RONALD PAREDES: The War of Art
#022 - The War of Art | Ronald Paredes
This week’s show features artist and graphic designer Ronald Paredes. In it, we discuss the situation back in Ronald’s home country of Venezuela, what it’s been like to move and live in Nanjing for 11 years, his art and design background, charity and non-profit work and much more. Ronald has a serious passion to explore creativity in all its forms, and in his current and upcoming projects, he doesn’t shy away from the artist’s mission to explore life’s most meaningful, if painful, truths.
Note that some episodes are like a packed PowerPoint full of bullet points on a highly focused topic, and those will continue. But sometimes, the interview ended up feeling much more like a conversation between friends, and I think this one is more in that category - in a good way. Ronald and I have talked a good bit on WeChat previously and it was late when we recorded this, so it didn’t seem right to artificially amp it up too much.
I also took a gentler approach to the edit again, leaving more of the natural pauses than I typically do in order to preserve as much of the natural feel as possible this time, because we had WICKED Skype issues. It’s hard to hear Ronald introduce himself up top, I had to cut out some otherwise great chunks that just didn’t clean up enough to be legible, and it still gets a little distorted or “hashy” in places, but Ronald is a thoughtful observer of life and I think the interview is worth saving and posting, so I hope you enjoy.
Unpaid Plug time: Auphonic.com saved this episode, and consistently improves so many others. I started using their service a few shows in, and their algorithms are basically magic. Their service made THIS episode usable (since the Skype demons tried their damnedest to ruin it) but for a better example of what their wizardry when the signal is better (but imperfect) to start with, check out (for example) the Steve Barr episode, which was recorded in a hotel room on my iPhone, but sounds like it’s in a studio
And if you find value from the podcast, please consider SUPPORTING the show by a share, a direct referral, likes and comments on posts, a contribution of some kind (Paypal, WeChat, and bills large and small all accepted) via the various links and means below. Cheers!
Ronald Paredes on WeChat, Instagram, Facebook:
mundosanto
Ronald Paredes website:
http://www.mundosanto.co/
Ronald Paredes documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT7Z2tJWlcY&t=357s
Brendan Davis on WeChat:
BrendanDavis
Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux
BFMK website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
BFMK Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BigFishMiddleKingdom/
Other links to LISTEN:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/podcast-links/
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DOMINIC JOHNSON-HILL: Building a Brand in Beijing
"And then suddenly, like 10 million people knew my telephone number, and it was a turning point for the brand, because when that show started to air China-wide, my phone didn’t stop ringing for two years.” - Dominic Johnson-Hill, Plastered 8
#007 - Building a Brand in Beijing | Dominic Johnson-Hill
Dominic Johnson-Hill is a British punk-rock Renaissance man. He’s famous in China for many things but he is probably best known as being the man who single-handedly began the transformation of an almost 800 year old (!) hutong called Nan Luo Gu Xiang - dating back to the days of Kubla Khan - into becoming one of the busiest and most popular tourist and shopping / nightlife destinations in Beijing around the world. If you have ever visited Beijing or looked into it on travel websites, you’ve seen the area featured as a must-see. Dominic was the very first person to open a store there, and the rest is history.
He did this as the founder of iconic street wear brand Plastered 8, a truly “only in China” success story that you have to hear for yourself. I am an unofficial brand ambassador for Plastered myself, being a huge fan of their crazy and cool t-shirts (owning about 20 as of now), so I was excited to hear the tale of how he built the brand straight from the horse’s mouth. The story quoted above starts at about the 10-minute mark of the interview, but the whole thing is a wild ride that you have to hear for yourself. Among Dominic's other innovations and “media moments”, he has gotten worldwide press as being the creator of canned “Beijing Air”, but that only scratches the surface of his innovation and creativity. He has created a 30 square meter mural in the high-end Beijing art hotel The Opposite House, has been a TV host and presenter as well as frequent guest on talk and game shows here, he's a filmmaker who directs his own commercials, and much more.
This one is full of inspired and occasionally raunchy, hilarious content; if you’re highly sensitive you might wince a few times, but I grew up on Monty Python, Benny Hill, and other English humor, so I laughed throughout the talk. One note is that we did have a few Skype issues. I edited around them as well as possible, and as always I strive to make those edits seamless, but this week there are a small handful that you will probably hear. There are also a couple of places where the audio quality gets weird in general for maybe 5-10 seconds, but I don’t think it detracts from the comprehension of the stories being told, so I hope you can bear with those brief moments when they pop up.
Lastly, I’m excited to announce that starting this week, we are a featured show on the Castbox.fm website and the Castbox podcast app! Castbox works in your web browser and they also have an iOS app, but they have an especially nice app for Android devices. Please check us out on Castbox, and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to us. Enjoy!
"BFMK" Website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux
Plastered 8:
https://plasteredtshirts.com
about Dominic Johnson-Hill:
http://plasteredtshirts.com/category/dominic/
Castbox:
https://castbox.fm
"Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom" direct links -
on Apple Podcasts:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fish-in-the-middle-kingdom/id1237037187?mt=2
on Castbox:
https://castbox.fm/channel/Big-Fish-in-the-Middle-Kingdom-id571573
Carl King (composer):
http://carlkingdom.com