Joan Tesauro

Name: Joan Tesauro
Website: www.getbackjojo.com

What do you do? I am an interior decorator/designer

Where can we find your work?
On my website, Pinterest, Facebook , homes, restaurants ,boutiques and salons all over the Bay Area

What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
 I really love what I do. I have the opportunity to meet interesting people, be creative and bring positive change. Whenever I get a new client and I am invited to see their homes I am so excited to start the process and find out about their likes and their family and come up with a concept based on their lifestyle.  I see new products every day and I can always find the right place to display it. When things get tough I keep working on myself: I use the down time to try and work on things  I can’t always get to when I am really busy. That keeps me sane and by the time I am finished doing that kind of stuff, a new client turns up and I am ready to work and organized!

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
Ultimately the finished product should reflect what my clients should have and what is proper for their space. I can’t imagine how awful it would be if they were unhappy with the outcome. The process of getting to that point is important but because most of my clientele are working , busy parents they aren’t experiencing everything that I do behind the scenes.  For what I do the finished result is most important.

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?
My inspirations come from my childhood idols: tv shows, movies, and characters of fiction. Sometimes when I am designing a room I say it is going to be GONE WITH WIND DRAPES or GREAT GATSBY CONSERVATORIES. My ultimate no holds barred design inspiration is I dream of Jeannie meets Mary Richards. I remember how they lived and what their spaces look like and I love it!  I continually attend seminars, continuing education and hear what other designers have to say about how they work and I am always so rejuvenated by hearing others and their stories. 

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
Jeannie from I DREAM OF JEANNIE, great bottle to be locked up in, great outfit and pretty cool tricks!

When do you get your best ideas?
Ideas come to me at all different times. Sometimes if I tune everything out and just absorb natural sounds around me and stop thinking about the work I can relax and be more creative.

What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
Through the years I have kept an arsenal of design resources from fabrics, paint tabs, tear sheets of furniture and lighting that I love. I must say I really have a thing for beautiful fabrics and wall paper and I try to use those whenever I can.

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?
I have a formal education in Design: I studied throughout High school; going to art and design classes on weekends and in the Summer. I studied painting and design in Florence Italy, The wonderful thing about formal education is you are required to take all sorts of art, and design classes, which just makes you that much better at what you do. I learned how to mix paints, and I learned how to dye fabrics and make paper. I had to learn about composition, space, and color plus you get to attend critiques and get critiqued by your peers and trained professionals. I graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Surface Pattern Design, enabling me to get employment immediately following graduation.  My first job out of college was in the fashion industry in NYC ,designing fabrics for swimwear, active wear and lingerie. No education like that. During that time I learned about business and how a business should run.  From that experience I gained a sense of urgency, that time is of the essence and clients appreciate when I respect their time and I love it when people respect mine. All these factors and experiences made the transition into interior design smooth and perfect for me.

What would your creative work taste like?
Hot buttered rum…tasteful,  smooth with a bit of a kick

When you are not creating what do you like to do?
Spending time with my husband, I love listening to live music, eating good food, travel, hanging out with friends and my guilty pleasure watching  reality tv with my two cats.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience? 
I was very fortunate to have people in my life that supported me and my endeavors.  I attended schools that had great art programs with amazing teachers who were very caring and honest. I have had the pleasure of working with some fun clients who have given me full reign to re do a room to my vision and that is always a confidence booster!

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures?  
Make sure you really want to do this and if you do then go for it. Take the classes, invest in the time, absorb others that are doing the same thing, learn from them. Accept the fact that you will make mistakes but you will learn from them.

Warren Lain

Name: Warren Lain 
Website: See below

What do you do?
Right now, my energies are split between teaching and making music. On YouTube, I teach songs and sometimes perform original music, and on SoundCloud and Official.FM I put out songs and soundtrack pieces. I am working on a solo album and an online music course.

Where can we find your work?

http://youtube.com/warrenmusic [music tutorials, originals]
http://soundcloud.com/warrenlain [songs]
http://new.official.fm/warrenlain [soundtrack sketches]

 What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
Two things inspire me to create the most: seeing other people create, and the urge to express something I have trouble expressing in everyday conversation. In terms of making music, I think it's easier than ever to record your stuff and put it out there for people to hear so I don't feel like we really have it "tough," at least not in terms of fairness. But even if disheartening or creatively stifling moments come in other ways, I remember that the act of making music itself is the part I enjoy most. Playing and discovering sounds I find beautiful, and then writing, recording, mixing, and hearing it back for the first time is a feeling of satisfaction that no number of downloads nor number of zeroes on a paycheck could ever touch.

