Joel: Leo. I finally got you.

Leo: Yeah, it's been a minute.

Joel: It's been a minute. How you doing, buddy?

Leo: I've been pretty good.

Joel: Good. So I've started off all these interviews sort of the same way. If you could tell me a little bit about your background, your professional experience, your educational experience. I know you've lived quite the varied and interesting life.

Leo: A little bit of everything. Yeah.

Joel: If you could share that, I think that's really interesting, all the stuff you've done.

Leo: Yeah. I originally was working in more towards like, engineering as a field, so a lot of electrical and software engineering. Went to school for it. Yeah. And COVID started I started cooking or before COVID a little bit, but mostly just working kitchens through that. Just kind of done a lot of kind of odd jobs with construction, stuff like that. And through that ended up starting to build boats and then ended up on a boat, living. And that's kind of why I applied.

Joel: And you also run a venue in Vancouver, right? A music venue?

Leo: Yeah. I'm not as involved now just because of school and whatnot, but yeah, back when we started it, I'd originally worked at a venue called Stylus Records, which closed down maybe six years ago now. And from that I opened up my first venue with one of my friends and it's called Avant Garden. It's a super tiny space. Like, you go upstairs, you can fit like five people, but somehow we managed 30.

Joel: What kind of shows did you book there?

Leo: There a lot of everything. Like a lot of acoustic stuff because it was well tailored to that, but definitely went towards the experimental kind of a lot of experimental noise, music, things like that. And about two years ago I rented out I think it's something like 3000 square feet. Big warehouse on Hastings. We had been doing like a whole bunch of community stuff in the last space, like serving food and whatnot, but yeah, with that gives us a lot of opportunities to do tons of different stuff.

Joel: So what kind of stuff do you do with the Hastings space?

Leo: Mostly shows. It’s s kind of a challenge because we do follow COVID restrictions. We use a loophole with charity events to be able to throw shows. We do have a business license, but there's a lot of caution and preparation involved. So that's actually, I'm kind of thankful for that because it gave us more of an opportunity to kind of dive into, like if we can't do as many events in a month and dive into things like the soup kitchen and whatnot, and kind of spending most of our time with those community workshops and whatnot. Yeah. Just kind of delving more into that aspect of it.

Joel: What kind of artistic background and experience do you have? Because the things that I've seen you make at your bench, not only class projects, but just stuff you come up with on your own is simply incredible.

Leo: Thank you.

Joel: Have you always had this sort of artistic, creative brain, or did it come about through a parental influence or a friendly influence?

Leo: Yeah, I'm not too sure. I used to draw a lot. Really enjoyed that.

Joel: What kind of stuff did you draw?

Leo: I don't know. Just kind of sit down, draw landscapes, paint quite a bit. I used to do that just kind of to relax. I never actually thought about pursuing it too much. Mostly just saw it as more of a hobby. Especially a lot of more of, like, the textiles or upholstery type of stuff. But same with, I love drafting, and that's an aspect of this that I've really started to get more into. But, yeah, no, I don't know. It's hard to pinpoint where it would have originated from.

Joel: Are your parents artistic?

Leo: My mother is an artist.

Joel: What kind of artist?

Leo: She just paints. Like, has a little studio now. She's pretty good too.

Joel: Did she teach you to appreciate art? Did she teach you how to make art?

Leo: Yeah. I definitely think that growing up in an environment where that's always around and also, just, I guess, I immigrated from France too so…

Joel: You were born in France?

Leo: Yeah. There's a bit of a cultural difference. Also. I lived in Spain for, like, two years and saw a lot of really cool art stuff over there. Actually, I think that's kind of where I started to get a lot more of my influences because there's, like, a whole bunch of cool little galleries with funky stuff. But yeah, I definitely think that at least being open to those environments or going to museums and things like that, definitely. I didn't appreciate it much when I was younger. I'm definitely thankful for it.

Joel: Why did your parents leave France?

