On a frosty February morning in 1995, the fresh, fluffy powder of Steamboat Springs, Colorado flies high in the air for a photo that, if all goes well, will sell for $500 and a pair of skis. As his skier-model soars past, Chase Jarvis, the twenty-three-year-old photographer who recently completed a seven-month whirlwind of a world tour, clicks the shutter of his Minolta SLR with precision and purpose. Innumerable photos are taken in pursuit of the elusive “shot,” yet when it arrives, Jarvis knows right away. It’s his moment of acknowledgement, the flash of insight every creator recognizes but few can explain. It’s eureka.
Chase Jarvis is the rare photographer-philosopher. He stands six feet tall with short, sable hair and kind, glinting eyes. He strings words together with surprising speed and dexterity, not quite at auctioneer level, but getting there. His friends describe him as having “grit” and “a good heart” while being a “pain in the ass.” He’s enamored by the learning process, both within and beyond his field of expertise, and is not shy to explore the overlaps of quantum physics and spirituality to see what he may glean from both. He explains his curiosity in the simplest terms possible: “Diversity is a strength. Full stop.” His artistic influences include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol because they were “hacking the system.” When he wears sunglasses, he could pass for an even-tempered Bradley Cooper. He turns forty-six next month, and is the co-founder and CEO of CreativeLive, the world’s premier online destination for expert-taught creative education.
Jarvis grew up the only child of a police officer and an executive assistant in Seattle. “I was a really creative child growing up,” he says, though on the jock-artist continuum he leaned more toward the former. Nevertheless, he pursued his love for both at San Diego State University, where he majored in philosophy while playing for the soccer team. On more than a few occasions, he’d sneak into the school’s dark room to develop photos, since he couldn’t afford to have them developed himself. Still, as in most of life, it wasn’t quite a free lunch, and his guilt left him chewing on a morally troubling question: Why does fulfilling my creative passion need to be so difficult?
As he finished college, Jarvis’ grandfather passed away, leaving his cameras in his grandson’s care. Jarvis took his new treasures on a seven-month post-grad trip—a crash course in both world travel and photography—and returned home with a revitalised passion for the art. He was also broke, though, so he found work as a ski bum in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and shot action-adventure photos on the side. As he shot more and more, he “Became totally obsessed and committed to photography.” Jarvis licensed his first photo to a ski equipment manufacturer—$500 and a pair of skis—and decided that his life henceforth would be devoted to photography.
Those early experiences—sneaking into the darkroom at San Diego State, struggling to make ends meet as a ski bum—alongside a lifelong quest for knowledge of all genera has led Jarvis to ponder a particularly prickly phenomenon. Why is education so inaccessible? As he sees it, there have long been three major barriers to widespread, high-quality education—restrictive geography, prohibitive costs and lack of access to first-rate teachers—and only by tackling all three issues simultaneously can an educational platform be truly free. Yet no organization was stepping up to the plate. So in 2009, after more than a decade spent shooting photos for many of the world’s largest brands, Jarvis co-founded CreativeLive.
CreativeLive is rooted in Jarvis’ own preferred method of learning: complete and total immersion by throwing himself into the deep end. He’s reaped the rewards of this leap-before-you-look attitude in his personal life time and again, and CreativeLive’s thinking is just the same—no matter what you’re looking to learn, the platform gives you the chance to jump into the deep end and learn from the world’s best right away. It’s also acutely aware of the two fundamental mistakes Jarvis sees young creatives make with alarming regularity: they don’t become truly amazing at their craft before expecting big success, and once they do become highly talented, they expect success to come independent of hard work. “Once you are great at your craft, everything else is vision and the ability to execute,” he says. “If we look at golf, the difference between the #1 PGA golfer and the #300 PGA golfer is pretty much all mental.” It’s mindset over skillset. These early lessons underpin the formula that CreativeLive rests upon: that access to world-class experts combined with plenty of hard work gives creatives the best shot at honing their skills and becoming masters of their craft. With household names like Tim Ferriss and Guy Kawasaki on board, as well as a burgeoning staff deeply committed to the long-term vision, they’re certainly on to something.
Though many large pieces of Jarvis flow through the veins of CreativeLive, it’s his acceptance of vulnerability that he credits as most important. “Looking backwards, have I been vulnerable? Absolutely. That is the key, in my personal opinion, to my success. It hasn’t been an abundance of talent, it’s been more an abundance of will: willing to share, willing to put myself out there and willing to fail. Be imperfect.”
Jarvis knows what it’s like to be inhibited by his surroundings, and he knows what it’s like to be liberated by them, the polarity of which have made his vision for CreativeLive crystal clear: remove as many restraints from the learning process as possible. He’s on a quest to relieve his successors of the moral burden he had to endure to bring his creative passion to life; part Modigliani, part Montessori. “Be different, not better,” he says on building a life as a creative. “You need to make art that no one in the world can make but you. That is how you become sticky in popular culture. That is how you actually get traction. And, it’s not ironic, that that’s how you actually stay true to yourself.”
In life as in art, each of us has our own personal style. The only way to truly flourish is to put some skin in the game and embrace it.
