December 12, 2024 • 60 mins
Ever had your Black Friday order turn into a comedy of errors, with just a single tube of paint arriving instead of the anticipated haul? Join us in our reunited episode as we kick things off with this true-life mishap, setting the stage for a deeper discussion about the role of vulnerability in our creative lives. This lighthearted tale leads us to reflect on the joys and challenges of celebrating a milestone birthday and how such personal experiences fuel our artistic endeavors.
Navigating the art world as an introvert or someone with anxiety can feel daunting, but overcoming these obstacles can lead to meaningful connections. Stories of studio visits and art residencies highlight how vulnerability is a cornerstone of building authentic relationships in the art community. By sharing these moments, we underscore the joy and enrichment that comes from engaging with like-minded individuals who not only understand but also elevate our artistic journeys.
The transformative power of vulnerability isn't just a personal endeavor; it's a catalyst for artistic freedom and authenticity. As we ponder profound questions, we draw parallels between human interactions and the emotional connections artists strive to make through their work. Reflecting on quotes from icons like Van Gogh and Georgia O'Keeffe, we discuss how embracing imperfections can lead to genuine artistic expression. As we look ahead to new creative goals, this episode encourages a fearless pursuit of art that is true and resonant, welcoming the unknown with open arms.
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@justmakeartpodcast @tynathanclark @nathanterborg
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh, Nathan, a little bit of peaches and herb for the
morning.
What a good way to kick it off.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, Ty, there's one perfect fit and sugar.
This one is it.
Oh yeah, Love it.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I mean hey, 1978 brought us into this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Right, right it's good to have you back.
It's good to see your face.
It's good to be back.
It's been too long since we'vebeen able to hop on live.
I owe you a big debt ofgratitude and appreciation for
carrying the load the lastcouple of months here, when I've
been mostly MIA as far as theJMA life is concerned.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, you've been a little busy.
You've got something going onthat you've been pretty wrapped
up in.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
You know, I told my wife yesterday that, uh, so it's
Monday as we sit here andrecord this yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It is Monday, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Um, I mean, there was a time there the last couple of
months where even just what dayit was would have been a.
It would have taken me a minute, so I'm gonna put the correct
answer.
But I said this is like thefirst day I've been able to just
exhale and just have a daywhere I lay around and get
caught up.
I haven't had a Sunday where Iwasn't in the studio for at
least 12 hours for at least yeah, at least six weeks.
So it's been.
It's been a ride, but excitedto be back at it.
(01:32):
Where do we start?
You're going to share an idiotmoment.
Yeah, I did have an idiot.
That's all our outline says isshare, tie, share, idiot moment.
I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So how's my hair look ?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, I haven't.
I've not had a.
I haven't had a hat on.
That's why, no, I know, but yougot, you got.
You got glorious hair.
I always wear a hat.
You got a glorious head of hair.
You shouldn't cover that stuffup unless it's not washed.
I'll just assume that you haveyour shower.
It's definitely washed, it'sgreat.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, okay, my idiot moment.
Moving on, so we have thisthing in the United States
during our holiday, thanksgivingon Friday.
Thanksgiving falls on aThursday and Friday is a day
called Black Friday.
I think it's pretty muchinternational for shopping.
A lot of people will use BlackFriday deals, even
internationally, because you canget cheap discounts.
(02:21):
But anyways, if you don't haveBlack Friday, it's kind of a
marketing ploy for businesses tomake a lot of money on a
certain Friday.
So I had been going through allmy art websites and ordering
places Blick and Jerry's andlooking for art to order,
anything that's at a superbdiscount, like canvas and stuff,
and so I went to there's apaint company called Gaffrey and
(02:44):
they're a small family owned, Ibelieve.
And so I went to there's apaint company called Gaffrey and
they're a small family owned, Ibelieve, and they make really
heavy body acrylics and I'm abig heavy body acrylic guy and
I'm always looking for ones thatare even thicker than the other
ones I use.
So I found Gaffrey through oneof my past artists in my program
and went on.
Their Black Friday sale wasinsane.
So I loaded up my cart with aton of paint at really steep
(03:07):
discounts, made a really bigorder, so, pumped Knew it would
probably be here in a week ortwo.
And the order is delivered tothe front of my house, to my
doorstep, and I'm so pumped.
I go out there and there's thistiny little box from Gaffrey
sitting on my front porch.
That was delivered and I'mthinking that's odd, it must be
in multiple shipments orwhatever.
(03:29):
And so I open up the box andlet me show you everything that
I ordered.
It is one tube of six ouncelight pink.
I don't know what the hellhappened, but this is all that
came.
And in the receipt in the box,I went oh, let me check the
(03:50):
order, it must be in twoshipments.
No, it was for one $6 tube ofpaint, nailed it.
I don't know what I did,because I had a massive order.
I had my mind fully prepped forwhat I was going to do with it,
how I was going to play andmess around.
I mean, it's sculptural acrylic, it's so thick, and so this is
all I got, and with a greatmessage don't eat the paint.
(04:13):
But I don't know what I did.
I'm assuming what happened waseverything that I ordered must
have already been gone by thetime the order went through
because it was Black Friday andI was a little late in the day
to remember to order.
I'm assuming that would happen,but it could probably just have
been a moron move of, I don'tknow, canceling everything on
purpose and then just ordering asix ounce.
(04:34):
So, anyways, that's a good fun.
Art idiot moment.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Well, thank you for your vulnerability.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I appreciate it.
I mean, hey, we've got to bevulnerable, right?
I think we're going to talkabout that a little bit today.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Today we're going to share some stories, kind of a
story of shared experience IRLthat's how the kids say in real
life, of which you and I havenot had a tremendous amount of
as a matter of fact.
But we're going to share astory.
We got a chance to spend theweekend together.
I guess it's about almostexactly a month ago.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Right, does that sound right?
Not quite, yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, wow, that's fast, but yeah, it does not seem
like that long ago.
We're going to share that storyand just specifically how it
pertains to our practice asartists, as creatives.
Why don't you just set thetable for your 50th weekend?
Because it was quite the affair.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, my wife has been bugging me for the last
year about what I'm going to dofor my 50th birthday.
What do you want to do?
Do you want to travel?
Do you want to go on a trip?
I kept joking and saying I wantto go to space, I want to jump
on Elon or Richard Branson'sspace thing and go into space
and to orbit.
But I just couldn't figure itout because I mean, yeah, I want
to do something, but I justdidn't feel like really going.
Oh, let's do this and let's puta plan together.
(05:46):
So, post my birthday, my buddyJeremy said, hey, what are we
doing for your 50th?
Like you didn't do anything, weneed to do something.
And so I ended up puttingtogether a little trip up to his
family's property in the NorthDallas area of some lifelong
friends and you got invited tothat and it basically was a Now,
(06:08):
just a little context Nathan,you and I have known each other
for three years now, I think, oris it four, three or four years
?
But all the other friends thatI invited to join me have been
lifelong friends, some for 30years, some for 20 years and so
we all got together for theweekend up at my buddy's
property.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, it was funny because.
So y'all picked me up from the.
You see how I picked that upwhen I was in Texas, did that
y'all sound natural.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You got a good y'all.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Thank you, yeah.
So you guys picked me up at theairport.
We went to get some lunch andas we're sitting down and
talking, it was you, me, Jeremyand Jake.
And Jeremy asked me how long wehad known each other and I said
, well, by the time we get doneeating lunch here, we will have
spent more time in one of thosepresents than we ever had
previously.
(06:56):
We hung out that one time when Iwas down in your neck of the
woods, but compared to the 20 or30 years of history you had
with everybody else, it was avery, very different dynamic.
For sure, it was funny becausewhen you asked me, I was honored
and super excited to go.
But I told my wife, hey, soTy's having this 50th birthday
party, it's going to be me, andwhat?
(07:17):
Were there?
Eight people altogether, Ithink.
So Okay, so I said it's goingto be me, Ty and six people I've
never met before.
And she goes, really.
And I said, yeah, and she goes,and you're feeling good about
going.
And, just for context, thereason that she would say that
(07:37):
is because, obviously, knowingme as well as she does, she
knows that I am not a big fan ofbeing on other people's
schedule, especially when I'm ina place where I can't just
wander or walk away or dowhatever.
She also knows I'm not a hugefan of small talk and whatever.
I don't have the patience forit, as an introvert, to just be
(07:59):
around.
I like making new friends.
I'm just not very good at itbecause I'm not that interested.
That sounds terrible.
There's probably a better way ofsaying that, but let's just go
with that for now.
I mean so you know, she knowsif we're at like a wedding
reception, she knows thatthere's always going to be at
least a 20 minute gap where I'mjust MIA just wandering around
(08:30):
you know the, the event facility, just not being you know with,
with people, probably looking atmy phone or something like that
to just get a breath, get abreak.
So when she heard I was goingto be with you know uh, six
people and you, uh, at acompound for an entire weekend
that was very rigidly scheduledshe's like how are you feeling
about this?
I was like we're going to do it, it's going to be, it's going
to be great, and it actually was.
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, and tying that into that, this is going to be.
We are going to have an artfocus in this for everybody.
So we are going to tie in allof our stories about this
weekend into art things and notjust things that Nathan and I
did hanging out for really thelongest first time we have in
person, Although we spend a lotof time on our phones and zoom
and FaceTime regularly.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Our hope is a take of this episode.
Is not cool guys?
You hung out Great, yeah Forsure.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, I mean, and there there's such an importance
Like I know we talked aboutthis over the weekend like just
that importance of reallyfeeling welcomed, because here
you are, dropped in this newthing that you know nobody, you
don't know what, you have noexpectations, you don't know
what's going on, where are wegoing to be?
Where am I going to be sleeping?
What am I going to be eating?
What's this like?
(09:30):
Am I just out in the middle ofa farm?
Like what's going on?
You know there's all thesethings.
But like that importance offeeling welcomed, yeah, it's
just such an important thing inlife.
And translating that to the artworld look, there's a, there's
a great.
That's a scary place when youdon't know where you're going,
what's happening, who you'regoing to be around, what you're
going to do day in, day out andyou're just kind of going to go
(09:53):
with the flow, and that's theart world.
It's a scary place.
You don't know what to expect,we don't know what's out there,
we don't know what's going on.
And I think for any of you whoare mature artists or who have
been in the art world for a longtime or have experienced the
art world I just want to add,please be very welcoming to
(10:13):
younger artists or moreinexperienced artists than
yourselves, because you shouldremember how hard it has been
for you to get where you are.
And so just being welcomingwith advice, with knowledge or
wisdom to younger artists isjust incredible.
And, man, when you see that newartist at an opening that you've
(10:34):
never seen before, those newpeople or somebody that just
keeps showing up but it's kindof standing against the wall, I
can't tell you how incrediblethat feeling is.
When you feel welcomed intothat circle or into that room or
into that group of people, itcan do wonders for somebody,
absolutely.
There's a really great quote bythe fabulous poet and author,
(10:57):
maya Angelou, and she sayspeople will forget what you said
, people will forget what youdid, but people will never
forget how you made them feel.
That's powerful.
That's a pretty beautiful quoteBecause you know what I
remember every single personthat treated me like shit, that
(11:18):
abused me.
They're on a specific level, meright, they're on a specific
level.
But I also, man, I have, true,really formed emotional bonds to
the people that just made mefeel incredible and welcomed and
appreciated.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And it's pretty easy.
It doesn't take that much tomake somebody feel welcome, to
make somebody feel special, and,considering that, wherever any
of us might be at someone, ifnot a whole pile of folks threw
down the ladder at some point tohelp, to make us feel welcome,
to give us a piece of advice.
I don't need to get into thestory for today's purposes, but
(12:01):
I'm dealing with a challengeI've never encountered before
and I had a chance to reach outto some folks that I was
connected to from Clubhouse backwhen that was a thing around
the COVID times and just thoseconnections and friendships that
were made and that continue andjust reach out.
For hey need some help withthis.
Has anyone encountered thisbefore?
(12:21):
And getting multiple responsesfrom folks pointing me in the
right direction and helping theway that they were able to is
just huge.
It's just having those.
But again, point being, itdoesn't take much to respond.
It doesn't take much to makepeople feel welcome.
It's actually pretty easy.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well, and just a reminder, we've talked about
this at length in our episodesNetwork your network is so vital
and massive for you in the artworld.
You have to have a network andyou need to be constantly
building your network andexpanding that network.
And so what a better way to dothat than by being a very
welcoming person, a veryappreciative person, a person
(12:59):
who always says thanks, whoalways greets, who always is
willing to give advice and showup right, not just be there for
yourself, but to be there forthe community and be there for
everybody else as well first,and then let everything else
fall into place after.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I think you think about what it takes to really
make connections with people.
