Art & Fear: The Book. Part 1

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, we are about to tackle what I think and I know,
nathan, what you think as wellis probably one of the most
foundational books.
Hold on, you know what I think.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Let's get this started off on a.
That's a very presumptuous wayto start a podcast.
My friend, it is.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
But you know this and I know this.
We are about to tackle a bookthat you and I absolutely love,
something that I teach from inmy mentorship program, something
that I've read countless times,that you and I both listened to
, read underlined, outlined,highlighted.
I mean it's like every time youread it there's something else

(00:47):
that jumps off the page, and Iwould say, for artists, using
the term, a biblical book kindof makes sense as well.
There are just so many thingsin there that you should take
into your practice on a regularbasis.
This book was written by DavidBales and Ted Orland.
It's titled Art and FearObservations on the Perils and

(01:10):
Rewards of Art Making, and Ilike how they have and rewards
in parentheses there.
That's just kind of there.
Sometimes there's some rewards,and so I cannot wait to go
through this and we're going tospend some time on it.
This isn't just a one-off.
This is going to be a multipleepisode dive, really deep dive,

(01:30):
as we break this down.
So if you've read the book, orif you're getting the book today
and ordering it to read it,follow along, send us your notes
.
We would love to hear yourthoughts on it.
We would love to hear what youthink and it's going to be, I
think and I know we've talkedabout this, nathan a really fun
dive into this book.
And before we get started, Ilove the hat.

(01:52):
You have one of our goodfriends hats on today.
Tell me about that before westart.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
This is a recent acquisition to the hat wardrobe.
I met Bodie Robinson about ayear ago at an event that we
were both at and made theconnection through you that we
were both going to be there, andI got a chance to meet Bodie,
who's just an incredible humanbeing, incredible artist, and
also has a brand of streetwearwhere it's wearable art Art off
canvas is one of the slogans ormantras, so all of these marks

(02:24):
have been personally made by theartist yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
So yeah, thanks, hi Bodhi.
Love you, miss you.
Hopefully see you soon.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
But yeah go check it out St Bodhi, so hats shirts,
hoodies, all kinds of reallycool stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
We'll put a link in the episode thing so people can
check her work out.
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I mean, you were talking about it, we were joking
when we were preparing for theepisode, but this is one of
those books where you couldthrow a dart at pretty much any
page and hit a quote that'sworth discussing.
So the challenge for us is notfinding things to talk about,
it's editing down and not havingeach of these three parts be
five-hour episodes.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
But we'll see Right.
This isn't an audio bookreading right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Although, now that you mentioned it, so for anybody
that's on Spotify, the audioversion is on Spotify for free
if you've got that subscription,so it's a good listen as well.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Well, let's jump into the artist's struggles, which
is kind of the beginning of thebook, kind of where the authors
start talking about strugglesand the difficulty of things,
and I love there's a quote byGene Fowler that I adapted, that
I changed up, that I use, andit says painting is easy.
All you do is sit staring at ablank canvas until drops of

(03:38):
blood form on your forehead, andanybody that knows the biblical
story of Jesus in the Garden ofGethsemane there's a moment
where blood drops form on hisforehead when he's making a very
difficult decision in life.
And I love this story, nomatter what you believe.
It's an incredible story ofstress and asking and wondering

(03:59):
and trying to fight throughsomething.
And so I looked it up.
So I looked up this phenomenonand it's an actual scientific
thing sweating blood and it'scalled hematohidrosis and it
occurs in individuals sufferingfrom extreme levels of stress.
Around the sweat glands thereare multiple blood vessels in a

(04:20):
net-like form which canconstrict under great pressure
and push blood through the pores.
And I thought what you know,thinking of starting a book for
artists and creators with thatquote from Gene Fowler.
You know, just staring andtrying to figure it out until
drops of blood form on ourforehead.

(04:40):
I think any of us in the artgame understands that anxiety
and stress in those moments,right?
Yes, I think it's a great startand I think let's go ahead and
just move into page one here,and there's a great quote that
was written in 460 BC.
Do you mind reading that,nathan?
I do not mind at all.

(05:02):
Life is short, art, longopportunity, fleeting experience
, treacherous judgment,difficult Hippocrates today, but

(05:27):
craft or making something orcreating a vision or something
like.
We all know that life's shortand good Lord, it takes forever
for our work to get to thatpoint where we really want it to
be and, yes, our opportunitiesare very small and fleeting
Experiences treacherous.
We don't know what's going tohappen and our judgment,
creating what we want to create,moving in those directions, is
so hard, and that's where we aregoing to absolutely dive into

(05:50):
this and go really, really deep.
How often do you think, nathan,that the work that you haven't
created yet seems way more realthan the work you are making
right now?

Speaker 2 (06:01):
The work?
Oh yeah, Very oftenno-transcript.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Often the work we have not done seems more real in
our minds than the pieces thatwe have completed.
And I think, like you said, forthe most part we have no idea
what we're doing.
But because we look at a lot ofwork and we see a lot of work
and we know other artists and wesee their work, there's this
vision that occurs in our headthat seems so far away.

(06:51):
And each time we sit down tostart working we're trying to
get to that vision, but then allof a sudden it's nowhere near
it.
I mean, I screwed up so manypaintings this week, just like
had this vision in my head, andthen I start rolling.
It's like I'm nowhere near that.
How do I get there?
How can I do that?
It's always, it's constant, allthe time it's treacherous, it's

(07:15):
difficult.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
That can be a trap, I think as well.
I don't know about you, but itcan be a trap for me to want to
just start new things becausethe starting is is is fun, the
starting is easy, the startingis just the, for me anyway, and
it's the.
Hey, I've got this idea.
Let me just see where, where ittakes me, whereas the late
future steps in the processbecome a bit more, you know,

(07:39):
laborious.
That's where we're trying toresolve things and decide and is
something finished and whatdoes it need, and those types of
things.
So, because the idea of theunfinished work is so elusive,
so attractive and, to your point, to the book's point, looks
better in our minds than all thewhat oftentimes, if we're in a

(07:59):
low moment, looks and feels likeabsolute trash, that's in
process that can create its ownset of problems.
Yeah, too many ideas.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
And this is something that obviously has been a
repeated thing on our podcast.
We talk about this a lot andthis quote, I know, has both
really been transformational foryou and I both, because we've
talked about it a lot on thepodcast and they say making the
work you want to make meansfinding nourishment within the
work itself.
So they're talking aboutthere's this process of you're

(08:30):
not just making the work, justto make it.
You better be searching, youbetter be looking, you better be
really spending time findingmoments that are nourishment
right, and what is nourishmentneeded for?
For growth, yeah, to be healthy, to continue to move forward.
Right, we eat healthy things,we eat good food and drink in
order to nourish our bodies, sothat we're healthy and we can

(08:51):
live a long life.
It's the same thing with art.
If we're not searching forthose nourishing moments within
our work that can take us on totomorrow and the next day and
the next piece, growth isstunted.
We are unhealthy artists, we'renot moving forward, we're not
growing, and I think, man, thatquote has stuck with me ever
since I read it.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, there's another quote that speaks to that too,
that I had highlighted I wantedto talk about.
Yeah, it's on page 11.
With individual artworks, itmeans leaving some loose thread,
some unresolved issue to carryforward to explore in the next
piece.
With larger goals, likemonographs or major shows, it
means always carrying within youthe seed crystal for your next
destination.

(09:31):
I don't have to try, I don'tknow about you.
Actually, I'd be curious to askyou this Is it something you
think about leaving some loosethread, or do the threads just
present Some loose thread or dothe threads just present?
I mean, I'll go first.
My experience is for sure likethe loose threads are always
there, I don't have to thinkabout or try to not resolve all

(10:00):
of the ideas in any given pieceor body of work.
There's always way more ofthose than I intend, which is a
beautiful thing, right, becausethat's what leads to the next
thing.
What's your experience withthat?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
If our current goal is our only goal, just this
piece, this work that we'reworking on, then we're not
really leaving these unresolvedissues for each work, like you
said, leaving that thread likekind of hanging.
If we're just so focused onfinishing this one piece at
least for me this has been verysuccessful in my process and
working If I'm just so focusedon one piece finish, finish,

(10:29):
finish, finish then I'm kind ofmissing the goals that are to
come, because I know that eachwork has taken me to the next
piece.
And if I'm so focused on thisone and not looking for
nourishment things but focusedon finishing, then I'm kind of
stifling that growth for whatcould be coming next.
So now when I'm working I'mthinking about where is the work

(10:50):
going, where is it taking menext, where is this one piece
taking me?
If it's done, it's done.
But I'm not trying to force theissue anymore.
I'm trying to leave threads andleave these moments that are
pushing me to piece number three, four, five, six down the road
and kind of keeping that horizonever growing and ever spreading
out even further.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, now that I've totally blown up our game
plan and our outline, you knowfour minutes in.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
No, but this is good because it does really piggyback
on that moment.
And I've got a quote fromRainier Maria Rilke from his
book Letters to a Young Poet,which I suggest everybody go out
and find or buy today.
And he writes to this youngpoet and he says I'd like to beg
you, dear sir, have patiencewith everything unresolved in
your heart and try to love thequestions themselves, as if they

(11:39):
were locked rooms or bookswritten in a very foreign
language.
Don't search for the answerswhich could not be given to you
now because you would not beable to live them.
The point is live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday in thefar future, you will gradually,
without even noticing it, liveyour way to an answer.

