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
Art & Fear: The Book. Part 1
What if every artist experienced the same fears and hurdles, regardless of their success? Join us as we unpack the timeless wisdom from David Bayles and Ted Orland's "Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Art Making." Discover how the intense stress of a blank canvas and reflect on the profound insights of Gene Fowler and Hippocrates. We'll explore the poignant reality that envisioned works often feel more real than their completed counterparts, and how this universal uncertainty shapes the artistic journey.
Throughout our conversation, we emphasize the power of embracing ordinary struggles and unresolved questions in the creative process. You'll learn how finding fulfillment in the journey itself, rather than fixating on immediate solutions, can transform your approach to art-making. We debunk the myth of the "extraordinary artist," highlighting how recognizing our shared experiences can foster hope and confidence. Through personal anecdotes and practical strategies, we illustrate how acknowledging common artistic challenges can sustain your creative efforts and prevent self-doubt from taking root.
In this episode, we also tackle the pervasive doubts and fears that plague all artists, emphasizing the importance of discipline and consistent work. You'll hear how every studio session is an opportunity to explore uncharted territories and how effort can transform talent into skill. Reflect on the delicate balance between aspiration and acceptance, and how maintaining regular creative routines can prevent the mental stagnation that leads to quitting. Tune in for a rich discussion that offers invaluable insights into navigating the uncertainties of the artistic journey and reigniting your creative spark.
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Well, we are about to tackle what I think and I know, nathan, what you think as well is probably one of the most foundational books. Hold on, you know what I think.
Speaker 2:Let's get this started off on a. That's a very presumptuous way to start a podcast. My friend, it is.
Speaker 1:But you know this and I know this. We are about to tackle a book that you and I absolutely love, something that I teach from in my mentorship program, something that I've read countless times, that you and I both listened to, read underlined, outlined, highlighted. I mean it's like every time you read it there's something else that jumps off the page, and I would say, for artists, using the term, a biblical book kind of makes sense as well. There are just so many things in there that you should take into your practice on a regular basis. This book was written by David Bales and Ted Orland. It's titled Art and Fear Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Art Making, and I like how they have and rewards in parentheses there. That's just kind of there. Sometimes there's some rewards, and so I cannot wait to go through this and we're going to spend some time on it.
Speaker 1:This isn't just a one-off. This is going to be a multiple episode dive, really deep dive, as we break this down. So if you've read the book, or if you're getting the book today and ordering it to read it, follow along, send us your notes. We would love to hear your thoughts on it. We would love to hear what you think and it's going to be, I think and I know we've talked about this, nathan a really fun dive into this book. And before we get started, I love the hat. You have one of our good friends hats on today. Tell me about that before we start.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:This is a recent acquisition to the hat wardrobe. I met Bodie Robinson about a year ago at an event that we were both at and made the connection through you that we were both going to be there, and I got a chance to meet Bodie, who's just an incredible human being, incredible artist, and also has a brand of streetwear where it's wearable art Art off canvas is one of the slogans or mantras, so all of these marks have been personally made by the artist yourself.
Speaker 1:So yeah, thanks, hi Bodhi. Love you, miss you. Hopefully see you soon.
Speaker 2:But yeah go check it out St Bodhi, so hats shirts, hoodies, all kinds of really cool stuff.
Speaker 1:We'll put a link in the episode thing so people can check her work out. Let's do it.
Speaker 2:I mean, you were talking about it, we were joking when we were preparing for the episode, but this is one of those books where you could throw a dart at pretty much any page and hit a quote that's worth discussing. So the challenge for us is not finding things to talk about, it's editing down and not having each of these three parts be five-hour episodes.
Speaker 1:But we'll see Right. This isn't an audio book reading right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Although, now that you mentioned it, so for anybody that's on Spotify, the audio version is on Spotify for free if you've got that subscription, so it's a good listen as well.
Speaker 1:Well, let's jump into the artist's struggles, which is kind of the beginning of the book, kind of where the authors start talking about struggles and the difficulty of things, and I love there's a quote by Gene Fowler that I adapted, that I changed up, that I use, and it says painting is easy. All you do is sit staring at a blank canvas until drops of blood form on your forehead, and anybody that knows the biblical story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane there's a moment where blood drops form on his forehead when he's making a very difficult decision in life. And I love this story, no matter what you believe. It's an incredible story of stress and asking and wondering and trying to fight through something. And so I looked it up. So I looked up this phenomenon and it's an actual scientific thing sweating blood and it's called hematohidrosis and it occurs in individuals suffering from extreme levels of stress. Around the sweat glands there are multiple blood vessels in a net-like form which can constrict under great pressure and push blood through the pores.
Speaker 1:And I thought what you know, thinking of starting a book for artists and creators with that quote from Gene Fowler. You know, just staring and trying to figure it out until drops of blood form on our forehead. I think any of us in the art game understands that anxiety and stress in those moments, right? Yes, I think it's a great start and I think let's go ahead and just move into page one here, and there's a great quote that was written in 460 BC. Do you mind reading that, nathan? I do not mind at all.
Speaker 1:Life is short, art, long opportunity, fleeting experience, treacherous judgment, difficult Hippocrates today, but craft or making something or creating a vision or something like. We all know that life's short and good Lord, it takes forever for our work to get to that point where we really want it to be and, yes, our opportunities are very small and fleeting Experiences treacherous. We don't know what's going to happen and our judgment, creating what we want to create, moving in those directions, is so hard, and that's where we are going to absolutely dive into this and go really, really deep. How often do you think, nathan, that the work that you haven't created yet seems way more real than the work you are making right now?
Speaker 2:The work? Oh yeah, Very often no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Often the work we have not done seems more real in our minds than the pieces that we have completed. And I think, like you said, for the most part we have no idea what we're doing. But because we look at a lot of work and we see a lot of work and we know other artists and we see their work, there's this vision that occurs in our head that seems so far away. And each time we sit down to start working we're trying to get to that vision, but then all of a sudden it's nowhere near it. I mean, I screwed up so many paintings this week, just like had this vision in my head, and then I start rolling. It's like I'm nowhere near that. How do I get there? How can I do that? It's always, it's constant, all the time it's treacherous, it's difficult.
Speaker 2:That can be a trap, I think as well. I don't know about you, but it can be a trap for me to want to just start new things because the starting is is is fun, the starting is easy, the starting is just the, for me anyway, and it's the. Hey, I've got this idea. Let me just see where, where it takes me, whereas the late future steps in the process become a bit more, you know, laborious. That's where we're trying to resolve things and decide and is something finished and what does it need, and those types of things. So, because the idea of the unfinished work is so elusive, so attractive and, to your point, to the book's point, looks better in our minds than all the what oftentimes, if we're in a low moment, looks and feels like absolute trash, that's in process that can create its own set of problems. Yeah, too many ideas. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is something that obviously has been a repeated thing on our podcast.
Speaker 1:We talk about this a lot and this quote, I know, has both really been transformational for you and I both, because we've talked about it a lot on the podcast and they say making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself. So they're talking about there's this process of you're not just making the work, just to make it. You better be searching, you better be looking, you better be really spending time finding moments that are nourishment right, and what is nourishment needed for? For growth, yeah, to be healthy, to continue to move forward. Right, we eat healthy things, we eat good food and drink in order to nourish our bodies, so that we're healthy and we can live a long life. It's the same thing with art. If we're not searching for those nourishing moments within our work that can take us on to tomorrow and the next day and the next piece, growth is stunted. We are unhealthy artists, we're not moving forward, we're not growing, and I think, man, that quote has stuck with me ever since I read it.
Speaker 2:Well, there's another quote that speaks to that too, that I had highlighted I wanted to talk about. Yeah, it's on page 11. With individual artworks, it means leaving some loose thread, some unresolved issue to carry forward to explore in the next piece. With larger goals, like monographs or major shows, it means always carrying within you the seed crystal for your next destination. I don't have to try, I don't know about you. Actually, I'd be curious to ask you this Is it something you think about leaving some loose thread, or do the threads just present Some loose thread or do the threads just present? I mean, I'll go first. My experience is for sure like the loose threads are always there, I don't have to think about or try to not resolve all of the ideas in any given piece or body of work. There's always way more of those than I intend, which is a beautiful thing, right, because that's what leads to the next thing. What's your experience with that?
Speaker 1:If our current goal is our only goal, just this piece, this work that we're working on, then we're not really leaving these unresolved issues for each work, like you said, leaving that thread like kind of hanging.
