Spark & Fire: Fuel Your Creativity

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Episodes

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Every creative work you’ve ever loved has a hero’s journey behind it. On Spark & Fire, you'll hear creators tell the story of bringing one beloved work to life.

Iconic creatives — like Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, Pixar director Domee Shi, comedian Patton Oswald, musician Wynton Marsalis, and novelist Isabel Allende — share the endless iterations, the inevitable setbacks, and the breakthrough ideas along the epic process of creation. But this isn’t an interview show. It’s a story — told entirely in the artist's own words.

With host June Cohen, co-founder of WaitWhat and the former executive producer of TED Talks.

Transcripts and images for every episode are available at sparkandfire.com

Episodes

How to build your creative vision: Photographer Stephen Wilkes on the 2021 Inauguration Photo

Making art is a distillation of all your life experiences – from the half-remembered images from your childhood to your fascination with what's happening around you right now. Photographer Stephen Wilkes developed his signature Day to Night images to share his passion for how time passes – and soon found that they also helped him explore everything else that interested him: nature, city life, even politics. Learn the backstory behind his famous photo of the 2021 Inauguration as he explains how h...

Feb 23, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Great collabs start with trust: Apollo Theater’s Kamilah Forbes on “Between the World and Me”

"I want to make this into theater, in a way that’s never been done before." When Kamilah Forbes first reads "Between the World and Me," by her friend Ta-Nehisi Coates, she's moved, shaken, gutted by its truth and beauty. She dreams of presenting it at Harlem's Apollo Theater, a legendary space for Black art and excellence. First step: convince Ta-Nehisi. Spark & Fire follows the journey from book to stage to HBO – during a pandemic – in a story of collaboration and trust, joy and challe...

Feb 09, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Creativity starts with play: Designer Thomas Heatherwick on NYC's The Vessel

How do you change the creative brief? You start with play. The designer Thomas Heatherwick was asked to create a monumental public work for the plaza of vast new development in the heart of Manhattan. The expected route would be to copy what’s worked before on other plazas in other cities – a statue, a fountain. But Heatherwick knew he had to push past what was expected. Spark & Fire follows the journey of “Vessel,” a massive piece of public art, from its roots in traditional Indian for...

Feb 02, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Turn crisis into art: Choreographer Bill T. Jones on “Afterwardsness," his pandemic masterpiece

When faced with a crisis, how do you move forward? Sometimes, you look backward first. It’s March 2020, and legendary choreographer Bill T. Jones is weeks away from a world premiere, when his company is forced into lockdown. All seems lost. But what comes next paves the way for a transcendent performance at the Park Avenue Armory called “Afterwardsness” — one of the only large-scale performances held anywhere during the pandemic. On Spark & Fire, the larger-than-life Bill T. Jones tells this...

Jan 26, 2021•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Turn memory into art: Isabel Allende on “The House of the Spirits”

How do you write the stories of your life? Any time, any place, any order. Isabel Allende was 39, and a refugee from her native Chile, when she started writing a letter to her dying grandfather – recounting the family stories he'd told her – of love, loss, memory, magic. This letter evolved into her first novel, the beloved epic "The House of the Spirits.” With her trademark warmth and wit, Isabel shares how she found the time and space to write as she rebuilt her life – and how her 500-pag...

Jan 19, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast

How to find inspiration: Chip Kidd on the "Jurassic Park" book cover

What do you do when you’re stuck? Something else. Designer Chip Kidd got a dream assignment: Create the book cover for a soon-to-be-blockbuster: Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park . Oh, and make it iconic . When the pressure to perform is that high, it's easy to get creatively paralyzed. Chip recounts exactly how he got started and how he got unstuck — over and over — on the journey to create one of the best-known book covers of the 20th century. He tells the story in his own fast-paced, funny, po...

Jan 12, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast

How to begin: Susan Orlean on "The Orchid Thief"

How do you move past that "wobbly moment" in your creative journey? Just move. From the moment she heard about it, Susan Orlean knew she had to tell the story of "The Orchid Thief" – a wild, true story of obsession set in the swamps of Florida. But somewhere deep in the telling, she risks losing her own footing. Spark & Fire follows Susan as she pursues the story that "set her brain on fire," pushing past a creative crisis to write the magazine article and then book that in turn inspired the...

Jan 05, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Oscar winner Pixar's Kemp Powers on "Soul": The best person for the project

How do you create an authentic character? Start with your authentic self. When Kemp Powers joined the writers' room at Pixar, he found a story waiting to be told ... anchored within his own story. Spark & Fire follows Kemp on his own hero's journey of co-writing and co-directing Soul , Pixar's first film with a Black protagonist, from his first trip to the Pixar campus to his development of the main character – and his passionate pitch for the beloved barbershop scene that nearly got cut fro...

Jan 04, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast