Interview with Artist Douglas Pexa

By Jenny | Published: November 23, 2011

Douglas Pexa is a US based artist. He works with many different artistic mediums and much of his art centres around the human form.

Did you always want to be an artist?

I never made a conscious decision that I was “going to be an artist” it is something that was a part of me from early on.  I remember as a kid being complimented often when it came to colouring, drawing and other creative outlets.  I remember being encouraged and having people saying what a good little artist I was.  This is probably in part to genetics – my dad studied a little art in college and was a sign painter on the side.  He always loved painting.  My aunt (dad’s sis) does a lot of painting also – she focuses on more “folk art” painting Santa Clauses and other holiday stuff.

It took a lot to become who I am today, I grew up in a small town in the Midwest and I didn’t get a very good art education through high school.  When I went to community college I had a wonderful art teacher and I flourished, she is the reason I ended up at an art college. It was the best experience for my creative development.

Where does the inspiration for your paintings and drawings come from?

I take influence from a lot of places.  I am really plugged in to current events which I think is the bases of my inspiration.  I am one of those quiet and thoughtful types so I also sit back and observe people when I am out.  I like to see what people say and do – this is always good fodder for art!  I also pay attention to other artist, street art, poets, authors, pop culture and the like.  Playing with tools in ways they are not intended also brings me great joy and ways to think about image in new ways.  For example, I take photos to a copy machine and drag them over the glass while the light is scanning the image, doing this multiple times can come up with some interesting outcomes.

How would you describe your art to someone who is not familiar with it?

I like to think of it somewhere between expressionist, surrealist and abstract with a nice painterly aspect to it.  My artwork often depicts the human form, sometimes nude, sometimes abstracted and flattened and hopefully with some whimsy but always emotionally charged (good or bad).

Much of your art depicts the human form in one way or another. Why do bodies interest you so much as an artist?

The human form is a beautiful and complex subject.  You can communicate so much with such subtleties and it is immediately recognizable even when abstracted or broken down into very simple forms.  I like the shear amount of emotion, irony, truths and lies that come with the human form.  It can be extremely comfortable for the viewer or you can make it very uncomfortable depending on the context.  I guess I really like the wide range of objectives that are possible.

What do you most want to communicate through your art?

It depends, but mostly I focus on humanism, emotion, life and the fragility there of, plight and strife.  It might be easier to explain it like this, I have a painting called “the life and times of the chairman” it is an abstract portrait of chairman Mao with a human heart with its arteries and veins going off in different directions and abstract bone like objects.  Now I am not saying that Mao is a good person or I believe in his politics but that he was skin and bone and was human who had feelings and was like you and I.  I could go on but who really wants to hear an artist over talk the work?  I think it is fun how others see the work and what they take out of it (something they discouraged in art school).

I’m sure this is something you get asked a lot, but nevertheless I will ask it again. Who are your favourite artists?

It really is hard for me to break down a few favourites, there are so many and it can vary with mood and day.  Here are some, in no special order that I come back to often: Max Beckmann, Kirschner, Sol de Wit, Damian Herst, Otto Dix, Picasso, Banksy, Vik Muniz, Goya, Basquette, Ono are a few I can think of off the top of my head.

What do you think is the role of the artist in society?

This is a theses type of question, so I will be brief and to the point and maybe a bit vague.  An artist’s role is to make the world a better place whether it is making art that is aesthetically pleasing and makes someone feel good or by making large social statements that improves the understanding of the view about society as a whole, or anywhere in between.  (I should be a politician with that answer!)  The viewer should get something from it, maybe just confusion but always something that will make you think.

What advice would you give to any struggling artists out there?

Make art that interests you, have fun, DO NOT BE AFRAID TO FAIL, get out of your box and try new things (play), in other words don’t bind yourself to one idea/medium/technique/mentality.


