- [Producer] Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Darren LaShelle, president and CEO of Northern California Public Media.

(audience applauding) Well, that was unexpected.

I didn't know I was going to have a special intro.

My name's Darren LaShelle, and I'm the President and CEO of NorCal Public Media, and welcome to "The 707!"

We are so thrilled to have you here.

This is a weekly half-hour podcast and radio show, and we're turning it into a television special for the first time here on 707 Day, July 7th at 7:00 PM, we are going live.

So all the sevens.

So Michelle will be up here in just a few minutes and we'll get started.

It's a live show.

I would like to introduce Hannah Lee, who's going to give you a little bit of housekeeping tips, but I just want to welcome everyone here.

This is such a special time for us, and I can't stress enough, that this is the first time we're doing something like this.

So it's very special that you're here to be a part of that and to help us out with this new community outreach that we're doing.

(suspicious music) - That sounds a little bit better.

Eh, that's a big word.

(suspicious music) What, Velvet Bandit, Did you just graffiti my sign?

Oh, I kind of like it.

"707 Live."

That sounds pretty good.

And in fact, that's what's happening.

So why don't we bring our guests on.

Spring Maxfield, Erik Castro, The Velvet Bandit, who just graffitied our sign.

Welcome to the stage, friends.

(audience applauding) (audience applause continues) Welcome to "The 707 Live."

"The 707" is a weekly half-hour program produced by KRCB 104.9, a service of NorCal Public Media.

It normally airs Fridays at 6:00 PM as a radio show and podcast.

However, my boss Darren LaShelle said, "Why don't we do an episode on TV?"

And I said, "That sounds amazing!"

"The 707" features voices and stories from your community, stories about creative expression, and stories that show how we are connected to each other.

I'm your host, Michelle Marques, and during today's show, we are going to meet three guests from past episodes of "The 707."

Now, when I'm not on your radio, I love to spend my time drawing and painting.

As an artist, I am drawn to stories about art and culture.

So naturally, many of my guests are artists.

My first guest is filmmaker, Erik Castro.

Erik worked as a photojournalist for nearly two decades in Sonoma County.

And at that time, he was also a stay-at-home dad to his two young children.

As he was leaving that line of work, Erik made a documentary called "Creating a Photojournalist."

It has earned multiple awards.

And our conversation on "The 707" about his film also won a national award from the Public Media Journalist Association.

So here is a clip from "Creating a Photojournalist" that deals with the nature of memory.

(bright orchestral music) (bright orchestral music continues) (bright orchestral music continues) (audience applauding) - My next guest is a former lunch lady turned street artist named The Velvet Bandit.

During the pandemic, she ended up with a lot of time on her hands and art supplies that weren't going to art themselves.

So she started creating funny, punny images and then headed out to the mostly-empty streets of Sonoma County to paste them up on electrical boxes, street signs, and walls.

The Velvet Bandit is one of the most prolific street artists out there, and you can see her work all over the Bay Area and beyond.

Here is a clip of "The 707" featuring The Velvet Bandit in action.

- [The Velvet Bandit] Yeah, so basically I just drive around and scope out places to paste.

- [Michelle] Is there a best time of day to go pasting?

- [The Velvet Bandit] I think dusk, dusk is good, but really it's nice to do when there's a big crowd of people.

Like, I've pasted in downtown Sausalito before when there's just hundreds of people in the street and no one's paying attention to me.

Everyone's on their phones or talking to other people, so they have no reason to look at the weird lady with a paintbrush in her purse.

- Anonymity is important, because what she's doing is not legal.

We pull over at a strawberry stand off Highway 12 where she pasted her art a while ago.

It's looking a bit worse for where.

So she's going to paste a new piece over it.

A big strawberry that says, "You are berry loved."

We get out of the car and step through the grass and weeds, while a chorus of frogs sing to us in the darkness, and an occasional car speeds by.

In less than 30 seconds, the new art is pasted over the old one.

(audience applauding) I like the golden hour that we caught in that, that was very good.

And my final guest is actually the most frequent guest on "The 707."

She has been in three different episodes.

Spring Maxfield is the executive director of Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership.

While Spring is an artist herself, her role as a facilitator, bringing artists together with community is the reason that I really wanted her to join us today.

Spring has created and supported some amazing events in Santa Rosa, like co-founding The Great Handcar Regatta, featuring steampunk elements and handmade vehicles that were propelled along the train tracks.

She's worked on winter blast, the whimsical, lighted sofa parade that welcomes in the holiday season in Santa Rosa's Sofa Arts District.

And most recently, Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership supported the Earthly Procession, an Earth Day collection of giant moth puppets that were paraded from Julliard Park to Courthouse Square by a group of about 80 volunteers.

Here's a clip from "The 707" where Spring talks about the value of infusing the arts into community events.

- [Spring] It's just a really lovely way to come together that encouraging everyone to be a participant in their community.

And when we are participating in our communities, we feel more connected to each other.

And when we feel more connected to each other, it's better for our mental health, our physical health, and our general wellbeing.