Getting to our topic for today,but when we are willing to be
vulnerable, when we're willingto just put ourselves out there
and ask for help, that's a bigpart of it.
You may have your antenna upand recognize that artist who's
(13:37):
over in the corner by themselvesbecause they've got some paint
on their shoes and look likethey're uncomfortable.
And look like they'reuncomfortable, but you may not,
so it may be incumbent upon us,that person to get out of our
comfort zone, go up and sayhello, be vulnerable enough to
say, hey, I don't know anybodyhere.
(13:57):
What's your story?
Right, and that's I mean.
I would say you're moreextroverted, so you're, and
having now been with you insocial situations, you're much
better at this than I am.
It's not in my wheelhouse, likeit actually is really
uncomfortable for me to to dothat, not because I'm not
confident in conversation or youknow whatever, but it's just
not my, it's not my defaultright.
(14:17):
I'm not out in the world tryingto make new friends.
I have to, I have to thinkabout it, I have to actually
work at it, and so vulnerabilityreally does create connections,
and when we have thoseconnections with just one back
to the networking idea just oneperson in the group, that
connection extends to everybodyelse in the group.
And that's what got me thinkingabout sharing the story from
(14:39):
the weekend for the podcast here.
Back to the story.
When I told Nikki about theweekend, I said, look I the
podcast here is like back to thestory when I told.
When I told Nikki about theweekend, I said, look, I don't
know anyone else, but I know Tyand I know that he's the type of
person that if they're still inhis life at this point, at 50
years old, you know, when you'veknown them for 20, 30 years, if
(15:07):
they're cool with Ty, they'regoing to be cool with me, right,
and I just trusted on that andand and showed up.
But that shared connection, itjust, it just bridges the gap,
it makes new bonds easier toform because you have that sort
of what's the word I'm lookingfor?
You've been vetted Sure In away, right, and I think that of
(15:28):
course I'm assuming too, liketheir trust of me being you know
, whatever worse being there wasan extension of their trust in
you as well.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, you know, I hear this.
I hear two things from artistson a regular basis and I spent a
lot of time talking with a lotof artists and networking and
having these conversations.
And number one is I'm so afraidto go to openings because I am
introverted and I'm afraid ofhaving to talk, but I know I
need the network, so I, so I'mgoing and I'm just standing on
(15:59):
the wall and I'm just watching,right, right.
So that's number one.
The second story is from theartists, who are consistent in
that going.
I just made the three bestfriends I've ever had as an
artist and we're meeting everyweek and we're doing studio
visits and we're going to coffeeand we're having drinks and
we're talking art.
Those are the two things I hearfrom artists more than anything
(16:22):
.
Number one I need other artistsin my life.
I just get what I don't evenknow.
I need to learn.
I need my nephew to teach me tohand gestures on my phone so
that I don't get the pop-upgifts all the time.
Is that your phone?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
or is that our little ?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
It's my phone.
I just had balloons.
Yeah, but those are the twomain things, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Just a great reminder that if you're just listening
to us and you want to see whatwe we talk, for whatever reason,
we do post these videos, yes.
On Spotify and YouTube yes, oh,that's right, Spotify as well.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, so be.
And that's just going back tobe welcoming.
If you keep seeing a face andthere's never anybody around
them, what if they're the nextbig art star?
What if they've got thisfantastic studio?
What if they want to share astudio with you?
They've got room.
I mean, the things are endless.
Right, it's artists.
We all have the same thoughts,ideas, things in our head all
the time.
So it may be your next best artfriend standing there that's
(17:21):
just afraid to be the firstperson to say hi or do something
.
So, engage people and bevulnerable.
Right, like you said,vulnerability creates connection
.
Be vulnerable and just go.
Hey, what, what's up?
See you here.
All the time you must be anartist, or an art lover or
starving collector?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
who knows?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
you don't know yeah, but I so go.
Yeah, I did.
Just a few weeks ago I did twostudio visits locally, uh, with
two artist friends newer artistfriends over the last few years.
My friend, jack bauer, who is alocal artist in Waco, from San
Francisco.
He was at the Art Institute SanFrancisco.
He was around with a lot ofthose abstract artists that were
(18:02):
in San Francisco in the 60sWonderful stories.
But we did a studio visit,looked at his sculptures, looked
at his paintings at his studiohere in Waco and it was just
such a beautiful time just beingvulnerable, discussing work hey
, what do you think, ty, aboutthis stuff?
What direction do you think Ishould go in?
And just having thosediscussions of what's working,
what's not working, and justbeing really vulnerable.
(18:23):
And and Jack and I arecurrently we're doing a trade,
so I'm trading for one of hissculpture wall sculpture pieces
of painting, so he'll be at thestudio this Thursday as we kind
of go through and look at workand hang out.
And then my friend, staceyWarrinks, who's an artist here
in Waco but just seeing herspace and studio and talking art
.
And those are just two peoplethat I randomly met, one through
(18:44):
Instagram who was moving toWaco and reached out and said
hey, I'm moving, I've followedyou for a while.
Would you be willing to hangout when I get into town?
Yeah, I'm always like, yeah,absolutely, it's meet up.
And then, jack, we met.
We were both in a show at oursmall museum here in a group
show, and he had a couple ofsculpture pieces and then we met
at the show and hung out andtalked, and we've hung out a few
(19:04):
times, so it's just that'sbeing open and welcoming, and
then it creates just valuableconnections that can last a
short time or that can last avery long time.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yep, he must have had some cool stories about saving
the world multiple times.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Many, many.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
A little 24 reference for the.
That's a 24 reference.
That was Sutherland'scharacter's name, wasn't it in
that show?
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yep Jack Bauer.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I mean, I can think of a bunch of examples as
well.
Is that an art?
Oh, what is it called ArtCrawler?
It was a few months back andactually ran into a couple of
people that listened to thepodcast and had recognized me,
and recently I had a studiovisit with one of them, who's
now a mentee of yours, hallie,and she brought gosh, maybe five
or I think there were maybe sixof them all together and had a
(19:52):
lovely studio visit, greatconversation.
It's just fun, right.
It's fun to make thoseconnections and it's fun to have
conversations about art withother artists.
It's just cool, right.
So the more of those we canhave, the better, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
For me as an artist, vulnerability is something that
we've talked about in multipleepisodes.
There's just a depth.
There's a depth that I reallytry to focus on in my work
that's based on memory, and partof memory.
There's a lot of vulnerabilityto share things that are very
hard to share, that maybe youdon't want to share just on a
microphone, and so you share itthrough your work or an
(20:25):
Instagram, whatever, and so partof something that I love to do
with my friends is I'm somebody.
If you know me, I like to godeep.
If you've been a mentee in myprogram, you know I like to go
deep.
I like to get to the heart ofthe individual, the heart of
their life, the thing thatdrives them or the thing that
upsets them and those things.
And so one of the things thatwe did one of the evenings
(20:46):
together, after we sat aroundand ate in the barn, we started
talking about.
I phrased two questions, andthey were what was something
that was extremely beautiful inyour life this past year and
what was something that wasreally difficult for you in this
last year?
And the group of us you knowthis is a group of men.
This is something that Iprefaced with.
(21:06):
You know, as men, we reallystruggle with vulnerability and
getting deep, especially theolder we get, and so I really
wanted to give an opportunityfor us to just go really deep as
a group of men and just talkabout life.
And I think something thathappens in that that can also
happen with our art is when youdo go deep and you are very
(21:28):
vulnerable, you're opening upthe audience to also reflect on
the depth of what you're askingor what you're saying and cause
them to really go back and thinkabout those things deeply.
And I think there's somethingvery special in those moments as
human beings, to really get tothe heart of another, really get
(21:48):
to the soul of another and goreally deep.
There's something meaningfulthat lasts.
It's not something temporary,this is something that lasts,
right, and there were a lot oftears.
There's something meaningfulthat lasts.
It's not something temporary,right, this is something that
lasts, right, and there were alot of tears, there's a lot of
laughter, there's some real deepemotional things happening as
we shared those moments from ourlives over the last year, and I
(22:09):
think it brings an instantconnection to the group.
It brings an instant depth ofoh, if you're willing to go deep
, then I'm willing to go deep,and I think that's something, as
artists, that we should reallybe thinking about in our studios
, with our work too, and I knowwe've talked about that in a lot
of episodes, but I think it'ssomething to continually bring
up and discuss many times,because it should be the heart
(22:32):
of our work.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, and there's really.
There's a component ofintentionality around that for
you to have thought about thosequestions in advance.
A lot of those things come uporganically anyway sometimes,
but because you were intentionalabout considering, all right,
what are the deep questions thatI want to get into?
With this group, when we askdeep questions, we're way more
(22:56):
likely to get deep answers, andthat applies to interpersonal
relationships.
It also, of course, applies toour work.
So the type of questions thatwe're asking to others and to
ourselves as it pertains to thework, is absolutely going to
determine the depth of answerthat we get, and, frankly, that
is going to lead to a moreinteresting and engaging answer,
(23:19):
a more interesting and engagingconversation, again, whether
it's between two people orbetween our work and anyone who
might be looking at it.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Well, I think this is a great.
This is a great comparisonright Of humanity and art.
Like, what do we want more thananything as an artist?
We want a true connection withthe audience.
We want the audience to see ourwork, feel something, want
something, walk away withsomething, continue to think
(23:51):
about that piece, maybe take thechance and buy it because they
love it so much.
One of my good artist friends,audrey Cha, we were talking this
last weekend and she bought twopieces at an opening the other
night and it's a financialsacrifice, but she loved those
pieces so much, they hit her sohard, she could not leave
(24:16):
without them, like literallycouldn't leave without them.
So she took the financial riskand she bought the works.
Yeah, that's what we as artistslike dream of those moments.
But what is the completecomparison of that is?
We as humans also want thosemoments with other human beings.
(24:36):
We want to leave impressionsthat last.
We want to feel that reciprocallove from another human being
back to us because of how we areor how we act or how we respond
to them, and I think we shouldcompare those things right in
the studios.
What do we really want as humanbeings, with ourselves and our
lives, but also what do wereally want with our work.
And I think that radicalvulnerability and that welcoming
(24:59):
spirit and those things shouldgo hand in hand with our work.
And I love this quote from VanGogh.
He says I feel that there'snothing more truly artistic than
to love people.
And I think that does go backand forth with your work too.
If you're really putting thatsame attention and love into
your work, something's going tohappen.
(25:21):
Something is going to happenwith the audience accelerating
the connection justexponentially, in real time.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
You think about the difference between surface level
, small talk.
What have we really learned, Imean, apart from that the other
person also speaks the samelanguage as us and is doing good
and lives over here and has ajob over there, or whatever it
might be.
The cheat code that isvulnerability.
It really does accelerate thoseconnections so so quickly, I
(26:02):
mean, I think about.
Probably the most extremeexample is, for me, has been my
experience with recovery andwith the 12 steps.
I have had intensely intimateconnections with people who I
had never met before and in somecases, never met again.
If I'm traveling out of town, Igo to a meeting, whatever it
might be, but because we havethat shared experience, because
(26:25):
in this case, our lives, my life, depends on my willingness and
I learned that early on Like, ifI'm not willing to really share
what's really going on rightnow, I have no chance at staying
sober.
And when, when we go firstright, the shared connection,
that common bond that we have,whether it's you know what I was
(26:45):
just discussing or whether it'syou know our, our path as
artists, that's a very specificthing.
You know, a non-artist is nevergoing to be able to relate to
certain challenges, certainfeelings, certain experiences,
like somebody who is also inthis crazy, crazy game of art,
like not even close, right, andso being willing to share.
(27:06):
Like hey, I'm, I'm dealing withthis.
Have you ever experienced that?
You know the, the, the takeaway,I think, here is just going
first, you know, leading withlike hey, and being okay with
not looking cool, being okaywith, like, you know, not
looking good and with betrayingthe fact that you might not know
what you're doing, is kind of anecessary component to that
(27:28):
right.
Because if we lead with sort ofthis, whatever, this contrived
air of like I got it all goingon, I got it all figured out,
when, of course, you know wedon't, it's not going to get us
anywhere, there's nowhere to gofrom.
Like hey, I got it, I got itall, I'm good, right, there's no
, there's nowhere to go fromthere.
If that's what I start with,you're like cool, good for you.
(27:49):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, well, and that's that human connection.
Right, and that's the mostimportant thing in art and
networking as an artist ishaving those human connections.
So many books talk about theartist who is still sitting in
their garage making art 50 yearslater.
They've never gone out and madehuman connections outside of
the studio and there may be aVan Gogh, there may be a Helen
(28:22):
Frankenthaler that the worldwill never see, right, right,
because they were too afraid orhad too much fear in front of
them to actually go form some ofthose human connections that
can actually get their work andtheir career out there.
