Let Her Rip: Helen Frankenthaler A Fearless Pioneer.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
To identify and osmosis the past and present
around you and go naturally,creatively free head, heart and
wrists to be in control enoughnot to be in control at all, to
have a dialogue with the workand let yourself go in relation

(00:34):
to it.
Paintings don't lie.
They have their beautifulworking order, just as nature
itself has working order, justas nature itself has.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
So, Ty, that was possibly one of the most
distinctive voices, For anybodywho just started listening to
this without seeing the titleprobably knows, if they know art
, that that was, of course, thevoice of Helen Frankenthaler, of
whom we will be discussingtoday.
We don't always have audio ofthese quotes, but today we have
once again upped our productionvalue and we're going to include

(01:09):
actual audio when available forsome of the quotes that we're
going to discuss about Helentoday.
We could have jumped off at anumber of different points, but
we chose this one because I mean, heck, we could spend the next
hour talking about this onequote alone.
So I'll give you first crack atthis.
How does this first quote ofHelen's that we're going to
dissect today, how does this sitwith you?

(01:30):
What strikes you?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
the most.
I mean let's let her rip right,as Helen used to say, probably
one of her most famous thingsthat she would say right, we're
all kind of known for somelittle something we might say at
times to people in our ownpersonal dialogue that we use.
And Let Her Rip was one of hermore famous sayings that she
would constantly say whentalking about work and being a

(01:54):
ridiculous Helen Frankenthalerfanboy in major, major ways.
Gosh, I mean I've read so muchabout her, I've listened to so
much about her, I've watched somuch about her, I've seen work
everywhere of hers that is justgroundbreaking in so many ways.
We're going to talk about allthat, but I mean I love the work
that she uses to identify anosmosis, right, because that is

(02:16):
part of how she worked as wellwith osmosis, you know, taking
liquids and solvents andmolecules and thinning them out
to create certain things, and sothere's this whole
concentration on osmosis withinher work.
And talk about creatively free.
I mean, somebody that definesbeing creatively free is Helen,

(02:40):
and obviously in this quoteshe's saying this a lot further
into her journey, which is sixdecades of making art, of
showing art for six decades andexhibiting.
I mean that's are you kidding?
Are you kidding me?
Six decades, wow.
But thinking about thatnaturally and creatively free
and connecting everything thatshe's doing from head, heart and
wrist, used her whole body topaint.

(03:00):
She didn't just use one littlething.
You're going to say something,you're jumping in.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, yeah, I'm jumping in.
There's two things about thisquote that really jump out and
I'm curious, and that was one ofthem for me the naturally and
creatively free.
So I wanted to jump in and justask you to unpack that further.
When you read that, when youhear her say that, what does
naturally and creatively freemean to you?
How does that sit?

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I mean it's literally having dialogue with the work,
like letting the work speak toyou, in a way that you're not
controlling every little aspectof it, that you're allowing for
uncontrolled moments to happenwithin your work.
Not planning, not sketching itall out.
I'm not saying any things arewrong.
This is discussing the quoteand that's how she worked too.

(03:41):
Things weren't sketched out,things weren't planned.
It was all this natural motionof creativity that's allowing
this natural dialogue to happenbetween her and the work.
This is moving this way.
Well, let's let it go, let'snot stop it here and push it
back, and it's just like thisconstant dance, which we'll talk
about later, how she's kind ofinspired to do these things.

(04:02):
It's kind of like this constantdance with the work, free, with
no edges, no borders, nothingdefining where things stop, but
always being open to go, go, go,go, go and let it go, yeah,
yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I love that.
I think you know when I readthat naturally and creatively
free, my first thought is thatthat involves getting out of the
head, at least for mepersonally getting out of the
head.
And so then I think about, likefinding that mystical place,
that space between control andhaving no control at all.
Right, which sounds, you know,paradoxical.

(04:39):
But the more I was thinkingabout that, the more it reminded
me of what we would today callflow.
Yeah, I think that's probablythat term, at least not in that
context.
Probably wasn't around backthen, but it's kind of that
whole idea of this sort ofspecial place that we only get
to visit for brief periods oftime.
But I don't know if you everread a book called the Rise of

(05:00):
Superman.
It's an excellent book.
It was written maybe about 10years ago or so by.
The author's name is StephenCoulter.
I actually went back and Ipulled a quote from it.
So the whole book is about flowand he runs it through.
So the subtitle is Decoding theScience of Human Performance.
Most of the data that hereferences is through the lens

(05:21):
of extreme athletes.
But this quote I love and I'mgoing to tie them together when
I get done reading it.
But it says since flow is afluid action state, making
better decisions is enough.
We also have to act on thosedecisions.
The problem is fear, whichstands between us and all
actions.
Yet our fears are grounded inself, time and space.

(05:43):
Our fears are grounded in self,time and space.
Our fears are grounded in self,time and space.
With our sense of self out ofthe way, we are liberated from
doubt and insecurity.
With time gone, there is noyesterday to regret or tomorrow
to worry about.
All right.
So now I go back to my initialtakeaway of all right to be

(06:03):
naturally and creatively free.
We've got to get out of ourheads, or at least that's how I
read.
I got to get out of my head.
Well, not so much out of myhead, but out of the self.
That's really what I take.
So, if you think about themoments when you've been in that
flow state, the self reallyisn't there.
There is no time, and I thinkthat's what I take away from
what Helen's talking about isthe fact that you've got to have

(06:24):
dialogue with the work, letyourself go in relation to it,
time doesn't exist, the selfdoesn't exist.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Well, that's a great addition, Nathan.
Because we're so constrained bytime in our everyday lives
outside of the studio.
We should not be constrained bytime when we're in the studio.
We don't need that unduepressure of time or all these
things.
It's so hard.
And I'm not saying deadlines,I'm not saying things like that.
I'm just talking about theessence of time in itself the

(06:51):
minutes, the hours, the day.
We're so constrained by timeand everywhere else in our life
need to be here, got to be here,have to show up for work, have
to leave work at this time, gethome what's my commute?
If I'm in LA, my commute's twohours to leave work, to get home
, and then I want to go to thestudio, maybe my studio.
So there's all theseconstraints.
But in the studio, if we canwalk in naturally and creatively

(07:15):
free, with, as Stephen Coultersays, with our sense of self out
of the way, with time gone,we're able to just literally let
go of everything and just makeart and let it take us, I think
beautiful things happen in thosemoments.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
And that's what real dialogue is.
That's a real conversation isif you and I are talking and I
have my idea of what I want totell you and what I want to
communicate to you, then it'sreally more of a monologue.
It's hey, sit still and listen,yeah, and preferably nod your
head in agreement as we go.
Well, that's not a dialogue.
A real dialogue is two entities, in the case of the artist and

(08:00):
the work, two beings incommunication with one another,
which means that it is just asmuch, if not more so, about what
the work is telling us thanwhat we may have thought we had
to say initially.
And I'm curious if this is truefor you, because you're further
down this path than I am, Ithink for me, initially, it was

(08:24):
a whole lot of.
This is what I got to say withthis one, and here I am going to
inflict my will upon the canvasor whatever surface I happen to
have been working on at thetime.
And as things have progressed,it has become for me much more
of a listening and a dialogueand, I think, less and less of
what I take into starting apiece and much more about how

(08:48):
the piece itself evolves.
But that all requires us, asthe artist, to be in a position
to be able to hear and to getout of our own damn way right To
have the dialogue we have tolet ourselves go to have that

(09:20):
communication, that order, andyou think of, like nature, right
, the symbiotic flow we'retalking about.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Flow again of nature, the way things work, the way an
ecosystem works, right, the waythat the sun gives life to
plants, plants give life to air,air gives life to us.
Like this order, right.
When those things start tobecome interrupted, problems
start to happen.
And I like how she kind ofbrings in the working order of
nature to an artist in thestudio, creating that constant

(09:50):
flow of things going through youto the work and the work back
to you and you back to the work.
But anytime you start to havecomplete control and you're not
open to let the work talk to you.
That's when we get thequestions about finishing
paintings.
And how do I know it's finished?
How do I keep overworkingthings?
Am I trying too hard?

(10:12):
Do I need to do this or this orthat?
It takes time, like you said,for you to figure out how that
naturally occurs in your processand in your discipline in the
studio and being open and freeto what may come.
You talked about earlier howit's taken you a while to kind
of figure out that natural orderof the way things work, in that

(10:33):
flow right, in that dialoguebetween you and the work, and
not having and you're usingthings that you have no idea
what's going to happen with them, what they're going to do when
you put them on there, howthey're going to react to X, y
and Z.
Is the resin going to react tothis?
Is the glue going to react thisway?
Is it going to look like theway I found it when I discovered
it, when I start putting thesethings on there?