And we have an incredible city here, and we have incredible creative people here.

And I think we get so caught up behind our screens that it's really hard to make that personal connection.

And at the nonprofit, at Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership, we really want to give people an excuse to make connections, and we do it through the arts and arts programming.

And so giving people an opportunity to come out, and get creative, and get weird, and be theatrical is just perfect.

(audience applauding) - Well, thank you all for being here and I'm so excited to have this conversation today about art.

And I thought we would start by talking about art and the public, and how it intersects.

Because a lot of times as a solo artist, you're working away, you're doing edit after edit, and looking at film, and you're by yourself.

But something happens with art when it's presented to the public.

So tell me about that experience.

- Yeah, I mean that's why you do art is you want the feedback, you're hungry for it.

And all my life, most of my life has been photography where it's been published and that's it.

But doing a film has been like a reawakening of art for me.

Going to these festivals, I was in the middle of Kansas this year.

Little dinky town outside of Wichita.

This wasn't like a film audience, this was just townspeople in a beautiful little theater.

And they connected to this film which is about what happened in Sonoma, what happened in Black Lives Matter.

There's a very cool, a portrait of a really beautiful trans teen that I knew.

And that all worked even in the middle of Kansas, because when you're one-on-one with people, art, you get the instant response.

They start to really connect with the human elements.

It's not politics anymore, it's just stories.

- Yeah, and it's building on what you have said, the stories that you're telling, and they're connecting to stories that I have in my life and building stronger relationships between the two of us.

- Yeah, I mean, so much of this film has films that my mother shot.

These old eight millimeter films that many of us probably had if we grew up in the 70s, everybody has them in our closet.

Mine were in my brother's closet.

And so when you're showing that on a screen and you're narrating all these quaint, personal moments, it's hard for people not to connect to something like that.

We've all seen those pictures of our lives in the past, and everybody, at least for myself too, wants to kind of relive those moments sometimes.

Go back to when life was so simple and you were just this crazy little kid.

And if you were lucky like I was, you were filmed by your mom.

- Yeah.

No, those are so precious.

I love seeing them in your work.

They're so great.

And of course, Velvet Bandit, the public is a huge part of your art practice because you're putting your stuff out there on walls for everybody to see.

- I am, and I've been an artist my whole life, and I've never had this kind of connection to people in the community like my street art has had.

And it's just been amazing.

- And sometimes your interactions are a little crazy.

- They're a little crazy, I get tagged over.

And that's really fun part of it, the interaction.

- I feel like it's kind of a conversation you get to have with people.

- Definitely a conversation.

Not everyone likes it, but it's part of the deal.

- And there's also the social media element because you post pictures of your pieces.

That's why you're taking a picture of this behind me, for the Instagram, right?

- For the Gram.

- Exactly.

And so there's conversations that happen that way too.

- Yes, a lot of positive feedback, sometimes not so positive.

- And some of that not so positive inspires future artwork.

- Absolutely, yeah.

Hater's going to hate.

- Right.

- Potato's going to potate.

- There you go, very good.

And then, Spring, of course, what you do with Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership is about bringing the artists and public together.

- It is, and it's, it's just one process of engaging people.

There's a lot of things that create community, but I know art, and I love community, and so that's kind of the avenue I've taken.

And I love seeing the results.

I mean, with Handcar Regatta, we had a bunch of folks that had never really created any art before, got excited about the competitiveness of the rail car races and went on to do art full-time.

And they were contractors, and people in regular retail jobs.

So it's just fun to see art open doors for folks who thought that it wasn't accessible to them.

So in everything I've done in the 20 years since has been really that.

- [Michelle] Right.

- And your Regatta, your Handcar Regatta, I think really gave a home to a lot of people.

They came to Sonoma County.

It's known for its wine, it's known for its beauty.

And then there's this amazingly cool arts contraption that you created.

I was only here for maybe a year or two after I saw that and it did, it made me excited to be in Santa Rosa.

- And I did it purely for selfish reasons.

Like, I had no idea what we were creating at the time.

I just knew that I had just moved to Santa Rosa myself.

It was a perfectly flat city, and I felt like I was the only person riding my kids around on bicycles.

And I knew all of these artists, and I knew all of these art collectors, and they weren't meeting in Santa Rosa, they were all going somewhere else for their collections or for their exhibitions.

And so really it was selfish of me and then it just turned into a great thing that I kind of got addicted to.

Like, making people enjoy their community.

- Yeah, well, thankfully that happened because yeah, you really made my life, and I think a lot of people enjoyable.

- Well, had I known what it was going to become, I probably would have never started.

That's the bliss of ignorance, and this bliss, right?

- But that community element of it is so special, right?

Because you're building that not just for that event, but then it trickles into all of the other events.

- And I absolutely am so in love with the community that I get to meet.

It's like being around brilliant people constantly.

And when you meet somebody and you're like, "Oh my God, we've been in the same town for months or years, and I never knew you, and now I get to be in your orbit."

And so it's really fun.

- Yeah, that's great.

And lifelong friendships too.

I think I've known you as long from Handcar Regatta.