Speaker 1:If we're just so focused on finishing this one piece at least for me this has been very successful in my process and working If I'm just so focused on one piece finish, finish, finish, finish then I'm kind of missing the goals that are to come, because I know that each work has taken me to the next piece. And if I'm so focused on this one and not looking for nourishment things but focused on finishing, then I'm kind of stifling that growth for what could be coming next. So now when I'm working I'm thinking about where is the work going, where is it taking me next, where is this one piece taking me? If it's done, it's done. But I'm not trying to force the issue anymore. I'm trying to leave threads and leave these moments that are pushing me to piece number three, four, five, six down the road and kind of keeping that horizon ever growing and ever spreading out even further.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, now that I've totally blown up our game plan and our outline, you know four minutes in.
Speaker 1:No, but this is good because it does really piggyback on that moment. And I've got a quote from Rainier Maria Rilke from his book Letters to a Young Poet, which I suggest everybody go out and find or buy today. And he writes to this young poet and he says I'd like to beg you, dear sir, have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. The point is live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday in the far future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way to an answer.
Speaker 1:So he's saying leave unresolved threads, don't keep fighting, fighting, fighting for that answer in the work. You may not know how to answer it yet, because you're a young artist, you're a young writer, a young sculptor. Let all those questions grow and grow and grow so that in time the answers find you, rather than focusing so hard on what's my voice, how do I do this, how can I get there, spend time working and leaving those threads unresolved, so that all of a sudden there's a needle and it's pulling it through to each work as it goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that makes me think of finding satisfaction, getting fulfillment from the questions themselves right, starting from the position of not, oh, I lack answers and I won't have, I won't be whole, I won't have until dot, dot, dot. But finding fulfillment in the fact that we have questions, we have those unresolved things that are going to inevitably lead to wherever we're supposed to go right which ultimately leads to faith and trust in the process and where we're supposed to end up right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean here's the key, and I love how they say this Art's made by ordinary people. Even extraordinary art is made by ordinary people. Yeah, ordinary art is made by ordinary people. Yeah, it's not a superhero, it's not somebody that has this insane special blood or extraordinary DNA or something that helps them just create work that's better than everybody else. No, art is made by ordinary people, and I love that he says if you're going to say that, then you have to allow. The ideal artist would be an ordinary person too.
Speaker 1:The whole usual mixed bag of traits, weaknesses, strengths, flaws, all those things. Every single artist has the same qualities. Now, there are differences that separate them, but I think, just realizing and we say this all the time, we said it in our last episode episode study, study, study, study, read, read, read, read, read, that way you realize. Oh my gosh, yeah, every artist is an ordinary person, just like me, same struggles, same things, and there's a confidence in understanding that. You may know it, but once you understand it, that's where the confidence comes from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, ty, for me, this book is just another reminder that it's not just me All of the doubts, all the fears, all the second guessing, it's not just me, it's not just you, it's everyone that's ever tried to do what we're trying to do, which is which is, you know, make art, and make art that is that is authentic to us. Personally, you know, I've talked before about my experience with, with recovery and with the, with the 12 steps, and one of the things that gets discussed, you know, in those meetings a lot, is the, the challenge of thinking that one is terminally unique, in other words, the opposite of what I just shared. It is just me. Only I have this problem, which means that only I could somehow, hopefully, stumble across a solution that is also unique to me. No, no, no, we're all in this same boat, right, because we share a common problem. That's really good news, because that means that the solution, the answers to these questions that are outlined in the book, to our conversation today about art, will give us a solution that also applies to us, right, yeah? And once we've got a solution that leads to hope, right, um, and when there's hope for the future, there's power in the present. So I just think that whole idea of just you know, it's not just me everyone who's walked this path before and is walking it before to your point of right, 400 BC, I'm sure if there were, if there was written recorded history before that on this topic, it would say something similar right. As long as people been trying to do this thing, that we're trying to do, this has been a thing right, and so that whole idea of it's not just me, right, you know I jumped to. Let me stay on that same topic, though. That whole idea of the myth of the extraordinary, let's talk about that. I'm jumping ahead again, but, ty, this is from page 24.
Speaker 2:It's easy to imagine that real artists know what they're doing and that they, unlike you, are entitled to feel good about themselves and their art. Fear that you are not a real artist causes you to undervalue your work. The chasm widens even further when your work isn't going well, when happy accidents aren't happening or hunches aren't paying off. If you buy into the premise that art can only be made by people who are extraordinary, such down periods only serve to confirm that you aren't. Before chucking it all for a day job, however, consider the dynamics at work here.
Speaker 2:Both making art and viewing art require an ongoing investment of energy, lots of energy. In moments of weakness, the myth of the extraordinary provides the excuse for an artist to quit trying to make art. So let's unpack this myth of the extraordinary. And I want to pose a question to you because in your program you've worked now with dozens of different artists. I'm curious have you observed this to be a common thing? If you had to pull a number out of the air, what percentage of the artists that you've worked with and had these deep discussions around this topic have those types of doubts and fears, in other words, that the artists who have done the things that they aspire to someday do are special in some way, that they themselves are not Almost everybody? I suspected you were going to say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If not a hundred percent, 99.9%, yeah, Right, and this isn't a knock on anybody, this is just. I mean I, I've felt that way forever and there's times I still struggle with that. Right, I mean, literally, I know these things now, I know them all. That doesn't mean I don't walk into a museum and go, never going to get there, you know what I mean. Or or literally go, no, that's all lies. She's a freaking superhero. There's something special about her. Right, I mean, that's just part of it, you know, and that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's one of the hardest things for us to again understand Like we can know it. It's one of the hardest things for us to again understand Like we can know it, we can read it. But to truly understand that is hard and it all comes from the amount of art making you're doing as well, I think, the discipline, the routine, the constantly creating and, you know, really focusing on the process and the experience of shaping the work, not on any outward experience. I think the inward experience is what truly feeds the knowing and understanding of those things.
Speaker 1:If we're constantly looking outward. Sorry, we're going to struggle and doubt and think everybody else is superhuman and we are nothing if we're focusing on the outward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so true. And, as the self-appointed director of you know, tactable, tangible takeaways for our audience, I will. I will put a pin in something really important that you said, which is you haven't read this book just once. Right, yeah, we don't. We don't just, we don't just absorb these things one time and then just have it forever and have an emotional connection to that in the moment when we're low, when we're feeling down. So it's back to that whole idea of repetition and continuing to expose ourselves to ideas that are nurturing, that are healthy, that help us to get in a proactive place of. Hey, it's not just me, this is just part of it. Let me get back to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to read a few things from page five through seven. I'm just going to paraphrase here and kind of jump through some paragraphs, because this really does focus on that. And he talks about the audience and the artist, not worrying about the audience or the outward things, but really focusing on the inward things. And they say right, the viewer, the audience of the artist is. Their job is to be moved by art, entertained by it, make a killing off it, selling it, whatever. Our job is to learn about working on our work.
Speaker 1:And virtually all artists spend some of their time, and some all of their time, producing work that no one else much cares about. So I want everybody to hear that Most artists spend most of their time making work that no one really cares about. It's really hard to make a lot of work that a lot of people care about. That's what he's saying there. So it's like you're no different than all the other artists out there. And then, if you jump down, he says the function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. I use that quote in the program my program all the time, the majority of the time that you will spend making your art in your lifetime is to produce the small fraction of work that absolutely soars, and I always tell people you go into museums and you see your favorite artist's work. Sometimes the only work you see is from one period of their life.
Speaker 2:Often Sometimes.
Speaker 1:Often yeah, other times you may see two or three different pieces from different periods of your life, but you don't see 500 pieces from their life, right? You're seeing a few, some of your favorite artists in the world. They don't have a thousand works in museums. They don't have 500 works, maybe 10, maybe 30. There may be 30 pieces that rotate around the world to different museums who have them on loan for exhibitions. The majority of your work is teaching you about the small fraction of work that soars. That's why we leave those unresolved issues, those questions, those threads to keep taking us on and on and on to that piece that gets into the show that lasts for a long time. To get to that other piece, that other one, maybe a year down the road, we don't know.
Speaker 1:And there's a great quote from a book called Letters to a Young Artist by Anna Deavere Smith and it says I love this quote. You are an explorer. You understand that every time you go in the studio you are after something that does not yet exist. That's a beautiful, marvelous quote. I pray for those moments when I go into the studio, I'm setting off on a trail and I'm going to map what doesn't exist today. What's going to come from that. Do you ever have that feeling in the studio?
Speaker 2:All the time. All the time, when you talk about that, I'm just processing that quote again. When you talk about that, I'm just processing that quote again and I think about it seems to me the challenge the goal for us would be to find that sort of delicate place between this could be the one, this could be one of the ones that soars, while accepting that statistically it probably won't be. You're kind of sitting in that balance, right, like treating every piece as though it could be one of the precious few, while also acknowledging and accepting, like I said, that it may not be. That leads me to a place of you know, when I'm in the studio, to not over-identify with whatever I'm working on at the moment and I don't know when it happened. At some point along the way I actually got that and am now able to remind myself that, not if, but when, I am frustrated and certain that not just the piece I'm working on, but everything in process right now is absolute garbage. Yeah, that, that's that. That's part of it, right, I'm not over identifying with hey, everything.
Speaker 2:But because early on I absolutely did fall in that trap. You know, early on it was every, every piece that I completed. That was the thing that I that defined. Am I on the right track or not? Like, am I? Do I have it, you know? Yeah, and it's really important to avoid being in that place because, gosh, when, when, when, when we're making from a place of the stakes are that high that this thing right in front of me is what's going to determine if I should make the next thing. That's a bad place to be. That is a place that I'm choosing not to live anymore and would encourage anybody who might identify with having been or being now in that place to get to that point. So I'll ask you, what advice would you give somebody who maybe is still in that spot where they are over identifying or putting too much weight into what they're working on right now as opposed to having more of that? Art is long, you know. Long-term view of this is just another step towards me making my best work.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's discipline.
Speaker 1:I think that it's discipline that sets those things in motion to change your ways of thinking and the way that you concentrate and the way that you focus, the way that you doubt all those things that go into that.
Speaker 1:Hippocrates quote right, discipline, I think, is the cure for the most part of those things, because if you're undisciplined then you're bouncing here, working here, doing a little bit here, and those thoughts tend to really really pile up, right, really start to pile up and fill up, and then you're spending a lot of time thinking about those things rather than working through them in the work. And that's where I think the danger really comes, because that's when we get really doubtful on self and then self starts to be the control rather than the work being control. If we don't like ourselves a lot of times, we're not really going to like our work sometimes. I think we talked about that a lot in the Louise Bourgeois episode months ago. But I think discipline is really the key and there's a great quote on page nine where they share from Stephen DeStabler, where they share from Stephen DeStabler and it says artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Talk to me about that. It's funny when I read that in the book and when I saw that you want to talk about that today. I don't connect to that quote at all, but maybe it's just because I don't understand. I'm not that Well, if you think of discipline it's entirely possible, if you think of discipline.
Speaker 1:It's entirely possible. If you think of discipline, right, if you are working, there's a pain, right, when you're creating art, there's a lot of pains that go within that. There's a lot of frustration, a lot of growth, a lot of things that are just really hard. But for the artist, the artist whose goal is this and making this, when you are not working on your work, those pains increase, they get bigger. Your wonder, your frustration, your doubts, they grow and grow and grow and grow. So he's just saying artists don't get down to work until they realize I need to be working more, I need to be putting more time in, because all that time I'm not working, I'm worrying, I'm frustrated, I'm doubting. All these pains start to grow and grow and grow. What is the one thing that eases those pains for the artist? Being in the freaking studio? Yeah, right, and that's where they're really kind of going into this section on part two, where they kind of talk about quitting, so like this discipline, the pain of creating and all these things, and they explore, not quitting, and the normal artist's cycle of things they go through Strong work, good work, bad work, frustrating work, okay, it's like this bounce back and forth, and I love this on page nine.
Speaker 1:Those who would make art might well begin by reflecting on the fate of those who preceded them. Most who began quit. It's a genuine tragedy. Worse, yet it's an unnecessary tragedy. After all, artists who continue and artists who quit share an immense field of common emotional ground. Wow, and then they say to survive as an artist requires confronting these troubles. Basically, those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue or, more precisely, have learned not to quit.
Speaker 1:I share the story all the time in my program that I don't know how many people were in my class in art school, but there are only two of us from my class, three of us that are in the art world. Sure, life gets in the way, different things get in the way, and quitting for art doesn't look like I'm throwing in the towel, I'm freaking done. Quitting for artists means time grows in between making and not making, and it grows bigger and wider and longer and longer, and pretty soon that person's no longer making art. I can't tell you how many conversations you've probably had this with people too, where you meet somebody oh, you're an artist, oh, I used to make art when I was younger. I really miss it.
Speaker 1:Or I've had artists in the program who went to art school, got an MFA, then got married and life happened and they didn't make art for 20, 30 years, yeah, and now they're back making art again, right? So it's not. That's the scary thing, right? When you're not disciplined, you can mentally quit with not even know you're quitting, until 10 years down the road you haven't made any art at all.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a scary thought the authors make the distinction between quitting and stopping, yes, and that quitting happens once, but then I go to all right. I mean, I don't know about you, I rarely leave the studio at night or at the end of the day on a high note, very, very rarely and rarely you know, and part of it just like, has to do with just the emotional reserves you know are are lower.
Speaker 2:I'm emotionally spent, I'm physically spent, you know, at the end of most days and so naturally I'm going to look at things and feel differently about things, probably than than reality would would suggest.
Speaker 2:But it's starting again the next day and, like most disciplines, the easiest and probably most obvious example would be anything with whatever working out or eating good, like those daily disciplines that are challenging. The longer you stop, the more difficult it is to start again, because whatever discipline we've built up, whatever good habits, we have to keep showing up, whatever that looks like in one's life at that time, the harder it is to start it up again and to get another streak going right. So it goes back to what they say in the book quitting happens once. Quitting means not starting again, and art is all about starting again. So the less time we can allow to pass without doing something and making some art, making a bunch of crappy art, making a bunch of mistakes, right, whatever that is, but it's continuing to exercise the muscle of showing up day after day to do something, the muscle of showing up day after day to do something.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and listen, there's a reason for healthy breaks too. At times. Sure, getting away, taking a little sabbatical away I'm not saying like a four-year sabbatical, but getting away for a week, going away for a month just doing some reading, doing something else creatively for a little bit, going on vacation, going to the beach, sitting by the water, whatever it is those healthy breaks are good to help reinvigorate you when you come back. Now the problem with that starting again sometimes is we all know when we take that little break and come back, we feel like we forgot how to paint or we forgot how to make something. We kind of come back into the studio and go, I feel like I'm starting all over. Well, imagine that being four months, five months, six months, eight months. That notion in your head builds and builds and builds right, and then fear and doubt creep in and say, well, you weren't an artist anyways, or nobody ever saw your work, or you didn't have a place for it. Now all that resistance gets larger and larger.
Speaker 2:Well, and that, to me, Ty, speaks to the value of intentional breaks where things are still happening, even if we are a flight away from our studio, wherever we're able to make. I mean there's so many things and this is one of the things I've learned from observing the way that you operate, having been in this game longer than me, in terms of you know, when you're on trips and on vacations, taking the books, taking those you know, biographies, journaling, I mean there's so many things that we can do that continue to keep us in the game and keep our minds at keeping our head, our heads and our hearts in a place of what's next, our heads and our hearts in a place of what's next. Yeah, that those breaks, when done intentionally, don't have to be the momentum killers that they would be if we just totally set it aside and did not. I mean I make it a point, I know you do as well, like anytime I'm traveling, for example, to go look at art to interact with other artists that live there.
Speaker 2:If I, if I have a connection to a, to a local artist, go to the local museums, local galleries, like that in and of itself, you know, and then, of course, taking pictures. Journaling like that can be the seed of of the next thing as well. I was actually it's funny, we're talking about this I was actually just looking back through my, my journal, which I always my art journal, which I always take with me every trip, my laboratory notebook, but journaling about that, sometimes I have my best ideas and I'm able to have more perspective about what I'm doing and what's next. When I am removed from the studio, because I'm not, I mean anytime I'm here or near here this is probably just idiosyncrasy to me, possibly, but like anytime that I'm not back there physically doing things, I feel as wasted time. It's not, I know that's not true, but you know what I mean, whatever. So, when, when taking a break and went away from the studio, you know, doing those things where that's all I can do is super, super valuable.
