gm farcaster and you are here for here for the arts and we have a very special guest brian morris who is our july artist and i'm so excited that you're here welcome brian it's so great to meet you
thank you so much it's great to be here i love it
i'm so excited that you're here and we're gonna talk about your artist journey your web 3 journey and your forecaster journey so we're gonna go through all of the things but we gotta start with you know what we're here for the art so how did you first dive into art like what was your background what's your educational background like where did this all come from and stem from
i was a young boy but no like i got fascinated by by what art or what drawing was capable of like when i was a little little kid my dad was explaining how brakes worked on a car and he was drawing them for me and it was like in that moment i was able to understand this abstract concept of physics with a few lines on a piece of paper and it i hate to say it was like a watershed moment but like it it really was like i everything kinda maps back to i understood something through
illustration
i love that i i would not have expected that to be like the inspirational moment and i love that that's like you know father son moment becomes this jump jumping off point for you and i love that
in a big way and that kinda became a path for me i didn't realize it at the time but art was always a way for me to understand things and when i got into i failed my way through high school didn't really care much about art but then when i got in college and saw that there was this design program and that you could tell stories for visualization and i just kinda fell in love with it and that became kind of my focus like pouring all my energy into crafting stories with visuals
crafting stories with visuals and your background in terms of educational background is graphic design right and going back a little ways so this was was it how much was it computer graphic graphic design how much was it more of the hard skills like i remember doing like a graphics class in high school and it was you were cutting wax out and screen printing like old school and stuff like that so i'm just wondering like where was your starting point
my heart was there more on the craft side of it but when i entered into design well my first gig was like a digital illustrator for a clip art company and i would take something that said we had drawn on like bristol board scan it in using photoshop 3 you know we had layers it was huge and i hated it like i hated the digital aspect of it because it felt kinda soulless it wasn't very intuitive and so my heart was always in the craft but you know as the tools got better and you know technology progressed my interest deepened yeah yeah i went kind of full digital but in college they didn't have there wasn't even an html course when i was in school yeah so i actually did a double curriculum most of my time in college where i took the traditional class and then worked with the instructor to develop my own curriculum that was digital it's like doing cd roms and stuff when everybody else was still like working on layout yeah i was very curious about it early on and that kinda led into you know getting into digital consulting and experience design and the last real job i had was executive creative director of pricewaterhousecoopers where i led the experience design discipline and so yeah creativity and art is always in telling stories and helping people solve problems is is kind of been the catalyst it's pulled me through all of this stuff
it's really interesting i'm thinking about like our digital media design students so where i teach i teach in the school of entrepreneurship and we have entrepreneurship majors in digital media design and in the past year i've been like hey do you guys realize that your you know ai is trying to put you out of business what are you doing you know like i was talking to one of the professors what are you doing to get them to realize what can be helpful to them but then also realizing what they need to bring to the table to distinguish themselves from ai and like what are your thoughts on seeing sort of from when you were really an early like early early early adopter of digital to where we are now and like what are your thoughts for like a student who's just coming in right now
i'm taking a deep breath here
it's a lot i know it's a lot
it's a
lot sure i mean i spoke at my alma mater and i was talking to a lot of the younger design students some of them were seniors and i was shocked like in the i did a few portfolio reviews and sat in on some classes and did some talks and very few students were using ai very few students were even curious about it and the jobs that they were being prepared for i don't know that they exist today so you know in in a few years it's gonna be very difficult for them so i have i have big big concerns about you know from an education standpoint where where a lot of folks are gonna be in a couple years and what they're gonna be prepared for
yeah i didn't i don't
think i answered your question but that's my no but for
that's and that's where i'm at right now because i think there's too much unknown
yeah
right now i feel like artists that have a craft that have a talent they're gonna stand out no matter what and they're gonna find their place and they might have actually more value but those who can't sort of find their way are gonna get lost in the mix sort of the you know mid tier if you will like that you know that there probably was a ton of work for at one point because they would know adobe they would know this they would know that it's it's gonna be there's just gonna be less need because someone else can just you know run it through ai or something
