By Understood
Heath Howes has built hundreds of custom horse saddles for riders. Growing up, he had trouble with reading and writing, as well as ADHD. But he found his strengths in art and three-dimensional thinking. Listen to his thoughts on how to find a career working with your hands.
To find a transcript for this episode and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood. https://www.understood.org/podcast/ho…
We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at [email protected].
Understood is a nonprofit and social impact organization dedicated to shaping a world where the 1 in 5 people who learn and think differently can thrive. Learn more about “How’d You Get THAT Job?!” and all our podcasts at u.org/podcasts. Copyright © 2021 Understood for All, Inc. All rights reserved.
Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)
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[Music]
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from the understood podcast network this
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is how’d you get that job a podcast that
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explores the unique and often unexpected
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career paths of people with learning and
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thinking differences my name is eleniThe Editors
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matheal and i’m a user researcher here
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at understood that means i spend a lot
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of time thinking about how we find jobs
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we love that reflect how we learn and
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who we are
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i’ll be your host
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[Music]
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so on this show we like to talk to a
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wide range of people with different jobs
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and careers
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in that spirit i think today’s guest
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would have felt right at home in the
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wild west as he does in the modern city
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heath howes is a saddle maker
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he had challenges reading as a child and
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also has adhd welcome to the show well
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hello thank you thank you for having me
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so you’re a horse saddle maker and also
0:56
a leather worker what does a saddle
0:59
maker do
1:00
i am a saddle maker
1:02
i make saddle trees
1:04
my job is
1:06
putting leather
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on a hard form that is called a saddle
1:11
tree
1:12
and we adapt it to shape for a horse
1:16
so that the rider can be suspended on
1:19
that animal
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and not get thrown off and not slide off
1:23
but also be able to work on that animal
1:26
and rope cattle and other animals off of
1:30
it
1:31
and that is the saddle construction
1:34
i’ve probably made about 500 saddles and
1:38
a
1:39
trees
1:40
and can you actually explain what a
1:42
saddle tree is
1:44
traditionally a saddle tree is four
1:46
pieces of wood specifically
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shaped and then
1:50
mounted together a fork a cantal and two
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bars
1:55
usually it’s bound by rawhide
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what i make it in is a high density
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polyurethane and i put it in a mold and
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then fill that
2:04
you form the tree
2:06
to match the horse
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the back of the horse on the bottom side
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and then you
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match the rider when you’re constructing
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the saddle on the top side
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the thing that i do
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for the majority of my job is making the
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saddle trees and i send them off to
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saddle makers but when i can get a
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chance i make the saddles themselves
2:29
and i do
2:30
custom ones so i’ll end up hand tooling
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or what we call carving where
2:37
you
2:38
take a swivel knife and break the grain
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or cut the grain of the the leather
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what everybody wants is the thing that
2:46
takes the most time which is hand
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tooling and you take these little
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stamps that are like an eighth of an
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inch
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by an eighth of an inch all the way to
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like a half inch by half inch
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and
2:58
you can make flowers you can make human
3:01
faces you can make portraits dogs cattle
3:04
and stuff like that or
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huge geometric patterns and anything you
3:09
can think of you can pretty much put
3:11
into
3:12
into leather so what i do is is just
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dress those trees and then
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make belts and other things like that
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you mentioned often people are looking
3:22
for custom saddles i don’t know if
3:24
there’s anything else that you’d like to
3:25
add about why people are looking for
3:27
custom saddles like why that’s important
3:29
and like what are the kind of things
3:31
that they’re looking for when they seek
3:33
out a custom saddle you know this type
3:35
of work ranch work is very hard on
3:37
horses
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so you want something that’s going to be
3:39
comfortable for them and yourself
3:41
throughout the day
3:42
so you can continue to work and
3:45