And man, and that's the thingtoday we have.
We have Instagram today.
That's a great way to startforming some of those
connections.
Reach out, say hi, talk toartists, comment on their work
regularly.
(28:42):
I mean it's, it's the tool.
You know, I was reading todayin a book this morning that um
Magnus I don't know what's hislast Magnus right what.
Resh, magnus Resh's book and hewas talking about he was
watching a big gallery ownersafter meeting with other artists
, yeah, and the first thing theydid when that artist walked
(29:03):
away was get on their Instagrampage and look, think, think
about that connection.
Like the first thing that thesome of the biggest gallery
owners were doing was getting onInstagram right after they
talked to an artist or meet anartist and just looking at their
feed.
Yeah, so we have thisconnection that we can use to
(29:26):
connect with other artists,especially in we.
I talked about this with somefriends this weekend.
When you're in a really smalltown, yeah, when you're not in
an art city, when you're not inNew York, you're not in LA,
you're not in Chicago or Parisor Berlin or London, you're not
in the major art cities andthere just aren't a lot of
artists around.
You're going to have to figureout a way to meet some if you
(29:47):
want to build that connectionand build that network, and
Instagram's a fabulous place tostart.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Just say hi.
Certainly, I mean for all itslimitations, for how impersonal
it can absolutely be and feelfor sure at times much like we
were talking about before withthe intentionality around asking
deep questions to get deepanswers.
It requires some intentionalityto get a personal connection
out of an inherently impersonalplatform.
(30:16):
It doesn't take much, but itdoes take an effort of some kind
and it is crazy how just theamount of real connections and
real friendships that can bemade without ever meeting
somebody in person I think about.
I'll start from an example.
I'm going to be in Munich for myshow next month and I was
(30:39):
thinking about how I'm going topotentially deal with any issues
that might come up as far ashaving access to a studio space
the tools that I normally use,but just a place to work and my
Instagram friend, nico Hensel.
I knew he was in Germanysomewhere, I didn't realize he's
like 45 minutes away, you know,from the gallery.
(31:00):
So he reached out.
I think we've never met inperson, you know, but we've
dialogued a ton, you know, justwith DMs and commenting on one
another's work and just kind ofbeing mutual fans of what one
another does, and he was sogenerous to say, hey, whatever
you need, you tell me.
You come up, I'll empty out myspace.
It's not as big as yours he wasso funny Not as big as yours.
I don't have any flamethrowers,but you're welcome to use
(31:22):
whatever I have, and that'samazing.
It's amazing that somebody iswilling to do that.
But that all comes from justmaking those connections and
keeping conversations,initiating and keeping
conversations going.
That is the nice thing aboutInstagram is that we are going
to, if we spend back tointentionality, the right amount
(31:44):
of time and a specific amount,whatever that looks like.
But as we're following oneanother, we're going to keep
probably hopefully popping up onone another's feeds and being
aware of what other people aredoing, which naturally keeps the
conversation going as well yeah, I mean, I just I did my red.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
That residency I did earlier this year with seven
artists who met on Instagram andthen were a part of my program.
And if it wasn't for just thatdigital connection, right, and
the willingness to reach out andthen stay connected and and now
there's, you know, seven of mybest friends, like literally
seven of my closest artistfriends, and we meet every two
weeks on zoom and we chat and we, you know, have a WhatsApp
(32:24):
group that we're constantlygoing back and forth on, but
we've become brothers andsisters.
Like when I say that I don'ttake that lightly Like we
literally have become brothersand sisters and there's a depth
of vulnerability when we chat.
Now, right, that sharedconnection was the beginning,
right, but then the boldness tobe vulnerable with each other
(32:47):
and having a shared experiencetogether for a month has created
such a radical depth and awillingness to just lay it out
there when we need to and justbe totally honest.
And usually the answers arelike oh my gosh, me too, thanks
for I'm there too.
Or oh man, I was there lastmonth, this is what I did to get
(33:08):
through it.
Or I don't know, it's justcreated a beautiful, beautiful
thing and just uh.
But if it wasn't for peoplejust reaching out and starting a
conversation to begin with andtaking a risk, then it wouldn't
have happened.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
How many of that group did you had you met in
person previously?
Anybody One, gianna, just John,okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
wild.
I mean I'm laughing about you.
Pick me up at the airport, getout, give you a big hug.
And I had that moment where, aswe're pulling my bag towards
the car, I'm just like there,you are hey, you're a real life
(33:43):
person.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That was pretty funny .
We both did that.
Look at you.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
You're about?
Yeah, I mean as many hours aswe spent talking and even
interfacing via.
Even interfacing, you know, viavideo like this, it's still a
different thing, a deeper levelof connection, of course, when
we're, when we're sharing oxygenand belly to belly.
You know, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, well, let's let's jump into vulnerability,
since we've been talking aboutit quite a bit here.
Talking about that, thatvulnerability that I was able to
create with those other sevenartists you know definitely
extends beyond the personalrelationships into our
professional and our creativeendeavors and our art.
Like I said, like that depth ofjust being vulnerable and
(34:26):
telling each other stories andgetting to know each other
outside of art has brought aneven bigger depth into our work
and when we're making it andtalking about it, and there's
that trust factor which isreally tough at times for an
artist to have a trust factorwith.
Hey, will you look at this workI'm doing?
Hey, will you tell me what youthink?
(34:48):
You know?
Because at the end of the day,we're going to do what we think,
period.
But inviting you, or youinviting Eric and I right like
you did throughout your wholeprocess creating work for the
Munich show was like hey, guys,just been working on this one,
what do you think?
And having us coming back andtalked about that, there's a
trust factor there.
For sure.
You're showing unfinished work,you're showing direction before
(35:11):
it's been really worked out inyour head, just to get some
feedback.
And that really adds to thedepth of everything else.
And there's a great quote bythe actor Valuchendu that says
An artist is vulnerable andtheir craft truthful when he or
she resists the desire to meddlewith the wholesome expression
(35:32):
of the soul.
I'm going to read it one moretime.
Hit it again An artist isvulnerable and their craft
truthful when he or she resiststhe desire to meddle with the
wholesome expression of the soul.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I love a lot about that quote.
The part that really jumps offthe page to me about that is the
desire to meddle.
You're resisting the desire tomeddle with the wholesome
expression of the soul becauseit implies and I agree with this
that we have an inherentresistance to vulnerability,
(36:11):
which makes sense because, bydefinition, we are exposing
ourselves to potential criticism, rejection, you know, fill in
the blank with however you wantto end that, but things that we
have, from from birth, beenprogrammed to avoid,
(36:32):
specifically avoid, right.
You think about theconditioning that we get as kids
in school and trying to fit inand trying to avoid, avoid
rejection, and how deep thoseimprints really are, right, so
let's get a little vulnerablehere, ty, and talk about like
(36:54):
right, so let's get a littlevulnerable here, ty, and talk
about like, what do you thinkfor you?
What, what, what is it?
I'll go first.
I just talked about going first.
I'll go, I'll go first.
But what keeps me from beingvulnerable as a human being and
in my work is just fear of beingexposed.
(37:15):
You know, not, not looking cool, I was not a cool kid.
I mean back talking about gradeschool, talking about growing
up, definitely was not a coolkid wasn't outsider, didn't feel
like I fit in.
You know, probably I think I'veseen, let me imagine it.
Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of headsnodding here.
That's, that's not just me, so.
So I think that that thatimprint is still there while I
(37:36):
have worked to, you know, getget over myself and get over
that like need to like feel likeI'm all put together, you know,
to to kill the perfectionismthat prevents authentic
expression.
But that's it for me, that is,that is number one.
With a bullet, the, the, thething that that, that the, the
(37:57):
desire to meddle with thatwholesome and authentic
expression, for me is just thefear of not looking good, the
fear of exposing the fact that Idon't know what the hell I'm
doing, you know what is it for?
you.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Man.
I mean this.
This quote goes if you haven'tlistened to the last episode, go
listen to the last episode,because I read a section from
Letters to a Young Poet byRainier Maria Rilke, and this is
really kind of the heart ofwhat I read, because the poet
who is writing Rilke letters andasking for advice, is meddling
with the wholesome expression ofhis soul.
(38:31):
He's completely meddling, andRilke is calling him out on that
and saying stop, stop lookingoutside, stop messing with his
soul.
He's completely meddling andreal cause, calling him out on
that and saying stop, stoplooking outside, stop messing
with your soul.
Dive into the deep moments,quit looking around and asking
all these questions outside ofyourself.
Like, stay focused on you.
And I think for me, I'm such aperfectionist with my work that
(38:55):
I, I think I I get really scaredto put something out there that
I don't feel 100% is right, andso I really struggle with that
big, and sometimes that stops mefrom getting started because I
don't have the idea fullyflushed out in my head yet, and
(39:16):
so I really start to kind ofmeddle with things rather than
just going hey, I know what I'mfeeling, let's go ahead and go,
let myself take me where it goes.
Instead, I plan, I plan, I prep, I prep, I prep, I plan, and
then I wait, and then I wait,and then I wait, and then I
start and I think I mean Iprobably only share 25% or less
(39:38):
of what I make.
I think I would say probably,as I went back through things
like to the public.
I hold a lot back fromInstagram, from YouTube, from
things like that.
And I started to think aboutthat the other day because I
think it might've been Gianna orsomebody that had said oh my
gosh, I love these pieces.
No, when she was here at mystudio a few months ago and
(40:00):
there were some pieces that Iwas like, yeah, I don't know if
I'll, and she's like, oh, whatare you kidding me?
I love these.
Yeah, I'm like I still, I don'tknow, you know, and and I,
she's somebody.
I 100% trust her.
I like literally, I'm like, ifyou say it, I believe you.
Yeah, she's just somebody.
I have that with that trustfactor with.
And I think I just sat back andI'm like, why am I so afraid to
(40:22):
put that out?
Yeah, what is it?
Well, is it not?
Is it because it's just not inline with where I'm trying to go
right now Is it you know what?
But there's a fear there withme, and I think it's because
maybe I'm not feeling like it'sperfect, which art's never going
to be perfect, it's just itcan't be, it's not going to be,
and I actually love non-perfectart, but there's something with
(40:44):
me that really wants it to be,in my eyes, so comfortable, so
perfect before I let it out thedoor that I think at times it
really holds me back, do you?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
think that that fear comes from the work not being
good or true to what you'retrying to say, or is it more a
product of fear of how it'sgoing to be received or viewed
within the context of whatyou've done previously?
Speaker 1 (41:14):
yes, and and and yeah , I'd say yes to both of those.
Yeah, honestly yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
I mean, that's a whole conversation that we could
have an entirely standalonepodcast about, but it's it is.
I mean, we've talked about itin different ways previously as
well.
I'm sure we'll we'll get intoit again.
But just the whole idea of whenwe're getting into new
territory, when we're expandingbeyond where we've done before,
where we've been before, ratherit's going to be uncomfortable,
(41:45):
it's going to be less certainbecause it doesn't look like the
things that we I mean, as we'remaking work that's in the same
vein of something that we'vedone before and looks enough
like other work that we deemedto be successful, it's much
easier to arrive at theconclusion of yes, this too is
good and authentic to me.
And here you go, world.
(42:06):
But it does get back.
I mean, your story with Giannais a great example of it.
It does get back to that Um, youknow, we taught, I think uh,
what was that HelenFrankenthaler quote, where I
think we played it in our, inour, in our Helen episode, but
where she said you know, once,once I'm done, I'm always?
This is a very roughparaphrasing here, but what I
(42:29):
took from it was I'm alwayssurprised.
I never know what the galleryis going to want or what people
are going to like, and that'sreally none of my business.
I was sharing with a friendrecently that of the work that
I've spent the last you knowwhatever four or five months,
six months making for thisupcoming show, 85% of it didn't
get finished or shared with thegallery and of that, a much,
(42:50):
much smaller percent wasselected, you know, to be
included.
Yep, that's just part of it.
Always, always.
And I remember there was one ora couple in particular where I
was like, really, are you sure?
No, no, every time, really,there was one or a couple in
particular where I was likereally, are you sure about you
know?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
no, no, that one really that one that I almost, I
almost didn't share that withyou.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yeah, I almost didn't include, you know, I almost
didn't include that in in thelist of options, you know.
So it's just it's it's.
It's funny how that all works.
It's just a really interestingdynamic.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Well, and he hit.
The funny thing too with me meis we have this little note that
says the courage to showimperfection in our notes here.
And the funny thing is my workis imperfect.
I'm not trying to make perfectlooking work, I'm not a realist
painter, I'm not a figurativepainter, I'm an expressionist.
So it's everywhere.
And so the funny thing is Icelebrate the imperfection of
(43:40):
gesture and the imperfection ofthings in the piece.
