Carry Your Ethos with Brandon Stosuy

In this special live episode recorded at NADA NYC, Brandon Stosuy—friend and co-founder of The Creative Independent—joins host janera solomon for a conversation on finding voice and community through teenage zine‑making, sustaining a lifelong writing practice, navigating creative opportunities while raising a family, and how collaboration reveals unexpected lessons about money, people, and yourself.

You can learn more about Brandon and his work at The Creative Independent and follow him on Instagram @BStosuy.

Discover more from ARTPOWER at artpower.io and on Instagram @artpower.io. And if you’re an artist looking for clarity and support around money, check out Tortoise by ARTPOWER, our financial platform built for creative lives—available now in major app stores.

The ARTPOWER Podcast is a production of Rowhome Productions and ARTPOWER, a public benefit corporation working to bring artists sustainability, dignity, and freedom.

Transcript

Rowhome Sound Logo 0:02

Row home Productions.

Brandon Stosuy 0:05

If you do one thing successfully, it doesn't mean the next thing is gonna work.

janera solomon 0:08

Right.

Brandon Stosuy 0:09

You know, and it's like many people assume now it's gonna be easy. It doesn't get easier, you know. Especially if you're doing stuff that's pushing. Pushing things a bit. Yeah, that's not just like you're not just giving people like the obvious thing. It's harder. Yeah.

janera solomon 0:23

This is the ART POWER Podcast. I'm Janara Sullivan. On this episode, I'm talking with Brandon Stozi. Brandon is a writer, editor, curator, and producer. He's founder of The Creative Independent, an incredible resource for working artists and creatives, with more than 1,500 interviews published to date. He's also the head of editorial strategy at Kickstarter. Brandon is a connector across many disciplines: visual art, music, writing, installation, and more. In the midst of all that, he's an incredibly prolific writer in his own right. We spoke live at Not a New York Art Fair this past May. We're gonna have some conversation. I have prep questions, but I'll probably go off script, uh, as I tend to do as a poet. And uh we'll talk for a little bit, and we hope you will have some questions too. The Art Power podcast is about creating a space for artists to talk openly about their relationship to money. And um, as artists and uh makers, producers, we have ideas. And um those ideas need money, and we think those ideas deserve money. Uh so pretending like, oh, I'm just an artist and I don't have to think about cash, you know, the money's just gonna come to me. Um, maybe some people can do that, but Brandon, I don't think you've been one of those people. No, no, no, no, no, no. And I haven't either. So that's what we're here to talk about. Um, let's give a warm welcome to Brandon Stozy. So, Brandon, where should we start? Tell us a little bit about your work as an artist and a writer.

Brandon Stosuy 2:27

Sure. Um, yeah, when you're talking about needing resources to make things like you know, I grew up in um the pine barrens of southern New Jersey, town with a population of 831.

janera solomon 2:40

Oh wow.

Brandon Stosuy 2:40

Um farming town. And my parents had grown up, my dad grew up in East New York, and my mom grew up in Queens. And so I would often I would have access to the city through like visiting grandparents and stuff, but largely in this little town, in a very like firmly um working class household. And so when I wanted to make stuff, I had to find money. So, you know, I got my first job when I was 13, like worked on a farm picking blueberries where you're paid uh by the pound, not by the hour. So you can't just go out there and slack, you have to kind of pick stuff. Yeah. Um, and my first thing I ever made was Azine. And I think like that was something you could do cheap, you know, for not a lot of money. Um, I met this woman named Bonnie who was older. I was like, you know, I was 13, she was worked at a university or at a college, and she would photocopy stuff at night uh under the table, and so I got a very cheap deal to get these made, and I was too young to drive, so my mom would drive me to uh like a mall parking lot where this little woman would hand me the zines and I'd give her the money. And so, like figuring out like and that was funded through like yeah, like working on the farm, and so that just kind of kept expanding. Um, like that this is when Tower Records still existed, and they they picked up the zines for distribution, and then it got like a feature in alternative press and became like a thing, and it kept growing. And so then I I when that happened, I was not making money from it, and because I was a bad business person as a teenager, I would also sell it for like what it cost me to mail it, so I was just like losing a little money basically on them. But it it got got sort of opened up opportunities to do other things and to kind of write for other people. And um, when I was in a band, like not I wasn't I've never been a good musician, but I've always been in that world somehow.

janera solomon 4:22

What instrument did you play?

