Conversations On Community with Mike Porter

Community Support and Building

In this episode, I speak with Mike Porter, my comic book store guy about how community impacts artists and the need to build a community around yourself. Although Mike didn’t think of himself as an artist, I thought it was important to have him speak about the impact of community on his business and practice as a shop owner and burgeoning writer.

Hello friend, this is Timothy Kimo Brien your head instigator at Create Art Podcast where I bring my 20 years in art and education to help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume. In 2022 I am rebroadcasting my former podcast KDOI Podcast here so you can catch up on what we have been doing for the past 4 years. KDOI Podcast was my first serious attempt at podcasting after spending many years just creating content without regard to the final product. KDOI started in 2016 and had 3 seasons until I closed it down in 2019. I wanted to make sure that these gems didn’t get relegated to my external hard drives, so here you go, there will be interviews, commentary, and projects that you can do for yourself. Enjoy these rebroadcasts and Create More Than You Consume. This episode is about the novel, so enjoy.

Topics Discussed

• Definition of Community :

a unified body of individuals, the people with common interests living in a particular area. A group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society, a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered throughout a larger society, a body of persons or nations having a common history or a common social economic and political interests.
A group linked by a common policy, joint ownership, or participation social activity,

• Quote from Gothe on Community : The world is so empty. If one thinks only of mountains, rivers, and cities, but to know someone who thinks feels with us and who through distance and who though distance is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us and in the inhabited.
• Quote From Fred Rogers on community :

Reaching Out

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let’s start that conversation.

• Email: timothy@createartpodcast.com
• YouTube Channel: Create Art Podcast YT Channel
• IG: @createartpodcast
• Twitter: @createartpod

Transcripts of the show

KDOI Rebroadcast Conversations On Community with Mike Porter
Tim: Create art podcast. KDOI rebroadcast conversations on community with like Porter. Hello friends. This is Timothy Kimo. Brian, your head instigator for create art podcast where I use my twenty years. Plus. From my experiences in the arts and education world to help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume.
Now, a few years ago, I used to run a podcast called K D O I podcasts, which stood for Kimo’s den of iniquity. I closed down that podcast and started up create art podcast because I felt. That is a better way to communicate to you what this podcast is about. So in 2022, I’ll be rebroadcasting season three of Katie or podcasting.
Now for this episode, I’ll be talking with Mike Porter and we’re going to be discussing community. And in each of these episodes, I start off with the definition of community and then two quotes. And then I talked to my guest to see what their opinion is on that topic. So I hope you enjoy.
Welcome back friends. Welcome to KDOI podcasting Kimo’s den of iniquity, where we create more than we consume. I am your head instigator, Timothy Kimo, Brian, many times creating art is done in an imposed isolation or away from our audience. When we do that, we can often feel like we’re the only person doing the art we are doing.
And we may never find our intended audience. It’s important to find our community, to learn, to challenge and to inspire our creativity. I never went to conferences while in college, but since I left academia, I’ve gone to three conferences in two years about podcasting. Now, each time. The other weirdos that do what I do.
I have a sense of family that I’m not the only crazy one out there doing this. It makes me want to push through blockages and create more. Now let’s listen to what Merriam Webster says, a unified body of individuals, the people with common interests living in a particular area. A group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society, a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered throughout a larger society, a body of persons or nations having a common history or a common social economic and political interests.
A group linked by a common policy, joint ownership, or participation social activity, our quotes come from Goethe or girthy. However, you’d like to pronounce his name. The world is so empty. If one thinks only of mountains, rivers, and cities, but to know someone who thinks feels with us and who through distance and who though distance is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us and in the inhabited.
We also have Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, to the most of us, we live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It is easy to say it’s not my child at my community, not my world, not my problem. Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people. My heroes Guthy was a German writer in state.
Is works, include four novels, epic and lyric poetry, prose, verse dramas, memoirs, autobiography, literary, and aesthetic criticism, and true to seize on botany and anatomy and color. Fred Rogers, otherwise known as Mr. Rogers was an American television personality, musician, puppeteer writer, producer, and I didn’t know this Presbyterian minister.
Dictionary definition was very long-winded. But what really spoke to me was body of persons of common and a specifically professional interests scattered throughout through a larger society. You know, we have shared interest in our exploration in inter interpretation of art. Yes, we are all over the world and we can always find a kindred soul that.
For me, you can’t go wrong with Fred Rogers. We do have a shared responsibility and isn’t it great to know that we can help each other out. In fact, many artists I know are only too happy to help other artists out with supplies or a space to express themselves. Just like I’m doing here today. So let’s get this conversation started.

Mike Porter: making off of your art. Do you consider yourself a professional artist?

Tim: All right, so it’s $400. $400 a year. Is it 400 American or 400 Canadian or 400 Australian? It’s $400 American

Mike Porter: wise, unless you’re a dual citizen and you’re living in Australia, in which case it’s whatever their tax codes is.