(12:03):
So he's saying leave unresolvedthreads, don't keep fighting,
fighting, fighting for thatanswer in the work.
You may not know how to answerit yet, because you're a young
artist, you're a young writer, ayoung sculptor.
Let all those questions growand grow and grow so that in
time the answers find you,rather than focusing so hard on

(12:25):
what's my voice, how do I dothis, how can I get there, spend
time working and leaving thosethreads unresolved, so that all
of a sudden there's a needle andit's pulling it through to each
work as it goes.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, and that makes me think of finding satisfaction
, getting fulfillment from thequestions themselves right,
starting from the position ofnot, oh, I lack answers and I
won't have, I won't be whole, Iwon't have until dot, dot, dot.
But finding fulfillment in thefact that we have questions, we

(12:58):
have those unresolved thingsthat are going to inevitably
lead to wherever we're supposedto go right which ultimately
leads to faith and trust in theprocess and where we're supposed
to end up right.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, and I mean here's the key, and I love how
they say this Art's made byordinary people.
Even extraordinary art is madeby ordinary people.
Yeah, ordinary art is made byordinary people.
Yeah, it's not a superhero,it's not somebody that has this
insane special blood orextraordinary DNA or something
that helps them just create workthat's better than everybody

(13:35):
else.
No, art is made by ordinarypeople, and I love that he says
if you're going to say that,then you have to allow.
The ideal artist would be anordinary person too.
The whole usual mixed bag oftraits, weaknesses, strengths,
flaws, all those things.
Every single artist has thesame qualities.

(13:57):
Now, there are differences thatseparate them, but I think,
just realizing and we say thisall the time, we said it in our
last episode episode study,study, study, study, read, read,
read, read, read, that way yourealize.
Oh my gosh, yeah, every artistis an ordinary person, just like
me, same struggles, same things, and there's a confidence in

(14:17):
understanding that.
You may know it, but once youunderstand it, that's where the
confidence comes from.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, I think, ty, for me, this book is just
another reminder that it's notjust me All of the doubts, all
the fears, all the secondguessing, it's not just me, it's
not just you, it's everyonethat's ever tried to do what
we're trying to do, which iswhich is, you know, make art,

(14:45):
and make art that is that isauthentic to us.
Personally, you know, I'vetalked before about my
experience with, with recoveryand with the, with the 12 steps,
and one of the things that getsdiscussed, you know, in those
meetings a lot, is the, thechallenge of thinking that one
is terminally unique, in otherwords, the opposite of what I
just shared.

(15:05):
It is just me.
Only I have this problem, whichmeans that only I could somehow
, hopefully, stumble across asolution that is also unique to
me.
No, no, no, we're all in thissame boat, right, because we
share a common problem.
That's really good news,because that means that the
solution, the answers to thesequestions that are outlined in

(15:26):
the book, to our conversationtoday about art, will give us a
solution that also applies to us, right, yeah?
And once we've got a solutionthat leads to hope, right, um,
and when there's hope for thefuture, there's power in the
present.
So I just think that whole ideaof just you know, it's not just
me everyone who's walked thispath before and is walking it

(15:48):
before to your point of right,400 BC, I'm sure if there were,
if there was written recordedhistory before that on this
topic, it would say somethingsimilar right.
As long as people been tryingto do this thing, that we're
trying to do, this has been athing right, and so that whole
idea of it's not just me, right,you know I jumped to.
Let me stay on that same topic,though.

(16:10):
That whole idea of the myth ofthe extraordinary, let's talk
about that.
I'm jumping ahead again, but,ty, this is from page 24.
It's easy to imagine that realartists know what they're doing
and that they, unlike you, areentitled to feel good about
themselves and their art.
Fear that you are not a realartist causes you to undervalue

(16:30):
your work.
The chasm widens even furtherwhen your work isn't going well,
when happy accidents aren'thappening or hunches aren't
paying off.
If you buy into the premisethat art can only be made by
people who are extraordinary,such down periods only serve to
confirm that you aren't.
Before chucking it all for aday job, however, consider the
dynamics at work here.

(16:50):
Both making art and viewing artrequire an ongoing investment of
energy, lots of energy.
In moments of weakness, themyth of the extraordinary
provides the excuse for anartist to quit trying to make
art.
So let's unpack this myth ofthe extraordinary.
And I want to pose a questionto you because in your program

(17:12):
you've worked now with dozens ofdifferent artists.
I'm curious have you observedthis to be a common thing?
If you had to pull a number outof the air, what percentage of
the artists that you've workedwith and had these deep
discussions around this topichave those types of doubts and
fears, in other words, that theartists who have done the things

(17:35):
that they aspire to someday doare special in some way, that
they themselves are not Almosteverybody?
I suspected you were going tosay that.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, If not a hundred percent, 99.9%, yeah,
Right, and this isn't a knock onanybody, this is just.
I mean I, I've felt that wayforever and there's times I
still struggle with that.
Right, I mean, literally, Iknow these things now, I know
them all.
That doesn't mean I don't walkinto a museum and go, never
going to get there, you knowwhat I mean.

(18:06):
Or or literally go, no, that'sall lies.
She's a freaking superhero.
There's something special abouther.
Right, I mean, that's just partof it, you know, and that's
that's.
That's one of the hardest thingsfor us to again understand Like
we can know it.
It's one of the hardest thingsfor us to again understand Like
we can know it, we can read it.
But to truly understand that ishard and it all comes from the

(18:33):
amount of art making you'redoing as well, I think, the
discipline, the routine, theconstantly creating and, you
know, really focusing on theprocess and the experience of
shaping the work, not on anyoutward experience.
I think the inward experienceis what truly feeds the knowing
and understanding of thosethings.
If we're constantly lookingoutward.
Sorry, we're going to struggleand doubt and think everybody

(18:57):
else is superhuman and we arenothing if we're focusing on the
outward.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, that's so true.
And, as the self-appointeddirector of you know, tactable,
tangible takeaways for ouraudience, I will.
I will put a pin in somethingreally important that you said,
which is you haven't read thisbook just once.
Right, yeah, we don't.
We don't just, we don't justabsorb these things one time and
then just have it forever andhave an emotional connection to

(19:27):
that in the moment when we'relow, when we're feeling down.
So it's back to that whole ideaof repetition and continuing to
expose ourselves to ideas thatare nurturing, that are healthy,
that help us to get in aproactive place of.
Hey, it's not just me, this isjust part of it.
Let me get back to work.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, and I want to read a few things from page five
through seven.
I'm just going to paraphrasehere and kind of jump through
some paragraphs, because thisreally does focus on that.
And he talks about the audienceand the artist, not worrying
about the audience or theoutward things, but really
focusing on the inward things.
And they say right, the viewer,the audience of the artist is.

(20:10):
Their job is to be moved by art, entertained by it, make a
killing off it, selling it,whatever.
Our job is to learn aboutworking on our work.
And virtually all artists spendsome of their time, and some all
of their time, producing workthat no one else much cares
about.
So I want everybody to hearthat Most artists spend most of

(20:32):
their time making work that noone really cares about.
It's really hard to make a lotof work that a lot of people
care about.
That's what he's saying there.
So it's like you're nodifferent than all the other
artists out there.
And then, if you jump down, hesays the function of the
overwhelming majority of yourartwork is simply to teach you

(20:54):
how to make the small fractionof your artwork that soars.
I use that quote in the programmy program all the time, the
majority of the time that youwill spend making your art in
your lifetime is to produce thesmall fraction of work that
absolutely soars, and I alwaystell people you go into museums

(21:15):
and you see your favoriteartist's work.
Sometimes the only work you seeis from one period of their
life.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Often Sometimes.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Often yeah, other times you may see two or three
different pieces from differentperiods of your life, but you
don't see 500 pieces from theirlife, right?
You're seeing a few, some ofyour favorite artists in the
world.
They don't have a thousandworks in museums.
They don't have 500 works,maybe 10, maybe 30.
There may be 30 pieces thatrotate around the world to

(21:46):
different museums who have themon loan for exhibitions.
The majority of your work isteaching you about the small
fraction of work that soars.
That's why we leave thoseunresolved issues, those
questions, those threads to keeptaking us on and on and on to
that piece that gets into theshow that lasts for a long time.
To get to that other piece,that other one, maybe a year

(22:08):
down the road, we don't know.
And there's a great quote from abook called Letters to a Young
Artist by Anna Deavere Smith andit says I love this quote.
You are an explorer.
You understand that every timeyou go in the studio you are
after something that does notyet exist.
That's a beautiful, marvelousquote.

(22:31):
I pray for those moments when Igo into the studio, I'm setting
off on a trail and I'm going tomap what doesn't exist today.
What's going to come from that.
Do you ever have that feelingin the studio?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
All the time.
All the time, when you talkabout that, I'm just processing
that quote again.
When you talk about that, I'mjust processing that quote again
and I think about it seems tome the challenge the goal for us
would be to find that sort ofdelicate place between this
could be the one, this could beone of the ones that soars,

(23:08):
while accepting thatstatistically it probably won't
be.
You're kind of sitting in thatbalance, right, like treating
every piece as though it couldbe one of the precious few,
while also acknowledging andaccepting, like I said, that it
may not be.
That leads me to a place of youknow, when I'm in the studio,

(23:30):
to not over-identify withwhatever I'm working on at the
moment and I don't know when ithappened.
At some point along the way Iactually got that and am now
able to remind myself that, notif, but when, I am frustrated
and certain that not just thepiece I'm working on, but

(23:51):
everything in process right nowis absolute garbage.
Yeah, that, that's that.
That's part of it, right, I'mnot over identifying with hey,
everything.
But because early on Iabsolutely did fall in that trap
.
You know, early on it was every, every piece that I completed.
That was the thing that I thatdefined.
Am I on the right track or not?
Like, am I?

