Art & Fear: The Book. Part 3

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
All right.
So the great cricket capercontinues, which which which, by
the way, caper, underutilizedword I mean.
It brings me back to Hardy boys.
Nancy drew like capers aphenomenon.
I'm actually have to work thatinto the title of the piece at
some point.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Use the word caper tell me more about it, though,
are we?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
is this going to be a cricket free episode or this is
?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
a this, you're going to love this.
This is a cricket free episode.
And yeah, nathan and I jump onthe phone every now and then,
about an hour before we startand kind of just talk and I said
, said you're gonna have to, I'mgonna have to call you back
because I got to find this damncricket that I thought I got rid
of last or last time werecorded, but since it's cricket
infestation here in Waco, Iemptied my whole office to try

(00:56):
and find this cricket that Icould not find and the whole
time it's chirping at me, cocky,abrasive, just letting me know
you can't find me.
And I think I found it in alittle cooler bag on the floor
that was laying open and I'mlike it's got to be in there.
It's coming from over there.
So I threw it in the studio.
Get set up.
Next thing.
I know cricket, I hear it.

(01:17):
So I'm going through everythingagain.
Lo and behold, it's literallyhiding in plain sight on the
little foot pad I have under mydesk.
That's black.
So, it's blending.
And I saw something move.
That's where it was the entiretime.
So I gave him a little tossoutside and the day begins.
It's a new mantra for thestudio.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Cricket confidence.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
How's your day, man?
Cricket capers part two All dayyeah.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
So here we are, part three of Art and Fear, our third
and final installation,breaking down this must-read
book.
You know it's funny.
As I was highlighting differentparts and preparing for our
episode, I thought it wasinteresting.
In thinking back to parts oneand two, it was interesting to
me how you and I have almostcompletely different things
highlighted.
Yeah, like I think maybe 20%,30% overlap, but the rest is

(02:07):
just different, which speaks to,I think, the power of the book
itself and how many differentjust nuggets there are to be
mined.
So if we haven't made it clearso far, we'll just reiterate
again Go get the book, spendtime with it, read it.
It's an absolute must read.
There's a reason why it's afundamental part of your
mentorship program.
So with that, let's dive in.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, we're going to jump into part three here and
we're going to kind of gothrough a few things quickly and
a few things we're going to, ofcourse, spend a lot of time on,
which normally we do.
But the first thing I reallywant to talk about is they jump
in here in this third part, intothe artist's struggle and just
the price of idealism, and Iwant to read a little bit about
idealism and its casualties andidealism as in I want to be an

(02:55):
artist, I have this goal of whatI really want to do and I'm
going to do this and I'm goingto be in museums like setting
these really lofty aspirationsfor ourselves and for so many
artists.
You become casualties of thatidealism.
It takes so long to get there.
You quit or give up or you stopmaking art or things are
working exactly how you thoughtthey were when you left school
or those things, and then youslow down and you take steps

(03:17):
back and you become a casualtyto that ideal that you've set in
front of you, and it can be.
Those can be very, verydangerous at times, especially
for us as artists, and I want toread this little quote here
that he talks about in the book,on page 85, where they talk
about student issues, and thisquote says idealism has a high
casualty rate.
The chances are, statisticallyspeaking, that if you're an

(03:40):
artist, you're also a student.
That says something veryencouraging about the desire to
learn art and something veryominous about the attrition rate
of those who try.
There is, after all, a deadlycorollary Most people stop
making art when they stop beingstudents.
And I wanted to read thatbecause when you think of

(04:00):
idealism, why do artists go toart school?
Because they want to be anartist.
That's the reason an artistgoes to art school.
It's like I want to do this,and so that thought of if you're
reading this and you're anartist, you're probably also a
student.
It's showing that the higherpopulation of artists are all in
art school and then slowly thatdigresses and that percentage

(04:21):
shrinks over time as artists getout of art school and they move
on into real life because theyweren't able to achieve or walk
into a world they thought theycould immediately enter and be
successful in.
And really, nathan and I talkabout this a great deal Don't
stop being a student, even ifyou didn't go to art school.
Keep learning, keep growing,keep pushing your education as

(04:44):
an artist in materials and booksand history and all you can get
your hands on and that's goingto help you in that pursuit, for
sure.
And I definitely want tosuggest that you go back and
listen to our episode how to Bean Art Nerd, embrace Curiosity,
self-educate and Continue toGrow as an Artist, where Nathan
and I dive in for about an hourand a half into this subject.

(05:04):
So I wanted to touch on thatreal quick.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
I love that.
I have nothing to add your.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Honor.
Good, that's great, we'll keepmoving on, but I just wanted to
touch on that, because that's areally, really tough thing when
you leave art school.
Any of you that have been toart school understand like I did
.
The second you leave thosedoors you kind of go, oh shit,
what next?
And really the whole worldcomes flying at you.
So don't stop being a studentwhen you leave.

(05:30):
All right, let's jump into page93, conceptual works.
I know this is going to beprobably a pretty thick section
here that we're going to gothrough, because there's some
really, really fun stuff and Ilove this quote at the top.
Nathan, I'm sorry, don't yell atme, but I got a couple before
that.
Oh, let's do it, jump into it.
I'm not going to yell, I'llwhisper.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Okay, I meant that to be an off episode, little side
note.
But yeah leave it in, screw it.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
I'm going to keep it.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, so I think what was I going to talk about?
Yeah, so, from page 90, it'sjust an interesting distinction
that the authors make about thedifference between the way that
critics view art and the waythat artists view art.
So the quote, this distinction,has substantial footing in the
real world.
Substantial enough at least tosupport the provocative, if not

(06:19):
entirely airtight propositionthat nothing really useful can
be learned from viewing finishedart, at least nothing other
artists can usefully apply inmaking their own art.
The really critical decisionsfacing every artist, like, say,
knowing when to stop, cannot belearned from viewing end results
.
For that matter.
A finished piece gives preciousfew clues as to any questions

(06:43):
the artist weighed while makingthe object.
Now, we talk about this a lot.
This is one of, you know, yourthings is the importance of
viewing a lot of art.
So I'm going to put this in aform of question to you.
But I wanted to sort of clarifythe preceding sentence that
talks about, you know, embracingart as a process, artists as

(07:05):
kindred spirits to the artist.
Art is a verb to the critic,and we could extend, you know,
just the viewer as a whole.
Art is a noun, art is a thingto be viewed, whereas an artist.
Art is a verb, a thing to bedone.
But I'm curious what yourthoughts are on that preceding
quote that I read.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
I mean there's a lot in there, and obviously the
critic and the artist are twovery, very, very different
things.
They've been friends throughhistory and they've been enemies
through history.
And so the longer I read andthe more I study, I tend to find
critics who are connected tocertain artists and artists who
are connected to certain criticsand those that hate each other
and kind of cause warringfactions between different

(07:45):
artists at different timesbecause of the critic and I just
got to watch Jerry Saltz give alecture at the Blanton Museum,
and so it was really fun to heara critic talk about art and
about things, and obviouslyJerry was an artist too, so he
wasn't.
There's a lot of critics thatnever made art, but then there
are critics who have made artand figured I'm much better at
talking about this and writingabout it than I am actually

(08:07):
making it.
So it's always interesting tohear critics' point of views,
because I don't agree withcritics a lot of times when I
see work.
It's one of those things thatthey exist, and they don't
usually exist in harmony most ofthe time.
Does that make sense?
It does, because we're bothviewing things in different ways
, right?
The artist?
Here are some things that Jerrysaid in his talk.

(08:27):
He doesn't want to knowanything about a painting when
he goes and sees it.
Nothing.
I don't want a story, I want aphilosophy.
I don't want anything.
Just let me go look at it.
And he's going to go look at it.
He will be moved, not moved,think there's things that he
likes, things he dislikes, etc.
Etc.
And then he will write aboutthat from a pragmatic point of

(08:48):
view, looking at what he seesand what he feels.
Then he had a quote where hesaid good art is when you look
at a painting, and every timeyou go see it you feel something
new and different.
So every time you go and lookat a piece, you get a different
emotion, a different feeling, adifferent something.

(09:09):
Each time.
It's not the same thing everytime.
Right, that's coming from acritic.
This is how I perceive this tobe Now, as the artist.
Yeah, that's a lofty, loftygoal for that to happen.
Now, are we always thinking ofthat?
I don't know.
I mean, it's such a differentconversation there.
Yeah, was there?
Were there any things that youhad in your mind?

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, it was just interesting because you know the
the, specifically that partwhere you know nothing really
useful can be learned fromviewing finished art, at least
nothing other artists canusefully apply in making their
own art.
There aren't a lot of portionsof the book that I disagree with
or that I sort of pause andquestion, but this is one of
them.
Do you think they're talkingmore about?

Speaker 2 (09:51):
process, probably For the artists themselves.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, that probably is where they're coming from.
But unless they're just gettinglost in hyperbole, nothing is
italicized.
Nothing really useful can belearned from viewing finished
art, at least nothing, I mean.
Yeah, I suppose that is true.
Yeah, nothing, at least nothingthat can usefully apply.
I mean, I don't know, I don'tknow where I'm going with that.

(10:19):
Honestly, it was just somethingthat kind of struck me and I
know that it's something thatyou feel strongly about, because
you've encouraged myself andour listeners many times to go
look at art as much as possible.
So I guess I'd love to hear youreiterate that through the lens
of this specific quote.
Like I'll ask a better questionwhat utility is there in

(10:42):
looking at a lot of art?
Yes, so this?

