The Job PDX
The Job PDX
23. Jason Sturgill
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Jason Sturgill an artist, designer and educator based in Portland, Oregon with a background in advertising, graphic design and curatorial.

Show Notes

Recorded Monday, July 29th, 2013, and this is episode number 23. Follow Ray, Kandace, Dan, or Needmore on Twitter. Please rate our show on iTunes!

The Interview

Ray:
Hi, Jason.
Jason:
Hello.
How the hell are you?
Doing fairly well.
Good.
It’s not too hot today.
No, it’s nice out. I’m afraid to turn on the AC. It always makes this noise. It drives me crazy in the recording but maybe I should.
Yeah, I know. It’s moderate.
It’s okay for now I guess. If I start sweating profusely we’ll … we’ve got a little time. Why don’t you start by telling me where you’re from?
Alright. I’m actually from nearby. It’s a small little town up north called Longview, Washington. It’s a blue-collar, middle town. Raised there. Born in Alabama. Then went all over. military dad. Then settled in Longview. That’s where I’m from.
How long have you been in Portland?
I would always come down to Portland for shows, to buy skateboards and stuff like that when I was younger. Used to go to La Luna all the time, which is an all ages club, back in the day. I went to undergrad at Washington State in Pullman. After I graduated from there I made the official move as a Portland resident in ’98. Since then. Been awhile.
I think that’s about when I moved here too. Interesting. You’ve been in Portland’s orbit for even longer than that? You were living on the moon in Longview.
I was going back home for summers during college. Then doing … I interned for a nail distribution and stuff like that. I was involved in more of the music end of things when I was in school.
I think where I first met you might have been at the gallery that you ran.
The Wurst Gallery? When we did a show at the Cleaners, or Design Within Reach? I wonder how far back it was.
I’m not sure. How did that come about?
That came about … I was working at Widen. I think it … yeah. When I started working on Widen I was an interactive producer. I think, just noticing that there wasn’t a lot of … in the way of online art galleries at the time. I was always just really … I was interested in art. I wasn’t interested in how inaccessible I felt it was at the time, and still is to some degree. How there is a lot of exclusivity and just … museums and galleries in general are not the most approachable institutions a lot of times.

Jason Sturgill work 1

Risograph experiments by Jason Sturgill

I was just interested in creating some art projects that people could view from where ever and hopefully get something out of. While I was at Widen I made my own websites. Sent out invitations for the first show. My … the other main concept behind that was just to have all the shows be conceptual in nature where the … all the artists are given a similar constraint, had to respond to that idea, and seeing how each one of them interpreted it in a different way. The first show was the Russian Nesting Doll show, where I sent everyone blank Russian nesting dolls.

Yes, I remember that one. I think, I probably … yeah.
We didn’t have a physical space we … most of the time it was just online. For that show, we exhibited the dolls at Design Within Reach. It’s in the first floor of Widen. Craig, who is now the owner of Canoe, was kind enough to let me use the space.
He was at Design Within Reach back in the day?
He used to be a manager there before starting Canoe.
I love Canoe.
Yeah, it’s awesome. They’re having a new store. Did you hear about the new store?
No, that’s awesome.
Did you know the Union Way space? I think that’s what’s called. The new space that is the … I’ve been calling it the Portal, which sounds all science fiction-y. Between Ace Hotel and … Powells Books? There’s a building that was a Red Cap garage. They’ve gone straight through it and made this hole. It’s retail on both sides.
Is that where the Living Room Theater is?
Yeah, the same block. It’s in the middle of it.
No, that’s cool.
Yeah, it looks like it’s going to be amazing. They’re starting a new store there. There’s a bunch of other really amazing retail going in there.
That’s great. What a cool block to do that on.
That area has definitely transformed from what it was back in 1998.
One of my first jobs when I moved here, right around then, was … The guy who owned those businesses, the Fish Grotto and that, or maybe it was the landowner that was building. He wanted to open a coffee shop in Powell’s Technical called The Hard Drive Cafe.
I became the barista there. I remember every morning I would have to come in to that weird building and make my way through the maze of those stuff there to find all this stuff. Walk it over to Powell’s.
They actually had The Hard Drive? I don’t remember that. I didn’t drink coffee back then.
It was in Powell’s Technical. Did not get much business. I basically read technical books all day. Which, actually, was fine by me. I’d probably still be working there.
Have you eaten at the Fish Grotto?
No, never.
That place has always mystified me. I love the sign on it. At the side. It’s one of my favorite in Portland signs. They have amazing reviews on Yelp. I’ve always just wrote it off because you never hear anybody talk about it. It sounds interesting. I’ve been curious to try it.
You haven’t eaten there?
No.
I don’t know. It must be good. I don’t know. Weird. Let’s take a step back then, since I just jumped right into the Wurst. Tell me how you came to become an interactive producer. How you even got into design in the first place, professionally.
My undergrad was in marketing, actually. I always say that everything that I learned wasn’t from classes and school, it was from everything that I did outside of class. I booked all the shows for the university. All the concerts that happened on campus were things that I organized with a committee. I had a group of people that helped. I was a radio DJ at the station there, KZU. During that time, when I was doing that, I started a record label because I found out I could get college credit, since I was a marketing student.

