Podcast: Art vs. The Internet

On this episode of Margin Call, visual artists Josué Rojas and Destyni Swoope discuss their craft and how digital imagery has changed the art world.

Russell Morse: 00:13 Greetings all welcome to Margin Call the podcast and editorial meeting for Kwest On Media. I’m your host Russell Morse’s. On today’s episode, we’ll be discussing the state, value and relevance of visual art. The art scene, the cool kids, the painters, videographers, photographers, performance artists, and the art they create. There are questions of course about the place for visual art in an age of digital media. We’ll be discussing whether the prevalence of digital media and social media are enhancing the art world or morphing it into some kind of unrecognizable hype monster or something in between. In part, this conversation was prompted by Banksy’s, these recent brilliant or obnoxious, depending on your perspective stunt in which he remotely shredded a piece of his art after it’s sold at auction for 1.4 million dollars. I’m sure everyone’s seen this by now. If not a quick Google search will show you that you can now buy it as a cell phone cover or a full reproduction shredder included for $50

Russell Morse: 01:18 Predictably, the piece went up in value after being shredded. Enough about banksy we have with us tonight some talented and accomplished artists who are willing to reveal their identities and don’t resort to pranks to promote their work, or maybe they do, in which case that’s fine. No judgment here. Let me introduce our guests very quickly. We have two special guests working artists here to try and give us an overview of the art world in their respective places in it. For the first time on the show we welcome Destyni. A 20-year-old painter and graphic artist and visual artist from south Florida. She has her own brand Mood Rich and I’m glad to welcome her here tonight. Thanks for being here Destyni it’s a pleasure to have you.

Destyni Swoope: 02:03 Thanks for having me. I’m excited.

Russell Morse: 02:05 Yeah, me too. Also joining us is Josue Rojas, which is, I hesitate to say a blast from the past, but like a blast from the past, the friend of the show who we haven’t had in a long time, but this seemed like the right episode to bring you on. Josue is an old dear friend and an accomplished painter, muralist, teacher, writer, a videographer, and is now running his own arts nonprofit in San Francisco, Acccion Latina . Welcome Josue I can’t say enough about how happy I am to have you here. It’s great to see your face. Welcome.

Josué Rojas: 02:39 It’s a pleasure to be here, man. Thank you for having me, everybody for having me here.

Russell Morse: 02:47 And rounding out the crew tonight is, , you know, keeping us all in line, keeping us sounding good or venerable producer Eming beyond always a pleasure to have you here. Please chime in. You always chime in very selectively, but whatever you do, it’s like it’s on point. Usually to roast me. That’s true. Most of the time you pop in and it’s like…

Eming Piansay: 03:10 I don’t agree with that statement at all, but take it, take it.

Russell Morse: 03:12 We can go back and analyze it.

Eming Piansay: 03:14 Nope nope we’re staying in the present.

Russell Morse: 03:17 Moving on, moving on. Let me, I do want to start with you Josue just because I think that you can give us like a very broad overview, your own experience and the visual art world kind of touches on so many different things. Like you were a young person, an illustrator as a teenager, getting paid to make art as a young person in part that experience led you to art school like that, like very classic undergraduate art school world even though you’re kind of like a San Francisco city kid, a kind of a fish out of water in art school as I recall in a lot of ways. And then you made your way as a painter and a muralist drawing on political themes and kind of using art to organize in San Francisco. And then yougot your MFA. Like, you know, you’ve had a lot of touch points and accomplishments and a lot of different worlds.

Russell Morse: 04:09 You know what I mean? Like I, I went to go see, as you recall, I went to go see your MFA Show at Boston University. And one of your instructors gave is pretty moving speech, talking about, you know, why art school is important. And one of the beautiful things about it is that, you know, artists today, including you, you know, you through your teachers, you can trace yourself all the way back. The example he gave was tission, you know, that’s a very high minded example, but it’s a pretty profound illustration of the value of art school. But now you know, you’re all, you’re on 24th street in San Francisco talking about preserving murals and using art to try and preserve Latino culture and the mission and those, those are very different worlds, but they’re very cool worlds. I’m curious now, you know, this is kinda like maybe half time in your career, maybe it’s premature to say it’s halftime. Like how are you feeling right now about the role of visual art, your place in it? You know, where it belongs. Let’s, let’s hear what you have to say about where things are,

