Just Make Art
A conversation about making art and the artist's journey with Ty Nathan Clark and Nathan Terborg, two artists trying to navigate the art world, just like you.
In each episode, the duo chooses a quote from a known artist and uses it as a springboard for discussion.
Through their conversations, Ty and Nathan explore the deeper meaning of the quote and how it can be applied to the artists studio practice. They share their own personal stories and struggles as artists, and offer practical advice and tips for overcoming obstacles and achieving artistic success.
Whether you're a seasoned artist or just starting out, "Just Make Art" provides valuable insights and inspiration to help you navigate the creative process and bring your artistic vision to life. With their engaging and conversational style, Ty and Nathan create a welcoming space for listeners to explore their own artistic passions and learn from two artists working hard to navigate the art world.
Just Make Art
How to Be an Art Nerd, Embrace Curiosity, Self-Educate, and Continue to Grow as an Artist.
Ever wondered what it truly means to be a perpetual student in the world of art, or more simply put, an Art Nerd? We're pulling back the curtain on the relentless pursuit of knowledge that fuels creativity. Join us as we share our personal stories of embracing the titles of "nerd" and "elitist" with pride, and reveal why there is a heavy responsibility on an artist of continuous self-education. We also reflect on wisdom from Winston Churchill, Gandhii, Haruki Murakami and others about the real journey of learning, urging you to never stop seeking new information and diversifying your avenue's.
Curiosity is the lifeblood of any artist, and this episode celebrates that insatiable hunger for knowledge. From the childlike wonder of exploring vintage bookstores for hidden gems to diving into the lives of influential artists like Joan Miró, we discuss how maintaining a curious mindset can lead to profound artistic discoveries. We also highlight the importance of asking questions and engaging with more knowledgeable individuals, reinforcing that the quest for knowledge is endless and ever-rewarding.
Finally, we delve into how diverse influences shape creative expression and why it's crucial to expand your horizons beyond the conventional. Learn from the past and discover the transformative power of blending different cultural and artistic elements. We share practical advice on networking, researching, and maximizing artistic growth through various mediums, emphasizing the necessity of being a lifelong learner. Whether it's through unconventional sources or engaging with the art community, this episode is packed with insights to help you grow as an artist and creative thinker.
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@justmakeartpodcast @tynathanclark @nathanterborg
All right, ty, we're going to do something a little bit different for today's episode. We did this a little bit in season one, where we sort of drilled in on a topic specifically, but we haven't done it recently. We actually got a couple of follow-up questions from people from previous episodes where we referenced this idea of being a student of the game, and so today we're just going to really dissect what do we mean by that, what does it look like and how do we apply that as artists, as creatives, in our daily practice. So I thought we'd start off just by throwing out our personal definitions of what does it mean. So that's what we're going to cover today is the.
Speaker 1:What does it mean to be a student of the game? Why is being a student of the game so important as an artist, as a creative? And then, how do we do it? Some more tactical application or ideas on how we might apply that in our day-to-day. So let's just start by defining each of us individually what does it mean to be a student of the game? I'll go ahead and take first crack here. For me, when I think of that idea of being a student of the game, I think about obsessively seeking out and applying new information from as many sources as possible. That's kind of my first crack at that definition. So, to be a student of the game, it's somebody who's obsessively seeking out and applying new information from as many sources as possible. What's yours?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's two things for me. Number one would be a complete and total nerd. Yeah, absolute, most amazing way. Like a complete and total nerd. Yeah, absolute, most amazing way, like a complete and total nerd. So I will tell people I am an art history nerd. I have no reservations about saying that at all. It's a word I absolutely love the word nerd. I think it's a beautiful word. I absolutely love it. And the second would probably be that I would like to say that I'm a self-proclaimed either historian critic, and I can't think of the other word I was going to use, just overall badass.
Speaker 2:Just an overall badass? Yeah, no, I think. Oh, a self-proclaimed.
Speaker 1:As we continue to push the limits of what actually qualifies us as explicit. We've acquired that label before. I think some of the BS references. We'll see what they do with bad ass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think like 10 or more BSs or 10 or more cuss words, and then you're kind of labeled explicit but I was going to say a self-proclaimed elitist. So there are times I will say, oh, I'm a self-proclaimed musical elitist or art elite because I like what I like and I love what I love, and you can't tell me I don't like or love it. But I think, as far as this student of the game, 100% I'm a self-professed art history nerd. I cannot get enough, I cannot stop and I want more, more, more, more all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah Well, I want to talk about this at some point, so let's just break the seal right now. That whole idea of self fill in the blank with anything. I was thinking a lot about being self-taught, which I am completely self-taught. I didn't get any formal education surprising nobody who's seen what I do.
