Dare to paint beyond the surface - Stephanie Scott

0:10This is actually why I miss painting, even though I do in many ways prefer doing the digital illustrations. But there's this beautiful flow that you get into when you're painting, where you can feel the weight of the paint in the brush and you know exactly when you need to dip in again or when like it might drip so you have to pull back a little bit or you know change the trajectory of your line or whatever there's just it sounds so cheesy but it's that connection with the medium it almost becomes a dance as odd as that may sound just going up and down the ladder or dipping your brush in the paint going back to the wall and moving everything a foot down the wall then going back to it there's so much more to it than just recreating a design on the wall

1:06welcome to the daring creativity podcast a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection it's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count it's about becoming more of who you already are my name is ryan malinich of a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:54Today I'm speaking with Stephanie Scott, an artist and designer who creates large-scale murals that transform corporate offices, restaurants and public spaces across North America. Her work bridges decorative arts with contemporary design to tell stories rooted in community, nature and timeless symbolism. in this conversation Stephanie discusses the creative philosophy behind designing work that thousands will see daily the challenge of avoiding trends while staying relevant and why she deliberately avoids having a signature style she also opens up about a psychological pool of overwork the dance-like flow states of painting and why she believes human creativity will always have something AI can never replicate it's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Stephanie Scott

2:51stephanie how are you doing it's good to see you i'm good how are you well very happy to see you and i want to find out more about what you do how you do it so for those who may have never heard of stephanie scott how would you introduce yourself i'm sure there's many who have not heard of me. I would say I'm an artist and designer. I work a lot with large-scale mural installations, both hand-painted and digitally designed that are then printed and installed. But I do art in so many different formats. It's not just large-scale. I do a lot of poster designs, designs for editorials. I've done identity design.

3:35It really does run the gamut. When I'm not doing client work, when I have any sort of little pockets of free time, I like to sew usually just my own clothing or tailoring and things like that for friends and family. But that's another outlet for my creativity. So it kind of goes beyond just the large scale type of work that really does dominate my portfolio there's a lot more to it excellent for those who are potentially paying attention there was another stephanie on this podcast who finds herself in the same town city as you and when i got to meet you i met i got to meet stephanie butari and i was like wait a minute so there's this place called waterloo and kitchener or kitchen and waterloo if i got it right and there's two muralists they're both called stephanie and they are both very busy actually created murals for the city and beyond and that always brings me to my observation that how come canada per se is so into murals whenever you go to montreal when i go to toronto it's everywhere and i always try to find out like what are those large sort of pieces is it sort of antidote what do they offset is it the the architecture is it the hard edges of not all buildings or How do you see it from your view?

4:52I actually didn't really consider that Canada had more murals than other cities or other countries. I'm not exactly sure. I think you brought up a good point with the architecture because we don't have the rich history that other countries have. Our big cities don't have that type of, as much of that grand architecture and things that are really of historical importance. So perhaps public art is a way to really create some sense of culture in these newer cities. I'm not exactly sure. I do think it seems to be that in the past 10 years, there's just more murals and more of an initiative to really promote public art kind of in any big city.

5:43That's interesting. Maybe it's my tourist eyes, you know, because when you're somewhere, you see things differently. Well, when you live in it, that's your surroundings. That's what you see it as being the norm. It doesn't look to you any different. So when you want to talk about the last decade, how long have you been part of creating these public artworks? Yeah, longer than a decade. I fell into it around 2012. And I should specify that a lot of my work is not public. I only have a few pieces that are exterior murals or in public spaces. I guess there is one public space in Kitchener that you can see a ton of my work in, but most of it is kind of hidden away.

6:26But yeah, I've been doing it since 2012. A friend of mine worked at a startup and they wanted a mural in the front entrance of their office. So they were looking at a few different artists, but I pitched an idea, not really feeling confident or anything like that in my large scale design capabilities. but they liked my idea and hired me for the project and at that time in Waterloo region there was a lot of tech startups so that's what this company was they were tech startup I can't remember if I specified but they then passed my contact along to another tech company that was just getting off the ground and they wound up getting a lot of investor funding over the next few years.

