Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann

Emilija: Today on the podcast I will be talking to my friend Shawn McCann, who I met at the in Florida last year. He is an artist that creates street artwork, chalk artwork, , fine art, children’s book illustrations and commercial installations. He truly does it all. I think you even have on your website, I saw, you teach art, is that correct? Shawn: Yeah. I do some workshops with students. Actually, at the beginning of this week I was doing some chalk workshops with some students in North Dakota, but unfortunately, we got rained out yesterday, so. I try and visit the schools as much as I can and get the next generation of artists excited about creating some work. E: Awesome. So, you do do it all. Shawn also travels around the US and internationally to participate in festivals and create art. I was specifically interested in having him on the podcast to talk about the way companies are using local artists to brand and market themselves and the rising value of handmade work. When we met last year I was surprised, you know that was the first time I attended a chalk festival, and I was so surprised that there was a whole group of artists that do that for a living. You just travel around to different places and make art. So, I want to start by asking how does one go about becoming a travelling chalk artist? S: Well you had the same experience I had about 12 years ago, because living up near, living up in Minnesota, near the Canadian border, I didn’t know there was a whole another group of people out there as well. Up here there isn’t a whole lot of opportunities because it’s cold most of the year, so it’s one of those things that, you know, as any craftsman you need to kind of perfect what you do and start learning how to do that kind of art, whether it’s murals or the temporary art with chalk. It’s all about kind of getting word out there that you are doing this and as you start feeling comfortable with what you are doing, and you are starting to put something out there that is something people are interested in seeing, then you can start applying to festivals. Which happen all over the world, it’s not just in the US. A lot of the festivals have funds available to help bring in artists from other states and other areas, so it’s a great opportunity to not only go to another place and work and create, but you also get to meet all the amazing artists that are creating as well. I found that the chalk art family is such a giving and caring community and any one of them you can got up to and ask about technique or style or how to create something better and help each other. We are constantly learning from each other, so that’s what makes the festivals so amazing. E: Yeah, I noticed that the artists there were very genuine. Even though it was my first time I felt very welcomed. S: Yeah that’s one great thing about it. You’re always welcome at the events and it doesn’t matter what state or country you go to, it’s an extended family. It really makes it wonderful, especially when you are in another country and don’t necessarily speak the language, it helps to have people who are willing to make your time there even better. E: Right. You did your undergrad in art? S: Yes. I went to school for illustration.

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Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann

E: Awesome. And then what happened after that? Because I don’t know if you know, but I’m currently kind of in that stage, so I was wondering if you were drawn into street art right away versus the typical make art in a studio and display it in a gallery? S: The first few years after graduating was solely about trying to become a commercial illustrator type of thing, and I was also doing a lot of fine art. I had done a number of gallery shows out in the Midwest and also out in New York City. And kind of fell into street art totally by accident. Somebody had seen a painting of mine that I had done and there was an opening for a new mall out here in Minnesota, and they asked if I could recreate one of my paintings on the sidewalk in chalk. Well, I had no idea what that would look like. I told them though, I can try it, be a guinea pig and see what happens and absolutely fell in love with the kind of nature of working outside with an audience. There were a few things, like I totally didn’t realize you need knee pads working on the street. That would have been something good to have known ahead of time. Overall it was a complete accident that I fell into what now is my main business. E: So, the fine art that you made before that one opportunity, had you used chalk before? S: No, not since I was a child. Since I was 3 or 4 years old making a mess on the sidewalk. It was a completely kind of new element. I had done a little bit of pastel in art school but really didn’t use it for any of my mediums for my books, illustrations of paintings. It was a huge learning curve and thankfully I was able to do it in the quietness of the Midwest here, where I wasn’t at a festival with 50, 000 people watching me, to see if this was going to work or not. At the same time, it was one of those things that for some reason, as soon as that pastel hit the concrete I was hooked. I knew I needed to do more of it. I just didn’t know what that meant. E: That’s very brave of you to take on that project even though you weren’t very familiar with the medium. S: A lot of things that I have done that have lead to amazing opportunities, sometimes you have to take a little bit of a risk and give yourself the notion that you can do something. You might not always be comfortable doing it, but you will find a way to make it happen and that is definitely one of those times that I’m glad I did. E: I know I’m familiar with chalk and I’ve used it quite a lot. I’ve also used it in my thesis show for graduating, but like I haven’t really used chalk on cement before, not only when I was a child maybe. Now I’m super nervous to do that, being familiar with the medium, so I can’t imagine what you went through. S: It’s something that you just have to get over that fear. I think that it’s something when we get into grade school so many, when we are young we’re doodling and chalking on the sidewalk and nobody is really thinking about how it’s turning out, you’re just having fun doing it. Then when you hit grade school there is that small group of kids that keep doodling and drawing and the rest of the people say: “I can’t do it very good,” and they quit. And I think if we got back to that fun, where you are just doing it to learn and to have fun and create, it wouldn’t be as daunting because it’s just a matter of doing it, and getting over your mindset of how it’s going to turn out.