Speaker 1:But I think when you're going to claim to be self-taught, there's a responsibility there. I mean that's what you're paying for. When you're going to claim to be self-taught, there's a responsibility there. I mean that's what you're paying for. When you get a proper education that is given to you by an institution or individual who is, you know, identifying as a teacher, as a-taught, there's a responsibility there to do that, to teach yourself and to go out, and I wouldn't say necessarily teach yourself, right, but to go out and find teachers. And we're going to talk about that a lot as the episode kind of goes on. But I think that that's really a responsibility Whether you've got a formal education in, whatever you're doing or not, there's a responsibility for us to take ownership of that continuing self-education.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I honestly, not just in art but in life I just think continuing to self-educate is vital. It's so important and I know where you have some quotes that are going to kind of talk about this later but, as artists, being able to take that one step further and go after those avenues, search for those avenues, find those things, to continue to feed yourself knowledge, which then in turn becomes wisdom. You take all that information in. That's acquiring knowledge. As that information settles over time and comes out now it becomes wisdom because you've learned and you've grown and you've evolved as an artist, as a human being, through that.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite quotes that I've ever read is by Winston Churchill and it says I began my education at a very young age, in fact right after I left college. It makes me kind of question do we really study in school? Do we really study? Because usually when you're in school and I'm talking about college or art school or whatever you're kind of going through the motions and enjoying life. You're doing a whole lot of other things at that time while you're studying and learning, and it's I wouldn't even call it true study For me.
Speaker 2:I just went through the motions, I made stuff when it came to art history class, I kind of had my ears half open. But I was thinking about what I was going to make in ceramics or I was going to make when I'm pouring bronze and you know, in postmodern sculpture class. Whatever those things were on my mind, it wasn't these artists and their stories and how they did it and what they did and all those things. And so when I read that quote by Churchill, I went, oh my gosh, that is so right. Until this became real for me, I didn't really start digging in and trying to acquire from every single source that I could find. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:seeing, just seeing the different classes. I mean, I was not the person, I certainly wasn't the dad that you wanted on your tour, if, if, for the poor kids that were given this, because I was like, oh hold on, let me, let me you know what, what have they got for tools back there, what you know? But just thinking about that to your point, compared to how I was, you know, when I was in, when I was in school, and just sort of checking the box to the grade and get the credits and get the heck out of there, so yeah, I think there's a different type of energy and intensity that one puts into studying, when you're actually applying it in real time and see how you're going to be using it in whatever it is that you're trying to do.
Speaker 2:I mean, the importance of that is just insane. And I think I was very fortunate that I grew up in a family where art was a part of the family, because my mom's oldest brother was a world-renowned sculptor and Raku artist. He'd shown all over the world, he had an ongoing practice but also was the dean of an art program in Santa Barbara at UCSB, and so it was a part of the family and my mom's grandparents were huge in art. So my grandfather was always showing me books and walking me through things and literature and poetry and art and they had, you know, gauguin prints and he'd have a Gauguin print next to a Van Gogh print, framed and up, you know, above in the main room by the dinner table. And I knew about their friendship and I knew how they pushed each other.
Speaker 2:I knew those stories as a young age. They didn't hit me until later on in life but I had that knowledge inside me and I have stacks of his I even have them here stacks of his art books from his library, just these huge books that you know what I mean. Yeah, those big coffee table books I've just got. I've like 10 of them that he gave me and some that I got, after he had passed from his bookshelf, that I'd sit on his lap and he'd show me these books and we'd look through all these famous paintings, and so this knowledge continued to just fill me as a child and as I grew older, those interests were always there and stayed there. But honestly, nathan, I just talked about not paying attention to art school. I knew stuff and I kind of went oh yeah, I know that my grandpa taught me about that stuff in art history class so it just kind of went in and out the year but I didn't really know.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until 2014, when I went full-time in art, I really realized that absolute importance of gathering as much as I can and how much it was going to impact, and then impacted my practice 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't have any artists in the family, but I was certainly very fortunate that my parents had two really close friends who were practicing artists, both of whom gave me lessons. I don't really remember how long, but shout out to doug wessendorp and julie smith, who, at different times when I was quite young I mean, I feel like I started with doug when I was gosh, maybe just five or six years old and my parents saw that I just really loved, you know, drawing and all things related to art, and I remember vividly he just'd just take me out in the woods and say let's do you know, let's draw, let's expose me to different materials. And so, just from a young age, just that idea of you know learning by doing, but having those influences was absolutely tremendous and I'm sure you know, planted the seeds for you know, whatever it's become since then. What else you got for us in the quote department?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a quote by Gandhi that I absolutely love and he says live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. That is quintessential to acquiring knowledge over a lifetime. Right, he's saying do everything you can do today, because you don't know what tomorrow is going to hold. Right, live as if you were to die tomorrow. But I love that he packages that living live for everything with learn as if you were going to live forever. Do not stop, keep learning, keep acquiring, keep going after things. And you know that that includes a lot of different things in that right, in that learning as if you're going to live forever. But as an artist to me, that's if I transfer that to me thinking as an artist, it is do everything, experience everything, look at everything, read everything, find everything, watch everything, everything I can, as if I've got this eternal plane to just keep going on as an artist, acquiring, acquiring, acquiring, acquiring.
