527 - Visual Journaling: Generate Ideas, Mindfulness and Creative Voice with Samantha Dion Baker

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 pimp talk.

0:20There is a lot of talk about the mental health benefits that come with being creative, making art, making stuff. But I haven't heard a lot of people talk about how creativity, when you have the wrong relationship to it, can actually hurt your mental health. It can be a net negative. And if you have got to a place where your creativity and your relationship to it feels toxic, like you can't remember why you used to love this, why it used to add joy and a meditative practice and beauty to your life. And now it feels like a nag or it feels like it's just mess with your identity. If you have lost the love of creating Today's episode, I think, will really help you.

1:12I am interviewing Samantha Dion Baker, the author and illustrator of the book, Draw Your Adventures and Draw Your Day. And we have a great chat. There's just so much to take from this one. And I think it will help you find that joy and relationship to your creativity that can make it more of a positive impact on your well-being, not just in your personal life, but also in your professional relationship with your creativity, if you've got that going on. We talk about falling in love with creativity. We talk about having more ideas. We talk about how to create low stakes, low pressure creativity that allows for your best ideas to come out.

1:57At the end, I'm going to come back. We talk about this at the end of the chat. It's a creative call to adventure called the unchosen adventure. And I'll come back and just kind of put a cap on that. But this idea I feel is a real, not just creative game changer, but a life changer. It is a way to embrace the difficult things in your life with your creativity to create, to transform that stress from distress to eustress, to stress that is additive in a positive way in your life. So I'll be back to kind of add a little thoughts to that. But for now, here's my chat with Samantha Yon-Binger.

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4:23but i'm really excited to talk to you about your new book and the books that you do draw your adventure adventures is your new one um because uh and the listeners know i've been kind of in a zone of re-embracing drawing as a coping mechanism as like being a neurodivergent person it's like a way of being present, tapping in. I did more drawing on this recent summer vacation that I did than I probably ever have on a vacation. So I'm really excited to talk to you about it because this has been a much longer process. I've always drawn, but not this observational kind of carrying the sketchbook kind of thing.

5:05So I'm excited to learn from you. Nice. Okay. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about this. This like observational drawing habit has become really foundational to everything you do. But I wondered if you could talk about before this recent stage where you've been making these books and doing this observational drawing as an adult, what was going on right before that, before this entered your life? Yeah, I was a graphic designer for 20 years. And 60, 70 % of it was in the art world, which was my passion and sort of what I grew up in. And I went to a fine art school. But design seemed practical. And it sort of just appealed to my different abilities.

5:54And I just thought I could get a good job. And it worked out. And I had a good career. I worked for myself for a really long time. And then I had my kids. It was just a really interesting time when I realized I was fighting with this desire to keep working, but also be there for them. And what it meant, like as the mom in the family and kind of having discussions with my husband about like both of us having our careers and how could we support both of us. And it was a little bit of a struggle. I also really, really knew in my heart that the years that mattered were when they were when they started having memories.

6:39I just knew that by three or four, you know, usually parents and mothers take off time with their newborn babies. And that is obviously a very important time. But once they got a little bit older, I wanted to travel with them. I wanted to really be with them. And I have two boys. They always felt like sort of different than me in so many ways. But like these creatures that I made somehow and like, I just really wanted to be there with them and get to know them. And, you know, I didn't want to sit at the computer and do this work anymore, but I didn't want to stop being creative. And there's all these stories about women like trying to get back into the workforce after being home with their kids.

7:24And that scared me. And I didn't there wasn't a clear plan that drawing would somehow become a new career. but it was a way for me to remember their things and also keep my self off of computer screens and and with them I could bring it with me I could just sit there and while they're playing soccer or when they were doing you know homework or whatever and and draw things there's selfish reasons but it was also for me to be to be with my kids so and you know it's a diary essentially it's a diary. So it's, it's compounded the benefits I talk about in my books, there's compounded benefits to it, to my practice.

