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Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth. That is art. I am your host, Rob Lee. And today I have the privilege of being in conversation with the founder and principal of Magma Build Studios. Their mission is to bring ideas to life and are known for problem solving and forward thinking. They're made up of metal smiths, blacksmiths, woodworkers, CAD designers, glass blowers and other creative people who don't fit into a specific title.
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Rob Lee
Please welcome Aric Wanveer . Welcome to the podcast.
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Aric Wanveer
Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm excited.
00;00;43;14 - 00;01;08;03
Rob Lee
I am as well. I mean, when it comes to kind of rethinking in disruptive sort of thinking is what I was picking up. You know, I kind of kind of dig it and it aligns with what my values are. So this is going to be a treat, I think. And before we get super, super into it and I start helping you with these questions, I want to really open it up to lay the groundwork and foundation of like, what's the story?
00;01;08;03 - 00;01;13;29
Rob Lee
Let's get let's get the story from you. Like, what is your kind of introductory story? What is the Eric one beer story?
00;01;14;13 - 00;01;46;01
Aric Wanveer
Yeah. Well, I come from I've come by sort of a family generational thing. I'm, as far as we know, third generation of artists in in our family. My my grandfather you can see one of his paintings behind me is what was a Chinese painter and did a lot of focused only on Chinese calligraphy and Chinese brushwork. He was raised in China, communist Primo, and came over here before World War Two and that was a crazy story.
00;01;46;01 - 00;02;05;04
Aric Wanveer
But he was an artist and developed a lot of a lot of where we all all of his children were artists in some way. My father is a wood, wood turner, lathe, master and carpenter. So I was holding a hammer from the time I could pick one up and out in the backyard with him, you know, screwing something together and playing with two by fours or doing something.
00;02;05;05 - 00;02;29;19
Aric Wanveer
So I've been building and messing with stuff like literally some of my earliest memories. And then I would go to see my grandfather, some of my earliest memories and surrounded by he was a collector. He was he did his business in an antiques dealership and sold high fine art and antiques, mostly from China, but was able to sell his business in the seventies and retire to West Virginia.
00;02;29;19 - 00;02;47;20
Aric Wanveer
He bought half a mountain and did the Chinese sage thing and spent his whole later. I don't know. He got good 30, 40 years into painting every day and swimming in the stream. So he did something right. He's been my model is basically I'm doing all of this so that I can sell it all and go live in the mountains and just make my art every day.
00;02;47;21 - 00;02;59;01
Rob Lee
But no, I dig it. I mean, I dig it. You describe it is like my mind it my mind's eye lit up. I was like, tell me more about this. I had a half a mountain and kind of doing the strange thing.
00;02;59;07 - 00;03;18;19
Aric Wanveer
Yeah, it was. Oh, he had a party. He had I mean, I can't remember the exact acreage, but it was it was enough that we were in the middle of nowhere, Shenandoah Valley, West Virginia. And it was that was a very formative you know, he had his painting studio right next to the guestroom. So every time I'd stay with him, I'd get up in the morning and go over and do his because he painted two or three times a day every day.
00;03;18;28 - 00;03;22;15
Aric Wanveer
It was part of his, you know, practice.
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Rob Lee
Yeah. So I want to talk about a little bit. So you're not only like in the smithing sort of way and working with both metal and and working with the hammer as you touched on it earlier. But you know, artists is the thing that's that's the thing that's out there. I mean, I saw that maker fund profile. That's a little a little out there in the past.
00;03;43;12 - 00;03;57;19
Rob Lee
So tell me about your your first experience, not like the consumer side of it, but or the audio side of it. But your your first instance where you were like, I want to I want to get into art. I want to pursue art. What's your first experience with art?
00;03;58;24 - 00;04;16;25
Aric Wanveer
It goes back with my family early on. I mean, most families, you know, they always tell their kids, you know, their parents tell their kids how you shouldn't get into art. You'll never make a living at it, you know? And while they always told me there there are easier ways to make money, being an artist can be really fulfilling.
00;04;16;25 - 00;04;38;08
Aric Wanveer
Plus, if you, you know, the whole business side of art is a whole nother discussion. So we'll leave that to come. But but yeah, I always was. I was always drawn to it from an early age. Determining what art I was going to do was a totally different question. But I always knew I wanted to be an artist, even before I knew I needed to know what I wanted to be like.
00;04;38;08 - 00;05;04;00
Aric Wanveer
It's just when I was like, I just I was making stuff. I was drawing stuff. I had sketchbooks. I was stripping musical instruments and repainting them in middle school. So playable wise, I wanted them to be functional. I always I have now and always one because my father was a carpenter, is a carpenter, functional durability. You know, if you're building a thing that is has a use, then it should work.
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Rob Lee
You know, like. Yes.