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Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann

And you’ll find a way to do it. As any artist that works in mediums, you’ll have a little bit of that learning curve, but eventually you kind of pick up the swing of things. E: That was another surprising thing that I noticed at the chalk festival in Florida. There were spots there for amateur artists, people that might have never done chalk art and they were able to participate and just do it just so that they could get the practice. And I thought that was amazing. The festival didn’t just show well-established people that knew what they were doing. S: Yeah, that’s become a really important thing. I know with the festival that I run here, we really want to help bring up that next generation of street artists that are kind of learning about the street art and chalk art, and want to learn about but don’t have the opportunities. So, keeping those areas available so that they could chalk as well. And then getting the public involved as well, with families and kids. We found that doing community mandalas are amazing, because they are like giant coloring pages for people. As long as they don’t have to worry about their own piece, and can blend in with the rest of the people working on it, it’s amazing how many adults and kids, will jump in and start adding color to a huge mandala, versus if you give them their own little square. They kind of revert back to that: “Oh, I can’t draw,” type of thinking. The festivals can be really excited that way with getting more than just the professionals involved. E: It gets them through that sort of psychological wall that they’ve built up in their head. S: Absolutely. E: So, another thing that’s really interesting to me about chalk art and also murals, is that they are ephemeral. So, you might get the benefit of your art being in the public world and coming across a lot of eyeballs, but the trade-off is that it doesn’t last that long, it’s exposed to the elements. I know when I was at the festival, a lot of the artists were praying that it wouldn’t rain so their art doesn’t get washed out. So, how do you manage with that? S: Well most of the raining is simply, kind of, for us to be able to get pictures before it’s taken away. Because for us, we know that it’s going to disappear, and it’s going to be gone. But I’ve actually found that a lot of times people take in the experience a lot more knowing that it will disappear, because think of everything that is your neighborhood that surrounds you now. After a while it becomes a part of your neighborhood and you just drive by it without even noticing it. I’ve worked on numerous permanent murals on sides of buildings and things, and after a while people just forget it’s there, because they see it every day. With the ephemeral quality of things, they realize it’s going to be gone and they come back to see it before they can no longer. I think it’s actually more invigorating for an art form that that happens. It’s kind of like going to a concert. You’ll always remember that concert experience because you were there. They may do another concert a week later, but it’s not the same concert that you were at. So that really makes it special for the art form that it is. E: Yeah, that’s interesting. It’s sounds almost as if the public is experiencing the artwork as an experience versus an object. S: Absolutely. I think that’s definitely something that happens. I know there are some locations that I’ve been, where I’ve been at the festival for 6, 7 years in a row and there’s only a number of