Speaker 2 (10:45):
is what I would put into that place in that
paragraph, and I think they areright where there's nothing
useful that you can get fromlooking at a finished piece of
art that could teach you how tohave a harder work ethic in the
studio or to spend more time onsomething or to fight resistance
or to push the audience outsideof yourself, like studio,

(11:08):
studio, practical ideals youcan't really get from a finished
piece of art.
You can't go in.
You can't go in and look at apiece of art, like they say and
go.
I know exactly when Picassosaid this is done and I'm ready
to let it go.
Yeah, yeah, right, you can't goback to your studio and go oh,
okay, this is probably what youknow what I mean.
But I think practically you candefinitely learn about depth and

(11:29):
texture and composition andpaint and you know, you can see
those things.
You can gain emotion, what youknow, oh gosh, why is this
affecting me this way?
Is it just because of the waythe artist blended?
Is it because of the texture ofthe artist had?
Is it the depth?
Like what are those things?
Taking those things back toyour studio can obviously inform
you about your own work, but Ithink nothing you see in a

(11:50):
finished piece you can take backand go.
Well, this is what I need to doin my studio practice to get to
where they were.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Does that make?

Speaker 1 (11:58):
sense.
There's an interesting.
It totally does.
Yeah, there's an interestingquote on the following page,
page 91.
There's an ancient quote on thefollowing page, page 91.
They paraphrase a quote fromEzra Pound.
Yeah, and they just wrote thatthe one thing he learned from
viewing a good piece of art wasthat the other artist had done
his job well and thus he wasfree to explore another

(12:20):
direction, and this is somethingwe've talked about on previous
episodes as well, but I thinkit's worth noting that that's a
really I, just I like the, Ilike the, what that brings to
mind for me, just in terms oflike imagery, like I picture the
path that we are all on and the, the course that we are all
attempting to chart forourselves in pursuing our own,
you know, authentic voice, andto to pick up where they left

(12:45):
off and then continue forward.
That actually would be a casefor looking at a lot of art, to
know which paths have alreadybeen, what paths already exist,
right To pick up from there, asopposed to feeling like we got
to start from scratch.
One of my favorite things Ilove the outdoors camping,
hiking, all the rest of it.
I know you do as well.
I'm a big fan of when hikingall the rest of it, I know you

(13:08):
do as well.
I'm a big fan of when hiking,going off the trail and
exploring the little areas thatmaybe you're not supposed to go,
or get a little closer to theedge than the path would suggest
for the average hiker.
But you don't do that in theparking lot, you don't?
You don't chart your own course, right, right.
You go as far as the path goesand then you you know whatever

(13:30):
deviate in your own direction.
Then you get, get curious andget creative and find your own
path.
You know from there.
But just I think that that tome would be just another
reinforcement of what you'resaying, which is, until we know
what else is being done and hasbeen done, there's really no way
for us to effectively beginfrom there or use that as a

(13:53):
starting point to push thatconversation forward.
Right?

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think that
moves great into the quote byThomas Kuhn.
The answers you get depend onthe questions you ask, because
if we're not going and we're notlooking and we're not spending
time and we're not studying anddoing those things, we're going
to have very few questions aboutwhere to go and what to do or
what has come or what hasn'tcome yet and those things.

(14:17):
And I think I want to read alittle bit here.
So bear with me on page 93,kind of goes into this
conceptual leaps and things.
And work with me.
On page 93, kind of goes intothis conceptual leaps and things
in work, they say.
Writer Henry James once proposedthree questions you could
productively put to an artist'swork.
The first two are disarminglystraightforward what was the
artist trying to achieve?
Did he or she succeed?

(14:38):
The third's a zinger Was itworth doing?
Those first two questions aloneare worth the price of
admission.
They address art at a levelthat can be tested directly
against real-world values andexperience.
They commit you to acceptingthe perspective of the maker
into your own understanding ofthe work.
In short, they ask you torespond to the work itself

(14:59):
without first pushing it throughsome aesthetic filter labeled
behaviorism, feminism,postmodernism or whateverism.
But the third question was itworth doing?
It truly opens the universe.
What is worth doing?
Are some artistic problemsinherently more interesting than
others, more relevant, moremeaningful, more difficult or

(15:21):
more provocative?
Every contemporary artistdances with questions as these.
I love that.
That's a great question to askourselves in the studio.
Was this piece worth making?
Was this direction worth goingtowards?
Were these ideas worth takingany further?

(15:42):
Or did they lead me tosomething else?

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, I'm inclined to rephrase that as is this worth
continuing?
Because asking if it was worthdoing is kind of irrelevant,
because it's already been done.
Right, we did it.
The real question, I thinkembedded in that, for me, as far
as the takeaway is concerned,is just all right, is this worth
continuing?

(16:06):
Is this a question that, um, isworth continuing to explore and
mine and see where it leads?
Or is this a back to our sortof maze metaphor from the
previous episode?
Is this a dead end, and is ittime to turn, turn back around
and find a new way towards theultimate goal?

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, it's ultimate reflection.
It's that self-inquiry, askingyourself, talking, asking the
questions, reflecting on whatyou're working on or what you've
made.
Is it ready to move forward?
And I love on page 95, they say, second paragraph artists who
need ongoing reinsurance thatthey're on the right track

(16:48):
routinely seek out challengesthat offer the clear goals and
measurable feedback, which is tosay technical challenges.
The underlying problem withthis is not that the pursuit of
technical excellence is wrongexactly, but simply that making
it the primary goal puts thecart before the horse.
We do not long remember thoseartists who followed the rules

(17:09):
more diligently than anyone else.
We remember those who made theart from which the rules
inevitably follow.
I have exclamation points allover that page.
I mean that's a pretty Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Well, same.
And I think that speaks to oneof the underlying themes of the
book, which is the importance ofembracing uncertainty, right,
yeah, you know, when we'retalking about like.
So they use an example earlierin that section about how
whatever Olympic diving orthings like that have objective

(17:44):
standards where perfection ispossible.
They get into that later on inthe same section when we talk
about craft.
But when there is a, it is morecomforting to have a some type
of a.
Whatever rules, rule stick.
Is that, is that a thing?
Guidebook rule.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Sure, sure thing.
Whatever Rule stick.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Some measurable to say, yep, you hit the, you hit
the mark.
This, this, this meets thestandards of, you know, whatever
the thing is, whereas what weare being encouraged to consider
in this section is, if we wantto have the lofty goal of being
an artist who is long remembered, following the rules is not the

(18:26):
path to get there.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Right, when you look at the history of, really, the
artists who challenged the norms, and that's what they did.
They were breaking the rulesthat were set before them, and
so then the art world in turn atsome point ended up following
where they went.
And you look at theimpressionists like they did
that at the time during thesalon in Paris, and they went
outside what everybody was doingand they were very I've said

(18:51):
this before they were as punkrock as punk rock could get, you
know, and they were doingthings that were not supposed to
be done and they continued todo them and they changed the
history of art.
Then you have the Cubist,cubism shattered the norms of
art, like completely shatteredit.
And then you have surrealism.

(19:13):
You have the Dadaist, right, Imean, think about it.
You've got a urinal in themiddle of a gallery floor.
What Duchamp did change thehistory of art from that point
forward?
He was challenging the normsand broke through and doing
something that.
Did he even touch it?
Was it even something that hetouched?
Right, but it's like that wholeidea of not following the

(19:34):
established rules.
And I always tell my artists allthe time art has no rules,
don't think it has rules.
I have artists all the timethat come to me and go well, I
really want to sculpt, but Ifeel like I really need to paint
to be in a gallery, and it'slike, no, you don't sculpt, you
don't have to be a painter to bein it.
I'd say don't be a painter, youhave more opportunity,
everybody's a painter.
So it's like, but then you have, well, I should do this, should

(19:56):
I?
It should be the size, or itshould in order to get there, in
order to.
Well, that's not real artbecause, well, that's not,
that's no, there are no rules inart.

(20:17):
Do what you want.
The history of art has a bunchof people, men and women, who
did not play by the rules andare now in museums today.
So great Nietzsche quote noprice is too high to pay for the
privilege of owning oneself.
No price is too high to pay forthe privilege of owning
yourself.
You're making your work yourway, the way you want to make it

(20:41):
.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
And as I read that the way you want to make it and
as I read that it is importantto note that there is a price to
be paid.
Yeah, yes, always Of course,but that's an important thing to
realize too in terms of, backto the whole, not getting stuck
in this idealistic view of howthings are supposed to be or

(21:05):
supposed to go.
There is a price to be paid forowning yourself.
It's just worth acknowledginglike, yeah, if that's the goal,
if that's what we're after andhopefully it is it's going to
hurt a little bit, there's goingto be some bumps, there's going
to be some bruises, and that'sokay.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
That is a great example, I think.
And I think there's going to bepoints in your career as an
artist where somebody is goingto tell you whether it be peer,
whether it be gallerist, whetherit be front, who knows is going
to tell you, ah, yeah, youprobably shouldn't do that, you
should go back to doing this orjust giving advice.
That is from their tasteperspective.

(21:43):
But they kind of come with alittle bit of authority maybe,
and there's a choice to be madein that moment.
We have a really good friendthat that happened to her in her
studio, with a studio made atone point said yeah, what you're
doing is really more decorative, it's not really art.
You should probably thinkoutside the box.
And us other peers of hers saidno, are you kidding me?

