Good Day Google+ - There's an Artist in Everyone of Us

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Good Day Google+. As I like to say, it's always a good day on Google+ when you get to spend it talking to your friends. It's a beautiful sunny day in Florida. We do have a little bit of cool weather here. It was maybe 50 this morning and it's going up to around 65, 70 today. We're enjoying it. I'll take it anytime over what's happening in the Northeast from where we moved from. They're having a lot of cold weather up there. It's a good day. Florida. And I want to say hi to my guests today. And we have— I've got Brett Hamilton here, and he is in Oregon or Washington?

I'm in Washington, outside of Seattle.

Okay, so I'm sure it's a lovely day there too on the left coast.

Oh yes, it is. We have sun actually, which is great for this time of year. Yeah, the sun just came out and I'm like, okay, take the blinds down, take the blinds down.

That's pretty cool. And you'll notice that Brett is bouncing up and down a little, and that's because he's on a—

I have a fitness ball, a fitness ball.

I sit on one of those too. I'm not sitting on it now, but I have a fitness ball chair too. They're great, aren't they?

Oh, it's awesome. And my whole design room has a youthful feel to it. So we have some beanbags and papazons, and then the fitness ball.

Pretty cool. You have a lava lamp.

You can slide to the side, you know. Yeah, keep the kids from stealing it.

Yeah, right.

Very cool. And then we have Blythe and Madsen. You are in California as well?

I am, I'm in Los Angeles, and it is a gorgeous sunny day out there. It's cool, it's a little cooler than it has been, but it's, yeah, it's a gorgeous day.

I know, I was talking to Mia Voss, we did a Food and Booze yesterday, and she was in Las Vegas, and they were saying it was 45 in the morning there, kind of like I guess it's just a little bit of a cool spell that the country's getting.

Yeah, yeah.

But always a good day.

All right, so we're going to talk a little. I want to say hi to all of our people that are in the audience watching. And I have Michael Thomas is here from Indy. How you doing, Michael? Good to see you. David Pipe is in the house from Sussex, England. And then we have Rhonda Abrams, Candy Sakai is here from Tokyo. She's with us, and a bunch of other people we'll say hi to a little bit later. I want to get started. If you have comments or questions, just leave them in the comment section under it, and we will get to them. Right now, we're just going to turn it over, and I'm going to start with ladies first. Blythe, let's get to know you a little and tell us what you do on and off the Plus, what your passions are.

Sure, sure. Lately, my passions have really been educating people about how to to eat optimally, how to eat for real health, vitality, longevity. I have a show called Blythe Natural Living. You can find it on YouTube. I do quick and easy 5-minute plant-based recipes and natural beauty treatments, and then I always have very interesting guests in the health and wellness space or in the environmental space. My first show, Blythe Raw Live, was on Hulu. We were the first online show to get licensed by Hulu, so that was pretty cool. That was a 1-hour live Ustream show that was pretty successful globally. That was fun. I love to share the wealth. I think that achieving optimal health is so doable and so enjoyable. Eating healthy can be really easy, inexpensive, and tasty. I want to debunk the myth that eating super healthy takes too long or is too expensive or too complicated or just not that good. That's one of my passions. I'm also in the film world. I just produced an indie film called Bella, which I'm very excited about. I was an actress. I don't seem to be acting very much anymore because I've just really been more called to just inspire good health in people. I'm from Middle America, where it's covered in snow. I don't know if it's covered in snow now, but it's definitely very cold. You just see people's health decline, and people that think they're eating healthfully, but they're actually not because foods that are marketed marketed for weight loss and health are just actually full of chemicals and junk. I've just been really inspired to help remind people that the food really does come from the ground.

Absolutely.

That was a big wake-up moment for me at ShiftCon. I hadn't gone there to drink the Kool-Aid. I went there to talk about Google+. I love Leah, and we talk, and I go, "Yeah, yeah, natural food. Yeah, yeah, I've got to eat better." Then I went there, and it was like an awakening for me. I was like, "Oh my God." Really? I jumped on the bandwagon pretty good, and I'm still working it into it. I think the biggest thing for me was that people were saying, "Do what you can. Do it all at once." That's always been the big stumbling block, and everyone was accepting. It's like, "Do what you can." Yeah.

I find it's like whatever someone's maybe few dietary bad habits are, if they like to eat ice cream at night, or if they like to snack on potato chips, there's healthy alternatives to those that are super good. Now there's peach chips that you can get that are made out of just like pea protein and sea salt that are super tasty. You can get chips that are made out of black beans and quinoa and rice. So just substitute it out. If you really like ice cream, there's amazing ice creams made from hemp, made from coconut, and then you're actually getting a dessert that's protein and omegas and nutritious. You know, there's ice cream made from almonds. So it's just like, you know, you can just switch stuff out and you can see a difference. And what's really exciting is you can really see a difference in yourself when you start really getting more vital nutrients in, you're like, "Wow, my body actually needed these vital nutrients, and now there's a result from that. I have more energy, happier, skin is brighter." It's nice when you have that kind of feedback so quick.

Dr. Pompa: Yeah, I know. I didn't think— there was no way in hell I would ever be gluten-free. It wasn't going to happen. Forget it. My wife even mentioned it. I'm going, "Yeah, okay, forget about it." Then just something clicked. I was ready, and I think that's an important part of it. You have to be ready personally for that. It has to be something that you're not going to fight internally. For whatever reason, that switch went on. I tried it. I was lucky. I found some products right away that fit into my eating style. I didn't feel as bad about it.