But, mentally right, if itdoesn't feel perfect, it's hard
for me to let it go and move inmy head.
And the funny thing is, is theones that usually I'm so
confident in that I'm, that isit, I nailed it, it's perfect.
Are not the ones ever selected?
(44:01):
Yeah, like you said, those onesthat you're just like nailed it
, fuck, yeah, let's go.
And then the gallery's likethese four, but not those four,
and you're like wait, those aremy four favorite pieces, those
are the ones that worked.
You beat me, it's an interestingthing, and that is what we need
to do an episode on that we do.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
I think it'd be.
I think it'd be reallyinteresting.
You beat me to the F today.
You got to drop the F on today.
It's kind of a little game that, ladies and gentlemen, that we
don't play.
That I play is who gets to cussfirst, and we try to keep it to
one or fewer, to minimum.
It's a family show, yeah.
(44:38):
So on imperfection, there's aquote by Guillermo del Toro that
popped up for me, very simplebut just an absolutely amazing
quote.
There is beauty and humility inimperfection.
There is beauty and humility inimperfection, and what I love
about that quote, specificallythe beauty part, is to me, I
(45:02):
think to us, pretty obvious,because it is a huge part of
what both you and I areattracted to in work and seeking
to communicate with our work.
The humility part of that isalso really interesting, because
and I'm curious to hear yourthoughts on this as well, but I
was really thinking about thisand it does require a level of.
(45:25):
It requires a level of I'mtrying to think of another word
I mean it requires a level ofwillingness to be okay with.
I don't have it all figured out.
It's not going to be perfect.
If a working definition in thecontext of this quote is it's
not going to be perfect, and Iwouldn't want it to be, even if
(45:49):
it could be.
There's humility inacknowledging that perfection
isn't even on the table, it'snot even a possibility, and
being okay with that realityopens us up that much more to be
vulnerable, to be authentic andto have that imperfection lead
(46:10):
to beauty.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah Well, I want to say something just to context of
what I was saying previouslyabout.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It's a podcast.
This is a place where we saythings.
This is where we do that about.
It's a podcast.
This is a.
This is a place where we saythings.
You know, this is where we dothat.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Just love it, love it .
Just talking about strugglingwith being a perfectionist and
wanting you know the work to bea certain way.
In no way Am I talking aboutthis quote Because I truly
believe there's beauty andhumility and imperfection.
When I say letting something go, I just has to feel right for
(46:46):
me to let go.
Yeah, you know and that.
So that's what I'm saying, justto not confuse anybody with, um
, what I said previously in thisquote, because I totally
believe there's beauty andhumility and imperfection.
And there has to be rightbecause we're all imperfect.
Every single one of us isimperfect.
We all have flaws, we all havethings that we've struggled with
before, after We've been brokenby people in multiple ways, our
(47:08):
entire lives or currently inour life today, and so there has
to be beauty in that, becausewe know what's on the other side
, we know how it's formed us andhow it's created, our
trajectory and where we weregoing, these imperfections.
And there is beauty in itbecause there's beauty in
(47:29):
healing and there's beauty inrefinement, there's beauty in
overcoming the mistakes orovercoming trauma in life, and
there's also humility in that,because if you've been through
something, you have to have aform of humility in your life,
especially towards others, asthis whole episode is kind of
geared towards human connectionand vulnerability and being
(47:49):
welcoming to people and things.
You better have humility whereyou are, no matter where you've.
If you're the most successfulartist on the planet, you better
show some humility because youstruggled, you've made, you've
missed the mark, you've hadimperfect things go out into the
world, you've messed up, you'vebeen broken, and there's
nothing that pisses me off morethan people who are not, who do
(48:13):
not live in humility, that havegotten somewhere through tough
things and have achieved morethan others.
There's nothing that likedrives me more crazy than those
individuals in life.
So just operate with beauty andhumility because you've been
through it, you've gonesomewhere.
Welcome the young artists.
Give advice.
Don't ignore every comment onyour Instagram page from young
(48:35):
artists that are asking youquestions why can't you share
what you use?
Why can't you?
Why can artists not share?
This is the material I'm usingto get that.
What's with that?
Show some fucking humility.
Like honestly, it drives mecrazy.
I see artists who have massivefollowings that are looked,
looked up to and I'm not talkingabout the big artists who don't
(48:55):
run their Instagram pagesanymore, talking about artists
that have built a big followingthat are doing things.
They I'm talking about artiststhat have built a big following
that are doing things.
They've got all these commentscoming through from artists
asking questions and they neverrespond once.
Yeah, it just pisses me off.
I don't understand it.
Give something back, damn it.
It just drives me crazy.
Anyways.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Why don't you read our?
Why don't you read our yes?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Let's go to the next quote by the fabulous Georgia
O'Keefe.
This is incredible.
I've been absolutely terrifiedat every moment of my life and
I've never let it keep me fromdoing a single thing.
I wanted to Hell.
Yes, georgia, wow.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
That's.
That's a pretty freaking great.
That's a bad-ass quote.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
It's a's a badass quote.
I mean it's supposed to bescary.
Yeah, I mean Absolutely.
The fact that you're scared isan indication that you're trying
to do something real, thatyou're trying to do something
big.
Yep, really, I mean, you thinkabout the only time that fear
(50:01):
wouldn't be or an element of itwouldn't be at least an
ingredient in the mix maybesmall, maybe large is if we were
doing something that we haddone before, the way we had done
it before.
You know, yeah, I mean,perfection for sure requires
(50:22):
precision.
It requires repetition of thesame thing, and there isn't a
lot of fear in that, becauseit's just rinse and repeat the
(50:43):
definition of perfection.
It is very precise, it's veryspecific, it is exactly the way
it was intended to be.
And while there is certainlyroom for perfection, while
there's certainly a there, thereare certainly things that we
would like to work that way.
Uh, you know, we, we prefer forthe, the engines in our
vehicles or you know whatever,to to work the way that they're
supposed to.
There's precision in that, butit's not interesting.
It's the same working versionof a million others that are
(51:07):
exactly like it and polished.
Perfection isn't interesting,it's not unique, there's nothing
authentic about it.
It's just another one of thosethings.
And who cares?
So that's kind of the takeawayof that.
For me is like and again back toone of our core talking points,
again and again, and again.
(51:28):
That's why we go back to thesequotes of the greats, like
O'Keefe, and we hear her sayI've been absolutely terrified
every moment of my life.
Awesome, me too, and I've neverlet it keep.
That's the difference.
So, starting from a place ofall right, we're all terrified,
(51:50):
we're all scared, we're allgoing to experience a version of
those emotions.
Great, the difference betweenpeople that do it and don't are
just doing it in spite of thatfact.
It's not getting over that fact.
The goal is not to get to apoint where we don't experience
the fear anymore, because that'sprobably not possible anyway.
(52:12):
The point, the goal is to getto a point where we acknowledge
that we are absolutely terrifiedand we boldly move forward
anyway, we are absolutelyterrified and we boldly move
forward anyway.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yeah, absolutely Well .
And my buddy, steven Pressfieldsays in the War of Art he talks
about how if you have a massivefear about starting something,
it's probably because you'resupposed to start it.
Yeah, that's how you know.
That's how you know when you'rescared shitless, it's time to
start it, it's time to go movethat direction, do it scared
(52:43):
shitless.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
It's time to start it .
It's time to go move thatdirection, do it.
So as we begin to wrap up,let's read a quote by Brene
Brown that I think really kindof encapsulates most of what
we've been talking about so far.
She writes staying vulnerableis a risk we have to take if we
want to experience connection.
Staying vulnerable is a risk wehave to take if we want to
experience connection.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Your thoughts- You're not going to experience
connection if you're not andwe're not talking vulnerable as
far as.
Let me share my life story andeverything I've been through
right off the bat, right.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
No.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Sometimes vulnerability is literally just
like hey, see you here all thetime.
I'm Ty.
Yeah, are you an artist?
You just here to see art?
I mean, that's for some peoplethat is radically vulnerable,
right For you.
Right To just sit at a tablewith a bunch of guys you don't
know, and then all of a sudden,no, it's my turn to answer the
(53:38):
question about what's the mostbeautiful thing in this.
Oh crap, you know what I mean.
That's, oh, it's my turn toanswer the question about what's
the most beautiful thing inthis.
Oh crap, you know what I mean.
That's very vulnerable, yeah.
But even simple vulnerability isjust saying hello or just
acknowledging someone's presence.
And what happens when you takethat first step?
Connection begins, yeah, andthat's also translated into our
(53:59):
work, right, what is art?
Art is a shared connection.
Art is a shared connection.
Art is a shared connection.
It is something between thecreator and the viewer.
It is something between theaudience and the maker.
If you're in the room or not inthe room as the maker, it's
still a shared connection.
You've created something.
You've been vulnerable enoughto let it go outside of your
(54:20):
studio and go on a wall forsomebody to witness.
That's a shared connection.
So that's vulnerability as well, just being able to get your
work out there as a vulnerableact as an artist.
But if you want to experienceshared connection with other
artists, you're going to have totake some steps in
vulnerability to meet somepeople as well.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Nick Cave is somebody that we talk about a lot.
He's somebody that you and Iboth love as an artist, a
creator and a musician Justfabulous.
And he's somebody thatabsolutely embraces
vulnerability on every level, onevery single level as a human
being, as an artist, as a writer, as a musician and a creator.
And so we've shared this quotebefore, but I would love to
(55:00):
share it one more time.
It's something I go back to ona regular basis, as I've kind of
gone through his book Faith,hope and Carnage and have
paraphrased it and taken all thequotes and put them into a
notebook of mine from the book,and so here's the quote.
Here's what he says onvulnerability there's something
(55:21):
about being open and vulnerablethat is, conversely, very
powerful, maybe eventransformative.
For me, vulnerability isessential to spiritual and
creative growth, whereas beinginvulnerable means being shut
down, rigid and small.
My experience of creating musicand writing songs is finding
(55:42):
enormous strength throughvulnerability.
You're being open to whateverhappens, including failure and
shame.
There's a certain there'scertainly a vulnerability to
that and an incredible freedom.
He just, he just said there'san incredible freedom even in
(56:04):
failure and shame.
Yeah, and I think that goesright back up to the Georgia
O'Keefe quote I've beenterrified every moment of my
life and I've never let it keepme from doing a single thing.
I wanted to Cause, sometimes,the things we want to do.
There's some failure that'sgoing to exist when we're doing
what we want to do Because yougot to fail, fail, fail, fail
(56:27):
until you hit the winner, untilyou hit that one.
That is the one that all thefailure and the shame produced.
And that shame he's talkingabout is the album that just
didn't sell better than the lastalbum, sure, yeah, right.
Or the song that didn't hit asgood as some of the other songs.
As a creator and an artist,there's a shame when I I've had
(56:48):
shows that haven't sold a singlepiece.
I feel immense shame when Itake that show down and not one
work sold Right, like I reallydo.
But I go to what stephenpressfield said when his first
uh screenplay bombed king konglives.
And he was so like I don't evenwhy am I doing?
(57:10):
Blah, blah, blah.
You know, this is just, this isterrible, this is so shameful.
And his buddy goes but wouldyou change anything in your life
to not do this at all?
And he's's like no, I want todo this.
He was like yeah, you're in it,you just failed.
You just had a real failure.
You're in it, right.
So I have to look at thosemoments and go well, I just had
(57:32):
a solo show, I'm in it.
And then walk away and go okay,how do I improve on that?
Speaker 2 (57:41):
I mean there's such a deep level of acceptance that's
baked into both of those lastcouple of quotes that we shared,
by O'Keefe, by Nick Cape, andthe acceptance is that it might
not work.
It's just an acknowledgement oflike, yeah, people might not
like it.
People might not buy them,people might not.
I mean it's just baked into theequation and without that
(58:02):
acceptance of it might not work.
And if it doesn't, I'm stillgoing to be okay.
If it doesn't, it still willhave moved me in a positive
direction.
If it doesn't, I still am onthe path of getting closer to
making my best work.
And that Nick Cave quote, I meanthat's the incredible freedom
(58:25):
that we're all after.
I think Certainly what I'm herefor, that incredible freedom
that comes from being open towhatever happens, to receiving
these ideas and executing themand doing our best.
Today.
We don't need to know theanswers for tomorrow, we just
need to know all right, I'macting on what's true for me in
(58:48):
this moment, because I'mreceiving what's coming, because
I'm open, because I'mvulnerable, because I'm
listening to what's real, notwhat I think should be there.
I'm listening to what's'rereceiving, what's actually here,
not trying to sort of contrivewhat we wish was, or what we've
(59:09):
done before, and that is anincredible freedom.
That is, I think, what thiswhole art deal is all about.
