Sparking Imagination Through Creatives and Healing: A Deep Dive Into Speculative Art.

In this thought-provoking podcast episode, host Chris Nguon delves into the dynamic intersection of art speculative visioning, and creative visual arts education, as explored through an insightful conversation with Los Angeles-based artist Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca. As part of the captivating Arts-based HCE mini-series, produced in partnership with the Los Angeles County of Arts & Culture and the L.A. Arts Ed Collective, the episode guides listeners on a journey through a vibrant, imaginative possibility space. Vaca's multifaceted artistic practice serves as a springboard for a rich dialogue, shedding light on the ways in which the realms of fine art, conceptual design, and pedagogical innovation can vibe together. With dope references to the world-renowned Comic-Con convention, the episode delves into the transformative power of speculative thinking, inviting the audience to envision new frontiers where creativity, technology, and societal advancement intertwine. 

Transcript

Chris: Peace y’all. Welcome to the CARMA Chronicles Podcast. It has been a minute, but we are happy; hella happy to be back. We have a special guest with us today, y'all as part of our Los Angeles Arts Collective Department of Arts and Culture, miniseries that we're so excited to share about. And our first guest of that miniseries is the amazing, beautiful, wonderful visual artist, writer and arts educator down here in LA County; Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca. This is gonna be a beautiful conversation y'all. It was so much love and grace of how artistry is really showing up in healing work right now for young people, for caregivers, for adult providers and for orders and sales, right? I hope y'all enjoy this conversation coming up now. 

Chris: Brother, Gustavo, good afternoon, my brother. Thank you for joining us how you doing? 

Gustavo: Good afternoon. I'm feeling good. Sun is shining down here in LA. It feels good to be in touch after so long like I feel we got to know each other only met maybe in person, what, once? 

Chris: Once. 

Gustavo: But I just feel a strong connection to all all your work up there. You all doing it flourish. And yeah, inspired to be here. 

Chris: Absolutely. And what Gustavo was speaking of y’all is we actually started working with Gustavo and other artists in Los Angeles County, actually, during the pandemic, so we had to meet virtually, we had to connect virtually. But over time, we've been able to meet in person with a lot of the artists. A lot of the artists that are doing beautiful work now in in LA, in this initiative that we are working one with folks down there and Gustavo is one of them beautiful people. So I'm hella excited for y’all listeners right now to learn more about Gustavo, a little bit about our collective work Will Flourish Agenda and our local artists down there along with the Department of Arts and Culture down in LA County. But with that said, Gustavo, enough of me, tell the folks a little bit about yourself. Who are you? Tell about your artistry, tell about your life as art educator, just who are you Gustavo? 

Gustavo: Ooh, that’s a good question. Who am I? Yeah, I’m, I’m many things. And it feels feels good to be many things and to to learn more about, about myself and about what I do as I do it. I feel like I'm always learning and that that's a big part of what I, how I approach my work as an artist and as educator in t communities. So yeah, I, I write short uh speculative fiction, as we like to call it, you know, could be called science fiction, although not a lot of science, in it in the sense of, you know, hard science or hard concepts. I like speculating about what our futures could be. So I do that in words. And I also do that visually. So I do a lot of abstraction. Uh again, thinking of futurist uh imaginations and again, building a community through the work I do. So I also curate art shows put shows together I'm about to lead a panel at Comic Con uh in San Diego, which will be the second time I do it in San Diego. And I invite different creative, creative people, whether they be curators, artists, or writers or editors, and we talk about how the comic medium or science fiction kind of in general, can influence contemporary art. So, talk about the different artists’ work and whoever done panel and we also talk about historically, people like Basquiat and Warhol Keith Haring and there's also contemporary artists like Duceppe and so on and Arthur Jaffa or creating artworks inspired by comics, and using these, these characters that have become like symbols now, kind of the social uh kind of avatars of like what, you know, like the Hulk or you know, different like the X Men what they could mean, in an artistic uh different artistic medium. So…

Chris: That’s right.

Gustavo: what can they sculpture, right? 

Chris: That’s right.

Gustavo: What they mean in a painting. So, so I'm doing that as well. And then as an as an educator work with nonprofits here in LA, and museums as well, uh with all different ages. Uh right now, I'm at a high school in Boyle Heights, uh through self-help graphics, and so I'm teaching social justice through art. 

Chris: I love it. I love it. See, I told y'all Gustavo was dope yo. And he only told y’all about half of his bio yo. We gon’ get into the other half right now. I will say it though, Gustavo, I, Chris have never been to Comic Con, have always wanted to go. So for a novice like yourself, like myself, and for a vet like yourself, what should I expect? What should I expect when I go to Comic Con this year? What should I expect? Tell your boy a little bit. 

