When Jeff and I chatted, we talked about his project at Sherbrook, his recent speaking gig at TEDx in Saskatoon, and his life in art.

A: Tell me about your job at Sherbrooke.
J: I don’t like the term Artist in Residence because it implies that it’s someone doing their own work, like a monkey performing at a zoo. When the project originally started, Saskatoon was named the cultural capital of Canada, the Saskatchewan Arts Board had created a program called Artists in the Communities.

Whenever I tackle something, I want to go big. I want to make it a huge success. I saw the potential in health care, and my fundamental belief is that we are ALL ARTISTS. I really believe that. It’s something that we can all communicate if we let ourselves. And I knew that individuals with limited mobility—with a cognitive disorder, dementia, Alzheimer’s—were going to make incredible sh*t, like, blow-you-away stuff.

A: Did they initially bring you in to be an art instructor?
J: They didn’t have a clue. I showed up and asked, “Where’s the studio?” and they said, “What’s a studio?”

Within the 9-month residency, we went from “What’s a studio?” to having that incredible show at the Mendel—which took everything to the next level, because nobody believed it could be that big. And that exhibition, for me, was a wake-up call to health care: Let’s stop treating residents as infants. We don’t need craft rooms anymore. Let’s raise that bar, let’s push the art, let’s see how far we can go.

A: So what does an Artist in Residence do?
J: I’d like to change the name. I spend a lot of my time building partnerships. I want to see community organizations come together. I want to see partnerships happen with local businesses….it’s about what everybody can bring to the table, and perhaps bringing together groups that you would not normally think had anything in common.

I believe there has to be a revolution. There’s got to be a revolution in health care, there’s got to be a revolution in our education system, the art institution needs a revolution. Things have to change.

A lot of what I do at Sherbrook is go out into the community, working with at-risk youth, with high schools, elementary schools…where we’ve got students coming through the studio, where the studio becomes a playground, where you learn skills and you build confidence and you’re able to express yourself visually.

I work with groups of people that feel at a dead end, that didn’t know what else to do. They come into the studio, we work with them, they learn a skill set by working with the resident artist….and then they’re able to move on, they are off medications, they have jobs, they’ve moved out of social housing and have their own apartments, have boyfriends and girlfriends.

The studio is that powerful tool, a powerful place where things can happen. That’s why I’m steadfast in protecting the integrity of the studio and the rules: there are no mistakes, and we never want to create for somebody else.

So if you come in there, you might be very self-conscious [but] you work through that self-consciousness and know that the marks that you make are just as valid as the marks that I make. The point is, that it is your mark and you are the only one who can make it.

A: What are some things you’ve learned while working there?
J: It’s not just about making great paintings—this is what I got to learn in this whole process—I just wanted to see great art made. That’s all I wanted to see. What I learned was that art was the vehicle for change.

It was like, how can I shake all of that up? I want to shake up everybody and let them know how important art can be and that there are people are sitting on the margins of society, who nobody knows exist ’cause they are safely tucked away in their long-term care homes. Who cares, right? We wanted to bring these people into the spotlight and showcase their art and blow everybody’s socks off. And that happened.

I watched the confidence of people who were once contemplating suicide move on to “I can do things again,” “I can teach,” and “I can have a relationship.”
Through something as simple as the art studio, there is this confidence—by being able to create something—that’s huge. That’s fundamental, and—now able to share this creation and to give—that’s human. As soon as we aren’t able to give, I think we lose something. When you become institutionalized, it means somebody else is doing things for you. When you are in long-term care, specifically, that’s a lifetime of people doing things for you. So flip it around, and now you’re able to do something.

A: There’s always someone you can help.
J: It’s not my studio, it’s their studio. I just work there. The studio is an environment where it is safe, you are encouraged to express yourself. Once you did your mark it is about how can make a better mark. It took a lot of your energy to make that one mark, so how can you do ten, or twenty. I’m kind of a coach, a cheerleader.

I don’t like seeing how art has separated itself from the real world. Life is art and art is life. There shouldn’t be any separation. It sounds naïve, but I think it is that simple.

A: You talk about standardized creativity. Can you elaborate on that a bit more?
J: It is the most heartbreaking thing to see. I’ll tell you a story, and I’d like you to point out where the creativity is. This takes place in a long-term care home with an art program. One of the recreation staff members has a ship-building kit and assembles a group of residents around the table. I don’t know if you have seen one of those out-of-the-box, ship-building kits but the instructions are intense and there are tons of very small parts.