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Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann artists. There are people that come and sit there and tell me every single piece I did every single year and I can’t even remember half of them. For them, it’s in their head, that this is the time of year you get to see the chalk artists come to town. And they do use it as that kind of experience type of opportunity. E: Awesome. Like I said previously, I was specifically interested in having you on the podcast to talk about the ways companies are using local artists and handmade work to brand and market themselves. I remember last year you were showing me your project with Driscoll’s Berry Company that you did for their Berry Together campaign. Can you describe that project for the listeners? S: Yeah. I was contacted by Driscoll’s, which is a national company that was looking to do their summer advertising program. And it involved trying to bring together the communities and all of the activities that people do in the summer, that revolve around picnics and different things like that and where their products and berries that they sell are used. They wanted to create a large 3d immersive experience that people would just happen to come upon in a park setting. So, they hired me to do the 3d street art painting and then they had a film crew that came in and filmed for three days the experiences that people had when they came upon this, that was setup. It was quite a really fun project that involved people from all over the country and it was such an amazing experience. E: I remember on the video that you showed me it was quite the interdisciplinary project. There was music involved with it, and there were parts that were opening and swinging. Can you talk a little bit more about what the project looked like, the installation? S: Yeah, absolutely. The project itself it was a wall and floor combination for the 3d painting. The wall was 12 feet by 25 feet and then the floor was 20 x 25 feet. So, it was a rather large space. The company hired a composer to create original music that would go with it, and there were multiple spots on the floor of the that had sensors built into it. So, when people would stand in certain spots it would activate parts of the street painting. It would initiate the music, one area initiated the lights that lit up on the berries on the wall that were oversized. And then, when all three of the areas were activated together, then confetti cannons would go off and all of a sudden like this huge production would happen, where part of the wall would open up with berry treats that would pop out. People would come out from behind that would have all these serving platters of berries and treats and things like that. And so, it was quite fun to see the reaction of people when all of that came together. It was a lot of work before we actually put the paintbrush to the wall to make sure that everything would work properly and that the sizing of everything was going to be correct. Because it ended up being filmed in Minnesota, but I had to fly to New York city to paint the piece in Brooklyn and then they shipped it and then the film crew from California came on. So, it was quite an amazing amount of meetings and logistical issues that we had to make sure were right so that everything worked properly. E: Yeah. That sounds insane. S: But it was fun. It was an awesome experience to be able to be a part of that and see how the production side of things, from where filmmakers go and where cameras would have to be

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Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann placed and how all of that would revolve kind of around the design that was being created that I was working on. E: Right. And were you there at the installation? Did you get to interact with people and see what they thought of the artwork? S: I did get to be there in the beginning stages when they took it off the truck and installed it, and I finished painting a few details and stuff. I was there for a few takes of them interacting with people, but unfortunately, I wasn’t there for the full three days. It’s something that, whenever you create something in the public and it’s out of the ordinary, the wow factor is always exciting, because people love to see new things and interact with new things. So, it was just like all of the street painting events where it’s just chalk on the sidewalk, people are curious, once they start realizing there’s something fun that’s happening, they you start getting a little bit of a bigger crowd. So, it was super exciting to see how that kind of came into play. E: That’s interesting that you are started talking about the wow factor, because that was exactly my next question. You read my mind. What I wrote down was something I’ve been thinking about a lot especially since the chalk festival in Florida. I’ve been thinking about that interactivity that happens in and whether that takes away from the work or adds to it. What I’m thinking is that from one side there is the argument that the public is interacting and engaging and that’s allowing them to have a deeper understanding of the work. But then on the other side there’s people that argue that festivals don’t really manage to get to a deeper aspect, a deeper understanding of art, because they are focused too much on a spectacle, a wow factor. They are focused too much just on people having fun. So yeah, I was wondering if you had any comments on that sort of fine line between the two. S: It is definitely a fine line that we all cross. As an artist and also as a festival organizer it’s something that we have to take into consideration as well, because it’s something that as an organizer you have to make sure that you have an experience for the audience that is engaging and that is family friendly and something that, you know, you got people from all ages. Babies coming in strollers all the way to people near a hundred. You’ve got such a wide range. I think if it was strictly off limits with the interactivity and things like that if would be a little bit different feel to the festival, just because then it would become like walking through a museum type of thing. But what makes street art so amazing from the artist side, is you don’t often get to see artists in their creative environment. You go to gallery shows and the art is already created, you get to see the artist all dressed up and that’s that. With festivals, you see the beginning stages, you see the frustration stages, where people are like: “This is not working. What do I do?” You see how they interact with the weather with anything else that comes up. You’re making it to where you are so exposed makes it really interesting. From an interactivity standpoint you’ve got pieces that are often 3d in nature and people can get involved within them, they can stand on them, they can do something. From that side, I think that showcases what the artform potentially can be, where some of it is able to be interacted with, some of it is not. The stuff that’s done with plain pastel and chalk you don’t want people standing on it, because as soon as they do you’re going to get footprints everywhere. But when it comes to pieces like the one with Driscoll’s that I did, I worked on project for Pink and her concert tour, you want people to be able to interact, to

