And welcome back to DEI Matters, Conversations with Margaret Creedle-Thomas, and I am so excited today that I have two people from the town of Arlington. I am going to have them introduce themselves because we're going to really get into some serious conversations today with them. So Adam and Christine, thank you for being here today with me and taking time out of your busy schedule. And so I want you to introduce yourself to our community, and as you introduce yourself just let us know what led you to Arlington, what led you here to work here. Great. So I'll go ahead and start. Thank you so much for having us, really appreciate being here. So I'm Christine Bunjourn, I'm the Health and Human Services Director here in Arlington. I've been in my role, I've been in Arlington for almost 22 years, and I started out after college doing community organizing, actually in the city of Fall River, which is where Adam comes from, but I was working as a community organizer around environmental issues. And what I realized at that time was that public health was really sort of more where I could see myself fitting in because people were more interested in their own health as opposed to the health of the environment around them. So that was how I became interested in public health, and I found Arlington as a community that really cared about those types of matters, and also just a community that has a lot of caring people. So it's sort of what led me here to Arlington. Wow. Yeah. So you've been here 22 years? Yes. Yes. Yes. Adam, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So my name's Adam Chapter Lane. I serve as town manager here in Arlington. I've been in the town manager role for 10 years, and I served as the deputy town manager for two years before that. So I'm about 10 years minus Christine's tenure here. Before that I worked for the city of Fall River, which is also where I grew up, and before that I worked in the state legislature. And so I've been sort of that public service person throughout my career. And what led me to Arlington was I was interested in moving on beyond the role I was serving in in Fall River, and other people working in local government management saw this deputy town manager position opened and said Arlington is known as one of the best, if not the best places in terms of local government management. You should throw your hat in the ring. And I had the good fortune of being offered the position and have now been here since then. So it is a tremendous community and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity here. Yeah. And you're about to leave and we'll get into that a little bit later. So I recently been working more with you all as Jill Harvey is the DEI director for the town and I'm the DEI director for the school and Jill and I have been working very closely with one another and we had made the decision and we needed to be meeting with the people that we come to, you know, I don't want to say supervised because I just feel like, but you all are ones that that we come to that you all are you are giving us the, are kind of what am I trying to say, you know, what we need to do in regards to DEI. That DEI we say that right, diversity, equity, inclusion. What does that really mean? What does that mean to both of you all when we say diversity, equity and inclusion? I'm all about language lately and in getting to the understanding that just saying the word you're going to have a different definition than I am. So I really wanted to know what does that mean for you both of you all when we say that. Sure. Yeah, I mean, so I think about different things for each of those words, right? And I think to some degree that's the point of having all those words in the title of this work. And when I think about diversity, I think about the fact that we're stronger for our differences, right, that we will do better, we'll have better context, we'll have better perspective if we have differences among us, whether they be opinions or race or ethnicity or socioeconomic background, differences make us stronger. And that's what I think about when I think of diversity. When I think of equity, I think about the fact that not everybody needs the same thing based on the circumstances of their life. And that equality is a founding ideal of this country, but it's different than equity. And there are times we're giving everybody the same thing as the right to do, a right thing to do, but more so as we all continue to learn on our DEI journey, equity much more often is the right thing to do because people are starting from different places. And in terms of inclusion, I think about the word welcoming and I think about the word belonging, but I have to work to make sure that that's not assimilation, right, that inclusion isn't taking the diversity and making everybody the same and making everybody kind of assimilate to the same thing. Inclusion is welcoming that diversity into the organization and benefiting from the richness of those diverse opinions while still having everybody feel like they belong there. When you were talking about that, my family's were truckies and I was thinking about the Borg when you said assimilation, they always were looking to assimilate and to be the same and I really appreciate how you're like diversity means differences, right? That can mean language, that can mean background, that can mean ethnicity, yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, I mean when we were looking to create this division within Health and Human Services under Adam's leadership, you know, we really were trying to figure out what to call it in these three words I think really best represented what we were hoping to get out of the role and really what I see that division doing is really making sure that we're including people from all different parts of our community and to really honestly hear from them and to let them participate, to have everyone participate in making decisions and making changes that will be important for the future of our community. I know that the town is about to go into doing their own equity audit. Dylan and I have talked a lot about that, so that should also bring more of how do we do diversity, equity and inclusion for the town. Thank you. What do you all feel is the biggest challenge in building equity in Arlington?  