Spencer Frazer: Second Act Artist Changing the World

[00:00:00] Jonathan Sposato: Hi, I’m Jonathan Sposato, owner and publisher of Seattle Magazine. Our next guest is just absolutely exemplary of a great second act. Spencer Fraser, originally a native of Los Angeles has had one of the most fascinating career journeys riddled with immense learning, high business successes, and now in his second act, enjoying great acclaim as one of the most Interesting new artists in our region from Skunk Works projects on the first stealth bomber to founding a multi million dollar outdoor gear company to becoming a self taught painter.

[00:00:42] Jonathan Sposato: Spencer just keeps switching gears and braving new trails. Currently, Spencer’s unique artistic style and climate centered paintings has garnished much national attention in the art world. winning a spot in a Chelsea International Fine Art competition in New York, being featured on the Times Square billboard, and [00:01:00] even being included in the U.

[00:01:01] Jonathan Sposato: S. government’s fifth climate assessment report. You can see examples of his artwork on seattlemag. com as well as his own website spencerfraser.com. Regardless, if there is a most interesting man in Seattle title, I think you’ll agree that he is probably a contender. Please welcome,

[00:01:23] Jonathan Sposato: Hey, thanks for being here, Spencer. Really pleased to see you as always. It’s exciting. So I was in Madison Park recently and I walked into a gallery and bam, I saw the most amazing artwork that you did. And it was so unique in its execution. So incredibly relevant to today and what’s on our minds in terms of climate change.

[00:01:47] Jonathan Sposato: Uh, thematically, it just really struck me. How did that show go for you? 

[00:01:52] Spencer Frazer: The show was smoking. I mean, we had two openings that were just packed and, and I kind of likened it to [00:02:00] a wedding. You don’t remember anything after the first hello or before the last goodbye. And, um, so I don’t remember much of that, so it must’ve gone very well.

[00:02:10] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, I, I would, I would say that it was, um, it seemed like it was a packed house and um, people were very, very interested and there was a lot of really amazing conversation that was happening in the gallery about the artwork. As the artist, you did a great job of sort of talking and engaging, uh, with the audience and telling them about your artwork and, and getting them to understand what some of the messages were.

[00:02:32] Spencer Frazer: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s always tricky, right? Right. Understanding how much to talk, how much time to spend, how to spread your time. And I honed those skills and doing in a prior life working conventions and things where people would come up to the, to the counter and you have to assess very quickly. Are they a dealer, a distributor?

[00:02:50] Spencer Frazer: Are they press? Are they international? Do they know your company? Do they not know your company? And so when. People would come into the [00:03:00] gallery and I would see them. I, I kind of assess, you know, at what level to speak to them. How, how detailed are they really wanting to hear? So, yeah, I love people and I love this topic because I think it’s so relevant and so important.

[00:03:17] Spencer Frazer: And so far, the show has just been fabulous. 

[00:03:21] Jonathan Sposato: Now, because, uh, sort of the theme of this conversation is about second acts, and you, to me, of all the people I know, I can’t think of another person that, that not only pivoted so meaningfully, but that you’re in completely different fields than before.

[00:03:36] Jonathan Sposato: So let’s talk about your first act. If I assume that that was your first act, maybe that was actually even your second act at that point. But, but, but the Knives Company, I should mention that. You ended up selling that perhaps to a private equity or to outright whole acquisition, but tell us what that was about.

[00:03:55] Jonathan Sposato: And let’s start with the name. What, what did SOG or S O G stand for? [00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] Spencer Frazer: Yeah, there’s a lot here. So originally. I was collecting Vietnam era, uh, war memorabilia. And I was  very You know, that’s sort of a passion of mine, too. Oh, I 

[00:04:13] Spencer Frazer: remember, yes. Yeah, yeah, 

[00:04:15] Jonathan Sposato: yeah. Okay, but, but this is not about me. No, no, it can be about you, too.

[00:04:19] Jonathan Sposato: Let’s talk about how you got  into collecting that stuff? 

[00:04:21] Spencer Frazer: Well, the draft ended on my 18th birthday. Wow. And it was one of the great gifts of my life because it was, it was a tough and ugly war. Right. 

[00:04:33] Jonathan Sposato: Yes, I have to disclose that my father, uh, Don Sposato, uh, was there two years and, um, well, I mean, he puts it very bluntly.

[00:04:41] Jonathan Sposato: He’s a blue collar guy. He’s like, total waste of time. So, I hear ya. Interesting. 

[00:04:47] Spencer Frazer: So, I was fascinated by the time and by the topic and I, I was introduced to the, um, uniforms that they were wearing at the time. And they wore all these different kinds of Tiger [00:05:00] Stripe. It was a triple canopy kind of uniform.

[00:05:02] Spencer Frazer: You’re 

[00:05:02] Jonathan Sposato: speaking my language, my friend. Really? Yes. I got a whole collection of M 65s. I got former, uh, Green Beret Jungle shirts. So do I! Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. You’re, you’re coming over. You’re gonna see the collection. I got flight jackets. Belong to F 4 Phantom pilots. I’ve 

[00:05:20] Spencer Frazer: got one of the finest, uh, Tiger Stripe collections in the United States.

[00:05:23] Spencer Frazer: I bet. I bet. 

[00:05:24] Jonathan Sposato: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. We could, we should start a museum. Maybe we should. That’d be awesome. But, please, please continue. So you got into the uniforms or the jungle, uh, fatigues. 

[00:05:34] Spencer Frazer: The thing about these uniforms was they were made in country and they were hand silk screened. 

[00:05:40] Jonathan Sposato: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. 

[00:05:41] Spencer Frazer: And so they were these custom artistic fabrics.

[00:05:45] Spencer Frazer: And I look back at all the different influences I had in terms of my art career. This is definitely one of them 

[00:05:51] Jonathan Sposato: to 

[00:05:51] Spencer Frazer: see all these different patterns and animal mimicking and, and, uh, you know, so I started collecting those and, you know, I had [00:06:00] different friends who were. into it. And one of my friends showed me this knife.

