Today, I’m joined by Jason Wyman, an artist, creative coach, and co-founder of Queerly Complex, a creative hub and community platform. In our conversation, Jason shares what led them to creating a gathering space for making sense of the world and helping other creatives find their place in it. In a society that demands simplicity and easy-to-consume ideas, Jason likes that they’re willing to sit with the pain, trauma, and suffering of the world to question their personal beliefs and find where they fit in. Between getting kicked out of a seminary for being an openly queer person to becoming estranged (and then reuniting) with their family, Jason has always sought refuge with people who know what it’s like to move in the margin. They describe how their queerness became directly tied to understanding racism and committing to anti-racism work, which has eventually expanded into Queerly Complex. Jason emphasizes the importance of giving space for the entire emotional spectrum and learning how to show up even in the face of depression, anxiety, and overwhelm. Instead of bypassing the reality of social injustice, Jason encourages people to create change on an individual level, which infinitely ripples out into the world. One of the greatest tools in that process is to surround yourself with other people who celebrate your complexity and how you create amongst the chaos.
Listen, rate, and review Art Heals All Wounds on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Castbox, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Topics Covered:
● What Queerly Complex is and the story behind the name
● What brought Jason to the idea of creating space and community for ‘queerdos and comrades’
● An beautiful example of what's possible between a straight father and a queer child
● How Jason came to tie their visual work and consulting work together
● Why Jason doesn’t believe that balance exists in activism
● Current projects and initiatives at Queerly Complex
Guest Info:
● Immigrant Artist Network Website
Follow Me:
● Art Heals All Wounds Website
● Art Heals All Wounds Instagram
● Art Heals All Wounds Twitter
Today, I’m joined by Jason Wyman, an artist, creative coach, and co-founder of Queerly Complex, a creative hub and community platform. In our conversation, Jason shares what led them to creating a gathering space for making sense of the world and helping other creatives find their place in it. In a society that demands simplicity and easy-to-consume ideas, Jason likes that they’re willing to sit with the pain, trauma, and suffering of the world to question their personal beliefs and find where they fit in. Between getting kicked out of a seminary for being an openly queer person to becoming estranged (and then reuniting) with their family, Jason has always sought refuge with people who know what it’s like to move in the margin. They describe how their queerness became directly tied to understanding racism and committing to anti-racism work, which has eventually expanded into Queerly Complex. Jason emphasizes the importance of giving space for the entire emotional spectrum and learning how to show up even in the face of depression, anxiety, and overwhelm. Instead of bypassing the reality of social injustice, Jason encourages people to create change on an individual level, which infinitely ripples out into the world. One of the greatest tools in that process is to surround yourself with other people who celebrate your complexity and how you create amongst the chaos.
Listen, rate, and review Art Heals All Wounds on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Castbox, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Topics Covered:
● What Queerly Complex is and the story behind the name
● What brought Jason to the idea of creating space and community for ‘queerdos and comrades’
● An beautiful example of what's possible between a straight father and a queer child
● How Jason came to tie their visual work and consulting work together
● Why Jason doesn’t believe that balance exists in activism
● Current projects and initiatives at Queerly Complex
Guest Info:
● Immigrant Artist Network Website
Follow Me:
● Art Heals All Wounds Website
● Art Heals All Wounds Instagram
● Art Heals All Wounds Twitter
00;00;00;08 - 00;00;28;05
Pam Uzzell
Hi. I'm so glad you're listening today. This is the fourth artist in our cultural evolutionary series. Before we get to the episode, I want to recommend a show that's been helpful to me. It's called What the Finance? hosted by Cheyenne and Rachel. This show is full of laid back, really helpful conversations about personal finances and how they actually work in our current capitalist system.
00;00;29;02 - 00;00;51;21
Pam Uzzell
Cheyenne and Rachel take on some of the myths about personal finances in our society. I enjoyed their quiet quitting episode personally. I'll include their trailer at the end of the show and look for them wherever you listen to podcasts.
00;00;52;03 - 00;00;55;18
music
00;00;56;19 - 00;01;20;16
Pam Uzzell
Do you want to change the world? So do I! On this show. We meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell.
00;01;24;16 - 00;01;50;04
Pam Uzzell
Can you tell your story in 300 words or less? Recently, I had to do that. I kept doing a count of the words, and I was constantly over. So I would reread over and over, taking out everything that didn't stay on point. By the end, my story was focused and simplified around one central theme, and I thought, Wow, that left a lot out.
00;01;50;21 - 00;02;16;27
Pam Uzzell
Some really juicy parts, in fact. Believe me, though, I understand these kinds of boundaries. As a teacher, I impose them all the time. Your film has to be 3 to 5 minutes long only. You're getting off topic here. Stay focused on the story you're telling.
Now imagine writing your story with no limits and then rewriting it… a year later, let's say.
