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Episode 77

Shut Up And Zoom

This week on Overtime, we learn that popping into a Zoom room full of silent people is a thing that actually isn’t awkward, artists get creative with toilet paper to raise money for COVID-19 relief, and Eric Friedensohn joins Meg to talk about making murals and building community. Plus, Meg gets a bunch of listener calls on the hotline this week that make her cry!

You just pop in, you’re muted, they’re muted, you wave at them, and then you open your book and read.


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Transcript

Meg: Hey, hey, hey, it’s me, your host Meg, “Pee Pee Poo Poo Pee Pee Poo Poo” Lewis, and welcome back to Overtime, buddy. You probably knew this already, but this is Dribbble’s weekly podcast where I deliver design news and give you the tips you need to create your best work. This week on Overtime, I learned that popping into a Zoom room full of silent people is a thing that actually isn’t awkward, plus a bunch of artists doodled on toilet paper and donated a bunch of money. And Eric Friedensohn stops by to talk about murals, walls, murals on walls, murals on walls outside, murals on walls inside, murals on pieces of paper, murals on boards, murals on hotdogs, murals on my hand, murals on your hand, murals on our hands that are six feet away from each other. Oh, and I get a bunch of calls on our hotline and it makes me cry, and then I play one for you and give you my thoughts on how we can make things unrelated to COVID, but sensitive to COVID.

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First up for the news, we have a wonderful article that I truly enjoyed from the Guardian about muted Zooms that are now a thing. So, the Guardian article is titled “Why Silent Zooms are Golden for Focusing the Mind” and, hey, why hasn’t anybody invited me to their silent zooms yet? Come on. But apparently, the Guardian says, “Research shows that during periods of stress, we see significant decline in our ability to hold information and focus but having accountability partners is a proven way to boost success.” And of course, that makes total sense. We’re all stressed out, we are not able to focus deeply, and having people hold us accountable helps.

And so, I guess what people are doing is they are holding basically open rooms for Zoom calls where everybody’s muted the whole time. So, you pop in, you wave at everybody, and then you just put your head down and get to work. And I guess the idea is that people can see you, so it makes you feel like you need to work harder or something? I mean, yeah, it’s kind of like going to a coffee shop and working in the school computer lab. I remember whenever I was in the school computer lab, I was so stressed out about anybody knowing what I was looking at, or designing, or doing on my screen. So, I was just hyper vigilant of everything I did. And I guess that maybe, you know what, I’ve never had a full-time job before in an office, so I don’t know what that’s like. But I imagine that’s what working in an actual physical office with an open floor plan is probably like, right? Yeah.

But I think the reason why I’m a little apprehensive personally about muted Zoom calls, or virtual coworking, is because I know for a fact that while I’m working on my computer, I make very weird faces. I am an extremely emotive person, and I wish you could see the faces that I’m making right now, because they’re a lot. I’m crossing my eyes. I have 16 chins because I’m pushing my head back into my neck. And that happens while I’m surfing the web while I’m designing all kinds of stuff. I react visually with my face to what I’m designing or writing about or reading.

So, I’m a little scared for the rest of the world or the rest of this room of Zoom people, zoomy Zoom Room, I’m worried about them having to watch that and see that in real time, because it’s bad, it’s not pretty, but I also don’t want people calling it out every time I’m making a weird face. I don’t know, maybe it’s good for me. It probably is. I’m talking myself into it. Okay. But there’s also a company called Focusmate, which this is what they do: They do this thing called Virtual coworking. Theirs’ aren’t silent, it’s more like an accountability partner thing. But they say that virtual coworking actually boosts productivity by 200 to 300%. And I don’t know about you, but I’m getting, like, some actual PTSD from percentages and numbers right now, so even reading 200 to 300% and seeing those numbers on the screen is like, I assume we’re talking about the virus and we’re not. Oh boy, I’m going to have a real hard time looking at charts in future years, let me just tell you that right now. But, back to Zoom calls in silence and virtual coworking. The cute, the absolutely adorable, cute thing about these silent Zoom rooms is that book lovers are using it for silent reading sessions, which I love. So, you know that feeling of going to the public library or going to a Barnes and Noble, may she rest in peace, I assume. Like, Barnes and Noble isn’t going to recover from this right? I don’t know, maybe they will. You know, they’re like the cockroach of businesses so maybe they’ll be fine.