yeah i think we're all trying to i think we're all trying to stay ahead of it and even to like the back to the career stuff i would say this you know i left agency world to go into consulting because i saw that advertising as a creative practice was kind of dying and it it turned into more of a a game of strategy and using sorcery to convince people to spend money on things that they need to moved into how do we make tools to help people and then i left that because i felt like that was beginning to die too it's becoming more of a commoditized practice and and wasn't really adding value anymore the the the best practices were in place and established and we weren't gonna innovate much and so i left once i got into web 3 you know i was able to leave and just really focus on art and back to the point you just raised i think people that are well versed in a bunch of different vocations around creativity can position themselves to kind of weather change pretty well like i'm worried about ai for what it's gonna do to the industry i'm less so worried about what it's gonna do to me and not that i'm overconfident just i understand that if i lean on my intuition and and trust my instincts that it served it served me okay and the people i work with okay so i think we'll we'll be alright
i think that's it i think the creativity can't necessarily be duplicated and that's what's gonna help people stand out so have that unique perspective and let's talk about your web 3 and your art journey as well oops emily i'm gonna do this instead yeah there we go don't wanna be covering this up so jumping on to brian morris dot art to kind of look through some of your amazing work here you have a very you have a unique style that's very identifiable
i if i see something out in the you know in the feed even if i if your name's not on it i know it's you like it's it's very very identifiable and i think that's an amazing characteristic for any artist like if you have that thing where people can look at it and go oh i know that's a brian morris i know that's a gremlin i know you know there's certain people that you see it and you go wait a minute is that a and i think that is something that you know ai can copy paste but it can't really quite it can't create it from the from the core so i love your what would you how would you describe your art
yeah we were just talking before we got on about using words to describe something that you can't say in words that's kinda where i'm at i tend to think of it as just if i had to hang a name on it it's like see through surrealism see through
surrealism i love that
yeah i try to take a form or a strong silhouette that we might know and tell us tell its story inside of it sometimes i don't know what the story is i kinda let it unfold but other times it's pretty you know i have a pretty clear understanding what i'm trying to achieve
i love the pepe i kind of paused on this one because this is another one of those moments of i knew it as soon as i saw it i went oh this must be a stoic this must be
a stoic collab because i could see
the game wise in it like immediately and i loved that because i could see that you know when he did stoics and he had the one on ones that were different artists it was like immediately you could see their take on it and it really stood out and it was it was so cool so it's i loved when i saw this piece i'm like oh i know what that is
that's beautiful that's perfect
yeah amazing and but i love this the mona lisa one too it's so it's just so cool you have some other like unique styles that you do as well and i don't know how do i pronounce this is it the o's is it the o's what is it
yeah again it's not supposed to be there's no phonetic pronunciation but i i tend to go with o's
o's o's go with the flow that makes sense o's would go with the flow but i love this this style as well it's really really cool i mean these are so trippy that it's just like you can see the movement even if it's not moving right it's it's that kind of vibe which i think is amazing and just those
are they're kinda my playground so i i have a basic it's almost like a brand for me yeah i'm spending so much time in advertising and and whatnot you know limiting myself to blue background googly eyes multiple googly eyes that are conjoined and red lips like what just what do i feel like making with those basic ingredients and it it's kinda it just goes where it wants to go they really do kinda go with wherever my energy is
i think they're so they're so fun like this to me is just we talk a lot about so i come from the noun ecosystem we talk a lot about wrapping everything in a box of fun even if it's something serious and this to me is just like a lot of fun and joy and i think that is sometimes missing we can take things too seriously and i just kinda love i love this vibe it's just
so much fun
it makes me so happy to hear you say that in a lot of ways these are a reaction to the seriousness that i have to put into some of my work like the mona lisa i mean that was months of spraying in the glass like looking at this thing and making it happen and that way i mean it weighs on you and so doing these very fun burst you know i might sketch it in a sketchbook and then draw it digitally 6 months later but like just in the moment quick hit illustrations just they make me feel good yeah so i'm glad that it comes through