7:14So I did a mural in their first space. And as they kept expanding, they would call me back to do something in their new office or the new floor of their office or whatever. So it really just happened very organically. And I did also do chalkboards around that time because chalkboard art seemed to really be having a resurgence or a renaissance of it or something. It was really popular in the 2010s. So. What was really interesting what you said about you putting your name forward for this mural and you said, I was not confident about, but that's totally acceptable when you think about it because you haven't done this before because you haven't done the repetition or you haven't grown the muscle of the experience.

7:59And it's interesting how we look back and see our experiences going, what have I done? Why was I not confident? Well, because you haven't really started yet. So what I want to know is the discovery that you are actually able to paint a wall so well, or paint a mural or paint a large graphic so well that you have actually the belief in yourself that you can do it. So how do we trace back your skill set, not the confidence, but the skill set to actually starting creating light scale pieces? Well, art was something that I was always interested in. I think I got lucky in that regard, actually having something since as long as I can remember something that I was actually really interested in and passionate about, because I know a lot of people don't have that.

8:44And I think I would be extremely lost without it, because even with it, I feel quite lost at times. Yeah, so since I was a kid, I really enjoyed all kinds of art, but especially illustrating. And my parents were really supportive and encouraging of that, which is another thing I got lucky with. Because again, a lot of people do not have that. kids generally parents will be encouraging of any interest but once you start to get older if you're hey mom and dad i want to like be an artist for a living there's a lot of parents that are like uh is that really the wisest idea but mine were like go for it which is pretty cool so with that support i pursued art more seriously even like throughout my teens so i went to an arts high school.

9:33It wasn't exclusively arts, but I should say it had an arts program. So that really allowed me to focus on it more because it was structured to really nurture and encourage those artistic skills. And they offered visual art, dance, acting, all that kind of stuff. But I was focused mostly on visual art. After that, did a year at OCAD, which is the art school schools in Ontario. When I started painting on walls, that would have been in high school. I had the painting capabilities at that point through, however, over a decade at that time of taking art classes. I would do art classes in the summer, you know, all kinds of extracurricular types of things.

10:20So I had enough skills at that point to be able to reproduce an artwork well enough, I suppose. I should say in high school, they did teach us a lot. My artistic skills drastically improved throughout high school. We had some really amazing art teachers. So that was a huge asset. I would not have grown in that way if I had just gone to the high school that was in my district. So that was a huge help. So I want to talk about something you said a while ago, because you were talking about art, and sometimes you said I would be lost without it. Sometimes I'm lost with it. What sort of type of art and visual nourishment were you getting through those years that pointed you towards pursuing this?

11:06What was that guiding light inside you that you wanted to explore? Well, I think it encouraged me to experiment with different styles. And then also I think it was just an environment where it was okay to kind of let your freak flag fly. That's what the arts program was like. So I think just the environment of it really helped me figure out who I was at that stage. I mean, I was a teenager. You don't really know who you are. But I think there was a lot of the external social pressure that I think felt in elementary school and junior high school was gone. But yeah, I think a lot of it had to do with obviously the exposure to different mediums and the art history that we would learn, understanding different periods of art.

12:00All of that really got me excited about it. But it was also just being in an environment where it was cool to do this. It's interesting when you mentioned about social pressure, because it does sound like you had a time to take a deep breath and actually enjoy what you were doing. Have I got it right? Oh yeah, totally. It was a good experience. I cringe a lot when I look back at myself and who I was during that time because it was so fine to just be a weirdo. I just ran with it in terms of clothing I would wear or just that was a big part of it. Yeah, the clothing I would wear. But it was a good period of time to kind of experiment and get that out of my system.

12:47but i mean to be honest i think we should never look at ourselves at the pictures from any time because you think oh i look cool and then you look at in five years time what was i wearing 15 years time like what was i wearing you cannot really look back because i mean it was really interesting you said the word weirdo you can be anyone when you're that age and i think this is the most magical time because you can't go and sort of try to undo those choices because those choices are coming from a brain that's not developed and then you realize you know what that's the playground that's the sandbox that's the good stuff now that's the place to get lost it's true and i felt most people go through that in their teens some type of rebellion or experimentation or just letting loose their teens and early 20s and i felt i certainly had that as well but it was so different it wasn't hard partying and doing stupid antics it was wearing really flamboyant clothing.

13:43I don't know, even just some of the art that I would create, it was different.

13:48Stephanie Scott: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. Lux 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. You can use the code podcast to get 15 % off your first order.

