Art Beneath the Waves A Conversation with Jason DeCaires Taylor

When a devastating hurricane paves the way for a groundbreaking underwater art project, it's a story worth holding your breath for. Join me as I sit down with Jason DeCaires Taylor, the creative force behind Grenada's underwater sculpture museum, as we navigate the waters of his artistic journey and the birth of a submerged marvel. Our conversation dives into the welcoming embrace of the Grenadian community that supported Jason's vision and the stark contrasts he's experienced with creative endeavors in the UK. Jason's unwavering dedication to art and marine conservation emerges as a beacon for those navigating the intersection of culture, nature, and artistry.

Submerging into Jason's world, we uncover the serenity and complexities of sculpting below the surface. Recalling my own university days and their indelible mark on my work, I share the intricate process of site selection, installation, and the evolution of sculptures as they become one with the marine environment. The spice mass carnival of Grenada springs to life underwater through Jason's latest installation, a vibrant tribute to the island's culture, demonstrating the dynamic interplay between his creations and their aquatic canvas.

We round off our exploration by tracing the currents that shaped Jason's path from a childhood steeped in seaside adventures to the accolades of National Geographic recognition. It's a tale of parental encouragement, the struggle for artistic survival, and the seizing of opportunities that might never come knocking again. Our discussion stands as a clarion call for artists and dreamers to act now—because the most opportune moment to dive into your passions is the one you're in right now.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

This is Nutmeg Nation. I have with me a very special guest. I'm excited to speak to him because he is the one person who has created a sculpture museum in Grenada and he's added to it. It's one of National Geographic's 25 Wonders of the World, which is absolutely amazing. I have with me Jason DeCary's Taylor. Hi, jason, hi, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? Yeah, very well, thanks, and I see that we are a few hours apart here in the UK.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Yes, that's right. I'm in the southeast of England in my studio at the moment.

Speaker 1: 0:43

Oh, wow. So how's the studio looking? Is it messy?

Speaker 2: 0:47

It's always a little bit messy, kind of goes through a period of chaos and then we kind of sorted it all out and the sculptures get moved out, and then it kind of gets reset and we go again. But, yeah, at the moment it's looking good. Yeah, we're just embarking on a new project, so, yeah, we have a bit of floor space available.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Oh wow, so you're on to another project. So before we start to that project, I just want to know you were born in the UK as well, you grew up there, or tell me a little bit about Jason.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Yes, I was born in the UK. My mother is Guyanese and she moved over from Guiana in the early 20s to study in England. I met my father, who's English, and then I sort of grew up here. But we were quite fortunate that my parents would move around the world. There were both English teachers, and so as a family we moved to all these different places in Malaysia and the Caribbean and then Spain. So, yeah, we sort of lived around, and likewise in my work I've moved my studios around to different parts of the world, but at the moment I've sort of returned back home and set up a base here.

Speaker 1: 2:03

So when you say the UK, are we talking London, England, or I think it's like they say the UK, but United Kingdom? Where in the United Kingdom?

Speaker 2: 2:14

In the Southeast, so just South London, about 60 miles.

Speaker 1: 2:18

Okay, the show is about Grenada and the culture and everything like that. So you did create the first water park in 2006. What was the process like? What made you decide to start your journey in Grenada?

Speaker 2: 2:35

I think it was just a sort of it was the opportunity and the circumstances that led to me creating this park. I mean, I studied sculpture for a long time in London. I trained as a scuba diver, worked in sort of set design and logistics for some time and actually got a job in Grenada teaching diving. Just after Hurricane Ivan and I was working there and I kind of when I was at art college, I always had this idea that I wanted to make different sculptions, the lations you know, in various sort of natural settings and I was always fascinated by doing it underwater but never really had the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 3:19

But after a while, when I was living in Grenada, I saw that there was some you know sites that it would really benefit doing something like this, and so I just sort of said about it and I, you know, went to the government and asked permission and raise some funds and selected a site that had been damaged by the hurricane so that if we added anything you know in that site it would actually attract people to it and it would attract fish and tourists and, you know, hopefully regenerate it. And that's really sort of how it all began and I kind of, you know, started slowly and it's really sort of progressed over the years.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. I mean, I've looked at the museums that you have around the world. It's quite a resume that you have, I think, to go over everything that you've done. It would be forever in the making, but you have a lot of accolades and I guess your parents must be really proud of everything that you've shown the world, especially the underwater world, you know, for people who like scuba diving, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. What was it about Grenada that you liked? I mean, a lot of people haven't been to Grenada and I feel like it's a very small island, but it's a very friendly place and it's beautiful. What was it like while you were teaching there?