(24:11):
Do I have it, you know?
Yeah, and it's really importantto avoid being in that place
because, gosh, when, when, when,when we're making from a place
of the stakes are that high thatthis thing right in front of me
is what's going to determine ifI should make the next thing.
That's a bad place to be.
That is a place that I'mchoosing not to live anymore and

(24:34):
would encourage anybody whomight identify with having been
or being now in that place toget to that point.
So I'll ask you, what advicewould you give somebody who
maybe is still in that spotwhere they are over identifying
or putting too much weight intowhat they're working on right
now as opposed to having more ofthat?

(24:54):
Art is long, you know.
Long-term view of this is justanother step towards me making
my best work.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Well, I think it's discipline.
I think that it's disciplinethat sets those things in motion
to change your ways of thinkingand the way that you
concentrate and the way that youfocus, the way that you doubt
all those things that go intothat.
Hippocrates quote right,discipline, I think, is the cure
for the most part of thosethings, because if you're

(25:27):
undisciplined then you'rebouncing here, working here,
doing a little bit here, andthose thoughts tend to really
really pile up, right, reallystart to pile up and fill up,
and then you're spending a lotof time thinking about those
things rather than workingthrough them in the work.
And that's where I think thedanger really comes, because

(25:48):
that's when we get reallydoubtful on self and then self
starts to be the control ratherthan the work being control.
If we don't like ourselves alot of times, we're not really
going to like our work sometimes.
I think we talked about that alot in the Louise Bourgeois
episode months ago.
But I think discipline isreally the key and there's a
great quote on page nine wherethey share from Stephen

(26:11):
DeStabler, where they share fromStephen DeStabler and it says
artists don't get down to workuntil the pain of working is
exceeded by the pain of notworking.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yeah, Talk to me about that.
It's funny when I read that inthe book and when I saw that you
want to talk about that today.
I don't connect to that quoteat all, but maybe it's just
because I don't understand.
I'm not that Well, if you thinkof discipline it's entirely
possible, if you think ofdiscipline.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
It's entirely possible.
If you think of discipline,right, if you are working,
there's a pain, right, whenyou're creating art, there's a
lot of pains that go within that.
There's a lot of frustration, alot of growth, a lot of things
that are just really hard.
But for the artist, the artistwhose goal is this and making
this, when you are not workingon your work, those pains

(26:56):
increase, they get bigger.
Your wonder, your frustration,your doubts, they grow and grow
and grow and grow.
So he's just saying artistsdon't get down to work until
they realize I need to beworking more, I need to be
putting more time in, becauseall that time I'm not working,
I'm worrying, I'm frustrated,I'm doubting.

(27:17):
All these pains start to growand grow and grow.
What is the one thing thateases those pains for the artist
?
Being in the freaking studio?
Yeah, right, and that's wherethey're really kind of going
into this section on part two,where they kind of talk about
quitting, so like thisdiscipline, the pain of creating
and all these things, and theyexplore, not quitting, and the

(27:40):
normal artist's cycle of thingsthey go through Strong work,
good work, bad work, frustratingwork, okay, it's like this
bounce back and forth, and Ilove this on page nine.
Those who would make art mightwell begin by reflecting on the
fate of those who preceded them.
Most who began quit.
It's a genuine tragedy.
Worse, yet it's an unnecessarytragedy.

(28:02):
After all, artists who continueand artists who quit share an
immense field of commonemotional ground.
Wow, and then they say tosurvive as an artist requires
confronting these troubles.
Basically, those who continueto make art are those who have
learned how to continue or, moreprecisely, have learned not to
quit.

(28:22):
I share the story all the timein my program that I don't know
how many people were in my classin art school, but there are
only two of us from my class,three of us that are in the art
world.
Sure, life gets in the way,different things get in the way,
and quitting for art doesn'tlook like I'm throwing in the

(28:44):
towel, I'm freaking done.
Quitting for artists means timegrows in between making and not
making, and it grows bigger andwider and longer and longer,
and pretty soon that person's nolonger making art.
I can't tell you how manyconversations you've probably
had this with people too, whereyou meet somebody oh, you're an
artist, oh, I used to make artwhen I was younger.

(29:05):
I really miss it.
Or I've had artists in theprogram who went to art school,
got an MFA, then got married andlife happened and they didn't
make art for 20, 30 years, yeah,and now they're back making art
again, right?
So it's not.
That's the scary thing, right?
When you're not disciplined,you can mentally quit with not

(29:26):
even know you're quitting, until10 years down the road you
haven't made any art at all.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well, that's a scary thought the authors make the
distinction between quitting andstopping, yes, and that
quitting happens once, but thenI go to all right.
I mean, I don't know about you,I rarely leave the studio at
night or at the end of the dayon a high note, very, very
rarely and rarely you know, andpart of it just like, has to do

(29:54):
with just the emotional reservesyou know are are lower.
I'm emotionally spent, I'mphysically spent, you know, at
the end of most days and sonaturally I'm going to look at
things and feel differentlyabout things, probably than than
reality would would suggest.
But it's starting again the nextday and, like most disciplines,

(30:16):
the easiest and probably mostobvious example would be
anything with whatever workingout or eating good, like those
daily disciplines that arechallenging.
The longer you stop, the moredifficult it is to start again,
because whatever disciplinewe've built up, whatever good
habits, we have to keep showingup, whatever that looks like in

(30:40):
one's life at that time, theharder it is to start it up
again and to get another streakgoing right.
So it goes back to what theysay in the book quitting happens
once.
Quitting means not startingagain, and art is all about
starting again.
So the less time we can allowto pass without doing something

(31:00):
and making some art, making abunch of crappy art, making a
bunch of mistakes, right,whatever that is, but it's
continuing to exercise themuscle of showing up day after
day to do something, the muscleof showing up day after day to
do something.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah Well, and listen , there's a reason for healthy
breaks too.
At times.
Sure, getting away, taking alittle sabbatical away I'm not
saying like a four-yearsabbatical, but getting away for
a week, going away for a monthjust doing some reading, doing
something else creatively for alittle bit, going on vacation,
going to the beach, sitting bythe water, whatever it is those
healthy breaks are good to helpreinvigorate you when you come

(31:36):
back.
Now the problem with thatstarting again sometimes is we
all know when we take thatlittle break and come back, we
feel like we forgot how to paintor we forgot how to make
something.
We kind of come back into thestudio and go, I feel like I'm
starting all over.
Well, imagine that being fourmonths, five months, six months,
eight months.
That notion in your head buildsand builds and builds right,

(32:04):
and then fear and doubt creep inand say, well, you weren't an
artist anyways, or nobody eversaw your work, or you didn't
have a place for it.
Now all that resistance getslarger and larger.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Well, and that, to me , Ty, speaks to the value of
intentional breaks where thingsare still happening, even if we
are a flight away from ourstudio, wherever we're able to
make.
I mean there's so many thingsand this is one of the things
I've learned from observing theway that you operate, having

(32:30):
been in this game longer than me, in terms of you know, when
you're on trips and on vacations, taking the books, taking those
you know, biographies,journaling, I mean there's so
many things that we can do thatcontinue to keep us in the game
and keep our minds at keepingour head, our heads and our
hearts in a place of what's next, our heads and our hearts in a

(32:54):
place of what's next.
Yeah, that those breaks, whendone intentionally, don't have
to be the momentum killers thatthey would be if we just totally
set it aside and did not.
I mean I make it a point, Iknow you do as well, like
anytime I'm traveling, forexample, to go look at art to
interact with other artists thatlive there.
If I, if I have a connection toa, to a local artist, go to the

(33:17):
local museums, local galleries,like that in and of itself, you
know, and then, of course,taking pictures.
Journaling like that can be theseed of of the next thing as
well.
I was actually it's funny,we're talking about this I was
actually just looking backthrough my, my journal, which I
always my art journal, which Ialways take with me every trip,
my laboratory notebook, butjournaling about that, sometimes

(33:38):
I have my best ideas and I'mable to have more perspective
about what I'm doing and what'snext.
When I am removed from thestudio, because I'm not, I mean
anytime I'm here or near herethis is probably just
idiosyncrasy to me, possibly,but like anytime that I'm not
back there physically doingthings, I feel as wasted time.

(33:59):
It's not, I know that's nottrue, but you know what I mean,
whatever.
So, when, when taking a breakand went away from the studio,
you know, doing those thingswhere that's all I can do is
super, super valuable.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
You know, I tell my my artists in my program all the
time, like, if you're away fromhome, go see art.
If you're on vacation, have aday where you go to museum or go
to a gallery, like, findsomething if you're in.
This is why it's great toconnect with other artists on
Instagram.
You know what I mean.
Then you can say, hey, I'd loveto come by and do a studio
visit.
Can I bring you some coffee?
Can I bring you a capp cookies,whatever, and just go hang out

(34:30):
and talk art and see somebodyelse's studio and how they do
stuff.
You know, that's why I love toread, because there's so much
community in these artbiographies that I'm reading
where they're all visiting eachother's studios and hanging out.
So they knew that importanceand I think they they talk about
.
I love this, how they give thelittle operation um operating
manual for not quitting, on page12.

(34:50):
And they give the two a and b.
The first one, and this is whyI have a group component in my
mentorship program make friendswith others who make art and
share your in-progress work witheach other.
Frequently, like there isnothing better than sharing work
with another artist and talkingabout it, especially when

(35:11):
you're wanting to throw in thetowel.
Even if you're wanting to throwin the towel on a body of work
and like this is just a waste oftime.
The last three months beingable to discuss that with
another artist is monumental.
What are you going to say?

