Coast To Coast Creatives
Coast To Coast Creatives
Crafting Myths with Birchbark: Phillip Gladkov on 'Story of the Sun'
In this episode of 'Coast to Coast Creatives', host Joe Funk interviews filmmaker Phillip Gladkov about his unique work, 'Story of the Sun', the first film made entirely out of birchbark. Phillip shares his inspirations, creative processes, and the importance of environmental themes in his projects. He also discusses his background, education, and work as an amateur mycologist. Listeners will gain insight into Philip's innovative approach to filmmaking and the collaborative efforts behind his latest project.
'Story of the Sun' Website: https://storyofthesun.com/
Phillip Gladkov Website: https://phillipgladkov.com/index.html
Phillip Gladkov Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phillipgladkov/
Joe: [00:00:00] Welcome to Coast to Coast Creatives, a podcast for and about working professional artists within the entertainment industry. I'm your host, Joe Funk, and here we interview actors, directors, photographers, writers, and many, many more. Today, I'll be chatting with Philip Gladkov, a filmmaker whose latest project, 'Story of the Sun', is the first ever film made entirely out of birchbark.
Philip discusses his inspirations, creative processes, love of nature, and the importance of environmental themes in his work. Listeners will gain insight into his craft and even his work as an amateur mycologist. Before we get going, please make sure you're subscribed to this podcast on the platform of your choice.
And if you have a moment to give it a positive review, it would mean the world to me. Alright, without further [00:01:00] ado, here's Philip Gladkov.
Philip, thank you so much for being here today, calling in from sunny California. How long have you been in Los Angeles?
Phillip: I've been in LA for two years, going on three years now. I was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. I'm a second generation Russian American. My parents left Russia right as the Soviet Union was collapsing.
And so I was raised in Brooklyn most of my childhood and then we moved to Long Island and I went back to New York City again for my education. First I was in community college for a little bit and then I was lucky enough to get into NYU to Tisch School of the Arts and that's where I got my film education.
Joe: Was there a concentration at Tisch?
Phillip: It was film and television, and at that time, I was [00:02:00] mostly focused on documentary. So
Joe: what was it like getting an education in film in a city like New York?
Phillip: It was, in short, awesome. Being surrounded by so many interesting and talented creative people is really inspiring.
and New York City is full of life, and art, and music, and people, and cultures. It's one of the most multicultural places in the country, if not the world. And being from a family that is from another place and speaks another language, that all informed my world view from an early age.
Joe: It's one of those places where if you're ever lacking motivation or inspiration as a person, You can go there and just absorb the people.
The people watching is amazing. And you focused on documentary filmmaking when you were in school?
Phillip: Yeah, it was just what kind of interested me [00:03:00] most the time always I'm trying to explore themes and I care about the world and whatever I'm making, whether it's comedy, whether it's fine art. Or documentary or stop motion animation.
There's a through line of how I see the world and what I want to express that's always underlying. So when I was in university, the medium was documentary and I've been exploring other ones since, and I love doc. It has a special place in my heart.
Joe: And let's now dive into the films that you create and the focus that you have on nature.
The environment, environmental issues within your projects, where did this love come from for you?
Phillip: I think that this deep care for the world has been with me for a long time. And I think that there's a spark, this kind of seed planted in my mind as a child growing up in Brooklyn. When our [00:04:00] parents did finally take us out to upstate New York, it blew my mind that, Oh, there's a different world.
There's a world outside of concrete. And Trains and stuff there. There's a more natural world and I saw that dichotomy as a young kid and I think it imprinted a shadow on me that stayed with me forever. And now I'm exploring it more. So even when I was in high school or early college and I was focused on fine arts, I didn't even know I wanted to be a filmmaker.
I was exploring those themes about environmentalism, about the oil spills that were happening at the time when I was in high school. I was exploring those things. through art, just not film. And one day I saw the work of Godfrey Reggio, who was a really talented pioneer in film, and I saw his non narrative documentary film, Koyaanisqatsi, and it opened my eyes.
And just wowed me because I was like, this is very much how I feel about the world. I feel very [00:05:00] similarly. And I can't believe that films like this exist. And I can't believe you're allowed to make films like this. Cause I only thought of Hollywood before seeing films like this. I didn't know that there was something between narrative and something between documentary that was neither.
Joe: Describe that place between narrative and documentary. What exactly is it?