00;05;06;25 - 00;05;28;02
Aric Wanveer
And it should work well and it should last. And it should not be something that, you know, works once or twice, you know, looks good as long as you don't use it. So I was always, you know, the mix of craftsmanship and artistry have always been something that have have come fundamentally to me. And then it was always, well, how do I add something unique?
00;05;28;14 - 00;05;51;29
Aric Wanveer
How do I do something that hasn't been done? How do I monetize it and commercialize it in any way so that I can get out in the world? And and you know, coming up, it was such a weird time. I was coming up in the mix of models with technology and everything. It was still you can still go to galleries and retail places that there were two or three times as many of as there are now.
00;05;51;29 - 00;06;07;07
Aric Wanveer
They just don't exist anymore. And you could go to them and you would show them a physical portfolio or bring a sculpture with you and like, Hey, can I like put this in your shop and do all that? Like you don't really like you can still sort of do stuff like that, but that's not really the way you would do things now, right?
00;06;08;07 - 00;06;26;25
Aric Wanveer
The Internet, you know, putting it on the Internet, having a website portfolio, all that stuff is far more important than only going around and trying to get some retail gallery to put your stuff up. Sure. Maybe if you're on Fifth Avenue or something like that in Manhattan. But but those guys aren't going to take walk into the street.
00;06;27;05 - 00;06;28;26
Rob Lee
I was like, What is your relationship with us?
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Aric Wanveer
Yeah, yeah. Why are you here?
00;06;31;17 - 00;06;32;09
Rob Lee
Do you have an appointment?
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Aric Wanveer
Exactly. So, you know, you know, I was right at that sort of transition. It well, you still go out, you put yourself that way. You go to the parties, you do the Internet to, you know, it was this just huge mix of things. And trying to find my way into what I did was really the hard part, knowing that I wanted to be.
00;06;51;16 - 00;07;17;27
Aric Wanveer
I spent a long time as a musician, really loving music and thinking I might be a musician as an artist, but to me, I have a very sort of Socratic view on arts with a capital A. Yeah, and to me, if it's creative, then it's kind of art in a certain sense. You can rip that apart and pass it all out and get really specific and certainly you can say some things aren't art, but is it casting a general brush?
00;07;17;27 - 00;07;21;03
Aric Wanveer
I like to say most creative endeavors are art at some level.
00;07;21;20 - 00;07;39;18
Rob Lee
How would you define yourself? Like you touched on the arts with the Capital A and from your vantage point being in design and then being an artist with design and connecting those kind of dots. How do you define yourself? How do you describe yourself? Do you even do that? Tell me about that.
00;07;39;22 - 00;07;59;00
Aric Wanveer
I honestly, I tend not to, but. But you know, you had you have to in the business, you have to you know, if I were an artist just sitting up there ephemeral in my cave, doing whatever the hell I wanted to do for myself, I wouldn't call it anything. But no, I. I think it usually it depends on who I'm talking to, which is what it comes down to.
00;08;00;05 - 00;08;28;13
Aric Wanveer
But I feel like one of my best torchbearers is Rebecca Hoff Burger, and I find that her description of me to be the one that I started to use a lot, which is artist, inventor, designer, sort of as one, like with hyphens, you know, like one, one thing because because I and I feel I feel like that fits.
00;08;29;08 - 00;08;51;18
Aric Wanveer
I do invent things and that's always been, you know, some of my biggest artists and I view them as artists as well, were Leonardo da Vinci, you know, Ben Franklin. I mean, as Americans, I was always truly inspired by Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, not as revolutionary guys, but I mean, I went to my cello, I think, when I was 12 or 13, and that was truly formative as an artist.
00;08;52;01 - 00;09;27;01
Aric Wanveer
And to be like, I want to walk around a house that I designed, the whole house I designed most of the furniture I paint, I pick the paint colors. But in some cases they were making paints from pigments that they were getting around them, you know, like so the level of artistry, the level of knowledge, architecture, design, fabrication, classics, all that stuff, proportion, balance, everything that you talk about in the art world, these, you know, old school cats were doing and just, you know, on, on large and and that's what I it wasn't it wasn't that I necessarily needed to have any fame out of it.
00;09;27;09 - 00;09;47;07
Aric Wanveer
I just like my grandfather, you know, people don't know who he is, but he did it, you know, and he got to live in a house that he designed. He got to build all this stuff. He got to spend his whole life making and surrounded by art. And that's all I wanted to be. So those those guys were always inspirations because it was hard to find that in the, in the contemporary sense, everybody gets so pigeonholed.
00;09;47;25 - 00;10;10;02
Aric Wanveer
And I didn't think I was I didn't want to just be a specialist. Yeah, I wanted I wanted to be a generalist, I guess in that sense, you know, sort of more of a renaissance man, you know, like I want it to be. And to me, the combination of it all is what? And that's where collaboration and combination are an area that I thrive and I love working with other people.
