The Wesleyan Artist Market takes place in Peachtree Corners on April 26-27, 2024

Listeners are taken on a journey into the colorful art world through the eyes of high school art teacher Meagan Brooker. With 17 years of experience at Wesleyan School in Peachtree Corners, Brooker shares her passion for creativity, sharing how art has become a form of therapy and a source of inspiration in her life. From discussing her artistic process and inspiration to highlighting the importance of art for mental well-being, Brooker’s infectious enthusiasm for art will captivate and inspire listeners of all backgrounds. Brooker’s art will be displayed at the Wesleyan Artist Market 2024, April 26-27.

Tune in to discover the transformative power of creativity and art in this enlightening and uplifting Peachtree Corners Life Podcast episode.

Timestamp:

00:00:00 – Introduction of Artist Meagan Brooker
00:01:32 – Teaching Art at Wesleyan School
00:04:00 – From Science to Art: Following My Creative Passion
00:08:42 – Balancing Creativity and Exhaustion
00:10:18 – Painting as Meditation and Process
00:13:53 – Tuscany Landscapes to Inspire Artists
00:17:29 – Finding Inspiration in the Unexpected
00:20:32 – The Healing Power of Art in Challenging Times
00:23:16 – The Pros and Cons of Social Media for Artists
00:25:49 – Embracing Digital Art Tools and AI in the Creative Process
00:29:08 – Exploring AI’s Role in the Creative Process
00:31:23 – Closing

Podcast Transcript

Rico Figliolini 0:00:00

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. This year, this month, today we’re doing an interview with an artist that’s going to be at the Wesleyan Artist Market, Meagan Brooker. So let’s say hi to Meagan. Hey, Meagan.

Meagan Brooker 0:00:13

Hello.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:14

Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it. Thank you for being with us. Before we actually get into all of this, I just want to say thank you to our sponsor, EV Remodeling, Inc. They do a great job when it comes to remodeling, design and build, start from scratch up. Eli, him and his family live here in Peachtree Corners, does a great job. Lots of people know them. Anything from your bathrooms and kitchens to your whole house almost. So check them out at evremodelinginc.com. We appreciate the support of these podcasts. So now let’s get right into it because we’ve done this, I just did this interview a little while, a few weeks ago with two student artists that are going to be featured at Wesleyan Artist Market. Their stream is actually going to happen Wednesday. For Meagan and I to know you all that are listening won’t know which Wednesday that is, but it’s going to be on a Wednesday. Actually, before we go to press with the next issue of Peachtree Corners Life magazine, which has three profiles, including Meagan, of the Wesleyan artists, three of the artists that are going to be there. So this is a compliment to that. We’re going to be talking a bit about art and what inspires Meagan. So let’s get right into it. Meagan, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe how you started at Wesleyan.

Meagan Brooker 0:01:36

Yeah. So I teach at Wesleyan school. I teach high school art. I teach all levels of AP photography, and I’ve been there for 17 years, which makes me feel very old.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:51

You’re not, though. You look fine.

Meagan Brooker 0:01:54

Thank you. So I went to the University of Georgia and went after getting my degree in undergrad of art education. I taught elementary art in Gwinnett county for two years. And then I did missions work for a year, actually, and was looking for a high school job because I thought the idea of the challenge of high school would be really interesting. And, yeah, I just love my job and I love Wesleyan. And I’m very grateful to be there because obviously I’ve been there for 17 years.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:29

Yes, it’s a great school. Wesleyan school is in the city of Peachtree Corners, and they do a fantastic job and they’re growing. I mean, they’re in the middle of actually a building project right now for their STEM building. So lots going on at Wesleyan. This is just one facet of what they do. So you’ve been there 17 years and you’re teaching high school students, I believe the high school, the upper level class. Upper school, yes. In particular, what are you teaching at this point? What subject or mediums are you working in?

Meagan Brooker 0:03:01

So currently I’m teaching all levels of 2d art. So drawing, painting, mixed media, anything that’s 2d from foundations all the way up to AP, the AP level, which is kind of college credit courses. And that includes AP photography. Previously I taught photography and way back in the day I used to teach 3d as well. But I love now that I get to specialize in two d. And then we have amazing teachers who teach focus on photography and focus on 3d. So we have a great team.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:33

Excellent. Cool. Let me ask you something, because as we grow up, as we’re young and we’re getting into school and we’re in elementary and middle school, we start discovering ourselves a little bit, right? We start discovering what we like, what we don’t like and stuff. Of course, people around us, including parents, may sometimes tell us what we should like and we shouldn’t like or what we should become. I know that you inspired early on to be an artist, to go down that route. Well, maybe not to be an artist, but to go down the route of the arts versus the science. So tell us, what inspired you? At which point did you decide you wanted to be creative versus being, let’s say, a doctor or something?

Meagan Brooker 0:04:17

Yeah. Well, that’s interesting, actually. I tell all my students, like, follow your innate gut and what fulfills you and stirs you up and makes you want to do more. I, from a very young age, was always wanting to paint, create, take classes, paint my ceiling in my bedroom, even though my mom wouldn’t let me paint furniture. I was always wanting to create or create my own space or do something creative. I had a very fast working creative brain and I came from a small county up in north Georgia, and there weren’t many opportunities in the arts. So in high school I had a great art teacher who was the first one who looked at my work and said, you know, you’re really talented. And I was, you know, so I got that encouragement and that fed in, which made me want to work harder. It made me want to do more and try more and get better. So I actually went to college and started in premed because I had good grades and was smart and my family was like, you, listen, go make some money. Don’t become a teacher.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:27

Not good money there.

Meagan Brooker 0:05:30

So I started off in premed and I just was bored to tears. And it was not life giving anyway. So I decided to switch to art and have never looked back ever since then. My family sometimes wishes I might have, but they see how life giving it is for me now and how innate it is and how much I’m able to do with the creativity. So it’s come around.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:56

So you’ve never really looked back and said, maybe I should put my brushes away and do something else.

Meagan Brooker 0:06:02

No, it’s too natural. I have too much of the creative and too much to put out there to stop. I’m not really that great at anything else either. Have too much fun with it to stop now.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:18

Right? Okay. And I can appreciate that. My parents wanted me to be an accountant, hated numbers, could never do that. And just not for me. My brain didn’t work on that side for that. But teaching art, this is one of the things I learned from my youngest, right? He says to me, I asked him, I said, what do you want to be? He says, I’d love to be a writer. I want to write. I want to write novels and stuff. So he’s creative, but he doesn’t want a job, that he has to write a lot during the day, because then all his creativity is gone by the end of the day. So how do you work that? How do you balance. It’s a life balance, right? Work life. How do you balance that creativity with the work that you do all day long with other kids? How do you do that?

Meagan Brooker 0:07:05

Honestly, that is probably the toughest part of my job. And I have two young boys, so that to complicate the.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:14

How old resources.

Meagan Brooker 0:07:18

One’S twelve, he’s in fifth grade and one is eight. And they go to Wesleyan with me, which is also a huge blessing. When I started off in art education and I got into the courses and started doing the practicum teaching, I loved being able to impart the knowledge of creativity and the natural working of all of the brain work that working with your hands does in every way. And it’s not about teaching methodology to me, as much as it is like pulling out this natural creativity. And I was always fascinated with art therapy. I considered studying that, but I think art is very much a natural therapy. And there’s so many studies about how when we’re working with our hands, how our brains calm down, they can think better. They’re clearly so. Even just a 30 minutes break in the middle of the day or an hour break to work with your hands and not have to just use a different part of your brain is so good for anybody. You think about how it works with four year olds. It’s the same with 80 year olds. Being able to use my creativity during the day, it is exhausting because I feel like being asked 20 questions every five minutes. I do come home depleted, but at night, when the boys go down, when I can, I will go down and just let it all out on canvas. I will say, currently, my work is not the most conceptual. It’s more reactive, but it’s kind of more guttural and things that I. It’s emotional in a way of things that I’m reacting to in my current life. And I feel like most artists do that. It’s like where you are, your work is breathing out of where you are.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:17

I think that makes sense, right? Because inspiration is in the moment when you’re doing these things. It’s not like most artists plan these things out. Sometimes you may have in your head, but you’re working in the medium you’re working in. It could appear different, and you’re trying to rough it and do different piece from it. When you are like that, when you have to be in your space, if you will. I know writers, for example, will write with the door closed, if you will, and they know that pages and chapters will go away at some point because they’re just getting into that space. Do you find yourself doing that with art? How’s the process? Do you sketch first and then go to the medium that you choose for it in the paper or the surface that you want to put it on? How do you do that part?

Meagan Brooker 0:10:04

That’s a really good question. I love sketching and planning in my current stage, just don’t have that much time. So I tend to work out my process as part of the process and build up my layers and build it up until it’s a complete being. So the art is very much a process as opposed to being a super planned, which is my personality, more free spirited by nature. And so sometimes I will write verses or quotes or things that are on my mind kind of in the canvas as I’m going as a meditation. And then I’ll build the color, texture, and design up as part of that meditation of whatever is on my heart at the time. And the art will kind of come out of that longing or prayer or moment that I’m having there. I do small ones that are, I call them little loves, but they’re all based off of an attribute or a thought, like prayer, contentment, love. That they’re kind of prayed over in a way.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:21

I know there’s one behind you, but I put one of your pieces on the feed right now. Tell us a little bit about that one.

Meagan Brooker 0:11:29

This one. If I had a gallery show, which I hope to one day, I would call it something like an affinity for winged things. I’ve always had loved angels. I love birds, butterflies. There’s something about them that represents such hope and freedom. And so the past few years, I’ve done quite a few butterflies. And so the one on the screen here, I love the color tone in it, but I recently started adding in kind of a duo tone background with the gold and white. That almost represents a duality of. It. Kind of brings in a contrast of emotion, if you will.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:11

I see two different color spaces. A border, ragged border. Same way with. I see this. Right. This is another piece that you’ve done. Same type of ridging, same type of look. Duality. Two different worlds, two places. What were you doing here in this one?