(10:54):
So you have to be open and freeto let the work do its thing,
right.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, well, and I think it all comes back to
considering our role in thecreative process what it is and,
more importantly, what it isn't.
There's a couple of things thatcome to mind.
Right, so, to be in controlenough to not have control at
all, you think about people.
You think about the people thathave really the most wisdom,

(11:23):
the most influence, are rarelythe loudest voices in the room.
In fact, they're often the oneswho are quietly observing,
listening, absorbing and waitingto come in.
You and I both spent some timein the business world just
waiting for the person whoreally has enough control to
have no control at all duringthe process and then come in at

(11:44):
the end and say hey, gang,here's what I'm seeing, and this
is right.
That takes control, that takesdiscipline to not be always,
always chirping.
The other thing that comes tomind when you talk about flow is
, of course, the most obviousexample in nature is something
that flows, right.
So think about water, and Ithink about the difference
between viewing oneself as thesource of the stream, so to

(12:09):
speak, which I think is adangerous game.
I'm certainly not qualified tothink of myself as where the
stuff comes from or where theart comes from.
But I think a lot about beingdownstream from that flow and my
role as being one ofinfluencing in some small but

(12:29):
yet still significant ways howthe flow gets altered to its
final destination.
So I spend a lot of time in thisdrainage ditch just up the way
from my studio that I call astream, where I collect a lot of
my art materials.
But sitting in I think about ifI put a rock, if I move one
rock on one part of the streamto another, that changes.

(12:49):
That alters the flow.
It doesn't alter the source.
The source is still coming fromwhere it comes from.
But it does say okay, here'swhere the let's just say I had
intentionality around where Iwanted to redirect the stream.
I could do that by simplyplacing things in.
So just the perspective thatcomes from altering our view in
the entire process I think isreally liberating.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
I work in ways that I can take the control from
myself, just as you're saying.
I like to have no control, nocontrol, that's almost what
we're saying.
You do have control becauseyou're the artist, but I like to
find ways that take thatcontrol out of my hands so that

(13:29):
there is surprise.
I like using longer brushes.
I've taken that from otherartists that I love because I'm
further away from the canvas andI have less control with how I
use a brush because I'm furtheraway, I'm not right up close.
I also use cardboard to domonoprinting with.
So I paint on the cardboard myshapes or my marks or my

(13:49):
gestures, and then I press themdown, walk on it, and so all of
these actions with the cardboardright, it's taking control out
of my hands because I may havemore weight on one spot and not
enough weight on the other, soless paint gets on one area and
then the other.
Then when I pull that cardboardoff, I don't know what it's
going to look like.
I think I know, but I'm alsoallowing the material to have it

(14:10):
its own control on how it goesand moves, but then I have to
react to that as well.
So there's this relationship ofaction and reaction that is
constantly going.
I use my hands because I likethe parts that come off the edge
of a hand, that I'm notpurposely trying to get there,
or using the edge of the brush.
I want action and reaction tobe constantly be going from me

(14:31):
and the material, myself and thetools in a constant process, so
that they have a beautifulworking order, just as nature
itself has.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
So our next quote here it is it's our next quote.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Here it is.
There is a dialogue between theartist and what he she is
making.
That is yours, you're incontrol of it, but you also have

(15:03):
to be ready to hear I'mfinished, don't add another,
drop, stop.
It's tricky and I think veryoften one misses the moment I
recently made a beautiful workon paper.
I came back to it later thatnight sort of tired and I

(15:24):
thought now it needs a littlegreen right here and I wrecked
it.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
I loathe even the thought of missing that moment.
You know I've spent a lot oftime in my life figuring out the
ways to listen and for methat's in a very spiritual sense
.
I've really spent a lot of timetrying to really really listen

(15:51):
Silence, breathe and listen.
And I think I've really workedeven harder to adapt that
spiritual practice into my artmaking and my work in the studio
by spending a lot of timereally really listening so that
I can hear the work tell me I'mdone, I'm finished, don't add

(16:16):
another drop.
And, like she said, it istricky.
It's so tricky because, goodLord almighty, have I ruined
pieces that I absolutely lovedand felt so strongly about
because I added more.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
So you and I have talked about this a lot.
That was a great opening todiscussing this quote.
We are both recoveringperfectionists, and I think that
you identify that way right, oh, absolutely.
And I think that you identifythat way right, oh, absolutely.
I'm not putting words in yourmouth, okay, all right.
So when I first read this, Ihad a very similar reaction,
which was so.
My first thought was thisInitially, what I wanted to say

(16:53):
was I disagree with the idea ofruining a piece.
I'm just going to set thataside as even something that's
on the menu or possible.
But then I sat with it and Irealized that I'm actually
deathly afraid of it.
I'm deathly afraid of it justas you described it so

(17:18):
specifically.
I'm most afraid of even morethan ruining one piece.
I'm even more afraid of whatthe fear of ruining a piece does
to me in my process, if thatmakes sense, sure.
Ruining a piece does to me andmy process, if that makes sense,
sure.
And so I didn't realize thisuntil much later on, as I was
kind of reflecting on how myprocess has evolved.
But I realized that I've builtmy entire process around and
materials around, avoiding thatmoment of crap.

(17:40):
I went too far, yeah, I mean, Iremember distinctly and this
may have actually been aroundthe time that I was in the
mentorship program, when Istarted to use this build-up
texture and sand things down.
I only did this once, on onepiece.
This was actually the moment Idecided, all right, canvas is
not for me anymore, because Iwas sanding something down to
get a certain effect and youcan't sand canvas much yeah, you

(18:04):
put a hole in it and I did andI was like, ah, I don't ever
want that, that feeling ofruining a piece again.
So then I moved on to panels andwooden blah, blah, blah.
But the point is, it all camefrom a place of having that
dialogue with the work and withmyself to realize, okay, what am
I and how can I, how can we, asartists, identify what might be

(18:28):
holding us back and then createa world for ourselves where
that fear doesn't get any oxygen.
That makes sense.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, and I mean, listen, you're going to ruin
paint, you're going to ruin work, bottom line, we're all going
to ruin work, we're all going tomake work that we overwork and
looks like crap and it'shorrible.
We're not happy with it, wemove on to the next thing.
Right, and I think for me thatfear of like ruining pieces came
twofold because in thebeginning my, when I would ruin
it it was a cost thing that thathurt me more than it did the

(19:03):
actual work.
It was.
I just wasted money because Iput a lot into that canvas.
I bought the canvas, bought thepaints.
That paint's gone, can't doanything with it.
It was a cost thing.
It was like I can't do this, Ican't afford to keep ruining
paintings.
And I was young, you know, andit's like, at the end of the day
, you don't realize when you'reyoung you're going to ruin

(19:23):
paintings your whole life.
And it's like, at the end ofthe day, you don't realize when
you're young that you're goingto ruin paintings your whole
life.
That's just the process to getto where you want to go.
But then, when I had theability to have enough medium

(19:44):
and things that not that I'mwasting it, but I didn't going
to ruin work.
But how am I learning from whatI ruined?
And I think for you, if youhadn't ripped that canvas, maybe
you would have worked on canvasfor another six, eight, 10
months or a year.
If you hadn't ruined itphysically, it might not have
taken you that next step to go.
I need to find a differentmedium.
I need to find a different base.

(20:04):
I need wood, metal, I needsomething that can hold all this
that I'm doing on it.
So everything we're doing wetalk about this all the time,
artists everything that we do isa constant act of discovery and
learning.
And you're going to missmoments.
You're going to miss moments,just like she said.
But I think and I know youthink this too, nathan the more

(20:24):
that we spend having thatdialogue between our work,
allowing that natural order tocome through and spending time
really looking at our work,which I think we say every
episode.
Spend time really looking atyour work.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
You're going to hear it say I'm finished more often
than not so let's turn this intoa uh a version of a tactical
takeaway, because this actuallyrelates to something from one of
our q a episodes maybe the onethat's posted, maybe the one
that's that's coming up in thefuture, but it of the how do you
know when you're done, right,how do you, how do you know when

(20:56):
you're finished and wediscussed this as sort of a
tangible takeaway.
Let's relate it back to helen'swork, because you know she
talked a lot about the immediacyof the moment and, even when
work wasn't completed all in onesession, her desire to make it
appear as though it had.
So let's talk about, maybe fora moment in terms of just giving

(21:16):
people options on a menu,because everyone's process, of
course, is going to be different.
Everyone's relationship withtheir work is going to be
different.
Everyone's relationship withtheir work is going to be
different.
I think when you and I talkabout, or think about, spending
time with the work from anyway,it's coming back with those
fresh eyes.
I'm always, I'm all about thosefresh eyes.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Next, morning right.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Next day maybe.
Sometimes it's weeks or monthsthat we sit with pieces, but
there's also moments, especiallywhen you think about the way
that Helen worked with.
You know the poors and withlike there are decisions that
need to be made.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
You know in the moment.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
So we're just going to make you know one little one
mark a day.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
But it's not right.
We're just gonna make littlemicro marks along the way and
seven years later we've got ourfirst completed piece.
So I guess, what are yourthoughts on the, on how we can,
you know, alter or just considerour relationship with the time
domain in that dialogue, in thesort of question and answer
relationship that we might havewith the work?