(22:05):
That's incredible.
You need to keep pushing thoseideas, keep pushing those
boundaries.
And now she's done some thingssculpturally that really fall
into beautiful and incredibleplaces.
She's did an incrediblesculptural residency this last
month.
She's doing incredible work.
But it would have been reallyeasy for her to listen to that
peer and gone.
Yeah, maybe it isn't really art, because she might know and

(22:26):
I'll just kind of stick withsomething else I was doing in
the past, and then maybe shestill would have reached where
she is now, but it might'vetaken a little bit longer.
But instead she stuck to herguns and kept going and her work
is exploding.
So, and because there are no,rules.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, you can't rely on just one opinion.
No, never.
If we were objectivelymeasuring something, all it
would take is one person withthe whatever, whatever the
measuring stick might be, to sayyes, no, whatever, read the
readout on the meter and saythis is what it is.
This is a completely subjectivespace that we're in, obviously,

(23:02):
so it's important to diversifyour influences and be selective
about who we seek out for advice, input, feedback, and then,
once the feedback's beendelivered, determine what, if
anything, is worth taking intoconsideration to actually
execute on.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
And let's just thank you kindly for your two cents
and off I go and make you Letall your influences and all the
things you love combine intowhat you feel strongly about
making.
Don't just copy the other,right?
And there's this great quote onpage 96 where they go into
technique and says but whilemastering technique is difficult
and time consuming, it's stillinherently easier to reach an

(23:42):
already defined goal, a rightanswer, than to give form to a
new idea.
It's easier to paint in theangel's feet to another's
masterwork than to discoverwhere the angels live within
yourself.
The last line in that paragraphsays simply put, art that deals
with ideas is more interestingthan art that deals with
technique.

(24:02):
And in the Joe Miro biographythere's this great quote where
he is complaining to a friend ofhis, and he's talking about
Picasso and all everybody elsein Paris at the time who's
exploding in the art world.
And he says he has this quotewhere, while everybody else is
painting wallpaper, we'rebleeding to create the things we

(24:24):
want to create.
Wallpaper.
We're bleeding to create thethings we want to create.
And he's talking about howeverybody in Paris is basically
copying Picasso and they'rebasically painting wallpaper.
Right, it's something thatanybody can buy, everybody can
make, and it goes up in everyhome.
Yep, and he's recognizing that.
Yeah, that's the easy way, butI'm going to bleed to push past

(24:45):
all of those.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
There's that originality and self-discovery
within the art is what he reallywanted and we could certainly
list off a number of artistswhose work gets perpetually,
whatever copied, sometimes juststraight up stolen, and it

(25:06):
always rings hollow.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Always.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
There's no soul to it , right?
You're just copying the At best.
The best outcome of that iswe've copied somebody else's
masterpiece, yeah, but withoutdiscovering where the angels
live within ourselves.
And that rings true.

(25:31):
Authentic work vibrates withthe core experience of the maker
, intention aside, but you canjust feel it.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
I mean, that's art right, yeah, and listen, your
art is probably going to looklike somebody else's.
Sure, there's probably going tobe something in your work that
you're going to be scrolling onInstagram and you're going to go
oh what?
And it may be somebody you'venever seen, that's never
followed you, but you have thesame influences and you like the
same type of work, and sothere's going to be similarities

(26:07):
.
And there are going to be timeswhen there's going to be people
that may follow you onInstagram and like your work,
and so they're copying andstealing ideas from you.
Because that's what we all dowe steal, copy, try and find
ways to make our favoriteartists work into our work, and
that's part of history of art.
But then I don't even care, I'mjust going to be.

(26:27):
There's so much crap that I seeregularly on Instagram that
looks the same, yeah, and Idon't get why some of those
artists aren't diving deeper tofigure out how to not look like
all these other artists.
And I think what's happened isthere's this trap with selling
work to be successful yourself,and so you hop on a trend where

(26:52):
everybody's buying one certainlook right now, so you're trying
to do that trend to jump on it.
This is a trap.
I'm not saying everybody doesit.
Saying this is that trap forowning yourself, owning your own
identity as an artist, does it?
Saying this is that trap forowning yourself, owning your own
identity as an artist?
And then, all of a sudden andhonestly, some of those artists
don't, they don't care aboutmaking art, they're just making
something to sell it and make aliving, and that's fine, that's

(27:13):
great.
It makes me mad, though, as anartist, because I want to see
artists grow and develop andexperiment.
I want to see that next personcreate something nobody's
created yet, or that newmovement somewhere, and I feel
like that's getting a littlemore difficult today.
I don't know, this is me justVenny.
This is me, venny.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, I mean, I think the commercial consideration is
certainly valid and probablyaccurate.
I go to I don't know how to putit, but sometimes I, you know,
sometimes I mean a lot of theexamples that you're referencing
, or the what are the ones thatcome to mind for me that that
fall in the category that you'redescribing?
I think I don't know how muchwork they're actually selling.

(27:56):
I don't know.
I don't either.
I don't.
I don't know if it is acommercial consideration or if
it is more a seeking ofvalidation of, hey, the work
that I am copying, influenced bydoing my version of something
that's been done many, manytimes before and is being done

(28:19):
by many, many other artists aregetting likes, are getting
whatever, a version of hey, thisis art, this is good.
I think that might be part ofit.
I think part of it too, if Ihad to guess, would also be just
not spending enough timeconsidering what their own
unique voice could be.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Sure, Well, this isn't a new thing.
This has existed since art hasexisted.
We just have the ability to seemore of it at a more rapid rate
today and I'm not trying to bemean here, I'm just trying to.
I'm an artist, so I've gotstrong opinions.
That's what we do as artists.
We have strong opinions onthings and I want to see people

(28:59):
grow, and I know there's a lotof artists that are just
starting out, and so they'redoing things that they're seeing
right for the first time andthey're trying those in the
studio and coming out.
The problem is is that we havethe ability to show it to an
audience right away, rather thanwait over time to show it to an
audience when it's strongenough or good enough or fits in

(29:20):
a niche or something niche.
You know, today we can justmake the piece put on Instagram,
get a bunch of likes and go ohyeah, I'm on my way.
Then you stick with it andstick with it, and stick with it
.
It's just hard, that's all I'msaying.
It's hard, it's frustrating,because I want to see artists
grow and want to see them figureout those ways to develop

(29:41):
beyond what got them excited todo something and not just do
what got them excited in thefirst place.
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (29:49):
It does.
Yeah, and we've talked aboutthis in a number of episodes
before.
I'm excited for you to readthis Nick Cave quote that you
dropped the door out one.
You want me to read it?
That was just me.
That was just me.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Let's, let's, let's, move it along yeah, um yes, no,
let's no, let's, because thisquote I mean, of course, you and
I love this quote and I'll readit.
There really is a trap, though,of trying to replicate others
work instead of finding your ownunique voice.
So this is me just sayingreally dive into your unique
voice.
Find ways to figure what thatis.

(30:22):
Doesn't have to be powerful,doesn't have to be anything
philosophical or whatever, butgive yourself room to grow, and
here's a good way to do it.
Do you want to read the NickCave quote, nathan?
I do, I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
I do have I'm quoting here I do have a strong
commitment to the primaryimpulse, the initial signaling
of an idea, what we could callthe divine spark.
I trust in it, I believe in it,I run with it.
There is a sense of discoveryabout it, things unfold, the
place of discomfort anduncertainty, and adventure is
where an honest, good faithconversation can happen.

(30:56):
It's all the same thing.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Oh, I have chills, massive, just chills, running
down everywhere right now.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
What about this quote strikes you so deeply?

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Well, I'm going to kind of break it down a little
bit here, because there's a timein the studio when you have
that primary impulse it's thevery beginning of that new idea.
It pops in out of nowhere, youdon't know where it came from.
While you're working onsomething, boom, it kind of hits
you in the moment.
And I love how he names that,the divine spark.

(31:31):
I love how he names that thedivine spark and in the
paragraph above that he actuallygoes through some of his
religious beliefs and he kind oftalks about Jesus and some
different things in there tokind of push towards that divine
idea.
And I love that he says, whereyou just highlighted, as I'm
looking at our document here, Itrust in it, I believe it, I run

(31:54):
with it.
And if you're a Nick K fan, youmay be, you may not be you will
know through his music it jumps,it moves, it pushes a needle
forward.
It all of a sudden becomessomething so different it's
unrecognizable from what camebefore it.
He trusts in it, he believes itand he runs with it.
And I love that's discovery.

(32:15):
Yeah, that's the sense ofdiscovery that he says right
there.
And then he says then thingsunfold and what's always going
to happen in the beginning ofthe new idea discomfort and
uncertainty.
Then adventure, and then thehonest, good faith conversation
can happen.
Wow, oh my gosh, have you allthought about that?

(32:38):
Out there, whoever's listeningor watching us right now, you
have to push through thediscomfort and the uncertainty
in this adventure to have thatreal conversation with your work
.
What do you guys do, or youwomen do, when that first divine
spark or that first idea justjumps at you out of nowhere?
Do you just ignore it or do youactually jump into it?

(33:02):
What do you do, nathan?

Speaker 1 (33:07):
How that strikes me is beginning from a place of you
know.
Whatever your beliefs may ormay not be, I think that it does
come from a place ofacknowledging that these things
come from somewhere else.
Yeah, in other words, we're notsitting here just manufacturing
inspiration or you know, orcreating ideas.

(33:31):
They come to us.
And what strikes me about thisquote is how Nick Cave and the
artists that we aspire be beinspired by are ones who have,
over time, developed that.
That word trust just just jumpsoff the page to me.

(33:53):
I trust in it, I believe, yeah,I I run with it.
And you know, again,referencing to, you know, his
music, there's a lot of bit thatdoesn't, it doesn't make sense,
it doesn't, it doesn, itdoesn't fit.
You know, within a mode.
There's moments in a lot of hisnew album included that I'm

(34:16):
really unpacking and enjoying.
A lot of moments are like well,how do we did it?
You know, at first listen,you're like did it skip tracks?
You know?
But it is those surprises thatmakes it unique, that is what
makes it interesting.
We want to be surprised, we, weare most interested in work.
Back to that jerry saltz uh,quote that you referenced

(34:40):
earlier from, from the talkabout work that continues to
reveal itself over time.
I mean, I'm just thinking aboutmusic, right.
So like, especially the workthat the music that he's making
now it is.
You're not gonna hear it on theradio, you're not gonna hear it
on Top 40, you know, anytimesoon.
It's sort of the anti-pop,let's call it right.