For sure.

Nice.

All right, let's talk a little bit about the stuff that artists tend not to want to do that much, and that is the business of arts, right?

Because you can't just be an artist in your studio painting your little pictures and things like that.

You have to be a marketer, you have to run the social media.

You got to do the books, all of these things.

So how do you handle those aspects of being an artist?

- I find that you just have to take all the roles on.

I mean it's so hard to delegate, because you know how you want to market yourself.

You know what you want to see, you know what you want people to see of yourselves.

And so it feels like the way, when you fall in love with somebody, all the things that you love about that person are inside of you, that's what you want to show the public.

And really no one else knows that except for yourself.

So it is, it's overwhelming, I think, but I think the days of where you had the media, one media source everybody went to is gone.

We're all so divided, we all have our own feeds.

And so you kind of have to be your own media company.

But in some ways it's been, I found, that it's been enjoyable because there's a creative aspect to communicating to public.

I mean, I look at TikTok as a creative form of art.

I know there's a lot of garbage on it and there's a lot of AI content on it right now, it's driving me crazy.

But it's been a place that I've been able to express myself creatively, and I've seen a lot of great art in there.

So I don't know.

I mean, pasting's got to be the best though, form of advertising.

- Yeah, it's my brand, so it's my marketing strategy, but the social media and website and trying to keep up with that, it sucks.

I don't like it.

- Yeah, but you're also smart, you farm it out.

You have someone who runs your website for you.

- I do, and I've enlisted my daughter's help for some things, so I'm trying to delegate things.

But I just want to paint and put my art up and not worry about anything else.

- [Michelle] I hear you, yeah.

- And have people give me money for it.

(everyone laughing) - Your daughter knows your secret identity?

- Maybe, shh.

(everyone chuckling) - Don't share.

- Don't tell her.

- All right, so this leads right to you, Spring, because Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership is there to help artists.

- We are, and it just kind of fell into filling a need that I saw in the artists around me where somebody brilliant would get a commission or a grant to do a mural downtown.

And the funding was like $3,000.

And that would be great if the artist just got to go up and paint the mural and be done with it, but they usually require a million-dollar liability policy insurance, and the equipment rental, and then you've got to pay for the materials, and by the time it's all said and done, that artist is shelling money out of their own pocket for a job, that they got one job, so it's not worth getting a year-long policy.

And what we can do is support all of that.

We have an insurance policy that will cover all of those artists, and we can get donations, and we can get equipment rental discounts.

And so we really want to help artists be artists professionally and not have to do a day job like delivering pizza or something.

- [Michelle] Right, right.

- So it really was just in response to how can we support our community?

And that was one of the ways that was really needed.

- What about grant writing?

Do you do that?

- I do that, that is how we get money and it's the only way.

And yeah, it's a constant, constant, constant job.

- Yeah, is it tough right now to find grants for arts?

- Indeed, I mean, that's where art and politics cross, and there is really no federal funding for the arts.

As public radio, you guys would know.

And so yeah, it's few and far between, and it's definitely never enough to cover the piece, and so you're always trying to source as much as you can from different locations, and private donations, and our main goal is to pay artists, so that's what we try to do.

- How big is your organization?

- How big?

- Yeah.

How many peeps?

- There are no employees.

(everyone laughing) Everybody is a volunteer, and we sometimes get funds to cover project specifics so I can pay an artist, and then pay for materials.

Winter Blast, we get little bits of money from here and there.

You know, there's, it's, We're very creative in our funding, and it's never enough, unfortunately, so... - Never, never.

- I'm always trying to keep one step ahead of burnout.

But I also love what I do, and I'm going to be doing it even if I had a corporate job.

I'd still be moonlighting, doing all of this on the weekends and all night long, which I do now anyway.

But yeah, some people have really expensive hobby train habits, and I have a really expensive art cheerleading habit.

(everyone chuckling) - That's amazing.

So I do want to ask about Santa Rosa in particular.

Because we live in Sonoma County.

It certainly does have a reputation for being a good place for artists, but what about Santa Rosa in particular?

I'm going to ask you, Velvet Bandit.

Where are you headed, honey?

I know, I'm looking around in Santa Rosa, that at times your beautiful art, like this spaceman here disappears because it's buffed out, it's painted over.

So what do you think?

Is Santa Rosa a good place to put up your art?

- I think it is, for sure, for sure.

Absolutely.

I thought you'd never ask.

- Oh, beautiful.

Nice.

What about you, Erik?

What do you think of Santa Rosa?

- It is, I mean, there's two things about Santa Rosa, is that it is one of the most beautiful locations to live in, but if you do art, you have to build your own audience.

You have to create your own scene.

And people like Spring have been doing that, and people are coming here like Spring to do that, and that's kind of what creates an exciting arts community.

It's not one of those Austin or New Yorks where there's all this stuff happening and you dive into it.

You come with your own ideas, you come with your own curiosities, and then you just build it.

The great thing about it though is people are so hungry for it.

People have given me so much support.

I know I see it with you two as well.