Gustavo: Whoo. What do I say? What, what is interesting to me and what I uh I most surprised, I know what to expect in a way. But what I what I cannot expect is the levels of creativity that people bring. Like almost everybody's bringing some you know, everybody's bringing something of course to their energies right…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: to the space. But what to expect it's like this openness. What’s so amazing to me about that world of, of like comics and you know, the Sci Fi convention is like, so open to what are called fandoms, right? Different people like different things. So anime, video games, comic books, movies, the fandoms of movies in particular, right? So you can find your community within this larger community. But it feels like there's a very open environment that has been like consciously developed by the people themselves. That feels really good. I mean, there's of course the big, I don't know, if you want to get into like, capitalism and all that. There's all of that. 

Chris: Always is, yeah. 

Gustavo: But what I appreciate about such a big convention, oh, and I should say, Comic Con San Diego is a nonprofit. So… 

Chris: I didn’t see. That’s game. I didn't know that. 

Gustavo: Yeah, so that changes the tone. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: So, so that, you know, that's why I like that's why I've been involved since 2006. 

Chris: Wow. 

Gustavo: 18 years been involved in exhibiting, and these panels and stuff. So yeah, it’s that openness, it’s that people just being themselves whether you dress up or not, or you're wearing a t shirt or, or you're just collecting or you're just meeting people, it's this community of creativity. And that's what feels so good. 

Chris: In other words, healing work, because what you described is a lot of what we hope to see in Flourish Agenda in our collective work, right, is that people can just be themselves and what you said just said there so resonated me. Center is the hardest, right, center is the hardest. Boys, and for folks who are listening, you know, as part of this miniseries that we're sharing right now, and Gustavo was our first guest in this miniseries, you know, our work with artists like Gustavo, down in Los Angeles County, was part of the LA art space collective with Art Space Healing Centered Engagement work. And I think Gustavo really embodies that, you know, you embody that in so many ways brother that you know, I think as we jump into more of your artistry, I'm super curious about what you call speculative future or speculative futurism, right? Because in healing centered engagement and CARMA art framework, you know, the last principle is aspirations. Could you say there's some connections there between the ability to aspire to see what is possible? Or maybe what you describe as speculative? I see it as looking beyond the present of what is possible, both good and bad, both left and right, the yin and yang, right? It's pretty fun to be able to live in that world man, and you're a writer, you're artist in that world. Tell us a little bit more about how you know, how do you live in our world in a way that you know really allows it to come alive for you? 

Gustavo: Yeah, thank you. I like that, the way you phrased it, like, how do I live? How do I live in the future? That's, that’s a great question of phrasing it that way. Yeah, I, I, I work hard at it, I, I consciously think about what is possible. I'm always pushing. That's why I like abstraction as as a visual medium for myself. [Inaudible 10:32] I use photo base. So I, I take photographs in the world. I like explaining it to when I when I'm teaching, like, these images that they're seeing, and, and you can see it on, you know, some of them on my website. And it's, I've taken an image of something on this planet, right, but I like taking it beyond like, what what else can I do where what else is possible with this image that I shot? Whether it'd be an image of a shadow, or some pieces of metal, or something on the ground or something in the sky, I change it up; I use Photoshop primarily. And yeah, I just like building possibilities through, through the mediums that I'm working in. So with words, right, with stories and characters and certain things, I like thinking about, well, what, what is next for humanity? Whether it be a year from now, or 50 years from now, or 1000 years from now. Where can we go depending on what I'm thinking about? Like, is it robotics? Or is it you know, AI? Or is it the environment? Like, what are the things that we're doing now, of course, I do a lot of research, and I you know, I mean, I don't read a lot of news per se, like daily, but I like reading uh more like journals and, you know, academic…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: approaches to like, well, what's being studied? And how is it being talked about, about what's happening now? And so I just like extrapolating from that. So I like looking okay, well, what if that's happening now, and so this thing happened 50 years ago, and or this thing happened 100 years ago, right, how what's going to happen in next 100 years. So I like thinking about that. A lot of the music I listen to is abstract as well. I like a lot of Detroit techno, which uh we can talk a little bit more about that specifically. I like listening to abstract, what's called spiritual jazz. So Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane…

Chris: Okay. 

Gustavo: music that allows the mind to enter other spaces. And yeah, music like that, to me is, again, very futurist. Like you said, it's about possibility. What, what are we aspiring to do as humans? And how can a creative expression point us in that direction. 

Chris: Right, right. I love that Gustavo, and I've very, very tangent to I think follow up to the work that we both do both at Flourish Agenda and many hats you wear. Tell me how you make that come alive for young people because you are a teaching artist as well. Not just an artist, just in your own work, you work with youth, as you said earlier, right now in a high school in Boyle Heights in East LA. How do you make it come alive for young people and what do you see when you start to see that transformation in young people when they start to connect some of these dots and be like, Whoa, yo, man, what I'm gonna do if I look 500 years in the future? How do you cultivate that learning that space for you? 