Right, it is that incrediblefreedom and it all comes from
that openness and from thatvulnerability.
It's a beautiful, beautifulthing.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
So next steps go to some shows, say hello to some
artists, go make some newfriends, go be vulnerable, meet
some people, and I hope you'rehaving an awesome time in the
studio this week, and we got anew year coming up pretty fast,
so I'm pretty excited for what'shappening for you and I coming
up in 2025.
And there's a lot of thingsthat we don't know that are on
(59:49):
the horizon.
So be vulnerable.
Don't let fear hold you back.
Set some goals for 2025.
Where do you want your art togo?
Where do you want it to be?
Who do you want to meet?
Go after it.
The end the end Bye, bye.
Oh, Nathan, a little bit of peaches and herb for the
morning.
What a good way to kick it off.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, Ty, there's one perfect fit and sugar.
This one is it.
Oh yeah, Love it.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I mean hey, 1978 brought us into this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Right, right it's good to have you back.
It's good to see your face.
It's good to be back.
It's been too long since we'vebeen able to hop on live.
I owe you a big debt ofgratitude and appreciation for
carrying the load the lastcouple of months here, when I've
been mostly MIA as far as theJMA life is concerned.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, you've been a little busy.
You've got something going onthat you've been pretty wrapped
up in.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
You know, I told my wife yesterday that, uh, so it's
Monday as we sit here andrecord this yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It is Monday, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Um, I mean, there was a time there the last couple of
months where even just what dayit was would have been a.
It would have taken me a minute, so I'm gonna put the correct
answer.
But I said this is like thefirst day I've been able to just
exhale and just have a daywhere I lay around and get
caught up.
I haven't had a Sunday where Iwasn't in the studio for at
least 12 hours for at least yeah, at least six weeks.
So it's been.
It's been a ride, but excitedto be back at it.
(01:32):
Where do we start?
You're going to share an idiotmoment.
Yeah, I did have an idiot.
That's all our outline says isshare, tie, share, idiot moment.
I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So how's my hair look ?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, I haven't.
I've not had a.
I haven't had a hat on.
That's why, no, I know, but yougot, you got.
You got glorious hair.
I always wear a hat.
You got a glorious head of hair.
You shouldn't cover that stuffup unless it's not washed.
I'll just assume that you haveyour shower.
It's definitely washed, it'sgreat.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, okay, my idiot moment.
Moving on, so we have thisthing in the United States
during our holiday, thanksgivingon Friday.
Thanksgiving falls on aThursday and Friday is a day
called Black Friday.
I think it's pretty muchinternational for shopping.
A lot of people will use BlackFriday deals, even
internationally, because you canget cheap discounts.
(02:21):
But anyways, if you don't haveBlack Friday, it's kind of a
marketing ploy for businesses tomake a lot of money on a
certain Friday.
So I had been going through allmy art websites and ordering
places Blick and Jerry's andlooking for art to order,
anything that's at a superbdiscount, like canvas and stuff,
and so I went to there's apaint company called Gaffrey and
(02:44):
they're a small family owned, Ibelieve.
And so I went to there's apaint company called Gaffrey and
they're a small family owned, Ibelieve, and they make really
heavy body acrylics and I'm abig heavy body acrylic guy and
I'm always looking for ones thatare even thicker than the other
ones I use.
So I found Gaffrey through oneof my past artists in my program
and went on.
Their Black Friday sale wasinsane.
So I loaded up my cart with aton of paint at really steep
(03:07):
discounts, made a really bigorder, so, pumped Knew it would
probably be here in a week ortwo.
And the order is delivered tothe front of my house, to my
doorstep, and I'm so pumped.
I go out there and there's thistiny little box from Gaffrey
sitting on my front porch.
That was delivered and I'mthinking that's odd, it must be
in multiple shipments orwhatever.
(03:29):
And so I open up the box andlet me show you everything that
I ordered.
It is one tube of six ouncelight pink.
I don't know what the hellhappened, but this is all that
came.
And in the receipt in the box,I went oh, let me check the
(03:50):
order, it must be in twoshipments.
No, it was for one $6 tube ofpaint, nailed it.
I don't know what I did,because I had a massive order.
I had my mind fully prepped forwhat I was going to do with it,
how I was going to play andmess around.
I mean, it's sculptural acrylic, it's so thick, and so this is
all I got, and with a greatmessage don't eat the paint.
(04:13):
But I don't know what I did.
I'm assuming what happened waseverything that I ordered must
have already been gone by thetime the order went through
because it was Black Friday andI was a little late in the day
to remember to order.
I'm assuming that would happen,but it could probably just have
been a moron move of, I don'tknow, canceling everything on
purpose and then just ordering asix ounce.
(04:34):
So, anyways, that's a good fun.
Art idiot moment.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Well, thank you for your vulnerability.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I appreciate it.
I mean, hey, we've got to bevulnerable, right?
I think we're going to talkabout that a little bit today.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Today we're going to share some stories, kind of a
story of shared experience IRLthat's how the kids say in real
life, of which you and I havenot had a tremendous amount of
as a matter of fact.
But we're going to share astory.
We got a chance to spend theweekend together.
I guess it's about almostexactly a month ago.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Right, does that sound right?
Not quite, yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, wow, that's fast, but yeah, it does not seem
like that long ago.
We're going to share that storyand just specifically how it
pertains to our practice asartists, as creatives.
Why don't you just set thetable for your 50th weekend?
Because it was quite the affair.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, my wife has been bugging me for the last
year about what I'm going to dofor my 50th birthday.
What do you want to do?
Do you want to travel?
Do you want to go on a trip?
I kept joking and saying I wantto go to space, I want to jump
on Elon or Richard Branson'sspace thing and go into space
and to orbit.
But I just couldn't figure itout because I mean, yeah, I want
to do something, but I justdidn't feel like really going.
Oh, let's do this and let's puta plan together.
(05:46):
So, post my birthday, my buddyJeremy said, hey, what are we
doing for your 50th?
Like you didn't do anything, weneed to do something.
And so I ended up puttingtogether a little trip up to his
family's property in the NorthDallas area of some lifelong
friends and you got invited tothat and it basically was a Now,
(06:08):
just a little context Nathan,you and I have known each other
for three years now, I think, oris it four, three or four years
?
But all the other friends thatI invited to join me have been
lifelong friends, some for 30years, some for 20 years and so
we all got together for theweekend up at my buddy's
property.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, it was funny because.
So y'all picked me up from the.
You see how I picked that upwhen I was in Texas, did that
y'all sound natural.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You got a good y'all.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Thank you, yeah.
So you guys picked me up at theairport.
We went to get some lunch andas we're sitting down and
talking, it was you, me, Jeremyand Jake.
And Jeremy asked me how long wehad known each other and I said
, well, by the time we get doneeating lunch here, we will have
spent more time in one of thosepresents than we ever had
previously.
(06:56):
We hung out that one time when Iwas down in your neck of the
woods, but compared to the 20 or30 years of history you had
with everybody else, it was avery, very different dynamic.
For sure, it was funny becausewhen you asked me, I was honored
and super excited to go.
But I told my wife, hey, soTy's having this 50th birthday
party, it's going to be me, andwhat?
(07:17):
Were there?
Eight people altogether, Ithink.
So Okay, so I said it's goingto be me, Ty and six people I've
never met before.
And she goes, really.
And I said, yeah, and she goes,and you're feeling good about
going.
And, just for context, thereason that she would say that
(07:37):
is because, obviously, knowingme as well as she does, she
knows that I am not a big fan ofbeing on other people's
schedule, especially when I'm ina place where I can't just
wander or walk away or dowhatever.
She also knows I'm not a hugefan of small talk and whatever.
I don't have the patience forit, as an introvert, to just be
(07:59):
around.
I like making new friends.
I'm just not very good at itbecause I'm not that interested.
That sounds terrible.
There's probably a better way ofsaying that, but let's just go
with that for now.
I mean so you know, she knowsif we're at like a wedding
reception, she knows thatthere's always going to be at
least a 20 minute gap where I'mjust MIA just wandering around
(08:30):
you know the, the event facility, just not being you know with,
with people, probably looking atmy phone or something like that
to just get a breath, get abreak.
So when she heard I was goingto be with you know uh, six
people and you, uh, at acompound for an entire weekend
that was very rigidly scheduledshe's like how are you feeling
about this?
I was like we're going to do it, it's going to be, it's going
to be great, and it actually was.
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, and tying that into that, this is going to be.
We are going to have an artfocus in this for everybody.
So we are going to tie in allof our stories about this
weekend into art things and notjust things that Nathan and I
did hanging out for really thelongest first time we have in
person, Although we spend a lotof time on our phones and zoom
and FaceTime regularly.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Our hope is a take of this episode.
Is not cool guys?
You hung out Great, yeah Forsure.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, I mean, and there there's such an importance
Like I know we talked aboutthis over the weekend like just
that importance of reallyfeeling welcomed, because here
you are, dropped in this newthing that you know nobody, you
don't know what, you have noexpectations, you don't know
what's going on, where are wegoing to be?
Where am I going to be sleeping?
What am I going to be eating?
What's this like?
(09:30):
Am I just out in the middle ofa farm?
Like what's going on?
You know there's all thesethings.
But like that importance offeeling welcomed, yeah, it's
just such an important thing inlife.
And translating that to the artworld look, there's a, there's
a great.
That's a scary place when youdon't know where you're going,
what's happening, who you'regoing to be around, what you're
going to do day in, day out andyou're just kind of going to go
(09:53):
with the flow, and that's theart world.
It's a scary place.
You don't know what to expect,we don't know what's out there,
we don't know what's going on.
And I think for any of you whoare mature artists or who have
been in the art world for a longtime or have experienced the
art world I just want to add,please be very welcoming to
(10:13):
younger artists or moreinexperienced artists than
yourselves, because you shouldremember how hard it has been
for you to get where you are.
And so just being welcomingwith advice, with knowledge or
wisdom to younger artists isjust incredible.
And, man, when you see that newartist at an opening that you've
(10:34):
never seen before, those newpeople or somebody that just
keeps showing up but it's kindof standing against the wall, I
can't tell you how incrediblethat feeling is.
When you feel welcomed intothat circle or into that room or
into that group of people, itcan do wonders for somebody,
absolutely.
There's a really great quote bythe fabulous poet and author,
(10:57):
maya Angelou, and she sayspeople will forget what you said
, people will forget what youdid, but people will never
forget how you made them feel.
That's powerful.
That's a pretty beautiful quoteBecause you know what I
remember every single personthat treated me like shit, that
(11:18):
abused me.
They're on a specific level, meright, they're on a specific
level.
But I also, man, I have, true,really formed emotional bonds to
the people that just made mefeel incredible and welcomed and
appreciated.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And it's pretty easy.
It doesn't take that much tomake somebody feel welcome, to
make somebody feel special, and,considering that, wherever any
of us might be at someone, ifnot a whole pile of folks threw
down the ladder at some point tohelp, to make us feel welcome,
to give us a piece of advice.
I don't need to get into thestory for today's purposes, but
(12:01):
I'm dealing with a challengeI've never encountered before
and I had a chance to reach outto some folks that I was
connected to from Clubhouse backwhen that was a thing around
the COVID times and just thoseconnections and friendships that
were made and that continue andjust reach out.
For hey need some help withthis.
Has anyone encountered thisbefore?
(12:21):
And getting multiple responsesfrom folks pointing me in the
right direction and helping theway that they were able to is
just huge.
It's just having those.
But again, point being, itdoesn't take much to respond.
It doesn't take much to makepeople feel welcome.
It's actually pretty easy.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well, and just a reminder, we've talked about
this at length in our episodesNetwork your network is so vital
and massive for you in the artworld.
You have to have a network andyou need to be constantly
building your network andexpanding that network.
And so what a better way to dothat than by being a very
welcoming person, a veryappreciative person, a person
(12:59):
who always says thanks, whoalways greets, who always is
willing to give advice and showup right, not just be there for
yourself, but to be there forthe community and be there for
everybody else as well first,and then let everything else
fall into place after.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I think you think about what it takes to really
make connections with people.
Getting to our topic for today,but when we are willing to be
vulnerable, when we're willingto just put ourselves out there
and ask for help, that's a bigpart of it.
You may have your antenna upand recognize that artist who's
(13:37):
over in the corner by themselvesbecause they've got some paint
on their shoes and look likethey're uncomfortable.
And look like they'reuncomfortable, but you may not,
so it may be incumbent upon us,that person to get out of our
comfort zone, go up and sayhello, be vulnerable enough to
say, hey, I don't know anybodyhere.
(13:57):
What's your story?
Right, and that's I mean.
I would say you're moreextroverted, so you're, and
having now been with you insocial situations, you're much
better at this than I am.