I started a record label and through having all the bands come to WSU and putting on the shows, I was meeting lots of great bands that I love. Basically being able to book all my favorite bands and have them come play for me. Modest Mouse was just starting up at the time. I asked them if they wanted to release a seven inch and start a record label with me, basically. That would have been my first … was my first release.

At the time, they were fairly unknown, just playing a lot of house show and stuff. It was a show that I had with them and they said yes. I was teaching myself a lot of designing. It’s funny, thinking back now and thinking that I was on a PC. I’d gone from in college, from a word processor, using a word processor in college would seem so ancient to this archaic PC that … I think I was running Microsoft Desktop Publishing and doing show posters.

Then I was also getting exposed to gig posters. Before gig posters were gig posters, I was noticing a lot of great work coming out of Portland by Mike King and people like that. I started getting posters done for our shows. Those things were really getting me interested in design and when we did the seven inch, I designed the Seven Inch with Jeremy, the drummer from Modest Mouse. We worked on it together and had it screen printed here in Portland. Got some baby blue vinyl made in Czechoslovakia.

23 Jason Sturgill work 2

Series of Risograph posters, Spring 2013

I think that was really the thing that started me thinking about it, but not even still realizing that that was a job that I could have. Definitely gotten me inspired to design more stuff on my own, realizing that anybody can do it. It took me a long time to really come around to doing my own design work professionally.

When I graduated from WCU, I thought I wanted to be in advertising. I just took an internship for a place I could find one, was doing that, worked at several small agencies around Portland and then had the opportunity to go to Widen as an interactive producer. That started that and it went from there.
Do you wish that you had done more, studied design more in school or do you think that having studied marketing was almost better?
I don’t know, that’s always tough. Even right now, I feel like I’m always evolving and right now I’m really interested in illustration, which makes sense based on all the Wurst Gallery stuff, but I feel like at the time I … for some reason, didn’t feel like it was something I was capable of. I feel like all these different experiences makes up this weird combination in forms you’re working. It would totally be different, I think, if I were to study design in the beginning.
How did you end up teaching?
There’s a lot in the middle of that …
You can feel free to fill it in. I’ll probably get to that too.
I feel like it was all those things that lead up to that. I went to grad school and as part of Grad School, at PSU at least, you’re given the opportunity to teach. It’s a requirement that you teach some classes. Given that, I had a lot of design experience, that made it an option for me to teach the design program rather than the art program. Since I knew Kate Bingaman-Burt it was a really easy thing… I worked with her…
Actually first, I co-taught a class with Drew Bell. Kate had even asked me to do some adjunct teaching with Driscoll Reid, who I have done some work with. We were going to teach some classes together before I even thought about Grad School. Once I was in grad school, I still ended up teaching with Drew Bell and then assisted Kate on a class and it progressed from there. Now I’m teaching one or two classes a term and then doing freelance on the side.
Right now, it seems like you’re … you’re teaching, you’re doing freelance. It seems like you’re making art, I’ve seen a lots of output on Instagram.
Trying to. It’s tough. As you know, when you’re a parent, it’s tougher to get your … self-motivated projects out there…
You’re married, you have a kid now, a lovely family. I have way more respect for people who have kids who still manage to… It’s something they just do, like a 9-5 thing… In your position, you have to find more maybe intrinsic motivation. It’s not like you’re just going and sitting in a desk. You even bring Archer out to events. What’s the trick there? It is just … just becomes habit?
We took him to an art show, I want to say the second week he was out of the hospital …
It doesn’t surprise me…
It was funny, when we were at the art show, I won’t name names, but … Warren, they were like, “Your baby’s really young and he’s really …” It was the winter … “susceptible to colds and things like that. You should not have your baby out here,” basically. It was funny. He turned out okay, so far.
We’re trying to do the same thing, but with camping.
We’re not so much outdoors people.
Neither am I.
We went to Sou’wester. Have you guys gone on the Sou’wester yet?
No.
Have you heard about it?
No.
You guys should definitely go. It’s Long Beach, in Washington. It’s basically right next to Long Beach. It’s somebody that was involved in the Delta, and Miss Delta, I believe. I’m not sure if they were the owner. I can’t remember, but they bought this old campground that is … made up of mainly old airstream trailers and so it’s all these amazing old trailers. Some of them, there’s one that is like a double-decker trailer that has multiple rooms and bathrooms and everything. You stay in the trailers and they all have been outfitted and decorated.