What’s wrong with this picture? Who will put the ship together? The rec staff. What have we turned this into? Something that could have been, should have been, a creative act—a creative moment, a moment of expression—has now become a spectator sport.

Standardized creativity begins when we start looking to others to tell us how to do things.

A: You said you were a ditch digger.
J: I am a ditch digger. I’m a pathfinder. I’m not going to teach you how to paint trees the way I paint trees—that’s my way. What I’m going to do is help you dig down to wherever you buried your creativity and help you pull that out.

A: Give us an idea of the setup you have a Sherbrook.
J: It’s like walking into a room where a paint bomb went off. It is a place unlike anywhere else in a long-term care facility. It is loaded from top to bottom, it is cluttered, it is chaos. And it is gorgeous, ’cause as soon as you get into the room, it changes. Your mood changes. When you walk in, you can start breathing.

A: Tell me about TEDx. Your talk was one of the many highlights, some say the TED Talk of the day. Were you a TED fan before?
J: I was. I knew what TED was but I didn’t know the rules. Just that there were these incredible ideas and talks. I like the storyteller aspect, because I think that was what I saw from TED, that…it’s not about dumbing down, it’s about being a good storyteller, being able to express yourself.

I wanted to talk about health care because we will all come in contact with health care at some point in our lives. And that’s a scary place for a lot of people. Let’s face it, if you are going in for cancer treatment, it’s not exactly a fun place to be. But if we can introduce something that will make your stay better…if you are able to create, to express yourself, that’s important. And if it’s diversionary, if that’s all that it is, fine—if it keeps your mind off having that chemo IV stuck in you. Rock on.

A: How is the whole reception of the Ted Talk?
J: You know, it was like this huge orgasm and then it was done. The whole day, the response was great. As an artist you just hide away in your studio but sometimes you just want to get out there and talk. The greatest minds weren’t necessarily on the stage. I mean, that was a roomful of people who are like-minded individuals.

A: Give me a bit of your history as an artist.
J: I’ve always been an artist. My very first art class in University, I had the realization—19 years or however old I was—that I will always be a student of art. I just took it seriously and hit a level of success very young. I had dealers and collectors at a very young age and was selling my work quickly, and I was getting shows in New York and Chicago.

I just began my practice and never looked back. I worked hard. I would have jobs when I lived in Calgary, I was starting a job at 5am as a groundkeeper at Mount Royal College picking cigarette butts up. Just so I had some money to pay for my studio downtown. I put in eight hours there and then another eight at my studio. I was cranking out work and I had discipline, and that discipline paid off. I had faith in myself, some luck, and produced a body of work. I was very fortunate. And the career just sort of took off. What’s interesting is I was so prolific I was doing five solo shows a year and twenty group shows a year. That’s huge, like, that is absolutely huge.

I was just constantly producing and I loved that. But it turned to a grind, and the more successful I became the less rewarding it was. So my prices would go up or I’d have another show, or this critic wrote about it or that collector bought it or this gallery was showing it, and it started to become hollow. I was living in Toronto and…I was feeling empty. I needed to walk away for a bit.

I moved to Saskatoon. I was actually in Saskatoon when I made the decision. It was a really tough thing to do, because you spend a lifetime building a career. I found out very quickly that it’s called a spotlight, not a searchlight, for a reason. When you step out of the spotlight you are done.

So now I am reintegrating myself into the art world. But I am making my own choices about how I want to do it. I’m not hungry to please, I do my work how I want it done, and if you feel you can show it, then we can have a relationship—but I don’t need to do things to impress you.

A: So, what’s next for Jeff?
J: The new work is incredible. I’m working with spray paint and stencils. I’m returning to my roots. It was in Regina in the early ’80s and lot of graffiti culture was making it’s way up through films and music, and there was a group of us that just started expressing ourselves that way, emulating what we saw. We were dumb because we would spray our names. My last name is Nachtigall, there are about three Nachtigalls in Regina and we are all related. I got caught. Now I combine found and salvaged materials with images depicting obvious Canadian stereotypes… they’re big and ugly and fun.

Now I’m working with the City of Saskatoon, specifically the Saskatoon Police Service, and also with the Anti-Graffiti Unit to come up with programmable space—we need some free walls in the city. You would be surprised at how much money is spent on the grey paint they use to cover tags. And, we need to educate people about the difference between gang tagging and Street Art.

