0026 - The Weight - Micah Whitson - Capture The Flag
Shownotes
As much as we try and downplay them, it’s apparent that symbols carry a great weight in our culture. Whether it be a flag, a statue, a logo, or anything else, symbols have the power to rally a people together or tear them apart; a truth known all too well in the state of Mississippi. After years of public outcry, Mississippi recently retired its flag which featured the battle flag of the Confederacy and is now in a heavily publicized process to select a new banner that unifies the populace.
One flag that has garnered significant support is the Great River Flag designed by Micah Whitson, who joins us on this episode of The Weight. A southern expatriate, Micah launched an online art store called “The Old Try” with the purpose of uplifting the South and connecting those who call it home. This purpose is reflected in the Great River Flag, a design uniquely purposed to go beyond just a simple banner, but rather being used in a multitude of formats that celebrates some of the hidden gems of Mississippi culture.
Micah talks to Eddie and Chris about how his passion to uplift the beauty of southern culture led him to design his state flag submission. He reflects on the power of representation and the role that aesthetics play in cultivating a sense of unity and pride. As a man of deep faith, he also shares the role that the teachings of Jesus Christ play in shaping his work.
The Weight Afterthoughts
We've realized that a lot of great conversation actually happens AFTER we say goodbye to our guests and turn the microphones off. So, we decided to turn the mics back on (and a camera) and create a new segment called, Afterthoughts.
This will live on our new YouTube channel and you can find our Afterthoughts on this episode NOW!
Click here to watch!
Resources
Learn more about the Great River Flag and the many utilizations the branding can provide: https://greatriverflag.com/
Check out Micah’s other work on his online shop The Old Try.
Follow Micah on the web: https://micahwhitson.com/
Follow The Old Try on Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOldTry/?ref=br_rs
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theoldtry/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheOldTry
Follow The Great River Flag on Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greatriverflag/
Instagram: https://twitter.com/flagriver
Twitter: https://twitter.com/flagriver
Full Transcript:
Chris McAlilly : 0:00
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester : 0:01
And I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly : 0:02
Welcome to The Weight. We're here today with a designe,r and his name is Micah Whitson.
Eddie Rester : 0:08
Micah lives actually in Boston. So he lives outside the South, but he's from the South, attended Ole Miss, and he has submitted a design for Mississippi, for the new Mississippi flag. This is a moment that's important in Mississippi. The conversation around replacing the Mississippi flag has been ongoing for 20 years or more. It's had moments where it seemed close or at least we were going to talk about it. It's always fallen down. Until this summer. The legislature voted to remove it. We don't have a flag right now. In fact, I went to the Wikipedia page for state flags. There's just a gray box there from Mississippi. So we don't have a state flag. There's a process in place, and Micah has put a lot of thought into not just his design, but why a new flag is important for Mississippi right now.
Chris McAlilly : 1:00
You'll hear this probably after the selections have been narrowed further. We're not sure yet if if Micah's flag, which is called The Great River flag, will make it into the final selections. But that's not as important as kind of the moment and the conversation and the way in which we kind of push into what the place, the role of place and memory and aesthetics and design have in our world today personally, within the realm of commerce, within the life of faith. And for our kind of state, social, and political life, our shared life together. This was a fun conversation.
Eddie Rester : 1:42
It really was.
Chris McAlilly : 1:43
And I hope you enjoy it. Like it, share it, and tell your buddies, tell your friends.
Eddie Rester : 1:50
Tell your friends about it. Tell your people.
Chris McAlilly : 1:52
Tell your people.
Eddie Rester : 1:53
Your mom and them.
Chris McAlilly : 1:54
Your mom and them. Your mom and them? [LAUGHTER]
Eddie Rester : 1:58
[INTRO] Let's be honest, there are some topics that are too heavy for a 20 minute sermon. There are issues that need conversation, not just explanation.
Chris McAlilly : 2:06
We believe that the church is called to engage in a way that honors the weightiness and importance of these topics for how we live faithfully today. We'll cover everything from art to mental health, social injustice to the future of the church.
Eddie Rester : 2:17
If it's something that culture talks about, we need to be talking about it, too. [END INTRO] We're here this afternoon with Micah Whitson. Micah, welcome to the show.
Micah Whitson : 2:28
Thanks for having me.
Eddie Rester : 2:30
You have the Old Try, which is a kind of an art and print business. But the reason that we've got you on the show today is because you've submitted what is a very popular flag design for the state of Mississippi. So we want to talk about that in just a little bit. But you came to Ole Miss from out of state, as you said earlier, before we started recording, during the Eli administration. So where did you move here from? What drew you to Oxford and Ole Miss?