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
As you can probably gather from the above, the process is pretty much what it's all about for me. The finished product is the overflow of the work, not the work itself. I believe the more you make music, the more songs will get finished. In the same way, I didn't set out to write an album, but I have confidence that the album will find itself finished or pretty close to finished when I have made enough music. This is the mindset I have adopted because, for me, I have a tendency to start worrying about what others will think of it before it's appropriate. Endlessly criticizing your own work in the early stages creating it is just going to doom the whole thing. And before you know it, nothing ever gets done.

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?A close friend of mine decided he would pursue a creative life when there was no one else around him encouraging him to do so. He worked really, really hard and in a short amount of time, his brand became one of the top names in a niche he created for himself. His brand, Yours Truly, now works with and is sought after by many major music publications like Pitchfork, Gorilla vs. Bear, Fader, and more.

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?An Ent from the Lord Of the Rings/The Silmarillion. They are the oldest and wisest creatures; they know and they've seen everything worth knowing.

When do you get your best ideas? It probably sounds like I am evading the question, but honestly the answer is: anywhere and everywhere. Something will strike me while I'm driving or in them middle of a guitar lesson. A fair bit of it happens simply when I'm experimenting and being intentional about making music. I'm never too far away from my iPhone, and the Voice Memo app is amazing for quickly capturing an idea I am feeling but can't work on until later. They say the best camera is the one you have with you.

What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
My iPhone's Voice Memo app, my MacBook Pro, my cheap russian Oktava MK-012 small condenser microphones, my Apogee Duet (audio interface), my guitars, random pianos I find, Ableton Live, and great drum samples. But without lots and lots of time to experiment, the best equipment in the world would rarely do me any good.

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?
Both. I received formal music theory and ear-training as well as vocal training throughout my youth, but when it came to the guitar, songwriting, and music production, I am self-taught. I believe that this hybrid musical history of mine has helped inform how I approach my work in the sense that I am both cerebral and visceral about it. While it's a romantic notion, I don't think all great music is strictly from the heart. I believe artistic genius comes in many forms, and sometimes it's found in tons of revision, theory, and experience as well as emotion and intuition.

What would your creative work taste like?
 Bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps it took you somewhere else when you ate it, and you wanted to stay there.

When you are not creating what do you like to do?
 I am a super fan of a few TV shows. I currently follow Mad Men, Game Of Thrones, and Fringe (I was elated when Fox renewed it for a fifth and final season!). I love finding new places to eat. I surround myself with people who, in some ways, know me better than I know myself.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience?
This may be a surprise for those who only know me through my work on YouTube, but I have always been a shy musician. For a long time I was really afraid of failure and super insecure, and it took me a long time to realize that close friends couldn't all be wrong about the giftedness they saw in me. Through years of poking and prodding, I found that my posture of false modesty was only about protecting myself, and that to be true to the passion I had within to make music and share my love of it with others, I had to just put it out there and deal with the negativity as I went. I hold my work to a very high standard, and I like to think that this quality has helped me earn the loyalty of people who follow my work. But in all honesty, it does make criticism harder to deal with, and for that, I've learned that a good dose of humility is necessary if I want to do the best work I can do.

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures? 
Do it, don't over-think it. No amount of school or advice, no magical combination of circumstance or opportunity, nor any amount of inspiration will sustain your creativity for the long haul. Commit to the work, and trust that your commitment to it will be rewarding in and of itself. Surround yourself with people who encourage you to stay on the path. You will recognize the finished product when it comes.

Floy Zittin

Name:  Floy Zittin
Website: www.floyzittin.com

What do you do?
 I paint watercolors featuring birds.

Where can we find your work?
 My work is shown locally at ViewpointsGallery in Los Altos and at Studio Seven Gallery in Pleasanton.

What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
 I consider myself a naturalist as well as an artist and I am continually learning new things about plants and animals through painting.
      

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
 I enjoy the process of painting.  My paintings evolve as I work on them and can go in unexpected directions. Sometimes these are disasters but I enjoy the journey.
   