[00:06:04] Spencer Frazer: Now this knife was called a SOG knife. SOG was special operations group. That’s right. But really it stood for studies and observation group. And that was more of the, of the, you know, classified kind of interpretation of, of SOG. Most people knew it as a special operations group. So when they showed me this knife, when he showed me this knife, I lost my mind.

[00:06:28] Spencer Frazer: You know, it was an instant. Kind of, uh, fate, uh, instant kind of attraction. There was so much soul to this knife and history and provenance and design and mystique that it just took me. You know, sometimes things in life do that. 

[00:06:50] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. 

[00:06:51] Spencer Frazer: You know, there’s opportunities in everybody’s life. You have to prepare yourself.

[00:06:55] Spencer Frazer: To be in a place to receive them. And I, I [00:07:00] was at that time and I saw this knife and he and I decided that we would reproduce this knife knowing nothing about the knife business. May I pause you there? Because 

[00:07:08] Jonathan Sposato: it’s interesting because I was actually myself a guest on the collector’s gene. Uh, radio podcast, which is all about, uh, why people collect and when you begin your collecting journey, it seems like that you attach to a certain theme.

[00:07:22] Jonathan Sposato: In this case, uh, broadly speaking to Vietnam war soldiers or special operations, you know, you mentioned uniforms and then, and then you got this knife. passion for that space extend beyond knives? Like, why knives specifically? 

[00:07:39] Spencer Frazer: Oh, well, at that point I had just seen that knife, but yes, it went, it went much further.

[00:07:43] Spencer Frazer: You went much further. Anything, period, at that point. But the funny thing about collecting, as you probably know, But many people do not know the principle of collecting that makes it so addictive is that the wanting is so [00:08:00] much more powerful than the having. 

[00:08:02] Jonathan Sposato: Yes. 

[00:08:03] Spencer Frazer: The having is like good. And maybe you, it’s a bucket list, or maybe you check it off, or maybe you show some fun.

[00:08:08] Spencer Frazer: Friends or maybe it’s a trophy and you have a party. And, but really nobody’s like, you know, going to be that into it as, as you are. But the wanting, Oh, the wanting will drive you batty. You’ll look for things you’ll search, you’ll talk to people. Now. And of course now, you know, it’s a lot easier to do that with with a worldwide, you know, kind of information network.

[00:08:29] Jonathan Sposato: Do you reflect back on that time or even Uh, more currently to try to understand fundamentally why you do collect and why you collect that category of, of, of things, uh, specifically. 

[00:08:46] Spencer Frazer: There was a mystique and, uh, I had come out of the top secret world, which is another much earlier life. How do you mean?

[00:08:57] Spencer Frazer: What, what is this top secret world that you [00:09:00] came out of? Well, when I was in, uh, uh, my early twenties, um, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do in life. I was trying a lot of things. 

[00:09:10] Jonathan Sposato: Hmm. 

[00:09:11] Spencer Frazer: At one point, I remember, um, opening cans of cat food to eat, and so, uh, I, I realized I better go get a job, and, and I applied at Northrup in, um, in Los Angeles, and they looked at me and they saw that I was capable and I was breathing and they needed people and, uh, they said, you’re hired.

[00:09:32] Spencer Frazer: And my first question was, when am I going to get a paycheck? And they said, well, there’s one little problem. What’s that? He said, you’re going to need DOD clearance. And I go, well, how long is That would be Department of Defense. Yes. Uh, how long is that going to take? And he said, about a month. I said, what’s that going to involve?

[00:09:52] Spencer Frazer: And he said, well, we’re going to talk to all your friends and run background Checks on all your family and you know, my heart sunk because I go, well, [00:10:00] if they’re going to talk to my friends, I’m never going to get clearance. Um, but I did. And at the end of that month, I got a phone call. They had tapped my phone.

[00:10:10] Spencer Frazer: I, you could hear it in the old days when it was click, click, click. He said, you’ve, you’ve been awarded a clearance. Why don’t you come in? And I, you know, at that point, my, uh, you know, opinion of the U S government sank a little bit. That they had given me the. The clearance, but I went in anyway, and I, I met these military guys and they took me into this room and they said, Spencer, you haven’t just been awarded clearance.

[00:10:36] Spencer Frazer: You’ve been awarded the highest civilian clearance in the United States for your eyes only beyond top secret. Spencer, 

[00:10:44] Jonathan Sposato: come on. You’re skipping over something. There’s something that you did that was extraordinary that warranted that highest civilian clearance. No. Like did they make you take an IQ test and you scored off the charts?

[00:10:56] Jonathan Sposato: I would have 

[00:10:56] Spencer Frazer: failed everything, but I’m a pretty honest guy and you get [00:11:00] what you see and I hadn’t had any past records and my family was clean and so, um, that’s the only thing I can think of, but when they, when they did this, they said that my badge is going to reflect a much less clearance, uh, because we don’t want Russian spies to follow you.

[00:11:17] Jonathan Sposato: Single you out. Yeah. 

[00:11:18] Spencer Frazer: Yeah. Yeah. And so I was fascinated. You know, at that time, and they took me into this hangar and I saw, I had a combination and a retinal scan and I went in and there in front of me was a four 10 scale, which was still immense of the stealth bomber. Wow. I started working on the stealth bomber and all the different tech technology that went with that.

[00:11:44] Spencer Frazer: And it was such an amazing. education. 

[00:11:46] Jonathan Sposato: Do you, are you able to disclose to us what exactly you worked on or you’d have to, you tell us and you’d have to kill us? 

[00:11:54] Spencer Frazer: No, no, not anymore. So it’s, it’s quite a while ago, but I was working on radar [00:12:00] surfaces. I was working on nuclear controls. I was working in R and D.

[00:12:04] Spencer Frazer: I was a pattern maker. I was a model builder and um, I was a technician. I was sent to White Sands Missile Base and other. Top secret bases and stuff. So as a kid, really, I mean, in my twenties, it was an amazing experience. And I’ll just tell you this other little story, because after being there about three months, I went up to my boss and I was looking at, uh, at the airplane.