Meagan Brooker 0:12:33

Yeah. Similar to this one here behind me. I feel like there’s always a tension in our humanity of light and dark. Right. There’s a tension we’re pulled between right and wrong, light and dark, hope and failure, or anything that could pull us down easily if we don’t pull toward the light. So when combining these hopeful creatures like birds and butterflies, with that tension, to me, it’s this representative of choosing the hope, choosing freedom, choosing to do what you can do, to move yourself to a higher purpose and to truth and to light and to all the things that God offers us in this life. So it’s just kind of representing like, yes, sometimes life’s really hard, but there is hope.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:29

Let’s go to something a little different that you shared with us. This one, it’s a bit different than the other two. Can you tell us a little bit about this one?

Meagan Brooker 0:13:39

Yeah. This one was inspired by, actually, Tuscany and the green hills of Tuscany. I love traveling. I love Italy, especially has my heart. I’m actually taking a group of the high schoolers to France this summer, and I’ve not been this part of France, so I’m excited about that. But I often will recreate images or know certain landscapes of pictures that I take when I’m traveling. Not all overseas, some here, and recreate them. And so this is kind of representing, loosely, the villas that you’ll see dotted all over the hillscape. The landscape of. And Tuscany is dotted with farmland everywhere. And these are just hilly wineries and orchards.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:29

So this was done in acrylic? Correct. And you chose that over. Do you work mostly in acrylic now, or do you work in.

Meagan Brooker 0:14:38

I love oil, love watercolor. I love mixed media. For artist market, I choose to do acrylic in the same vein. And I hope that you don’t hear this as an excuse is more. It’s just a stage of life where it’s quicker. The acrylic, I’m able to move quickly and work quicker and layer in it and get the effect, because I don’t necessarily have time to sit and make 30 oils in this stage of life. So acrylic offers me the ability to work a little quicker in it.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:10

Okay. And this particular piece, I mean, they’re all relatively big pieces too, right? Like 30 x 30 or something along those lines.

Meagan Brooker 0:15:17

That one’s huge. That one is, I believe it was 40 x 60. It’s about the size of this one behind me. And a friend bought it for their piano room in their house. So it looks really good on that big wall.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:29

Nice. When people do buy your stuff, do you recommend certain framings for your pictures, or you let them do their own thing?

Meagan Brooker 0:15:37

Usually they have something in mind that fits their aesthetic, but I love float. Personally, I think float frames look so good.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:46

So when people buy your paintings like this, I’ve asked this of other artists, how do you feel about it? You’ve done it. It’s not like it’s the 30th piece that you’ve done of the same exact thing. So you’ve spent your time doing it, and it’s leaving you. It’s almost like a baby. It’s going away. It’s going to be in someone’s house. How do you feel about that?

Meagan Brooker 0:16:09

This new series with the duality are some of my favorite new ones. And to see one of my favorite parts of doing work for clients, when people are choosing work, like at artist markets as opposed to galleries or collected and stuff like that, is seeing people’s reaction to it and why they choose it. That is such a precious moment, because I think every artist, or most artists at least, pour so much of themselves into it. And to your point, some of them have trouble letting go of it because they become precious. But when they stop in their tracks and have a visceral moment of like, oh, my mom just died, and she loves birds, and that’s her favorite color, and they’ll just start, my goodness, there are tactile things that they will hold on to that become meaning to them, that may not be the eye assigned to it, but it doesn’t matter. That’s what the beauty of art is. The expression of the color, the movement, the feeling, and the hope that people will hold on to.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:16

Wow. Yeah. I can’t imagine that feeling. I’m not an artist, so I can’t imagine that. I’m a graphic designer, but not an artist, so I don’t know how that feels. I do know how it feels to put together a magazine and send it to the printer and then have it come back in a palette of, like, 10,000 copies or something. I don’t know how that feels.

Meagan Brooker 0:17:39

That’s a relief, is what that’s called.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:42

Yes. In fact, I have two deadlines this week, so it’s going to be a relief when this week is done. Yeah, it’s just one of those crazy weeks, actually. So we talked about keeping fresh and continuing to evolve. Well, actually, we didn’t talk about evolving as an artist. You touched upon it a little bit. But how do you do travel? You do find, like you said, Tuscany was a great, beautiful landscape to be inspired by. You can’t go wrong with Tuscany. Right? Do you find inspirations in some of the simpler things in life or places that you didn’t even think inspiration would come from, or moments? Does any of that happen sometimes?

Meagan Brooker 0:18:23

Yeah. Sometimes I think back to COVID, and we were so limited, and I’m a mover and a shaker. I don’t sit still well to a fault. And so having to sit still kind of shook me. But I found myself grabbing my camera and going out in the beautiful spring light and catching these abstracted flowers that were blooming across the street and the way that the light hit them or life, noticing trees in our yard that were blooming. And I hadn’t noticed how beautiful they were at the time. Things that I hadn’t stopped long enough to appreciate. And, of course, the beauty of my children and their just innocence at their ages. And so just taking time to stop that makes me want to highlight the beauty of life as opposed to the hardship. Because anytime we can have a moment, and if my art is a moment to stop and be like, okay, let me just take a beat and find some hope and find a little moment of truth and hope in our day.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:33

Okay. COVID was an interesting period. Right? It was a bad time for many families, but it was also, in some ways, a good moment in time because things stopped. We were forced to stop what we were doing. So it was so bad at one point that if you remember the supply chain issues, ships stopped delivering, and in fact, the sea woke up more. The creatures in the sea, the whales, things were happening, air was a little cleaner. It was just different time. Right. So I can see that quiet. But you’re basically forced into doing things that we weren’t. We were forced to stop doing what we’re doing. The inspiration, I guess, can be found in many places. You’re teaching lots of kids through the years, 17 years of teaching at Wesleyan. I’m sure there’s been talented, very talented kids across that time frame. Is there any story, inspirational time, particular student or group of students or class that you felt was a moment that you want to remember? Maybe that inspired you, maybe that inspired other kids. Maybe there was something going on at that moment, or maybe even creativity out of students that you didn’t think would be creative because maybe art wasn’t their thing.

Meagan Brooker 0:20:54

Well, for one thing, that just because we came out of the conversation of just talking about COVID is how important art was to the ones who had it during that time. Teaching hybrid was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And when we were, like, on camera and trying to teach art from home and all of that. But I have multiple stories of students who. Art was their lifeline at the time, because whether home was not safe for them or whether they just needed to be out and be social or whatever it was, art was their way of their identity, of finding some way of expression that pulled them out of the anxiety, the mire, the scariness, the loneliness of the time, and a way to express themselves and kind of think outside of themselves. When you’re so glued to your phone or your computer trying to do a thing, art pulled them back out. So that was a beautiful thing and a testament to the purpose, I think, of our dedication, and I think what comes to mind, and I’ll shout out to my current AP art class, who are just, they’re so much fun, and we’re actually having our art show next week, so I’m excited about that. And they’re so creative. But I think that in this culture of, again, what we’re seeing post COVID is a lot more anxiety, a lot more pressure, a lot more peer pressure. The social media is out of control, and culture has a lot of expectations. And I think that what is beautiful is seeing the kids respond to these pressures through their art and subverting them with truth and with showing their own personality and identity in a way that they wouldn’t in social media. So their own personality and their truth is coming out. So they’re becoming more confident through their expression of art in a way that they wouldn’t without it. Right. So it’s like, oh, I am good at something.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:01

Right? No, I get where you’re going. You’re right. I could see that. But I can also see social media is good and bad. Right? Instagram, TikTok. I mean, there’s different various levels. If you allow yourself to scroll for 30 minutes, you’re losing a bit of your life. Maybe. But there are artists out there that actually share online also, and they use that medium to be able to share their art, whether it’s ceramics they’re doing or whether it’s actually watching them create something in the moment. Yeah, because that’s TikTok. I mean, does that. Right. Instagram, to a lesser degree, I think. But you could be watching an artist, a street artist, or just an artist in a studio painting, sketching the whole process for an hour or two, which is kind of interesting, right? Because you get to see the creative process. Most people don’t see that. They see the finished piece. They don’t know what Meagan Brooker to make that piece or what. Brie Hill, who was one of the students I interviewed, what it took her to make a painting and what she invested in that painting. Or Esther Cooper, who’s the other student I interviewed who does creative pastries. Right. That’s a whole different long. There’s no longevity to that. It expires at some point, you either eat it or it goes bad, but in the moment, it’s a good looking piece, maybe. Right. Talking about 3d art. More than that. Right. The scent of it and stuff. So I could see how social media can be helpful in some ways with some students.

Meagan Brooker 0:24:33

Yeah. I think with social media, we have so much at our fingertips now we can appreciate art in a whole new way, because, like you said, you can see the process. You can understand it more, but it also makes you want to try more. And there’s always going to be cynics. There are going to be people who will try to poke a hole in it. But I think we will be students until we die. I think that’s part of the creative part of teaching. Like, we always have more to learn. And so that’s what’s so fun about social media, is being able to go on and try something new or to see new work, because we’re to be inspired by something outside of us which broadens our perspective and opens our worldview a little bit.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:22

Yeah. Now, just to stick with technology a little bit, because there are students that use Photoshop, procreate, other digital products and software where you can create online in layers, brushes. We create your own brush palette, if you will. Do you delve into any of that? Do you see students using that as part of the process of what they’re doing? Are they using it even to pre plan a physical, tactile piece of art? What’s the final piece?