Right. Right. You can still order a pizza now and again, find your place. We have a great place on Melrose called Lucifer's that has a gluten-free crust that's great. Yeah. Still find those yummy, yummy things that we love the gluten stuff for. You can find them gluten-free. You're a chef, too, so it'll be fun for you to experiment. Do you do any baking at all?

I just started. I made my first gluten-free cookie the other day. I made some ricotta cookies, and they were too flat. Then I realized I left out— I didn't put in any gum in, any guar gum or xanthan gum. I think that's probably what happened. I may have needed a little bit more flour.

What flour did you use?

I actually— I'm using— I started with King Arthur's all-purpose until— I have a variety of flours in-house now because I took a seminar with a baking person. I have some tefin for chocolate. I have— oh, I can't remember the other one.

Quinoa flour.

Yeah. I think I have quinoa. I do have sorghum because I used that just recently for something else. For crisp. She said to use that for a crisp topping.

Quinoa flour is a really, really great one. Coconut flour, you have to blend them because coconut's too— it'll be too crunchy. Millet flour is really nice, but millet flour is a bit more savory, so you have to make sure you add enough sweet. I don't like brown rice flour for any gluten-free because it's too chewy.

That's the same thing. She says she uses no rice flours for her baking. The only thing she said to use them for is gravies because they make a real nice gravy. I'm going to start— actually, the one thing going gluten-free that was a side effect for me was I actually have no cravings for sweet anymore.

That's wonderful.

I used to crave cake and pies. I'd buy them at the checkout. I'd buy these little things to snack on. I'd have them in the car. Now I have Lara bars in the car for when I need something. My wife ate one and went, "Oh my God, what is this?" I said, "Oh, they're good.

They're good." They are good. They're just fruits and nuts. Yeah, they are good. That's so much better for you because those baked things are full of junky oils. That's what's a bummer. It's not really the flour that's bad or the butter or the sugar, but in the premade stuff, it's all those junky oils.

Yeah. It's been subtle changes, but I just don't— I look at cake, and where I would almost start salivating, I look at it and go, "I don't want that." My wife went away, and ice cream was always a biggie for me. I would have bought 2 containers and eaten them while she was gone. She was gone, and I went, "I'm going to get ice cream." I really don't want ice cream.

Nice.

Yeah. That and the fact that some of my joints, the inflammations went down, those were the 2 biggest surprises for me in terms of going gluten-free.

How soon did you see those results?

I saw the pain in my back subsided within about 2 weeks.

Nice.

I don't know when I stopped craving them, but it was pretty soon. The first thing I noticed was the fog being lifted off of me.

Nice.

In about a week, I could think clearer from not having all that gluten. I don't think I have celiac. I just did it to try and improve my skin, which it didn't do what I wanted it to do, but I'm on it. I'm fine. I'm happy, so I'm staying on it.

Your skin looks great. Your skin looks great. It's nice that the trigger was taken away, that you wanted the sugar. That's brilliant.

That's been a good thing for me, so I'm happy about that. We have some comments here. Robin Holland is talking about how she went gluten-free a few years ago. Read an article in the New Yorker in November looking for research about gluten. Pretty interesting. She goes on to say, "There's a Dutch flour maker in California who claims gluten-intolerant folks can eat his flour." Interesting. "It's the use of the Roundup on the fully grown wheat fields that's messing with our guts. I'm curious about that." Robin, one thing I did hear was there's a flour called Erehorn flour wheat, which is the original wheat flour that we were pretty much all eating. It's only got 12 molecules, or particles, or whatever it is that make it up. Now the modern flour has 32. Wow. We have adapted it, and changed it, and I think we have taken it to a point where a lot of people are intolerant because it's such a complex grain now, where it really wasn't. People are saying that Air Horn flour, if you are gluten— I think if you have celiac, there's nothing you can eat. If you have an intolerance, that flour might be acceptable.

Air horn, nice. That's a very good recommendation.

I don't know if we got that in our— it was in our bag from— I had some of it from Chef Connor from another one I attended. I gave it away to the food bank with all my other gluten stuff when I packed them all up, though.

It's interesting, too, is a lot of times we're eating things. Gluten, a roll, a croissant, sandwich, bread, because we need to fill up. We feel like we need to eat something substantial, so we eat something with bread. Bread actually only fills us up so temporarily, because there's really not enough fat or protein in it to really give us something. It's basically just sugar carbohydrates. When we take that out, we start looking for other things to eat. It's taking the gluten out, which is really helpful, but it's also we're eating more fats and proteins, which we need, more good fats and proteins instead of just the sugary carbohydrates. That makes a big difference in people, too.

Absolutely. We'll get back to talking about that. Let me jump over to Brett now. Brett, let's talk about what you do because you make furniture and Art Deco objects, and they're really cool. We got to talk about them a while ago, and I loved them.

Well, thank you. Yes, I am an artist, and my creations pretty much start with furniture, and then I build out from those into all kinds of things— pot and plate setups for bonsai trees, water features.

What's a plate setup for bonsai tree?

Uh, like this right here. So we have the bonsai tree pots, and they're all built out of concrete. And, uh, yes, nice. So these are the plate setups and then little reservoirs. So we have those. And then, um, I do, uh, water features also, which, um, let's see, we'll slide to the side. And don't know how well that shows up.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, so I do, and it's all built out of concrete, steel-reinforced concrete, and then I finish them in different exotic stone finishes, and then I call it wrapping in glass when I basically cover them in an epoxy coating that's a form of fiberglass without the fiber, so it gives it that They look like they're wrapped in glass. Like, these are different plates that I make.

Also, the concrete, you have molds? Do you pour them?