(35:01):
Like, what is?
Why is pop music popular?
Because it's easily digestible.
It's something that you canhear over the speakers at Target
and just kind of like yep,that's music that sounds like
something in the backgroundother than just ambient noise of
shopping.

(35:22):
It's quick, right, it'saccessible, right, it doesn't
take a lot to get it right,which is fine.
But it also means that it'sit's quick, right, it's
accessible, right, it doesn't,it doesn't take a lot to to get
it right, which is fine.
But it also means that it's notthat interesting, right, like
there's yeah, there's most ofwhat you hear on whatever top 40
radio is very similar to what'spopular at at the moment.
It sounds a lot like the trackthat came before it and probably

(35:44):
the one that's going to comenext, you know, and that's fine,
there's a place for that, butit's disposable.
Very, very little of that.
Some, some, some popular musicabsolutely stands the test of
time and goes on to, you know,be be absolutely legendary as
those artists evolve and, youknow, find a more unique voice.
But most of it is is disposable, right?

(36:05):
I mean, I bet if we look backat the most popular songs from
whatever 10 or 20 years ago,we'd probably remember most of
them, right, yeah, but probablyaren't listening to them anymore
.
And I think that's what reallystrikes me about this quote.
Run through the lens of how hetreats his work and his music,
it's that trust.
Run through the lens of how hetreats his work and his music,

(36:27):
it's that trust, it's trustingthat, even though it probably
these impulses, these initialsignalings, they're probably not
going to make sense right away,they're probably not.
These ideas don't come fullyevolved.
They certainly don't for me, Idon't think they do for most
people.
They're just little, they'rejust little bits, they're just
little.
There's little sparks ofsomething that could become a
fire, but it's just a littlespark it needs.

(36:48):
That's actually a really good,a really good enough, like it
takes something to fit were youjust giving yourself credit.
We're just giving yourselfcredit for that analogy well,
I'm editing myself in real timebecause I am such a hey I'm all
for self-credit, I'm all forself-credit well, I gave myself.
I I discredited one of myprevious examples as as not

(37:11):
really uh working that well, soI was like uh, this is how I
process information and try toyou know form love it here an
idea tie, all right, but it islike that.
I mean, you know, yes, it's fora spark to become a fire.
It it takes oxygen, it takes afuel source right Some kindling
some wood, some whatever toactually become something else.

(37:33):
So that idea has to be fostered, it has to be nurtured into
something, and so that runningwith it is an absolutely
critical step of the process.
The spark's not enough.
We got to do something with it,we got to believe that it's
going to become something and wehave to run with it to turn it
into something, and oftentimesthat's not going to happen right

(37:55):
away, or even relatively soon.
It's just trust that it will atsome point become something that
is absolutely worth chasing theconversation worth having,
worth chasing the conversationworth having.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, and following these impulses are what can lead
to conceptual leaps in yourwork.
Yeah, because we're all lookingfor that conceptual leap from
work to work, from body of workto the thing that really takes
one idea that you had and thensparks again using your term
again because I love it sparksinto something, even to an even

(38:31):
bigger fire.
That's a big conceptual leap.
I try so hard.
And I was talking with myfriend Jane Dameron and her
husband Caleb on our way backfrom the Jerry Salts talk the
other day and we were justtalking about life and where we
are and how things are going,since today is the last day in
my forties.
There's been a lot ofdiscussions of what were the
forties like?
Are you ready for the fiftiesand those things.

(38:51):
And I said one thing I'vereally tried to do in my work is
to have very big conceptualleaps, to not do the same exact
thing over and over and overagain.
And Jane, who knows my workvery well and has curated a
number of my shows as well, shewas like, yeah, I think you've
done a really good job of that.

(39:12):
And I said I look at myselfsometimes and go, because I'm an
artist critically, I go man,I'm not changing, my Things
aren't evolving enough orthey're not changing here.
But yet I have followed thelead of some of these impulses
and had conceptual leaps butthen completely left that for
something new because it drew meto something new.

(39:32):
So you can look back at yearsof my work and know that's
totally different than what hedid that year and the next year
is completely different.
And then, whoa, he totallyabandoned this idea completely
and went on to something new.
And I think that's me trustingin that impulse when it hits

(39:52):
that divine spark and beingwilling to even ignore
everything that came before thatmoment to follow that impulse.
Even if and this has happenedeven if out of 50 paintings in
that year they don't do anything, it's the next year.
If I didn't follow that divinespark, that whole year of that

(40:15):
work, not moving or not sellingor not doing anything, pushed me
to the following year Because Iwas willing to listen to that
spark, break out of and movetowards something new.
Risky it's risky, as anything,yeah, and it's hard mentally
personally at times becauseyou're like, oh, I showed that
work and nothing sold.
Well, but it got into a show.

(40:37):
But it also pushed me to what Idid the next year, which to me
felt like a really bigconceptual jump.
The following year, thefollowing year.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
I was smiling when you said that, because I had
actually written something downand you spoke to it as I was
writing down To nurture a spark,we have to leave the existing
fire.
And then you just talked aboutthat.
Right, and that takes atremendous amount of courage.
You've got fires that areburning, and they're burning
nice, they are providing heat,they're doing what fires are
supposed to do.
But in your pursuit of the nextthing, of where your work could

(41:13):
take you, you've got to takethat risk.
We have to take that risk andacknowledge that.
I mean, you can't do both,right, you can't keep all these
fires burning in other placeswhile continuing to chase down
different sparks.
It's just not possible, youknow, right.
And so the courage to leavewhat's already working fine in

(41:33):
the pursuit of something great,takes a lot of courage, a lot of
courage.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Absolutely, and we're going to jump into all that now
, that conceptual leap betweenthose things.
And on page 98, there's alittle sentence here at the top
and he says and on page 98,there's a little sentence here
at the top and he says inessence, art lies embedded in
the conceptual leap betweenpieces, not the pieces
themselves.
And, simply put, there's agreater conceptual jump from one

(42:00):
work of art to the next thanfrom one work of craft to the
next.
The net result is that art isless polished but more
innovative than craft.
And that's a whole conversationwhere they go in describing the
differences between craft andart.
And that's a little bit ofsomething that I voiced earlier
about my frustration with someartists, creators, that are
doing the same thing, same thing, same thing, same thing, and

(42:22):
not innovating and not evolving,maybe a little bit more craft
than actual art.
And I want to jump to page 99,the second paragraph, and then
we'll jump into all this At anypoint along the path.
Your job as an artist is to pushcrap to its limits without
being trapped by it.
The trap is perfection.
Unless your work continuallygenerates new and unresolved

(42:44):
issues, there's no reason foryour next work to be any
different than the last.
The difference between art andcraft lies not in the tools you
hold in your hands, but in themental set that guides them.
For the artisan, craft is anend in itself.
For you, the artist, craft isthe vehicle for expressing your
vision.
Craft is the visible edge ofart In routine artistic growth.

(43:07):
New work doesn't make the oldwork false.
It makes it more artificial,more of an artifice, because new
work is supposed to replace oldwork.
If it does so by making the oldwork inadequate, insufficient
and incomplete, well, that'slife.
So conceptual leaps betweenpieces, not just in the piece

(43:30):
themselves, does that make senseto you?

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Oh, yeah, absolutely yeah, and that just speaks to
the importance of making a lotof work.
Yeah, you know, you don't justdrop the spark on one little
micro piece of kindling andexpect that to become like
there's a lot there.
There's a lot there to receivethe spark.
So it takes a lot of pieces, ittakes a lot of work, it takes a

(43:55):
lot of experiments and a lot oftrying and a lot of time with
these ideas for them to develop,for them to become something.
I had the very next couplesentences underlined as well.
Older work is oftentimes anembarrassment to the artist
because it feels like it wasmade by a younger, more naive
person, because it was One whowas ignorant of the pretension

(44:20):
and striving in the work.
Earlier work often feels,curiously, both too labored and
too simple.
Both too labored and too simple.
That particular linespecifically struck me.
I was thinking about I recentlyhung an older piece in the
house because we have anembarrassing amount of open wall

(44:43):
space in our house.
But I took a piece home and Ihung it and it was funny because
I've now spent more timelooking at that piece than
anything else that I've made,because it's just in my space.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, it's in the house, it's in the kitchen, it's
in the house.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
It's the place where I live.
Yeah, but because I've spentmore time looking at it, I'm
going to take it down.
I'm going to replace it withsomething newer, because now it
just bothers me.
The more I look at it, the morewhat are the words I use Naive,
the more ignorant it appears.
I still like it.
I'm not embarrassed that I madeit, but I'm choosing to not

(45:25):
expose myself to it much, muchmore, because it just I just
have that feeling of like ugh,that's just, that's just so far
behind what I'm making now,which, of course, is what I'm
most excited about.
It's funny, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah Well, and I think that's not being trapped
by the pursuit of perfectionLike you can be really trapped,
and I think this is one thingthat de Kooning really fought
with, and I think de Kooningmight've even been a better
artist if he wasn't so trappedby this is my own opinion.
This is my opinion If he wasn'tso trapped by doing everything
he could to perfect a piece.

