Dare to let ideas have a home - Melissa Castan

0:09I do agree. That's exactly what I unintentionally created. I've been wanting not to create a physical home for people that want to share their ideas, but as well as a person, embody somebody that can be a home for people to share their ideas, their path. and the stuff they feel most afraid of sharing or feeling that they don't belong. So I created in myself a space where I feel that my creativity belongs. And if I can create that feeling towards others, that makes me feel so fulfilled. And I have a past. Still in progress.

0:53Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming. It's about the waves that look us under and the strange, stubborn grace with which we surface. My name is Radha Malinic. I'm an author, creative and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom I call forever daring humans. those in pursuit of an extraordinary life. Every week I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories, value, and I can only ask you, how will you dare forever? This podcast is inspired by my upcoming book titled Daring Forever, which is now available for pre-order out in October.

1:41My guest today once got lost in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter with no map and no phone, and yet she's come out with a life philosophy. Mel Castan is a Mexico City-born animator, illustrator and a community builder who's spent most of the last decade building a career and a home for others. In this conversation, we talk about growing up with retired Army General Grandfather turned into a spiritual seeker, her ADHD as a source of creative obsession, and many experiences that changed her path. We get behind-the-scenes information on her community building for fellow animators and has second space for creative well-being beyond networking.

2:18All point to one simple direction. Dare to let ideas have a home. It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Mel Kastan.

2:30Hello, Mel. Welcome to Daring Forever. How are you doing today? Very good, Ruthie. And thank you so much for inviting me to be here with you. You're most welcome. It'll be exciting to talk to you because I've been following your journey for the last few years. It seems so good to meet you. And your journey is fascinating. And I believe, in my opinion, you're one of the people who lives the daring forever life. And daring forever doesn't always necessarily mean that you're doing something crazy or risky or silly. It's about pursuing the things that you otherwise regret never starting. So, for those who have not heard of Mel Castan, who are you, what do you do, and how would you introduce yourself?

3:04This might sound a little bit chaotic, but I'm Mel. I am from Mexico City. I started my creative journey by working in advertising and starting advertising in Mexico City, working in several agencies, startup studios, different sectors that I just really wanted to explore. And after a few years, I ended up moving to Barcelona to study my master's in animation, motion graphics, by trying to figure out if I could maybe work in mapping. I just wanted to do something more experimental so yeah for now I've been living nine years in Barcelona figuring out different areas I didn't end up working in mapping at the end I did explore it but my journey has taken me to different places so it's been interesting.

3:56Before we rewind it back to Mexico City what is the type of work that you do now? So right now I am a little bit of jack of all trades Yes, I work as an animator and illustrator, a little bit of production, even production. So I have a full-time job, but at the same time, some freelancers and some opportunities to work in different type of projects that are quite interesting. So, yes. Would you say you're a bit of a specialist generalist, looking at all the interests of where it can take you? Yeah, I guess that this part of, and I wanted to mention this at some point, but this is part of ADHD people.

4:35that we really want to delve into different interests and we have so many things that we are curious about that we just can't leave them apart. So I have so many interests and so many little things that I really love to just go into super deep. So yeah, that made me a generalist, I think. Yeah, there's something about ADHD. I think I've seen the word that somebody used with ADHD and they said it's an obsession. When you want to do something, you're obsessed about it so relentlessly that you go after it. And I think the more I think about all the previous guests and all the future guests, we are really potentially 99 % of us bound by this obsession about what we want to do and how we want to do it.

5:14Before we go to your work now, I really want to take you back to Mexico City because I was thinking about you as a guest on this show. And then I realized that a few weeks ago I interviewed Pablo Marincón, who is from Mexico City, lives in Madrid, had a similar story to yours, came to study and never left. stayed in Madrid ever since. And in your case, you went to Barcelona to study motion and never left. And I want to know what you brought with. What was your upbringing and the introduction to creativity? When did you realize that creative obsession is a thing? The creative obsession has been there since forever.

5:48I think since I'm three years old, I've been a very avid drawer since I'm really young. And that's actually something that I picked up lately, but I just knew that I was going to be in the creative field since I was like maybe eight years old. I just didn't know how. All my time I thought that I was going to enter proper art school because I really love to draw and illustrate. But I thought that maybe advertising would have different options for me, either in radio, TV, or I don't know. It just seemed exciting back then and ended up exploring that site just to have a nice introduction to different worlds and different disciplines.

6:31Would you remember being surrounded when you were growing up? Because Mexico City is a vibrant place and your idea of exploring advertising must have come from something. How did you find your way to it? Because it doesn't seem always that straightforward because you either like consumerism, you like brands or you like creativity. What was your angle onto it? Can I be super honest? My grandma just found the school and she was like, maybe this is interesting for you. She took me there. My family, they have always pushed me to explore different things. They always supported me when it comes to me being artistic or creative.