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?
 I am inspired by Japanese and Chinese ink paintings   

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
no idea

When do you get your best ideas?  
 Watching birds in my backyard or hiking with my husband

What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
 I have been experimenting working with watercolor on a variety of surfaces.  For several years I was working on canvas and I am now experimenting painting on wood panels.

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?  
My formal training was in biology but I studied watercolor technique under Jane Hofstetter and taken numerous workshops.  It took a while to gain confidence because I did not have a formal degree.

What would your creative work taste like?
 Fresh produce or something earthy like mushrooms.

When you are not creating what do you like to do?
Travel, hike, birding.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience? 
I began working as a scientific illustrator and later moved to selling my own creations.

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures?  
The more you paint the better you get and the process of learning can be a lot of fun.

Ray Furuta

Name: Ray Furuta

Website: www.rayfuruta.com  |  www.svmusicfestival.org

What do you do?

a.       Concertizing Flutist – Soloist and Chamber Musician

b.      Artistic Director for brand new The Silicon Valley Music Festival

c.       Flutist for Yellow Barn Music Festival, Argento New Music Ensemble and other
          ensembles.

d.      Guest teacher at Universities, Music Schools, and Flute Societies

Where can we find your work?

a.       My personal website: www.rayfuruta.com

b.      Silicon Valley Music Festival website: www.svmusicfestival.org

c.       Youtube Channel – Ray Furuta & Silicon Valley Music Festival

What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
It is very easy to get frustrated and confused as a classical musician, or any artist for that matter.  I am a positive and relaxed person by nature and handle stress very well, but I look my flute teacher and mentor, Carol Wincenc, professor at The Juilliard School, for constant inspiration. I have other mentors including Emerson String Quartet violinist, Philip Setzer, San Jose’s own Isabelle Chapuis, Jill Felber, and Elena Yarritu who are always there to give me moral support for my artistic endeavors.  I find that when things get hard, simple positive and moral support from the people you look up to is inspiration enough to get through.


     

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
This is a tricky question, because in many ways both are equally important – especially in music.  Personally, I believe that the “content”, or perhaps one’s musical point of view, personality and how they portray it to the audience is more important then the technical aspect of music. This is something that I think is sometimes forgotten in music – but I’m a firm believer that this is most important.


  

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?

a.       My flute teachers, Carol Wincenc, Jill Felber, Isabelle Chapuis, and Elena Yarritu.

b.      My chamber music teachers, Philip Setzer, David Finckel, Christina Dahl

c.       Artistic Director of Music@Menlo and CMS of Lincoln Center, Wu Han. Her playing
          never ceases to inspire me.

d.      Soprano Angela Gheorghiu

e.       Joni Mitchell

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?

"Leslie Knope" I would say Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation because of her dedication for what she loves. I can related to her strong sense of passion for her work and her never ending determination to achieve her highest possible goal.

When do you get your best ideas?
Normally when I’m at a concert – especially when the performer is particularly inspiring to me. As I’m inspired, my mind races ideas pop up like crazy! Also, when I’m walking home from school, through NYC, often ideas will come to me.


 
What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
It’s just my flute and me!

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?
I think at a certain point, it is important to have formal training. Especially in music. Of course, there are special cases, and also people who are not formally trained who have become extremely successful – and sometimes there’s something to be said about developing your own artistic voice without the influence or pressure of another’s.

What would your creative work taste like?
That’s interesting. Thinking of how my playing has been described as “ dynamic”, “Artistic statement is powerful” and “Deft virtuosity” I would say that my playing would taste like some strong – yet extremely delicious cocktail! Ha Ha!


 
When you are not creating what do you like to do?
 I am now enjoying exploring the entrepreneurial side of music and the arts. I love to have friends over to cook and have dinner parties. I also enjoy playing with my dog, Newton.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience?
I think as a musician, true confidence – versus arrogance – it takes a lot of performance experience, and time for your musical point of view to mature. I think only recently after 15 years of playing, I have found the true “Ray Furuta”. It takes time.

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures?
Work Hard, never give up, and find inspiration – constantly. ALWAYS be open to learning, and exploring new facets of your creative ventures. Be humble, modest, and friendly, having the right attitude is the best way to develop relationships with colleagues and fellow artists.