You know, I grew up in Watertown, which is just a few towns away, and it's really similar community to Arlington. And you know, I think that there's a lot of pride in this community. A lot of people are proud to be from Arlington or to be a part of this community. But there are definitely people that are new to Arlington. And you know, I think what can be somewhat of a challenge is, you know, you hear from different voices within a community about different topics. And you know, I think one challenge is really trying to get, you know, to bring people into the middle and to try to hear not the loudest voices, not the loudest voices on either side, but really to get consensus. And I think what's hard sometimes is, sometimes it's just in government we hear from, you know, some of the loudest voices, which aren't always the most important decision-making, you know, the voices to hear and making decisions. But I think some of the challenges, you know, sometimes people feel that, you know, we're a diverse community. We're, you know, we're happy and we're proud of that. But there's so much work to be done. I mean, we've seen just over the past few years some of the issues that have been discovered across the country as far as, you know, equity. And I think it's no different here. I think there's so much work to be done. And I'm excited about the equity audit to see what the gaps are. And where we can really focus our energy. So, yeah, yeah. I mean, so I would offer three things when I think about that question. And the first is more personal. And that is, as a white person doing this work, it will be forever challenging to make sure you're always confronting yourself with your own bias, your privilege and all of the things that you've, you know, the collectively we've all internalized growing up in this society. Right. And it's, it is a forever journey as far as I see it, because you can't, you might think you're at a point and then you're going to get to another point, you have to challenge yourself again. And that's hard to do, right? And that's, I acknowledge it's hard for me. And I think it's hard for other people in the organization who work for the town, as well as people who live in the town to continually challenge themselves to confront, you know, confront the tough stuff in the tough history of this nation. So I think that's a core or fundamental challenge we face. But then I also think about our, the challenge of properly focusing on systems. It, it is very easy and appropriate to criticize individual decisions. It's certainly appropriate to focus and criticize potentially overt racist actions, but we're not really ever going to achieve change if we don't identify systemic instances of inequity and eradicate them. And that's long duration hard work. There's, and there's no easy wins, right? There's no like day where you just celebrate that it's over. That's a, it's a lot of work and you have to commit to it. And I find that that's a fundamental challenge. I don't think it's unique to Arlington, right? I think that is like a way to describe the challenge. But I see it here that we have to focus on systems. And I think on the other end of that, we're always going to have to do work to convince some people that this work is even necessary, as Christine talked about. So that has been a challenge. When I talk to people in other cities and towns and roles similar to mine, they face the same challenges, maybe more so in other communities, because Arlington is a fairly progressive community, but we'll still always have to educate and bring people along as to the why. And I think that those three things together are how I think about the challenges around DEI. Yeah, I mean, I, every time I speak to anyone that, that we have these conversations, I always say that we have to know who we are when we come into our spaces. Because I know from me being a woman of color and the way I was raised and, you know, having a Honduran mother, that I bring those experiences with me and you, those are how you sometimes make decisions from those lenses. And sometimes that could be a bias for me, right?  And how do you, how do you, like, do that calculus in your head of, like, of saying, like, am I making a decision from bias? Or am I making a decision that is really equitable, right? For everyone is just really important. The other thing that you said about the systems, I, that's where I'm starting to land. It is about systems. I think what we don't say is that, you know, you know, people are like, glad there's a DEI director now in the school and we have a DEI director in the community. And, you know, as Jill and I have had conversations like, but this has been going on for over 400 years. So whatever we're going to do is going to take time. And I've been using the analogy of a garden, you know, that there are some beautiful things that are growing in Arlington as a whole. And there are some things that we need to look at and see, like, is that the vegetation that we need now? Or is that in the right place to be growing, right? Because as I'm learning is that certain things need to be growing together in order for them to thrive. And so when you have to uproot some things, I always tell people, you wear different clothing, right? You're not going to wear your suit at them. You know, right? You're going to put on maybe some jeans and boots and we have gloves and you're going to really dig deep to get to the root of the problem so that the root, if you don't get to the root, then it grows again, right? And so I think we have to constantly keep saying that to people both for you all, thinking about your job responsibilities. What does, I just saw this quote the other day, James Baldwin's quote, and I thought this would be great for you all to ask you. And the quote says that not everything faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced. What does that mean to you when you think about that quote? You want to go first? Yeah, so I've seen that quote before and it always moves me because it's so simple but powerful. And I think it does a great job of describing the work before us that there's going to be things we lose on, right? There are going to be things we face that we can't impact and that's okay. And that shouldn't detract us from continuing to face difficult things. And then on the balancing side of that, understanding that nothing is going to change if we don't face down some of these real facts. And I think that, you know, to tie back to your gardening analogy, all right, you garden your hands get dirty, right? And it doesn't always go well, right? It can be too dry or too wet. You don't always get the outcome you want, but you're never gonna get to that outcome of fruits or vegetables or whatever you're gardening if you don't do it. If you don't do that work and do that work over time. So I think it's a tremendous call to action that this work is not easy. It can be very hard and at times even traumatic, but that if we don't do it, then we're gonna be at status quo. Yeah, I just want to get back a little bit to you saying the ground. The ground could be hard, right? It could be so in the tools that you have to use to dig up the ground, right? And that's where people, you can get tired. And so that's why you need people to do this work with you to dig up that ground. And then what nutrients do you need to make the ground fertile and softer to plant what you need? Yeah. And going back to your point about time, it's not something that can be fixed overnight. You can't just hire a DEI director and say we've solved our problems, right? I think that's something that's hard for people to understand is just that it took us 400 years to get here and it's going to take a very long time to move the needle in. It's every conversation, every program, every step we take, we have to be constantly thinking that this is, hopefully we're getting closer to helping make changes. And that equity belongs to everybody. It does, yeah. It doesn't just belong to Jill Harvey because she's a DEI director. It doesn't just belong to Margaret because now she's a DEI director. And as Jill and I have a running joke and it would be great to have a department, right? It's that kind of like changing people's mindsets about this work and what does that really mean? What does that quote mean to you, Christine, when you think about it? I take it very literally similar to Adam. I mean, I think it is definitely a motivation to just keep trying to move that needle, really