Gustavo: Hmm. Well, I like starting direct. So, so with these students in particular, can I name the school? Is it cool to? 

Chris: Absolutely. It’s more on you as long as you feel it's okay to name, yeah. 

Gustavo: Yeah. No, I want to I want to… 

Chris: Shout them out. 

Gustavo: Yeah, honor what they, what they've been doing because there's a little some side notes, we got to talk about what what's going on with the school right now. It's uh Mendez High School. It's in Boyle Heights. It is an LAUSD public school. And through Soho graphics, I'm able to be there, right? So I'm able to be a teaching artists there. There's a couple of other artists teaching artists there as well from self-help. And in particular, I was very honored to be working this semester with a history teacher who happens to be teaching a uh teaching in the history, but in specific about social justice issues. So looking at more contemporary issues. 

Chris: Talk about it. 

Gustavo: Yeah. And so like, which amazing, amazing. So a lot of students are, are upper you know juniors, seniors, and then with a different teacher; uh English, but she's working on ethics, different ethical concerns and having the students you know, choose whatever ethics they want to get into. What bioethics or social justice or ethical concerns around education, around gender, uh sports, somebody chose sport a group, they're doing group work. So through like these two in particular, I'm bringing them up because the teachers already had things they were thinking and they thought; ‘Oh, art, let's, let's work with an artist to figure out how can students find an expressive their expressive self as opposed to their, their anal, you know, analyzing self, right’? They're doing writing, they're doing a report, think those things, right, for the school work, but they thought it was other development. So again, I feel like okay, very honored to be able to come in and do that. So I take it down to like, okay, well, that's then first day, let's just draw; who are you? Who are you? You can draw, you can write, you can write. I like saying like; ‘Are you into video games and write the names of the video games in your artwork’. Like, are you…

Chris: That’s right. 

Gustavo: into comic books again? Like do draw, you know, whatever character. If you're into music, or the bands, some lyrics. I like again, I like showing like artists like Basquiat who, like literally the works have words and logos and symbols and abstraction and expression, you know, expressive painting, gestural painting. And so you know, showing and I show other artists and lots of self-help uh amazing artists that have worked over the years. I show like a series of works, and then I say; ‘Okay, now it's I hand it off to you. And where would you want to take these ideas, whether you include words or not, or it's abstract, or you're, you're including parts of your, your cultural ethnic identity, and maybe its foods and some, you know, some students draw flags, and some students draw landscapes of, you know, maybe where they come from’, there's a lot of recent immigrants at the school. So they're imagining like buildings, or the building they grew up in, or a sunset or a beach or so. But I'm allowing like the space literally and figuratively, right, so the space on paper where they can be themselves. So it's not a self-portrait, but in a way it is, right? It could be a self-portrait made out of these different things. And that's where I like to start, because then it's like, okay, so now we know who you are, and we share. We talk about it as a group, everybody shares. And then and then okay, then we do. So, then we start building, right? So we got to get to know each other, who are you, get to know yourself. And then you take it to, alright, then we say; ‘Okay, well, what is your community’? And then what is again, and then we head towards, eventually; ‘Well, what is the future that we imagine’, right? If we start with ourselves, and our immediate surroundings, okay, then we start talking about right LA, or, well, Boyle Heights, LA, California, United States, whatever country you came from, and then the world. And then I like taking that as I'm saying, like, then I take it to the universe and say like; ‘Okay, let’s, let's go far out’. Like; ‘Okay, what, what do we see’? And everybody sees it differently, of course, like, like art does. And so as students are making, they're finding their own voice. I like talking about it that way. Like, you're gonna find your own slitting, your own voice of how you want to use this pen, or this paintbrush, or. We did some photography projects, and so how do you want to use these tools? Because they're all just tools for you to develop. 

Chris: That's right. That’s right. 

Gustavo: That’s why like I like building that futurism is like, these are just, you know, that the phone is just a phone with a camera on it, but what you do to it with it…

Chis: Yeah. 

Gustavo: you know, with those, those very powerful tools that I didn't grow up with. Like, I like saying that too, because, like…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: there's ways to build beyond the phone, and that's why I do a lot of tactile, you know, oil pastels and paint and, and uh…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: you know, markers, and, you know, anything, anything we can get our hands on, any art material, I’ll bring it in. 

Chris: Anything you belong with. Yeah, absolutely. 

Gustavo: Yeah, I just, I just uh I just love seeing that environment of like, oh, you know, maybe they've never done these mediums before. But…

Chris: Yeah.

Gustavo: they get to it because the space that we're creating with the teachers, right, it's like, let's create a space where it's just like, is this openness it's like, because I teach that way. It's not about like, I'm gonna teach you to draw this apple and it’s a shading. Like, I can show a little techniques, but that's not how I teach. I teach more about how do you access your own creativity, your own imagination that you that you feel can be released? How can you release it? 