Meagan Brooker 0:25:59

It’s such a big question right now in the art world, and my co worker Drew Phillips has actually done a lot of research and given some talks on this. I currently do not teach any AI in what I am teaching, but I see the value of. Well, also I will say there’s inherent AI almost in everything now, like in my AP photography, and know there’s always the option of generative fill. But AP doesn’t allow any type of AI, but I think the use of it for know. So speaking of Rehill, she’s one of my students. She’s amazing. She just did with a girl being lifted up by doves with a sheet and ropes. That’s hard to take a picture of. She just finished it yesterday and it’s stunning. So maybe we can do a recap and show the finished piece. Not yesterday, today, but it’s hard to take a reference picture for that, to get her full concept in there. And we made it happen. But you could put that kind of prompt into AI and have it kind of create a reference for you, but then you are drawing it. So there’s a lot of debate about that and the crossover of what’s allowed. And, but, and there’s a lot of people who think that AI is going to take over a lot of jobs. But I’ll tell you, and this is coming from conversations with people who are working with Microsoft, AI creatives will never be out of a job because AI needs creatives to be able to create the prompts to do the job. And so the people who can think outside of the box and creatives, there will always be a place for us.

Rico Figliolini 0:27:45

Yeah, there’s so many forms of AI too, right? There’s language based, generative, there’s very various levels of AI. So you’re right though, because you need to be able to, I’ve played in it a little bit as far as writing and stuff like that, and even dolly and some of the visual elements and even a different form of sora, which is more video based. Right. And it’s not everything that people make it out to be. It takes the process of doing it almost, like you said, in some ways you have to be an artist to be able to pull out from that anything artistic that makes sense. Yeah. So it’s not as easy as people think. I get that question sometimes. Can’t you just do this in Photoshop? AI is in there. It’s like, no, you can’t just do that. You have to really think about what you’re doing here. It’s never going to look like what know, you could go into AI and you could go chat GPT and Dolly and tell it what you want and say, good, close, you got to where I need it. Add this and this, but don’t remove that and it’ll give you something completely different. So I know the prompts might be a little, you have to work the prompts the right way and stuff, but yeah, AI is a good tool to derive inspiration from. I think I agree with you there. You’re going to need creative people still, but I’m sure that’s still within the next five years that probably will be part of being taught in the creative process. Right. How to use AI as an intern or apprentice, if you will, for yourself in some ways. So you’re going to be at the wesleyan artist market. You’re going to be showcasing some of your work. I’m assuming some of the work that I showed, that we showed may be there. What type of work will you be actually showing at the show?

Meagan Brooker 0:29:33

Yeah, I’m doing some more of the, like what we were talking about with the dual duality and kind of playing around with that more, trying out some new subjects and content, but mostly that. But I want to try out some landscapes and build in some more looser sunset sunrises along with the birds and butterflies and see what I can turn out there.

Rico Figliolini 0:29:59

Cool. Anything you want to share with us that we haven’t touched base, I really.

Meagan Brooker 0:30:06

If you haven’t been out to the artist market, I highly recommend it. Okay, again, I’ve been at Wesleyan for 17 years, and I’ve been displaying at the artist market for 17 years. And believe me, I’ve grown a lot. I would be embarrassed to show you what I sold the first few years. I think my first year was actually, I taught ceramics, and so I did some ceramics, but I’ve grown a lot. But the funds of the market come back to the students. So it funds the fine arts and so the marching band, the visual arts, the theater, and so it comes back to the students there at Wesleyan. But beyond that, it is such a high level event put on by volunteers from the school, which is almost hard to believe because it’s such a professional looking event and it’s indoors. It’s one of my favorite things that we do throughout the year and I’m so grateful for those who put it on. So come out to see us. It’s a really fun event for the family.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:10

It’s going to be April 26 through the 27th, so that Friday, Saturday, and if you want to find out about it, it’s Wesleyan artist market. Just google that and I’ll show right up. Do you want to leave a last maybe word for any aspiring artists or educators? Anything you want to leave advice for them before we end the show?

Meagan Brooker 0:31:32

Yeah, I think if you feel like the need to create, whether that be writing, singing, writing out songs, it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it. The act of creating is fulfilling and there’s a reason that you are stirred to do it. And I think personally, I think that’s God working in you to bring you to a higher light and a higher purpose. And so just do your thing. It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks, as long as it’s for you and for him or for whoever else you want to see it. Just let your light shine.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:03

Cool. We’ve been talking to Meagan Brooker. She’s a 17 year veteran teacher at Wesleyan school, teaching high school kids about art, and she’s going to be showing at the Wesleyan Artist Market. So stay with me for a second, Meagan. I want to just say thank you to our sponsor, EV Remodeling, Inc. Does a great job design, build home remodeling, kitchen, bathrooms, everywhere that you can think of. Eli and his family live here in Peachtree Corners. They’re just wonderful people. You should check them out. Evremodelinginc.com. So check those out and thank you, Meagan. I appreciate you being with us.

Meagan Brooker 0:32:38 Yeah, my pleasure.

The Wesleyan Artist Market takes place in Peachtree Corners on April 26-27, 2024

Join us as we dive into the creative worlds of Esther Cooper and Bree Hill, two young student artists showing at this year’s Wesleyan Artist Market with their unique talents and passions. From Esther’s tasty cake pops to Bree’s emotionally charged artwork, we explore the stories behind their inspiration, dedication, and drive to showcase their creativity. Listen in as we discuss the power of self-expression and passion in the world of art and baking. Tune in for a dose of inspiration and creativity that will leave you eager to explore your own artistic talents and passions. Hosted by Rico Figliolini

Resources:
Wesleyan Artists’ Market Website: https://www.artistmarket.wesleyanschool.org/
Bree’s Instagram: @bubblycreationsbybreehill

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Introduction
00:01:37 – Expanding Artistic Horizons at Wesleyan Market
00:03:38 – Discovering Passion and Mediums in Art Creation
00:05:13 – Expressing Emotions Through Art and Beyond
00:10:53 – Preparing for the Artist Market at Wesleyan
00:13:24 – Finding Inspiration Through Music and Fantasy Books
00:16:01 – Dreams of Opening a Family-Friendly Bakery
00:17:42 – Interviewing a Creative Baker and Graphic Designer
00:19:43 – The Art of Evolving a Painting
00:21:45 – Baking Creations for Holidays and Parties
00:24:08 – Bree’s Artistic Process and Finding Joy in Sculptures
00:26:37 – Art Commissions and Wesleyan Artist Market Update
00:28:20 – Closing Thoughts

Podcast Transcript

Transcript:

Rico Figliolini 0:00:01

Hi everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett County. I have a couple of great guests with me today. They are student artists at the upcoming Wesleyan Artist Market. But before I introduce them quickly, let me just say thank you to EV Remodeling, Inc. Who is a sponsor of not only this podcast, but the publications that we do, including Peachtree Corners magazine and Southwest Gwinnett magazine. So I want to thank them for being a strong sponsor, a community member as well. And if you want to find out more about EV remodeling Inc. Just go to their website, which is easy, evremodelinginc.com. So thank you for that. Our guest today is on the left. Depending on how you’re viewing this, Esther Cooper from 7th grade. Say hi, Esther.

Esther Cooper 0:00:48

Hi.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:49

And Bree Hill from 10th grade. Hey Bree.

Bree Hill 0:00:52

Hey.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:53

Both from Wesleyan school. And for one, she’s going to be at the Wesleyan Artist Market the second time, I believe. And for another, this is her first time. So let’s start with Esther Cooper, who’s interested in culinary arts. So, Esther, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Esther Cooper 0:01:13

Well, like you said, my name is Esther and I really enjoy baking and I’m going to be selling probably mostly cake pops at the artist market. So I’ve been working on kind of perfecting that technique for a while, so I think they’ll be pretty good.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:30

Cool. Bree Hill, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Bree Hill 0:01:35

My name is Bree Hill. This is my second year in the Wesleyan Artist Market. I have experience in different things with watercolor, acrylic paint, oil paint, and even mixed media and pottery. I’ve done animals in different subjects.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:53

Excellent. So last year, if I remember correctly from what I’ve read, you participated and submitted ceramic and clay sculptures last year.

Bree Hill 0:02:01

Yes.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:02

Cool. And this year you’re going to do something a bit different, right? Using different medium. You want to tell us a little bit about why you chose that medium to introduce this year?

Bree Hill 0:02:12

So I did a little bit of acrylic paint last year. I was more focusing on ceramics because I did different animals like elephants and dogs, swans, that sort. But I have the most experience at acrylic paint and I wanted to expand the things that I did. Like I’ve done graphite self portraits so far. I will use acrylic with cars, flower bouquets. I wanted to show people something that I’ve been doing for a long time.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:47

Okay, cool. Artists can do whatever they please as long as it inspires right, Esther, let’s talk a little bit about what you’re doing. The type of art themes that inspire you best, what inspires you. What do you look at when you’re thinking of culinary arts and deciding what to make or bake?

Esther Cooper 0:03:06

Well, I would say that I’m not going to lie. I actually do draw a little bit of inspiration from baking shows. That’s actually how I kind of got started with baking. Like, I saw these baking shows and I was like, wait, this is so cool. So I kind of picked up baking. So I get inspired by that. I get inspired by Pinterest.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:29

So you’re on Pinterest also building a board.

Esther Cooper 0:03:32

Not really building a board.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:34

I just scrolling through.

Esther Cooper 0:03:36

Yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:38

All right, that’s fine. You have to discover your passion and your inspiration in a lot of different places. Right. When you’re creating your treats, your sweets, is there particular ingredient, favorite ingredients you have that you like.

Esther Cooper 0:03:59

I mean. Can’t go wrong with?

Rico Figliolini 0:04:00

No, no. Can’t go wrong there. Probably sugar too, I would imagine, but, yeah, for sure. All right, cool. Bree on yours, shifting from sculpture to painting, obviously you’ve used different mediums along the way. How do you explore what you want to do in oil painting or watercolors? Do you decide what medium you want? Depending on what inspires you, depending on the picture you’re doing, how does that work?

Bree Hill 0:04:27

It depends on what I’m painting. So normally, if it’s like a plant nature of some sort, I will use watercolor for different depths because I like layering. If it’s normally a person, I would either use pencil or acrylic paint and more. If it can turn into three d, I would effectively use clay.

Rico Figliolini 0:04:51

Got you. There was a part where I think you mentioned about expressing yourself without judgment. You mentioned that to be able to share time, creating art helps to communicate something that you feel or that you want to express that can’t be expressed in words. Is that something that you continue to strive to? How do you see yourself doing that?