7:05So when she saw this, I think it was even in a magazine that she saw this university. And she was like, you should check this. It sounds interesting for you. Why don't we go? And as soon as I entered the school and I took, I don't know, a first introduction class for my career, I was like, yeah, this is it. Let's do it. Sounds fun. Do you remember the feeling? Do you remember like when you felt with that first introduction? Did you have that full body sensation going, yeah, thanks grandma, you found me? Yeah, I think that's how we creatives have this intuition that it's just there, right? It sounds fun.

7:40It seems like I would have a lot of options to explore and basically have fun in this while studying this. Tell me about a family push because your grandma must have known where your future might lie, Were you surrounded by creativity? Did you come from pragmatic, creative? What sort of background did you come from? This is hilarious. So I come from a military family, actually. So I was the first creative of my family. I broke the pattern and gave them a few headaches, of course, because they didn't know that me being a rebel or creative in the family was going to be easy. But yeah, my grandpa is a retired general of the army in Mexico City.

8:23He was in the army for 40 years. He retired exactly when I was born at 40. And then they started a spiritual journey. So it was very interesting because I grew up with them, trying to figure out what this spiritual journey, they just changed their lives completely. So the first few years of my life was me joining them to an ashram in Mexico, Sai Baba or maybe to the Tibet house to meditate or maybe to hermetism classes or Dianetics even. They explored everything and I just joined them. So I absorbed not just the discipline of my grandpa, but as well a lot of the spiritual days with them. So that's quite interesting.

9:06That is fascinating that you go retired army general going to meditate in the Buddhist temple. I mean, would you reckon that it happened at the right time? for them and for you that they've changed the course of their careers and their change of lives because they potentially have to start being open and absorbing to more different elements, right? Yeah, could be. I don't know if this is astrology thing, but as a Pisces arriving to a family that is so square, all the family is changing and turning to spirituality. It's crazy. So all the family ended up in Reiki. Then we ended up studying Kabbalah, still Kabbalists, all of us.

9:44So it's something that just ties us and keeps us together, like studying all this stuff. So we go quite deep into conversations about life in general. And I grew up with that depth. I love it. Do you remember any of your first creative pursuits? Do you remember exploring creativity? Was it physical? Was it more spiritual? How did it come about? Mostly before you entered the first advertising course, what was the dots that led you there? What was the steps? we'll be back after a quick break this episode is brought to you by lax coffee co the first creative speciality coffee company building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond lax coffee co offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices and you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins, coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel at luxcoffee.co.uk.

10:52You can use the code podcast to get 15 % off your first order.

11:05I guess that the first really creative pursuit was for me to just go really deep into drawing or illustration. For me, it's a way of meditating, basically. So I think that there's a lot of beauty in the devotion you can have when you love to do something where your time just disappears. and it not only becomes work but in my case it became even a spiritual practice just go really deep into it and actually I was like I don't need meditation I just need to start drawing start with charcoals start with pencil and just go really deep into the details and that's when I find myself really in peace with the world I think on myself I love it it's absolutely fascinating we can draw the line between a retired army general granddad who's been on the pursuit of a spiritual journey and then obviously it comes to you where to see illustration and to see creativity as meditative practice when time disappears that's a gift when you think of commercial creativity it still can be meditative and be creative so it can be fun but most of the time if you don't look after yourself you can allow yourself to be stressed by it because there's time people have no money involved of constraints all of that kind of happens and you're thinking is it still meditative but we'll get to that a little bit later because i think it gives me a better idea of what i know about you what you do for community pursuits and from work this is really nice intro to what leads us to it so let's go back to that advertising course when you walked in and you find yourself at home what did you feel like to have the progress of taking your beautifully spiritual meditative approach to creativity and then be faced with advertising which let's be honest it's not always that's spiritual or soulful?

12:47No, it seems that it's exactly the opposite, right? It seems like this world that seems more materialistic is not really connected. But I guess that some people would just find their ways to actually apply this creativity anywhere, independently of what the outcome or where it's going to be shown. So I just found myself being really good at conceptualizing stuff. I was having a lot of fun in advertising shows. me the path where I was thriving. So I started in university getting a nice Ibero-American prize winning award and that took me to my first agency job as an intern. This is funny but I really wanted to connect it with working with people.

13:37I think I always wanted to work with people even though I was working with advertising and this first agency was a social agency called Vago Despierta where we were working with people. Basically, it was a social advertising agency. So we were working with the government, with people, with all type of social projects that really would lighten me up and be like, yeah, this is what I want to do. This is how I want to use my creativity. You're one of these people that comes across so beautifully comfortable in your solace and in your company, but everything that you do is with others for others. This is incredible in that way because what you put out in the world, it is almost relying on the others you created a community for people in barcelona for animators filmmakers illustrators sometimes when i come across people like yourself they'll be like okay i'm very happy on my own and this is my solace this is my comfortable space and i just don't venture out too much whereas what i'm getting from your story so far is that you've mixed in the spiritual the meditative the self-exploratory with advertising and realizing there's something in the middle of it all, right?

14:41Because when you find yourself moving to Barcelona, was that a shock to the system? How did it work for you? It was. It was a very quick decision. Before coming here, I tried to move to Oslo. Lived there for a couple months, realized that the weather was not something that I was really enjoying. Went back to Mexico after leaving a job that I really wanted, after selling my car, leaving my cat and everything. and I realized that I needed to take a position for my next step. So I made a list with one of my good friends. She told me, okay, you need to figure out what you want to do next because I was quite downed.

15:19And I was like, okay, this might seem delusional, but I really want to keep on studying. I'm still curious about what's next when it comes to my career. So I want to study motion graphics. Let's see. Let's see how it goes. So I came to Barcelona with that idea without even knowing the city. Knowing where Barcelona was in the map, I just found the school, got a loan, and just moved here. Let me talk about that. I really want to know what else was on your list, because Barcelona must have featured once. But do you remember what else was on your list? I don't. I went hyper-focused into that one. There were other two options.

15:56It was three things. But I definitely don't remember what was there. I think there's something about, if you believe in ADHD, I think that option always shows itself. and it's non-negotiable that one why don't ask me questions why that one why can't give you answers it's that one i fully understand because i did something similar when i was 21 i was like i'm moving to england why don't ask i'm moving we'll work out the rest so you find yourself you're wanting to study motion and animation you're in barcelona what was it like the city's fascinating i love barcelona but what was it like for you because i remember moving to england and i felt like for the first few years, I felt like living in a movie for a bit because everything's new, everything smells different, everything tastes different, sounds different.

16:42What was it like for you to have a change of scenery? The language was different or similar. I'm not sure how much differences are between Mexican Spanish and Spanish, but what was it like for you when you find yourself on the other side of the world almost and starting a new life? It's funny, it felt like home right away somehow. At the same time saying like in a movie, you arrive to a super vibrant city that has this enormous hub of artists and people working creative fields. So it felt so bohemian until the day. I just feel that I'm living a dream and I'm romanticizing my life non-stop. That's fantastic.

17:18I think there's a lot of luck in doing that. Wasn't quite a shock, but definitely interesting. Not something hard to get adapted to. I just felt that I was in the right spot. And I always felt that creativity has this thing or maybe HD, I don't know exactly what it is, but when you know that it's there, something just pulls you forward. You don't think about the past, you just know that you have to be there, that there's something there for you and the next thing just pulls you forward towards something bigger or the place where you should be, I think. Do you remember that physical feeling when you arrived in Barcelona and I don't know how long it may have taken you, but everyone has that moment when they make the change.

17:58And then there's one pivotal moment, like one moment when just you have this physical feeling going, yeah, that was a good choice. Did you have anything like that? Probably, yes. And maybe this was a whole day feeling. I started walking around the Bourne and Gothic in the center of the city. For three days, I would just get lost. No map, no mobile, and just be like, I'm going to figure out and I will learn this city. like the palm of my hand. So that was the way for me to physically actually get into it, go deep and figure out by being in the center of the city without any connection or way of connecting myself.

18:39Because I didn't even have a mobile connected to the Wi-Fi back then. I didn't have a SIM card. So I was like, okay, this is how I'm going to learn. I'm just going to get right into the Gothic, try to figure out all these little cute streets and walk until I know where I am. I'm really glad to ask you that question because I absolutely love the answer. You're getting yourself lost for three days. Hopefully you made it home every single day. You're not working for three days on it. It's a very small area. It's not that crazy. There's something absolutely magical about that part of Barcelona because I've been going there for the last 11 years and I always seem to just hyper-focus on certain areas.

19:16And I think every city is really lucky to have different pockets of excitement and a different pocket of energy because some people prefer Poblenow, some people prefer Bourne, some people prefer other places. And when you just micro-sample them in a really intense way, it just gives you a totally different feeling. So I can just about imagine what it might feel like for you to spend three days walking around and getting yourself lost. It's really, really good. I like that. You talked about a lot of creativity. You talked about the feeling of it and the expression. When you have the idea of creativity, when you said you started with illustration and felt quite meditative.