[00:12:29] Spencer Frazer: And I said to him, I said, Ron, I said, um, it occurs to me and I I’ve measured it, that the tail is in the wrong place. And he said, well, what are you talking about? I said, the tail’s in the wrong place. It’s six inches off. And he said, show me. So I went and I had levels and strings and all kinds of things and, and, um, um, I showed him and he went.

[00:12:54] Spencer Frazer: The tail’s off. It’s six inches off. I said, that’s what I was telling you. And he taught me a great lesson. [00:13:00] He said, you found it, you fix it. So here I am at the bottom of the department with these experienced guys and, uh, with a chainsaw tearing off the back of this thing in order to rebuild it properly.

[00:13:14] Spencer Frazer: It was a great lesson. In two years, I went to be the number three man in that, in that department. Wow. So I had done that, and that was interesting to me, and then the Vietnam thing was super fascinating to me. I can’t tell you exactly why, but it was such a current issue, and it was such a witch of a war was a term that was commonly used.

[00:13:36] Jonathan Sposato: Oh, I see. I’d never heard that. Yeah. A witch of a war. Witch of a war. Interesting. Yeah. So let’s get back to your company. And so you’re. You’re building this company. It was born out of this organic sort of passion for, uh, these knives, this first knife that you saw and, um, what was going on in the world at that time.

[00:13:55] Jonathan Sposato: So how long did you build that company for? 

[00:13:58] Spencer Frazer: So, uh, let me give you a few [00:14:00] specifics in the, because the early days are so interesting and might be interesting to many people out there who are thinking about starting their own business or who started their own business, uh, failed. When. I saw that first knife, I told you that I was just taken by it.

[00:14:16] Spencer Frazer: So we wanted to reproduce it. So how do you do that? And so I started talking to a lot of people. We ended up reproducing it in Japan. Uh, Japan was known to produce the highest quality knives, you know, in the world at the time, when I went to this factory, the owner told me, he said that his father had made the original SOG knives.

[00:14:39] Spencer Frazer: Wow. And so he was. Going to reproduce them for us. And that was a serendipity. That was a fate kind of thing. It’s like, Oh, you know, when you’re in the groove, like, you know it. So we did, and those knives started to come and then we had to figure out how to sell them. So. [00:15:00] I ran an ad in, um, several different magazines, one being Soldier of Fortune magazine.

[00:15:06] Jonathan Sposato: I remember that magazine. I remember, uh, going to American Eagles. Which was a hobby shop off Greenwood Avenue when I was about 12 or 13 dressed in an outfit that I bought at Federal’s Army Navy surplus and Going to American Eagles and buying my model kits and then you would see on a rack Soldier of Fortune magazine It’s 

[00:15:33] Spencer Frazer: fascinating fascinating Survival guide was another one early magazine.

[00:15:38] Spencer Frazer: So we ran this ad and the knives were pretty good Very expensive at the time. They were, I think, a hundred and ninety nine and there was limited editions that went up from there. Um, but you know, that was a huge sum of money. I mean, that would be like today, 700, 900 for a knife or more. So I didn’t know what was going to happen.

[00:15:56] Spencer Frazer: So the first month, We ran the ad [00:16:00] and we did like 10, 000 worth of business. I said, this is fantastic. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, the second month we ran the ad, we did about, I don’t know, 5, 000 worth of business. I said, well, that’s not quite so good. The third month we ran the ad, we lost money. Okay. Now what?

[00:16:22] Spencer Frazer: Now you have to pivot. So what I did was I started knocking on doors. I started going to the gun stores to calling up the knife stores and presenting. And a few opened and the, and the few that opened. Ended up becoming long term dealers. There was one dealer called Plaza Cutlery. Plaza Cutlery was a big knife store down in, uh, Plaza Mall down in Orange County, LA.

[00:16:45] Spencer Frazer: And I went to him, um, Dan and he said, Oh, I’ve seen these, I’ve seen these knives. He said, I’ll take, uh, I’ll take a few of them. I said, well, the minimum is six. And he said, well, he said, I only want three. I said, but the minimum’s [00:17:00] six. He said, well, I’ll only take three. I said, today’s minimum is three. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

[00:17:09] Spencer Frazer: So I learned. You know, you learn. And one of my principles was never turn down an order, 

[00:17:15] Jonathan Sposato: you 

[00:17:16] Spencer Frazer: know, um, and I follow that almost exclusively. Uh, another thing I did and I, and I, it was very difficult for me to be able to call people on the phone and try to sell. I can only sell something that I believe in, but even that was hard for me.

[00:17:32] Spencer Frazer: And, uh, you’d call a store in Tennessee or throughout the country and talk to them about one knife or even a little later when we had multiple versions of this knife. The hardest questions were the ones That were most general because when they ask, what’s the, what’s it made of, or this or that, or what’s your program or this, that’s easy.

[00:17:57] Spencer Frazer: The general question was really hard. [00:18:00] The question, like, why do I need another knife line? So it took me quite a while to come Kind of develop my own strategy and I had studied Kung Fu early and, and Tai Chi and, uh, it helped, helped shape me. And so instead of going force against force, you yield. So when they said to me, why do I need another knife line?

[00:18:28] Spencer Frazer: I said, you probably don’t. You’re obviously successful. But let me tell you what we do and what we’re going to do and why you might want to be involved with us going forward. 

[00:18:44] Spencer Frazer: So I developed this whole kind of thing where I was able to, Talk to people and, and then over time, a few more dealers and a few more dealers.

[00:18:53] Spencer Frazer: And then, uh, a few more, um, product extensions, but I was very worried about that. It was still in our [00:19:00] house. I mean, I started in my apartment in Santa Monica. It ended up being in our house, um, uh, in Edmonds. And, uh, our whole, whole basement became the knife warehouse. And until one day I woke up and I realized I had been in my pajamas for three or four days.

[00:19:20] Spencer Frazer: I said, we gotta get out of the house. We gotta get a little office. And so we ended up in downtown Edmonds having an office about the size of three bathrooms. 