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, Well, I'm just going to piggyback on that.
But, whether it's, whether it'simplied or expressly
communicated, there is anelement of accountability that
only comes from, ofinterpersonal accountability,
that only comes from interactingwith other people.
And I was just thinking aboutyou know, because we talked
about quitting but and stopping,sometimes intentionally,

(35:46):
sometimes not.
I thought we could talk for amoment about how to start again,
and I'm going to throw my twocents in the mix and just say do
something somewhat consistentlyRight.
I mean the the and and thelower we can make the.
I'm back to that example of youknow, whatever health and
fitness, it's easy to take abreak, and I've done this.
Take a break from, from, fromtraining, and then believe the

(36:10):
lie that I can't start againuntil I can pick up right where
I left off, which is just notrealistic, doesn't matter what
we're talking about.
So, in the, in the thread ofart making to think about all
right, what's the?
What's the minimum effectivedose, what's the?
What's something that I know Icould do consistently, even if

(36:31):
it is just.
I made a consistently, even ifit is just.
I made a mark.
I made a mark on something eachday, or three times a week, or
again, just acknowledging thateveryone has different access to
time and ability to make work.
So maybe the thing is, hey, I'mgoing to set aside 30 minutes
that I'm just going to open upmy sketchbook or my what's the

(36:53):
app Procreate.
Yeah, I'm going to open upProcreate while I'm in some BS
meeting and doodle and play, butit's something that's being
done consistently.
I mean that would be mywhatever antidote to having quit
and having to try to find a wayto start again.
But what advice would you givesomebody who maybe has quit or
has stopped for a long time andis trying to start again?

Speaker 1 (37:17):
I've had this conversation quite often with a
lot of people, whether that's ata lecture I'm giving or a talk
during a show, and it's the Qand A and somebody you know
asked that question of you knowI used to make art what's a good
way for me to start, and things.
But I've also.
I used to make art, what's agood way for me to start, and
things.
But I've also got a few friendswho are brilliant painters,
went to art school.
One is now an apprentice for avery big artist and runs his

(37:40):
galleries and does things likethat.
So he's in the art world buthe's a brilliant painter,
incredible painter, and hehasn't painted in forever.
And we talk about this all forthe last, I don't know, 20 years
, 15 years, as he's grown as thenumber two for this other
artist who has grown massively,that fear has grown of starting
again, that fear of, well, I'mnot as good as I thought I was,

(38:03):
or you're just saying that, orhow do I even start again.
I have another friend as well,no-transcript, the fear that he

(38:42):
texted me, I've got everythingout, I can't even move, like I'm
just frozen, that fear of Isuck, am I going to be good?
I mean he's.
I said it's going to take awhile get it back, it doesn't
take a little bit, but you gotto start.
You just got to start and hedid and he painted.
He felt so good.
But it's.
It's so easy to give the adviceand say just do a little bit,

(39:06):
just start here.
But you know, you get home fromwork and you're worn out and
you're helping with the kids oryou're cooking dinner for your
wife or you're doing thesethings that you know whatever,
and then all of a sudden sotired I don't even want to try.
You know, and it's like you gotto find a moment.
It needs a moment.
Is it a Saturday morning beforeeverybody's up?
Is it a Sunday Eve?

(39:27):
Is it?
What is it?
Find a moment and do something,start small.
And I just say you got to babystep it right, you just got to
take baby steps, just like whatabout Bob Richard Dreyfuss?
Baby steps, take those babysteps, bob.
You know it's honestly that'swhat it is.
The confidence will slowly comeback.
Maybe start reading, maybestart reading some art books
again.
Maybe go to a few museums, dothings that kind of engage all

(39:52):
of your senses, rather than youin front of the canvas, sweating
blood from your forehead for afew months, and then you stop
again.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, and I think this comes back to that
whole idea of having a setup.
You know a book that I'vetalked about in previous
episodes quite a bit Catchingthe Big Fish, by David Lynch.
He talks a lot about theimportance of having a setup,
having a place, where arthappens and just removing the
barriers to entry from aphysical, whatever materials you

(40:18):
know standpoint, even if it isjust a little shoe box full of
your materials, where it's in aplace that you know where it is,
where your sketchbook is like,it doesn't take much to have a
little, have the place and havethe stuff ready, because that
can easily be a barrier to entryof like, oh well, I don't have
the stuff or I don't wanna digit out or I don't know where it
is it's like.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
have it accessible, have it in front of you, make it
easy to execute on your plan,when I love kind of feeding into
that, that fear right, thatsubstance of self that art
making can give us at times,that when we're not doing it
well or we're not able to reallyachieve the vision we're trying
to say, right, that can reallyfeed into our fear.
And I love how he says on page13, the line between the artist

(41:01):
and his or her work is a fineone at best, and for the artist
it feels quite naturally likethere is no such line.
Making art can feel dangerousand revealing.
Making art can feel dangerousand revealing.
Well, making art is dangerousand revealing.
Making art precipitatesself-doubt, stirring deep waters

(41:22):
that lay between what you knowand what you should be and what
you fear you might be.
For many people that alone isenough to prevent their ever
getting started at all, and forthose who do, trouble isn't long
in coming.
I love that.
So just know there's fears, nomatter what.
It doesn't matter what sideyou're on.
There's going to be some fears,because art is dangerous and

(41:44):
revealing both ways.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
And I love there's a Nietzsche quote I don't remember
where I grabbed this from andhe says Put it in that because I
want to pick up sorry, I wantto pick up right where you left
off, Cause I also want to talkabout page 13, literally right
right where you stop, which isbecause he just gets so specific
with it.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Doubt, this is literally go right into it, yeah
.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Doubts In fact soon rise in swarms.
Let's play a little game here.
It's high.
Let's raise our hand if we'veever okay, currently or in the
past have felt any of the above.
I'm not, not an artist, I'm aphony.
I have nothing worth saying.
I'm not sure what I'm doing.
Other people are better than Iam.
I'm only a student, physicist,mother, whatever.

(42:27):
I've never had a real exhibit.
No one understands my, my work.
No one likes my work.
I'm no good Like pick one yeah.
Right, I mean.
And so again, just, it's notjust you.
Whatever you're feeling,whatever doubts you have, this
is part of it.
This is part of it, Like it ornot.

(42:47):
If this is, if this issomething that we want, that we
are serious about doing inwhatever form that looks like
for us, this is part of it.
And so just that whole idea ofthe extraordinary people, and
again back to that whole idea ofreading and listening to the
biographies and hearing otherpeople talk about their
experience and how hard it wasfor them, consistently, it just

(43:09):
gives us peace back to that.
Hey, we've got a common problemfor which there is a common
solution.
Well, this is chaos.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, the artist's life is chaotic because of all
those doubts, all those thingswe tell ourselves, all these
things.
And I came across thisFrederick Nietzsche quote that I
absolutely love, and he saysone must still have chaos in
oneself to be able to give birthto a dancing star.
Wow, there must be chaos inorder to give birth to that

(43:40):
dancing star.
Here's what I take from that Ifeverything's perfect and
everything's grand andeverything's working, where's
the room for discovery, where'sthe room for that dancing star
to birth into the universe andexplode from something else and

(44:02):
give light to that area thatdraws the eyes to it, that makes
somebody just go, wow,everything should not be
absolutely perfect, which goesback to what we were saying To
be ordinary is to be imperfect.
Yeah Right, we are allimperfect, we are all ordinary,

(44:24):
we are all human beings, eachand every one of us.
So there will be chaos inourselves.
Let's understand that, let'sembrace it and know it and move
forward in our work and let'sfigure out how we give birth to
that dancing star.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
And thank goodness I mean.
That reminds me of that Rumiquote if you are irritated by
every rub, how will your mirrorbe polished?
The rubs are important.
The friction is important.
We need that friction.
We need that chaos, a where ourgrowth is going to come from
with our work.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
We have to be able to notice them, notice that
resistance, notice those thingsthat are coming in and then grow
from them.
And I love.
Here, on page 14, they talkabout.
Art is a high calling and fearsare coincidental, sneaky,
disruptive, we might add.
And fears are coincidental,sneaky, disruptive, we might add
, disguising themselves aslaziness, resistance to

(45:37):
deadlines, irritation with ourmaterials or our surroundings.
Studios how many of us getirritated with studios?
Distraction over theachievement of others?
Instagram Indeed as anythingthat keeps you from giving your
work your best shot, indeed asanything that keeps you from
giving your work your best shot.
What separates artists fromex-artists is that those who
challenge their fears continue,those who don't quit.

(46:00):
Each step in the art makingprocess puts that issue to the
test, and fears are going toarise when we look forward and
we look back.
Both Right, no matter what.
Look back or forward, they'regoing to arise.
I back or forward, they'regoing to arise.
I have them all the time.
I've had them over the you andI have talked about it.
I applied for a big residency.
I did it on the last daybecause I thought I'll never

(46:21):
have a shot.
There's no way.
Why in the world would theychoose me and laid awake for an
entire night before I woke upthe next morning and applied to
the residency the day it was due, which was a whole lot of work,
but I was scared to death.
Today, this morning, I woke up.
I haven't even told you this.
I woke up this morning, I openup my email and there's an email
that tells me that they'regoing through my stuff today.

(46:44):
They downloaded everything.
So then what happened?
Again, fears and doubts, allthose things started to arise to
go well, yeah, they're notgoing to no way.
My work compares to otherartists that are applying no way
.
You know what I mean.
And it's like, oh, I've got tofind those ways to stifle those
things.
Because if I start focusing onthat, what am I not going to do

(47:05):
today?
I'm not going to make work.
I'm going to want to leave mystudio as fast as I can and run
and run, and run and run, likeForrest Gump, and just keep
running Instead yeah, go ahead,go Well.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Since you brought it up, I'll ask you because I'm
genuinely curious.
I'm thinking about this formyself as well, but do you think
that what you experience interms of the resistance that
caused you to wait in the firstplace, and then what you're
experiencing now, knowing thatthey're looking at it and
evaluating it, do you think thatfear comes from a place more of
just not getting thatopportunity, or a data point

(47:44):
that would suggest that youdon't have it, or what it takes?

