Welcome to Neuroprovocateurs, the podcast all about neurodiversity and self acceptance. Want to hear all about how neurodiversity affects culture, relationships, sexuality and identity? You’ve come to the right place.
On this episode, hosts Jessica Stoya and Pam Shaffer chatted with artist Steve Cleff his Aphrodite graphic novel and visual art project where he explores the goddess’ various forms and her cultural significance. He highlights his relationship with Aphrodite Mixus, representing the synthesis of different elements, and Aphrodite Pandemos, associated with political harmony. Steve's work is influenced by his synesthesia, where he associates colors with sounds and emotions. He lets us in on his creative process collaborating with his wife Trish and discusses his synesthetic playlists which help him visualize colors while painting. The conversation touches on the broader themes of empathy and understanding different experiences to create better art and be better people navigating the world. Best of all, Steve and Pam get to ramble about their special interests in Greek mythology and creativity while Jessica gets to enjoy her special interest of putting her two wacky friends in the same virtual place and recording the results all while Pixel cat is in her lap.
You can find Steve Cleff’s work on his official website and support the Aphrodite project on his Patreon.
Artists and books mentioned in this episode include:
Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire
Episode Notes
Steve Cleff
That's what I'm seeing when I interpret what's happening in the different societies and the roles of the different individuals. And you, you do see a break from nature, where nature becomes something instead of something. You're part of something to be conquered, right? And there's this separation there, and it sets up this perpetual conflict of things that used to be harmonious well,
Pam Shaffer
and it's like, if you're trying to conquer the thing that you also revere and fear, you get real weird about it. You
Jessica Stoya
I neglected to say push record before the most amazing introductions exchange
Pam Shaffer
we could we could aim for a dramatic recreation. I don't know what accent I affected.
Jessica Stoya
It's not, it's never the same. So I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do a, you know, trademark story, a ramble. TM when we were talking about meeting one last guest for season one. I said to Pam, I was just talking to my friend Steve. Steve clef, you got to be precise, with all the Steves in America, you gotta there's a lot of Steve, yeah, he's doing a big project. It's been going on for years on Aphrodite, and he's kind of ready at this point to start talking about it in public, showing pieces of it to the world. And the the neurodiversity thing, neuro provocateurs, that's the overarching theme. Steve, are you? Are you good to talk about how synesthesia effects, because we've been working together, Steve and I for like, 20 years. So I've heard a lot over the years, but there's, you know, we often have these separations between what we want on the public internet about how our brains work as it was like, Pam, Aphrodite synesthesia. What do you think? And Pam was like, Yeah, let's do it. And, like, eight days later, here we are.
Steve Cleff
So yeah, I'm happy to describe anything about synesthesia. I can't think of anything sensitive or embarrassing about it. So ask anything you want to know about that or that project or anything, and thanks for
Jessica Stoya
having me awesome. I, I, I'm just gonna ask Pam, you look so excited. What is your most burning question about Aphrodite, please. Let's have it.
Pam Shaffer
I was just like two of my special interests. One, human How exciting. How brains work. Greek mythology that extends beyond Greece.
Steve Cleff
There's a nice, I guess connection with Aphrodite in that there's many, many versions of Aphrodite, and one is Aphrodite mixus, maybe my favorite version, and it's basically when you combine two things and come up with a third thing. So here we are.
Pam Shaffer
Yes, I remember learning about that there were so many specific Aphrodite varietals, because I think of both Aphrodite and then, like Hecate, who also is a goddess that extends way beyond, like the Greek mythology version. And it's so fascinating to me that everyone kind of rolls them into one, or has like one idea of the Goddess. And I'm like, oh, oh, how did you start discovering the different aspects of Aphrodite? Yeah,
Steve Cleff
I have a friend who's also friends with Jess Caitlin foisey, who's just incredible everything, writer, artist, person, and we were talking about Aphrodite one day, and she said something about two aphrodites, and I hadn't heard of that before, even though I thought I had a decent knowledge of Greek mythology. And just for some background, I was kind of an Artemis guy. She was goth, and she she was independent, and all these qualities that I thought Aphrodite didn't have, right? So I had the kind of common perception of Aphrodite, as you see in pop culture, where she's vain and shallow. And you know this, that perception of like the vain, vapid, vulgar Venus, right? Right? And that was kind of what I had. And so I set off to find out more about two aphrodites. And I learned first about Aphrodite Morning Star, or Venus Morning Star and Venus evening star, which are two aspects of the Deity. And that goes back to prior deities Inanna and Ishtar, and many of them, which you know, but the average person doesn't. And then I read about Aphrodite uranium and Aphrodite pandemics in Plato's Symposium. And so I have to tell you that when I'm reading this, it's the summer of 2020, and we've got, yeah, it's fun times, and we've got a raging epidemic, we've got a recession, we've got, you know, a very volatile election that is happening where we don't know the fate of the world, and we had the George Floyd verdict, and the subsequent reaction to that verdict, and all that's happening. And, you know, I'm kind of feeling at the time like I feel foolish making art. You know, it seems self indulgent, and it seems like nothing in the face of everything that we need to manage. And so there's a reason why I give you that background. So I'm reading Plato's Symposium, and someone's summary of it, and he