(45:59):
Now some people on the otherside that would disagree with me
say well, that's what made hispieces what they are, that
pursuit of perfection which hepainted over his women's series,
I don't know hundreds of times,hundreds of times in the series
that really, really broke himout post-excavation.
But to me I feel like if hewould have felt a little more

(46:22):
freedom in his creating, ratherthan being so forced into this
perfection of each piece, thatthere might have been some
beautiful surprises that, ifleft alone, would have
flourished.
This is my own opinion.
I know there's going to bepeople out there art history
nerds that we this would be areally fun Cedar Tavern meeting
back in the 50s in New York tohave this argument over

(46:44):
perfection, which maybe I dothat in my head when I finish
reading and I'm sitting therewith Franz Kline and Elaine de
Kooning and Krasner andeverybody and having this
argument.
But I think we can easily gettrapped in that pursuit of I
want this piece to be absolutelyperfect.
It's probably not going to be,it can't be, you're not as good
as you're going to be yet.

(47:04):
So fighting over it for so longand trying to perfect
everything in it, I don't know.
In my view, I move past thosepieces and on to the next ones.
When I keep fighting andfighting with them, I don't know
if I can get them to where Iwant to be, but I know that if I
keep working on others, it willtake me down that road.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
And there's a quote by Ted Orland in another book of
his.
That is fabulous.
Hold that thought road.
And there's a quote by TedOrland in another book of his.
That is fabulous.
Yeah, this goes back to howmuch time does it make sense to
If we're just thinkingpragmatically about the
available time that we have tomake art, whatever, that is for
each of us, the return oninvestment in terms of, purely
in terms of time and energy, tocontinue to try and resolve

(47:50):
something or find I'm going touse the P word perfection,
setting perfection aside, but Ijust I think there is for sure a
point of diminishing returns onany one piece when that amount
of time and energy, when focusedon the next piece, the next

(48:12):
pieces, is much, much higher.
Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Yeah, and that's part of my opinion with Ducounian is
, I feel like if he would have,in the moments where he was so
frustrated with the piece, if hewould have let it breathe and
moved on to something new andcame back to it what's under
there, what could have beenunder there that was passed up
or missed or I don't know.
But I think I would rather makethis is myself.

(48:40):
I would rather make 10,000paintings in my lifetime than
100.
Because I think the more I make, the closer I'm going to get to
really creating what I think Ican create in my lifetime.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Absolutely.
I mean, how many albums doesNick Cave have?

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah, well, and going back to Nick Cave as well, as
we talked about the Jerry quoteof being moved by something each
time you listen to it, orlearning something new.
That's ghosting for me.
Every time I have ghosting on,I'm going someplace different
and something new is I'm still.
That's ghosting for me.
Every time I have ghosting on,I'm going someplace different
and something new is happeningto me every time I listen to
that album.
So to me, that makes aabsolutely incredible work of

(49:21):
art to me, because I cannot bemoved to a new place every time
I listen to it.
Every emotion has beenuncovered for me when I listened
to that album, from highs tolows, to memories, to everything
.
Each time I put it on somethingnew, I feel something new.
Anyways, same.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Same.
You know, when you think abouttechnical skill as well, his
voice is not that great.
He doesn't have a great voice,he's got a distinctive voice.
Yeah, he's got a voice thatcommunicates emotion.
I mean we're fans, right?
So there's there's, there'sthat there are people who say no
thanks, and that's fine.
I would say that, and maybe Idon't know if this is unique to

(50:01):
to me or to.
I mean, I know you and I sharequite a few musical tastes
definitely not all, but some,and a lot of the artists that I
really love, I mean the oneswhose music I spend the most
time with, don't haveparticularly traditionally
Classical voices, exactly.
Yeah, yeah into the visual space.

(50:29):
I think that I guess that justreinforces what we had talked
about earlier in terms of youknow, the technical skill you
know is fine, but the closer itis to the objective definition
of what something is supposed tolook like, the less unique and
authentic it's going to be.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, let's talk aboutcreativity, Sorry go ahead.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Yeah, let me.
Let me jump into this quote byTed Orland from his book View
from the Studio Door, because itkind of jumps into what we all
just said before we move in tothe next part.
He says one of the trulywonderful things about art
making is that it gives youpermission, at any given moment,
in any given art piece, toaccess anything you need, from
any source you find, to expressany idea you wish, in any form

(51:10):
your heart desires.
You cannot ask for more freedomthan that.
Please, everybody out there,take that quote to heart.
Please take that quote to heartthat is telling you you don't
need permission from anybody todo what you want to do.
With anything you want to do,the work gives you permission.

(51:30):
If that divine spark hits youand you want to make stuff out
of cement and ash and wood andwhatever and you've been just
painting in oils on an easel anda canvas, you just got
permission from the work to usecement and ash and wood in a
whole different way than you'vebeen doing your whole life.
That is absolute freedom.
Think about that.
There's no more freedom that wecan live in in our lifetime

(51:55):
than within our artwork.
There is control on the outsideof our studio.
That takes away our freedom.
Anywhere we are, anywhere welive, anywhere we go, your work
and what you do with your workis the most freedom you will
experience in life.
So go for it.
Go for it, and that's why we'redoing this right.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
I mean, that's yeah absolutely that's what we're
here for.
I mean, I can't imagine manyartists not sharing a version of
that perspective of yeah, thereare no rules.
That's the whole point.
That's why I love, that's whythe space where we create and
the creative process is sosacred is because it's one of
the few, if only, environmentsin life where we are completely

(52:40):
and absolutely free to dowhatever comes to mind, Whatever
we want.
Let her rip, Let her rip.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Thank you, helen Well .
And Jerry Saltz, in his talkthe other day, said artists need
to follow every idea to itsillogical end.
Don't do one single thing,please don't do one single thing
.
He owes his advice to artistsFollow every idea to its
illogical end, not to thelogical end, to the illogical

(53:11):
end.
And he said don't do one singlething, don't just stick to one
thing your whole career.
Please don't do that, you willdo nothing is what he said.
You will do nothing.
So I just love that.
He just Pulitzer Prize winningart critic just gave you, gave
you permission again to dowhatever the hell you want to do
and to have variations of thethings that you do.

(53:34):
And I think that's a a lot ofartists.
I have a lot of artists comethrough my program.
Well, I love to do abstract artbut I love to do figurative art
.
Do them all, do them all, do itall, or do one for a year, do
the next one for the next year.
Yeah, them all, do them all, doit all, or do one for a year,
do the next one for the nextyear.
Figure out a way to merge itall, I don't know.
Figure out ways to all thosethings that you love, that you
want to do, do them all, do themall and be really good at doing

(53:57):
them.
Spend time developing andgrowing.
Do they merge?
Do they not merge?
Can I do a body of work thisway, body work that way?
How can they integrate?
Can just do it, follow it tillit's illogical end.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Well, I think that's where, back to that whole idea
in you know, just believing inin the process, trusting, you
know, having having the courageto continue to move things
forward.
I think one of the big thingsthat resonates with me about
that is just having the havingthe, the, the belief that the
things that are meant tointegrate with one another will

(54:34):
do so when and how they aresupposed to.
But with each vein of work,with each pursuit of that
undeniable idea or spark orinspiration, we're expanding our
vocabulary, we're givingourselves more to work with,
we're putting more on the tableto draw from later.

(54:58):
I mean, some of these thingsare going to have their natural
conclusion or their illogicalend.
That's fine, but others aregoing to represent themselves,
maybe I mean who knows when,down the line.
But they're available to us,it's in our vocabulary, it's in

(55:18):
our language to work with,because we chased it in the
first place, because we spenttime with it initially, and only
after time will those answerspresent themselves again, by
asking the right questions andby continuing to, you know, do
what comes to mind and notcensor ourselves.
And in the meantime, all right,let's talk about habits.

(55:39):
I'm reading from page 100 here,last paragraph.
Habits are the peripheralvision of the mind, turning away
just below the level ofconscious decision-making.
They scan the situation with aconceptual eye to disregarding
most of it.
The theory is simple enoughRespond automatically to the
familiar and you're then free torespond selectively to the

(56:02):
unfamiliar they go on to writeabout.
I'm skipping a few sentenceshere, but it's all a matter of
balance, and making art helpsachieve that balance.
For the artist, a sketchpad ora notebook is a license to
explore.
It becomes entirely acceptableto stand there for minutes on
end staring at a tree stump.
Sometimes you need to scan theforest, sometimes you need to

(56:25):
touch a single tree.
If you can't apprehend both,you'll never entirely comprehend
either.
To see things is to enhanceyour sense of wonder, both for
the singular pattern of your ownexperience and for the meta
patterns that shape allexperience.
All this suggests a usefulworking approach to making art

(56:46):
Notice the objects you notice,or, put another way, make
objects that talk and listen tothem.
Yep, so I really want to zero inon that.
Notice the objects you notice,like paying attention to the
things that catch our attention.
It just makes a lot of sense.

(57:07):
Yeah, the more we are naturallydrawn to something, the more
natural it's going to be tospend time exploring that idea.
They use the example I skippedover the section, but they use

(57:38):
the example of how certainpsychotropic drugs cause one to
become mes.
Think that, you know, one of thethings that I carry from
forward from those experiencesis the joy in being just
obscenely fascinated by themundane, you know, really just

(57:59):
bathing in the novelty of thingsthat we otherwise just
completely ignore or don't spendany time considering.
And so when we notice thethings we notice, you know that
requires some awareness, thatrequires some perspective, some
introspection probably, of whatdo really?

(58:22):
What am I drawn to Like, whatare the things that you focus on
when you're out in the world,and how can you take those
things from your personalexperience into your work?
Last sentence on page 101.
Last paragraph the need is tosearch among your own repeated

(58:42):
reactions to the world, exposethose that are not true or
useful and change them.
And so I think about journaling.
This is again something that wetalk about a lot, but
journaling for me is discoveringmy inner experience as I see it
written until I physicallywrite something out.

