Episode #6: Welcome to my world, a love letter to autumn and reflections on masks that reveal

In this episode I reflect on how much I love autumn, tell the story of a crow reunion, play a weird song I wrote and performed in assembly age 8, experiment with less censored/more eccentric social interaction and talk about the power of masks that help reveal more of who we already are.

TL;DL
2’ 15”    I really love autumn
4’ 36”    A crow reunion
14’ 27”  The open studio/welcome to my world
22' 02”  The bizarre assembly performance remembered
26’ 51”  Experiments in social interaction
31’ 01”  Reflections on masks that reveal
44’ 32”  Plugs for festive markets I’m doing
46’ 06”  Weird greetings cards available in my shop

Links to things I mentioned
Buy a print of "Crow Therapy"
Feelings are Real exhibition at Barbican (Feb 25)
My studio
Partners zine
Keith Johnstone
Len Dancing
My mask workshops
My shop

The written substack version of this episode: Stevexoh’s substack thing.

If you're wondering why this is an accidental podcast then listen to the first 5 minutes of episode one.

Comments, questions, requests and stuff to stevexoh@gmail.com

(Total listening time 47’ 12”)

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Episode 6 of Creative Adventures, an accidental podcast and I'm finding it hard to believe it's episode 6 because that means that it's six months since this whole thing started. Well to be more accurate it's six months since I started the sub stack that I then decided to turn into this podcast but six months it feels like maybe a couple of months because it's just something I really look forward to. doing. I love writing the sub stack and I love recording this and as I've said before even if no one reads it or listens I love doing it. So the fact that you're listening is a bonus to me so thank you and if you're enjoying it then spread the word, share it around, like it, whatever you need to do. But I realize that also means I started this in the summer

and I'm recording this in the day, it's the first one I've recorded in the day for a little while and I've got a tiny window between when the kids in the two schools opposite come out and then my neighbour upstairs gets back with her toddler who starts running around and then basically I can't record for a long time. I mean you can still hear traffic and stuff right now but I'm recording in the daytime and even though it's the daytime it's freezing cold in here

I'm recording with some fingerless gloves on and a big hoodie and a woolly hat and every year I forget it gets cold I mean it's happened every year for my whole life and I end up in the summer thinking no it never gets cold that was a thing that I've imagined and then it suddenly hits me and then I think no it never gets hot so it's taken me a few days to adjust to trying to find the right level of clothes

and I've switched my heating off. I mean, it's been on, but I've switched it off to record this because you could hear boiler noise in the background, or at least I could hear boiler noise and I'd listen back to it and it would annoy me and I'd have to start again. But other than that, I realise I really love autumn. I mean, I can easily find a downside to every season, like something about it that bothers me. But I think I've got less bones to pick with autumn than the others.

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I I like the warmth of summer, don't get me wrong. The warmth of summer is great because it means I don't really have to think about what clothes to wear or an appropriate amount of layers type of thing. And I like wearing less. I don't like being restricted by clothes. In summer I can get away with as few clothes as possible without getting arrested and I also don't need to think about it. But the thing that counterbalances that with summer, summer seems to amplify

all of the things I find difficult about living in a society of humans. It's like more people gather in places that I go to to retreat and have a quiet time like go and sit by the riverside or go in a park or find a quiet beach to take Poppy the dog to and in the summer they're just packed and I sort of get irrationally annoyed with people it's like where were you where were you in the depths of winter when I was sitting by the riverside or

Where were you on that stormy, rainy weekend in February when I was walking on the beach with Poppy? And also it seems to make people noisier and less predictable, summer does. Like neighbours having parties or people being out on the street till late and travelling. Summer commuters confuse me and stress me out. Particularly summer commuters

in the school holidays and at weekends because all of my well-planned routines to find a quiet place on a train or travel at a quiet time or even moving through crowds becomes trickier in summer because there's these unpredictable summer travellers so summer just feels stressful for me even though I like the warmth and I like being able to swim and things like that so when autumn finally arrives it feels like a welcome relief or

a return to some sort of balance, some sort of routine for me, a nice balance between temperature and busyness that summer just seems to lose control of. But the thing that's brought me the most joy this autumn was the return of Crow. Now Crow is a crow that I met and befriended by the riverside last year, like autumn 2024. And the reason why I say a crow named Crow is because this is