Bree Hill 0:05:16

I have a really hard time explaining and reiterating myself in different ways, so I chose to do it through art. I like to choose an emotion and draw what I think that emotion would look like, what that person would look like in that emotion, or in that moment.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:35

All right, well, let me bring up one of your pieces. Actually, bear with me a second. We pop that out. Put that there. That’s one of your pieces, I believe, right? Yes. So when you drew that, when that came to you, when you inspired to do that, what are you trying to.

Bree Hill 0:05:55

Share here I was trying to show I chose a pretty complicated emotion because I feel like not a lot of people can put it into words. And this one was grief, where it’s slowly, each day, you wake up thinking about it, and you’re slowly getting tired. You’re getting exhausted of it. So she’s kind of laying there limp almost. And you always have a friend. You reach out to something, vent happens. So those are birds representing each thing. It’s not a finished artwork, but definitely in the middle of it.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:30

Gotcha. Okay, cool. Come back here now. So it mean. And that was the medium used. It was pencil.

Bree Hill 0:06:40

Yes, sir.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:43

Esther, we’ll come back to you for a little bit. When you’re doing desserts, baking, you’re in the kitchen, I’m assuming, right. And you’re doing your stuff, I’m assuming. You start almost off with the recipe. Right. But do you ever deviate from that recipe? Do you ever do something a little different, add a little bit more, a little less? What do you do?

Esther Cooper 0:07:06

Well, sometimes I do eyeball things. Not too much, because baking is kind of a science, but I think it’s definitely decorating, where I get very spontaneous, like, I’ll pull out all the sprinkles or the different ways to decorate a cake up.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:29

All right, that’s cool. And you were saying you find inspiration from tv shows in Pinterest. I’m assuming that life, any artist, when you go to a place that exhibits art or, like, a bakery, do you find things that, as you’re looking through, do you find inspiration there? Do you even buy the stuff to taste it and see how it came out and what you can do with that?

Esther Cooper 0:07:54

Much to my parents dismay, yes. They take me to a bakery, and I’m like, mom, I got to learn how to make that.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:05

That’s funny. True. Sweet tooth could do it, I guess. So when you’re finding, I guess, in your art is one thing, I guess, when you know the artist, maybe. But also, are there any particular bakers that you’re aware of or tv or personalities that you like?

Esther Cooper 0:08:25

There’s this guy named Jacques Torres who’s on this show called nailed it. I don’t think. I always thought he was pretty cool. He was always very good. Had a very good expertise in his field, which I think is pretty cool.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:42

It’s good to have someone to look up to, to emulate a little bit. Bree, on your everyday life, walking through school, walking home, or however, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. I don’t know. Do you do other things besides art. Like, are you into sports?

Bree Hill 0:09:04

I am a volleyball player.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:06

You’re what? Softball?

Bree Hill 0:09:08

A volleyball player.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:09

Oh, volleyball player. Okay, cool. So are you on the team then, or is this intramurals?

Bree Hill 0:09:15

This is year round volleyball, so it’s club.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:18

Oh, club volleyball. Okay. So when you’re out there and doing athletic work, do you find inspiration in what you’re doing there? Do you look at people and look at them as inspiration for maybe the next drawing or the next scene that you life?

Bree Hill 0:09:36

Definitely. And not just volleyball as well? If I travel anywhere, I will always have, like, a mini pocket watercolor to draw whatever scenes in front of me to kind of capture the moment, because I feel like it represents everything better than a picture because it’s how you saw the moment. It’s like how you read what was happening rather than it just being, oh, here’s a picture of what I saw.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:01

Right. The way you feel, I guess. So. I’m imagining you’re carrying a book and some watercolors with you.

Bree Hill 0:10:10

Definitely.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:11

Okay, so no digital stuff for you, or do you use an iPad too sometimes or one of those.

Bree Hill 0:10:19

Not really an iPad. No.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:21

Okay, so you’re not into Photoshop or using brushes on any of that procreate or anything?

Bree Hill 0:10:28

So I take my own pictures for my artwork. So the one you just showed up is actually a picture of me. I photographed it, and then I had to Photoshop some things with lighting and stuff. Then I drew it.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:41

Oh, wow. Excellent.

Bree Hill 0:10:44

It’s a long process.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:48

No, that’s good. You got to start somewhere, and using yourself as a subject is even better. You know what to do with yourself, right? That’s cool. So have you put together all your artwork yet for wham. For this year, or are you still working on stuff?

Bree Hill 0:11:06

Definitely still working. I have my inventory log done, and I have all the materials for it. But actually doing it is where it’s kind of a slow process, but definitely more than half are completed.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:19

All right, cool. Now, a little different for Esther, I bet, because it’s not like you can work on yours in advance unless you’re going to freeze it. So what’s the game plan for you? Are you going to be doing well.

Esther Cooper 0:11:32

We were talking about taking discretionary day, the day before the artist market, so I could just bake.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:39

I don’t wait. Discretionary days are those days you’re allowed to take off?

Esther Cooper 0:11:45

Yes, sir. You only get. Is it two, Bree?

Bree Hill 0:11:49

It’s two.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:51

You are invested in your art. I can tell. Putting those days off into that, that’s good. So you’re going to be working away in the kitchen, I’m assuming, getting things ready?

Esther Cooper 0:12:04

Yes, sir.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:05

All right, cool. What other interests do you have? I obviously, Bree does volleyball and sports. What interests do you have?

Esther Cooper 0:12:17

I played trumpet. I was in the Wesleyan marching band this fall. I participated in basketball this winter, and I have in the past participated in musicals, and I plan to try out again next year. It’s just this year, I want to do the artist market this year.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:38

Okay. All right, cool. Interesting. The Wesleyan student always is multifaceted, that’s for sure. So many different things are going on. I think I interviewed someone that had. She was doing club sport, school sport, and she had other things going on. It’s just like, I don’t even know how many hours in the day you have to do that. So when you’re finding inspiration, is there a special place or music you like to listen to? Other one can go.

Esther Cooper 0:13:07

Well, I just like to walk around my backyard a lot. It’s a fairly big backyard. I just walk around and kind of think about all sorts of things. But I definitely draw a lot of inspiration because it has kind of a forest area, so there’s a lot around me and a lot to draw inspiration from.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:30

So you’re not listening to anything. You’re just listening to nature and just walking around the backyard like that. Now, Bree, you’re laughing, but what about you? Where do you draw your inspiration from music, or where do you do that?

Bree Hill 0:13:44

So I actually have over 40 playlists of different emotions and things, and they all have, like, a description of a scenario or something. I’m an avid reader of fantasy, so I’m quite literally always thinking of something new and something that isn’t really realistic.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:06

Okay. No, I’m not surprised then. Okay. When you were talking about emotion and drawing that out, that almost makes sense. That segues a little bit into one of my other questions. So you like to read? Sounds like fantasy novels. YA novels, I’m assuming. Do you have a few favorites that you would recommend?

Bree Hill 0:14:26

Probably the caraval series and the Lunar Chronicles are most likely my and angel fall. Those are my three favorite series in fantasy.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:39

Ya and playlists. Any particular artists on them that you’d like to share?

Bree Hill 0:14:46

Beyonce. I have, like, 30. I mainly listen to r and B. We’ll keep that as flat ground because artists.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:02

That’s cool. Okay, Esther, what about you? Are there any books or types of books or titles that you like that you would share?

Esther Cooper 0:15:12

I also do love to read. I’m kind of basic in some of my favorites. Like, I love the Harry Potter and the Percy Jackson series, but there’s this really good book that I read in this kind of group, and it was called Echo. So if any of y’all are looking for book suggestions, I would really recommend it because it’s very good. But it’s probably one of my favorite books.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:35

Actually. The Harry Potter. Have you heard that Warner Brothers is actually going to do a tv series now of the Harry Potter books, redoing the books into a tv? They are, yeah, ten episodes per book. It’s going to take them forever to get this done, but, yeah, they’re coming back. And JK Rowling is apparently all for it. I just heard that the other day. My kids grew up on it. I used to read it to them when they were younger until they got old enough to read it, because that’s how long, right. But, yeah, it’s a cool books. So what about playlists, then, Esther? What do you like listening to?

Esther Cooper 0:16:14

I like to listen to classical music a lot, but I really listen to pretty much all genres.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:21

Okay. That’s good. Eclectic. It’s good to be able to listen to different songs and different music. As far as we talked about inspiration a little bit and stuff. But let’s talk a little bit about. Let’s go back to Esther. I know that one of your dreams, apparently, is to have your own bakery. You’re still a young person, so who knows what may happen and transpire over time. But when you think of your dream bakery, what would you want in that dream bakery?

Bree Hill 0:16:54

Baked goods, probably. I don’t know. I’ve always really loved children, like, really young children. So I’d want it to be a place where parents could come with their young children and just kind of have a good time. Kind of be like a cozy little spot. I don’t know, like a family friendly place.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:19

Definitely. No, I can say that, yeah, that sounds good. When you travel, you’re in 7th grade, but have you gone anywhere to other cities that you may have stopped at a bakery or that might have inspired you in some way like that?

Esther Cooper 0:17:38

I do live by some very good bakeries. There’s some nearby. They can get very creative, which is something that obviously is very necessary for this sort of thing.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:55

Did you ever think of maybe seeing if you could get part time job working? I’m not necessarily, like, at a chocolatier or anything like that, but, yeah, that could be something you could do, I guess it’s funny because are you familiar with Peterbrook chocolatier?

Esther Cooper 0:18:12

Yes.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:12

In the Forum okay. Yes. Jeff, who manages the place, is very interesting person. He has summer camps usually, but he also hires high school kids to work for him when they want to work, I guess. And they’ll do anything in chocolate. It’s just totally amazing. And the things they come up with, I don’t even know how they do them. Bree on to you when you’re doing your artwork.