trying to continue to do the work because nothing will change unless you do it. And I do appreciate the work of James Baldwin. I think he lived a very difficult life and I think to think about that quote and the work that we do and the work that we try to push out through our community, I think it's important to just continue to focus on those efforts. Yeah, yeah. Um, Christine, what was one of the biggest challenges during the height of the pandemic? So March comes, I'll never forget March 12th. Dr. Bodie at the time called the emergency admin meeting. I think she had been in conversations with you and made a decision that we were gonna close for two weeks and reassess, right? And so I was like, okay. And at the time I was having a staff meeting, I was like, just get what you all need to get. Let's, you know, let's go. And then March turned into April and April turned into May and May turned into June. And I did not step back into my office until June and it was very eerie to step back into my office and see March 12th. It was one of those, you know, movies that it was like everybody else was gone and then you come back and it was, and I was like, it was, it was just like, wow, I had just left everything the way it was. So I can just imagine what was life for you? It was pretty hectic.  I think there was a whole team of us, which, you know, Adam was a part of as well. It was a major challenge. It was something that in public health we only planned for. We never expected it to happen. But we, you know, here in Arlington, I think we did a pretty decent job in trying to make assessments of the situation based on data and information that was available. I think, you know, one of the challenging parts that I look back at, we had just hired Jill Harvey and we were so passionate and excited about really kind of just drawing a roadmap to making changes in our community around DEI and then the pandemic happened. She was in her role for less than three months and, you know, again, it was, we thought two weeks and it was two months and it was two years, right? So she's been working in this environment for two years and she's been doing amazing work. But I think when I look back, one of, from a DEI perspective, one of the biggest, the saddest parts of the pandemic was just really how our Asian community was treated, I think, in the early stages. I think to some of the stories that I heard from parents and from neighbors and residents, just in general, and restaurant owners and business owners, it was really hard and I think that was really sad to know that that was happening in our community. Yeah, it's how we attribute things to a race and think it's everyone and that's where this work comes into play and we, stereotyping, right, comes into play, yeah. Yeah, you said two years, it's interesting because sometimes our numbers go down really well and I was just talking to somebody today where they're like, you know, you get comfortable but we see numbers that are rising a little bit and so I guess another question I would tap onto that is like, will we fully be out of this or is this, is this like a new different kind of normal that we just, we need to be like, this is how we're gonna be living? I think we're gonna have to continue to think about this for quite some time. I'm imagining this being similar to the flu where we vaccinate each year. We may be masking again, you know, I think we just, we have to sort of continue to watch the science and the data and just, you know, hear from some of the experts on what some of the prevention strategies will be but I think we're a vaccinated population here in Arlington, we know masks work so I think those two interventions in particular will be helpful but I think it's something we'll probably have to continue to live with for quite some time, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Adam, you're gonna be leaving? I thought about this question, and what would you put into a letter to somebody that would be following in your footsteps? Like what would be the wisdom, what would be those words that you would give to that person, that next leader that comes in to Arlington? Can I branch out a little bit in my answer? Even as I've been sitting here, thinking about how I wanna answer that question. I mean, the three words I would say very germane to our topic here are equity work matters. It matters to the organization, it matters to the people that live in town, and it matters, it just matters globally. But I keep coming back to this phrase that I stole from somebody but I've been saying more recently and that is we have to find a way in this work and in other urgent work like climate change and affordability of housing which are all intertwined, that we have to figure out a way to go hard on the issues and easy on the people. And I think that's a clever way of reminding everybody that we're all human, right? And we might air, we will make mistakes but that at the end of the day we're all humans and that there's these huge issues we have to tackle and we have to go full throttle on to try to address them but we can't lose our humanity or our view of others as being human in doing that work. I really like that, you know, be hard on the issues and soft with the people yet I might start. Take it, take it. I'm gonna start using that because we're hard on people and forget about the issues, right? And then we cause harm, right? And then people don't wanna engage in the work and so I like thank you for that mindset for me to say that, like it's about the issues and not about the people, right? Yeah. Christine, you're not leaving. No, I'm not, not yet. But what would be some of the words of wisdom you would give to somebody if you were leaving? You've been here 22 years. Yeah, I mean, I think not, you know, any different than what Adam mentioned, I think it's important that you really have to continue to focus on the issues and do what's right. I think that's the biggest piece is like looking at the data, the science and making sure that decisions are being made with that in mind. Because again, as I mentioned before, you're gonna hear from people on both sides and it's going to be, it's sometimes going to be very nasty and you just really have to think about what is the right thing and continue to do that as a leader. So I think, I don't know if I have three words, but I think that sort of sums up what I would recommend anyone in these local government roles to continue to focus on just what's right and continue to push forward. I think that lines up with what Adam's saying though, where he's saying, hard on the issue, soft on the people. It lines up with what you're saying, just do what is right, right, what is equitable for all. And one of the things I was thinking of is that continuously getting those voices that are on the fringes. It's really important and that lines up with what you all are doing and saying to each other. I really appreciate you all coming in today and having this conversation with me. I know it's Friday and I'm like, oh, you won't get to leave early. But I really appreciate Adam and Christine coming in and having these conversations. I think it's really important for us to have these conversations. So again, thank you for being with us today as we have been having another segment of DI Matters Conversations with Margaret Cuedo-Thomas. I hope that you will come back again next time. Thank you.