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This is easier to write down, I've just realised. It's harder to describe. But there is a crow, as in the bird crow, and I named it Crow with a capital C. So that's that. I think that explanation makes it more confusing. But anyway, in autumn 2024, I met and befriended a crow that I called Crow. And I'd spotted her and her partner, who I called Lightning, because he has a little white streak on his chest. I'd spotted them down by the river each day when I walked to the studio. And they always seemed to be there. So I thought,

this must be their territory. So I just started to throw them some monkey nuts when I walked past and monkey nuts and most nuts with shells on are like a prized possession in the Corvid world. I saw a documentary that told me that so I just bought a load of monkey nuts and I sometimes put them out for the crows on the windowsill but I started saving them for crow and lightning for when I saw them and each time I saw them crows started to become

bit more curious about me and start to come a little bit nearer. Now lightning always kept his distance, he never seemed to build a trust in me but Crow got nearer and nearer so I started sitting down and just put in a monkey nut on the wall a few feet away from me and she'd timidly come up and grab it and fly off with it somewhere to cash it for eating, I don't know, maybe in the winter. And over time, mean a period of maybe two months, I moved the nut

closer and then I moved the nut into my hand and was so excited when she just came and took the nut out of my hand like an outstretched arm and then eventually we got to the point where I just put a load of broken up monkey nuts like shit that they're shelled and the nuts that are inside I break them up put it in my palm on my lap and Crow would swoop down jump onto my lap and just sit on my lap eating out the palm of my hand and it was the most amazing thing

not just to be close to a creature that I'm fascinated by like a wild animal but just how that relationship developed and the amount of patience it took and I became so enchanted by this relationship that I started to get annoyed when things like paid work or other commitments would get in the way and it's like I'm not going to get to see Crow today

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but I went out of my way to try and make sure I saw her and lightning. I'd feed lightning still. I'd just have to throw monkey nuts at a distance, but I'd try and make sure that I saw them at least three or four times a week. And I find in general relationship with creatures a lot easier than relationships with humans. The same with my dog. And it's the same with crow. It's like there's a liberating sense of human complications such as projections and transferences and...

how we use language and biases and filters. mean, mine included in this. But because that doesn't exist in a relationship with a creature, it feels so much easier. And that means I never feel misunderstood by an animal, which is a big thing of mine. I've realized since I was a kid that fear of feeling or experience of being misunderstood and have frustration at not being able to articulate the gap between someone's perception of what I'm

trying to express and what I'm trying to express but I never get I never feel misunderstood with a creature so with Crow I found it so much easier to be patient and passionately not attached like if she didn't show up or one day she didn't want to sit in my lap I wasn't thinking my god what have I done wrong it's like she's a crow she just didn't want to sit on my lap today something's going on or sometimes she'd be eating on my lap and then they'd be like a crow

call or some crow business goes on like the crows the other side of the river would suddenly start coring and she'd fly off with lightning to investigate, join in, I don't know maybe she was going over there to tell them what was going on with me but each time mine and crow's relationship did evolve it was amazing it was like unlocking another level of a computer game and there was one day where she flew down and came walking along the wall to me but just before she got onto my lap

she did like a bow and opened her wings and went and I was stunned it's like wow that's it I've opened a new level of crow and then she hopped on my lap and I researched that and that's like a gesture of affection that I do to a fellow crow or a juvenile crow and he's like this is an undeniable evolution in this relationship

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with this creature. And I was so fascinated by this relationship and it became so important to me that I did a painting called Crow Therapy that was part of the exhibition at Barbican earlier this year that J.D. Wiff and I did. So it's an exhibition of art made in response to feelings, feelings of love or loss or confusion or shame. And so Crow Therapy featured in that exhibition and it was sold actually, which was

Delightful and also there's always there's always a little bit of sadness when an original painting sold, but the money makes up for it So I was very into this relationship with Crow and with lightning But then they just suddenly disappeared It's spring this year sort of round about March or April time I noticed they'd spent a bit more time in the tree in their nest with an egg or eggs I'm not sure how many were there and I thought I maybe when

the babies hatched they'll come back down again but they just disappeared so from March time or April time I just didn't see them anymore and I felt sad but it was a different kind of sadness to say if you're missing a human or a human's left for some reason it was more like a melancholic type of fondness like for the memories like that was amazing that relationship that I built with a crow

but also combined with a total understanding of this is just what crows do. This is what they do at that stage of life. They've gone somewhere else. That's fine. So it was a real surprise this autumn, like mid to late October, when I was walking to the studio and I just heard this loud cawing behind me and I turned around and there were two crows there. And I wasn't sure if it was them. I suspected it might be them, but then I sat down and she jumped straight on my lap. It's, crow, you're back.