Bree Hill 0:18:38

I do layouts. I do magazine layouts. I do graphic design work like that. I’m not an illustrator or artist by far, but I do layouts and stuff. And sometimes when I get into something, I almost feel like I’m doing clay. I start with clay, and I’m molding it into a shape. And that 72 page magazine is getting molded right on the screen as I’m putting it together without a mockup, almost, which is not the way you should do these things, but this is the way I do it.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:14

Right. Do you find yourself doing things and you’re like, that’s not the way I should be doing it, but let me try it anyway. Let me see how it works.

Bree Hill 0:19:23

Definitely. This is where the phrase abstract and mixed media come into play, where you really don’t. You’ll start out with the plan. You’ll never stick with the plan. I rarely ever stick with the plan unless it’s a self portrait. The painting that you actually pulled up was not supposed to have birds. I was not supposed to be floating. There were not supposed to be ropes. But it felt whenever you feel like it needs something or you want something else into it, obviously you add it, but then it’s kind of like a domino effect, then you’ll want something else to go with that, and it kind of just keeps going.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:00

Right. All right, so let me throw this one up here. Hold on a second. That’s another one you did?

Bree Hill 0:20:09

Yes.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:09

You want to describe that a little bit to us?

Bree Hill 0:20:13

I think of this, like, as you’re in a sunroom, you’re kind of calm laying down flat on your back. Or even if you were like, if it was like a meadow and you were just laying on your back in the grass, tall grass with little dandelions around you, and the sun just reflects so many different shadows. And I like to not always do black and white. I really do like different colors in everything. I do, actually, most of my pieces, probably. You’ll find every single color in it, besides pencil, obviously, but I definitely felt this one as, like, a serene moment.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:54

It looks very serene. Let’s go with. There’s a couple of pictures I want to bring up of Esther’s. Try this one. Actually, let’s do both of these. I’m going to bring up three of them to tell us a little bit about these. What are they? And tell us what you want to show with that.

Esther Cooper 0:21:23

Well, I think the one with the m and Ms on it, that one was for. We were having a Christmas party for my basketball team, and I signed up to bring dessert, and I don’t know, I saw it on Pinterest or somewhere, and it kind of just looked like. It kind of looks like a barrel full of eminem. And I just thought that was a really fun concept. It was very fun.

Rico Figliolini 0:21:51

And those are kit kats on the outside, I guess.

Esther Cooper 0:21:54

Yes, sir. But another thing that you don’t see inside is that when you cut into the cake, it’s a red, green, and white in, like, a checkerboard pattern. So that was very fun.

Rico Figliolini 0:22:06

Cool. Yeah, that was complicated. I’m sure it’s set up like that. Right? What about the chocolate pops? If I’m looking at that correctly.

Esther Cooper 0:22:17

I made a fatal mistake when I started baking, and I told all my friends that I started baking, so they were all like, please bring in cake pops. So it feels like every other weekend I’m making cake pops to bring in for my friends. I think this one was probably, I made cake pops for my math class. I think this is probably those cake pops. I don’t remember.

Rico Figliolini 0:22:41

And this one.

Esther Cooper 0:22:43

That one, that one’s not looking so great. But I really liked the design. It was actually a cake I saw in a cookbook.

Rico Figliolini 0:22:53

Okay. You got a little patriotic, I think, on this one.

Esther Cooper 0:22:58

Oh, that one was really fun. That one was for 4th of July. You can’t tell. It was a s’mores dip. So there was Hershey’s chocolate bars under there. And then you would take graham cracker crackers and dip it in, and it was pretty good.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:16

That’s cool. That’s what you want. You want to be able to get creative and get it going like that. There’s definitely a lot of butter in that, I bet. Let’s go to brie. And we want to. This behaves. That’s the sculpture you did, I think, Bree, right?

Bree Hill 0:23:39

Yes.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:40

And tell me a little bit about the sculptures.

Bree Hill 0:23:46

So these are polar bears. The animals that I did, I was actually experimenting with different glazes. So the dogs that I did were almost oreo. They were light brown, dark brown, cream, and white all swirled into each other. And this one, I wanted to try different textures. And this is actually a different type of clay that leaves a really hoarse. It’s a gritty clay, a different texture, and it has little black dots in it. And it reminded me of a polar bear. And so this was one of the ones that I made with smooth fun.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:27

Cool. Was this at the Wesleyan artist market as well at some point or not?

Bree Hill 0:24:31

Yes. I did this with my elephant, swans and dogs. I had did my elephant, which actually took around a week and a half because I drew every individual aged line in the nose, the legs, the body.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:54

So let me ask you something. When something like that sells and goes off with someone, do you, like, cry a little bit? Is that like my baby’s left?

Bree Hill 0:25:08

I like to think more on the positive side. Like, someone else gets to experience my art. If someone else came into their house or wherever it’s being placed, it gives someone else another emotion, which is kind of life. The sense of spreading whatever I was doing in that moment. And I was actually having fun creating different animals. And I was really happy that someone liked it enough to one buy it, but also have in their home to show it.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:39

Sure. Sure. That makes sense. Esther has a different way of people enjoying hers than literally eat it and it disappears. So how do you feel about that? One stays a while and one is a momentary delight. Yeah, that must be. If I skipped anything. Is there anything, Bree, that you would like to share that we didn’t cover or that your experience that you’d like to share?

Bree Hill 0:26:18

I started something new this year. I do commissions in every medium, so I could also do animals. I’m doing self portraits of any picture. You would just send me a picture via email or phone. I would draw it or paint it. And that’s something new that I’m offering this year at the Wesleyan artist market.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:39

Wow. Okay. Very good. And, Esther, what about you? Anything that I’ve not touched upon that you’d like to share?

Esther Cooper 0:26:48

Not really.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:50

Okay, that’s fine. It’s all good. We have been speaking to Esther and Bree. From all you’ve been through the programs, I’m assuming, like, Bree, you’ve been through some of the art programs and stuff. And Esther, you’ve been through. Does Wesleyan have bakery, baking, cooking, any classes? Like. No. Right. It’s all academic. Academic and sports and science, of course. Cool. So if people want to follow you on social media to watch you, to see your work, or would they visit, is there anything you want to share that way? I don’t know if yours are private accounts or if you have an Instagram that’s open to the public.

Bree Hill 0:27:38

I have an Instagram. It’s called Bubbly Creations by Bree Hill. And obviously I’ll be at the Wesleyan artist market. Those are ways you could reach me.

Rico Figliolini 0:27:51

Cool. Esther, anything on your end other than being at the artist market?

Esther Cooper 0:27:55

No.

Rico Figliolini 0:27:59

Well, I’m having a great time talking to you, learning a little bit about your art and your passions. It’s always good to go through this. Every year we do this with a set of students just before the Wesleyan artist market. So it’s always fun to see different kids, different grades, doing different mediums and how they approach things. So I want to say thank you for sharing with us.

Bree Hill 0:28:22

Thank you for having us.

Rico Figliolini 0:28:24

Sure.

Esther Cooper 0:28:24

Thank you.

Rico Figliolini 0:28:25

Thank you. So hang in there for a minute. I’m just going to sign off. Say thank you again to EV Remodeling, Inc. For being a sponsor of this program, along with other things that we do. You can check them out at evremodellinginc.com. They’re based here, Peachtree Corners. Great family. Eli is a great guy. Check them out. They do great work. So feel free and also check us out at livinginpeachtreecorners.com. And our magazine, the upcoming issue of April, May, will have coverage of three Wesleyan artists, adult artists that will be at the show. And you can find out more information from us there. And certainly you can search the Wesleyan artist market and find out about all the great artists that will be there in April. So thanks again. Appreciate it.

Get ready for our insightful podcast featuring Chief Marshal Edward Restrepo of the newly formed Peachtree Corners City Marshal Office. With your host Rico Figliolini

Discover the innovative approach of the Peachtree Corners City Marshal Office, acting as a dynamic “force multiplier” in law enforcement.

What’s more, gain exclusive insights into the cutting-edge law enforcement technologies they’re implementing—tools that are setting new standards beyond traditional police methods. Find out how community involvement and business support play a vital role in creating safer communities.

Information on the City Marshals: https://peachtreecornersga.gov/389/City-Marshal

Podcast Transcript:

Rico Figliolini 0:00:00

Hi everyone, this is Rico Figliolini with our new podcast, UrbanEbb. I have a great guest today, so welcome our chief city marshal here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Restrepo. Hey, Eddie, how are you?

Edward Restrepo 0:00:22

Good morning, Rico. Thanks for having me today.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:24

I appreciate you joining us. We’re doing this in the middle between Christmas and New Year’s, so people get a little understanding when this is being recorded. And before we get into the show, though, I do want to thank our sponsors for being part of supporting us, our journalism, our podcast, and the magazines. And that’s EV Remodeling, owned by Eli who lives here in Peachtree Corners and has a great company doing a lot of remodeling here in the city of Peachtree Corners as well as the external area. So evremodelinginc.com is where you can visit them as well. Clearwave Fiber, that does a lot of Internet services for businesses. There’s over 1000 businesses, I believe, in Peachtree Corners that are serviced by them, if not more. They’re a southeast and national company handling Internet IT services for a variety of companies. So check them out. Clearwave Fiber is their company name. So now let’s get right down to it. You’ve been hired as chief city marshal for the city of Peachtree Corners. You joined roughly around November 13. So it’s been a little over six, seven weeks. How does it feel?

Edward Restrepo 0:01:33

I know you’ve been, just so people understand, you’ve been doing police work for quite a bit of time. A few decades there.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:41

Yeah.

Edward Restrepo 0:01:42

For 26 and a half years prior to coming here, I retired as a major over special operations with the Gwinnett County Police Department.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:50

I was looking at your resume. You have a variety of broad experience in theft, in homicide, in gangs, in drugs. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Eddie.

Edward Restrepo 0:02:04

Yeah, absolutely. So I am what you call one of those northern transplants. I was born in New Jersey, raised a little bit in the Yonkers. Then we came back over and kind of bounced around between the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington bridge, all on that whole side of town, whether it was west New York, Fairview, New Palisades, Park, Ridgefield, that area.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:26

Talk about.