Hey, you guys, okay? We are hit back here with part five of the contract and I am rolling this particular story out a little bit Fast y'all my glasses are blurry. That's a glare back here Because I move my camera more so this way. Hold on y'all. I'll try to keep my there we go So this is part five now honey I am fit to be tired because truth be told I've already done this story time and I recorded it and there's something With my files, so I'm having to redo all this again. I'm trying to think how part five went All right, so part four we left off with Tiara has gotten engaged and she shares news with her manager Sharon but Sharon Let's tiara know that you should talk to this woman Mary Wrenthrop and tiara is confused and Excuse me Sharon makes it known that that is actually Paul's mother and Paul's mother did not die. She is well alive She's actually been staying at the sea era medical ward for the past four or five years in Central LA Okay, so tiara takes this news very shockingly. She holds on to the information for a while She's not sure if she should She's not sure she's even able to visit this woman And a part of her is too afraid to really know the truth, right? So later on that weekend she goes over to Paul's place because again They're you're narrowing engage and they spend a lot of time together Planning the wedding etc. So tiara decided enough of the secrets and lies I'm gonna go ahead and confront Paul about this new information. I have now y'all I think I'm pretty good at storytelling But what I'm really bad about is being very detailed and I will will try to take a breather and give y'all more detail Especially when it comes to how these people look like so one y'all hey girl asked me what does Paul look like Paul looks like Boris Kudrow He could be a stand-in for Boris Kudrow, but he's a little bit darker. Yes And tiara looks like I thought about this y'all remember I'm Keisha from the movie belly She played DMX's girlfriend chocolate sister. Yes I think she also played in this movie from the 90s called a loving bronze when she was in love with a Italian guy Didn't she play in that movie?  I think it's important that we really, you know get to know each other Is what they should have been doing and doing a long time ago girl. So anyway Paul looks at her right and he's giving her that same look like I know that you know So I'm just gonna go ahead and tell the truth, right? So he's like, you know what Tiara? I want to first apologize here. We go with the apologies narcissistic man. I want to go ahead and apologize My mother is alive and she's actually been staying at the Sierra medical ward for the past five years That's when he lays on another piece of information. He's like an actually I've been Visiting her monthly and tiara cycle out. She's like, well, why did you lie to me about it? He's like, well, what am I supposed to say? My mama had a nervous breakdown and ended up in a mental institution for the past five years and tiara looked at him She's like, yes, you don't know how I would have reacted to that piece of news I would rather you be honest with me than lie about it and he looks at her You know, he's like, you're absolutely right. I'm so sorry. He's like for now on I Won't keep any secrets from you and she's like, okay She's a little reluctant about this because again, she's having to approach him about yet another lie So he's like, okay. Um, he's a what actually since you know, we brought it up I do have some good news to share my mother's actually being released in a couple more weeks here and tiara is shocked by this now she's the type of person she baby her face speaks before she even says it so Paul can tell that she's a little shocked. He's like, I know I can see the shock on your face But I would love for you to meet my mother and I think this will be a great start To get you know, some of this stuff behind us and let's move forward with nothing but honesty and truth Right. So she looks to him. She's like absolutely Paul.  You know, it's what she's thinking. So anyway y'all Weeks leading up to Paul's mother Being released now. She has to be released to a family member. She just can't you know, go out willy-nilly by herself She has to be released to a loved one, etc. A family member. Excuse me. So Paul is sharing more information about his family Sharing more information about his mother, excuse me and tiara is also noticing a change in Paul's a part of him That she's never seen before he typically can come up as a very I don't want to say calculated person He's a very confident person. He's sure of himself. He rarely double guesses Um, he's in control. He knows exactly what he wants. He has a plan a b and c But lately she notices he's been making mistakes.  So Paul also reveals to Uh tiara that his mother stayed with him and his first wife when she was still when she was Out and about and at first chassis felt like this was a little odd But hey, paul has a huge estate and maybe he just wanted all his family under one under one roof Nothing wrong with that, right? All right, you guys so the friday league leading up to when his mother is released and paul is again running around nervously Uh, dark scan Boris kudrow running around nervously making sure everything gets in place There's tons of staff there and paul ends up inviting georgia aka queen richard Um, the tall thin man. I don't have a name for him. So he's still the tall thin man A couple of friends, you know close friends that knew about his mother, right? I think it's very odd though and tiara thinks it's very odd.  It's the friday that his mother is released paul and his driver goes to go pick up His mother and tiara's written up in the one of the guest bedroom nervously and that's when she could feel You know, you can feel someone looking at you and she turns around and she sees georgia And the doorway looking at her and so tiara turns around.  I'm so nervous. How do you think I look and georgia looks at her She's like, oh honey, you look divine. She's just gonna love you She's gonna eat you right up and so tiara feels good about that, right? So the time has come And paul arrives back at the house with his mother. She walks in and tiara is shocked at the appearance of her of his mother This woman looks like she has never missed a beat doesn't look like she's spent the last four or five years in a mental institution She's a very fair-skinned woman with short curly hair Light eyes of tiara didn't know any better. She would have thought she was latino. Okay.  So paul turns around nervously and says mom.  So she grabs tiara tiara was a little awkward because she's like, I'm not sure about your hugger But she goes ahead and hug the woman back, right? So rosa comes in and she announces that dinner is ready And so they all go into the formal dining room and prepare to have dinner Everyone is laughing sharing old stories again Most of these people that paul invited knew of his mother And tiara's just sitting back looking at everyone and joined the conversation because you know, she really doesn't know These are paul's friends and she knows that eventually they will become her friends But at this point she's just sitting back and enjoying the conversation, right?  Are you okay and tiara's like, yeah, i'm fine.  She does one of these fake yonks to indicate that she ready to go, right?  So you want my driver to take you home a year? Okay, she's like, yeah, that would be fine.  