#sparkchamber 031323 — Conor Nickerson
Another #sparkchamber Monday rolls up, and the essence of today’s guest, musician, photographer, and filmmaker Conor Nickerson, brings to mind a quote by Gabriel García Márquez: This should be the spirit every Monday. Know that something good will always happen.
Originally from a small town in rural Massachusetts, now based in Montreal, Quebec, Conor — a creative triple-threat — writes and records music under his own name, as well as with his collaborative plant-music project, Greenplant. He conceives, directs, and edits short films, music videos, and other film projects — as well as designs album covers and visual art. And he does portraiture and live-concert photography, then photo editing, and composite work in Photoshop. For which he was recently featured on the Today Show Instagram account. Using Photoshop, Conor travelled back in time to hang out with his younger self, inserting present-day images into childhood photos. It probably goes without saying, but the biggest challenge was matching the light, tone, and quality of the new photography with the older shots. “It involved a lot of blurring, sharpening, and noise to try to get it like an older photo.”
For Conor, inspiration comes from all directions, “It’s hard to pinpoint just a few. I tend towards texture and color, whether it’s in the materials used, like film in photo and video, or tape in music, or in the feeling of it.”
That *is* the spirit of creative process any day of the week.
1.] Where do ideas come from?
I think ideas come when you allow yourself to let go a little bit. I used to overthink each new idea that I had, and writing music or developing projects was a really slow process because every decision felt so important. At a certain point, I just started jumping into ideas and seeing where they’d take me, and the difference has been wild. Although now, I think I usually have the opposite problem, where I can feel inundated with ideas and I have to filter a lot out in order to keep my concentration. But I think ideas come from trusting yourself and being willing to not hold on to any one idea too tightly. Another thing is being able to filter out all the mental noise and following what really inspires you. With social media, it’s easy to get caught up in doing, liking, or making certain things because you think it’s what you should be doing or liking or making. I think that in the past I was trying to be someone that I wasn’t, and it was always an uphill battle. So finding a balance between being open to experience, but also accepting the limits of what you do and don’t enjoy, can help a lot to let ideas come more naturally. Also, letting your brain be bored is super important for ideas. I’m pretty addicted to the internet, but most of the time, as soon as I go a while with no screens in front of me, I start to come up with a ton of ideas. Taking long, mindful walks is my go-to way of getting ideas when I’m feeling stuck.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
I know it’s been said ad nauseam at this point, but it feels like I need to be creating to stay alive. It really is like a hunger that I have to feed. But I don’t say that in a romanticized way, I think doing so much creative work is the byproduct of how I grew up, and it can be unhealthy and excessive at times. It almost becomes compulsive, and can lead to other parts of my life getting neglected.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
I work constantly, usually to the detriment of other aspects of my life. To be honest, it’s pretty unsustainable and I’m working on improving that. I think it’s important to say these things, since the idea of creating is often romanticized a lot. Since I grew up in a small town where there weren’t a lot of other people doing the same kinds of things, and since there just wasn't much to do in general, I had to get creative with my time and be more or less creatively self-sufficient. So now, when I’m working on music, I’ll also make the music videos, album cover, and visual content for it. When I’m working on video projects, I’ll write and record the soundtrack for it. Though most of the time, I’m burning the candle at both ends, so I’ll have periods of being burnt out. In terms of getting my things out into the world, everything I’ve done so far has been independently released. I’m currently preparing to release a new album through my project, Greenplant, in March. All the promotion and publishing is done without any label support or external funding, which presents its own challenges.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
I think it depends on what the project is — sometimes it’s intuitive, where it just feels complete, but most of the time I have to stop myself because I can keep coming back and continue to make adjustments almost infinitely.