longevity is what we’re
3:47
looking for now so you want a custom
3:49
saddle to allow you to work not just
3:52
all day long or
3:54
days being like maybe
3:56
eight hours at the easiest you know 14
3:59
hours from dusk till dawn
4:01
but all the way into your 70s for people
4:04
that want a comfortable ride
4:06
because it it’s hard on your joints it’s
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hard on your hips it’s hard on your
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knees and your ankles and so my dad’s 70
4:12
and still able to ride because of the
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production method that we have you know
4:17
so we can relieve the joints with a
4:20
custom saddle
4:21
that’s super cool
4:23
something i’ve never thought about
4:25
well yeah
4:26
who does you just get on a horse right
4:29
you mentioned like some people ask
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for specific imagery or carvings
4:34
do you have a story in mind for maybe
4:37
the strangest requests that you’ve had i
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didn’t get this request it was one that
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i heard from in the shop my dad’s shop
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and
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my dad’s name is mark house and his shop
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is the double h ranch saddle shop which
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is the shop that i learned and grew up
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in saddle-making and leather work
4:57
a gal came in and she was very
4:59
interested in a fully floral carved
5:02
saddle and she had a particular flower
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set that she wanted
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and when it’s floral it’s the petals and
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then the vines and the leaves that go
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with it she wanted a little animal on it
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too she wanted a tree frog
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and not just any tree frog there’s a
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specific type of tree frog that she
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wanted
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and she starts explaining it my dad’s
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like well okay so what’s this like a
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toad like a bullfrog and she’s like no
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no a tree frog he’s like if you could
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just show me a picture she’s like all
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right i’ll show you the image so she
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pulls up her shirt
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and she’s not wearing a bra and she has
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two tree frogs tattooed to her breasts
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and she’s like those i want those frogs
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on my style
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and i was like i think i can do that but
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anyway
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yeah that was the most interesting story
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if someone was like i want this
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i just don’t know that is very
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interesting
5:59
cool so
6:01
what does a typical day look like for
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you and
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what is your favorite thing
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about the process or about the work that
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you do
6:09
for my day i have to structure it
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i start with the small projects first
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the ones that i don’t like doing
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and it’s easier to pile that on
6:20
at the beginning of the day with the
6:22
small stuff because then you can get
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through it so
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sweeping
6:26
prepping
6:27
cleaning
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and there’s a lot to clean when you’re
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messing around with plastics in its
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liquid form because as soon as it
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hardens and cases out
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what’s cool is like it’s like living
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sculpture it looks like just a drip all
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over the place but it’s hard
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with covid and everything going on right
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now i’ve had to release the two guys
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that worked with me that i hired on and
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for me my mind it was easier to talk
6:54
out the process with individuals in the
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shop now it’s just me so i’ve got to
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like
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start music or a podcast or something
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like that
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and
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have something that my subconscious can
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work on otherwise my processes are just
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thrown out the window because i tend to
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overthink if i don’t have something that
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my mind is working on
7:18
so you said it was actually helpful to
7:20
you to verbalize what your day would
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look like when you had colleagues around
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do you want to talk a little bit about
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why that’s helpful to you and perhaps