I do it by hand. I call it, um, inside-out construction. So instead of having a mold on the outside, I have something I can press against on the inside, because, uh, stucco or any, uh, concrete mixes, you have to press against something. So I'll have like a plug on the inside and I just do everything by hand on the outside.

So just build it, kind of, you're saying?

Yes.

Yes. Wow.

Yeah. So, um, here, I'll screen share.

Okay.

And right there, I don't know, did that come up?

That's— yeah.

That's pretty.

Yeah, so in there you can see the water feature in the back, and then all my center supports for my tables are vases because I have a love for vases. So anyway, those vases are all— they're a steel inner structure, and then I use cement on the outside for a cement coat, about 3/4 of an inch of cement at the most. And then I do exotic stone finishes on them, which is kind of like— it's almost like mixing a fine cement with paint, and then I put it on with different trowels and sand between the coats, and then I stain it. And then once you wrap it in glass, it just becomes 3-dimensional and looks— so you're almost like looking inside the stone. It's really—

how do you get it so smooth?

Basically, I've done— I use a self-leveling epoxy, and then I just daydreaming around. I constantly experimenting. I'm like a crazy expender— experimenter, wherever I'm at, in the kitchen or out in my shop. And I just kinda got the idea like, hey, I can wrap round things with this. So anyway, just did some experiments, built some machinery, And I just pour it on and then let the machines basically rotate everything until it levels out the way I want it. And I have all kinds of gadgets that I build. So out in the shop, I tell everybody, a couple people that I learned a lot from were Inspector Gadget and Edward Scissorhands. And so I have all these gadgets I make, and that helps me do all the work I need to do.

Does it come out smooth by itself or do you have to polish it?

Originally, when I first did my first pieces and I used an epoxy, it was a disaster zone. I, you know, basically anything epoxy touches, you basically throw it away, you know, when you're done. It sticks to everything. So I would have thrown myself away. I had it all over me. I had epoxy on my arms, I had epoxy all over the floor. And I had to sand those down and sand and sand and do a lot of polishing and I got them really smooth and I think, you know, from that point I started going, okay, I got to figure this out. Then I figured out how to do it without any sanding. I do polish, I do finish them up and I put, I put a really good marine-grade wax on them, basically same thing you put on yachts because a lot of this fiberglass is the same thing yachts are made out of. Um, fiberglass. So I use a really good, uh, wax on them, and that helps protect them against any kind of scratching or so forth. And, um, so let's see here.

Um, are they heavy? They look heavy.

Yes, even though I use lightweight, um, concrete mixes. Oops, I screwed that up. They are heavy. A vase weighs about 125 pounds, and then a tabletop, I think there should be a tabletop up there, right there, tabletop weighs about 80 pounds.

Wow.

And that's using kind of a, I call it mixing cornbread when I make up my different mixes of concrete, and so That's a, it's a semi-lightweight concrete. I can only go so light till I take away strength.

Right.

I don't wanna do that. So, and another view of that would be I did one to where you can see the reflections off of it. So one, I took a picture to where you could see through and see the actual texture underneath, and then this shows the reflection from when you're wrapping in glass. And then another thing, since I watched some of your last show and she— the lady had Himalayan rock salt.

Yes.

So I do these with Himalayan rock salt lamps. So that's rock salt, and then I do all the steel artwork around it.

Beautiful.

And then that plate is also the same plate that goes underneath the pots. So they're kind of interchangeable.

That is fantastic. How do you protect yourself when you're using all that epoxy? Do you wear something?

I've got it to where I just wear— what are those— nitrate gloves, you know, like rubber gloves. They're the tight-fitting ones you see in the hospital industry.

And you have it in a separate building, like not in your house? Do you have like your—

Oh, I have it.

Yes, it's out in the shop and basically my shop is a 2-car garage.

Nice.

I call it a flip and flop shop because I have— or building in a closet because I only have so much space. So I have to flip and flop my shop in between different processes. So the touchiest one is the epoxy work because it has to be so clean. So I'll spend about 2-3 days just completely cleaning the shop, and then everything shuts down and all I do is epoxy work for about a week and a half. And then I, you know, added heat on out my shop this year. So I have electrical heat and then I have propane heat so I can keep my temperatures where I want to be. And so, yeah, that's some of what I do there.

Do you take custom orders? And also, yes, like rest for restaurants or sell— do you sell to shops and shops sell your work, or is it—

I've sold all my work on my own so far, and I do do custom work. And I love to do just my own work, you know, what inspires me. And I usually come up with a nice fictional story to go with it. So I write a story out, like a little short story, like the Genie Tables, and kind of bring them to life through that. So, and a lot of people love buying something that an artist made. Yeah, get that story of what the artist made. And then I've had people that had really cool, like, throw rug in their living room, kind of had some really crazy rounded shapes to it, and they wanted something that matched their carpet with a tabletop shape. So I did kind of a splitting cell shape, and once it set up on their carpet, it was just so cool because everything kind of exploded, and all their earthy colors in their living room exploded, and It was really, really cool. So yeah, I'll do whatever people come up with.

Nice.

Or they bring me in and have me come up with something. So the one thing I am getting ready to do is I'm putting together my whole submittals for the Bellevue Art Gallery. It's a really high-end area up here, and they have a 3-day show in the summer where they shut the whole downtown area down, and they have a— it's a juried art show, so I have to have my submittals in, and then they jury to see who they're gonna have in there. So that will be my first presentation to an art gallery.

Nice. When do you find out?

Um, submittals have to be in by the 18th of January.

Oh, good luck.

