In this episode, we talk with Bernie from @WorksBySolo about inventing with a creative mind.
You Can find more about Bernie at https://www.worksbysolo.com/
Audio Version
Video Version
Hosted by
Greg Porter
https://skyscraperguitars.com/
Greg On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gregsgaragekc/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SkyscraperGuitars
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GregsGarage
Brian Benham
https://www.brianbenham.com/
Brian On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benham_design/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXO8f1IIliMKKlu5PgSpodQ
Transcript
00:00:00:03 – 00:00:21:14
Bernie Solo
That hinge is a lot like the hinge on the stall door in the men’s room sitting on the ground. And they’re looking at the jury of the way that that door swings and the way that that thing’s connected together. That time was well spent. You know, to go back out there and say, hey, I think we can make this thing work, I think I found a hinge in a way that this thing could hinge, you know?
00:00:22:01 – 00:00:25:07
Brian Benham
Hey, you’re listening to the Maker’s Quest podcast. I am Brian Benham.
00:00:25:22 – 00:00:44:00
Greg Porter
And I’m Greg Porter. And tonight we are joined by Bernie Solo inventor, innovator and creator extraordinaire. Yeah, Bernie, I will let you do a quick plug for your Instagram, YouTube and any other social media that you have.
00:00:44:03 – 00:00:57:21
Bernie Solo
Okay. Yeah. Hello, everybody. I am works by solo on all social media. So and that’s also my dot.com. It’s all jammed together, works by cell, all one word. I say I’m an artist, designer and maker of things, so it covers everything.
00:00:58:06 – 00:01:13:02
Greg Porter
I think that is an apt description, Bernie. For those who don’t know Bernie, I’ve been following your work, it seems like, for quite some time. I think we probably ran into each other on YouTube before anywhere else, but.
00:01:13:11 – 00:01:15:03
Bernie Solo
Well, it’s when I bought your twisted Sharpie.
00:01:15:10 – 00:01:16:02
Greg Porter
Yeah, that’s what.
00:01:16:03 – 00:01:20:04
Bernie Solo
We got together. When I bought it, the first was my first twisted sharpie from you.
00:01:20:10 – 00:01:27:12
Greg Porter
There you go. And for those of you who haven’t seen it, Bernie has one of the coolest fidget spinners.
00:01:27:21 – 00:01:29:06
Bernie Solo
Oh, you pull that out?
00:01:29:07 – 00:01:40:21
Greg Porter
Yeah, for. For those who want something, just really cool. And now, of course, the name is escaping me because my. I’m getting old, and I forget things. Have you’ve got your T-shirt with it on there. Hold on.
00:01:40:21 – 00:01:47:11
Bernie Solo
Oh the sprocket socket sprocket yet. So that’s trademarked. I did get my trademark it came through.
00:01:47:11 – 00:01:48:04
Greg Porter
And you’ve.
00:01:48:09 – 00:01:49:14
Bernie Solo
Just been so.
00:01:49:16 – 00:02:02:16
Greg Porter
You’ve been copied. You’ve been completely ripped off, right? There were some oh yeah. Offshore let’s say they were making their their copy of the Sprocket and selling it. I’m not sure. Was that on Amazon or it was somewhere. Well they still.
00:02:02:16 – 00:02:24:15
Bernie Solo
Are. Yeah. Yeah, it’s a it is a manufacturer. The company itself is in China in the manufacturing is done in China. They actually contacted me and they complimented me on how well my YouTube video was showing them how to make it so the guy was nice, it was real. It was really nice. It was it was a very cordial and even asked me if I had a patent yet for licensing and things like that.
00:02:24:15 – 00:02:42:24
Bernie Solo
And I don’t have a patent number. It’s patent pending still. And so he was like, well, I guess, you know, we can’t really do anything right now. So yeah. So I was actually contacted by, by those people and it is, it’s all over Amazon and everything. And I get, you know, people in me, my patent attorney, you know, he said, just take it as a big compliment.
00:02:42:24 – 00:02:51:09
Bernie Solo
He goes, a lot of people ever inventions and patents and things like that and they don’t they don’t get ripped off. So you must have had it. You must have a good thing. So along.
00:02:51:09 – 00:03:18:09
Greg Porter
Those lines, I know I get asked all the time about patents for the little inventions that I’ve come up with. And my standard response is, you know, we all hear the word patent when we’re, you know, young, hey, it’s a patented this or that. You know, you hear it on TV, the process is expensive. It’s fairly long. And at the end of the day, the question is, will it really protect your intellectual property once you have it?
00:03:18:09 – 00:03:35:22
Greg Porter
Because you have to defend it. You have to pay a lawyer to defend it if somebody rips it off. So there’s an there’s a fairly large dollar amount that you would have to go after before it even makes sense. So my question is, number one, how many patents have you applied for in your life? And then how many of you got.
00:03:36:01 – 00:03:58:08
Bernie Solo
One and one? Since I was a little kid, I live in Michigan and there’s a wonderful museum. You may have heard of it in Dearborn, Michigan. That’s the Henry Ford Museum. Henry Ford. And his life was just well, he wasn’t an inventor, but he collected inventions. And he’s got some very important historical inventions that he purchased to put in that museum for everybody to enjoy there.
00:03:58:14 – 00:04:22:09
Bernie Solo
And as a kid, we would take field trips, you know, in school. And I just thought back, I just wanted to be an inventor at some point and have a patent, you know. So I had this this idea for that vegetarian. It really hit a lot of, you know, people really liked it and everything. And I thought I researched it and I thought this could be something that could be my on my bucket list, you know, to have that that patent so that yeah.
00:04:22:09 – 00:04:43:21
Bernie Solo
And what you were saying about the protections. Yeah, there’s a lot of things that assumptions that people make about those that I, I did discover the truth about all that. There are no patent police, there’s nobody out there that’s going to watch for that stuff for you. And as far as the costs go, the situation that I’m in right now is that my attorney, a nice guy very, is looking out for me.
00:04:43:21 – 00:05:00:05
Bernie Solo
And he said, like with the Amazon resellers that we could go out there and just have them the resellers, they’re buying the wholesale, right. So they’re not actually the manufacturer resilient. And we could stop them. You could just write a letter and say, you need to stop this cease and desist, you know, type of thing and just do that.
00:05:00:06 – 00:05:19:12
Bernie Solo
Every one of them. But every one of those letters that he writes is going to be several hundred dollars, you know, 5 to $800 per letter. And I don’t get any return on that. There’s nothing I get back. There’s no damages. There’s there’s nothing is just stops them. So he just said it’s like playing Whac-A-Mole in a real expensive game, you know, and that’s all it would do.
00:05:19:12 – 00:05:41:13
Bernie Solo
And so it’s kind of how it is. And then as far as the manufacturer goes, it’s overseas. It’s not an American manufacturer that’s having it manufactured overseas. The company themselves is overseas. And we would have to actually sue them in China. And the thing is, is because I’m not mass producing it yet, I can’t even prove that I would have damages, you know, a dollar amount of damages because I’m just making them myself.
00:05:41:13 – 00:05:48:13
Bernie Solo
So that’s basically the nutshell. Yeah, it’s just getting the patent so I can say I’ve got a patent finally to take it off my bucket list. You know.
00:05:48:13 – 00:06:07:11
Greg Porter
I’m, I’m chasing one in the exact same way. It’s really just to have it. And I’ve always had a theory that if you can get to market before anyone else, you know, especially on something like the sprocket, this isn’t this isn’t maybe going to be sold by the millions. It’s going to be sold probably by the hundreds because people like you, they like Bernie.
00:06:07:11 – 00:06:19:02
Greg Porter
They like the work that you do. And they want some part of of what you’re doing. So if you can beat them to market and make your customers happy, let everybody else do whatever it is that they’re going to do because you have to control it.
00:06:19:02 – 00:06:35:22
Bernie Solo
And that is how you do it. And I’ll tell you what you said about my my customers, my followers. And that’s one of the really things that makes me feel really good about the fact that I do have people that follow me on my, my merit like and the things that I do, and they really love what I do.
00:06:36:03 – 00:06:52:20
Bernie Solo
And I have a list going because I’m going to eventually start making it a few more batches, you know, by hand. And I have a long list of people they’ll email me and say they don’t want a knockoff and they want an original and they’re going to wait for it and it’s going to cost them more. But they just they want the original one.
00:06:52:20 – 00:07:09:01
Bernie Solo
And I really it just really warms my heart to know that there are people out there, you know, that that would do that for me, you know, basically. Well, you know how it is when you do these things, like with a twisted Sharpie, they just want to support you because they like what you’re doing, you know? And it’s just it’s a really good feeling to have that community out there.
00:07:09:01 – 00:07:09:09
Bernie Solo
Yeah.
00:07:09:09 – 00:07:29:02
Brian Benham
Jimmy duress to have the same thing with his ice pick that he wanted to sell because they were selling really popular. And so he had a whole bunch made in China, but not very many people would buy the the China one even though it was cheaper they wanted the the ones that dressed to made and I think that’s a really good lesson for anybody.
00:07:29:02 – 00:07:38:12
Brian Benham
An artist or anybody that works in the creative field is if you can build a following, you don’t need the art galleries or you don’t need Amazon to to make a good living.
00:07:38:12 – 00:08:02:18
Bernie Solo
Yeah, well, it’s almost like I was just having this talk with my, my younger brother the other day. He’s a he’s quite an inventor himself. And what it reminds me of is being able to have our own, I’d say ours. Anybody that’s on social media and has really good following is kind of like having your own personal Kickstarter because you already have the customers there that really like what you do and they are waiting for the next thing that you’re going to make.
00:08:03:03 – 00:08:21:12
Bernie Solo
Like, like they’ve got their money in their hand. You’re like, I really like what you’re doing. And whatever you’re doing, I really want to support you. So whatever the next thing is, I would like to support you. So when you come out with a new product or a piece that you’re going to produce, a number of our limited edition, there’s those customers that are already going to be there ahead of time.
00:08:21:12 – 00:08:46:22
Bernie Solo
And so we know some people in the community like I’m thinking of like Tony Rouleau, where he can do preorders for things. So if there’s a financial outlay for materials and maybe some outside manufacturing things like that, you can actually take preorders just like you would in a Kickstarter. And I haven’t done that yet, but I’m thinking about maybe I would do that with my next next batch of those sprocket fidget toys, you know, to be able to go ahead and, you know, take the preorders.
00:08:47:03 – 00:09:04:24
Bernie Solo
And also, you know, as far as working independently, I when I used to work in the advertising industry, the deadlines were just critical. And now I’m really independent and not having a real critical deadline. I can can be like, oh, you know, I’ll get them done whenever. But if I had preorders and I already had dates going, I think that would actually get me going, you know, and say, I’ve got a deadline, I’ve got to meet this.
00:09:04:24 – 00:09:13:05
Bernie Solo
I’ve got people already paid their money and I need deliverables, you know. So I think that’s a that’s kind of a neat thing that we can do when we have a following.
00:09:13:09 – 00:09:48:18
Greg Porter
Absolutely. I think I think for the benefit of the listeners who are maybe getting into making things and selling things, one of the interesting things that I’ve learned is when you’re talking about a sprocket or something along those lines, there’s a level of quality that, number one, the makers expect from themselves. But number two, that the buyers expect and most buyers at that level or that point, if you’ve got a production issue, hey, we couldn’t get steel or Hey, I ran 30 parts through that were trash.
00:09:48:18 – 00:10:08:16
Greg Porter
Everyone understands a delay. If they know, the thing they’re going to get is exactly what they want. And it’s is something that I’ve had to lean on a little bit with regard to just making production schedule. If you’ve never made a thousand of a part, you don’t know what it takes to make a thousand up until you do it.
00:10:08:22 – 00:10:25:16
Greg Porter
And so you guess at these dates and you think, Oh yeah, we can make 50 a day or we can make 20 a day or whatever the magic number is. And it almost never works out either. It goes way faster than you think or way slower. But I’ve found that if people know that they’re getting, number one something that you’re your hands are aligned.
00:10:25:17 – 00:10:44:14
Greg Porter
That’s part of you. I think that’s a very important piece. As artists, we’re passing those things along. But but number two, they know it’s going to be worth the wait. And, you know, Tony Grillo, I think is definitely one of those names. I’d wait an eternity for one of his jewels.
00:10:44:19 – 00:10:47:19
Bernie Solo
I know you’re a big fan of his, for sure. I heard you talking about it.
00:10:48:01 – 00:10:56:07
Greg Porter
I know when I get it in my hands, it’s going to be exactly what I thought it was going to be or probably to to a lot of extent, more than what I thought it would be.
00:10:56:07 – 00:11:16:05
Brian Benham
Yeah, I think people that support artists are minded in such a way that the support of the artist is more important than the thing. I’ve had clients order things from me before that I had to tell them upfront, like, I’m not really sure if I can do that, but I’m willing to try and says, Yeah, probably get it done in four weeks or whatever.
00:11:16:05 – 00:11:32:06
Brian Benham
And eight weeks later I’m still trying to figure it out and I have to make that phone call. Hey, I haven’t figured it out yet. And there is this one copper patina I had to do for a client that she really wanted, and it took me a while to figure it out. And now that I figured it out, I’ve implemented it in other things.
00:11:32:06 – 00:11:41:12
Brian Benham
And so every time I post a photo of something that I’ve used that technique on Instagram after her project, she always messages me and she’s like, I love the fact that I pushed you down this route.
00:11:41:13 – 00:11:58:16
Bernie Solo
Yeah, that’s great. Having the social media allows us to have that transparency too. So if there’s something going on like in Instagram stories, say, for instance, and you’ve got it every day, something and something came up or whatever, and then if you do end up having to message somebody and say, I was delayed, though they can always go.
00:11:58:23 – 00:12:12:06
Bernie Solo
I saw on your story. Yeah your direct your car last week and you’re dealing with that right now. I, I see that sort of a thing. So that transparency, I think can really help, you know, because it kind of gets people, the followers into, you know, what your day to day is or a lethal glimpse of it.
00:12:12:06 – 00:12:15:02
Greg Porter
I see your drafting board behind you in my.
00:12:15:02 – 00:12:15:15
Bernie Solo
Oh, yeah.
00:12:16:00 – 00:12:36:07
Greg Porter
My heart’s kind of going pitter patter because I know, I know we come from a slightly similar background and in that we’re probably more traditionally trained in terms of design and how you illustrate your designs. I think you’ve actually made comments on some of my drawings on Instagram. I’ll post my little sketches every once in a while. Yeah.
00:12:36:08 – 00:13:06:22
Greg Porter
And it always, like, warms my heart that there’s other people that appreciate, you know, good lettering and nice, nicely done sketches. But you also have crossed over. I’ve seen some of your some of your rhino work. And I know you you use a host of other softwares. Most people who are working on that digital side. But but you have this really great way of melding all say the computer design and CMC techniques, but then also hand techniques in old world machining.
00:13:07:08 – 00:13:20:14
Greg Porter
And I just want you to talk a little bit about number one, your background, what that looked like for those who may not know. But then how did you start incorporating some of the technology into what you’re doing?
00:13:20:19 – 00:13:41:20
Bernie Solo
Oh, okay. Well like logic of in the pre show that I yeah I’m just about to turn 60 years old so living a long time and doing a lot of things you know everybody I would say most people would gain gain wisdom, gain skills and things like that. So for people that are younger, they’re, you know, they’re still in the path of gaining all these skills.
00:13:41:20 – 00:14:01:03
Bernie Solo
So I just want I want people to know, like, you know, that it does take time. A lot of the stuff does. But, you know, ever since I was when I was a kid, I was the artist kid in the school. Like the teachers would always have me doing the poster boards and things like that because it was like, oh, you know, you’re, you know, I’m the one that got to use the stapler.
00:14:01:03 – 00:14:20:22
Bernie Solo
I remember that was grade school. Like I could be the one stapling stuff up on the bulletin board, you know, and cutting out the construction paper letters and stuff like that. Because I was just the teacher. I guess they knew I enjoyed it. And I was fortunate enough that I my my parents were pretty much just open to whatever I was doing.
00:14:20:22 – 00:14:46:00
Bernie Solo
I don’t remember them pushing me in any particular direction. They weren’t overly concerned about my grades and things because academically my grades weren’t that great. I almost flunked out of high school. Luckily, I was able to get into some of the shop classes and we actually had a printing press, a little printing press at our high school. It wasn’t like an antique one like Jimi has, but it was an electric printing press.
00:14:46:00 – 00:15:06:22
Bernie Solo
So I actually learned some graphics there. We had photography class in high school and I was also on the yearbook staff. If I could probably list something that was probably really significant to where I actually got into what I decided to do for my first step in my career was the fact that I had a photography teacher that was really good and knew that I really liked it.
00:15:06:22 – 00:15:26:01
Bernie Solo
I wasn’t just in there to try and get the grade because I was failing other things. But so he really, he, he knew that that was it. So he let me do some extra photo projects. But tying it in with being on the yearbook staff was that I was taking pictures for the yearbook, which was a it was like a for advertising.
00:15:26:01 – 00:15:41:22
Bernie Solo
Like there were the sponsors, the people that would donate money, you know, to the school to support the cost of the print, the yearbook. So they take ads out. And so I was actually going out and photographing like the local pizza place, you know, or the or the dry cleaners or whatever, you know, and doing all that and then turning those pictures.
00:15:41:22 – 00:15:56:10
Bernie Solo
And they were deadlines. They were for ads. And so I became I started doing creative work like that. That was actually commercial, creative work. It was creative work that I actually had an assignment for, you know, and there was a brief that was like, this is what you got to go do and you need to get this done.
00:15:56:10 – 00:16:14:12
Bernie Solo
And it’s got to be so I got when I started doing art in photography, I did the graphic for the cover of the yearbook, and it was a graphic. It was a piece of art that got, you know, printed under the cover. And I did The Divider pages and things like that. So I was doing art, but it was art that was asked for.
00:16:14:12 – 00:16:28:22
Bernie Solo
And it was it was because I wasn’t getting paid for it. But, you know, it turned into like, oh, you could do commercial art. You can have art that you get a purchase order for, and then you do the art and then you build them and you get paid. It wasn’t like fine art that I do the art and then I wait till somebody wants to buy it.
00:16:29:04 – 00:16:44:24
Bernie Solo
That’s a completely different thing, right? So and you guys both know how that is, where you get an assignment from a client, you’re like, okay, I’ve got this thing, this creative thing I need. Do you can do it. So at a young age, I had even painted a couple of poster things and a little sign and stuff for like the local party store and things like that.
00:16:44:24 – 00:17:02:18
Bernie Solo
So I just kind of got a taste for doing creative work and getting paid for it. Like right then, not waiting until later. But you know, the starving artist scenario that a lot of people think my kids go to art school. Then I found out about the College for Creative Studies, as it’s called now. It was a Center for Creative Studies in Detroit.
00:17:02:24 – 00:17:24:01
Bernie Solo
That’s where I decided to go to school for my college. So I do have a bachelor’s of fine arts degree, but it’s in commercial art, illustration and photography. And in the Detroit area, I’m sure there’s a lot of cities around the country that are like this too. But because the automotive industry, there are actually commercial art studios that would have like, you know, ten, 20, 30.
00:17:24:01 – 00:17:43:17
Bernie Solo
I think the biggest studio had about 30 artists on staff, on payroll that were doing commercial art. Most of it was automotive. It’s amazing the things you have to do illustrations of. I mean, I remember I spent one summer painting break parts. I did airbrush illustration and technical illustration of parts for brake for brakes, you know, brake drums, brake pads and things like that.
00:17:43:17 – 00:17:58:23
Greg Porter
So some of my favorite illustrations come out of old workshop manuals that show you how to repair things on cars because they would start with a photograph, but then they’d have to airbrush detail in because they couldn’t light it properly. And they’re just wonderful illustrations.
00:17:59:00 – 00:18:21:06
Bernie Solo
Yeah. Yeah. And so I was interested in that same type of thing. So that’s the kind of art that I was doing that was a all manual hand done type illustration work. Up until I remember it was actually 1990. There was a friend of mine, two friends actually, that decided to invest in a computer system that they could do digital artwork on.
00:18:21:06 – 00:18:39:18
Bernie Solo
And we had a at the studio at the time, so that would have been like the late eighties. And there was one Apple Macintosh computer that was there that you could do some type, some type setting on. And they were just kind of dabbling in it at the time. There was a company out of England, Quintel for the Q Quintel paint box.
00:18:39:18 – 00:19:00:01
Bernie Solo
It was a video system, but they came out with a graphic paint box, which was a a computer that was specifically made to do illustration for print. And so I was fortunate enough to have access to that. And I showed such an interest in it. They said, Would you like a full time job doing this? And I literally went from paint to digital.
00:19:00:06 – 00:19:22:23
Bernie Solo
Like within a few months I was fully digital doing that. So we were doing illustration work, but the system was really expensive and trying to pay the bills and pay for the computer time and all of that. They moved into doing what was new in Detroit at the time was photo retouching. Well, car photos, their beauty photos, they’re just like fashion photos.
00:19:22:23 – 00:19:36:08
Bernie Solo
But there are cars, right? They were always retouched, you know, to make them look nice and clean and all the reflections are straight and everything like that. But. ALM so what was the rest of us was can you use this computer system to retouch digitally retouch the car photos.
00:19:36:15 – 00:19:43:10
Brian Benham
So is that kind of like the first iteration of Photoshop or the kind of like a Photoshop type of a program back then?
00:19:43:17 – 00:19:46:24
Bernie Solo
Yeah, it didn’t do anywhere near what Photoshop.
00:19:47:03 – 00:19:48:14
Brian Benham
Does today, but that was kind of the.
00:19:49:02 – 00:20:15:06
Bernie Solo
Old system. I actually have a poster, still some fliers from Photoshop 1.0, like when it came out, like that was a thing right about that time because that would have been right around, like I said, retro in 1990, 89, 90. I think that that would have been Photoshop 1.0 like that. So it was really great that I had the chance going from, you know, hand-drawn art to digital, you know, being able to see that, that transition, you know, to go across and do that.
00:20:15:12 – 00:20:38:03
Bernie Solo
So I went, I did that for that work there for about well between four and five years at the time, but also so that was in 90 I started in 93, I incorporated my company because I wanted to design lamps. So I was really into that. And also a mid-century modern. I really like mid-century stuff, so I started designing lamps and it was recommended that I incorporate.
00:20:38:03 – 00:20:44:00
Bernie Solo
So for liability of, you know, making electrical type things and I was, they were art lamps so I wasn’t doing any production.
00:20:44:00 – 00:20:56:10
Greg Porter
The big messages especially, you know, I always talk about young people, but it’s older people too that are getting into some of these making hobbies is that any life experience that you have is actually valuable when you’re making things?
00:20:56:12 – 00:21:14:13
Bernie Solo
Oh yeah. I mean, it’s a little of a tangent story. There was a conversation I had I was a mentor with the first robotics team when my son was in high school. I was helping with design. That’s kind of what I was doing. I was not an engineer. I wasn’t able to figure out any of the electronics or the programing or anything like that.
00:21:14:13 – 00:21:37:15
Bernie Solo
But as about the actual hands on building the thing, you know, and figuring out, you know, which side bolts to put it all together and stuff like that. And one day we were working on I forget what part it was. It was a manipulator on the front of the the robot. There was some sort of a hinging system that had to lift a big kind of a big piece of the from the robot up and down because it had to shoot a rubber ball or something like that.
00:21:37:17 – 00:21:53:23
Bernie Solo
The kids are like, you know, I wanted to do this thing so the adults would come in and say, okay, let’s see how we can make it do what the students want this thing to do and then work through it with them, you know? So I told them, I said, Well, that hinge is a lot like the hinge on the stall door in the men’s room.
00:21:53:24 – 00:22:13:24
Bernie Solo
Yeah. So I said, you know, maybe TMI here, a little too much information, but sitting on the john in there looking at the jury of the way that that door swings and the way that that things connected together, that that time was well spent, you know, to go back out there and say, hey, I think we can make this thing work.