8:05And that is just really being present, seeing and absorbing what's happening in the moment, getting better at drawing through a regular practice, which is something I just really wanted to do. I just wanted to get better. And then, you know, and then having a diet, like a log of our, of their lives in my life. Yeah. You know, having something to, to reference and look back on. That makes tons of sense. The thing that sticks out for me is you have, everyone has this relationship to creativity. We all have things that get in the way or temporarily derail our relationship to creativity. and I don't know about you, but for me, the times that I've felt really derailed, I have this tendency, this kind of all or nothing thing that says, I want to go from zero to 60.

9:01If I'm going to get back on it, I want to like, I want to go all in. And it kind of made me feel like it's like a relationship with an ex where you're like, okay, I know we haven't been together for two years, but let's get married. And you're like, hold on. Whoa, just a little bit. And I like what you're saying. Like for me, looking back on those times, I realized it was actually something small and habitual, like little, you know, dating creativity again, just like just getting a little bit. And I like what you're saying about just drawing, just like, okay, well, you wanted to be creative. And I can see in my life, there were lots of times where I was really trying to inject more creativity into it.

9:43And it only worked if I started to just kind of let it become part of my life again, rather than be like, all right, I'm going full-time again, or I'm going, you know, I'm changing my career overnight or whatever it is. That's the temptation. Do you feel like that too? That pole? Was that, did it feel like, oh, is this enough to even be just drawing or? Well, you know, in the very beginning, I didn't have the confidence to just be like, this is what I want to do now. Let's do it. You know, I want to be an illustrator. I always did work by hand. The school that I went to was very, I mean, they really encouraged as much analog work as possible.

10:19Even when they introduced all the design, I went to Cooper Union. They have an amazing design program. I wasn't fully immersed in it because you don't have to major there, which is a good thing and a bad thing about the school. I did a little bit, I like did a little bit of everything. I was kind of in like adjacent to the, the ones who were hardcore design or typography or whatever. And, but I did a lot of work by hand. And so the interesting thing when I first started drawing was designing the pages and having fun with my handwriting and lettering and playing with that, because that's what was comfortable.

10:57And then I was slowly introducing, Oh, maybe I could draw this or maybe I could draw that, whatever it was. But then it was like these compositions and playing with that. So design was definitely like in my mind when I started in a way that it wasn't drawing. I mean, it was, but it wasn't, you know, it was a mixture. So I didn't know, like you're saying, I wasn't like, Oh my gosh, this is what I want to do. I just, I don't know. I always had a sketchbook and I always wrote and doodled. So it was like literally doodling through, through experiences. And then I realized one day that I was like drawing our day, you know, and that's where the draw your day came.

11:45That was your first book, right? Yeah. Did you all the way through your graphic design career, were you keeping a sketchbook? because I know like even before college, right? You were visual journaling, right? Like in your personal time. Did you take a big break between that? Yeah. Could you tell us like, so what was it like before college or before design? What was that relationship to drawing like? When I was younger? Yeah. I grew up in art studios. So my grandmother was a sculptor and my mother was an illustrator. and my sister is an artist and she went to cooper union before me uh it and my grandfather was a painter and it really was my life like the question i always say is would i have a career in in the in a creative career or what or maybe i wouldn't you know like it was just sort of almost a guarantee just because of the and it was a lot of women too which is nice yeah i oh yeah i always had i always had a sketchbook of some kind, but I was, it was a lot of doodles, a lot of like, kind of in a way, it's funny, a little bit similar to, to what I do now.

13:03If you look back on like high school doodles and drawings, I always liked playing with my handwriting, but I didn't think I could draw that well. My sister was the one who could draw. And for me, drawing meant like, this is something that I think that we were going to get into a little bit is that like drawing things as they are, getting likeness, being accurate, and not drawing like you do, which is like more from your memory and from your head and in making caricatures, which is something that I've always wanted to do. But I just don't think that way. Because it's been ingrained in my head that drawing means drawing the thing, you know, I'm still struggling with that sometimes.