talks about two different types of love. And he talks about the love associated with Aphrodite Urania, which, in his opinion, is the good kind, which is about the love that men share amongst themselves when they're talking philosophy, and they're just hanging out and they're thinking about higher level things. And then the bad kind, which is from Aphrodite pandemos, which is about, you know, the physical connection between men and women, how that's a distraction from greater pursuits. And my first response was like, What an asshole, right? Like, why? Why is he putting these judgments on these things and and, you know, I was joking with a friend who was explaining, like, this is the original bros before hose statement, right? Where it's good to pursue one thing that has nothing to do with women and bad to pursue another thing that involves women, and I'm going to use this representation of women to further my opinion that people should be doing one thing and shouldn't be doing another. And so I just just set off to learn more. And learned about 70 or so aphrodites, and that's just within Greece, and then all the antecedents going back to the beginnings of civilization and and then followed it up through today. So that's how I got started. Was being annoyed. But the thing that was interesting was that there was a typo for the person who would summarize this, and they called her Aphrodite pandemic. And so I just freaked out in the middle of a pandemic and and it made me think it planted a seed that turned into the story that I'm in the middle of writing with my wife, that I can talk about in a little bit. But it was just, it was shocking to see, you know, that there was two and there was an Aphrodite pandemic, and, you know, oh, and I have to tell you that part of the responsibilities of Aphrodite pandemos In Athens, about 400 BCE was to maintain political harmony. Yes, so we're all tearing each other apart in the middle of a pandemic. And here's this figure whose job it is to achieve harmony amongst divisive groups, and she's incorrectly named as pandemic,
Jessica Stoya
but Aphrodite pandemos is the one that in Plato's Symposium, is representative of the love between men and women. Okay, and that's, it's very, it's very, very. Do you know where I'm going? I
Pam Shaffer
think so. But I also have the linguistic explanation of why she would be called that in Athens at the time,
Jessica Stoya
not where I'm going at all, but I want to know it just, I'm thinking of like the what was it early 90s, men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Like this, like, idea that men and women are so separate, and, like, the whole internet knows how bad my periods are. My dude yesterday was like, I just It's stressful because I don't know what you want me to do to help? And I'm like, well, there's nothing you can do to help. And there is, there is a very real, if we're using kind of gender essentialist biological categories, there is something profoundly different about a body that menstruates and a body that doesn't, hasn't and never will experientially, so that there is, like one very visceral gap in experiences, but then it's the Aphrodite who connects these people, who's also the embodiment of helping groups that might not in. Inherently understand each other, connect and get along to have that right
Pam Shaffer
that actually does connect to linguistically, what it means too, which is amazing. I was like nerdy aside. And then back to Steve, because this is really fascinating, and what it auto correct. But pan is all and demos is the demes. So the demes were how the Athenian military in society was divided into little groups. And so that is where demo crossi, democratos comes from. You voted by deem and you voted with the kratoi, the little little stone guys. So pan demos would be all of the deems together. You have to get along. You have to get along with each other to actually make society run. And so you have to have empathy for each other, and you have to understand each other, and you got to kind of be on board with each other, otherwise, Athens goes. And like to to say that that kind of love is not important, is basically Plato being like, but I like to sit around and think with my boys. I just want to sit around and think with my boyfriends, like, why do you want me to do anything else?
Steve Cleff
Yeah, exactly. Don't judge me for
Pam Shaffer
wanting to hang out with with my men folk and write things all day. That's just what I want to do. My classics major has finally come in useful.
Jessica Stoya
Does anyone know if pandemic shares like certain in the sense of, oh, this virus is happening to everyone.
Steve Cleff
That's my understanding is that, I mean, of the people, so we all
Steve Cleff
share it, yep, yep.
Jessica Stoya
We all Oh, and did we
Pam Shaffer
ever? And did we ever? It's funny because I haven't read the symposium in a long time, and I had forgotten about that. But like, there, there was a lot in Greek culture that very much, in some ways, revered certain things about the quote, feminine, but then also was very dismissive towards the feminine, almost in everyday life, like they were, like, what a mystery. We respect it from like, over here, just go do some mysteries on that island so that, like, our harvest will work out. But like in everyday life, like, maybe don't,
Steve Cleff
right, and you're not allowed to own anything. And it's been fascinating seeing the the assumptions I would have as someone who's not steeped in history learning about history being dispelled, right? So there that you would think that, having grown up in a civilization where women are subordinate and not allowed to be in positions of power, and certainly in religions. It's surprising to see religions where there are women with prominence yet are still revered, in a society where women are supported, I hope that that makes sense, but I would assume that, oh, if, if, if Ishtar was a highly revered, very, extremely powerful deity, then the role of women in that society would be not a subordinate. And it was quite the opposite, right, right?
Pam Shaffer
Which is fascinating, because then, when you were saying about like, oh, like, making art during this time, what am I doing? I'm like, Oh no, it's his art that teaches us these lessons so things can change.
Steve Cleff
It's the shock that it's so well hidden. And so my kind of thesis for the whole thing was that Aphrodite was used as a tool to enforce a patriarchy,
Pam Shaffer
like the version of Aphrodite, like the small, kind of like sliver of Aphrodite that we see now in popular culture. Do you mean or Well, that's
Steve Cleff
what I started with initially, and then I found all along the way that, yeah, every time I looked at a at a civilization or society where women were subordinate, those women figures were used to enforce that, right? So, so Aphrodite is was kind of named by the Greeks, but existed as a deity on the island of Cyprus before that, as kind of an unnamed deity. And Aphrodite is really the collision of a goddess from the east and this goddess who was on Cyprus. I'm going to talk about the Goddess from the east for a second. So in Mesopotamia, where we've got our first written word and some organization of civilization, there was a pantheon of gods and goddesses, and one was a goddess of love and sex and fertility, but also of war and other qualities that later pantheons kind of assigned to male deities. She was just extremely powerful and fascinating, and as civilization kind of migrated a little bit west in Samaria, we had Inanna. But then she became Ishtar in Samaria. And then in Phoenicia, which is Syria modern day, she became a starter. And as people from there kind of came. Uh, mixed with people from Cyprus, that goddess and Astarte kind of combined. And then when the Greeks arrived, she informed what became Aphrodite. So that's just the reason why I tell that history is because Aphrodite, as we know her, is, like, at least 6000 years old and predates the Greeks in a number of different forms. You know, I learned about Mesopotamian maybe grade five or something. So as I'm learning and remembering about this, you know, I'm learning that Hammurabi codified laws, and a lot of these laws aren't favorable towards women, right? You can't own property. Men can have affairs, but you can't. There's lots of consequences for people who have abortions. And I'm, I'm trying to piece this together as a novice and understand, well, how does this fit with this? You know, very powerful goddess of Ishtar. And I see that Hammurabi said, I mean, non his favorite, right? And what I interpret that is, is that you should, one of the reasons you should believe what I'm saying is because, you know, if you're a woman and you don't like what these rules are, let me put some of the blame onto this deity that you worship, who is also
Pam Shaffer
let me take on as a man, the audacity to say that I am speaking for Inanna that is bold.
Pam Shaffer
Where do they find the audacity?
Steve Cleff
You know, I mean, I was trying to trace the origin of it, right? Where does it all come from? I have some theories, and I don't really have the answer. I mean, there's some functional reasons. And if you read creation of the patriarchy, I'm blanking on her name, but I think it's Greta Lerner. You know, there's some explanation of functional purposes, of how a patriarchy started, where your tribe would encounter another tribe, and you would battle and you would kill the men and enslave the women because it was easier to manage, right? You see some functional roots. It's devious, but it's practical, but it's not about Audacity. What I have not seen written explicitly, but I've kind of pieced together, is that there was a period in history where women were revered and the first God, the first deities, were all goddesses for maybe 36,000 years, and man was connected with nature and saw this miraculous ability of women to give birth as a not only a a physical miraculous thing, but a very metaphorical thing, of of transformation and growth. And men are wondering like, and what do I do? Right? Why am I special? And you see a creation of things that aren't necessarily inevitable, like kingships and being a priest and being a banker and being a general and these things that are constructed as functional roles that make them feel special. And so, like I said, I haven't seen like the missing link of how this all fits together, but that's what I'm seeing when I interpret what's happening in the different societies and the roles of the different individuals. And you, you do see a break from nature, where nature becomes something instead of something. You're part of something to be conquered, right? And there's this separation there, and it sets up this perpetual conflict of things that used to be harmonious, well?
Pam Shaffer
And it's like if you're trying to conquer the thing that you also revere and fear, you get real weird about
Jessica Stoya
it. It's the garbage can with the pedestal in it. In the cases that we have been discussing for the past several minutes, it's specifically women. But as soon as you're looking at a person sticking them on a pedestal, they're no longer an equal human, and then you end up with this self generated power struggle of like, Oh, you're so much better than me, but now I feel bad, so I have to subjugate you so I feel better, and it's like, dude, nobody asked for this drama. What age
Pam Shaffer
did I ask?
Steve Cleff
Well, at the same time, a lot of these myths and tales have lessons of you can be special. You can be special through growth. You can be special through, you know, internal growth, bringing things together, building, creating. You can be special through song and writing and art. You could even if you grew a civilization, and that's like an expression of community and growth, you're doing special things. It's not, it didn't have to be that way, right? It's not to say that people who can't have children have no function right and aren't miraculous. It's to say, what do you do with those opportunities? Do you subjugate a group that you're jealous of or afraid of, or do you find your own ways to
Pam Shaffer
create and transform. There was an anecdote that my therapist told me, and she was like, Oh, I don't know if you'll remember this. And then she launched into a story. And I was just like, I'm going to remember this more than probably anything else you've ever told me. But it's like, of course, I'm going to remember the extremely obscure Lake potato story, but she was anything else, no idea, but she was demonstrating to me a story of positive masculinity, because my partner was asking me about examples of positive masculinity, because he has oft been accused of being a boy lesbian. He was teased about being gay in high school, and he's like, why? Because I treat people with kindness and decency. Do people assume different things about my sexuality, which are also, by the way, totally awesome, things just happen to be things I'm not interested in.
Steve Cleff
He's like,
Pam Shaffer
why? And so she was like, Oh, well, give him this story, and I did, and he was like, What the hell by this lake where it is extremely high altitude, there is there are people living there, and they still live in the ways that they did for however long people have lived there. And one of those ways is that they don't have electricity, so they don't have, like, refrigerators and freezers. So they need to preserve their food. Somehow, one of the things that grows there is potatoes. One of the ways to preserve potatoes is basically to kind of freeze dry them. So what they do is they like, half dig up the potatoes, but then they leave them closer to the surface so that the dirt curates them overnight, so it kind of freeze dries the potatoes in the dirt, but they built like kind of a circle of stones around all the potatoes, and you have to keep animals away from your potatoes while they're freeze drying. So the men in this culture sleep with the potatoes on the potato freezing night because they're like the food for our group depends on these potatoes. We are going to sleep on these potatoes so that no animals get to them, and then the next day, like the women and the children come and they all do whatever it is that they do to the potatoes after they unearth them, like they all work together, but it is the men's very important job that they're like, We are the protectors of basically a lot of our sustenance for the next season. So, like, she used that as an example of positive masculinity, of like, we respect what the Earth does. We respect that it actually preserves our potatoes for us, if we kind of judge them a little bit. But also we gotta respect that. Like, someone's gotta guard the potatoes otherwise, like, once they're close to the surface, the animals nearby can come and easily get them. So she was like, that's kind of how she sees it as, like, men can see what's happening with the proverbial potatoes. And if they yank the potatoes out of the ground, if they try and like, do other things with the potatoes, it actually ruins the potatoes. If they're like, it is our job to literally protect sleep with the potatoes, make sure they are okay. Excellent. Like you did it.
Jessica Stoya
I know, I know one of the running themes of the podcast is my like. And here's my different perspective from Serbia, and it very often comes back to the gender roles here are pretty, pretty rigid, and the the men are very straight, or they're not straight. So broadly speaking, you cannot kiss them when you have lip gloss on, because then they're wearing lip gloss, and that's so weird for them. But strangely, and my gut says these things are connected. You can expect men to do actual nurturing and actual care taking and like you know, if the cost of this is that they're a little squeamish about having lip gloss on their mouth, even if it's because they kissed a woman they're attracted to, like, the day, I think it's fine.
Pam Shaffer
At first, I was like, Huh? Then I was like, you know, then I would get to keep more of my lip gloss.
Jessica Stoya
Yeah,
Pam Shaffer
it works out really well. I'm reliving. A moment in which, last night, my lip balm was forcibly stolen from my lips, in fact, by my boyfriend. He was like, I forgot my lip balm. And I was like, Oh, that's too bad. He was like, also his reaction to to my menstrual cycle is to bake increasingly elaborate baked goods to mollify what we call the sad walrus time, which is often followed by the Oh no, I'm full of hamsters time. He's like, maybe if I bake the right thing. And the collection of hamsters very kind to you.
Jessica Stoya
And it's like, you know, I'm just gonna very sloppily call this like a normal worshipful relationship towards a goddess, as opposed to a deeply pathological one like Hammurabi, seems angry. Let me offer baked goods. All right, I've taken us to Hammurabi. I'm gonna pivot. Speaking of other non pathological relationships to women, be they goddesses or Trish, who's you know, poorest? Oh yeah, yeah, I'm really curious what the creative process is between Trish and yourself in this graphic novel that's come out of all the Aphrodite research.
Steve Cleff
Yeah, so Trish, my wife has been forever as I was doing the research, I thought, especially in the summer of 20 wouldn't it be great if we had a modern day Aphrodite to fix everything? What would that look like? What if our pandemic was, were that everyone was infected with empathy instead of a respiratory virus? How would that play out? So the craft of writing. I mean, Trisha is a good writer. I've seen her writing, but I'm breaking things down. Of this is how the different structure act, structure works. And this is, you know, when we're doing character backstory, let's start with their trauma, and then it's going to tell us about their current behavior, and then their fear. And just like a lot of the structure and work, and then the what should it be in the sensibility, and then the creative ideas are back and forth, and we'll work on that together, and it's just the coolest thing ever. Like I have always been interested in writing, and when I was listening to podcasts of the husband and wife team who did Westworld, and they were talking about how Joy was pregnant when they were breaking Westworld, and they spent a year just doing that, and it's like, Oh, my God, that sounds like the perfect life like that would be great. They just working together and doing this for a living. And so I don't know that we'll ever do this for a living. You know, I can't really think about any of that, because it gets in the way of the progress of the story. But we get to sample what that life is like in these little moments where we get to work together and plan it out and and so then I will go and do the I'll write the script, and then I'll write it by her, you know, so then she's kind of like an editor, and I'm just always checking with her on things. And, you know, I brought something up the other day. It was just like, this little note that I had, and we don't really have these moments often, but she laughs. She's like, that's very male, the way that you did that. And I was like, well, that's why we're talking, right? You know, help me understand. So it's cool. It's, you know, there's, there's times when you know you're gonna have a different relationship with a creative partner that you have with your, you know, your life partner. And I just have to do it. Well, do you know what I mean? Like, I can't be selfish about my idea, and I can't, you know, it's easy for me, as a man in my society to be really forceful and kind of bulldoze without knowing it or wanting to do it. And so I'm just like, aware of those kinds of things. Of, you know, be creative in a way that's creatively productive, but always prioritize the respectfulness of the relationship and the interaction, because that's what matters, even if you never get to move forward with the story, like, don't piss off Trish because she's because you love her and she deserves your respect, which
Pam Shaffer
is very in the spirit with Pan demos. So I'm like, go on, yes, embodying that one as well.
Steve Cleff
I mean, I'm trying, you know, it's not second nature, right? I just was not raised that way and and, you know, certain things are more positively reinforced in my society that that contradict that. But I'm just trying to be aware, right? And try. To think about. You know, who do I want to be and how am I not disingenuous when I work on this project?