00:22:13:24 – 00:22:39:21
Bernie Solo
I think I found a hinge in a way that this thing could hinge, you know? So it was like, you know, he was like, okay, well, I what like, how did you know? I said, well, if you’re always aware of all these different things that you’re experiencing all day long, you could be looking in anything. You could be the grocery cart or the grocery store or at the grocery store, the way that one of the racks works, or how the shelves hooked together on the shelves where the products are in the store or something like that.
00:22:40:02 – 00:23:09:11
Bernie Solo
You can come back to me, a project you’re working on, and that could be the answer, you know, or part of it, or at least give you the inspiration to do that. So and that was part of my training in school too. And you were probably the same way with, you know, going to art school or creative program of being able to harness that stuff and being, you know, like a trained observer, basically just observing like everything you run into, no matter what it is you’re looking at like take, take notes, you know, these things and how they work and then pull them out later, you know, be able to utilize them.
00:23:09:18 – 00:23:12:21
Bernie Solo
So that kind of ties in, I think, with what you were saying. Absolutely.
00:23:12:21 – 00:23:38:15
Greg Porter
That’s something I always share with our young people in the office, is that everything’s another opportunity and it’s just a matter of applying whatever creative thought that you have to that opportunity. And I’m just because I have a Topo Chico bottle here, I’m looking at some of the little detail in the bottle, some of the textures, some of the the different ways that it interacts with your hand.
00:23:38:15 – 00:24:03:11
Greg Porter
I mean, it’s just a simple bottle for fizzy water, right? But there’s there’s little details that make it different than the competitor that give it a different tactile experience that maybe makes me want to have, you know, another six pack of this in the closet, you know, and. Yeah, and it’s amazing when when you stop and you say, okay, something can be very utilitarian and just sort of answer the question.
00:24:03:21 – 00:24:31:09
Greg Porter
That’s that’s sort of step one. Okay, let’s get it to function. But then step two is what’s the next layer of design that we can add to this thing? And that doesn’t mean decoration, it means design and design can increase functionality, it can increase the experience in some way or it can heighten the experience in some way, or it can accentuate a certain part of the design that you want a feature and that that’s the next level, right?
00:24:31:09 – 00:24:40:09
Greg Porter
That’s when you get beyond the simple lever to move a rock and you get into something that forms to your hand and somehow moves the rock in a better way.
00:24:40:11 – 00:25:04:23
Bernie Solo
Oh, yeah, yeah. There’s, you know, and I think it’s time goes on and I get older, I’m realizing that those things are really for me. Those are the things that make me enjoy life every day. Like I would. I don’t think I’ve said I’m bored since I was a kid because I’m going to be bored when there’s all this around me, all these things to observe and all these things, you know, picking some stuff up.
00:25:04:23 – 00:25:29:04
Bernie Solo
Now, I was back. If anybody, the listeners haven’t listened to any of your back podcasts, I would suggest that they go back and listen to it because some very interesting subjects you guys have covered and one that I recently listened to, which is maybe, I don’t know, four episodes ago or something, you were discussing some of the architectural things and talking about just experiencing stuff, just designing your own house.
00:25:29:14 – 00:25:48:21
Bernie Solo
There’s so many things that were just so obvious, like you may have may have talked about this exact subject at some point during your architectural experience. But when when people go to a restaurant and you’re standing there waiting to be seated and they say, Would you like a table or a booth? Right. You know what most people choose, right?
00:25:49:02 – 00:26:09:07
Bernie Solo
The booth they want to say once in the booth. Right. And so we went over that when we were working with this architect, couple residential architects. And we did our house and we realized and they were talking about the historic like just people in general. They like to be they like to feel kind of protected, a bit like in, you know, like not living in a cave necessarily.
00:26:09:07 – 00:26:26:10
Bernie Solo
But I mean, you want to kind of feel cozy, right? The word cozy, like, you know, like and so these big open spaces like gymnasiums and all these big open spaces, people feel vulnerable. It’s not really comfortable. And they might not be able to tap into why they don’t feel comfortable. Maybe even the colors are cool colors in big open spaces and cool colors.
00:26:26:10 – 00:26:47:01
Bernie Solo
It’s like, you know, I’m in the Arctic because it’s like not comfortable, right? But if it’s a warm even the colors are warm and it’s a cozy space and maybe the textures are a bit softer and things like that, people feel more comfortable. And so we discussed all this stuff when we were working on our house, and so we ended up in our dining room.
00:26:47:01 – 00:27:07:07
Bernie Solo
In our house is a banquette. That’s probably I. How big is it? It’s like 15. It’s a booth basically that can probably hold about eight people. And it’s, it’s our gathering spot in our house because that’s our that’s our. Hey, where do you want to sit? You know, I want a booth. Well, this is our this banquette is just this real comfortable place.
00:27:07:07 – 00:27:28:05
Bernie Solo
In fact, over that dining table, we actually lowered the ceiling. The ceiling has about a seven foot ceiling just in that area. And also it helps us separate from the kitchen area because the ceiling heights are different. So when you walk in that space, it’s a wood ceiling. It goes from a white to like an off white ceiling in the kitchen area to this warm wood ceiling, this lower in the dining area.
00:27:28:05 – 00:27:55:08
Bernie Solo
And it feels like you’re in this little cozy space. And I would have never if I wasn’t educated by those architects, I may not have ever defined that. I probably knew it, but I didn’t define it. But it once it’s defined, I use it all the time. I use a lot of these things I learned from those architects, you know, in the way that you walk into a space and the way that that space feels, even if you’re know, you’re, you know, putting machines in your garage and your shop and how you get through it and all those things.
00:27:55:08 – 00:28:07:20
Bernie Solo
Like it’s like, I don’t know, maybe I wanted to or maybe want it. Well, you can actually break it down. I’m not telling you anything new because you’re an architect, but you can break it down or you can say, well, okay, here’s a here’s a way to figure this out. There’s actually a method to some of this stuff.
00:28:07:20 – 00:28:20:07
Bernie Solo
You know, how you get through the space or what draws you into a space, what makes you want to go to that other side of the room where if there’s a little corner, a little half wall or something, it makes you kind of want to go around that half wall just to see what’s on the other side of it.
00:28:20:09 – 00:28:28:15
Bernie Solo
You know, it’s kind of like you kind of want to explore this because you can see a little bit of something versus if it’s just a dead end, well, why do I need to go there, you know, type of thing.
00:28:28:15 – 00:28:37:03
Brian Benham
So it’s a visual cues to kind of lead you around and dictate what this room is supposed to be for to lead you on to the next the next thing.
00:28:37:14 – 00:28:58:13
Bernie Solo
They’re going to apply to other things, too. It doesn’t just have to be physical spaces. I mean, it could be designing a product or something like that, and you’re giving it a little bit of interest so that it looks a little bit more interesting than maybe it actually is. You know, it’s not just functional, but not being overdesigned either, you know, not designed for design sake, but that it actually has a there’s a reason for it.
00:28:58:13 – 00:28:59:07
Bernie Solo
And so.
00:28:59:07 – 00:29:23:20
Greg Porter
Well, Bernie, I’ll I’ll interject. There’s there’s a couple of things that always come to mind. And it’s it’s whether it’s architecture or any other kind of design, whether it’s illustration. And I share a similar background in that I started my career as an illustrator and for the first four or five years of my career, I just did architectural illustration and it’s exactly like illustrating automobiles.
00:29:23:20 – 00:29:25:21
Greg Porter
It’s just buildings instead of automobiles.
00:29:25:24 – 00:29:28:18
Bernie Solo
Well, I didn’t know that about you. I didn’t. I had never heard you say that before.
00:29:28:20 – 00:29:58:01
Greg Porter
Yeah, and of course, I came out of school in 97. So if you can imagine, 3D was just happening on a PC level while I was at school. And so I learned all of the traditional techniques, airbrushing and watercolor and pen and ink and yada, yada, yada, and then all of a sudden there’s 3D studio and some of these other programs that, you know, literally a handful of people on the planet knew how to use what I started using them and fascinating stuff.
00:29:58:11 – 00:30:19:22
Greg Porter
But but the thing that I would share, again, if it’s if it’s architecture, if it’s car design, if it’s a product design or anything else, gestalt principles. The I think there’s seven just all principles, you know, motion and and point and line and some of these other things balance. When you look at those, they apply to everything and they apply to architecture as well.