Speaker 1:The best way to stagnate at anything is to get that fixed mindset of oh, I have all the information I need to stay the course. And I think that it does become more challenging as we age where you know we get to a point where it's like I don't probably need to reevaluate the way that I tie my shoes or gas up my vehicle. I mean, there are certainly some you know basic things that we can do on autopilot, but when it comes to being in the game that we're playing of you know, creativity and art and pushing our own work to make the best work that we're capable of in our lifetime, there's never time to stop acquiring, you know, new information.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think that piggybacks great with this Thomas Kuhn quote that says the answers you get depend on the questions you ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I truly believe that if you're not acquiring knowledge and self-educating yourself, you're going to have very, very few questions to ask, which means you're going to have very few answers to rely on as an artist, and I think I really took that to heart years ago.
Speaker 2:I believe I read that in Art and Fear, maybe 10 years ago, and that's when I went I need to step up my game, because I have all these questions about making and being as an artist that I cannot find answers for anywhere because artists don't like to talk about them Most times.
Speaker 2:The art world doesn't talk about those things a lot of times, and even when I was asking questions to individuals, they weren't really giving me full answers, and so I went well, why don't I start studying all these artists that I love over time and reading about them and reading their stories? All of a sudden, I started getting all these answers. You know, like when I read Joe Miro's book and Joe Miro's journals. Oh, my gosh, all these questions I had for years, um, joe Miro was all of a sudden giving me the answers to as a young artist in his 20s in Spain, and it was so. It's like, oh, just so much stuff started coming to me once I started going to books and going to these things to try and acquire answers to all these questions I have.
Speaker 1:And it all starts with curiosity. Yeah, I don't think that I have any natural gifts, apart from just an absolute superpower for an insane level of curiosity about everything, and sometimes that can absolutely be distracting and that can be a hindrance to actually getting things done and executing. But I think that as I've aged and hopefully matured just a little bit, identifying you know which of those curiosities to chase and do something with and which ones to sort of set aside. But all questions start from that place of hmm, I wonder, I just wonder you know what would dot dot dot fill in the blank? You know what comes from there, but it all begins from that place, I mean, because there's no question to ask if there's not something that we are curious about. That is the well from which the questions flow and, of course, to your point, that's what produces answers that can then push us forward and move things along.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that goes into something we talked about recently, right, actually, you talked about it in the episode with Jeremy Cowart where you talked about just that childlike wonder, yeah, and just that, that curiosity of children and you know, no pressure and just creating. But what's one thing that children do better than anything? They ask a ton of questions, right, some of the best film moments in comedies are the kids asking questions and questions and questions and questions Right To the adult and it just becomes. I mean, there's been TV shows that have been designed on kids asking questions, right, comedies and things. So it's like having that childlike wonder as an adult.
Speaker 2:That enthusiasm to learn, that enthusiasm to ask, I think for an artist is extremely, extremely powerful because you're going to go searching. If you're not going searching, you're going to kind of stall out at some point and then things are going to get really hard because they're going to be hard already. But that total search, I like to think of it sometimes. As you know, I love vintage bookstores. I've talked about this before. It's one of my favorite things. Anytime I travel, I look up vintage bookstores and I go visit them and I search for art books.
Speaker 2:For me, the search and the hunt for books rather than ordering them on Amazon sometimes is part of this whole process for me of learning, and so if there's a certain book I want, I'll put it to my list of my search and my hunt. And I find it in these vintage bookstores and for me it brings even more of a spark of wanting to read it because I waited and I searched and I found it. Rather than the instant gratification of buying it on Amazon it just comes because in art we don't get instant gratification that often. Usually it's a very long process. Because in art we don't get instant gratification that often. Usually it's a very long process. It's a long, long road of working and trying things until you hit that moment and then it's so beautiful because all the hard work you put in. So that's just something I love to do. That creates even more of a fun, exciting part of learning for me, even though I love it anyways. It just adds a little something else exciting part of learning for me, even though.
Speaker 1:I love it anyways. It just adds a little something else when you bring up the childlike wonder and curiosity that we all have, you know, when we're kids. That made me think of something I was just noodling on the idea of what prevents us from continuing to ask a lot of questions as we age, and I think it's mostly just fear of looking dumb, feeling as though we're supposed to have the answer to the question that we're asking.
Speaker 1:And there is something to be said for fake it until you make it. But when you're in the presence or when you have access to people that have an answer or certainly a better answer that is informed by more experience Like, why not ask? So there is confidence. It's an interesting thing. I think it does require a level of confidence to be okay with maybe looking a little dumb or maybe looking a little silly in the moment, but at the end you're going to have more information than you had before and I think that, generally speaking, people that have knowledge especially when you're with them in person they're happy to share it. They're excited to share. It's fun to share what you've learned and to help other people learn. That's just an enjoyable thing to be on either end of that equation. No-transcript, not an expert, never claimed to be, never want to be. I'm an amateur, you know, for life and you're like I kind of am. So you know asking questions, looking for more information and trying to increase you know what we can, what we can contribute.