Pam Shaffer
May I ask a question about the sensory experience of working with your wife? Because you it sounds like the two of you do have very different sensory processing experiences of the world. If you are, is she also synesthetic? Or no,
Steve Cleff
we have a lot in common, but she's not synesthetic, but I would say that she's we're both visual thinkers,
Steve Cleff
and we have differences, too. I'm very much like a systems thinker, like I need to understand how things operate before I can understand them, and she can just get things, you know, without having to know atomic structure, you know. So we complement each other in some ways, but, um, but we do also frequently say the same thing at the same time, and you know, so it's a mix that's
Pam Shaffer
interesting. Like thinking about what you were saying about, like character breakdown and things like that, and being a visual thinker. Did you find yourself at all like having images come first, or colors come first, or, like the feeling of that and that informing the words, or the other way around,
Steve Cleff
it's always colors with me. I mean, everything is, yeah, I think in colors I, you know, would I'm
Steve Cleff
trying to verbalize this, but yes, the colors always come first. For people who don't know me, I should take a quick step back and say, so I have several forms of synesthesia. Synesthesia, if you don't know means that you're you've got some senses that are intertwined in a way where they both fire at the same time. One of the more common forms of synesthesia is this color graphing synesthesia, where if somebody hears a number or letter, they associate a color with that. So I have that kind. I have chromeesthesia, which means when I hear any sound, I see a colorful shape in my mind's eye, but I also see that colorful shape if I smell or taste or touch something and I associate different emotions with colors. So if somebody feels a certain way, you know, my brain interprets that by playing a little movie of different colors depending on what their mood is, and so, but I think of concepts and colors. And so when I think of stories, I see a little parade of colors, and then I start to think of pictures, and then I think of words.
Jessica Stoya
Can I interrupt for a minute with a very distant nostalgia memory moment, if I recall correctly so Steve and I met because he needed models to do poses for him to then kind of base watercolors on
Steve Cleff
you had blue hair at the time, which is why I was like I determined to work with
Jessica Stoya
I had Liz Bierman blue hair. So it wasn't like, it wasn't like, dump a bucket of manic panic on your head, like it had like layers and like, you know, you had like plumage. She was an artist who had no other Canvas but people's heads.
Pam Shaffer
That's amazing.
Steve Cleff
Yeah, I remember then you showed up with lavender hair. And I was like, All right, I have to think about different
Jessica Stoya
things. I felt so bad. It was like, usually you like, warn people when your dimensions change. But I should have thought, I should have
Steve Cleff
thought different color. Great. No, there's some great paintings that came from, from that, that session, but, yeah, I mean, I was, I was basically just painting colors at that time. I didn't really have, you know, now I've got this, there's, there's lots of story behind the things that I paint. But then it was just pure emotion and color, which is really fun. I kind of want to get back to that. I started this series. This series, like, kind of erupted, where it started off as six figures, and now it's 36 and it's kind of related to the Aphrodite, but the project could operate fine without it, but I'm just realizing, as I'm talking to you now about this, they're very elemental and very just about emotions, like paint. You know, one of them is just painting calmness, and one of them is painting anger. And I'm realizing that I think my brain was trying to get back to that way we used to work in this context. So thanks for indulging me to understand myself. But Pam, what were you?
Jessica Stoya
Thanks for sharing all of that. This is I mean. Pam, I'm looking at you to verify, but this is kind of where the podcast is like, oh yes, we're doing it right.
Pam Shaffer
Exactly, exactly. I have the color, sound emotion in my head. I don't know what the name of that one is, but I was talking about it on the music episode that. That's when I'm mixing my songs or choosing kind of sound palettes, I know that it's the right one because it's the it's the right color for that song. And like, like, collections of songs end up taking on kind of, like, complimentary colors to one another. And so it's like, it's not necessarily like a consistent sound that's associated with a color. It's almost like it has to strike me, and then the color happens.
Steve Cleff
I have a similar thing where the emotion color pairing is different than the sound color pairing. And so I find myself sometimes having to listen to music that doesn't fit, but the instruments trigger the sounds of the color associated with the emotion that I want to paint. That's fascinating. And so I have my painting music, which isn't always my entertainment music, because it's playing the colors in my head when I listen to it that I need to see when I paint to come through that painting. But if I'm just driving around in my car, I might not listen to that. Yeah, there's times when I'll find myself painting like I'll especially during the pandemic. But even still, we do these art jams with artists all around the world. We all paint together at the same time on a zoom. And if I need to really feel what I'm painting, I can't do that because, you know, they're going to bring up weird TV shows they liked, or some fight with their landlord, or whatever. And that's different colors, right? And so I have to figure out things that I could paint that are more about, all right, I've got the emotion set, and I just need to paint a lot of folds in a drapery or whatever. And it doesn't matter if the colors are wrong while I'm painting it, I can persevere through that,
Pam Shaffer
right? You mentioned something in an interview that stood out to me was the other thought was that like you had presupposed that everybody was like this. What that is, what children do is like we kind of presuppose that everyone has the experience that we have. And I was curious, because I did not realize that other people did not have these sensitivities or overlaps. And so to me, it just seemed like everyone was just doing a really great job of, like, being real cool about things. And so I was like, Maybe I need to be cooler about things. Maybe things need to everyone else is going around clearly with these kinds of perceptions, but they're being a lot more chill than I am. What What brought it to your I guess, like, what brought it to your conscious mind that you had a different experience than others. And I guess, what was that like? Being like, oh, not everybody sees things this way.