Yeah, thank you. I've been spending every morning really working on my writings. Because that's real important with art is to get people to connect, basically connect with the work, and writing and artwork go hand in hand. So yeah, so that's my first one of where I have my submittals for that, and I figure once I have my submittals for that, I have submittals for any place I want to submit to. So a lot of different galleries across the country I want to submit to, and and see where it goes. Yeah, I think it'll fit very well in art galleries because they don't have this. Yeah, it could sit right in the middle of all sorts of different displays and see what happens.

Yeah, so check out Sedona, right? There's a lot of art galleries in Sedona, Arizona, and your work seems to like fit their style with all the ancients.

And I have a big flair of ancients in my work and I used to live in Lake Havasu, Arizona, so we've gone to Sedona a few times, and big art, real heavy with art, seems like every corner.

Yeah, yeah, art and crystals. I saw your big— that was cool.

Yeah, you like the selenite, the Tower of Power?

Yeah, I like that.

So yeah, and that one lights up also. But really cool thing with selenite, we took the light bulb out of it because it just shines. Yeah, I have it in the living room. Yeah, in the living room, and there's no sun or anything, and it's just sitting there lit up. So we took the bulb out of it, we'll just let it naturally light up. That's pretty cool. So, and then there's all sorts of rock.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

So I do all the bases, and I— we have a few really cool shops that we can go to and get all our crystals and our rocks, and then We have our own rock polisher, so we go to the green— wherever we go hiking, we'll collect rocks from different rivers and polish them up and use those for the displays. No, no, that one's not set up. Yeah, so, you know, and one thing would be cool, and I'll get into is because everything's— I designed everything so the bonsai pots would fit in the tables. Or they'll fit on the water features, or they'll fit on the pots and plates, and then the plates, you can fit all the crystals. So now, once I built out, I got some ideas from that, I can take the crystals back to the centerpieces of the tables. And you can use different battery-operated lights, right? Have a crystal as the centerpiece of the table, not, not just a bonsai tree. So that's kind of what I like about when I get ideas for table sets and then I build out from those and those create ideas that I end up bringing back to the tables. So it's kind of, that's, I think that's one of the coolest parts I like is all the fresh ideas that come up out of nowhere.

Totally, the creative process download.

Yeah, it's like, okay, I took this in and look what came out.

Totally. What's the deal with the bonsai trees? Do you do bonsai, or how do you work with bonsai so intimately? Do you know someone that does? Oh, you do? Wow.

Right here. Oh, okay. So I only have so much space. So every single window in our house is lined up with trees.

I see some back behind you.

Yes, in the— that's my little greenhouse, I call it my indoor greenhouse. And basically I have shelves and shelves back there of baby bonsai trees.

And it all started—

daily or weekly, like how much maintenance?

I know that there's some that require more maintenance, like when we saw the Karate Kid and all that, and they had to constantly trimming. Most trees I have don't. I have a lot of ficus, and then I have a lot of different Mexican weeping pines, Japanese red pines, Japanese white pines, and then ginkgos, and they don't require a ton of trimming. They kind of just grow, and you, once you get them to where they're at and trained, they kind of stay there, and you just have to clip them off at certain times. I have read about, um, that you can go through and once the leaves get big, you can trim all the leaves off and they'll grow back really small. I'm just a little nervous about that.

Understandably.

I'm like, it's like cutting all your hair off and expecting it to grow back. You know it should, but what if it doesn't?

What if it all doesn't grow back?

Yeah, what if it grows back in spots?

Right, I'm so fascinated. Go ahead, what?

That's one of those things that just takes a jump and doing it and, you know, and experimenting. So it all started with one bonsai tree I got from my daughter years ago, 8 years ago. And so then I started taking care of it, and then once I started this, and, you know, I wanted— always wanted a bonsai tree for a centerpiece of of a table. And so I started pulling clones off of it, and, and those clones turned into clones turned into clones, and I learned how to just twist them around and kind of braid trunks together and just let them grow. So, you know, it's just kind of been a learning curve, and eventually my goal is, is to be able to sell all my own bonsai trees with the table sets. Nice. So, and, um, so I've started some from seed. Uh, starting them from seed takes a long time. So I was kind of like, if I start them all from seed, I might be like 55, 65 before I can sell one, you know, might be a little late there. So you almost need to get a tree and then pull cuttings off of that tree and start them. And they grow within 4 years. You can have a very mature tree.

It's mind-blowing. We have a place out by, in California called the Huntington Gardens, and there's an extraordinary bonsai tree display. And I mean, it blows your mind, these trees, because there's like, you know, the Hawaiian banyan tree where there, I might be saying it wrong, banyan tree or something, where there's like all these branches that grow down. I mean, to see like a miniature one blows your mind, like fully developed but like tiny, like what? And like maple trees, oak trees, all these, you know, weeping willows, you know, all these trees that are like fully in full development but mini. It's mind-blowing.

It is. I was, you know, I only thought there were a couple varieties of trees a long time ago, and then I started looking into them and you're seeing all these flowering trees and and dwarf pomegranates and some of them you were talking about. I was like, this is crazy. So I learned basically you can dwarf any tree you want. You just keep the root small and shallow and they'll stay that size.

But how do you cut the root if it's under the soil?

You just pull it out and you trim them all back and put it in the ground. Into a small container and they'll stay that way.

Wow.

And they just keep regrowing. And, you know, it's kind of wild. I kind of stumbled on it working on the yard and I'd cut a shrub down, you know, like, okay, I don't want this shrub anymore. I cut it down and the next thing you know, it's growing back. I'm like, wow. So that's what they do with the bonsais. Same thing. Right.

So with the bonsais though, you have to get the roots, and that's what keeps the tree small then?

