Channel “Z”
Zeitgeist, by definition, is “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.” Channel “Z” is my interpretation of tapping into that shared creative spirit. In essence, channeling creative energy from the source.
I first experienced this in the mid-1990s. I had been in bands for almost a decade, a bass player for over half that time. I had always played my part as a contributor, but never really had a breakout moment. That all changed one night - I was sitting on the couch with my bass, messing around with patterns until I stumbled on a pattern I had never played before. It was completely different from any of the other styles I had played before, yet it was familiar and my own. A pattern led to a song, then another song and then another. The ideas and inspiration just flowed. Soon, there was a band (KPOP), complete with a logo, posters and merch. In a couple years we put out a CD, charted on CMJ and even performed a theme song to a show on ESPN…2. By that time, I had tapped into Channel “Z” for about four years. Then, it stopped. Not stopped, but just faded a way or the faucet was turned off.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t creative. In fact, I held creative positions for almost 20 years, moving from art director to creative director, print to digital, with clients from almost every industry. However, instead of tapping into Channel “Z”, I had creative briefs; problems to solve; egos to stroke… mine included. But during my time in advertising, I never once had that moment where ideas were flowing. It was almost as if I could sense the signal but never could tune in.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Over the course of a decade, I had posted thousands of sketches to Tumblr, then Instagram and Facebook. Mostly heads and faces; mostly terrible. I had a loose rule: sketches should take no longer than 10 minutes. I could do 4-5 heads in a single meeting. When commuting, I’d sketch on the “L” or on the bus. I’d sketch at the coffeeshop. And, I’d sketch at home. But, the sketches never really felt like it was going anywhere. There was no purpose. The only value I see was the sheer number of posts. In the end, it didn’t mean anything because I didn’t have much to say.
That changed on the first day of 2024. I had decided the night before that I was going to do a sketch-a-day… 365 sketches (366 if you include Leap year). I had done this before, the last being 2020. The pandemic gave me enough time to turn some of my sketches into digital paintings. This was nice practice but with the same underwhelming results, only in color. So, I posted my first sketch on Jan 1, 2024 - a drawing of a tentacle wrapped around a woman’s head. The next sketch was similar to the first. Then another, and another. An artist friend saw what i was doing and emailed be with encouragement… said that I “was on to something.” And he was right! Turns out, I was initially working out free will, or lack thereof. The tentacle represented a guiding hand, or it guided us to see what it wanted us to see. That thought led me to think it was about social media. But about 35-40 drawings in, I realized it was society itself. It could be both benevolent and terrifying at the same time. That was profound. I finally had something to say, something to explore, something exciting, something that flowed as if were from a hose. Turns out, I finally tuned back into Channel “Z”.