But you know, the feeling of going there and just opening up a book and being with other people that are also looking at books and it just feels cozy and nice. And I love the concept that people are doing that through Zoom. You just pop in, you’re muted, they’re muted, you wave at them, and then you open your book and you read while you see other people reading. And if you’re kind of like me and you like watching people – I love to watch people, if you see me in person sometime, which probably never will again, oh, that’s so pessimistic – if you see me in person, ask me about that time that I kept staying in the same hotel in New York because they were giving me the same room over and over again, and I got to watch a baby grow up and become a child. And they gave me that room on purpose because they knew I liked watching the baby. It’s a great story. I gave you most of it. That was a spoiler. But I love watching people. So, maybe I’ll love watching these virtual coworking sessions, you know, or maybe I’ll just become a Zoom bomber. Hmm. I don’t know how to do that.

For our second news story, a couple of Dutch artists launched a website, and you know, like a community project called Give a Sheet, which I believe is a toilet paper sheet slash sh— that is a tongue twister. Toilet paper sheet slash shit reference. So, instead of Give a Shit, it’s Give a Sheet because you’re giving a toilet paper sheet, just one, it’s not that helpful for someone who just had an explosion. Wow I am trailing off into weird places. Okay, so Give a Sheet is where artists have gone and donated a single sheet of toilet paper with an original piece of art on it. So, you get a lot of multimedia experiences here. Well, I guess there’s one media, it’s toilet paper, but it’s always like, ink on toilet paper or thread on toilet paper or soft kisses on toilet paper. I don’t think that’s the thing. That’s probably what I would do though, give it some soft kisses, mmmm. And artists have designed and created a single sheet of toilet paper and then are allowing the general public to come on and pick them out and purchase that sheet of toilet paper with whatever amount they choose. And the prices I’ve noticed range between $25 and $250.

But I mean, long story short is that you can’t have any of the toilet paper because it’s sold out. But my point is here, they’ve given all the money that they made from all these sold out pieces of toilet paper – yet another place we can’t get toilet paper – they’ve given all the money toward an organization called the COVID Solitary Response Fund for the WHO. And I just I wanted to talk about this because I think it is such a great example of utilizing your abilities as a creative to do some good and to give money where money needs to be given, especially if you’re like me, and every other freelancer, every other artists out there who’s struggling, who’s lost a lot of work, might be on unemployment, this is a great idea for you to help donate some money if you don’t otherwise have money. Use your brain, your amazing creativity focused brain, and create something and then have other people buy it and then that money goes to another thing. And of course, we’re humans living in a tragic world, there is no shortage of causes we can donate money to. So, it doesn’t have to even be COVID specific, it can be towards any causes you like. This is a great tip for doing good.

You know, when I think about talented artists, a lot of people come to mind. But whenever I think about murals specifically, there’s one person I know that has a lot more experience than most people, because he is just an incredible hand lettering artist and good digital artists first and foremost, but he’s also an incredible fine artist who has spent a lot of time with artists all over the world who also make murals, studying the way that they work, and collaborating along with them. It’s Eric Friedensohn! Hey Eric, how are you?

Eric: Hey Meg, I’m good, how are you doing?

Meg: I’m doing okay. I am, you know what, I’m getting used to being stuck inside all the time. So, welcome. You know what? I want to talk to you about today is murals for a variety of reasons. But you have had such an interesting career to me. And we’ve known each other for a few years now, and the thing I love so much about your career is you’re so interdisciplinary, like your work spans so many different media. And whether you’re painting or making digital design work, it’s all so good. And especially the last few years, you live in New York now, but you were living in Latin America and seeing you branch out and become so supportive of other artists and creatives while you were there was amazing, because I got a lot of inspiration, but I could also see a lot of inspiration happening for your own work. So, take us through a little explanation of how you got to where you are right now.

Eric: Well, first of all, thank you. That was a really nice, little summary. Yeah, it’s been a really crazy ride, the last few years especially with the whole Latin America trip, but the way I got to where I’m at right now with my career, if I had to summarize it, is I studied graphic design, typical graphic design degree in Philadelphia. It wasn’t a fancy art school or anything. And I kind of had this specific idea of what a graphic designer had to be, and the more I tried to get those types of jobs, the more I realized I really hate these jobs and there’s nothing really out there for me that I feel like I fit. So, I started to try new things on my own outside of these full-time jobs that I was getting, and freelancing, trying different side projects. And then I kind of had this niche of lettering. That was my main thing when I started, as soon as the big popular wave of lettering was happening. That led me to trying to draw letters on a larger scale. I was working for an agency at the time, and they had this big chalkboard and I would just go and go crazy at night after hours and make these chalk murals hoping that one day somebody would hire me to make a mural. And I would invite friends in to collaborate with me on this chalk wall.