it totally comes through and i think that's it's that to me is like the core of the artist is that a lot of times they're making things for themselves right there's it's not necessarily for an audience as opposed to like when you're working in corporate when you're when you're working in advertising when you're working in marketing graphic design and you're really about you know serving somebody else's purpose or serving someone else's goals and not as much necessarily about what for you so you're gonna need if you're doing that all the time you need these outlets of just your own creativity or you're gonna lose it it's kinda use it or lose it right
man i can't i can't agree with you more in fact it's one of the catalysts for me leaving corporate was
really
i couldn't i put my art in a box and that box being my available time outside of working 80 to 90 hours a week traveling i have 2 kids i own multiple properties in chicago i have collected you know i build classic cars i'm and my art had this much time and after like 20 something years of working in corporate it it that wasn't enough anymore and it was just like a full break into just where's my energy you wanna be creatively just go do that and be damned if it works or not because i was i was helping people make their dreams come true in organizations and putting mine on the side and i had to stop that
so was web 3 the thing that helped you to do that or was that journey starting before you got into web 3
it started before i got interested in web 3 more from its
the capabilities of smart contracts you know i was working with a lot of or large organizations that were doing transactions the old fashioned way and managing businesses in kind of you know the same way they were in the sixties seventies and so i i saw blockchain as a as a i still think it's gonna change the world and i got interested in it for really as a way to help my clients and i had heard of cryptopunks and i had seen you know a kitty like i knew i knew a little bit and i had a wallet and i've held bitcoin
i've had bitcoin for quite some time so like i've always been a believer but it wasn't until clubhouse mhmm and clubhouse was another thing where i was working doing a lot of social media engagements and so always trying new platforms which is how i got on a broadcaster just trying new new things and new tools and ran into some artists that were talking about nfts and asked a few questions and then a few months later you know saw him work on the foundation wow it was in the wild you know started with a how do we use this technology to help some enterprises do business better to how do i sell a picture of a pink skull you know
yeah like that's that's amazing and i definitely i wanna show sort of your some of your work on in the web 3 space and this one this to me is some great examples here of some of the
open editions that you've done but also some one on ones of different pfps in your style and it's again like you i would know this was you even if i didn't know it was you and i think that's what makes it special and i'm not a big fan of the apes but i kinda like these versions i just gotta say
i think they're kinda cool
but i love this like the doodle there's a moonbird in here there's a couple of doodles there's a gutter cat the coda like they're just really cool the pepe roboto's you've got all the cool oh that's a bee friend the moonbird i love i love the moonbird and again not a big fan of the birds a fan of the art not a fan of the product different
different things but
i love
the art pft well you were there we were all there this is like a snapshot here's a great use case for the blockchain you know like it's a snapshot of a moment in time when the enthusiasm was high in some areas and we were all really excited about the idea of digital identity and we still are but yeah we put a lot of energy into these projects and some people wanted to put even more behind it and i always kinda thought of those as like hot you know like hot rodding up somebody's digital asset like they bought a nice you know they bought a nice buick 8 it's a good 8 but they wanted like a portrait of it they really wanted to soup it up a little bit that's my job
i that's a great way to put it i love that it's the it's the yeah the the the souped up version of your pfp have you ever done have you already done any nouns art i don't think so
i haven't i've done i've done tons of nouns not tons i've done several nouns they've never been used they haven't shown them
okay we have to talk after this we might have to make that happen shout out to symbiotek and tony hawk there i think they'll they'll get on this that's one of the i think symbiotek was how i first found your art he used to use one of your one of your images as a pfp and and that's how i first remember seeing it or being introduced to your art and i loved it it was very great
whenever i'm someplace cool digitally he's already there he's been there
right and he's always on the edge
yeah always i had the opportunity to talk to him on a call a little while ago and i told him i was like i know i'm on to some good fertile soil if you've already got some roots there and when i joined farcaster like seeing his pfp and his account i was like this is okay this is a safe spot this is things are
gonna happen here
this is a place you can come in and speaking of so let's dive into this a little bit and actually i can get back to this one so you jumped on farcaster not that long ago but i feel like you really dove in in in a big way so probably maybe 6 months ago am i right in that time frame i'm not sure maybe it was sooner
my f i d is like 14,000 i think