00;10;10;02 - 00;10;37;26
Aric Wanveer
I love getting new ideas. I And that's why the group that I pulled together have become, you know, so important because the design, the team that I have put in with the clients that we get either, you know, fine artists or architects or whatever it is they're doing, they look to us to be able to help fix things or come up, you know, often to conceive things that the real world butts heads with, you know?
00;10;37;26 - 00;10;52;23
Aric Wanveer
And it's so many people, it's easy to draw a picture and which is all well and good if you're just a painter or a graphic artist and you get into Photoshop or whatever program you use or Blender or whatever and render something and it's gorgeous. But if you have to produce that in the real world, there are physical limitations.
00;10;53;22 - 00;11;14;16
Aric Wanveer
And to be able to know that whether it's materials or esthetics, you know what the client wants it to look like, you know, right up against, oh, this physically can't be done. And there's this sort of spectrum that I always sort of look at of, okay. Oh, and then the big specter within that spectrum is budget.
00;11;15;01 - 00;11;33;08
Rob Lee
And that well, that's that's one of the things like is your as you're describing it and you're keen in on what that next questions are going to be says if you got the questions already. Yeah but it's you start looking at the people when they're in this sort of like overarching founder, director, kind of like leader sort of spot.
00;11;33;21 - 00;11;54;06
Rob Lee
Are you more oriented around the how or the why? That's the thing that I start looking at. And, you know, I understand that kind of spectrum piece you were talking about there in. I know for myself, I just naturally and I love the Multihyphenate thing too, by the way, because I've talked to people who like like what I do and say, oh, you know, this is like anthropology, right?
00;11;54;06 - 00;12;13;10
Rob Lee
You know, you're doing some curating, right? You know you're doing this, this and this. Yeah. And I find that I'm very interested in how people do things and naturally what pops in my head with the way that people do things. Because I'm not necessarily connected to it because I'm not the person doing it. I think that at least gives me, Hey, here's maybe an idea.
00;12;13;18 - 00;12;28;03
Rob Lee
You transmute it, do what you need to do with it. But here's an idea and maybe you can apply it. That's what I naturally do. For instance, two days ago I was at a fashion show. First time I've ever gone to a fashion show, and I was like, You know, I like this experience. This could go this way.
00;12;28;03 - 00;12;41;00
Rob Lee
Maybe you could do this, you could do that. And really thinking about it from having over 400 conversations with artists, having all of these different kind of cross-sections, that ultimately the end result is a different perspective.
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Aric Wanveer
Right?
00;12;42;09 - 00;13;01;29
Rob Lee
And it is hard to kind of tie it. And I was like, I rather just do it myself, which is what I'm kind of getting from some of the things like bringing these ideas to life. That's what really, really, really resonated with me with reading over the background for you and for for you're your team. So with that, let's, let's segway into it.
00;13;01;29 - 00;13;06;08
Rob Lee
Tell us about Magma Build Studios and how it came about.
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Aric Wanveer
Well, it started with me and my early artist partner, Tim McFadden, and we started with the glass blowing stuff and I was out, you know, just trying to make it as an artist, doing sculptures and applying for stuff and doing things here and there and then mess around with Tim. I was able to figure out like, Hey, you can fuze metal and glass and you know, between what I was learning with glassblowing and, you know, just, just a few trips to Corning in the history of glassblowing, I'll teach you a lot about what I mean.
00;13;40;18 - 00;13;57;29
Aric Wanveer
The Romans could do some amazing stuff. And there's some pieces that are 2000 plus years old. They're going to blow your mind. Well, and if you want. And that's where and that's when I talk about durability. That's my standard, you know, like or, you know, when you're when you're going into a museum and the buildings around us that we all live in now have crumbled to dust and our sculpture still stands.
00;13;58;05 - 00;14;22;15
Aric Wanveer
That's what I'm talking about when I talk about durability and I like that, half the pieces I make literally, you know, as long as they're not melted down in a furnace, will be in the dirt 3000 years from now. And like, that's a big part of what we do. So and along this studying of me getting involved in making pieces that last I learned that glass is one of the best materials for that endeavor.
00;14;22;23 - 00;14;40;05
Aric Wanveer
As long as it's not hit with a hammer or, you know, destroyed in a volcanic eruption. And in some cases, some of them are preserved by the ash. While there's some amazing stuff, glass will last forever. It is you've like 100% U.V. resistant. It won't break down. There's no plastic that will ever compare to what glass is capable of.
00;14;41;14 - 00;14;56;10
Aric Wanveer
And so it's like, okay, well, how do we get metal and glass to really if we can do? And they're both. And after I was doing a lot of glass blowing, I realized, well, a big part of molten glass and a big part of molten metal. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference until you poke at it.