Speaker 1:You know, I tell my my artists in my program all the time, like, if you're away from home, go see art. If you're on vacation, have a day where you go to museum or go to a gallery, like, find something if you're in. This is why it's great to connect with other artists on Instagram. You know what I mean. Then you can say, hey, I'd love to come by and do a studio visit. Can I bring you some coffee? Can I bring you a capp cookies, whatever, and just go hang out and talk art and see somebody else's studio and how they do stuff. You know, that's why I love to read, because there's so much community in these art biographies that I'm reading where they're all visiting each other's studios and hanging out. So they knew that importance and I think they they talk about.
Speaker 1:I love this, how they give the little operation um operating manual for not quitting, on page 12. And they give the two a and b. The first one, and this is why I have a group component in my mentorship program make friends with others who make art and share your in-progress work with each other. Frequently, like there is nothing better than sharing work with another artist and talking about it, especially when you're wanting to throw in the towel. Even if you're wanting to throw in the towel on a body of work and like this is just a waste of time. The last three months being able to discuss that with another artist is monumental. What are you going to say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I'm just going to piggyback on that. But, whether it's, whether it's implied or expressly communicated, there is an element of accountability that only comes from, of interpersonal accountability, that only comes from interacting with other people. And I was just thinking about you know, because we talked about quitting but and stopping, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. I thought we could talk for a moment about how to start again, and I'm going to throw my two cents in the mix and just say do something somewhat consistently Right. I mean the the and and the lower we can make the. I'm back to that example of you know, whatever health and fitness, it's easy to take a break, and I've done this.
Speaker 2:Take a break from, from, from training, and then believe the lie that I can't start again until I can pick up right where I left off, which is just not realistic, doesn't matter what we're talking about. So, in the, in the thread of art making to think about all right, what's the? What's the minimum effective dose, what's the? What's something that I know I could do consistently, even if it is just. I made a consistently, even if it is just. I made a mark. I made a mark on something each day, or three times a week, or again, just acknowledging that everyone has different access to time and ability to make work. So maybe the thing is, hey, I'm going to set aside 30 minutes that I'm just going to open up my sketchbook or my what's the app Procreate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to open up Procreate while I'm in some BS meeting and doodle and play, but it's something that's being done consistently. I mean that would be my whatever antidote to having quit and having to try to find a way to start again. But what advice would you give somebody who maybe has quit or has stopped for a long time and is trying to start again?
Speaker 1:I've had this conversation quite often with a lot of people, whether that's at a lecture I'm giving or a talk during a show, and it's the Q and A and somebody you know asked that question of you know I used to make art what's a good way for me to start, and things. But I've also. I used to make art, what's a good way for me to start, and things. But I've also got a few friends who are brilliant painters, went to art school. One is now an apprentice for a very big artist and runs his galleries and does things like that. So he's in the art world but he's a brilliant painter, incredible painter, and he hasn't painted in forever. And we talk about this all for the last, I don't know, 20 years, 15 years, as he's grown as the number two for this other artist who has grown massively, that fear has grown of starting again, that fear of, well, I'm not as good as I thought I was, or you're just saying that, or how do I even start again. I have another friend as well, no-transcript, the fear that he texted me, I've got everything out, I can't even move, like I'm just frozen, that fear of I suck, am I going to be good? I mean he's. I said it's going to take a while get it back, it doesn't take a little bit, but you got to start. You just got to start and he did and he painted. He felt so good. But it's.
Speaker 1:It's so easy to give the advice and say just do a little bit, just start here. But you know, you get home from work and you're worn out and you're helping with the kids or you're cooking dinner for your wife or you're doing these things that you know whatever, and then all of a sudden so tired I don't even want to try. You know, and it's like you got to find a moment. It needs a moment.
Speaker 1:Is it a Saturday morning before everybody's up? Is it a Sunday Eve? Is it? What is it? Find a moment and do something, start small. And I just say you got to baby step it right, you just got to take baby steps, just like what about Bob Richard Dreyfuss? Baby steps, take those baby steps, bob. You know it's honestly that's what it is. The confidence will slowly come back. Maybe start reading, maybe start reading some art books again. Maybe go to a few museums, do things that kind of engage all of your senses, rather than you in front of the canvas, sweating blood from your forehead for a few months, and then you stop again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think this comes back to that whole idea of having a setup. You know a book that I've talked about in previous episodes quite a bit Catching the Big Fish, by David Lynch.
Speaker 2:He talks a lot about the importance of having a setup, having a place, where art happens and just removing the barriers to entry from a physical, whatever materials you know standpoint, even if it is just a little shoe box full of your materials, where it's in a place that you know where it is, where your sketchbook is like, it doesn't take much to have a little, have the place and have the stuff ready, because that can easily be a barrier to entry of like, oh well, I don't have the stuff or I don't wanna dig it out or I don't know where it is it's like.
Speaker 1:have it accessible, have it in front of you, make it easy to execute on your plan, when I love kind of feeding into that, that fear right, that substance of self that art making can give us at times, that when we're not doing it well or we're not able to really achieve the vision we're trying to say, right, that can really feed into our fear. And I love how he says on page 13, the line between the artist and his or her work is a fine one at best, and for the artist it feels quite naturally like there is no such line. Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Well, making art is dangerous and revealing.
Speaker 1:Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know and what you should be and what you fear you might be. For many people that alone is enough to prevent their ever getting started at all, and for those who do, trouble isn't long in coming. I love that. So just know there's fears, no matter what. It doesn't matter what side you're on. There's going to be some fears, because art is dangerous and revealing both ways.
Speaker 2:And I love there's a Nietzsche quote I don't remember where I grabbed this from and he says Put it in that because I want to pick up sorry, I want to pick up right where you left off, Cause I also want to talk about page 13, literally right right where you stop, which is because he just gets so specific with it.
Speaker 1:Doubt, this is literally go right into it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Doubts In fact soon rise in swarms. Let's play a little game here. It's high. Let's raise our hand if we've ever okay, currently or in the past have felt any of the above. I'm not, not an artist, I'm a phony. I have nothing worth saying. I'm not sure what I'm doing. Other people are better than I am. I'm only a student, physicist, mother, whatever. I've never had a real exhibit. No one understands my, my work. No one likes my work. I'm no good Like pick one yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean. And so again, just, it's not just you. Whatever you're feeling, whatever doubts you have, this is part of it. This is part of it, Like it or not. If this is, if this is something that we want, that we are serious about doing in whatever form that looks like for us, this is part of it. And so just that whole idea of the extraordinary people, and again back to that whole idea of reading and listening to the biographies and hearing other people talk about their experience and how hard it was for them, consistently, it just gives us peace back to that. Hey, we've got a common problem for which there is a common solution. Well, this is chaos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the artist's life is chaotic because of all those doubts, all those things we tell ourselves, all these things. And I came across this Frederick Nietzsche quote that I absolutely love, and he says one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. Wow, there must be chaos in order to give birth to that dancing star. Here's what I take from that If everything's perfect and everything's grand and everything's working, where's the room for discovery, where's the room for that dancing star to birth into the universe and explode from something else and give light to that area that draws the eyes to it, that makes somebody just go, wow, everything should not be absolutely perfect, which goes back to what we were saying To be ordinary is to be imperfect. Yeah Right, we are all imperfect, we are all ordinary, we are all human beings, each and every one of us. So there will be chaos in ourselves. Let's understand that, let's embrace it and know it and move forward in our work and let's figure out how we give birth to that dancing star.
Speaker 2:And thank goodness I mean. That reminds me of that Rumi quote if you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished? The rubs are important. The friction is important. We need that friction. We need that chaos, a where our growth is going to come from with our work.
Speaker 1:We have to be able to notice them, notice that resistance, notice those things that are coming in and then grow from them. And I love. Here, on page 14, they talk about. Art is a high calling and fears are coincidental, sneaky, disruptive, we might add. And fears are coincidental, sneaky, disruptive, we might add, disguising themselves as laziness, resistance to deadlines, irritation with our materials or our surroundings. Studios how many of us get irritated with studios? Distraction over the achievement of others? Instagram Indeed as anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot, indeed as anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot. What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears continue, those who don't quit. Each step in the art making process puts that issue to the test, and fears are going to arise when we look forward and we look back. Both Right, no matter what. Look back or forward, they're going to arise. I back or forward, they're going to arise. I have them all the time. I've had them over the you and I have talked about it.
Speaker 1:I applied for a big residency. I did it on the last day because I thought I'll never have a shot. There's no way. Why in the world would they choose me and laid awake for an entire night before I woke up the next morning and applied to the residency the day it was due, which was a whole lot of work, but I was scared to death. Today, this morning, I woke up. I haven't even told you this. I woke up this morning, I open up my email and there's an email that tells me that they're going through my stuff today. They downloaded everything.