[00:19:31] Jonathan Sposato: Was this during the 80s? Seventies, eighties? No, 

[00:19:35] Spencer Frazer: That was, that was, uh, nineties. Nineties, 

[00:19:38] Jonathan Sposato: okay. So you, you would’ve been in your thirties at this point.

[00:19:40] Jonathan Sposato: This is after Northrop and all that? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. 

[00:19:42] Spencer Frazer: Yeah. 

[00:19:43] Jonathan Sposato: Wow. Then you scaled the operation up quite a bit. I understand. And you ended up selling it. Yeah. For quite a princely sum. 

[00:19:52] Spencer Frazer: So the thing about the ninth. Business at that time was very mom and pop. It was an [00:20:00] old industry and I brought this high tech kind of sensibility from Northrop top secret from, um, I ended up being in the art world in Venice, California.

[00:20:11] Spencer Frazer: I mean, there was a lot of things that I did that kind of came together and allowed me to think of the knife. something different than anybody had thought about it and to bring an aesthetic treatment to it that no one was really doing to make a knife both graceful and interesting and balanced and harmonious and functional.

[00:20:38] Spencer Frazer: And so I did that. I ended up having over 25 patents. Um, I invented multiple knife locks, multiple, um, multi tools. I was, we were the second company to produce a multi tool. I created compound leverage that had never been, um, used before, which is a miniaturization of a tool, which is [00:21:00] perfect for that type of pocket carry.

[00:21:03] Spencer Frazer: And so, um, It kept growing. I had no real goals like collecting strategy. It wasn’t like we wanted to be a big company or, but I did want a few things. I wanted, um, to work for myself. I wanted to be able to provide for our employees and create great products. 

[00:21:27] Jonathan Sposato: And that was it. So I’m fascinated. And are you able to share with us, uh, at the zenith of your company, what, what you’re doing?

[00:21:35] Jonathan Sposato: What you did in terms of annual revenues or number of people, employees you had, uh, just kind of to paint the picture of, uh, the size of the business. 

[00:21:43] Spencer Frazer: Yeah. At our peak. Now we were a boutique business because we, uh, there were the big knife companies like case, buck knives, Gerber knives. Then there was another echelon of more boutique quality kind of knives.

[00:21:58] Spencer Frazer: And so we were in that [00:22:00] echelon, which by the way, ended up growing. And. Um, a lot of the businesses that the big companies were doing, because they didn’t react fast. Like many industries, like many high tech things that you’re so aware of, things can change and they did. So for us, we ended up at our Zenith, about 80 employees.

[00:22:20] Spencer Frazer: We were doing tens of millions of dollars in business and we’re selling a million knives a year or something. You know, something crazy. But I was the designer. Okay. As I mentioned, most knife companies and most other companies have a plethora or a team or they hire outside people to do design. We were the only company in the industry that didn’t really do that for quite a long time because I had a lot to say in my designs.

[00:22:50] Spencer Frazer: And they were received and maybe one of my greatest talents was that I could gauge what the public wanted. The public kind of wanted what I wanted. They [00:23:00] liked what I liked. And so I, I created products that, that I liked. 

[00:23:05] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. No, that’s, that, that really resonates with me. I think, um, there are a handful of, uh, special entrepreneurs who may not have a separate kind of business.

[00:23:15] Jonathan Sposato: brand manager or, um, product designer. They themselves know the space and know their customers so well, and they’re so passionate about the space. They themselves are mavens about the, these kinds of products that they’re able to wear many hats, uh, in addition to being a CEO. And I think that that’s, that’s always, those are always the most interesting businesses.

[00:23:35] Spencer Frazer: Um, they are. And I think the other. My other great talent was I was able to, to switch hats, switch roles. I was able to design and be creative, and I was able to make it happen. Okay. And making it happen, which involves, you know, supply chain and, and sales forecasts and marketing campaigns and, um, HR and, um, and all that goes into a [00:24:00] business to get a product out and into the world, I could do that.

[00:24:04] Spencer Frazer: And, um, In this world, we have not, not perfectly delineated, but you have your creatives and you have your, your operators, and usually they don’t cross. Usually they don’t. The creatives are dreamers, okay, but they can’t make things happen. And the other guys can make things happen, but they don’t have ideas, but they don’t have the ideas through a rare quirk of fate.

[00:24:33] Spencer Frazer: I think I was, had the ability to do both. So I would design the products and then get them out there. But what happened was at some point, and we had military contracts and it was stressful. I had an open door policy. We also ran the company like a family. And so this open door policy was that any, any employee could come in and talk to me at any time.

[00:24:55] Spencer Frazer: So the employees would sometimes come and they’d close the door [00:25:00] to get the irony of that. It’s an open door policy and they’d close the door and then they would want this or that, or they weren’t happy or this. Um, and so that I didn’t enjoy that part of the business. Yeah. I also was a good operator. I was competent, but I wasn’t a great operator.

[00:25:17] Spencer Frazer: You know, there’s many people who are, are much better than that. And so it became this big thing and I wasn’t having fun. I wasn’t having fun running this company that was growing bigger than I had ever dreamed, but I still liked being the creative guy and creating the product. So what I did was. Was in, um, in the end, um, I brought in private equity.

[00:25:41] Spencer Frazer: I stayed on, I was the chief designer. Actually, we brought in private equity three times, three separate, three separate times, and I stayed on and I had a wonderful compliment from the first group. They said they’d never seen a owner operator. Who was so good in the transition of bringing in other people.

[00:25:59] Spencer Frazer: Oh, good. Because [00:26:00] when you bring another thing, that’s another thing. Cause you bring in other people, they don’t know the business, their numbers, their suits, if you will, you know, and it gets 

[00:26:07] Jonathan Sposato: antagonistic and they want to bring in their own people. And all of a sudden you have to hire a new CFO and they, 

[00:26:14] Spencer Frazer: they think they know what works and sometimes they do.

[00:26:17] Spencer Frazer: And in many cases, they really do, but in some cases they don’t. And so, uh, most owner operators are, are control people, you know, they want to control it and, um, and I was able to let that go and it became even more successful that way. 