14:38well i mean that's our development road that's for sure so how do we then fast forward from you know flamboyant choices and the love for sewing and creating your own clothes and art and history of art and painting it takes you to creating large-scale murals but also to other creative work and what's really interesting about your work you do more offices and interiors and lobbies and that kind of stuff so let's talk about the approach because to you obviously seeing murals is not that unusual to me seeing murals is a little bit unusual and to me it could be almost a way of introducing the concept of daring creativity into that thinking of okay let's do something not just for ourselves but actually for the benefit of the others because when you think about it the client commissions you because they got a vision it's a two-point conversation two-point exchange but then that outcome final piece gets seen by sometimes hundreds or even thousands of people so it's like how would you then create that conversation that almost takes into consideration some of those bigger pieces we are creating something for others potentially with our day input but for them and i'm trying to sort of think what is that logic and that sort of creative philosophy that would you consider creating pieces for people when they are not always in the room before the work is created.

16:01Before I dive into that, I should also clarify that I love flamboyant clothing. I just think I put it together better than I did when I was a teen. I should have said that. But anyway, when it comes to designing, yeah, these types of things that are going to be viewed by an audience, whether that's publicly or privately, because a lot of the private murals I've created still get a lot of exposure. It's just internal conference room where people are going to be viewing them in the background of their video calls day in and day out, year after year. They're in the entrance of these offices where the staff are coming in and seeing it as the first thing they see when they enter the space day after day.

16:48So yeah, there's a lot that needs to be taken into account when creating artworks for these types of spaces and these types of people. And some people I work with are very involved in that process. And I mean, sometimes even jobs, they just kind of have a pretty formed brief when I begin. So I'm just kind of creating their vision for them in a style that they've maybe seen me do for other projects. And so I don't really get many jobs like that, though. A lot of them I get have quite minimal involvement from the people hiring me. I find there's a lot of scenarios where we need something, we want something in this space, but we're not creative so we just trust you which I find that's when I create the work that I think is the strongest for the most part maybe with the exception of a couple other projects because depending on who I work with sometimes they can give really exceptional feedback I would never would have considered that that's amazing yes let's please add this to the design but I try my best to understand the types of people that are going to be interacting with that space, what the community is in that area, whether it's publicly or privately.

18:18I just try to go from there and try to go a bit deeper than surface level. Depending on the project, there can be a lot of research involved. So I do a lot of designs where it's almost a collage bringing together different pieces that reference either things that are important to the people who are hiring me or they represent the community where this mural is going to be installed or painted. But I try not to be super obvious with things. So usually I have the first kind of surface level ideas and it's very predictable stuff. And then I try to go beyond that and think, okay, well, now that that's out of my brain, where else can we go from here?

19:08Another thing is that I don't want anything that I create to seem too trendy or too specific and I've certainly kind of stumbled into trends before not knowing they were really trends at the time and then in retrospect looking at that and being like whoa that piece is very 2019. I'm trying to avoid that because I do want the stuff that I create for these people to have some type of longevity and not really be too closely tied to anything really specific. So I do try to work in things that are related to nature or history, things that have kind of stood the test of time, or imagery that's kind of universally understood.

20:00And perhaps that's like playing it safe. Maybe that's not daring at all, but... Well, it's really interesting that you mentioned trends because I often ask questions and it leads people back to some of the memory lanes to some of the pockets of their memories going, oh, I didn't think of that for a while. But I just had that moment myself because you were talking about murals and trends and if I remember it rightly, around 2007, maybe like 20 odd years ago, it was really trendy to have Photoshop artwork printed digitally onto wallpapers and pasted up around clubs and bars and those kind of places.

20:37and i remember when you talk about trends i very much remember that the work back then was very much about particular trend it was a digital collage and i mean some of the pieces actually there's a couple of pieces still in one of the cities still in a bar and i've seen it on google images or google street view i was like how is it still up there some 15 years later why are you doing because it's cringe right you look back at your work and you're like that was definitely trend even though let's say i was potentially at the forefront of those trends but it was of that time but what's really interesting when you were talking as i was thinking about it i remember having quite prominent pieces in a bar in place called gloucester out of all places and i remember getting emails from people saying hey we went for a business meeting and we ended up talking about your work throughout a whole hour this is nice this is very satisfying because if you're creating, you're putting it in the room.