Josué Rojas: 05:09 Man. I think. I think it’s just a real interesting time in visual culture, I mean everything that we do, everything that we consume is visual, right? Like, you know, you look at an ad, you look at stuff on social media, the first thing it’s going to draw is the pictures. So I think, uh, it’s also been more democratized, right? I think, you know, cats were really artists, you know, we’re really gravitating towards , like bravado, lot of males doing stuff, a lot of people doing stuff with that centered around the ability to draw. And I think now things have gotten really democratized. I mean, you got a lot more, it just become a lot more open to people. So technology has allowed for a real idea to be able to be fleshed out in a better way than if you had the ability to draw.

Josué Rojas: 06:03 So conceptual art, I think one of my favorite art forms, and I mean this sincerely is memes, you know, I’m like, absolutely. I think it’s absolutely genius. Like you could, you know, pair of words and images in a way that’s ironic in a way that has cadence and the way that, um, that’s funny in a way that you can combine that with emojis and Bitmoji. The ability to draw is almost come secondary. And then you compound that with things like using an iPad Pro that is even further democratize. Like, I mean, it’s kind of mind boggling when people can do is just kind of crazy what technology has allowed people to do. So there’s all kinds of folks making really amazing stuff. I was just, I was just discussing with somebody. There’s this Hashtag that I follow that I love and it’s meant to start conversations with artists is called ‘draw this in your style’.

Josué Rojas: 06:57 Anybody heard of this? Draw this in your style. So it’s onInstagram. So if you go on, draw this in your style. Someone puts up one of their illustration and they put it out to the world and say, now here’s this thing that I drew. Like, you know, a redheaded blue skinned, mermaid, a with a pet lion, now draw it in your style, so then someone else will do it and freak it and like do their version of it and it ends up being really cool. And then so people are taking these, iterate these drawings and giving them all these different iterations. So I mean that part to me is really exciting because you get to see different people solve the same problem, just like an online art school. And then all of a sudden like, I saw this person, like you put up these really great drawings. They weren’t really driving. It was like, it looked like someone just got like a movie, a picture of like what was it was, it was that movie the professional. And uh, they got the character of the young assassins character, the female.

Josué Rojas: 07:58 Yeah. That was a fantastic role. And they just ran a filter through it is what I thought. And I was like, Yo, like did you run a filter to this? And she’s like, no, it’s I spent hours and hours and hours illustrating it. So then I was just like, wow, like the idea of what’s the filter and what’s like a drawing digitally, like it just kind of blows my mind anyway.

Russell Morse: 08:18 I’m very happy to hear you take this development like optimistically. Right. I think it would be very easy to respond as like art is dead because anybody could do art, you know what I mean? Like somebody like yourself, like who committed years of diligence to like honing your craft and like actually learning how to draw, you know, and then going to school and studying paint. I could see how people would feel like subverted or undermine where it’s like damn well now anybody could do it. I mean I think I’ve heard a lot of those conversations among musicians, right? Or like you’re like, yeah man, like anybody with a laptop now I could just like make a sick beat and that is cool and democratizing. But in a lot of ways I’ve just heard people have an not optimistic take on it. So it’s very encouraging to hear you be like, yeah, meme are my favorite form of art. It’s very Andy Warhol of you, I think to take that perspective.

Josué Rojas: 09:08 I mean like, you know, if I, if I, I’ve gotten different places and like I said, hey kids like, you know, let’s do murals. Like this thing could really, you know, when you make art with other people, when you make art for yourself, you walk away feeling like man, something really special happened. You know what I mean? Like when I make art and I just, whether it’s I come in from a place of joy or expressing some pain or whatever it is, I always leave with that same feeling, like something really special happened. And I think um, that’s something that I always wanted people to have and I think it’s, it’s fair for everybody to have that. Like, you know what I mean? So how’s, how’s it going to be that, you know, I’m going to be mad at somebody for doing it. Like, that just makes the world better. Like you know, that famous adage, right Hitler, before he became Hitler, like he applied to art school, and got rejected. Like the world would’ve been hella different had he got accepted into art school.