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how that might relate to some of your
7:30
learning and thinking differences for me
7:32
it’s a systematic approach to things so
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i talk about it but i guess with the
7:37
adhd there’s some compulsionary issues
7:41
but i’m also an oral learner and teacher
7:45
it’s easier for me to
7:47
sometimes explain something but i gotta
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get it out first you know if i don’t
7:51
know what i’m doing i have to talk about
7:53
it like i’m gonna go do this thing i’m
7:56
gonna go put this on because if you have
7:58
a good idea say it out loud and if it’s
8:00
still a good idea
8:02
then go do it and you’re like oh no this
8:04
is a great idea but when you say it out
8:05
loud and it sounds
8:07
horrible or awful just don’t do it just
8:11
i said it now and
8:13
that is something bad i’m just not gonna
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do that
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and with my process
8:18
it does change especially now i’ve had
8:20
to reconfigure an entire process because
8:23
since it’s only me
8:24
i can only make one tree a day and that
8:27
mistake
8:28
ratio is greater so if i don’t talk
8:30
about it and think about the the next
8:33
step of my process then i may screw up a
8:36
tree which is 400 a piece for me so
8:38
that’s the entire day i’m like oh well
8:40
that day scrapped
8:42
but it does two things solidify it the
8:44
process in your mind
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and
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assurance and
8:49
confidence during the day
8:52
if you feel more confident about what
8:53
you’re doing
8:55
every day then showing someone else or
8:57
telling someone else or
8:59
doing something that’s very
9:00
new to you
9:02
is not as daunting totally
9:04
so we haven’t really
9:06
talked about like what your differences
9:08
are so could you describe like how you
9:10
identify or like perhaps how you would
9:12
describe
9:13
your learning and thinking differences
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to like a friend or a family member or a
9:17
colleague and how maybe it actually
9:20
shifts depending on who you’re talking
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to yeah i have had a better success at
9:25
talking about my issues
9:27
with my friends rather than my family
9:30
and i’m not
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certain that that’s going to be for
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everybody it just happens to be
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my folks tend to think that whatever
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difficulties i have has a bearing on how
9:40
they taught me or my upbringing
9:43
and so i don’t tell my folks that
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i was just recently diagnosed with adhd
9:49
although i know that i have had it for a
9:52
long time because the struggle has been
9:54
real
9:56
it’s just when i was in school and i
9:59
broached this subject with my folks the
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first time
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and i was like i think i have that my
10:04
mom’s like even if you do there’s ways
10:06
around it you don’t have to take it
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because i don’t want you to take
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anything chemically
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okay and that was one conversation
10:14
many many years ago and that was it that
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was the end of it no bringing it back up
10:18
but i can talk to my my friends and say
10:21
i i think this is a problem so when they
10:23
suggest books to me you know when i was
10:26
younger
10:26
it was is it entertaining or is it
10:29
educational because if it’s educational
10:30
i will struggle through it most because
10:32
the larger words because as i read i
10:35
don’t read left or right i look at the
10:37
center of a word
10:39
and then
10:40
assimilate the letters that way is it
10:42
something i’m familiar with like is that
10:45
word recognizable as it is
10:47
just physically written
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otherwise it doesn’t look right
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and it like the fonts
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usually throw me off if it’s the same
10:56
word and it’s written in a different
10:57
font and it doesn’t look right i won’t
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know the word
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like tucson what is that or i’ll say
11:04
tuxen i don’t know that’s still tucson
11:06
it’s still spelled tucson
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you know but for me i just recognize a
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word like a face is your face familiar
11:14
is that word familiar then reading right
11:16
to left
11:17
yeah i just assimilate the idea of what
11:20
is the sentence trying to tell me but
11:22
now i mean it’s easier nowadays i can
11:24
read books
11:25
if it is exactly a book that i want to
11:28
read
11:29
writing for me even though i know what
11:32
it is i want to say my mind is still
11:34
going too fast and my hands are too slow
11:36
just can’t do it it takes me a full day
11:38
to write a page of thought
11:40
i don’t understand
11:43
for me i just can’t do that but i know
11:46
that some individuals can put those
11:48
ideas together and then they see that
11:50
idea and then they can run with it and
11:51
they can just type it
11:53
and go along i knew that i wasn’t able
11:55
to sit down and write and type at a
11:58
computer it just takes me forever and
12:00
that’s new i i was like even though
12:02
these things are fun i cannot do it now
12:05
the one thing i was able to do and this
12:07
is the weirdest thing in my creative
12:09
writing class
12:11
it came to our poetry writing one of the
12:14
things we had to do
12:16
and i was like oh poetry and the teacher
12:19
was like just write in free form
12:22
i was like crap okay free form not gonna
12:24
do it for some reason my mind needs a
12:26
type of structure it needs
12:28
sequence
12:30
i decided to look into french strict
12:33
form
12:34
french forms are some of the hardest
12:37
in order to follow
12:38
that was easy for me
12:41
the rhyming schemes well you know it’s
12:43
just gotta figure out what’s gonna
12:44
happen but i can follow that i can
12:47
follow that system but i can’t do
12:49
freeform poetry to save my life
12:53
so you mentioned that you know you were
12:54
diagnosed later
12:56
and you know when it came up when you
12:58
were younger your parents kind of
13:01
