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 2
What if chasing your dreams and confronting your fears are two sides of the same coin? Join us on a journey through the intricate dance of art and fear. We unveil the tightrope artists walk between ambition and dread, sharing personal stories and insights on how external expectations and internal critics can often hijack our creative instincts. With a nod to Agnes Martin’s studio rituals and Andrew Wyeth's secretive Helga series, we discuss how action and routine can triumph over fear, creating a safe space for authentic artistic expression.
The creative process is often a battlefield between personal vision and external validation. We explore this tension and offer a roadmap for minimizing distractions in our tech-driven world. By examining Helen Frankenthaler’s patience-first approach to art and the pitfalls of chasing trends, we illuminate the importance of following one's heart amidst the noise. Whether through the lens of cinema's slow storytelling or the raw truth in self-directed growth, the conversation highlights the significance of focusing on the art itself rather than fleeting social media approval.
As we navigate the emotional highs and lows of the artistic journey, we celebrate the vital role of community and collaboration. Drawing inspiration from historical art movements and the camaraderie among fellow creators, we emphasize the power of artist friendships. Listen as we share how genuine relationships can inspire creativity and foster healthy competition. Our discussion also touches on the strategic use of social media, encouraging artists to journal their progression with intention, and reminding us that the joy of creation and problem-solving lies at the heart of every artist’s path.
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Don't look back, something might be gaining on you. That is a quote from Satchel Paige, who is the first African-American pitcher to play professional baseball, who is the first African-American pitcher to play professional baseball, and that is from a 1953 article when he was interviewed about staying young and focused and moving on with his career and what his ambitions were. And if you kind of look at that quote, let me take my old man reader glasses off. If you look at that quote in context, he's really kind of saying look ahead, live for today, for everything, for what it's worth. Don't wallow in your regrets about things which have passed and can't be reversed. Stop obsessing and being preoccupied with the past.
Speaker 1:It kind of suggests focusing your efforts on the presence and really moving forward. And so, as we jump into part two of art and fear, we are going to be really moving into some of those areas the inner critics, success and failure, the audience, how, when people criticize your work, the dangers of Instagram and not getting enough likes, or people saying things on there, like all those things that kind of drive in our heads and really cause us to lose focus in where we're going. And I want to kind of start in our heads and really cause us to lose focus in where we're going. And I want to kind of start just by reading the beginning here on page 37.
Speaker 2:Can we talk about that quote real quick? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's jump in. It's funny because as you read that and shared your brief interpretation, I went right to are we running towards something or running away from something?
Speaker 1:Well, and in that article from 1953, they actually kind of go down and talk about that a little bit more and he gives a little more context into physically running away from things that may be chasing. Right, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:But it's interesting because it speaks to, just like, the core sort of fundamental desire behind you know, whatever might be motivating us right, like are we running towards? Are we being pulled by you know, something that we're running towards? Are we being pushed by something that we're running from? Probably both. Probably In varying you know ratios at different times, but that's interesting, varying you know ratios at different times. But that's interesting One of the things I've thought about a lot in reflecting on that quote specifically, because I think that most of those motivations, or most motivation in general, I would say, comes from, you know, one of those two places. And I would say that any motivation, any fuel, is useful when it's properly challenged, and we've talked a lot about this in the podcast already in terms of the value of running from things but using that to fuel what we're running towards.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to throw that in the mix before you move forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as an artist I mean, we're going to face all kinds of external expectations, external voices, external challenges, things that kind of infiltrate our creative process, process. And so learning how to run from those things and stay focused, running towards your goal or where you want to go, is vital, is really vital. And so let's jump in here and read these first two paragraphs, where Bayliss and Orlin say art is often made an abandonment, emerging unbidden in moments of selfless rapport with the materials and ideas we care about. In such moments we leave no space for others. That's probably as it should be. Art, after all, rarely emerges from committees. But while others' reactions need not cause problems for the artists, they usually do. The problems arise when we confuse others' priorities with our own. We carry real and imagined critics with us, constantly A veritable babble of voices, some remembered, some prophesied, and each eager to comment on all that we do. Yes, yes, yes and yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, committee, art by committee.
Speaker 1:I mean and here's a great part, Before you jump in, I want to read this part when the work goes well, we keep such inner distractions at bay, but in times of uncertainty or need we start to listen? We abdicate artistic decision-making to others, when we fear that the work itself will not bring us the understanding, acceptance and approval that we seek.
Speaker 2:So, in other words, when our own voice isn't strong enough, the absence of that causes us to seek out the voices of others and give them way more juice, way more influence than they would otherwise have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, is anybody guilty of that out there If you're watching the video? My hand just raised?
Speaker 2:Absolutely guilty of that, and since my hand's up, I'd like to speak on my blood for my work today. So yeah, this is a multicolored stitching. I feel like, listen, if I'm not going to lose a finger, the best thing I can do is just wrap it in a ton of tape and then I'll figure out how bad it is tonight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you'll figure it out later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. So you know, with that it's funny cause I'm. I was at a conversation this morning with a writer who's writing a piece about me. We were doing an interview and and she asked me the essence of the question was how much are you thinking about the audience when you're making the work? And my answer was as little as possible. Right, and we've talked about this a lot before and we'll, for sure, at other times. But the fewer people that are in the room the better. No doubt about it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I think that's a very hard thing today with technology, because it's so easy for us to go grab the phone while we're working. And you know, some of us put up a story of our process while we're working or kind of put something up, and that's fine those things. But the problem, the danger, is, all of a sudden we start kind of scrolling through and looking at things and then all of a sudden we're seeing what may be trendy, what may be happening, what other people are doing, and then those voices start to get into our head and those are our voices in that moment.
Speaker 1:It's not other people's voices. We're seeking approval for some reason, without anybody seeing what we're doing. And it starts to become this field of voices that are saying well, maybe you should do it a little bit more like her, maybe you should do things a little bit more like him. Maybe you should do it a little bit more like her. Maybe you should do things a little bit more like him, maybe you should try these things, do these things and instead of really finding those things in your process and where you're going by researching and studying art, you're allowing the trend or the person who has more likes to influence where the direction of your work is going.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to keep reading because I want to dive in a little more into this part. This is on page 39. In following the path of your heart, the chances are that your work will not be understandable to others, at least not immediately and not to a wide audience. No wonder artists so often harbor a depressing sense that their work is going downhill At any given moment. The older work is always more attractive and better understood. This is not good. After all, wanting to be understood is a basic need, an affirmation of the humanity you share with everyone around you. The risk is fearsome. In making your real work, you hand the audience the power to deny the understanding you seek. You hand them the power to say you're not like us, you're weird or you're crazy Interesting.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that assumes that the power is going to be handed over at some point and that the only thing that we can really control or influence is when that happens. Yes, preferably after the work is done, after it's been put out into the world and our role in the process is complete. It's over, right, it's over, yeah. Yeah. There's something from the preceding page that I had highlighted as well. This is at the bottom of page 38, under the section called understanding.
Speaker 2:We all learn at a young age the perils of being perceived as different. We learn that others have the power to single out, to ridicule, to turn away from and to mark the one who is different. Choose your own memories, but one way or another, we've all felt the hurt of a little boy who wanted to write poems or the little girl who tried to join the Sandlot ball team. I just think about, like, how these wounds, this programming, I mean, it goes deep, it goes back to childhood, it goes back to our most impressionable ages, and not that we're trying to psychoanalyze our entire life arc, but it is worth, I think, acknowledging that these aren't the types of beliefs or influences that we can just dismiss in a moment. They're going to be there. The only question is how much we're going to allow them to affect us while we're in the act of making.
Speaker 1:You know and this all falls into routine that we talk about all the time like finding your routine, how you work into your daily, weekly, monthly, hourly, the times that you have to really shut out the noise while you're in the studio. What does that need to be? I have this conversation with artists in my program regularly where they're like I come into the studio and I don't even know where to start and then all of a sudden I start doubting myself and I wonder can I even do this? And then all these things kind of come in. So I always tell them and we've talked about this plenty of times find a mantra, put a quote on the wall, find something you say when you arrive.
Speaker 1:You could be like Agnes Martin, where you have to clean that space before you start, Because she couldn't start with even a speck of dust on the floor. It needed to be clean and completely empty for her to feel that spirituality that she wanted to put into her work and her art, that meditative quality that she would really put into making. And so find something, figure it out. Figure out what that is Cause's the thing when work is going well, the noise fades. When the work is not going well.
Speaker 1:The volume turns up and action cures fear.
Speaker 2:Right, action cures fear.
Speaker 1:Yes, inaction reinforces it I gotta stop putting my thumbs up when I use my phone to record yeah, we don't need any more Thumbs up the bubbles. Yeah, I just had a nice bubble of a thumbs up pop up on the screen.
Speaker 2:It's not recognizing my obscenely bandaged thumb.
Speaker 2:That's funny, sorry, but action cures fear and inaction reinforces it. So if we are walking in the studio and just sitting and waiting for that grand inspiration to get us moving, boy, that's a recipe for a lot of inaction. Whereas to the Agnes Martin example, which is a perfect one most days for me, almost all of them start with something, some sort of menial task, usually cleaning up the wreckage from the night before. Yeah, usually cleaning up the wreckage from the night before yeah, because I'm always doing just one more thing before I close up shop for the night. But just that action of being, but just movement right In the studio, doing something to move things around, and even just the physical act of just touching the material, the tools, whatever you're using, can be something that leads to the. And, before you know it, material, the tools, the you know, whatever you're using, can be something that leads to the. And before you know it, you're in it. You know you have to move first.
Speaker 1:Well, we all have different distractions. The noise is different for all of us, right? The noise?
Speaker 1:isn't for some of us it's the same, but for most of us there's something different that becomes noise for us. That may be. That may be the life outside that we're living. That may be family. That may be the life outside that we're living. That may be family. That may be work the job that we have to do five days a week or three days a week, and then we try and get into the studio and we're worn out and we're stressed about work. That email you know that's coming, like all those things can cause this like severe distraction. I love this quote by Anne Lamott, one of my favorite writers and people on the planet.
Speaker 1:She says almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you Including you.
Speaker 1:And we've talked about in the very first part of this that we're the problem. The fear is coming from us. It's something that we're creating. So sometimes we have to unplug from us for a minute, meditate, be silent, be quiet. And you know, one of the things I took from that is I've literally unplugged, like from tech for the last two months, as much as I can, and I think I've been detoxing.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I feel like I've been in detox. What it's done to my brain and my body and things like forcing myself to leave my phone in the room in the morning. So when I read, I'm reading and I'm silent. I'm keeping my cortisol levels at bay in the morning. I'm not spiking them up so that I'm worn out by midday by scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and looking. You know, you and I we've talked about this in the last couple of weeks and it's caused peaceful mornings and it's caused peaceful mornings, but I can tell there's a difference, that my body is wanting to go, grab my phone and start scrolling and even little things like sharing what I just read and researching these things.
Speaker 1:That's still spiking my cortisol levels to something that doesn't need to be. That raised early in the morning. I need to slowly move into the day and I haven't been on my phone in the studio. I've literally kept it at bay and not been checking Instagram and purposely trying to just focus on ideas and where the work's going, because I've had this serious apathy over the summer for being in the studio and it's the heat, it's so hot in my studio, I'm not able to do what I want to do, and so I've been doing smaller works in my office which I don't want to do.
Speaker 1:So it's creating this apathy, it's creating noise Instead of just finding something and making. I'm going well, it's too hot, it's too this, I can't do this. I can't do what I want to do, I'm not focused. These things are frustrating me. So all of a sudden, I have all this noise and it's caused me a huge setback.
Speaker 1:I feel like since June, when it turned 175 degrees in Texas and 200 degrees in my studio. So I've had to turn my own noise down myself, just like I've had to unplug from myself a little bit and kind of take a look in the mirror and just go dude, you need to settle, chill out, get back focused, start ideating which I'm doing and get back into it. And this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson is fantastic because he says finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. That spoke to me in my moment really strongly over the last few months, because I have been absolutely cumbered by my nonsense. Yeah, like I've just. The noise has created a swell of absolute nonsense, but it's controlled everything I've wanted to do over the last four or five months and it's all me, it's nothing else.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just that goes back to that whole idea of creating before you consume, you know because and I've done this poorly many, many days where it's just for whatever reason, I get into the phone, you know, before I get into, uh, the studio, and just what, just what a trap that is. Yeah, once we start consuming, just just acknowledging that these, these apps, are intentionally engineered to hold our attention for as long as possible and keep us from doing anything else. There's a time and a place for it, I suppose, depending upon what your practice is and how you want to leverage those tools, because they do have utility to them. But to be intentional about when we do those things is absolutely huge, and it does. It all comes down to the routine. I mean, that's a rule that I have that I don't always follow, sure.
Speaker 2:Same, absolutely have, which is create before you consume. So if I'm going to get on whatever Instagram for the day, it's going to be after I've gotten a good session in in the morning and I am ready for a break, for a little bit of a reset, but acknowledging that break, you know, for a little little bit of a reset, but acknowledging that. And just for me. I rarely close down my phone more energized than when I pick it up Almost never, yeah, so just treating it as the trap that it is, which is an energy draining thing, versus something that is energy giving, is just just really important. Just acknowledging it for what it is a powerful tool, but also a battery drainer and an energy sucker in most cases.
Speaker 1:And we're not making this up. There are neuroscience studies on this that reveal the cortisol addiction levels and things that your phone and scrolling will have, in the same way that, and things that your phone and scrolling will have in the same way that drugs and alcohol will have the same type of things and reactions your body wants, it needs, it needs more. Oh, I got to check. I got to check. I got to check. I mean, I think it's hard for everybody, but with artists, because we are courting approval, we want approval, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:We're making art because we want people to see it. Most of us listening are making art because we want people to see it. Most of us, listening, are making art because we want it to be seen. We're not just making it to make it. Yes, we're making art for art's sake, but the goal, what is the end goal? For people to see it, for it to be hung on a wall, for an audience to come in and, against our best thinking, judge it like it, hate it, dislike it, love it, whatever. And so, gosh, that courtship of approval is so massive for us as artists, and not seeing the likes or not seeing people talking about it, not getting comments those things can absolutely hamper us horribly.
Speaker 2:That actually leads to a great quote that I wanted to share from page 40, right in the middle. What is sometimes needed is simply an insulating period, a gap of pure time between the making of your art and the time when you share it with outsiders. And I was reflecting on this quote and remembering, or just sort of realizing, how my routine around when I share work has really changed. And I rarely share work in progress anymore. I might share some process, little videos of just a little vignette of something I was doing, but as far as I remember earlier on, I would share, I would take a decent photograph of work in know, and again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that Like, if that works for you, then do it.