21:32So my question for you would be about a juxtaposition of the feeling of the large-scale mural, which is almost an anomaly in that space, and the unexpected reaction from a person because they're walking into a room, and that room is not 99.9 % of everything they will see, not just in a day, but in even a month. You said that you do research, you do planning, and you go deep on these preparations. So what goes into the mindset is the level of psychology, neuroscience. How clever do you go about this process? I haven't delved too deep into the psychology component of it only because I know myself enough to know that I would probably never emerge from that rabbit hole because that is an interest of mine.

22:21So I don't think I really want to think about that too, too much in terms of creating things. Obviously, that's always considered, but I think I could kind of drive myself crazy analyzing every bit of it under a microscope, like through that lens of psychology and how will it be perceived by the viewer and whatnot. So there's not that component necessarily. It's interesting that you say you don't want to go down that rabbit hole. It's a good answer. The other thing that you mentioned earlier was about cliches. So sometimes I get the cliches out of the way, and then you can proceed. And what's really interesting, I think we all go through our careers through those motions where you want to avoid cliches as much as possible until you realize that sometimes you've got to use the cliche, but reinvent it in a way that you have to accept that sometimes that is potentially the only route.

23:16So tell me about the process of how you potentially do the obvious, and then you discard it. Is that how we work? Yeah, it's usually in the very beginning stages when I'm sketching everything on paper is how I usually start. I'll make written lists of everything, just brainstorm what could be in this piece. And then after I do the written list, I will then do an illustrated list, also on paper, just sketching out what do these things look like that could be in it so I can kind of have this menu to pick and choose from. So usually I'm getting it out of my system at that point. Sometimes those cliche things or obvious or surface level things are requested by people.

24:05So I do try to work them in the best way that I can. I like to be accommodating to people and this is going to be their artwork at the end of the day like I'm creating it for them so if they really really want to see this specific imagery represented in the piece that I personally wouldn't put in it I'm not going to say no you can't have that this is for them I'm just going to try to work it in in a way that again through my lens I'm going going to try to use my skills or my perspective to incorporate it into the design in the best way possible. And sometimes that's really challenging. There was a job I did recently.

24:51It was for a restaurant and they had specific menu items that they wanted in the mural. And one of them, I was having a hard time finding a way to depict it in a way that looked cohesive with everything else, but it has to be in there. It's one of the core items. So I thankfully, I think I did find a way to make it look harmonious with everything, but it was definitely a bit of a creative hurdle for me. Well, as you can see on my face, I want to know what was the item. What was it? Cheese fries. Cheese fries. Okay. Fair play. How do you incorporate cheese fries? I know I illustrated them in the same way.

25:28I had the regular fries in the design as well. And so I illustrated them in the same way so that it balanced it was just what I found tricky was the actual sauce the cheese on the fries to make it look similar to the style of everything else because I was illustrating it in a I would say simple or clean minimal type of way but being so fussy and technical but just creatively it was challenging for me to figure out the best way to show this item well I can tell you on your pursuit of not working too trendy i don't think anyone's going to be stealing cheese fry style for any of the artwork or mural anytime soon and this is obviously not talking ill of the mural but when you said you don't have a particular style you work in a way that's required obviously you try to reinvent and actually keep yourself still on the pursuit of curiosity because some people are thriving in one style and some people can't do one thing twice because they already, they go both towards the end of the first piece.

26:31Your work obviously creates lots of emotional response and feeling of inspiration to those who see it. Where do you go for your inspiration when you don't have to, and again, I will promise not to repeat cheese fries too many times, but when you go on your own inspiration, where do you disappear in thrift stores, bookstores? Where do you go for your own inspiration and where do you get that creative inspiration recharged? Books, definitely. I have so many. The collection just keeps growing and I'm running out of room now. I used to go to thrift stores a lot and find a lot of inspiration there.

27:08This was about a decade ago. Even just the labels on things, there was so much to find in the thrift stores. And anytime I've been in recent years, it's not at all the type of selection it used to be. But I would say Antique malls have a lot of just incredible inspiration, whether it's like motifs on things, on dinner plates, or marquetry and old furniture. There's just so many quilts, tapestries. There's so many incredible things. So I would say history, antiques, the books that I gravitate towards have a lot of that in them. I've been acquiring a lot of books about decorative arts from the dawn of time, cabinets of curiosities, just odd, obscure, little decorative things.