Chris: Yeah, absolutely.

Gustavo: So that's where we're headed towards the futurism. 

Chris: Absolutely. No, thank you for that breakdown, Gustavo. I think um you know, for our listeners who have studied ECE, or are ECE pioneers and practitioners, I hope you heard some of the connections that Gustavo just made with the three Is, yo. How we heel from an individual and then a interpersonal, and an institutional level. As you've heard, Gustavo, one of the things we say all the time, at Flourish Agenda is that healing work is already happening, folks are already doing it. So, ECE just gives a framework and a name to it, a way to be able to allow little pivots to actualize the work itself, right? And a lot of these things can be applied in this way. And what Gustavo just talked about is the application in ECE to teaching to being able to activate creativity in the mind, right, to be able to look at aspirations and, and what's possible is what I heard. And for me, Gustavo, I also have a curiosity; were you always speculative as a young man as, as someone who was able to look forward, was able to see what is possible? And by the way, Amanda Greene, one of our team members just walked into the room. Amanda, how are we doing? How you doing? Amanda loves comic books, and all of that stuff too y'all. Amanda, how you doing? Just wanted to say hello to you real quick. 

Amanda: What's up family? I'm doing good. So happy to be in space with you all, and yes, I am a avid lover of all things Marvel. So I am here nerding out about all everything you've been sharing. Thank you Gustavo. 

Chris: Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Thank you, Amanda. Yeah…

Gustavo: [crosstalk 22:02].

Chris: good to have you, Amanda. But yeah, Gustavo, were you always or if not like what cultivated…

Gustavo: Hmm.

Chris: that in you, right? Because you light up. I know, it says audio right now. But I'm looking at you. If we were recording video, you light up when you were talking about teaching, you light up when we talked about creative expression, moving away from one side of the brain and back to the other side of the brain. How was that activated in you? 

Gustavo: Well, I gotta I definitely gotta shout out my mom. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: My mom…

Chris: Always shout out mom. 

Gustavo: she immigrated here from Colombia. So, so I'm, you know, I'm born here. My brothers were born in in Colombia in Cali. And so, you know, she had this vision of life, right, of like a new possibility. And I really, really think to break it way down to that level, you know, I'm a baby, maybe not even out of the womb yet. I think I'm feeling these, these vibrations of a new place. And what is possible in a new place, right? What, what can someone who you know didn't speak English, didn't know anyone, right, with, with, you know, this drive. So I think about, you know if, if I go back to my childhood self, you know, of course, I don't remember being in the womb, but now I'm sure there are things that again, I, I believe in, like vibrations are being absorbed from day. 

Chris: 100%. 

Gustavo: From the moment 1. So, so they yeah, so growing up, you know, so that's, that's amazing. I, I, I wish my mom and my mom was an artist too. So I'll actually say that too. She is an amazing illustrative artist of a very realistic, which that skill was not passed down to me. I don't draw very realistically, uh very well. I can a little bit but yeah, she's got these amazing skills. So, so art was always around and she loved music. And so she had record, you know, [inaudible 24:12] Colombia, all the stuff from Latin America. And, and then I grew up here so I have older brothers. And so you know, funk and, and soul music was, was big and, and rock and it was the era, you know, uh my oldest brother had like Santana and Jimi Hendrix and all the stuff that deeply inspiring. So which again, it's it because it was that era, because you were asking me like, how do I get into this kind of futurist? To me that music is very imaginative. Yes, you know, it was, I mean, shout out to all of you up in the Bay Area, like so much of his music right? Sly Stone, right Tower Power, Santana…

Chris: Yes, yes. 

Gustavo: up area, right? So, but that music is to me Future Music. Because it was about building a better tomorrow, a better today and a better tomorrow. That's what I love about that music, that era of music. So that was part of my upbringing, right? And again, it's just kind of informal, right? Just around. And then yeah, and then I was just I, I like to read as a kid. I just, I don't know, I'm the only one in my family that really got into reading and so I would just read everything. So comic books were so accessible back then, you know, the liquor store, where they're right there. So…

Chris: That’s right. 

Gustavo: the grocery store, you know, it was weird, like, weird. It's hard to imagine that now, but they were everywhere. So I would read comics, I loved movies, you know, I was uh you know, older brothers. So I was able to see Alien. And I was only what, 8 or 9 like, I had no business…

Chris: Oh yeah. 

Gustavo: going to see The Shining. 

Chris: I was about to say. Oh, The Shining. 

Gustavo: Shining at whatever, 9 years old? But that kind of… 

Chris: You’re shinning. 