But what made this even more meaningful was I had met them a couple of times by the riverside and then the next time this other crow showed up which was like a smaller crow that just seemed a bit weird when it was like walking around it seemed normal but when it was flying it was a bit flappy and then it started making noises to the other two crows and sort of like a whiny noise like a complaining child

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And it was then that I thought, this is their fledgling. This is their baby. They must trust me so much that they've bought their baby to see me. And I've named the baby Humphrey Brand. So we have Crow and Lightning and Humphrey Brand that I regularly visit by the riverside now. And I'm hoping that Humphrey Brand will watch Crow sitting in my lap and maybe become a bit bolder, a bit more bolder than his father. I mean, Lightning, when I throw down a

Not if like Crow might get to it first and if she doesn't then Humphrey Brand gets in and Lightning just stands there looking at me going I don't know what to do. Maybe he's a socially awkward Crow. I don't know. But it's amazing that all three of them now come to see me. But I mean I can turn weave this into like a fairy tale story or something about this amazing relationship with a Crow but really this is just typical Crow behavior.

Humphrey Brand is now old enough to come down and find food I'm a good source of monkey nuts and it's the time of year where foraging and cashing food for the winter is important so they're gonna go where the food is but part of me also likes to imagine that my crow friends have been waiting for autumn maybe they like autumn as much as me it's less crazy it's less hot and they just come down to go yep I get it

Autumn is the best. We love autumn too. But what it has meant is that if I go for a run by the river or I'm going to the studio and I'm in a rush, I always have to have some monkey nuts with me because otherwise I walk past and they just shout at me and then follow me. So I've always got some monkey nuts with me. And I had an open studio recently in the studios, like the studio is open to the public. Anyone can come along and come in and visit. And I was running late.

and went there and all three of them were waiting for me and I just had to throw monkey nuts and of course the more I threw the more they followed me and I did wonder would they that would be amazing if they followed me all the way to the studio and then came in and people come to my open studio and there'd be three live crows there but but they didn't they're sensible they they stayed behind by the riverside but even though the crows didn't come in I loved the open studio and I've loved the other ones that I've done and even though these are days where I'm spending

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a long time, like sometimes a whole day or maybe two days interacting with strangers and talking a lot to people. I'm doing it in my own weird habitat and that always feels so much easier. I always feel much more comfortable when I invite people into my world to interact with me. And I think it's a thing that I've done for much of my life, like creating an environment or an event or

place or a space or some sort of experiment that basically is an uncensored and unmasked expression of my spontaneity, my creativity and the sort of environment I feel comfortable in and then I invite people in it's like hey do want to come in and join me? I mean part of the reason for doing this is because it's my job as an artist to have a studio and to create exhibitions and I run workshops so it's my job to curate a space that's primed for

creativity and weirdness. But I suspect the main reason that I do it is because I just feel a greater level of comfort and connection with myself by inviting other people into my world. And I've done it with things like painting sticks by the river and inviting people into my world that way. And there's probably loads of reasons why why I like it. But one of them is that it's a great way of short circuiting small talk.

those initial chit chat situations where I'm cringing inside and sort of having a kind of out of body experience where I'm watching myself trying to appear like a normal adult human engaging in small talk and it's weird watching myself I sort of have a parallel process of I'm watching myself going what are you doing? You sound weird

And then the me that's having the small talk is just going, just shut up, just let me do this. Let me appear normal for a bit. But if I'm inviting people into my world, then that sort of doesn't happen. And when I do talks, I try and avoid speaking to people beforehand, like a talk in front of a big audience. I hate the bit before the talk. I mean, there's always some jumbly nerves and things like that, but I don't want to talk to people before my talk because that's that zone of excruciating small talk.