00:30:19:22 – 00:30:39:18
Greg Porter
But, but, you know, you look at graphic design and they apply one way, you know, it’s a piece of paper or it’s an object that’s printed on. And then you go into a three dimensional space, those same, you know, rhythm and tempo and all of those things apply. It’s a matter of how are you drawing your eye across the space?
00:30:39:23 – 00:30:58:08
Greg Porter
How in maybe it’s not your eye, maybe it’s a human body to experience thing and and and now you’re not just playing in two dimensions. You’re playing in that third dimension and you have light and you have all these other things that play along. But those gestalt principles are the same, whether it’s on paper or whether it’s in a three dimensional space.
00:30:58:08 – 00:31:20:02
Greg Porter
They just become much more complex in terms of how you how you assign them or how you play with them. And the other thing that that I always like to share is that when we experience space, it’s it’s like a movie in some ways, but it’s extraordinarily non-linear. And, you know, it’s, it’s a piece of music, but it’s, it can be played in any order that you want it to be played.
00:31:20:07 – 00:31:49:11
Greg Porter
And sometimes it’s not played completely, sometimes it’s only partially played. And when you start thinking of, of designs that way and I’ll go back to some of the things that I’ve seen you build and design and make for those of you who haven’t followed Bernie for forever like I have, you made this really interesting concrete lamp at one point in time, and I don’t remember what you called it or what the name is, so somebody could look it up, but you could probably share that.
00:31:49:11 – 00:31:57:12
Greg Porter
But you look at you, you look at the initial design, and I’m doing this all from memory. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that lamp, but I know a while.
00:31:57:12 – 00:31:57:18
Bernie Solo
Ago.
00:31:58:00 – 00:32:30:04
Greg Porter
I seem to recall that there were there were rusticated joints or that’s what architects would call them. But but joints and it wasn’t just smooth concrete. There was detail in the concrete. So even within the individual piece, there was there was more to experience from a from a visual, from a textural perspective. And I think when you talk about three dimensional things and and complex design, that was a very small package that was extraordinarily complex through what it looks like, feels like.
00:32:30:04 – 00:32:33:24
Greg Porter
But then how it was actually assembled was a whole other set of problems.
00:32:34:01 – 00:33:01:20
Bernie Solo
Oh, yeah, yeah. The initial idea and if anybody goes and looks at that, I hope you go go and check it out. That I was the idea of having a C and C router machine. I wanted to write from the get go. I wanted to just explore what I could do with it. And so I as I started researching and watching what other people were doing with it, I started to see this pattern of like what things look like coming off the scene.
00:33:01:21 – 00:33:37:14
Bernie Solo
C Router. So when they came up, that was a contest actually for quick read. That’s right. Yeah. And I wanted to make I told you, I started out as the lamp design company actually doing lighting design. And so I thought here’s a yeah, so here’s a lighting contest and I can actually, you know, do something with it. And so I wanted to do a lamp and then I would, I’d love comments if people want to take a look at this and tell me what they think of this, that my personal challenge, it wasn’t the challenge of the contest, but my personal challenge was to make a lamp that that was 100% made honestly, and see
00:33:37:14 – 00:34:13:03
Bernie Solo
a router that didn’t look like any of it was made on the scene. Router, for one thing is concrete. So you know, the forms were made on the router, but not the concrete part. And then the it’s a, it’s a triangle. So the three wooden legs are two sided 3D carvings that, you know, don’t I. Well, I guess if you knew the 3D woodcarving stuff like that, you could probably guess that they could have been machined that and then even the little sticks that are around the top of the shade, which is really a wasteful type of thing that I cut, how much would that I use to make these little sticks with these grooves
00:34:13:03 – 00:34:26:13
Bernie Solo
in them? But my challenge was to make them on the same router. So it’s all in the in the video, the, the piece of paper that there are the, the lampshade, those rectangles of paper. I did cut those with an executive knife, so those were cut on the router. But the rest of it was.
00:34:26:19 – 00:34:53:24
Brian Benham
I’m curious, like, how did you start out? You’re like, All right, I’m I want to design a lamp. I want it to be a C and C router, like what was your process to move through your iterations of design? Like how many iterations did you do what? As I watched that this morning and the thing fits together like a puzzle, there’s the base of concrete and there’s a wood band and then there’s another base of concrete on top or a hat of concrete, I guess not a base.
00:34:54:16 – 00:35:15:03
Brian Benham
And then these sculpted legs hold up the whole mass of concrete, and then those sculpted legs go up to hold up the light. And I didn’t see on the video how you got the wire from the bottom to the top. So there was a lot of planning involved in this thing too, to create it. So I’m trying to I guess I’m trying to ask like, what was your process to design this thing like?
00:35:15:12 – 00:35:20:18
Brian Benham
What was your first step after you decided you wanted it to be ACNC based project?
00:35:21:03 – 00:35:47:16
Bernie Solo
Yeah. So okay, I can give you some input on that. The, the challenge was to use one bag of Quecreek just to make a, make a piece of, make whatever out of one bigger quickly so it couldn’t be any more concrete than that. And jump back just 1/2 to address what Greg had said. I was fascinated with the fact that Quecreek Concrete, what it is and reason is Quecreek is because it already has gravel in the mixture.
00:35:47:16 – 00:36:05:06
Bernie Solo
So it’s the cement with the gravel in sand some finds in there that may Quecreek. So you don’t have to mix anything else. You just add water to it. So the texture you’re talking about is the fact that I was so fascinated with the fact that some of those little stones in there a little like like river washed stone is not crushed stone.
00:36:05:06 – 00:36:32:05
Bernie Solo
It’s actually real. I don’t know what you call it. It’s well, you know, if you’re in a river and you pick up that that that gravel in there, they’re all rounded off, little stones, a little different colors and things like that. So before the concrete fully cured, when it got just firm enough that I could take it out of the molds, I took a scrub brush and I scrubbed it really hard so that it scrubbed off that that outer concrete and it just left those stones on there.
00:36:32:05 – 00:36:45:05
Bernie Solo
So that texture that you see is that that’s why I got that. And the reason I got it because I wanted to see those stones. I didn’t want those stones to just be hidden in there, you know, I wanted to. So that was just as a side note. That’s why the surface is there. So I had to use the concrete.
00:36:46:14 – 00:37:08:14
Bernie Solo
I had the legs effect, I think in the video, if you go back and check it, I think there’s a little blurb in there, a couple of sentences I put in where I was explaining that those legs I had cut off from the cedar deck and the back of my house and those legs, the parameters that I gave myself was the fact I had to cut those each of those legs out of a piece of two by six cedar.
00:37:08:15 – 00:37:28:08
Bernie Solo
So it literally I adjusted those curves and everything in those legs so that I could cut them out of a two by six. So that would me my parameter of the, you know, how that had to be cut like that. And the width also because I had to be less an inch and a half thick triangles. If you knew, use a camera tripod.
00:37:28:08 – 00:37:48:01
Bernie Solo
You know that three legged things always stand up. And so I was like, I wasn’t going to have any wobbles in it because it only has three legs. So that kind of worked out that way in triangles. I think triangles are one of the math magical things of the of the universe along with circles, you know, they’re humans didn’t invent geometry like like that, like that.
00:37:48:01 – 00:38:12:09
Bernie Solo
Those things exist with our people circles and triangles and things like that. So I’ve always been fascinated with that. So that’s why I kind of came up with a three legged neo with the triangular shape. And then also because I’ve studied mid-century modern for so long that I needed I needed I wanted it to be there’s a need, I guess, in my head that it had to be a mid-century type of a look, but more like a neo.
00:38:12:10 – 00:38:14:13
Bernie Solo
Is that is that a thing? Right. Can we say that? You know.
00:38:14:20 – 00:38:15:15
Greg Porter
Absolutely.
00:38:16:03 – 00:38:17:01
Bernie Solo
What the hell was that?
00:38:17:16 – 00:38:25:13
Greg Porter
I was going to say there’s a there’s a little oh, I’m trying to think of the right word. I’ll I’ll let you continue talking and then I’ll then I’ll come up with it, I’m sure.
