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Selling Your Heart Out (Dave Von Bieker, preview interview pt 2)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Do we all get to be who we decide to portray ourselves as on screen or in the media? I’d like to believe that it’s possible. But more importantly, I wonder if we can ever live up to the moral ideals we establish about our creative touch.

Making art is extremely difficult to sustain and it takes a lot of personal sacrifice if you really do hope to make it for a life time. Whether your medium is music, painting, design, fashion, photography, video, dance or any other combination of forms, it’s challenging road, filled with dues paid and money earned.

And a more common theme on everyone’s lips is the notion of burning out or fading away with time. The age old struggle of the creative professional – to be completely bohemian or a corporate sell-out. These polarizing terms exist for reason though, and I happen to believe that both are valid ways of looking at this as a career. This is where the theory comes in; if you want to truly be happy, you need to embrace both in some regard. That’s why it’s important to wrestle with the dichotomy of self versus the selfless.

Yes, you shouldn’t compare yourself to others, but relating to what those who have come before and have found success is an invaluable exercise. You might learn something by breaking apart a Kanye West song, recreating a Rembrant, or spending some time with 1927 movie classic Metropolis.

It’s a continual sacrifice. I give a lot for my art and to make it, so it seems crazy to me that I wouldn’t it to be heard by as many people as possible

Dave Von Bieker

I had so much fun talking with local music genius Von Bieker, that I decided to give another preview interview. I know, I know, I promised a full length interview, but this way you get even more content, and I can further craft his story in a meaningful way for you. Time for some more bow-tie rock to haunt your heart.

Enjoy creative cuties!

theories Summarized

Everything I do artistically is an expression of my ideals. Is this a true statement?

It’s an excellent question to ask yourself dear readers, and if you did, please like and share the video, leave me some comments and I’ll share them on social media. Maybe some new theories will unfold in the process.

Coming up next, a review on the new Young Fathers record, so please check back in tomorrow evening for more theories! You won’t be disappointed.

Tim!

A Thousand Suns (timotheories January 2018)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

January is supposed to be a month of promise, renewed hope, vigour for whatever we care about. And yet, I haven’t stopped running since August of 2017, so I’m not feeling the temporary January endorphins this year.

Which might actually be a good thing dear readers. Yes, I bought a house, and yes I got engaged, and yes I planned on getting married before this years end. But in the time that I took a forced hiatus from timotheories, I didn’t stop thinking about timotheories. I can’t stop. I won’t stop.

You see creative cuties, thinking is one of the things I do best in this world. And you give me the space to think, and man will I ever think. So I thought about things like the name timotheories, and I thought about the types of posts I write, and I thought about the different media channels I use to bring in traffic, and the people I interview to give you perspective on how to be creative, I thought about theories, and wisdom, and logos, and pretty much everything.

And that’s how I know I won’t stop. Because I still have a million and one ideas of content to share with you. And so I’m going to make a list of goals this month, and share it with you next month. Then I’m going to start to implement them. It’s an evolution of the campfire theories theme I chose last year…

The fire of a thousand suns.

…

*Disclaimer* As always, every week I purchase an album and movie one week ahead of the actual review release and while I have the best intentions, I don’t always get what I want… so if you follow me on instagram (@timotheories) you can actually see what’s coming.

timotheories summarized – January

Professional Theorems – (01/07) Brendon Greene interview, (01/14) Cross Talk Ep. 30, (01/21) Cross Talk Ep. 31, (01/28) Matthew Ankerstein preview interview
Sound Culture – (01/02) The Rolling Stones, (01/08) Miguel, (01/15) Sinistro, (01/22) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, (01/29) First Aid Kit
Watch Culture – (01/01) Dunkirk, (01/03) Brawl in Cell Block 99, (01/09) American Made (01/16) IT (01/23) Blade Runner 2049 (01/30) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
School of Thoughts – (01/10) Art Stars (Mentors), (01/17) Gaining Wisdom, (01/24) Diet, (01/31) By The Book (Education)(Reading)
Art House – (01/04) timotheories January, (01/11) House, (01/18) Engagement, (01/25) Wedding

You’re right, I did rename the weekly headings folks. Too smart for me, I could never pull a fast one over you lot. I did this because I was tired of trying to get posts in exactly on the day that I envisioned them for, and I quickly realized that a lot of you are in different time zones, and the ones that aren’t wouldn’t be reading my posts until the following morning anyway, and now I’m on brand with what I’m doing over on YouTube… so bonus! Which means that I’ll need to slowly go back in time and edit any mention of the old themes.