00;14;56;12 - 00;15;12;01
Aric Wanveer
Like if you just look at it with your eyes and you had two of these pots sitting there, you'd be like, Well, they're both two patterns are liquid magma. I'm obviously not going to touch either one like it with a stick, but I mean, you know, and you will be able to tell the difference, but it's just like, wow, these things are really similar.
00;15;12;01 - 00;15;31;20
Aric Wanveer
This at this temperature. So I was like, Hey, Tim, can we start doing these experiments? What if we start treating metal glass? And it's like, Yeah, why not? Let's play. And we got in and our first experiment, five out of five, we made not just knives. They were not. They were, they were. I made these copper blanks that were some letter openers.
00;15;31;20 - 00;15;50;11
Aric Wanveer
I think one might have been like a fourth one was like a carving set, but all like metal objects around this big. A couple are purely are decorative type knife things that you hang on the wall. The best one, of course I destroyed trying to figure out what the limits were later, but all five pieces came out and all five works.
00;15;50;11 - 00;16;04;06
Aric Wanveer
I have a handful of them now that I use just my letter openers and stuff, but at the time we weren't even hit. We didn't really care about esthetics. We were just like, Can we get this thing to do what we want and stick on the metal the way we want and have it come out of the annealing of it.
00;16;04;06 - 00;16;21;29
Aric Wanveer
And then we're like that. And we were like, perhaps, you know, 50, 50 chance it works at all on one of them. And five out of five works to the point we were like, How strong is this? And that's when I started taking the first couple to the anvil, literally, and beat the crap out of them with hammers until they broke.
00;16;22;08 - 00;16;43;02
Aric Wanveer
And I had to work up just full on sledgehammers to break them. And holy cow, there is something here. The one that the nicest one that I broke, I didn't break actually trying to break it. I broke it work hardening the copper because I went back and was forging the copper because I didn't think that it was going to be I thought it was all going to be throwaway crap.
00;16;43;02 - 00;17;00;14
Aric Wanveer
So I didn't do anything to make the blade look good. So it's like, Oh shit. Well, I guess this is like a really cool piece. So I went back and tried to work the metal with the glass on it and it actually made it about three quarters of the way. Forging, yeah, beating it with a beating the metal with a hammer while with a glass handle attached to it.
00;17;00;14 - 00;17;12;29
Aric Wanveer
So in retrospect, you know, if I had just done it in the right order, it all would have worked out great. But you know, these so this was the first experiment. We were like, Holy cow, it works. This is awesome. What else can we do? We started doing some things and we're like, and that's when it occurred to me.
00;17;12;29 - 00;17;28;15
Aric Wanveer
I was like, Tim, I can make us a special blow pipe and we can come up with these things. And we're not just doing it like the way everybody else is doing it. We're not just going Home Depot and buying plumbing pipe and just like it becomes its own thing. And then we're like, he's like, Well, shit, just make all that up.
00;17;28;15 - 00;17;45;04
Aric Wanveer
And then we'll see if it works. And if it works, then we'll keep going. And that's what happened every time we did it, every experiment worked better than the last. And we kept pushing it and pushing it and then I got the science figured out and I went to some some material scientists at the house and we're like, Hey, you know what?
00;17;45;04 - 00;18;03;01
Aric Wanveer
You look at this, this, and they put it in the electron microscope and help us figure out what was happening scientifically. So we knew a little bit about like what was actually happening and why and all this stuff. So we can know its limitations. Really. Yeah. And then we just started making light bulbs, we started making faucets, we started getting it all out there.
00;18;03;01 - 00;18;35;24
Aric Wanveer
And that really differentiated us as these guys that can do stuff that's different. And that was always what I was trying to do. Like I said, the search searching for the unique ideas, heart and and trial and error in and improvization is a thing too. I guess. As a as a musician and an improvizational ist, I sort of think of us more as improvizational musicians versus like wrote music people, you know, playing only written music.
00;18;35;24 - 00;19;09;27
Aric Wanveer
And I mean, the team, you know, so like every all as I, as we grew I would bring people on. And of the people that stay with me, one of the key things that I found to growth is partners like and I mean, partner companies, you know, finding other people who already do really good stuff and whether whether it's, you know, we have a lot of 3D printers in-house, but there are some great companies around town and nationally that I don't need to invest half a million plus in like massive large format, amazing high resolution printers that people who could do that that you know same thing with like machining and different we have certain
00;19;09;27 - 00;19;27;21
Aric Wanveer
syncing machines we do in-house but when it gets to a certain level like if we're working with a casino and we need to make or, you know, a some other type of commercial hospitality group and we need to make hundreds of some light fixtures or something. It's just not cost effective to have an artist sit there and make it all by hand, right?