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where people come up and say, what do you do? Or what are you doing here? Or what's your connection to event or company? Or if they find out I'm a speaker, they say, well, what's your talk about? I just want to say, just watch my talk. Don't ask me anything. Watch my talk. If you still have questions after that, I'd be happy to talk. But after I've been on stage and like shared, I don't know, load of weird stories or interesting philosophies and people have got to know a bit more about me and how I think and how I'm wired, then

It's so much easier. I really enjoy talking to people. It's like because they've been dipped into my world a bit. They'll only come up to me if there's a shared interest in that kind of thing. And I guess it's the same in the open studio. People aren't going to come to my open studio and say, so what do you do? Although weirdly people come into my studio and have said, so what type of art do you make? Yet they're surrounded by it. Every centimeter of the entire studio is stuff that I've made.

Maybe it's just an anxious question on their behalf. But I do think I need to emphasize that I'm not saying that I always want a conversation to be about me. In fact, I find it's the opposite. I find that really awkward. I am fascinated by others. I want to know about others. I like asking questions. I like getting to know people more. I'm just saying that inviting people into my world just feels like a much easier start point when others know more about me and my nature upfront than

having to slowly learn it and reveal it in those first excruciating moments. The thing is though, it's pretty impractical to just interact with people when they come into my world. And I want to get better at bringing my uncensored, unmasked, relaxed self into the world of others. And I think I used to be able to do this so much more naturally as a child. But when I think, I don't know, maybe back to primary school,

and I think of the things that I used to do at primary school and I start to doubt it was even me. I mean at primary school I used to write surreal short plays and like sketches, like weird sketches and then recruit a bunch of the weirdest kids I could find to perform them in assembly and sometimes I'd star in it and sometimes I'd direct it. I used to write and illustrate a series of short stories about a character called Yappy Dog and then I'd read them to the younger kids and show them the illustrations that I've done.

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and then say to the younger kids, what do you want Yappie to get up to next week? And then I'd go away and write another story. And a very bizarre memory that came back to me recently was playing a weird piece of music in assembly, a piece of music that had written on a strange battery powered keyboard I had that sounded like a hovercraft when you switched it on. It's like you switched it on and it goes... I don't know if that's a hovercraft, probably sounds like other things.

but I had one of these and I remember I ended up writing this song and performing it in assembly at primary school and I say song very loosely I mean very tenuously it was a song basically I had just hit the lowest key of the keyboard and then the next key up and it went further and further up and then back down again and what was even more bizarre about this

performance was there's a girl in my class had the same weird hovercraft keyboard I don't know how I learned that and she did a duet with me and this only came back to me recently because one of the little known facts about this podcast the intro music so not the random weird jazz stuff but the Casiotone music was a piece a little piece that I wrote for it and I originally had the idea of playing that live for every episode

and then I abandoned that I thought no one's really going to enjoy that I don't need to do that every time but I started messing about with the Casiotone recently and I remembered how to play this piece of music in assembly and when I played it I just thought this is this is crazy this I don't I couldn't describe it if I went to watch an assembly of children

and someone was playing that on stage I'd be thinking is this kid alright? But I thought I'd try and play it for you now just so it's the benefit of the podcast over the sub stack I can only describe it in the sub stack and I haven't got a hovercraft organ so I'll play out my Casiotone MT-56 and I might need to turn the gate down a little bit on my mic so you can hear it which means you might also hear some traffic but let's give it a go

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So this would be, I don't know, I imagine in assembly, let's say. And next we've got Steve, or Stevie, as people used to call me then, and I don't know what the girl's name was, and they're gonna perform a piece that Stevie has written. And it went like this.

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You get the idea? Just that, that, over and over again, up and down the keyboard. And I think as I was going up, let me just drown out some of the traffic a bit, as I was going up, she'd start going down. And it's funny that that memory was suddenly unlocked. And as an adult, I now wonder what did the teachers and other adults who witnessed this, what were they thinking? And I remember I...