oh okay so that's not bad so you're you're at least back in the fall you must have been before the 20,000 which was like october so so you're fairly early then that's great and then i feel like you know there's a lot of churn we have a lot of artists come and go and i feel like you really dove in you created a channel for the ooze and i you know i love that you're sharing other artists like masku here and sharing like different things like i love that you know you're doing i love seeing ooze on the on the coffee and denim coffee i think that's great so you know really kind of diving in and sharing and what i see you to it what i see the difference between folks who come in and look for like the immediate like what can i get from farcaster rather than what can i contribute and i feel like you're been really been the what can i contribute here and diving in and connecting with people and i think you you know when i think about farcaster it's a social network it's not social media and if you treat it like a social network you get a huge amount out of it and i don't know if that's been your experience or not but that's definitely
i think you articulated the the same way that i try to tell other people about it which is it's not social media it's a social network and if you think about it like linkedin from a year and a half ago not linkedin today but like linkedin a year and a half ago if you kinda
what's facebook like facebook circa you know 2006 right
yeah like it was 2,007 something like that
yeah and i you know it ebbs and flows some weeks where i'm like here's a bunch of stuff i'm making and then other weeks it's like i'm just gonna go hang out in other people's conversations and and either affirm their beliefs or challenge their values and we'll see what happens
i am very similar in that i try to do more you know i think the reply guys have have it all have it down like they know what they're doing like they get in those reply and i do think that's how you connect is like seeing what other people are interested in finding the folks that you have similar interests or they're talking about something that's interesting and you can learn something so there's you know those two aspects of it right even for me
the way that somebody's talking about something yeah right i've i've become interested in people because of the way that they articulate less so what they're saying or what they're talking about just like it it's almost like how a guitarist might play an instrument like just the accent they have on that note just makes it special i think the same for a forecaster
i love that analogy and i and then you know who i immediately thought of was july like july to me i don't know if you follow at july but his way of articulating certain ideas is so different it's unique it's a different perspective like i i you know sometimes i just don't know even where he's going and what direction he's going in and then he'll just put this thread and then you go oh okay it takes a minute and then he can like kinda oh okay that's interesting it's interesting people like that
yeah snag that just grabs your curiosity a little harder yeah
yeah exactly yeah and i find i don't find that on twitter i think there may have been a time but that time has passed
you know i have this dilemma sometimes i'll be writing a tweet and i'll stop i'm like this is actually a cast like i'm writing a cast in twitter right now why am i wasting my time yeah fucking doing this pardon
me yeah why am i doing this yeah i get it
i get it i do the same thing i'll be like oh this doesn't belong here
this is gonna fall flat there's no reason for
me to post this here no one's even gonna see it
i mean if you do
you delete it 10 minutes later it's got 4 likes in 10 minutes you're like i
what am i doing why am
i over here i said
the other day i i you know i still will travel back over to twitter and check-in on and see what's going on and then every time i do it's like i'm going back to a place where i used to live and i and it's you know kind of dilapidated and it's like oh i you know i still have some friends there i still have some old friends and i you know you check out the old neighborhood and then you go oh now i remember why i don't live here anymore you know and then i go back to my home in parkhurst
it's still in town square but there's a lot
of yeah
a lot of seediness
yeah it's a it's a lot to take take in small doses now and then i go back to my cozy little cozy little new home over in farfetch so i'm really glad that you're there now so it's like the more times you know great when i have these you know very amazing people who who kinda come over from crypto twitter and find a home and it's like redcat is another one and we'll talk about borg on trail it's it's like i'm so glad that they they they dove in and stuck around because it's like i knew you i knew there's certain people i'm like i knew you guys could contribute
i knew you guys could make this place better that's i'm so happy
to see it
yeah i think for sure for sure i think folks that approach it is like you said more as a social network and a place to to learn and to and to grow it's yeah the right people tend to
special
it's really special so i wanna talk about gorgon trail i wanna show a couple art pieces here really quick the this is a game that that happens in a frame on farcaster on orbcast for those who aren't familiar and we used it for those who are familiar with gm farcaster and cast out you saw it as one of the games that we used in cast out which was our little farcaster survivor game we did last month and that's when i learned that you had done the art for it
i