[00:26:33] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, yeah, very cool. So how, years and duration wise, how long, uh, did you run the company for?

[00:26:39] Jonathan Sposato: 30 

[00:26:40] Spencer Frazer: years. 

[00:26:41] Jonathan Sposato: Wow. That’s amazing. What a fantastic business and fantastic story. Before we go to the transition and the pivot and the second act, what would you tell your younger self? After 30 plus years, what would you go back and tell your younger self at the beginning of that [00:27:00] journey? Or you’re a parent to one of your children or a young entrepreneur starting out, what lessons would you impart upon them?

[00:27:07] Jonathan Sposato: You know, 

[00:27:07] Spencer Frazer: I knew there was going to be some hard questions today. I think the only thing in looking back at what I did was that I could have brought in people earlier to help me and therefore kept the company instead of, um, Using private equity at that time, that could have been another great avenue to look at, but I, I just didn’t have the experience or the acumen to kind of be able to facilitate that specifically for, for that business and looking back at my, at my many careers and my journey throughout.

[00:27:50] Spencer Frazer: life. I think about this kind of often. I want to do anything differently. But I do tell my children, I go, don’t do what I do or [00:28:00] don’t do what I did. I go, you got to follow your own path and be prepared for when the opportunities come. 

[00:28:06] Jonathan Sposato: Really great. I mean, I, I feel like that I could talk with you, Spencer, for hours about your entrepreneurial journey because in another life.

[00:28:15] Jonathan Sposato: That is the stuff that I talk about, whether it’s on the GeekWire platform or other things. Uh, you know, I myself have started a lot of, a number of companies and, and a lot of the things that you’ve said really resonated with me. I’ve done private equity. I’ve done, you know, how do you manage that transition?

[00:28:30] Jonathan Sposato: How do you get your employees to be comfortable with, with some new board members, some new bosses, or even just, um, how you decide what segment aligns best with. Both that there’s a, an interesting business and revenue opportunity, but that you can remain passionate about because you’re, you’re into it, right?

[00:28:48] Jonathan Sposato: Uh, those are to me, some of the most interesting stories that, that conversations that I could have with anybody. So then let’s talk about the painting. Now, is it natural to assume? That it’s an extension [00:29:00] of your design sensibilities, like when you were designing knives, uh, I thought I heard you say that even when you were at Northrop you were building models, you like working with your hands, you like creating things, uh, how did the painting start?

[00:29:16] Spencer Frazer: Yeah, it was like a creative trifecta. So we have to go back a little farther into another whole Avenue. Okay, sure.

[00:29:26] Spencer Frazer: As you mentioned early, I am a Japanese aesthetic pruner. So we, We have to look at where that came from. When I was in the third grade in my elementary school, there were two Asian kids in our school. And Los Angeles at that time in the 60s was the center of the world. East and West was merging and many corporations like Sony and others were I had their base in, [00:30:00] in Los Angeles.

[00:30:01] Spencer Frazer: Anyway, these two kids, one was a guy and one was a gal, I was very interested in them and I ended up like loving this girl. Her name was Tomoko Masuda. I remember it very, very well. Now, it doesn’t mean I ever spoke 

[00:30:19] Jonathan Sposato: to her. Okay. She may be out there listening to this podcast at some point. She um. Tomoko, if you’re out there, please contact did end up contacting through Facebook about five years ago. So she was a piano player. I was a, I was a, um, uh, a piano player. I played for seven years and then I was a, uh, a drummer in the school orchestra. And uh, but I look back at that and why did I have that affinity for her? Out of all the kids in the school, why did I have the affinity for her?

[00:30:53] Spencer Frazer: In my life, I look back at even that glimpse and, um, being [00:31:00] attracted to her meant something. So fast forward into, um, quite a bit later, I was interested in bonsais and Japanese gardening. And so when I was in Edmonds, I started my first Japanese garden. And when we had the knife company, where did we end up?

[00:31:20] Spencer Frazer: We ended up in Japan, buying our knives, you know, making our knives. So I had this affinity for the culture and for the garden. Another factor is when I was young, I was very attuned to nature. And when, uh, I moved to Edmonds and I started this Japanese garden, it kind of, uh, took me along the path and it was another reflection of, or another ripple on the same pond, another, another reflection of the same image.

[00:31:48] Spencer Frazer: And so, that has become a passion, a love, and a skill that, uh, I’ve learned. that I currently practice and have now even, um, a very, very beautiful Japanese garden with [00:32:00] specimens that I’ve had for 30 years that I’ve, that I’ve been working on and I’ve taken them from house to house and place to place. One reason I started painting.

[00:32:09] Spencer Frazer: Was I wanted to paint the Japanese garden because the Japanese garden takes a very long time to grow and to enact change decades, even more. And so I thought, well, if I could paint the Japanese garden, then I could maybe, you know, scratch that itch and be able to, with a Western philosophy, kind of accelerate and work out problems and think about it.

[00:32:34] Spencer Frazer: And so, um, I did. And I remember I was on a trip over to Japan and I had my first, uh, iPad and I was, I was drawing on it and I was drawing Japanese gardens. And as soon as I started, it was as if a switch had been thrown in my head, lightning hit me. And I realized on that flight that [00:33:00] all this creative juice that I had, that had gone into the knives, but that required.

[00:33:08] Spencer Frazer: All these levels of, of operations around them to make them happen, that I could have this pure experience in the painting that just resonated with me. Yeah, it’s very direct. Very direct. Yeah. That whole flight, I painted. I couldn’t wait for my meetings to get over to get back on the plane to paint. and come all the way home.

[00:33:31] Spencer Frazer: So I brought my iPad, um, home and my wife, who was an art collector, I showed her, I go, honey, I go, look at this. I go, look at these, um, uh, paintings and these drawings. And she said, Oh, that’s very nice, dear. Very, very nice. You know, and kind of was a little dismissive as you should have been. And, um, I said, no, no, no.

[00:33:52] Spencer Frazer: So digital art is a legitimate medium. I go, look at David [00:34:00] Hockney, David Hockney’s doing, you know, digital art. And she said, yeah, but he’s David. Yeah. I said, well, you have a good point there. So she said, if you want to learn how to become an artist, pick up the brushes. And then I did, and I started, um, in, um, gouache.