Speaker 1:So then what happened? Again, fears and doubts, all those things started to arise to go well, yeah, they're not going to no way. My work compares to other artists that are applying no way. You know what I mean. And it's like, oh, I've got to find those ways to stifle those things. Because if I start focusing on that, what am I not going to do today? I'm not going to make work. I'm going to want to leave my studio as fast as I can and run and run, and run and run, like Forrest Gump, and just keep running Instead yeah, go ahead, go Well.
Speaker 2:Since you brought it up, I'll ask you because I'm genuinely curious. I'm thinking about this for myself as well, but do you think that what you experience in terms of the resistance that caused you to wait in the first place, and then what you're experiencing now, knowing that they're looking at it and evaluating it, do you think that fear comes from a place more of just not getting that opportunity, or a data point that would suggest that you don't have it, or what it takes?
Speaker 1:That I don't have it or what it takes.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, because any one thing not happening is whatever right, there'll be more opportunities, some of which will come, sure that you will have access to Right, but it's just that that that reinforce the potential, the potential for reinforcement that I might not have it, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Keeps me awake at night? Yep, absolutely, yeah. And the other thing, too, ty, about that quote specifically, is that you know these are all what Pressfield calls resistance, right, but the way that fears are shapeshifters, how they'll find the path of least resistance to really get to us, disguising themselves as laziness, resistance to deadline, irritation. So I go straight to, because when I'm, when I'm living in fear, when I'm experiencing and indulging in fear-based emotions, I operate from a place of shame. And so I go to oh, I lack the character, you know, for me, I make a self-judgment on oh I'm, it's a character issue. I am, oh you're, and that's.
Speaker 2:That's that self-talk, that negative self-talk, which is something I wasn't planning to talk about today, but I think it's very relevant to today's conversation, which is just being mindful of the internal dialogue that we have going on and acknowledging that our default mode in terms of our inner dialogue is, at best, neutral, at best, at worst, and far more often it's absolutely negative. And this comes from, you know, the survival wiring that we have, from you know, thousands of years of uh fight or flight, where everything had to be assessed, when we were living in times where, you know, danger and or death could be around every corner. We had to live in that place of like. Is this a threat to my survival? And we're still stuck with that old, that old wiring which causes us to go to negativity, which causes us to go to and, in some cases, live in fear far more than we really should.
Speaker 2:And so, in identifying that as a reality that we're starting from, it's really important to find a way to adopt some version of a habit or routine around getting back to a positive place. It's cheesy but it's true. There's a ton of value in identifying We've talked about this in previous episodes what's true, like there's a ton of value in identifying we've talked about this in previous episodes what is what's true about me? You know what is my code, what are my mantras, what are the things that I need to repeat to myself over and over and over and over again to get back to that place of operating from what's true and what's real and what's positive and leads to, you know, proactive, you know activity and action and doing the thing, as opposed to sitting and being paralyzed by that fear. So, again, I guess, just another commercial for being intentional about self-talk, what we're allowing to put in our heads and what we're repeating to ourself. Consciously Because, again, that default isn't going to be doing us any favors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, consciously because, again, that default isn't going to be doing us any favors. Yeah, if your goal is to be an artist, there's a lot of proactiveness. That needs to be an action. That's in the studio, making work, studying, researching, networking with other artists, galleries, things like that. There's a lot of movement. You're proactive, right, you're putting yourself into situations to make, to meet, to greet. But if you want to be an artist, the only way to really know if you're in the art game is by getting rejected, by applying for shows, by applying for residencies, by trying to get yourself out there, and you're going to get more nos than yeses, which we all know.
Speaker 2:If we're in a creative field.
Speaker 1:we know we're going to get more nos than yeses, but the only way to really know if you're in it is if you're getting rejected. So when you think about that, that's a negative feeling, right? Usually you get the email back from the residency. I get them all the time. People, I'm with you in this. I'm sorry due to the overwhelming amount of applicants, you were not selected this year. I mean, I don't know how many times I've read that over the years. So many right, but it's like Enough to be able to repeat it.
Speaker 1:Apparently, Absolutely yeah, I can say it by verbatim Group shows. You don't get the email back. That means you're not selected. Okay, Well, I wasn't selected for that. I use this quote a lot Sylvia Plath. All my rejection slips prove I'm trying.
Speaker 1:Steven Pressfield had a buddy when his first script flopped, or his first film flopped, and his buddy said well, are you going to quit? And he said no. And he goes. Well, yeah, because now you're in it. You actually did something. It may have flopped, but there's a hundred other screenwriters out there who their screen it's never seen the light of day, Right, and their stuff never will. But you're in it and it flopped, which means you're in it, You're where you want to be. So that's kind of that thing of you have to be able to recognize. Dang, I didn't get into one residency this year or one group show.
Speaker 1:I'm trying, I'm doing everything I can to get out there. Plenty of artists never try, and I think that's one of the signs of artists who either stop or quit. They're just not trying, so they don't know. You have no idea what to base anything on. Anyways, I'm rambling. We have to face and overcome fears. That's the point. We have to be able to face and overcome these fears. So prove to yourself you're trying, Prove it. The only way to prove it is to actually get stuff out there and try, Put it out there. Reach that vision we have for the work.
Speaker 1:It kind of comes out totally different or unexpected right. Plenty of times I sit down and go, here we go, and then I start and I step back and go how the fricking hell did I get there? That was so far away from the ideas I had in my mind. That was so far away. I can't even make the brushstroke I wanted to make. It won't even come out of me. It's not there yet. And there's this section I love where David Bales began studying piano with a master pianist and they're having this conversation after a few months practice and David kind of complains to his teacher and says I can hear the music so much better in my head than I can actually get out of my fingers. And I love that. The master pianist responds with what makes you think that ever changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, time, time spent, experience making comes out in wisdom. You're still going to be the same artist 20 years from now, searching for the same growth and the same things, and your vision is still going to be ahead of what you want to do today. Your vision is still going to be far beyond what you can actually do and perform or create. And he says, lesson of the day, vision is always ahead of execution. And it should be. Vision, uncertainty and knowledge of materials are inevitabilities that all artists must acknowledge and learn from. Vision is always ahead of execution.
Speaker 1:Knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, but uncertainty is a virtue. We can understand our medium. We can understand what our paint can and can't do. We can take it to as far as it can go and cannot go any further. But our vision, the ideas in our heads, those things, they're all uncertain, because we're only as good as what we can do today. The first brushstroke, the first chord, the potential is never higher until that paintbrush hits the canvas with paint. Now potential is gone. Now it's only what you know how to do today. But that unresolved thread, that discovery, those things, that's what tomorrow's for we work today for tomorrow. We don't work today for today. We work today for tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that.
Speaker 2:Which is exactly why artists don't retire, they just die. Yeah, because there's always the hope of what might be, there's always the vision of what could happen next. We're not just playing the game to get the retirement up, to be able to not have to go do the thing anymore and do whatever we really probably should have been doing all along. Yeah, you know, there's always and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing it's just that idea that we could be and can be pulled by that compulsion to do our best work and to see where pulling that thread will ultimately take us.
Speaker 2:There's a quote in that same section that I highlighted for discussion today that just really, really struck me. They write most artists don't daydream about making great art. They daydream about having made great art. What artist has not experienced the feverish euphoria of composing the perfect thumbnail sketch, first draft negative or melody, only to run headlong into a stone wall trying to convert that tantalizing hint into the finished mural novel photograph sonata? This just floors me. The artist's life is frustrating, not because the passage is slow, but because he imagines it to be fast. Yep, I don't know what percentage Ty of the frustration that I experience.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we've talked about this. I think Is a result of that.
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah, and I don't know if it's. You know how common, how common that is, but that is that is, for, like I am, I'm such a chronic underestimator of the amount of time that things will take. It's a task, there's a start, there's a finish, and I know what happens in between. When it comes to making art, there's just no such thing as a linear path, and I think that, for me anyway, accepting that it's going to take longer than I think. So maybe what if I just went back to square one and tried to eliminate a desire to put a time on it at all, to try and at least reduce the stress and friction that I experience from attempting to put anything on a timeline?