Tim: Well, why does it have to be 400

Mike Porter: American?
Because that is the amount

Tim: that, but who determines that it has to be American, who is the determining factor who was saying that it has to be 400. Who says that the government they get, what, which government, the American government, why is
Mike Porter: there an American government? There is definitely an off and on occasionally,
Tim: every four years might be an American government.
We get an extra day. If we want to be open. I like being open. I’m all about giving and being open
Mike Porter: and honest.
Tim: Oh no, I don’t know. I didn’t say that. No,
Mike Porter: no, no, no. So open and dishonest, ask me anything. I’ll tell you anything. Not necessarily the truth openly
Tim: dishonest is a beautiful thing. Openly dishonest.
That’s that’s the way I like to be. That’s that’s what I’m going to run my platform on that you are going to be the head
Mike Porter: off, right? Except that can’t be because I’m a Canadian citizen.
Tim: That’s. That’s okay. We’re going to run you for president. I’ll be your vice president. And when you are elected, then you can just kind of go.
I
Mike Porter: don’t, I don’t even think I
Tim: can run. Sure. You care. Anybody can run. No,
Mike Porter: I think you have to be with the 35 years old and an American citizen
Tim: technicalities, or you can run, you just can’t win.
Mike Porter: I don’t think that’s true. I think this is one of those openly dishonest. It sounds good.
Tim: And folks, you have tuned into another episode of K D O I podcast, where we create more than we consume.
And as you know, I’m Timothy Kimo. Brian and I have with me here are wonderful merchants of mercy, our purveyor of books of glean and happiness. Mr. Mike Porter with now is little fish, still an official thing, or is it not
Mike Porter: a little fish? Comics died? Sasha’s dead. I do have a secret nerd Panda, which is up and running.
It is doing okay. But you can find me in person at Sage manages game evening,
Tim: which we just came from this very afternoon before we recorded this podcast. And it was a very mirthful place. It, it, there’s a lot of happiness in that place
Mike Porter: For the people coming in. Yes. For the employees, not so much.
Tim: See folks. That’s why, when you go into these places, you need to provide either mirth or leave the employees. Don’t feed the employees, help
Mike Porter: feed
Tim: what kind of food. Provide you with a sustainable amount of happiness for about two hours.
Mike Porter: We do have a one customer who is a professional chef and he brings me pastries, apple pastries all the time.
And I appreciate him very much.
Tim: You know, so folks pastries, if you go into Sage manners, pastries is the way to go.
Mike Porter: Now I am Canadian. So a. Donuts. They’re an official food group in Canada. Oh, I did
Tim: not know that I’m shocked being parked Canadian myself. I was not aware of that. Now. It doesn’t have to be a certain type of donut.
Mike Porter: Now us personally, I personally prefer jelly donuts, but jellies are great.
Tim: What type of deal they needs to be in that donut? It
Mike Porter: doesn’t matter. It can be, it can be a custard, it can be a jelly. It can be they’re all
Tim: jellies. So a filling of some sort that is not cream, or it can even be a cream, like a Boston cream,
Mike Porter: like a Boston cream is a jelly
Tim: donuts.
All right, fantastic. So folks, you know, Some donuts stacked. He needs them. He is not happy. He’s happy where he’s at and he’s happy to serve the public and customers, but in order to get them even more happy, which I believe you could be more happy who couldn’t be more happy. One of there’s a few people that couldn’t be more happy.
Name one. One of my daughters, I’m sure couldn’t be more happy. She could not be more happy. Cause she’s my daughter. Oh, how could you be more happy than being. You would not know that you’re not know
Mike Porter: the answer to that.
Tim: I do not have the answer to that, but you don’t even a few years you could interview one of my daughters.
It doesn’t matter either one, they’re both interchangeable and you can see, you know, what it takes to be more happy than what they are. Teenagers. Yeah, that’s not loud then we’ll get it out now. We’re not missing. No, no, no, no, no. Don’t curse me like that. That’s just that’s mean that’s growing for Canadian kind of shocked and in awe that, I’m sorry.
Thank you. Thank you. That’s what we’re looking for here today, folks. So how
Mike Porter: many apologies will you get out of me?
Tim: In this episode? Okay. And we already got one 11 to go 11 to go. Let’s see if we can do it. All right. So today’s topic that we’re going to be discussing today. Here is a community, right? So in the pre-show I’ve already read the definition of community and given the the two quotes that we’re using today, one from Fred Rogers and one from Guthy or Gerta.
So SuperNet people pronounce it, correct though. Healthy. My first question, he likes, how do you pronounce his narrative?
Mike Porter: It’s definitely Gurtis anyone who pronounces it go theme. You get to punch.
Tim: Really? It’s true. You get the punch that in my philosophy class. Okay. So the reason why he pronounced it, go for it.
He is because some people do pronounce it that way before you go ahead and strike me down. Right. But I just, you know, for some of the folks out there, they, they want to pronounce it that way you prefer Gerta and that’s. And that’s okay. I
Mike Porter: appreciate you allowing me to be right. Well, I
Tim: like it when you’re right, because then that means that I’m right.
And you know, couldn’t you be more happier if you were more right? I don’t think you could be