Yes, you contain the roots, you contain the growth. So pretty, you know, and all you have to do is have them shallow, so they're like 3 inches deep, and bigger ones can spread out a little further, and you have larger plates. These are just, mine are just small 6-inch diameter and about 3 inches deep. So, and you know, they'll grow up to a certain height and just kind of stay there. Pretty much.

Yeah, the art of it is so amazing, you know, that it takes so much time that someone's committed to this piece of work for years and years and years.

Yeah, that's the thing is some of them that I've seen And yeah, they do take a lot of time. And I've learned that I was, you know, sitting there and get them going. And then I, when I had 3, it was a certain amount of work. Then I had 20. I'm like, oh my God, this takes, this is way past a hobby now.

Right? It's just like a job.

It's a job.

It's an investment.

Really, it is. And I just think it's cool. It's a whole nother form of art.

Yeah, that's right.

And it's alive. I like to bring life into all my pieces, not just the life I put into it when I dreamed it up, but then some real life— crystals and flowing water and, you know, a bonsai tree— and give it some good positive, good positive energy. So that's another little centerpiece. All the centerpieces in my work have that.

So what's your website? Is it Brett Hamilton, or do you have a different—

Hammys, H-A-M-M-Y-S dot net.

Hammys dot net, cool.

And so my website, um, it's my first 3 pieces that I made are on my website still to this day. And so I went through and got a nice amateur photography camera, and so I've been learning all my photography, and I have tons and tons of pieces and So I'm building up my collection of all my pieces and doing all the writings for them. And I just upgraded a couple writings the other day on the website. And so here in another week, probably, I'm going to start redoing my whole website, putting those photos on. So my website's kind of going along with my submittals to the art gallery.

Nice.

Go with people.

If it's not like, how do people find you to order from you? Or how do you get— find your clients?

Um, so far it's all been through word of mouth. And I have a full— if you go to the website and you see the table, it's a bar table on the front homepage. That's actually in the back of my truck. And it's mounted on a nice deck that I built in the back of the truck. So it goes everywhere with me. And I've taken it around and shown it. And then through a friend who bought a table from me, some of their friends saw it and wanted some work into their home. And then actually the owner of an interior design company, I submitted, sent them my site, and she saw it and wanted some in her home.

Perfect.

Just word of mouth. And that was then at the end, beginning of this last year when I stumbled upon some things like the wrapping in glass and being able to take— all these tables can be put into somebody's spa now, so it's all submersible. The chairs are submersible, the vases are submersible, everything you can put underwater. And so I kind of took some time and put sales to the side to really put my work over the top. And that, that took a large portion of this year, about 6 months I put into really perfecting my work and taking it over the top. And once I did that, I completed the tables behind me and some that you've seen. And now I have, I have tables all over the house now. So, um, now it's time to get out and market my work and redo my site and submit to the art galleries. So That's kind of— and I just started early last year, and I got some good sales at the end of last year into the beginning of this year, and then just decided, hey, I'm, I'm going for this, and I'm going for— I want to go for the top. And so that's where— that's what I've done. So now I was on Iman John's show, so he gave me a lot of great ideas about, you know, getting out there on social media.

And that's kind of how we got connected. You were doing cutting boards, weren't you?

Well, that was Aman's idea, was to maybe do a couple products and give it to people so that, that were on shows, so your work could be on display and a lot of people would see it. So he brought up cutting boards, and then he brought up you, and I got together and started talking about that. So yeah, there's a combination of social media, my website, and then basically all my art shows that I want to be in and art galleries. So, and from those same submittals, God, there's just a world out there of interior designers, architects, spas, corporate art.

Corporate art, yeah.

Yeah, and then there's auctions. Yeah, some of the high-end art auctions. So I think there's just a, you know, just start going.

Yeah, hotels, hotels. I see yours like hotel lobbies.

Yeah, a lot of people have said lobbies. You know, there's a lot of lobbies out there where people are putting artwork in them now.

Mm-hmm. So especially when it's all custom-made, because you know you're not gonna see two pieces exactly the same from you. 'cause you don't have molds. I know that you had said that was one of the things about it, was you don't want to get bored making the same thing over and over again.

Yes, exactly. I'll do like 2 of the same vase, just almost kind of to show off that I can make one the same and be like, look, I can do this exactly the same by hand. But then I don't want to do the same one again. I want to move on to that other design I have. And we're originally starting out, I figured I'd have one design and I wanted to get it exactly how I wanted, and I was going to produce a whole bunch of those. Well, I learned real quick that after the second one, I'm like, nope, on to a new, on to a new design.

Word.

I'm bored. Yeah, I don't want to do that twice. I remember the first time I did two tabletops the same. And I was like, why did I just do that? That wasn't any fun. So, yeah, one thing I do do the same of is a lot of the pots and a lot of the plates because they have to be the same to fit into all the other pieces. So those I do the same, and they have, you know, form follows function. So that's— their function requires them to be the same, but there's no possible way you can ever get all the same stone finishes from painting, so everyone still is unique, right?

Very cool.

Yeah, there we go.

Well, you know, it's been quite interesting because everything we're talking about is more along the natural line too. And, and you had told me, weren't you basing things on different Indian tribes as well? Was it a—

Oh yes, you know, every piece is basically— I get my inspirations from being out in nature when I'm out on my hikes or somewhere and I'm looking at a certain river. And so I take that and all those colors and the feel of that, and then I combine it with my flair for the ancients. I call it, you know, the Mayans, the Aztecs, Pueblo, Egyptians. The water features look a lot like the Pueblo cliff dwellings. So I pull all that kind of— I kind of vision the ancients' lifestyle and how it was back then because it's something we really don't know. We can only kind of— we can only kind of guess.

