Timber Masterson is a truly diverse creative. Actor, author, writer, singer/songwriter and dreamer of dreams.

I have had the pleasure of working with Timber for a few years now, as audio engineer, co-producer and consumer of fine coffee.

In this episode, Timber and I discuss the pleasures and pressures that come with living a creative life- grappling with distraction, doubt, dilution, empowerment, inspiration and the Muse, and how we try to hold it all together and look cool to those around us!

Though we talk about some very heavy concepts, we keep it light and listenable for you.

In this episode, I go into the topic of ego versus experience, and how that can and likely will impact the experience of a creative group setting.

We can fool ourselves, but how far can what we "think" we are take us in a creative venture with others?

It will go one of these two ways- we will pull up our creative socks and grow and excel or we will trip over that ego and have to face some harsh realities.

As always, I'm speaking about real-life experiences working both solo and as a collaborative artist.

Roger Guetta is a multidisciplinary artist currently living in Montreal, Canada.

His early years in the arts were somewhat by accident as he recounts his story of attending business management school. From there, Roger pivoted into theatre, photography, poetry, and eventually into being a professor in a liberal arts program in Quebec, Canada.

Here, Roger and I discuss motivation, inspiration, the momentum of creativity, teaching philosophies, monetizing your art, food, a bit of politics and even our possible immortality as artists and creators and educators.

If you want to tune into this podcast on YouTube, you can watch a lovely montage of some of Roger's recent digital photography, this, is audio-only.

Singer/songwriter, tattoo artist and nature lover, Cassie Noble stopped by the studio this week to talk about all things artsie, creative and lets us in on a bit of what makes her as an artists running TWO businesses simultaneously does to keep focused and keep those creative fires burning!

Sha also performs for us her latest, yet unreleased song; it's a wonderful note-to-self moment about how and where to invest our time and energies.

This episode is just a little check-in and update about some changes I'm going to bring to the Creative Train podcast in 2025. This will be my only upload this month, but stay tuned for lots of great stuff coming up in the new year!

Have a listen, I'm putting out an appeal for your input about guests you'd like to hear on the podcast; artists, educators, anyone creative who has made an impact upon you as a creator or educator or consumer of art in any of it's forms.

In this episode, I'm going to take a swing at an icon. Not because of his work, but at the quality of his character. A recent docu-drama cast a new light upon this icon of Canadian literature and I honestly found him repellant after this. Although I almost hate to say such things- this has been on mind mind so much that I have to speak it to the world; not for confirmation but more as a cleansing.

Let me know what you think. Let's discuss this "tortured artist" thing.

What kind of workplace vibe do you have?

Do you encourage your peers, your clients and students?

Or is the vibe one more about division, separation and an us/them kind of thing?

This episode was inspired by a rapid dissolution into chaos I watched happen in a music teacher's forum on social media where one person's negativity infected the page for a whole day and sent a lot of members off into rants and other really horrible things!

This isn't all about bitchy people, this is about what to look out for, how to handle it and how to create the best vibe-factor for your own workplace!

This episode was inspired by a conversation about professional hockey!

Within any group of similarly-focused or job oriented people, there will always be those who stand out as being perhaps more naturally gifted. It can be frustrating for the folks in the middle/lower ranks to feel satisfied or accomplished in the shadows of those "top line" players.

So how do they raise themselves up and become the contributors, leaders and earn the accolades and respect they come to achieve?

Mindset. It takes a lot of work, but to achieve high end results you need an elite mindset toward everything you do.