[00:34:20] Spencer Frazer: I wanted to paint Japanese gardens and screens, and then I went into acrylic, and then I went into oil, and I landed in oil, and I’m still in oil because it’s just a fabulous medium for me. 

[00:34:30] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. That’s great. That’s an amazing description there. It, it just occurred to me that that’s probably why. In the beautiful works of art that you create now that there’s a sort of a Hakuzai, but those old wave motifs, those, that, that, that very detailed, you know, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t have the vocabulary for it, but these very, very tight, small composite, Pieces that together add up to a larger, they’re not mosaics.

[00:34:58] Jonathan Sposato: That’s probably the wrong technical term, but [00:35:00] it’s a, I think 

[00:35:00] Spencer Frazer: of them almost like tapestries at times, but they’re not all right. And some of the, some you can link a kind of, um, easily to Japanese culture, but what the, what the Japanese garden taught me was about, uh, shape. Uh, scale, about composition, about layering, about colors.

[00:35:22] Spencer Frazer: So in working in bonsai and, and proportion and harmony. And if you look at my work, you can see and maybe feel that there is harmony, you know, there’s in the composition of it. And I try in every painting and in every knife. 

[00:35:40] Jonathan Sposato: I 

[00:35:40] Spencer Frazer: try to create harmony and balance, um, and sharp lines and round lines and, and I still do that.

[00:35:47] Spencer Frazer: So I mean, I look, I was looking at some of the knives the other day that I, that I had and I go, wow, I can, these are amazing. I go, you know, I can really see and feel what the artwork is, is, uh, is holographic because [00:36:00] it all comes out of the same source. 

[00:36:04] Jonathan Sposato: Now, our listeners will know that, that we have.

[00:36:08] Jonathan Sposato: included some examples of your artwork for their appreciation on in situ on the site itself. Um, so, but, but for those who are not looking at that right now, I would describe that Spencer’s artwork is, um, vivid, saturated in color to Portray these very, very powerful scenes of how nature and the environment is being impacted by man.

[00:36:37] Jonathan Sposato: Sometimes it’s very, uh, sort of overt. It’s not subtle. Sometimes the fallout is, is one of the pieces where I, it, You know, there’s literally a mushroom cloud going off, and the animals are silhouetted. Uh, but sometimes it is subtle. It looks like, oh, here’s a, here’s a painting of a pelican, or here’s a painting of a flock of, uh, a geese.

[00:36:59] Jonathan Sposato: Uh, [00:37:00] but then if you look closer, oh, gosh, there’s, there are these moments that you can find somewhat hidden in the patterns. In the background, uh, that speak to what humans are doing to the environment. Yeah, 

[00:37:13] Spencer Frazer: they’re subliminal. There’s some subliminal, um, like almost hieroglyphics sometimes in the background, but from the show and, um, uh, from, from, uh, you know, my, my website or you can see that each painting is different.

[00:37:29] Spencer Frazer: Many, many artists, if you look at their work, you’ll go to a show, let’s say they do roses. And there’s all different sizes of roses and colors and everything’s roses, you know, and that’s all great, but I don’t want to repeat myself. Every, every painting is different. It’s a different topic, or it’s a different look, or it has different, um, animals, and it’s very distinctive, and yet, Together the work combines and it is understandable that it’s all from the same hand.

[00:37:59] Spencer Frazer: And so I [00:38:00] take, I take pride in that and I’m ever pushing myself. Somebody asked me, well, what’s, what’s your favorite painting? And I always say the next one 

[00:38:08] Jonathan Sposato: because I want the next one to be better. I’m going to try the next one. Now, of course, not every one is the best one. You know, um, it’s just some, some end up better than others because they’re or it’s, it’s in the eye of the beholder or it’s just because of topic or, or whatever.

[00:38:26] Spencer Frazer: But, um, I always, uh, try to do that. 

[00:38:29] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Tell us about the, um, the moment when your paintings were were featured behind President Biden. 

[00:38:38] Spencer Frazer: Yeah. That was, that was a high moment I had, I’ve been painting about 15 years and I had actually had some very, very high moments. 

[00:38:47] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah tell us about some of them. 

[00:38:49] Spencer Frazer: Yeah.

[00:38:49] Spencer Frazer: When Biden was here, and my work was chosen to be behind him, during his, um. A speech, um, one of the, uh, [00:39:00] MCs, uh, said, isn’t it amazing here to, um, be standing in the Northwest in front of this amazing art? And he turned around and, uh, looked at them and, you know, nodded and gave it back. gave a big smile and said, Yeah, yeah, it really is.

[00:39:15] Spencer Frazer: He loves coming up here. That that was a hot, that was a very, very high moment. Another, another high moment was being on Times Square billboard. I was working with this gallery, HMVC. gallery and they were able to execute that and initiate that. But of all the things I’ve done, and I’ve, I’ve done some really cool things, you know, my friends, when they saw that, when they saw the billboard, they thought that was the cat’s meow, you know, even though it lasts only 30 seconds, you know.

[00:39:48] Spencer Frazer: Um, uh, so that I’ve, I’ve had some really good ones. Um, um, when my work was chosen to be in the, uh, U. S. government’s fifth climate assessment report, when they, when [00:40:00] they contacted me, and by the way, that’s read by over a million people. Wow. And not only that, but it is the Bible of climate studies about the, um, you know, the issues, um, uh, this, the strategic issues of climate change throughout the world and stuff.

[00:40:18] Spencer Frazer: So when they told me that I started shaking and, but when it came out, which was just last year, I looked through it and, um, I was a little disappointed because, you know, I was like way in the back and stuff, it’s like, it’s, it’s all good. Right. And then I flipped to the front and I missed a page. I’m at the forward.

[00:40:40] Spencer Frazer: I’m I open, I opened the report, my work, a stream of consciousness that shows all the animals. And I, I like to use animals in my work and I won’t always. And I don’t always, but I like it because it, it’s a counterpoint of view of the human, because really when we’re thinking about climate [00:41:00] change and some people call it climate chaos, climate crisis.