Speaker 2:You know, with that as well, absolutely, and I'm such a nerd with it that I take it to practice. And I'm sure at times in museums I'm quite annoying because sometimes the museum attendants love to talk to me because I go in and I ask them questions about the work that they're standing in front of day after day after day and testing their knowledge, because some absolutely love the art and they're there because they love the art so much and so, man, I've had some conversations with some 70 and 80-year-old retirees, men and women at museums who know everything about the exhibition and we just go back and forth about the artists and what they're doing and the timelines and those things. Then there are others that are just kind of like, really, oh my gosh, get away from me. And I do it also with museum people that are just standing there, random museum goers standing in front of work and talking about it, and I may practice my own knowledge. Go, hey, you want to learn a little more about this piece and maybe why the room is curated the way it is.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I had people that go, oh, I'd love to. And then another time, people you know kind of get away from me, look. So we can also be annoying with our knowledge at times too, but it's true. Hey, I love art so much that I just want to talk about it all the time, which I'm sure is annoying for some people as well. But you know what People get to talk about their lives and the things they do at dinner all the time and their jobs and what they're doing and their promotions and these things. I'm an artist. That's what I have to talk about is art. So, while you guys talk about your law firms and all these things at dinner, I'm going to talk about being an artist and the art that I love and the books I've read. So sorry if you're at dinner with me, because that's what you're going to get.
Speaker 1:Well, we've already blown up our outline, but that's okay. We're kind of into part two, which was kind of us making the pitch for why being a student of the game is so important. I think we and your learning curve than doing what we're talking about right To seeking out new information. I think about it a lot as just gathering seeds and picking up new little seeds, little ideas, little things that just kind of get planted along the way. Little seeds, little ideas, little things that just kind of get planted along the way. And when I'm doing it right and by right I mean in a way that works for me, I don't have any real concern for is there going to be a harvest or when is that harvest going to be? I see this quote in the mix. I'll share it now.
Speaker 1:Robert Louis Stevenson said don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. That, to me, requires patience and that's going to be something completely different. Waiting for when the harvest, all of those things are somewhat known. It's a different kind of seed. It's the kind where we just don't know when it's going to come to harvest or how it's going to be useful. But we just have to trust that enough of them are going to grow and are going to be able to be harvested in some way at some point down the road.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, that's part of this. That's why I love my one of my mentors.
Speaker 2:Makoto Fujimura, japanese American abstract artist, always uses the correlation of gardening with art making, always.
Speaker 2:It's just there's no closer correlation to anything than gardening with art making. It's just they go hand in hand. And so from planting seeds to investing time and care to nurture what you planted and then to watch those things sprout and like sometimes they don't bloom, sometimes they sprout and then they die and the next one comes in, the next one comes in. But you have to constantly be re-harvesting that. You have to constantly be replanting seeds and nurturing and doing those things. And I think if you want that fully tending garden, that fully bloomed garden, like some of those beautiful gardens in Europe that have taken 50, 60, 100, 120, 200 years to just continually bloom and be cared for, and they're insane mazes of gardens and flowers and I mean it's just absolutely fabulous and I think those do you want the little teeny potted plants on your porch or do you want one of those blooming gardens in your art practice? And that kind of goes hand in hand with what you're going to put in and what's going to come out of it over time.
Speaker 1:I think it's probably a product of being a certain age when the first Karate Kid came out, but I became obsessed with bonsai this age. What age?
Speaker 2:Like my Ferris Bueller shirt age 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but I became completely I think that's when that seed was planted the idea of like, oh, bonsai is incredibly cool and someday and so I think I'm now on my third I have successfully killed two that I have bought. I don't know, maybe it's just where I live up here, probably this is everywhere, but every once in a while you see somebody on the side of the road.
Speaker 1:Well, no, no, you see somebody on the side of the road just set up in a parking lot selling them out of the back of the van. But there's something about that. I bought books about it. Whatever, at this point I'm just like bonsai, curious. It hurt me so bad when the most recent one, when it was clear that I wasn't going to successfully be able to continue to keep this thing alive.
Speaker 1:But the idea of something that grows and continuously gets pruned very specifically over time and deciding you know which branches to nurture and which ones to remove, is just such a such a beautiful, beautiful idea.