Speaker 2: 4:37

Like I said, I've lived in a lot of places and you know, grenada is a place that was really special to me and I think if I hadn't have started, if I started it somewhere else, you know, it would have never, never have happened. It was definitely. You know, obviously the waters are beautiful and the sea and the island itself is incredibly unique, but it was really the people that sort of were the ones that offered encouragement and were warm and were open and I think, ultimately gave you a sense of freedom to explore some of these ideas that you know I probably wouldn't have done in other places. You know, certainly I do projects here in the UK and there's so many barriers that are put up that, you know, if I started I would have just been put off, you know, and even now I get frustrated trying to implement projects where there's so many negative people who oppose them. But I was quite lucky in Grenada, you know, I was afforded that freedom.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Are you able to talk about some of the difficulties that you have like in the UK or some of the challenges that you have to go through when you are starting a project or you have an idea?

Speaker 2: 5:50

Oh, how long's your podcast.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Oh, you know what, if this is going to be interesting, we will talk about it. You know, I think it's important for people to know, because it's like you're talking about a project that's underwater, or just any idea in general, and the process is not always so easy and that's why, you know, sometimes it takes people years right create an idea to get it going. It's not just like, oh yeah, I have. I get this person like I mean, yeah, you have your team, but that's just the surface, right.

Speaker 2: 6:25

Oh for sure, I mean, even on a basic level. So, you know, making objects for an underwater space, you know, is very, very different to making sculptures on land. You know the materials have to be of a certain type, you know they can't pollute obviously, the sea in any way. They have to be something that is extremely resilient, that is, you know, transportable and ultimately, you know, provides a home for marine life. So there's loads of research and challenges trying to design pieces that are heavy enough to just sit on the sea floor. Obviously, when you put an object in salt water it becomes lighter. And in the Caribbean there's lots of hurricanes and storms, so you need to make works that are not going to get, you know, dislodged or moved. So, yeah, it's making works extremely heavy in the water but not so heavy on land that you can't lift them up or transport them. That's the sort of basic stuff of just making the pieces.

Speaker 2: 7:24

And then you've also, you know, got the sort of difficulty of permitting. So you have lots of studies and surveys and consultations and, yeah, legislation to follow to actually be allowed to place sculptures in the sea. And then you've got, you know, I think, working in any sort of public space. You know, and you probably people are very aware of this. You know from social media, but you know, whenever you're working in a public arena, you know there's lots of opinions and groups and different parties that you know you need to try to satisfy as much as you can, and so that can be a challenge, because we obviously all don't see the world, you know, from the same viewpoint.

Speaker 1: 8:07

So, based on what you're saying, do you also have a science background? It sounds to me like it's not just creating the sculptures, just also knowing if this is going to work underwater, like just the spatial awareness and your underwater. So obviously, the weight of the sculpture, and I mean even for the first one you created here. Am I saying it right, molineer?

Speaker 1: 8:29

Molineer, yeah, Molineer underwater sculpture museum the first one that you did, of course and there's a lot of works. I've only looked at some of them. It's absolutely beautiful. About 75 works cover like 800 square meters. How long did that take you?

Speaker 2: 8:45

I think it took me a couple of years. I think it was about two, maybe, yeah, two years. I was travelling back to the UK for additional work to help fund it and so, yeah, I think I used to work in the UK for three months and then returned to Grenada for three months and my partner lived there and was at the university there. So, yeah, it was definitely a lot of work and I didn't have the same resources, obviously, that I employ now, and so everything was kind of done by hand. We would float sculptures out from the shoreline and I would spend two weeks underwater bolting them all together and connecting them, and there was definitely a lot more hands on. But then I look back on it now and actually it was some of the most fun and exciting parts of it. Now I spend more time working on engineering drawings or permitting applications and I do sort of with the hands on working in the seaside.

Speaker 1: 9:44

You said it was exciting the whole process. I guess because it was more hands on. What was exciting about it?

Speaker 2: 9:50

Art for me is all about exploration, and so I've always sort of explored the sea as a diver.