Speaker 1 (47:50):
That I don't have it or what it takes.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Right, right, right, because any one thing not
happening is whatever right,there'll be more opportunities,
some of which will come, surethat you will have access to
Right, but it's just that thatthat reinforce the potential,
the potential for reinforcementthat I might not have it, yeah,
yep.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Keeps me awake at night?
Yep, absolutely, yeah.
And the other thing, too, ty,about that quote specifically,
is that you know these are allwhat Pressfield calls resistance
, right, but the way that fearsare shapeshifters, how they'll
find the path of leastresistance to really get to us,
disguising themselves aslaziness, resistance to deadline
, irritation.
So I go straight to, becausewhen I'm, when I'm living in

(48:35):
fear, when I'm experiencing andindulging in fear-based emotions
, I operate from a place ofshame.
And so I go to oh, I lack thecharacter, you know, for me, I
make a self-judgment on oh I'm,it's a character issue.
I am, oh you're, and that's.
That's that self-talk, thatnegative self-talk, which is
something I wasn't planning totalk about today, but I think
it's very relevant to today'sconversation, which is just

(48:57):
being mindful of the internaldialogue that we have going on
and acknowledging that ourdefault mode in terms of our
inner dialogue is, at best,neutral, at best, at worst, and
far more often it's absolutelynegative.
And this comes from, you know,the survival wiring that we have

(49:20):
, from you know, thousands ofyears of uh fight or flight,
where everything had to beassessed, when we were living in
times where, you know, dangerand or death could be around
every corner.
We had to live in that place oflike.
Is this a threat to my survival?
And we're still stuck with thatold, that old wiring which

(49:40):
causes us to go to negativity,which causes us to go to and, in
some cases, live in fear farmore than we really should.
And so, in identifying that as areality that we're starting
from, it's really important tofind a way to adopt some version
of a habit or routine aroundgetting back to a positive place

(50:05):
.
It's cheesy but it's true.
There's a ton of value inidentifying We've talked about
this in previous episodes what'strue, like there's a ton of
value in identifying we'vetalked about this in previous
episodes what is what's trueabout me?
You know what is my code, whatare my mantras, what are the
things that I need to repeat tomyself over and over and over
and over again to get back tothat place of operating from

(50:25):
what's true and what's real andwhat's positive and leads to,
you know, proactive, you knowactivity and action and doing
the thing, as opposed to sittingand being paralyzed by that
fear.
So, again, I guess, justanother commercial for being
intentional about self-talk,what we're allowing to put in

(50:45):
our heads and what we'rerepeating to ourself.
Consciously Because, again,that default isn't going to be
doing us any favors.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, consciously because, again, that default
isn't going to be doing us anyfavors.
Yeah, if your goal is to be anartist, there's a lot of
proactiveness.
That needs to be an action.
That's in the studio, makingwork, studying, researching,
networking with other artists,galleries, things like that.
There's a lot of movement.

(51:12):
You're proactive, right, you'reputting yourself into
situations to make, to meet, togreet.
But if you want to be an artist, the only way to really know if
you're in the art game is bygetting rejected, by applying
for shows, by applying forresidencies, by trying to get
yourself out there, and you'regoing to get more nos than yeses

(51:33):
, which we all know.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
If we're in a creative field.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
we know we're going to get more nos than yeses, but
the only way to really know ifyou're in it is if you're
getting rejected.
So when you think about that,that's a negative feeling, right
?
Usually you get the email backfrom the residency.
I get them all the time.
People, I'm with you in this.
I'm sorry due to theoverwhelming amount of

(51:55):
applicants, you were notselected this year.
I mean, I don't know how manytimes I've read that over the
years.
So many right, but it's likeEnough to be able to repeat it.
Apparently, Absolutely yeah, Ican say it by verbatim Group
shows.
You don't get the email back.
That means you're not selected.
Okay, Well, I wasn't selectedfor that.
I use this quote a lot SylviaPlath.
All my rejection slips proveI'm trying.

(52:17):
Steven Pressfield had a buddywhen his first script flopped,
or his first film flopped, andhis buddy said well, are you
going to quit?
And he said no.
And he goes.
Well, yeah, because now you'rein it.
You actually did something.
It may have flopped, butthere's a hundred other
screenwriters out there whotheir screen it's never seen the
light of day, Right, and theirstuff never will.

(52:39):
But you're in it and it flopped, which means you're in it,
You're where you want to be.
So that's kind of that thing ofyou have to be able to
recognize.
Dang, I didn't get into oneresidency this year or one group
show.
I'm trying, I'm doing everythingI can to get out there.

(53:00):
Plenty of artists never try,and I think that's one of the
signs of artists who either stopor quit.
They're just not trying, sothey don't know.
You have no idea what to baseanything on.
Anyways, I'm rambling.
We have to face and overcomefears.
That's the point.
We have to be able to face andovercome these fears.

(53:22):
So prove to yourself you'retrying, Prove it.
The only way to prove it is toactually get stuff out there and
try, Put it out there.
Reach that vision we have forthe work.
It kind of comes out totallydifferent or unexpected right.
Plenty of times I sit down andgo, here we go, and then I start

(53:45):
and I step back and go how thefricking hell did I get there?
That was so far away from theideas I had in my mind.
That was so far away.
I can't even make thebrushstroke I wanted to make.
It won't even come out of me.
It's not there yet.
And there's this section I lovewhere David Bales began
studying piano with a masterpianist and they're having this

(54:07):
conversation after a few monthspractice and David kind of
complains to his teacher andsays I can hear the music so
much better in my head than Ican actually get out of my
fingers.
And I love that.
The master pianist respondswith what makes you think that
ever changes.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, oh right.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
Yeah, time, time spent, experience making comes
out in wisdom.
You're still going to be thesame artist 20 years from now,
searching for the same growthand the same things, and your
vision is still going to beahead of what you want to do
today.
Your vision is still going tobe far beyond what you can

(54:50):
actually do and perform orcreate.
And he says, lesson of the day,vision is always ahead of
execution.
And it should be.
Vision, uncertainty andknowledge of materials are
inevitabilities that all artistsmust acknowledge and learn from
.
Vision is always ahead ofexecution.
Knowledge of materials is yourcontact with reality, but

(55:13):
uncertainty is a virtue.
We can understand our medium.
We can understand what ourpaint can and can't do.
We can take it to as far as itcan go and cannot go any further
.
But our vision, the ideas inour heads, those things, they're
all uncertain, because we'reonly as good as what we can do

(55:34):
today.
The first brushstroke, thefirst chord, the potential is
never higher until thatpaintbrush hits the canvas with
paint.
Now potential is gone.
Now it's only what you know howto do today.
But that unresolved thread,that discovery, those things,
that's what tomorrow's for wework today for tomorrow.

(55:55):
We don't work today for today.
We work today for tomorrow andthe next day and the next day
after that.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Which is exactly why artists don't retire, they just
die.
Yeah, because there's alwaysthe hope of what might be,
there's always the vision ofwhat could happen next.
We're not just playing the gameto get the retirement up, to be
able to not have to go do thething anymore and do whatever we
really probably should havebeen doing all along.

(56:23):
Yeah, you know, there's alwaysand that's a beautiful,
beautiful thing it's just thatidea that we could be and can be
pulled by that compulsion to doour best work and to see where
pulling that thread willultimately take us.
There's a quote in that samesection that I highlighted for

(56:46):
discussion today that justreally, really struck me.
They write most artists don'tdaydream about making great art.
They daydream about having madegreat art.
What artist has not experiencedthe feverish euphoria of
composing the perfect thumbnailsketch, first draft negative or

(57:06):
melody, only to run headlonginto a stone wall trying to
convert that tantalizing hintinto the finished mural novel
photograph sonata?
This just floors me.
The artist's life isfrustrating, not because the
passage is slow, but because heimagines it to be fast.

(57:27):
Yep, I don't know whatpercentage Ty of the frustration
that I experience.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
Oh yeah, we've talked about this.
I think Is a result of that.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
For sure.
Yeah, and I don't know if it's.
You know how common, how commonthat is, but that is that is,
for, like I am, I'm such achronic underestimator of the
amount of time that things willtake.
It's a task, there's a start,there's a finish, and I know
what happens in between.
When it comes to making art,there's just no such thing as a

(58:09):
linear path, and I think that,for me anyway, accepting that
it's going to take longer than Ithink.
So maybe what if I just wentback to square one and tried to
eliminate a desire to put a timeon it at all, to try and at
least reduce the stress andfriction that I experience from

(58:34):
attempting to put anything on atimeline?

Speaker 1 (58:38):
They use a great example of Tolstoy in the Age
Before Typewriters.
He rewrote War and Peace eighttimes and was still revising it
when it rolled onto the press.
So I looked it up War and Peaceis 1,225 pages, 587,000 words,

(59:00):
87,000 words.
He rewrote that by pen on papereight times to get to a finite
right To tell a story that hefelt true inside that he had to
write.
Think about the time it took toactually flush things out and

(59:21):
then reflush them out.
I can guarantee each rewritehad some thread that was left
loose that he kept thinkingabout and kept thinking about.
That made him go.
I need to rewrite it.
This character arc needs tochange.
This story didn't intertwine theway I thought it would.
And he's laying in bed at nightand going but no, it does Okay,
I got to rewrite again.
Think about that.

(59:41):
I mean that's fascinating.
It does Okay, I got to rewriteagain.
Think about that.
I mean that's fascinating to me.
That's beautiful to me.
That's incredible, Crazy, it'sinsane, but beautiful.
I have nothing to add to that.
How can you add to that?