Gustavo: Yeah. Even The Shining to me. I like Stanley Kubrick. But that movie to me is like um speaking of these layers of being, yeah, there's, it's a horror movie, right? But it's got this these layers of kind of philosophical understandings of what is time, right, and what is uh what is our place in time? If you think about that movie in that way, you know, uh I've seen the movie many times; probably my favorite film those 2001. Another Stanley Kubrick film. 

Chris: Oh Odyssey. 

Gustavo: Odyssey, yeah. 

Chris: Yeah.

Gustavo: That movie.

Chris: Classic. 

Gustavo: That movie. I don't know how old I was, again, I was a kid, blew literally blew my mind right when you see those and that those moments of the of the lights, right, when he's traveling through time and space, like the last maybe 20 minutes of the film? Yeah, I, I still watch that movie. It's still like, very inspiring. Because it's like, how did a feature film, right, a part of this narrative Hollywood system create a space for you to imagine what could the future of humanity look like? What could the future of the universe look like? 

Chris: Right. 

Gustavo: So that's a long way to answer your question. And I think those like seminal moments, like music, film, and reading and books, you know, science fiction and comics, all that stuff was kind of my upbringing. And developing, so I started to develop as I grew, I was like,; Oh, I not only liked this, I like making it. I like talking about it, and making it’, and I didn't go to like Comic Con till I was an adult. Like, that was way later…

Chris: Mhm. 

Gustavo: but…

Chris: Mhm. 

Gustavo: but just that, that environment of it is what and that's why I started just getting really into making art. And then, you know, high school age, I'm like; ‘Oh, well, how can I do this’? I didn't know…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: like how do I make a life here? And so, you know, college and you know, sending out applications and stuff. And so I was very blessed to get a scholarship, I went out east went to college out there, after college, got a shout them out too because they were no grades and build your own curriculum. 

Chris: How about that. 

Gustavo: That was for me, that was definitely where I belong.

Chris: Yah. 

Gustavo: And not, not knowing anything like this would ever existed before, you know? I didn’t.

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: I didn't really know it was a possibility until high school, like, you know, final years of high school. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: Knowing that that was possible. So yeah, so you know, again, those are kind of the seminal touchstones of my life. And then and then yeah, moving on, and creating and, and moving from there. But yeah, this, this futurist thinking, possibility thinking, again, back to back to sound and that's why I work a lot with, with artists. We can talk about that in a minute. But that's why working with Sonic artists, you know, musicians is very important to me, because I feel that the sound, not only our voice, but the sounds we can make with different instruments have, have a deep resonance in our universe that, that we don't know. We don't know the possibility of that, and possibly cannot know, because, you know, we, you know, I listen to, again back to John Coltrane, like Alice Coltrane. You listen to their music, and it, it is timeless. There's something about it, where they maybe didn't think about it that way, but there's something that resonates way beyond the, the limitations of the era of whatever, you know, whatever this was the, the, the modal jazz era. This was the Bob jazz era, you know? Yes, he was he was part of it. John or Alice was kind of studied with Bob Powell, right? So you can say okay, there's a little bit of Bob in there, but then, then they took it somewhere else, right? 

Chris: Right. 

Gustavo: It's something else. So, so yeah, so all of that to say is like I see the connections. And that's why like back to Comic Con, like I'm leading this panel, and I invite different people because it's all the same. It's all creativity, right? It's all this expression of something we all ha we have inside that is released when we draw or write or dance or write produce music, it’s coming out. And that to me is really exciting. 

Chris: I love it. I love it. How is artistry and your artistry and art in general, how's it supporting your healing, Gustavo, your wellness? 

Gustavo: Hmm. 

Chris: Because I see you. I mean, you can talk about art for hours just because this is your life's work. This is your passion. This is your family's passion. Your mother was an artist, right? You do art in so many different ways. How does art and healing connect for you? 

Gustavo: Thank you. Yeah, let me yeah, I mean, formulate some thoughts there. To me it's, well, there's a communal aspect, that that uh we're talking about teaching, we're talking about like, like a convention where people come together, right? Uh last night, I was at a house music event, right? And that and, and that it was it was a house music event, and there was a discussion as well before the event. And so the, the discussion was about community. And so I really feel the communal aspect of creativity is, is this is a very powerful foundation for healing. I really feel that. And that's why I'm so excited working with Flourish Agenda. Because you all get it, you all get it and you live it, and you're spreading this concept. Because it's something that I feel is very rarely talked about. And, and or definitely not. Well, it's my perspective, but I don't think it's talked about like the comic world, or the movie world, right? Or you know narrative Hollywood film, right? It's like, it's not really talked about. Like, what potential does this thing we're making have for healing? It's very rarely talked about in our society. And that's why I love teaching, because teaching, I don't talk about healing, I try to just create environments, where things can happen, where thoughts can arise. Yeah, I've had students, you know, maybe share some very personal things through their art. And you could see them getting emotional, right? And that's part of the process. But it's, I'm not doing it to do that, I'm doing it for them to let out what they feel they might want to let out. And that's what I love about the arts, because it allows us to do that in a way that there's no structural rules, right? We can have this free space to, to let it in or, or not let it in. You know what I mean? We're in control. And I like telling students like all these tools here, you're in control here. You can do whatever you want with them.