Brandon Stosuy 4:24

Rhythm guitar, which is the thing that the first thing that can't do much normally does. And so I played rhythm guitar, and then um so we went on tour, like based, and we were able to book it just based on all these people I met through doing the zine. So it really opened up my world from being in this small, very conservative town with not a lot happening.

janera solomon 4:41

Um I want to ask you something about that, of just the story you're telling. Um, there are a couple of things that stand out. The thing I want to zero in on though is often I hear, you know, when I tell people that my family were immigrant family, we came to the US, um, and you know, I tell them my story being an artist and exploring different things. They'll say things like, Well, how did your parents do that? You know, a lot of immigrant families, the story is immigrant families come and they want you to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, there's no room for art. Uh, there are all these sayings in our popular culture about how poor people can't make art, poor people don't have access to art, poor people don't have the privilege to think about art, uh, working class people don't know about art, aren't open to it. So there's these are like, you know, refrains that are said over and over and over again. And when I hear your story, I'm hearing, well, yes and no.

Brandon Stosuy 5:39

Right.

janera solomon 5:40

Right?

Brandon Stosuy 5:41

I think too, my, you know, my dad, his he a Russian immigrant, and and uh like, you know, family working in factories and in East New York, like uh grandmother worked in like a lunch, like a public school lunchroom, that kind of thing. But so I think because what I was doing was so removed from what he knew, he was just like, yeah, sure, like just do this thing, and it seemed interesting to him. Because it was so new to him, he didn't think I'd make a career out of it. Like when I said I want to be a writer, he was sort of you know, like, uh yeah, yeah.

janera solomon 6:07

Yeah, what was that like when you said that?

Brandon Stosuy 6:09

Well, he didn't see how it could actually work, you know. And I mean, I honestly didn't see how it could actually work either because it doesn't often work. And I think a lot of it was through luck of just like things happening when they happened. And I think, like, I I was one of the people in the early days of Pitchfork, and when Pitchfork, the music website really took off and became my full-time job, that was not expected. You know, I think that was it was a thing that happened and we saw it happening, like, oh wow, now we have jobs, we have healthcare, like all that kind of thing. But it was started, we were we were initially getting $10 a review, and we all had like multiple jobs while we were doing it, like doing other things, and then just the timing of that worked. So, yeah, I think when I said I wanted to be a writer, I didn't think it would work either. And like when I finished college, like I moved to Canada for a bit, and I worked at a gas station, like I was just doing all these jobs, like working construction, this and that. Then I got a job at an art gallery as like the assistant to the uh preparator, so I was helping install work and just kind of kept going from that. Yeah, I think that's the thing, is like it would to me I didn't realize it was gonna work until um deep into like maybe I was like 29 or something. Like after like pushing it for like a long time, then I was like, maybe this actually could work, but even then it was precarious, and then it kind of just grew from that.

janera solomon 7:17

Well, you know, I think that one of the things we think about and talk about at Art Power is what does it mean to work? Right? What does it mean for your life as an artist to work? Uh, some people think there's there's again this idea that my life as an artist means I don't have to think about money, I don't have to do anything else other than be in my studio making art. And that has like never ever been true in life for any of the artists that we know in any museum collection or anywhere. Um, but it's still a very popular myth. Um so for us at Art Power, we talk a lot about making it work. First of all, there are lots of definitions to that, and second of all, all kinds of work is involved in making it work. So, like you're like multiple jobs at a time.

Brandon Stosuy 8:06

Yeah.

janera solomon 8:07

And that makes sense.

Brandon Stosuy 8:09

Yeah, I think too, like I the thing I do now is called the Creative Independent, and it's um like a daily publication with interviews about process. I treat it very much like I did my zine when I was a kid. Like I do the social media, I create the little assets using Canva. Like I'm not a designer, but I alright, I can do this, like just sort of add colors. I'm editing it, like I'm posting it. It's so hands-on, and I I enjoy that, but I think um it's very much born of that earlier stuff. Where it's but yeah, I think a lot of people we talk to on the site, or you know, people see them as like, oh, this is a highly visible artist, they must be you know rolling in it or something. And a lot of I think why that people have enjoyed the conversations because people are very honest. Like, no, this is you know, I went on tour and I lost money or something, or now like this is my other job I have, or you see someone doing something, you can't imagine, well, why are they doing it then if they're not you know getting money from it? I think that's another thing is artists who have a day job and make nothing from their work, but they just they keep going because they have like a need to keep making the work, you know, for whatever reason.

janera solomon 9:08

I was a musician also, so I paid my way through college playing music and playing the band. Um we did all kinds of gigs from bot mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs to clubs and festivals. Uh we did them, did them all. And uh that's how I paid tuition. I was a writer, I danced, I mean, I did all kinds of different things. I owned an art gallery for a little bit. For me, I never thought I the money it would make or might make was like a last thought. Like I which you know again, looking back on it, I remember having friends who would say, Well, why are you doing all this? Um I I did it because A, it felt good to do, uh, and B, it felt meaningful. And I just figured I had this idea. And tell me if you had this idea, that eventually, if I'm doing all the right things, I would be able to figure it out.