Speaker 2 (59:54):
It's kind of like whoa Okay, wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
No, I get it.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
I'm trying to be I have a question for you.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Yeah, I have a question for you because this
goes into the gap between visionand execution.
This is something I think is areal strength of yours that they
read.
I want to read these two partson page 16.
The development of an imaginedpiece into an actual piece is a
progression of decreasingpossibilities.
Each step in execution reducesfuture options by converting one

(01:00:22):
and only one possibility into areality.
And then I love that.
They say all you can work ontoday is directly in front of
you.
Your job is to develop animagination of the possible.
Yeah, I feel like that'ssomething that is a real
strength for you.
Like I feel like having watchedyou over the last few years and

(01:00:43):
been a part of talking throughthese things and ideas, like
being able to develop andrealize in an imagined piece
right, that the actual pieceyou're working on is is a
decrease of possibilities getsit becomes less and less the
possibilities can go into it.
But yet I feel like you do sucha good job of developing an

(01:01:05):
imagination of the possible byfinding new materials, new
things.
How can these things worktogether?
But you're creating morepossibilities from it, which
increases that vision andexecution.
It kind of brings it a littlebit closer together in some of

(01:01:27):
those ways.
I know we didn't talk aboutthis question before, but I feel
like that's something that's astrength of yours.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Yeah, thank you for saying that.
Well, it's funny because when Iwas rereading this to prepare
for today's conversation and thematerial section came up, I was
going to talk about that, butthen I realized, like well,
that's probably not common tothe majority of people that have
a medium, because I mean, therewas some reference to like, hey
, whatever medium you're workingwith, the materials have limits

(01:01:55):
and you're going to reach theYou're going to learn about and
understand your material.
Yeah, there's actually a quotefrom that section, todd, that I
that I I had highlighted but Iwasn't going to talk about.
But for many artists, theresponse to a particular
material has been intenselypersonal, as if the material
spoke directly to them and that,if I have, if I have any

(01:02:16):
strength in that regard, it islistening to the way that
material speaks to me.
It is listening to the way thatmaterial speaks to me, which is
limitless because there's somuch material in the physical
it's nothing.
But you know material in thephysical world and so you know.
Even just back to our examplebefore of like, you know how we
can be working on, how we can befurthering the work, even when

(01:02:41):
we're not in the studio.
You know, I love traveling todifferent places because the
types of I mean the way thatthey would make walls and you
know retaining walls, the waythat they pave the roads, I mean
is different, and so the waythat that material degrades over
time, the way that you know thepacking crates that I would
find in dumpsters, you know, inother countries, is different,

(01:03:01):
and so the way that thatmaterial degrades over time, the
way that the packing cratesthat I would find in dumpsters
in other countries is differentthan the way that it would
probably fall apart or burn orscrape or whatever here.
So it's just that listening, Ithink, if there's anything and
we'll talk more about that, Iknow, in a future section but
just that intensely personalrelationship we have with the

(01:03:23):
material, which to me it createsa lot of opportunities.
My biggest challenge is justtrying to isolate.
I was talking about my frameguy, master Woodworker Dean, who
was at the studio yesterday,who does all the anatomy of my
pieces and helps me figure outhow to put all these different
items together.
We were talking and the biggestchallenge I have is identifying

(01:03:43):
.
I've got an entire library ofmaterials.
That it's just.
The challenge is justidentifying, like all right,
which ones are going to playnice together or not in an
interesting way.
But that's just the chase,right?
That's what's exciting, that'swhat's fun.
It's just the chase of like,wow, this probably isn't Back to
wow this, this probably isn'tback to our other point, this

(01:04:03):
probably isn't going to be oneof the ones.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
But it might be, it might be one of the ones that
really sore, and so it's justthat chase.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Yeah, when I love everything you said here wraps
up in this little section onpage where he says in making art
, you need to give yourself roomto respond authentically both
to your subject matter and yourmaterials.
And I think that's what youwere just saying is just wrapped
up in those two sentences.

(01:04:32):
So I want to read it one moretime In making art, you need to
give yourself room to respondauthentically both to your
subject matter and yourmaterials.
So we talk about this all thetime Spend time thinking, spend
time looking and processing andsolitude, whatever it is,
meditating with your work, butyou need to have that time to

(01:04:53):
respond authentically.
Think through it.
How are these things working?
How are these working together?
Are they working, are they notworking together?
And have those conversationswith yourself.
I think it's highly important.
And then I love here that lastparagraph on 21.
People who need certainty intheir lives are less likely to
make art that is risky,subversive, complicated,

(01:05:14):
suggestive or spontaneous.
What's really needed is nothingmore than a broad sense of what
you are looking for and astrategy on how to find it, and
an overriding willingness toembrace mistakes and surprises
along the way.
Simply put, making art ischancy.
It doesn't mix well withpredictability.
Uncertainty is the essential,inevitable and all persuasive

(01:05:40):
companion to your desire to makeart, and tolerance for
uncertainty is the prerequisiteto succeeding.
And this is we've talked aboutthis at length, I don't know
maybe in every podcast thatwe've had.
Leave room for the mistakes,leave room for uncertainty,
leave room for discovery withinyour work developed or it can be

(01:06:14):
increased.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
We increase our tolerance to things that we are
exposed to continuously, and soif we then continue to expose
ourselves to uncertainty, ourtolerance for it will increase,
which, to the to the excerptfrom that book, in theory ought
to increase the chances of usmaking authentic, interesting
work.
You, you know from that samesection there's.

(01:06:35):
There's one, there's one exit.
There's one quote from page 19.
Now I was really excited totalk about.
They write the truth is that thepiece of art which seems so
profoundly right in its finishedstate may earlier have been
only inches or seconds away fromtotal collapse.
I mean, yep, yes To it.

(01:06:56):
Every, every, every one thatyou know ends up being being
shared, being shown whatever,like I could literally look at
every piece hanging, you know,behind me.
You know I got some work backrecently that I had made and
sent out the door right before,right before a show that I
hadn't had a chance to sit with,um, you know, but was doing
that and remembering, in fact,actually I reposted a, um, you

(01:07:18):
know, whatever, a process videoof one of them and I remember,
you know, just one of the clips,just remembering how I felt on
that day, how I felt in thething that ended up being
something, but just realizing,like all of the, again back to
that whole, that whole idea ofof perspective being so
critically important, how weonly see in others, you know,

(01:07:40):
the finished, polished workright, like I threw a bunch of
clips together and then shared afinished piece and it looks, it
appears as though you know whatI mean, like the work was some,
you know, very, very wellplanned and executed.
You and executed piece where Aled to B, led to C, no, no, no,
no, that's not the case at all.
And so, living in thatuncertainty, realizing that, and

(01:08:01):
just that moment for me ofrevisiting that particular day I
know I was freaking, frustratedas all get out.
I was ready to stop, I'mpositive.
I left that session, I threwstuff back inside, I shut the
door.
I left that session, I threwstuff back inside, I shut the
door.
I went home and I said I amquitting for today.
I'm going to start againtomorrow.

(01:08:22):
But it ended up in that casebeing something.
But it only makes sense at theend, if ever.
But if it's ever going to makesense, it won't be until the end
.
It may never at all, and that'sokay, too right In terms of
just living without uncertainty.
But just that, that whole ideaof like acknowledging and
accepting that it's not supposedto feel good in the moment.

(01:08:44):
It's not, and it does sometimes, you know for sure.
But just realizing, like, inall of those moments that don't
feel good, like that's okay.
That is just part of theprocess.
If it's going to make sense, itwon't be until the end anyway.
And so, embracing theuncertainty as a path to get to
where we're trying to go is areally good mindset to attempt

(01:09:07):
to adopt, and live in.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
Yeah, no-transcript, we're critiquing work.

(01:09:39):
I ask questions, they tell methings you know, and then they
go back and then they'll send mea picture of the piece and go.
I ruined it.
I knew I should have stopped.
I felt good about it, Iactually felt good but there was
this one thing that in my headI started to question and then I
couldn't stop questioning it.
So I went to adjust it and nowI've completely ruined it

(01:10:00):
because that adjustment led meto adjust to something else, and
then something else, and nowthe piece is done.
So I also think when they saythat a piece is moments away
from total collapse also meansso many times we go into total
collapse because we overthinkand we don't spend enough time
really thinking through it andlooking at it and talking.
We just kind of attack thingsin a moment, thinking oh yeah, I

(01:10:22):
can definitely make it better.
Sometimes that's the worksaying I'm done, don't touch me.
If you're overthinking it,you're going to ruin me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Well, we talked about this in the Amy Sillman episode
from a couple episodes back.
That was a really interestingdiscussion point.
We identified that this is onearea that you and I
fundamentally disagree on, and Ithink I might be in the
minority in this regard.
But I do not subscribe to thebelief that a piece can be
ruined, that you can go past Forsure.