Point number two, I’m introducing a new monthly post called Art Stars (under the old Wisdom Wednesday heading), so that I can share some of my favourite creative professionals with you regularly. Wisdom often comes from having mentors, and these are mine. Additionally, I am rebranding the book of the month post to By The Book – clever right?

As it stands, I’ll be wrapping up the Brendon Greene interview I didn’t get to finish editing in the summer, and I’ll also give you a teaser of next month’s guest… Matthew Ankerstein! Matt is a podcaster and influencer, with a ton of energy. He’ll bring some great ideas to the table.

Lots of great Watch Culture posts and vids too, of course. And maybe if you’re lucky I’ll get some Sound Culture videos published on top of the blog posts? And last, but not least, I’ll give you some personal insights into my world with Art House (formerly Timely Thursdays) which I think you’ll enjoy.

theories Summarized

Yeah there are some changes coming, but I hope that the taste I’ve given above helps reframe the tone of this website, and all related media channels. timotheories is about digital curating at hear, that means cultivating good art; whether it’s film, music, fine art or something else.

I want to hear some feedback on what you think of this years theme, and the changes I’ll be implementing. And of course, any new theories I run across. Please like, comment and subscribe so I know you’re there!

Tim!

Playing With Fire (Megan Warkentin grad exhibition)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

In those seemingly quite moments of exploration, when we’re all alone, and when we don’t know what we’re doing, that is when we might be the most alive. Consider this quote by Chuck Palahniuk, who often pulls from personal experience when writing his novels. –

Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

In the month of October I released a couple of posts about a friend of mine. These posts supported an important interview I had conducted with my friend in the fall of this year. You see dear readers, she is graduating from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Arts after a stint of approximately ten years in post-secondary education – her name is Megan Warkentin and she is a visual artist with a masters degree in painting.

Our interview was about the importance of exploration, whether inside the framework of a creative discipline, as it relates to the occupations of the mind or when considering the physical world and the items contained inside of it.

Megan has always been a creative individual, but it wasn’t until she went after her university education that she really focused in on visual arts… And now she is asking one of the hard questions of life over and over again in her art.

Why would someone risk their safety, health and potentially their life in the pursuit of stunts and dangerous activity?

What began as a number of experimental paintings that featured still images from YouTube videos of people performing dangerous stunts and the resulting aftermath, has slowly evolved into a process surrounding larger ideas of risk and exploration. Megan is fascinated by human behaviour, and wants to know why people set themselves directly in harms way, why other people are fascinated by this behaviour in the first place, and how those onlookers might react to the sport of British cheese rolling or ravine jumping. Inspired by artists like Kim Dorland, Peter Doig, Daniel Richter, and Tilo Baumgartel whose work showcases contemporary society in interesting ways, Megan wants to truly address the absurdity of adrenaline junkies through crude art, with a hint of the sublime and mystical in the mediums used.

08_warkintoncopy

This body of work culminates with an exhibition titled Playing With Fire between December 6-22 and January 30-7 at the Fine Arts Building gallery (1-1 Fine Arts Building, 89 avenue and 112 street, University of Alberta) and is the final visual presentation for Megan’s degree of Master of Fine Arts in Painting.

I realize it’s short notice dear readers, but if you want an opportunity to speak with Megan about her work, you should definitely check out the opening reception tonight, December 8th from 7-10PM at the FAB building. Otherwise the gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday 10-5PM, Saturday 2-5PM, closed Sunday, Monday, & statutory holidays.

I’m out of theories for the week my friends, but I hope you come back on Sunday for a new episode of Cross Talk.

Tim!