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Interview With Psychologist Felix Economakis

By Jenny | Published: October 28, 2011

Felix Economakis is a chartered psychologist, clinical hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner. He has made numerous appearances on both TV and radio, including putting his techniques to the test on BBC 3’s ‘The Panic Room’ and the most recent series of ‘Freaky Eaters’. He specialises in combining therapies to produce rapid and powerful change for a range of conditions including self-confidence, depression, anxiety, traumas, relationship issues, and is considered to be one of the country’s leading phobia practitioners.

What interested you in psychology?

My mum had several popular psychology books lying around the house, and since we didn’t have internet or video games back then, I started reading those books from about age 12 onwards and got hooked. These books often described and my experiences and behaviours or those of family members around me and helped me understand them. It was as if there was a wise person around guiding me or telling me what was going on. I kept reading personal development books from that time. At the age of 27 I finally sought to combine something I was interested about with a career and decided to train as a psychologist.

How did you first get into TV work?

I’m on the psychological society media database (for psychologists who don’t mind journalists asking them for comments), and that was where the producers of my first TV work the Panic Room found me. With my second TV work (Freaky Eaters), a talent scout saw a workshop of mine in a brochure and asked me if I would be interested in an audition for the new series of Freaky Eaters. I auditioned again and I got the part.

You specialise in neurolinguistic programming and have a book coming out soon based on these NLP techniques. What does NLP involve?

NLP was put together by two men who researched the methods of three master therapists in their fields. The researchers then tried to find the ‘active ingredients’ underlying all the change work they witnessed and sought to reduce it to simple principles that they could be replicated. In short they wanted to see if they could copy the principles of excellence and best practice from leaders in the field and then teach others the same techniques to achieve the same high levels of performance. In therapy terms NLP is very creative and solution-focused and seeks to cut straight to the techniques for change without any diversions into speculation or analysis. It works on the process or underlying mechanisms of behaviour rather than on the content itself.

Can you tell us a little bit about Virtual Resolutions Therapy? It’s something you have developed yourself isn’t it?

VRT is my own adaptation of a technique from NLP but with a couple of key creative additions drawn from other fields I have studied.  This format allows me to achieve multiple therapeutic goals: understanding, acknowledgement, validation, cognitive challenging, processing of suppressed emotions, empathy for other perspectives, and leading and expanding the direction of thought to more useful perspectives. Recently I worked with one couple who had been to a Relate counsellor for over 10 sessions without a resolution for some of their conflicts. When I led them through the VRT format, they processed each of their main threads of conflict in just a few minutes each. They couldn’t believe the difference in therapies.

You’ve helped many people suffering with severe phobias. On BBC 3′s ‘The Panic Room’ in particular you dealt with some extreme cases. Do you think phobias are a modern-day malady? I ask because I can’t imagine a caveman having a fear of spiders or wide open spaces.

Yes I believe it is a modern day malady. The less exposure we have to the natural world the more ignorant we are of it. Ignorance and fear go together and we imagine all sorts of dangers associated with house spiders from the scary things we have seen on TV with tarantulas and truly dangerous spiders. In agrarian countries like Cambodia you see young children routinely handling spiders as big as my hand, so cavemen would have been the same. Asides from that, we still have an outdated ‘stone age’ defence response (releasing adrenalin in the face of danger) that doesn’t help us deal with modern age ‘threats’ such as job interviews, public speaking, traffic jams, deadlines etc. Adrenalin in these situations freaks us out and we start making inaccurate attributions about ourselves (e.g. we have ‘faulty wiring’ or ‘chemical imbalances’).

Why do you think more of us suffering from anxiety and depression?

There are many contributors to why anxiety and depression are on the rise. Part of this was for the reason mentioned previously, in that our evolutionary coping response are out of sync with the kinds of demands facing us now and we don’t understand them and panic when we experience them. A second reason has been the attempt to medicate our way out of our problems rather than resolve them at source. A third reason has been the rapid rate of technological change, meaning everything is faster, more rushed and stressful. We don’t have time to think, we are just fire fighting demands on several fronts. Things are changing so quickly we feel confused and uncertain because we don’t know how to handle all the new changes and options for lifestyles available to us. In addition we are more isolated due to the breakdown of traditional communities. Are brains are social brains and respond best to living in a community rather than relying on social networking media.

