For October’s talk on SHOCK, we’re pleased as punch to have Mike Gaston, As the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Cut.com. Mike’s work has been featured in everything from The Wall Street Journal to TMZ. Recent projects include “The Primary Instinct,” a full length concert film that premiered at SIFF starring Stephen Tobolowsky and the “100 Years of Beauty” series which was showcased at TED 2015. He is most often recognized for a video about weed. Tickets for the event at Seattle Art Museum are currently waitlist-only.

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How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?
Creativity is like irritable bowel syndrome. It’s a name we’ve given to a bunch of different symptoms, whose triggers vary from person to person, and no one really knows what causes it.

Where do you find your best creative inspiration?
I’m most productive in the bathroom. 


What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
People don’t really care about your work. They care what you think about their work. (That would’ve saved me some time in writer’s workshops.)

Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?
David Mikula (bff.co). I want to know what’s behind that beard.

What are you reading these days?
Alain de Botton’s The News, Milan Kundera’s Encounter, and René Girard’s Violence and the Sacred.

When you get stuck creatively, what is the first thing you do to get unstuck?
I make a decision or I move on. Writer’s block isn’t a real thing. You aren’t actually out of ideas or words. You’re out of creatively satisfying ideas and words. Being stuck is your ego paralyzing you from making a decision. I decided a while back that everything I made was pretty crappy. Once I detached the work I was producing from the expectation it had to be good, making decisions including moving on, became easy.