I created an orchestra of recorders and got them to play the Star Wars theme in assembly and I remember hearing anecdotally maybe from another kid that they'd heard a teacher saying that's very immature playing Star Wars on a recorder that's that's very immature and just really not caring because what other people thought about all of these things the stories the plays all the other strange stuff that I did

It didn't even enter my mind that they might think it's strange or unusual. I was just doing it because I love doing it. And I can imagine finding myself in this immersive creative flow state. And looking back, I mean, I don't know who the teacher was that would have said it's immature, but I remember my primary school teachers really supporting me and encouraging me. It was them that suggested that I read my happy dog stories to the younger kids.

It was probably them that suggested I put these plays on and play my weird hovercraft symphony in assembly. And they gave me a permission and a platform to express my creativity. But it was a permission and a platform that rapidly disappeared in secondary school. I got to secondary school wanting to carry on with all of this stuff and no one cared. No one was interested. And not only were they not interested, it was discouraged and

punished for not concentrating and not focusing on the important subjects, important things, because now it's about qualifications. And that experience just made me reluctant to express my weird creative self for many years. I sort of started locking it away. And maybe that's why I find it harder to bring it into the world and much easier to create a world and invite others into it.

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But I've decided I want to experiment more with blurring the lines between my world and the world of others. Like what's a better balance that I can find between the me who prefers to create things for people to come in and that primary school kid who just boldly went into the world and was naturally a bit strange and eccentric. And earlier this month I was invited to the launch of a brilliant zine called Partners. If you look it up, two brilliant people run it.

and I was invited to the launch of their second issue. So I thought that would be a good experiment for me because I go to like lots of gallery launches and private views and events and I always find them hard work. And I think one of the reasons why I find it hard is because I set too high a bar for myself. My expectations of myself are way too high. It's like I imagine, this time I'm going to be like the life and soul of the party.

chatting with everyone, I'll make loads of new friends, maybe I'll get someone to collaborate with or someone will offer me some paid work or I'll get signed to an amazing art agent and then when I end up leaving after half an hour because I don't know how to talk to people I just feel really down and sort of right in the grips of that inner critic saying look you're not good you're not good at any of this no one wants to interact with you

And really that's thing that the inner critic or the super ego does. And I might do an episode on this because I've done lots of work on it in the past. It's the thing that the inner critic does is where you have this idealized version of yourself, this idealized poster on your wall of what does super social life and soul of the party Steve look like? What does he say? How does he move? How do people react? And then scanning that against my perception of self.

So at the partners event, thought, okay, I'm aware of all of this now. I'm going to try and set a realistic bar for myself and try something different. Like I'll go, I'll stay for as long as I have energy. If I talk to people, then great. And I thought, what would I do if I was bringing some souvenirs from my world into that world? Like just to build a bit of a bridge, like a bit of a transitional object.

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my little be kind to crab scene that I mentioned, maybe it was episode two or episode three of the podcast. It's a little zine that I made to give to people who are crab fishing to educate them a bit about how to be kinder to crabs. I thought I'll print off a load of those and take them with me because that's what primary school me would have done. So I thought that's what I'm going to do. So I went to this launch in Shoreditch and every time someone came up to me or every time I saw someone that I thought

Yeah, I'd like to have a chat with them. I'd say, Hi, I'm Steve. I'm an artist. Would you like a little zine about crabs? And I loved doing it. It's a strange thing to do, but it worked and I wanted to do it. And whether people liked crabs or not, they would take a zine and look at it and say thank you and might say, how do you make these or ask some questions about crabs or

irrelevant to the crowd because it was a good way of showing my artwork and my style and it just opened up many conversations. Conversations about art, life, philosophy. It meant I was much more comfortable to ask and find out more about them and I felt so elated and energized on the Tube Home like a complete contrast to the drained self-critical experience that I normally have and it felt like I'd managed to channel eight-year-old me.

playing that hovercraft organ in assembly and at the same time being an adult, no longer being eight and meeting my adult social needs and also taking care of myself with the things that I find hard and I've now started bringing little zines to various events and gatherings I went to a Samhain party dressed as a rook for Samhain Halloween this year and I knew people would come up to me and say you a crow

I don't know why I'm putting on that voice. makes it sound like everyone's an idiot, but people come up go, are you a crow? And then I'd have to say, no, I'm a rook. And then they'd ask me, what's the difference between rooks and crows? And the thought of having that conversation, even though I'm interested in rooks and crows, the thought of having that conversation over and over again, just made me think, no, I don't want to do that. So I made a little zine of rook facts and I made a little pouch like a goulart pouch that a rook would have under its beak, but I tied it around my waist.