Speaker 2:But what I found was that I began to be influenced by whatever comments people would make, positive or negative. You know what I mean. Mostly just like hey, I like that part over there, right, and so then the next time I'm working on it, all of a sudden now I'm thinking about how whoever liked this one portion and I like them, so I got now it's like my job to retain this certain element that they all liked, and all of a sudden we've invited a whole bunch more voices in the room that don't have any place in the creative process and there is a massive danger of possibly discarding your highest vision in order to fit into what the perceived audience expects.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so you know, you and I talked about this I think two weeks ago. We were talking about something on the phone and I said, oh yeah, I hide all my likes on everything. And you said, oh really. I said yeah. I said I got to a point in my head I don't know where it would come from, because I'm not like this, but all of a sudden I go, wow, that painting had 400 likes and that one had 10.
Speaker 1:What's wrong with it? I don't even know where that thought process came from, because I've never had that thought process, but it entered in and I would start to think about the perceived audience's expectations of what I was putting up rather than just focusing on the work. So I hide all my likes just for that moment that I get on. I'm not focused on it and going what's that number compared to that number? What's that number? I mean, it's just a small thing cumbered by my nonsense. Yeah, like I've just the noise has created a swell of absolute nonsense, but I don't know it, just it crept in. That's what happens, noise. Noise creeps in, it can creep in. So we need to be really conscious of noticing those things when they do and then attacking them head on.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say that I mean that, that I mean that is a testament to the value of auditing our own thoughts and feelings and just sitting with like hmm, I don't know when this sort of occurred to me, but just at one point, to my earlier example of spending time on Instagram or whatever, it might be being more energy draining than giving, especially during the workday, draining than giving, especially during the workday, but I absolutely had that moment of it's like wait a minute, why am I? I'm less excited about going back to work than I was when I took this break. So just paint, is there a pattern here? Yeah, there is. This actually happens consistently. So just the value of, to your point, being the auditor of our own experience and reflecting on how is this affecting me? Is this a net positive or a net negative, in different contexts as well, because it may be neutral overall, whatever, but it matters when we introduce these things in the mix and how much we allow them to impact us.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's right below what you read on page 40. They talk about Andrew Wyeth when he was working on his Helga series. Yeah, he worked on it privately for years, worked at his own pace, away from the spotlight of criticism and suggestion that would otherwise accompanied the release of each new piece in this series. So it sounds to me like usually and I've been to the wife house in Maine, that was a really fun visit to see the studio and the house and some of that work in person. But so to me it seemed as if, as he's working on a new series, he's releasing each piece right as he works on it. So he's getting that criticism and suggestions as dealers, gallery, whatever kind of you know, giving the audience. They're giving their point of view on it and they're giving their point of view on it. And then it says that such respites also perhaps allow the finished work time to find its rightful place in the artist's heart and mind.
Speaker 1:In short, a chance to be better understood by the maker. Then, when the time comes for others to judge the work, their reaction, whatever it may be, is less threatening to the artist. I've thought about that over the years as I've read that section in the book, because, as society has developed technologically, we want things faster and it's coming at us in a much more rapid rate. So it's like to me that's a double negative. Things are happening. We want things to happen faster, but things are also coming to us at a faster rate. Happen faster, but things are also coming to us at a faster rate. So the ability to be really patient as an artist and let your work develop, let it grow, let yourself become truly happy with where it's going and truly following your own heart and where your heart feels the work should go. Instead, we rush things out the door really quick. Sometimes we want that approval, we want to get that piece on Instagram, we want to get it out, we want to get it to our D, and then sometimes we release it and go ah, dang it, I've done it, I'm guilty of it, I've put work up on Instagram and then a month later I look at it and go I don't, I'm not happy with this at all and I remove it, take it off Instagram, and it's like I should have never put that out there. Why did I? Well, because I wanted to see what the reaction of the audience would be. It's just to me that's dangerous, especially if we're really trying to develop, we're really trying to grow. Let's not rush and, like we always say, somebody might be watching you, Somebody in the art world may be watching you. Watch where you're going, watch where you're growing. Don you Watch where you're going? Watch where you're growing. Don't release the work you're not fully happy with yet. Release the work that you feel really confident in and really strong in.
Speaker 1:In the Helen Frankenthaler episode we talked about that. There was a quote that she said and you and I kind of went back and forth and debated it and we felt like she was saying there's a point where she just has to go, I'm good with it. And now it's moving on. Yeah, she doesn't care what anybody says, if they like it or they don't like it. She's like I'm good with it. So it is therefore out the door.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's important to really just keep in mind you know why we're making the work in the first place, and that it is not to meet the lowest common denominator, right, you know, we're not trying to make something that is just like palatable for everybody.
Speaker 2:I was listening to a podcast I can't remember who the guest was, but it was a filmmaker and they were talking about how.
Speaker 2:The interviewer asked why is there so much just trash being made in the film business right now?