Phillip: Yeah. So this place between narrative and. documentary that just feels like a moving art, and it's like an observation. You aren't told what to think by a narrator, you're being moved by images, and what you feel is partly what the filmmaker wants you to feel, and also what to feel.
Just your own association to the images and the score of that film was so powerful was by Philip Glass It's a historic film and Godfrey Reggio is a very talented filmmaker with a very interesting story
Joe: So as a filmmaker, do you now feel like you lean [00:06:00] more towards narrative or? Documentary
Phillip: it all depends on the idea.
I have at the moment and what medium is most appropriate for it The film that I just made, Story of the Sun, is the first stop motion I've ever made, first animation I've ever made. Really? And yet it explores the same themes that I've cared about since I was making art in high school.
Joe: Let's dive right into Story of the Sun.
This is the first film to be made entirely out of birch bark. And it is the first time that you've dabbled in stop motion animation?
Phillip: First film, as far as I'm aware, I've done some heavy research and I haven't come across anything. And
Joe: give us a little synopsis of the film. What is it about?
Phillip: Story of the Sun is a contemporary myth about the origin of the sun.
And it's about a group of primitive humans who first discover fire. and their excitement about this new [00:07:00] discovery and how their humanity kind of gets in the way.
Joe: And how did you, how did this idea appear to you?
Phillip: I was telling either a campfire or bedtime story to someone once. And that was when the first version of the story kind of came out when I've developed it since.
And it was just a moment of improvisational storytelling.
Joe: And that essence comes across in the film as well. It feels like you're sitting around a campfire listening to this story. Talk a little bit about birchbark. Why birchbark?
Phillip: Yeah. So birchbark is a very special material, a very special tree to the world, to humans, to me.
So in ecology, birch trees are pioneer species and they're the first to repopulate areas that have been damaged by natural disasters or, for example, [00:08:00] when the last ice age receded, they were some of the first trees to come and make the soil hospitable for other life to come and grow there. I think they're very special in that way, as, as like a healer of land as something that allows more life to come in and grow.
And they don't grow for very long themselves. They come, they do their job and they pass away. It's importance, not only to ecology, but to humans is also something I want to bring attention to because from humans first early interactions with birch trees, there was a really important relationship that was established because the bark is very flammable and was used for fire.
which is really appropriate because Story of the Sun is about fire. It was used by people all around the world to inscribe things from Sanskrit manuscripts in Central Asia to here in North America. There's evidence of birchbark being [00:09:00] used as a tool to share stories and to share text, so I think it's a really cool material in that sense.
Joe: And how was it working with birchbark to create this project? How is it just as a texture as a medium for filmmaking?
Phillip: In some ways it's working like working with paper but so much more organic. This came from a living tree so there's these imperfections in the bark. There's also all these different colors and textures.
I can just stare at the bark and touch it for hours and not even make anything. So I've been using it in my fine artwork for, for several years now.
Joe: How did you know how to do this? It's not easy making stop motion projects. Yes. How did you learn this technique?
Phillip: A big inspiration of mine was Lotte Reininger.
And I'm sorry if I mispronounce her name, but she was a pioneer of stop motion animation. [00:10:00] Even before Disney, she was making shadow puppet animation. And I was really inspired by her style and I knew that was the style I wanted to pursue. So I did a lot of research watching how she made her paper puppets.
And the techniques she used and I experimented with my own paper puppets until I realized, okay, I can do this with Birch.
Joe: Let's talk a little bit about all of the collaborators that you had on this project. I want to talk about your narrator and your composer. How did you find these artists and tell us a little bit more about their, their work and your collaboration?
Phillip: I put out calls for both a composer and a voiceover actor, and I got over a hundred responses for each. But finding the right person for this project is always a difficult thing. And with Tsukuru, the narrator, I heard their voice. And immediately, [00:11:00] my partner, who is also the producer on this film, her name's Carmen.
Carmen goes, that's it. That's the voice. Tsukuru, their voice was the one for this film. And I immediately contacted them and was like, hey, I'm interested in working with you. And that's where it started.
Joe: How did you work with Tsukuru for directing the narration and crafting the story that way? Because I'm assuming this, was this done virtually?
Phillip: At first, yes.
So Tsukuru is really awesome. They're an activist. They're an artist, a writer. They do a lot of things and I couldn't have done the project without them. So initially we started virtually and they sent me some recordings after we had met and talked about the project. I realized quickly that there was a level of direction that would be really beneficial to do in person.
And so I was really lucky enough to be in the same city as Tsukuru and they came by [00:12:00] and We had a recording session in my apartment and Carmen, the producer was there helping me direct Tsukuru and give them the right emotion and direction to really get the most out of the story because there were certain moments that were so crucial to highlight how these little shadow puppets were feeling because it's just birchbark.
You have to bring it to life and you do that with music and you do that with sound. And so Tsukuru was just incredible at taking the direction and adding their own flavor to the story and to the voice and they just added so much emotion that would bring me to tears when I would watch the film.
Was all of the animation completed by the time the two crew came on board and was performing the voiceover?
Most of it, there was some tweaks here and there, but most of the animation was complete. In animation, a lot of [00:13:00] times you record the voiceover first and you go with that. But in this way, I did it a little bit differently just because there was no dialogue. It didn't need to be sunk up or anything like that.
So I had a bit more fluidity and flexibility of where I wanted to put it.
Joe: And I imagine it was also very helpful for them to get a sense of, Stylistically, who is this all seeing, omniscient voice of God narration that's talking over the piece? And I imagine enhances their voice as well and their performance.
Phillip: Yeah, yeah. And now that I think about it, I think when Tsukuru had first started the film, it might've been like a more rough version. I think I was using paper silhouettes in place of the birchbark, but they're same movement, same timing and everything. So they watched the film develop and a part of it developing aside from just adding their voice.
Joe: And how about [00:14:00] Lionel coming on board for composition?
Phillip: Lionel was. Incredibly easy to work with. I I'm a little bit neurotic sometimes when it comes to knowing what I want and knowing what I don't want and just being very specific with at this second it needs to be. And so I was really glad and grateful to have a collaborator who was really patient and just understanding of the vision as well.
He's got years on me of experience, so that was really cool to work with someone who has a lot more experience. in this industry, in this profession, and it was a breeze working with him.
Joe: What sort of direction did you give Lionel before he gave you any sample tracks? How did you describe the kind of music you wanted to hear?
Phillip: Just like with the voiceover, I wanted the same with the music. I wanted it to feel ancient, like timeless, very ancient. I did send him a lot of YouTube [00:15:00] videos of people playing lithophones, which is a musical instrument that is just Made with mostly rocks. It's one of the earliest musical instrument. So I wanted a lot of minimalist Sounds that come from nature and come from natural objects So I sent him a lot of youtube videos of that I told him in in what parts of the film certain emotions needed to be brought up and He did the rest.
He filled in the gaps with his own instruments that he used in his own composing techniques that I think worked really well for the film.
Joe: Yeah. Oh, it worked really well. So how long have you been working on this project from the initial idea, you telling it as a story around a campfire to this past week?
It premiered, correct?
Phillip: Yeah. Yeah. It just premiered yesterday. I can't remember off the top of my head, whether I told the story you. Around 2017, I think, is when I first told this story. Over the [00:16:00] years, I'm like, I should make this into a film. I should make this into a film. Oh, it's probably gonna be a good animation.
And then finally, I think, 2021, 2022, I was like, Alright, it's time to make this movie. It's time. And I started doing the early storyboarding. Late 2022, I'm starting to actually make this movie. work on the film, starting to make the animatics after I made the storyboard and starting to kind of map out this huge project, which isn't that long.
It's only seven minutes, but it is a lot of work. And so I just started chipping away a little by little and in between work and balancing life and so many things.
Joe: Yeah, we won't go too deep into the process of the stop motion animation, but my question is, what would you find yourself thinking about while you were Doing this task of animating.
Would you go into some sort of meditative state while you're doing this? Because it is very time consuming. I can't stress that enough [00:17:00] to listeners who haven't dabbled in this medium before. What did you enjoy about the process and how did you feel while doing the animation?
Phillip: So I was just reflecting on the moments where I would go to sleep every night and think about how should I do this shot?
Oh, it'd be really cool like this. There were so many nights where I went to sleep just dreaming about ideas for the film, ideas for shots, ideas for transitions, for how to carry this story through. And I love that part. Of creativity a lot. And sometimes you need to write those ideas down immediately because they'll be gone forever if you don't.
But many times I would just think about those things for days, for nights, and then implement them. And the actual process was tedious. I would usually put on a podcast or something and just snap away at the photos with the stop motion. And some things you would have to redo. And that was, could be very frustrating, but for the most part, it was pretty I like putting on a podcast or watching a [00:18:00] show and just working.
It's a great way to pass time and be invested in something.
Joe: Yeah. Podcasts are my go to background noise when I'm photo editing. Sometimes I'm listening to it. I'm like, Oh, I like 20 minutes went by and I didn't absorb any of that. Let me now go back to the beginning and start over again with the podcast.
Phillip: So to everyone listening while they're working on something, I see you and I salute you.
Joe: Do you keep a dream journal by any chance?
Phillip: I have on and off. I need to be better. I love keeping a dream journal, but I usually go a week max and then life gets in the way and I put it down and come back to it in a few months or a year and I think it's a really great process and thank you for bringing up because I'm going to start doing it again.
Joe: Do it. Do it. I can't wait to see what films come out of that process as well. That's the best place to get ideas like this. And the imagery in this film is dreamlike in itself. So tell me, what was it like seeing it on the [00:19:00] big screen for the first time this past weekend? And how do you feel like it was embraced by the audience?
Phillip: The audience laughed at the moments I would hope they would laugh at. So that was really reassuring. It's not a comedy, but there were a few moments where I had placed some comedy. And so I'm glad that it was received the way I wanted it to. People had incredible things to say about it. And that's the kind of stuff that justifies working on something for two years is hearing that it touched people.
Hearing that it moved people is why we do this.
Joe: Yeah. Were you able to do a Q and a session? Yeah,
Phillip: Yeah, so it was in a block of film. So I shared a floor with a bunch of other talented filmmakers and yeah, I got a, I got to answer a few cool questions about the film and that's my favorite part is hearing what people think about it, answering their questions, engaging with the audience, because I made this for people and that's the most important part for me is that people interact with it and that's how it lives a life beyond [00:20:00] me making it.
Just cause I'm a photographer. What type of camera did you shoot this with? Sony A7S is the one that I had. It would be doing the stop motion. And then the background, I would have these photographs of Birch and I would composite them. So it wasn't always all in front of the camera. Sometimes there's a lot of compositing of taking photo of the background and taking photo of the foreground and then putting it together, lots of Photoshop, lots of Adobe Creative Cloud from Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop.
Those are the heavy hitters.
Joe: All right. Let's talk a little bit about. The themes of story of the sun, you describe it as a contemporary myth. What do you hope the audience will take away from this project? And how do you envision this affecting their behavior or mindset towards the environment? Perhaps.
Phillip: What I'm really curious about is to see the difference of how it affects children and adults. [00:21:00] Cause yesterday at dances with films, it's screened in the kids block. And. I hadn't made it with the intention as making it a film for kids, but when it got programmed for the kids section, I was like, oh, that makes so much sense.
It is a film that both kids and adults can enjoy. Like, I think for children, it's a really important story to build that moral development, build that idea of, oh, we should treat each other well. And we should treat our surroundings well, because this is a cautionary tale of what will happen if you don't.
For adults, it's a little bit different because we're all aware of like, we should be good to the environment because climate change is a thing. So, a cautionary tale doesn't have the same effect on adults. For me, it was a love letter to humanity, because we're all flawed, and as a race, we're flawed, as individuals, we're flawed.
But we're still human, and we're still who we are, and we're capable of a lot of good. [00:22:00] I don't know what people, adults, will walk away with from this film, to be honest. It depends on your own world view and your own lens that you see life through. But as long as they think about something, that's important to me.
Joe: The beautiful thing about the format of this project is that it appeals to children and adults alike. It works for both of them and you are going to get a completely different response. Out of each of them, I'm guessing not a lot of kids are going directly to climate change when it comes to the theme of it, but something might be there subliminally and might be in the back of their minds that they carry forward.
Phillip: Yeah, of course. It's a, it's about relationships and climate changes is huge thing, but what is your relationship to the people around you? What is the relationship to your home? What is the relationship to the forest or the park you go to? It starts with [00:23:00] those little things. We can't just tackle this huge problem as an individual versus the force of climate change and the force of these huge companies that are polluting the planet, it starts small.
And that's what's really important is to get kids to care about each other, to care about the places around them. And for adults, I just, I hope it makes them feel a little bit better. more mindful and just makes them reflect on how do they treat other people and in what ways do they relate to these little birch puppets like when have maybe I acted like these birch puppets where I maybe was a little bit more greedy than I should have been.