And after that, I had this desire to create more permanent pieces because the event agency was great for getting my work on a large scale. But a lot of that stuff will get thrown into the trash two days later. So, that was how I had started having the curiosity to paint murals. And I was also seeing the sign painting trends start to take off again. And there was something about working by hand. Even though I had studied graphic design, I always had this desire to take my letter forms and my illustrations and see it in a physical space. And so, after leaving that agency and trying my best to freelance and get some clients, I still wasn’t doing that well. I got approached by WeWork where I had about three and a half years of working with them on the art and graphics team, and that was what led me to Latin America and doing murals on a global scale.

Meg: It’s so amazing and inspiring, because I think that you have a very fascinating mix between street art style, and I think that your love of skateboarding comes into that a lot, but also, you’ve been paid commercially to make really grungy, gritty, hands on work. And I think that’s really an interesting thing to me about murals in general. Murals in the past have always been like, not very commercial, it’s just been like, you get up and you go out at three or four in the morning and you pop something up on a wall and hope nobody catches you, and then you go back to bed. And now what’s happening with murals is commercial artists are like, “Ooh, I can do this now.”

And I think that that’s an interesting thing about your work versus what’s happening right now with design is that there’s like this, and I don’t know if there’s tension or not, or if there’s room for everybody, but there’s this wonderful mixture and play between murals as street art versus murals as commercial art. Do you think that there is tension between those two groups? Or do you think there’s room for everyone?

Eric: Personally, I think there’s room for everyone, but I can tell you a little story about how I did feel like I was getting pushed into some category that I didn’t really identify with, as if the street artists or the graffiti artists were labeling me and saying, you know, “Your work doesn’t belong on this area or whatever.” There’s also a difference between interior murals and exterior murals. With interior murals, you’re painting in offices or stores. I don’t think that the graffiti and street art world has much of a problem with designers and illustrators doing that. It’s more when we get into the public realm outdoors. And it feels like there is, even though I like to say there’s no limited supply of walls, every building has four walls, but there is sometimes a limited supply of mural projects outdoors, big large-scale projects that have a budget. So, there is competition for that.

But I think one experience that I had when I went to Miami and I was at Wynwood Walls, which is like the street art capital of the world, basically, and I was doing a temporary mural there and someone was showing around some tourists giving them a little tour of the area and saying, “Yeah, they don’t really like art school types coming here.” And I took that as, “My work is too playful and abstract and graphic to fit in with the rest of what was going on.” I already felt that way, just looking around at some of the other art there, my work doesn’t fit in here. But I think that it’s that beautiful mix that makes murals such a cool thing, how every artist will have their own interpretation of what they want to use the space for. And so, there is room for everybody, in my opinion, and there are enough walls to go around.

Meg: That’s an interesting comment about there are no shortage of walls. And too, I think that you’re talking a little bit about a sore spot for you or you feel like you don’t belong in that community in the first place. So then, and of course we all feel that way about every community we’re trying to get into, but I think that you heard a comment that was already poking at a sore spot that you’re having. And of course, you’re going to take it super personally, whereas, I’m sure, well, who knows, but I’m sure that most people don’t care about that as much as you do. And I think it’s really nice if your work doesn’t fit in because we all need to look at all kinds of different work everywhere we go. It’s what helps change our perspective.

But so, I think too, one thing I love about you and your career so far is how much you’re constantly supporting other artists all the time. It’s such a huge part of your personality and your persona. And I feel like from following you for so long is it really happened while you’re at work and during your time in Latin America, and so it seems to me like maybe you’re moving on to more things in which you can finally support and lift up other artists.

Eric: Yes, I’m so excited to talk about this with you. Real quick about the Latin America thing, I lived in Argentina for a couple years, and I got to travel around mostly in Mexico and Colombia, and then a few other countries, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. I haven’t been everywhere in Latin America, but I have a real big soft spot for South America and Mexico, and I’ve met so many amazing people down there. And I just started having these conversations, getting to hire them for different projects because we weren’t just painting our own artwork on these locations and WeWork. We were also hiring local artists and we actually had a good budget to pay them, which was awesome. And, you know, I had these amazing conversations with them. And I said, I need to record these, just for myself, I need to remember these, and then, oh, maybe someone else can get some value out of this too, because I really learned so much about what it takes to be a mural artists, just these people are so interesting to me, they have all these amazing stories from their different projects and their travels. And they’re just working on such a large scale that we don’t even think about as designers when we’re always just at our desk. And I think it just provided me with a lot of inspiration, and I want to continue to pass that on to whatever community follows me.