Extend Your Credit (Georg Rockall-Schmidt 2nd preview interview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Sometimes you get the credit and sometimes the credit gets you.  Whether we’re talking about university or book keeping is kinda unclear, because this word has roughly ten or so definitions, but we’re gonna roll with the punches and hope that all of my generalizations will bolster a sense of respect and confidence in my writing ability.

Now that I have your attention, let’s consider the following: credit can turn you into a slave.

I realize that the credit analogies are gonna run thin pretty quick here dear readers, so instead of making a bunch of references about credit history, how arcade games work hard to turn your hard earned fast food job money against you or why all movies in the future seem to favour that word over currency, I’m just gonna make a clean break and say that credit is one of those things that you should understand but not rely on. It’ll fuck up your mojo if you let it.

bankruptcy

I mean Georg gets it. That’s why he and I spent so much time discussing credibility and what it means to him as a full-time creator of YouTube Videos. You know Georg right? Same guy that I’m preparing to release a feature length interview with in the near future.

Now the see the thing about Georg is that he is a researcher, a writer and quite bright. We ended up talking back and forth for over two hours. Which is a lot of time to edit down an interview into a reasonable length. In fact, it’s almost double what a typical interview runs for me.

Georg Rockall-Schmidt has been an excellent first foray into the world of international interviewing, and I wanted to give him as much attention as I could, so I decided (at the last minute) to release another preview of us chatting about credibility. This time the focus question is – do you communicate all of the information you need to in order to be considered authentic?

And I bet you won’t be able to guess what his answer is.

Lucky for you, I have the interview question locked and loaded. So you don’t have many more sentences to wait until the reward is at your fingertips. Now sit down if you’re standing or stand up if you’ve been sitting all day and watch this short clip featuring my friend and fellow internet darling.

Now I’ve run the theories train into the station for the evening, friends. You’re gonna have to get off here cause it’s the end of the line. But I can promise you some sweet dreams, heck, even some countrified ones that’ll make a whole lot of sense when you come back tomorrow for my Miranda Lambert music review. With that cleared up, browse the timotheories.com som more, leave some comments, subscribe, and share this post with your creative friends.

Tim!

Let’s Get Credible (Georg Rockall-Schmidt preview interview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

We can’t all have good credit scores. Some of us because of circumstances, a lot of us because we made bad decisions about what to buy, but did you know that there are factors you wouldn’t have considered? Your payment history, credit file age, diversity of accounts, and how often searches are pulled, for instance. You do know that a credit score and credibility go hand in hand according to banks, credit card companies, collection agencies, and governments, don’t you dear readers? Credibility is the quality of being trusted and believed in. Or to put it another way, it’s a quality of being convincing or believable.

Perception is reality after all.

You see friends, when people think you’ll keep your word, they are more likely to trust you and let you make decisions. This is something that all good leaders have, salespeople and business operators included. Now this is where you come in – You make art. You love to make art, but you need to be credible in order to sell said art.

And as the old adage goes, it’s easier to ask forgiveness then permission. Especially from someone who is credible.

Once you realize that your public image is just as important as the one that you internally hold up for yourself, you can begin to consider all of the options, just a little more closely. Heck, it even applies to US politics but you’ll see what I mean when you turn on the clip

Oh wait, I forgot to mention, that this is preview of my first ever international interview with Georg Rockall-Schmidt. Georg is one of the most awesome people that I’ve never met in real life. Georg is a full-time creator of YouTube videos. You can find his channel here, but effectively he creates videos about pop culture, history, parody, his personal thoughts on life, and a whole lot more. An English dude with an anti-establishment educations, he believes that credibility defines ideation, and it’s important to him to have self-awareness but to simply leave all of the unnecessary elements out of the equation.

And that’s just a teaser. I have a full-fledged interview coming up in the next week or so featuring more of his incredible insights. This is Just A Thought on all that is Georg Rockall-Schmidt. Sorry for stealing your tagline Georg!

Can you believe it dear readers? I’m out of theories for the night. But just because I’m out of theories for now, doesn’t mean you can’t read more of my own thoughts! Browse the website, leave some comments, subscribe, and share with your creative friends. Otherwise, you should have a fantastic night, because I’ll be back tomorrow with a new Dragonette album review.

Tim!