Brandon Stosuy 10:04

Yeah, I think so. And I think the same thing with me. I just I like doing it, I like the community, and I yeah, I like the feeling of getting something done and just getting it out there. Like to me, like picking up that box of zines or like later on doing these like bigger projects, and it all it felt like to me like it all just connected, like it all was always kind of the same. Like when I was an adult and then I was like, you know, at pitchwork and we were like doing a project with a new museum or like the horse shown or whatever, it still felt like me doing the thing when I was 17. It was like I was trying to carry that same ethos through, and also because I never went to art school. Like when I went to school, I went to school for English. I mean, like I just like read books basically, you know. So it was it was that and journalism. And then I very quickly realized I did not want to be a professional journalist in the sense of like a newspaper writer or something. And I went to grad school, but I went, I studied writing, like I studied Samuel Delaney and Dennis Cooper, you know, so it was like a different zone entirely. But I feel like I would just learn something for one thing and then try to how do I apply that to the next thing. Um, but I always liked connect, like I always feel like I've been a um like a connector. Like I liked introducing people to each other or like collaborating with people, like finding new people to work with. I think that really goes back to that early kind of ethos of like having like living off a dirt road in the middle of the woods where there's just nobody around, where your biggest excitement as a kid is like checking the mail. I was like, all right, so so we need to now like you know find people to work with. How do we do this? And so that's always for me, like I think that's a big part of what I enjoy doing is just finding other people to kind of try something out.

janera solomon 11:30

Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about your writing? Because writing for me feels very uh very personal practice. Um, like, you know, alone by myself. I mean, I like to go to writing conferences, retreats, and such, but essentially when I sit down to like conceive of a thing, it's me and the thing. Um tell us a little bit about your writing practice. Brandon is one of the most prolific producers of writing I know. So I'm really curious what that practice is like. Yeah.

Brandon Stosuy 12:02

I wake up early. I'm just doing that. But it is like it is a thing where um I do like squeezing it between other stuff. Like I think that for me is useful is to not have a limited time. And so, like, if I'm working on a book or something, I'll get up a little bit early. You know, I have two kids, like a kid in high school and one in middle school. And so at this point, they're old enough to kind of get themselves large mostly out the door. They need a little bit of like, but I can get up and kind of work before they wake up and that kind of thing. So I think having compressed time, I think I use the time, I do it every day. And if I have one day where nothing's happening, I'm like, all right, whatever, I'll just like do it tomorrow. And so it's like that consistent to see that helps me out. I think because some days you have things and some days you don't. So I think as I've gone on, if I just do a little bit a day, it just slowly like add a little more, go back, cut some stuff, that kind of thing.

janera solomon 12:53

Tell us about the last book that you published. The one you were crying?

Brandon Stosuy 12:59

Yeah, so that was I so I wrote a book about crying, like the act of crying, um, and like often like crying in public. And it started because I jog, I run a lot, and I think jogging actually helps me with all this stuff too, because it just kind of is like a reset. But I started, I would jog past someone once and they were crying while they were jogging, and I was like, huh. And so then I realized I do that sometimes because you'll be listening to something, you'll be thinking about something. Then once you notice it, it's kind of hard to stop noticing. So I started seeing people all over the place in New York, like, oh, this person's like, you know, in a restaurant by themselves, like crying, or this or that. So I just started documenting it. And this is I don't use Twitter anymore, um, but when I did use Twitter, uh, I would just like tweet out like saw a guy crying while eating a corn muffin or something like that, like things I would see, or like a person crying in a museum or whatever. And then someone said, uh, you should do like a poetry chat book about this. These are kind of like poems or something. Just started gathering them. And then I sent one to my friend Matt, who's he's in a band called The National, that's sort of like become like a big band. And um he misunderstood the I was like, I basically was like, check this out. Then he wrote something about crying and sent it back to me. And so he was like, Oh yeah, would you want to put this in your book? I was like, Oh, wait a second, this is like not what I was expecting, but that's cool. So then I was like, oh, we have like an essay now, basically, like a short essay. So then I just started asking people to write me about a time we cried, and it just kept going. And so then the final book has I think 125 stories of people crying. Yeah, and it's people from all over the place. Initially, like the first two were Matt, and then the musician Phoebe Bridgers, and I realized that we now have like two musicians, we need to expand. So I started asking like a therapist, a psychoanalyst, this and that. And then I again went to Twitter and opened up my DMs and was just like basically, hey, if you have a job or anything that puts you in contact with crying, like please send me your information and maybe we can include it in this book. So we got like you know, a funeral parlor worker, like a woman who's a zookeeper, and about how the animals who die at the zoo, um, someone who works at a vintage store, and about people selling their recently like deceived, bringing in their recently deceased partners close. It became like a much um more, like a much broader and richer book from that, I think. But so many people and so many teachers, like tons of teachers, so I had to kind of whittle it down, like which teacher has the most interesting story. Um, but yeah, and so when we started doing these events where we would have people from the book read, then open it up to the audience, and people would come up and tell their stories, you know, like and it became these like people were crying at these events, but whoa. So we did it, we did a few a bunch of them. We did one in Buffalo, we did one like in Seattle and um a few in New York. Um but yeah, they were it was amazing. And and some people that just like like Gia Tolentino contributed to it. She basically says like she never cried until she was pregnant, so everything is about like crying during pregnancy. So people, yeah, it's like different. She's like, I've never cried at all, not something I'm crying all the time.