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and then the little poucher had a zine and every time anyone came up and are you a crow? I'd just give them a zine or anyone I wanted to talk to I'd say do you want a little zine? It explains more about rooks. And again it was just a wonderful catalyst for a different type of conversation. Now I mean this was a weird Halloween party in a strange pub and the part in zine thing was an art based event so I guess I'm picking occasions that are more primed towards that.

But at the same time I can imagine doing it in other situations because I sort of don't care if people think I'm weird. It's strange. I'd rather people think I was weird than feel misunderstood or feel that I've not lived up to my social expectations. And like I've said already, zines are just one vehicle or artistic vehicle for this experiment and they're a transitional object that's helping me transition from my world.

into the other world in a way where I feel more uncensored and spontaneous and worry less about what others think and it feels like they're gradually building a bridge between the two worlds or at least making that veil between them a little thinner and a little more permeable and I've realised essentially that this is all mask work and I've been fascinated by masks for a very long time

And that all started in September 2012 when I spent a week training with Keefe Johnson. And for those that don't know Keefe, Keefe died a couple of years ago at age 90. But Keefe was an English theatre director who wasn't just a theatre director, he was a former teacher. And I think he was an anthropologist. He just had amazing insights into human beings and how they interact and what he called the kinetic dance between people interacting.

He was also one of the pioneers of improvisation as a way of developing actors and a theatre performance. And at the time I was writing my master's dissertation about spontaneity and Keefe's book Impro have been a big influence. So when I heard he was coming to the UK, I jumped to the opportunity to meet him and work with him in person. And the week was amazing. It was like a mix of sort of traditional improv-y type exercises that I've done, interspersed with Keefe telling lots of rambling stories from

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from the sofa and then we'd just do these experiments that came from Keith's brain that were just genius and remember we did one which was trying to take as long as possible to do a simple task something like opening a door how could you spend as long as possible opening a door but justify the reasons now I don't mean explain them it's just in your actions

how could you delay one task? We also played the rejection game which was a game where you're in a small group of people being observed by an audience and the objective is to reject someone in the group socially but it mustn't be you and that was a fascinating seat of the pants exploration of rejection. We also did a thing I think I've mentioned this on a previous podcast about fascination

But we had to do a thing where you had to hold the attention of the entire audience of like 40 people. And the moment they got bored, they got up and walked out of the room. So it was a challenging but brilliant week and fundamentally important in that dissertation that I wrote and where I took my work after that. But towards the end of the week, Keith dragged out this battered old suitcase and said, I think we'll do some masks and got some freaky looking paper mache masks and put them on a table.

And then Keith turned to us all and said, who'd like to have a go? And loads of people put their hands up. And I just remember thinking, no fucking way. I'm not doing that. There's no way that I'm doing that. I've reached the edge of what I'm prepared to try here. And I remember at the time, I didn't know why. I didn't know why I was so reluctant to try it. And maybe I feared that this was an experience that might be

something that tips me over the edge of my finally balanced mental state. I spoke about that in the last episode of the podcast. This fear that I would suddenly lose my sanity and maybe I thought that masks might do that. But the more I saw people do it, people put on a mask, work with Keef one to one and be utterly transformed, I thought, no, I can't miss this opportunity. So when the moment came, I put my hand up and I went up.

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and I did some masks with Keef and I instantly regretted it I was only in the mask for I don't know maybe 30 seconds I hated every moment of it I felt like I'd done it wrong I didn't know what was going on I was confused and my body was shaking in a way that was just telling me my nervous system was going haywire and Keef said take it off like take off the mask at the end and I think the thing I hated most about it was

Maybe deep down I'd wanted to impress Keef. I wanted him to say, you're the best ever. This is ridiculous, but it feels cathartic to admit it. I think maybe I wanted Keef to say, you're the best ever mask student I've had in those 30 seconds that I've just worked with you. But he just looked indifferent and went, okay, who's next? And moved on to the next student. And I remember sitting back down in my chair feeling flushed and embarrassed and vibrating. And I thought, I'm never going to do masks again.