Leo: I'm actually not too sure. I they just kind of wanted to change. Like, they're originally thinking of going to the US. Down to California. Also just better work opportunities and whatnot.

Joel: Do you speak French?

Leo: Yeah.

Joel: Your style is kind of eclectic, but if I gave you a blank room and asked you to fill it with art, what would it look like? What sort of styles would be in there, what sort of stuff would be in there?

Leo: I don't know. That's a tough one.

Joel: If it was Dustin, it'd be all spray painted black. Crazy dark designs. What would yours be?

Leo: Oh, no, probably just depending on the style of room. Just some, probably a lot of plants. Funky wallpaper. A lot of, what did they call it? Macrame. Yeah, I love that.

Joel: You like macrame?

Leo: Yeah. I really like tapestries too. Actually, probably, mostly, maybe a chair. A couple of chairs. Table. Got a whole bunch of plants and whatnot.

Joel: How many tattoos do you have?

Leo: Oh, I've lost count a long time ago.

Joel: Of all the numerous tattoos you have, how many have you done yourself?

Leo: I've also lost count. I think most of them I've done myself. I think it's easier to count ones I haven't.

Joel: Why did you decide to start giving yourself tattoos?

Leo: I'm not too sure, actually. My friend, I think I was 16-17, but one of my childhood friends was really into doing the stick and pokes and whatnot, and it's such a bad tattoo. I've got a little lamb on my shoulder.

Joel: A lamb?

Leo: Yeah, and that was the first one I got and I don't know, it was just kind of fun.

Joel: Did you do your face tattoos?

Leo: Yeah, one of them. I did the pitchfork thing. I did that in a mirror, actually. That wasn't, maybe, like six months ago. It wasn't that long ago.

Joel: Why did you give yourself a pitchfork?

Leo: I don't know. I was hanging out with my partner and I gave her a tattoo that she wanted for a hot minute.

Joel: What was it?

Leo: Little like, smiley face thing. She got like two moles and, fun one. I'd been wanting to do it for a hot minute. I've got everything set up. Might as well.

Joel: Why a pitchfork?

Leo: I don't know. I just kind of enjoy it.

Joel: Why did you enroll in the fine furniture program? With your talent I would imagine you could do metal work, you could do ceramics, you could do glass. Why did you pick wood?

Leo: Yeah, actually, the funny thing is I applied late. I didn't know I had to do a portfolio until I got an email about it where they said, “Oh, yeah, program is full. You didn't give your portfolio”. I just emailed them one anyways and somehow got in like a week before.

Joel: Why did you apply in the first place?

Leo: Oh, yeah, sorry. My social worker actually found it and just sent it to me because I was just kind of cruising around on the boat and I was getting pretty bored and things were going well, so I was trying to see what I wanted to do. So I was looking at different school opportunities, work stuff and whatnot, and I just saw the website when she sent it, I saw all the things people made. I was pretty impressed by it. No way, I can do that. And yeah.

Joel: Why do you have a social worker? If you want to share.

Leo: Oh, no, that's fine, that's fine. I got linked up with her through a, it was a few years ago now, three years ago? But through a clinic in Vancouver. Like a kind of youth clinic thing and yeah, no, I was struggling with addiction, an opiate addiction at the time. I was actively using at the time, and yeah, no, it was, I don't know, helped a lot. Kind of really stuck through it.

Joel: Does art and woodworking help in your recovery?

Leo: Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, it gives a bit of an outlet, especially things like a lot of the design aspects and whatnot. Even on some days, just woodworking. It not only keeps me occupied, but it's just like I think that's the big thing is it keeps me preoccupied and it's something I enjoy a lot.

Joel: What kind of relationships have you made in this class, if any? Friendships or acquaintances?

Leo: It's kind of funny because I am a bit, I guess, strange.

Joel: We're all strange my friend.