00;19;28;08 - 00;19;54;28
Aric Wanveer
So we have a whole spectrum now of partners, both small scale, like freelance artists. You know, we've got people on call that can do Smithsonian grade gold leafing if you need it, like order all kinds of restoration work. But I can't keep that person employed. 24 or 40 hours a week now. So yeah, exactly. So one of the huge things is finding people like that that you like and you are good are in they're artists too.
00;19;55;05 - 00;20;13;17
Aric Wanveer
They're all craftsmen of the highest standard and which is great to surround yourself with those type of people. It makes for great, you know, after parties, when you all finish a project together and stuff like that. So that's key. And then the people that you keep on like that are close to me are even more, more and so more important.
00;20;13;17 - 00;20;43;16
Aric Wanveer
And we all have it's an interesting mix. We want to think we want to think enough alike that when we're all in the same room, we can tolerate each other and we we aren't sweet, you know, nobody's screaming at each other about the politics of the day or any of that. But we want enough difference that you get that creative spark that when you all sit down at the collaborative table, you have some level of different ideas.
00;20;43;16 - 00;21;05;16
Aric Wanveer
You know, you we are able to take whatever the client gives us and run with it. And and it really depends on the job. Sometimes it's a big collaborative effort. Sometimes it's just me and one of the other guys. But there's a core group of five or six people that I've had, four with me for a long time, that they're all amazing artists, most of whom come out of MCA.
00;21;05;16 - 00;21;15;03
Aric Wanveer
But those are the people that seem to thrive, you know? So a lot of New Yorkers. But but we seem to do really good with real artists.
00;21;15;03 - 00;21;37;21
Rob Lee
Yeah, I think I think like listening to this, this is like I feel like you've earned another late title to add to your multi-hyphenate. I feel like Alchemist is in there somewhere because that advice you get is that to me what I'm still stuck on. And the good thing is you've answered so many of the questions that I had for later in this podcast already, which is really great.
00;21;38;00 - 00;21;58;06
Rob Lee
Yeah, I like the the I'm still stuck on this, this comparison between like I guess magma glass and magma like, like, like metal. Wahab is like, oh, oh, they look the same and not even thinking about it. And the way that you kind of describe that it broke it down, say, oh, this is the standard. This here, this is how this work is being done.
00;21;58;17 - 00;22;26;26
Rob Lee
It's a very it feels like it's a very an older process in like generally speaking. But you're you're adding a different sort of philosophy to it when you've compared it to the music component or what have you in terms of collaboration. And it's just something that is like so, so old in some regards that it's like you don't even recognize it, but then it's like, well, we're doing it in a very different way and we're actually combining two different things.
00;22;27;06 - 00;22;43;22
Rob Lee
And when I saw the video of the TED Talk or what have you and the light bulb and the water, I was like, What is this guy doing? And my think about the watch and execution here. And it was just like, This is really cool. This is like really, really cool, to be honest.
00;22;43;22 - 00;23;01;10
Aric Wanveer
Well, thank you. Yeah. And that's and that's really those early days are really the the fundamentals of what we are. And that's whether it's making a light bulb that can do that stuff. And then all the applications that you can do with that or a glass faucet or all the other crazy things that we were. And those were just the early things.
00;23;01;10 - 00;23;22;11
Aric Wanveer
I mean, some of the stuff we're working on now is so cool, you know, and that's but everybody with us has this sort of mindset. And if you're going to be part of the core, like I've tried to, like I've done a lot better. Like if I need tradespeople, I do a lot better hiring tradespeople as like I'll hire a welding out.
00;23;22;11 - 00;23;43;12
Aric Wanveer
Like if I need 5000 lineal feet of welding, I'll do better hiring them. Because a lot of tradespeople and this is one thing I think if I ever you know one the billion dollar lottery, one of the things I would do is the Mega millions or whatever. I'd start a school to teach fabrication so that you leave with a four year degree and art school students like for everyone.
00;23;43;12 - 00;24;02;03
Aric Wanveer
But it would be like because it's such a varied skill and there's so much required. And so everyone with us is like, you know, you need so you need to know a lot of math. You need to know a lot of different procedures from woodworking to metalworking to welding. All the guys that work there do all of the different forms of welding.
00;24;02;03 - 00;24;28;27
Aric Wanveer
They're, you know, they all do take they all do make. They all know the table. So I got one guy that does think he's a wizard. He does stuff with the table saw. He's in our shop in Brooklyn now, but it's amazing. Just amazing. So you've you got to have these kind of wizards around you that and then we all inspire each other and we all come up with crazy ideas and we all have projects that we're working on ourselves.
00;24;28;29 - 00;24;45;29
Aric Wanveer
They take forever because, you know, personal projects. So they sort of sit for a while, but every once in a while you just come on something that's just awesome. And having everybody to just play off of each other is important and it's a esthetic as well as a technical.