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, that's a deep one.
It's hard to answer becausewe're all different in our time,
right, as we're saying, don'tlet time affect you at all in
the studio.
That's very relative, becausesome of us have eight hours a
day, some of us have an hour aweek, right, and so I think it's

(22:34):
really what we do in that space.
Let's change time to space,let's get the word time out of
our heads and say in that spacethat you have to go make art.
It's really going to be how youare able to use that space to
really create, and that's reallydifficult, the less space you
have in your life to make art,because you almost feel forced

(22:56):
to make something and finishsomething in those moments,
because you don't have a lot ofmoments to do it.
And so what would you do?

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Here's.
I think of it this way.
So there's a balance, right?
Sure the moment if we're sayingthat there's only one which I
disagree with that.
There's only one moment, justlike there only being one
soulmate.
Right, there's a window.
Let's just say right.
So on one extreme is we don'tpush the work far enough.
Right, there's a risk on theother side, there's a risk in
like oh, I don't want to doanything else because I don't

(23:30):
want to ruin it, which is a fairconcern right, that's the risk
on the one side of the equation.
On the other side of theequation, it's the risk of oh,
what Helen describes.
I went too far, I messed it up,I ruined it.
In fact, the rest of this quoteand we'll link this in the in
the show notes, but the rest ofthis quote, she says something

(23:51):
to the effect of she gives anexample of a recent time in the
studio where she wanted to addone more thing and I wrecked it.
She says I wrecked it, you know.
So I guess, if we have tochoose between erring on, you
know, one side or the other Iguess I don't even know if
there's a question in this, butit is a consideration to think
about Do I want to err on theside of not pushing it far

(24:12):
enough or pushing it too far?
I made a decision early onwhere I'm always going to orient
towards B.
I'd rather risk wrecking thepiece that I'm working on right
now in service of where it maylead me down the road, at the
peril of whatever piece I mightbe working on at the time.
But I don't know if that's justmy personal experience or if

(24:34):
that's something that I wouldframe in the context of advice
for somebody.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Well, this is all kind of career-based too,
Because in the beginning of yourcareer you need to be ruining a
lot of shit.
You need to be just going asfar as you can go right With
your medium, with your materials, because you're experimenting,
you're trying to find you,you're trying to figure it out,
which we're going to talk aboutin a minute with Helen figuring
Helen out, you know, aftersomething really inspired her.

(25:01):
So it's in the beginning.
Yeah, I ruined a ton of stuff.
Was it cost effective?
No, but was it growth effective?
Yes, Because if I was justtrying to control and in that
moment or in that space, makethese things that looked good
right, the relative term good,they look decorative that maybe

(25:24):
I could sell, it was reallygoing to hold me back from
advancing career-wise years downthe road, that time that it
takes on that art timeline ofmake, make, make, make, make,
make, make, discover, make, make, make, experiment, discover
more and then grow intosomething that will fit or that

(25:45):
will be discovered.
So I think in the beginning,yeah, we need to be ruining,
ruining, ruining, to get to thepoint where we're able to really
discover ourselves and figureout what we're doing and how we
understand our materials andthat dialogue with our work can
have dialogue with our workuntil we start getting there.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
But that didn't.
That's not like.
That stop Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
You're still pushing your way, yeah, but I think I
have years, though, of creatingand making where I understand me
, I understand how the work isgoing to take me somewhere in
the process, and I watch and Ilook and I let it go Right.
And I've also learned that it'sokay to paint on the back of a
canvas, it's okay to turn itaround and paint on the other

(26:24):
side and then sell that or putit in a gallery.
You know, I've got so many ofmy paintings have paintings on
the other sides or that Ipainted over multiple times.
You know not throwing stuff outand wasting, I'm using it, I'll
cut it up, fold it, put it inanother canvas, use it for a
sculpture, all those things, soyou're able to continue to move
through the things that may beruined or you go too far with.

(26:46):
But I think it becomesgradually less over time.
I guess that's the good way toput it.
The ruining paintings is alwaysgoing to happen, happen, but it
becomes less and less and lessof an issue the longer you're in
the game making art or you canjust build up.
Yeah, and I do that constantly.

(27:06):
Yes, um, but I think what wentinto all that was getting
permission from other artists todo things I didn't think I
could do.
Right, seeing a Picassopainting in the Budapest
National Museum of Art on apedestal that had a painting
behind it and going, oh, I'venever thought about just turning

(27:30):
the canvas over and painting onthe other side Right over and
painting on the other side RightI mean those things just.
And then seeing the layers thatthey do digitally of some of
the masters paintings and theyare discovering three, four,
five paintings underneath it.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Of Da Vinci's work or Michelangelo's work or other.
You know, masters work andgoing oh my gosh, there are
these layers, archeologicallayers of paintings underneath.
They paint it over.
Oh, archaeological layers ofpaintings underneath, they paint
it over.
Oh well, just keep painting ontop, why not?
But sometimes you just kind ofneed to hear or see that happen
in order to go oh, I could dothat.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, so that actually parlays well into our
next quote, which is we don'thave audio for, so you have to
settle for my voice.
But that actually leads us wellinto our next quote.
We don't have audio from Helenon this one, so you'll have to
settle for my voice, ty.
But she said you have to knowhow to use the accident, how to
recognize it, how to control itand ways to eliminate it, so

(28:25):
that the whole surface looksfelt and born all at once.
Referred to later in terms ofwhat seems to be one of Helen's
sort of governing principles orgoals, with at least this period
of work wanting everything tofeel born all at once, which at
one time, especially early on,you know in the 50s, was one of

(28:45):
the criticisms of her work.
I mean, she pushed back againstthe idea that every piece had to
be this.
You know epic struggle thattook place over you know a long
period of time.
But I think this just playswell with the first couple of
quotes that we shared, in thatthe word control appears in all
of them along with the idea ofcontrolling an accident.

(29:08):
I mean, it's paradoxical, thewhole idea of I'm going to
control an accident.
You know, if you cause anaccident, it's called an on
purpose, it's not called anaccident anymore.
And so just thinking about thiswhole idea of the relationship
and the work between theaccident and I like that whole
idea and I'll toss it to you.
But the whole idea of how torecognize it and I think what

(29:30):
she meant, how I read that ishow to recognize it as something
worth pursuing as somethingworth spending more time and
then learning over time how tocontrol it, maybe in that moment
or maybe just logging it in thelibrary, that we're all
building up the sort of masterdatabase that we're all sort of

(29:53):
collecting over time.
Oh, I remember that when I didthis over here, you know
whatever four years ago.
We're all collecting, you knowdifferent data points to then
execute on you know later.
But that's kind of how I read.
That is, recognizing like, oh,this is, it's always an accident
the first time over.

(30:16):
Again.
Now we've got the ability towith experimentation, with
failing gloriously multipletimes, the ability to then
control how that accidentexpresses itself in future work.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's something that I do in
my work constantly.
Those little accidents thathappen, like, let's say, I'm
painting on cardboard and Ipaint my gesture and then paint
kind of drips off the edge ofthe brush or my hand and it gets
on a wrinkle in the cardboard.
So then I press it down, I putmy weight on it, I pull a dance
on it, whatever I'm going to do,I pull the cardboard up and

(30:45):
then I notice something, whoa,that wasn't supposed to be there
because it doesn't fit into thegesture I was putting, but
because of the torn and wrinkledcardboard right there, it
created that.
So now I tear and wrinklepieces of cardboard in my big
sheets of cardboard so that Iget those moments over and over
again.
Because I found beauty in thatmoment and early on in my work.

(31:05):
If I had a mistake where thepencil would hit somewhere, I'd
smudge something, I would circleit and I'd put a little arrow
and I'd write oops or mistake oraccident and I would highlight
them.
And it was a way for me to havefun with the fact that I
dropped paint there, or maybe ithad an edge of a shoe mark or
something and I'd put an arrowand go from my shoe and I'd make

(31:26):
these little things.
But I started to embrace thosethings and I kind of stole a
quote.
I believe it was LeonardBernstein that said this.
I'm not positive, but all artis cosmos in the chaos.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
And I've kind of put that in.
I want my art to be cosmos inthe chaos.
I am making cosmos in the chaos.
I want the accident, that chaos, to be in the beauty of the
cosmos and everything that Imake.
One of my goals while I'mworking is to discover those
moments and make them leap offthe canvas or, as Helen put it,

(32:00):
make that surface look felt andborn at the same time.
Nathan, I want to jump intoHelen's art making because I
just think it's so importantknowing that she came out of the
abstract expressionist movementand moved into the color field
movement as one of thefoundations of color field and
being the person to do somethingfirst.