Micah Whitson : 3:02
I grew up in a town called Athens, Alabama. And it is where the Alabama Shakes are from, and Philip Rivers is from there as well. And at the time, you know, honestly, just, I don't know how I picked Ole Miss necessarily. There were a bunch of guys from high school, we were all looking to go somewhere together. Alabama and Auburn, you know, is where everyone kind of went from our town. And at the time, Chancellor Khayat was making a big push for out-of-state students. And so it was something, you know, if you tested well, that I think the testing scores were just kind of pegged with some amount of funding, and so the better you did, you know, the closer you could get to a ride. And so we all took our tests and did well, and so me and, like, five other buddies just picked Ole Miss and all went with pretty good packages at the beginning just because Mississippi needed some out-of-staters to come and, uh, I don't know, shake it up.
Chris McAlilly : 4:01
[LAUGHTER] I wonder, so when you were... Ole Miss isn't really known as a design school, per se. How did you land while you were at Ole Miss? I guess, how did you discover that that was going to be your trajectory?
Micah Whitson : 4:16
I came for business and studied marketing in the business school and just did design in Oxford off of a pirated copy of Photoshop on a floppy disk. And so this was even before you know, CD ROM burners or whatever. So I had Photoshop and I was just trying to design, because I just thought it would be fun. And so I'd go to Proud Larry's and, you know, hang outside, not old enough to go inside, and, like, "You guys need new posters for Blue Mountain?" And they're like, "No, we don't." So I'd make them anyway.
Chris McAlilly : 4:53
Blue Canoe.
Micah Whitson : 4:55
Yeah. So I just did design at Ole Miss. Kind of did it with Ole Miss Outdoors in the Turner Center and did all their branding and stuff for a few years. And really just, it was a great way to kind of express whatever you know I had locked up in my soul. I don't really view myself as an artist, necessarily, more of a kind of visual problem solver. So I'm like, "You got a concert Larry's. We got to tell people about it. Let's do it in the coolest way possible, and solve that problem." And so after Ole Miss, went to design school because I wanted to learn how to actually do that, because I had no background in it. So I never took an art class at Ole Miss.
Chris McAlilly : 5:41
What do you... I'm interested in that distinction between artist and visual problem solver. I guess one thing I would say is, it feels like graphic design, design in general, branding, all of these things are, I mean, it's pervasive in our culture at the moment. What's the difference in your mind? Why would you, why draw a distinction?
Micah Whitson : 6:02
I think for me, largely, I approach it from a kind of a commerce standpoint. Which is, I think that there are there are people who have so much kind of creativity in their soul, and they just want to express these things. They go out and they paint and they create, because it's a way to, I don't, you know, kind of scratch that itch. And for me, I kind of approach it from a slightly different way, which is, like, you know, "Chris, you've got a sweet restaurant. We need to make sure that people think that this place is as great as it is. And we'll do that by putting the right kind of graphics with it and telegraph the right feeling that we want people to have and let's package that up and let's put it together." And there's like, you know, skill to it and craft to it, and it is an art. But yeah, I just have never been the kind of guy that, you know, shows up and I'm like, "I'm an artist."
Chris McAlilly : 6:55
Right. It seems to me that you do that. Not just for Proud Larry's or for a particular band or brand, but you've always... With with Old Try, it's almost as if you're trying, I don't know. You're not, clearly you're not attempting to rebrand the South, but it's almost like you want people to see how awesome the South is or could be. And I think particularly, after Ole Miss you ultimately land in Boston. Talk a little bit about that. I guess, your relationship to the South as home and the way in which that comes across particularly in your business.
Micah Whitson : 7:35
So being apart from home, it was probably after living in Boston four years that I started just wanting to connect with place, you know. And it's interesting, you go to Ole Miss, and you, at least I never read Faulkner while I was there. I'm like, "It seems seems a little long in the tooth." And so but later, you know, people are like, "Oh, you were in Mississippi. That's so cool! You were in Faulkner country." And so I started reading more stuff from people that were around, you know, in town--Barry Hannah and, you know, Larry Brown. And then reading about other authors who were southerners who had left the South and lived in New York, or like Curtis Wilkie, up here in Boston. And people that had this kind of duality thing, this, like, this pull home, but this kind of like, I don't... whatever it is. This, like, repulsion away as well, where you're like, "I don't want to live there right now, but I can't shake it." And so I was trying to kind of process that, and that's it. To get back to problem solving, Old Try was just my way of really kind of exploring and reconciling my kind of demons of being a Southerner and solving the problem for myself. To go, "what is it like to be from Mississippi and not be able to fly a flag that has a confederate emblem in it?" Like, how do I show that I'm proud of a place? I want to do that. And I don't have an appropriate venue to go through. And so Old Try is... You know, when I sold something finally, I do remember 10 years ago I sold the first thing and my wife's like, "You're an artist. People are buying your art and hanging it up." And like, that's the first time that I actually had become an artist and wasn't just someone making graphics for commerce. But it's, uh... Yeah, Old Try is kind of my life thesis at this point.