Mike Porter: many things would make me happier pronunciation of people’s names. Probably not high on that list. Not high on the
Tim: list. Okay. What do you think about the quotes that we had from from Gerta and from Fred Rogers?
Okay. So Fred Rogers quote is and I have it right here. If you’d like to take a look at it again. Oh no, no. It is tattooed on your chest. I did see a tattooed on your chest. I don’t know why you showing me his chest areas, but he is doing that right now. As we’re sitting in this coffee shop for the
Mike Porter: folks at home, the, just for the
Tim: quote.
Mike Porter: Him and talking about how the people that actually are involved in the community or the people that he sees as being heroes, that there are people that walk by or somebody is in trouble. They don’t feel invested in that person, right. As, as part of a community and the people that stop and help that person or the people that fed Rogers consider as a hero,
Tim: remembering the program.
You want to remember this correctly. So you enjoy that E that really spoke to you. Right? My,
Mike Porter: my rebuilt, I think that there’s a lot of. Sidelines people and more now, I mean, it’s weird to give an example when we moved into the neighborhood that we’re currently in I went with home-baked goods to the neighbors and introduced myself and he was like, Hey, we’re neighbors.
We’re just moving in. And they looked at me like I was insane. Because he was a stranger coming over and knocking on the door and, and introducing themselves, you only go to people’s houses if there’s an emergency, not a
Tim: fear. Now let me ask you a question on this, because I’ve known you now for about five years.
What color was your hair when you did that? Like the color of my hair was probably
brown. It was brown. Okay. So it was a natural color, right. Okay. That’s fine. Nevermind. Nevermind. Go ahead. The reason why that’s, because I’ve had purple Mohawks and I can understand if somebody was a little. For clubs, shall we say a little bit alarmed.
If I came up with baked goods to their house and said, hi, I’m your neighbor. Right.
Mike Porter: But the point I, well, I don’t know if this is a 409, but what, I’m, what I’m trying to move, maneuver myself towards. Is that the idea of what is a community it’s changed in that? The face-to-face. Sort of interactions with people that, that community I think has drifted apart, but it’s sort of been replaced with a digital community now, like the online people, you have the GoFund me’s and the.
Hey, help me out two pages and people will give money to the people in need and that’s fantastic. But if they saw them on the street, wouldn’t, wouldn’t stop in and help. Wouldn’t, you know, they look at the person who’s homeless is an inconvenience when they’re walking, but that same person will give money to somebody they don’t know to have their window fixed or to help them get into college or to.
So the idea of community, the what, what is the community has changed in that re in some ways it’s a lot broader because we live in this digital world, but at the same time, the interpersonal in-person community is, has suffered,
Tim: I think. And I can’t Verify the information that I’m going to share with you.
So I’m gonna share it with you anyways, right? Because just making this up because that’s what we do know. I actually heard it someplace. I, I heard it on NPR and like they’re very reliable, more reliable than my shell. I don’t know. Okay. But certainly more viewers. Well, just three more viewers, three, just three more, you know, and that’s, that’s on statistics that I have created, right.
And I don’t have any viewers. I have listeners, but that’s okay. I’ve got, you know, they’ve got three more than I do. So, but they were saying with the go fund me accounts that well, over half are dedicated to people’s medical bills. So they’re like one of the largest insurers in the country.
Right. That doesn’t surprise me at all. You know? So, you know, w we, we have a tendency to develop the community around us to better ourselves, well, to, you know, for an emerging. If we need it, but in order to enrich and enliven ourselves, we need to have the community around us. Right.
Mike Porter: When, when I had little fish comics, at one point, there was.
Vandalism incident with involving a what do you call them? Slingshots. And somebody broke the window in
Tim: the front. It wasn’t me. I know. I’m not saying it was just because I’m from Chicago. The way we don’t use slingshots in Chicago, by the way,
Mike Porter: that would be an amazing town. If it was a city, if it was
Tim: just all slingshots, there would be, Hey, you know what?
It’d be a lot nicer place to leave. Zack a lot nicer, fewer rocks, fewer rocks would be new. That’s true. But somebody, one of our customers set up a GoFundMe for a little fish comics. Didn’t didn’t talk to me about it. Just set it up that, that day. And the community of people that were coming to the store donated enough to have the window repaired within 24 hours.
Mike Porter: So that was crazy. And that’s like, that’s a cool way that the digital world can interact with. The actual sort of meat
Tim: world, the meat world, as in like cow ham, Limburger cheese. Yep. Physical world, the physical world. Okay. I got you. As opposed to digital well understood digital meat I hear is making a breakthrough.
Mike Porter: It’s not as filling
Tim: it really. Isn’t looking at
Mike Porter: pictures of cows.
Tim: It’s just not the same. And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s satisfying yet. Not fulfilling. And I’ll give you that, but in a satisfying to look at pictures of cows, I often look at videos of cows myself, but that’s what I do,
Mike Porter: nothing to say to that,