(32:23):
I mean think about that ideabeing the person to do something
first that inspires generationsof artists to come.
It's just absolutely beautiful.
And I want to read this storybecause it might be my favorite
story in the history of art.
I have a lot, but this might be.
And we're going all the wayback to New York, to a young

(32:45):
Helen Frankenthaler.
And right at the time whenPollock created his first drip
paintings, the New York artcritic, clement Greenberg, who
was very close friends withHelen Frankenthaler, got Pollock
a show at the Betty ParsonsGallery with this new work and
before the show opened, hebrought Helen to Betty Parsons

(33:06):
Gallery and said OK, now you'reon your own.
I want you to walk in and seewhat this does to you.
And Clement Greenberg is theone who championed abstract
expression.
This does to you, and ClementGreenberg is the one who
championed abstract expression.
He's the one that penned thatterm and he also identified
color field painting, whichwe're going to talk about in a
little bit here, which is whatHelen is one of the foundational
members of.
And so she walks into the BettyParsons gallery and she says she

(33:29):
felt as if she had been blinded, just like he had put her in
the middle of Madison SquareGarden on a full night of a
crowd, with the lights on her.
It was so new and appealing andso puzzling, powerful, real,
beautiful and bewildering.
She said there were only a fewpeople that had actually seen
these works yet and she feltlike she was surrounded by a

(33:51):
dance, like Pollock was actuallycreating them while they were
in the room.
And she says I was overwhelmed.
The work resonated with me, itcaptured my eye and my whole
psychic metabolism At a crucialmoment in my life.
I was ready for what hispaintings gave me.
So she was 21 years old at thistime and she was really

(34:12):
searching for a way to expressall these things.
She had been learning with allthese artists around her
conversations with ClementGreenberg, all these things, and
she believed she was capable ofsomething very and utterly
original, something like Pollock.
But she wasn't really sure whatthat was going to be or do yet.
And she says Pollock opened theway for me to be freed and to

(34:34):
make my own mark.
I mean, I wanted to live inthis land and I had to live
there.
I just didn't know the languageyet.
Part of revelation and partprovocation.
This is from Ninth Street Women.
Helen called her initialencounter with Jackson's work a
beautiful trauma.
The beautiful like it punchedher in the face so hard.
And he taught me, he says, whento stop, when to labor, when to

(34:58):
be puzzled, when to besatisfied, when to recognize
beautiful, strange, ugly orclumsy, and to be free with what
you were making and letting itcome out of you.
And within a few years, all ofa sudden, there was this bridge
between what she had seen andwhat had really, really pushed
her.
So she got this sense ofabsolute freedom that she

(35:25):
already possessed.
That she saw in somebody else'swork, that helped her realize it
in her work, and so that movedher into this moment and she
founded an invitation Pollock'swork, as she would say to let it
rip, to let it be free and runwith it and go fool around.
And so she takes a trip to NovaScotia around this time, comes
back home, goes into her studioand because she had also spent

(35:49):
time with Pollock in his studiowatching him paint these
paintings after she had seenthem on the wall, that inspired
her to lay canvas on the floor,and Pollock was working in raw
canvas.
So she started to work in rawcanvas and so I want to let's
listen to a quote of her beforewe really get into that first
painting that she made that issuch a monumental piece in the

(36:13):
work of art and in color fieldpainting.
Let's listen to this quote.
I want to hear her say thisbefore we jump into it.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Challenge yourself.
And if you think I havesomething in mind, but I think
it's nuts, you know this mightbe crazy, do it anyway.
It's not destructive.
The worst is it looks awful.
But it might look wonderful andsurprise you.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
What do you hear in that quote?
When you hear that story abouther seeing Paul and all those
things that happened inside her,and then you hear that quote
what does that say inside you?
Or how do you kind of hear that?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
So I think that that interview was from, I want to
say 1984, I want to say so.
Let's just say it's certainlymuch, much later on, so 20, 30
plus years after she had thatexperience in 1951.
Okay, so I think it's importantto run that to the lens of

(37:12):
perspective and the fact thatshe had a lot of time to reflect
on what that experience did forher and also continue to do
that over time.
This is where I might actuallypush back a little bit to what
you said in terms of not pushback but add to God forbid, I
disagree with you, but add tothe idea of, sure, as a beginner

(37:34):
earlier on, you're going toexperiment and ruin more things
than you will later on.
But she kept doing that, likeshe.
When I hear her say that, Ihear somebody who is completely
comfortable with the risk thatis required for growth.
Right, so we risk the awful inpursuit of just the chance of

(37:58):
wonderful.
Yeah, right, that's the riskwe're at.
Right, we're risking awful andit's so cool that we get to hear
her say that because it'swhat's the worst that could
happen, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
No one's getting hurt yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
And of course, she had the benefit of not probably
having to ever, you know, worrytoo much about the cost of, of,
of materials.
But you know she clearly wasprioritizing growth over comfort
, right, yep, and that's one ofthe most tremendous examples I
think that she sets for all ofus is that she was willing to
risk the awful for, for, for thewonderful right, with that

(38:34):
understanding of like hey, worstcase it, it doesn't work, and
that kind of speaks to hertaking what she saw, you know,
from Pollock, from the accessthat that she had to, not just
seeing the one being one of thefirst people right To see the
work, but to also see and have arelationship or know the person
who made it and see what itlooks like to make it.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Wow, I mean yeah, I can't even imagine.
I can't even imagine that shedid exactly what she said.
It would have been really easyfor her back then 1952, to see
that work, be completelymesmerized by it but also be
paralyzed by it, and not doanything with those thoughts
inside of her, not go back tothe studio, right, I mean, it

(39:20):
wasn't right after she thoughtthis through, she, that it sat
with her, it was ingrained inher.
All these ideas started to justflow, as we said earlier,
through her entire being.
What if I?
Oh my gosh, if I could.
How about what if?
And then it would have beeneasy to go ah, but nobody's
really doing anything like thatright now, because nobody was,

(39:41):
nobody was.
So she could have easily goneback to the studio and said you
know, I'm just going to keepgoing with what I'm doing, I'm
just going to keep working onthese things and try and work
this stuff I've been working onout.
But she had this dangerous likeinner fire to say I think I
could do something absolutelyoriginal.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
That's a very bold thing to say as an artist that's
the word that keeps coming upover and over again Just just
the boldness that she had.
I mean, let's keep in mind thatat this point she's 23, 24
years old.
Yeah Right, she's like a yearor two removed from art school.
Yep, you know, this is notsomebody who's a decade or two
decades down the path and hasthat sort of self-confidence to

(40:27):
know that I can try new thingsand come back to what was
already working.
She didn't have, like there wasno, like no baseline of
established body of work orbeing known, et cetera, before
she went ahead and did thatRight.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
Obviously it's coming through the birth of abstract
expressionism.
So everybody that she's aroundtheir minds are churning in a
dangerous way, in a way thatwasn't accepted.
That was very punk rock of them, but they had champions like
the Clement Greenbergs and theLeo Castelli's and these people
of the art world who wereembracing what they were doing
and supporting it and BettyParsons giving them chances,

(41:02):
because MoMA wasn't, momawouldn't show their work.
A lot of those artists work atthat time and so they're doing
something very punk rock, butit's energizing.
Right, punk rock is energizing.
There's this peer influence tothrive amongst each other and be
competitive and outdo and racepast and all these things.

(41:25):
So she runs home back from NovaScotia and starts putting all
of her paints and oil cans likeJackson did you know in these
cans and coffee cans.
He's putting her and she'swatering them down and making
these different things and thenshe starts pouring them onto the
rock canvas.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
But also think about where she just was in Nova
Scotia, looking at the water,watching the water move, being
influenced by the way.
You know, water moves acrossthe land and these things,
things that she loved looking aton a regular basis in life
itself but that influence, ohhow can I create these ideas and
these moments?
And then she watches themspread and soak into the

(42:04):
unprimed canvas.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
This all keeps coming back to water.
It all keeps coming back toflow Her poor techniques, right
the flow.
She was a part of the and thisactually speaks to her being
part of the second wave right ofabstract expressionists, where
she was, you know, 10, 15, 20years younger than that first
wave right.
Think about the, you know,irascibles and everybody sort of
in that first, whatevergeneration, that first wave of

(42:28):
abstract expressionists, she wasable to take what had already
been done and not just sort ofjoin in the wave but become
completely her own thing.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Well, and she was in that wave right, because she's
hanging out with all of them atCedar Tavern and listening to
the conversation.
She's in the studio.
She's very influenced by LeeKrasner with her marks and lines
.
And then Gorky, ashara.
Gorky was somebody that waswith them all the time and they
were in each other's studioseeing these things, right.
That's why she was able to bein Pollock's studio and watching

(42:57):
him work and people.
And that second wave of abstractexpressionism was really the
birth of Colorfield, right.
So it was those artists thatwere in that abstract
expressionist school of art thatkind of moved their direction
to kind of be anti, thatcomplete emotional, you know,
hardcore abex thing.