13:44And it's almost like when I teach, I'm like, do as I say, not as I do, you know, because I don't want people to be so stuck in getting likeness and exactness. But for me, it's just, it's just my thing, you know, how I draw. I'm not sure if I'm straying from your question, but I, it was always there. I always had some sort of, like, I grew up with pencils and things around me. Like it was like a diary too, right? Yeah. I mean, I sat and made drawings in my grandmother's studio when she, when we were there. Yeah. And I have one like in our bathroom now from when I was five like I drew for for I've been drawing forever but when I went to college and I started studying design I just stopped drawing and everything was pretty much from first or second year when like Adobe Illustrator was starting I'm aging myself but you know it that I was right there on the cusp of all of it and um you know everything just became learning Illustrator and Photoshop and And it was all on the computer and Quark Express.

14:51Remember that? So, you know, it just, it was, it was all that. And printmaking. I did printmaking. I did a lot of letterpress. There's a working letterpress studio at Cooper. And in a way, it was like a way of avoiding really drawing because I didn't think I was the painter or drawer in the family, you know. Part of why I ask is because I'm really on the show. I've talked about the hero's journey a lot for years and years because it's just kind of a I'm really I'm a picture book maker and writer. And so I'm really into storytelling. And I also just find it kind of on a symbolic, spiritual level interesting.

15:29but one of the things that I think is when you start comparing the hero's journey to the creative journey I think one thing that is misunderstood or I misunderstood it for a long time is that the hero's journey is really about kind of leaving authenticity leaving who you are that's leaving home and going out into a place where you're kind of in the unknown you're kind of in the discomfort zone and you're trying to see if there's anything there that you can return home with because there's a whole it's a whole cyclical journey and so i think a lot of myself and a lot of other creatives don't realize those journeys outside of your comfort zone journeys that maybe feel inauthentic or uncomfortable are super essential and that really is a huge part of the journey.

16:22And so it sounds like that's kind of what happened to you where you had this home base where this was a natural thing you were doing, even if you had a uneasy relationship to your talent. And then you spent this large period of time in this other world that maybe felt less comfortable, maybe less interesting, even though it sounds like you liked elements of it. So I'm just wondering if, as you came back to drawing as kind of your primary medium. What do you feel like you, you touched on this a little bit, but what do you feel like you brought to your drawing from that graphic design career? Well, so much, so much that in the beginning, so much that it was really more about one thing than the other, you know, more, more about the design than the drawing.

17:15But But I think that doing just basic principles of this natural sense of composition and balance and color, there's so many things that I feel like are significant from that time in my life that it's subtle and I take for granted. So I don't know, you know, I talk about things like, oh my gosh, obvious, you know, but it's not obvious to everyone. It sounds like, you know, as you're saying that, I'm thinking it sounds like being in design where representing something in a realistic way is almost never the goal. What the goal ends up being is aesthetic and communication and doing all of these things outside of needing this very narrow skill that you felt like was the end-all be-all of making art.

18:09It sounds like it gave you a bunch of tools and a bunch of different ways to think about the value of something aesthetically or in terms of communication or connection that didn't mean you had to be this, you know, master of representation in your work. Yeah, it didn't. And everything I did before I started drawing the thing or people. people um uh was never it was never about representing anything it was just yeah like I said colored balance composition you know the design of the thing and it's interesting too because the work that I find I want to hang on my walls and be around in my world are not perfect, realistic drawings of things.

19:05The drawing for me, and I'm sort of going in another tangent here, but it's related, is that the drawing for me is a feeling, right? It's like pushing myself in a way. It's seeing if I can do the thing and seeing what I can accomplish and going through and actually almost like getting addicted to those feelings of like, ick of like, oh no, you know, like I just got addicted to it. Like, how could I, when would I be satisfied and how can I keep pushing myself? And, you know, this last year I saw, I had a photograph because I love photography and I take a lot of pictures and there was, I took a photograph of a guy like whizzing by and then there was a vase in front of him that was in focus.