Have you ever suffered from a phobia?

Not a true phobia. I’ve had aversions to things but would face them when I had to. A phobia on the other hand is an uncontrollable state of panic with the only option being to avoid or flee. I don’t even have those aversions any more.

You’ve spoken a great deal about how we can find happiness in our lives. What is happiness for you personally?

Happiness for me needs a combination of several things to happen.

Firstly, to set yourself free of the patterns, habits, traumas demons or skeletons haunting you from the past. It’s hard to focus on anything else if you are preoccupied with anxiety or traumatised. Once you do, your attention is freed up to focus on more constructive and beneficial pursuits.

Secondly, to find a sense of completeness from within rather than trying to find this externally. In one sense we are all looking to feel loved and we look for this love by mindlessly pursuing unsuitable relationships, drugs, status, consumer goods. And then we become slaves to these things. Once you understand and accept yourself you have found self-love which feels completely different. You feel you are living rather than existing. Once you have a greater connection within yourself, you also develop a greater connection to others and the world around you by extension.

Thirdly, to become the measure of your own worth rather than comparing oneself to the standards society blindly promotes. This frees you up from needing to conform to someone else’s different expectations and allows you to create your own agenda and path for yourself. A happy person is one who is able to pursue and express themselves, their own unique blend of creativity and aptitudes in whatever form that takes, free from interference until they find the right match for themselves in their environment.

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Interview with Mike French

By Jenny | Published: October 11, 2011

Mike French is the owner and senior editor of The View from Here literary magazine and an author.  He talks about his recently released debut novel The Ascent of Isaac Steward and what makes him tick as a writer.

You originally trained and worked as an engineer. How and when did your interest in writing begin?

About five years after giving all that up to become a home dad –  I’m more conceptual in my thinking so engineering was a way of making my interest in Physics pay the bills!  During those initial five years I’d loved looking after the kids but woven in things to stop my brain turning to mush when they had their afternoon naps. Dipping into writing was a first for me and I thought at the time a completely mad, random desire, but despite my misgivings it refused to go away. Once I finally sat down at my computer and tried it I loved it – it was like discovering without having any notion before that you’re good at – I don’t know – Latin or something – it was that surprising.

Who have been your literary influences over the years?

I love Julian Barnes’ work so I’m keenly watching to see if he finally gets the Booker that has so long eluded him. Others are Tom McCarthy, George Orwell, John Steinbeck and Kurt Vonnegut – Tom for his sense of atmosphere in movement, George for his portrayal of society, John for his understanding of the human spirit and Kurt for his mental gymnastics.

What does the writing process involve for you?

Discovering an idea or theme through just sitting down and writing.  Then shaping that into a story and working with each chapter getting the prose sharp, making sure I’m not lingering too long on a scene or coming in too early, cutting out needless words that sort of thing. Next putting the whole thing away for at least 6 months whilst it bubbles away in my subconscious and then continually reworking it much like plasticine until I’m happy.  If it doesn’t surprise and delight me then I know I haven’t quite found the shape of it yet.   Sometimes I’ll work in silence; occasionally I’ll have some music on.  But always it’s a delight, I love it.

What is your favourite book and why?

I can’t answer that. When I asked Barnes the same question he said, “It varies from Shakespeare to the Oxford English Dictionary to the Michelin Guide to France to Flaubert’s Letters to Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book”. So in that vein I’d say it varies from Talking it Over, 1984, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, The Elements of Style, The Chambers Dictionary, Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals and whatever book has currently won it to the top of the huge pile of books next to my bed.

Tell us a little bit about your debut novel The Ascent of Isaac Steward.

I was thinking about the different ways of summing this up the other day.  At the moment I’m doing lots of author signings and of course people ask you that very question.  And when I pitched the book to agents and publishers again I needed a synopsis and I always remember on a workshop being told, “I suspect that it’s the type of book that doesn’t translate well into a synopsis.