00;02;16;28 - 00;02;37;25
Pam Uzzell
Those stories would change, wouldn't they? There are so many possibilities that could happen in a year to change who we are because life is complex and we are complex. If we welcome all of our own complexity into our story, how might that change how we are in the world?
00;02;39;28 - 00;03;08;00
Pam Uzzell
My guest today is the fourth artist in the Cultural Evolutionary Series. Their name is Jason Wyman, and they're behind the creative hub called Queerly Complex. When I use this word hub, I like to think of the definition of hub in terms of a wheel. The wheel hub is responsible for connecting a wheel to the vehicle. And I feel like this in many ways is a great way to visualize what Jason, through Queerly Complex, does.
00;03;09;09 - 00;04;12;17
Pam Uzzell
You might imagine that the vehicle is a world in which we stop inflicting so much trauma and violence on each other. I feel that Jason has a vision for this vehicle that isn't about tolerance, but about deep, deep acceptance of complexity. But how do we go about attaching our wheel to this vehicle? That is the work Jason does through Queerly Complex–helping artists embrace the complexity of who they are is their invitation to share in the co-creation of this world where Queerdos can fully be themselves.
Jason Wyman and their husband John O'Reilly started Queerly Complex together.
00;04;13;03 - 00;04;39;24
Pam Uzzell
What initially began as a blog in 2007 was launched as a website in September 2021. John, who has experience in retail, saw the potential in Jason's visual work as designs for clothing and bags. He also had seen firsthand how Jason was able to work with other artists of many different ages and identities to be able to help them to express themselves.
00;04;40;19 - 00;05;13;29
Pam Uzzell
Queerly Complex has become a hub for artists and communities. To quote Jason from the Queerly Complex website, “I use design, illustration, poetry, performance and media making as inspiration to create services, merchandise and experiences that help queerdos and their comrades affirm, celebrate and honor our fabulously unique beliefs, bodies, and beings.
Hi, Jason. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds.
00;05;13;29 - 00;05;17;02
Pam Uzzell
Can you start by telling us who you are and what you do?
00;05;18;00 - 00;05;48;19
Jason Wyman
Hi. Yeah. My name again is Jason. I live in San Francisco, which is also known as Yelamu unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. What I do is I am an artist. And also a creative coach. And what that means for me is that I make work that helps me make sense of the world and the cosmos. I was just at a party last night and I was asked this question: What is art?
00;05;49;01 - 00;06;26;25
Jason Wyman
And, you know, for me, art is never about the end product as much as, you know, artists have products and those products become for sale or become a record or something. Art really, to me, is the process of understanding and making meaning of this thing called life. And that is the most beautiful thing. And it is something that I'm incredibly passionate about and something I help other artists better articulate for themselves.
00;06;27;06 - 00;07;00;23
Jason Wyman
Because so often artists are forced to use the language that is accepted by institutions, whether that be galleries, whether that be the stage, whether that be a theater, whether that be academia, or, you know, even just regular public schools. They're forced to use the language of the institution to describe their work. And that creates a disconnect often between artists and the way in which they want to make meaning.
00;07;02;01 - 00;07;18;26
Pam Uzzell
Well, that resonates with me a lot. I don't want to go too in depth with this, but I was once a part of a filmmakers group where our priority was how to make the film we wanted to make. So I hear where you're coming from with that and,
00;07;20;17 - 00;07;39;20
Pam Uzzell
you know, you've created this space and this community called Queerly Complex. And I asked you when I first met you if it's complex or complex and you never answered me, but then you did exactly what you're doing now, you got this big smile.
00;07;40;08 - 00;08;01;28
Jason Wyman
Yeah, it's a little bit of both. You know, I think so much of the way we try to make meaning of our world is by simplifying our world or simplifying our thought, you know, mantras have never have never actually really worked for me. Because mantras are, in a lot of ways, an oversimplification of a complex view of the world.
00;08;02;13 - 00;08;34;27
Jason Wyman
And so for me, you know, complexity is something that I find fascinating. I find it to be a driving force in my life to want to complexify other things and not make everything so simple. But also, you know, the complex of almost like a compound or a gathering space is the way in which I facilitate that complexity.
00;08;35;07 - 00;09;02;09
Jason Wyman
So for me, you know, a lot of my work is about gathering people, gathering ideas, gathering and holding space for that complexity to emerge from a group. I'm lucky in that I have a lot of people that I get to work with and a lot of spaces where I get to facilitate and create this kind of complex space.
00;09;02;22 - 00;09;33;05
Jason Wyman
And so it's a little bit of both. I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's actually trying to walk that fine line between this idea of almost like a gathering point, which would sound almost more, less distributive. It would sound like it's trying to be somewhat hierarchical by gathering everything, but in an effort to actually distribute you and disperse rather than hold onto or archive.
00;09;34;21 - 00;09;53;05
Pam Uzzell
Interesting. Well, you have a really big and inclusive vision in this, but I would love to back up a little bit and see what brought you to this idea of creating this space in this community.