19:56And I was like, can I, can I draw that? How can I paint that? Like, I just constantly want to see if I can paint the thing or draw the thing. And, but it's not about selling it or the result or appealing to anybody else other than like going through that process in my sketchbook. I do share it. So it's kind of, it is for an audience, but I never intend to sell any of it because it's all part of my memories in my life so I'm totally going on a tangent no this is great this is great no it's it's because I think you're getting at something very interesting I think I am too I but the design and and all those skills that I had before are like very separate to these little challenges that I give myself on a daily basis in the drawing but within it within the framework it's still all it's still all like you know I need to make sure that the page looks finished and it's framed and has a nice composition and there's a color balance and you know so I'm kind of caught between the two it's an interesting thing and I think that's why I've been able to publish books and have my work stand out in some way because it's it kind of does all these different random things but it's still just a journal yeah I think you're You're capturing, I think there's two really, really essential elements for a creative practice to work.

21:26I think you have both of them. The one I think you're talking about right now is the enjoying the process. You have to, this, ideally it's something that you are getting inherent value from that process of doing it. And then there's this other side that I've heard in your books, you talk about this, which I think is about, like you say, a feeling, but it's about, to me, it's about taste. So it's not about skill. It's about, do you have an eye for pictures? And I don't just think that means aesthetically. I mean, I think it means knowing, like you say, what to take the image of, what tells the story.

22:07And when you say that you don't have an audience in mind, the only challenge I would say to that is, I've heard you say something that's almost contrary to that, which is your audience is you in the future and it's you in the future and you're trying to do something for that person. What do you think, does that sound true to you? And if so, what do you think you're trying to do for future you with these drawings? Oh gosh. Some of it's really just practical. Like I'm going to the place. I have a bad memory. I want to remember, you know, the place where we dinner, whatever, like some of my pages on travel and when I'm, when I'm exploring a new place, it's just that simple.

22:49So it's for my future self to be able to reference, reference later on, or to reference for other people. Like we were in upstate New York a few months ago and we went to a restaurant and I was like, I think I've been here. And then I went back on my files and I was like, we've been here. So like, because my memory was, you know, a little fuzzy, and some people would have been like, so clear on it. And I was like, Oh, but so it's practical that way. But I do think the growth is an interesting thing. And I do think, you know, in all of our creative journeys, it's so interesting to be like, you know, you take two steps forward, one step back constantly.

23:30And so when I look back at some older work, I'm either it's cringe, or whatever but a lot of times it's also really beautiful to see how far i've come or really think you know i want to get back there that was so much purer or you know so the record of keeping the i mean i wish i made more work outside of my sketchbook which is something that i hope to be able to do more of it's an amazing thing because i've been able to monetize and make something for other people out of this pure pure authentic just throwing it out like experience every day in my sketchbook that is like you know if I couldn't write books about it it really would just be like time and time and time of pure just art for art's sake kind of thing and just getting it out you know so So, but I, you know, I've got the Instagram and I've got the, you know, I've been able to do something with it, which is kind of awesome.

24:34So I want to add one thing here. I want to push you on this because I think there's something, there's even more stuff going on here where you're saying it's practical. It is practical what you're doing in terms of like, oh, you want to remember this, but But I think there's a edge, there's a real editorial eye in the things that you choose to capture in order to create that memory, which is a, I like to think of illustration. My favorite definition of it is writing with pictures. And it feels akin to a great novelist knowing which specific details to hone in on to make something come alive. And you're doing that, yes, for your future self, but you're also doing that for an audience by just you're having this like empathy for future you of like what's going to make this thing, this memory come to life?