Everybody wants to support your work, and there's a lot of money in Sonoma County.

So I mean, I needed a lot of money to finish this film and I GoFundMe.

And I know a lot of that came out of Sonoma County.

And I felt like Jimmy Stewart at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" when it all came in because it would've been impossible to release the film.

It was booked and it wasn't done because I didn't have the last big chunk of money.

And so yeah, this is a great place, but you got to do all the work.

- You really do, right.

And then finding venues for your show.

I'm so lucky you sent me a link so that I could watch it and we could talk about it, but people, every time I play that interview or snippets of the interview, or we see a little clip, everybody's like, "Where can I see your show?"

- You mean the film?

- Yeah, how can we watch the documentary?

- I think the film, I can't say it now, but I really believe it's going to have a home in Sonoma County.

It's going to be here where this film is going to be based, and have access to.

And so I'm working on that, and I'll be probably announcing it soon because I want it here, it's all about here.

Everything in that film, you know, I get emotional.

You know, it's a life in 45 minutes.

- Yeah, and it was hard to watch that too because you were ending your career, a career that you loved.

- Well, it's not ending, I'm still doing a lot of visual work, it's just the reality of the news industry has collapsed where people like me who would move to a small town, work in a small town paper, where you're really talking about being part of everyday community.

Work in a small town paper, you are everyday community.

That whole industry is gone.

Those jobs are gone.

And so that's what made me want to say a goodbye love letter to it.

And include all this imagery of my life.

But yeah, yeah, life's changed.

I mean, I'm still excited about the future, what I'll be doing visually.

But yeah, I was sentimental about how America has changed in that sense.

- Yeah, I can't wait for everybody to se this documentary, it's so good.

And especially for us in Sonoma County, because there's so many parts of it that you see like, "I recognize that corner.

I know where that is in the town of Sonoma."

And so it's really fun to see those things.

It adds another layer, and a connection for us here to see that.

- Yeah, yeah, it's definitely an image of this neighborhood.

The market, Benton Market in my neighborhood, there's a scene of my son in it.

Just everything I shot in the last 20 years was photographed from as close as I could be from home because I had my kids, I couldn't travel anywhere.

And so Sonoma County became the place that I expressed myself.

- Yeah, yeah.

I think I want to talk a little bit now about youth and children in art, because this sort of leads into your film really well, Erik.

You talk about in this, because your children, you're a stay-at-home dad.

So they ended up in the film.

But how did that happen?

- They were in the film because I was learning how to make films while they were young, and I was making films about their lives, like their daily lives, what they did at a playground, and then sending them to my family.

But as they got older, they became more demanding about what they wanted to do with the films.

My daughter was the one that became very... She took over the film ideas and she would come up with script ideas, and she did this thing where she decided she wanted to play a role as an investigator who drank too much.

We found out that if we used apple juice, it looked like bourbon.

So she would drink on camera, and we'd light matches so it looks like she was smoking.

But she had all this dialogue in her head, and so I would film these scenes, and we would edit these little movies.

And I didn't realize at the time, but I was learning how to be a filmmaker with a really bossy director.

(everyone laughing) And it was, it was exciting because I was realizing that it was something I loved to do and I was getting better at it.

And the more I delve into my children's imagination, I think the more it helped me express what I was seeing in my head as a filmmaker.

- Yeah, and that sense of play that kids have, right?

I mean, Neela, your daughter, had a great idea.

Like, "I want to do this film noir, right?

Let's do it."

- Yeah, yeah, and it was all in her head and you would hear me, it's on the film, but you'd hear me laughing in the background.

And then my son would yell at me, "You're ruining the cut, you're ruining the cut!"

And they did, the home became this place of make believe all the time.

I was really just trying to entertain myself as a stay-at-home parent, but later as I looked back and made this film, I realized, "Wow, that's where I learned my craft."

- That's so precious.

I have another clip from the movie.

So this is from Erik's documentary "Creating a Photojournalist," it features his daughter, Neela.

(compelling music) (compelling music continues) (audience applauding) - Thank you.

Thank you.

- Yeah.

That piece is so beautiful there at the end where you see the strands of hair just moving across her face.

And when I watched that the first time, I actually had to stop it, because I felt like when I was watching that clip, like I'd seen it before, which was crazy because I'd just seen it.

But the way that you looped it, and that feeling of memory, or of dreamlike scenarios, because that's how it is in your dreams, you see snippets.

- Yeah, and that's, I think how my memory works, is it's very blurry and mushy like that.

And I did, I made that video literally as a tool.

I was having a really hard time in my career getting work, getting funding, making money, finding an audience.

And so I would make these videos that I would use just to watch to kind of like, "Ugh," get through the day, function.

And I did this show in an 8th Street Gallery, my very first big art show at Christie Mark's Gallery.

And Christie was like, "Oh, by the way, Erik has these videos that he makes."

And she showed that one clip, and I remember there was this older gentleman that just, he started tearing up, and I knew it's not just me.

These are things that we all kind of need.

And yeah, they were just, making these videos were tools to help me just function as a person.