So, what I’m working on right now is a new project called the Muralists Community. And at a high level, we’re going to be producing some content that fuses storytelling, like I was just mentioning, with education about murals, and that’s going to be launching later this summer. Right now, it exists on Instagram @Muralists. Yes, I got the handle muralist.

Meg: You’re so lucky, oh my gosh.

Eric: Yeah, it was a crazy story about that too, for another day. But I also was able to get Muralists.co. So, if you want to check out the content we’re producing, there’s going to be a podcast, speaking of podcasts, and so you can go listen to the trailer at Muralists.co and follow along there @Muralists.

Meg: So, besides showcasing other artists, what’s happening? Are there like, tutorials, are you going to talk about what types of brushes they use? Like, what can we expect?

Eric: I can’t get too much into the balance of technical versus storytelling and entertaining because I want to find whatever balance people are really enjoying. I want to do both. But I found that when I get too technical, I just get flooded with all these questions of what kind of paint do you use? And the answer is use whatever paint you want, you know, house paint works great, like literally just go to the hardware store and get paint. That’s not what I want it to be. It’s not a how to for the entire project of how to paint a mural. It’s more of inspiring, uplifting, and educational.

Meg: That’s awesome. How would you say muralists and street artists, even if you’re working commercially or not, how is everybody doing in that community in this time of isolation?

Eric: Well, I can’t speak for the entire muralist community, and I don’t want to try to, but I can tell you how I’m handling it and how I’ve seen a few of my friends handling it. As a commercial mural artist, I had a lot of plans for this year, and a lot of my work is based on travel too, and you have to be there physically. So, a lot of those projects ended up getting canceled or postponed. There’s even a mural festival that was supposed to be happening right now that is pushed until September, and I did the design and everything, and it’s pushed until September. We’ll see if that happens in September. I hope it does.

What I’ve been doing instead is focusing on my other parts of my business in terms of my income, doing digital illustration projects. I started a Patreon about one of those projects, and that’s the way I’m handling it from a business side. But from a creative side, I’m excited to get back to New York City in a couple days and I have my studio, I’ll be painting murals there, just practicing and filming some murals myself. And then some of my friends, what I’ve seen them doing is they’ll actually go out and find boarded up businesses that are closing down and they’ll paint positive messages for the essential workers that are out there right now still going out, and this is happening in New York City. I’ve seen a few friends in Canada also doing this. And you know, you have to go out at your own risk and take all the precautions, but I think this is a great initiative. And one more cool thing that I saw happening was that Pangea Seed, which is a nonprofit, they have a mural festival called Sea Walls, they decided to do an at home mural festival, where they encourage people to paint a mural in your own home and document and share the process and any artists can get involved. I think it’s just now finishing, but hopefully the initiative continues, and they’ll be promoting that as long as we’re stuck at home.

Meg: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. I think I’ve been wanting to paint more murals at home because I can control that. That’s something that I can do right now. And it’s fast and it requires no one else. But I think that’s a really good point that you made about fixating and putting your focus on the areas of your career that you can control right now. And I think that’s great advice for everybody to take as well. So, thank you so much for being here today, Eric. How can everybody find you on the internet?

Eric: Thanks for having me, Meg. My Instagram is @EFDOT, so you can follow along with my work there. And then of course, the muralists account, so it’s just @Muralists on Instagram and Muralists.co.

Meg: All right, thanks, Eric.

Meg: Okay, so I want to talk about something different, and it’s about the hotline but not really about the hotline. So, you remember a couple of weeks ago, I begged and pleaded for you to call the hotline and you are good little podcast listeners because you did. And, you know, I was not begging for compliments, I promise, but everyone called and left such beautiful voicemails and said such beautiful things about me and the podcast. And on this particular day, when I’m recording this podcast, I actually really wasn’t going to record it today. I didn’t want to, because, to be honest, I have a dad that has dementia. And most of my days are good, as you know, you know my personality, you know who I am. But every so often things happen with him that are really terrible. And he lives on his own, I am his care, I’m his family member that looks after him that gives him financial support. It’s a tough time and he lives in a different state so I can’t visit him. It’s hard.

And I went and logged in and listened to the voicemails that you all have left for me, and they were so beautiful and there were so many amazing [ones]. You said so many wonderful things about the podcast and about me, and I just listened to them and I sobbed and I cried. And you all just picked me back up and you reminded me exactly why I do this work, you reminded me exactly what my purpose is in this world, it’s to make the world a happier place. And so, I do this for you to make you feel a little bit better for just a little bit of your day. But please know that you also have given something back to me and you have changed the course of my day. So, it made me feel amazing, and it allowed me to record the podcast today. Yee haw!