janera solomon 15:45

I know, crying all the time.

Brandon Stosuy 15:47

Yeah, so it's cool, and I think it was people, and they could be long or short, you know, people could write something longer or just like contribute whatever they wanted. Um, but yeah, it felt really and the events especially felt really um personal. And my friend Rose that I did the book with, Rose Lazar, she illustrated every single story, every single story, and she started making zines, like limited edition zines, for each event. So we would have, we would reach out to people in that area and say, can you contribute stories about crying? So we had one in Seattle from a bunch of students. Um the one we did, I mean how we had the people that were in the book wrote something that I mean that were at the reading wrote something new for the book. Yeah. Um yeah, I think that book really it seemed to really resonate with people.

janera solomon 16:28

So I'm curious about that, the the process as you're talking about it, because I'm hearing two things. Um, one is that um in the beginning you stuck you had the idea, you weren't sure exactly where it would go, and other people helped you shape shape that idea. So saying yes to that. Um and then the second, which I want you to talk a little bit about, and then we're gonna switch gears to get dig into money a little bit more, terms of the collaborations, like all the stories you're telling, Brandon, have so many people who are saying yes with you and saying, okay, and you're you know, let's do this together, let's do that together. Can you talk a little bit about collaboration for you and how you know, how do you think about it? How do you keep those relationships rich and meaningful?

Brandon Stosuy 17:12

Yeah, for me, I just feel like it's a way to keep learning things. I remember we had this interview with Maggie Nelson on the site where she was like, you don't want to become like a broken record of your ideas. So I always keep that in mind. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to like repeat myself and then just to me it's I want it to stay fun. And I think collaboration keeps it fun. It's like an interesting challenge because people work in different ways. And not all collaborations work. Sometimes you start and you're like, oh, we work in really different ways.

janera solomon 17:34

This is that's what I was gonna ask, because I mean it sounds really nice and rosy.

Brandon Stosuy 17:37

Yeah, yeah.

janera solomon 17:38

Um, when you're like, oh, we're you know, we're vibing, let's work together. But then what about when it's like mmm, this isn't working? How do you what how do you work through that?

Brandon Stosuy 17:47

I think either you can yeah pivot and find a way to make it work, or just be like, well, maybe this thing isn't gonna isn't gonna come together.

janera solomon 17:54

You say that first, or you let the other person say it first.

Brandon Stosuy 17:57

I let the other person. I mean, I feel like sometimes you just kind of know, but I think at this point the percentage of those that work is pretty high. And and sometimes it maybe doesn't work right away, but then you come back to it later on and it works. And I've had some that haven't worked, not because we're not working, everyone just gets too busy. Like we'll be like, oh, let's do this thing, and then everyone's excited, then it just like and then it doesn't happen. Um one of my longest collaborative partnerships is with, and this could this involves money actually, is like with um the artist Matthew Barney, and we've done stuff for like 15 years, yeah, but it was always hard for us to figure out there are always free events. We're like, well, how do we do this in a way that we're not just losing tons of money doing these things? So like it was often like forcing us to get really tricky with how we would like build something, or like we would have friends just chipping in their time. And then recently we did one with um uh Raven Chakan and uh Ryan Junge and some other artists, and we suddenly realized like we just didn't have the money to pay for it because it just felt like this is why are we gonna we have children, like this is this is like strange for us to just put money into this weird thing. So we came up with a system where we reached out to like a bunch of different organizations that we'd worked with in the past and we asked each one for like a small amount of money. Like a hundred bucks? Well, I guess it was not that small, a thousand.

janera solomon 19:10

Okay. No, a thousand is you know, small as relative.