They weren't meant for, really, I wasn't planning to show any of this to the public.

That's what makes this film make me so raw when I talk about it because yeah, there's a lot in there.

- There really is.

And do your kids, are they still collaborators with you or?

- No, they're doing their own thing which is great.

They're done with me.

"You're boring, you're lame," whatever.

"Get out of my room."

But that means they're on their own and that's exciting to me.

It's really exciting to see them come into young adulthood.

My daughter's 20, she's already lived in the city for a year on her own.

My son's going to be going to college in another year, and they're their own interesting, intriguing people, and they have their own interest.

I wouldn't want them to copy or to do the things that I did.

I would hope that they have completely other ideas of how to live life, and hopefully make a better living than I did, (everyone laughing) you know?

But no, it's yeah.

I mean, you know, I know you know, you have adult children and watching them become adults and having relationship with them now as young adults is just as exciting as when they were toddlers.

- It really is.

It's amazing.

- [Michelle] So tell me about your kiddos, because they're amazing.

- In that little clip, the youngest one of mine was on the stilts with the bubbles.

And both my kids are circus performers, and both now circus teachers, that's why they're not here tonight.

And yeah, my big one just graduated college.

My little one's second year.

And they're just, like you said, it's amazing watching them grow up to be their own individual humans, and I'm constantly in awe, and I think that's just been so fun.

And an unexpected part of it that I just love who they've become.

And you've got great kids too.

- Yeah, I sure do.

- You do have great kids.

What do your kids think of the street art?

- I think in the beginning they thought that mom had gone a little crazy (everyone laughing) because I think I had.

It was during the pandemic, and I had just gotten laid off of my job as a lunch lady, and they're doing the whole distance learning thing, and mom is in the garage painting like 12 to 14 hours a day and going out and putting up art, and they were worried I was going to get arrested.

But then they started to see that people were appreciating my art, and I was starting to get pressed for it.

And I think now they think it's pretty cool, and they're supportive of it, and they're both really cool kids.

- They are cool kids.

- Yeah.

- So when you are creating art in your studio, AKA garage.

When you're doing that, I love your process, because you do something like this jam jar that's behind us here.

And then you come up with different kinds of things.

Do your kids ever suggest, or do you ask them for ideas?

- Yeah, sometimes they do.

They'll throw out suggestions for sure, yeah.

- Nice, that's good.

And then you also have been able to work with kids in schools, tell me about that.

- I have.

I've been asked to speak at a couple schools.

Mountain View High School had me speak to a bunch of ninth grade students, and that was a big deal.

And Rancho Cotate just had me speak to their high school students.

And Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts just did a big project based off of my work.

They did their ball wall, the fifth grade and eighth grade class.

Did a big project in paste-ups that were- - It was paste-ups?

- It was paste-ups.

- Oh, how fun?

- [Erik] It's beautiful, I've seen it.

I live right down the street from it, and the students created their own puns.

- Yes, they did.

Based off of my work.

It was just such an honor.

So who would have thought vandalism would inspire the youth of today?

(everyone laughing) Here we are.

- Yeah, go out there, kids.

Vandalize things.

(everyone laughing) That's amazing.

I love it.

- Very sweet.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It's only vandalizing because it's not advertising anything.

- That's right.

- There you go.

Yeah.

I also have been inspired by my stepdaughter, so I wanted to share something.

She played a role in shaping the kind of art that I created.

When she was a kid, she had a habit of biting her nails, and I thought if I painted her nails with fun art, maybe she would stop.

Well, that didn't happen, she bit them anyway, and picked off all the nail polish.

But then I got hooked and I started to make really elaborate nail arts, like crazy stuff.

I learned how to refine my skills to paint recognizable portraits and I learned a lot about light and shadow.

So shout out to Marina for biting your nails and helping me become an artist.

So these are some of my nails here.

Linus waiting for the great pumpkin, of course.

That one's fun.

We've got Kermit and Jim Henson.

That's one of my favorite ones there.

- The Nirvana baby.

(audience applauding) That one was hilarious because I had to position the baby really carefully, right?

You don't want certain parts of that.

Fozzie Bear, and Statler and Waldorf.

So just a lot of fun, and yeah, absolutely, your kids have an influence on the kind of art that you create, and paths that you take.

So it's pretty exciting.

So shout out to her kids, they're amazing.

- Beautiful.

(audience applauding) - All right, this is the topic, it's a big one.

It is arts and politics, right?

So I'm going to still look at you.

- Oh.

Well... - Tell me about the reasoning, and how politics have become such a big part of your artwork.

- Well, my artwork, it just started off me doing funny things during COVID for the community to feel connected, and bring some lightness to the situation.

And then the murder of George Floyd happened and I realized that I could start painting about social justice issues.

And then we had this really big election coming up in 2020.

So I started painting a bunch of pro vote paste-ups that I put up all over Sonoma County.

We're talking hundreds of them.

And I wasn't telling people who to vote for, but I just wanted to tell people to get out and vote.

And Sonoma County had the highest voter turnout in all of California in 2020.

And I'd like to say that my art had something to do with that.