(01:10:53):
You can go past a point whereit would make sense to stop,
where it may have been better.
You know to stop, but you knowjust back that whole idea of
just always being willing torisk going too far in the
pursuit of identifying how faryou can go and how far you can

(01:11:14):
take it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Well, and I think that conversation is very
different with sculpture andsculptural elements than
painting too right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
I have very intentionally stacked the decks
in my favor in that regard.
When it comes to material, yeah, absolutely, and that wasn't by
design in the moment, but Irealized looking back now it
absolutely was.
I've talked before aboutoverwork when I was, you know,
doing drawings and not beingable to get the hand of the you
know, whatever baseball playerjust right on the bat and you
know there's only so many timesyou can erase something and redo

(01:11:43):
it before it just isn't, youknow, going to look right
anymore.
And so, yeah, that's absolutelytrue, you know, having the
ability to just go nuclear interms of carving it down and
exposing what's underneath, Ilike giving myself a lot of outs
, you know, as far as that goes.
So that's a fair retort on yourpart.
But I do think that living inthat I mean let's just this is a

(01:12:06):
great segue into the whole ideaof perfectionism.
And I don't want to skip adiscussion around talent as well
, because I think that'srelevant.
But I want to skip ahead tosort of the end of this section
as we kind of begin to thinkabout wrapping up for today.
But I think what you talk about, so the fear, actually, let me

(01:12:26):
put this in the form of questionhow does one navigate the fear
of going too far and have thatlead to a version of paralysis
where, oh what do I do?
Do I do anything more?
Do I do something next?
And have that cause a person toget stuck in inaction.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
For me, it's an absolute understanding of my own
work, and that is from timespent right, that's from time
spent looking at lots of art andmy art, but also having the
same conversations about my artthat I'd be having about others'
art.
So when I go look at art, I'mhaving inner conversations and
dialogues, whether I have myjournal with me or not, about

(01:13:10):
what the artist is doing, howare things working, what are
they using, what's theircomposition like, their colors,
their texture.
I'm discussing all these thingswith myself because I also know
when I go back to the studio, Ineed to have those same
discussions with my work andmyself making it, thinking about

(01:13:34):
it, talking through thesethings and then either moving on
or continuing on with the piece.
I've grown really, reallycomfortable with an
understanding of yeah, I thinkthis piece is done Now.
I just ruined four piecesyesterday that I overworked and
I knew inside if I touched themI'd overwork him, but I wasn't
happy with where the work was,even though it might've been

(01:13:56):
okay in other's eyes.
I don't know.
But I went, I need to add somestuff, and then I added stuff
and it completely ruined.
Every single thing was thereand there was no going back
because with painting and on rawcanvas there's not much I can
do to kind of adjust compositionor things without completely,
for my own style, overworking apiece.

(01:14:17):
Right, and I think that's allsingular Right, that's all
individual.
What is overworking, look likewhat is underworking, look like
those things for yourself.
But it's all time involved.
That's the only way to reallybe comfortable with how you're
viewing your making is by thetime you've spent making it and
thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
But this whole idea of not to belabor this point,
but I think it's interesting.
Hopefully Let us know in thecomments, but I think it's
interesting to identify that toyour example, that one could go
past the point suggests thatthere is a point, there is an

(01:14:58):
ideal or a perfect point.
To set the brushes down andstop, is that kind of what
you're saying?

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
You know that's a really difficult question.
That's why I say it'sindividual.
That's a really difficultquestion.
That's why I say it'sindividual, because for me it's
a lot more spiritual of a thingthan a physical, tangible
technique, or you know what Imean Tangible answer.
Does that make sense?
Yes, for me it's very spiritual, to where I have this innate

(01:15:29):
feeling inside of how the workis speaking to me and how I'm
viewing it and listening to it,and it whispers.
It's almost like stop, I'm done, I'm exactly where it and
listening to it, and it whispers.
It's almost like stop, I'm done, I'm exactly where you need it
to be.
And there are times when Iquestion, which a lot of artists
will question well, there justisn't enough on the canvas, so
it can't really be art, so Imust need to go add more to it
because I you know.
so it's like you know, you havea piece that's minimal and it's

(01:15:51):
working.
There's two colors on it,there's not much, but it just
speaks and it works.
Then you go well, there's onlytwo colors.
How could it be an artwork or apainting if there's only two?
I should probably add anothercolor.
Then you fuck the whole thingup and it's done.
So is it overworking?

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
or is it just ruining ?

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Sorry, you just guaranteed we're explicit.
Yeah we're explicit.
Yeah, we're explicit.

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
No, that was only one .
How did it take this long tobreak the seal?

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
That was only one bad word.
We're fine today.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
We are still not explicit.
Oh, hide the kids, oh mygoodness, earmuffs Nephews.
Well, this whole Go ahead,Sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
So is it overworking or is it just ruining?
I don't know.
There's so many terms you couldput into place Because I'll say
I ruin a lot more work than Ioverwork.
Yeah, I just ruin it.
I cannot go back.
There's a state of no return orfixing.
Turn it over, paint the otherside.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
Yeah, yeah, I would say I'm definitely guilty of
overworking certain pieces, andit's funny.
I had a moment recently, justlast week actually I brought a
piece home which I'll dosometimes just to sit with it at
home, where I couldn't touch itor do anything even if I wanted
to.
So I brought it home, I carriedit around the house, I put it
on the deck.

(01:17:07):
It's like golden hour, right,the light's going to be.
I'm just going to sit with, youknow, and I did that with the
intention of sitting with myjournal, you know, at home after
dinner, just relaxing to kindof, you know, listen to the work
and take notes on what I mightwant to do next, beginning from
the place of oh, this definitelyisn't done, there's definitely
more to do, okay.

(01:17:27):
And so Nikki comes out, my wifecomes out, and and immediately
she was like oh my gosh.
And so Nikki comes out, my wifecomes out, and and immediately
she was like oh my gosh, Ithat's, I love that, which she
doesn't often say, just to be.
She is very, she's a tough,she's a tough, she's a tough
critic and so do not do anythingelse to that.
And and very rare, she's onlysaid that a couple of times
she's like that's done, there'snothing.

(01:17:55):
And so you know, just being a,uh, being somebody who's
resistant to being told what todo, I immediately go to like,
all right, let me, let me see ifI can figure out.
And I realized, let me figureout what else I could do to this
.
And I, what I realized is thatI operate from this place of it
couldn't be easy, like it has tobe difficult, which is
different than acknowledgingthat it often will be difficult,
that it often will be Lordknows how many hours.

(01:18:16):
But this one I spent, I mean,the least amount of time that
I'd spent on a piece in quitesome time, which was just kind
of an interesting.
I think I had a point.
What was my point in sharingthat?
Because that's your job is toidentify what my Well, we were
talking about overworking orunderworking.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
Overworking yes, yeah , you took it home to really
think about it in the right way.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
Thank, you Right, and so that's Actually, ty.
I want to close on that idea ofthe answers are in the work.
I think that's a good place toend, but before we do that,
there was something I wanted totalk about, just on this whole
idea of perfectionism, and thisis a quote.
And again, this is what happenswhen you let me go back to my
camera view here.

(01:18:56):
This is how not that it's myjob how books should look when
you're really getting into it,right?
Multiple highlighter colors,notes, pen, pencil, all of the
above, whatever, anyway.
So quote from page 30 that Ijust love to require perfection
is to invite paralysis.
To require perfection is toinvite paralysis.

(01:19:19):
And again, this is again, it'sa fine line.
There's a balance here, right,because we're about to talk
about the importance oflistening to the work, which is,
you know, what I heard youdescribing a moment ago.
But to require perfection is toinvite, like there's there's
nothing, there's nothing else tobe done, like, yeah, that is

(01:19:40):
the inevitable outcome ofrequiring perfection.
And I mean, goodness, even ifperfection was a possibility,
how would we even know until alot of time had passed?
Yeah, right, I mean, we're notthe best evaluators of our own

(01:20:02):
work in terms of how successfula piece is, to right beyond just
the experience of making it.
Until some time has passed, Imean, wouldn't you say that's
true for you as well?
Absolutely past, I mean,wouldn't you say that's true for
you as well?
Like, sometimes it's actuallysit with something you know,
weeks, months, years to be ableto look back and be like that's
a strong piece that holds uptoday, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Um, yeah, and they.
They speak about that here.
He says you make good work by,among other things, making lots
of work that isn't very good andgradually weeding out the parts
that aren't good, the partsthat aren't yours.
It's called feedback, feedbackwith your own work.
That's what I was saying aboutme, like spending that time and
realizing your work and whereyou're going with it.

(01:20:42):
Because when we put our workout there, we have a fear of
judgment, no matter what, anddefinitely read the judgment
part in the book everybody.
But they talk about how fearsabout yourself prevent you from
doing your best work, but fearsabout others reception prevent
you from doing your own work.
Yeah Right, quit thinking abouthow other people view your work

(01:21:06):
and just make the work, butdon't judge it.
Don't be in this pursuit ofperfection, like you're saying,
cause that's going to preventyou from doing your best work.
You're going to cloud yourjudgment.
You're not going to be open andallowing things to come in and
messes.
You know the mistakes, thetrouble, like we talked about in
the Amy Sillman episode.
You're not going to allow thetrouble come in.
That's going to improve yourwork and take you to places you

(01:21:27):
didn't expect to go and, bydefinition, whatever you have
right now is exactly what youneed to produce your best work,
and I tell artists in my programthat all the time, the tools
you have now, the mediums areusing now, the skills and the
knowledge you have now, isexactly what you need to produce

(01:21:48):
your best work today.
There's no magical thing that'sgoing to pop in tomorrow that's
going to make your work so muchbetter tomorrow than it was
today.
Like you have what you need.
So be confident in yourself, beconfident in what you have,
make the best work you can maketoday and if your focus is that,
it's going to continue to guideyou to the next piece and the

(01:22:11):
next piece and the next piece.
Look at your development, nathan, from when you came into the
program early on, when youreally started making it's night
and day.
You listened to the work, youstudied, you let these things
that you love influence things.
You played with mediums, youexperimented, but you weren't
worried about making thatperfect piece right now.

(01:22:34):
You screwed around, you played,you did things, you gained
inspiration from other thingsand then, like they said right
here, you started graduallyweeding out the parts that
weren't good and even some ofthe parts that weren't yours,
that were from influences andthings that ended up becoming
yours or improved upon others,to what you're making today.