Steve Cleff
I had always, yeah, how did I find out that not everybody did this? I think I just asked somebody like, you know, do you see the same squiggles I see when I hear Jimi Hendrix, you know? And they were just like, What are you talking about? No, no one sees squiggles when they when they listen to any music, but, but part of what got me there was I started thinking about how I associated colors with numbers, and I just thought like, oh, well, I must or letters, actually, I must have, when I was in school and they were introduced in letters. You know, a lot of classrooms will have the alphabet on the wall, and they must have just been in those colors, and that's what I associated with. And then I remember, like, No, it was, it was handwriting, it was white letters on a black background. Well, that's strange. Where did it come from? And so I started Googling, you know, seeing colors with numbers. And then I first encountered the term synesthesia. And then it, you know, just described, like, you know, 4% of the population has this, and it's genetic, and, you know, all the things that you learn about synesthesia. And so I kind of felt special. I felt good, like it was, you know, superpower and colors are so important in my world. I realized, like, there's another existence where I wouldn't have had all this, and I prefer this existence with all the colors, you know, they're so they're so important. So then I, you know, I talked to people. I didn't tell people for a long time, you know, obviously I told Trish. Maybe I've told my parents about it, but for a long time, I didn't say anything, because it seemed like no one's gonna believe me, or it's just going to bring, you know, unwanted attention. And then I remember when I would work at a company, maybe, like, a year or two into it, if I had good friends, I might tell somebody about it. And now I just kind of tell whomever I don't know. I just, I got used to it. It's I felt less. You know what? It gets weird. You know, people start to see you as, like, entertainment or something other, right? Well, you know, what's this color? What's that color? And, you know, do some tricks for me and and I'm fine with that now, but at the time, it was just not desirable to get that type of like, uncomfortable attention. But the other thing that has changed things is now there's three or four interviews with me out there talking about this stuff. So if you you Google Steve clef, you'll see it. And so then I actually started putting in my artist bio and just saying, like, This informs why I paint, what I paint. I'm trying to paint emotions, and I see them as colors. And so that's why this looks like it does. Because my paintings are, you know, they're very. Brand. They're very unrealistic. Colors, unrepresentational, technically, I guess you could call me a Fauvist in art, art speak. But I want to explain that that's like a feature, not a bug, and and that it's tied into something with some meaning, as opposed to a superficial inclination. Adjusts. You know, use magenta and turquoise all over the place.
Jessica Stoya
The second module of my undergrad, which I may or may not finish because I banked my credits and have until February to circle back and finish it up. It's basically like an Intro to Psychology, and they're doing this thing with the curriculum, where they're like, hey, it's been a few weeks. You want something flashy here synesthesia. And in the synesthesia part we did, there were all sorts of, you know, really interesting facts about like the synesthesia Stroop test, and how people with synesthesia will demonstrably and persistently associate the same colors with each number or word or whatever, where people who are making it up and trying to remember, like, Come back a few months later, nothing. But then, as like the the big finale to that section, really can hear, is a painting with some colors and what the artist sees it. But it was just, it was just kind of colors, and you would click on this patch of color and say, okay, the artist feels this. And I remember being so irritated, because I know of one artist who has synesthesia, and it's all very visceral, and, you know, kind of legible, like you're looking at your painting, Steve, and really getting a sense of like something, even as a person who doesn't directly associate feelings with colors. And so I'm like, this is the part I'm worried is going to come out bad. I'm like, I'm sure there's more artists like this where you have like, a real experience as a viewer, and they're just like, click on the color will tell you what it means to the guy who put it there. And I'm like, missed opportunity.
Steve Cleff
Yeah, I Well, I'm fairly aware of that, right? So I know that I couldn't just paint colors because they don't mean anything to anyone else, right? And that's your job as an artist, is to capture and evoke emotion. And the worst thing you could hear as an artist is like, someone's lack of a feeling towards something you create, right? Like, oh yeah, it's nice. It's nice. I could only draw stick figures, like, you know, you you want people to cry or scream, right when you see your work. And so I know that, like, and maybe it's because among synesthetes, like, our colors are different for each other, right? So, like it and, you know, I was talking to somebody, and I said, like, well, what's your A? And they're like, oh, it's red. I'm like, you know, what's up? Yeah, A is red, you know, but plenty of people a is yellow, and so my sons have it, and all of us have different alphabets. And so it'd be super cool if there was some untapped part of consciousness where there was this undercurrent of meaning associated with colors, and only synesthetes could could access it. And if you painted a certain color, people would feel a certain way, because you all share that universally. That'd be awesome. But it's not the case, right? It's just like, you know, for me, hope is blue, and so I need to paint something hopeful, or something that looks like hope, and I will make it blue because it helps me care about it. But if I assumed that somebody else would feel hopeful just because I painted blue, it's I would assume they'd have the reaction you had. And I don't think it's anything to apologize for. I mean, as an artist, I say that anyone who takes the chance to express themselves should be, you know, supported and respected. But you know, there's also a job as an artist to think about the person who's looking at your work. I think