(59:07):
Experience as I see it writtenUntil I physically write
something out, I can't reallygrasp what I'm thinking or what
I'm feeling.
That happens all the time.
Almost every day when I journalI'll write something out and
then I'll look at it like huh,well, there it is.
But it took that For me anyway.
It took that step in theprocess.
It took me sitting down andsort of at least funneling all

(59:31):
the random shit that's bouncingaround in my head and at least
putting it in the form of somesentences that make sense, if
only to me.
But that is a way not the way,but it's a great way, I would
argue to really notice thethings that we're noticing, to
really put a fine point on whatwe're experiencing.

(59:51):
And until we do that, I wouldsay it's much more difficult to
convert our personal experiencesinto the work in an authentic
way.
Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah, and I mean that's poetry for me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
I've written poetry since.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I was in the fifth grade because my grandfather
used to write and would read mepoetry, and so I've always
written poetry.
That's been a place for me to dothat.
I'm writing about how I'mfeeling, what I'm seeing,
whether it's poems about natureor romance or art there's a lot
of poems about art making andthings and so over time I've

(01:00:31):
built this massive catalog ofpoetry since I was in the fifth
grade to today, over the yearsof buckets of journals that are
just full of poems and dated,and for me, just a few years ago
, I started going back throughthem all and then using them to
create paintings through thepoetry, through those

(01:00:53):
observations, right, and thoseideas and memories and things.
And so, man, it was really funfor me to go back and read the
really terrible poetry fromsixth grade and seventh grade
and eighth grade.
It was just a young boy tryingto write his emotions, but I was
able to notice something aboutthe things I was noticing when I
was 12 years old, 13 years old,and those things and that for

(01:01:16):
me was it was really powerfuland then to go and create from
some of those ideas and fromsome of those things that I've
noticed.
Go and create from some ofthose ideas and from some of
those things that I've noticed.
But I've also been able to gowow, even at 15, I was noticing
the same things that I'mnoticing at 49 years old and
paying attention to the samethings.
So for me, I love that littlesection.

(01:01:37):
Because of that, too, I canactually go okay, yeah, ted,
yeah, david, I've followed youradvice.
Before I even knew it, that'spart of my makeup, but I think
that's truly helped me in my artmaking as well, to have that
sense and to read other poets,because I've written, I've done
pieces based on other poets andI'm noticing what they're
noticing and that's making mespend more time observing those

(01:01:58):
types of things in the naturalworld as well.
Right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
So this idea of art habits, that's one of them for
me, from page 103.
Once developed, art habits aredeep seated, reliable, helpful
and convenient.
Moreover, habits arestylistically important.
In a sense, habits are style.
The unconsidered gesture, therepeated phrasing, the automatic
selection, the characteristicreaction to subject matter and

(01:02:25):
materials.
These are the very things werefer to as style.
So I wanted to ask you, I'mcurious, what are your art
habits?
I'll go first.
Yeah, you go first, since I hadtime to think about this, I'm
introducing this in theconversation today.
But you know a few of my arthabits, just random things that

(01:02:47):
came to mind as I was preparingfor today.
But one is collecting material,you know, because I am so, so
inspired I've talked about thisbefore with the whole idea of
Wabi Sabi being something thatis deeply inspiring to me.
It works out well because it'severywhere, and so, whether it
be collecting materials or justtaking pictures of the things

(01:03:12):
that I see while out on walks orwhile out in the world, just
collecting ideas or physicallypicking up what I encounter, is
one of my art habits.
Expanding my arsenal of tools,of different ways that I can
make marks, expanding my arsenalof processes that, of course,

(01:03:32):
have a great impact on the workitself.
And then the third one that Iwrote down just again, just
things that came to mind.
For me, one of my biggest and, Iwould maybe argue, most
important art habits is working,no matter how I feel.
That's a habit, right, andthat's one again that we've
talked about a lot in previousepisodes.
We don't need to unpack today,but those are just a few things

(01:03:53):
that came to mind for me interms of habits that I
consistently do that always leadtowards the next thing, towards
making more work and hopefully,better work, more authentic
work.
What are your TNC art habits?

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah, I'm having to think of them while we're
talking.
But I mean, I work on theground, so I work on floor and
wall, so I'm constantly movingback and forth from floor to
wall.
I don't have like a specificyou know location where I just
set up and paint it's and I'msliding canvas around to put a
new canvas in a place whereanother one was, and I'm
constantly kind of rotating andmoving through work.
So I'm not usually working onone piece at a time.

(01:04:34):
It might.
Habitually I'm working onmultiple pieces and I'm sliding
through them and moving throughthem and uh, and I I like to use
, try and find non-traditionalthings to work within the art as
well, which I know is somethingthat you do almost completely,
and that's something that Ialways want to try and put
something that's non-traditionalin there some way, somehow
figure it in.

(01:04:54):
And I paint over a lot of work.
So I don't know if that's, Idon't know if that's a habit,
but I do paint over a lot ofwork.
It becomes different things orflip work over and paint on the
other side, so I don't likewhat's on that side.
That's very.
I'm trying to think if it'spretty rare that I just have a
piece that I've just done and Ikind of work through that.

(01:05:17):
That's not really habitualthough, that's just more in the
practice, but those are probablythe main habitual things I do
when I work, because I think,because I'm always trying to
evolve, maybe that's habitualand I'm trying to make things
not look like the last thingscompletely all the time.
Yeah, but that's something forme to definitely think about a

(01:05:39):
little more.
But those are the things thatcame to mind.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
It is a big question, but it is one, I think, that is
just worth considering for allof us.
What are the things that Ihabitually and routinely do?
We've all got really goodhabits and we all have really
bad habits.
So again, it just comes back toconsidering what are the good
habits that lead to me producingconsistently, how being?

(01:06:04):
You know whatever, however youwant to define.
You know success in yourpractice, but what are the
things that that that you doconsistently or that maybe you
need to do?
I mean, habits are somethingthat can be developed.
They happen, you know,naturally, or there are things
that we can cultivate, you know,intentionally as well.
But I just thought that was aninteresting question or an
interesting idea.
Is you know, thinking about?

(01:06:24):
You know what our art habitsare, and maybe we'll come back
to that in a future episode,after you've had some time.
Something else, ty, from page109 that really struck me.
The authors write making artdepends on noticing things,
things about yourself.
Making art depends on noticingthings, things about yourself,
your methods, your subjectmatter, and this is really just

(01:06:50):
circling back to something thatwe talked about earlier.
But for me, what reallyresonated was just how.
This is one of the areas, oneof the biggest examples that I
would submit that you know, addis an absolute superpower.
A lot of the things that reallyhampered me, crippled me in some
cases professionally, I thinkare absolute superpowers in the

(01:07:14):
artistic space.
Right, art is hyperfixating.
You know, like that's art.
I pull up a definition ofhyperfixation.
I like this one the best ADHDhyperfix fixate to notice things
and to just I mean I'll justshare a silly example.

(01:07:49):
But the amount of time that Ispend literally dissecting, you
know, different materials that Ithat I find out in the world
and seeing how they respond todifferent parts of my, of my
process, process, it's prettylaughable.
I mean, most of the things inmy studio I don't film or take

(01:08:09):
pictures of or share, and that'sdefinitely one of them.
But that hyper fixation, thatnoticing and absolutely shutting
off the world and everythingelse, that's it, man, I mean I
just absolutely love that.
So I guess my point in bringingthat up was this is an area I
mean there's a reason why mostof us ended up here, and I would

(01:08:33):
say that one of the things thatmost artists have in common is
a desire to not operate within aspace where there are those
defined rules where there aredefined expectations of how long
something is supposed to take.
Follow the spark baby, seewhere it leads, put a little
oxygen on it, give it a littlefuel and just see where it goes,
because that could very well bethe next thing.

(01:08:57):
And so, rather than and this isone of my things right, but
where a characteristic or atrait that we may have that
would otherwise be seen as alimitation can absolutely be a
superpower, can absolutely besomething that, because we have
that thing, can enable us to dosomething that we wouldn't

(01:09:18):
otherwise, it's pretty coolwouldn't otherwise.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
It's pretty cool.
Well, I also think what you're,what you're saying there too,
is that's also time and maturity.
So the more time spent, thelonger that time exists, the
more mature you come in thatpractice or whatever you're
doing in that focus.
And I love the.
We didn't read this, but I wantto read anyway.
It's the zen teaching thatcomes before that section.
You read yeah, and it says whenyou start on a long journey,

(01:09:46):
trees are trees, water is waterand mountains are mountains.
After you've gone some distance, trees are no longer trees,
water no longer water, mountainsno longer mountain.
But after you've traveled agreat distance, trees are once
again trees, water is once againwater and mountains are once
again.
And so it's kind of showing,just kind of that, that life

(01:10:07):
lifeline of you start out andyou recognize everything.
But then the longer you go,you're so kind of focused for a
while that you kind of forgetall those things are around you
and you're just following thattrail.
But then all of a sudden, asyou mature and you become wiser
and you've learned from thisjourney now all those things pop
up around you.
You now notice them as well.

(01:10:28):
And Ted Orland in another bookhas this quote where he says and
this goes right into this whatyou're saying One of the less
advertised truths about artmaking is that it's more
important to be productive thanto be creative.
If you're productive, yourcreativity will take care of
itself.
If you are not productive, well, if you're not productive, then

(01:10:48):
how exactly is it you intend tobe creative?
So it's almost kind of takingthat Zen teaching and then
making it a very simple form ofyou need to be productive and
everything else will kind offall into place.
You'll start to notice andthey'll start to come in and
they'll start to weed their wayinto what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
It's beautiful.
It's such a beautiful idea.
I mean just the idea that weactually can, you know,
recapture that childlike wonderand engage with it.
A tree is a tree again.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
Well, and in that whole process, nathan, work changes, in that
whole process of everything wejust talked about.
And on that journey there'sgoing to be conceptual jumps in
your work, growth in your work.
The old work, as we said, isgoing to become in the distance,
ignored, simple, boring oldbecause it's old and you're

(01:11:38):
moving on to new work.
But that also brings these newchallenges.
And on page 110, he says viewedover a span of years, changes
in one's art can often reveal acurious pattern, swinging
irregularly between long periodsof quiet refinement and
occasional leaps of runawaychange.
But I want to jump that to 111here, the second paragraph.