Speaker 1:But that to me is sort of the you know, if we, if we put it into one, whatever thing, one, one plant, it would be that you know in, in terms of the practice overall, something that develops gradually over time, certain things stay and become a very meaningful branch of our practice and other things just exist for a little while, still serve the greater good for a period of time and then get removed or pruned or just don't last. But I just think about everything that we acquire along the way. It's purposeful, even if it's not in the moment, because we just never know. I mean, I don't know about you, but I have moments all the time in the studio I'm like, oh, this is like that other thing, or this is like that one thing that I saw, or that one. I mean fill in the blank. I wonder if I could apply that idea. That was meant for something else, you know here, and the answer is almost always yes, or it leads to a glorious mistake and failure. That still contributes to the overall learning and progression.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and just for a frame of Karate Kid reference. Saw the movie in the theater with my I believe it was my mom and dad it might've just been my mom, so we used to go to movies all the time together saw it in the theater and then, I believe it was the next day, I went straight to the library to check out bonsai tree books. Did you Cause I?
Speaker 2:had to learn about them. I had to know more about this, you know, and that was the first time I'd ever heard about bonsai trees. At that point in time too, right. But anyways.
Speaker 2:I want to read this quote by Haruki Murakami that says if you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. I love that idea of going outside the box and just not reading Rick Rubin's new book or reading the one that everybody's reading right now. Extend that collection. I think it was a CS Lewis quote that said for every new book you read, read two old books, or read two classics. It's something along that line. But it's like, for every new book you read, read something old as well.
Speaker 2:Because there's so much life before right now, why just read the new things, the new ideas? There's a whole lot to learn from for centuries before us, and so my books are new and old, and I've been reading a lot of old books lately because they're artists' lives when things were different and things were harder than they were now. So if I can take some things from Jomiro and take some things from Mogdiliani and take some things from some older artists from way back ideas and that grit and determination they had to do things and make things in ways that are 5 million times more difficult to do. If I can instill some of that mindset into my practice today. I know it's going to help me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thinking about how much closer you can get to the source of the original. I'm using air quotes here for the people that aren't watching us on YouTube, which, by the way, if you're just listening, you can watch us on YouTube. All right, there, check.
Speaker 2:You can watch us on Spotify as well now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's right. What was I using air quotes about? That's why I don't do that. That's why I don't pretend that. Make a little side quest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, son of a, I literally don't remember. Yeah, I think the core idea was the closer we can get to the source of the thing. I can't attribute this quote, I don't know where it came from, but the idea is just that, rather than whether it's art or literature, rather than being influenced by the latest, greatest iteration of that, be influenced by what they were influenced by. How far back, how much closer to the original that's what I was using air quotes about. However, however much closer we can get to the original idea or the original practitioner of an idea that just speaks to the value of of, not just, not just inputting. You know the newest, shiniest thing.
Speaker 1:That reminds me of another quote, ty, by Douglas Adams, and he said human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so, which is hilarious because of how true it is. You think about how much information, how much experience of other people is out there and just available for us to learn from. But let me pose that as a question A do you agree with that? And B if so, why do you think it is that we have a tendency to not learn from others. To the extent that we probably could Question one was do you agree with that quote?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I absolutely do, because I see it all the time. I think there are multiple things here because culturally, socioeconomically, there are a lot of things that can go into that quote when you grew up, where you're from, your socionomic level, your education level, your access to education and, for me, all those things where I can kind of go into this. But I think a lot of times it's time you have to spend a lot of time to learn and grow and learn from the experience of others. You also have to listen and you have to be present in order to do so.
Speaker 2:And I think in today, in modern time, contemporary culture, today, there's so much noise and there's so much busyness and there's so many things to distract us from actually being present and paying attention and learning from others that too many people just kind of go with the flow and follow the sheep and herd and that's dangerous. Historically we know that's dangerous and I think it's just difficult. I think it's just a tough thing to do and so I think a lot of that is just the time involved to do that and being present and not distracted by life, and as we get older it gets really hard to not be distracted by life. I think about that all the time, about all the things and doing this and filling in the checking the boxes and doing this thing and making sure I get that done, that. Sometimes it's really hard to just be totally present.
Speaker 1:Especially when you already know enough to do the thing the way you've always done it at least Right, absolutely. Do the thing the way you've always done it at least right, absolutely. I mean I think about the. That was part of my. My definition of being a student of the game is just diversifying your influences from as many different sources as possible, maximizing our inputs.
Speaker 1:I've shared this quote before um on a earlier episode, I think in our first season, but this is a quote by Paul Schrader, the writer and director, but I love it so much I'm going to share it again. That's the secret of creativity you have to steal around. If you keep going back to the same 7-Eleven, they're going to catch you. So you go over to the floral shop, the gas station that nobody ever goes to, you steal all this shit and you put it together and people say, wow, they think it's yours. I love that quote for a lot of reasons, but I think that just that last part right, like wow, they think it's yours because it is, it is yours.
Speaker 1:Once you have diversified, once you pulled seemingly disparate ideas, ways of doing things and put them together in a novel way, you have created something that hasn't been created before Because you're taking ingredients from so many different places. It's going to look different, it's going to be unique, it's going to be authentic to your personal voice, setting aside for the moment, the idea of something that's never been done before complete originality. You wouldn't look at at traders movies and say, oh they, they completely redefined. You know cinema from the ground up, but they're absolutely unique to his voice and his vision because of the diversity the diversity, um, of where he's stealing those ideas from.