Speaker 2:And by trash I just mean just like vanilla, just retread scripts of just a slightly different, if at all, version of something we've seen 17 times before. And then we're talking about how Netflix, for example, will throw crazy budgets into getting like whatever A-list actors, but instead of buying a script that had a singular vision by a writer or maybe a pair or a team or whatever it might be, they're just throwing a bunch of cash into a writer's room where individually there probably is quite a bit of talent, but collectively you just get this sort of homogenized base level. You know, again, lowest common denominator version of what might be mildly entertaining or acceptable but is never going to move the needle or say anything unique or connect with people in a real and meaningful way, and I just think that's a great example of you know, the more voices there are in the room, the more people who get a vote on how it goes and how the work gets completed, presumably. I mean, yeah, definitely, the less unique that work is going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just had that conversation with a group of friends this weekend. I was watching Gangs of New York. I pulled it up. I was just going through looking for something to watch. I wanted to watch something good and I pulled that up. So I haven't seen it in a while. And there's the scene where Bill the Butcher walks out in the very beginning of the film, when the Warring Burroughs are about to have their showdown in the icy middle of the square and Liam Neeson comes out with his whole side of the Irish and then he's bringing out all these other different clans are coming out to support him. And then, when Bill the Butcher comes out, daniel Day-Lewis, the cinematographer, chooses this close-up of his face and then it's a wide shot, really wide shot, and then it's another kind of boom, boom in. And then it's another kind of boom, boom in.
Speaker 2:But the power in that moment was so creatively beautiful that I took a screenshot and I said it to my friends and I said I miss true cinema.
Speaker 1:I'm sick and tired of all of the just. Like you said, let's repeat the script, get it out as quick as we can, get as many eyes on it as we can, and then do the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and so time isn't involved and those things it's not processed that well and I went gosh, this is the storytelling. The attention to detail and the shots and the framing was just so marvelous and beautiful and I was like that is such a snapshot of how I want to be in the studio Attention to all the detail, focus slow, move it, build the story, release it when it's ready, not get a bunch of writers in the room, rush with something that's already been done and get it out as quick as we can. And then on to the next thing.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think that moves in really well. I want to read this page. On page 47, as we kind of talk about communication and the artist's relationship with the work, there's a. On page 47, he tells this story. Filmmaker Lou Stumann tells the painfully unapocryphal story about hand-carrying his first film, produced while he was still a student, to the famed teacher and film theorist Slavko Vorkpich. The teacher watched the entire film in silence and as the viewing ended, rosen left the room without uttering a word. Stuhman, more than a bit shaken, ran out after him and asked what did you think of my film? Replied Vorkpich what film?
Speaker 1:The lesson here is simply that courting approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audiences seldom in a position to grant or withhold approval on the one issue that really counts, namely whether or not you're making progress in your work. They're in a good position to comment on how they're moved or challenged or entertained by your finished product, but have little knowledge or interest in your process. Audience comes later. The only pure communication is between you and your work.
Speaker 1:Man, I was listening to this section on the audiobook yesterday when I went on a walk, because it was 69 degrees and just beautiful yesterday morning, so I was listening to this section and I never really focused on the moment where he says worse, yet the audience is seldom in a position to grant or withhold approval on the one issue that really counts whether you're making progress in your work. I've never thought about that before, and even with friends like you and Moxa and Allison and our peers out there who we may share work with and ask for their opinion hey, what do you think? Where's it going? And even myself, as the critiquer, I'm critiquing what's happening in that piece right now.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at the composition, I'm looking at the depth, I'm looking at. Is there something that's throwing the eyes off? What's working here? This piece has made so much progress than the last five pieces. Look where this is going and moving. Are you thinking about where that's taking you? I've never thought about that before and even though I've read this book so many times, that thought hasn't really crept into my mind.
Speaker 2:Well, and it speaks to the value of again, something we've talked about many times before, but the value of having as, as Jerry Salts puts it, our Again something we've talked about many times before, but the value of having, as Jerry Saltz puts it, our coven, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Our inner circle of other artists who are, of anybody other than us, the most qualified to speak to if progress is being made, because they're on the journey with us and they've seen what's come before and had real dialogue about the work itself. So if we are going to let someone else in, let's be choosy, let's be picky about who else we allow to speak into our process and our thinking around the work. But to that very last mic drop sentence of that section, the only pure communication is between you and your work, and so it's funny. So you just mentioned a couple of people that were we. We did a Mox, alice and some others just a little bit of a, um, kind of a. It was weekly for a while and that kind of faded off for probably a good year, year and a half or so.
Speaker 2:We had, you know, weekly Zooms where we would talk about the work, we would show different things, we would have different conversations and somebody said I don't remember who it was, but well, ty said this about it and it was clear that they did not agree with or like whatever feedback you had given. I think this is actually while we were still in the program. So there was an active dialogue around the work. For that reason and I don't remember who it was that said, well, ty doesn't always know, he doesn't have all the answers, he doesn't always know everything, and I think that that was really important to acknowledge Even the people who do know us the best, even the people who, in that case, we were seeking out guidance and mentorship and information from they don't have all the answers Nobody does mentorship and information from.