28:01things do you get to actually incorporate those pieces into work because you might be let's say some people love victorian engraving it's fascinating but sometimes it's more about the logic and the idea and the feeling but sometimes you've got very little chance to incorporate it so can you get those inspirations into your work or is it more for personal projects i have been trying to work it into projects where it makes sense but that's been a big hurdle for me over the years because I've been interested in so many different types of art and design and craft for a long time now and it just the interest is growing and growing and so I've tried to find certain projects where it works.

28:49Last year I did a project where it was not a mural it theoretically could be a mural or printed. I gave them an example of the design as like a repeat pattern so it could be applied like wallpaper but basically it was a design that had to be adapted to both vertical and horizontal compositions and be able to be extracted so parts of it could be standalone by themselves to represent it was for a university So it was for one of the offices there. And everything in the design had to be like symbolic of their values of the different, trying to think of the way to describe it. it was one office, but they had kind of different components that they focused on.

29:38So everything in the design was symbolic of that. And so I chose to go in the direction of decorative arts for that, because it seemed to make sense where I could use birds and animals and botanicals, plant life, water, all of these things, and create what mimicked the look of like a tapestry was kind of what I was going for. And it was all designed modular so that you could rearrange it vertically and horizontally. I'm not describing it to the best of my abilities. And it's really hard to understand just how much goes into a design like that. It took so much mental energy, so much to figure it out.

30:21It was such a puzzle. So that's one example of where I was able to bring in decorative of arts and I work other interests into projects here and there. I'm trying to lean more into a collage type of approach, more specifically with mural designs because I think it does work for that type of application. So I do have an outlet to kind of bring in different styles because I love creating in different styles. I would lose my mind if I had to do the same thing, the same approach for every project. That's not how I'm made. It would make things so much easier though. Oh my gosh, but it's just not how I am.

31:01It's not how my mind works. It's an interesting thought. It would make it much easier. The question is, would it really? Because I think we choose the way we want to operate. We want to create where you can go back for more. Because if I get it right, I think I've heard you once saying that you go between six to 15 projects on the go some of the time, which I can relate to. How would you juggle? How do you have the mental capacity, the cognitive capacity to process all of this? I would love to know if you handle these, you know, the multitudes of project in a better way than I used to, because it was my downfall once upon a time.

31:37But why that number? Why do you say yes? And what stops you from saying no? Well, actually, I read your book, Mindful Creative, and I was like nodding along to all of it. Oh, God, I understand this so well. so right now I don't have that many on my plate and it's making me nervous because I'm just so used to having way more than I can handle that it scares me when I don't because in a weird way it's almost a safety net okay well I don't need to worry about finding work then because I'm overloaded I'm beyond my capacity right now so this will keep me going for a while but it's not healthy and I have not found a way to really manage that amount of projects in a balanced way I try to keep certain routines as part of my day all the time exercising and eating well and getting enough sleep those are essential I don't think there is a way to manage a lot because this is the thing because it's a two-way process because you can plan your day the best possible way and you say okay I've got two hours for this three hours for that you can plan it all out and then something out of your control steps in your way okay well maybe we need this we need to change this so that's changed all of the planning's going out of the window and because you've got so many dominoes lined up it just goes so it's interesting that you've been not into a mindful creative and even though that book is written in a way of how you create optimal conditions for creativity yeah it's so hard to actually align with the world out not with the reality and say okay everything works because it can be so tempting to say yes to so many things especially if they seem like the right opportunity sometimes you go legacy clients you don't want to say no to them because they've been around for a long time and then you find yourself in the middle of absolute madness i know and so much of it because i've had people say you could just hire somebody to help you and in theory that is a great idea and i have tried that before.

33:43I tried that with painting a mural. I hired a girl for a couple days to assist with that, but she was wonderful. But it was not financially. I wasn't going to, if I had continued the project with her assistance, I would have run out of money. I would have then had to pay her out of my own pocket by the time I finished. So that's a whole other conversation to be had, though. That was a very complex project. But yeah, there's so much of it that I personally don't think I could hire, delegate out to somebody else because it would almost take so much more of my own energy to do that, where I know how it needs to be done.