War With Art

Part 3 of our conversation with Eric J. Drummond begins in a place most artists avoid talking about directly: not inspiration — but blockage. After finishing a major piece, Eric finds himself stuck. The ideas are there — murals, allegories, portraits — but they won’t translate. They exist as a kind of “fog,” just out of reach.What follows is a clear look at how work actually resumes:Study leads to a new direction.Portrait evolves mid-process.One idea hands off to the next.The process isn’t linear — it’s iterative and reactive.From there, the conversation shifts into portraiture and memory. Not just capturing how someone looks, but whether the work feels like them. Eric shares the experience of painting his grandfather from memory — and the moment it was recognized as true through a single detail. That opens into a broader set of ideas:Art as a way of preserving something intangible — presence, gesture, memory — and carrying it forward.The final stretch turns to the bigger tension:How to build something meanin

In Part 2 of our conversation with painter Eric J. Drummond, the focus shifts from discipline and craft to something harder: the tension between the work and the world around it.We get into what it actually means to spend months on a single painting and how that patience is something Eric had to grow into, not something he started with. From there, the conversation moves into the realities of commissioned work: negotiating with clients, balancing truth with expectation, and knowing when a piece is finished versus when it simply has to be delivered.Eric shares the three core questions behind every portrait: how you see yourself, how others see you, and how you want to be seen. And how those tensions shape the final work.From there, things widen out:The trap of “exposure” and paying to be seenWhy social media often works against the kind of art he’s trying to makeDrawing a line between promotion and becoming an “influencer”Finding ways to stay honest in how you present your workThe conversation also explores ho

In this episode of The War with Art, we welcome painter Eric J. Drummond — a figurative artist trained in classical realism at the Florence Academy of Art.Eric builds his work slowly and deliberately, committed to beauty, discipline, and craft in a culture that often rewards speed and noise. He also happens to be the teacher of our own co-host, Eric Vedder — which makes this conversation personal as well as philosophical.We talk about what it actually looks like to begin a day in the studio — the rituals, the warmups, the sharpening of pencils and clearing of distractions — and why starting is often the hardest part of any creative practice.From there, the conversation moves into deeper territory:The tension between tradition and innovationFollowing rules vs breaking themWhen technique becomes a cageWhy your weaknesses might actually become your voiceEric reflects on his time studying in Florence, the insecurity of leaving that world behind, and a pivotal piece of advice he received: your weaknesses will beco

In this episode of The War with Art, we try something new: a random show.After wrapping another recording, the conversation kept going — bouncing between ideas about deadlines, perfection, collaboration, and the strange emotional slog that shows up near the finish line of creative work. So we hit record and followed the thread.Eric, George, and Sheldon unpack why “done is better than perfect” keeps resurfacing across art history, why exhaustion isn’t a useful metric for finishing, and how deadlines, editors, producers, and collaborators can act as creative unlocks rather than constraints.We talk about the difference between feedback that’s cheap and feedback that has skin in the game, why collaboration can push work past your own internal ceiling, and how letting someone else into the process can move a project closer to its truest version — not just its fastest ending.This is a loose, honest conversation about finishing things, trusting the right people, and carrying the work across the finish line even when

In this episode of The War with Art, we pull another card from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies deck and get a prompt that hits uncomfortably close: “Bridges — build — burn.”From modular synth patches you create and then tear down, to monks spending days on intricate work only to wipe it clean, we talk about why building and burning is baked into the creative process. Sometimes you have to strip a piece back to its core idea. Sometimes you have to scare yourself a little. And sometimes you have to let go of what you’ve already built... even when sunk cost is screaming at you to keep it.The guys also explore the deeper version: making something can be a bridge between who you are now and who you become after you’ve finished — and once you cross, you don’t really get to go back.If you’ve got your own interpretation of the card, drop a comment as we’d love to hear it.“Maybe you need to burn the bridge in order to make it not easy — and then rebuild something new.”---Timestamps:01:10 — What *Obliq

In this episode of The War with Art, we talk about the inner critic — that voice that shows up right when the work starts to matter. Eric, George, and Sheldon dig into what it actually says and why it can sometimes be useful, but also how easily it can tip into full imposter syndrome. We also get into the difference between "done" and "perfect," why art is something you surrender rather than perfect, and that strange thing that happens when you've listened to your own work so many times that you can't tell if it's genuinely bad or if you're just sick of hearing it.If you’ve got your own way of dealing with the inner critic, drop a comment — we’d love to hear it.“If it were easy to make, there’d be no point in making it.”Timestamps:02:30 — What the inner critic actually says04:30 — “Done vs perfect”09:00 — When criticism turns into imposter syndrome11:30 — The AI temptation20:00 — Outnumbering the inner critic through collaborationReferenced in this episode:Dilla Time by Dan CharnasRatatouille — the critic arc

Pulling a random card from The Deck of Oblique Strategies, the guys discuss...

The guys talk about what they've learned over the past few months.

Thinking about the future means reflecting on past mistakes. What would you do differently? The WWA explores.

Choirs and spirituality... ok guys? Where will this one go?

George, Eric and Sheldon talk about all the effort and how that can turn to exhaustion.

Sheldon, George, and Eric sit down to talk about the vast landmine overthinking your art.

George and Eric discuss life and death as a creative.

George and Eric sit down for this one and discuss making a new kinds of things...all with a dash of creative insight and humor.

The guys discuss Kickstarter releases, tips for creating one, and the hype surrounding SM and Eric's new book, Aardehn: Awakening (which hit its funding goal in less than 24 hours!)

SM Carter, George Spanos, and Eric Vedder talk about the pain of having to rework and rewrite and redraw and replay... like needles in your eye. But just maybe there is something to learn from it?

S.M. Carter, George Spanos, and Eric Vedder get off their butts and actually record an episode... but, just maybe, procrastination is a good thing?

S.M. Carter, George Spanos, and Eric Vedder sit down with artist and entrepreneur Samantha Carter and artist and crafter Annette Miketic - Vedder to talk about starting a new creative project.

Marketing and promoting yourself is such a hard part of being a creator. The guys sit down to discuss a few aspects of this vast part.

S.M, Threat Machine, and the Black Wolf come back to start the year off with a bang.(That's Sheldon, George, and Eric!)We talk about taking lessons and figuring out the way to improve.Also... now featuring Greg, the fact checker