Edward Restrepo 0:02:27

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I was kind of the last holdout. Majority of my family had moved down to Georgia years and I decided to go further north. So I ended up going up to Boston for a couple years and beautiful city. Great. However, during that time, it was going to be difficult to get into law enforcement without prior experience or knowing people up there, it was just the way it is in Boston. And so I remember my brother giving me a call and saying, hey, it looks like they’re doing a lot of hiring out here in Georgia. You may want to come down here, and you may have an opportunity to get on law enforcement down here. So I did. I came down, I applied with several, and Gwinnett at that time seemed to be the right fit, kind of what I was looking for. Got hired on with them, and six and a half years later, here I am.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:13

Wow. So the city interviewed quite a few people, and when they decided to do the city marshal system, there was a lot of debate about what that would entail, what responsibilities you would have and stuff, and that the officers that being hired would be post certified. So for people that don’t know, they would be there. Obviously, you’re from Gwinnett police, so you’ve had a background in police services, but even the other two marshals are post certified. That means that they’ve been certified to be police officers. In effect, you are police officers, just with a different agenda, if you will, or guideline.

Edward Restrepo 0:03:51

Yeah, absolutely. We have all the same rights. Every police officer, for you to be certified in the state of Georgia has to have at least a minimum ten week mandate. However, all of us went through 26 weeks initially with the Gwinnett County Police Department. They tend to do almost double, almost triple the amount of training than other agencies, I guess you could say. At least the metro agencies tend to run their own academies and tend to do more advanced courses and things of that nature. So they came with 26 weeks entering, and then, of course, all the training that you get along the way throughout the years, when you branch off into specialized units and things of that nature, obviously, you get into a more specific category of training.

Rico Figliolini 0:04:34

So, of the experience that you have. So, give me a rundown, like a bullet list of the type of experience you have.

Edward Restrepo 0:04:39

Yeah, absolutely. So, when I started through the academy, you graduate, you go through your field training, and that could take anywhere from two to three months, and you’re riding with a more experienced officer, and they’re kind of showing you the ropes and get what you’ve learned in the academy and then kind of the practical side of how things work on the road. So you get through that. I think I tend to be. Well, at least I was told that I caught on very quickly, because within about a year or so, I became an FTO just because of how active I was being proactive out there, stopping cars, going out on suspicious people, making arrests, doing all those things. And at that time, there wasn’t a lot of bilingual officers. I think it was me and probably two or three other, and we were abused a whole lot, obviously, because there’s a big latino population here in Gwinnett. Even back, you know, we would get called upon to do interviews and talk, talk to witnesses and suspects, and I got to really get to know a lot of the guys in major felony and robbery and gangs, and I guess they took a liking to me. And so when those positions became available, I had built those relationships, kind of showed my fortitude for going after criminals. And so I was fortunate that pretty early on, I was selected to go to the gang unit, and then from there, robbery homicide, and then kind of everything kind of went through there. There’s kind of like a progression. You say as you go through your career, you get promoted. Sometimes you get to stay. Sometimes they want you to go back to the road and get that supervisor experience on the road. And then when positions open up back in those specialized units, because you have that experience, they call you back. And so you can see kind of through my bio that I would go be there for a short period of time in uniform and then go back and be selected to a specialized unit. And that was kind of my career path. Let’s say I was that go to guy when there was flare ups with serious crime issues. I was the guy that they would come to to try to resolve those things. And so I prided myself in and grabbed it and surrounded myself with a good group of people and went after the criminal is kind of why the whole reason we became police officers, right?

Rico Figliolini 0:06:48

Yeah. It takes a certain type of person to do that consistently and, well, certainly my respect goes out to you and your team. Latina. What, specific italian by heritage. Yeah.

Edward Restrepo 0:07:02

So both my parents are from Columbia, South America.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:05

Okay, so you’re first generation american.

Edward Restrepo 0:07:09

Yeah, I was born stateside. Yes, that’s correct.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:12

You’re joined by two other marshals, two other officers, same typical background.

Edward Restrepo 0:07:18

So everybody’s having a little bit different. I mean, we could start off with our deputy chief, Johnny Bing. Johnny Bing did 17 years with Gwinnett county. He did his post instructor. He was in detectives. So he has a lot of that investigative experience, and he also has that post instructor training, which is very important, especially for us, since all the training and everything we go through, we have to have someone in the bullpen that’s able to do all that, because there’s requirements when we take our training and how that has to be. And that’s all monitored and oversaw by post. And so to have him on the team is really good. A lot of his experience was in the realm of special victims, so elderly, child abuse, all those kind of not so great things. I helped out, but I kind of stayed away from that side of the house when it came to it. He did a great job at it, so he brings that level of experience. Henry Mesa did about seven, eight years. He started, like me, when he was 21, I believe. And he has a lot of background when it comes to community oriented policing, the community engagement. He also spent a fair amount of time, both at the precinct and in detectives doing a multitude of property crimes and persons crimes. So a lot of us have a lot of investigative experience, which with us just being three of us, it’s very important that we have that skill set.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:53

Yeah, for sure. Especially with the technology now that you guys are going to be working with or that you’ve actually been working with.

Edward Restrepo 0:09:01

Yeah, absolutely. That was one of the reasons that was here. Having the opportunity and getting the offer here in the city was just that when I was here as the major for two and a half years, that was one of the big things that I worked with. Brian and everyone else here at the staff was really promoting the flock and all the other technologies we’ve had and integrating them and really creating that ecosystem to where we have these tools that not only prevent, but in the event that a crime does have to be able to efficiently develop leads and get to catching the criminal and stopping the repetitious crime.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:40

I’ve heard from Brian that we’ve discussed it a few times on and off the podcast, that you all have been drawn into things sometimes where Gwinnett police might have had an incident happen, saying, we want you guys to be on the lookout for a particular car, might have a bullet hole in its windshield. Can you guys keep an eye out? And you guys have been tracking the real time tracking in some cases?

Edward Restrepo 0:10:03

Yeah, absolutely.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:04

Can you tell me a little bit about how that helps?

Edward Restrepo 0:10:07

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have over 50 odd license plate readers in the city, and those were strategically placed in areas where we thought criminals would come in and out of the city. And so when there’s an incident, we’re able to go back to those look in those areas. If we have some nearby surveillance or witnesses that would be able to say, hey, this is what the car would look like, or this is what we believe, match it up, and then going back and looking at there and starting there with getting a vehicle.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:41

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:10:41

And then you can hot list those vehicles. And that means anytime that vehicle is moving, we would get alerts. And then that’s helpful for us to be pretty strategic and purposeful when we want to stop that vehicle, who’s in it, and kind of just continue the investigation there.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:56

Correct.

Edward Restrepo 0:10:56

So a lot of really good things there. So there’s that portion of it, and then there’s just other different softwares and databases that we’re able to access that help us develop leads. It’s very hard to stay off the grid nowadays. Everybody one way or another, unless you just pay straight cash every day, you could go down, drive down the road and get on your own ring camera, your neighbor’s ring camera, whatever. Right. I mean, it’s very hard today to be off the grid, I guess you could say, in the metro Atlanta area.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:32

I think if you’re out in Calhoun, Georgia, or somewhere, it might be a little easier. But even.

Edward Restrepo 0:11:37

Yeah, no, they’re starting to put up license plate readers. I mean, when you really look at mean, we’re all struggling when it comes to manpower, especially the bigger agencies. And so it’s one of those equalizers.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:47

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:11:47

The technology cameras don’t get burnt out. They don’t call in sick. They’re always up and running. They don’t complain more that you can put those things out. Money eyes out there at all hours of the night. And then when something does happen, really do have something you could tap into and really move forward with generating a very.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:07

So how challenging is it? I know, for example, the form has added cameras. Form has had some issues a little bit with Lululemon. It’s been a national thing just because of the brand name robbery at the jewelry store there a few months ago, I think it was. So there’s more cameras being added, there’s more technology being added. So how do you filter that out? Because at some point there’s just a lot to work through.

Edward Restrepo 0:12:39

I’m sure you’re familiar, but one of the big things, there are certain priorities that I think we want to move forward and pretty aggressively with starting up the Marshall’s office and we have the Connect Peace Street Corners program.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:51

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:12:52

And so we’re really urging both the business community majority for now and then residential at a minimum, to register their cameras with us.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:02

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:13:03

The registering is, hey, I’m just going to let you know that I have a camera here. If something happens, here’s my information, you come knock on my door and I’ll provide it. And then where we say integration is they’re providing those exterior forward facing cameras on them to us for us to see and use those in our crime preventative. And as far as utilizing us to develop leads.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:26

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:13:26

And so those are very big. That’s one thing that us coming on that we’re going to work really closely with the businesses, apartment complexes, hotels, extended stays, especially those areas where we have those flare ups where we just have more calls for service and repetitive things happen. So we want to kind of stay ahead of that. And so that’s where I think the Connect Peachtree Corners program is going to be.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:52

And I’ve noticed through conversations with Brian Johnson and some other people with the city and even some other local business people, like you mentioned some of the hotels, long stay hotels, where crime tends to happen, there may be some apartment complexes where there’s more crime than other places, they are beginning to add cameras to those locations. So more and more, with the cameras being added, not just licensed plate readers, but facial recognition to some degree. Right. Although the data is not kept.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:26

But there is a journey towards safety and towards solving crime. So when you’re dealing, when you were originally a police officer, now you’re a city marshal, there’s very different way that you have to operate. Do you still solve crimes, or are you part of the team that solves the crime with Gwinnett police?