(01:22:54):
That's the journey, right?
Rilke says it's the cell ofyour art.
You discovered the smallestconstituent element, the cell of
your art, that tangible,immaterial means of expressing
everything.
You found what those thingswere for you to express,
everything you want to express,and it's from the search and the

(01:23:17):
time.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
I appreciate you saying that If I have any
strength, it is thatinsatiable't know what a recipe,
but it's certainly.
You could do a lot worse interms of finding a path to

(01:23:39):
accelerate one's growth asquickly as possible.
I don't want to go through thisfirst section of the book
without talking about this ideaof talent, because I think it's
a really interestingconversation and it's one that I
want to at least spend a minuteor two on.
This is a quote from page 28.
They write talent is a snareand a delusion.

(01:24:01):
In the end, the practicalquestions about talent come down
to these who cares, who wouldknow and what difference would
it make?
And the practical answers arenobody, nobody and none.
So they very intentionally makean effort to re-divert our
attention from this idea of thismagical idea of talent

(01:24:26):
elsewhere, into things that wecan control right.
So when they answer thosequestions with essentially none
of the answers, those questionsdon't matter.
You know, what I hear is focuson what you can control Right.
But I love this.
I even do a Q&A right, a briefdigression in which the authors
attempt to answer or deflect anobjection Question.

(01:24:46):
Aren't you ignoring the factthat people differ radically in
their abilities?
Answer no Question.
But if people differ and eachof them were to make their best
work, would not the more giftedmake better work and the less
gifted less?
Answer yes, and wouldn't thatbe a nice planet to live on?
Yep, so I think this is reallyimportant because there's a book

(01:25:10):
that I may have mentioned in aprevious episode, but it's a
phenomenal book, called Grit,and the name of the author is
Angela Duckworth, and in it shetalks a lot about the importance
of effort.
So the whole premise of the bookis that talent times effort
equals skill and skill timeseffort equals achievement and

(01:25:37):
skill times effort equalsachievement.
And she breaks down a number ofdifferent, you know, areas in
life where this applies, fromathletics to academics, to the
arts.
I mean, there's really no limitto how, and it's a really
well-written and well-researchedbook.
But the point of that littleequation is that effort counts
twice.
So talent is a variable that isrelevant, but effort is what

(01:25:57):
takes that talent into skill,and skill, when applied over and
over again, with effort beingthe multiplier, a second time
leads to the results.
So a quote from that book thatI love.
She says greatness is doable,greatness is many, many
individual feats.
She says greatness is doable.
Greatness is many, manyindividual feats, and each of

(01:26:20):
them is doable, and so all thatdoes.
I just want to spend a momenton that, but the right point to
stop is that happened by way ofeffort and repetition and doing
it wrong countless, countlesstimes.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
Yeah, and I love that .
What you talked about in thebeginning, with talent and like
who would know, no one is goingto notice.
Nobody, right, like reading thede Kooning biography that I'm
reading currently Nobody.
I didn't know he was a masterdraftsman.
I didn't know he was anabsolutely brilliant illustrator
and graphic designer in the 20sin New York.

(01:27:01):
I just always thought he was apainter and it took him talk
about maybe an artist who putthe most effort into his
painting over any artist I'veever read in my life, into his
painting, over any artist I'veever read in my life.
From the 20s to the 30s to thelate 40s to the early 50s when
he finally discovered his work.
He had so few paintings leavehis studio in that time because

(01:27:26):
he was constantly working andreworking and reworking and
retrying and effort, effort,effort.
Today nobody knows that unlessyou've read the de Kooning
biography, you go and you seehis page, you go.
That's a de Kooning, okay, okay, you don't know.
All that effort that went intoget to that de Kooning is
immeasurable by any standards ofartists in history Almost

(01:27:48):
immeasurable.
It took him so long to get tothat point.
But nobody's going to go.
Well, he was a master draftsman.
He went to art school.
He had a classical background.
He learned at the Academy.
Nobody knows, nobody caresabout that stuff.
They look at those pieces andthey go, whoa, wow, yeah,
formidable, whatever, right.

(01:28:09):
So it's like talent.
Yeah, you had talent, but itwas in something else.
Right, but nobody cares about,nobody noticed and nobody saw is
where the raw talent was.
But it took the effort to getto be the cooning that we all
know and recognize.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
A whole lot of works that don't look anything like
the coonings were made by thecooning to get to a point where
he could make the coonings Yep,yeah, de Kooning.
To get to a point where he couldmake de Kooning's Yep, yeah,
yeah, all right.
I want to close for real thistime on really circling back to
something we talked about before, but just pulling a couple of
quotes from the book that thatreally bring it home in terms of
listening and the relationshipthat we have with the work.

(01:28:47):
So, from page 35, what you needto know about the next piece is
contained in the last piece.
The place to learn about yourmaterials is in the last use of
your materials.
The place to learn about yourexecution is in your execution.
The best information about whatyou love is in your last
contact with what you love.

(01:29:08):
Put simply, your work is yourguide, a complete, comprehensive
, limitless reference book onyour work.
There is no such other book asit is yours alone.
It functions this way for noone else.
Your fingerprints are all overyour work and you alone know how
they got there.
Your work tells you about yourworking methods, your discipline

(01:29:29):
, your strengths, weaknesses,your habitual gestures, your
willingness to embrace.
The lessons you are meant tolearn are in your work.
To see them, you need only tolook at the work clearly,
without judgment, without needor fear, without wishes or hopes
, without emotional expectations.
Ask your work what it needs,not what you need.

(01:29:52):
Then set aside your fears andlisten the way a good parent
listens to a child.
I read more than I intended to,but I just got excited.
I think it's all relevant.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
I mean, I use that throughout my entire program
that's woven in.
Yeah, yeah, everything.
I talk about everything I teachin my studio that's woven in.
I talk about everything I teachin my studio that's woven in.
I spend time looking at everylast piece to see where it's
taking me, to see what's goingto come in the next piece.
Sometimes it's an absoluteradical development and change

(01:30:24):
that takes this piece tosomething so new and so
different.
Or maybe there's something thatworks so well in that piece
that it gets carried over intothe next piece, has those
elements of what I saw.
But I'm constantly looking fordiscovery.
Always, and every piece I make,I'm studying moments and things

(01:30:44):
and going, oh, could I takethat and increase it, or would
that be too much?
Could that work?
Could this?
Where is this telling me to go?
What's it?
And, like we said, sometimesit's the trouble and those
mistakes that take you to thenuke's moment.
So don't discount those things.
Look at the things that areworking and the things that
aren't working, both with equalmeasure.

(01:31:07):
Yeah, where is it taking you?

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
Well, and that just speaks to that, that last line
ask your work what it needs, notwhat you need.
Yes, let's talk about it.
All right.
Hey, what do I need?
Well, I need this piece to befantastic.
I, I need to feel great aboutit.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
I need more likes on that post than the last one.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
Exactly.
I need external validation andpraise for how it went right,
Like these are all selfish,ego-driven demands that we make
of the work.
But when we can set all of thosethings aside and ask the work
what it needs and dismiss thenatural tendency that we are

(01:31:49):
going to have to look at itthrough the lens of what we need
from it, that's our best shot,that's our best chance and
oftentimes it's the perspectivethat comes from.
I mean, to look at your workclearly, without judgment.
For me requires some space,Fresh eyes in the morning.

(01:32:11):
I mean that's back to what Iwas talking about before, about,
you know, leaving the studiofrustrated and not feeling great
.
You know most days being okaywith that, being able to breathe
, reset on my drive home so thatI can, you know, not be in a
crappy mood when I'm with myfamily, Like that's an important
, important place to operatefrom, which is, hey, I have
faith that it's going to makemore sense tomorrow and the more

(01:32:34):
time that passes, the lessneeds I have on it, giving me
something that is selfish of meto request in the first place.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
And just know that this journey of creating art is
about persistence sticking withit, staying to it.
It's about acceptance acceptingyourself, staying to it.
It's about acceptance acceptingyourself, accepting where you
are in the moment, not externalacceptance, acceptance of where
you are and where you're goingand what you're doing.
And then growth.

(01:33:02):
Out of those things come growth.
So just encouragement foreverybody out there Document
your process we talked about inthe Amy Sillman episode.
Document what you're doing soyou can go back and look at it
when you get home, when you'renot at the studio, when you're
off on vacation, when you'reother.
Have the ability to go back andlook at what you're creating on
a regular basis and study thevideo or look at the things
you're doing.
Embrace your fears, embrace them.

(01:33:24):
What's scaring you more thananything?
Go after it.
Embrace your fears.
Keep creating, no matter whatchallenges arise in your way,
because there's going to bechallenges and with every phase
of your art career it's going tobring a whole new set of
challenges.
New ones, old ones willcontinue to arise because we

(01:33:46):
doubt ourselves, but every stepof your career is going to be a
whole new set of challenges.
So, no matter what, just keepgoing and keep making work.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
You know, one could say say just make art, and they
wouldn't be wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
You could say that yeah, there's a purpose, just
make art.

Speaker 2 (01:34:00):
With that, we're going to close part one of three
of our breakdown and discussionon art and fear.
Go get the book, listen to itand let's see what else.
What do we always forget to say?
We forget to say follow, justmake Art on Instagram, comment
on YouTube or all of theirplaces One can comment, you know
, share it.
You know you all help us getthe podcast in front of other

(01:34:24):
people.
So, all right, there's ourdesperate request for validation
and assistance.
We're desperate.
See you next time.

Speaker 1 (01:34:33):
Just like us, just like us, just like us.
That's the name of our podcast.
Just like us.

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):
Just like us.
All right, we'll talk to younext time.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Art & Fear: The Book. Part 1

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