So art definitely has a place in politics, and shaping our world, and it's very important.

- Yeah, But I mean, you get push back for some of the things that you do, right?

- Oh, absolutely, yeah.

I get spicy with my messages for sure.

- Are there pieces of art that you put up that you, or that you paint that you don't put up?

- Yes, there are, because I have a lot in me, and sometimes I just have to get it out, and a lot of it is way too spicy to put in the streets.

So they're not going to see the light of day.

Sorry, not sorry.

(laughs) - Yeah, I mean, well, you have a secret identity.

- I do.

- But I mean, you're a person in the community, so you have to be careful about that.

- I do, absolutely.

And there's crazy people out there.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So I got to be careful.

- Yeah, yeah, what about- - It's tough to avoid though.

Yeah, it really is.

I find that it's tough to avoid politics no matter how hard you try.

Especially now in our culture, however you sneeze and it's considered political.

So like when I was working on this film, I did a scene... This was way before the raids on the immigrant community.

I have a scene in the film where my father tells a story about my grandmother lying to the border patrol in the '30s because she fed some guys that had crossed the border.

And I did it because it was a way to show that all through my family lineage was this idea that when people come to your doorsteps, you aid them, you feed them, just like you would read in an old Greek novel or something.

Now when I show the film and I'm at these festivals and I talk to the audience, that film always sparks a political conversation.

Was it done because of your views on immigration?

And it wasn't, but now that's the interpretation of it, which I think is beautiful.

I mean, you can't arrest my grandmother because that was 1930, I think she's safe.

But the idea of people come to this country and offer us so many rich things, ideas, creativity, hard work, And we should embrace that.

And I know very few artists that disagree with that sentiment.

And so I feel like because we hear this all the time on television and social media and stuff, it kind of behooves artists to kind of remind people why we're such a wealthy country of ideas, because they came here.

That's what makes this country so interesting.

- Yeah, and, Spring, politics and art come into play with Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership for sure.

I mean, I think about the Earthly Procession, right?

And thinking about policy change that might be in that.

Now the Earthly Procession, tell us a little bit more about that.

- So that was a... Gosh, at Winter Blast, we had an artist Alina Nuebel, who had created these giant salmon puppets.

And that was great, they were adorable, but the real kicker was that they swam upstream of the parade, and that was chaos.

And it was so perfect and wonderful.

And it fit right into one of my ideas about having more activity down along the creek side, and the Joe Rodota Trail and Prince Memorial Greenway.

It is an incredible jewel of our city, and it gets completely overlooked, and then people are afraid to go down there because nobody's been down there, and it's got nefarious things happening.

And when Alina had these salmon, I was like, "Well, how can we incorporate that?"

And I was talking to the City Arts Coordinator, and she said, "Well, bring it to Earth Day first," and my politics is being very diplomatic with everybody in the city, and my artists, and making sure everybody gets along.

And so we decided to do the Earthly Procession, which was going to be the salmon, and Alina was really environmentally aware, and wanted to talk about migratory birds, and night creatures, and the effect of light pollution.

We wanted to educate people about the river ecosystem.

And so we did a series of community building workshops that were free to the public, as well as two zine-making workshops where we brought in educators to talk about these issues, encourage the people, we did them at the library and at the Arlene Francis Center, to make their own little zines, which are kind of like little homemade magazines, that talked about environmental issues with light pollution and with the river riparian environment.

And then we built 80 giant moth puppets and cedar wing blackbirds, and then the salmon of course, and we had them walk from Julliard Park all in flappy mode to Earth Day celebration in Courthouse Square.

And so that was really fun.

It was a community engagement project, and we had probably 200 different people who showed up to the various workshops, and then at least 80 people carrying things and then an entire entourage of other folks walking.

And that was really fun.

Just a way to get people engaged.

And you're saying you're creating your own audience.

We are creating our own community of future art lovers, and hopefully they will catch the bug, and it becomes part of their everyday practice, which I think opens up a lot of awareness to other things around them.

And kind of broadening their sphere of influence a little bit.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And I really liked that element of thinking about light pollution and bringing in these different things, and saying, "We need to have more awareness about these kinds of issues."

And there are policies that we could have in place or things that we could replace just on our front doorstep to make sure, times that we're going to turn off the lights so that we're not creating that light pollution for these animals that rely on darkness.

So I mean, there was really wonderful education and policy potential in that, it was lovely.

- And it is just, it's little baby steps to raise awareness, and we're using art as our vehicle for this, and there's a lot of other ways to get there.

But again, I know art, that's what I'm going to use.

I know artists, those are the people I'm going to bring in to create these stories.

- Yeah, so great.

I love it.

What about bringing politics in?

You said that you went into schools and you've talked about this.

Do you bring the political messages in when you do those?

- I do, because I let students know that there's different ways to bring issues to the forefront.

Not just street art and graffiti, but there's different ways to make people aware of things that you care about, and it's important.

- Right, and what about freedom of expression?

Because that's a big part of what you do.

- Absolutely, yes, yeah.

Express yourself, always.