had no idea i just loved it and i think i was shouting i was shouting it out and i was saying something to bradcat i'm like oh my god you've added so much more cool gif you know gif are here glitch art it looks amazing and then he he said oh it was all brian morris i'm like oh i had no idea i should have known but i didn't know so how did that all come about and what else is you mentioned maybe some some new things are coming so
yeah what's going on with oregon brenkat and i have collaborated on stuff for years like he he's one of the folks i met on i think i met him on clubhouse and then you know went through like everything from buying sandbox land together to like you know being able trading dao together that failed miserably
real i brought real land with him oh so you have some i i have a piece of slow jama stand
okay too
you you know how funny he is to collaborate with
yeah
yeah he makes it i don't know he makes it fun he vibes so well and open to all ideas and never says no always says and then we can and so this was another it was another one of those moments where he's like hey i reached out to this guy he say you know bored bored elon bored wanted to build this thing and i think we can do it and you wanna help and you know a few days later we had like a working we had a working prototype and and i love to i've you know it's not the first project that nobody knows i really did in this space i i i love working with folks to develop a brand and a look and a feel and a character and an ip and all that you know creativity goes with it and so coming up with you know a realized a new version of of the oregon trail oregon trail what it might look like today in our you know web 3 digital art kind of it's a little x copy it's a little retro it's all fun it feels it feels welcoming but at the same time it's gonna hurt you a little bit like so just thinking about that for a few weeks and bringing it to life was incredible and i'm excited like was really excited about where it landed and wants to see some more things happen so i i can't give away any details but
alright i'm excited so i have to see where it's going i love it and i loved the new iteration of it a little bit more the first iteration it it felt like it was a little too much luck and not enough skill and then this iteration felt like okay i have more choices now within the game and and for those who aren't familiar it's like oregon trail but it's in a frame you're making choices your choices determine whether or not you survive and and all of that and it's really fun i i really enjoy it so and i love the art that you know pops up at you just really grabs you and kinda adds to the adds to the whole experience it's incredible
and and hats off to redcat yeah that they are a genius in in many regards and so yeah yeah we go over an idea he's he's already built it and thought through the use cases and he's yeah it's pretty incredible
and he's so and he's so prolific too he's always got something new like popping out i think he's made at least 3 3 games already in frames at least that i know of and plus a whole bunch of other things that are so you know that aren't games like he did an incredible frame for donations to wave warriors and and a whole you know there's just always something he's he's working on it's crazy
yeah
amazing amazing amazing and i love feesha's too i have a bunch of feesha's as well
i was wearing a t shirt before this i did this logo like that's another example i did the
that makes so much sense now that you say it i see it like i see your your style but i would not have known that off the top of my head but it makes sense makes a lot of sense
yeah redcat's one of those folks if if we can't shout his praise high enough if you're able to get within his vibratory circle you will in a new way so do so
yeah can't can't recommend can't recommend them enough amazing and so moving to where we are now we're we're here for the art gm farcaster is something we started a few months back to highlight artists within the firecaster ecosystem we kinda started with some ogs and now we're moving into some of the newer folks who've come on and really contributed a lot to the platform and the only like prompt we get any of the artists is something that speaks farcaster something that speaks gm or both or whatever like is you know whatever vibes for you when i say those words and that's it and we've just left it completely open and it's been all over the place and i've loved it because i love seeing the artist take on something like very broad and just see where you go with it and i'm so can you give us any like i we don't we don't have a final version yet when this drops we'll be dropping the art piece as well and that will be available we'll be air dropping it to our hyper sub but it will be available to mint for anyone all creator rewards are going back to brian and we're dropping on zuora so what can you tell us a little teaser of what what you have in store
yeah so for me farcaster and and gm so those two things together especially it's really about being genuine and coming you know from from within and so the quality of the inner gm that you have is literally broadcast out and creates the environment in which you find yourself in and so that's what the the piece is about is
love it
being inside of the seeing the gm inside and and the energy that that creates around