00;24;46;17 - 00;24;53;01
Rob Lee
It's just hearing like idea factory or what have you. I mean, I'd love to kind of check out the space or what have you and just kind of yeah, you're welcome.
00;24;53;01 - 00;24;53;17
Aric Wanveer
Anytime.
00;24;53;24 - 00;25;31;26
Rob Lee
See, you guys do do the thing or what have you. Because I find like, you know, one of the things you touched on it as well of like, you know, just makes for really, really interesting post post where conversations and hangs. Oh yeah that brings me to this who's in in terms of like the artists that you've been around and being in the design space and being in the various working spaces, metal, wood, glass, so on and you know who who the best hangs by, who are like having the best conversations, you know, as far as like artists, what have you, what sorts of conversations are you guys having that may not necessarily be work
00;25;31;26 - 00;25;37;21
Rob Lee
related or maybe like process related, but who's like the best hang man?
00;25;37;21 - 00;25;39;26
Aric Wanveer
That's interesting.
00;25;39;26 - 00;25;41;18
Rob Lee
Is this different personality types, you know?
00;25;42;10 - 00;26;15;22
Aric Wanveer
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There really are. I don't know if you know, I don't know if you know collector this is a bit of an extreme example but I love that guy. Promote him forever. He and he is to institute these kind of the answer I think is the epitome of the question you're asking. Right. If if you want to be surprised by some crazy shit, if you want to hear something you've never heard, if you want to hear a political angle that you never considered with a guy who can back it up, like not just, well, let me pull some stuff out of this, you know, out of my ass.
00;26;15;22 - 00;26;40;12
Aric Wanveer
Like this guy can back it all up. He's amazing. But he what is his? His is we we work with him. He's one of the guys that I kind of pull into. He's is actually I'm partnering him with this new method of this thing we've invented for machining, metal and trance transfer. The other people have mass where they trance transposing two dimensional art into three dimensional art.
00;26;40;12 - 00;27;07;23
Aric Wanveer
Yeah, but I took the angle like, you know, we've been talking about it. I wanted to preserve stuff when I first conceived the idea it was my grandfather has lots and lots of these paintings and they're all rice paper and that's part of the whole artistry and I guess ethos and and philosophy behind Chinese brushwork and is, is the sort of, you know, Asian sort of Buddhist impermanence thing.
00;27;07;27 - 00;27;25;16
Aric Wanveer
Yeah. So the fact that the painting won't last forever is part of the art. And I get that. And we one of his practices was he would, he would have he would paint so much and it was on paper, he would have so many paintings that would be stacked four or five feet high for a couple of months with the paintings.
00;27;25;16 - 00;27;41;14
Aric Wanveer
And he would burn them every month. And he just said everything on fire. The ones that we have are the ones that were good enough to keep that he liked for whatever reason. Wow. So and that was just his practice. So, I mean, I get the impermanence and I don't and I don't want to take anything away from that.
00;27;41;14 - 00;28;02;04
Aric Wanveer
From an artistic standpoint, there's a lot there's a there's a lot there. But at the same time, as a metal guy and his grandson and and sort of an archive guy, I was like, I want to make this last forever. And I know how to do that. So I was like, Wow, how can I at least forever in terms of humanity's definition of future forever?
00;28;02;13 - 00;28;21;21
Aric Wanveer
So I was like, How can I turn this? And every other painting we have left into something that will last forever? So I started working with Carl and he's in he's built his own sea and sea machines. He's got various milling machines that he's built from scratch. And the tolerances are through the roof far, far exceed most of what we could get on a lot of commercially available stuff.
00;28;22;13 - 00;28;50;25
Aric Wanveer
So he and I work together to turn two dimensional stuff into three dimensional bronzes that have the definition of this. And then because I can, Bettina, I go nuts with Catena's and initially we've had some great success with his paintings, but I want to translate the method to both original work to be able to do original works in this in this media, in this format, as well as pretty much any there was there's some limitations from a graphic technical perspective, but hopefully pretty much any 2D image.
00;28;50;25 - 00;29;06;26
Aric Wanveer
So to take like a painting or any any class work or any graphic and be able to turn it into a bronze that has three dimensionality to it. Yeah. 15 or whatever. Brass, stainless steel, whatever you want to pay for where you could do it in wood. But so we started doing this. But Carl, Carl is one of these guys.
00;29;07;09 - 00;29;44;13
Aric Wanveer
He is his business is he makes music synthesizers. He just he just did a custom one for Pink Floyd. He most of most of the people, both the roots like anyone. But I think look up ten K, K and A s I believe is what he calls his music. If that doesn't get it, look up. The more the moisturizer synth effects board or to elect all the moisturizer and it'll come up.