They have also a lodge, more of like a house-thing, and some small houses, and you can rent those as well. They’re really involved in the music scene. They have bands playing there all the time so you get to see these amazing bands …

I got to write this down. It’s awesome.
… on the weekends, maybe all the time. They have record labels involved with it. They have this amazing store that has an honor system that you can get some vinyl and you just put in the amount and nobody’s there. They also have a trailer that’s a thrift store that unsupervised and honor system as well. It’s pretty awesome.
It sounds like something from the early 70’s, something you would’ve heard about in Southern California.
That was definitely roughing it for us, even though we were in a fully-equipped trailer. That’s as close as we’ve gotten to camping, but Archer loved it.
Another thing that I’ve noticed that you do a lot is, I guess you’d call it curatorial work maybe. It seems like that’s … maybe that’s an outgrowth of what you did at the Wurst, putting together shows with people that have a theme, that kind of thing. What is it about that that interests you so much? Where do you think that interest in that comes from, in particular. If someone were to describe … the act of doing that job, I would say, “Oh, that’s what Jason does.” Where does that come from, that urge to do that?
I don’t know. I think I’ve always been interested in finding the things that are hidden and making discoveries and looking outside of the normal venues for things. I think a lot of that started in music, trying to find interesting bands and from there, it went into artists and trying to discover new artists that hadn’t been discovered.

Somehow, it’s worked itself into all of the jobs that I’ve had. Even at Widen Interactive, a lot of that was discovering people like Friends with You at the time, who were totally unknown and getting them involved in Nike projects. After the dot com bust, they disbanded the interactive group and I started doing more strategic planning on the Nike account and working with creatives and helping them finding culturally relevant things to their concepts.

There was a project where they wanted to shoot a robot kicking a soccer ball and I had just seen this short film by this film student and we ended up bringing him in and filming the commercial. He went on to film District 9. That’s the kind of things that I’ve always gravitated to. I went and worked at Laika as a consultant, doing the same thing, lining up artists for them. It was right during the rebranding from Vinton Studios to Laika.
They had me come in and bring in artists that they could represent stylistically because I think at the time, they were just known as the California Raisins people and feel like did that type of work so

Is it the M&M guy too.
Yeah, so now when you go on their site for their advertising section, there’s a bunch of artists listed, like Evan Harris and Fawn Gehweiler and all these people that I’ve been working with in doing the Wurst and things. Those are the people that were listed as their other styles that they can do. Evan worked with them on a, I think it was a lottery campaign. That was amazing where they animated his drawings and it was really, really great. I think the curatorial stuff … I don’t know. I’m also just always interested in promoting my friends. I feel like there’s so many talented people that I run across and I want other people to see their work.
You seem to do a lot of, I guess, what you might call networking.
I’ve always hated the term hustle and networking. That kind of stuff always just seemed gross to me but I think it’s … I don’t know. I just feel like I’m a curious person and if I see something that I find Interesting, I want to contact that person and tell them that I like what they’re doing. That’s usually how it starts, just more of a fan. I feel like that’s … in the end, that’s what I … just like I’m a fan boy of so many things and I let people know.
That actually sounds like good advice for some people.