Speaker 2: 9:56

But now I sort of was able to explore it through my art. So as I place things underwater I could watch them transition and change colour and grow different forms and have different corals and sponges and algae and all these different transformations happening. So it was really exciting to see how they respond. I wasn't quite sure, so each time I would slightly modify the designs. At the beginning I did things very flat and close to the seabed and as I got more confident and more able with the technique, I was able to stand things up and make them a bit more elevated, and as soon as you elevated them they got more of the nutrient rich current so they really started to grow a lot more. But yeah, it was really fascinating to see and I also probably I learned a lot in that first stage and I teamed up with an artificial reef company that also gave me a lot of advice on the best techniques to use. But yeah, it was fascinating seeing all the changes.

Speaker 1: 11:02

So it was kind of like a work in progress, like you were learning as you were creating.

Speaker 2: 11:08

You know I think I'm always learning Every project. You know I start there's. You know it's always. You know very different conditions and different cultures and different environments. And yeah, so it's. I don't think you ever get complacent where it's always the same. It's always a learning curve.

Speaker 1: 11:28

And in your background you went to university for sculpture design, or so you went to London Institute of Arts in 98 and you have a BA in sculpture. So what exactly did you learn while you were there?

Speaker 2: 11:43

Oh, lots of things. I mean I specialized in casting. I used to do a lot of life casting, body casting, yeah, mold making, armatures. You know all about public art and context and how that changes. So yeah, no, no, it was. It was really really good, I was really fortunate experience. You know, I look back on it now and I sort of didn't appreciate it. You know, being 19, 20, I, you know I didn't realize what an amazing opportunity it was. And I kind of look back now and think, god, if I could go back to university, it'd be incredible, you know, would you study the same thing if you went back.

Speaker 2: 12:24

Yeah, probably it sounds like a dream now, but you know you just used to go into this huge college with this quite fortunate because it was. It had some very interesting tutors and there was. They had a very different approach to things and you know I'm always going to go in and you were banned from having any any desks or chairs. Sitting on the floor, because they didn't want you to think on a desktop scale. They wanted you to think on a different scale.

Speaker 1: 12:52

What does that mean on a different scale?

Speaker 2: 12:54

Well, you start on the floor, you get on a ladder. You look at it from a different perspective, as was. Every student's work was very different. You could say that had influenced me. Now, working underwater is on a very different scale to gallery work. I have to fill huge spaces and the viewing is completely different. You walk around the seabed, looking them at eye level, you float above them, you swim around them. The areas that I need to cover for it to be a meaningful experience is really huge.

Speaker 1: 13:32

The one thing that's amazing. You are working underwater and being a scuba diver in order to do this kind of work. What is it like underwater? For those that have never been I've never been underwater what's it like doing work underwater?

Speaker 2: 13:48

Completely different, much harder, Definitely much harder. You got to plan it really well, make sure you have everything to hand. Just pre-planned it all and worked down your head exactly what's going to take place, because you can't really improvise or change your plan.

Speaker 1: 14:08

You have to plan it. The experience itself do you enjoy? I mean, you must enjoy working underwater, obviously, but I want to know what does it feel like you're underwater? It's not like going swimming, right.

Speaker 2: 14:19

No, it's definitely not like swimming.

Speaker 1: 14:21

No, it's not. What I want to know is the feeling. What does it feel like when you're in that environment and planning where the sculptures go and the whole process, having your team send you the next sculpture and bringing it down? What does it feel like in terms of gravitational pull? What is the experience that you get when you're there?

Speaker 2: 14:43

There's many different phases to what I do underwater. First of all, they'll just be choosing the right location. That's all about taking in the atmosphere, looking at the sediment type, visualizing how the piece will fit within the topography of what's down there. That's a really nice experience. I mean, first of all, being underwater, you really obviously have to control your breathing. You're very conscious that you have to have a very regular breaths and very controlled breaths. Your movements have to be much less frenetic than when you're on land. I think you instantly feel calmer and feel more clear-headed.

Speaker 2: 15:32

There's that first part, which is quite interesting than the actual installation. That's a very different experience where, first of all, you're really conscious of safety, so you're really aware of where you are in the water. There's not a sculpture that's above your head, coming down on top of you. You're not tangled up in any way or that. It's safe and in control.