00;29;44;13 - 00;30;11;22
Aric Wanveer
And that's what he does. That's like he has a business around it. He's he builds robots to build these things. He builds this thing. He designed it. He designed all of the mechanics. He's like an experimental music dude. This thing does stuff that nothing else does. It's an amazing little box. It's this mix of analog and it and he fits in because it's is like all of us wear these and that's and I like alchemist because I use that a lot because it's his melding of everything, you know, this is mix.
00;30;11;23 - 00;30;33;03
Aric Wanveer
And so cause like, you know, you can put analog and digital together. What's the problem, you know? And then he makes this box and this little thing that plugs into computers or your guitar, whatever, and it works wherever, whatever, whoever. And it's like, wow. And that's and it's, it does amazing stuff. And if you're like some weird noise, noise freak and you get off on experimental noise music, then it's your bag.
00;30;33;03 - 00;30;57;18
Aric Wanveer
If you're a Imagine Dragons, they use it too. It's just like Trent Reznor uses his stuff. It's like nine and it's like and Carl doesn't no advertisement. He's like it just almost an anti-capitalist. It's amazing. Yeah, I know. So yeah, he's a great one to talk with. I like, you know, you never know what you're going to hear with him.
00;30;57;18 - 00;31;07;24
Aric Wanveer
You know, the guys the guys at Paradise Labs are fun. You know, Pete and Adam and then I hang out. I don't know, you know, Ron Smith?
00;31;08;12 - 00;31;08;21
Rob Lee
No.
00;31;09;24 - 00;31;32;23
Aric Wanveer
He he he does warcraft finishing and lions wood. He's just opening lines. Wood is just painting stuff because he's a painter, right? From an artist standpoint, his art his art is painting and he's he's he's wild, he's fun. He has some great he threw some great parties. He got this great deal on this house out in Owings Mills and has built it all himself.
00;31;33;03 - 00;31;46;23
Aric Wanveer
Well, not like he just kept putting layer upon layer on it. And he's got a ten foot deep koi pond and so on out back and bandstand. And so, yeah, he's he's he's a fun one. He gets some good people out out there.
00;31;47;07 - 00;31;47;28
Rob Lee
That's ten or ten.
00;31;48;12 - 00;31;48;19
Aric Wanveer
Yeah.
00;31;49;02 - 00;32;06;12
Rob Lee
So in, in these final moments, I think that's going to be a good spot for us because there's, there's a lot in there. I'm like, I've got things to research now, so thank you. Thank you for the extra work. I appreciate that. So real quick, I want to go through some rapid fire things that I have for you.
00;32;06;12 - 00;32;23;13
Rob Lee
And, you know, I always tell people, don't overthink them. Brevity is key here. And yeah, they're just fun questions. No one is ridiculous. I'm going to say it already, you know, and I want to start off with the ridiculous one, because I think it's very funny. What is the better fusion, peanut butter and jelly or Reese's Cup?
00;32;23;24 - 00;32;26;01
Aric Wanveer
Uh, yeah, peanut butter and jelly.
00;32;26;17 - 00;32;28;15
Rob Lee
Okay. You're a crunchy guy. Ah, creamy.
00;32;29;08 - 00;32;29;22
Aric Wanveer
Creamy.
00;32;30;01 - 00;32;35;15
Rob Lee
Okay. What is the best, best country you visited?
00;32;35;15 - 00;32;42;09
Aric Wanveer
That's a tough to define, I guess, but I'm going to get probably.
00;32;42;09 - 00;32;43;02
Rob Lee
Or your favorite.
00;32;43;02 - 00;32;51;16
Aric Wanveer
Then. Oh, well, that's tougher. I well actually easier in some ways. I would say Iceland is my favorite, but I think the best might be Denmark.
00;32;51;23 - 00;32;52;02
Rob Lee
Okay.
00;32;52;11 - 00;33;12;11
Aric Wanveer
They had their shit together in a way that I didn't know was possible. I haven't been to Japan. I've heard Japan's like that too. But man, was it civilized and nice and just, you know, that image that everybody has in their head of what America, the greatness of America is like. They seem to be pulling it off over there.
00;33;12;11 - 00;33;12;21
Aric Wanveer
Right?
00;33;13;03 - 00;33;17;13
Rob Lee
Right. Yeah. Watch it. No travel shows. I'm like, you know what? I think they get it. I think they got it.
00;33;17;13 - 00;33;31;15
Aric Wanveer
Yeah, they got it. I mean, you got to put up with the whole six months of no son, but other than that man, they got it. It's just a great. Yeah, so Denmark and Iceland. They're Iceland. I mean, they have it together too, but they have so few people you can go two weeks without even seeing another human.
00;33;32;09 - 00;33;35;16
Aric Wanveer
The natural beauty in Iceland is just amazing.
00;33;35;24 - 00;33;40;10
Rob Lee
I think in that like six months of darkness, I could just work on being a vampire. It would be like just.