00:38:26:00 – 00:38:53:13
Bernie Solo
Okay. Well, the all the colors on it too I really like, especially for home furnishings. I really like warm, warm colors. I just think they’re more inviting. They’re more you don’t want to touch them. A lot of colors in nature are are warm colors, even the things you’d consider to be neutral, like any of the tree barks and things like that, if you really were to compare them, they tend to be on the warm scale of of colors, things that you want to touch, you know, like, you know, like things that are like ice cold and stuff.
00:38:53:19 – 00:39:10:17
Bernie Solo
You normally wouldn’t want to go and hug it, you know, like, but if it’s warm, you know, it tends to be anyway. So that’s why the colors that we even the shade, the paper and the shades are cream, the cream colored, you know. So whatever the materials were, like I said, along with the concrete, I wanted the concrete to show what it was.
00:39:10:17 – 00:39:29:23
Bernie Solo
I wanted you to see what it is. In fact, there’s no there’s not even a clear cut on that concrete. It’s just scrubbed in washed. And that’s the reason that the surfaces like it is. And then the wood way you guys know, you guys do woodworking, you know, I wouldn’t paint over wood. So it’s like, you know, so that’s a natural finish, you know?
00:39:30:06 – 00:39:47:18
Bernie Solo
And that’s cedar and cedar, by the way, if you guys have ever used cedar for different things, it’s not friendly to my experience with cedar is really bad. It leaves splinters and it just it’s just it’s what I had and I like it now. Now that I did it, I’m glad that I, you know, I loved the way it turned out.
00:39:47:18 – 00:40:04:00
Bernie Solo
But if I were to start all over again, I really would not use cedar. I would use something else, you know, that was a little bit easier to work with, especially when you’re doing those curves and things like that. It would never stand out. I just I kept sanding and saving and setting it. And basically every time I rub my hand over it, I guess splinter.
00:40:04:02 – 00:40:05:02
Bernie Solo
It’s like I’m sanding.
00:40:07:02 – 00:40:07:06
Greg Porter
And.
00:40:07:06 – 00:40:17:19
Bernie Solo
It just keeps giving me splinters. So like I said, I’m not I’m not a woodworker, you know, at all. So I guess I don’t know. Brian, does that does that help? Yes. Give you some some idea.
00:40:17:19 – 00:40:34:14
Brian Benham
So I have kind of a follow up question. Like, as you are going through this design, you you clearly had a vision in your head of what you wanted to look like. And you said that you had these design parameters of the two by six. Had to it had to fit in this to basics. Oftentimes, I’ll have a vision.
00:40:34:14 – 00:40:49:19
Brian Benham
What I want something to look like. But things constraints, design constraints or material constraints forced me out of my vision. Is that did the lamp turn out to be your original vision or did those constraints force you down a different path?
00:40:49:20 – 00:41:07:15
Bernie Solo
No, no. It all worked out. I don’t know. Maybe it goes back to my history. I was telling you guys about the fact that I’ve I’ve most of my art to the my life has been for other people. And and so as far as me being satisfied, it was kind of like, well, you guys know that when you work for a client, right?
00:41:07:23 – 00:41:30:12
Bernie Solo
You have your satisfaction, but you also have your client satisfaction. So a lot of times if the client satisfied. Yeah, you know, I guess I’m satisfied too. So I guess if it if it worked out and it was okay, you know, and if it was successful, it may not have been my original vision, but if it was successful art enough levels, I think that I maybe I just have that acceptance of the fact that that’s what it is.
00:41:30:18 – 00:41:46:24
Bernie Solo
And I think that I had I had a mentor just this just came to me when I was really young when I just got out of school. I like it. Probably a lot of kids in their early twenties. I was, I was I would just want to know like how much money can I make at this? How much money can I make at this job?
00:41:46:24 – 00:42:04:15
Bernie Solo
Right. Is this going to. Yeah. And he told me, I mean, he sat me down a couple of times and it wasn’t just casually. It was like, okay, listen, if you get good at something and you’re passionate about it and you tell people about it, you do this, these things you won’t have to ever ask for a raise like you’re the money will.
00:42:04:15 – 00:42:26:20
Bernie Solo
The money will just come. People will find you and you you won’t have to worry about it. So just focus on your skills and you know the end result will be what it it is going to be. And another thing, what he would say and I remember so clearly him coming to me and saying, well, maybe it just doesn’t want to be that way.
00:42:27:02 – 00:42:41:03
Bernie Solo
Maybe you’re trying to make it something it doesn’t want to be. And what are you what are you what are you saying? You know, and he would say, well, maybe, maybe it wants to be this way. And he would sit down and he would sketch something out and he’d say, well, maybe, maybe it wants to be this way.
00:42:41:03 – 00:43:13:14
Bernie Solo
Or maybe, you know, he started talking about like it was this for until that first person or whatever, like that thing, whatever it was I was doing, I was trying to force it to be something it wasn’t didn’t want to be. And I took me, I don’t know, it was maybe a few months of him talking to me like that that finally I started to pick up that language and I sing it to myself when I would be struggling with something and just thinking he is just doesn’t want to be this way, you know, like, and it sounds a little bit strange, but to me now it’s very natural to, to talk like that, that
00:43:13:14 – 00:43:38:18
Bernie Solo
I’m trying to make something that doesn’t want to be that way. And, you know, this gets really deep and philosophical. But a lot of times I think that as artists we’re how guys it’s hard to explain it, but it’s something that like wants to exist and we’re like the conduit to make it, make it into what it wants to be like, like not taking credit for it.
00:43:40:06 – 00:44:02:10
Bernie Solo
Like we’re just the facilitator, like, of to make this thing into, into something, right? And so if you ask the questions, like I said, this could get really deep. But, you know, you’re asking questions to the whatever the universe or whatever it is, then probably we could be talking to anybody right now, you know, and say what, what, what does this thing really want to be and what should it be?
00:44:02:10 – 00:44:23:15
Bernie Solo
And kind of like, you know, asking those questions to whatever it is, just intelligence that’s, you know, this creativity, this I think. What was it? It was Einstein. I think it was that he actually had said that genius isn’t a person. Genius is a thing that we tap into kind of like creativity, that it’s a thing like people would call, I think it was Einstein calling him a genius.
00:44:23:15 – 00:44:42:07
Bernie Solo
And he was correct in saying, Well, it’s genius that, you know, I’m tapping into genius. It’s a thing that’s available to everybody. Not it’s not that’s not me that I’m just the one that that it’s talking to so that I can come up with this. And because he would say that a lot of the discoveries that he made, he discovered these things while he was playing his violin in his kitchen.
00:44:42:08 – 00:45:07:24
Bernie Solo
It wasn’t like he was on a chalkboard doing math. It’s like a lot of people will say and you guys may agree with this, that you can you can be in the shower or wake up in the morning with an answer to something. And, you know, so if you wake up in the morning with the answer to something, you’ve been think just a solution to a problem, like did you solve it or did that just kind of like get delivered like a piece of mail, like in your mailbox, like, you know, like, yeah, I’ve been working on this for a while.
00:45:07:24 – 00:45:13:12
Bernie Solo
Here you go, buddy. It’s like, you know, and so you guys know, right? I think you’re like.
00:45:13:16 – 00:45:14:11
Greg Porter
You’re thinking of that.
00:45:14:11 – 00:45:15:08
Bernie Solo
And. Yeah, yeah.
00:45:15:09 – 00:45:33:03
Brian Benham
You’re mind is always working in the background, even when you’re sleeping. And if you go to bed thinking about something, a problem you’re having in the morning, oftentimes your mind, I’ll have worked it out and I’ve had similar situations where you’re talking about, does this thing really want to be? I’ll have a vision of what I want to build.
00:45:33:12 – 00:45:50:24
Brian Benham
I’ll go to the lumberyard, but I can’t find the board that has the right grain to match my vision. But I’ll often find something else while I’m there that will spark a new idea that I’ll use to create something new with. So there’s always that little give and take or a little pull between what it wants to be and what you want it to be.
00:45:50:24 – 00:46:01:02
Brian Benham
And you have to be able to allow yourself to give give in to other people’s ideas or the boards other ideas, the woods idea of what it wants to be.