Chris: That’s right. 

Gustavo: You can close your eyes and start painting, right? 

Chris: That’s right. 

Gustavo: You can do two hands, if you draw it, you know, if you don't draw with, draw with two hands, right? And just do different things and, and different shapes. And, and don't try to think too much, just allow things to flow. And I say, you know, I always say this to my students, like just, here's a we have a lot of paper here. So feel free, don't it's not a precious, you know, commodity. Yes, we should take care of our resources, but these are here for you to, to, to let these things out, right? So I feel that power of, of art and again in the communal setting, like the school or, or you know, a nonprofit space or museum or street fair that a that a lot of like street festival, you know, pop up events and art experiences. Uh Downtown LA, you know, jazz festivals and Central Avenue jazz bass and Watts Towers and doing all these festivals, like, students, sorry, well, whoever walks up any age at those festivals, again, just having that space, whether they stay five minutes or an hour, it's like it's this environment of like you are releasing something through your, your own energies. 

Chris: That’s right. 

Gustavo: I'm just setting the stage for you. 

Chris: Mhm. Setting the conditions where healing can happen yo. How radical is that, right? Dr. Jin Right and the folks who co-created healing centered engagement really rooted the work in that yo. And through our work with artists like Gustavo in LA County, through our Art Space Healing Center and Engagement, working group cohort work, right, um we try to talk about that a lot in so many different ways; the conditions in which healing can happen, right. So simple yet so complicated in so many ways…

Gustavo: Mhm. 

Chris: many ways, for sure. I love that, Gustavo, I really, really love that for sure. I think you know, one of the things that that also comes to mind to me, as, as we wrap up here relatively soon, yo and thank you so much for our listeners as always, to tap in with us. You know what I'm saying? Um what are some of the things about artistry and healing work that you think can be possible in the future, Gustavo? As someone who is really intentional about your speculative work, futurism, what can happen in 10, 20, 15, 500, 1,000 years from now? And you can take it where you want to take it, right? Where do you think the future of arts and healing in arts education is going? 

Gustavo: Hmm. 

Chris: Where do you think it should go? Where can it go, right? Paint that picture for us. 

Gustavo: Yeah. It's for me, it starts with the intention of, of the, of the creative endeavor. So, I am very intentional in what I make, in terms of it having a it having a message in the sense of not necessarily like I'm not making message-based art. I'm not it's not like, not that there's anything wrong with that. But I set an intention for myself to say; ‘I want to say this message. So is there is this message correct in a comic book, or a or a comic book critique’? Because I've also been doing like these ziens that are look like comic books, but they're actually a critique of the industry, of capitalism, of patriarchal approaches to storytelling, of very exploitive, you know, uh the exploitive nature of capitalism, and of the control of the control of the imagination, where a character represents, like, the right way, the correct way, right? So that hegemony right like that, kind of like I'm, I'm really critical of how industry, a creative industry can do that to young people. Because I see it when I work with young people in school, like, they are very inspired by comic books and movies and stuff like that. 

Chris: Absolutely, yeah. 

Gustavo: I don't really see these companies honoring that, right? And so I like to critique it, as well. So I do a series of a book projects that I'm working on that I release at Comic Con, where it's about the critique. So it may have Marvel characters or DC characters, right? But I'm, I'm flipping it, and I'm doing different things with them. And so that's an intention. Uh I work uh with an artist from Detroit, a techno musician, producer, DJ, Jeff Mills, I also work with underground resistance, DJ Nomadico, DJ Dex, he’s a producer as well with, with Underground Resistance. And the Detroit techno approach, in particular, by somebody like Underground Resistance, they've written a manifesto. So there are like writings where they are intentionally describing what they're doing through sound. And that, to me is very inspiring. 

Chris: Wow.

Gustavo: Jeff Mills writes essays for all of his, almost all of his releases that go with the album. And so you're reading the intention of the art to transcend the, the time and space we're in now, to look beyond like, what can the sound do, right? And what can we do together while listening to the sound, right? So that's, that's something that I think about and it inspires me. Because I think again, back to like, it's an it's an intentional approach to head towards the future. 

Chris: Right. 

Gustavo: Right? We are already naturally heading towards the future, right? Biologically, right? Time is always moving forward, right? We're always rotating, the sun's rotating, right? So respecting that and understanding that is important to me as well. But like, well, what can we do within this time and space that we are rotating, right and what can we do together? And how can we enjoy it? Enjoy is a very big part of what I do. 

Chris: Absolutely. 