Part of the problem is that there are multiple ways of interpreting and interacting with the text each equally valid.  But the one I tell people when I’m signing is, that it’s a book about a man who thinks life is good, but in fact there has been a traumatic incident in the past that his he’s completely suppressed the memory of.  The book follows him as that memory resurfaces and he becomes increasingly dysfunctional mentally and physically and how he ultimately deals with that.  However I could equally say that it’s a book about love and separation between two people and their journey to connect again.  So what’s a strength in the book, in that it will interact with different people in different ways that’s personal to them, becomes problematic in an evaluator type pitch.  It’s also mad, funny and atmospheric which again can be lost in a blurb where the book can sometimes sound a bit grim.  It’s one of the reasons there are recommendations on the back cover instead of a blurb.

How has running your literary magazine The View from Here changed how you approach your own writing?

I’m more confident in my own style. Beforehand I wouldn’t read anything when I was writing my own stuff for fear it would influence me.  I’ve realised that is a common misconception for new writers though and the stack of book’s I’ve read because of the magazine have sharpened and helped me enormously – even the bad ones.  From the interviews we’ve done I’ve also seen that there is no correct approach to writing, some will swear blind that you have to write every day others the opposite.  Instead, it’s about realising that no-one else can write the way you do and finding the approach that best suits you.  I’ve learnt to ignore the Janet and John guides and whilst publishing is a business the writing side is an art and isn’t like following an IKEA instruction leaflet.  Of course many do try and copy the current fad and publishers panic about what the next IKEA catalogue will look like, but any author who wants to still have their work around in a hundred years time has to avoid getting sucked into that vortex.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers – creatively and with regard to the publishing industry?

Creatively – don’t worry about what the market wants – the market shifts and is fickle – instead write for yourself, just make it the very best it can be.  If that’s good enough it will find a readership if you manage to get published and are prepared to work hard.  That and a lot of luck anyway. As far as advice as to how to interact with the publishing industry I’d say take a step back and ask yourself some very hard questions.

Am I in this for the money?

Am I prepared to be rejected and ignored for years – maybe even a whole lifetime?

Do I think I’m God’s gift to the publishing world and they’ll be eating out of my hand?

Am I prepared to edit and re-edit and polish my novel?

Can I handle rejection?

Can I take constructive criticism and learn from it?

Do I see this as an art form and am prepared to invest time and even money in learning my craft?

Am I deluded?  Is there someone I trust who can judge if this is something I can be brilliant at?

Once you’ve answered those and you have a finished ms in your hands then I’d advise writers to avoid self-publishing unless it’s just for friends and hold out for a publisher. And don’t just scatter gun your work out to hundreds of them.  Treat it like trying to get a job.  Research the publisher or agent, get to know their likes and dislikes and then tailor your approach to them specifically.  And be patient – the publishing world takes a long time to spin around and give you that sunrise you yearn for.

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An Interview with Ysanne Spevack

By Jenny | Published: September 26, 2011

Ysanne Spevack is a British violinist, composer, and string arranger who is best known for her work with, among others, The Smashing Pumpkins, Elton John, Michael Stipe, and for her Film and TV scores. Born in London, she now lives in Los Angeles. She was gracious enough to answer some questions for us here at The Influential.

Did you always want to be a musician? 

Yes. I have two older sisters, Lindsay and Melanie, and they both took piano lessons. The piano lived in my bedroom, and I would spend hours making noises with it, John Cage style. I would open up the front and strum the strings, weaving pencils and pieces of paper between them and then pressing the keys to make strange sounds.

I started asking my parents if I could take piano lessons pretty much as soon as I could formulate sentences, and they began when I was three. But I didn’t connect with the stuff the piano teacher was teaching, which were the scales and pieces to be expected from a standard piano lesson experience.