(01:12:02):
For the artist, such lightningshifts are a central mechanism
of change.
They generate the purest formof metaphor.
Connections are made betweenunlike things.
Meanings from one enrich themeanings of the other, and the
unlike things become inseparable.
Before the leap there was lightand shadow.
Afterwards objects float inspace where light and shadow are
indistinguishable from theobject that they define.

(01:12:23):
And they're just talking abouthow all of these lightning
shifts in our work, theseconceptual jumps, they're
central for our change.
They'll start out looking rough, they'll start out looking like
it's not something, but overtime they will definitely all
come together and becomesomething they will definitely

(01:12:46):
all come together and becomesomething.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
I did not have that part underlined, but I do now.
That is as you're reading thatit occurred to me.
That is one of my favoritethings in life, that is one of
my favorite things about beingalive and the human experience
is making connections betweenunlike things.
Yeah, same.
I don't really understand why Ilove that so much or what about

(01:13:10):
it.
I love and I don't need to.
It's okay that we don'tunderstand it.
I just know that I am soenergized and it gives me such
joy to find a connection betweenseemingly disparate ideas or or
things and to be able to makethat connection in a unique and

(01:13:34):
novel way that when successful,if successful, I can communicate
that through the work andhopefully shine a light on hey,
this is also like that.
These things actually gotogether and you never would
have, without that, put themtogether yourself.

(01:13:54):
That's a beautiful thing.
It's actually one of the thingsI really love about stand-up
comedy.
The surprise I'm a big fan ofstandup and and and you know, I
know you are as well that's oneof my, my favorite things about.
You know, watching, watchingcomedy, listening to comedy, is
that's really what it is, right,I mean it's.
It's connecting different dotsthat we wouldn't otherwise mean

(01:14:14):
like oh, this thing is like thatthing, and isn't that funny.
You know what I mean?
It's making those connectionsand sharing what we find with
others.
That's that beautifulcommunication, the work, and
then, by extension, whatever thework has to say something
different or, you know, cause adifferent reaction or feeling

(01:14:45):
each time.
That's that's the jam, right, Imean that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Talk about vulnerable , talk about putting your
material out into the world andhaving a real world test in an
instant.
Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, oneof the challenges that comes
with these conceptual leaps inour work and these jumps in our
work that are risky we've talkedabout, got a new idea.
We're following that spark,that divine spark, we're jumping

(01:15:11):
on it, we're going, and one ofthose risks is the audience
right, which we're ignoring forthe most part.
But we do have fans, we do havecollectors Some of us.
We do have people that followus.
We do have fans.

(01:15:46):
We do have collectors Some ofus we do have.
And so here's another one ofthose moments in your art career
where you may step into a newarena, a new feeling, new
resistance, new things.
And I love how, of course, thisis another Nick Cave quote
about new work, because we'retalking the reason Nick Cave is
in this because he's an artistwho is willing to follow the

(01:16:08):
divine spark and the conceptualleaps and not listen to the
audience and not listen to thecritics, and really do what he
feels strongly to do.
So here's a great quote by NickCave that says A genuinely new
idea can feel strange andunsettling.
It's upsetting in a way, but anintegral part of the creative
journey.
You lose some fans, but youdraw on others.

(01:16:28):
The alternative is much worse.
If you stick to the safe idea,it soon becomes overly familiar
and the audience will grow boredand ultimately resentful.
Put brutally, the audienceshould never dictate the
direction an artist takes.
I say that with all the love inthe world, but an artist does
not exist to serve his or heraudience.

(01:16:50):
Put brutally, the audienceshould never dictate the
direction an artist takes.
I say that with all the love inthe world, but an artist does
not exist to serve his or heraudience.
The artist exists to serve theidea.
The idea is the light thatleads the audience and the
artist to a better place.
It requires a certain amount ofnerve to rip it all up and

(01:17:12):
start again with something thatfeels new and therefore
dangerous.
For a start, your brain doesnot want to go there and it's
telling you that it's challengedyou to write or paint or sculpt
away from the known and thefamiliar.
What I'm saying is that youcan't get to that truly creative
place unless you find thedangerous idea.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
Damn that is.
Well, that's an episode.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
Yeah, it's going to be.
It will be an episode.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
Yes, yeah, it's going to be.
It will be an episode, yes, butI want you to talk about.

(01:18:03):
I'm curious how you'd answerthis.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Why is the new idea upsetting?
Why is because he rephrasesthat three different ways in
this one paragraph.
Why does the brain not want togo there?
So sometimes it's because youalmost have to start over, yeah,
sometimes.
So that new idea comes andyou've just learned, you've just
done, you've just invested,you've just pushed out, you've
sold.
I mean there's so many thingsthat come with what was before.
And then all of a sudden, thenew idea, the dangerous idea, is
very different than the lastsuccessful idea.

(01:18:25):
That's why it's dangerous.
You just had success, you justsold your record, or you just
sold paintings, you had a soloshow.
I've literally been in this.
And then that new idea istaking me somewhere so freaking,
foreign and new to the lastthing, scared to death, death,
like your brain is saying no,you idiot, right, that's where

(01:18:47):
the brain and the heart are likefighting.
The heart's like let's go.
And the brain's like you're amoron, another year worth that.
And that's the trap.
Let's get another year worthout of this, let's get.
You just sold this manypaintings.
Yeah, your dealers were sellingthem, like you're, and then all
of a, it's so foreign and sodifferent that everybody backs
away from it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
So in that process, the brain is screaming at the
heart saying don't you rememberhow long it took us just to get
here?

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
Yeah, and that's why it's dangerous.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
We spent all this time and energy just to get the
last strange and unsettlingthing settled.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
I mean look.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
You're telling me you want to start with yet another.
Yeah, it makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
Another great musical example right, Bob Dylan
plugged in.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
It's so funny you mentioned that.
I thought about it earlier.
I was going to bring it up.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
The entire world of Dylanites that built his career,
gave him the finger, threw foodat him, spit at him on stage,
booed him.
It was such a knock oneverything that he was and had
done.
But it was the new idea.
It was the new change.

(01:19:56):
He had to go there.
It would have been really easyfor Bob Dylan to go well that I
totally choked, unplugged, backto who I was.
Then what happens?
The potential of that audienceresenting him for never changing
and never growing could haveruined his whole career.
The band he kept the electricguitar and pushed forward and

(01:20:26):
created, even years after that,some of his best work.
Time Out of Mind is my favorite.
Bob Dylan Allen is a Dylanite,very bluesy electric guitar full
band.
But would he have ever gottenthere?
Maybe not, Maybe, but maybe ittook him 30 years and then the
whole audience passed him by.
I don't know, but it's verydangerous to move in that way.
What was your thought?

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
I think I shared it, but just just acknowledging that
, that the genuinely new idea Imean again just this, just back
to that whole like this is partof it.
This is part of the process.
Not being surprised at ournatural response to the spark,
to the new, to the new dangerousidea, just realizing like, oh
yeah, when these come, whenthey've come before and

(01:21:08):
hopefully will continue to comeagain, it's going to be
unsettling, it's going to be alittle upsetting and doggone it.
I'm going to chase it down toits illogical conclusion anyway.
So jumping ahead to page 115,ty anyway.
So jumping ahead to page 115,Ty, your job is to draw a line

(01:21:28):
from your life to your art thatis straight and clear.
I'll read that again your jobis to draw a line from your life
to your art that is straightand clear.
This is one of the few thingsthat we both had underlined.
So you know, what does that?
What does that mean?
What does it?
What does it take to draw aline from our life to our art

(01:21:50):
here?
I'll just say this, like I I Ileave this in or don't, but like
I, I'll just say this to youand maybe everybody, depending
upon how you decide to edit this, but I don't know what to do
with that, like I know.
I know how reading that makesme feel and what it kind of
makes me, how I respond to that.
I don't know what to say aboutit or how to like unpack it.

(01:22:11):
I mean, to me it goes to likehaving our own experience be
integrated.
You know you talked aboutsomething before you know, in
terms of maturity.
I remember having this thought.
I can't remember when it wasMaybe in my mid-20s, I want to
say I remember hanging out withmy parents at some holiday event

(01:22:34):
, what it was like when I wasliving under their roof and how
you kind of have at least I diddifferent identities right.
You had who you were aroundthis one group of friends and
who you were around your parentsand who you were around.

(01:22:54):
You know, fill in the blank.
And I remember having thisthought when I was back there,
you know, maybe 10 years or soafter I had left the house, 10
years or so after I had left thehouse, and remembering like, oh
, I'm much more integrated now,I'm much closer to the same
person in every environment thanI was when I was sort of in
that whatever developmentalchameleon phase.

(01:23:17):
We're trying on differentoutfits to see what's going to
match, and we're more concernedwith fitting in, probably, than
we are with being authentic.
So I share that, just becausethat's kind of where I go with
this in terms of our lives areour art, our art is our lives.
I mean, we are living, eating,breathing this, and so to me, I

(01:23:39):
just I go to that idea ofintegration.
To me, drawing a line from ourlife to our art that is straight
and clear means that I amtaking my experience, I'm not
segmenting things, I'm notturning off what's happening in
my life, my internal experiencewith the external world.

(01:24:00):
I'm engaging with it, I'mtaking it into the work, because
that is the only thing that anyof us are really experts on.
If that is our own experience,Sure, what do you take from?