Right.

What was their lifestyle? So I have a lifestyle of a lot of peace and dancing around fires. And the female Kokopelli, she's got a little martini glass in her hand. And, you know, then the male Kokopelli, of course, he's playing his flute to attract the female. So I give it that kind of theme. Yeah, so a lot of the ancients for me. And then I take, you know, I can't wait to get to the Aztecs and the Mayans. And do some more real creative shapes and get that same blend I have with the kind of Pueblo style that I have going now.

So yeah, you seem to really like the fluid, like, movements more than, like, geometric. Um, I like the geometrics because there's so much with sacred geometry to play with, right?

Oh yes, I actually did one of my writings was on how every single piece I have does follow the principles of geometry where all tangents meet tangents. Every arc I have is a section of an ellipse, which is a circle rotated in an angle. And so I take the arcs from that. That way, there's kind of an explosion of shapes when— because proper geometry can look, rigid, I guess you'd say. When you see a lot of proper geometry, it's really rigid. But I think when you combine them all using proper geometry and the tangents meet tangents, there's a flow to it when you kinda look around the piece. It moves with you. So I think with the Mayans and how they have a lot more square shapes and their pyramids and the step pyramids, it's gonna be a real challenge to take all that geometry and get the same flow that we have through all the rounds. I'm going to do it. Mark my words, I'm going to do it.

You'll achieve it, right?

I get it.

Nice.

Wonderful. Well, you know, you really— you've shown a lot of great things here, and it gives a lot to think about, about how you're living kind of in peace with nature there and doing your thing, molding and building. And you have all these plants in the house. I think that's something people forget sometimes about how important having living plants in a house is too. We have gone away from that. I know my mother always had plants all over inside, and they were helping to clean the air. They were living, growing things that were in our environment. Now it's plastic or silk. We just don't want to take care of those plants inside the house anymore.

My grandma used to have tables of violets because my grandpa smoked a pipe. She wanted the clean air. She literally had and, you know, those long tables, like 4 of those long tables of violets, just in, you know, in the living room and the family room. Amazing. And she's still— my grandfather's deceased now, but she still has hundreds of inside plants. It does make such a difference. And her skin is amazing. So maybe that really, you know.

Yeah, I think it's one of those trends that it might start coming around a lot more. There's more and more people wanting the trees and the plants in the house because of how much is getting cut down and awareness of what it actually does for your skin, kind of like healthy eating and healthy living is. I think that's a trend where we're going to start seeing a lot more plants and trees and things in people's homes.

And plant trees. I tell all my friends that have yards, plant trees. The United States is is 90% deforested from 200 years ago. 90%. Wow. That's to plant some trees. I mean, if you think through the hydrological system, like water travels through the roots of the trees, the groundwater, it's like to think about how much the water has changed by eliminating all those roots is pretty profound too.

Yeah, we wonder why we have all the problems we do.

We brought a lot of this on ourselves, just how we have changed our environment.

Yes, that's so true. Yes. Yeah. And bees, right? I'm sure you too. It's like planting flowers that attract bees is a really wonderful thing that we can contribute.

Yeah.

To the bees.

Got it.

Without the bees, we're all screwed.

Oh, we are done.

Isn't that so interesting how tied we are to this little guy? You know, and hummingbirds, and I guess butterflies and hummingbirds also pollinate a little too, but it's mostly the bees. But amazing that if they go, the humans will go.

Yeah, I don't think enough people realize that. I mean, I didn't know until a few years ago how serious it was. Dennis Littley, and I went to a seminar, and there was a talk on the bees there, and really how harmless to us bees are. I mean, we think of them— we've grouped them all in that category with yellow jackets and wasps or things, but bees are— we need the bees. It was funny. The guy was talking about he found a hive he had to move. He got them in a cardboard box, like those Staples boxes, and he had them in his car in there, and he was moving them, and they were getting out. He pulled alongside of people, and they're looking at his car, just turning because his car is full of bees just flying around. The windows are rolled up.

He's like, "No, they're friends." Yeah.

Yeah. They like me.

I've never seen so many dead bees. I see so many dead bees along sidewalks, in my back driveway. Sometimes I'll see 4 dead bees on the way to my car. I'm like, I'm like, what? And never as a child, never before have I just seen just dead bees on the sidewalk. And it's interesting, you know, it's like they're eating the pesticides or they're getting that and then they're literally just dropping dead mid-flight.

I think that's a huge killer of them, isn't it? Is the— all the pesticides?

Oh, absolutely. That's the biggest. Yeah.

I thought I read something too about in China they were actually having to hand pollinate their crops.

Oh my God. That's so crazy. Another reason to eat organic, friends. Not only for your health, but it's like, it's for the bees, baby.

Yeah. I think if more people, again, started eating organic and started realizing the importance of Prices will come down. More people will be growing it. These lobbyists that are just sucking the life out of us in Washington promoting GMOs and working for Monsanto and Dow, these actually evil corporations when you stop and think about it. It's terrible. Which one is it owns most of the seed companies? Is it Monsanto, too?

I think it's Monsanto, yes.

Owns most of the seed companies in the country, too. They got you They really got us in a bad place. We need to do something about it as a country. Our politicians are just not interested. They're sitting on their hands. They're listening to lobbyists in Washington. This thing with lobbyists, I don't know when we started that or how. I was watching the bill to pass the budget or to approve it so we have a budget, and then they're tying all these other bills into it that make no sense at all. No reason to even been there, so they can approve the budget so the government doesn't shut down again. It's crazy.