Speaker 1:They use a great example of Tolstoy in the Age Before Typewriters. He rewrote War and Peace eight times and was still revising it when it rolled onto the press. So I looked it up War and Peace is 1,225 pages, 587,000 words, 87,000 words. He rewrote that by pen on paper eight times to get to a finite right To tell a story that he felt true inside that he had to write. Think about the time it took to actually flush things out and then reflush them out. I can guarantee each rewrite had some thread that was left loose that he kept thinking about and kept thinking about. That made him go. I need to rewrite it. This character arc needs to change.
Speaker 1:This story didn't intertwine the way I thought it would. And he's laying in bed at night and going but no, it does Okay, I got to rewrite again. Think about that. I mean that's fascinating. It does Okay, I got to rewrite again. Think about that. I mean that's fascinating to me. That's beautiful to me. That's incredible, Crazy, it's insane, but beautiful. I have nothing to add to that. How can you add to that?
Speaker 2:It's kind of like whoa Okay, wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I get it.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to be I have a question for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a question for you because this goes into the gap between vision and execution. This is something I think is a real strength of yours that they read. I want to read these two parts on page 16. The development of an imagined piece into an actual piece is a progression of decreasing possibilities. Each step in execution reduces future options by converting one and only one possibility into a reality. And then I love that.
Speaker 1:They say all you can work on today is directly in front of you. Your job is to develop an imagination of the possible. Yeah, I feel like that's something that is a real strength for you. Like I feel like having watched you over the last few years and been a part of talking through these things and ideas, like being able to develop and realize in an imagined piece right, that the actual piece you're working on is is a decrease of possibilities gets it becomes less and less the possibilities can go into it. But yet I feel like you do such a good job of developing an imagination of the possible by finding new materials, new things. How can these things work together? But you're creating more possibilities from it, which increases that vision and execution. It kind of brings it a little bit closer together in some of those ways. I know we didn't talk about this question before, but I feel like that's something that's a strength of yours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for saying that. Well, it's funny because when I was rereading this to prepare for today's conversation and the material section came up, I was going to talk about that, but then I realized, like well, that's probably not common to the majority of people that have a medium, because I mean, there was some reference to like, hey, whatever medium you're working with, the materials have limits and you're going to reach the You're going to learn about and understand your material. Yeah, there's actually a quote from that section, todd, that I that I I had highlighted but I wasn't going to talk about. But for many artists, the response to a particular material has been intensely personal, as if the material spoke directly to them and that, if I have, if I have any strength in that regard, it is listening to the way that material speaks to me. It is listening to the way that material speaks to me, which is limitless because there's so much material in the physical it's nothing. But you know material in the physical world and so you know. Even just back to our example before of like, you know how we can be working on, how we can be furthering the work, even when we're not in the studio. You know, I love traveling to different places because the types of I mean the way that they would make walls and you know retaining walls, the way that they pave the roads, I mean is different, and so the way that that material degrades over time, the way that you know the packing crates that I would find in dumpsters, you know, in other countries, is different, and so the way that that material degrades over time, the way that the packing crates that I would find in dumpsters in other countries is different than the way that it would probably fall apart or burn or scrape or whatever here. So it's just that listening, I think, if there's anything and we'll talk more about that, I know, in a future section but just that intensely personal relationship we have with the material, which to me it creates a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 2:My biggest challenge is just trying to isolate. I was talking about my frame guy, master Woodworker Dean, who was at the studio yesterday, who does all the anatomy of my pieces and helps me figure out how to put all these different items together. We were talking and the biggest challenge I have is identifying. I've got an entire library of materials. That it's just. The challenge is just identifying, like all right, which ones are going to play nice together or not in an interesting way. But that's just the chase, right? That's what's exciting, that's what's fun. It's just the chase of like, wow, this probably isn't Back to wow this, this probably isn't back to our other point, this probably isn't going to be one of the ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it might be, it might be one of the ones that really sore, and so it's just that chase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I love everything you said here wraps up in this little section on page where he says in making art, you need to give yourself room to respond authentically both to your subject matter and your materials. And I think that's what you were just saying is just wrapped up in those two sentences. So I want to read it one more time In making art, you need to give yourself room to respond authentically both to your subject matter and your materials. So we talk about this all the time Spend time thinking, spend time looking and processing and solitude, whatever it is, meditating with your work, but you need to have that time to respond authentically. Think through it. How are these things working? How are these working together? Are they working, are they not working together? And have those conversations with yourself. I think it's highly important. And then I love here that last paragraph on 21.
Speaker 1:People who need certainty in their lives are less likely to make art that is risky, subversive, complicated, suggestive or spontaneous. What's really needed is nothing more than a broad sense of what you are looking for and a strategy on how to find it, and an overriding willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the way. Simply put, making art is chancy. It doesn't mix well with predictability. Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all persuasive companion to your desire to make art, and tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding. And this is we've talked about this at length, I don't know maybe in every podcast that we've had. Leave room for the mistakes, leave room for uncertainty, leave room for discovery within your work developed or it can be increased.
Speaker 2:We increase our tolerance to things that we are exposed to continuously, and so if we then continue to expose ourselves to uncertainty, our tolerance for it will increase, which, to the to the excerpt from that book, in theory ought to increase the chances of us making authentic, interesting work. You, you know from that same section there's. There's one, there's one exit. There's one quote from page 19. Now I was really excited to talk about.
Speaker 2:They write the truth is that the piece of art which seems so profoundly right in its finished state may earlier have been only inches or seconds away from total collapse. I mean, yep, yes To it. Every, every, every one that you know ends up being being shared, being shown whatever, like I could literally look at every piece hanging, you know, behind me. You know I got some work back recently that I had made and sent out the door right before, right before a show that I hadn't had a chance to sit with, um, you know, but was doing that and remembering, in fact, actually I reposted a, um, you know, whatever, a process video of one of them and I remember, you know, just one of the clips, just remembering how I felt on that day, how I felt in the thing that ended up being something, but just realizing, like all of the, again back to that whole, that whole idea of of perspective being so critically important, how we only see in others, you know, the finished, polished work right, like I threw a bunch of clips together and then shared a finished piece and it looks, it appears as though you know what I mean, like the work was some, you know, very, very well planned and executed. You and executed piece where A led to B, led to C, no, no, no, no, that's not the case at all.
Speaker 2:And so, living in that uncertainty, realizing that, and just that moment for me of revisiting that particular day I know I was freaking, frustrated as all get out. I was ready to stop, I'm positive. I left that session, I threw stuff back inside, I shut the door. I left that session, I threw stuff back inside, I shut the door. I went home and I said I am quitting for today. I'm going to start again tomorrow. But it ended up in that case being something.
Speaker 2:But it only makes sense at the end, if ever. But if it's ever going to make sense, it won't be until the end. It may never at all, and that's okay, too right In terms of just living without uncertainty. But just that, that whole idea of like acknowledging and accepting that it's not supposed to feel good in the moment. It's not, and it does sometimes, you know for sure. But just realizing, like, in all of those moments that don't feel good, like that's okay. That is just part of the process. If it's going to make sense, it won't be until the end anyway. And so, embracing the uncertainty as a path to get to where we're trying to go is a really good mindset to attempt to adopt, and live in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no-transcript, we're critiquing work. I ask questions, they tell me things you know, and then they go back and then they'll send me a picture of the piece and go. I ruined it. I knew I should have stopped. I felt good about it, I actually felt good but there was this one thing that in my head I started to question and then I couldn't stop questioning it. So I went to adjust it and now I've completely ruined it because that adjustment led me to adjust to something else, and then something else, and now the piece is done. So I also think when they say that a piece is moments away from total collapse also means so many times we go into total collapse because we overthink and we don't spend enough time really thinking through it and looking at it and talking. We just kind of attack things in a moment, thinking oh yeah, I can definitely make it better. Sometimes that's the work saying I'm done, don't touch me. If you're overthinking it, you're going to ruin me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we talked about this in the Amy Sillman episode from a couple episodes back. That was a really interesting discussion point. We identified that this is one area that you and I fundamentally disagree on, and I think I might be in the minority in this regard. But I do not subscribe to the belief that a piece can be ruined, that you can go past For sure. You can go past a point where it would make sense to stop, where it may have been better. You know to stop, but you know just back that whole idea of just always being willing to risk going too far in the pursuit of identifying how far you can go and how far you can take it.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that conversation is very different with sculpture and sculptural elements than painting too right.