(43:18):
That kind of moved into a morespiritual and more broader sense
with things.
And you have right, rothko wetalked about Barnett, newman and
Clifford Still they're the mostknown, but they use brushes and
they were easel or wallpainters, right.
So then you look at what theywould call the purest forms of
color field emerged from Helen.
And this is something that Idid not know, that I learned

(43:39):
recently that that year, in 1952, clement Greenberg invited
Morris Lewis and Kenneth Nolanto Helen's studio to witness her
technique of staining rawcanvas.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
So you think about.
Those names are thrown in thereright With Helen for those
color field painters, the purestform of it Sam Gilliam, alma,
thomas they're all kind of inthat realm.
But the fact that Clement, whobrought Helen into Pollock's
show, that jumped her to thatnext level.
He then brought Kenneth Nolanand Morris Lewis into her studio

(44:16):
to see what she was doing.
And what did they do?
They ran out and startedstaining canvas and taking those
ideas to their new way, andthis is where they both saw this
absolutely groundbreakingpainting, historical painting
Mountains and Sea, paintingMountains and Sea.

(44:39):
This was Helen's first piece,with her experimenting with all
these ideas of raw canvas andpouring and things onto the
ground to create the piece.
And the piece is Mountains andSea.
And what I love about thispiece is this was that first one
in 1952, and you can see theinfluence of her as well.
You can see Kandinsky and AsherGorky and some Joan Miro and
these things, these other peoplethat she admired, with Helen

(45:03):
starting to come out and overtime obviously this totally
evolved.
I loved it.
Let's look at it, nathan.
We take a peek at Mountains andSea and like, look at this,
I've never seen this in personSomeday?
I hope so.
And this is oil and charcoal onunprimed canvas.
And so Ra put out on the floor.

(45:24):
She started pouring anddripping and you can really
really feel that witness ofPollock's dance, because she's
walking into the canvas andshe's pouring and moving things
around and you can feel themotion, right, you can feel this
movement and she still has someof that early ab, that abex
mark making.
Right, that's in there, thoselines, those gorky lines or

(45:46):
Kandinsky shapes and thingsmixed within what.
What do you feel when you lookat this piece?
What jumps at you?

Speaker 2 (45:58):
I think.
I mean, it's really difficultto answer that question without
what you already referenced,which is just the historical
context of nothing like this hadbeen made before.

(46:18):
So let's just set that asidefor the moment.
Yeah, we were seeing this forthe first time today.
It would absolutely hold up asa tremendous piece of art yeah
right now.
Let's bring it back, yeah, onon its on, on its own, without
the historical context.
It's extraordinary.
So let me just speak to thatRight Like.

(46:38):
I love the this is.
This is a great example of thesort of you know, titles of hers
that would reference, you know,certain figurative things that,
apart from like, in this case,you know, maybe some of the
charcoal marks you knowreferencing you know, the
mountains, certainly there'splenty of blue that would
represent the sea.
But beyond that, you know,without that title, you know, if
this was, you know, untitled1952, it's not as though you and

(47:02):
I would stand in front of itand say, oh, that's, yeah,
that's for sure, some mountainsand some seas, right, Yep, and
so that's one of the things thisis a great example of, just a
lot of her work, which wasdefinitely influenced by
landscapes, by the natural world, but, yeah, just the diversity
of marks and just the fact thatpeople that were seeing this for
the first time had never seenpaint make these types of marks

(47:25):
on canvas because it had neverbeen laid flat, at least not
this way.
So she borrowed Pollock'stechnique but obviously executed
it in a very, very differentway.
You wouldn't set this piecenext to the work that Pollock's
most known for and the work thathe was doing when she sort of
borrowed this technique and sayone was influenced by the other,

(47:49):
but the fact that she borrowedthat method versus the style, I
think, is just another sort oftakeaway or a case to be made
for the benefits of diversifyingour influences, which is
something that we've discussedon people's podcasts.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Well, I think this is what I love about studying art
so much.
This is what I love aboutdigging into books and seeing a
piece and then seeing somethingelse and going hold on a second
what date was that?
Because for somebody thatdoesn't really study art or
research or look at it, you'regoing to see one, you're going
to see the other and you'd gotwo totally different paintings.
But then if you're reallyingrained in studying and

(48:27):
learning and wanting to knowabout art history which I'm a
total nerd about I would look atthis piece and I'd go 1952 and
interesting, she's got somedrips, she's got some movement,
that's what Pollock was doingjust prior.
I wonder if Helen wasinfluenced by Pollock at all

(48:49):
because of these things, becausenobody else was doing that yet.
And so that's where I lovedrawing that art timeline and
going.
Okay, they're both in New York,they're both in the same area,
they both hang out around thesame.
I know how they all operated,those Abaxers, those Ninth
Street women, those, all the menaround them were competing and
looking.
They're in studios constantly,always in each other's studios,

(49:12):
going why don't you try this?
You should try this.
Or, as we found listening to alot of Helen interviews or going
.
Grace did that.
I got to go beat her.
I got to go do something biggerthan what Grace just did.
I've got to compete, I've gotto show my stuff and it was
healthy.
It was a healthy competition.
So I think for me, and I'm surefor other of those who just love

(49:33):
art history and dive into it,you can start drawing lines and
going well, how in the world didsomebody in Spain do that at
the same time that somebody inNorth Carolina at Black Mountain
College did that?
And then you can draw the linesand go well, this artist
wouldn't have been old enough toreally be traveling in Spain,
but Jasper Johns andRauschenberg were teaching him

(49:55):
at that time and they just did ashow in Spain with Antony Tapas
.
They probably took pictures andbrought the ideas back to Black
Mountain College, showed ayoung Cy Twombly and he started
creating some marks and thingsthat looked just like things the
Spanish informalists were doingat that time.
So it's that for me, that'swhere I nerd out and I'm able to

(50:16):
go this and that and this andthat, and I'm derailing our
conversation here because that'swhat I do when I talk about
history.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
No, it's great.
You brought up somethingactually really, really
interesting too, which is theGrace Hartigan piece I think it
was called the Massacre that shehad made just a few months
before this piece, which wasalmost identical in dimensions,
right.
Right, he talks about that inFierce Poise, which I did get
all the way through beforetoday's episode.
Such a good book for Nathan,your fantastic book highly
recommend.
Um, but uh, just that sort oflike frenemy relationship that

(50:46):
we had, that that the two ofthem had, and again, like you
look at the massacre, you knowthere's, there's.
That's a very different, youknow type of of of work and we
can throw that up for the, forthe folks that are watching on
YouTube here which, by the way,if you're just listening, we put
this on YouTube and there'svisuals for all of it, apart
from just our yapping mugs.