00:46:01:03 – 00:46:01:12
Bernie Solo
Mm hmm.
00:46:01:23 – 00:46:27:03
Greg Porter
I think a really poetic way that I’ve heard some of this phrase is I heard somebody talking about Stevie Ray Vaughan, famous guitar player, blues guitar player at the time, easily at the top of his game, there was nobody like him. And, you know, you can argue he fed off the people before him. Absolutely he did. But you you can look up performances that Stevie had.
00:46:27:03 – 00:46:47:01
Greg Porter
And there were good nights and there were okay nights. And then there were these phenomenal performances. And somebody described it one time is that Stevie Ray Vaughan was an open channel. And you could see it. You could see it in his performance. He’d come out and, you know, he’s going through the motions. It’s a little bit stiff. This is the first song.
00:46:47:09 – 00:47:08:18
Greg Porter
Then all of a sudden the eyes would close, the head would tip back, and something completely different would come out. And it was the switch. You know, you’re in the flow or however you want to say it. But the way that it was described is that he was an open channel is basically I’m receiving whatever the universe has given me and it’s going to come out of my fingers somehow and I’m the conduit for that to happen.
00:47:08:18 – 00:47:34:07
Greg Porter
And it was really I’ve always thought of that as a pretty poetic way, but you’re 100% right, Bernie, in that we spend all this time studying things and looking at things and cataloging and filling up sketchbooks and all of this stuff. And at the end of the day, when when push comes to shove and you’re operating the table saw or the router or programing modeling something in the computer, there’s a switch.
00:47:34:11 – 00:47:54:07
Greg Porter
You go unconscious and things just happen. And it’s almost like you’re watching it happen from above. In a weird sort of way. And 2 hours later you look and you’ve got this stack of things that’s exactly what you intended them to be at that point in time. And it’s like, this is this is amazing. How did this just happen?
00:47:54:12 – 00:48:28:24
Greg Porter
Am I that good of a woodworker or a welder or a machinist or a modeler or an airbrush artist or whatever it is? I mean, I used to paint watercolors and literally, if you videotape yourself painting a watercolor and watch it back, you sit and go, how? How did that happen? I think that was it that made that happen because it’s it’s such a bizarre a bizarre skill to be able to control colored water around a page that wants to absorb some of it, bloom some of it, and and let others run down the page.
00:48:28:24 – 00:48:54:24
Greg Porter
And anyway, I say all that. I would add one other thing that I’ve used as a technique for a very long time. I read a book, gosh, it would have been maybe like 1999. And it talked it was a little bit of like eighties pop psychology weirdness, right? And it talked about putting out in the universe and getting things back, just like you described, like the postman dropped it off.
00:48:54:24 – 00:49:15:23
Greg Porter
And it basically was it was one of those books that said, if there’s something you want all you have to do is say it out loud and the universe will help make it happen. Right. But in reality, what happens is you’re you’re putting that thought into your brain and all of a sudden, when you see opportunities, you realize that’s an opportunity to make this thought come to fruition.
00:49:16:08 – 00:49:37:00
Greg Porter
And I use that all the time when I have a very difficult problem I’m trying to solve. Sometimes it’s building related or client related or sometimes it’s product related. I throw it out there because I know just, like Brian said, my subconscious mind is going to just sit and turn on this thing, whether I’m thinking about it or not.
00:49:37:01 – 00:50:02:07
Greg Porter
Once I put it out there and two or three days later you open that proverbial mailbox and it’s like, Here’s the answer. And it is pretty amazing when when you when you adapt, that is a skill in a problem solving technique that you don’t have to sit and burn through 15 pencils. Sometimes you just need to let it simmer on the back burner for a couple of days and it’ll come to you.
00:50:02:07 – 00:50:23:15
Bernie Solo
Yeah, I think it goes the, the, what I described about that the bathroom stall you can actually run it the other way around too. That you can say you can actually go take a walk. And a lot of creatives will do that. They’ll go take a walk somewhere and they’ll go to the store. They’ll go do something. And I know for me when I do that, I’m not doing it just mindlessly.
00:50:23:23 – 00:50:43:11
Bernie Solo
I’m going out there because I say I put that question out there, like you said, out to the universe. And I think, you know what? The universe may not be using my mailbox today. The universe may be giving me that answer down at the park or at the store or, you know, somewhere else. I’m going to go wander around and go, oh, that’s there it is right there.
00:50:43:11 – 00:51:01:14
Bernie Solo
It wasn’t in the mail, you know, it wasn’t in that proverbial mailbox. It was it was somewhere else. So I’m not just going out. Like I said, I’m just waiting for something to happen. Just sit there. Because as professionals, professional creatives, you can’t sit there and just say, Oh, the answer will come to me. You know, the client’s calling.
00:51:01:14 – 00:51:15:20
Bernie Solo
It’s like, well, it is the answers that come in to me. So that’s why I was I had used the term harnessing early, harnessing the creativity, like making it work, like going to work like you do. Brian I’m not sure. What do you have your day job that you.
00:51:16:02 – 00:51:20:12
Brian Benham
I work for? I build custom furniture, pieces of art. You do the kind of stuff. Yeah.
00:51:20:13 – 00:51:32:00
Bernie Solo
Okay, good. So we’re all in the same camp there where when you show up and say, I’m going to go to work now, you go you go to an office away from your house, right?
00:51:32:16 – 00:51:33:09
Greg Porter
Yes, I do.
00:51:33:10 – 00:51:47:18
Bernie Solo
Yeah. Okay. So we go to work wherever we’re going, whether we’re going to the other room or we’re going to an office or whatever. And you’ve basically got to go there. You’ve got a client, you got to turn on that creativity. You can’t just go, Well, today, I don’t feel like it. Well, no, you know, it doesn’t work like that.
00:51:48:00 – 00:52:04:20
Bernie Solo
So to gain those skills are analytical soft skills, mental skills or whatever it is that, you know, you want to get something done in. So like I said, you can go chasing that stuff to go. You know, the answer is somewhere the universe is pretty big. I’m going to go walk around and see if I can go find this thing.
00:52:04:20 – 00:52:23:18
Bernie Solo
It seems like it’s not coming to my location at this moment, you know, it’s like and so you’re looking for those things and who knows whether that was sit there for you or not or if it just happens to be that, you know, might you might meet somebody that just happens to, I don’t know, they got a new type of ballpoint pen or something or something that’s just like, what?
00:52:23:19 – 00:52:32:08
Bernie Solo
That that’s the thing. What’s that mechanism thing is just like, oh, you know, that’s what I was way that’s the thing I needed, you know, or whatever. And it might not be the.
00:52:32:18 – 00:52:53:12
Brian Benham
Yeah I think it’s a lot about being open to, to your environment. A little while ago, a couple weeks ago I was in Vancouver, Canada, and I was walking around Vancouver downtown and there’s this old part of town where. The street is all cobblestone and it’s loose cobblestone. And so I was just walking along the street and listening to the cars drive by.
00:52:53:12 – 00:53:26:13
Brian Benham
And every time a car would drive by, all the cobblestones would rattle. And it just got me thinking like, I need to make something that that has some type of sound to it that just kind of every time something switches by it, it makes some kind of weird sound or something. So I’ve been slowly sketching out some kind of sculpture that I want to build in the future just by being open minded to it and then to piggyback on your bathroom door stall thing, it’s a lot about cataloging, cataloging your environment like, okay, I saw that.
00:53:26:13 – 00:53:45:11
Brian Benham
I’m going to put that away for a later recall. And being deliberate with your your, I guess lack of a better word, your dreams like when you have a problem that you’re trying to solve and you go to bed thinking about that problem and your subconscious works on that, it’s going to pull from all those kind of things that you’ve cataloged into your brain.
00:53:45:18 – 00:53:46:05
Greg Porter
Mm hmm.
00:53:46:15 – 00:53:55:10
Bernie Solo
Yeah, I know you guys keep sketch books. Are you very adamant with that now? I do, but I’m not. I really have to remind myself, feel. Write those things down.
00:53:55:19 – 00:54:19:17
Greg Porter
My my toxic trait, Bernie, is that I sketch on random things, and I don’t put them in my sketchbook all the time. So I’ve literally got an area of my desk that’s just piled with sketches. And whenever you mentioned, you never say the words, I’m bored. I’m never at that point, but every once in a while I’m like, What am I going to work on today?