Speaker 2:I have very intentionally stacked the decks in my favor in that regard. When it comes to material, yeah, absolutely, and that wasn't by design in the moment, but I realized looking back now it absolutely was. I've talked before about overwork when I was, you know, doing drawings and not being able to get the hand of the you know, whatever baseball player just right on the bat and you know there's only so many times you can erase something and redo it before it just isn't, you know, going to look right anymore. And so, yeah, that's absolutely true, you know, having the ability to just go nuclear in terms of carving it down and exposing what's underneath, I like giving myself a lot of outs, you know, as far as that goes. So that's a fair retort on your part.
Speaker 2:But I do think that living in that I mean let's just this is a great segue into the whole idea of perfectionism. And I don't want to skip a discussion around talent as well, because I think that's relevant. But I want to skip ahead to sort of the end of this section as we kind of begin to think about wrapping up for today. But I think what you talk about, so the fear, actually, let me put this in the form of question how does one navigate the fear of going too far and have that lead to a version of paralysis where, oh what do I do? Do I do anything more? Do I do something next? And have that cause a person to get stuck in inaction.
Speaker 1:For me, it's an absolute understanding of my own work, and that is from time spent right, that's from time spent looking at lots of art and my art, but also having the same conversations about my art that I'd be having about others' art. So when I go look at art, I'm having inner conversations and dialogues, whether I have my journal with me or not, about what the artist is doing, how are things working, what are they using, what's their composition like, their colors, their texture. I'm discussing all these things with myself because I also know when I go back to the studio, I need to have those same discussions with my work and myself making it, thinking about it, talking through these things and then either moving on or continuing on with the piece. I've grown really, really comfortable with an understanding of yeah, I think this piece is done Now.
Speaker 1:I just ruined four pieces yesterday that I overworked and I knew inside if I touched them I'd overwork him, but I wasn't happy with where the work was, even though it might've been okay in other's eyes. I don't know. But I went, I need to add some stuff, and then I added stuff and it completely ruined. Every single thing was there and there was no going back because with painting and on raw canvas there's not much I can do to kind of adjust composition or things without completely, for my own style, overworking a piece. Right, and I think that's all singular Right, that's all individual. What is overworking, look like what is underworking, look like those things for yourself. But it's all time involved. That's the only way to really be comfortable with how you're viewing your making is by the time you've spent making it and thinking about it.
Speaker 2:But this whole idea of not to belabor this point, but I think it's interesting. Hopefully Let us know in the comments, but I think it's interesting to identify that to your example, that one could go past the point suggests that there is a point, there is an ideal or a perfect point. To set the brushes down and stop, is that kind of what you're saying?
Speaker 1:You know that's a really difficult question. That's why I say it's individual. That's a really difficult question. That's why I say it's individual, because for me it's a lot more spiritual of a thing than a physical, tangible technique, or you know what I mean Tangible answer. Does that make sense? Yes, for me it's very spiritual, to where I have this innate feeling inside of how the work is speaking to me and how I'm viewing it and listening to it, and it whispers. It's almost like stop, I'm done, I'm exactly where it and listening to it, and it whispers. It's almost like stop, I'm done, I'm exactly where you need it to be. And there are times when I question, which a lot of artists will question well, there just isn't enough on the canvas, so it can't really be art, so I must need to go add more to it because I you know.
Speaker 1:so it's like you know, you have a piece that's minimal and it's working. There's two colors on it, there's not much, but it just speaks and it works. Then you go well, there's only two colors. How could it be an artwork or a painting if there's only two? I should probably add another color. Then you fuck the whole thing up and it's done. So is it overworking?
Speaker 2:or is it just ruining?
Speaker 1:Sorry, you just guaranteed we're explicit. Yeah we're explicit. Yeah, we're explicit.
Speaker 2:No, that was only one. How did it take this long to break the seal?
Speaker 1:That was only one bad word. We're fine today.
Speaker 2:We are still not explicit. Oh, hide the kids, oh my goodness, earmuffs Nephews. Well, this whole Go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 1:So is it overworking or is it just ruining? I don't know. There's so many terms you could put into place Because I'll say I ruin a lot more work than I overwork. Yeah, I just ruin it. I cannot go back. There's a state of no return or fixing. Turn it over, paint the other side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would say I'm definitely guilty of overworking certain pieces, and it's funny. I had a moment recently, just last week actually I brought a piece home which I'll do sometimes just to sit with it at home, where I couldn't touch it or do anything even if I wanted to. So I brought it home, I carried it around the house, I put it on the deck. It's like golden hour, right, the light's going to be. I'm just going to sit with, you know, and I did that with the intention of sitting with my journal, you know, at home after dinner, just relaxing to kind of, you know, listen to the work and take notes on what I might want to do next, beginning from the place of oh, this definitely isn't done, there's definitely more to do, okay. And so Nikki comes out, my wife comes out, and and immediately she was like oh my gosh. And so Nikki comes out, my wife comes out, and and immediately she was like oh my gosh, I that's, I love that, which she doesn't often say, just to be. She is very, she's a tough, she's a tough, she's a tough critic and so do not do anything else to that. And and very rare, she's only said that a couple of times she's like that's done, there's nothing.
Speaker 2:And so you know, just being a, uh, being somebody who's resistant to being told what to do, I immediately go to like, all right, let me, let me see if I can figure out. And I realized, let me figure out what else I could do to this. And I, what I realized is that I operate from this place of it couldn't be easy, like it has to be difficult, which is different than acknowledging that it often will be difficult, that it often will be Lord knows how many hours. But this one I spent, I mean, the least amount of time that I'd spent on a piece in quite some time, which was just kind of an interesting. I think I had a point. What was my point in sharing that? Because that's your job is to identify what my Well, we were talking about overworking or underworking.
Speaker 1:Overworking yes, yeah, you took it home to really think about it in the right way.
Speaker 2:Thank, you Right, and so that's Actually, ty. I want to close on that idea of the answers are in the work. I think that's a good place to end, but before we do that, there was something I wanted to talk about, just on this whole idea of perfectionism, and this is a quote. And again, this is what happens when you let me go back to my camera view here. This is how not that it's my job how books should look when you're really getting into it, right? Multiple highlighter colors, notes, pen, pencil, all of the above, whatever, anyway.
Speaker 2:So quote from page 30 that I just love to require perfection is to invite paralysis. To require perfection is to invite paralysis. And again, this is again, it's a fine line. There's a balance here, right, because we're about to talk about the importance of listening to the work, which is, you know, what I heard you describing a moment ago.
Speaker 2:But to require perfection is to invite, like there's there's nothing, there's nothing else to be done, like, yeah, that is the inevitable outcome of requiring perfection. And I mean, goodness, even if perfection was a possibility, how would we even know until a lot of time had passed? Yeah, right, I mean, we're not the best evaluators of our own work in terms of how successful a piece is, to right beyond just the experience of making it. Until some time has passed, I mean, wouldn't you say that's true for you as well? Absolutely past, I mean, wouldn't you say that's true for you as well? Like, sometimes it's actually sit with something you know, weeks, months, years to be able to look back and be like that's a strong piece that holds up today, you know.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, and they. They speak about that here. He says you make good work by, among other things, making lots of work that isn't very good and gradually weeding out the parts that aren't good, the parts that aren't yours. It's called feedback, feedback with your own work. That's what I was saying about me, like spending that time and realizing your work and where you're going with it. Because when we put our work out there, we have a fear of judgment, no matter what, and definitely read the judgment part in the book everybody. But they talk about how fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, but fears about others reception prevent you from doing your own work.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, quit thinking about how other people view your work and just make the work, but don't judge it. Don't be in this pursuit of perfection, like you're saying, cause that's going to prevent you from doing your best work. You're going to cloud your judgment. You're not going to be open and allowing things to come in and messes. You know the mistakes, the trouble, like we talked about in the Amy Sillman episode. You're not going to allow the trouble come in. That's going to improve your work and take you to places you didn't expect to go and, by definition, whatever you have right now is exactly what you need to produce your best work, and I tell artists in my program that all the time, the tools you have now, the mediums are using now, the skills and the knowledge you have now, is exactly what you need to produce your best work today. There's no magical thing that's going to pop in tomorrow that's going to make your work so much better tomorrow than it was today. Like you have what you need. So be confident in yourself, be confident in what you have, make the best work you can make today and if your focus is that, it's going to continue to guide you to the next piece and the next piece and the next piece.