I tell all our students that too. I’m like, “Get excited about stuff and once you find that thing that you’re excited about, reach out to those people, let them know that you’re excited about what they’re doing.” If you can do that, I think the path will kind of build itself.

Why don’t you tell me about the kind of illustration that you’ve been doing lately? How would you describe it, first of all?
How would I describe it? I definitely have been doing a lot of character-based illustrations and very minimalist, I would say, approach to that. Trying to figure out how I can make something that has an emotional appeal with as little, as few parts as I can make it with. I’ve also been doing little things with … like creating some type faces and stuff for display. I think after doing grad school and really getting involved in that world, I’ve gotten back in love with design and illustration. I’ve been incorporating more of that into both my fine art practice and commercial work.
Does your son like the illustration work?
Yeah, it’s funny.
I think so. He seems pretty cool.
I feel like he’s going to have the most warped perspective growing up. It’s going to be interesting when he realizes that not … It’s like, “Oh, I like that thing,” and “Oh, so and so made that. You met them.” We know that person and I think he thinks that everything that’s made is made by somebody that we know or something.
Boy, is he in for … that’s not how the global economy works. Going to art shows, that’s a … how does he … is he interested in the art at the shows?
Yeah.
Did he have opinions about the … I suppose. Zoe does when we bring her out.
I think I’ve seen you guys do the same thing. Ask them what their favorite piece is and …
Her opinions are never going to be the same as mine. She judges things largely by how much pink is in them.
It’s funny how naturally that evolves.
I’ve been wondering about that. I don’t …
We definitely haven’t … the boy-girl, pink-blue. I feel like it’s somehow … I don’t know. Maybe it’s kids at school or whatever.
It could be cultural. I am to blame for exposing her to My Little Pony. Mainly because I think it’s’ well-illustrated. I know that it’s done Flash and I think the real simplistic … I think it’s a well-drawn cartoon.
I haven’t heard that much about it but I know there’s a crazy cult following that’s remerged on, around that …
Bronies?
Yeah.
I’m an object of ridicule around the office because I’m essentially a vicarious bronie. I watch it with her. I like it because we use to do … used to do a lot of work in Flash, so I’m really, really attracted to that type of animation. I love watching that show and thinking, how did they do that in Flash?
Did you go to the … there was a convention in Seattle recently.
No.
We have a friend’s daughter who’s really into it and her and her mom went and met the creators and everything. The creators were there. It’s this weird … I don’t know what they called it. Something-con, I’m sure. Did you see the making of South Park, that movie?
No.
That’s amazing.
Is it on Netflix or something?
It’s on Netflix.
I will check that out.
It’s actually directed by a Portland director, the same guy that did How’s Your News, it’s like an MTV show. He directed … it’s basically inside South Park Studios for a week and it’s all about how they get one episode together because it’s such fast turnaround.
A lot of paper. Did they do it with paper?
Not that I remember. I watched it a while ago but they … it’s crazy because all their shows are so topical. It’s the stuff that just happened in the news …
Quick turnaround.
They’re developing ideas to the last second.
I’m generally more interested in those types of behind the scenes things than the actual shows. I would definitely like that. You guys went to … I’m totally digressing here. But you guys went to the Yo Gabba Gabba thing, didn’t you? You went backstage or something?