Tim: nor am I looking for you to say anything to that?
You know, what more can you say after that? So now Gerta is a thing is the world is empty. If one things only of mountains, rivers, and cities, but to know someone who thinks and feels with us and who through though distant is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth. And inhabited garden. How does that make you feel?
Do you have a community now? You know, there’s an arts program. We would talk a lot about arts here, obviously. And, and we had our I don’t really want to call it a disagreement. We had our miscommunication we define words different. In our last conversation. Okay.
Mike Porter: I have to refresh me in, what
Tim: were your artists, the term artist, right.
You were referring to a professional artist. I was referring to ameture artistry as, as being an artist. So for this, your community, do they provide you an inhabited. Artistically
Mike Porter: artistic. Well, here’s the thing that I think is kind of interesting about artistic community. I think that up to a certain point, they’re incredibly helpful that they, they can inspire you to continue.
They can push you to, to create when a community is made up of the same sort of. I’m going to use, let’s say podcasting as an example, my impression of having listened to several people, talking about making podcasts and how to make podcasts. Up to the inception point of creating the podcast incredibly helpful and wonderful to each other.
Once you actually have that podcast up and running, and it becomes a competitive competition, the community sort of doesn’t help as much right now. That they’re up and running. Now that you’ve gotten them creatively going now, you don’t want them to have viewers because, or listeners, because you want those listeners for yourself.
If they’re talking about the same sorts of things, there’s a a measure of where the pendulum is going to go and you want it to go towards you rather than towards them. Kind
Tim: of like a territorial kind of thing, what you’re saying. Right.
Mike Porter: I’ve I’ve experienced it with writing in the sense of once as when you’re a struggling writer.
Professional writers will give you a lot of advice. Well, I’ll give you a lot of helpful advice. As soon as you are a published author and you’re interacting with another published author, it becomes weird because they, they’re not talking to you like Like a mentor mentee. Not even at a, as peers, like getting equals you’re, you’re more guarded because if I have a story idea and I’m trying to flush it out or flesh it out I might not talk to somebody that I know has published a book because I’m worried that they will take that idea and publish it, because I know that they have the ability to do that because they’ve published before.
Whereas somebody who is struggling as a writer, I might be, feel more free to talk about an idea in front of it and workshop an idea because I’m not as concerned that it’s going to be stolen. So there’s, there’s a. Among communities of the same sort of art, art history. There’s a guardedness. I think that happens at after a certain point at a certain level that doesn’t help.
Yeah. And I don’t know if there’s any way to get past that beyond. Proprietary thinking of that idea as being yours and getting to where I think is a more evolved state of, Hey, here’s an idea. And even if they do something with that idea, it doesn’t diminish what you’re doing with the idea at all.
So I think that’s the sort of the next level of community is where, where you can get to that point. Openly discussing things without the fear, but generally speaking in, in sort of a consumer capitalist kind of, kind of base where you’re chasing that the monetary value of things there’s always going to be a guardedness that we’re getting in the way of producing a creative idea in a community, in a group because who owns that idea?
Tim: Exactly exactly who does own that idea. If a bunch of people developing it, if you workshop an idea, if you bring a short story to. And they toss him, their critiques windows become theirs when he does come. When does it become the communities and see speaking to yours. Right. You know and that, that can be a, a downfall of communities as well.
Folks that are in the same disciplines, you know, a group of writers or group of podcasters. Absolutely. I’ve witnessed that too. You know, you get. You, you, you know what you’re saying? That, that certain level of force no longer your amateur doing it for fun, doing it for a hobby it’s Ooh. I just, you know with podcasting it’s I scored my first advertiser.
And then that was that next phase. How do I get my next advertiser on here? How do I get, you know, a beeline beeline B-level celebrities on my show, right. And there’s really no way of going about doing it. Three conferences and it’s all be pushed on monetization, monetization, monetization, and then they’re going to show you how to do that, but you gotta pay a little, you gotta pay, you know, 40 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month for that.
Right. And so it’s no longer mentor mentee. The business, providing
Mike Porter: a service at that point. It’s not a, it’s not that mentoring you they’re, they’re offering their expertise as a service to be mine and the fear and the, the, at least for me, like my still discomfort, when we go back to that idea of workshopping an idea.
If I put, put forward a short story in a group and they add things in and I, I make use of that. There comes a point where you’re. You have to give credit, right. And it’s never clear at what that level is at what point you, you say, thank you for lying to the group for helping me workshop this, versus giving somebody an author credit versus, you know, the different levels of, of contribution.