It's pretty late.   So paul leaves the room um Talks to rosa and she eventually goes off the bed honey Everyone eventually goes back to bed and she gets settled into one of the guest bed rooms and falls asleep he is awakened with shouting and she you know rustles out of her sleep Leans up and she tries to cure where room is coming from It's coming from paul's room, which is over to the left hand side So she can hear arguing and it sounds like paul and someone else. It's a female's voice So tiara tiptoes out of bed. She starts walking slowly towards paul um Towards paul room. This is an old house. So it makes a lot of noises. So you got to be careful, right?   So why not have her spend the night and tiara I'm sorry. And the mama's like, I can't believe you have that hussy that stick Child he's old bitter woman. I can't believe you had that hussy that spent the night my first night back He's like, I'm so sorry mother. That's when tiara notices something change and paul almost like he becomes this He's not the confident man that he that she knew and had grown to love and he looks down in his hands And he's like, I'm so sorry mom. She said, well, you sorry. Well, you know what to do to make me feel better That's when paul looks at her now paul has been sitting down and one of the couches all this time And so he puts his drink down walks over to the mother the mother undoes her role She has on this negla jay this laundry underneath paul grabs his mother by the waist and kisses her smack dab In the middle of her tiara leans back and it's like She cannot believe what she just saw she leans back and that's when she hears a noise behind her She turns around and there's georgia who has also stepped out of her room and she does tiara was disgusted she runs back to her room grabs her stuff and call a cab to go home That's part five y'all


I want us to understand one thing that there can be there can be people in the same situation one can be in that situation because they've done sin and the other person can be in the same unfavorable situation because they are in the will of God for example water and alcohol look alike from a distance but if you come close to water and alcohol and you smell it you realize though they look alike they are not alike. Two people can be in the same situation one person can be there because of their sin and the other person can be there because Satan is attacking them and God is testing them. For example we see Jesus hanging on the cross and beside him is a thief and on his other side is a thief so Jesus has exactly same situation as the thieves except Jesus is there doing the will of God and these homies are there because they're getting their fair treatment.  Joseph and Samson were both in the prison. Joseph was in the prison because he ran from sin but Samson was in the prison because he ran with sin. Both are in the same predicament but for different reasons. Both people can be in the same situation one can be in it because of his sin and the other one can be in it because he is being attacked and both can look alike. When you have a sin in your life and you have an attack because of your sin you must repent of that sin. It's gonna do you no good to rebuke the devil.  It's gonna do you no good to keep mopping the floor if the faucet is open.  If the sin is fed in your life and at the same time you're over here rebuking the devil. The devil may not be the problem. It could be your sin that has brought you in the mess that you are in. But we must understand devil can do nothing without sin.  Whatever devil can do, sin can do. And whatever sin can do, devil can do. The best way to shut the door to the devil is to uproot the sin and deal brutally with it knowing then he will have no legal right to have an access to your life. Can somebody say amen?


disclaimer, some of these paints are a lot older than others so I recently got this set way before I got these ones but we're just gonna test them out and see in my opinion which ones I like the most and the packaging and things like that these are all similar prices they were about 15 to 20 pounds which is using my good brain, I got it totally wrong last time, is more dollars, not less dollars so it will be about 25 dollars to 35 dollars I guess for each of these they're all from Amazon but they go out of stock and they come back in and they're all different prices, usually the Artex one is readily in stock most of the time so anyway this one is ink lab, this one is Artex and this one is Marie's paint which is probably less common, it's probably the least common you've seen, I got this one last a couple of weeks ago, this one a couple years ago or a year ago and this one a couple of years ago so they're in order of like age so let's just open them up, this one has like a chocolate lid which I like to call it because it does look a bit like a chocolate bar, I like to refer to these as foods because I just think it's like satisfying but they've dried out but we can reactivate them because they are gouache and the beauty of gouache is that they should be able to reactivate but the bad thing about gouache is that they are not very lightfast so lightfastness means like how long if you put them down on a paper how long they will survive on the page but usually because I'm an artist who makes prints and things like that they are good for me and I really like using them because they're opaque but then also you can use them as you use watercolours so you can water them down with water so I really like that and here's the Artex ones they've also dried out but these are older and they have less in them so you can see which ones I've probably reached for a bit more which is these ones over these ones loads of water in them if anyone has any other tips for like reactivating these let me know and this one is the most recent one you probably saw the video last week if you're here now and this is the ink lab one with the like the honeycomb shape and this one comes with a palette this one comes with a palette as well but I don't know where I've put it but this one also came with paintbrushes and it has a little stand for your paints this one's also cheaper than these ones but what I found when using them was that these were a little like a tiny bit more oily like the consistency was a tiny bit more oily than these ones these two are very similar I have to say but as you can see as well I don't know if it's the packaging or what it is if I've reached for this one more but this one seems to be a little bit more dried out than this one don't know if that's a fair thing to say but yeah I'm just gonna like do some swatches maybe do some painting and just so you guys can see which ones I prefer also if you're on the realms of tiktok you might have seen that I use this one which is actually like a giant beast compared to these but this is actually acrylics so you can buy these they also come as a gouache the white box is gouache the black box is acrylics I often have people telling me that is gouache I'm like no I know what it is it's acrylic and if you want to see on tiktok I am building up a giant paint mountain which looks a little bit like this so if you want to put that I will leave my tiktok down below but yeah I'm not going to be testing this one in comparison just because it's a different paint but yeah just so you know so let's see how well this will mix after