Jessica Stoya
coming off of the specialness I love what I'm perceiving, as you saying a couple minutes ago, that it would be really cool to be somewhat collectively accessing like a a pocket of like shared which um, as as much as every person with ADHD or autism or the combo platter is different, there is. Among all three groups this frequent, like, oh my god, a person whose brain kind of brains the same. We're all on Linux. This is
Pam Shaffer
and sure you might have different customizations than me,
Pam Shaffer
what you said reminded me, I don't I don't know if either of you have read the book The history of color, which is about like the associations throughout time and different cultures. It's a cross cultural and art history reference of the signifiers of different colors. So I think it's just the seven basic ones, but it's really interesting thinking about why a synesthete might associate, potentially a color with a specific word emotion. Like when you said the thing about, like, the color of a I was like, Oh, I wonder sevens are aggressive to him as well. Like, sevens are just real aggro. I don't know why, but, like, chill for me, wow. Anytime I see a seven, I'm
Steve Cleff
like, it's this weird thing where, where sevens are mostly blue, but there's some green. And it's, somehow, it's this, like, sarcasm to it, you know, it doesn't, yeah, yeah. It's, it's nice to talk to somebody who understands, like, seven
Pam Shaffer
sevens have an edge, whereas, like twos and eights. I'm just like, Oh, hi. But like, sevens are just, like, really aggressive to me. Yeah, I'm so curious. Also, like, I would love to know the music that you listen to potentially when crafting some of the paintings that I've seen, because I'm curious what they sound like to you, because they have a certain sound to me, much like when I am crafting something. That's why I've even designed my room a certain way to evoke the feelings that I like to evoke. I'm like, Oh, that would be really interesting to, like, like, almost like reverse engineer, the experience
Jessica Stoya
when we when we had the Aphrodite mixes, my brain went mixtape, but it wasn't really the time and the conversation to ask for that, is there to piggyback? Is there an Aphrodite mixtape?
Steve Cleff
Yes, it's interesting. The Aphrodite pandemic playlist is more about the lyrics and the people who are singing it. And then there's an Aphrodite playlist, which is slightly different, but again, it's really not about how it sounds. It's just saying, you know, it's bringing certain artists who have an energy that I think fits, and certain lyrics, there was a crossover. There's an artist named Ella minus who I think is Colombian, but the music fits and the lyrics fit. And it's not often that I find that. I'm sure there's lots of those out there, but it would require a lot of hunting to find that stuff. I would love for somebody's algorithm to start feeding me these things, but they're making matches based on like music structure and instruments and things like that, and not so much like Steve synesthetic spectrum. Overlaid with with meaning. But, um, I listen to a lot of electronica, which, you know, is a mix like, like, sometimes it's it can be meaningful, and sometimes it's not. And you know, it serves a different purpose. But the instruments really trigger a lot of the violets and turquoises and magentas that I need in what I do, yes, and a lot of the music where the lyrics fit what I'm talking about, just like, shows up as, like, yellow and black. And I'm not going to paint to that. So, so I have to figure out, you know, how it all fits. The band tool is actually pretty perfect. The music evokes colors. In fact, tools my favorite band now, and there was a time where I thought tool was okay, and I wound up with a ticket to their 2001 lateralis tour. And I was like, Oh yeah, I like tool. And, you know, music's good, and they have some bass, and I hadn't really heard the album that had come out, because I was in Hawaii and I was disconnected from the world, or I would have liked them, but I go there, and the show looks like my brain. It's all, it's all magenta and violet and turquoise. They have these performance artists whose name I can never remember, coming out and walking around and doing amazing things. My now friend Chet czars animations are playing up. I mean, it looked inside my head. It was like one of the craziest experiences I ever had. And then I went and listened to the lyrics, and they're informed by, you know, Jung and philosophy and psychology, and there's astrology in there. And it's just, I was like, Oh, this has everything. And so I listened to lauderdales. Every day for 10 years,
Pam Shaffer
this completely tracks. I've often wondered if the people that Maynard works with are synesthetic for that reason, especially some of like the album art that I think it's Alex Gray has done.
