Vesper Stamper - The Resilient Illustrator
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@jake-parker Now I've had a chance to listen to the whole thing, and I totally relate to everything she said--the arts culture (and pressure) for children and teens in NYC, Waldorf and analogue formation, the wish for integrity, her outspokenness and concern about censorship on all sides, the spiritual interests, all of it.
@Jeremiahbrown, I understand what you're saying. Yup, she is intense. It may be partly a New York thing, but she has also been through a lot. I see it not as negativity, but as not being afraid to stare life in the eyes and then to use that to contribute to society with one's work. I have been told to relax my whole life, and although I have certainly had to learn some life lessons, there are a lot of positive aspects to intensity as well. Mostly, that energy can be used for drawing!
I've listened to the Vesperisms "Fireborn" podcast twice already, maybe three times. I think I may have to go listen to it again!
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@lee-white @LauraA Phew, I'm glad to hear you didn't get a sense of negativity from her and just intensity (great description LauraA)! I was hoping I misinterpreted her, and I couldn't get a good read on how you and Jake truly felt about what she was saying (I played it in the background as I was illustrating). It's clear that she is passionate, but it seemed to me like that passion grew to engulf her life and came at the expense of joy which would be tragic.
Thanks so much for replying Lee given that you talk to her and got the full context. I don't believe people shouldn't become curmudgeons until at least 65 so it's good to hear she isn't yet, haha.
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This episode really got me thinking. I am actually in the thick of writing a novel too. I recently made the decision to wait on trying to tackle the art for it. The Writing comes so easily for me, and Ive been waiting to get it out for years, but every time I’ve tried to draw any illustrations, I end up discouraged and lost. I was feeling like I maybe just didn’t have the skill set to pull it off yet - which my be true to an extent. But, Vesper said something about not necessarily drawing the action in her book. She used the art to present the emotion of the story from a different angle. Wow. That resonated with me. It got the gears going on how I might feel if I tried to shift the focus of my illustrations toward that goal… Maybe the approach should be trying to capture the emotional beats of the story and not just visually depicting what’s happening.
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@pamela-fraley I can understand that I have written some children’s books and I’m currently working on a ya novel, all unpublished at the moment, but I for whatever reason, cannot illustrate them! it’s like I spent all my creative energy writing them and I just become unmotivated by the time I’m done.
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@asyas_illos Speaking of creative energy and motivation, congrats on being the first SVS student to have 2 pieces in the top 16 of a Critique Arena! Really cool to see and well deserved, great work!
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@jeremiahbrown yah what!!???…. I am trippin over that my mind keeps getting negative thinking there’s gotta be a mistake! But thanks?!
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@asyas_illos Drat!!
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@jeremiahbrown ima gettm next time
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This episode got intense for me during the second part where Vesper started talking about her books about the holocaust. Of course it would be intense. It’s the holocaust. A very dark and disturbing history in human kind.
It made me realize how few really serious topics I come across in podcasts, conversations, interviews, etc. about illustration with the exception of Maus (but I’m not heavy into graphic novels in the first place so chances are this is new to me).
It really speaks to how effective and powerful storytelling is to place the reader/listener into many different situations they’d otherwise not or never get into.
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@asyas_illos I've got to stay that I loved the one they eliminated!
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I loved this interview and it is my favorite of all of the artist interviews so far because instead of the more typical -- "this is how I got to where I am etc." it got into deeper issues of art and the artist's place in society, how art plays out in the artist's own family, art and the educational process, etc. etc. I found it very thought provoking and honest, and it made me want to sit down and have coffee with Vesper to continue the conversation.
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@lauraa I was wondering what my fate would have been had they been switched! They were my two favorites anyway. Oh well…
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I love all the podcasts... this one was extra special though. I loved what Vesper had to say about the why behind creating art and I had to stop the podcast and write down her quote. SO GOOD.
Thanks for having guests that are so interesting and cool on the podcast!
“The artist’s calling is to stand outside. The reason we all feel like misfits, and the reason we all feel we never fit in anywhere… It’s because we’re meant to occupy that space. We’re meant to stand outside of things and to be translators. That’s why visual things are so powerful. We are translating an unseen reality into a seen reality for people, and they need that. But do we want that to become commodified or do we want that to be sanctified? There’s a lot more meaning behind having your work be a sanctifying presence in the world.”
- Vesper Stamper
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@charlotte-glaze You will love her podcast "On Being Fire-born," then!
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@charlotte-glaze That quote was actually one of the things I respectively disagreed with, and think can easily turn malignant. The reason we artists feel like misfits is because most people feel like a misfit, not just artists. I know many people who aren't artists who felt and feel just like that.
I guess my question to her would be do the benefits of that, in my opinion, flawed mentality outweigh its negatives? I can see how it can be empowering, the lonely one oppressed by "they" but who has a secret weapon, but it also pushes others away and can easily wall of that individual's world. I'm a little jade because for many years I managed a retail store right next to an Art college so naturally I hired over a dozen of its students during that time and this mentality was prevalent and crippling to many of them.
From that experience my take, as an artist, has been to drop the misfit focus and instead funnel that energy into adding to the world/telling a story as an integration tool...something to make you closer to the world and others, not to isolate and separate.
I almost deleted this because I'm not too sure if this is the platform for a topic like this, haha, but I figured why not and I would love to hear other opinions if they feel like it.
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@jeremiahbrown Love the conversation happening here. I think this is exactly why we want to have these interviews on our podcast. We hear something and have to figure out how that fits into our world. We can accept it, reject it, or modify it to fit.
My thoughts on what she is saying is a bit different. You are saying that she is implying that artists strive to be on the outside fringe. I think her point is that is where many of us land naturally. And if so, embrace it. My kid always says "Dad, you are so weird!" and I always respond with "You got that right!". Gotta own it! BUT, I don't think she is implying that if someone does fit in, they should strive to be an outcast. That would be sort of weird. She is saying "Embrace who you are!". Like I said, you gotta own it and be proud of it. Turn the negative into a positive. : ).
At least that is my take. Love to hear what others think! : )
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@charlotte-glaze agree, that quote is powerful!
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@lee-white Love your response! My only pushback would be that it's not just artists who feel like this (outsiders, weirdos, etc.), but it seems like we artists are one of the only employment groups that make it our platform... and that is where I think the danger lies. It's not entirely different from the victim mentality and when embraced too much it becomes a hinderance.
In my retail experience I witnessed many situations where extremely capable people were unable to do a straightforward job because they were unique/different and weren't being understood. The most successful students I hired would, to modify your words (option number 3
) "Embrace who they were!"...but also embrace everyone else's weirdness and not use it as an excuse for abandonment. "I'm weird but you know what? So are you, and you, and you so let's combine/accept our weirdnesses and do some amazing stuff Captain Planet style!"...and scene.
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@jeremiahbrown I hear you on the victim mentality. But what I hear her saying is, "If everyone calls you weird, celebrate it!" In fact, it's an artist's job to see the world in a fresh way.
An anecdote: Years ago, when I was a portraitist, I went to an exhibit opening. At some point a circle of us artists were gathered around talking very intently. We didn't think anything of it or think we were special at all--we were just bouncing things off of each other and having fun.
But when I got into the car afterwards with my husband, he declared, "Now I get it! They're all like you! It must be an artist thing!" And I smiled and said, "Yes, I guess it is!"
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@lauraa I like your story, thanks for sharing! I'm probably going too far the other way. Maybe artists do have some right to feel special and my stance is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