Russell Morse: 09:58 That’s true, man. I was very nervous for you when you were applying for your MFA. Luckily you got into a great program so we didn’t have to worry about that. Destyni I’m curious about your thoughts just because your perspective is a little different. I think it’s fair to say that you’re early on in your career, um, a lot of people might make an assumption that if a young person was getting into visual art, they would be doing primarily digital art, but it looks like from, from what of your work that I’ve seen, you’re doing a lot of like old school work. You’re putting like brush to canvas. Is that, is there a significance in that or are you also doing digital stuff? You’re just like, whatever.

Destyni Swoope: 10:41 Actually I started painting. I just started doing digital work like a few months ago actually before I started painting. And I actually am a visual arts major right now. So this is my second year. I’m in school, so I have, my major is visual arts. So the way that the curriculum is I take different classes. So I have digital classes, I have photoshop classes of drawing and painting and have all these different things. So I think that like, I agree with what he was saying that it’s like super, super different now than from what they used to be. There’s a lot more access to different things. And um, I mean I tried to do a little bit of everything

Russell Morse: 11:24 You say you started with painting though, right? So how old were you? Like how did you get a brush in your hand?

Destyni Swoope: 11:31 I started painting like maybe three years ago.

Russell Morse: 11:34 Okay. Well, I guess technically you know, fingerpainting would count, right? That’s where it all starts for all of us, you know, artists when we’re like two years old, you know what I mean? And then we get worse and worse as you get older. But you’re saying three years ago you started working with canvas and paint and what was the emphasis for that? Was that just you needed a outlet and that’s what you found?

Destyni Swoope: 11:55 I just needed an outlet in general because during that time, because I’m young, so I just graduated high school at that time and I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I played sports, got bored with that. I went into the medical field and got certifications that wasn’t it, so I just need to figure out what I wanted to do. So I tried to expressing myself in different ways and I just started, my uncle had bought me some watercolor paints, now let me just try this. And I actually really loved it so I just kept pursuing it and kept doing it and doing it and like I just fell in love with it.

Russell Morse: 12:29 So here’s just one of those people that are just good at whatever you try. You show up. I’m going to go into medical field now. I’m going to be a visual artists. No, that’s, that’s fantastic. I am interested in, um, some of the imagery, just like, you know, we were looking at some of this stuff together before the show. So I noticed obviously my, I thought they were French fries. They look like they’re actually dismembered fingers, but there’s like an airplane dropping hearts onto what looks like a bucket of dismembered fingers. Uh, one of my other favorites obviously is the old English 40 bottle with the skeleton hand holding. It brought back a lot of memories of my youth, um, or memories that I never made because I don’t remember what happened, but those are unique and dynamic visual is like where I see there’s like another image with a hand kind of emerging from the sea. Like talk a little bit about that imagery. Like what is your source material like? Are you having dreams? Are you watching movies? Are you reading mythology? Is it spiritual, religious? Like where, what’s your, what’s your inspiration?

Destyni Swoope: 13:35 I think music influenced my art a lot as far as like the colors I use and the imagery in it, like the fingers, the eyeballs, the sunflowers, all that. I think music is definitely like my biggest influence.

Russell Morse: 13:48 What kind of music?

Destyni Swoope: 13:52 I listen to all types of music.

Russell Morse: 13:53 So you have an airplane dropping hearts on a bucket of separate fingers. Is that a Post Malone?

Eming Piansay: 14:01 No, no, no, we’re not going down that road we already did that the other week …

Russell Morse: 14:11 See I told you Eming. Every time you chime it is to roast me. Sorry Destyni’s I mentioned Post Malone a lot on this show. That’s it. That’s why I gave it as an example. But is it like actual literal imagery? Someone’s talking about hands and music, it’s lyricism or are you just kind of the sounds themselves are inspirational?

Destyni Swoope: 14:33 I think it’s the sounds and like usually whatever I’m feeling or like whatever emotion, emotional state I’m in, I like to find music that adds onto that. So maybe like, I don’t remember what I was playing, what exact song I was playing during that, but I knew I was listening to like Tame Impala, like a whole, a whole album. Straight through.