And then at the expectation of Reimbursement. If, if you say, well, this person did a lot of editing on, on my, my story. I’m going to give them a, a writing credit on it and being nice about it. Nice being, just being honest in saying, Hey X person helped the lawn experts and given, then go look at my, my name is on this too.
I should be getting 50% of whatever. Exactly. So it becomes how much credit can you give and still make money with what you’re doing.
Tim: You kind of lose the the, the, the giving aspect of a community. Versus the what’s in it for me. Right.
Mike Porter: And that’s, that goes to the Fred Rogers quote, actually, if you’re, I think that that’s sort of the fear of giving a credit or helping out.
You’re not going to get any, anything out of it. That’s the person that Mr. Rogers is saying, isn’t that isn’t their hero. The person that’s, that’s volunteering, their, their expertise and help to solve. Is the person that he’s looking at as
Tim: being easier. Fantastic, fantastic thoughts there. Do you think and I’m going to play a little devil’s advocate here and that’s not just because that, you know, the drink that I have has a is an ex gold cup in the most of my tattoos have skulls on them.
You get to keep that. No, I do not. As far as well, I don’t know. I might, I could fit my bag nicely and I would assume, no, I wouldn’t want to do that. I like these people here at this coffee shop that were fantastic,
Mike Porter: but I’m
Tim: going to play the devil’s advocate here with that. And could it be that that what you, you know, published that first book once you get that first sponsor once you get that first a thousand dollars on Patrion.
Sure. The other people that have. Guided you, mentored you at that point, then they kind of go, okay, well you’ve made it over that hurdle. You’ve made it over that goal. Fly be free. Now, now it’s up to you to do that. Now it’s up to you to repeat
Mike Porter: that. Absolutely. Absolutely. There’s a, there comes a point when mentors become peers.
And that that fits into community somewhere. I mean, you can have a community of peers, you can never I’m not sure. I’m not sure what your, your, your point is to it. Other than, other than just say that. Yes. I think that at some point you know, the student has become the master grasshopper that you’ve learned as much.
Ken from somebody in a practical sense, but at least artistically since it’s a creative endeavor, there’s no limit on creativity. So you can keep learning from the same person and seeing how they create things and learn something new from them. As long as they’re willing to let you observe or interact In terms of a community it, it becomes more difficult for peers in a competitive industry to help each other out
Tim: their world is a very competitive thing. And there’s
Mike Porter: only so much wall space for your, for who gets to hang their P their paintings. Right. So that’s true. If, if you get that, that showing, that means somebody else is, and I don’t, I get, I think that goes to that, that idea that The more involved, artistic ideal would be congratulations.
You’ve gotten this space and I will get my space. And it’s, it’s not a competition. But as long as we’re looking at trying to make a living at it, we’re going to be the professional versus the amateur. I mean, that’s it, that’s when it, when you can. You can’t be as altruistic as you might want to be because you’re going for a limited
Tim: resource.
So it basically, once you hit that point of you no longer to have that, your, your professional, then you don’t necessarily. Cutthroat about it, but you have to you you’ve taken on a new master per se, instead of the the inspiration ferry that, you know, flies around that, you know, it’s everybody, you have to think of it as a business.
You have to go on that left side of the brain. Right?
Mike Porter: I think, I think that the community is a lot more willing to help you out on the creative end of things, and a lot less willing to help you out on the business. End of things, because creative. We helping you develop an idea that you’ve come up with and right.
That you, or tell your, your own or whatever that doesn’t cost me anything. Right. Getting you to the, so once you have that idea and develop, once you have that painting done, once you have that story. And you’re trying to get it published. That’s where we start getting into competition. And that’s where the community, I think, breaks down in the sense that we can work very well together on workshopping an idea.
But as soon as you’re trying to get it published, and if you’re wearing the same art form, I’m writing a science fiction stories and you’re writing science fiction stories. There’s only so many places that are accepting science fiction stories. And I might not want to tell you that about an idea where you could actually sell that idea if I’m intending to submit something to that place, to And that doesn’t make you a bad
person, as I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking that it’s also misguided in the sense that while you and I are both submitting something to the same people, we’re not in competition with each other, we’re in competition for their attention. My, you, you putting in.
A great story. Isn’t stopping me from putting in a great story and both of us feel accepted, but it’s hard to get past that idea that it is a competition that even. I guess a more involved. I think you, you don’t look at it as being in competition with each other. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck to paycheck, it, I’m going to stop hitting the table because of you get
Tim: the typical questions you want me to focus?