Edward Restrepo 0:14:53

I think we’re a Complimentary.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:55

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:14:56

Necessarily, you have to know Gwinnett is a very big agency.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:00

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:15:00

And so maybe a priority for us and them may differ.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:05

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:15:06

Because they’re worrying about the whole county.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:07

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:15:07

As far as the city, let’s just say three entering autos in a subdivision overnight may not be a big priority for the Gwinnett County Police Department if they’ve been dealing with a robbery and a shooting and whatnot. So for us, that is a big priority.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:22

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:15:23

So today I just literally got a text message from business owner of one of the apartment complexes where there was someone trying to break into the mailboxes. And that was something that we helped out, and we identified a suspect. And so, literally, before we got on podcast here, I got that, sent it to my marshals, and the first thing that he’s going to go do is head over there, get the video talk, go through all those things, start pulling the surveillance, start looking at the flock cameras to see if we can’t develop a suspect.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:49

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:15:49

Because if we don’t stop them, they’re going to continue to do it. Right.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:53

In fact, it was one that just happened before a few weeks ago, I guess.

Edward Restrepo 0:15:57

Yes, that’s correct. Yes. It’s just that time of year. You have people’s taxes, things coming in, gifts, packages. This is tis the season, I guess you could say, for those bad actors. So, yeah, the quicker we’re able to identify that person and put them under arrest and we kind of stop their crime spree.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:18

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:16:19

And so that may not necessarily be a big priority for the Gwinnett County Police Department because they have other things, but for us, we’re able to be more calculated, more purposeful, and is a priority for the city.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:31

Do you, with the city, with companies like flock that does provide the cameras or like fuses that does the crime center in the cloud, do you all also participate or do you foresee yourselves participating in creating solutions to some of the crimes that happen?

Edward Restrepo 0:16:50

Yeah, absolutely. So I’m in the process of finishing up my dissertation on policing technologies, and so I don’t want to take anything more on bigger, but my plan, or my tentative plan is to try to put something together. Now you have a national real time crime center association, but I wanted to kind of do it on a more metro Atlanta because we all look, one of the biggest kind of tragic events that really highlighted not sharing information would have been obviously September 11, right? There was red flags that were up and things that weren’t being shared. And so we’d be foolish not to look at that in this realm where we have all this technology. And one, we could have some criminals committing some violent crimes to cab and then an investigator there knowing that they’re creeping into Gwinnett or Peachtree corners while they’re trying to develop their case. Why not have an experienced set of people stop the car here, find out what they’re doing, see if there’s anything that works into their way into the car, develop evidence and take them out before something else happens.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:59

Right?

Edward Restrepo 0:17:59

So the old school way was, I’m going to protect the integrity of my case. I’m not going to tell anybody. And now you violent people running around and you want to kind of keep your fingers crossed, hoping hopefully I’ll be able to build my case and take them out before something happens or utilize this technology to the benefit of where you’re bringing in other law enforcement professionals to help you stop that as soon as you can. Because we could build our case. If we stop a car and we find some stolen property, they go from there. But then there’s all the other things that you can do to place them at the scenes of other crimes. There’s different ways that you could approach cases, and especially those violent ones.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:35

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:18:36

You want to be able to try, you want to build a case, but you also want to take them out as soon as you can, because the next thing could be very tragic.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:43

Not being in police work, I didn’t even think about that. I think I’m fairly knowledgeable in things. I don’t know everything, obviously. That’s why I love doing these podcasts. I get to learn a lot more. I see the other perspective of things. But like anyone else, I mean, I didn’t realize that people assume you arrest someone, they get out on bail. Usually you work in a case on it, but that doesn’t stop them. Right, because it’s a job to them, essentially, they have to make a living. They’re going to commit other crimes because they’re doing a risk reward type set up. What’s my risk? What’s my reward? They’re smart. If they’re not, if they have other issues, then that’s different. So they continue on. How is that? Because I know working between agencies like Atlanta police, maybe Fulton county police, or Sandy Springs, which borders us in a little part of what we do. Roswell, how is that? In John’s creek? That’s another.

Edward Restrepo 0:19:41

In an ideal scenario, we would all be kind of on the same. And I think, you know, fuses is doing a really good job at getting a lot of the different cities and counties on the same board. I will tell you, there was a grant that was provided by Uwasi, which they’re part of, kind of the Atlanta regional. And so where they were giving either the first year or first two years of fuses to all the metro counties.

Rico Figliolini 0:20:11

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:20:11

Because in the event of a large natural disaster, a man made incident or whatever, it may be the case for them to all operate together on the same radio channel, have the same training, a lot of the same equipment, and so they saw that that was vital. There was a lot of blind spots. If everybody has different, separate systems, then we’re not seeing the criminals don’t respect those lines. And so we shouldn’t either. We should be one step ahead of them. It’s vitally important for us to be all on that same sheet of music, and everybody’s going to have different likes of certain equipment, certain technologies. But if the big basis that we’re working off of is when a criminal comes out of Atlanta or South Atlanta and comes up to Peachtree corners, if, let’s say, Dunwoody or Dorville knows that they’re entering auto suspect? Well, they could hotlist that vehicle for us to see, to be able to say, hey, there’s a 03:00 in the morning, and a vehicle that’s known to be tied to entering autos is coming into the city. Well, they’re probably not. There’s not a lot of things open at 03:00 in the morning in the city. So that would probably be a good traffic stop, a good conversation to find out who’s in their car, what they’re doing. They may find some tools, possession tools to commit burglary or entering autos, and we can kind of go from there. You can start with loitering and Crowley and get into the car. They may have warrants. There might be stolen cars. So it’s just a big snowball effect. But we would never know that if we’re not sharing that information.

Rico Figliolini 0:21:43

Right. So is it in an urban environment? This is what Urbanebb is about. Talking about small cities, really, not the largest cities, but small cities like ours, 40,000 to 100,000 people. Police work is one thing, martial work, because you’re only allowed to do certain things because of the nature of what the martial system is now. That may change over the next decade. Who knows, as the city grows, as things happen. But do you find that the parameters that you have to work in, is that a good thing?

Edward Restrepo 0:22:22

No. I think so. I think it allows us, I guess you could say, unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at it, when it. County contractually has to respond to all the 911 calls, right. And that could be just a thing where call after call after call comes in. So all they’re being is reactive.

Rico Figliolini 0:22:40

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:22:41

Where we, as the marshals, we get to pick and choose what a priority or what we want to dig our teeth into, right? So if it’s an entering auto issue, if it’s a quality of life issue, if we’ve had a spree of violent crimes here, all three of us could literally go, all right, for the next week or so, this is what we’re concentrating on our efforts on, right. And we can develop those leads. Once we develop a suspect, we can give Gwinnett a call and say, hey, look, this is going good. We’re probably going to need some more assets, some more people. But this is what we’ve gotten up to this point, and then work the rest of it on through and taking out the bad actors.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:17

So, with police work, it’s interesting in what I do sometimes. I get to go to different trade shows. I do marketing for different companies. I’ve been to the international trade show. I’ve been to the toy and amusement industry show. It’s kind of interesting to be able to go to some of those. I have not yet been to the consumer electronics show, but I’m sure that there is a trade show for security, police, city work. There’s an industry out there. Fuses is part of that. So what other technologies are you seeing that an urban center like ours could be using?

Edward Restrepo 0:23:51

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the two things that we’re really moving forward with is obviously the use of drones. That’s going to be very big here in the city, both on the law enforcement side, but also on the civilian side.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:02

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:24:02

With the city being so well known for its being a well renowned, smart city with all the different technologies that they have here, we’re going to carry that on on the drone level, both on the civilian business industry side, but also on the law enforcement side. And part of that, as well as us moving forward with having, I guess, not a real time crime center, because I think a lot of people think, like, it’s going to be monitored all the time. But we will have, and we’ll be in the process of. We’re bidding now, but to build out a center where all the different camera feeds will go into a room eventually. We would like to. Where we would get to no line of sight with the drones.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:44

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:24:44

Like Brookhaven, our neighboring jurisdiction down here, they’re flying drones off the rooftops of buildings and responding to calls.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:52

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:24:52

Giving you that really good situational awareness. And so they’re right down the road. I actually talked to Brian yesterday, and we’re going out to a big drone conference. It’s kind of big international in April. All of us are going to go out there to see, but then we’ve carved out a day where we’re going to meet with Chula Vista Police department, and they’re kind of the big innovators in the drone space and law enforcement. So hopefully, we’ll be able to spend half a day or a day out there and see from where they went conceptually to where they’re known, know they get visitors from all around the world that want to model the program that they got going on over there. So I’m a firm believer there’s no sense to reinvent the wheel. If there’s somebody that’s done it out there, time tested, then it’s probably for you not to commit a lot of errors. You’re better off going to see who’s done it, who’s done it well and kind of borrow things from them.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:45

Right. That makes sense. Sure. With AI being part of what’s out there now, we’re actually through the magazine, through the publication, and in the podcast, we’re going to be talking more about AI in business and how AI works with how different companies in the city of pastry corners, for example, are using AI, whether it’s just to create a bot to do a simple thing, or they’re using it to do sales, or maybe they’re creating their own original use of that. Do you see city police work using AI at some point?

Edward Restrepo 0:26:20

The AI portion, for sure. I think a lot of the things and the cameras we move forward with, we want them to either have AI built into it or if there be AI being able somewhere where that feed is being channeled to incorporate AI. And I’ll give you an example. Let’s say we’re having some overnight burglaries of gas stations because that happens, or of some of the super Mercalos that are in the city and things of that nature. And I say that because it’s happened.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:51

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:26:52

But we could set up an AI on those cameras between, let’s say, midnight to 530 in the morning. Right. And if a vehicle, a person or anybody goes into that geofence that’s on the AI camera, we would get an immediate alert.