00;33;40;23 - 00;33;45;05
Aric Wanveer
Oh yeah, there's plenty of stuff to do in Reykjavik.
00;33;45;05 - 00;34;00;03
Rob Lee
And this is this all this always is a thing. So if you have to add an extra definition around it, feel free. But is there a gadget that comes to mind that you're like, you know what? Because you're working with several different things. So I almost regret asking this question, but is there a gadget that comes to mind?
00;34;00;03 - 00;34;14;23
Rob Lee
You're like, This had a big impact on me. This had a big change for me. And was like, how I do my work, how you do, how you're living, not have you. A lot of people usually throw out cell phone which but what is what's the thing for you?
00;34;14;23 - 00;34;36;00
Aric Wanveer
I think for what we do for for me, the big switch like switching to using the computer, which kind of works as a cell phone too. Like this thing, this new I got this new fold. I loved it. Like you can draw. It's got this pen and everything with it. And it's like this thing in particular is like the best thing ever, but it's still just a bigger version of a laptop, smaller version of the laptop.
00;34;37;04 - 00;34;57;23
Aric Wanveer
But ultimately the well, I think back to how I learned how to fabricate and how I learned how to build was old school, you know, like pull out a measuring tape, get it on the fab table, learn how to do it, which is really the only way to do it. Yeah. To really learn how to make stuff. But can like the switch like then you could draw everything like I could.
00;34;57;27 - 00;35;14;27
Aric Wanveer
I know how to do stuff old school drafting, so like I can get out my little pens in my rulers and do it old school I never do, but teaching myself and I had to do this. I made the conscious decision when I was like, Okay, we're going to make this man with Build Studios. We're going to make this a business.
00;35;14;27 - 00;35;35;05
Aric Wanveer
I'm going to stop being the guy working out of my garage as an artist and make a business out of this. I need to learn software. I need to learn rendering, I need to learn CAD, I need to learn C and C work. You know, there's so much in which is like so many different programs, there's probably ten different programs and I couldn't say which ones.
00;35;35;05 - 00;35;55;24
Aric Wanveer
More important, you kind of need all of them to do all of the stuff that we do. But even just down to like the, you know, the cam software, you know, just being able to learn about all of this stuff. And when I was learning the fab shop that I used, we did none of it. If we did, like when I learned how to do anything, we would send stuff out.
00;35;55;24 - 00;36;21;12
Aric Wanveer
We wouldn't make no files ourselves. We did drawings and picture stuff and graphics and maquettes if they wanted anything three dimensional. I made a three dimensional maquette in real life, which was great, and I love that mean you end up with these mini sculptures and it's so much fun, but to be able to go on to sketch up and to do what took me days in real life to come up with three different maquettes that we use, none of them.
00;36;22;02 - 00;36;49;02
Aric Wanveer
And then going to sketch up in it 5 minutes apiece or 10 minutes apiece, and the client gets it the same way, right? Was huge. And so it wasn't just the machine itself, it was all the software and switching from an artist who does everything old school on paper to an artist who's like, No, I'm cool with this digital thing and doing it all on that now because you can just poured it all and transfer the files and all of a sudden your 3D printing, you know, and yeah.
00;36;49;14 - 00;37;09;03
Rob Lee
No, I mean, like I said, you know, as a and that's kind of where we're going to wrap, I think. But as I you know, I didn't say this earlier, but, you know, like I said, I'm blown away so far in this conversation. And as a person who I wanted to go to a trade school to do drafting, that was really my path at one point.
00;37;09;13 - 00;37;19;05
Rob Lee
I'm like kind of getting the itch right now. And I like it. I like I'm at this, you know, I'm good at the talking, not the the you know, you said math. I was like, this reminds me of my mom.
00;37;19;05 - 00;37;26;07
Aric Wanveer
That was one of the things I always hate. I had to I had to get a get my get around it. You know, I think in the math we do is geometry. It's a different thing.
00;37;26;10 - 00;37;46;17
Rob Lee
Yeah. Yeah, it is. So with that, I want to again, thank you for for coming on here and chat it up with me spinning a yarn, as it were. And I want to invite and encourage you to tell the fine folks about you magnet those studios, you know where to check you out on social media website. The floor is yours.
00;37;47;06 - 00;38;02;07
Aric Wanveer
Oh, thank you. I really appreciate the time. It's been great. I enjoyed talking with you. You can find it said magnet build studios dot com on our website we also have a bunch on Instagram. You can check us out at Magnet Build Studios on Instagram. Well.
00;38;02;25 - 00;38;29;17
Rob Lee
And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Aric Wanveer from Magma Build Studios for coming onto the podcast and chatting it up with me and sharing a bit of his story and his background. And for Aric Wanveer I'm broadly saying that there's art, design, creativity in and around Baltimore. You've just got to look for it.