[00:41:04] Spencer Frazer: Climate catastrophe, what I think of it as is environmental imbalance. Okay. Environmental imbalance has happened because of one issue, that there’s a dominant species on this planet, that man has become the dominant species. And whether it is the opposing thumb or bad luck, here we are. And, um, everything we’re touching is, is being, um, is being affected.

[00:41:32] Spencer Frazer: So why this came about was as, as I was painting these Japanese gardens and all this in the beginning. The, this voice would kind of come through the work and it kept speaking to me and I go, well, you know, man, man’s affecting nature and nature’s affecting man. And there was, I was having this dialogue with myself all the time.

[00:41:54] Spencer Frazer: And the more I had these conversations with myself, the more I realized that was what the work should be [00:42:00] about and what was about. And so then I, then I got. Strategic on it and you know that’s I went with that and and um, and that’s where we are today. Yeah. 

[00:42:11] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, that’s that’s really great now do I sort of infer from what you’ve said that it’s Better for an artist especially one that’s you know, I mean where um, I mean, I I realize you’ve been painting for 15 years, but uh, uh But a new artist.

[00:42:26] Jonathan Sposato: But you’re a new, new, new artist. Yeah. You’re a new artist. Self taught. Yeah. You know, you pivoted from another industry. Is it better to kind of hang your hat on one theme? 

[00:42:37] Spencer Frazer: Ah, now this is another philosophical question. Right. I’ve learned along the way that you can’t be everything to everyone. You have to pick a lane.

[00:42:50] Spencer Frazer: And how I felt about everything I’ve done, I’ve had the confidence to be able to say, You might like it, you might not, [00:43:00] but you’ll respect it. In doing that, and if you look at the great artists, the, the, the great entrepreneurs, the, the visionaries. Okay. To be a visionary, you have to be focused. It can’t be so broad that it’s not understandable.

[00:43:22] Spencer Frazer: So by, by being more focused, then you have something to say. So when young artists come to me and they go, you know, what should I do, or, or young designers or whatever, if they ask for my advice, and I’m always good for an opinion by the way,

[00:43:41] Spencer Frazer: you know, I say, In whatever field you’re going to do, have something to say. And a unique way to deliver it, a unique style. You need both. 

[00:43:55] Jonathan Sposato: I’m going to ask the same question that I asked you as an entrepreneur, as a business [00:44:00] tycoon. Uh, I’m going to ask you the same, uh, but for as an artist, which is what do you wish that you could go back and tell your, um, yourself 15 years ago?

[00:44:10] Spencer Frazer: I would say, hold on, it’s gonna be a great ride. Oh 

[00:44:15] Jonathan Sposato: yeah, good 

[00:44:16] Spencer Frazer: one. Because, um, we’re still growing, learning, developing, and um, even this is, um, kind of breaking news that the, the Smithsonian, uh, Museum of Natural History contacted me recently. Wow, congratulations. A climate, uh, exhibit and asked if I would be willing to have my work in there.

[00:44:38] Spencer Frazer: And it might be amazing. It might be one piece. It might be virtual. You know, I’m not sure yet. I don’t know, but, uh, it’s, it’s pretty exciting. And so it’s gone better than I could have ever dreamed. This is a topic that has to be talked about. This is serious. You know, everybody. Kind of knows about climate change, [00:45:00] but what most people don’t know, and I think if there’s kind of a key message that I talk about in my work, it’s that this is not a linear event.

[00:45:10] Spencer Frazer: This is a geometric progression. In other words, this is happening faster and faster. Because most people can’t adapt, you know, or to think like that. They think, well, you know, yeah, the climate, you know, it’s changing and it’s, it’s gradually getting worse, you know. Or to 

[00:45:26] Jonathan Sposato: hear that it’s going to be, it’s going to be three quarters of a degree warmer in 10 years.

[00:45:31] Jonathan Sposato: They don’t, they don’t understand 

[00:45:32] Spencer Frazer: what that means. They don’t understand what it means. But the other thing is that it’s going to happen faster and faster. For instance, when a iceberg, um, or a glacier melts. It’s dark underneath, so it absorbs more heat, so it’s a compounding effect, okay? Up until now, the oceans have mitigated a lot of, uh, temperature.

[00:45:54] Spencer Frazer: They’ve absorbed a lot of CO2, but they’re almost saturated. I mean, if we look [00:46:00] at all these different things, It’s coming to a point where the change is happening faster and faster, which means we need to be more and more proactive as a society, as a country, and as a world to deal with it. One thing, I was just in Santa Fe, and I was talking to a guy who’s lived there quite a long time, and he said, You know, the Adobe house used to be just.

[00:46:24] Spencer Frazer: Just perfect in terms of temperature. They’re built a little in the ground, very thick walls. He said, we never needed anything. It was always cool in the house, even in the hot days of summer. He said, it was just fine. He said, we now need air conditioning. He said, the climate’s changed. If you talk to farmers in the Midwest, and our family comes from the Midwest, they’re all looking at these changes, you know, and it’s, it’s much more exaggerated, right?

[00:46:49] Spencer Frazer: It’s drier, it’s wetter, it’s hotter. It’s colder because the, the system is outta balance. And when you have a laboratory experiment outta balance, it, it’ll, it’ll find [00:47:00] its limits on both sides trying to find equilibrium. That’s kind of how I think about it. And, you know, how I communicate it visually. 

[00:47:09] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, and as a voice, as an influencer, uh, in this space, uh, in terms of climate change awareness, what would you tell our listeners to really think about, um, um, you know, and you can visualize, our listeners are, in fact, Your neighbors, some of your neighbors, I know for sure listen to this, they are other friends, colleagues, uh, people in our community.

[00:47:32] Jonathan Sposato: What, what, what would you tell all of them right now that they should be doing differently? 

[00:47:37] Spencer Frazer: Yeah, it’s very daunting. It’s the same argument about voting. Why, why should I vote? 