00:54:19:23 – 00:54:30:07
Greg Porter
And I’ll grab a little pile of sketches and start leafing through them and go, Yup, that’s the one I’m working on today I’m going to take. Because most of the sketches are are that initial flash, right.
00:54:30:07 – 00:54:39:24
Bernie Solo
And yeah, yeah. And you’ve got to get it down. Are your words. It’s not because you didn’t really think about you didn’t think of it. And so you need to jotted down before it disappears, right?
00:54:40:06 – 00:55:00:03
Greg Porter
Yeah. I heard Neil Young talk one time and I hope I haven’t mentioned this on the podcast because, you know, things that you see. He was in an interview and the person interviewing him said, I’ve heard that you never go anywhere without your guitar. Nowhere. And he goes, You’re absolutely right. He said, When you have something hit, you have to deal with it right now.
00:55:00:03 – 00:55:20:03
Greg Porter
And he said, My job relies on me writing songs and being inspired. And he said I had to leave a friend of mine’s anniversary party the other day to walk out, pop the trunk of my car and get my guitar out, work through this idea that I had in my head, he said, because in his words, were, Those things are fleeting and they don’t come back.
00:55:20:06 – 00:55:36:24
Greg Porter
So you have to capture them while while they’re and and I think that’s a it’s a skill, but it’s also a discipline to be able to say, I have this idea, I need to get it on paper. It doesn’t have to be complete. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m not giving this drawing away as a Christmas present.
00:55:37:09 – 00:55:42:11
Greg Porter
It’s me capturing this fleeting idea, and it’s so important to do that.
00:55:42:11 – 00:55:42:20
Brian Benham
Yeah.
00:55:43:19 – 00:56:04:01
Bernie Solo
I’m sorry. I was just going to say, the idea of sketching it, it’s. It’s less common than I thought. I thought a lot of people just did sketch stuff down, and then people compliment me on some of the sketches I put up on my Instagram, just stuff it into my garage. I’m just drawing it right on the toolbox on a piece of paper there.
00:56:04:06 – 00:56:11:12
Bernie Solo
And they’re like, Wow, that’s a really neat. And just like, don’t worry about what it looks like. It’s not you’re not making this a piece of art for other people. You’re documenting.
00:56:11:12 – 00:56:28:08
Brian Benham
Yeah, I think people are afraid to sketch because they’re not good at it and so that they don’t do it and then they never get good at it. But back to Greg’s point of a fleeting moment on I have that same problem. I’ll have an idea and then it’ll just be gone and I’ll be like, Oh, what was that idea I had an hour ago?
00:56:28:08 – 00:56:45:03
Brian Benham
And I can’t ever think of it. So on my cell phone know how you swipe and you have different home screens or whatever at the top right hand corner of every single home screen. Is that no app? So that way, no matter what home screen I am, if I think of an idea, I can hit the no app and write it down.
00:56:45:04 – 00:57:08:01
Greg Porter
My dad, my brother and me are insomniacs and I say that in a real sort of way. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping more than three or 4 hours at a time. And so you just wake up at these inopportune times, just the way we’re wired and I’ve learned you, if you wake up in the middle of the night, you need to have a piece of paper next, you know, on your bed stand or something.
00:57:08:01 – 00:57:30:13
Greg Porter
And again, not a complete thought, but if you don’t get it down, it disappears. But I’ll make one other plug for those who who don’t have great sketching skills. Brian and I did a podcast about Betty Edwards book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. And that’s a wonderful book for people who who don’t currently draw that want to learn how to draw.
00:57:30:13 – 00:57:38:05
Greg Porter
And over the course of a month or two, you can turn from an absolute novice into somebody who can draw pretty well if you’re looking for something like that.
00:57:38:08 – 00:57:48:10
Brian Benham
Yeah, I bought that book and I’m slowly working through it. It’s fantastic. And that’s our our second most listened to episode. So hopefully it was pretty good because a lot of people have listened to that one.
00:57:48:12 – 00:57:57:08
Greg Porter
Yeah, well, I’m looking at the time here. We’ve been on for almost an hour and a half hour and 20 minutes. Do we want to do a quick wrap up?
00:57:57:09 – 00:58:11:09
Brian Benham
Yeah, I have one more question. You got it. You can’t overthink this, Bernie. You got to be pretty quick about it. I see that you have a love for furniture design and mid-century modern. So I want know how you feel about hairpin legs.
00:58:11:10 – 00:58:15:19
Bernie Solo
What do I. Okay, the quick answer is I don’t like them.
00:58:15:19 – 00:58:16:08
Brian Benham
Thank you.
00:58:16:14 – 00:58:16:23
Bernie Solo
I just.
00:58:18:15 – 00:58:19:17
Greg Porter
You.
00:58:19:17 – 00:58:20:08
Bernie Solo
Yeah, I.
00:58:20:20 – 00:58:23:16
Brian Benham
We can publish this episode now. You passed the real test.
00:58:23:22 – 00:58:33:18
Bernie Solo
Yeah, I actually I had some that somebody had given me a few years ago, and I finally got rid of them. I just. They threw them away.
00:58:33:18 – 00:58:56:22
Greg Porter
They’re just I want to I want to be sure I don’t ever like to disparage anybody because I think the things like hairpin legs are a means to an end. Right? Like somebody can’t figure out anything below the apron of a table. And and that’s a way to get through that, to express the table top that you’re trying to express and not have to worry about everything.
00:58:56:22 – 00:59:14:15
Greg Porter
But my challenge is always if somebody is going to use hairpin legs, think about the hairpin leg in a different way. Don’t just buy one off the shelf or off the rack or copy somebody else’s. There are other ways to make that hairpin leg and let that continue. The expression that you’re trying to make and be another statement.
00:59:15:07 – 00:59:16:22
Bernie Solo
Then you end up with a NOGUCHI table.
00:59:17:01 – 00:59:21:12
Greg Porter
Yeah, not it’s all about.
00:59:21:12 – 00:59:23:01
Bernie Solo
The base, not about the table top.
00:59:23:13 – 00:59:52:21
Greg Porter
Yes, that’s right. The the clear the transparent top to the really extraordinarily sinuous base. So thanks for thanks for joining us on the Makers Quest Podcast. I’m Greg Porter. You can follow me on social media at Greg’s Garage on YouTube and Skyscraper Guitars on YouTube. And I want to thank our guest, Bernie Solo for dropping by. And Bernie, I understand you have a potential new product that you might want to show off.
00:59:52:21 – 00:59:54:11
Greg Porter
Can you show us what that is real quick?
00:59:54:16 – 01:00:17:04
Bernie Solo
Yep. It’s an electric motor kit. Educational, maybe, probably for schools. Could be for home use for the I’m thinking the ages maybe starting at age 12, 13 years old, something like that up into adult where I’ve had some adults build these things and they really like them. It comes with a little six volt battery pack here. You build it and turn it on and there you go.
01:00:17:07 – 01:00:30:23
Bernie Solo
And you can you can tweak it. You can you can magnets to it, take magnets off of it. You can even add a little bit more voltage if you’ve got another bigger battery or double batteries or whatever and just kind of play with it and tune it up and make it fast, slower, check it out and all that.
01:00:30:23 – 01:00:45:06
Bernie Solo
So anyway, keep in touch with me and keep in touch with my social media and you’ll be able to see what I’m doing with this thing and when it actually comes out. But I really think it’s going to be a product that I’m going to probably some small veterans of it. So thanks for letting me plug that.
01:00:45:16 – 01:00:57:06
Greg Porter
Absolutely. And you can follow Bernie at works by Solo, No Spaces on YouTube, Instagram and any other social media outlet anywhere.
01:00:57:06 – 01:00:58:14
Bernie Solo
That’s my dot com as well.
01:00:58:14 – 01:03:44:06
Brian Benham
All right. And I’m Brian Benham. You can find all my socials that Brian Benham Tor.com. And you are listening to the Maker’s Quest podcast. And if you want to find all the links to all our show notes, just go to the maker’s quest dot com. Thanks for listening.