19:52How did you take on the identity of a creative? What did you feel that was it after you studied, after you started freelancing? At what point did you feel like, I am creative and this is my title? I think that someone with ADHD, we don't all the time tell ourselves that we are creative, right? There's sometimes this small, maybe self-sabotage or little imposter syndrome. That tells us, yeah, are you? Are you really? But at the end, if I look backwards, I realize that everything that I've done in my life is creative. It not necessarily has to do something with arts or this sector in general. The way we solve problems, the way we figure out life in general is creativity.

20:40So in my case, I've realized that creativity is a way of processing life, not just the way we work. is the way we process, the way we understand life, that's creative per se. That's a really nice way to put it. Creativity is a process in life because every change comes with ups and comes with downs. You can get easily lost for three days and that's your own choice. But did you face any adversity or challenges when you moved to Barcelona? Because everything comes with its own challenges. So did you have your own? That's how this process, creativity, as a process in life? yeah absolutely I guess that's a bunch of challenges if I'm super honest like right now I'm going through the challenge I have to move apartments and I have to figure out life again in my brain I was like okay how am I gonna take this news am I gonna jump into it by being like oh I don't know how to solve it or by actually being creative and take it as if this was my choice to move forward so i think that's the best approach and being creative is part of it is like how am i gonna approach life i'm just gonna be delusional and think that i actually chose this so my brain and trick my brain into thinking that this was an election that's gonna have the best outcome out there so creativity has a lot to do i think with how we think and how we approach life and how the scenarios that we treat ourselves into.

22:12That's really interesting because to quote a fellow, I think the word Barcelonian or fellow resident of Barcelona, Pablo Gincadella, who once said that as a creative, unless someone's got a problem, you haven't got to work. You have to solve someone's problem, right? Because what we do as creatives, we need to, especially commercial creatives, you need to solve someone's problem. And in your case, when you say like reframing the situation, if you treat it as a project or something that's got no start and finish it is again processing life in a different way because you can easily allow yourself as a human to say well the life is happening to me therefore i need to deal with it as it comes or you can be always two steps ahead thinking well this has happened before maybe i can just reframe the way i can cognitively process this and actually say you know well everything's possible because ultimately when you think you can always choose your own problems whereas in off creative work you have to accept other people problems and then you might be like okay this is not my problem i'm gonna have to solve it because i'm getting paid for it whereas with life you're like okay it's happening let's solve it right yeah exactly just like that i recently saw an image that said i know that the uncertain is coming towards me but the uncertain knows that i'm going towards the uncertain it's me going towards the uncertain and that's the approach that i like to have i think i mean yeah when you think about it and best defense is to play offense so actually when you go actively interfacing it i think that makes sense was there any inspirations in your early careers anything that you aspiring to be as good as or type of work that you wanted to create like when you say creativity is process in life but was there anything that was giving you the inspiration visually creatively philosophically that you wanted to emulate in your early career or now maybe probably i think that as well fun is spiritual per se stuff that make me feel something that was something that I just wanted to explore so for example when I came here to Barcelona I was so into mapping because I saw this beautiful mapping show from Eamon Tobin this Brazilian artist he's fantastic just really intense techno and I saw this amazing show made with cubes.

24:30Back then, I think it was 2012 or 11, I don't know. And then I saw that the producer, like how it was made and I just got so inspired and I was like, wow, I want to be like her. I want to do this type of work. I want to do this amazing setups and matting. So I guess that I find references everywhere of where I would like to be, but not only about the work, but what type of person I want to embody in the future. Because that part of being creative, right? We are building ourselves as we move forward through life. So, yeah. That is such an incredible reference because I was a fan of Eamon Tobin from about 1995 when he did his first album, Brick Rollage, which was more down-tempo, drummer-based and ninja tune.

25:19And then what you referenced, I haven't thought about that show for 14 years. But as soon as you said the cubes, I was like, oh, I remember that. I haven't seen it live, but I remember it being extensively talked about. And I'm just looking it up right now. And it's so iconic and so immersive and impressive that he's changed a little bit. But as you said, he wanted creativity to be something that makes you feel something. Yeah, I had the luck of going to that show. Like after a couple of years, he went to Mexico City. Same show. And I was like, I'm going. And I remember I had a broken ankle. So I went with my crutches.

25:57I'm going to see this show. I don't care. And it was just fantastic. So I guess that there are just artists and pieces and stuff out there that can really start something in you. And when we go towards those things that makes us curious, we can totally change our lives. because that was just one show, right? Or one idea. And it changed my perspective. And I was like, that's it. That's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to go all in, right? It's incredible because when you think about what they did with that particular show and I encourage listeners to actually look it up and I think it's called ISOM Live just to see the visuals online.