Speaker 2:They don't have all the answers Nobody does. Right. So just making sure that we sort of collect a, if we're going to do that, be selective about who we give a voice to and then auditing and being selective about what we do with whatever is shared, because oftentimes it's. Thank you kindly for your thoughts. And back I go to what I feel is that pure purist version of the communication, with the work that I'm capable of today, and see where it takes us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and I love this quote.
Speaker 1:This is from a book by Sarah Thornton called Seven Days in the Art World and she was visiting John Baldessari when he was still alive, one of the greatest art educators in history, and was talking to him at the school and asking him questions. And she says Baldessari has mentored countless artists and although he now teaches at UCLA, he is still seen to embody the think tank model that exists in one of its purest forms at CalArts, where he was for years, even if it has spread all over the United States. One of his mottos is art comes out of failure. And he tells students you have to try things out. You can't sit around, terrified of being incorrect, saying I won't do anything until I do a masterpiece. I love that quote because the purest communication that you have with your work is going to come out of failure. Yeah, being willing to try things out, being willing to be incorrect and do it wrong. If we keep trying to make that masterpiece constantly each time we go in the studio, we're not going to allow room for pure communication.
Speaker 2:It would be like saying I'm only going to start this maze if I can walk directly from the beginning to the end. Seriously, I don't know why. When you're talking, I just got this. I just got this flash of a picture of of how every failure is like it's. It's a little, it's a little detour over here. Oh nope, not there. Okay, turn around. No, I tried this before, but maybe not in this combination. It's. It's nothing but a series of failures that leads to the ultimate success of finding our way out of whatever figurative or literal maze that we might be in at that specific time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think that all comes from commitment, right, that all comes from your committed values to you and your work. And I want to read page 49. There's a great, great quote here We've talked about this quote before by Heraclitus sometime in 540 or 480 BC. You could not step twice into the same river, for other waters are ever flowing on you. That's just such a beautiful picture Maybe in the same place, but once you step in that water, if it's a river picture, maybe in the same place, but once you step in that water, if it's a river, it's not the same river, because that water is moving and the river is the water. So and.
Speaker 1:I want to read what they say here about that. The world displays perfect neutrality on whether we achieve any outward manifestation of our inner desires, but not art. Art is exquisitely responsive. Nowhere is feedback so absolute as in the making of art. The work we make, even if unnoticed and undesired by the world, vibrates in perfect harmony to everything we put in it or withhold from it. In the outside world, there may be no reaction to what we do In our artwork. There is nothing but reaction. The breathtakingly wonderful thing about this reaction is its truthfulness. Look at your work and it tells you how it is when you hold back and when you embrace. When you are lazy, your art is lazy. When you hold back, it holds back. When you hesitate, it stands there staring hands in its pockets, but when you commit, it comes on like the blazes. How do you interpret that?
Speaker 2:Well, I've definitely spent a lot of time with it. So we got pink, we got orange we got blue pen pencil.
Speaker 2:So my first reaction is this hell yeah, let's get after it, let's go nuts, let's not hold back. Which I think is probably where I'll end up. But I then go to that word hesitate, and I don't know why, upon this most recent reading, in preparation for today's episode, I was just thinking more about like all right, well, certainly I don't want to be lazy, I don't want to hold back, yeah. But then that whole idea of hesitate, which could be interpreted a couple of different ways. I think in this context they're probably talking about again, just, you know, delaying, taking action and doing what we're supposed to be doing. But then I thought more about a different way of interpreting that word hesitate.
Speaker 2:You know, the, the, the listening, the responding to the work, and how that does require intentional pauses to, to step back and to, you know, engage in that conversation. And so, again, broadly, my response to that quote is like let's go, like let's let's. I mean when, when, in doubt. You know, take some action, make some marks. You know, get, get into some, get into some trouble from our Amy Sillman episode. Yeah, and the rest will take care of itself. But I do think about the value of also having a rhythm in the studio of both of those things, of both, call it what you want intuitive, big marks, big messes, big whatever, but balanced out with those soft, quiet listening moments as well, because I don't know about you, but I, my work, requires both right, both of the the the big, rough, bold, go for it, and also the delicate, gentle, small, quiet moves and moments in pieces. We need both of those right. So, again, just being aware of what works for us and making sure that we're doing whatever the work needs to push it forward.
Speaker 1:Does that make?
Speaker 2:sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I want to differentiate the word hesitate for the audience, because what you're saying is listening and pausing, whereas hesitate means being reluctant to do something yeah Right. So I want to use you as an example. Had the idea of, oh, I'll bet if I started smelting I could get the moments I really want with these metals and things in my work. And then you stopped and took a step back and went but I don't know how to smelt, I'm going to have to buy stuff, it's going to be really hard to learn, it's going to interrupt the process that I have going with these works moving forward. And then you choose not to take that step.