And so I was excited when my school teacher decided to offer guitar lessons to her charges when I was seven. And then from there to the violin was only a matter of a few months, again through my school, which was an average suburban London State-run school.

And with the violin, I was hooked immediately.

Which two people would you say have been the biggest influences in your life? I ask this in regard to your music career as well as for your passion for gardening and organics.

For music, it started with Uncle Eddie, who was my Great Uncle, i.e. he was my mother’s mother’s sister’s husband. Uncle Eddie was a violinist, playing in the pit at the local cinema for silent movies in the 20′s. He gave me my first violin, which I still have and still play on occasion. His wife, my Auntie Rose, was a pianist who had won a scholarship to the Royal Academy as a child, which was a tremendous achievement back then for a female. Their enjoyment of music and encouragement during my childhood were truly formative.

For organics, Michael van Straten was probably the most important influence on me, in that he was the first major player to give me a platform, inviting me onto his legendary radio show as a regular guest during the 90′s, and generally believing in me and in my ability to speak to a new generation. That level of mentoring is so important for young minds.

Your work as a violinist, composer, and string arranger is very impressive. Is there any particular piece of work or collaboration that you are particularly proud of?

I have been honoured to work with many legendary artists, including David J (Bauhaus / Love & Rockets), Elton John, Peter Sellars, Brett Anderson (Suede), Steven Severin (Siouxsie) and Tiesto.

However, my live and recorded strings for Billy Corgan and for the Smashing Pumpkins are probably what I’m best known for here in the USA, and I am so proud of this, as he is truly a musical genius.

As a musician, writer, and organic gardener you have your fingers in many pies (as it were!). How do you find the time to do it all?

Sacrificing my leisure time! Talk to my friends, and you will find a group of patient, kind and beautiful people who are talented creatives, and who therefore understand that the love I have for them exists even if we aren’t always able to spend time in each others company.

But that said, I feel in my heart that I make far less sacrifices than many, in that I adore my work, and in fact, it could be said that I never ever work, because my work is such a joy.

So how did you first become interested in organic food?

There’s a secret in the healthy food / healthy lifestyle community, in the US, the UK and beyond. This is what it is… The entire industry pretty much arises from people who lived a little faster in the youth than was healthy for them.

As a musician with crazy hours and a musician’s lifestyle, I needed to find a way to sustain the madness and replenish my life force better than a Big Mac ever could. I discovered that if I ate a lot of high quality fresh organic produce, I would feel better on tour and be able to handle the physical, mental and emotional challenges and demands more gracefully.

Many people are resistant to organic food, with the main reason being cited that it is expensive. What would you say to those people?

The people who say that are generally the people who eat out a lot. I prefer to spend my money on the very best organic ingredients, and then to prepare them myself. That way, I spend way less on food than most people – really, my food budget is very low! – but the quality of nutrition I gain from eating organic food is so much higher than eating out all the time. And I shudder to think of the antibiotics, chemicals and hormones most people put into their bodies from eating non-organic meat.

Your website organicfoodee.com is packed full of tips and information for anyone interested in a more organic life. What would be your top tip for someone starting down that road?

Eat more greens.

What are you working on at the moment?

Musically, I’m working very closely with David J (Bauhaus / Love & Rockets) on a number of different exciting projects. Firstly, there are his two plays, ‘The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse’ and ‘Silver for Gold’, both of which are due to be staged in Los Angeles in November and December. Then there’s his new revisited version of the classic Bauhaus song that he wrote, ‘Bela Lugosi is Dead’, due out on Projekt Records in New York on October 31st. And David J’s new album, ‘Not Long for This World’ is coming out on Starry Records / St Rose on October 18th. We’re planning to tour early 2012. David J is also playing bass on my new album, Coldwater, which is still in development.

I also arrange strings and compose music to picture, primarily at the moment for television and for movie trailers.

On the organic side of my work, I am writing a new book for Process Media / Feral House Books, which will be I think my fourteenth published tome including a few reissues.