[00:47:43] Jonathan Sposato: I 

[00:47:43] Spencer Frazer: mean, one vote doesn’t make a difference. And yet we’ve seen Mm-Hmm. Sometimes one vote actually does make a difference, right?

[00:47:49] Spencer Frazer: But 10 do, or a thousand or 11,000. mm-Hmm. find me 11,000 mm-Hmm. . You know, so it does make a difference what we do [00:48:00] individually. Um, and, and that is something that. You know, I would, I would tell people, you do what you can. Um, I drive electric, uh, I used to, I used to be a hot rodder. Uh, I, I, I know you too. I, when I was younger, I had a 61 Corvette.

[00:48:17] Spencer Frazer: I ended up having a Shelby 500 GT with like, uh, I think I had 800 horsepower and a twin Paxton superchargers, but when I drove my first electric car, I got rid of everything and not that I had that much left, but it, it, it, Totally transformed it. Yeah, it was like stepping into the same. 

[00:48:35] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Oh good. Yeah, I had but minus the getting rid of everything part I still hanging on to a few of them because to me just kind of weaving it back to the theme here They are like works of art somebody who really was passionate about design and aerodynamics in some cases, engineering, uh, optimization of, of, of this kind of way of getting energy out of onto a drive [00:49:00] train that somebody was really passionate about it.

[00:49:02] Jonathan Sposato: And there’s something to that. Absolutely. But, but I do completely know what you mean. I, my, I have, I’m completely changed as a driver. I don’t. Crave what I used to love about internal combustion engines and that for, you know, the revving and in some cases I have some old school eighties turbo cars. I actually love.

[00:49:23] Jonathan Sposato: Turbo lag. I got used to it when I was a teenager. I can’t live without it, but, but, uh, but we always 

[00:49:30] Spencer Frazer: try to solve turbo lag in the old days, right? 

[00:49:33] Jonathan Sposato: I’m like one of these odd ducks. I’m like, no, no, no. I like the way I like this weird, awkward moment where is it going to happen or not? And then boom, it pushes you, right?

[00:49:42] Jonathan Sposato: So, but my point is that now that I drive electric. I love it. It’s, I can’t drive anything else now. Yeah. It change, 

[00:49:52] Spencer Frazer: it changes instead of the, the loud vroom and, Mm-Hmm. and, um, and the, that kind of power surge. 

[00:50:02] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. 

[00:50:03] Spencer Frazer: The hum and the instant torque. Yes. Um, it.

[00:50:06] Spencer Frazer: And is like stepping into the future. And I, I’m a futurist. I mean, I love my phone. I love, you know, my cars and technology is going to be a big part of how we solve some of these problems. So that’s, that’s one thing that I do. And I think that everybody has to do whatever they can, whether it’s recycling, whether it’s putting solar, I think solar is absolutely huge.

[00:50:30] Spencer Frazer: I think every house should pretty much have solar on it now. And in California, I think it’s required on all new. new construction. So we’re making headway in some of the ways the, the, the big problems are that as a country we can’t agree on very much. And that means that as a nation, uh, and a, um, you know, add a world, it’s even harder because we all share the same air and we all share the same oceans and we have shrinking resources.

[00:50:55] Spencer Frazer: And so, um, it’s going to be, um, a very, very [00:51:00] difficult time for our children and children’s children’s, I think. 

[00:51:03] Jonathan Sposato: I think so. I think so. Um, let’s get back to your. artwork. Where can some of our listeners find it? Uh, if they want to own a piece of it, if, where, where can they go? 

[00:51:14] Spencer Frazer: Um, well, I do have shows and I’m, we’re just, um, um, finishing a show in Madison Park that, uh, will, um, predate I think the airing of, of this.

[00:51:24] Spencer Frazer: Um, so, um, the best thing is to go to my website, SpencerFraser. com, and, uh, And sign up for my newsletter and then I can keep you abreast. You can surely purchase and many do on, um, uh, prints, uh, of all kinds. And you can see the work there and, um, and a biography and, um, all kinds of information. And 

[00:51:45] Jonathan Sposato: you’ll see the link to spencerfraser.

[00:51:48] Jonathan Sposato: com on the page, uh, where you can download this podcast. Nice. That’s great. And so then what’s, what’s in store for you? You’re going to. be at the Smithsonian Natural [00:52:00] History, uh, briefly, and then, but, but in terms of the, the evolution and, uh, the narrative arc of your body of work, where, where is it going?

[00:52:09] Spencer Frazer: I’m so excited. Well, I have a gallery in New York, the Agora Gallery is now, um, I’ll have a show there every year. Um, I hope in, in Seattle that, um, I’ll continue to have a, a show every year. But the new work. I’m going to do a pivot. The new work is, is a, this the same theme, but a different treatment, because as I’ve been looking at all of these different issues that we have created, It has, um, culminated in a observation that what’s really happening where, where the change is really occurring is the difference between solid carbon and gaseous [00:53:00] carbon.

[00:53:01] Spencer Frazer: And so I’m going to give that some attention. That’s all I’m going to tell you. That’s all I’m going to tell you. 

[00:53:05] Jonathan Sposato: Fascinating. Spencer, I want to thank you for being, bar none, one of our most fascinating guests that we’ve had on a Seattle Magazine podcast so far. You are a true polymath and an incredible artist and a bright, bright mind.

[00:53:21] Jonathan Sposato: Thank you on behalf of our readers for joining us today. 

[00:53:24] Spencer Frazer: Oh, my God. Well, thank you for having me. You know, I don’t get to talk like this very often, comprehensively, and I really appreciate the venue to be able to do that and hopefully be a positive force in the world for others who are trying to do whatever it is.

[00:53:44] Jonathan Sposato: Thank you for listening to the Seattle Magazine podcast. You can always find us on seattlemag. com. Look for new episodes approximately every two weeks on our website. A special thank you to the entire Seattle Magazine staff and to podcast [00:54:00] producer, Nick Patry. Contact Lisa Lee at lisa at seattlemag. com for partnership opportunities.

[00:54:08] Jonathan Sposato: Until next time, let’s keep celebrating Seattle.