But I’m going to play one of these voicemails for you and it’s not a compliment fest about Meg Lewis, but in fact, it’s a great thought and a great point and a great question. So, I will play the voicemail from you and then I’ll respond. So, take it away, Caller

Caller: Hi, Meg. I just wanted to give this a shot. You know, I guess I really wanted to talk about this experience kind of, of what I’m doing right now, which is kind of talking into the void or feeling like there’s no one really around to either listen or to really take in what you’re saying. I don’t know whether you feel a similar experience doing the podcast right now. But it feels like right now with COVID and everything that’s going on, if you’re messaging, if your content isn’t geared towards that, then you are just talking into a void. And I think that was really important at the beginning, when we were combating misinformation and lies. But I think now that this new normal has been established, it is important to talk about other stuff and what else exists beyond COVID and how this has affected our lives. And I guess my question is kind of to you, you know, what is there to talk about? Is there anything to talk about that isn’t COVID related? And if there isn’t, then that’s kind of a bummer. But if there is, you know, I would love some ideas. Because it just feels that the conversation is inevitable at this point, that it always circles back to COVID. But curious as to what your thoughts are.

Meg: This is a really interesting point and I completely agree. For the first few weeks. I was sinking into everything that was happening. I was totally enthralled to the news and staying up to date and staying informed, and just becoming aware of everything that was going on. There was so much, and everything was changing, so I was trying to stay on top of it all, and it became extremely overwhelming. And it didn’t allow me to be productive at all. You know, it was hard for me to focus on anything else, it was just taking up my entire brain space, and I think the same is true for most people. But I think that as the time has gone on, everything just has started to feel a little bit more normalized, for me at least, and a practice that I’ve started to do is, my theory is that if I just stop looking at the news, everything gets a little bit better.

And so, for the past three weeks, I have mostly stayed completely away from news. And I do that because I know that I am not putting myself in danger, I’m staying isolated, I’m not putting anybody else in danger. So, if I’m following all the rules, to keep myself and those around me safe and healthy, then I’m just going to stay off the news, which means staying off of social media a lot, and I have largely reduced my social media intake because of that because it was making me not feel so great because it was all COVID related. And this is an interesting point that you’re making, because I agree. And I think other people are agreeing with this too, because I actually just met with a PR agency who is going to be helping me with my other podcast, my comedy mindfulness podcast, “Sit There and Do Nothing,” and what they were telling me, is that what people really want right now, what the media really wants right now is actually not COVID related content, but rather something that takes them out of that for a little bit, but is sensitive to what’s going on.

So rather than it being so COVID related that it drags you down and pulls you down and makes you sad again and reminds you about this new reality that’s so terrible, things that lift you up and put you back and make you feel good again, but are at least sensitive to what you’re feeling right now. And that’s really why I made the meditation podcast in the first place. It’s to make people feel lighter and brighter, but it’s also why I’m so excited about that business and that podcast right now, and this podcast too, because it is catering to your emotions and what you’re feeling right now, but it’s also giving you a sense of lightness and helping you shine and help lift you up and make you feel a little bit better for just a little bit of time. And so, I implore a lot of you to think about what you can do or talk about or make or ingest right now, that isn’t 100% COVID related because you deserve a break. It’s taking over your life and career in every aspect, so you deserve a little bit of a break in an area that you can control and that’s your free time. So, what I’m doing is I’m trying to make and do and create and ingest stuff that is sensitive to what I’m feeling, and the world is feeling right now but isn’t 100% related to it. Because we deserve a little bit of a break.

Well that’s it for this episode of Overtime and, have mercy, that was quite a quite an episode. I laughed, I cried. I cried before recording, I cried during recording, but hey, now I feel amazing. And it’s all thanks to you. It’s good to lean on your friends when you need to, and you are all my friends. You’re my friend, so I appreciate it. And keep those phone calls coming. The phone number is 1-833-DEZIGNZ or, you know, that translates to numbers as well like a normal phone number, which is 1-833-339-4469. And I promise you I won’t answer, no one will answer, just a robot will. So, call and leave anything: what’s going on in your mind, what you’re worried about, tell me what your Taco Bell order is. It doesn’t matter. leave a voicemail and you’re recording. Plus, my thoughts might be on a future episode of Overtime. So, if you want to continue the conversation on the internet, use #DribbbleOvertime. If you want to follow me or tweet or Instagram me, my handle is @YourBuddyMeg, or go to MegLewis.com to learn more about me. Alright, thank you. Bye-bye now, hear me next week!