I also grow organic edible gardens, and adore being chief garden fairy for an extraordinary retreat centre in Malibu called The Ranch at Live Oak. I look after 2 acres of edible organic gardens for them located in perhaps the most beautiful part of Malibu. Absolutely everything grown there is grown for deliciousness, nutritional value and beauty, in equal amounts. There are lemons with pink flesh and stripey green and yellow zests, Romanesco cauliflowers that are so perfect in their spiralling that they are a living example of Fibonacci, and I’ve grown about 20 different kinds of heirloom pumpkins around the garden. I’m delighted to be starting a new cutting garden to keep the Ranch’s vases full and fragrant. This week I’ve been sewing sweet peas, which will be ready to cut in early spring, and I’m planning a new rose garden.

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Bronwen Winter Phoenix Interview

By Jenny | Published: September 25, 2011

Bronwen Winter Phoenix is an author, freelance writer, and describes herself as a dreamer. Her work includes Escaping Dreams, Nightswallow, and more recently Grassmarket Blood, which has been nominated for a Galaxy National Book Award in the crime and thriller category. She currently lives in Dunfermline, Fife.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer and why?

I knew from a young age. I always enjoyed writing, and English was my favourite subject at school. I used to read a lot of books, such as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Christopher Pike, from when I was about eight or nine years old, so it was authors such as these who really inspired me; I wanted to be able to write like they did. I could really lose myself in a book, and at the same time create that kind of thing for myself.

Who have been your literary influences over the years?

I think I’ve just answered your question. Although, performance-wise, the biggest influence for me is author Alan Bissett. I mean, have you seen this guy perform? I went to his book launch for Death of a Ladies’ Man, and also in The Moira Monologues, the latter of which really took my breath away. It was basically just him on a stage, by himself, playing a 40-something female Scottish cleaner. How he remembered his lines and pulled it off as well as he did was a mystery to me. If I could go in front of an audience and do that… then I suppose there’s not much I wouldn’t be able to do.

What do you find most difficult about writing?

Probably the fact that I don’t always want to do it. Part of my main advice to writers is; try to write every day – doesn’t matter how much, as long as you do it. But I don’t always follow my own advice. But when I do it, and I’m in that zone, I don’t even really have to think about it; I just put my fingers on the keyboard and stuff happens; words come out. So I’m very prolific, and I suppose I’m very lucky in that regard. But we all have our off-days.

What is your favourite book and why?

My favourite book is Christopher Pike’s The Season of Passage. I read it for the first time when I was about 10 or 11, because my Dad had bought it and left it lying around. The cover in itself is fantastic; picture a rotting skeletal hand holding a single gold band ring in front of the planet Mars. It’s described as “the soul-searing novel of horror beyond horror’, and although it’s aged a bit now, it’s just so well done and really gets you in the right places. Definitely my favourite book and one that has stuck with me ever since.

Tell us a little bit about your latest novel Grassmarket Blood.

Well, it’s a weird/funny/crime/thriller… think of it as crime from someone who doesn’t really read crime. It’s more frivolous than serious. The main character, Stanley Hobbes, starts off as an obituary writer for a newspaper called the Edinburgh Times. He stumbles upon this weird obituary scenario and from there gets pulled into the weird and wonderful world of the Fringe Festival. There’s danger, romance, mystery and… a bit of everything, really. And of course, it’s the Fringe, so it has to be a bit weird. It’s mainly funny, but it’s got an edge to it.

It’s very different to your last two books. In fact all three of your books are unique. What does the process of writing involve for you? How does an idea for a novel come to you?

Well, my first two novels actually came mainly from dreams. This one is more my waking imagination. I don’t know where the story came from, but I was working at a newspaper for a while and trained as a journalist before that, so that’s probably part of it. And I absolutely adore the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, so I tried to capture some of that magic in this book.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Keep writing and don’t give up. Network. Follow your heart. And buy a Writers & Artists Yearbook, if you don’t have one already.

You can follow Bronwen on Twitter and Facebook.

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