00;09;54;26 - 00;10;25;22
Jason Wyman
I have always been a weird outsider and you know, I know that's a label a lot of people take. There are a few moments in my life that really, I think, highlight this kind of outsider perspective in some ways. The first was, in the sixth grade I attended a Catholic school and it was called St John's and I got my tailbone broken in a game of smear the queer.
00;10;25;22 - 00;10;55;00
Jason Wyman
And it was early on in the year and I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but when you have your tailbone broken, you actually have to sit on a cushion for six months. You can't actually sit on anything hard. So in sixth grade I had all of this dental surgery, so I had to wear this big retainer that I literally had to take out of my mouth in order to speak, because it was one of those bite in retainers for top and bottom to correct an overbite.
00;10;55;16 - 00;11;28;20
Jason Wyman
And I had to carry around this brown donut cushion. And that was my entire sixth grade. And, you know, it was really a hard year for myself to go through that in a class of only about 24 students as well. So it was a really tiny, small Catholic school. And, you know, years later, I know we might touch on this in a moment, but years later I found out that that was the same school and the same grade level in which my dad got violently bullied for being perceived as queer.
00;11;29;08 - 00;11;56;20
Jason Wyman
So when that happened to me, it actually created a weird relationship between me and my dad that I never really fully understood, and I didn't actually fully understand it until he died in 2020, actually. So that's like one thing because it made me an outsider within the school community, but it also made me this like weird outsider in my family just because it brought up unresolved issues of homophobia in the family.
00;11;57;09 - 00;12;24;14
Jason Wyman
So that's like one moment of kind of being an outsider. A second moment of being an outsider is also related to Catholicism. And I went to seminary to be a priest right after high school. Part of it was I really believed in my faith. Part of it was the seminary gave better financial aid and I didn't know how to go to college without significant financial aid.
00;12;25;02 - 00;12;57;21
Jason Wyman
So I ended up going into seminary. And while I was in seminary, I came out and as a result of coming out, I was 18. I was a freshman in college, and the seminary itself kicked me out. They were like, You can't actually say that you're queer or gay. You actually have to repress that. And I looked at the priest and I said, Well, you do realize all the other seminarians are asking me for favors, but they're not saying that they are.
00;12;58;02 - 00;13;16;20
Jason Wyman
And they were like, Well, that's the way that it's done, and you just can't say it. And I was like, okay. And they booted me out. And when that happened, I was devastated, one, But I also didn't know where I was going to live like it was, it ended up becoming a real like, how do I stay in school?
00;13;16;24 - 00;13;44;22
Jason Wyman
How do I find a place to live? Who do I live with as an out queer person? In 1994, 95, in Minnesota at a Catholic university that I'm still trying to stay at. And so there was a group on campus called Commitment to Diversity, which had been founded the year before I got there, because a cross was burned on the front lawn of African American students that attended the university.
00;13;45;01 - 00;13;45;15
Pam Uzzell
Wow.
00;13;45;19 - 00;14;04;18
Jason Wyman
And so I didn't know him at the time, but he became a friend of mine named Stacey Danner and Lorena Munoz. Both of them were the head of Commitment to Diversity. And I sat down with them and I was like, I don't know what to do. And Stacey looked at me and was like, Well, you're kind of staring at me.
00;14;04;19 - 00;14;23;07
Jason Wyman
You're making me feel uncomfortable. It seems like you’re kind of racist. I don't really know that I can help you unless you figure some stuff out. And you know, this is before just being able to Google something. So, and it was right at winter break. So like we were at winter break, I was supposed to come back in January.
00;14;23;07 - 00;14;45;02
Jason Wyman
I didn't know where I was living. I didn't know what I was doing. So I just went to the Minneapolis Public Library and started up looking at books on racism. And I just started reading stuff, not knowing anything about anything, not knowing if what I was doing was correct or not correct. And I brought that back to Stacey and I said, Here is the work I'm doing.
00;14;45;12 - 00;15;23;07
Jason Wyman
And Stacey looked at me and said, All right. It seems to me like you're actually doing the work. And he found me a roommate who was a closeted gay guy, and he got me paired with that person and I was able to stay on for that spring semester of my freshman year. And then, surprisingly, Stacey and Lorena advocated to the Residence Hall Association and got me an R.A. position my sophomore year of college as an out queer kid at a Catholic university in 1995.
00;15;23;14 - 00;15;24;03
Pam Uzzell
Wow.
00;15;24;12 - 00;15;49;08
Jason Wyman
Yeah. Ultimately the school didn't like me, so the school used everything that they could to get me out of the school and expelled me at the end of my sophomore year. I mean, the school just didn't want me around. I was too much of a rabble rouser, but for me, my queerness became directly tied to understanding racism and anti-racism.
00;15;49;28 - 00;16;18;24
Jason Wyman
And I know that that's not a typical experience of a coming out story, you know that you have to straight people of color who literally have your back so much that they give you money and get you a place to live and advocate very strongly on your behalf to an incredibly conservative university. And I was the only out student at the time, like at all.