25:30Because you don't often capture the obvious stuff. No. Do you have a do you want to could you talk about the mural that you painted when you dropped your son off? Because I feel like that really highlights this idea. Yes. This is really important part of my work and my message for other people too. Yeah. Well, so for that story, there was a lot going on in my son. He's okay. He did my virtual book party with me and he was awesome and he let me share this. So he doesn't mind, but he took an unknown like he just left college right and he decided to live with his girlfriend in bed-sty in brooklyn like just yeah at 19 and i was just like what the hell is happening we didn't you know like in a way it's awesome that i raised a kid who like knew exactly what he needed to do um and our closeness never stopped and i but i was definitely like not thrilled.

26:34So, you know, complicated feelings going on as the parent. Yeah, I get that. I mean, it was a moment of like stress and I was on that bus and I, you know, I said how I drew the woman across from me and she's just an average like woman who I love this idea of being in a, in a city like Brooklyn where you just cross paths with all sorts of people and what you have in common is so little, but also significant enough. Like wherever she was going, we were so different, but she was just like on her phone right across from me. We were like the only two people on the bus. Brooklyn was kind of whizzing by and it was a part of Brooklyn that I had never spent a lot of time in.

27:16Anyway, there was just so many layers to that moment on the bus. And I never take buses. So, but the GPS told me that was the best way. So I always take the subway. And so like, anyway, it was just, there was so much significance to just sitting across from this woman, but it had nothing to do with Ian, my son. And it had nothing to do with the obvious of like what the grocery bags I had at my feet or like, you know, whatever you might think of me drawing like his department building or us holding laundry or whatever you might think. And I wrote about that. And so I knew I wanted to draw her and I sketched a little bit.

27:57And then I got off the bus and it was like, stopped me on my tracks. And I was just like, this is so sick. Like, I don't even know how to put it in words, but seeing that mural. And it said, call, it says, call your mom. And I think there's a series of them, whoever the artist is. And I kind of feel bad. I didn't credit the artist in the book because I don't know who it is, but, but it's right there. Like at the end of his block, he's going to see that thing. And it just, every time you went, you know, there was so much meaning to seeing that in that moment. And that's a story that, that's a coincidence, right?

28:34I mean, that's just like a perfect story. And so that was why I put it in the introduction, because sometimes life just hands you these things. and if you're not if but if you're not looking you'll miss them and I was so in my head in that time you know I totally could have missed it I I just feel like there's there that's the thing that's so significant about my practice that I want others to see it doesn't matter how you draw it but life hands you these things that are you know whether you're writing about it drawing it in the abstract, drawing it the way I draw it exactly pretty much as it was, you know, like, however you express it, you want to hold on to certain things like this.

29:19Like, it's just, it's just a moment that you need to reflect on in some way and not let it just pass by. And however you slow down and do that is, that's why I say it doesn't matter how you draw. And I stress that all the time. And it's, it's a, it's a hard thing when you draw in a certain way, And it's so practiced and it's by somebody who's been drawing for 50 years or whatever, you know, 52. And I literally probably on and off for my entire life. So, like, it's hard for me to say, well, you don't have to draw like me, but here are my drawings, you know. So that's kind of a weird place. But that's not what art is about.

29:59You know, I went to a fine arts school where the goal was to create art in a unique way, like ego. Like we want to, you want to be different. Like you don't want to hate things like everyone else in the room. So like, it doesn't matter how you express it, but the storytelling in these moments and savoring it and sitting with it and thinking like, wow, you just have to trust life. some things are just, you know, and, and obviously he's doing amazing and he's back in college and everything's okay. And it's just like, you know, you can be so anxious and miss these things, you know? So I don't know.

30:38That's. I love it. I'm going to show just for people that are watching on YouTube. Here is the bus drawing, uh, of the person that was on the phone. And, uh, this is the call your mom mural. And I, I love that moment. Uh, knowing here's this mural at the end of his street. He's going to see it all the time. It's such a movie moment. The thing that I'm like convicted about is I have this weird, and I imagine a lot of creative people feel this way. Um, because I think it's also a neurodivergent kind of thing. And I have this conflicted experience where I love to make art so much so that I want, sometimes I'm tempted to go into art making mode in an almost escapist way, like escaping reality.