Brandon Stosuy 19:13

Compare it to like how much like an like a an institution would normally give out. Yeah. And so then because it wasn't a huge ask, they all said yes, and we got enough to do this, and we paid everyone, and it worked. So we were like, that seemed like less of an ask than like, hello, organization, give us like $10,000 or something. So we kind of divided it up, and that way everyone who participated got paid. We needed to buy like a player piano for this, so we found one online. It was like we sort of did it, and it was we're like, all right, going forward, this could be a system for us to do, and so we're not just putting in our own money and like you know, even when you're putting in your own money though, before you get other people to say yes, generally you have to put some of your own money before you get other people to say yes.

janera solomon 19:51

Uh, in those collaborations, when do you when have you brought the money up? Like, do you is it in like for me, I tend to just talk about the money right in the beginning. Yeah. Uh I don't want any confusion. Um generally like, this is the budget, this is what we can do right from the start. And folks will say yes or no. For you, it sounds like with your collaborators, especially since I mean, Brandon, the way you I've seen you work as a collaborator, it's like open, there's a lot of warmth, there's a lot of like grace. Um, and so in in that way of moving, when does the money come up for you? Like how, who's gonna pay for this or that?

Brandon Stosuy 20:34

I think it depends on the collaboration, but I think I've gotten better at that over time because I know in the past I would sort of just be, oh, we'll just make this happen. And then there's a point where I'm like, oh god, like what have I done? You know, where I like there was a time where I was doing these shows, and if we didn't have enough money to pay the ban, I'd go to the bank and take out some money and like just be like, here you go, you know. Then you're like, and it's not like your bank is right, like jammed, you know, you sort of like, oh god. This is before I had kids too, so I could be a little more like carefree, I guess. But um, but yeah, I think I've gotten better about yeah, like hey, like this is what we need, let's have a budget. That's what we did with this last event we did, where we figured out what we need to do. We had this initial idea of like building an ice skating rink in this space, and then when we investigated it, we're like, this is way too expensive, we can't do it. So I think those kinds of just sort of like figuring it out enough that you know what you need to actually make it work and how to not cut corners, because I'm always fine with cutting corners to a degree, but it's like how like how many things do we cut before it just loses the entire vision, you know? Yeah, like the vision's gone. Yeah, and then with with the crave independent, like the second someone reaches out, I'm like, this is what we pay freelancers, this is what we do that. So everyone is very, you know, aware of of the money involved in that and you know what or of the lack of money involved is certain things, but like you know we're doing this event, we don't have a ton, but here's what we have to pay or whatever, you know. So just yeah.

janera solomon 21:43

You talk about getting better with it. I definitely feel like one of the advantages of of growing older is that you get better at things. Mm-hmm. And um I feel like I've also gotten better. I think too, you know, once I had a daughter There was like more reality around time and risk and money. Not that I didn't take risk, I still take them. But just more awareness. And you've said a couple of times that you know having kids, uh having a family has has shaped things. So can you talk a little bit about that experience?

Brandon Stosuy 22:21

I think the first thing was time. Like when the kids were born, suddenly my time completely shifted. And my wife, Jane and I, were like, wow, we didn't realize how much time we had before. Now we're like, wow, like we like things really changed. And we're like, wow, we could have done anything. We could have like put built our own museum like back then. So now we realize, all right, we have way less time. Then as they get older, they just have things they want to do. And like my one kid is you know an ice hockey goalie, um, and that's expensive. And it's sort of like the amount of pads, and he's always growing, we're traveling all over the place. So, like, there's lack of time for that. The amount of money we could be sending him to college for like what hockey costs basically. Um, and so then you start thinking, well, we need to do this thing that can I justify this thing like with the time I have and what this is gonna pay. Like, I had someone call me yesterday and ask me to go to Atlanta to do something, it was really last minute. I asked what it paid and stuff, and I was like, Yeah, I can't do it. Where I feel like if I was 23 and someone asked me that, I'd be like, Yeah, I'm going, you know. So I think like those kinds of things, when I when I was first starting out, I wrote for zines for free and stuff, because like, yeah, this is great, this is so fun. I get to like get my name in the thing. Yeah, you reach a point, yeah, where you're also starting to think about in the future of college, like actual college tuition and all that kind of stuff, you know, if they opt to do that. Um yeah, but I think you can still experiment and I still do some things now and then where I'm definitely like this was just like a fun thing to do, or like, especially if it's like students and stuff. Like I like, you know, I went and did a talk in Hunter recently, and that was really fun and satisfying. And it's not like Hunters like rolling out the big bucks, but it was fun to do, you know, and it was and I felt like I brought zines for them and gave them stuff, and I think that's important to me is now that I could be like a mentor or like a an elder statesman or something.

janera solomon 24:00

No elder state.