He’s about ready to flip over the table because he knows that if we were to go ahead in the science fiction, writing contest, he would beat the crap out of me. He’s a better writer than.
Mike Porter: It is very kind of you to
Tim: say, well, I try to be kind like that because you know, I, I do fear you. I just, I thought I should let everyone know.
I do. I do fear Mr. Porter here light mighty brain hit his mommy brain and is something that I have been eating all of ever since I lived in Chicago and he actually reviewed some of my work a long time ago in a galaxy. And provided some good criticism for me. And this was a long time ago.
You may or may not remember it.
Mike Porter: I think that you gave it to me at one of these spoken word. Open mics.
Tim: I’m remembering correctly. I saw, and I give it to you when I lived in Chicago and we in tele my wife passed about two and that he can help me. I don’t. Am I a minute spoken when I could be, you know, there’s been many, you know, it serves so much time has passed.
We’ve known each other for so long. Excellent. So with this community idea here do you think you would be better to have a community of different disciplines? W would you be more willing to do it? I think we need different disciplines. So let’s say you wanted to do some writing and then you were in a group of painters, podcasters dancers.
No, that congestion
Mike Porter: first, first we have to overcome the idea that one discipline is better than another. No, I’m not. I’m not just, just trying to think of, of how that community would work because you would tend to. Collaboration. Because as a writer, I can sit in this coffee shop that we’re in right now, and I can look at the paintings on the wall.
Tim: It’d be inspired to write something because of that painting. I’ve my, one of my books of poetry wisdom from the it was 60 pounds, 30 poems in 30 days. I did it twice, you know, so I had 60 poems in 60 days. And I give it to my good friend, Heather, and I said, I need some illustrations paintings.
What have you, anything grabbed me? And she did all the illustrations for it. And she did the editing on that poetry book. So I think. Our forms can influence and inspire each other. She’s also a writer. She’s also a poet and musician and all that kind of jazz. You know, she’s got a lot like me, which is scary.
She’s the female version of me.
Mike Porter: Well, do you think that makes it easier when you’re a Jack of all trades like that? You can put a master of none you can look at at how other disciplines can interact in, you know, when you, when you’re painting. And that inspires you to write a poem about that piece. Well, and good.
You’re you you’ve worked those two disciplines together. But if you’re only.
Tim: Oh, you’re just a writer, just a lowly writer. Cause you know, we all know that the writers are the lowest ones on the totem pole. There are, what do they got a piece of paper and something to put it on. You don’t even need a pen.
You, you know, you can take a mark who decides example and be in the insane asylum and write a whole book with poop. I don’t, I don’t think that’s true. That is true. I saw it on a movie once.
Mike Porter: I don’t think he wrote a book in feces. I think that’s a great story.
Tim: That’s true. We will put it in the show notes.
We will find out we’ll do some investigative journalism here with all the money that you guys are putting in my patriotic. Oh, what,
Mike Porter: what I think with a community of a diverse community of different art artists, artists, and artistic types. First you’d have to overcome the, the tendency for groups to come together.
And that’s where people who are like yourself that are able to bring together a diverse set of skills and different forms of artistry to bridge that gap because. Wow most, well, not most, but a lot. A lot of artists tend to be insular creatures. They live inside their own heads. And so when you get a group of artists together, it’s usually a very quiet sort of, or it’s incredibly Rawkus and has nothing to do with art.
So in order to facilitate a productive community, you would have to have people that are able to bring up, bring people into the conversation. Okay. If you leave things to their own devices, I think that the painters would clump with Peters, right? As you’d pump with writers, and then they would maybe wave at each other across the room and say, your thing really inspired me.
Thank you. And you’re welcome sort of thing. But in order to actually get collaborations, you would need somebody to say, Hey, Hey, come in, Kevin, come into this conversation. What do you think. About X and, and make that that person share. And once you get those, those boundaries down, I think you would have an amazing group that that would fire off of each other.
But until you have those, those facilitators in inside of a community of artists, I think it’s, it’s just going to be a lot of so quiet introspection and every so often, very hesitantly showing something to somebody else.
Tim: So what’s stopping you from creating this. Me, you might stopping you from this.
Yes. It’s
Mike Porter: all your fault. Usually it’s my fault for myself.
Tim: Why would you want to partaking up the cup? You’re picking up the cup now. He is, you know, deep in thought and he’s being very contemplated here, folks. But my question to him is going to be, you know, would, do you feel yourself or would thrive if that community was presented to you?
No. No. You don’t think you would thrive that.
Mike Porter: I, I think I can see how other people would thrive in that and how beneficial it would be. But I am, you’re very handsome. I’m crazy shy. And I don’t like groups of people and I would much rather, you know, My wife has said in the past, we’ll go have fun and going into, into groups and we have very different, different definitions for fun in those things.