00;16;19;07 - 00;16;42;24
Jason Wyman
And so there were a bunch of other queer kids, but I was literally the only out student on campus. And I ended up after getting kicked out of there, going down a much deeper path of anti-racism. And I started working for AmeriCorp, and I actually started training for AmeriCorp across the Midwest on anti-racism and white privilege as again and out queer person at the same time.
00;16;43;07 - 00;17;11;29
Jason Wyman
So, you know, for me, those two experiences both really related to the Catholic Church, really solidified in my own life. How is it that I can move in the margins and use what I can in order to build solidarity and camaraderie among groups of people that don't look like me, might not sound like me, might not be me at all.
00;17;13;01 - 00;17;48;05
Jason Wyman
But that to me, those two things very explicitly really have shaped my life in wanting to figure this thing out as a as a white male presenting queer. And it's definitely something that I have spent the rest of my life trying to figure out and really working on understanding the dynamics of power in order to find ways to redistribute, flatten and share in very authentic, very queer ways.
00;17;49;18 - 00;18;11;15
Pam Uzzell
Right. And I hope you don't mind me asking, but I am still really thinking about this thing that happened to your father so many years ago, and then that it was repeated with you in this Catholic school. And I think you mentioned that your father passed away.
00;18;12;00 - 00;18;12;10
Jason Wyman
Yeah.
00;18;12;17 - 00;18;15;28
Pam Uzzell
What became of your relationship with your father?
00;18;17;11 - 00;18;41;26
Jason Wyman
I, you know, ended up not speaking to my parents for six years in my twinnites. And that was a really pivotal moment for myself and for my family. I know that it really hurt my parents to not speak to them, but I needed to figure out who I was and there was just no way that I was going to be able to do that while still in the shadow of my family.
00;18;42;08 - 00;19;02;09
Jason Wyman
And I was living in San Francisco at the time, so it was easy. Sadly, it was easy to cut off ties because you just don't pick up the phone and there was no cell phones. So like, you just didn't answer the landline. That was easy. They like cut off ties in a lot of ways. And, you know, for myself, I know that that was a really difficult time.
00;19;02;09 - 00;19;35;05
Jason Wyman
But I also know for my parents it was excruciatingly difficult for them. And, you know, in the last year or so of my dad's life, he wanted to relive a lot of things that he did that he felt might have been wrong in a lot of ways. My dad was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's mantle cell lymphoma and at the end of 2018, beginning of 2019, he started his cancer treatment.
00;19;35;23 - 00;20;05;24
Jason Wyman
I was the one in the family that really knew it was terminal. I think that there was a lot of wanting to have hope that it wasn't going to be terminal, but I pretty much knew it would be right from the beginning, considering he most likely got it from handling toxic chemicals his entire life. And so the first year of his cancer, he kept asking to relive moments of pain.
00;20;06;11 - 00;20;32;03
Jason Wyman
And I put a kibosh on a lot of that, to be honest, because I was like, I don't know that reliving these moments is necessarily going to heal you or me in all honesty. Like, I actually think it's just trudging stuff up. Like, you know, while we didn't speak for six years, we had 15 years or more of speaking after not speaking for six, six years.
00;20;32;03 - 00;20;56;16
Jason Wyman
So I had, I had to remind my father that like while there was this moment, there is no impetus to this moment. I know that we all wanted to justify or have a real concrete reason as to why we stopped talking. But there wasn't one. Actually, it was. I just needed to do something for myself. Like I don't know how else to describe it.
00;20;57;00 - 00;21;38;04
Jason Wyman
And my dad was like, okay, I guess we don't have to talk about it. It's okay. And that really shifted, I think, something in my father. And so in 2020, after COVID hit, there was no opportunity for me to go visit my father the last year of his life because of his cancer with COVID and no vaccine, it meant I would have had to have traveled on an airplane and then lived in a hotel for at least two weeks to quarantine to make sure that I didn't have this thing to then be able to possibly go see my father.
00;21;38;15 - 00;22;28;16
Jason Wyman
And there was just no financial way that I could live in a hotel for two weeks like that just was not possible. So what ended up happening is my dad had noticed that there had been a lot of growth actually in himself, and he asked for something in the final 6 to 7 months of his life, which was to start a letter writing process back and forth between us, that he felt very strongly that others in his community needed to hear directly from him and from me about how we've come to terms with a straight father and a queer child.
00;22;30;02 - 00;23;05;04
Jason Wyman
And so that is what spurred understanding the bullying of my dad in the sixth grade. Like, I literally I might have heard some of those stories in the past in an offhand ways, but there is a difference when you're hearing it kind of in passing as a throwaway comment to something and another thing to receive a letter from your father that is talking about the homophobia that he experienced in the sixth grade.