dismissed it or didn’t allow you to
13:03
pursue that further
13:05
do you think that your differences like
13:07
influenced either your interest or where
13:09
you decided to go with your career
13:12
even without having that diagnosis
13:14
absolutely when i was learning in school
13:17
i would keep at least a notebook with me
13:21
that wasn’t for writing it was an art
13:23
book but
13:24
for the most part it was
13:26
drawing circles while the teacher talked
13:29
or triangles or x’s and things like that
13:32
but it would just be a form of making
13:35
the muscles do something the subliminal
13:37
mind to do something and uh
13:39
the first few times i did that my
13:41
teachers did not know and they thought i
13:43
was being disruptive i was like how am i
13:45
disrupting you by drawing
13:47
you know anybody who’s taking notes is
13:49
still going to be scribbling on a page
13:51
but you’re upset that like there’s
13:53
circles happening there’s a disconnect
13:55
there they think i’m not connecting to
13:57
them i was like this is for me to listen
14:00
to you
14:01
while not like losing my
14:04
in class you know
14:06
so
14:08
the tangible arts became easier drawing
14:12
became easier
14:13
so
14:15
as i went into
14:17
specific classes of education i did art
14:20
class a sculpture and those came easy
14:23
three-dimensional thinking became easy
14:25
so i did architectural design while i
14:27
was in high school
14:29
so model building
14:30
part of that
14:32
class was you know using cad programs as
14:34
they first came out i could see all of
14:36
that because my hand was already
14:38
building those things but
14:41
because of the limitations i wasn’t able
14:43
to just sit and listen i had to do
14:46
something and to clear my mind you know
14:48
so i could pay attention
14:50
so making an art piece at the end of the
14:51
day and then
14:53
rather than make
14:54
model kits i just decided to start
14:57
making models
14:58
myself carving woods and and pieces like
15:01
that into something else
15:03
which
15:04
leads to what my dad was already doing
15:07
i just you know would do that every now
15:09
and then
15:10
but i got into construction and art and
15:12
everything and that went into theater
15:14
like actual theater all the backstage
15:16
stuff
15:17
lighting set painting prop making and
15:19
things like that all the tangible stuff
15:21
that you don’t think about when you’re
15:22
watching
15:23
a movie
15:24
being able to do that and look at it
15:27
and see things three-dimensionally and
15:29
see it as someone’s describing it to me
15:31
someone’s like i want it like this and
15:33
they’re very vague but i can see it
15:35
three-dimensionally already in my mind
15:37
and then do a partial draw or thumbnail
15:40
sketch of it
15:42
like in terms of your
15:43
story around the types of things that
15:46
you are interested in it sounds like you
15:49
know right now you’re working with your
15:50
hands and that seems to be like a big
15:52
part of what you were drawn to in terms
15:55
of sculptures and creating 3d objects
15:58
and you mentioned earlier working with
16:01
plastic and working with leather i’d
16:03
love to hear more about what you really
16:06
enjoy or not about working with these
16:08
materials and then also like how this
16:12
process like engages your other senses
16:14
you mentioned bringing music into it but
16:17
i’m wondering like about texture and
16:19
scent and like other sounds
16:21
when you’re working with leather there
16:23
is a term gaining your hands the leather
16:26
is a bio-material
16:28
once it’s tanned it’s not all hard you
16:30
still have armpits you still have
16:34
neck you still have stomach you still
16:36
have these areas where
16:38
this very flexible
16:41
bilateral cell structure
16:44
makes for weaker points when you want
16:46
stronger leather pieces now the thing is
16:49
when you’re trying to shape leather into
16:51
these convex and concave areas where
16:54
there’s
16:55
four different shapes and sides that it
16:57
all has to go on
16:59
some of that knowledge you do need to
17:01
utilize but reading the leather as it’s
17:03
just a side
17:04
of hide
17:06
just looking at it you don’t know touch
17:08
the leather
17:09
this guy that used to work for my dad
17:11
would be like make love to the leather
17:13
like
17:14
but
17:15
you’re still using your hands to see how
17:17
that structure is
17:19
moving because you still can’t if you’re
17:21
looking at it you still don’t know what
17:23
it does
17:24
does it feel border does it move with
17:26
your hands but there’s a ton of smells
17:29
going there and plastic sometimes stuff
17:31
reminds me of cinnamon which is weird
17:33
because none of it is chemically
17:35
balanced chemically made to smell like
17:37
cinnamon or chocolate or vanilla
17:40
so
17:41
heath
17:42
many of our listeners didn’t grow up on
17:44
a ranch
17:45
um but you know they might be interested
17:47
in saddle making or leather work or just
17:49
like some of the other hands-on work
17:51
that you mentioned like sculpture making
17:53
prop making how do you suggest that
17:55
people get into this type of work
17:57
if someone wanted to getting saddle
18:00
making find a professional there’s a lot
18:02
of videos out there on how to carve and
18:05
stamp leather on youtube
18:08
and i myself just started one for
18:10
specifically saddle making but there’s a
18:12
few youtube videos out there for
18:14
individuals that want to find out more
18:16
if you want to try making something out
18:18
with your hands and you want to try clay
18:21
buy some modeling clay and just do some
18:23
basic figures a full human form
18:26
it does not have to be detailed
18:28
but
18:29
just building a body and then build a
18:31
head if you want to start a
18:34
three-dimensional thought
18:36
start with models
18:37
car modeling or even those 3d puzzles
18:40
because you want to fulfill your
18:41
creativity and curiosity just do a 3d
18:43
foam puzzle watercolors are very very
18:46
cheap paints are very very cheap you can
18:48
get them at any big block store but the
18:51
thing is to start
18:53
no matter how confident or
18:55
lackluster you are and your abilities
18:57
you’re like well i have a hard time
18:59
drawing stick figures
19:02
it doesn’t matter just draw the stick
19:04
figure then add more to the stick figure
19:06
but for those individuals that want to
19:09
start
19:10
just start thank you so much for
19:13
chatting to me
19:14
thank you so much it’s been wonderful
19:16
talking to you and telling everyone
19:18
about
19:19
my story
19:21
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20:28
laura key is our editorial director at
20:30
understood scott cashier is our creative
20:33
director
20:34
seth melnick and brianna berry are our
20:36
production director
20:38
thanks again for listening
20:40
[Music]
21:00
you
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