i love it i love the energy of the gm one of my favorite things and i will drop a link to this i didn't have it have it ready to go up but i'll drop the link in this in the show notes for this is maya dreyesen from time pieces who you may may know as well she has this whole thing about what gm means to her and like what it is and that it's a you know it's a it's a it's bigger than just saying good morning it's about a whole vibe and a whole like authenticity to your world and so that's what just came to mind when you said that is that inner gm of you know bringing positivity to to to the space rather than you know just worrying about my bags you know just worrying about number went down again or whatever it is like finding like the bigger the bigger moments the bigger the bigger you know whether it's the pack that you know i think all of us believe is is you know the future and the present for us or it's the art and being able to have that be more accessible to more people who now are collectors of art who couldn't have been in a traditional world you know in the in traditional art world and so i think there's so many different layers to this and that to me is way more important than you know how much my is worth today
so yeah
no idea i could not agree more like last year there seemed to be a slowdown with artists saying gm on yeah on x and it kinda hurt my head a little bit because to me the gm was always it was a it was a sign of not just showing up but like saying we're all kinda here together and it you know
yeah yeah it was like a it was like a you know you're working from home especially if you think about during covid covid times it was the way to like you know kinda the office if you will everyone's you know you're all working remotely you're all in different places but it was kinda like you know walking into the office with your coffee cup and like hey good morning gm everybody let's let's get the day started
well you know and not not to blow smoke up your butt but like in a lot of ways i think gm forecasters like that too you know a few days a week like by making breakfast i mean not always beyond on lonely so i could chat but like i'm listening while i'm making breakfast and it's it's kinda like i was listening to the partners at pwc with some of the morning stand ups it's like okay here's what's going on here's what i gotta pay attention to so yeah i appreciate it you i appreciate you keeping the office informed with what's happening
trying to keep the office informed we kinda we were compared at one point to like the morning announcements at your high school and i was like i like that vibe i actually like that vibe
i like that a lot
because we're this small little community and it's like here's the you know morning announcements for you before you start your day you know before you dive in we've got a
few things today steak tomorrow but don't forget it
tomorrow don't do it
you're gonna lose you're gonna lose your your allotment yeah like all those little things that we get to share with people and just to you know be able to talk about the things that are interesting to us and we you know we just we love forecasting we love what people are doing we love highlighting artists we love highlighting builders you know people are launching something new constantly like there's something new every day we can't even keep up with it anymore it's amazing
i'm well i'm i'm sure i'm sure many of your listeners are curious like how do you guys keep up
with it's easy it used to
be really easy it used to be really easy because there were literally like if you go back to october when they did the og nft 938 people got it that's how many people were active on a daily basis for the 2 weeks there so it was easy right you could literally see every cast
you know you can end the you know at
the end of the internet you know that kind of thing and now it's a little harder but we have our methods we have certain you know we have certain things we'll always check what a dan cast what a v cast what a you know that the team cast to make sure we don't miss anything that's really important and then it's like things that come through our feed you know trending what's trending what are people talking about and then what do we find interesting and feel like we can add to the conversation if it's something that's been thoroughly covered by someone else we may not jump into that because you know we'll add our own we're at our own stuff we'll we'll find something else but and also trying to highlight things that maybe people missed you know that we thought were interesting and and things like that but that's sort of our our method and we just spend way too much time on barcaster is the problem so this is how we justify all that time we spend on barcaster it's for
our job now no
i've got a tan because you guys are not
you guys can go outside and play in the grass we got you
that's where we all are apparently right now
i know
it's been a little quiet it's been
a little quieter it's kind of a nice actually but i i love that you're contributing to our ecosystem it is so special to have an incredible artist of your caliber like doing things like borg on trail or dropping your art in in in your channel and you know for those who haven't jumped in there again like amazing your link tree is right on your profile so if you want to check out any of brian's art brian morris dot art but also you can go to the slick tree and find everything or go to the to the o's the o's channel which is pretty amazing so go check it out and i thank you so much for for doing this like it's so special to have you a part of our here for the art it's it really means a lot and i'm excited
thank you for letting me be part of it like i said i listen all the time and i i get to i get to contribute to this in some way and that makes me feel really special so thank
you absolutely love it so grateful and with that we're going to wrap and we will be dropping this with the art piece very soon gonna do a quick little closing credits and stick around we have a quick little after show chat and thanks so much for being here and with that bye bye everybody