I think it's important to hold space for films that process where we're at and try and make sense. And while there are a lot of morals in this film, I think it's also just a different reflection and take on where we're at in humanity right now. It helps us make meaning of the world to do [00:24:00] that and the effects aren't always immediate as, oh, I just watched this film and now I'm going to go plant five trees, but it's sometimes more subtle and under the surface.
the seeds that are planted and what it makes us feel and how it makes us feel related to each other that, Oh, I feel this way too. Humans are like this. I think that's really important too.
Joe: And I think tapping into qualities and aspects of what makes us human and what makes us feel these emotions towards the story is what's going to help you get a wider audience.
I think that one of the biggest difficulties that filmmakers can encounter. face if they're confronting issues with climate change or the environment is that they can lean on the side of being preachy or pointing fingers.
Phillip: There's definitely truth to what you're saying. I think that climate change is kind of this behemoth of a thing to address that.
One [00:25:00] film isn't going to stop it. One speech, one march. It's more about a relationship that we have to each other and to the place we live and a desire to take care of it for the future, for ourselves, for future generations. I think the most important part is getting people to care because no one person is going to save our world.
If people don't care, then we don't have a chance at all. But as filmmakers, we can nudge people to care. We can touch them in that spot in our hearts that we all have, that place where we have compassion for each other and for animals and For this environment that is our home that has always taken care of us.
So that's the special thing. You got to figure out how to get people to care.
Joe: When you're getting this message out regarding human's relationship with the environment, I think there's pros and cons to addressing it in both documentary and narrative style. Is it something [00:26:00] that you would be interested?
Creating films of both genres, documentary and narrative. Are you drawn towards a documentary addressing any of these issues as well? Or do you think that the themes that you're trying to portray are better expressed through narrative?
Phillip: I think any medium is good. It's whatever medium is best for that specific thing.
I've worked on documentaries that were specific to a call to action, to a region, to certain people, to a place. And I think it's really good. at getting to people to care about a specific thing and a specific action that they can take. I think the awareness that documentaries can bring is crucial. I think with narrative you have the ability to go beyond reality and tap into magical realism and hit these parts of people's hearts that have more to do with this magical storytelling.
It doesn't need to be real to touch people's hearts, as we all know. [00:27:00] So I think they're both powerful, but just. in different
Joe: ways. I think that there's, there's a time and a place for everything. But the thing that turns a lot of people off about documentaries, if you're talking about something like an inconvenient truth is people never know what's fact and fiction.
We live in this world that's entertainment based, sadly, even on a political level, everything is entertainment based and in the era of fake news, we don't really know what is. Being presented to us if it's fact or fiction.
Phillip: Yeah. And I think what people have learned and some people use this for good. Some people use this for bad is that facts don't matter.
It's how we emotionally relate to each other. I could tell you statistics about climate change that would sober anyone up, but will it get you to act as much as this emotional narrative that ties you to someone that if I don't do this, this is going to hurt these people. This is gonna [00:28:00] hurt me. I think people relate to emotion a lot more than facts and you can make an emotional documentary, you can make an emotional narrative, you can make an emotional animation, you can make an emotional photograph, painting, as long as it taps into that part and gets them to care and feel compassionate towards a place or a person or all of us.
I think that's what matters.
Joe: So let me wrap up talking about Story of the Sun this way. It's currently being sent out to many film festivals and I encourage everybody to go see it if they can. Where might people be able to receive information about this project as far as, oh, what festival is it in?
Where can I check it out?
Phillip: Yeah, so definitely check out storyofthesun. com. I'll be doing updates on news and screenings there. So definitely go check that out. You can send me your email to stay up to date with the film. I highly encourage [00:29:00] you to do that because that's probably the best way for you to receive information.
My page is philgladkoff. com. P H I L I P G L A D K O V on both Instagram and TikTok. And I post about the story and BTS of the stop motion, as well as my other birchbark and filmmaking projects, so definitely check that out.
Joe: Awesome. And before I let you go, there's something that we have to go back and talk about because in my notes here, you wrote that you are an amateur mycologist.
Phillip: Yes, I've only been loosely studying mycology since like 2016, 17 ish. Amateur comes from the latin word to love. It's someone who loves doing something, so that's who I am. I'm not a professional, this isn't my career, and I haven't gone to school for it, but it's something that I love a lot, and so I try and learn as much about it as I can.