adding some water seems fairly good still just needs a bit of stirring this one this one see this one is like still really gelatinous I think it needs more water actually even but yeah it's looking fine it's still usable even though it's few years old everyone always tells me they watch these videos and they always say quickly and it's like I don't know how many times I've said that they don't really do that like unless the box is broken or something these dry out just because of time but as you can see somebody said in the last video that this one would dry out and these are still really not dried out very mind that these are really old so yeah of course they're gonna dry out a little bit over time but I don't think that's the packaging's fault I think that's just the way of time just have to repeat myself a lot and I know everyone's different and I'm not directing this at you you're probably a very nice person who I was watching this right now yeah so let's just do a little bit of a scrappy test so you can see these are like well I don't know if you can't see but I'm just gonna tell you these are like a little bit more oily bit more watery then the other ones and I think it is because they are slightly cheaper they do have a different ingredient I guess in them I don't know what the the word would be I'm gonna wipe this and then try this one but yeah these ones are very similar in consistency I know for a fact that you can buy now a big version of these ones which is quite nice because I really do like I think it's really satisfying we get a massive palette of paint I don't know if it's necessary it's not necessary because truly you only need the primary colors you can mix any color you want but having a massive palette of colors is nice I think talking about the packaging all of these always come with those lids that you have to like rip off which I always find infuriating but and also like a waste of plastic I guess we can't really harbor on that because if you need it you need it right you can't really it's not your fault if a company is using plastic but and I guess that I don't know if there's any other way for them to do it because you know I don't create these things but yeah it would be nice if there was another way so we didn't use those of like plastic so here you can see this one is obviously a little bit more dry but it has a really like thicker consistency and and that's not just because it's a bit drier because I know that when I use them originally they did have a thicker consistency than these ones but these are still nice like you can still get stuff done with these and lastly let's try the hate the Artex ones which are very similar to the HI MI ones if you've seen those as well I think they're just similar packaging but different companies so they have a different makeup of the paints because they were slightly different when they originally tried them unfortunately I don't have the HI MI ones anymore because they ran out but I can tell you that they're very similar as well I'm spreading paint everywhere and that's gonna annoy people but I don't care painting does be messy sometimes okay I just dropped something as well and it was a load of paint good great yeah so this one is also like a thicker consistency than the oily one I don't know why that's oily because it's gouache it's like as if it's like an oil paint it's not so I don't know why I don't know what goes into making things I guess I can't really comment so this one is a little bit drier than that one I think maybe they don't reactivate as easily as these ones but also again they are quite old so I know that I really enjoy using them at the time I've enjoyed using all of these sets I don't have a problem with any of them to be fair so it's a little bit difficult to compare when you don't have much of a bad thing to say like I think this set is really good for its money I think this set is really nice I think this is like a really good quality of paint I think this is really good for its money as well and really good quality paints they last a long time as you can see like I've had these ones for years and they're still usable so there's always perks to having paints that survive a long time so I don't know the lightfastness of these paints particularly I know that gouache doesn't have a very good rap for lightfastness but as I said I usually use gouache for prints and stuff and I do have a so here is a painting sorry about the light that I did literally three years ago and as you can see the colors are still quite vivid and it's all fine so the lightfastness isn't just extremely awful I just think it won't last for like years and years and years but this is one I did with the HMI jelly gouache paints so you can see that's still fine so yeah I think they're relatively good also another thing I forgot to mention is the size of these pots I don't know how much of a difference that will make to your decision if you're gonna make a decision of which ones to buy these are 45 these are apparently 30 millilitres in there and then these are apparently 30 but this looks like it's more in there than there is on that one but maybe they're the same maybe it's just an illusion but yeah it says 30 millilitres 30 millilitres and 45 so these ones are actually even bigger even though they're cheaper I really like this design with the I do think these are like my new favorite I don't know they are a bit oilier that's it that's all like a tiny bit so these are how they lay it down this one is this one this one is this one and this one is this one this one came out a little bit thicker but that could just be the way that I lay it down let's just test the opacity of these paints just by like taking one color and going over the top so as you can see these ones are fairly opaque and then if you use a little bit of water you can use them kind of like watercolors where they're just mixable they also can reactivate once from the page it doesn't really reactivate super well but it does reactivate so let's just do some opacity tests and then we'll do the reactivation tests let's try and get a similar color obviously this is a bit dried out so I'm just trying to work it so it's not so dry I'm just trying to get like a thick amount on my brush so that it's a fair test or as far as it can be I guess considering so what I can tell is that these ones are slightly more opaque than these ones just from that but let me mix up the paints a little bit more and then I think it'll be fairer okay I mixed up these paints a little bit more so to make a bit more of a fair test of the opacity so there you see like the opacity or the apocreness rather of this is still really really good it covers it up super smooth so if you're like me and you make mistakes in your artwork like I do then it's good to know that you can just be like nope erase that mistake with some opaque paint and I think that's why I always really like wash because compared to watercolors it's more forgiving yeah as you can see this one's also super opaque so they're all really nice consistency I would actually say excuse a train that this one even though it's like the precious set it's still weaker than these ones in regards to like opacity so that's something to think about also another thing that I want to mention is that this one comes with two whites and so does this one one is titanium one white and one is zinc white they're