Speaker 2:Well, I think one of the best examples of this that you can use is DJs, and particularly the origin of hip hop. Djs from DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash, I mean African Bambaataa Kid K, all these old school guys. And DJ Spooky says you're only as good as your record collection. Yeah, but you have to think about the fact that a great DJ's record collection is more eclectic than the next DJ's record collection, because if they were all spinning the same records, it's all going to sound the same same records. It's all going to sound the same. And you look at some of the guys that innovated in hip hop as DJs, as disc jockeys, spinners. They're taking old stuff, new stuff, they're mixing it together. They're taking classical music and golden oldies and blues and they're creating something new that is theirs out of somebody else's sounds.
Speaker 1:As opposed to just pulling from what's popular at the moment and trying to do their version of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Hip hop is a perfect example of that. We were out in Ohio last month. We were in the Cleveland area for a softball tournament, but I took my daughter to the rock and roll hall of fame and if you haven't seen their, their, their hip-hop exhibit is phenomenal because it does exactly that. It starts at the very, the very beginning, the very roots, and you can see, especially if you have even even uh, passing knowledge of of that genre and of those artists, you can see the through line, what started here and how they then took this here and artist B took it here and artist C took it, and it's. It's fascinating to think, but it's funny how often our conversations come back to music and musicians. But I've always been interested in reading, you know, back in the back in the day when I subscribed to what were all the spin Rolling Stone, reading about the artists. But it always caught my attention when asked who are your biggest influences, how often it's from a completely different genre, how often it's like, oh, I never would have thought.
Speaker 2:Almost always.
Speaker 1:Almost always that they'd be influenced by something that is completely over here. And then you think about it, you listen back. Maybe you weren't educated about that particular you know artist or or Johnny in it. Oh, there is a little bit there, and there's a little bit of that and there's a little bit, but they put it together in this in this unique and novel way, and made it their own.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think Jimmy Page is a great example of that I think he talks about in the documentary. It might get loud with Jack Black and the Edge. He listened to classical music. Barbershop quartets, old school stuff that he grew up on is where his passion was. But then he played and I guess they would say we were not rock and roll, we weren't progressive rock, we were more jazz fusion, more than anything, just because of their time, signatures and things that they played. But his influence was not rock and roll. He's one of the greatest considered, if not the greatest, one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time and he didn't even listen to the music they played. So great example. Well, nathan, how in the world do artists do this? Like? What are ways for artists to deepen their knowledge, to feed into a world and a historic world that goes on for centuries? What are ways that they can attain this knowledge and bring things in and attain wisdom that helps their practice?
Speaker 1:Well, let me kick out. That's a great question. We'll close out by giving some tactical ideas on how to do this. I think I want to throw at least one more quote in the mix here, mark Twain said this is a great one.
Speaker 1:The person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read. The person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read. The person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read. In other words, if we are not, and replace read with listen, watch, whatever input or inputs work best for you, but if we're not doing that thing, it's the same as not being able to. If we're not actively reading, it's the same as being illiterate, which I don't know about you, but I can't imagine anybody actually actively choosing but you are effectively illiterate if you are not reading and absorbing and consuming new ideas and old ideas consistently. So, tactically, I think that diversity is the name of the game. I'm just going to list off some ways, and most of these are super, super obvious. But there's probably at least one on this list that our listener you, dear listener, whose ears we are in right now, may or may not be doing currently. So I'm just going to rattle these off time. You can pick up wherever you'd like, but I think so let's just start with reading the obvious ones. So, whether that be books about the art world, biographies, journals, autobiographies, history, watching art, documentaries, listening to audio books. I'm a listener, I do like to read and I always buy the physical copy so that I can especially if it's a book that really resonates with me. I'll then go back and read it, which I'm then able to get through a lot quickly because I already have listened to highlight, make my marks and make my notes and then translate different ideas into journals. But audio books are fantastic and since Spotify added, I mean there's a veritable library on Spotify. If that's something that you subscribe to that you can get for free.
Speaker 1:Listening to podcasts I mean we listen to a ton of different podcasts in the art space and outside the art space, partially just to get ideas on how to be better at what we're doing and get ideas about how we can improve. You know what we're doing. That's a great one. This is one. You know following people on social media and that kind of thing who give valuable information. You know there's some really great follows and we can maybe list them off in a different episode or right now if you got some top of mind. But just, you know following people. And then you know DMing and reaching out. You know I I love it when I, when I come across a new technique, a new idea, just an artist that I really dig, just DMing, saying, hey, I really dig your work, you know, like I really I really love what you're doing and let that be that and maybe that starts a conversation that you know leads somewhere. Just a new, a new connection to you know, be able to comment or receive different ideas at some point down the future.