Speaker 1:Look at your development, nathan, from when you came into the program early on, when you really started making it's night and day. You listened to the work, you studied, you let these things that you love influence things. You played with mediums, you experimented, but you weren't worried about making that perfect piece right now. You screwed around, you played, you did things, you gained inspiration from other things and then, like they said right here, you started gradually weeding out the parts that weren't good and even some of the parts that weren't yours, that were from influences and things that ended up becoming yours or improved upon others, to what you're making today. That's the journey, right? Rilke says it's the cell of your art. You discovered the smallest constituent element, the cell of your art, that tangible, immaterial means of expressing everything. You found what those things were for you to express, everything you want to express, and it's from the search and the time.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you saying that If I have any strength, it is that insatiable't know what a recipe, but it's certainly. You could do a lot worse in terms of finding a path to accelerate one's growth as quickly as possible. I don't want to go through this first section of the book without talking about this idea of talent, because I think it's a really interesting conversation and it's one that I want to at least spend a minute or two on. This is a quote from page 28. They write talent is a snare and a delusion. In the end, the practical questions about talent come down to these who cares, who would know and what difference would it make? And the practical answers are nobody, nobody and none. So they very intentionally make an effort to re-divert our attention from this idea of this magical idea of talent elsewhere, into things that we can control right. So when they answer those questions with essentially none of the answers, those questions don't matter. You know, what I hear is focus on what you can control Right. But I love this.
Speaker 2:I even do a Q&A right, a brief digression in which the authors attempt to answer or deflect an objection Question. Aren't you ignoring the fact that people differ radically in their abilities? Answer no Question. But if people differ and each of them were to make their best work, would not the more gifted make better work and the less gifted less? Answer yes, and wouldn't that be a nice planet to live on? Yep, so I think this is really important because there's a book that I may have mentioned in a previous episode, but it's a phenomenal book, called Grit, and the name of the author is Angela Duckworth, and in it she talks a lot about the importance of effort.
Speaker 2:So the whole premise of the book is that talent times effort equals skill and skill times effort equals achievement and skill times effort equals achievement. And she breaks down a number of different, you know, areas in life where this applies, from athletics to academics, to the arts. I mean, there's really no limit to how, and it's a really well-written and well-researched book. But the point of that little equation is that effort counts twice. So talent is a variable that is relevant, but effort is what takes that talent into skill, and skill, when applied over and over again, with effort being the multiplier, a second time leads to the results. So a quote from that book that I love. She says greatness is doable, greatness is many, many individual feats. She says greatness is doable. Greatness is many, many individual feats, and each of them is doable, and so all that does. I just want to spend a moment on that, but the right point to stop is that happened by way of effort and repetition and doing it wrong countless, countless times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that. What you talked about in the beginning, with talent and like who would know, no one is going to notice. Nobody, right, like reading the de Kooning biography that I'm reading currently Nobody. I didn't know he was a master draftsman. I didn't know he was an absolutely brilliant illustrator and graphic designer in the 20s in New York. I just always thought he was a painter and it took him talk about maybe an artist who put the most effort into his painting over any artist I've ever read in my life, into his painting, over any artist I've ever read in my life. From the 20s to the 30s to the late 40s to the early 50s when he finally discovered his work. He had so few paintings leave his studio in that time because he was constantly working and reworking and reworking and retrying and effort, effort, effort. Today nobody knows that unless you've read the de Kooning biography, you go and you see his page, you go. That's a de Kooning, okay, okay, you don't know.
Speaker 1:All that effort that went into get to that de Kooning is immeasurable by any standards of artists in history Almost immeasurable. It took him so long to get to that point. But nobody's going to go. Well, he was a master draftsman. He went to art school. He had a classical background. He learned at the Academy. Nobody knows, nobody cares about that stuff. They look at those pieces and they go, whoa, wow, yeah, formidable, whatever, right. So it's like talent. Yeah, you had talent, but it was in something else. Right, but nobody cares about, nobody noticed and nobody saw is where the raw talent was. But it took the effort to get to be the cooning that we all know and recognize.
Speaker 2:A whole lot of works that don't look anything like the coonings were made by the cooning to get to a point where he could make the coonings Yep, yeah, de Kooning.
Speaker 2:To get to a point where he could make de Kooning's Yep, yeah, yeah, all right. I want to close for real this time on really circling back to something we talked about before, but just pulling a couple of quotes from the book that that really bring it home in terms of listening and the relationship that we have with the work. So, from page 35, what you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about your materials is in the last use of your materials. The place to learn about your execution is in your execution. The best information about what you love is in your last contact with what you love.
Speaker 2:Put simply, your work is your guide, a complete, comprehensive, limitless reference book on your work. There is no such other book as it is yours alone. It functions this way for no one else. Your fingerprints are all over your work and you alone know how they got there. Your work tells you about your working methods, your discipline, your strengths, weaknesses, your habitual gestures, your willingness to embrace. The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work. To see them, you need only to look at the work clearly, without judgment, without need or fear, without wishes or hopes, without emotional expectations. Ask your work what it needs, not what you need. Then set aside your fears and listen the way a good parent listens to a child. I read more than I intended to, but I just got excited. I think it's all relevant.
Speaker 1:I mean, I use that throughout my entire program that's woven in. Yeah, yeah, everything. I talk about everything I teach in my studio that's woven in. I talk about everything I teach in my studio that's woven in. I spend time looking at every last piece to see where it's taking me, to see what's going to come in the next piece. Sometimes it's an absolute radical development and change that takes this piece to something so new and so different. Or maybe there's something that works so well in that piece that it gets carried over into the next piece, has those elements of what I saw.
Speaker 1:But I'm constantly looking for discovery. Always, and every piece I make, I'm studying moments and things and going, oh, could I take that and increase it, or would that be too much? Could that work? Could this? Where is this telling me to go? What's it? And, like we said, sometimes it's the trouble and those mistakes that take you to the nuke's moment. So don't discount those things. Look at the things that are working and the things that aren't working, both with equal measure. Yeah, where is it taking you?
Speaker 2:Well, and that just speaks to that, that last line ask your work what it needs, not what you need. Yes, let's talk about it. All right. Hey, what do I need? Well, I need this piece to be fantastic. I, I need to feel great about it.
Speaker 1:I need more likes on that post than the last one.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 2:I need external validation and praise for how it went right, Like these are all selfish, ego-driven demands that we make of the work.
Speaker 2:But when we can set all of those things aside and ask the work what it needs and dismiss the natural tendency that we are going to have to look at it through the lens of what we need from it, that's our best shot, that's our best chance and oftentimes it's the perspective that comes from. I mean, to look at your work clearly, without judgment. For me requires some space, Fresh eyes in the morning. I mean that's back to what I was talking about before, about, you know, leaving the studio frustrated and not feeling great. You know most days being okay with that, being able to breathe, reset on my drive home so that I can, you know, not be in a crappy mood when I'm with my family, Like that's an important, important place to operate from, which is, hey, I have faith that it's going to make more sense tomorrow and the more time that passes, the less needs I have on it, giving me something that is selfish of me to request in the first place.
Speaker 1:And just know that this journey of creating art is about persistence sticking with it, staying to it. It's about acceptance accepting yourself, staying to it. It's about acceptance accepting yourself, accepting where you are in the moment, not external acceptance, acceptance of where you are and where you're going and what you're doing. And then growth. Out of those things come growth. So just encouragement for everybody out there Document your process we talked about in the Amy Sillman episode. Document what you're doing so you can go back and look at it when you get home, when you're not at the studio, when you're off on vacation, when you're other. Have the ability to go back and look at what you're creating on a regular basis and study the video or look at the things you're doing.
Speaker 1:Embrace your fears, embrace them. What's scaring you more than anything? Go after it. Embrace your fears. Keep creating, no matter what challenges arise in your way, because there's going to be challenges and with every phase of your art career it's going to bring a whole new set of challenges. New ones, old ones will continue to arise because we doubt ourselves, but every step of your career is going to be a whole new set of challenges. So, no matter what, just keep going and keep making work.
Speaker 2:You know, one could say say just make art, and they wouldn't be wrong.
Speaker 1:You could say that yeah, there's a purpose, just make art.
Speaker 2:With that, we're going to close part one of three of our breakdown and discussion on art and fear. Go get the book, listen to it and let's see what else. What do we always forget to say? We forget to say follow, just make Art on Instagram, comment on YouTube or all of their places One can comment, you know, share it. You know you all help us get the podcast in front of other people. So, all right, there's our desperate request for validation and assistance. We're desperate. See you next time.
Speaker 1:Just like us, just like us, just like us. That's the name of our podcast. Just like us.
Speaker 2:Just like us. All right, we'll talk to you next time.