Rico Figliolini 0:27:07

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:27:07

And that’s the biggest thing. A lot of the problems that you have with in progress crimes is the alarm goes off, it goes to the call center. The call center holds onto it. Then it goes over to trying to figure out what police department, who they need to call, and that several minutes pass, they’re already in, out on their way, unless the officer just happens to be driving by and sees it and is right on top of it. So that is huge in mind when we’re able to do these geofences and also, like, let’s say town center, right. If we have an AI component, I think you may have learned that we had some issues with people loitering and hanging out on the top deck and doing some things that they shouldn’t be doing. But you could set up a geofence once. You can do it with cars or people, and then time. So if there’s going to be times where people are just going to go to have dinner at one of the restaurants, they’re getting together and they’re going. But you set it up for ten minutes, ten people or more, they start going to that space and you go, probably brewing something bad is about to happen. And then be able to get that live feed. That’s definitely one thing. And then obviously there’s another technology where you can talk through the cameras. Hey, this is such and such with the marshal’s office. I don’t know what you’re up to, but we’re heading that way. And if you have bad intentions, it’s probably best you leave now and then. You’d be surprised how many people get into their cars. They’re watching us. It’s time to go. Right. So all those different things.

Rico Figliolini 0:28:31

Right?

Edward Restrepo 0:28:31

So AI is a tremendous tool. It’s just how much time does one have? Problems one wants to tackle? Those are the things. That’s the great thing of all these different crime fighting technologies.

Rico Figliolini 0:28:46

Do you find, Eddie, that when you go, I don’t know if you’re like me a little, when I go to different cities, based on my interest, things will pique my interest. So, I mean, when you go to other cities and visit other places, do you notice what other police force are driving, how they’re handling situations? I’m sure you’re seeing how other security, police security forces handle situations.

Edward Restrepo 0:29:11

Is that helpful?

Rico Figliolini 0:29:12

I mean, do you look at that stuff?

Edward Restrepo 0:29:14

Oh, no, most definitely. I think with part of my dissertation and me just being a life learner and then just wanting to learn more about technologies and things of that nature, I have gone around to numerous cities, I mean, even in the local area. I’ve been to Duluth. Duluth has a very impressive RTCC center there that they monitor. Been to Atlanta, Cobb, Orlando. I’ve been everywhere. Just because I want to kind of get a good feel on what the latest and greatest stuff is out there and what’s working right again. I go back to time tested know. Unfortunately, some people in law know. The shiniest object comes up and they go, oh, this is the greatest thing we’re going to go with. They commit to something and then it doesn’t turn out to be as great as it was. Right to where you could look at a neighboring large agency that goes, you know what? They’ve been doing it, right. They have a lot of cameras. They’ve been able to solve a lot of serious crime, improve quality of life for their residents and visitors. Maybe this is the direction we want to go, or at least give it some really strong consideration, I guess you.

Rico Figliolini 0:30:14

Could say, are there things that we haven’t covered that you’d like to mention?

Edward Restrepo 0:30:19

It’s know to know the opportunity to come here and really showcase the know. I say this to Brian. I say this to know, we want to serve as the ambassadors for technology, because we’re small, we’re able to be agile and nimble.

Rico Figliolini 0:30:39

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:30:39

We don’t have to go through all these huge processes that a big county government has to go through to procure certain things.

Rico Figliolini 0:30:46

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:30:48

We have, I would gather to say, probably the most amount of less lethal options that you could have here in the city. Between the bola wraps, between the burna pepper ball, OC, kinetic ball things, you name it, we want to explore. We have, actually, our training set for the Taser tens, which just are literally coming out.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:13

What are those?

Edward Restrepo 0:31:15

Taser ten. So, for tasers, it’s basically the electronic weapons that you would shoot into someone that has probes that would lock up their neurological system, I guess you could say. So, for the longest time, it’s always been kind of two probes, but with that, if you’re running after somebody, they’re moving around. The probes don’t always hit Taser has done is they’ve kind of through their progression. Now they have a Taser ten. And so the Taser ten is just what the name says. There’s ten probes. And so if I’m running after someone, I could shoot the first probe. You have to at least have two good contact probes. So for some reason, I’m scaling a fence. They’re running, they zig, I’m zagging at the time. Whatever PP, I’m able to shoot enough times until I get a good connection, and then they go down, and then I’m able to affect the arrest. So just those type of things. But, no, there’s just so much stuff that’s out here, and we’ve already hosted other agencies coming over here that have been wanting to try these things out. So that’s always a big thing, right, for them to come to us and be like, hey, can you host this? And, yeah, we’d love to have you come. This is us. Grab the data, kind of put it out there for people, show them the good or the bad, and if it doesn’t work out, then we scrap it and we move on and we look for other stuff. But if it’s good, we keep it in our arsenal and deploy it and make it safe on us, the people that we’re interacting with and all those things.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:40

Yeah, that’s cool. And I would imagine there are companies constantly coming out here, probably pitching, showing the technology, even.

Edward Restrepo 0:32:47

Yeah, no, actually, I have a really good relationship with Chris from Fusys, and so he comes across, he partners with a lot of great agencies. And so that’s kind of the byproduct of them being in the city and me having good relationships with them. When they say, hey, we just met with this company, you may want to give them a try.

Rico Figliolini 0:33:05

Right?

Edward Restrepo 0:33:05

And that’s happened on multiple occasions throughout my time as the major and now as the chief marshal here in the city.

Rico Figliolini 0:33:14

Do you see in a city like ours, or even, I mean, it’s happening all over the place, the increase of retail robbery. I think there was one stat that said 30% of robberies, retail robbery. I don’t know if there’s any big solution.

Edward Restrepo 0:33:31

So you touched on something that sometimes can be taboo, which was facial recognition.

Rico Figliolini 0:33:37

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:33:37

And so I will say we’re starting to see the pendulum swing the other way. And I say that in, when you have a state like New York, where you’re from and where, you know, a small portion of my life earlier on is these retail stores just can’t absorb these losses. And so there is a big chain supermarket store up there that has literally put facial recognition in their stores. So when they have an individual that they’ve criminally trespassed or they’ve identified as a person, that person comes back into any of their supermarkets where they’ve been trespassed, an alert goes off, staff comes over there, they call the police. There has to be consequences if there’s not consequences. This is why we’re seeing the problem that we’re seeing, right? And so as long as you have those things in place, and I say, like, who would have thought today that we would be okay with going through a checkpoint and taking our shoes off our belts, our watches, and all that other stuff? But that’s what needed to happen, prevent something, right? So we’re able to, or at least we decide, hey, you know what? I’m willing to do that because there’s a greater cause or safety.

Rico Figliolini 0:34:47

Right?

Edward Restrepo 0:34:48

And so kind of the same thing here with facial recognition. And I try to tell people, facial recognition, it’s one of those things that, how do I explain this? No police officer or anybody that would get an alert on facial recognition is going to act on that information alone. It’s just a small portion of a puzzle. Like, let’s say I ran facial recognition and I got hit back and it said, it’s 98%. This is the person. I would never go get a warrant based on a computer telling me that they think that I’m still going to do all my due diligence and doing all the things that my investigation would be my first priority is, okay, if they’re saying that person, where was that person? Was that person, could they have been in the state? Could they have been in the city? Is there car tied to them? Were they working that day? Am I going to go check to see if they were at work at that day? All those things, I’m either going to dispel that or I’m going to prove that they were and you move on. But I think people think that this thing generates potential individual and that we’re just going to go, all right, put them on the list. Let’s get a warrant, let’s get them locked up. That does not happen. And I think that’s where I think a lot of people with facial recognition have been. But if you look at airports, if you look at Border patrol, they’ve been using facial recognition.

Rico Figliolini 0:36:03

Oh, yeah.

Edward Restrepo 0:36:04

You go to another country, you know damn well you’re going through there and they’re going to face recognition. That’s how those people stay.

Rico Figliolini 0:36:13

Those very violent countries for sure, in Europe and Interpol definitely use that because of terrorist activity. And we’re not even talking about profiling anymore. Profiling is a thing of the past to something. But you’re correct. I’ve seen and heard the same thing. It’s a tool, one of many things being used. But I’m glad the city is working towards are. We promote ourselves as a smart city with lots of technology, so this makes sense for us to be doing that. We’ve been talking with Eddie Restrepa, chief marshal for the city of peaceful corners. So I appreciate you being with us. If anyone out there listening has questions, Eddie can be reached through the city’s website. Certainly they can reach. Is there a place particular email or something you want to give?

Edward Restrepo 0:37:04

So do the Marshall’s office. I don’t have it in front of me. But if they just go to the city of Peachtree Corners and they’ll go to the marshall’s office, that’ll take them to two of our vehicles. If they see them out and about, there’s a QR code they can scan and that’ll take directly to our website. When we’re out and about, we’ll have the connect peace Tree Corners banners readily available. All those things. Again, we really want to heavily promote that. It’s one of those things where help those that are helping you.

Rico Figliolini 0:37:33

Right.

Edward Restrepo 0:37:33

We as the marshals and the police, the more eyes we could have out there. And it’s just simple, right. If you have a camera that you’re willing to share with us and hopefully that could be the difference between us solving and preventing crime. Why wouldn’t you want to be involved? I think anybody with a good heart and wants good things for their community would want to be able to provide those things to the crime fighter so we can keep you as safe as possible.

Rico Figliolini 0:37:56

I mean, it’s interesting. The ring camera, I have that too. And if you’re part of that community, you get dinged every once in a while about besides lost pets. It’s a bit of like, did you see these guys? They’ve been like in my driveway checking the locks on my doors or the door handles. So things are happening out.

Edward Restrepo 0:38:15

Know as we get the website and we get a little bit more active on social media, which you’ll see that I’m working with Lewis, our communications director, to kind of really put together what we’ve been doing behind the scenes and moving that forward. We’ll be able to be putting more of that information out through, you know, when we have those instances where, like you said, a series of entering autos, we could put that to the community. Hey, can you help us identify these people? Or, hey, we’ve had a spree in this area. Lock up your valuables. Be a little bit more vigilant in those areas. Contact any suspicious activity. All those good things.

Rico Figliolini 0:38:48

Cool. Well, thank you, Eddie. I appreciate you being on. Hang in there with me for a minute as we sign off. Appreciate everyone listening to this new podcast, UrbanEbb with our guest here, Eddie Restrepo, chief marshal at City of Peachtree Corners. Any questions, put in the comments below. Whether you’re watching on YouTube or on Facebook, we’d love to hear from you. Thank you all.