00;23;05;04 - 00;23;35;04
Jason Wyman
And so, you know, for me, there ended up being nothing left unsaid between me and my dad before he died. I was the one that received a lot of the calls from him when he was really at a very low point and was questioning his faith in very specific ways. By the end of his time, he had surprisingly renounced Catholicism.
00;23;36;09 - 00;24;06;24
Jason Wyman
He still had his faith and he still loved being Catholic. But he realized that there was no distinction between any of the major ways that we actually thought about the world or religious thought in general. We had a conversation actually about him looking directly at death and realizing that there in some ways was no point other than at this point in time healing the relationships that he could heal.
00;24;07;17 - 00;24;20;23
Jason Wyman
As much as it's painful and as much as I would love to have him here, I think it's only in his facing his own death that transformation was able to occur and thus we were able to transform each other.
00;24;21;20 - 00;24;48;29
Pam Uzzell
Well, I could see by your face that that was not an easy story to tell, but thank you for sharing it. It really is such a great example of what's possible between people and that none of us has to be stuck in any one place or in any belief system. So where did you go from there? That wasn't that long ago.
00;24;48;29 - 00;24;51;01
Pam Uzzell
Where did you go from there?
00;24;51;11 - 00;25;17;15
Jason Wyman
I was also the storyteller of my dad's cancer, So, you know, a lot of my artwork has been in writing in the past or revealing deeply personal things about myself. So this whole letter writing thing was not uncommon, and it was a very lovely thing for my father to suggest and it was also suggested because I was the one that figured out how to communicate all aspects of my father's cancer.
00;25;17;15 - 00;25;47;17
Jason Wyman
Every step along the way, whenever something happened, how do we actually tell that story? So, you know, after my dad's passing, you know, in 2020, I had a pretty giant revelation myself, which was I had a fairly good client at the time that was paying most of my bills. I actually loved the work that I was doing, but I was doing it for a client and for an industry that I just didn't want to be a part of.
00;25;47;18 - 00;26;08;12
Jason Wyman
You know, I love youth media. I have a long history in youth development and youth media making, but I, I didn't want to do youth media. I got back into it. I was asked to come back into the field at the request of a board member of an organization. And I said yes, and I did it for five years.
00;26;08;12 - 00;26;41;19
Jason Wyman
And I thought I loved it. Literally, I loved it. And after watching my dad die, I realized that it didn't matter, that I loved it. It isn't what I wanted to do and it isn't how I wanted to be seen in the world. And I was just like, Life's too short for this. And so I didn't get my contract renewed at the end of 2020, and I decided to use that time as an opportunity to figure out what is it that I really want to do.
00;26;42;08 - 00;27;06;21
Jason Wyman
And for me, I work best in partnership with people like I just some things might look solo on one level, but there's always someone else. Always like not kind of. There's literally lots of people and so my husband and I, my my husband has been one of my biggest supporters. We've been married 15, 16 years. I
Pam Uzzell
Wow.
Jason Wyman
Yeah.
00;27;07;14 - 00;27;37;21
Jason Wyman
It'll be 16 this summer. And he has always seen something in me that I don't see. And he has always been the one to encourage me to put myself a little bit more forward. I my, my tendency is to fade to the background or step aside, you know, as a kind of a white male cis presenting person that does most of their work with communities of color.
00;27;38;03 - 00;28;06;17
Jason Wyman
It is a natural thing to want to step behind or step aside. And my husband really saw that that was actually eating away at my ability to actually make stuff. And so he suggested that I put some of my visual work, which is mostly done in digital media, onto some t-shirts. He works retail and he was like, Well, why don't we take some of your visual works?
00;28;06;17 - 00;28;27;25
Jason Wyman
It's not like it's going to be they're not they're never going to be real prints. So instead of thinking about your work as art, why don't we think about your work as product? And his background's retail. So he was like, If we think about it as a product, then we can actually make retail decisions about your visual work.
00;28;28;13 - 00;29;03;29
Jason Wyman
And so we have been trying to figure this out for a long period of time and we just decided to jump right into it at the beginning of 2020 and just jump in with both feet and found a business which is Queerly Complex now that it's self was fabulous and fun, but it was a lot of work and it really took me towards this kind of product-transition mode and thinking and kind of product development cycles, which is not necessarily the way that I like thinking.
00;29;03;29 - 00;29;37;14
Jason Wyman
And it's not my it's not my best thinking, but it got us to the place of launching Queerly Complex e-com really is just an online retail shop. Now. I've never made my money in online retail because online retail is a terrible business model, to be perfectly frank, and I make most of my money doing consulting work and doing large scale consulting work, and yet I didn't see a connection between the large scale consulting work or even some of the coaching that I had been doing and my visual product.
00;29;37;14 - 00;30;08;09
Jason Wyman
Like, I had no idea that they were the same thing. I actually thought that they were two separate things. And so my husband and I went into business just to kind of launch this more visual side of my work through simple retail products. But in spring, winter, spring, early winter or late winter, early spring of 2022, I got accepted into the Optima Business Co-op up to my entrepreneurship co-op program out of Oakland.