Speaker 1:That's what I think they're saying. Hesitate, yeah Right. So because how many of us do that? I mean, there are things that for years I'd hesitate on and go, oh, but I'm going to have to relearn, I'm going to have to start to do this, and I've already kind of going in this direction. So I think that's the differentiate like pause, take moments to think and breathe through things, but if you really feel something coming on in the moment, that may be the work taking you to the next thing. And if you hesitate, then you're going to allow the work and where to your work.
Speaker 2:That's recognizing those moments of growth and not hesitating with them, but actually taking that chance and going forward this goes back to just having rules for ourselves that we get to make up for ourselves and choose to you know or or not. But one of mine is that when an idea comes to me more than once, I have to listen. I mean, uh, there are some good ones that just sort of are passing and fleeting, and I try to capture those, either act on them or or add them to the ever-growing log of you know, maybe someday you know, uh, journal entries. But I think that when something pops, you know, maybe someday you know journal entries. But I think that when something pops up, you know more than once, it's our responsibility to take action on that in some form or fashion, otherwise we're going to stop getting them right. I mean, it's kind of that whole thought process around. All right, I need to create the right conditions to continue to have an ongoing flow of ideas and understanding too. Back to that how did you say it, heraclitus?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Heraclitus yeah.
Speaker 2:There it is, yeah, but the whole idea of flowing and not being able to step into the same river twice, acknowledging that the river itself, the flow itself, is going to be different and also acknowledging that we ourselves are going to be different. And I think part of that comes from just sort of this abiding faith that if I don't have the answers today, I will get the answers that I need when I'm supposed to receive them. I will acquire from hitting a bunch of dead ends in that proverbial maze. I will acquire the ideas, the resources, the abilities to execute on the ideas that maybe I don't have today. I'll share a story just from yesterday. We share a lot of our struggles and a lot of the things that don't go well in the studio, and probably those are the stories that people appreciate the most. But I had one of those sort of unicorn days yesterday where everything just fit, everything just came into place and I had two different sort of elements, without boring everybody with the minutia of my process, but I make a lot of elements, I work a lot of materials that I'm not actually sure. Is it going to be an inner layer, an outer layer, how is it going to connect with other elements. And that's sort of a quest that I've been on lately is how many different materials can I combine together to tell the same story within any given work? But there were a couple of pieces, a couple of elements that I really liked aspects of but just weren't working on their own or in combination with anything that I had tried previously. And yesterday was just one of those days where I just happened to have stumbled across, as I was looking through my sort of library of different materials and works in progress, the right thing that I had tried in dozens of other pieces to sort of audition and see if it was going to make nice and work with the other elements at play, and it never did. And it's just one of those things where, like just yesterday just happened to be the day right when I had, I was listening, the river was flowing in a certain way, where the things fit right. So just acknowledging as frustrating as it was for me, because this, this element in particular, I was really excited to use, probably too excited, right, I had a plan, there was something that I needed from the work, I needed to use it, I needed it to work, I was really excited about it, but just like kept over and over and over again in previous attempts striking out in finding a way to to use it, again in previous attempts striking out in finding a way to use it, but again just having that belief that, hey, if it's not today, it'll be tomorrow. If it's not tomorrow, it'll be at some point in the future. Whenever it's supposed to work, it will. And in the meantime we keep jumping in the river and we keep stumbling through the maze, doing the best we can on that particular day. Absolutely Love it.
Speaker 2:So the next quote I wanted to talk about, ty. This is on the bottom of page 53. It reads If, indeed, for any given time, only a certain sort of work resonates with life, then that is the work you need to be doing in that moment. If you try to do some other work, you will miss your moment.
Speaker 2:Indeed, your own work is so inextricably tied to time and place that we cannot recapture even our own ascetic ground of past times. This is annoying to me. It's annoying when I feel compelled to do a certain thing, work on a certain piece, work with a certain you know whatever, fill in the blank, for whatever your process is or whatever your creative journey is, but I find it really it's frankly, it's really frustrating to be like God. I just I cannot get this out of my head. I just have to keep pulling this particular thread and seeing where it leads.
Speaker 2:But I think that, again back to that idea that you were talking about before, of having a routine, having you know whatever rules in place, like that, has become one for me.
Speaker 2:That has now paid off so many times.
Speaker 2:I can't ignore it, even though it always frustrates me.
Speaker 2:And what's frustrating is I had an idea about what I was going to accomplish this month, this week, this day, to move things forward on my particular agenda, but the work that resonates with life doesn't care about that, and thank goodness, because that's where the most authentic work comes from.
Speaker 2:So the rule, the way of operating becomes, I think, for me anyway, when I'm doing it right is just listening, being like all right, well, doggone it, okay, all right, I'm just going to keep doing this until I don't feel like I have to do it anymore. And I think what's frustrating about that is that usually the thing that I'm being pulled by is something that is not going to probably lead to a completed work, it's probably not going to give me the feeling that I'm chasing often in the studio, which is, hey, I completed this, I finished this work that I'm, that I am excited about and proud of. It's usually going to lead to a bunch of dead ends and a bunch of experiments and a bunch of things, a bunch of mistakes that don't work, but ultimately take me somewhere where I'm supposed to go, even though I have no freaking clue where that might be.