I was bummed about that. I was actually in Windsor, Canada, doing tattoo projects and I had arranged getting the tickets for those and had a ticket for myself and then realized I had double-booked. Archer and Sarah got to go and he met Biz Markie, which I’m still …
That’s awesome.
… in awe of. That’s probably, at the moment, that’s one of my most treasured photos. Him sitting on Biz Markie’s lap.
That’s weird. Some of the guests travel with Yo Gabba Gabba …
Yeah. We went last year too, in Seattle. This was the first year they’ve done it in Portland. Last year, they had another guest. The gym sweater girl … I can’t remember her name. She was a YouTube sensation and then they brought her on the show and she toured with them.
I’m a little behind on my viewing.
We just watch it on … we’ve got some library rentals and we only have Netflix, really, at home.
Same here.
Did you see the Simpsons Portlandia episode?
No.
Oh my gosh. You got to see it because there’s this point there which I think you would probably relate to too, where the kid … it’s this Portland family that moves to Springfield. The kid in the family asked Bart or somebody to watch a show with them and they asked to watch some popular show. He’s like, “No, I can only watch the stuff in my dad’s Netflix queue,” and it was some Japanese animated cartoon.
It’s so true. We actually have no means of television reception at all. That’s like the hipster thing to say, “Oh, I don’t have a TV.” I have a TV. It just doesn’t work. It only gets Netflix. Every time you see a big screen of red, my daughter’s like, “Oh, Netflix.”
It’s amazing how much they can navigate it. I wish they had some way that you could … even the iPhone. I’m surprised there hasn’t been something developed that allows you to restrict which apps they can use and then in Netflix, restrict to let them only view certain things. Archer’s been really wanting to watch The Aquabats. I’m just, “I don’t know. It’s got monsters in it. I think you’re a little bit young.”
That’s funny. I think that Amazon added something like that to the Kindle where you can say … if they’re allowed to watch an hour of Netflix a day or whatever, Amazon Prime or whatever, they can only use these apps. I don’t think Apple … maybe they’ll do that soon.
I told cable at Panic. You need to develop … I think there’s some reason, he told me but it’s all over my head.
He just started saying ones and zeroes and bits and bytes.
It’s seems like it’s a no brainer.
Talking about parenting. Every time I have someone with kids, we end up talking about parenting. What do you think you’re going to do next? Do you want to keep doing the illustration, do you have any cool projects coming up?
I’m definitely hoping to do more illustration work. I’ve done a bit of editorial stuff which I really enjoyed with Willamette Week and things like that and trying to connect with more people in publishing to do that sort of stuff. I’m still doing these curatorial projects as well. This just happened and we just … we’re still finalizing it but I’m on the committee for Design Week Portland again this year. I’m creating an event that … I’m going to work with home brewers in Portland and pairing them with independent designers to create labels for their beers.
That’s a great idea.
I think the project’s going to be called Home Brewed By Design. Talking about the independence of people that choose to work as freelance and go on their own and same with home brewers. We’re going to have the labels created and then have a tasting of all the beers. I’m working on it with Eric Steen who … he went through the same grad program, Art and Social Practice at PSU. He does a lot of projects around beer and developing these …