Speaker 2: 15:58

So that's generally quite stressful, but there's certainly a lot of pressure on it because you've also hired a lot of people and a lot of logistics and boats and it's something that can only be done when the weather's good, basically. So yeah, that's quite pressurized that part. And then later on, once that's done, there's usually the fixing stage of it. So it's putting in the anchor parts and checking the composition of it, checking things at the level, and I tend to do a lot of that. I do really enjoy being underwater, it's just the sound is completely different, the light is different, it's very, very peaceful, but it's also on a clock, so you've only got a certain amount of air that will last you an hour and a half, two hours. You're also absorbing nitrogen and you've got a limit to how long you can spend under. So, yeah, it's not completely carefree, but I've done it quite a while now, so it's sort of quite late.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Yeah, you're a veteran now. I mean, these are all the components that people don't necessarily think about. I mean, if I were to go under there, I'm just like in awe of all the sculptures and how amazing they look, and just like the whole. It's a different world, you know, when you think about it. And so I think the next thing that we need to discuss is the newest installation that you've added in Grenada, which is amazing because it's devoted to spice mass, and the sculptures that you created for the newest edition have to do with an event that happens every year in Grenada. It's very popular, it's one of their biggest tourist attractions, right? And so what was the inspiration behind the new installation that you created last year?

Speaker 2: 17:53

We just wanted to make something that was incredibly unique to Grenada. We wanted to have images and iconography of things that can only be found on the island of Grenada. Carnival has such credible stories and such incredible masqueraders that we thought it would be really good to capture, and so, yes, I worked with some local artists and we designed these five different characters and decorated them all differently with these new underwater paints. And, yes, it's going to be really interesting to see how they evolve.

Speaker 1: 18:29

You said how they evolve, like the sculptures change over time.

Speaker 2: 18:34

Oh, yes, of course. Yes, We've got some of the feathers on the pretty mast dancer. We've got the horns on the jab-jabs. All of these things are going to start to heavily be colonized by sponges and corals and things. So, yes, it's going to look very different each year.

Speaker 1: 18:52

As far as sculpture design is concerned, you say you have a team. Did someone help you create the design for the sculptures or do you draw them? You're mainly your designs. Are you've done them yourself or is it like you have someone that helps you when you're creating?

Speaker 2: 19:09

It depends, but most of the time mostly designs by myself. This particular installation, so this coral carnival that was in collaboration with a local designer and some local artists. So together we worked out, you know, each of the characters, the correct type of costumes and objects they were holding and the different designs. And that's probably a little bit different to how I normally work. You know, I come up with a concept from the beginning to the end.

Speaker 1: 19:40

What was that like? Having someone else contribute to your creation?

Speaker 2: 19:45

To be honest, you know, I'm always sort of working with the underwater world, which is in itself is, you know, has its own artists that you know decorate and change and more things. So I'm kind of used to sort of letting go a little bit of a control anyway, and it was a nice experience for sure.

Speaker 1: 20:04

So you'd created 25 stylized sculptures. Do you have a favorite?

Speaker 2: 20:09

It depends. I mean, each one of them was also modeled on a local Canadian person and the model I used for one of them, the Wild Indian sculpture, I just really liked the way he came out. He's had a really Stolic, proud expression and, yeah, I kind of liked how that came out. The jab jab was quite interesting, you know. Again, the model was really good and the form with the snake and with the horns, yeah, had a really good silhouette underwater, you know, really invited people to come and find out more and ask questions.

Speaker 1: 20:46

This one is kind of I think it's cool, the one where he's sitting and he's typing on the typewriter.

Speaker 2: 20:54

Yeah, that was one of the first sculptures that I actually produced when I first started, called the Lost Correspondent, oh wow. And when I first made it I made it from a type of metal that didn't last a lot very long underwater, so it actually started to degrade over time, and obviously since then I've upgraded my techniques a lot and so actually revamped that sculpture and recast elements of it.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Like you said, they change over time. Like every year the changes, and so it will be interesting to see what the coral carnival looks like in a few years from now, like how the sculpture will look and how much coral will be there, and like what attracts it, right, because I mean, obviously it's underwater and so the composition doesn't stay the same, right?

Speaker 2: 21:41

No, it changes. It's interesting talking about that first piece as well, the Lost Correspondent. I think that was the piece that really sort of ignited my imagination and made that piece kind of saw it. I saw this desk and I saw this kind of right and I saw the space that it would work and it was like this sort of corridor underwater that opened up into this little clear opening which had amazing white sand and sort of some beams coming through and there was kind of corals growing up walls on the side of it and I just sort of thought of him in this space, you know, and I made it and installed it and it kind of instantly worked. And just, you know, on land it kind of felt meaningless, but just putting it underwater was what gave it this sense of mystery. It wasn't entirely, you know, was it a sort of modern art experience? Was it an archaeological experience? You know who were we, where were we going? No-transcript asked all these different questions which you didn't have on land.