Eddie Rester : 9:25
Well, you know, I've got a piece of your work hanging in my house. I didn't realize it until yesterday. I was like, "well, I've got one of his, hanging in the guest room." So it's there. You mentioned the the flag, Mississippi flag. I want us to move towards that. You were here '99 to '03. You got to watch Eli throw for a billion yards. But the other thing that happened during your time here was in 2001, Mississippi took a vote on the flag. It was the flag referendum that year. Do you remember anything about it or any feelings about that, conversations that you had about that while you were at Ole Miss?
Micah Whitson : 10:06
To be honest, I wouldn't be able to pull something from memory, other than the fact that if I do recall, there... Wasn't the referendum just like, "Do you want to change the flag? And here's a subpar option."
Eddie Rester : 10:21
Exactly. That's exactly what it was.
Micah Whitson : 10:23
Yeah, so I think that it's, um... So I remember that. I remember not being overly surprised by the outcome, because I was like, "Eh." I mean, you know, you have to... there's a lot of change management to change something that is familiar to something that's new, and the same process is going to repeat itself. But also, it's new, and it's not necessarily exciting, like, well, why would you? Why would you do that? Like it's not compelling. So honestly, I don't remember a whole lot happening. I just remember it being kind of like a, you know, a swing and a miss.
Chris McAlilly : 11:00
What is a flag? I mean, why would a state have a flag? ... You've now kind of presented an alternative to the current one, and have submitted the Great River flag into the conversation. And I know that you've spent some time, I've listened to a couple other podcasts that you've been on, you spent some time kind of thinking about what the role of a flag is over against another form of symbolism. What's going on? Why is it that states have flags? And then what's the difference between a good and a bad flag? Can you speak? Is there a way to think about that objectively?
Micah Whitson : 11:37
Yeah, I've got some thoughts being that, you know, flags are just kind of stand-ins for brands. They just represent something. And they're only given meaning by what sits behind it, like the Union Jack, you know. We see it, and we think things that it represents. We think, like, whatever key and, like, you know, MG cars and the Queen and the Tower Bridge and all this stuff, because it just is there as kind of a stand-in to represent whatever it's representing. And then if the stuff that's representing is good, we think of it as being, I guess, a good flag, and if the stuff doesn't, you know, represent something good, we... I think we placed a burden on these things to kind of be representative of everything, or to communicate everything, when in reality, they're just wayfinding. You know, they were for troops to find their group of people. And I think states have flags now, you know, largely just because historically they've had flags. Like, we don't have to go find our stuff. But I think there is... We like visual symbolism, and we like to all kind of rally together under something and you know, you go in a crowd and you look for your friends, and you look at people and these banners. I'm not answering your question at all. I don't... I think the flags are just, like, they're really just logo-y things. And I think that states want to represent what they are and in flags, you know, you see the Tennessee flag or let's say the Kentucky flag, perhaps because there's some there. You see it and you may think bourbon. Or you may think you know the Kentucky Wildcats. But you look at them and you kind of read what you want to into the flags themselves. You don't look at the Kentucky flag and go, "Oh my gosh, look, it's, you know, Daniel Boone shaking someone's hand and it says 'United We Stand, Divided We Fall,' and there's, you know, whatever buckwheat surrounding it and, you know, a semi-wreath laurel thing." You're just like, "Yeah, bourbon. That's what it kind of stands for."
Eddie Rester : 13:45
Yeah, I think that's part of what flags do. I think you're right. Nobody's going to get into the minutiae of it, but they do kind of give you a feeling, some semblance of intuition about a place. You know I think about the Arizona flag with the different color of the stars. It's a good-looking flag, and it makes me feel good about the state of Arizona. I've only been there once, but I feel better. You know what I mean?