Brandon Stosuy 24:00

Yeah, yeah, you can like talk to uh these people who are coming up and be like, oh, like here's how you do this thing. And I remember like even at that, some kid he was like, Well, how about I put on like a festival like this or that? And I was like, Well, you're in school, you should hit up the school for money. Like, there's basically there's like things where you are now that you could do that, and yeah, just kind of little like yeah, giving information.

janera solomon 24:17

When you when you were talking about you know the opportunities, this is one of the things we talk a lot about too internally, and I've talked a lot about as a producer with artists, it's like what is an opportunity? And there are many times where you're yeah, uh you get an offer, like, oh, this sounds good, let's do it. Um, one of my mentors way back in the day said to me, Jannara, anything you're gonna you're gonna do before you do it, do the math. And at the time, I didn't really know what she was talking about, but now it's become a kind of mantra, which is like not only do the math of the money, that's one math, right? But there's the math you talked about, time. Um, there's the math of um energy, like are you gonna feel good at the end of it or not? Um, and then there's the the there's the math of the relationships, like is it worth that last-minute opportunity, is that worth some disruption to your family and any relationship that's happening there? And so I think doing that math all the way around is an important practice and something that I think a lot about. I'm curious for you, are there certain money lessons or ideas about money that you inherited or that you still carry with you, either from your parents or family or mentors, friends?

Brandon Stosuy 25:39

I'd say like my dad is like, I say it in a loving way, but like one of the cheapest people in the world. And like he'll stand there in the grocery store, like looking at the two detergents weighing, like sort of figuring out, yeah, like sort of figuring, well, this is like one penny more for that. Yeah, he's very like all right. But so I think like I learned to be uh frugal and like to get, you know, my my brother's the same way, like he's will like sort of figure out the cheapest way to get somewhere and stuff. And so I appreciate it. So I I came up with that for sure. Like, definitely not like I'm not one just to throw around money, but I think it also made me realize early on that I was actually like undervaluing my time a bit, where I was getting paid probably not as much as I should have for certain things because I'm just sort of like didn't have a barometer necessarily, so like then you're like, oh wait a second, you can actually push back on this or like ask for more or something. So that was a lesson. But yeah, I think I've learned like with the Crave Independent, it's existed for 10 years, we've never been over budgeting you know, I mean, so I'm very much just like follow the budget, we don't have the money for this, we're not gonna do it. Like that kind of thing.

janera solomon 26:37

Um which takes a lot of discipline, actually.

Brandon Stosuy 26:40

Yeah, and certain things I'll say we'll push this to the next month or something. Sometimes you have to get a little creative, like, oh, we'll do like half here and half that or something. But yeah, I kind of I feel like too, the idea of like debt stresses me out. The idea of like um just having an unbalanced budget stresses me out. Like all those kinds of things I just don't want to deal with. And yeah, like I paid off my my student loans as fast as I could, like that kind of thing, you know, it's just like I don't want to have this hanging over me. Yeah, like that kind of stuff. Even if it was like a little bit more than I could pull off on like just like get this out of here, um like credit cards, all that stuff is stressful to me. So I think I just I think by nature, having grown up without a lot of money, then you're just like, all right, here's how we're gonna make this work. And so I've never been like super extravagant about projects either. Like we can make them seem you know, we've done things where we've like projected huge things on like museums and stuff like that, but we've always done it within like the budget that we have and what we're given.

janera solomon 27:28

It's an interesting um balance though, this idea of like working within the resources that you have, maximizing them, and then also making a big idea happen, like and and sticking to a vision. So that's kind of for the people who are listening, the listening audience, I'm doing this motion with my hands, bro, like a balance. It is an important thing to learn calibration, I guess, to learn how to do. Yeah. Because I hate it when folks are like, we don't have any money, so we can't even imagine anything. It's like, well, okay, well, why are we here? Like imagining is the whole point. And then on the other side, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream. No money, no money. Broke, broke, broke, broke, broke. Yeah, that's not gonna work either. Right?

Brandon Stosuy 28:19

Yeah, I think so. I think part of like just my upbringing also impacted my aesthetics. I think that's helped me in a way. It's like my aesthetics has never been like, I'm gonna go do this thing with like Fluenciaga or something. It's like a different thing. So I think I've lucked out where I that's just kind of what I'm drawn to now, too.

janera solomon 28:34

So I think that's one of the lessons when I think about lessons from my parents around money. You know, they're not particularly frugal, but they're mindful. You know, it's like, I mean, we didn't have money when we came to the United States. Uh, but the money we had, we're gonna spend it on good food because food matters in this household. Um, you're gonna go to Payless and buy the buy one, get one at the Payless shoe store. I don't know if anybody still remembers Payless, but that was a thing. Um you're you won't be wearing the latest Nike or whatever it is your friends are wearing, but that bread you're eating is gonna be really nice bread, and that meat is gonna be organic and fresh from a farm. So there was always meaning around how the money was being spent, um, which I think I've definitely still carried forward. And another idea too, I'm really grateful to them. Um, my father is an artist, my mother was a nurse's aide. Um, she still works now, not as an aide, but something else, at 76, because she loves to work. And he still works because he loves his work. And I think the other thing I learned from them is um, you know, life is worth doing, right? So it's like, whatever it is you want to do, do it. Right. Uh, why spend your life doing things you don't want to do? Anytime I would ask them for advice on anything, they would say, Well, Janara, what do you want to do? And so that I didn't I took that for granted growing up. I'm when I went to college, I met other people and learned that not everybody got that lesson. Yeah, yeah. I got the whatever you want to do, do that. Um, do it really well, be one of the best at it, uh, for sure, but love it and do it really well. I think that's what I love about being artists.

Brandon Stosuy 30:20

Yeah, yeah. That's one thing we tell our kids. Like, my wife's an architect, runs her own firm. And um, we always tell the kids, like, we're lucky, we have jobs we like, but it took a lot of effort to get those jobs. So we're always that's like imparting this idea of like you're not just gonna roll into having this thing, like you sort of have to work at it, but you're lucky too. Like Sunday nights, I'm not like laying in bed, like, oh no, I gotta go work this thing I hate tomorrow. Like, yeah, so it's nice not to have that, you know. So I think, and to wake up and feel like energized, like, cool, I get to try to do some stuff today that's interesting to me. And not always, you know, like you know, there's gonna be the meeting where you're like, oh god, not that we're just those things all happen, but generally speaking, like I enjoy doing what I'm doing. But yeah, same like our kids are like, do the things you want to do, but like don't just expect it's gonna just happen. You know, you gotta kind of put invest some time and energy into it.

janera solomon 31:04

For sure, for sure. We should take some questions from our beautiful studio audience here. Don't be shy. I had it.

unknown 31:14

Yes.

Audience Question 31:15

Um, so it was really cool to think about your zines, and you put that flyer up on the on the web and people responded to it. Do you still have those? And how did you find that that was the format that you wanted to start kind of thinking about and expressing yourself and doing that initial work?

Brandon Stosuy 31:30

Yeah, I still have them because um my mom had the foresight to like keep copies of them, and so I still have them.

janera solomon 31:37

The archivist.

Brandon Stosuy 31:38

Yeah, so I I do have them, and I think it was just like the easiest way to do something for me because you could, I would I I had like a word processor, but it was like even like before a computer, you know, so like my word processor, and then I could print it out. My mom had a photocopter at her job, she was a social worker, so I'd go to her office and I could like like sort of like you know, do the glue stick thing and make collages, and then I would just copy them. And then because I knew this guy who had a zine in Philadelphia called No Longer a Fanzine, and he's he gave me the connection for this woman who did the cheap printing, so it was just easy, like a way for me to do it. Like I was literally making like a thousand copies of like a 60-page zine for a hundred dollars. It was like some ridiculous price because she was just pocketing the money, so she's like and she would just she was doing tons of people's zines. So I think it was just because it was easy to do, and it was able to like, and I knew like Maximum Rock and Roll and Fact Sheet 5 and other places that could review it, and it was like a way to get my thoughts out into um to the world beyond like my little town. So I think that's what that was the appeal to me because it was something I could do largely by myself, and I could just have to walk to the post office in Melbourne, and it was because where I grew up, there was not like a venue or there was like not an art gallery. Like our town had has a motorcycle shop and um a hot dog stand, and that was basically it, and then just like cranberry farms and stuff, so there wasn't much around to yeah, it was an e it was easy to do it, and it was uh fun to do. It kind of would fill my time, like I'd get home from school and just work on the zines all the time.

janera solomon 33:04

There's a storytelling impulse there too, um, that's carried forward all the way till now.