Russell Morse: 14:53 Yeah, that’s a good start. When you know Josue and I used to work in the studio together. We made a comic together years ago. There was always music playing in the music. Always figured into the imagery, you know, it wasn’t high our imagery, it was a comic with lots of sophomore humor, but you know, uh, we still, we still drew the inspiration from the music. Uh, I’m curious before I go back to you Josue, I want to ask you Destyni about what year in school right now you’re in school, you’re with other young people who are kind of like feeling their way through this craft and you know, inevitably thinking about what a career or professional might look like. Are People having those conversations about, um, you know, how art might be marketable or how these skills might be marketable or developing certain skills or are people more committed to developing the craft and you know, kind of a stereotypical maybe Bohemian lifestyle. What are you noticing among your peers?

Destyni Swoope: 15:54 Probably both. I guess it depends on. I don’t even want to say it depends on the major. Actually, a lot of students, it depends on what your courses are, but there’s a lot of classes that are studio classes, but it’s just not studio. You go in and do what you want. The professor’s asking like where do you see yourself? Where’s this going conceptually? Do you see yourself doing graduate school? Like they kind of force that thought upon you. So I don’t think anybody really just walks around like, you know, like I’m just here trying to do my art. Everybody kind of has a plan, a plan right now or where they see themselves. So I think it’s kind of like a mixture of both.

Russell Morse: 16:33 Yeah. So what’s your plan? Not to put you on the spot. I’m sure everybody asks me this all the time, but I’m just curious, where do you see this taking you? Like what roles, what place do you want to have in the art world?

Destyni Swoope: 16:44 I’m not sure exactly. Just trying to become a better artist as far as like my craft and like just trying to perfect everything. So it’s kind of like, this is only my second year so I’m still trying to figure it out and kind of learn the business aspect and like art history and things like that.

Russell Morse: 17:16 Yeah, that was actually what I was going to ask Josue about , you know, the nonprofit that he’s heading now in San Francisco. They have a gallery and I’ve been to a couple of shows there. It’s a really nice space. They always choose incredible work, but I don’t know what’s going on in the gallery right now Josue. I was going to ask you, um, what’s hanging on the walls at Accion Latina, uh, what kind of events you might have coming up. What kind of work are you? Are you showcasing at the gallery?

Josué Rojas: 17:46 It’s funny you should ask man. I mean really as we deal with like other realities in the city, right? A gentrification, um, and lots of changes. People getting displaced, particularly it’s always artists are at the center of Gentrification, right? Generally they’re the first people to show up in the spot and make that spot pop in by, you know, making it beautiful and then making it safe and then making it desirable and then come the businesses then come the tourist and come the mural tours and coffee shops and all these other spots that, you know, get their success due to the way that artists change a space. Um, I’m thinking about that a lot, you know. So in the Mission we’ve had at least 70 years, 50 years of artists really making that space. Great. And then so we’ve also got masters, you know, we’ve got people that have really made that space what it is. Uh, most recently, uh, we’ve had a lot of people pass away founders of the, of the visual culture.

Josué Rojas: 18:46 Uh, Renee Yanyah is in the mission, who is one of the fathers of, you know, day of the dead celebration. We have Yolanda Lopez, you know, one of the pioneer chicana female artists. But you know, what makes our space kind of unique is that we’ve been around for 48 years and we got young people that are still really interested. So how do I balance like me as a director of the space, like how do I balance like, alright, how do I make it popping for the people who’ve been contributing for almost 50 years to the newspaper, to the visual culture of the Mission and also, uh, make it pop in for a young people, people who are making their stuff, making the art now who are in their twenties. And I made a promise to myself that like, you know, growing up for me it was like, oh the sixties are so great.