Gustavo: Because if it if not for that, uh then what is there? You know, I just kind of imagine that too. Like, well, there's darkness there is a lot of darkness, right? So, which is something to to understand as well for me is to understand. You were asking me earlier about like, how, how have I healed…

Chris: That’s right.

Gustavo: right, through making art? Working through a lot of the darkness and, and facing the darkness. And that's why I love art too, because you can, one can approach again, the attention of like, I'm going to let that darkness out, let it flow out through this medium, right? 

Chris: Mhm. 

Gustavo: Creative as opposed to a self-destructive or destructive…

Chris: Mhm. 

Gustavo: uh, uh energy in the world. Uh it could be critical. Like I'm saying, I'm I do approach it. I, I can be critical about things I don't like I want to dismantle, yeah? I like to talk about that as well. But by offering well, then what lies on the other side of it, right? It's not just to destroy, to destroy, but destroy and rebuild something, rebuild…

Chris: Yeah.

Gustavo: something we want to create. That, to me is the power of art. 

Chris: I love that, wow. Chills throughout my body, chills throughout my body yo. Artistry is a way to work through the darkness. And what is possible on the other side. My goodness. My goodness. Y'all see and hear why this work is so powerful yo? And why we're so excited and honored to be working with folks like Gustavo down in LA County, yo? Um the power is in the people yo, for real. And I hope this conversation really embodies that, man. And because time is our friend, Gustavo, and as folks have already heard you are a very busy, beautiful soul, we want to close up our conversation today with two things, some rapid fire questions. So we'll have a little fun and also a little closing statement for whatever it is you want to share before we want to close out, right? So in this round, aligning questions, and a lot of this was suggested by Amanda, and I think these questions are amazing. Some quick answers to you and some of these you already touched on but just going to throw about five or six at you, Gustavo, just a little bit fun, right? The first because you from LA, gotta ask; tacos or burritos, brother? 

Gustavo: Whoa, wow. That's actually a hard one. 

Chris: That's a hard one, no? 

Gustavo: Yeah, I would say Tacos. 

Chris: Tacos. Yeah, me too. Me too. Amanda, how about yourself? 

Amanda: I’ll say tacos too. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: Yeah, we got a consensus over here. But don't fight us y'all, just our opinion; just our opinion yo. It's all love. Um Gustavo, what does healing mean to you, in a couple words? 

Gustavo: Healing means creativity. It means community. 

Chris: Mhm. 

Gustavo: It means brightness. 

Chris: I love it. What is your favorite time of year brother? 

Gustavo: Ooh, that's another hard one. Uh yeah. 

Chris: Amanda got some good ones, you know? 

Gustavo: Uh I gotta say spring. I'm feel it feels like a good spring here in, in LA. So…

Chris: I love it. 

Gustavo: it's feeling good right now. Although I'd like autumn I, I, yeah, yeah. 

Chris: I love it. 

Gustavo: Rapid fire questions but autumn for that’s, that's another discussion. 

Chris: It’s all good. What is one affirmation that you tell yourself all the time? And it could be a practice, it could be a visual, it could be a phrase. How do you affirm yourself? 

Gustavo: Hmm, hmmm. Joy, Joy. 

Chris: I love it. 

Gustavo: I think about joy. I uh yeah, I that’s a daily affirmation is joy, enjoy. And also, uh you know, try to get create the environments for joy. 

Chris: I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. And back to the Comic Con theme a little bit, a lot of folks, more novices like myself, because both of y'all are probably like; ‘Come on, Chris. You should have known this’. But I am excited that Wolverine and X Men to go into Marvel, and then Deadpool will have that mixture coming out soon. Which I am so, so excited. So I wanted to ask you, Gustavo, since this is big news to novices like me, who is your favorite X Men character?

Gustavo: Oh…

Chris: And why?

Gustavo: wow. Wow, yeah. Okay, well, we didn't talk about this right? Uh X Men was, was the first comic I really got into as a as a…

Chris: Ooh. 

Gustavo: kid. 

Chris: That. Okay, let's, let's get… 

Gustavo: Yeah. 

Chris: into it. Yeah. Why is that? 

Gustavo: You're asking this because they are the weirdos. They were the mutants, right? And they had to learn.

Chris: That’s right. 

Gustavo: They were young, and they had to learn…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: how to harness that inner power. 

Chris: Mhm. 

Gustavo: How to work together. So, so yeah, I don’t did I have one growing up? You know I grew up right around when that new when the new X Men were coming out, right? There was the first X Men like Jack, you know, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created the…

Chris: Okay. 

Gustavo: Cyclops Phoenix. Well she wasn’t Phoenix back then, right? She was, Beast. Right?

Amanda: Jean Grey. 

Gustavo: Jean Grey. Yeah. They created all those initial characters. And then in the early 70s, right was this was Wolverine, right? Storm, right? 

Amanda: Yeah, Storm. 