Speaker 1: 22:50

I guess it's one of those things where you're getting it inspired. Obviously, the second addition to the underwater museum is more to do with carnival itself, but the first one. What was the meaning behind that?

Speaker 2: 23:06

Because obviously that's your claim to fame. There were lots of different sculptures in that collection. In the first work, the most well-known is this piece called Forcissitudes, which is a ring of children.

Speaker 1: 23:19

Yes, that's one of my favorites. I love that.

Speaker 2: 23:22

That was one of the first pieces, part of the first set that I made in the early 2000s, and again it was cast from children on the island and it was put near this white patch of sand that had this really nice current that came through it and I wanted to show how children absorb and change and adapt to their environment and their situations and they grow on the nutrition that they have, and so that was quite interesting. Each different children grew at different rates and changed in different ways and some had incredible big sort of pink sponges that came out in every direction and others had a sort of white fur that came out and others had a kind of golden fire coral that went up their legs and arms. So yeah, that was one of the first pieces and kind of captures people's imaginations.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Someone described it as something out of a Stephen King novel.

Speaker 2: 24:23

Well, it's interesting. I mean, that particular piece, it's been so many different people have interpreted it in different ways, and some people have looked at it from a scary point of view and they see that this people underwater has connected to drowning. There's been a lot of people that have also connected it to people that have died during the middle passage, and so there's other people that have thought about it as a coral reef and and a diving experience, and children that are changing, other people that see as a big, real sense of unity and connection. So yeah, for me I think that's the whole sort of reason for art, is it? It evokes a different response from each viewer.

Speaker 1: 25:14

Art is always interpretive and you've done so much all over the world, like you know Grenada, mexico, bahamas, the UK, australia. How come you haven't gotten anything here in Canada?

Speaker 2: 25:29

I would love to do something in Canada. Definitely I did. We did have a project at one point, working in a river, which was which is quite exciting, but unfortunately it didn't happen in the end. But it's the same in America. I also haven't got any works there because the permitting is pretty stringent and takes a long time.

Speaker 1: 25:48

Well, I hope you do it, jason, you know your work is beautiful Because of social media. I think it kind of ignited the art world, especially because there's this one group that you work with. I don't know if you necessarily work, collaborate with them, necessarily, but they're the ones that run coordinate the scuba diving part of the underwater museum. You know, they're the ones that train people on how to scuba dive and they have a whole that's a whole different thing altogether, but that's part of the whole experience is going underwater and scuba diving to get there and learning how to do that if you've never done it before. So where I'm going with this is that because of them, the social media, like their Facebook and the Instagram I was just like, wow, this is so amazing because they've done a lot of videos, like many videos, and I'm like you know, for me, I'm not really a big swimmer, but it's one of those things where I feel like when I go back home to Grenada to visit that I would consider doing that because it's so beautiful.

Speaker 1: 26:49

Why did you get into sculpture design? I?

Speaker 2: 26:51

don't know. I think I was, you know, always. I was always into, into art and I think it was just probably the thing I was best at that game. Naturally, yeah, you know, I was a bit of a graffiti artist when I was young and so I was always either painting or making or, you know, creating something. So it was really, yeah, quite a kind of natural progression.

Speaker 1: 27:14

Did you ever get in trouble for doing some of that graffiti?

Speaker 2: 27:17

I did in the beginning yeah, yeah, but again it was working outside in a public space. Again I sort of look back on some of the things I've done in my life and they always feed in into what I've made in some way. Well, at the time I never really realized, but all the experiences you have, they all obviously sort of shape you and they all become relevant. Everything you do is relevant. It all kind of works out.

Speaker 1: 27:52

Yeah, it's your history, it's a part of who you are, because both your parents are teachers. So what was that like? Do you feel like they kind of helped you to get to that point when you chose your specialty in university? That's not the typical thing that people study in school.

Speaker 2: 28:10

I'm very fortunate. They're very open parents and they afforded me a lot of freedom. They never dictated what I should do or how I should do it. They took me around the world and let me explore, have lots of different experiences, and I'm very lucky to have that.

Speaker 1: 28:29

And what's one of the memories that you have that just stays with you now.

Speaker 2: 28:34

I mean, they're the ones that introduced me to this sort of underwater world. I lived in Malaysia when I was a kid and every weekend we'd go snorkeling and swimming and I got to see incredible things when I was like seven years old, wow. So yeah, they definitely planted the seed.

Speaker 1: 28:52

They did. I was just talking about this with someone, about your brain, the way you are, we as a human race, the things that you do when you're younger lead the path to your future. They planted the seed, and that was something that was a highlight in your life, and so that's probably helped you decide what your career would be like, and the fact that they let you have that freedom to do so, which is the most important thing, because, as an artist, they always say you know, artists are starving because it's a passion. It doesn't pay the bills. I talked to someone the other day. She was telling me like her husband is an engineer, but his passion is comedy. He has a podcast and her parents have taught her that you can't live off of your passions. You have to have something else, and so, with you, did you have something to back up on, or have this? You just decided that this is what you're going to devote your life to.

Speaker 2: 29:51

You know, as part of the conflict that I had, you know, when I finished art college, you know, I became super disillusioned by the opportunities that were out there, you know, and working out how to pay your rent and do anything in your life, it was really, really demoralising, you know, and it still is in some ways. It's still really tough, you know, it's such a competitive space the arts and there's so little resources to go around that, yes, it's still pretty hard. And so after I graduated, I did lots of other different jobs, you know, for probably like 10 years, 12 years. But it was only in sort of when I was in Grenada that I thought, actually I'm going to do something that, you know, I feel passionate and interested in, and I didn't give it along, you know, I just thought this is going to be, you know, a couple years and an experimentation. I didn't have a kind of plan of where it end up and it still probably took me 10 years before I started getting paid for it properly, you know. You know.

Speaker 1: 31:03

And no one knows that. You know what I mean. That's the thing, like when you're an artist and like you're doing all this stuff, no one knows, like, what the journey is like getting there. So obviously you were getting funding and doing other things to pay the bills, right yeah?

Speaker 2: 31:17

definitely, yeah, for the first five years definitely, I was having to sort of do you know other jobs to fund it. Then after five years I was probably just sort of making enough to survive from it. And yeah, it takes a while. And even now sort of you know how many years I mean 20 years in I get a lot of you know, requests for different projects, but some stumps still sort of fall by the wayside. It's definitely a lot easier. It's a difficult space, you know the arts is. You know there's a very thin percentage of the population that can make a good living from it.

Speaker 1: 31:52

It's just like amazing what you've done and what you've created, and I hope that this episode inspires more people around the world to go to Grenada. I hope that it will inspire or motivate them to go and see what you've created, because it's amazing, right, and that what you've done and the fact that it is considered the first, your first exhibit, the one we did in 2006, one of the 25 wonders of the world to be at the height, to have that as one of your accolades Like. What did it feel when they actually said like this is National Geographic named it that. What was that like?

Speaker 2: 32:36

Oh, I mean, yeah, it was obviously, you know, incredible and I was quite stunned. And at the same time, they also listed some of the other attractions. There was a few little ones on there, like the Himalayas and the Great Wall of China. I was like it, definitely not quite as impressive as those. So but yeah, no, no, it's great to be recognized. In fact, actually yesterday they just also named Grenada one of the top 20 cultural destinations of 2024.

Speaker 1: 33:07

Well, look at that, you know, it's amazing For those who are artists, and sometimes you get discouraged. What do you say to them? You just got to do what is meaningful for yourself.

Speaker 2: 33:18

You want to show on this planet and to be trapped into something that is just about survival. It's definitely got to follow your passion and do something that's meaningful for you.

Speaker 1: 33:27

You know what, jason? It always comes back. Even for me this idea was. I thought about it when I graduated from college. I just didn't start it and then, when the world changed, the pandemic I'm like I have time now I might as well do it. I think there's more excuses, because the thing that we always I'll do it tomorrow or when things are better there's never going to be a better time, you know.

Speaker 2: 33:51

so that's true I think there's also like a really there's a real balance in your age as well. You know, when you're young and in your 20s and you have the energy and the sort of drive to really do exciting things, you know, you sort of put it off maybe. I think I'll do it later on in life, you usually have lots of commitments and responsibilities and you don't have the same energy you had. So I think it's definitely foolish to wait. You really just have to begin.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Just start the process. Yeah, this is amazing. I'm Carleen. This is Not Magnation with Jason DeCarris Taylor. Thank you so much, jason, it's been a pleasure.