- Right, but the way that you do it sometimes is controversial.

And is that a message that the teachers and the students are all vibing with or?

- Not all the time.

- Not all the time?

(everyone laughing) - I tell the students to be mindful and not graffiti, and I'm not teaching kids to go out and do vandalism, that's for sure.

- [Michelle] Right, street art.

- Street art, yeah.

- She's better in the community though, visually.

I know when I drive down the street and I see your work, I feel like, "Okay, cool.

Velvet's been here, nice."

(everyone laughing) - It's good.

- Nice.

And you are really prolific.

How do you keep cranking out all of your stuff?

(everyone laughing) More art.

I love this.

Slapping stickers on my set, I love it.

So how do you continue to generate all of this artwork?

- That's a good question, because I can't stop.

It's my therapy.

It's how, I mean, I get so frustrated with issues in the world and this is a good outlet for me to... - It's their expensive train hobby.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - No, but I hear your frustration when I look at your pieces sometimes.

I hear your annoyance with something that we just can't figure out and you use a clever pun to kind of... You can hear your voice in your work.

It's great.

Yeah, it's very cool, and it's enriched the culture of Santa Rosa for sure, yeah.

- Thank you so much.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, it is lovely.

- It makes me feel better and it makes me feel better that other people can feel it too.

- Yeah, because it's hard to find things that make you feel really good right now.

- Yeah, right.

- I mean, right?

And so everything, I think, in my mind when I work on something, like when I worked on this film, I remember I want it to be entertaining, I want it to be uplifting, and funny, and exciting, because that's the opposite of what we normally see on what's happening politically and the way the conversations, politically, are really fierce and intense.

And so yeah, I'm always looking for art that is the opposite of it.

Can have a message, but that has some entertainment, some playfulness to it.

- Yeah, or a really strong connecting kind of emotion.

Like I'm thinking about the segment in your documentary, where you're interviewing men who are getting their gang tattoos removed, right?

And so that in and of itself, talking about gang violence and all of those kinds of things, that's a rough topic to handle.

But the way that we saw it in your documentary was as a father.

- Yeah, it was of him watching the film that happened 14 years ago with his young seven-year-old daughter who was hysterical because she was reacting to all the things she was seeing of her father - She was great.

- With all the tattoos.

And again, yeah, I was trying to find something more playful.

Because you can talk about dark subjects and show, yeah, the humanity, and there's always a sense of comedy to a dark situation that I'm always looking for.

I mean, my daughter always tells me, "You laugh at everything, you laugh at everything!"

I laughed at a funeral.

Like, I do, I do laugh at everything because it is, sometimes things are absurd.

And that's the way I've kind of dealt with the way culture has shifted to a very combative state.

I tend to laugh at a lot of stuff now, yeah.

- I'm the same way.

- I know.

I was going to say, your artwork has so many punny, and interesting, and silly things in it.

With strong messages though.

- Right.

- Yeah, yeah.

So describe some of... I know that there's a lot of Velvet Bandit fans here in the studio audience.

Woo-hoo.

Exactly, shout out.

(audience applauding) But for those who aren't familiar with sort of your art style, could you describe it a little bit?

- Oh gosh.

Colorful, punny, silly, dad jokes.

(everyone laughing) - Right.

- In your face.

- But I also love the retro feel, there's a lot of retro images.

- Yeah, simple, not overly done.

I just want to crank them out.

- Yeah, so there's sort of like the, what is it?

The Ford model, right?

Where they're on a conveyor belt, right?

You're making a bunch of them, but you add a different message to the different ones.

They're so fun.

- I do multiples at a time, and I do the same design over and over, and I just, I like repetition.

I like to switch it up and do different sayings on things.

- Yeah, but repetition is important as an artist, right?

- Agreed, yeah.

It's how you get better.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- They're familiar objects though that you use, and sometimes they remind me of those wacky pack stickers we had as kids, that they use like an old coffee company, but then they changed it and made it something disturbing.

Like, you take something really simple that we do, and you make it clever.

You make us smile, you make us laugh, you make us think.

But they're objects that we all recognize usually.

- Well, I think it's really important too to recognize that it is art, it's not just graffiti, or it's not just... That there is a wide breadth of what can be called art.

And you may not like it, you don't have to, but it's still, it's there, and it serves a purpose.

And even the people who hate it are reacting to it, and it is affecting them.

And there's been a lot of people, I think, who started out hating it, and now go around looking for them, because they've come to appreciate what it's done just driving by that sign every day with the poppies or whatever it is.

It has brought joy to their lives, even though at first they dismissed it as graffiti and vandalism.

And so in that way, we're building our audience.

- Yeah, yeah.

- That's right.

- Nice.

All right, let's talk, I guess our last segment, we are going to talk about art and mentorship.

I know that you have had a chance to be a mentor.

Tell me about that experience.

- Sebastopol Center for the Arts reached out to me to be a mentor for their incubator program, and I think she's in the audience tonight, Keviet Minor.

She's a lovely young painter, and it was a great experience.

I probably learned more from her than she learned from me.