Both with mycology and ecology in general. Mycology is the study of fungi. [00:30:00] Through that, I've learned a lot about ecology and our environment in general. It's been a pathway for me. My journey started when a friend of mine got really into it and signed up to the Long Island Mushroom Club and got me to join.
And I would go on walks with them and quickly realize how much I loved it. It felt like a scavenger hunt. It was a way for me to connect with my Cultural roots because my parents and their grandparents just grew up looking for mushrooms. That's something people in Eastern Europe just did as a hobby.
And so I was able to bring them on the walks to and be like, Hey, these are the edible mushrooms in this country where we live now. So it was a really beautiful way to connect with them, with my culture. And also with the environment, because you learn to come back to a place again and again and you learn about what trees are there and what fungi are growing in relation with those trees and what flowers are growing around it, [00:31:00] it really slows you down and connects you to the space into the environment, which is amazing.
Not something I had. I love nature, but I just didn't have that relationship of really sitting there and learning what was there and taking the time to stop and observe and not just hike with a destination or not just be there for some beautiful view or something like that. It really was a special way to connect with nature.
The land.
Joe: Earlier I was talking about how you can get inspiration by walking around New York City and seeing the museums, but it's also true that you can get this inspiration by escaping into nature and getting away from the noise and, the buzz of it all where do you find that you get most of your ideas as an artist, as a creative,
Phillip: sometimes at random moments.
I mean everything we are inspired by and all the things we get are from the external world around us so nothing's [00:32:00] fully my idea but it comes to me at random moments. I do find moments of like stillness in the forest really inspiring but also being at this film festival and seeing so many talented people and other people's work is also really inspiring and motivating.
Often when I do get an idea, it's a very kind of clear vision of what I want it to be all at once. And it develops from there, but it's usually, oh, I want to make a piece of birchbark painting that looks exactly like this. And then I'm like, okay, time to get started, time to figure out how to make that possible.
So that's something I really love is when the idea is just like a quick download. Oh, I want to do this. And it's just time to start that project.
Joe: And I'm going to end the podcast with a question that I frame for all of my guests. If you could pass along a piece of advice to [00:33:00] yourself as a young artist, if there's one piece of advice that you could pass along to anyone looking to create a life in the arts and creativity, what would that advice be?
Phillip: There's two, there's one that's important for the soul and there's one that's just a little. I'll start with the business one tip to get that one out of the way real quick is that as important are the projects that you're making, it's also important to market them and to think about creative ways to get them in front of the people you want them to see, because for a long time, I spent a lot of time and effort working on the projects and the beauty of them.
Um, and. the detail. I'm very detail oriented, and I wasn't thinking too much about how to get them in front of the people that I wanted to see them. And that's something that I'm learning now, and I think that's something that people should think about a little bit earlier on, and it'll be really [00:34:00] helpful for them.
But even more importantly than that, you can have expectations and expectations Can guide you towards how you want your projects to turn out. But if you are not enjoying it while you're doing it, it's going to be a very disappointing journey. It really is about the process. If you're not enjoying the process, then you'll find that the end result is anticlimactic.
And that's something I'm so grateful about this project is that. I was enjoying the journey. I was loving working with the birchbark. I met beautiful people who are now friends and collaborators working on this project. And even though I did have those times of anxiety of, Oh no, are people going to receive this film?
Was it going to get into festivals? Like, I still had the reassurance of, I loved making this project and it was really fun. And in the past, it wasn't always like that. Sometimes I let the anxiety get the best of me and be like, Oh, is this film going to be successful? Is this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that is not the way to approach art.
Art [00:35:00] is about process. And it's, if you're not enjoying it, then what's
the point?
Joe: You have to love the process and not focus on the end result. Cause then at the end of the day, you are going to love it. You are going to be in love with your work and you're going to be in love with your life as well.
That's beautiful. Thank you so much for that. And thank you so much just for being here today, Philip, and sharing your art with us, sharing your story. And I encourage everybody, please go to the website, go to social media. I'll put all of these links in the show notes so anyone can go check it out and give you a follow and we can't wait to follow you on your journey.
Phillip: Thank you so much for this podcast. I'm so grateful to you. And it has been a pleasure talking to you. And I feel like I've had a lot of beautiful things to reflect on and ideas and questions that I'm inspired by and are going to sprout [00:36:00] into other things. So truly, thank you for that.