In early 2011 I partnered with a local artist and opened up a project space in the Riversdale district in downtown Saskatoon. Make Work Projects is a  2000 square foot store front studio and sometimes gallery/think tank/ residency/ arts incubator. Follow us on Twitter @makeworkproject for updates.

A: Who better than you to do this?
J: Art needs an advocate. The best way to do it is not to run around telling people that this is what it’s like being an artist, what it means to be an artist, what you should do to be an artist. We should go and turn people into artists.

A: I’m speaking to a high school soon about careers and pursuing your passion. Any tips?
J: Stick to your guns. The path of individuality, doing what you want to do, is the most rewarding but it’s the most difficult. And there is no life like it. When you do what you want to do, the payoff is huge. And it’s not always monetary but the quality of life is incredible.

If you are talking to a group of kids, it might be their last stop. There are a lot of incredible kids out there, but they’ve been told that this is the last stop. I think that’s focusing on limitations again. Focus on what you can do. Limitations are everywhere. Get over it. Deal with it. Find how to chart your way around the tree instead of hitting it.

For more information about Jeff and his past and present projects, head to his website. You can also check out an article on Jeff’s most recent piece in the May 6th, 2011 edition of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.

Over the last 8 years, I’ve had the chance to visit a large number of offices. Few are fun, some are tolerable, and some are unbearably dry. “It’s as though they are missing a certain element in their air,” Tony notes. “Or they have too much ‘Bore-inium’ pumped in.”

On a local level, zu has garnered some attention for its culture. If you have done some digging around, you might be able to catch a glimpse of it on the web. Or, even better, you may have heard about it from someone else. But preserving this culture as the company grows has been a challenge that has cost zu a fair bit. However, I like to think the benefits far outweigh the costs and I’ll tell you why.

When I say culture, I’m really talking about the energy that exists day to day in the office. It’s a culmination of the people, physical space, social initiatives and projects that help make getting out of bed every morning a little bit easier.

After observing our efforts and comparing them to other places over the years, I’ve compiled some evidence behind what drives the creation of culture.

1) Try
This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised at how little companies try or how feeble some attempts are at achieving any sort of culture. Rule #1, if your attempt to form any corporate culture comes from an HR textbook, you’ve already failed. We try really hard to look like we’re not trying at all (almost shamefully so).

2) It comes from the top
Now the co-founders, Ryan and Tony, are my close friends as well as my bosses, so I don’t want to sound like a Dwight Shrute, but it really starts with them. Some places really suck the fun out of great people with the wrong management. Their attitudes and personalities really set the tone for the entire company. The fact that Ryan wanted to hire George Wendt from the show ‘Cheers’ to sit at our conference booth and drink with the delegates, proved to me that no idea I could come up with would be off limits. (Norm never happened, but you get the idea.) Though R&T aren’t as involved in the planning of parties as they once were, you can still see their influence at all our functions. If you are the head honcho, it’s as much your job to help create a fun environment as it is those in it, so don’t leave it up to someone else.

3) Hire the right personalities
You don’t need a room full of extroverts to have culture. You just need people to believe in and contribute to the culture. We have many quiet introverted people around here, but when it’s time to bob for apples, everyone’s hair gets wet.

4) Fire the wrong personalities (or don’t fight to keep them)
Get rid of culture killers.  If you are trying to establish or foster culture and someone is actively bringing it down, then find ways to get them to buy in, or get rid of them. It doesn’t matter if they are talented. (Agree, disagree?).

5) Small things add up
On my first day here, I can remember filling out my first timesheet. A stark, one colour grid with one small twist – above the box where you filled in your name, read ‘Groovy Person’. This set the tone from day one and communicated to me what kind of place I was working for. It also made me wonder, “why don’t we ever see more of this?” So at your office, think of ways to spice up everyday things. For starters, change the name of your social committee to something that doesn’t use the terms ‘social’ or ‘committee’. You’ll be surprised at how even a little detail like that can have a trickle effect on your organization’s culture.

6) Aim for comfort
Most people have divisions between their work persona and who they really are. Try to foster an environment in which people can be natural. From the dress code, to flex hours, to the office space, to the language used around the office. It’s different for every company, but taking a good look at how to make your place more human is a step towards building culture. This is the service experience you give your employees.

7) Learn from other great environments
When you hear of other tales of success, don’t be afraid to copy them. We’ve been influenced by ideas employed at some local companies like Point2, VendAsta, EngComp and many of our clients. It’s exhausting thinking of new ideas for staff functions, so it’s good to listen to other fun ideas other companies are trying. Which reminds me, I just missed Point2′s Reggae Party.

So there you have it, piece of cake. I should state that this works better for companies our size, and I’m aware that some things are harder to pull off in bigger and more unionized environments. But to the people in charge, you should be asking yourself, “what’s stopping us from doing this?”

My intention here isn’t to showcase the zu environment, but to share some ideas on what we have found seems to work for us. ‘Real’ things still happen here after all. People get fired, people quit, and there is the odd Debby-downer once in a while. It’s the one side effect of not employing robots. But one thing is that we never stop trying to build up the culture, and I hope we can inspire your company to do the same.

I also hope this was the best thing you’ve read in the last 4 minutes.

AJ: How many different published sources are you currently in right now? What are some notable ones?
WN: To be honest, I have no idea who is publishing White Ninja. Perhaps this isn’t the best business move. But, neither Scott nor I have any clue how to run a successful business.

You see, we post a link to the latest comic that is free and open to whoever wants to publish White Ninja. I know that there are independent and college newspapers in Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Canada and the USA that are using the link. We also have two published books out that are available at your local bookstore for your reading and purchasing pleasure. And, White Ninja has been affiliated with National Lampoon, Cracked.com, Virgin Airways, and Crave Online.

AJ: Does that blow your mind?
WN: No way. White Ninja is the greatest comic ever written about a White Ninja, ever!

AJ: What’s the weirdest fan mail or suggestion you’ve received? Any good haters out there?
WN: By far the weirdest email we received was a marriage proposal. This girl – this incredibly attractive girl, I suspect – wanted to marry White Ninja and have his babies. It was difficult to break the news to her that White Ninja is not a real person. She must have understood because days later she proposed to both Scott and I.

The second weirdest was simply a photo of a girl wearing a White Ninja t-shirt. The shirt, accidentally, was on a little crooked, and a single naked bosom was showing from underneath. Whoops!

AJ: Walk us through the process of how you guys produce one strip, from idea to execution.
WN: It all starts with a good night’s sleep. Before bed I drink two cups of lavender tea with whole milk. Scott has a warm bath with a glass of red wine. We wake up feeling refreshed and ready to work.

So we each go to work. Me, to my private clinic to do some physical therapy, and Scott to a school to teach children how to learn. When work is over, we’re usually too tired to draw cartoons, and we definitely don’t feel funny, so we put off writing comics until the weekend.

Saturday arrives. At noon or so, when we’ve awoken, we’ll get together over a pot of coffee and stare at blank pieces of paper until an idea strikes us in the brain. Sometimes a half hour will go by with nothing being drawn, written, or even said. And then another half hour. After an hour and a half we’ll pack up our stuff and head to the pub for a “business lunch.”

Magically, by the end of the day, we have somewhere between two and eight comics completed.

AJ: How long have you been doing this? What are your future plans for WN?
WN: We’ve been drawing the comic for fourteen or fifteen years! Holy bananas! That makes White Ninja fifteen years old! Unlike The Simpsons, White Ninja actually gets older with each passing year. When we started, White Ninja was zero years old. We stopped counting his birthday after the first couple years though. All along we said we would stop on the Christmas Eve of White Ninja’s 48th year. In this final comic, White Ninja will die on the streets from exposure. It will not be funny. It will make people re-think the whole White Ninja saga. They’ll ponder, “Was it ever a joke?” “Was there underlying societal commentaries that I’ve been missing?” Bahahahaha! So I guess we won’t be able to retire for 33 years.

AJ: Explain to me how you guys have managed to make money on this?
WN: Well, putting a comic on the Internet, for free, and giving it away to newspapers all over the world, for free, makes us roughly $0.00 a week. Times that by four, and then again by twelve… basically, we make nothing.

BUT, we’ve discovered that people like to wear clothes. Especially clothes which have pictures of animals killing each other on them. Seriously. So what we’ve done is, we’ve used the popularity of whiteninjacomics.com to link to another website that we made where you can buy t-shirts with some seriously dynamic wildlife happening on them. We design all the shirts. Some features Pterodactyls fighting with lazer-beam-eyes…in outer space! And Owls, madly chomping away on a piece of delicious taffy. Heck yeah! And Tigers firing automatic weapons! It has nothing to do with the comic, but we couldn’t sell dumb shirts if we didn’t have the comic first. The website is casasupernova.com, in case you’re interested.

AJ: Is this self sustaining? (i.e. are you working at Starbucks?)
WN: Starbucks?! Just because we draw comics for a living doesn’t mean we don’t have any other skills. For all you know I could be a brain doctor! This interview is over!

But to answer your question, we make barely enough to live on. That is, if we wanted to live on Saskatoon’s dangerous west side. No thanks! Seriously though, I enjoy having a couch, and a box-spring under my mattress, and a variety of cups to drink out of, and all those other novelties enjoyed by the upper-middle class. And for that, we have other jobs.

AJ: What do you have to say to the people who say WN isn’t funny?
WN: “It is too, funny!” Yeah, usually we say that.

AJ: I’ve tried to draw WN before, and I’m horrbile. Any tips for me?
WN: Trace your ‘F’ finger, and then add arms and legs. For the eyes you will need two dots. Practice these on a separate piece of paper first.

The evening was a less formal occasion than their previous galas. Architects, engineers, interior designers and graphic designers were treated to the theme “The Evolution of Play”. The room was filled with some great mood lighting and funky house beats. For food and beverages, the du provided a tasty bento box and cappuccino and gelato bar, combined with a full wine and spirits selection. Whether you were standing or sitting, you weren’t far from Lego blocks, play dough, the graffiti wall, or the cotton candy machine.

Big thanks to the Design Council for including us on this party. Hope we can ‘du;’ it again. Check out some photos of the night.

So how can we support the green team if we’re not going to the game? I say, do it online. Take something like Grey Cup Festival Connect that we built. It pulls everything to do with the Grey Cup and the two teams playing in from YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. So basically, any video you upload to YouTube, any photo you upload to Flickr, or any Rider tweet tagged ‘sskroughriders’ or ‘greycup2009′, will make it onto the Grey Cup fan site. It’s a one stop shop for everything Grey Cup, generated by the fans. So it’s imperative for you Riders fans to take part. Here are some suggestions on how all you at home can participate.

YouTube

• Discuss your predictions or outcomes
• Wish the team well with a personal or group video message
• Send your ‘regards’ to the opposing team

Flickr

• Upload your ideal Rider Grey Cup outfit
• Give some inspiration for fan signs
• Upload custom ‘Photoshopped’ images of the opposing team

Twitter

• Lend Coach Miller some play suggestions (*ahem* Armstead option play)
• ‘Greet’ Allouette fans with a warm message
• Give recipes ideas for what to do with all that leftover watermelon

Don’t forget to join Grey Cup Festival Connect through Facebook. (See top right corner the Grey Cup Festival Connect site.) In addition to joining the fan page, log in and comment on Grey Cup Festival Connect using your Facebook account. Your comments will be shared to your Facebook profile.

And . . . don’t forget to follow live game stats by downloading the Rider mobile app to your iPhone or BlackBerry.

Follow zutweets and catch some of us at the game. Hope to see you there. If not, you know what to do.

twitpitch: Rider fans it’s time to shine. Tips to keep Rider Pride alive online. #greycup2009 #sskroughriders. http://twurl.nl/7yw1y7

Join us for an exclusive LIVE Webcast:
Wednesday July 22
12:00pm PT | 1:00pm MT | 2:00pm CT | 3:00pm ET

zu social media experts Ryan Lejbak and Trevor Turnbull will explore how strategic use of social media tools can help you monitor and engage your audience. They will take you across the key social media platforms, providing tips and tools you can use to develop a successful strategy. In addition, this webcast will provide current examples of how companies are integrating social media tools into their online marketing strategy.

This webcast will provide you with social media tools you can apply immediately to enhance your communications strategy. A must for beginners in any industry!

Register for replay.

Enjoy the chance to chat with Peter Merholz, President and co-founder of San Francisco-based Adaptive Path.

Date: Thursday, December 4, 2008
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Béily’s Pub & Grill, 2404 8th St. E. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Cost: Complimentary

Drop by for a fun opportunity to chat and network with members of the Saskatoon Internet, social media and mobile community. Please forward to your industry friends. Use the tag siimm (Saskatoon Interactive Industry Mix n’ Mingle) for all social media posts.

For more information visit our event page on Facebook.