00;30;08;27 - 00;30;48;04
Jason Wyman
And I had an incredibly fantastic facilitator and a really good cohort that helped me understand that my visual work and my consulting work were actually one in the same. And so after, you know, burying my dad and getting a little bit of distance from this one endeavor that I, I had another kind of epiphany. And that's where this kind of broader worldview for Queerly Complex started coming in and it really started resurrecting.
00;30;48;04 - 00;31;18;24
Jason Wyman
I had a blog after John and I got married. I started a blog called Queerly Complex on Blogger, The old Google platform that is defunct. And it was just a way for me to write about my personal life. And then it died after like three years because, you know, you can't sustain a blog like that. I'm also working full time and for me resurrecting the initial concept of this idea of how we find our place in the world.
00;31;18;24 - 00;31;38;07
Jason Wyman
All my visual work in a lot of ways is about how we find our place in how I have found my place in the world. And a lot of my consulting and coaching work is helping others find their place in this world. And as a result of that, there's a direct connection between the visual work and the actual consulting work that I do.
00;31;38;23 - 00;32;10;21
Jason Wyman
And that to me really has unlocked for myself a real desire again to be able to talk about complexity more. It's not about whittling ourselves down or making something more consumable because people don't like busy. Do you know what I'm saying? Or people want the simple answer instead. How can I use complexity in order to generate more complexity?
00;32;11;04 - 00;32;55;04
Jason Wyman
And as a result of that, not have things get reduced? And it's a tough endeavor on a website where people only want to spend, you know, 60 seconds and don't want to click through things. But I feel very confident in this new business that I have with John and being able to do this because the results for me at least speak for themselves in that I've been able to really help a lot of artists and a lot of creatives and a lot of entrepreneurs take a look and question their values and what their values are and how to use their values for decision making.
00;32;55;20 - 00;33;26;29
Jason Wyman
And that I think, only can come from someone that has done this and keeps doing it and keeps questioning the assumptions about what they see in the world and how they move in the world. And, you know, ultimately I have to say I owe a debt to my father for showing me very explicitly and very directly what radical transformation actually is through looking at death.
00;33;27;19 - 00;34;04;25
Jason Wyman
And, you know, for me, that has meant also looking at death and not turning away, whether that be my father's death, whether that be the death of my husband's best friend. This summer, and having to step into a role of Alchemist, a family, family of choice and holder of the family. And during a time of grief, or whether that be I had this art project that I did where I learned that we had dropped over 11,000 bombs in Afghanistan during the Afghan war.
00;34;04;25 - 00;34;40;11
Jason Wyman
And I started this process of drawing 11,000 bomb icons to just try to comprehend how much our country has dropped somewhere else. Like, that's just it's an unfathomable number, you know, like 10,000 is 11,000 is too many for us to really comprehend. And I never actually finished that because I couldn't draw 11,000 bombs. But I have tended not to shy away from looking at a lot of things that people don't like, looking at.
00;34;40;24 - 00;35;08;20
Jason Wyman
And I will say not getting stuck there. You know, I think that there is a difference in being able to look and then find yourself in a loop or stuck in a place. And at the same time, there is something to be said about being able to look at something like that and allow it to actually change you and not be the same person as a result of having to look at something.
00;35;09;04 - 00;35;37;24
Jason Wyman
And that to me, you know, I started that Project Afghan Bomb Project a while ago, and that was way before my dad's death and cancer. But my dad's death made me reevaluate even why I do what I do. And I didn't realize that that was partly what I was doing and why I was able to be there for my dad was because I already had a practice of looking at this stuff and not turning away from it.
00;35;38;17 - 00;36;09;27
Pam Uzzell
Wow. That's an amazing connection to have and to be able to see. What gave you your particular gifts? I would say, and I mean one thing that I think I hear you saying, and you can tell me if I'm wrong or right is that there is always a possibility of change for the better. And by better, everybody might have a different definition of that.
00;36;10;06 - 00;36;27;06
Pam Uzzell
But inclusivity, greater equity, I mean, I could go on and on, but if we're willing to look at something, be changed, and then move out of it, making different choices, is that what you're saying?
00;36;28;01 - 00;36;56;22
Jason Wyman
That is what I'm saying. You know, I think there's a lot of pain in this world. There's a lot of suffering, there's a lot of trauma, there's a lot of harm. And we all have our own paths that we have to take in regards to those things. And for some, not looking at that stuff as a coping mechanism, not engaging with it is a way to survive and not just survive, but actually maybe thriving too, to be honest.
00;36;56;22 - 00;37;33;14
Jason Wyman
You know, for me, I think it's because of my anti-racism work and the understanding of a deep understanding of the ways in which racism is baked into every single structure in this country, from banking to housing to land use, to health care, to education, just like it's everything to the family unit like it is absolutely everywhere. We are everywhere and you cannot not be affected by it.