It's not in my wheelhouse, likeit actually is really
uncomfortable for me to to dothat, not because I'm not
confident in conversation or youknow whatever, but it's just
not my, it's not my defaultright.
(14:17):
I'm not out in the world tryingto make new friends.
I have to, I have to thinkabout it, I have to actually
work at it, and so vulnerabilityreally does create connections,
and when we have thoseconnections with just one back
to the networking idea just oneperson in the group, that
connection extends to everybodyelse in the group.
And that's what got me thinkingabout sharing the story from
(14:39):
the weekend for the podcast here.
Back to the story.
When I told Nikki about theweekend, I said, look I the
podcast here is like back to thestory when I told.
When I told Nikki about theweekend, I said, look, I don't
know anyone else, but I know Tyand I know that he's the type of
person that if they're still inhis life at this point, at 50
years old, you know, when you'veknown them for 20, 30 years, if
(15:07):
they're cool with Ty, they'regoing to be cool with me, right,
and I just trusted on that andand and showed up.
But that shared connection, itjust, it just bridges the gap,
it makes new bonds easier toform because you have that sort
of what's the word I'm lookingfor?
You've been vetted Sure In away, right, and I think that of
(15:28):
course I'm assuming too, liketheir trust of me being you know
, whatever worse being there wasan extension of their trust in
you as well.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, you know, I hear this.
I hear two things from artistson a regular basis and I spent a
lot of time talking with a lotof artists and networking and
having these conversations.
And number one is I'm so afraidto go to openings because I am
introverted and I'm afraid ofhaving to talk, but I know I
need the network, so I, so I'mgoing and I'm just standing on
(15:59):
the wall and I'm just watching,right, right.
So that's number one.
The second story is from theartists, who are consistent in
that going.
I just made the three bestfriends I've ever had as an
artist and we're meeting everyweek and we're doing studio
visits and we're going to coffeeand we're having drinks and
we're talking art.
Those are the two things I hearfrom artists more than anything
(16:22):
.
Number one I need other artistsin my life.
I just get what I don't evenknow.
I need to learn.
I need my nephew to teach me tohand gestures on my phone so
that I don't get the pop-upgifts all the time.
Is that your phone?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
or is that our little ?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
It's my phone.
I just had balloons.
Yeah, but those are the twomain things, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Just a great reminder that if you're just listening
to us and you want to see whatwe we talk, for whatever reason,
we do post these videos, yes.
On Spotify and YouTube yes, oh,that's right, Spotify as well.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, so be.
And that's just going back tobe welcoming.
If you keep seeing a face andthere's never anybody around
them, what if they're the nextbig art star?
What if they've got thisfantastic studio?
What if they want to share astudio with you?
They've got room.
I mean, the things are endless.
Right, it's artists.
We all have the same thoughts,ideas, things in our head all
the time.
So it may be your next best artfriend standing there that's
(17:21):
just afraid to be the firstperson to say hi or do something
.
So, engage people and bevulnerable.
Right, like you said,vulnerability creates connection
.
Be vulnerable and just go.
Hey, what, what's up?
See you here.
All the time you must be anartist, or an art lover or
starving collector?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
who knows?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
you don't know yeah, but I so go.
Yeah, I did.
Just a few weeks ago I did twostudio visits locally, uh, with
two artist friends newer artistfriends over the last few years.
My friend, jack bauer, who is alocal artist in Waco, from San
Francisco.
He was at the Art Institute SanFrancisco.
He was around with a lot ofthose abstract artists that were
(18:02):
in San Francisco in the 60sWonderful stories.
But we did a studio visit,looked at his sculptures, looked
at his paintings at his studiohere in Waco and it was just
such a beautiful time just beingvulnerable, discussing work hey
, what do you think, ty, aboutthis stuff?
What direction do you think Ishould go in?
And just having thosediscussions of what's working,
what's not working, and justbeing really vulnerable.
(18:23):
And and Jack and I arecurrently we're doing a trade,
so I'm trading for one of hissculpture wall sculpture pieces
of painting, so he'll be at thestudio this Thursday as we kind
of go through and look at workand hang out.
And then my friend, staceyWarrinks, who's an artist here
in Waco but just seeing herspace and studio and talking art
.
And those are just two peoplethat I randomly met, one through
(18:44):
Instagram who was moving toWaco and reached out and said
hey, I'm moving, I've followedyou for a while.
Would you be willing to hangout when I get into town?
Yeah, I'm always like, yeah,absolutely, it's meet up.
And then, jack, we met.
We were both in a show at oursmall museum here in a group
show, and he had a couple ofsculpture pieces and then we met
at the show and hung out andtalked, and we've hung out a few
(19:04):
times, so it's just that'sbeing open and welcoming, and
then it creates just valuableconnections that can last a
short time or that can last avery long time.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yep, he must have had some cool stories about saving
the world multiple times.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Many, many.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
A little 24 reference for the.
That's a 24 reference.
That was Sutherland'scharacter's name, wasn't it in
that show?
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yep Jack Bauer.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I mean, I can think of a bunch of examples as
well.
Is that an art?
Oh, what is it called ArtCrawler?
It was a few months back andactually ran into a couple of
people that listened to thepodcast and had recognized me,
and recently I had a studiovisit with one of them, who's
now a mentee of yours, hallie,and she brought gosh, maybe five
or I think there were maybe sixof them all together and had a
(19:52):
lovely studio visit, greatconversation.
It's just fun, right.
It's fun to make thoseconnections and it's fun to have
conversations about art withother artists.
It's just cool, right.
So the more of those we canhave, the better, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
For me as an artist, vulnerability is something that
we've talked about in multipleepisodes.
There's just a depth.
There's a depth that I reallytry to focus on in my work
that's based on memory, and partof memory.
There's a lot of vulnerabilityto share things that are very
hard to share, that maybe youdon't want to share just on a
microphone, and so you share itthrough your work or an
(20:25):
Instagram, whatever, and so partof something that I love to do
with my friends is I'm somebody.
If you know me, I like to godeep.
If you've been a mentee in myprogram, you know I like to go
deep.
I like to get to the heart ofthe individual, the heart of
their life, the thing thatdrives them or the thing that
upsets them and those things.
And so one of the things thatwe did one of the evenings
(20:46):
together, after we sat aroundand ate in the barn, we started
talking about.
I phrased two questions, andthey were what was something
that was extremely beautiful inyour life this past year and
what was something that wasreally difficult for you in this
last year?
And the group of us you knowthis is a group of men.
This is something that Iprefaced with.
(21:06):
You know, as men, we reallystruggle with vulnerability and
getting deep, especially theolder we get, and so I really
wanted to give an opportunityfor us to just go really deep as
a group of men and just talkabout life.
And I think something thathappens in that that can also
happen with our art is when youdo go deep and you are very
(21:28):
vulnerable, you're opening upthe audience to also reflect on
the depth of what you're askingor what you're saying and cause
them to really go back and thinkabout those things deeply.
And I think there's somethingvery special in those moments as
human beings, to really get tothe heart of another, really get
(21:48):
to the soul of another and goreally deep.
There's something meaningfulthat lasts.
It's not something temporary,this is something that lasts,
right, and there were a lot oftears.
There's something meaningfulthat lasts.
It's not something temporary,right, this is something that
lasts, right, and there were alot of tears, there's a lot of
laughter, there's some real deepemotional things happening as
we shared those moments from ourlives over the last year, and I
(22:09):
think it brings an instantconnection to the group.
It brings an instant depth ofoh, if you're willing to go deep
, then I'm willing to go deep,and I think that's something, as
artists, that we should reallybe thinking about in our studios
, with our work too, and I knowwe've talked about that in a lot
of episodes, but I think it'ssomething to continually bring
up and discuss many times,because it should be the heart
(22:32):
of our work.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, and there's really.
There's a component ofintentionality around that for
you to have thought about thosequestions in advance.
A lot of those things come uporganically anyway sometimes,
but because you were intentionalabout considering, all right,
what are the deep questions thatI want to get into?
With this group, when we askdeep questions, we're way more
(22:56):
likely to get deep answers, andthat applies to interpersonal
relationships.
It also, of course, applies toour work.
So the type of questions thatwe're asking to others and to
ourselves as it pertains to thework, is absolutely going to
determine the depth of answerthat we get, and, frankly, that
is going to lead to a moreinteresting and engaging answer,
(23:19):
a more interesting and engagingconversation, again, whether
it's between two people orbetween our work and anyone who
might be looking at it.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Well, I think this is a great.
This is a great comparisonright Of humanity and art.
Like, what do we want more thananything as an artist?
We want a true connection withthe audience.
We want the audience to see ourwork, feel something, want
something, walk away withsomething, continue to think
(23:51):
about that piece, maybe take thechance and buy it because they
love it so much.
One of my good artist friends,audrey Cha, we were talking this
last weekend and she bought twopieces at an opening the other
night and it's a financialsacrifice, but she loved those
pieces so much, they hit her sohard, she could not leave
(24:16):
without them, like literallycouldn't leave without them.
So she took the financial riskand she bought the works.
Yeah, that's what we as artistslike dream of those moments.
But what is the completecomparison of that is?
We as humans also want thosemoments with other human beings.
(24:36):
We want to leave impressionsthat last.
We want to feel that reciprocallove from another human being
back to us because of how we areor how we act or how we respond
to them, and I think we shouldcompare those things right in
the studios.
What do we really want as humanbeings, with ourselves and our
lives, but also what do wereally want with our work.
And I think that radicalvulnerability and that welcoming
(24:59):
spirit and those things shouldgo hand in hand with our work.
And I love this quote from VanGogh.
He says I feel that there'snothing more truly artistic than
to love people.
And I think that does go backand forth with your work too.
If you're really putting thatsame attention and love into
your work, something's going tohappen.
(25:21):
Something is going to happenwith the audience accelerating
the connection justexponentially, in real time.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
You think about the difference between surface level
, small talk.
What have we really learned, Imean, apart from that the other
person also speaks the samelanguage as us and is doing good
and lives over here and has ajob over there, or whatever it
might be.
The cheat code that isvulnerability.
It really does accelerate thoseconnections so so quickly, I
(26:02):
mean, I think about.
Probably the most extremeexample is, for me, has been my
experience with recovery andwith the 12 steps.
I have had intensely intimateconnections with people who I
had never met before and in somecases, never met again.
If I'm traveling out of town, Igo to a meeting, whatever it
might be, but because we havethat shared experience, because
(26:25):
in this case, our lives, my life, depends on my willingness and
I learned that early on Like, ifI'm not willing to really share
what's really going on rightnow, I have no chance at staying
sober.
And when, when we go firstright, the shared connection,
that common bond that we have,whether it's you know what I was
(26:45):
just discussing or whether it'syou know our, our path as
artists, that's a very specificthing.
You know, a non-artist is nevergoing to be able to relate to
certain challenges, certainfeelings, certain experiences,
like somebody who is also inthis crazy, crazy game of art,
like not even close, right, andso being willing to share.
(27:06):
Like hey, I'm, I'm dealing withthis.
Have you ever experienced that?
You know the, the, the takeaway,I think, here is just going
first, you know, leading withlike hey, and being okay with
not looking cool, being okaywith, like, you know, not
looking good and with betrayingthe fact that you might not know
what you're doing, is kind of anecessary component to that
(27:28):
right.
Because if we lead with sort ofthis, whatever, this contrived
air of like I got it all goingon, I got it all figured out,
when, of course, you know wedon't, it's not going to get us
anywhere, there's nowhere to gofrom.
Like hey, I got it, I got itall, I'm good, right, there's no
, there's nowhere to go fromthere.
If that's what I start with,you're like cool, good for you.
(27:49):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, well, and that's that human connection.
Right, and that's the mostimportant thing in art and
networking as an artist ishaving those human connections.
So many books talk about theartist who is still sitting in
their garage making art 50 yearslater.
They've never gone out and madehuman connections outside of
the studio and there may be aVan Gogh, there may be a Helen
(28:22):
Frankenthaler that the worldwill never see, right, right,
because they were too afraid orhad too much fear in front of
them to actually go form some ofthose human connections that
can actually get their work andtheir career out there.
And man, and that's the thingtoday we have.
We have Instagram today.
That's a great way to startforming some of those
connections.
Reach out, say hi, talk toartists, comment on their work
regularly.
(28:42):
I mean it's, it's the tool.
You know, I was reading todayin a book this morning that um
Magnus I don't know what's hislast Magnus right what.
Resh, magnus Resh's book and hewas talking about he was
watching a big gallery ownersafter meeting with other artists
, yeah, and the first thing theydid when that artist walked
(29:03):
away was get on their Instagrampage and look, think, think
about that connection.
Like the first thing that thesome of the biggest gallery
owners were doing was getting onInstagram right after they
talked to an artist or meet anartist and just looking at their
feed.