Chris McAlilly : 14:12
Yeah, I do. Especially being a Mississippi kid and growing up and kind of having a love/hate relationship with that reality. I remember the first time I went to soccer camp up in North Carolina and meeting kids from up in the northeast, and they're like, "Oh, you're from Mississippi." And it's, like, a thing. You know, Mississippi does have a kind of image problem. And I think that's why the flag conversation feels so much like an opportunity, because it's an opportunity for the state to kind of put forward something new and to kind of step into maybe a new, I don't know, kind of a new moment. But it's also like, Mississippi is gonna Mississippi, you know?
Micah Whitson : 14:53
Yeah, yeah.
Chris McAlilly : 14:53
And it kind of feels like any good thing that happens in Mississippi is shrouded by all these different realities, whether they be political or just we, we just tend to kind of like, I don't know...
Eddie Rester : 15:07
Can't get out of our own way.
Chris McAlilly : 15:08
Yeah, we can't get out of our own way. And that's in a lot of different dynamics, I think. So talk a little bit about I mean, you've spoken in other places and written about--and if you really want to kind of take a deep dive on the Great River flag, you can do that on the website greatriverflag.com. If somebody's really interested in the details, maybe they could go find it there.--Could you maybe just talk big picture and broad strokes and what you're trying to do there?
Micah Whitson : 15:33
Yeah. So here's what I'll do. I'll answer this question. And then if you want to dig in, ask me... I realized the other day, I was listening to a podcast, like, I went way too deep in type, and nobody cares. No one cares about type as much as you care about type.
Eddie Rester : 15:45
But it's a cool story about type. So for folks who are interested in type, it is worth people going to figure out why you chose the type you did. But I'll let you go.
Micah Whitson : 15:57
What I wanted to do, the way I kind of approached it and the way that I approach Old Try, it's just grounded in place. And it's all about a connection to where you're from. And that connection defines you. Or you define it for good or ill, but we are simply made up of the places that we've lived and that we spent time. It's just the reality, and we run to them or away from them. And so, with Mississippi, I was trying to really approach it from what would a designer be doing in 1817, if they were given the task of drawing up a flag? Because what do they know? They know that there is the edge of the American frontier, it's the Mississippi River, and that's as far west as we've come. They would know the different flags that had flown over the territory, the Spanish, French, and British. They would know 40 years of the story of, you know, of the colonies and in seeing their experiences. And then they would know the aspirations and the kind of ideals that they were bringing to form this state. And so that's kind of I guess the, you know, the zeitgeist that they would kind of be sitting within. And then at their disposal, they would have things to look at. If you look at the original 13 colonies, probably 10 of them, maybe somewhere around 10, are just seals on fields of solid color. Whether or not that makes a good or bad flag is completely debatable. Some people say that a seal on a flag is not a flag, but New Mexico is a seal on a flag and we often call it, you know, the best flag of the US. So you can debate that. But a designer looking that direction would say, "All right, well, I've got this kind of visual language that is the currency for what flags are, and if I don't want to be extremely progressive, I could stick within that kind of language." They would have the territorial seal that was cast and brought down from Philadelphia. They could have looked at that and said, "Well, this is a mark for the state. It's been here, you know, sitting in this..." whatever the state capitol at the time was. "I've got that. And I've got this new type." There was just the first sans serif type that was available was made in 1816. So I use those kind of facts of if we're looking at flags in New England, kind of looking at some dot in the middle of the field. And if we're looking at, you know, at heraldry, kind of American heraldry, and in particular, the territorial seal and type, what could we do to combine those things and make something that would kind of represent the state at the time. So that's how I approached the assignment, was just getting in that mind space there to kind of combine the elements.
Chris McAlilly : 18:50
The Old Try project kind of begins with a desire to kind of explore Southern letterpress and you kind of move beyond kind of fonts that we normally deal with in digital spaces. But I think one of the things that was unique about this task was that the legislature, when they said that they were going to remove the the current flag said that one of the parameters was going to be you have to put "In God we trust" on the flag. There's a conversation and debate that has happened and swirls around whether or not that's good or bad. And then there's some design questions, but it seems like you were kind of building... you kind of decided to start with that rather than end with it.
Eddie Rester : 19:33
Stick it somewhere on the flag.
Chris McAlilly : 19:34
Right. Talk through that. I mean, I guess, what is it about letters and letterpress, and then kind of how we think about fonts now, but they used to be like types and typefaces. Why is that such an interesting design element for you, as you're pursuing your work?