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Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann be able to take photographs with it. To share it on social media, because ultimately that’s what they are after. Is that kind of exposure. So, it’s a balance between creating something that has meaning and also creating something that you are going to keep people excited to come back for the next one. E: Right. I love how you pointed out the aspect of the festival that you could see the artist working in action. Because I’ve never thought about that. I guess people rarely ever see artists working. The focus is almost always on the final product that’s being made. S: Yeah. That’s what makes it special I think because for the most part, almost all of the artists at these festivals, if you have a question about something they are willing to answer them. Now granted we are always asked the same 8 questions, and it gets a little old sometimes. “Well, what do you do if it rains?” Well, obviously we are going to try to cover it up and protect it. Those types of questions are always going to be asked. But sometimes you can really meet some really interesting people that have some great insights and you’d never expect to be able to have those conversations with somebody you’d never met that happens to be walking by. It’s quite, until somebody’s experienced a festival like that, you don’t realize the work that goes into some of these things. Because you can look at a painting on the wall and ask: “How did that take 60 hours to do? That should take 4 or 5 hours.” But when you actually see something created you see what goes behind it. You see the effort that goes into making art. E: Obviously companies like Driscoll’s they are seeing a benefit from using local artists to engage their customers with art. What I was thinking when I was preparing for our chat today was, it must have cost these companies a lot more to hire a local artist that would hand paint this piece, whereas they could have just easily done or printed a vinyl rendering of your work. Why do you think they went through the extra work? Obviously, there must have been a benefit that they saw there. S: I think they are realizing that it’s not necessarily about doing it the most cost effective way. Sometimes the best way to do it is have somebody live creating something that speaks more to what the audience is looking for. I mean, you can’t replicate a true piece of art that’s created with a sticker or something that’s printed. Because they it becomes just another advertisement, another billboard. Another well they just slapped something on the street. If you are physically seeing the person create that and a good example is some of the amazing billboards that are still hand painted out in New York City. You’ve got companies that are painting giant sides of buildings as billboards still. They could easily put that up as a printed vinyl, but it’s not the same. It’s just something that we’ve become so artisanal with so many different things, like handmade objects and artisanal foods and things like that. I think they love when the maker is actually a part of that and is there creating. So, it’s great because it would be terrible if all of them didn’t want any of us creating on site and doing things, because it would be hard for our way of life. So, we have to take advantage of the notions when they are there. E: Yeah. First, I was thinking of course it’s because, this is happening because there is the rise of online shopping, so it’s like companies are focused more on creating an experience, rather than a purchase like we talked about before. But then, if you think about it, with this project, the

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Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann

Driscoll project, I don’t think that was necessarily what was happening because they could have just as easily done the experience in the park if they had done a vinyl print on the 3d installation. So, what I think was happening here was that you weren’t necessarily hired for the experience but you were hired for the value of handmade work. I think that’s happening nowadays with a lot of different companies because the consumers are asking for and are valuing and they are purchasing local and handmade projects. They want to know who made their item and where it came from. S: Absolutely. I would absolutely agree with that. E: To wrap up, are there any projects you are working on at the moment? I’m sure you are insanely busy. S: Yeah, thankfully the snow has finally melted here, so everybody’s coming out of hibernation and everybody wants their stuff done now that it’s gotten straight to summer. I’m actually really excited about, for two months I’ve been working on a project here in Minnesota, that was kind of under wraps because the store was closed. It’s launching this Friday and it was a 500 square foot that had little over 1300 hours worth of time put into it by eight artists from six different states. The exciting thing is all of the artists are actually artists that are part of the chalk family as well and also are muralists. So, to be able to work with them on this kind of superhero theme mural at the, it’s called Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store, but it’s actually the world’s largest candy store. We created this huge environment that is going to house all sorts of candies from all over the world. It’s going to have superhero statues that are life size that people can interact with. The colors of this dome painting were just so much fun to work with because it goes from night- time urban setting to sunset. So that’s going to be exciting to have that launch at the end of this week. And then I’ve got projects coming up in California, New York. Got some street painting festivals. It’s just exciting that the summer is here and we can get outside a little bit more and be a part of those fun interactive things and hopefully spur some kids to make a mess on their driveways. E: You’ll have to post photos on you Instagram of the project that’s opening this Friday. I want to see them. S: Absolutely. I’ve had a couple of teaser photos of some images that are up there now. E: Really? I must have missed them. S: Thursday, tomorrow, I’ll be able to start. I think tomorrow I’ll be able to start posting. I’ll have to double check and make sure it’s okay. But Friday for sure. E: Okay, awesome. I’ll be looking out for them. S: Yeah, collaborating with other artists is just amazing. It’s always fun to be able to work with artists from all over the place. E: Yeah, well that mural sounds huge. 500 square feet?

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Back to the Drawing Board Podcast Episode 005: Handmade Work and the Power of Experience with Shawn McCann

S: Yeah, it’s one of the largest ones I’ve worked on. To be able to design a mural that is in a barrel-vaulted dome, that has two ends and they wanted it to be a seamless space. It’s something that a lot of artists dream of doing something that large, but then after a week or so, your neck is kinked at looking up at the ceiling and you’re like: “Oh my god, how am I going to get through this project?” Because it’s a lot more work than you realized to paint the ceiling, but we made it through. Now the store will be open and when they close at the end of the season in December, then we’ll put another probably four or five hundred hours to do more things there, people don’t realize are going to go in yet. So that will be fun to get into. E: Oh, are they only open in the summer? S: Yeah. It’s a seasonal business, so they are open from Thursday until Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving anyways. The winters sometimes are too much and people want to leave. E: Stay in their house. If people want to connect with you where can they find you? S: Well you can find me on social media on Instagram @shawn.arts There’s also, I’ve got Twitter which is @Stewcan and you can also find me on www.shawnmccann.com E: Great. Well it’s been awesome chatting with you. Is there anything final you’d like to add? S: I just appreciate being able to be a part of this wonderful podcast and excited to see all of the upcoming episodes. I know it’s always fun to chat with people from all over the world and it’s wonderful to get insights from other professionals and creatives and see how they make it work. Because it’s such a fascinating way to be a professional artist, because there are so many ups and downs with the creative world. It’s the ebb and flow of projects and how they come to be and move forward and it’s always exciting for the next possibility. I look forward to catching you at a festival here soon too. E: I would definitely love to do another one. They are really fun. S: Maybe even get you down on the street to do some pastel and chalk. E: Yes, I know. My fear! S: We’ll get you over your fear. E: Well I mean there is a lot of cement in Calgary, so I might just have to do it. S: You could just not even say anything. Put on a mask and just draw. Or hide around the side of your house. E: Go out at nighttime. S: There you go. E: Awesome. Thank you, Shawn!

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