26:38To me, that's the personification or the embodiment of Daring Forever. Daring Forever is a little more philosophical about the fact like how I want the people to pursue their careers from permission to acceptance to curiosity and gratitude but all of this starts with that what you just beautifully described earlier like with that moment of like i want this now we'll work out how because when you accept yourself in the process you realize this is what i'm creating within the constraints that i've got and i can go on a journey of curiosity to actually explore what possibilities because daring in itself is not necessarily about being silly jumping out planes and doing things that are not reckless it's more about systemic way of pursuing the idea of if they did it it must be possible for me to do it as you said i've seen a producer i want to embody her because we get different signals from the universe that tell us how we can discover who we are what's our personality what's our obsession or what's our sort of curiosity like how we can put it all together so in your case i love the fact that it wasn't particularly a piece of work that was static or it was something it was so immersive and so big because it now makes more sense for me to understand what you do now with your work because it brings stuff to people and makes them feel something and i think that's an incredible career path so tell me what was it like to get the sense of identity when you move countries what was that like it was a creative identity, personal identity, how did that embody itself?

28:10I think that part, we changed so much and there's a lot of possibility when we change identities, right? When we made big changes in our life. So when coming here and making your identity being so moldable and being transition moment, I think that's the part that has more potential to do whatever you want. So I love that part in general of triggering out life and being created. when you have big transitions, you have all the potential to change paths completely and take drastic decisions probably that will take you right where you should be. There's something about creative identity being so rewarding because it's not something someone gives you.

28:55It's something that you create for yourself. And I think that's the part where no one can take away from you because if you apply for a job, you're going to be doing something that's defined by somebody else. Okay, you bring yourself and your skill set, but it's the element of creating your identity based on curiosity where it takes you. I think potentially, especially with the ADHD in the mix, you can almost reimagine who you are, what you want to be as often as you want to, really. Right? Would you agree? Totally. I guess for me, the essence of yourself, keep that and say, okay, but just keep the essence and move forward.

29:31What's going to match these sessions? And I think it's just great having that potential or those moments where your identity has created change and a both. The sense of identity really neatly brings us onto the sense of community because you find yourself in Barcelona. You're meeting new people, you start a new life and obviously meeting new communities and new subsets and new identities. They have been self-made sometimes. You created a community called Frames by Friends and you call it a hub for motion designers and animators in Barcelona. now when i met you a couple years ago you were very much deep into it creating it and putting yourself in a leadership role or guiding role of getting people together because it's not always easy to be guiding creative people because they're not always the most social bunch right and always the people who want to be out there or connecting because yes we long for the connection but we don't always go and get it so where did the idea come from and tell me how this how has it been going to make you work so yeah friends are friends basically just started with three friends when we were doing our masters and we just wanted to do gathers with some people that we knew so it's like oh let's start this gather let's do this first thing we worked with a gallery as collaborators and i was like okay we're gonna expect just 20 people and suddenly 75 people just appeared there And we realized there was a big need for creatives and mostly animators and motion designers in general to connect.

31:00So, okay, we have something here. Let's keep on going. And this project kept on going for five years. It went great. We started working with BAU, the university here in Barcelona, doing talks, two talks a year with speakers and people from the community. not only people with big expertise, but people that could actually tell their own stories, how they work, their challenges. It was a great project. It's incredible. When I think of creativity, if you haven't got your self-acceptance worked out, if you're early in your career, sometimes the world of creativity, especially commercial creativity, can be a little bit confusing, disorientating, because you try to make sure you've got enough work.

31:44Sometimes you might be challenged by someone else's people's successes. You don't always celebrate it because you feel you might have deserved to have it. So what I want to know, what was the spirit of community and acceptance between all of the members and people who showed up? Because it's easy to worry that you haven't got enough work. It's easy to worry that you're potentially not as good as other people. But how did people find themselves within the community that provided for safe space, nourishing space? What was that like? I just found people connecting with each other in a more human way, like from a more maybe authentic way we all realized that we were always having challenges and setbacks and it was not as easy as it shows sometimes when you see successful either artists or creatives in the industry so having this let's say body doubling helped a lot for people to realize hey we're all in the same path we're figuring out but we don't have to figure out alone so yeah as you say as creative sometimes we do feel a little isolated but connections really helps us open our mind and realize that we can grow together we can actually learn from each other and it's as well a way of processing life in general it's not only by being creative but it's as well through the relationships and the meaningful relationships we make with other people that are just as creative as us.