slightly different depending on user one slightly cooler and I really like that because I feel like everyone uses a lot of white in their artwork so I think that's a good thing to point out like if I could I would have like five whites or like a massive pot of white would be really really satisfying okay and I'm just gonna test the reactivation of it so wash you can reactivate it I'm putting water down here on this blue paint and you can see it's reactivating a lot which is nice because if you want to just like mess around push paint around a little bit more or even out some I don't know like textures or add a bit of color to the edge or so you know it's just nice it's once you get used to it the feel of it it's a really nice thing to have sometimes you might be like oh no reactivated area that I don't want but it just just let it dry and then go over the top and it's fine so this one reactivates really nicely on the paper it also depends on the paper of course like this this is a watercolor paper but it's not super toothy I think if it was toothier it probably would be reacting like differently and this one is the Artex one which is this one just keep reminding you guys in case you know you don't realize but yeah this one reactivates fine as well you can see here like I'm just pushing out where the textures are and just smoothing it out because you can probably just add like a bit of a gradient or a smoothness or I don't know it's up to you guys whatever you do with your art like if you like it so they all kind of reactivate nicely as well which is making this decision hard because I do want it I wanted to come up with a decision of which one I like the most and I think they're all really good like they're all a really good standard of paint I would say that probably the Artex one is good probably the best for your budget and the best quality for your budget this one is more expensive but it's the same kind of quality as the Artex one it kind of depends what you would lean more towards I think probably these ones have survived a little nicer than the Artex ones but these ones maybe you'll go through them quicker it depends how you use them these ones are super nice I like these these are great they come with paint brushes and they come with these little stands and a big palette which is really nice as well and it's making the decision hard but these are slightly slightly slightly oilier but they are the cheapest so I don't know if you want a really cheap one it's a good set this is great if you want old faithful and a cheap set this is good and this one is really good as well just slightly more expensive but stayed a little bit fresher than the Artex one for longer so I guess I don't really have a decision for you guys I'm really sorry I think the Artex is probably winning slightly slightly on top just because of its style and the paint formula is slightly nicer than this one and that is just by like a sliver so if you guys are not sure which one to decide on then just listen to what I said and see what works best for you and I hope that this video has been helpful for you I hope you enjoyed me comparing these paints because people have been asking for this for a while but yeah here's the video and I hope to see you guys next time also thank you to my patrons and everyone also go check out my TikTok don't forget if you want to see paint mountain I'm probably gonna slice into this bad boy soon but we're going to 200 layers and this is only a hundred yeah so thanks for watching I'll see you guys next time bye


Hey, what's up guys, so today I have another gimbal to review. I've done a lot of gimbal reviews in the past So what I'm going to do is add this to a playlist of all the gimbals and I'll leave that in the description below So today I've got this brand new gimbal. It's just come out. It's called the smart XR Now this is from a company called Alchuan. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. It's brand new It is made in China. It's a three-axis pocket sized gimbal And I'm going to be giving you a full unboxing a setup of all the different functionalities and specs That this thing has and then also show you a lot of sample footage of the capabilities of this gimbal So the video might be quite long go ahead and look at the chapters in the timeline and in the description as well So you can scrub through and go to the relevant ones if you'd like Otherwise, let's go ahead do all of the stuff and let's get straight into it So it's a very nice clean box. You can see the tagline is just love You've got some highlights of the specs there. Let's go ahead and open this up Okay, so you have yourself a user guide you have yourself the gimbal there as well. Let's take a look at that Very nice design very clean Let's take that out I'll show you that in a second You also have a USB-C charging cable now This is a 32 milliamp hour battery inside that which gives you roughly run eight hours of runtime, which I think is awesome You also have a strap as well if you wanted to connect that to the gimbal and carry it in your wrist And then you also have the tripod legs as well So I'm gonna put this on move all of this stuff out the way There's one other thing that gets sent with this gimbal as well, which I didn't expect which is a very nice touch It's this thing here. Let me go ahead and open this Now this is a rod From a company called Pergir now I'll leave a link in the description below of where you can buy this gimbal from Pergir as well It's eighty nine dollars and it's eighty nine pounds on Amazon. So all of the relevant links, but this essentially is A selfie stick that you can attach to the actual gimbal now That's very unique. You don't get this with a lot of gimbals You have to buy this separately So you see it has a sort of quarter inch screw there at the top that you connect to the bottom of the gimbal And I will showcase some examples of that as well. So these are all the things that come in the box So what I'm gonna do is give you guys an overview of the different features that come on this tiny little pocket gimbal It is very lightweight. It's only 370 grams and it does have a payload of just 240 grams as well Which will work for most smartphones. So let me go ahead and set this up and show you guys what this can do Alright guys, let's connect the tripod Snap this open There we go And then you have to twist this Now let me put my phone on top Turn on the gimbal There we have it Okay, so let's take a look at some of the buttons and ports that come on the gimbal Okay, so just on the right hand side you have yourself the USB-C port like I mentioned It is USB-C charging gives you eight hours of battery life on the front. You have a few options So you have the power on button there You just hold that down for a few seconds to turn it on You have a mode button and then you have a shoot button for your pictures and videos as usual You'll have a joystick this doubles up as a multifunction button as well to switch through the different modes And I'll showcase that in a second. You have yourself the zoom control here So wide and telephoto and this is something unique You never really get this on a lot of smartphone gimbals, especially small ones of this size This is the focus wheel so you can adjust this and change the manual focus accordingly through the app And I will run through the app in a second One other thing that you can't see at