But a few months later I found myself thinking about the experience still. It wouldn't go away and I thought, I wonder what it would be like if I tried it again. And I likened that initial mask experience to maybe trying a hot spicy food for the first time. Like we eat hot spicy food and it's like, oh, that's burning, that's too much. That's ruined my stomach, that's ruined my taste buds. I'm never gonna eat that food again.

And then after the pain subsides and we recover, maybe a couple of weeks later, it's like, actually, yeah, maybe that was okay. We go back and try it and gradually build a tolerance for it. So to cut a long story short, I spent the next two years after that mask workshop training in masks with as many different mask teachers as I could find. I started working with Keef's protégé, Steve Jarand, who is an amazing mask maker, a mask teacher.

and he helped me discover this whole new character within me called Mormo. And then I trained with Trestle Theatre Company based in Cambridge who used masks based on Jungian archetypes and they taught me how you could use masks to channel different archetypes and not just Jungian archetypes, all sorts of classic characters in society and folklore. And Russell Dean of Strange Face Theatre who taught me mask making but also the playful, crazy s***

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strange nature of mask work. And after those two years in autumn 2015 I decided to combine all of those things that I've learned and synthesize them with like my interest in spontaneity and Gestalt psychology and various other things and run a mask workshop for the first time. And it was an intense and nerve-racking but overall magical experience. It was an experience that for the first time allowed me to stand on the other side of the mirror and

watch people suddenly be transformed, watch different parts of their personality suddenly spark into life in a way that confused and delighted them. And I've run mask workshops regularly over the last 10 years and I've seen people who say they can't sing up and perform an amazing song or people that say they can't do public speaking stand up and improvise a bizarre but faultless and engaging and intriguing and fascinating talk.

And I've seen everything in between people who say they've forgotten how to play and laugh suddenly finding themselves channeling this impish part of themselves that is cheeky and playful and can't stop laughing or people that want to be more assertive finding a way to be more assertive or people that say that they can't be still and quiet dropping into this state that's been in them all along but have been forgotten or locked away behind a secret door.

The thing that I've learnt from all of this is we often think of masks as things that we hide behind that grant us some sort of anonymity and hide who we really are. And there's certainly a lot written about that, particularly in the corporate world and on things like LinkedIn, is what the masks you wear to work. And whilst that's true, and I agree that that can be part of it, what I've learnt from Keith and everyone and synthesised into my own process over the years is...

There are some masks and ways of working with masks that do the opposite. Masks that reveal even more of who we are. Or masks that grant us access to different ways of being and thinking. Or masks that allow us a fuller range of our personality to just flow from our body in a way that is so intense and vivid and powerful that the masks live on in us long after the workshop. I remember Keith Johnson talking to us about Charlie Chaplin's Tramp

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character and how Chaplin's Tramp was a mask. I've read some interviews with Chaplin talking about the Tramp and one thing that he said has always stuck in my mind. So Chaplin spoke about the famous Tramp character and said, ignited all sorts of crazy ideas that I would never have dreamed of until I was dressed and made up as the Tramp. I realized I would have to spend the rest of my life finding out more about the creature. And not only do I love that he calls the Tramp a creature but that thing of

He only had access to those parts of himself in the mask and then realized this is like a rich well that I'm never going to get to the bottom of but through every bit of exploration I'm going to discover more and more. And masks have helped me in a similar way over the years. Back in 2004 I was doing a lot of work in radio and I co-wrote a comedy show that I used to perform with my fellow writers.

But whether it was a recording like in a studio or live broadcast from a studio or if we did a couple of broadcasts in front of live audience, I would always transform myself into my character who was called Cornelius Chapman. He was this strange, eccentric, bumbling, random old man. And I'd put on Cornelius's clothes. There was an aftershave that Cornelius would have and then I'd have his makeup and...