Steve Cleff
Alex gray is still to the well, I know Chet synesthetic, but he's synesthetic in an interesting way, where he is lexical. I gas stream. I forget what it's called, but he has a taste when he hears a certain word, wow, yeah, which is, and if you don't know Chet, he is, what you may not know is, like, he's the nicest guy in the world, but he's also like a legendary dark artist. He's like maybe the most prominent dark artists around today, and so his synesthesia doesn't really factor into his art that much, because he's got the you know, he's not painting food. He taps into a subconscious of struggles of the psyche and a lot of embracing the darkness and understanding people's fears and but also the sympathy that he has towards monsters. So he's an interesting guy. I just don't know if they do for Chet, I know it's, yeah. I mean, I can ask him, but, but, so it's like words have taste, but words have taste. I don't know if feelings have taste, you know, like, I so, so, like I said, I have like, five or six different kinds, and a lot of people only, they may only have color grapheme, or they might have the kind where some people see days of the week as physical shape. And so not everybody has multiple kinds. So I don't know if chet's Like, every taste is like his color. I want to, if I'm in a position, someday, curate a show with a bunch of synesthetes. I know a lot of them. Kelly McKernan is an artist who has very vibrant colors and is an artist Allison summer, there's a bunch of them out there. I'm forgetting people now, and I feel bad that I forget them, but they translate it in different ways. And then I recently discovered I forget what I was looking at yesterday that apparently Billie Eilish and Beyonce and Olivia Rodrigo all have the same kind that we have, where they see colors when they hear sounds. I was just
Pam Shaffer
going to bring that up that Billie Eilish has spoken about in an interview, that she produces her music primarily with her brother Phineas. And it's fascinating to me, because when I first heard her music, I really connected with it, and I couldn't figure out exactly why, but like it felt so correct. And even though I would say lyrically, sometimes I relate and sometimes I don't, there's the texture of the sound, and the way that she sings like definitely is very vivid to me. And then the way that she then I saw used color in her art made so much sense to me. I was like, Oh yeah, okay, this tracks. And then when she mentioned being synesthetic, I was like, oh, okay, yes, correct. Makes sense. You know
Steve Cleff
what's interesting? So, yeah, I get a lot of vivid imagery when I hear her music. And actually, I started the Aphrodite pandemos playlist with a lot of songs from her 2019 album. I forget, where do we all go when we're sleeping? Or I forget, when we all fall asleep, where do we go? There we go. Thank you and but I just see a lot of like, blacks and silver and pink, like I have not yet found the painting project that would fit with the colors that I see when I listen to her music, or at least that album, some of her other stuff more recently is, like, brighter. One of the things I was excited about with that album was that it visually, chromatically, it was very dark with lots of slivers of light. And I was like, Oh, this is great. And then it seemed like I don't know she, she worked through some things and got happier anyway. I don't know what's going on there, but that, but he hits a different
Pam Shaffer
spot, turquoise. Like, to me, it looks black, white and turquoise. Like hearing it, I wish I saw
Steve Cleff
the turquoise in there. Yeah, yeah. That'd be great. Very convenient.
Pam Shaffer
Just like, there's slivers of light in there, whereas, like, I do really like her earlier work does feel like softer colors, whereas that one feels like really bold. Whereas, like, I remember the first time I heard ocean eyes. I was just like, it's interesting that she's singing about like an ocean but that song is very like mauve and lavender and like, it's not blue to me. And so it was interesting to contrast with the lyrics, but like, then seeing, like, her later work, and I'm curious now if Phineas is also synesthetic, because he does the production work with her. He does all those layers. So I'm like, Hmm, it could be like, I don't know if you've seen the video of David Lynch directing Angelo bottlementi To make the score for Twin Peaks. No sounds fascinating. They're sitting together at the piano. And like, Lynch is basically narrating different feelings and like the scenes essentially. And then Angelo is kind of playing, and either David will be like, yes, and. Angelo, yes, and like, keep going. Or he's like, Oh no. Angelo, no.
Steve Cleff
Well, there's emotions being evoked, so that's good, yes.
Pam Shaffer
And it's really funny watching like someone's visuals be translated to sound in real time, and also that the trust that they have together is that Angelo can withstand both the Yes, Angelo yes and the No. Well, that's what
Steve Cleff
I'm saying. That's what I would cling to if I were Angelo is like, well, at least he's feeling something.
Jessica Stoya
Often I have a way to sort of smoothly wrap us up. Unfortunately, colors and music are a reach for me.
Jessica Stoya
Overlap and entwinement of them. It's just, I'm like, you're like, um, but it has been so awesome watching, listening to the two of you interact about these things. I'm like, this is fascinating.
Pam Shaffer
Was this your secret plot to just put us in the same room.
Jessica Stoya
You know, it was a, it was a secret hope that this would occur. But we never, we never count on that.
Pam Shaffer
I mean, I feel like what you're tying together in talking about synesthesia and about the different forms of Aphrodite, and the thesis of your project is kind of the thesis of the podcast, of like, bringing awareness to diversity and thus empathy to other people's experience. Where you're like, oh, like, I might share part of this experience with someone, but if I don't, I can be fascinated by it. I can be interested in it, even if it's not my experience. I can be like, Oh, what's that like for you without judgment, just more of a curiosity. So you, kind of, you embodied the ethos of the podcast.
Steve Cleff
Well, I'm glad, yeah. I mean, I have no idea if anything I would have to say is interesting. I did hope, and do hope that people will try and learn more about Aphrodite. There's, there's so much that I didn't have time to cover and so I hope people are interested and learn more about it, whether it's there's a great book called Venus and Aphrodite, a biography of desire by Bethany Hughes, which you know, if you don't, if you do one thing, read that book. There's also, she's got a handy hour long video, which basically tells you what's in the book, if you want to do it that way. And if you, if anyone wants to join my free for the most part, Patreon to follow to see somebody struggle writing a book for another six to 12 months, hopefully, is all it'll be. They can do that. But thanks so much. I listened to a few of your episodes before this, just to get a sense of what I was getting myself into. And it was, it was all really fascinating. And I'm grateful that you're doing what you're doing and giving voice to some people who may not have had a voice otherwise. So thanks for that.
Pam Shaffer
Thank you. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. It was very generous of you, and I'm very excited that Jess is like now I will put my special interest people together.
Pam Shaffer
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of neuro provocateurs, please join us on substack, where you can find exclusive clips, resources and community of the neuro spicy variety. We are an independent podcast, so know that your support on substack and beyond means the world to us, quite literally. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to leave us five stars and glowing reviews and follow our podcast on your preferred podcast platform, so that you can be sure to get each episode The moment it drops, and know that your reviews help us get in front of other people who might also want to listen to this podcast. We are on social media in all of the usual places as neuro provocateurs, thank you again, and excited to see you for our next episode.