He’s got this one project called Beers Made by Walking, where they go on walks with the small breweries and they make a beer based on the walk. He knows a lot more about the beer culture and stuff. He’s handling the beer side and then I’m handling the design side.
The idea is that home brewers will create a creative brief based on what they’re interested in and what they think their beer represents. I’m going to play matchmaker and pair them off with independent designers in the area that I think would be a good fit.

That’s a great idea. I wasn’t sure of should sign up for the studio tour at Design Week. What is Design Week all about? What is that?
It’s the second year. I think it’s still figuring out exactly what its true identity is but I think it’s … last year, there was a great response. A lot of really great events. I think this is year is going to be a little bit more of an expansion to reach out. I think there was a lot of places that, once they found out about it, wanted to be involved.

They’ll be more people doing open studios, there’s going to be more people doing events. It’s basically a celebration of design in Portland. There’s going to be film festivals, similar to what we had last year. There’s going to be a YouTube event, getting to know YouTube, which has been going on at the Hollywood theater. They’re going to do a design-oriented one that I’m going to be curating. Lots of different stuff. Did you get a chance to see anything last year?

No, I didn’t make it last year.
I would encourage you guys to do something.
It was right around the birth of my second daughter so it was a challenging to make …
Tie up your schedule …
… free up … this year, I’m sure I’ll be around for it. Because no more of them, no more of them. What do you think it is about Portland that makes the design community here so awesome?
I don’t know. We were talking about that in the studio today. We definitely live in a bubble. We had some designer friends and artists come from out of town that were visiting our studio. We were talking about … somebody, another friend of ours, they were contemplating LA and Portland as a new place. I think they described it as feeling this weird … it’s like a utopia kind of thing where you’re bringing all these like-minded people to create the world you want to live in. Maybe it’s in the water, I don’t know.
Floridation is bad for design, or something.
Didn’t think about that. Maybe that’s why they got defeated.
Maybe. That would a new theory. Do you have a favorite restaurant in Portland right now?
That’s a whole show in itself. We could talk about food all day. To me, I feel like food and design and things like that are what makes Portland amazing.
Food, for sure. I find, since having kids, food carts are a really good option.
Kid-friendly places are definitely hard to come by. We have had some temper tantrums thrown in some places that I don’t think were very appreciative of that. We’re always looking for a new kid-friendly place that isn’t overrun, like Hopworks is known as a kid-friendly place that’s just crazy. Food carts are good because they’re outside and they can let out some steam and …
They’re screams aren’t echoing around …
Lauretta Jean’s, have you been there yet?
Yeah.
Across from Eva Jeans, which is really confusing. They have the best biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had so that’s my new breakfast spot.
I had their biscuits and gravy. It’s amazing.
I haven’t even tried their pies, which is I think that thing that they’re …
They’re known for.
We did get their pudding, which they have in a mason jar. That was amazing. I love that place. Went to Roman Candle for the first time today. That was great.
Someone brought some of their stuff by yesterday for a meeting …
Saw that.
Nicole … yum.
They have the kouign amans there which nobody else in Portland makes.
What’s that?
It’s this pastry … I don’t even know how to fully describe it. It’s super sweet but then it’s got salt on top so it’s this really great combination. There was a place on Burnside called Alder Bakery that was around for a little bit and they were the ones that were making. People that knew of that pastry were like, “Oh, they’re the one place that makes it,” so we were going there. Then they went out of business. Then, now Roman Candle’s making them and it was good. I had them.
I really have a thing for good macaroons. If you get them fresh at Pix, they’re … oh man.
I miss the old Pix location. Both of them, both the locations, I thought were great. We haven’t even really been back.
Both, you mean where Laurette Jeans is now and then also in North …
The North one.
They just had that one on …
Burnside.
Burnside.
Which we haven’t even really been to just because it’s not the same anymore.
No, it’s overwhelming. I was there on New Year’s Eve, maybe that’s why it was overwhelming.
Just the vibe is totally different. I think, for macaroons, we’ve been going to Nuvrie. Have you tried those?
No.
They’re amazing. They have some really amazing packaging too for … they have a take home box.
Did Factory North do their packaging?
I don’t know.
I thought they did their identity.
It’s so confusing. There’s so many overlaps. I don’t know if you’ve been to White Owl? White owl has a really great branding and … I think there’s such great collaboration between firms in town. It’s really confusing on who did what. We were talking about Sizzle Pie because I think Draplin did their boxes but then OMFG Co. did all of their branding, I believe. White Owl is owned by the same people but then this other guy did that. It’s just hard to keep track of the who’s doing what amazing, awesome thing that just happened.
Totally. It’s a good problem to have.
We should have some sort of directory. Like, “This new awesome thing—credits.”
Directory of awesomeness. What about music? What do you listen these days on your … do you listen to anything while you’re working?
Definitely. Spotify is … it’s funny because we’re in the studio … I think everybody … well, maybe not Tina. I don’t know what Tina does but Kate and Will and Clifton are all Rdio people and I’m the lone Spotify person. I feel like Spotify got me back into music after not really keeping up with stuff …
Aren’t they basically the same thing?
Yeah, pretty much. I feel like Spotify has better selection. Maybe some more independent stuff.
It seems like Rdio maybe has a better design though.
Spotify just recently redid some stuff. Their new iPhone icon is way better.
Amazingly important, the icon.
Definitely.
You don’t want to be seen tapping on an ugly icon, as a designer.
What have I been listening? Earl Sweatshirt from Odd Future has a couple new tracks out that I really like, sort of independent and hip hop. I go from a lot of different things. Kyuss is a band from California that … they’re really great. I missed seeing them at Mississippi studios recently. It’s one of Archer’s favorites, Kyuss.