(51:06):
But again, just thatcompetitive nature of, oh,
anything you can do, I can dobetter.
Oh, you're going to work atthis scale, so am I right?
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
It's pretty cool.
Well, something that I loveabout that piece, not just
because historicallyhistorically, I think it's an
absolutely beautiful piece but Ilove that she was really trying
to find expression andspontaneous and rigorous
encounters with the canvas,because this is something she

(51:36):
had to learn as well.
Right, because she wasn'ttaught to pour, she wasn't
taught to move the water and theliquid around and let it sit.
And how do things blend and howdo I get a line, how do I get
shape?
So this is all learned.
But because that accident,right, you pour green and then
you pour blue, and then the bluedoesn't stop and it goes over
the green, but you wanted it tostop.
You know, like all those thingsshe's learning, but there's

(52:02):
that spontaneity in it that Ilove.
You don't know what's going tohappen.
Will this work the way I reallythink it's going to work?
No, I just need to let itnaturally occur and take place.
And I think for her in the sameway.
The ocean moves and hits theland.
You never know where it's goingto touch, when the tide comes
in or comes back, how thedifferent things under the water
, like the sand and the rocks,may mix and cause those colors

(52:23):
to change as the water moves out.
I mean I get all of thosefeelings right when I look at
this piece and I'm looking atthose things and the shapes and
the movement and for me it'sabsolutely breathtaking.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah, I think, as I spent more time with this while
you've been talking, the dashesof bold color, the very
concentrated portions of pigmentin that upper left-hand corner,
just that little dash of redwhich reoccurs in the lower
left-hand corner, which comesagain in probably the most where

(52:56):
my eye is drawn initially, inthat little dash in the middle
of that sort of you know dirtyochre color, it's just
magnificent.
So in the midst of these sortof soft, amorphous, you know
color field shapes, you've gotthese little dashes of bold,
concentrated, you know pigmentthat just bring a whole nother,

(53:19):
you know part of the wholenother language you know, to the
, to the conversation.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Yeah, I think, as we talked about, right Pollock gave
her permission to really openup these things inside that
she'd been thinking about orprocessing her ideas, and so it
was like that permission when Isay I've never thought about
that before, that type ofpermission, right, it's given
you this new confidence to movepast what you put in your head

(53:48):
as limitations self-imposedlimitations and opening it up to
do whatever you want to do inwhatever way possible.
And I think that's so importantfor us as artists and that's why
I always encourage go look atwork, go study artists.
In my mentorship program I doan artist research paper for all
the artists that are in it andI take the artists that they

(54:10):
love or are inspired by.
I look at their work and Icreate often a 5, 10, 15 page
document that has artists thatare similar to those they love
or that inspired them, orartists who have similarities to
their work, so they can dive inand realize you can do whatever
you want to, but let's stilltake ideas from these other

(54:31):
artists because they feed intothe permission they're giving us
to explore.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
You know, and I think that's so exciting.
And for myself, helen is one ofthose artists because I paint
mostly on the floor.
I don't really do pouringtechniques, but every now and
then I do.
But there is this I love theway she uses negative space, and
so that's something that hasgiven me permission to really
explore how negative space workswithin the context of color and

(54:57):
form.
And then artists like OscarMurillo and Cy Twombly, ada
Temescu, martha Youngworth theseartists have all done things
that I've seen and gone.
Why didn't I think of that?
That fits into the naturalorder of my work and my
evolution.
I got to go try it.
Thank you so much, ada, forgiving me permission.

(55:18):
Martha, oscar, all theseartists that have given me
permission to let dirt exist onmy canvas.
Like Oscar Murillo, it's okayif the canvas gets dirty.
It doesn't have to be pristineand clean.
I don't want it pristine andclean anyways, but his work
selling at White Cube andZwirner and Gagosian and
everywhere else in the worldwhere his work is, it's dirty as
hell, right?

(55:39):
So does my work have to bepristine and clean?
No, so I don't know who hasinspired you.
Do you have artists that havereally opened that whole gamut
up for you of.
Thank you for giving mepermission to do that.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Well, there's a moment in particular that jumps
to mind, not so much his work,but just a moment of seeing his
work.
There's a de Kooning piece atthe Chicago Art Institute,
chicago Institute of Art, and Iremember really getting my nose
into it.
It's part of their permanentcollection.
I think it's up all the time.
You can really see, as withmost of his work, the chunks,

(56:16):
the bits from other that wasstuck on the brush, right yeah,
the brush hair, all of thoselittle things.
And up until the brush, rightyeah, the, the, the brush hair,
you know, all of those littlethings.
And up until that point I hadreally been very again, when I
was still engaging more with theperfectionist in me, I was very
, you know, anal about like, oh,I wouldn't, I wouldn't want
that to show, or oh, that, that,that color is not from this
piece, let me, let me, you know,remove that or cover it up.

(56:38):
And I was like, no, that'swhat's, that's what's beautiful
about it, that's, that's, that'swhat made, that's the human
touch.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
Yes, the humanity within it, yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
As we continue to get further into the world of, of,
of AI, I think that's going tobe even more important.
More valuable to us is thattangible human touch, you know.
And so that was one of thethings for me and that became a
mantra that I that I still holdonto, which is show your work,
don't be shy about the marksthat weren't perfect or the
things that weren't evensupposed to be there.
Because, again back to Helen,you know when she said I'd
rather risk an ugly surprisethan rely on things I know I can

(57:15):
do, right, yep, I go to MarkBradford.
You know, that was one of thethings when, when I, when I saw
uh, you know his quote of youknow, if Home Depot doesn't have
it, mark Bradford doesn't needit, and I was stuck in that mode
at that time of I've got to usetraditional materials, they've
got to be, you know, archival.
I need to go to the art storeand make sure that right.
And I think when I saw that, Iwas like, oh yeah.

(57:39):
And, by the way and this issomething too, that Helen spent
a lot of time in her later work,experimenting with different
things like rakes and sponges,yeah, just different,
diversifying ways of makingmarks and applying paint.
You know, I always that's onething I got from Bradford right,
it's just like down every aisleof Home Depot there's something
that was made for everythingback there in my studio, yeah,

(58:05):
With very few exceptions wasmade for something else.
And so just by virtue of thefact that I'm misusing the tools
not misusing, but using it forcertainly not its intended
purpose or the material it'sgoing to produce something
different.
I think a lot about when youbring that up, alberto Burri,
one of my absolute Love him.
So just like, yeah, you canPlastic, absolutely, it's an art
material, you know what I mean.
But yeah, the, the, the, thelist goes on and on.

(58:27):
But that permission is is huge.
And I think that you know, forthe, for the listener, if you're
waiting for that thing, thatlittle idea, that little seed of
what if I tried this, that'sthat that you have.
If you're hearing my voiceright now, that you have in your
head that continues to kind ofwhisper, listen to it, try it,
do it.
We don't need permission.

(58:48):
But if you were waiting for it,consider this the moment where
you're being given permission togo ahead, and not that you need
it for me or anybody else, butjust like, do it, yeah, try it.
You never risk the uglysurprise, rather than continuing
to rely on things you know youcan do.
Back to that Helen quote.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Yeah, I've got a quote for you that I just want
to share that popped in my head,from Julian Schnabel, and he
says one thing gets born out ofanother.
I work with things left overfrom other things.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (59:19):
And that I mean and thinking about, and that's for
all of you out there, with whatNathan just said one thing gets
born out of another.
So, you know, explore thosemediums, explore those new tools
, explore those things, Causesomething else will be born out
of what you think you're goingto do with what you're doing,
what?

Speaker 2 (59:35):
pops to mind when I hear that is I've never.
I've never tried this, but I'vegot friends that make their own
kombucha.
Yeah, Same.
Are you familiar with thatprocess Like the, the, the
mother spore or something like?

Speaker 3 (59:45):
that.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
It's not that exactly , but it's something that is
required from previous batches.
To like whatever birth or startyeah.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
Like sourdough, like sourdough bread as well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Like, like bread.
Yeah, same, same same idea.
That's interesting.
The thing that produced thethings before is the seed, or at
least the starting point, forwhat's going to come next.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
I love that If we're considering the audience all the
time, then we're going tocompletely put a wall up for all
those things we want toexperiment with and all those
things we want to try that arenew, because we're so worried

(01:00:27):
about what others are going tothink about our work and I think
that's something that was veryspecial for Helen is she didn't
give a shit as she got older,especially what people thought
about her work.
I mean, I'm sure she did.
I'm sure that she did, becausewe're all humans, so we get the
bad review or whatever.
We're going to go home andthink about it, but it never,
ever stopped her from exploringand continuing to kind of push

(01:00:51):
the boundaries she had aroundher and keep creating what she
wanted to create, and I think wehave a great quote about that,
right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
You're a great.
You're a great speaker.
I love your voice.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Yeah, I'd rather listen to Helen anyways.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Let's default to Helen.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Too much of a sense of audience is very dangerous
for an artist.
I often feel when I'm sending apainting out of the studio
nobody's going to like this,they're going to love that, but
they're not going to like this.
They're going to love that, butthey're not going to like this.
Sometimes I'm surprised, but Ialways feel I can't help it if

(01:01:26):
they don't like it, because I'llstand by it, because I think
it's good.
It's who and what I'm about.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
What do you think about that?
I'm going to let you go first,I'm ready to go first.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Yeah, this is really interesting.
This is, again, for me, part ofthe value of spending time with
the biographies, theautobiographies, whatever we can
dig up and find about theartist, because I go to this.
There's a difference between,from a distance, if all we had

(01:02:02):
was Helen's work, her legacy,and the sort of top 20 quotes in
a bubble, we would think thatshe was declaring absolute truth
and descending from themountaintop to distribute it to
everybody else.
Mountaintop to distribute it toeverybody else, okay, as

(01:02:26):
opposed to reminding herselfevery time she says it of
something that she needs to bereminded of, right, and so I
think about something likeMarcus Aurelius meditations,
okay.
So all the wisdom in that it'snow a book it was just meant to
be his personal journal was himreminding himself of things that
he needed to be reminded of.
Hey, dummy, the bed is warm.
You're going to want to stay init in the morning.

