Our first guest joins us from Kansas City Missouri. Arie Monroe is an artist and woman of color who has made her career in art by building a network of fans, clients and collectors. One of her paintings is currently on view at the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City as a part of the exhibition called Testimony.

Arie and Maurice discuss a range of topics focusing on the artists internal struggle to keep going through challenge and some of the surprising payoffs that consistency can bring us. 

Maurice talks about his experience writing his own story and the void he hopes to fill. Narrative is the operating system of the human being

Arie’s portfolio page - https://www.ariemonroeart.com/

Arie’s art business page - https://www.drawlikecrazy.net/

Aerie on social:

• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ariemonroe/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/ariemonroe2?lang=en
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ArieMonroeArt/
• Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/Thatmainchick

Inspiration:

Inspiration ‘Kill 6 Billion Demons’ - https://killsixbilliondemons.com/

The War for Rayuba - https://discord.com/invite/PEK7f7V

More topics we discuss:

• Scott McCloud 24 Hr Comic
• Deadlines and time management
  • “Start picking your battles”
  • “Learn how to say no [to the work you don’t want to do]”
• Sketch cards & the collector market 
  • Go to Comic book shops & conventions to learn about collectors
• What is the value of art when consumption is increasingly digital? Does that make original work more valuable?
• Cartoon Art Museum - Will Eisner show
• Wexner + Billy Ireland collection contains all of 
• Joe Kubert school has an original illustration Frank Miller did for the Sin City book.
• Even in an age of digital consumption, physical artifacts have only gained in value.
• Hybrid production process: digital roughs and traditional finishing 
• Frank & Ollie documentary: Disney studio animators from the ‘9 Old Men’.
• Send Arie a meme or kitty drawing in instagram 

Hey! Free Comic Book Day is August 14, 2021 - what should we do to participate?

24 hour comic book day October 2, 2021! Should we get involved?

In this episode, Maurice nerds out over character development in comic book screen plays. Larly and Maurice discuss the bottleneck. How dos an artist establish some kind of art practice that helps to actually produce the ideas in their head.

Larly describes a Kickstarter projects she loves and how autism awareness affected her own work. How to escape perfectionism? Put out work no matter what. Larly reads her favorite quote ‘The blessed unrest’ by Martha Grahm.

#Mayviation art challenge announcement

Sorry, Sir Russell Crow (Can Australians be knighted by the queen?) but you should never be cast in a musical again.

We try to start each episode with a couple of things that inspired us this week. That seems to always lead to interesting tangents. We discussed future plans for the show including potential guest: Hero Tomorrow Comics (Cleveland) and how to attract artists who work in a variety of media. 

[EDIT] When we recorded this episode, we were on schedule like a couple of big time podcast producers. It was really something. But, as sometimes happens in the creative process, we had some set-backs. Although we announce the Aviation April art challenge in this episode, it did not come together in time. Fortunately, we don’t ever quit and Mayviation was a solid challenge!

Maurice gives a little of the history of the Pens Eats Pencils meetup and how we got here.

Maurice and Larly discuss home studio setups and the spirit of DIY. Here are links to some of the things that came up in the conversation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnVu188_Cuo&ab_channel=HowardWimshurst

Larly discusses her first public art project: photos on @penseatpencils instagram We both took inspiration from the Thomas Edison quote: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”. There have been many times over the years that challenged us to quit, but we didn’t (at least not for good). Maybe you can relate?

We did some planning for art challenges including ‘March of Robots’ and ‘Aviation April’. More links:

https://roaring.earth/tarantulas-and-frogs-are-friends-with-benefits/

We ended this episode talking about our freelance experience and lessons learned.