Yeah, so we have thisconnection that we can use to
(29:26):
connect with other artists,especially in we.
I talked about this with somefriends this weekend.
When you're in a really smalltown, yeah, when you're not in
an art city, when you're not inNew York, you're not in LA,
you're not in Chicago or Parisor Berlin or London, you're not
in the major art cities andthere just aren't a lot of
artists around.
You're going to have to figureout a way to meet some if you
(29:47):
want to build that connectionand build that network, and
Instagram's a fabulous place tostart.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Just say hi.
Certainly, I mean for all itslimitations, for how impersonal
it can absolutely be and feelfor sure at times much like we
were talking about before withthe intentionality around asking
deep questions to get deepanswers.
It requires some intentionalityto get a personal connection
out of an inherently impersonalplatform.
(30:16):
It doesn't take much, but itdoes take an effort of some kind
and it is crazy how just theamount of real connections and
real friendships that can bemade without ever meeting
somebody in person I think about.
I'll start from an example.
I'm going to be in Munich for myshow next month and I was
(30:39):
thinking about how I'm going topotentially deal with any issues
that might come up as far ashaving access to a studio space
the tools that I normally use,but just a place to work and my
Instagram friend, nico Hensel.
I knew he was in Germanysomewhere, I didn't realize he's
like 45 minutes away, you know,from the gallery.
(31:00):
So he reached out.
I think we've never met inperson, you know, but we've
dialogued a ton, you know, justwith DMs and commenting on one
another's work and just kind ofbeing mutual fans of what one
another does, and he was sogenerous to say, hey, whatever
you need, you tell me.
You come up, I'll empty out myspace.
It's not as big as yours he wasso funny Not as big as yours.
I don't have any flamethrowers,but you're welcome to use
(31:22):
whatever I have, and that'samazing.
It's amazing that somebody iswilling to do that.
But that all comes from justmaking those connections and
keeping conversations,initiating and keeping
conversations going.
That is the nice thing aboutInstagram is that we are going
to, if we spend back tointentionality, the right amount
(31:44):
of time and a specific amount,whatever that looks like.
But as we're following oneanother, we're going to keep
probably hopefully popping up onone another's feeds and being
aware of what other people aredoing, which naturally keeps the
conversation going as well yeah, I mean, I just I did my red.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
That residency I did earlier this year with seven
artists who met on Instagram andthen were a part of my program.
And if it wasn't for just thatdigital connection, right, and
the willingness to reach out andthen stay connected and and now
there's, you know, seven of mybest friends, like literally
seven of my closest artistfriends, and we meet every two
weeks on zoom and we chat and we, you know, have a WhatsApp
(32:24):
group that we're constantlygoing back and forth on, but
we've become brothers andsisters.
Like when I say that I don'ttake that lightly Like we
literally have become brothersand sisters and there's a depth
of vulnerability when we chat.
Now, right, that sharedconnection was the beginning,
right, but then the boldness tobe vulnerable with each other
(32:47):
and having a shared experiencetogether for a month has created
such a radical depth and awillingness to just lay it out
there when we need to and justbe totally honest.
And usually the answers arelike oh my gosh, me too, thanks
for I'm there too.
Or oh man, I was there lastmonth, this is what I did to get
(33:08):
through it.
Or I don't know, it's justcreated a beautiful, beautiful
thing and just uh.
But if it wasn't for peoplejust reaching out and starting a
conversation to begin with andtaking a risk, then it wouldn't
have happened.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
How many of that group did you had you met in
person previously?
Anybody One, gianna, just John,okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
wild.
I mean I'm laughing about you.
Pick me up at the airport, getout, give you a big hug.
And I had that moment where, aswe're pulling my bag towards
the car, I'm just like there,you are hey, you're a real life
(33:43):
person.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That was pretty funny .
We both did that.
Look at you.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
You're about?
Yeah, I mean as many hours aswe spent talking and even
interfacing via.
Even interfacing, you know, viavideo like this, it's still a
different thing, a deeper levelof connection, of course, when
we're, when we're sharing oxygenand belly to belly.
You know, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, well, let's let's jump into vulnerability,
since we've been talking aboutit quite a bit here.
Talking about that, thatvulnerability that I was able to
create with those other sevenartists you know definitely
extends beyond the personalrelationships into our
professional and our creativeendeavors and our art.
Like I said, like that depth ofjust being vulnerable and
(34:26):
telling each other stories andgetting to know each other
outside of art has brought aneven bigger depth into our work
and when we're making it andtalking about it, and there's
that trust factor which isreally tough at times for an
artist to have a trust factorwith.
Hey, will you look at this workI'm doing?
Hey, will you tell me what youthink?
(34:48):
You know?
Because at the end of the day,we're going to do what we think,
period.
But inviting you, or youinviting Eric and I right like
you did throughout your wholeprocess creating work for the
Munich show was like hey, guys,just been working on this one,
what do you think?
And having us coming back andtalked about that, there's a
trust factor there.
For sure.
You're showing unfinished work,you're showing direction before
(35:11):
it's been really worked out inyour head, just to get some
feedback.
And that really adds to thedepth of everything else.
And there's a great quote bythe actor Valuchendu that says
An artist is vulnerable andtheir craft truthful when he or
she resists the desire to meddlewith the wholesome expression
(35:32):
of the soul.
I'm going to read it one moretime.
Hit it again An artist isvulnerable and their craft
truthful when he or she resiststhe desire to meddle with the
wholesome expression of the soul.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I love a lot about that quote.
The part that really jumps offthe page to me about that is the
desire to meddle.
You're resisting the desire tomeddle with the wholesome
expression of the soul becauseit implies and I agree with this
that we have an inherentresistance to vulnerability,
(36:11):
which makes sense because, bydefinition, we are exposing
ourselves to potential criticism, rejection, you know, fill in
the blank with however you wantto end that, but things that we
have, from from birth, beenprogrammed to avoid,
(36:32):
specifically avoid, right.
You think about theconditioning that we get as kids
in school and trying to fit inand trying to avoid, avoid
rejection, and how deep thoseimprints really are, right, so
let's get a little vulnerablehere, ty, and talk about like
(36:54):
right, so let's get a littlevulnerable here, ty, and talk
about like, what do you thinkfor you?
What, what, what is it?
I'll go first.
I just talked about going first.
I'll go, I'll go first.
But what keeps me from beingvulnerable as a human being and
in my work is just fear of beingexposed.
(37:15):
You know, not, not looking cool, I was not a cool kid.
I mean back talking about gradeschool, talking about growing
up, definitely was not a coolkid wasn't outsider, didn't feel
like I fit in.
You know, probably I think I'veseen, let me imagine it.
Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of headsnodding here.
That's, that's not just me, so.
So I think that that thatimprint is still there while I
(37:36):
have worked to, you know, getget over myself and get over
that like need to like feel likeI'm all put together, you know,
to to kill the perfectionismthat prevents authentic
expression.
But that's it for me, that is,that is number one.
With a bullet, the, the, thething that that, that the, the
(37:57):
desire to meddle with thatwholesome and authentic
expression, for me is just thefear of not looking good, the
fear of exposing the fact that Idon't know what the hell I'm
doing, you know what is it for?
you.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Man.
I mean this.
This quote goes if you haven'tlistened to the last episode, go
listen to the last episode,because I read a section from
Letters to a Young Poet byRainier Maria Rilke, and this is
really kind of the heart ofwhat I read, because the poet
who is writing Rilke letters andasking for advice, is meddling
with the wholesome expression ofhis soul.
(38:31):
He's completely meddling, andRilke is calling him out on that
and saying stop, stop lookingoutside, stop messing with his
soul.
He's completely meddling andreal cause, calling him out on
that and saying stop, stoplooking outside, stop messing
with your soul.
Dive into the deep moments,quit looking around and asking
all these questions outside ofyourself.
Like, stay focused on you.
And I think for me, I'm such aperfectionist with my work that
(38:55):
I, I think I I get really scaredto put something out there that
I don't feel 100% is right, andso I really struggle with that
big, and sometimes that stops mefrom getting started because I
don't have the idea fullyflushed out in my head yet, and
(39:16):
so I really start to kind ofmeddle with things rather than
just going hey, I know what I'mfeeling, let's go ahead and go,
let myself take me where it goes.
Instead, I plan, I plan, I prep, I prep, I prep, I plan, and
then I wait, and then I wait,and then I wait, and then I
start and I think I mean Iprobably only share 25% or less
(39:38):
of what I make.
I think I would say probably,as I went back through things
like to the public.
I hold a lot back fromInstagram, from YouTube, from
things like that.
And I started to think aboutthat the other day because I
think it might've been Gianna orsomebody that had said oh my
gosh, I love these pieces.
No, when she was here at mystudio a few months ago and
(40:00):
there were some pieces that Iwas like, yeah, I don't know if
I'll, and she's like, oh, whatare you kidding me?
I love these.
Yeah, I'm like I still, I don'tknow, you know, and and I,
she's somebody.
I 100% trust her.
I like literally, I'm like, ifyou say it, I believe you.
Yeah, she's just somebody.
I have that with that trustfactor with.
And I think I just sat back andI'm like, why am I so afraid to
(40:22):
put that out?
Yeah, what is it?
Well, is it not?
Is it because it's just not inline with where I'm trying to go
right now Is it you know what?
But there's a fear there withme, and I think it's because
maybe I'm not feeling like it'sperfect, which art's never going
to be perfect, it's just itcan't be, it's not going to be,
and I actually love non-perfectart, but there's something with
(40:44):
me that really wants it to be,in my eyes, so comfortable, so
perfect before I let it out thedoor that I think at times it
really holds me back, do you?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
think that that fear comes from the work not being
good or true to what you'retrying to say, or is it more a
product of fear of how it'sgoing to be received or viewed
within the context of whatyou've done previously?
Speaker 1 (41:14):
yes, and and and yeah , I'd say yes to both of those.
Yeah, honestly yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
I mean, that's a whole conversation that we could
have an entirely standalonepodcast about, but it's it is.
I mean, we've talked about itin different ways previously as
well.
I'm sure we'll we'll get intoit again.
But just the whole idea of whenwe're getting into new
territory, when we're expandingbeyond where we've done before,
where we've been before, ratherit's going to be uncomfortable,
(41:45):
it's going to be less certainbecause it doesn't look like the
things that we I mean, as we'remaking work that's in the same
vein of something that we'vedone before and looks enough
like other work that we deemedto be successful, it's much
easier to arrive at theconclusion of yes, this too is
good and authentic to me.
And here you go, world.
(42:06):
But it does get back.
I mean, your story with Giannais a great example of it.
It does get back to that Um, youknow, we taught, I think uh,
what was that HelenFrankenthaler quote, where I
think we played it in our, inour, in our Helen episode, but
where she said you know, once,once I'm done, I'm always?
This is a very roughparaphrasing here, but what I
(42:29):
took from it was I'm alwayssurprised.
I never know what the galleryis going to want or what people
are going to like, and that'sreally none of my business.
I was sharing with a friendrecently that of the work that
I've spent the last you knowwhatever four or five months,
six months making for thisupcoming show, 85% of it didn't
get finished or shared with thegallery and of that, a much,
(42:50):
much smaller percent wasselected, you know, to be
included.
Yep, that's just part of it.
Always, always.
And I remember there was one ora couple in particular where I
was like, really, are you sure?
No, no, every time, really,there was one or a couple in
particular where I was likereally, are you sure about you
know?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
no, no, that one really that one that I almost, I
almost didn't share that withyou.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yeah, I almost didn't include, you know, I almost
didn't include that in in thelist of options, you know.
So it's just it's it's.
It's funny how that all works.
It's just a really interestingdynamic.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Well, and he hit.
The funny thing too with me meis we have this little note that
says the courage to showimperfection in our notes here.
And the funny thing is my workis imperfect.
I'm not trying to make perfectlooking work, I'm not a realist
painter, I'm not a figurativepainter, I'm an expressionist.
So it's everywhere.
And so the funny thing is Icelebrate the imperfection of
(43:40):
gesture and the imperfection ofthings in the piece.
But, mentally right, if itdoesn't feel perfect, it's hard
for me to let it go and move inmy head.
And the funny thing is, is theones that usually I'm so
confident in that I'm, that isit, I nailed it, it's perfect.
Are not the ones ever selected?
(44:01):
Yeah, like you said, those onesthat you're just like nailed it
, fuck, yeah, let's go.
And then the gallery's likethese four, but not those four,
and you're like wait, those aremy four favorite pieces, those
are the ones that worked.
You beat me, it's an interestingthing, and that is what we need
to do an episode on that we do.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
I think it'd be.
I think it'd be reallyinteresting.
You beat me to the F today.
You got to drop the F on today.