Josué Rojas: 19:28 Like chicano culture, Latino culture, the Chicano movement, the sixties, that’s where he was popping or woke would we call now woke culture revolutionary culture. Like the sixties were popping and you know, Black Panthers and all of these things like Huey P, Newton in the bay area. And like all these things really like fed my visual imagination. But now to me it’s like I really want young people. I mean, they still refer to that, right, the low riders and the Cholo culture and Tattoo art. Um, and of course hip hop, I mean, think about that. Hip Hop is pushing 50, you know what I mean? It’s been 30 years since Basquiat died. I’m like, this stuff is really something like, so urban culture is really changing and shifting. So to me it’s like, all right, bringing in young people to have conversations with old people is kind of where it gets kind of exciting, right? Like, you know, some of our, some of our folks really, um, are having really empowered, powerful, important gender conversations. Um, you know, like, uh, I’ve, we hosted a conversation just, you know, randomly, you know, a young, a young woman, an older man, we’re talking about the power of Latinex or Latin x, however you want to say it, like, you know, taking the gender out of Latino or Latina. And I think the part that makes me excited is when I see people having these conversations like facilitating, alright, this is the time of the passing of the torch or the passing of this baton as it were. Right. You’re gonna, you know, we’re going to have to let this go. And you have the right, you know, young people to cast this image in your own likeness. You know what I mean? Like you don’t have to make it look like the stuff in the past, it should look like with the way you see the world. And um, I think it’s really kind of humbling in several different ways to like be a part of that transition.

Russell Morse: 21:23 Yeah, I mean, I, that’s why I mentioned, you know, the gallery in the space, just in the Times that I’ve been there, you know, it’s a lot more than a gallery. It’s a lot more than a nonprofit. It’s a, it’s a community for all those different generations of artists and organizers, um, are kind of finding a place to have those conversations. Even if whatever they’re disagreeing. You know what I mean? I’m sure there’s plenty of visual artists in there who would be maybe more grouchy about what you’re talking about for access to digital media or there will be young people that it’d be like, who’s that? That art looks whack, but there’s like, there needs to be space for that, you know. Destyni, I’m curious. So I, you know. Oh, Josue is talking about the importance of that community of artists. Do you, are you plugged into a similar community? What kinds of places are you showing your art? Like what kind of… Are you finding that community at school? I’m like, what? Where have you seen visual art create a sense of community or at the very least create spaces for showcasing network and having a conversation?

Destyni Swoope: 22:30 Oh, there’s so many things. Whether it’s like school or just like the art community in general in Miami is just like super open. Especially as far as like the older, much more experienced artists getting with the younger artists that are trying to develop and become better. I’ve definitely come across a lot of people that were open to having conversation and pushing conversation and just like trying to connect the past and now and just seeing how all that comes together is definitely inspiring. Like I wish that there was more galleries that were open to that. As far as galleries go, it’s a little bit different, but when I, when I’m talking about is like the art scene like that, like an underground scene like young people that come together and throw their own events or their own galleries. Not necessarily like the professional galleries, but I would like to see more professional galleries and those people reach out to the younger people, but it’s a little bit more difficult I think.

Russell Morse: 23:34 Yeah. Well I’m in New York and Josue is obviously talking about the art scene in San Francisco. I don’t know very much about the art scene in Miami and I’m kind of curious to hear a little bit more like you’re talking about. There’s a long history there and there’s a new kind of group of young people making their own scene. What is the art scene in Miam?

Destyni Swoope: 23:55 As far as the young people?

Russell Morse: 23:58 I mean, I know like there there’s a lot to cover obviously, but I’m just curious as someone who hasn’t spent that much time there, isn’t that familiar about the world down there? Is it vibrant? Is it thriving? Is there a lot of cool stuff going on?

Destyni Swoope: 24:09 Yeah, it’s definitely thriving and it’s definitely changing.

Russell Morse: 24:13 What kind of change? What kind of changes are you seeing?

Destyni Swoope: 24:15 Changing as an. I think it’s becoming more open to different types of art.

Russell Morse: 24:20 That’s great. Are you seeing that play out for yourself and other young artists that are being welcomed, welcomed into that world? Was does that look like?

Destyni Swoope: 24:33 It’s very complicated to find places that have a good name and that you can trust with your art and guiding you in the right direction. Like there’s. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of this place called Wynwood in Miami.

Josué Rojas: 24:51 The Wynwood walls are famous world famous mural district.

Destyni Swoope: 25:00 Yeah, so that’s something that I love it as an artist, but as somebody who has, you know, tried to like push art out there, it’s definitely like political, like I think it’s a little more difficult to because of like meeting, I don’t know if you need like I don’t know what it is or who runs everything that goes around in there, but some people might hate me for this, but a lot of the murals are , like old, like they don’t, they stay up there for months and months and I know plenty of people who have tried to apply or try to at least speak to somebody like, hey, we want to, can we get on the wall? Is there, how much does it cost? Or just things like that. And it’s extremely difficult. I don’t think there’s as much openness when it comes to things like that, but I think that it’s changing. I think there’s a shift.

Russell Morse: 25:54 Well the other thing is I always say this wrong, so don’t make fun of me for pronouncing it art basil, is that how you say it?

Destyni Swoope: 26:03 Art Basel.

Russell Morse: 26:03 I was kind of, I always say it wrong no matter what. And then, um, Kanye said it ‘basil’ recently in a song and then it really stuck with me. Do you know the one I’m talking about anyway? Not Important. I’m going to blame Kanye for my mispronunciation: Basel. Alright. Thank you for that clarification. Uh, how relevant is that for you as a young artist? I mean, that’s like rich people from all over the world getting together. I mean it’s like it’s been parodied over and over again is like, you know, people drinking champagne and Martinis on, on yachts and buying paintings. Uh, but what does it look like on the, what does it look like for a young artist who’s in Miami?

Destyni Swoope: 26:47 Oh, it’s crazy. But it’s fun. It’s inspiring. It, like you get all different types of ideas. You meet all different types of people. You meet different artists. Artists that are not in galleries are not displaying their work but are just out there showcasing themselves and their stuff is definitely fun.

Russell Morse: 27:08 So it’s accessible. It’s not like exclusive events, like you’re saying, like galleries that would be keeping out younger people or whatever, if there’s a whole spectrum of accessibility throughout the events. Yeah. That’s good to hear. How many have you been to? Is there one coming up? I feel like there’s one coming up, isn’t it? In the wintertime?

Destyni Swoope: 27:29 It’s always in December, December.

Russell Morse: 27:31 See, I got that right. I can’t pronounce it, but I have a vague sense of when it happens. Uh, so do you have plans for Art Basel this year?

Destyni Swoope: 27:43 Actually, me and one of my friends have been working on putting an event together. Obviously it’s not like a gallery event, but it’s something for the underground scene. Just artists that want to display and showcase and just get together and catch a vibe, you know?

Russell Morse: 27:59 Yeah. No, that sounds fantastic. I would love to hear more about it. Now that you’ve been on the show, maybe if you’re interested, you could contribute something from your experiences there, you know, whatever, just some photos or you know, you could write something up about your experience because you’re there to huge cultural event. Um, and we’d love to feature something from that on the site if you’re open to it. It’s just an idea. But I also want to make sure that people know that when we post this online, we’re going to be able to give you some samples of Destyni’s work. It’s kind of funny that we’re doing a podcast about visual art because that’s really the only medium where you can’t see visual art, but thank God we have a website and where people are listening and streaming will put up some links so that you can see Destyni’s art.

Russell Morse: 28:47 It’s incredible and we’ll put some links up there so that you can see some of the work that Josue is doing in San Francisco to use art to build community there in the mission district and beyond. Uh, I want to thank both of you guys for being here. I think this was very enlightening for me. I mean, it’s not very, it’s pretty easy for me to learn things because there’s all kinds of stuff I don’t know. But I was like very encouraged, I think initially by Josue your optimism about how, you know, the use of digital arts and democratization of visual art is like a positive thing and then you know, to hear from you Destyni that, you know, a world class event such as our basil is accessible to young people who are making art. So, you know, I’m an optimist. Eming knows this. I say this all the time. I’m optimistic to a fault, but I’m not, I’m not moving away from it. So it’s good to hear those thoughts reinforced. Uh, I want to thank both of you guys for being here. Destyni and Josue this was an illuminating conversation and I want to take our listeners and I want to thank Eming our producer as always. Thanks everybody for listening. Until next time: Kwest On everybody.

Eming Piansay: 30:02 This episode of Kwest On Media of margin call was produced in Richmond, California.