Micah Whitson : 19:54
For me, it's... I don't have kind of control over a lot of elements in design. Like I said, I'm not an illustrator. So I'm not a painter. I don't kind of render things well in tin. I don't really like dealing in colors that much because we all bring our baggage to color. So if you make a logo and you make it orange, someone's like, "That's really cool, except for, like, an orange killed my father." And you're like, "Great, well, that just killed the logo." And so people bring baggage to seeing purple and like, "I hate that because of the color," and you're like, "What do you want me to do?" That's one reason the Old Try brand is just black and white. Because it just it is what it is. So I gravitated toward type because I think that the type is really beautiful and what it, how it is formed and how it is shaped and the way that it can communicate so much. Like, the selection of typeface says just as much as the words that sit on top of it. And so with the flag assignment, rather than running away from the hardest part, like, I wanted to embrace the brief. I didn't want to design a flag with "In God we trust" on it, because that's the hardest thing to do is to make a flag with type on it.
Eddie Rester : 21:10
With words on it.
Micah Whitson : 21:10
Yeah, that's against, like, the best practices and the rules. But that was number one rule. Yeah. And so that was, uh... So you know, you can either embrace it or hide it, and I chose to embrace it. And so that's where, when the assignment, you know, or when the submission opening came out, and I saw that it had to have the words on it, you know, my brain just started going directly to the type and thinking about Caslon and Trajan and these things that now we view as fonts on a machine but Trajan were the first Romanesque letters that came off a column that in Rome, that were there to celebrate some Roman victory and that's where it came from, is that there were, you know, X number of Roman letters on there and then they were turned into type. But type, you know, has history in the real world of being etched or inked or carved, and that just to me is just kind of, like, what I gravitate towards is the, you know, physical manufactured word. Because in the beginning, the Word.
Eddie Rester : 22:10
The beginning was the Word. I liked how you slid that right in there.
Chris McAlilly : 22:22
I wanted to ask you, on the website it says you designed in memory of a good friend of yours, "a mentor, pastor, and boss, the late Troy Young of Lafayette County. He gave me my first design job and showed me who God was and what a man could be." Could you talk a little bit about Troy Young and maybe kind of, just, kind of what you say there about his mentorship?
Micah Whitson : 22:47
Yeah, absolutely. Do you guys know Troy?
Chris McAlilly : 22:49
I have a friend that knew him. No, I don't know him, but I know of him and have a lot of connections kind of to him.
Micah Whitson : 22:58
Troy was just a a phenomenal human being. And the thing was that my tale of Ole Miss was a tale, it's kind of two halves. It was not unlike Ole Miss football. But it was, you know, I came in from out of state kind of lost, kind of lonely. Yeah, I was a hippie. I drove a Volkswagen bus. I had long hair. I listened to Phish. I was just trying to find, like, a way to kind of find my people. And I went to work at Ole Miss Outdoors, and Troy was there in the Turner Center, and he just kind of put up with, you know, me. Like a lot of college kids. We're trying to figure out who we are, and we don't know much of anything. But he was just there, and he was just a presence and he was patient. He was just around to to be a sounding board and to not cast judgment, and to be around someone like that when you're, you know, when you're trying to figure stuff out and to see the kind of ballast that they can help, you know, impact your life with without ever talking about spirituality or about Jesus or anything like that. He was just... he was there, you know, when I didn't have any faith and then as I became a believer before my junior year, he was there to go, "Great. Now we can talk about whatever you wanna talk about now," you know, like, let's just, let's go for it. And he just was a presence. And he married my wife and I in North Carolina 12 years ago next week. And the last person that I saw on my way out of Oxford, heading to Atlanta to design school was a stop by Troy's farm because I wanted to celebrate with him because he was just good at valuing people and celebrating people and being there for them. And so that's, you know, getting the call that he had passed of a heart attack earlier this year, I flew back to Mississippi for the funeral and it was, you know, it was a hard thing to deal with. But seeing the legacy that he left on my life and so many other people's lives, was just a big testament to just being a kind of a faithful husband and father and disciple.
Eddie Rester : 25:23
You know, he's one of those people, really the best of Mississippi, and that you would create the flag in his memory really speaks to, I think, at least in my mind, of wanting to create something that represents the very best of who we are have been and can be down the road. You know, I think that this flag can be aspirational for us, not just reflective for us. Thinking about the flag. We're recording this on June the 13th. Tomorrow on June the 14th, they'll pick five out of 147 semi-finalists, kind of move into a new phase of, not the competition, kind of the picking of things. I think they're actually going to make flags out of them and do different things with them. So, you know, this will come out a week from now, which means your flag may not be in that final group. We hope it is, but it may not be in that final group. Why is this moment in your mind, whether it includes your flag going forward or not, why is this moment so important to the state of Mississippi?