I'd move like Cornelius and breathe like Cornelius and it sort of seems like a pointless thing to do when no one can see apart from the sound engineer and my fellow performers but it felt really important to do it because I think doing that in a similar way to what Chaplin describes and in a similar way to what I've seen in mask workshops it allowed me to access parts of myself that were less self-conscious and less anxious about performing

Cornelius also used to seem to grant me access to a very surreal and uncensored stream of spontaneous dialogue that would just flow out of me and become a compelling part of his character. mean he could say and do things that I couldn't possibly do and Cornelius went on to write some music and write some tunes that were broadcast on national radio and I wouldn't have had the guts to do that. But over time Cornelius permeated my being and we sort of

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merged in a way that meant that I was able to access those parts without his mask. And I'd still perform Cornelius, but it meant that wearing the mask of this strange and eccentric old man sort of trained my body and nervous system to find ways of accessing those parts on a day-to-day basis. And I've since experimented with other masks like that. I created a huge mask of a character called Len with the idea that Len might help me feel less conscious about moving and dancing.

And Len went on to lead a dance class in a huge tent at a festival. And during lockdown, Len led online dance classes via Zoom. Something that I would never dream of doing. And a mysterious character that I invented called Juevos Rancheros performed music. He was my music alter ego and would record songs and put them out under the name and a photo of Juevos Rancheros. Something that I felt too self-conscious to do.

And just like it did with Cornelius, the more I inhabited Len and Huevos and other masks I've experimented with, the more comfortable that embodied experience became and I needed them less to access those ways of being. And that's led me to think of these masks as like stabilizers for my personality or stabilizers for new and raw and untamed parts of my personality.

Stabilizers that allow me to try something new and scary and once I found my own balance my own way of striking a balance with these news parts They can be removed and I realized really I used to run lots of workshops, but now I only really run mask workshops because For me, they are the most potent and exciting and also exhausting thing. That's why I only do like three or four a year But they are the most fascinating and bizarre thing

that I do and what I love about it is I still don't really understand how it works and I don't want to. I don't want to. So while I might be interested in your theories and my theories of why they work I like them remaining a bit of a mystery. This strange suitcase that I keep on top of my wardrobe that gets taken out into central London four times a year and transforms whoever's in the room into this whole gaggle of characters.

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And my next mask workshop is on the 20th of March 2026 and they're limited to 10 people because I want to keep it small and intimate. It's brilliant and delicate and amazing work. But if you'd like to come along to the next mask workshop or others that I run through the year, then I'll put a link in the podcast notes. So that's it. We're up on time. A few plugs before I go. Depending on when you're listening to this, the festive end of year season is approaching.

And I have a number of markets coming up and I love doing markets and I find them exhausting. And every year I say yes to doing too many markets. So the last couple of years I've said, I'm only going to say yes to really, really cool and interesting markets. And then I realized actually I know quite a few really cool and interesting markets. So I've ended up doing three Christmas markets in a row this December, but I also love them. This is a chance to not only make a bit of money, but to meet people.

and I guess invite people into my world, my little market stall. So on December the 6th, I'm going to be back at the brilliant Illustrator's Fair in Granary Square in King's Cross. And that's a lovely one. It's just a massive room in central London full of illustrators. So come along and say hi at that. Then on the 13th of December, I am at my friend Casland's market. Casland, look him up on Instagram, look him up on TikTok. Brilliant, brilliant artist.

He's got a tiny curated art market with hand-picked artists with stalls selling their own stuff. And that's at Newhouse Arts Space in Guildford on December the 13th, so the following Saturday. And then on December the 20th is my home market, which isn't in my home, but it's in Serbeton. And it's like a community market. So I'll have a stall there on the 20th of December. So come along and say hello at one of those things. It's not just me there. There's lots of other stuff there.

And if you can't get along to any of them, I've added all of my greetings cards to my shop and I'll put a link to the markets and the shop in the podcast notes. Cards are the best selling thing on my market store because I create cards that are sort of for any occasion and not demarked for a particular occasion. I've never understood cards that demark themselves for a particular occasion, but I don't know. They obviously sell well. But I finally got around to putting all of the cards on my website.

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So if you can't get along to a market and you want some alternative end of year festive cards have a look at my website stevesoh, stevexoh.com and I'll also put a link to that in the podcast notes. So thank you for joining me. That was episode six. Episode seven will be out I think it's Boxing Day. That's going to be weird. So I'll probably record it a few days before Boxing Day. But yeah, well that was episode six. Who knows what will be in episode seven.

but thanks so much for joining me. I'll speak to you soon. Bye.