Meredith: It is crazy. It's almost like they just make it too confusing, and it doesn't make sense, and there's no logic that the people are just like, "Screw it." The people have all the power. That's what's really exciting is really igniting the people, which is, you know, I'm sure why you're doing what you're doing, Chef Dennis. It's just bringing awareness to people that they have all the power. If everyone in the United United States said, "I'm not eating GMO," Monsanto's done. They're done. If they just bother to learn what the crops are and how to avoid the ingredients, because we don't have labeling, so the excuse is, "Well, there's no label. How am I supposed to know?" There's 8 GMO crops. You learn what they are, and you don't buy any ingredients that have those, or don't buy any foods that have those crops as their ingredients, because you know they're probably GMO. Really inspiring people to do that is what we have to do. It's like we said, buying organic is contributing to saving the human race because not paying attention to what you're buying is— with the pesticides and the GMOs and what's happening to the bees. If the bees go, like we said, there is literally going to be the demise of the human race. It's literally that dramatic. That's true, and it seems so crazy dramatic, but that's what's true.

Yes. We better stop working on drones and start working on bees instead.

Seriously. The thing is, it's so dramatic and so big, but the solution is so simple. The solution is literally people just reading the ingredients and choosing to buy organic and choosing not to buy products that have those 8 GMO crops in them.

There's a new company out. I don't know, did you see the Thrive Market? Leah has been doing stuff with Thrive Market. Thrive Market is actually— it's an Amazon meets Sam's meets Tom's kind of organization. It's a place to buy your organic products, your non-GMO products, your health and beauty things. Foods, all of it at less prices than you would pay through the groceries or buying them out in the world. You save like 20%, 30%. Shipping is free after $50, but you buy a membership. It's a membership card just like you go in a big box club. Then they, in turn, give a membership to a family in need for free. They work with the Boys and Girls Clubs and some other things to find a family that can benefit. So, no, I can't afford "Well, yeah, you can if you buy them at this discounted rate." Now we're bringing the price down where it's lower. They don't do fresh produce, but it's all other products.

In a lot of places, fresh produce they can grow, or they can go to the farmer's market. I always tell people organic is the cheapest because just grow it in a little pot. You don't even have to have a yard. You can have a grow box on your patio or whatever. It's not going to feed you completely, but at least you can grow your tomatoes and your bell peppers.

You'll end up saving quite a bit. There's one— I'm trying to think of the name of the company I saw, and it was a growing system to put on your porch. You can grow, actually, greens like lettuces and things. The amount of money that you save after the initial input of the thing, it's going to pay for itself pretty much in the first year. Then you're going back to— it's not something sprayed with pesticides.

Yeah, and it's fresher and it tastes better because things always taste better when they're like freshly picked.

More nutrients.

Yes.

It's amazing to taste a nice fresh tomato that we picked off one of our plants. I mean, oh my God, this is what a tomato tastes like.

Right. It's not just color. Right. It actually has—

It's not color. Yeah. It's not wax.

It's not red cardboard. It's a tomato.

Right.

That's what got me switching originally to organic chicken was I'm eating chicken one day and going, "This chicken doesn't taste like chicken." When chicken doesn't taste like chicken, you got a problem. I started buying— even before I had thought of anything free-range or organic, it was, "Well, let me try free-range chicken, organic chicken." That tasted like chicken that I remembered growing up. Then I I had bought organic milk, and that tasted really like milk. There was a few things that I— I didn't buy them for any other reason other than they tasted much better. That was the reason for me buying them. Then as I learned more about the importance, well, then it even makes more sense, and you buy more products. Now I'm on to pastured meats. That's my new thing.

Nice. Next, you'll get into raw milks because the raw dairy is infinitely more like— I hear that. Delicious. Yeah.

Yeah. Much different tasting.

Yes. Baby steps.

The organic tastes so much different, and then you take a step up to raw, and that's so much different. And same thing with eggs. Like, we get farm eggs out where we live, and the kids won't eat store eggs. They just refuse to eat the store eggs. They'll only eat the farm eggs.

Nice.

Well, when you look at the size, you crack them open, the other one looks pathetic.

Right. The color is so different.

Pee yellow.

Yeah.

The old ones at the store. And yeah, they're like bright orange. I'm like, oh my God, that's beautiful.

I can't wait to get some chickens.

Oh yeah.

The place I found for pastured meats has eggs too. The lady had said, "Come back on Saturday because then you can go out into the areas, and you can pick your own." I'm like, "Oh my god, really?" Fantastic.

Then they're really nutritious. People have these things about animal foods not being nutritious, and it's only because what we've done to the animal foods that have made them so junky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That and eating—

Real deal, real animal foods that people were eating hundreds of years ago do benefit the body.

You did say you use plant— it's a plant-based diet, so are you vegetarian? I meant to ask you that.

Mostly. I teach people plant-based stuff because I think that's what most people need to learn. We all need to get more plants in our diet, so that's where my interest is. I ebb and flow. My natural tendency is to eat a plant-based diet, but being pregnant— I'm 6 months pregnant now, and I've wanted a little meat. Here and there because I have to eat so little, and then you get hungry often. I feel like if I— like, I made grass-fed— this is going to be crazy for any of my raw food vegan fans out there. They're going to be like, "Life did what?" But I made some grass-fed organic beef jerky in my dehydrator a couple weeks ago, and I found that it's like if I just eat— because it's been really hard for me to eat. I've had— really bad morning sickness, and I still have it at 6 months. If I just eat a little bit of that beef jerky, it actually satisfies me where I don't feel like I'm super hungry then, like 30 minutes later or whatever. There's times when I'm going, "Okay, I'm just reading what my body really needs right now, and I'll just give it that." I consider myself a nutrititarian. It's like I eat for nutrition, whatever I need in the moment, in the season. And the time is what I do.