Micah Whitson : 26:40
I think it's a an opportunity to get something right. I think that uh, there's a lot, like you were saying earlier, Mississippi is gonna Mississippi. And there are things where you see, like, "Ah, you had the shot." Like, you had the chance to make a decision, and for a whole host of reasons, you know, the outcome wasn't what, you know, some people wanted. And it was the outcome that other folks wanted. And I think that this really is just the opportunity to... no one else can do this. There hasn't been, what was the last state admitted? Alaska in, like, 1911? Someone fact check me on that.
Eddie Rester : 27:22
1950-something... 19 what
Micah Whitson : 27:24
Perfect.
Eddie Rester : 27:24
Alaska was after World War II, wasn't it? And then Hawaii.
Chris McAlilly : 27:27
I don't know, man, that's a long way away from Mississippi.
Micah Whitson : 27:30
But, you know, Alaska, probably had a flag before then. I don't know. But, you know, no one's had a shot at doing this. And no... you know, Georgia did it and, you know, kind of, I think, you know, swing and a miss there.
Chris McAlilly : 27:45
[LAUGHTER] I think I better look at the Georgia flag.
Micah Whitson : 27:47
Oh, my gosh, and the history. But this opportunity doesn't come around. And I think Mississippi could really lean into this moment and it could get something that that would represent the people of Mississippi more appropriately. It doesn't have to... Like I said earlier, I think that we place a lot of burden on flags to say, like, we need to represent everything and every part of the state and every section of the state and all the ideals of the state and all the political views of the state. And that's a lot of
Eddie Rester : 28:23
A lot of baggage.
Micah Whitson : 28:24
Yeah, a lot of weight to put on something that ultimately is like no, this symbol is going to fly and you all represent all that stuff. Like it's up to you. It's up to Mississippi to represent what they want to represent to the rest of the nation. But I think this is just a really great opportunity to not just get a new flag but to get a flag that will make other states honestly go like, "Come on man. Why are we stuck with this thing with like, you know, three jumping gazelles and a 14 hay wagons?"
Eddie Rester : 28:56
Yeah, or something we can't read because it's just old and broken up there. So yeah.
Micah Whitson : 29:03
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly : 29:03
I want to come back to this this question of branding, aesthetics. This is something that we think about a fair amount. Cody Hickman, who's our producer on the podcast, we have this running conversation and we've started exploring a little bit more on the podcast. So just the role of just aesthetics, the role of aesthetics in what makes for a good life, what makes for, you know, a good brand, in the world of commerce. But then also what it is about beauty that is almost this dimension that's, kind of, it's not talked about enough, I think, in the church and in circles of faith. I mean, we talk a lot about, you know, faith as being true or untrue or I believe, or I don't believe or whatever. And then there's also like a big conversation around morality that the church often engages in. But I find myself, you know, for me when I was 20, 21 years old, I would, you know, go to the big cathedrals like in Europe for the first time. And you kind of get to see what the church has produced in terms of aesthetic beauty. I was overcome by that stuff. And it really gave me a different way in. I guess, how do you think about all that? How do you think about the role of aesthetics in all the different realms of our life? Whether it's personal expression, or commerce and business and branding, or kind of, you know, faith and church?
Micah Whitson : 30:34
Hoo boy. I...
Chris McAlilly : 30:37
Give you just a softball question.
Eddie Rester : 30:38
Chris likes to ask the really long, hard difficult questions.
Chris McAlilly : 30:42
I'm sorry, man! This is what I'm thinking about, and I'm putting it out there. You can answer or not. It doesn't matter.
Micah Whitson : 30:48
No, I think, I mean, personally, I think that a, in like a... I'm going to stammer. So someone told me a while ago, they're like, "You know, you're a verbal processor." I'm like, "You're right, that's why I feel like I'm really not with it. Because it takes me a minute to wind up." So, yeah, is it... Who was it? Martin Luther or Martin Luther King or someone else that was talking about you know, whatever it is you're doing, you're doing it for God. It's a representation of of who you are. So if you're gonna be a, you know, trash man, be the best damn trash man you can be. And if you're gonna be a designer, do it all for the glory of the kingdom.
Eddie Rester : 31:28
That was Martin Luther, and he actually said if you're going to be an executioner, then be the best executioner you can be.
Chris McAlilly : 31:35
I didn't know that.
Eddie Rester : 31:36
Yeah.
Micah Whitson : 31:37
There we go.
Chris McAlilly : 31:37
That makes it weirder.
Eddie Rester : 31:38
Yeah.