00;37;33;14 - 00;37;35;28
Jason Wyman
Like no one is not affected by racism.
00;37;36;16 - 00;37;36;29
Pam Uzzell
Right.
00;37;37;18 - 00;38;08;25
Jason Wyman
But we have such a strong desire to not acknowledge that on so many levels for so many different reasons amongst so many different peoples. But if we can't face it, there actually is no way to undo it.
Pam Uzzell
Right.
Jason Wyman
Because it will just perpetuate itself, because it is actually a system of which we are all a part of. And contributing to.
00;38;09;22 - 00;38;48;04
Jason Wyman
So similarly to racism. Other things when we can more directly face them. As you mentioned, we actually have an opportunity to change and to change how we want to talk about things, to change, how we want to relate to other people, to change our belief systems and the myths that are central to our lives. You know, the myth is not, to me, a falsehood.
00;38;48;04 - 00;39;08;13
Jason Wyman
You know, myth is a belief larger than oneself that helps you move through the world. But those myths don't always serve us, and we need the ability to look at them more, to question them, and to allow ourselves to change our own myths.
00;39;09;24 - 00;39;48;03
Pam Uzzell
Yeah, Yeah. I'm curious because I'm feeling in myself this real balance between hopefulness that this is possible and also exhaustion, feeling like, well, how does this actually happen? And I wonder if you feel the same thing or if you know, or if you feel more towards the hopeful side or what do you what do you if you do feel those two things, how do you balance it and how do you kind of keep that cup half full?
00;39;49;09 - 00;39;52;22
Pam Uzzell
Activist cup Because it's hard.
00;39;54;04 - 00;40;24;11
Jason Wyman
It is hard. I will also say, I don't know that there is ever such a thing as balance, actually. And years and years and years ago I was doing work with a Buddhist foundation here in the Bay Area and this idea of balance was something that was very central to the foundation and to the way that they wanted the world to kind of go in a lot of ways.
00;40;24;11 - 00;40;55;08
Jason Wyman
And it was this idea of kind of equanimity, of even-temperedness that we have to be able to face when we face the world, that we have to face the world with this kind of, like I said, equanimity or even even-temperedness. I had a hard time with that when it was brought up. But then, you know, almost 15 years ago, maybe even a little more today, I would reject it straight out.
00;40;56;02 - 00;41;32;12
Jason Wyman
And I reject it because we have to feel the only way through this is to actually allow our feelings sometimes to consume us. We cannot logically get out of this. Logic will be needed for us to be able to bust our myths and be able to create new ones. Logic will be required for that because that is a process of unlearning bias and bias is better unlearned through logic in all honesty.
00;41;33;08 - 00;42;06;17
Jason Wyman
But we cannot negate the overwhelm. We cannot suppress the massive depression. I have major bouts of massive depression. I used to think there was something wrong with that and how do I move out of this quickly? I don't care about moving out of that. I care about can I still be functional and can I still get the things done that need to get done while in the midst of also feeling depressed?
00;42;07;15 - 00;42;37;03
Jason Wyman
That to me is important because I want to continue building. I want to continue creating. I want to continue being in community, in solidarity with people. And that only happens if I functionally can still show up. Do I have to show up and put my depression at the door? No, I actually don't. And it's better for the group if I don't, to be honest, because we actually need to learn how to live with it.
00;42;37;03 - 00;43;17;13
Jason Wyman
We actually need to know how to be in community with people who are sad. We are not good at being in community with people who are sad. People who are anxious we’re never good at giving for those people. And so for me, balance is not something I strive for. I strive being able to understand what I'm actually feeling and experiencing and being able to let that be while also still finding a way to move and to make a way forward for myself.
00;43;17;24 - 00;43;41;19
Jason Wyman
And sometimes that means that depression is, you know, a couple of weeks. Sometimes that means it's a moment in an afternoon, sometimes it means it's joyful. And I actually am able to look at things and laugh at stuff. And, you know, it's all of the it's the entire range of emotion. It's not one or the other. Sometimes being angry.
00;43;41;25 - 00;44;02;06
Jason Wyman
You know, again, we have this fear of anger in this country, you know, And yet anger is an incredible, useful tool. It actually it can be useful and often is used in un-useful ways. But that doesn't mean that the rage you feel should be suppressed.
00;44;03;10 - 00;44;35;24
Pam Uzzell
Wow. This has been a really moving conversation, but I don't want to close without giving you an opportunity to share what you're doing and where people can find out about it. Because you just gave us a lot in this conversation. But now take a moment to tell us what you're doing, where people can find you and where they can find Queerly Complex and connect.
00;44;36;15 - 00;45;14;20
Jason Wyman
Yes. So you can find Queerly Complex online at queerlycomplex.com Q-U-E-R-L-Y-C-O-M-P-L- E-X dot com. I am also Queerly Complex on all social media, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and even YouTube because YouTube now allows for personalized URL so you can actually find Queerly Complex on YouTube. Some of the things that I am doing right now are I have been working on supporting distributive networks for a variety of different communities.