I, I sort of at any gathering and up against a wall. Sort of watching and then every so often I’ll make the effort to dive back in like one of those Valiant sea turtles, just sort of pushing, it’s trying to get given the tide of the party will push me back up against the wall and get my breath back.
Kind of get that energy back up being by myself and then I’ll dive back into the party, but I’m
Tim: telling you, it’s not for you. Yeah. I’m not,
Mike Porter: I’m not a big sharing kind of kind of person.
Tim: Do you think that that would it’s not for you, but do you, would you get benefit from it? Do you feel you would get benefit from it?
Mike Porter: The. Brutal honesty of, of self-reflection reflection. I would probably benefit very much from it. I’m not sure anybody would benefit from me being there because I would not be sharing as much as I wouldn’t be sort of quietly in the corner, listening and taking notes and bettering myself because I just, I don’t deal with groups very well.
Just not extroverted enough.
Tim: Okay. We’re not, we’re not, we don’t have the couch here today, so we’re not going to psychoanalyze. I hope you’re okay with that. Sure. Okay. Good. I mean, I, if you want to, we can go to my house in the man cave in the studio. I have a couch there with a vibrating chair. It doesn’t have heat, but I do have a little, a little, a little firebox there that we can turn on and have some heat pour on us.
And we can say, I call the sideline long as you, if you like.
Mike Porter: Well, I’m just saying that right now. There’s two of us.
Tim: Yeah. Well, there’s, there’s three. There’s you and me and the listener. Right.
Mike Porter: But they’re not
Tim: interacting. Sure. They are. They’re judging us as we’re talking over
Mike Porter: there quietly, what is he talking to him?
He does not know what we’re up. He speaks, but I don’t know what they’re thinking. So their judgment of me has no impact on me talking to you. I feel no. Wait. I have people around me judging what I’m saying. I feel a little bit because I’m in a coffee shop and I’m sure that other people can hear me and then feeling a little nervous, more nervous now that I’m thinking about that,
Tim: but you’re here with me.
Right. And I’m a very, yeah, you can take, you can take them a very extroverts. I’ve been known to be that way on occasion. Okay. So I’ll take them on for you. If anyone, everyone harasses you, Chicago Tims. But, but the point being that
Mike Porter: There was a point something oh, that I, that I don’t mind the, the, the idea of the listener, because I, it’s not going to effect what I’m saying right now.
On the other hand, if I was in a, in a room. With the expressed purpose of us as a group, doing something together, I would feel a great deal of weight in expressing my, my opinion to a bunch of people that would be judging that opinion in real time. In front of me, which again goes back to that idea of digital community.
I’m a lot more comfortable sharing stuff on a, on a forum than I am in in person.
Tim: So maybe what we need to do is to set up a community where you can be cloistered in a room where you can view what’s going on, and then you provide your feedback without having. Actually be in the physical presence of the people that would be in the room and then they could get a read out of it, you know, that you could write your paragraph or whatever it is and say what you liked and what you didn’t like about it.
And then, and just leave it at that. And then that way you don’t have to interact with these. Yeah, that’s weird. Okay. We won’t do that for you kind of prompt. So this idea of community things that the artists communities are not necessarily your cup of tea and it’s understandable. It’s understandable.
You’ve explained yourself.
Mike Porter: I love the idea of You know, that the artists, community of painters that are off and they all have the same thing that they’re painting and PG moves around and looks at their stuff and it gives them pointers in that you’re there to develop your skill at painting. And I’m sure the same thing can work for, for almost any artistic endeavor.
But when it’s more. Interactive when it’s more on the level of peers, that’s where I get really nervous. So that’s comfortable. And I don’t think I would be the hero that Mr. Rogers would want me to be.
Tim: And you need to be the hero, Mr. Rogers, much.
Mike Porter: Everybody should be the hero that Mr. Rogers minds,
Tim: folks, you heard it here for student Mr.
Rogers. She’s going to move you coming out here
Mike Porter: on Netflix and
Tim: it’s fantastic. It is on Netflix. Did I miss it in the theater? Yeah. I
Mike Porter: don’t know if it was released in theaters. I’m not sure
Tim: Tom Hanks, right. It was a play Mr.
Mike Porter: Rogers. Oh. And we’re thinking of something else. There’s a movie coming out with Tom Hanks.
I wasn’t aware of, but there is a biography of Mr. Rogers there on Netflix currently. And it was really good.
Tim: I know. I was actually talking there is. From what I understand now, again, you know, NPR has better information than I do because they have three more listeners than I do through our viewers than not listeners, but viewers.
But yeah, there’s a movie that’s supposed to come out with Tom Hanks being, playing a part of.
Mike Porter: But you’re listening to a higher caliber.
Tim: They’re they’re they’re they’re very good looking folks. More discerning. They are more discerning they’re way more intelligent. That’s what I heard. That’s
Mike Porter: that’s what I know.
I heard that recently,