Micah Whitson : 31:41
We're turning.
Eddie Rester : 31:44
But you're a designer. Be the best designer.
Chris McAlilly : 31:45
Yeah, we can go with that.
Micah Whitson : 31:48
And to me, it, you know, design and aesthetics--and you can have different views on what is beautiful, you know, when we look at stuff that the church made, and so you know, some of it's really ornate and some of it's really austere, but the kind of the craft and the level of consideration and detail that goes into it is really important. And I feel that way as a designer. Like on this project, I'm like, you know, I can't... I'm doing this thing because I want to throw everything possible at it. And I want to make sure that when all the, you know, when it's all done, said and done, I didn't leave something unexplored and, kind of, I didn't hold back because, by God, this is for the state of Mississippi and this is for, you know, the representing of people that I care about very much to the rest of of the world. But also, like, this is what I've been gifted at. And this is my skill and my craft and I want to do it and, you know... I feel like I was thinking about Old Try. You know, I've done this thing for 10 years and like, is the only reason I did Old Try was to set me up for this moment in time to be able to have a legitimate voice in the conversation? Because, like, who the hell am I? I'm from Alabama and I live in Boston, like, why should anybody in Mississippi be talking about my design? But, you know, doing your craft and committing to it and being consistent with it, I think speaks volumes for you know, for how you, I don' t know, how you approach life or your craft or design so, so I just find it's important to like, exhaust it all because, you know, we're here for a short amount of time and if we're, you know, if we're told to be an executioner let's go execute some things.
Eddie Rester : 33:39
"Things."
Chris McAlilly : 33:39
"Some things."
Eddie Rester : 33:42
Well, well said.
Chris McAlilly : 33:43
[LAUGHTER]
Micah Whitson : 33:44
Yes. The worst the worst paraphrasing of Martin Luther.
Eddie Rester : 33:48
Ever.
Micah Whitson : 33:49
In the history of this podcast.
Chris McAlilly : 33:51
[LAUGHTER]
Eddie Rester : 33:51
We just want to edit all this out. No, I'm kidding.
Chris McAlilly : 33:54
[LAUGHTER] Oh, yeah. That's funny.
Eddie Rester : 33:56
The, you know, I think about as you talk about doing well and you think about aesthetics and design, the church, for centuries, was the place of beauty and design and aesthetic, whether it was music or architectural design or art. I mean, we wouldn't have art if the church hadn't commissioned art for centuries upon centuries upon centuries. And I think, just as I think about kind of church making the turn in the last, maybe 10 years or so, we've gone from choosing really blank boxes of rooms and places and spaces to... it's not a return yet to the beauty that the church once expressed. But I think we've made the turn, whether it's architecture, or imagery, or art, or even music, again to say, "we've got something we can express and express well." And I'm thankful for people like you, who keep doing that and keep reminding us that we can express things with beauty as a reflection of the God that we serve and the God that we follow, the God who created us as an expression of beauty as well. As you think about the flag, it's, you know, the one that we had 126 years--it had a pretty good run, pretty long run--there aren't many things design-wise, that stick around that long, that don't express. I think one of the reasons for me it's important to get this right is that, when my great-great-great-grandkids are looking at the flag that we chose right now, I want them, 126 years from now, not to be having to go, "Man, we got to get rid of this thing." Which is a kind of where we came to I think as a state with that. What do you think, what pieces of your design do you think will be... "timeless" is the wrong word, but can push 125, 130 years forward?
Micah Whitson : 36:09
Of the flag design?
Eddie Rester : 36:10
Of your flag design, yeah.
Micah Whitson : 36:12
Oh, boy. Well, man. I don't know. I think that I mean, I think that it's like you're talking about that with the church and I think that, um, I think there are truths--and I guess this is kind of debatable--but you know, for me, there are truths because I believe you know, in Jesus and God and believe. And so like the content of the hymns, I'm like, hey, you know, I want great polish on top of this, but I want to make sure that the hymns that I'm singing aren't the "Jesus is my boyfriend" hymns because, like, eh, I don't think that's actually true. But something in the meat of it, you go, "Okay, that's theologically extremely sound and sits with the truth of, you know, what I believe." And I think that in this design, you know, there's a lot of discussion--rightfully so--that people are like, "Oh, it looks like the K-Swiss logo." Or, "It looks like Union Pacific" And it does look like those, because those things and my thing just both pulled from escutcheons, which are hundreds of years old. And what's amazing is they're hundreds of years old and go back to, you know, heraldry, but still look contemporary. And so I think in picking type that has been around for 200 years but still people are like, "I don't know, man that type's a little to modern." You're like, "Okay, cool." Like that's, it's interesting that it's really old and geometric and at the same time feels extremely now and contemporary. And you can have a different point of view on whether or not you like it. That's, you know, completely up to you. But to kind of look at the, I guess the whole to say hey, these kind of... the shapes that these came from are kind of evergreen. And they're not original by any means, but they're combined in a way that represents this moment in time, you know. It is very, I guess, now in how they're coming together. But I don't know, I guess in looking to the past and starting with stuff that is, you know, 250 years old, that hopefully it will age well. And 250 years from now you go, "Okay."