(01:02:48):
Get up anyway, just as anexample.
So this is an interestingexercise.
I'm going to reread that quotethat she just said, as this
absolute truth statement, toomuch of a sense of the audience,
is very dangerous for anaudience.
I can't help if the audiencedoesn't like it, because I'll

(01:03:08):
stand by it, because I thinkit's good.
It's who and what I'm about.
That's very declarative.
That's just here it is.
You're welcome.
I'm going to reread it in itsfull context, which is what we
just listened to, or actuallybetter yet.
Let's just replay it.
Yeah, let's listen to it again.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Much of a sense of audience is very dangerous for
an artist.
I often feel when I'm sending apainting out of the studio
nobody's going to like this,they're going to love that, but
they're not gonna like this.
Sometimes I'm surprised, but Ialways feel I can't help it if

(01:03:45):
they don't like it, because I'llstand by it, because I think
it's good.
It's who and what I'm about so.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
So here's, here's why I here's what I here's I take
from that and why I wanted tokind of dissect that I get down
right.
So if we take that middlesection out where she
acknowledges, I often feel noone's going to like this right.
I'm surprised If we cut thatpart out.
It would read as that.
So my point is this everyone isunsure, everyone has self-doubt

(01:04:18):
, everyone has fear.
What's amazing and inspirationalthat Helen exemplifies so
beautifully is that bold forceof will that propelled her to
take action in spite of herneuroticism, self-doubt, fears,
etc.
So again, just to the value oflike getting into the stories of

(01:04:42):
art history, getting into the,the biographies of the people
that made the work, especiallyas artists, if you're just
appreciating art, I don't knowthat that's quite as as as
helpful or or critical, but Ithink for us artists it's
absolutely critical to realizethat, look, they're just people
too.
Yeah, they're having the sameor whatever they or whatever
they had or are having theirsame version of, or their

(01:05:04):
personal version of the samedoubts, fears, all the things
that you're experiencing, thatI'm experiencing, that you're
experiencing today.
But they focused on the truth,not the lies, right, that may
have been chirping in their mind.
And so again, just the value ofacknowledging like hey, they
were just people too, they'rejust people too, when I look at

(01:05:26):
it like how can I just go ahead?
and how can I, in spite of whatI'm feeling, in spite of what
I'm thinking, in spite of thelies that I might be whispering
in my ear, how can I focus onthe truth and take action in
spite of what I'm feeling?

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
And I look at it as really the same way.
I look at my work in the studioand that is, if I'm letting it
out the door, I'm 100 standingby that piece because it's who I
am and what I'm about.
This is, I put everything intothis piece.
I put me, this is me, and so Ilook at it as when I send that
painting out the studio, I haveno idea if the audience is going

(01:06:05):
to like it, and I do.
I honestly do look go.
I think the.
I think that's going to beaccepted.
Not sure if this is.
Maybe it's a new idea andsomething I haven't done yet, so
it's going to look verydifferent.
Or maybe my work evolved somuch from the last body of work
I had hanging on walls that it'stotally new.
So it's new to the eyes outthere.
So they may or may not acceptit yet, but if I'm letting it

(01:06:28):
out there, I'm absolutelyconfident in it.
It's who I am, it's what I'mabout and I think it's good.
I think it's strong enough togo out the door and I look at
this as her saying.
But if I'm thinking about theaudience so much now, my
confidence in what I let out thedoor is going to be lesser and
I'm going to be more worriedabout how they're viewing it

(01:06:48):
rather than if I'm reallyconfident in that work of art.
And that is what pushes theartist further that confidence
right and ignoring the audience,but the confidence in your work
, which is something that herpainting stood apart from her
quest for recognition and sales.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Well, and there's something baked into what you
just said, and Helen's quote aswell, which is you're going to
have a sense of the audience atsome point.
Sure, it's not a matter of ifthat's going to cross your mind,
it's when you allow yourself tospend time with it.
Yes, so for her it was when I'msending a painting out of the

(01:07:28):
studio, right?
Yeah, you just said somethingvery similar.
Once I'm done with it, once I'mconfident enough to put it out
into the world, then maybe wethink, oh, I not sure, or we'll
see, or I think they're going tolike this one or they're not
going to.
But while we're making, itcertainly is not the time to
consider what are people goingto like?

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Yeah, well, and we started this whole conversation
off with her quote about beingnaturally and creatively free
when she's working, and shementions in a quote about the
audience.
She actually says that when theartist reveals their concern
for the audience, then thatcreative process is no longer

(01:08:10):
pure.
You are losing the freedom.
Yeah, there's something to readit.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
Yeah, there's some.
When an artist reveals hisconcern for the audience, she
said later there is somethingwrong, something cynical, and
the creative process is nolonger pure.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Yeah, there's something else controlling the
direction of your work otherthan yourself at that point,
right, and that's dangerous.
That's a very dangerous placeto be in no-transcript, like the

(01:09:09):
story of Rothko and stillmeeting on the street right, and
Clifford still calling Rothkoout and saying you're a sellout,
you're no longer exploring,you're no longer who I know,
you've become somebody different.
You're no longer free andexploring and doing all the
things we sat at the table andtalked about in our youth.
You've sold out for thebillboards and for the fame and

(01:09:31):
the money, and so it's likethere are two worlds there.
There are two worlds there andit's really your choice on where
you exist, and I'm not sayingeither is wrong, because we need
to make money as artists, weneed to survive.
So it's just something toreally really think about.
Do you want the audience tocontrol your work and have that

(01:09:52):
much of voice or not?
I choose not.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
I do as well, but it's also important for us to
acknowledge that back to, Ithink, one of our previous yeah,
I guess this will have been ourlast episode on the Q&A side.
It depends For each individual,for every person, to decide,
like what are your goals?
Yes, what's your purpose?
What are you trying to do?
Right, but this actually leadsreally well into our next quote.

(01:10:18):
It's almost like we planned it.
It's almost like we planned it.
It's almost like we did.
Art has a will of its own.
This is a Helen quote.
Art has a will of its own.
It has nothing to do with thetaste of the moment or what's
expected of you.
That's a formula for dead artor fashionable art.
There are no rules.
That is how art is born.
How breakthroughs happen Goagainst the rules or ignore the

(01:10:41):
rules.
That is how art is born.
How breakthroughs happen Goagainst the rules or ignore the
rules.

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
That is what invention is all about.
That's probably her most famousquote, right?
I think that's the one that isin art books, that's in quote
books that you see on Instagram,with the picture of Helen
behind her and the quote on topRight.
And I will tell you, artabsolutely has a will of its own
.
It truly does, and I think,like this, this is such a great

(01:11:07):
quote and I think it's even moreimportant today, in the
Instagram art world of today,that art has nothing to do with
the taste of the moment.
Well, some of us have figuredout that the audience should not
be telling us what we do.
The hot Instagram trend, allthose things that are the
audience.

(01:11:27):
They shouldn't be pushing us inour work and doing what we want
to do.
But our artist friends and ourartist network should be a
healthy competition of outdoing,outcreating, finding new things
, finding new moments, pushingeach other, driving each other

(01:11:49):
to test, to try to push thingsout.
And I love this quote fromFierce Poise, where Alexander
Nemiroff writes but in everyother respect, her painting is a
riposte to her friends, as sheput it years later.
Back then, an artist could seeanother artist's work and say I
love what I just saw in yourstudio.
You know it and I know it.

(01:12:10):
I'm going back to mine now andI'm going to knock your eyes out
.
Love that, she says.
You know that, I love it, and Iknow that I love it.
And now I'm going to go backand I'm going to kick your ass.
I'm going to outdo what I justwent.
Wow, that's so amazing.
I have to run back to my studioto outdo you like that.

(01:12:32):
That's a healthy sense of driveand competition that I think we
really lack today as artists,because we don't have that
ability, as they did, to be ineach other's studios so often
that they are inspiring andpushing each other in a way
that's making them sprint, right?
I think today we have theability to see more art than

(01:12:54):
we've ever seen in history on aregular basis because of the
internet, because of technology.
But to be in front of art?
Obviously of technology, but tobe in front of art, obviously,
right, nathan, we know how muchdifferent it is to experience
your work in person or my workin person, being in the studio
and looking at it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
I got a couple thoughts on that.
Yes, one is let me let me justsay what I'm imagining.
Hold on, let me let me listeninto the future to what some of
our listeners might be thinkingright now.
Let me see if I can pick up onthat frequency.
Yeah, I think I got it.
But Ty, I'm not a competitiveperson.
I didn't, I didn't get into artto be competitive.