Brandon Stosuy 33:11

Yeah, and I think I tried with those two just to be really honest in them. Like I wouldn't edit them much, I would just kind of write what I was thinking, and then just like, and some would let me know. One would be like, my mom had been married a few times, like I had some some really interesting stepfathers, so it kind of would be me, like kind of like you were spelling. I was still, yeah, sort of like, well, you finally did the dishes. Like just things like that, you know, and kind of like getting it out there, and then I would just my mom actually told me, like, you know, when she was getting she was divorcing one of my stepfathers, she used like the article in the zine as proof of like his like she's like, Look at this, this guy was terrible, kind of thing. So it was very much about like being a teenager growing up, you know. Like that's what I was writing about.

janera solomon 33:45

Oh, that's awesome. Thank you.

Audience Question 33:47

I guess Brandon, you know, you've published hundreds, if not thousands, of interviews on the creative independent. Are there certain threads that emerge about living a creative life, like certain lessons or things that come back or that you take as sort of like these are this these are some of the best advice and things about living a successful creative life, living as an artist?

Brandon Stosuy 34:08

I feel like one thing that comes back is like you people you get inspiration when you're not expecting it, like if you're just like doing something else. Like there's an interview with Eileen Miles where they say um, like inspiration will come, just make sure that you're you're you're ready to receive it kind of thing. And I think like the this sort of notion of like I'll sit at my desk and be inspired, people say that doesn't really happen for them, like they're doing something else. One thing I've noticed recently is a lot of people talk about weightlifting for some reason, like that's a good thing recently, where multiple people in a row have been like, Yeah, I go to the gym and that's how I get my ideas. That's cool. So there's like a health sort of thing. I think people, consistency, like a little bit every day. Like one of the first interviews I ever did for this site was with Philip Glass, and I think he's 88 now, but he was maybe like 81 at the time. And we did it at his house, and he was like, All right, you gotta go, it's time for you to practice. So, like he like that kind of idea of like even he did it much nicer than I was supposed to talk about. But he was like, you know, you gotta go. Yeah, because he had like a consistency where every day he did his thing. So I think that's something that's emerged. It's like the same thing like with going to the gym, like you'll get stronger if you go, you know, a few times a week or whatever, versus like once every two months. So I think that consistency, and I think consistency also allows it not to get overwhelming because then you're just doing a little bit at a time. Where if you save up, like this was I think my mistake I would make when I was younger was I was like, I'm gonna write a thing, and then I would get so in my head about it and so like psyched up, then you'd sit there and you're like, there's nothing there. Yeah, so I think like just keeping moving. Yeah. And I think you also I've one thing I've learned is that everyone's process has to change over time. Like you could be doing one thing for a long time, and then suddenly it doesn't work anymore, and you gotta kind of like figure out something else. And then also, if you do one thing successfully, it doesn't mean the next thing's gonna work.

janera solomon 35:44

Right.

Brandon Stosuy 35:45

You know, and it's like many people assume, well now it's gonna be easy, it doesn't get easier, you know? Especially if you're doing stuff that's pushing, pushing things a bit. Yeah, that's not just like you're not just giving people like the obvious thing. It's harder. Yeah.

janera solomon 35:57

And I think that that's um, you know, that's one of the that's kind of one of the truths of living and sustaining our an artistic life and a creative life, is that the the myth of like a linear path up, that's just straight, uh, you know, success to success to success, uh funding to funding to funding, partner to like all of that, that that that's mythology. Um and that uh the the reality, um which I think is good, is that if you're trying new things and you're changing and you're open, if you if you carry all of that, then yeah, it's gonna feel there are moments that are that are gonna feel like setbacks, or moments that are gonna feel harder than you think they should. Um and definitely moments where you'll feel like you're starting over. Uh and it's because you are. Right. Yeah. So thank you, Brandon. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Keep talking, keep listening, find an artist friend. The thing about Brandon that I love he gets to work every day and makes me feel like it is all possible. Balancing work with family and raising kids, finding ways to to just continue to make and produce and create. There's a consistency there that is uh incredibly inspiring. Brandon's work can be found at the creativeindependent.com. He's also on Instagram at Bozy, B-S T-O-S-U-Y. The ARTPOWER Podcast is produced by Roe Home Productions and Art Power, a public benefit corporation working to bring artists sustainability, dignity, and freedom. The team includes producer, Jackson Roche, and managing producer, Alex Lewis, with mixing and mastering by John Myers. Special thanks also to Cameron Herman, the content and research lead at ARTPOWER. If you're enjoying the ARTPOWER podcast, please subscribe and tell your friends. For information about ARTPOWER, including our new financial platform for artists called Tortoise, please visit us at artpower.io. Thank you for listening.