Eddie Rester : 38:23
"It still looks good." Yeah.
Micah Whitson : 38:25
Yeah. Or doesn't look, yeah, it doesn't look bad or dated. It doesn't look like you know, 1930s church carvings or something as opposed to, you know, something that is hundreds and hundreds of years old, that you're like, "good Lord, how'd they do that?"
Chris McAlilly : 38:42
On Old Try, one of the things that I noticed is that 10% of purchases go to Foster Box. I wondered if you might talk a little bit about that. Is that something that your wife Mariana got off the ground?
Micah Whitson : 38:59
Yeah. We have friends who we went to church with who became foster parents. And they realized that in becoming foster parents, that an issue that parents have is that you're given sometimes half a day or a day's time. And last week, you had a 13-year-old girl, and then tomorrow, you're going to have a four-year-old boy. And so there's this gap between when you're given the information of who you're going to be fostering and when you actually have stuff to foster them with. Because the reality is a lot of these kids show up into these situations with, you know, a small bag of the only belongings they have, and they were, you know, removed from situations that are less than ideal. And they come into this with nothing And so our friends who fostered realize that need, and my wife, you know, very much just has a heart for helping people and so they started this 501c3 called Foster Box. The whole thing is that you go on the website, you say I'm getting a six-year-old boy, and then they go to their storage locations and pull together stuff and then drive to the people's house and then drop off a box of things to get them through the first... I can't remember if it's, you know, five days or a week or something. But it's just serving, serving a need, and serving a community here in Boston. And that's, you know, we are fortunate. I run this letterpress shop out of the basement and I also have a day job, and like, you know, I, I want... I spend a lot of time designing. I don't spend a whole lot of time serving. And so I want to make sure that that in what we're doing, we're able to serve through that and use it as a vehicle to help others. And so we've chosen to go that route and support--since our stuff's all about home, you know--help support the people that are, you know, working through issues of home themselves.
Eddie Rester : 39:50
For folks who aren't familiar with the websites, theoldtry.com. So go check that out and support Foster Box. One last question for you. What's your hope for the future of Mississippi or the South? What do you hope for the region that birthed you, that gave you your education, that you're dreaming of a flag for, for part of it? What's your hope?
Micah Whitson : 41:19
My honest hope as a, you know, Bible-believing Southerner living outside of the South and seeing how these things kind of, you know, relate or don't relate, don't connect. And it's kind of in my write-up for the flag: the star on top is representing truth, and, you know, the ideals of truth and goodness. And I think that I observe--and it's not unique to the South--but I do see that for outsiders in particular, there's this view of the South is there's this big religious sheen on top of all these things that are, you know, very much go against the teachings of Jesus. And those are because we've kind of laid political systems on top of relationships. And so I think that I would hope for, you know, for the South is that, you know, that there's more--and this is for the South and the United States and the world--but that we would just see more actions that that kind of align with what we espouse as our values. And especially as you know, followers of Jesus that we would remove the labels of politics and different you know, sects of religion and we just look at what the teachings are of Jesus and then we live those out.
Eddie Rester : 42:44
Well, thank you for that. Thank you for your time today. We appreciate you. Appreciate the work that you put in on the Great River flag. And hopefully we'll get to have a conversation with you in the future--Cody's over here, he's got his hands in the air--get to have a few conversation with you in the about the new flag of the state of Mississippi. So thank you for your commitment to Mississippi and the South.
Chris McAlilly : 43:08
Thanks, man. Thanks for your time today.
Micah Whitson : 43:11
Absolutely. Thank you guys for giving a shout. I appreciate it. It was fun.
Eddie Rester : 43:14
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening today. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And go ahead and hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts.
Chris McAlilly : 43:25
This wouldn't be possible without our partner, General Board of Higher Education in Ministry. We want to thank also our producer Cody Hickman. Follow us next week. We'll be back with another episode of The Weight. [END OUTRO]