(01:13:33):
I don't like being competitive.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
Are you wanting me to answer that?

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Yeah.
My answer then is sorry.
Hey, just just for future, whenI pick up my glass and I go no,
I know that's for sure yourturn.
I was being a smart ass.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
I was being a smart ass there.
Do you want me to be the jerk?
And say this out loud?
I'm sorry.
You better have a sense ofcompetition.
If you're going to go into theart world, you're going to get
eaten alive.
And when I mean competition, Idon't mean I'm going to win.
I mean competition is in ahealthy confidence that I'm as
good at, or better than, thoseartists on the wall.

(01:14:08):
And so you, mr Gallerist, mrsGallerist, should be takinga
chance on my work, that thatsense of competition, not the I
want first place, or I'm talking.
I want to make work so strongthat I have a confidence to go
in and go.
My work should be on your wallsbecause it is as strong as the

(01:14:30):
work on these walls, or stronger, and be confident enough in
yourself to say it out loud thatleads to the boldness that
we've talked about allthroughout the episode, that
Helen displayed in so manydifferent ways throughout her
career and her life.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
I wonder about this, ty, I wonder about I just had
this thought as you were talkingbut I wonder if healthy
competition is maybe notdependent on, but certainly
aided by, proximity.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Absolutely yes.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
It's easier for you and I to have, let's just say, a
healthy competition when we'rein regular communication with
one another, because we know itcomes from a place of wanting
not just to one up the otherperson but to see the other
continue to do better as well.
Yep, right, like we, we bothall, whatever uh tides raise all

(01:15:20):
ships.
However, that's saying yeah,but you know, we all get better
together because we are pushing.
You know one another and youand I both happen to come from
you know so different degrees ofathletic backgrounds and having
been on teams and you know but,but art's very much a um, an
individual, you know sport, um,but that it's.

(01:15:40):
It's that, that overallawareness of what's possible.
I mean, I think that's what itis for me.
It's not.
I am better than you, I'm goingto do better than you.
It's, it's.
It's very different.
It's oh, I'm, I'm in a pool ofhow would I put this?
I'm surrounding myself withinfluences that are going to

(01:16:01):
cause me to raise my own bar,because this is an
oversimplification.
But there's competition withothers and there's competition
with oneself, and I think thateveryone has an element of one
or the other or both, but let'sjust say that somebody didn't
have any interest in beingcompetitive with others, but
they just wanted to.
Then, to tack on to your point,it's helpful if you are

(01:16:24):
interested, of course, incompeting with your previous
self and continuing to progressand grow into the best version
that you can be today.
And I think, whichever categorya person falls into,
predominantly we are going tobenefit from being aware of what
other people are doing andhaving that hey, if you, then

(01:16:45):
why not me?
Sort of mentality.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Well, proximity is the word, Nathan.
That's why you look at, themajor art cities in the world
that have always flourished withthe arts are very large cities,
right.
They're metropolises that havea melting pot of cultures and
community and everybody's reallyclose to each other in
proximity.
So you have that competition ofright, new York why is the

(01:17:11):
light bulb in the head of everyartist in the United States?
I got to get to New York right,it's proximity.
There's more art, there's moreartists, there's more things.
So there's that.
You know what I mean.
It's you get there and justdiving right in.
But there's plenty of artiststhat get there and get

(01:17:44):
overwhelmed and leave.
But the ones who get there anddive right in it does something.
That proximity to older artistsuh, older, you know, younger
artists, arc, all those thingskind of combined really do add
to that competition and we'llsay that innate drive to really
push, push, push further thanyou think you even could.
And that's hard, being in asmall town.

(01:18:06):
I have artist friends here inWaco, but most of my artist
friends who are in the art worldare other places
internationally, other places inthe US, and so I don't have
that proximity to see work inperson, like.
I would like to have my friendVino and Austin seen her work in
person.

(01:18:26):
Like does something to me andit was totally different than
seeing it on Instagram or, youknow, doing a FaceTime to look
at each other's work in ourstudios, which we've done in the
past but being in proximity andseeing the work in person, man,
that pushes me to get back inthe studio as fast as I can and
seeing the work in person, man,that pushes me to get back in
the studio as fast as I can.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
Totally.
And I will add to, I think, asa point of encouragement, like
what you just said you knowabout Schnabel, new York, right,
like that's less true now thanit was in the whatever early 80s
when he made that move, right,so it's because of the advent of
social.
Again to your point, there's noreplacement for seeing work and
interacting with the person whomade it live and in person.

(01:19:06):
I had that experience when Iwas with Eric whatever a few
weeks ago down in Texas and wehad dialogued, like we were
whatever Instagram friendsbefore that and I actually
talked on the phone a couple oftimes.
But seeing especially his metalwork and some of this, like
just seeing it in person, just adifferent experience.

Speaker 3 (01:19:23):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
That being said, even if you are in small town, you
know podunk, wherever it's,you're not going to bump into
those people at at coffee or atdinner or at you know whatever,
the, the, the, the concert orthe or the opening, but you can
put yourself in conversationwith anybody anywhere in the

(01:19:45):
world and we couldn't do that,you know, even whatever 20 years
ago or whatever Right, likethat's a, that's a recent,
that's a recent thing.
And so, in the absence of theability to physically rub elbows
, you know, uh, with people on aregular basis, we do have the
ability to reach out.
I mean, I've got a bunch ofartists that I'm in various

(01:20:06):
degrees of dialogue, you knowwith just Instagram because they
reached out and asked and I am,I am both the person answering.
you know those, those questionsand the and the one asking,
right, like I do that all thetime just cold DM somebody whose
work I really, I really dig,and sometimes it starts a cool
dialogue and sometimes theydon't, whatever you know.
Back to Helen's point frombefore of like what's the worst

(01:20:27):
that could happen?
They could not respond, youknow.

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
Anyway, the point is like the more that we can extend
our web and and deepen the pool, raise the caliber of our
influences, the more it's goingto push us forward.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
Love it and I man, go see some Helen work If you have
the opportunity to look.
I know we've said this in otherpodcasts, but what's the
closest museum to you where youlive?
Go into the archive or theregistry and see what work they
have on display and see if theyhave a Helen Frankenthaler piece
.
If you haven't seen one inperson, I suggest go find a
museum that has one.
Take a day trip.
Grab a couple artists, friends.
Take a road trip If you need todrive a couple hours.

(01:21:09):
I mean, I live in Texas soeverywhere's a couple hours, but
I do it regularly.
I don't mind getting in a carand driving four hours to go to
a museum.
I don't mind at all.
Go by yourself, take yournotebook.
I mean that also leads to thathealthy competition.
You see your heroes on the walland you want to go back in the
studio and make art.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
You want to try and outdo them.
I know I do.
Let me.
Let me throw this out as weclose.
Again, I'm going to play, breakthe rules of time and space and
read the minds of at least acouple of our listeners.
But, Ty, you're telling me togo look at as much art as
possible, but you're alsotelling me to ignore the trends
that I see when I go look at alot of art.

Speaker 3 (01:21:52):
Yeah, but I'm not really speaking too much about
those things because we needideas.
Ideas are the backbone of whatwe create.
A trend would be something thatyou see every time you flip
your freaking Instagram scrolland it's the same painting, it's
the same idea, over and overand over again.

(01:22:14):
Now I'm saying, yeah, ifsomething at the museum hits you
and you just go, oh my gosh,those ideas are incredible.
I want to go back and practicethose ideas.
That's fine, but let thoseideas evolve into your wrist and
your body and your soul, intothe way that you make your art.
Keep adding ideas, add ideas.
Maybe there is something in thetrend that's an idea, but don't

(01:22:37):
just copy and recycle.
I guess is what I'm saying morethan anything.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
That makes complete sense.
Yeah, I would add to that themore we diversify our influences
, the more unique our voices aregoing to be.
So maybe there is a trend orsomething that you see that you
like Great.
Look at a whole bunch of otherwork in the process, study how
it's made, study the artiststhat are making it, and then

(01:23:02):
you're naturally going to justlike Helen did when she borrowed
some techniques and ideas fromPollock you will produce
something that, over time, willbe completely and uniquely your
own, and that is a beautifulthing, and I think that's what
we're all chasing right andthat's what I think that most of
us are after anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:23:22):
Love it.
Well, let's do this.
Let's have Helen close us out.
Let's let Helen's words closeout the episode and give all of
the artists that are listeningsome food for thought.
Take this back to the studioand think about it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
One cliche I use on myself all the time is the one
rule is no rules, and if youhave a real sense of limits,
then you're free to break out ofthem.
The end, thank you.

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