They’re this guy from Australia, Brendan … I was just listening to it on the rid here. It’s my one top volume song that I have right now. It’s called Stupid. He’s a radio DJ in Australia. He was in the new Baz Luhrmann film. What the new Baz Luhrmann film? Anyway, he’s a guest star in that. Stupid, Brendan something. It’s really video too. Check it out. Somehow just lanking on a lot of other … what about you?

I just watched that Big Star documentary that came out.
Netflix Instant?
No. You could get it on iTunes. It’s new release so you can get it on iTunes, rent it for seven bucks, I think, or see it at Hollywood. I think it’s …
I always rent the standard definition for a few bucks less.
Because then it’s like five … none of the footage in there is …
I’m usually watching biographies and I’m like, “I don’t need …”
Plus, it downloads faster, which is great. We’ve been listening to some Big Star … I found that Alex Chilton recorded some punk in the late 70’s and I found a gem of a track on there. I’m the kind of person where I don’t know even have the patience for albums sometimes. I‘ll just find the song that I like, put on headphones and listen to it for a whole afternoon.

It’s my meditation. I’ll listen for … I’ll listen through it, just listening to just the high hi hat and then it’ll play again and then I’ll just the kick drum. I’ll just mentally isolate each … probably because I did produce music for a brief time. Also, that got me wanting to listen to Wire’s second album, which is really wonderfully somewhere between punk and new wave. Like really early Cure stuff, which was … right in the puck, new wave again.

The Cure. That’s one of my favorite South Park episodes, when they have Robert Smith on there. That new … what is it? This one song, I can’t remember the band’s name … that they have Robert Smith doing guest vocals on. It’s one of my favorite new songs too. It’s a cover too. They’re amazing.
What’s with that cat of yours? It always seems like it’s about to attack?
Cheeto?
The ears just always back like that?
No, he’s called a Scottish Fold. It’s a type of, breed of cat that … they’re really popular in Japan, if you do searches for Scottish Folds, it’s mostly a lot of Japanese stuff that comes up. They’re this weird mutation of cat that their ears are … some of them are totally bent forward and you can’t even see their ears, basically. I think he might be to blame for me illustrating more because I started doing drawings of him and … I want to make him a weird internet celebrity but … he is the best thing, he’s so funny.
It can’t be hard to take a cat and make it famous on the internet. The internet’s made for cats.
We tried with our Instagram. He’s definitely a popular feature of our Instagram but …
Even my daughter recognizes that cat …
I made a couple of graphics of him and starting to sell images of him like that and people seem to respond to that more than the other ones even.
I just thought the cat was always scared or angry.
No, that’s the funny thing. Everybody, I think … it’s weird that people think that because he is the craziest, most cuddly cat. He is kind of afraid when other people come over a little bit. It depends on the person. He totally the opposite. He’s not the … it’s funny that he gives off that persona. We need to do more videos of him, I guess. That’s the key …
I saw, there was one on your site, of him licking a popsicle or something. That calmed me down a little.
Now, with Instagram video, we can definitely …
Yeah, that’ll help.
I couldn’t do the Vine thing so glad that they figured that out.
Too short or you just didn’t like Vine?
I just didn’t use another thing.
The thing that bothers me about Instagram videos, I like the idea, I just … maybe there’s an option to tell it not to automatically play? Because my phone, like on my ringer and I’ll just be … I’ll just casually flip through Instagram while everyone else is working here and then it’s like … some video. No, don’t just play.
I have the opposite problem where I always have my ringer off and I always have to … I’m scrolling through and I want to hear it, then I have to turn my ringer on. It’s weird because on YouTube, even if you have your ringer off, it still plays the audio. I don’t know. Weird.
I’ve noticed that. Some apps will and some apps won’t. I wonder why. Maybe we’ll never know. Jason, thank you for being on this show. What is your … where do you want people to find on the internet?
Just jasonsturgill.com. you can find all of the latest, craziest things I’m up to.
It’s all there?
Tattoos and illustrations. Got all that stuff on there.
And cats.
And then Instagram. I feel like I’m probably more active on my Instagram, jgspdx. Lot of design inspiration, mostly, I feel like, that I post on there. Go to Sarah for the kid pictures, mostly.
Cool. Thanks.
Thank you.