00;45;14;20 - 00;45;25;08
Jason Wyman
Actually, one of those communities is an immigrant artists network and we are just launching our brand new website today called immigrantartistnetwork.com. Yay!
00;45;25;08 - 00;45;26;00
Pam Uzzell
Wow, Wow.
00;45;26;00 - 00;45;54;07
Jason Wyman
Yeah, it's very exciting. This was co-founded with Rupy C. Tut, who is a painter in Oakland. She's a classical Indian painter. I adore Rupy. I love working with Rupy. In 2019, we started working together to create virtual offerings for immigrant artists not knowing COVID was coming. And then COVID came and then we were able to keep it going and actually form it into a real collective and distributed network.
00;45;55;03 - 00;46;18;08
Jason Wyman
And we are about to launch a new round of virtual art salons for immigrant artists and their comrades. I am not an immigrant artist. I am a comrade artist to immigrant artists. So I do want to put a shout out for the comrades out there who know how to support other folks as well. So Immigrant artistsnetwork.com will have all of that information for that.
00;46;18;08 - 00;46;42;08
Jason Wyman
Another distributed network that I've had the good honor of co-creating with Crystal Mason and Trayvon Smith and Madore and Black Howery and Juan Carlos Escobedo is something called Queer art School. It will be a flat, peer based school where our first offering is going to be a queering artist narrative boot camp that we will be doing this summer.
00;46;43;06 - 00;47;10;18
Jason Wyman
You can find more information about queer art school on the Queerly Complex website, and we'll be having a couple of gatherings in April, one gathering at the end of April and another gathering mid-May to talk more about queer art school and queering artists narratives as well. And then the last thing that I'll mention is I have been doing a lot of work with Crystal Mason under another banner called Tree of Change.
00;47;10;29 - 00;48;02;23
Jason Wyman
treeofchange.net, and we've been helping a variety of organizations, from foundations to museums to equity and land use organizations, reassess how it is that they cultivate belonging, how they want to cultivate belonging, what they're doing, how their values and dreams and mission either further those things or take them away from those things. And even helping develop peer-based pedagogy and practice we even have a new project with independent arts and media called Dandelion Arts Finance Training Program, which will have a series of workshops later this year specifically for black, indigenous, immigrant, queer, trans, disabled, poor and rural folks.
00;48;02;23 - 00;48;44;01
Jason Wyman
So again, you can find all of that at queerlycomplex.com. And when I say it is a very complex website, I mean that it is a portal to a lot of different things and on an individual tip for anyone at any point in their career or in their life or in their creative practice, I do offer creative coaching, and creative coaching is a tool and mechanism that I use to help you better articulate and explore your values and dreams so that you can have tools and tactics to help you make decisions in ways that you want to make decisions.
00;48;44;11 - 00;49;06;00
Jason Wyman
I worked a lot with folks that have some sort of creative block, and what I've realized in working with a lot of those artists, it normally boils down to what are my values and how do I make decisions that the block is not actually anything more than a question of where you are in the world. And so I help people find their way.
00;49;06;22 - 00;49;21;06
Pam Uzzell
I love that. Well, thank you so much, Jason. And it's just been amazing to talk to you today. And I'm really, really grateful that you shared your story and all of your wisdom.
00;49;22;09 - 00;49;52;19
Jason Wyman
Well, I appreciate being asked to come on, Pam. It is a pleasure to get to know you more. Thank you for the opportunity to tell this story and to be able to share really not just my story, but my dad's story. I don't think either one of us, when we were either in sixth grade, would have ever imagined that this is the life we get to celebrate together.
00;49;54;20 - 00;50;17;07
Pam Uzzell
You're listening to Art Heals All Wounds.
00;50;20;27 - 00;50;46;25
Pam Uzzell
Thank you so much to Jason Wyman for joining me today and sharing their story. I particularly appreciate that they shared the story of their relationship with their father. Their story is such a great reminder of what is possible, of how things that seem so incredibly solid and immovable actually are not. So thank you, Jason, for sharing that story.
00;50;47;21 - 00;51;11;14
Pam Uzzell
And if you're listening today, thank you for making room for this story in your life. How do you fit in? I hope you find your comrades and that together you can find the support to express who you truly are with whatever complexity that entails. Feel free to reach out to me through my website. arthealsallwoundspodcast.com.
00;51;12;03 - 00;51;44;23
Pam Uzzell
And if you know someone who you think would enjoy hearing these stories of artists, please share the show with that friend.
The music you've heard in this podcast is by Ketsa and Lobo Loco.
This podcast was edited by Iva Hristova.
As always, this show was recorded using Squatcast.FM.
Art Heals All Wounds comes to you from Oakland, California on unceded territory of the Chochenyo Ohlone people.
00;51;56;01 - 00;51;56;22
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