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
I guess I did have something to say.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
Our work should be a bit of a true reflections of our
experiences and values andwhere we stand and what we love
and how we operate.
Because, at the end of the day,the art that lasts speaks to the
time that it was made in.
The strongest art throughouthistory speaks to the time it
was made in.
You walk into a museum and youwalk through rooms and you look
at paintings.

(01:24:36):
It is speaking to the time itexisted in.
For the most part, and even inabstract expressionism and even
in cubism and other things, it'sstill speaking to the time it
was created in, not just becauseof the, because of its form,
but also for, maybe, what it'ssaying or how it was portrayed
and those things.
So I don't have a true answerto what they're saying there,

(01:24:59):
because I think I try to draw adirect line between myself and
the art, because that's where Ipaint from, from memory and
experience, and then it's reallyat the end of the day it's up
to the audience and how theydecipher or feel about the
painting or feel if it even saysanything to them or not.
I hope that it does, becausethat's my pursuit is to do

(01:25:21):
things to the audience when theysee it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:23):
But I don't know, Of course and that's my pursuit is
to do things to the audiencewhen they see it.
But of course, I don't know.
Biggest question, right, likeyeah, you're not trying, I mean
in in, you know unpacking andspending time with you know
poetry that you wrote, you knowwhatever 20, 30 years ago.
You're not trying to speak foryou Tell, don't think you're

(01:25:46):
trying to.
You know, communicate yourexperience as a younger person.
Right, that's that's what youtook into the work.
Yeah, because that was, becausethat is true and authentic to
your experience.
There's going to be truth andauthenticity in the work that is
going to be completely open tointerpretation and may, and
hopefully does bring upsomething completely different
than than your own experience.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
That's the whole point is that it is open to
interpretation right, yeah,absolutely A hundred percent.
I don't.
I don't want to force feedanything to anybody.
I want the audience to come toa conclusion.
I don't art that force feed.
Force feeds things to people tome doesn't do much for me
emotionally.
I don't want to walk into aroom and go okay, got what

(01:26:28):
you're saying.
Bye.
No, I want to go.
What are you trying to tell mehere?
This could have been a pamphlet, Right, yeah, this could have
been a.
There's plenty of work that isa pamphlet and that's fine.
That's that artist's decisionand what they want to do.
But I want to be moved by workand I want to walk into a room
that I know nothing about and Iwant to dive into the paintings.

(01:26:49):
Whether I like them or don'tlike them, I still want to spend
time with them and go.
What caused me to ask somequestions that I've never asked
myself before?
I need to go, sit and reflectand I need to write about this.
Why did this artist cause me toask questions I've never asked

(01:27:12):
myself before?
That's what I want, and I thinkthat's what they're really
trying to say.
There is to be able to do.
That is going to be prettypowerful, rather than trying to
fake something else that's fromoutside of you.
I don't know.
I could ramble about it and nothave a clear answer.

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
No, for sure.
I mean to be clear.
I'm all for the pamphlet aslong as the work pulls me in
first.
Absolutely For sure, yeah, yep,yeah, absolutely.
I got something on page 117.
Yep, go, absolutely.
I got something on page 117.
Yep, go.
Your art does not arrivemiraculously from the darkness,
but is made uneventfully in thelight.

(01:27:50):
Your art does not arrivemiraculously from the darkness,
but is made uneventfully in thelight.
I really like that.
I mean, this is, as they're,sort of wrapping up the book and
closing things, you know, butthis is something that I think
is so important to keep in mind.
It's something that I had toremind myself of yesterday.
It was just one of those blahdays where nothing was really

(01:28:12):
wasn't feeling it, nothing wasclicking, and it was just
another uneventful day in thelight.
It did nothing.
Nothing miraculous happened.
At least it didn't feel like itwhile it was happening.
And I came back today andlooked back at what happened
yesterday and I'm not going tosay there are any miracles, but

(01:28:34):
things happened, things weremoved forward.
Again, just back to that wholeidea of how we feel.
We don't need need to feel good, it doesn't need to feel
miraculous in the moment for artto come from it, for good work
to come from it, and justacknowledging like this is
another day where we're puttingone foot in front of the other

(01:28:56):
yeah, in an unglamorous, messy,unsettling way, with the belief,
with the trust that it's goingto ultimately lead somewhere.
Maybe today, maybe tomorrow,maybe in 10 years, but at some
point these uneventful days aregoing to, when compiled and

(01:29:17):
stacked upon one another, leadsomewhere worth going.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
Yeah, and that's the very last paragraph of the book.
In the end, it all comes downto this you, you have a choice
between giving your work yourbest shot and risking that it
will not make you happy, or notgiving it your best shot and
thereby guaranteeing that itwill not make you happy.
Your best shot, and therebyguaranteeing that it will not

(01:29:45):
make you happy.
It becomes a choice betweencertainty and uncertainty and,
curiously, uncertainty is thecomforting choice.
Man, they leave you hanging ina pretty deep paragraph there
talking about how this is very,very difficult.
This journey of an artist is noteasy.

(01:30:05):
It needs self-motivationregularly.
It needs persistence.
It needs a willingness to putyourself out there, which a lot
of us as artists don't have.
That innate characteristic togo, I'm going to throw myself
into every single room witheverybody and talk about my art
and get myself out there, right,that's a very extroverted thing
to go.
I'm going to throw myself intoevery single room with everybody
and talk about my art and getmyself out there, right, that's

(01:30:26):
a very extroverted thing to do,which some of us are extroverted
, a lot of us are veryintroverted.
But you think about all of that, that, with the self-motivation
, the persistence, that's all inthe studio by yourself.
That's the supposed to be theeasier part, which it's not, but
then you still have to takeeverything that you're doing and

(01:30:48):
get yourself, your body,physically out and build a
network and get out there andput your work out there as well.
So it's just this just toillustrate that point of if you
really want it, then you reallyhave to go after it yourself
first.
Yeah, you have to.

(01:31:09):
If you're not getting yourstuff out there and going out
and doing things, things willnot happen.
Things will not happen.
I watched a little video theother day in a network I'm in,
visionary Projects out of NewYork, and they did an interview
with a gallerist and he saidthey asked how do you find your
artists in the gallery?

(01:31:30):
And he said Instagram.
Find all my artists onInstagram.
And I said that's it.
And he said well, and thenartists who are already on the
roster they're friends, sure.
So go to shows, meet otherartists, go network, find people

(01:31:52):
, because the hard part is thepersistence and the
self-motivation on the inside.
Then part number two, that'sreally hard, is getting out
there and getting your work outthere and being seen and being
known, and then those two things.
Hopefully there'll be thingsthat happen from that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
Not easy.
Yeah, it all comes down to justtaking the next right action
and understanding that there arevery rarely obvious choices
around like this is.
You know, there's the neonarrow of do this next is rarely
there.
I mean, you actually skippedover one, the part in
parentheses, and I've got tofind my spot again.
More accurately, a rollingtangle of choices.
Yeah, yes, it's not like optionA versus option B.

(01:32:31):
It's an infinite number ofvariations of possible things
that we could do with any givenday or moment, and it's just
making the best choice we haveavailable and taking some action
right.
Yeah, an imperfect planexecuted today is better than
the perfect plan executedtomorrow.
I don't know who said thatfirst it wasn't me, but it's
just like doing something.

(01:32:51):
You know.
Taking the next right actionthat's going to move things
forward is ultimately the ideaand understanding that
uncertainty is part of the deal.
We're going to be afraid, we'regoing to be unsettled, we're
not going to every moment.
That's okay, that's part of it.
One foot in front of the other,just make art baby?

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
Absolutely, and I hope for those of you that have
listened to these three parts orhave the book and have read the
book, just really take sometime to reflect on your own
artistic journey and what thisbook talks about Maybe some of
the conversations that Nathanand I have had and just see what
can I apply.
And that's what Nathan and Iare doing on a regular basis.
We read a book, we share itwith each other.
Listen to a book?
Oh, check this out.
We're both trying to find howcan I apply these things to our

(01:33:36):
journey.
Oh, I've never thought aboutthat.
I've never thought about thehabitual things.
I've never thought about these.
You know, exploring somethingto its illogical end.
Well then, sit down and whatdoes that mean?
How do I do?
Don't just take something andthen just throw it away or run
with it.
Think about it, spend timeprocessing.
I mean, that's what we're doingby going through this book in

(01:33:58):
three different parts.
Is that's what we're doing withourselves?
And we've learned even more inour conversations with this book
than we even knew before.
We even read the book for theumpteenth time that we've read
it and underlined it and sharewith us.
I mean, we'd love to hear fromyou I mean we.
I think you know by now thoseof you that either are friends
with Nathan and I on Instagramor follow us that we talk with

(01:34:20):
you and we'll answer directmessages and have conversations.
So we'd love to hear yourexperiences with idealism,
creativity, growing in your work, your art habits.
Send them to us, share it withus and, I don't know, maybe
it'll end up being a wholepodcast episode.
That's our hopes.

Speaker 1 (01:34:36):
That's probably a good place to end is really just
thanking people for whatthey've done.
I mean all the comments, allthe shares, all the reviews,
like thank you guys, so much,like we.
We just started doing this andit's actually become becoming
something.
You know, I wasn't emotional.
I was a frog in my throat.

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
No, I actually.

Speaker 1 (01:34:55):
you can be emotional, I get emotional but but no,
it's actually becoming somethingand it's been super fulfilling
for both of us to hear you knowpeople's experience with it,
reactions, that kind of thing.
So thank you for uh, for theshares, for the reviews, like
all those things actually really, really really do help.
So with that we'll wrap uptoday's episode and we'll see

(01:35:18):
you next time here on Just MakeArt.

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):
No more crickets.

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