Leo: Yeah. I wasn't sure what to expect the first day coming here and I remember for a couple of months I barely talked to Connor or Nick. But we get along pretty good now and whatnot, it's cool. Even you or Dustin, I kind of hermited for a couple of years on the boat or even before that, I lived in like a farmhouse shack in Richmond in the middle of like a field. It's pretty fun. You could drive around and whatnot, but yeah, no, it's just a lot of people that I feel like, outside of the class I wouldn't have met or relationships that I wouldn't typically have, be in the communities or have kind of yeah, I don't know if that makes sense.

Joel: Why did you spend so much time hermitting on the boat or in a farmhouse?

Leo: I mean, kind of doing the doing all the events as well as like soup kitchen for a long time.

Joel: Working in the soup kitchen?

Leo: Doing the cooking from the venue and whatnot. And also a lot of the jobs I worked were very kind of extroverted jobs. Even doing the shows, you meet so many people every night. But it almost gets very tiring after a point because all the relationships you make are very redundant. There's no meaning in a lot of it. And also I kind of always put, I just tried to distract myself with that stuff even though didn't enjoy it that much at the time. So I kind of just left and I mean, I just left and it was great. It was just peaceful.

Joel: What's been your best experience in fine furniture so far? And experience can be a project, a homework assignment, a lecture, however you define experience.

Leo: It was the first week and, I have no idea why, but I remember after jointing the pieces of pine for the table and just having the perfectly machined stack of pine boards, I started laughing. I no idea why. Just because they fit so perfectly and yeah, no, I think that was definitely like because, before I kind of I was really good at fiberglass stuff, but I always kind of struggled a bit with a lot of woodworking and just having just like that stack of everything square.

Joel: Was it the order that appealed to you?

Leo: Yeah, I guess so. It was pretty crazy, all the jointers and whatnot before just kind of seemed like magic.

Joel: What's been your most frustrating or dispiriting experience in the class?

Leo: The wall hung cabinet. I was like so all over the place doing that. Changing up so much shit as I was building it and just kind of wanted to try a whole bunch of things, but then kept changing my mind, planing off the finishes or wasting so much time when it would have just been great if I just kept how it was built instead of trying to do all the random crap. I remember rushing so much to finish it. But yeah, actually, I ended up building, it’s almost done, but I completely redid it out of just, I had some spare ash at home and that was actually really nice. Kind of getting to redo that because it was a nightmare.

Joel: What part of the class affected you the most? Like, in 10 or 20 years, what are you going to remember as the part that changed you?

Leo: Yeah, I guess, since my life became a bit, I mean, through the kind of turbulence. I struggled a lot in high school, to kind of pull it together near the end and same thing in university. I didn't really go to any of the classes, I just kind of would go to the exams, hope for the best. At first it went well, but like second year, third year it kind of started to go downhill a bit, but yeah, no, I think just kind of still being here and actually passing everything and just still wanting to continue. I enjoy being here. I look forward to it.

Joel: Is this the first academic program as an adult that you've completed?

Leo: No, I've completed my fair share of like, I didn't ever get my Bachelor's, but got most of the credits towards it. I've done like a beekeeping certificate and stuff like that.

Joel: Why beekeeping?

Leo: I don't know. I think an old partner of mine wanted to do it, but that's pretty cool.

Joel: Do you have bees now?

Leo: I do not. I wish. That would be pretty cool, actually. I guess as much as I've passed individual courses and whatnot, I never kind of stuck through something or just wanted to keep going. And yes, it's pretty cool to just enjoy doing something.

Joel: What do form and function mean to you, those concepts? And how has our class, if it has changed how you think about those concepts?

Leo: Definitely I think I kind of have a lot of trouble merging the two in a coherent way. And even when I was building the boats and stuff, I'd kind of always try and over engineer a whole bunch of stuff or make things much more complicated than they needed to be, or just, even then trying to make something fit in with things, but still work. I remember I spent way too much time trying to figure out like, a door shape in a thing because nothing looked good, but then the ones that would look good would run into a kind of like storage thing. But yeah. So I think just having all the small exercises, you kind of ease into it because before I didn’t understanding, I didn't even know what form and function really meant in relation to themselves and each other, I guess. But yeah, no, it really kind of easing into that and having almost like a theoretical analysis or whatnot presented. It's definitely helpful. I feel like I have much more of a grasp on how to design things in general.