Tim: I, I know that they are way more intelligent, way more. They’re nicer people. There are people that you want to, you know, bring over to your house. And have a wonderful conversation with, well, bring over to your house. I’ll bring over to my house. Absolutely. I’d love to bring all the people that listen to this podcast over to my house.
Right. And you know, I, I would cook some poutine for some of them, man, that would be enjoyable. And for the other people, I would you know, bust out my grill in a grilled from steaks. Some asparagus grilled asparagus is very tasty and the the the little dish that I made last night for my wife, with the Alfredo sauce, the pasta shells asparagus, and we had not scaling.
Scallops scallops. Thank you. You’re welcome. Oh my gosh. The scalps animated that my wife and I had three bowls off in less than 24 hours and she thoroughly enjoyed. She’s probably going to have some more tonight.
Mike Porter: We’ll see. Before this is a community. You can define the community by what foods you do.
Okay.
Tim: And you really can’t, you really can’t, you know, there’s, there’s people that like the. The farm farm to table stuff. There’s people that are you know, raw they like nothing cooked, vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, pescatarians, peanut, the buck Tarion’s, you know, all that kind of good stuff and the omnivores.
And of course the carnivores, which they’d all the carnivores have tiny little arms just saying, all right. Well, Mike, thank you so much for this conversation with us here on community. You provided a lot of great insights, I think. And you know, folks community is out there for you. I think you can create community if you really want to, they might bring up some fantastic points about once it comes from a mentor mentees situation to a appear situation.
I think he made some great points with that. Is there anything else that you’d like to leave us with with community? I think that the only other thing that I would say about community is that almost by definition, it’s an investment. You have to be willing to invest time and effort in order to build community communities.
Mike Porter: Don’t just happen if they did, when I brought Cookie’s over to the neighbors. They would have just been, Hey neighbor, thank you. Sort of thing. You, you have to continually reinforce the idea that the people that you want to be in a community with are important to you, that they have value and that you have.
Insight or value for them. And that’s what keeps the community together. I think the idea that you’re in something together, or you have something to share with each other in common. Excellent.
Tim: Excellent. And yeah, just like we’re building this community with you, our listeners. He must end up iniquity where we create more than we consume.
Can’t wait for y’all to listen to this episode and the rest of our episodes. Go back through our catalog. You can always reach out to us at kdoipodcastingatgmail.com. Let us know if you would like to get involved in this. We have 11 topics for you to choose from Mike here. He chose this topic. I well, you chose two topics.
And I we picked this one. We may get him to talk on the other topic at a later time. But that’s how easy it is. Mike did was this pretty easy? This was
Mike Porter: fantastic. I love doing this. This is a painless way of expressing opinion. It’s like, if you don’t like, I, everybody likes talking about themselves.
And an extension of that. I think it’s you asking? I think about X. Well, let me tell you about and why I think that my opinion, why my opinion matters.
Tim: So next episode with Mike here, we are going to ask him when he thinks about the letter X. That’s right. We’ll probably use the capital X versus the lowercase X because you know, Mike has a lot of thoughts about the
I believe it’s true. He had more thoughts about the upper case versus the lower case. So again, thank you for gratuity. We will see your next episode. Remember you consume
All right. Well, thank you for joining me. As I go down memory lane in discussing community with Mike Porter, he was my cartoon, not my comic book guy, not my cartoon guy, but he was my comic book. Way back in the day. Unfortunately he had closed his shop, but it was a fantastic conversation that we had at a local coffee shop here in town.
So you got to hear a little bit of the ambiance as it were. I really enjoyed doing these conversations on specific topics with a lot of my artistic friends. And I hope you got something on. Now I would ask you if you did get something out of it, go ahead and subscribe or follow on your podcast app of choice.
Or you can go right ahead to the website, create art podcast.com and subscribe right there in 2022, we’re going to be doing these KDOI rebroadcasts there’ll be 10 episodes. This is the first one and we’ll have our regular episodes. And I also want it. Remind you that I run another podcast called find a podcast about, and that’s where we help you find your next spring, where the podcast and outsmart the algorithm.
And you can find that at find a podcast about dot X, Y, Z. For creating art podcast, you can email me timothy@createartpodcast.com. Twitter and a Instagram account and a YouTube page for you as well. All the links will be in the show notes. So it’s been my pleasure to help you team your inner critic and create more than you consume.
Now. Go out there and create some art for somebody you love yourself. We’ll see you next. This has been a gaggle pod, east studio production gagglepod pod, where we’ve been helping creatives tell their story through podcasting. Since 2017, you can find all of our network shows at gagglepod.com. You can contact with.
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