Speaker 1:But a few of those have actually Quite a few, as a matter of fact, have developed into real connections where we can communicate about art and what we're up to. Showing up is a huge one Going to openings, going to events, right, rubbing elbows face-to-face, sharing oxygen with people that are doing the things that, that, uh, that you're doing in the same world, that you're trying to be a part of networking. We've talked about that one before, but that's absolutely critical. Just, you know, making those connections. And then this is something that we've heard from you many, many times before and we'll again but just looking at a ton of art. That was the list that I kind of put together. What did I miss? Or which of those do you want to unpack and talk more?
Speaker 2:about, if any you know on the looking at art. Why go look at art? Because it piques your interest in learning more about that artist. Number one it teaches you about your own work. When you get back to your studio and you're looking at work and you've been looking at others' work it teaches you.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that I do in my mentorship program is probably one of the favorite things that I do outside of our calls and the time I spend with the mentees is I create a research document artists from contemporary culture to art history that is based on the artist's work. So your personal work, what your work looks like, what feels on the art timeline it has. Does it have some neo-expression or some minimalism? Is there a little bit of favism or what is it in this artist's work? And I put together a list based on artists in history and in contemporary culture who have work and similar ideas. It may not be exactly work ideas, it may be thought process and philosophy ideas in the work. And then I also take a list from the artists on work they love. What do they love? If they could take a technique from anybody, who would they take it from? And I take all these ideas and I create a list of probably depends on the arts between 50 to 200 artists over time and I also give them a list of genres and movements and art that fits with their work and the narrative in their work, so that they have something to spend an enormous amount of time looking at and researching and going down rabbit holes, because at the end of the day, this is a 100% Neo from the matrix thing of following that rabbit hole right, going down that rabbit hole and following it and following it and following it and following it. And usually when an artist starts researching art, they get addicted and they want to research more because they see how it impacts their practice. Another part of this research document is I do a YouTube playlist based on that document has artists, studios, lectures, certain movements, all kinds of historic documentaries and things in a YouTube playlist that may be between 40 to 100 videos for them to even go into a more visual route rather than a reading and researching route.
Speaker 2:But I would say, find ways to do that on your own.
Speaker 2:I mean, I do it regularly and this is what I love about doing it for my artists is I'll have an artist from the Middle East.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't spend a lot of time studying Middle Eastern art, the history of Middle Eastern art, or do I even get to go see very much Middle Eastern art, and so I have to spend time researching artists from that artist's culture, from their historic culture in the art movement and contemporary artists, and I've been able to find artists from all over the world in areas I've never even thought about that have influenced my work, and some of them I've been able to reach out to and now talk work with on Instagram at times, and so for me, that's just like wow, I just found this artist from Ghana, or somebody who's absolutely insane, that inspires me and they're creating. Now I follow them and ask questions how did you do this? How did you sew this? How did this work? This work is incredible and trying to build that network and build those relationships, and I can't always go to places and see the work, so that's something for me that I love and it's just really exciting for me to do.
Speaker 1:That's a big one. And you talk about YouTube, youtube University. Following the rabbit hole, youtube's search function or algorithm in terms of what you might like to watch next is pretty damn. Oh yeah, it's insane, it's really good. So when you get on one little thing, it's going to do a pretty good job of suggesting hey, you might like this. Hey, you know what YouTube I might? Thank you, let me give that a try. I think, just in terms of seeing other artists make work, the Art21 videos are phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Phenomenal. Louisiana channel Louisiana channel.
Speaker 1:Those are great. And you think about just seeing those little mini documentaries of artists working in their studio. You see a tool, you see a technique, you see something like, ooh, what about that? I get a lot of DMs or questions about, like somebody asked me do you think you'll ever? Would you ever teach classes? And I'm like I wouldn't. The answer is no. I mean, I wouldn't even know how to begin to, because all I'm doing is just trying all of the different things that I'm seeing on YouTube, most of which have nothing to do with art, most of which are in the sort of construction or manufacturing space to think about.
Speaker 1:Okay, how could I I'm always thinking about how could I misuse a technique and I say that term somewhat tongue in cheek but how could I take a technique and repurpose it for something completely different, that being art, and just see what happens? I've talked to about just walking through the halls of your the halls, the aisles there we go, of your local hardware store and home improvement, saying what could I do with this? And just going nuts, because when you watch some of those videos and you see the things that some of these artists are using, it's not the typical materials that you're going to find at your local art supply store necessarily. So just being a nerd back to our original point, probably a good place to close. But just being a nerd about how much can I learn, and not just acquiring new information but then thinking about how to apply it, like that's probably where I would, you know, plant my flag and close out today. But just, it's one thing to acquire new information and I would argue that, just again, collecting a bunch of new seeds has value for sure, because just having those seeds means that they're probably planted somewhere in your subconscious. You've got it in there.