But yeah, it was great.

But I think going forward, I'd like to be a mentee next time.

(everyone laughing) Because I honestly don't know what I'm doing.

(everyone laughing) She does, she does, but I don't.

- Yeah.

- But it was fun.

- Oh, that's so wonderful.

Did they reach out to you to be in this program?

- They did.

Serafina, the director reached out to me, and I'm going, "Really, me?"

But she did, and here I was thrown into this program, but it was a lot of fun.

- That's wonderful.

- Yeah.

- Spring, have you had mentors in your life or mentored anyone else?

- I think I've... I mean, looking back, there have been people that I definitely learned from at the time.

I don't think I recognized them as mentors.

I always felt like I didn't belong in that position or they weren't actually talking to me.

As I get older, I'm much more comfortable in my skin and much more comfortable in my place in my community.

And I'm very grateful for those people.

I never had the full experience of having a mentor and being a mentee.

I could really use a mentor now if anybody wants to step up.

(everyone laughing) But I see the value and I would not be where I am without the people in my life.

And the cheerleaders who are there cheerleading me, like you.

I mean, you're always so enthusiastic about the work that I do.

And I don't even consider it work, it was just this weird tick I have about making art and making community engagement, and seeing it from other people's eyes of going, "Oh wait, this is great what you're doing."

And Mary Vaughn, again.

- Mary Vaughn.

- Mary Vaughn.

Everybody's like, "Yeah, Mary Vaughn."

Having those cheerleaders, and because I feel like I'm the cheerleader for everybody in my community, and I love what they're doing and I love being around artists, and then having people like you and Mary, and you just minutes ago saying how Regatta was so important to you.

It's like, "Oh, okay."

And I think that that, what we feed each other is so important as well.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Have you had a mentor in your film experience?

- Well, the thing that I've... Well, the thing that I will be doing is I'll be teaching for the first time here where the town where the station is, at a high school called Credo High.

I just got a position through the college here, the Santa Rosa Junior College to teach photojournalism.

- Congratulations.

- And so I'm excited to teach a class because I know that I'm going to learn so much about art and visuals from young people experimenting with photojournalism for the first time.

That really just... Because I do, I get excited around young people because I know that they have usually no filter.

They're not thinking in a box, there's no box.

It's just, "Let's try something new, let's experiment."

And I've noticed just over my career, I've always fought against that.

I've never wanted to be really technical or professional at what I do.

I'm always trying to tear down what I learn and try to relearn new things, new tools, new ways to communicate.

And I just find young people are just really good at that because they're just trying to figure out who they are.

Let alone how to work something technical.

So yeah, I'm very excited to be in a classroom full of young creative people.

- [Michelle] We're going to have to talk about that.

- Yeah.

(everyone laughing) That sounds so nice.

That's amazing.

And we're also seeing it too, outside.

I mean, I think about what was this most recent really popular horror flick, "Backrooms?"

- "Backrooms."

- Right!

Have you seen it?

- Aw, yeah.

- Creepy.

- Oh, I loved it.

I saw it with my son.

My son took me.

It was his second time.

- Nice.

- And he took me twice because he said all his friends were talking.

And he's like, "I want to see it again with nobody talking."

So he's like, "Will you come with me?"

I'm like, "Of course."

And I was instantly engulfed in this film.

I adored what this creative filmmaker turned office space and made it creepy.

Where the sets were the monsters, really, of this film, and just a brilliant film.

- Yeah, and it is a North Bay young artist.

- Yeah, from Petaluma.

- Right.

- And just, yeah, just a brilliant creative artist from every stretch of the word.

- Yeah, yeah, that's so inspiring to see those kind... And these are not established Hollywood... These are people, and this is not the first one, right?

In the horror genre, we're seeing a lot of really cool things, so that is exciting.

- And again, he created his own audience on YouTube.

And again, what you have to do now.

You don't need studios, you don't need big companies.

You do it on your own and then they'll come to you if you create something as imaginative as this young filmmaker did, it's brilliant.

- Yeah.

I love that.

We get this inspiration from artists like Mary Vaughn.

Everyone should look for Mary Vaughn because she's so great.

And so that fills us up with ideas, and a longing to do more, to explore more of our creative pastimes.

And then we see this younger generation who also is showing us the ropes.

This is what's possible, so it's very exciting.

Well, it was so exciting to have all of you here with me to talk about art today, thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- And thank you for being on "The 707."

It was very exciting, multiple times, Spring.

- This is four now, right?

- I guess this counts as four, yes, it does, all right.

Well, thank you so much to our guests.

You can follow Erik Castro on Instagram at _Erik.castro_.

Learn more about Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership at srurbanarts.org And find Sonoma County's prolific street artist at thevelvetbandit.com.

Listen to "The 707" online at krcb.org/the707.

Thank you to the KRCB news team for supporting me through the production of this show and all the other 707 episodes, like Noah, Greta, Chandra, Mark, everybody who is on the team for helping me.

This wouldn't have been possible without a team of many people, and you'll see their names in our credits.

Thank you so much for watching.

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