, how to manage that. Yeah. Like number one, think about it, you know, see that and receive that as a signal that, you know, there's more, there's more in store for you, which is exciting actually. But, you know, I do think in order to do more, like, just like you're saying, even to get to that first stage of like Pixar trying to, you know, sort of emulate your idols, you do have to do the work, which is to say by being in the mentors, you know, by being in the master's workshop, it does afford a lot of time to sort of learn their, you know, their techniques, master their craft.

31:51But part of that is to also master who you're, what you're about, you know, for every artist, you sort of have to do that self-work. Like you're saying that union stuff yeah you really have to do that that internal journey uh to get to the next place and so um you know i found that um some of the tips i'll say is it does help sometimes to think back at the places that you are ignoring the places that you are ashamed to look those are good places to i mean i mean i guess in the union work it's like shadow work i suppose you know yeah it's like there's kind of rich i mean it's perfect for artists musicians all of us it's like that's a deep well to draw from in terms of now you're in a stronger spot you've learned your trade you actually have the courage now to kind of look at the monster look in the shadows to see what's there and it's not that i was trying to like oh god this is a brave act i want to look in the shadows it's more i was looking at the things that i couldn't avoid anymore i couldn't avoid this this past that i had i couldn't avoid my skin i couldn't avoid my name and yet i was trying everything in my power andy to avoid it and so i don't know i know that's kind of head shrinky you know but um i do feel like to get to that next place it is more of a head game and you really do need to kind of go internal to not just master your trade but now master yourself really to figure out what more can you share and And what kind of good you could do in the world and how you will be able to sustain it for the long term, really.

33:31Yeah. And I also acknowledge like, you know, sometimes I think when you go to art school, they should just have like one of your prime staff should just be a therapist. Because you're opening up these doors. You don't know what's going to come out. like it i the further i go the more i'm like it's irresponsible to be like talking about creativity without a degree because this is this it can vary if it's good if it's on i think on a on a good path of authenticity and trying to get more of yourself in the work and be passionate about it i think it hopefully does move it doesn't have to be i mean like uh i think you're the different levels of work that you do some of them have more on the surface than others that those kind of layers, no matter what you do it, you have to have some level of self in it.