Speaker 1:However, there is another step that is more proactive. It's more than it is passive, just like waiting for the seeds to kind of grow on their own. And the proactive portion of this becomes a matter of how do I apply these, how do I take this and actually do something with it? And have little side experiments going that nobody sees, that may have nothing to do with the work that you're trying to move forward, but just little side quests, little experiments, because some of those will absolutely bear tremendous fruit. But you got to apply it, you got to try to do something with these ideas, whether they're technique related, or whether they're more habits or the way we think about the work. All of those. It's holistic right. It's sort of that holistic approach to how can we grow as individuals and how can those techniques, those ideas, all of that new information translate into something that we apply.
Speaker 2:And there's no better time than now to start learning again. So for any of you out there who have just put it to the curb or haven't even thought about it, or thought about it and hadn't started, there's no better time than today to order a new book. Go find a new book, add some new audio books to your playlist, get on there and search art books artist books on Spotify or iTunes, whatever and start listening. Or on Netflix, do a search artist on Netflix or Amazon, prime, whatever and find art documentaries old ones, new ones, gather as much. And for those of you that are saying, well, I just don't have the money to go buy new books, well, you can order used books on Amazon. So there's a lot of books you can find at $5, $6 that are used.
Speaker 2:Museums have incredible books libraries Most museums have libraries within them, and so you can go sit down in a museum library and just pull books. I used to do this all the time when I couldn't buy books. I'd go to museums around me and I'd go sit in the library for two or three hours and I would just have books out and I'd take pictures with my phone of work and pages and things, because I couldn't go buy the book. So there are plenty of ways that you don't have to spend money to buy things and libraries still exist. So there are libraries, probably in your city or your town, where you can go check out books for a period of time and read them.
Speaker 2:I know that sounds very archaic and old, but they do exist and you can actually go check out a book for a month and read a book if you can't afford to buy one for free. So plenty of ways to do it. There's no excuses. And the reason we're doing this because we want you to grow. We want you to grow in your work and your practice, and we know that attaining that knowledge and growing your knowledge becomes wisdom and it will impact your work. It will help your work. Do a little bit of research, go see some art, go read some books, listen to audio books, watch some documentaries and just fill that brain. And what's going to happen is the moment inspiration strikes in the studio. You are well prepared to go on like the blazes with your work.
Speaker 1:That would have been a great place to close, but I thought of one more thing. Yes, it occurs to me that we're talking a lot about thinking about art and art technique, but one of the things that I think is so invaluable about getting into the biographies, the autobiographies, and hearing about what it was actually like for these legendary artists whose names are engraved beneath their pieces in the most what am I trying to say? All of these artists, the artists that hang in museums, the ones whose names we would all know and aspire to, whatever be like being an artist, can be really lonely. We can get stuck in our head sometimes. I mean, there's a lot of. It's an emotional process. We're trying to put something into our work, to make it uniquely ours. There's going to be a lot of emotion around that, and so I think that that sense that I get from reading about what it was like for those artists when they were making the work which is oh, by the way, where we're at right now we are I don't mean to say this, but we are in the time where we are making the work, and so hearing about what it was like to make the work I mean this comes up often.
Speaker 1:I think that we referenced it most recently in our Helen Frankenthaler episode. But just like even Helen, even a badass like Helen, who, if you just saw the work, if you just read a couple of the most common quotes, you'd think never dealt with any fear and security absolutely did. I'm listening to Ninth Street Women right now in the studio and just hearing about like, wow, the de Koonings didn't know how they were going to. Elaine had to have how many different side jobs just to keep things afloat, just to keep the lights on. They had to move because they couldn't afford.
Speaker 1:And so here I am worried about whatever little, whatever little little thing that I'm, you know poor me about on that particular day and you're like, oh, okay, it's, it's not just, it's not just me, this is, this is the path, this is, this is kind of what we've chosen. And so just understanding that what we're feeling, what we're thinking, the struggles that we have, it's nothing new, it's countless others that have come before us and everyone who's doing what we're doing or a version of it has and is walking a similar path, which in and of itself is incredibly encouraging just to realize like, oh, this is just part of it, it's not just me, this is just part of it, and here we go.
Speaker 2:I'm going to close on your thing with something I learned.
Speaker 1:No, you're not. I'm going to close after you close. No, this is it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to close your close, I'm coming over the top. So, mentioning de Kooning, I'm currently reading de Kooning, an American Master, which was a Pulitzer Prize winning book, and it's insane. And today I read de Kooning said I always wondered why Americans pronounce my name de Kooning. It's so funny because the actual proper way to say my name is de Kooning. That's the way you say it in Dutch. It's actually de Kooning. But because the Americans couldn't figure it out, because there's two O's and said de Kooning, he just went with it. So I learned that this morning in my reading. Anyways, for all the de Kooning fans out there, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. Do people struggle with Clark All the?
Speaker 2:time. Do you experience that personally?
Speaker 1:Only if you're Scottish. I love it. Thanks for listening. Join us next time for whatever we decide to talk about then. Have a great one.
Speaker 2:Freaking Deconing.