Joel: Has the class changed how you feel about trade or about art?

Leo: I don't know. I have a lot of respect for art and trades as well. A lot of my friends who I was in school for engineering with ended up actually things like, my friend Seth became electrician and I've worked with carpenters who helped at the venue and whatnot. I've always had a lot of respect for it. And same thing with art. I remember when I started painting, you watch videos, especially oil painting. It was like, how the hell? But yeah, I think definitely. I think the biggest change is it doesn't seem as, not impossible. Just like it kind of softened the learning curve a little bit. And it feels more more attainable to get to, like a level like the people that I respect.

Joel: How do you define art?

Leo: I don't know. That's a tough one. I was actually watching a documentary on this janitor called James Hampton, I think was his name, something Hampton. But he built like a storage unit for 20 years or something. He built all these pseudo-religious monuments out of junk he collected. It wasn't supposed to be art, but way passed away. The landlord sold the unit and it became like a super famous kind of, almost, like installation and gets moved between different museums. Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent, but it made me think of that. I think it's not exactly something intentional. I think in its pure form it isn't something I mean, if its function is to be interpreted or whatnot I think at its purist level, just something that people create because they have, like a want to or an impulse to create.

Joel: William Morris defined art as the pleasure people take in their work labor.

Leo: Yeah.

Joel: What do you think of that definition?

Leo: I think that's very, I guess that's a pretty apt description, I think, at least in a lot of art related fields, instead of, even when I used to program and whatnot, there's a lot more respect for labor, even when I was building the boats and whatnot and those kind of trades. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot more just like, value given to that.

Joel: Are art and trade craft affected by politics and economics?

Leo: Oh, definitely. I think, like I said, I kind of feel like it's something that you want to create and a lot of outside influences, whether it be societal or personal, whatnot. Politics inspired a ton of art. Yeah.

Joel: Is it possible for a person to be a fully realized artist in this capitalist, competitive, transnational economy?

Leo: I think it just depends on if the goal is to work within that system instead of having the goal being wanting to work or wanting to create something and then working within those constraints. But I think as long as it's not, like, catering to those constraints, then yeah.

Joel: What is the first thing you would make if you had no monetary or environmental concern? You could spend as much money as you want, and if you wanted to make a statue out of acid, you could and you wouldn't have to worry about the environment.

Leo: I'd probably try and do, like, a houseboat, like, massive, like tons of teak, something funky like that.

Joel: Would that be for you to live on full time?

Leo: I don't know. Just even, like, a little 20 foot sailboat just to take out for a day. Houseboat would be fun, but I don't think I'd have enough space on something like that.

Joel: What would the interior look like?

Leo: Probably similar to the room. Just minimal furniture and nice. Yeah, lots of plants. I really like, a Scandinavian design.

Joel: If I asked you to make something sacred to you, what would you make? And sacred can be religious if you're religious. But it doesn't have to be. It can be, a relationship can be sacred. A tree can be sacred. Whatever is sacred to you.

Leo: That's a tough one. Couple of things come to mind. First one is probably just like a cane.

Joel: A cane?

Leo: Yeah, I know that probably doesn't make a lot of sense.

Joel: It doesn’t not make sense. Why a cane?

Leo: I have a cane from a guy who lived on Hastings, like, much older, kind of like, but yeah, no, he gave me his cane like, a week before he passed away, and it's, like, he made it himself, like, something like 50 years before. It hasn't held up well.

Joel: Would that be sort of an homage to the cane he gave you?

Leo: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, he gave it to me because I've had a bit of a limp. I got hit by a car while I was biking. Yeah. I don't know. That was a very nice, very symbolic to me.