the moment. Let me just turn this off So inside the smartphone mount you can see there's a micro USB port right inside there Now this allows you to charge your phone whilst in use So if you have a USB-C Android phone for example, you'll need to get a micro USB to a USB-C cable to charge it through Alright guys, so let's talk about this joystick here to change the different modes So obviously you can use a joystick to change the direction of the actual Gimbal as well up down left right standard Now if you do press this you can see on here the mode will change So you have an LED display there PF is currently pan follow mode If you press it once you'll see it changes to F, which is full follow You press it again, which goes to L which is locks mode And you press and one more time and is POV which is point of view So it will follow you in any different direction that you move the gimbal Now those are the single clicks you double click it will recenter the gimbal, which I think is very convenient If you triple click You'll see that it goes into dm mode, which is basically inception mode and the gimbal itself has started to move In an inception format So if you are recording then this will rotate the phone and give you that really cool inception mode And once it's finished it will go back to center mode itself like so So I think that's really convenient to get really quickly into inception mode if you find that opportunity And the last thing is if you hold this down for a few seconds You'll see it changes to go mode But you'll have to hold it down and this basically allows you to capture very fast Transitions or quick movements in any direction So if you're example looking at some sports or maybe a football game of your race car track For example, you want to see cars go by really quickly Then this will allow you to record very quick transitions from left to right by holding this down And this is called mad dog mode and it's displayed as go. So once you let go It goes back to the standard default mode you was on last which would be pan follow in my case So that's everything you can do with this joystick and I think that's a really cool thing to have There's also a lot of different modes that you can access through the app Now, let me go ahead and talk to you through the different functionalities of that. Okay guys So the app that you need to download is called ac play I'll leave a link in the description below of where you can download that So it comes up It connects to smart xr. You'll detect it. You click yes to connect And there you are you are connected So let me quickly run through some of the different functionalities of the actual app on the right hand side You can cycle between the different modes. So it's on photo. You can move to video mode time lapse mode You have panorama And you have something called smart sheet which is basically a different type of really cool modes Inception being the first one on the list You move to the dolly zoom which obviously you guys are aware of And then the last one here is motion film which allows the gimbal to pan In a nice smooth and slow manner And i'll be showcasing examples of each of these different modes as well In panorama mode, you have the option to switch between 180 330 degrees three by three and three by five Photo you have plenty of options here on the left hand side there in the middle You have the option to add beauty modes if you wanted to Display people with a brighter skin or a smoother skin But then you have tons of different filter options here which i think is my favorite These are the most extensive filter options i've seen on any gimbal app Now there's a lot here that will be listed in chinese but by all means just go through them So as you can see here I think these ones are really cool. They really make the picture stand out And i will be showcasing some examples of different filtered videos as well in my sample section later on in this video So here's a whole bunch of things that i may use And there's so many options. I really can't pick which is the best one But for me, it's the number one list of filters in any gimbal app Video options you can change here the resolutions as well Now this records from 4k 1080 or 720p up to a maximum of 30 frames per second So you don't have the 60 frames per second on this and then you also have time lapse mode Which you guys are also aware of and lastly there's this thing here called a finger gesture So if i select this you have to give two fingers up like a peace sign and it will automatically take a video So you can do that on both video and photo.  So as I move left and right It's doing a very good job following me. So if I go down And again, I will be showcasing an example of this as well outdoors So it's a really cool thing to have those are the majority of the functionalities of the app I'm very happy. So let's go ahead and showcase what this thing can do The last thing before I take this out is to show that this can switch to portrait mode So all you have to do is press the power button once and it will flip over to portrait mode like so See it's so easy. It's very quick and convenient So I'm going to showcase some examples of shooting in landscape and in portrait as well Just to give you guys a comparison. So every mode that I've just talked about I'm going to showcase a whole load of samples of photos videos panoramas All of the cool smart features as well like inception mode and dolly zoom Motion film lapse all this kind of stuff. It's going to be really cool I hope you guys enjoy it Make sure to look at the chapters below if you want to skip to specific ones And I'll give you guys a conclusion straight after All right guys, so there you have it. Now the amount of functionality that this smartphone gimbal comes with The fact that it's so light. It's so compact. It's small It has the types of features that you would expect in a DSLR or mirrorless gimbal Stabilizer those large ones those expensive ones all packed into this tiny thing I think it's just so awesome. And I'm going to be using this for a lot of my filming I really like the ability of using this focus wheel for close-up subjects to just get the perfect image for it I think there's so many things you can do with this The fact that it's one click operation for a lot of the stuff is even more convenient And I've had experience in the past with other gimbal apps Which have just sometimes failed to connect especially with android phones But this one was up and running straight away. It's very easy to connect and use the features So for me, it's a big thumbs up and it's only 89 pounds Which I think is an absolute bargain for the things that you get with this So hopefully you guys enjoy that I have tons more gimbal reviews coming out in the future This one specifically I'll have a link on where you can purchase that down below as well Make sure you check that out And if you did like this video make sure you hit that like button and make sure to subscribe I've got a playlist of all my previous gimbal videos as well so you can check those out And I'm pretty sure you're going to like all the new gimbal reviews I'm going to be doing in the near future as well So if there's anything else you'd like to know about this or if you'd like me to test out any other specific gimbals Again, drop a comment. I'm always appreciative of your support and I'll catch you guys next time. Take care