Gustavo: Yeah, that was like that. 

Amanda: Rogue, maybe. 

Gustavo: Yeah, that second wave of like mutants. So yeah. 

Chris: That’s a hard one. 

Gustavo: That team, that second team, right, is that's what spoke to me, because that's what I was reading growing up. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: So and, and again, that teamwork, and they were totally multicultural. And so that…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: spoke to me, right? And, and uh so it would be that whole team that second… 

Chris: I love it. 

Gustavo: team. 

Chris: I love the connection you made, right? This is why you know talking to comic nerds, like both of y'all, no disrespect, really connects the dots for me. Because Gustavo, I love how you just made that connection. They work together as a team, and there were you. The X Men are young, trying to figure themselves out, yo in 2024, don't that sound like the young people we're working with today? Having to go through a Great Depression, having to go through inflation, having to go through the pandemic, having to go through all of these things that this generation is going through; wars, genocide around the world, young people trying to figure out their own identity through this thing called social media as well, right? So I love that connection that you just made, Gustavo. Kinda on that note, as we close out, any final thoughts you want to share? And it's just an open platform, whatever it is that come to mind for you before we say; ‘See you next time’ to our listeners? 

Gustavo: Well, yeah, something I was thinking about, as we were talking today is that I know this going, it's going into the ether, right? This is gonna go through the, the circuits and the waves, they traveled through the universe, right? It's going to travel across the earth, through our phones, however, we listen to this. But one thing that’s really special, I've been thinking about this for a while now, and, and in talking both to you up the coast, something special is happening in California, and has been happening for a long time. I know it before it was even called California, right? For 1000s of years, all the original peoples right of this part of the world. But there's something here that I've been kind of studying for a little while about, Bay Area, Los Angeles, um just all up and down the coast. There is this energy that we have, and it's the people but it's also the land, right? Is there’s something here and I just want to just put that out there like, let's, let's keep building it. That's, that's what I love about working with, with, with all y'all in Oakland, because like I feel this connection with, with Bay Area, just this openness, and this has come these conversations where we can go with, with the work that we're doing and we can we can intersect and, and share these…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: these the work that we do. Uh but it's but it’s something, something in LA and, and…

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: Maria and all the California is, is I think deserves to be like deeply, deeply studied and researched and uh funded and uh and shared and developed between us. I mean we’re already doing it. Uh but I just see that there's something there that that really is striking to me. 

Chris: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Gustavo, and thank you for all you do, brother. Thank you for all you're gonna do, and thank you for your time today. And to our listeners out there that wraps up another CARMA Chronicles Podcast. Apologies for being MIA for many y’all, but we back and we're back with a vengeance with more artists like Gustavo from our Art Space healing Center Collective group…

Gustavo: Thank you. 

Chris: down in Los Angeles County, in partnership with the Department of Arts and Culture. So Gustavo, thank you so much my brother. Take care of yourself until next time. Feel free to tap in with us at Flourish Agenda at any of our social media accounts and our website as well. And Gustavo, if folks are interested in your work, if you have any handles or social media you would like to share, you're welcome to share it now as well. 

Gustavo: Alright, yeah.

Chris: Or just catch you at Comic. I'll just catch you catch you at Comic Con. How about that? 

Gustavo: Well, it's all it’s already getting it's famously hard for people to get tickets. I don't know how that works. But, yeah, no, thank you for having me. This is very inspiring. And yeah, meeting Amanda, nice to meet you today. And yeah, Chris. Always, always empowering to share space with you. Yeah, uh my website hasn't been updated in a while, but it's a good place to start. Chamanvision. C-H-A-M-A-N-V-I-S-I-O-N.com. It's like shaman vision, but it's not with an ‘S’ it's with a ‘C’ at the beginning. And that's a whole other discussion, but really quickly it’s just about seeing. You know, shamans are seers and uh and talking about possibilities. So that that's why my studio is Chaman Vision. And Instagram, don't do a lot of it. But I'm on there. Gigi Vaca. So Gigi Vaca. That’s my mom's last name. And honoring my mom, because you know, in Latin cultures, sometimes you use both last names. 

Chris: That’s right. 

Gustavo: So yeah, so among those two is all I do. Uh again, not much on Instagram, but I am out there in the world. Yeah, yeah, I'm out there and kind of part of what I do I also exhibit and stuff like that.  

Chris: Yeah. 

Gustavo: So, yeah just keep an eye out on uh on, on. IG is really where I post stuff that I’m, that are coming up that's, that's on… 

Chris: For sure. 

Gustavo: on that level. So…

Chris: For sure.

Gustavo: yeah. It's great to be here and very, very inspiring. Thank you. 

Chris Right on. Thanks, thank you so much, Gustavo. All right, good people. Until next time, peace and love, be well to each other. Together we flourish yo. Peace.