It's kind of a little game that, ladies and gentlemen, that we
don't play.
That I play is who gets to cussfirst, and we try to keep it to
one or fewer, to minimum.
It's a family show, yeah.
(44:38):
So on imperfection, there's aquote by Guillermo del Toro that
popped up for me, very simplebut just an absolutely amazing
quote.
There is beauty and humility inimperfection.
There is beauty and humility inimperfection, and what I love
about that quote, specificallythe beauty part, is to me, I
(45:02):
think to us, pretty obvious,because it is a huge part of
what both you and I areattracted to in work and seeking
to communicate with our work.
The humility part of that isalso really interesting, because
and I'm curious to hear yourthoughts on this as well, but I
was really thinking about thisand it does require a level of.
(45:25):
It requires a level of I'mtrying to think of another word
I mean it requires a level ofwillingness to be okay with.
I don't have it all figured out.
It's not going to be perfect.
If a working definition in thecontext of this quote is it's
not going to be perfect, and Iwouldn't want it to be, even if
(45:49):
it could be.
There's humility inacknowledging that perfection
isn't even on the table, it'snot even a possibility, and
being okay with that realityopens us up that much more to be
vulnerable, to be authentic andto have that imperfection lead
(46:10):
to beauty.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah Well, I want to say something just to context of
what I was saying previouslyabout.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It's a podcast.
This is a place where we saythings.
This is where we do that about.
It's a podcast.
This is a.
This is a place where we saythings.
You know, this is where we dothat.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Just love it, love it .
Just talking about strugglingwith being a perfectionist and
wanting you know the work to bea certain way.
In no way Am I talking aboutthis quote Because I truly
believe there's beauty andhumility and imperfection.
When I say letting something go, I just has to feel right for
(46:46):
me to let go.
Yeah, you know and that.
So that's what I'm saying, justto not confuse anybody with, um
, what I said previously in thisquote, because I totally
believe there's beauty andhumility and imperfection.
And there has to be rightbecause we're all imperfect.
Every single one of us isimperfect.
We all have flaws, we all havethings that we've struggled with
before, after We've been brokenby people in multiple ways, our
(47:08):
entire lives or currently inour life today, and so there has
to be beauty in that, becausewe know what's on the other side
, we know how it's formed us andhow it's created, our
trajectory and where we weregoing, these imperfections.
And there is beauty in itbecause there's beauty in
(47:29):
healing and there's beauty inrefinement, there's beauty in
overcoming the mistakes orovercoming trauma in life, and
there's also humility in that,because if you've been through
something, you have to have aform of humility in your life,
especially towards others, asthis whole episode is kind of
geared towards human connectionand vulnerability and being
(47:49):
welcoming to people and things.
You better have humility whereyou are, no matter where you've.
If you're the most successfulartist on the planet, you better
show some humility because youstruggled, you've made, you've
missed the mark, you've hadimperfect things go out into the
world, you've messed up, you'vebeen broken, and there's
nothing that pisses me off morethan people who are not, who do
(48:13):
not live in humility, that havegotten somewhere through tough
things and have achieved morethan others.
There's nothing that likedrives me more crazy than those
individuals in life.
So just operate with beauty andhumility because you've been
through it, you've gonesomewhere.
Welcome the young artists.
Give advice.
Don't ignore every comment onyour Instagram page from young
(48:35):
artists that are asking youquestions why can't you share
what you use?
Why can't you?
Why can artists not share?
This is the material I'm usingto get that.
What's with that?
Show some fucking humility.
Like honestly, it drives mecrazy.
I see artists who have massivefollowings that are looked,
looked up to and I'm not talkingabout the big artists who don't
(48:55):
run their Instagram pagesanymore, talking about artists
that have built a big followingthat are doing things.
They I'm talking about artiststhat have built a big following
that are doing things.
They've got all these commentscoming through from artists
asking questions and they neverrespond once.
Yeah, it just pisses me off.
I don't understand it.
Give something back, damn it.
It just drives me crazy.
Anyways.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Why don't you read our?
Why don't you read our yes?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Let's go to the next quote by the fabulous Georgia
O'Keefe.
This is incredible.
I've been absolutely terrifiedat every moment of my life and
I've never let it keep me fromdoing a single thing.
I wanted to Hell.
Yes, georgia, wow.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
That's.
That's a pretty freaking great.
That's a bad-ass quote.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
It's a's a badass quote.
I mean it's supposed to bescary.
Yeah, I mean Absolutely.
The fact that you're scared isan indication that you're trying
to do something real, thatyou're trying to do something
big.
Yep, really, I mean, you thinkabout the only time that fear
(50:01):
wouldn't be or an element of itwouldn't be at least an
ingredient in the mix maybesmall, maybe large is if we were
doing something that we haddone before, the way we had done
it before.
You know, yeah, I mean,perfection for sure requires
(50:22):
precision.
It requires repetition of thesame thing, and there isn't a
lot of fear in that, becauseit's just rinse and repeat the
(50:43):
definition of perfection.
It is very precise, it's veryspecific, it is exactly the way
it was intended to be.
And while there is certainlyroom for perfection, while
there's certainly a there, thereare certainly things that we
would like to work that way.
Uh, you know, we, we prefer forthe, the engines in our
vehicles or you know whatever,to to work the way that they're
supposed to.
There's precision in that, butit's not interesting.
It's the same working versionof a million others that are
(51:07):
exactly like it and polished.
Perfection isn't interesting,it's not unique, there's nothing
authentic about it.
It's just another one of thosethings.
And who cares?
So that's kind of the takeawayof that.
For me is like and again back toone of our core talking points,
again and again, and again.
(51:28):
That's why we go back to thesequotes of the greats, like
O'Keefe, and we hear her sayI've been absolutely terrified
every moment of my life.
Awesome, me too, and I've neverlet it keep.
That's the difference.
So, starting from a place ofall right, we're all terrified,
(51:50):
we're all scared, we're allgoing to experience a version of
those emotions.
Great, the difference betweenpeople that do it and don't are
just doing it in spite of thatfact.
It's not getting over that fact.
The goal is not to get to apoint where we don't experience
the fear anymore, because that'sprobably not possible anyway.
(52:12):
The point, the goal is to getto a point where we acknowledge
that we are absolutely terrifiedand we boldly move forward
anyway, we are absolutelyterrified and we boldly move
forward anyway.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yeah, absolutely Well .
And my buddy, steven Pressfieldsays in the War of Art he talks
about how if you have a massivefear about starting something,
it's probably because you'resupposed to start it.
Yeah, that's how you know.
That's how you know when you'rescared shitless, it's time to
start it, it's time to go movethat direction, do it scared
(52:43):
shitless.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
It's time to start it .
It's time to go move thatdirection, do it.
So as we begin to wrap up,let's read a quote by Brene
Brown that I think really kindof encapsulates most of what
we've been talking about so far.
She writes staying vulnerableis a risk we have to take if we
want to experience connection.
Staying vulnerable is a risk wehave to take if we want to
experience connection.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Your thoughts- You're not going to experience
connection if you're not andwe're not talking vulnerable as
far as.
Let me share my life story andeverything I've been through
right off the bat, right.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
No.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Sometimes vulnerability is literally just
like hey, see you here all thetime.
I'm Ty.
Yeah, are you an artist?
You just here to see art?
I mean, that's for some peoplethat is radically vulnerable,
right For you.
Right To just sit at a tablewith a bunch of guys you don't
know, and then all of a sudden,no, it's my turn to answer the
(53:38):
question about what's the mostbeautiful thing in this.
Oh crap, you know what I mean.
That's, oh, it's my turn toanswer the question about what's
the most beautiful thing inthis.
Oh crap, you know what I mean.
That's very vulnerable, yeah.
But even simple vulnerability isjust saying hello or just
acknowledging someone's presence.
And what happens when you takethat first step?
Connection begins, yeah, andthat's also translated into our
(53:59):
work, right, what is art?
Art is a shared connection.
Art is a shared connection.
Art is a shared connection.
It is something between thecreator and the viewer.
It is something between theaudience and the maker.
If you're in the room or not inthe room as the maker, it's
still a shared connection.
You've created something.
You've been vulnerable enoughto let it go outside of your
(54:20):
studio and go on a wall forsomebody to witness.
That's a shared connection.
So that's vulnerability as well, just being able to get your
work out there as a vulnerableact as an artist.
But if you want to experienceshared connection with other
artists, you're going to have totake some steps in
vulnerability to meet somepeople as well.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Nick Cave is somebody that we talk about a lot.
He's somebody that you and Iboth love as an artist, a
creator and a musician Justfabulous.
And he's somebody thatabsolutely embraces
vulnerability on every level, onevery single level as a human
being, as an artist, as a writer, as a musician and a creator.
And so we've shared this quotebefore, but I would love to
(55:00):
share it one more time.
It's something I go back to ona regular basis, as I've kind of
gone through his book Faith,hope and Carnage and have
paraphrased it and taken all thequotes and put them into a
notebook of mine from the book,and so here's the quote.
Here's what he says onvulnerability there's something
(55:21):
about being open and vulnerablethat is, conversely, very
powerful, maybe eventransformative.
For me, vulnerability isessential to spiritual and
creative growth, whereas beinginvulnerable means being shut
down, rigid and small.
My experience of creating musicand writing songs is finding
(55:42):
enormous strength throughvulnerability.
You're being open to whateverhappens, including failure and
shame.
There's a certain there'scertainly a vulnerability to
that and an incredible freedom.
He just, he just said there'san incredible freedom even in
(56:04):
failure and shame.
Yeah, and I think that goesright back up to the Georgia
O'Keefe quote I've beenterrified every moment of my
life and I've never let it keepme from doing a single thing.
I wanted to Cause, sometimes,the things we want to do.
There's some failure that'sgoing to exist when we're doing
what we want to do Because yougot to fail, fail, fail, fail
(56:27):
until you hit the winner, untilyou hit that one.
That is the one that all thefailure and the shame produced.
And that shame he's talkingabout is the album that just
didn't sell better than the lastalbum, sure, yeah, right.
Or the song that didn't hit asgood as some of the other songs.
As a creator and an artist,there's a shame when I I've had
(56:48):
shows that haven't sold a singlepiece.
I feel immense shame when Itake that show down and not one
work sold Right, like I reallydo.
But I go to what stephenpressfield said when his first
uh screenplay bombed king konglives.
And he was so like I don't evenwhy am I doing?
(57:10):
Blah, blah, blah.
You know, this is just, this isterrible, this is so shameful.
And his buddy goes but wouldyou change anything in your life
to not do this at all?
And he's's like no, I want todo this.
He was like yeah, you're in it,you just failed.
You just had a real failure.
You're in it, right.
So I have to look at thosemoments and go well, I just had
(57:32):
a solo show, I'm in it.
And then walk away and go okay,how do I improve on that?
Speaker 2 (57:41):
I mean there's such a deep level of acceptance that's
baked into both of those lastcouple of quotes that we shared,
by O'Keefe, by Nick Cape, andthe acceptance is that it might
not work.
It's just an acknowledgement oflike, yeah, people might not
like it.
People might not buy them,people might not.
I mean it's just baked into theequation and without that
(58:02):
acceptance of it might not work.
And if it doesn't, I'm stillgoing to be okay.
If it doesn't, it still willhave moved me in a positive
direction.
If it doesn't, I still am onthe path of getting closer to
making my best work.
And that Nick Cave quote, I meanthat's the incredible freedom
(58:25):
that we're all after.
I think Certainly what I'm herefor, that incredible freedom
that comes from being open towhatever happens, to receiving
these ideas and executing themand doing our best.
Today.
We don't need to know theanswers for tomorrow, we just
need to know all right, I'macting on what's true for me in
(58:48):
this moment, because I'mreceiving what's coming, because
I'm open, because I'mvulnerable, because I'm
listening to what's real, notwhat I think should be there.
I'm listening to what's'rereceiving, what's actually here,
not trying to sort of contrivewhat we wish was, or what we've
(59:09):
done before, and that is anincredible freedom.
That is, I think, what thiswhole art deal is all about.
Right, it is that incrediblefreedom and it all comes from
that openness and from thatvulnerability.
It's a beautiful, beautifulthing.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
So next steps go to some shows, say hello to some
artists, go make some newfriends, go be vulnerable, meet
some people, and I hope you'rehaving an awesome time in the
studio this week, and we got anew year coming up pretty fast,
so I'm pretty excited for what'shappening for you and I coming
up in 2025.
And there's a lot of thingsthat we don't know that are on
(59:49):
the horizon.
So be vulnerable.
Don't let fear hold you back.
Set some goals for 2025.
Where do you want your art togo?
Where do you want it to be?
Who do you want to meet?
Go after it.
The end the end Bye, bye.
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