I think the biggest problem with meats was that as a country, we just ate way too much protein.

Totally.

We go out, and we're just brainwashed. The meat should cover the plate. I was served a 24-ounce porterhouse at one of the restaurants I was at. That's insane.

No one needs that.

You serve them because you can get them. People, to eat that much meat, it's a killer. We got to go back to the thing where the meat is almost the smallest portion on the plate.

That's exactly right.

The vegetables.

The vegetables are the key. If that's the most of your diet is the vegetables and fresh herbs, you'll be golden. Yeah.

Meat proportions—

What?

Meat proportions at our meals have shrunk drastically. Meat, and then the rest of the plate is all our vegetables and yummies and our sauces we make. Yeah.

I know.

Yeah. I was just thinking the opposite. What was that?

No, I was going to say, and honestly, that's what brings the cost down because meat is expensive. If you're saying you can't afford organic vegetables, well, if you're cutting down on your meat, you can afford organic vegetables.

There you go. Absolutely.

Yeah, because meat prices have skyrocketed.

Yeah. You know what, really, once you learn what's in conventional meat, I mean, you really can't eat that. It's almost like—

You just made me cringe.

Yeah. It's like steroids, hormones, antibiotics. I mean, the largest buyers of antibiotics is is the livestock industry. I mean, they're just— ugh. It's like you don't want to eat that. So you have to buy organic. Once you know, you have to. And then it's like, okay, well, I guess I'm just going to buy meat maybe a couple times a week, or have it a couple times a week. I mean, for people that eat meat every day, it's like, yeah, sometimes you don't have to eat meat every day, and you don't have to eat as much of it every day. I think new habits. I think we eat so habitually. We eat sort of how we were taught to eat. And then sometimes you just have to go, oh, I, you know, you just learn new staple dishes, you know, learn new quick and easy staple dishes, and then, and then it's easy.

Absolutely. Well, this has been a fun and informative show, but we're coming to the close now. So we're going to wrap it up a little bit. I'm going to go to each of you and ask you to share anything you'd like with us at this point. If you have any shows coming up, if you have anything you'd like us to know about what you're doing, now's the time to share it. Let's go back to Blythe and let you share. Where can we find you?

Sure. You guys can find me at BlytheNaturalLiving.com, or I'd love you to check out HealthyRecipesIn5.com, in the number 5, HealthyRecipesIn5.com. I have a 4-DVD course. I have it here, actually, to show you. I have this DVD course. This is really fun. It's full of 5-minute recipes. It's 4 DVDs. There's a breakfast DVD, a lunch/dinner DVD, a dessert/snack DVD, and then a therapeutic home spa DVD. And each recipe is between 5 and 10 minutes long in real time, so you can make it right along with me. It's gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free. It's such a great course if you're like, I don't know how to eat healthy. You definitely don't have to be vegetarian. You don't have to be vegan. All of this stuff happens to be. Vegan, you know, vegetarian, it's all plant-based, but it's like just get more plants in your life and it's delicious. There's such good stuff like tomato basil hemp soup, I mean raw veggie sushi roll, mango vanilla hemp granola, there's just some really delicious things. I teach you how to make raw chocolates on here, which is great, and then the Therapeutic Home Spa DVD is really fun, bath teas and spirulina masks and hair masks. And honey masks and literally these amazing beautifying things that cost like 2 cents, you know, and then like you already have the stuff in your cabinet. So it's fun. So check out HealthyRecipesIn5.com.

Very cool. Thank you. And you can leave those links in the comment section too, if you like.

Okay, cool.

And Brett, what do you got coming up for us? Anything, anything interesting or fun? Or what— where can we find you?

Well, you can find me at Hammy's and then you can also find me on Google+ at Brett Hamilton. Um, and those— all my information to email me or contact me is there. Um, the only thing that I have coming out— I don't have any shows planned right now coming up. Um, just getting my work into art galleries is the next step for me. And, um, then I'll be updating my website here in the next few weeks with the same smittles I have to those. So people can hop on there and see all my latest work. And yeah, that's what I have going on. And I just loved what you guys all had to say today.

Very good.

Blythe, I love what you're doing and the food and, you know, eating natural and anti-Mon— what is it, Monsanto or whatever their name is, corporate, and all the packaged goods. I get rid of those things. And start canning and all those good old school things that have kind of been lost.

Yeah, Dennis Littley.

Love what you're doing.

Thank you, I love what you're doing too. You do amazingly beautiful work. Keep us posted on your gallery submissions.

Oh yeah, totally. I'll definitely be using my Google+ to update everybody and keep those going. I'm gonna throw in some videos coming up too.

So, dude, we want to see your workshop. We want to see it.

Yeah, yeah, we'll do that.

Yeah, that would be fun. I know everybody would be interested in seeing you in action. Just have to get somebody to film it for you or set it up.

I have somebody film it for me. And then the only way I can work in my shop and do good work is if my hair is really just messed up. If I have my hair combed like this, I'm horrible. It just doesn't work. So everybody's going to be in for a surprise. It has to stick up. I mean, Crazy hair is the only way I can work.

Nice.

Sounds like fun. I will be looking forward to that one.

For sure.

Alright folks, well thank you so much for stopping by for Good Day Google+ today. It's been a great day on Google+. Enjoy your weekend and holidays are coming up. We are not going to have a holiday show next Friday. I'm going to give everybody a day off and enjoy time with your friends and your families and get out and really get into the spirit. So thank you so much for coming. And we'll see you all real soon. Bye-bye.

Happy