Joel: If you only have three tools for woodworking to use for the rest of your life, what are those three tools?

Leo: Chisel, plane, and one of those Ryobas. Like the double sided saws, the Japanese ones? Yeah.

Joel: What sensual memory from the shop do you think will stay with you the longest? A sight, a sound, a smell.

Leo: Probably the, you know how when you drill ash, it kind of smells like burnt popcorn? That bothered me so much. I haven't thought about it in a minute.

Joel: Do you not like popcorn?

Leo: I love popcorn. It's just kind of in the uncanny valley. But, yeah, I started feeling sick from it almost. But yeah, I don't know why that comes to mind, but I guess that every time I see ash, I think about it.

Joel: What do you think of Sandra and Beth?

Leo: Oh, I think they're wonderful.

Joel: What's so wonderful about them?

Leo: I mean, just like, going into a trades course, I wasn't expecting this kind of environment.

Joel: What kind of environment is it?

Leo: Just very not, like, relaxed. Just more respect than usually seeing. And also just like a lot of the, even when I was doing the hidden gutters for houses and whatnot, the stuff you'd hear people say was kind of appalling sometimes. Just a lot of that.

Joel: What do you mean? Offensive?

Leo: I guess so. A lot of people try to be gruff and kind of offensive just for the sake of it. At least in a lot of the construction stuff I've worked. And this is the complete opposite, just they've really fostered, like, a respectful environment. I have not been the most consistent a lot of time with handing things in on time. But it's easy to just talk about, if I have a note from my doctor or whatnot, if I have to go to an appointment, I don't have to worry about it. There's a lot of respect, without prying for a lot of those things. As well as just the environment, day to day, just kind of working. It's always pleasant. I don't think anything's ever bothered me while I'm working here. I just kind of enjoy it.

Joel: My last question isn't really a question.

Leo: Yeah, that's okay.

Joel: Its more of an open-ended chance for you to share with me anything that we haven't talked about that you think is important about you, about your time here, about the effect this program has had on you.

Leo: Yeah. I don't know. Honestly, I didn't expect to get in, and I was kind of really surprised when I did.

Joel: Why?

Leo: It was like a week and a half, two weeks before it starts, and I remember seeing the email and freaking out. I was so happy. But I moved here, like, two days before it started, sold the boat, and it was just, like, enjoying it and actually being able to participate in it and wanting to, and just kind of feeling that, how would I describe it? Kind of just enjoying the work I'm putting in. It's rewarding to work hard on things. And also just, it's friendly. It's very encouraging to try and keep learning new things as well. Especially because, like, a lot of stuff like, if you ask me a year ago, if I could build even a shaker table or even a seven plank table, I would have been, no way. And so just having done those things gives me a lot of confidence to try other things that I've always wanted to kind of get more into.

Joel: What's next?

Leo: I think I'm probably going to try and take a little bit of metal working stuff. I'm really into machining, but probably going to get a welding ticket. Try and do that.

Joel: You're going to stick around Victoria?

Leo: Yeah.

Joel: You're going to look for a job when this is over?

Leo: Probably not. I'm just going to make, my friend owns a yarn store, and they sell, like, looms and yarn spinning stuff, and probably just going to make things that, she wanted to buy a bunch of drop spindles and funky, like yeah, weaving stuff. Also crochet hooks. Like, I was making some out of, like, pen blanks, and I saw them for, like, $40 or something, which is kind of ridiculous. It takes like, five minutes or more than that. To make it properly. It takes, like, half an hour. An hour. And yeah, $40, $50. She sells them for, like, $120. So it is a win win. But, yeah, just kind of try and kind of try and pursue this side, too. It'd be nice to work part time at a cabinet shop, but I'm not sure yet. I'm kind of going to play it by ear.

Joel: Great.

Leo: Yeah.

Joel: Well, Leo, thank you very much.

Leo: Thank you.

Joel: Appreciate it.