Speaker 1:Until TBD We'll see Well, and I think that's not giving up on the idea as well, because so many times we get this idea, we start moving on it and things aren't working out the way we want to, so we abandon it really quickly. For something else.
Speaker 1:And so I think sometimes life is telling us and the work is telling us no, this is the spot, this is the area, and, like the Baldessari quote, we have to work it out, we have to fail, we have to mess up, we have to make a mess to get to it. And I think that goes back to what I said earlier. With this rush Like everything's coming at us fast and we want that recognition fast, we want to hear what people have to say fast, and so we may miss that moment. We miss that moment to create our best work because we're in such a rush to get somewhere that we leave creating from what is right in front of us in life at this moment that it's telling us to make for something else. That's just a dangerous road to. That's a dangerous road to play on Very dangerous.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by that? Well, I think if, if you're not willing to play out that idea, you're going to get stuck in following a trend. You're going to get stuck in doing what somebody else is doing. That's not your work, that's somebody else's work Sure Right, because if you're courting approval, those things start sneaking in because you're frustrated with where things aren't going in the moment. Rather than sticking to it and just creating through it and letting it lead you in the moment, you start looking other places. You start looking for other voices to feed in that aren't your voice. That pure communication that we're talking about starts to dissolve a little bit to the edges.
Speaker 2:So it seems like it may become a matter of acknowledging that we don't need to understand why we're being pulled in a specific direction. We just need to listen to the pull when it comes. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I think that leads great into page 55, where they talk about if you're like most artists we know, you're probably accustomed to watching your work unfold smoothly for long stretches of time until one day, for no apparent reason, it doesn't so when we're in that moment of listening to the work and following life. Where life has us in the work, things are going great and then all of a sudden boom. Right, that moment hits and it doesn't. And they say, hitting that unexpected rift is commonplace, to the point of cliche. Yet artists commonly treat each recurring instance as a somber evidence of their own personal failure, and I love how they give this little graph here.
Speaker 1:Kind of nominees for leading role in continuing to artist funk are number one you've entirely run out of new ideas forever. Number two you've been following a worthless dead end path the whole time and the winner is fortunately neither. One of the best kept secrets of art making is that new ideas come into play far less frequently than practical ideas, ideas that can be reused for a thousand variations, supplying the framework for a whole body of work rather than a single piece. Interesting, interesting thought there. I battled with that for a long time. I wrestled with that one, because I keep wanting to do new things and try new ideas and do these new things and not do anything that I did before. I don't want to do this. If I did that, I don't want to do it anymore. I'm going to do something else and then, after studying, Well, hold on, hold on on that.
Speaker 2:So that brings into question is this a brand spanking new idea or is it a practical variation of something that has come before? We're getting into semantics here. I mean, we could define it for ourselves however we choose, but that was something that I really thought about with this particular excerpt was just identifying, like, all right, a brand new idea is a very different thing than a practical variation of an existing one, which, to the author's point, is far more common than something that is brand new. Those practical ideas, those variations of something we're already doing, are also scary because we just don't know yet. We don't know how it's going to impact the work. We don't know how it's going to impact. I want to try something. I want to maybe just again a variation of something that I already have in front of me, something that I'm already working on, but the fear of what if this messes it up, what if this ruins something that I'm looking at, that I'm kind of digging, that I'm kind of feeling, that I kind of feel or believe might be on the path, you know, to being something you know worthwhile. I think you know that whole idea of what if? And just being leaning into the curiosity that we all have. I mean, if there's one common characteristic of artists, it's that we're all inherently curious beings.
Speaker 2:I think the difference between those that push the work forward and those that maybe get stuck and camp out longer than they should on one particular thing is the action of the what if? Idea. It's the taking the you know, theoretical curiosity into a practical attempt at execution. Yeah, that's really where the new, the new idea, the new thing can actually blossom and become something. Well, I read, so actually I want to. Before you go, yeah, I want to. So I'm imagining somebody might be listening to us right now and thinking like, well, what if I'm just not having new ideas? What if I'm just kind of been stuck and I just I'm not sure where to take things? I think a practical or tactical, you know, idea to maybe sit with and consider is just which variables could you just play with? We all have a number of different variables that were, that were, you know, using, that are in the sort of mix and in the ingredients. Um, for the work that we're doing right now, I mean, one small shift can make a massive difference in the result, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And this is I was reading. When I was reading this again, they followed up on page 57. And I hadn't really thought about this too deeply before. But they say, when things go haywire, your best opening strategy might be to return very carefully and consciously to the habits and practices in play the last time you felt good about the work, return to the space you drifted away from and sometimes, at least, the work will return as well. And we're going to have moments, as artists, where things are not feeling good in the studio. Right, nothing's working. It could last for months, it could last for weeks, days Some of us it could last a year where things just are not feeling good.
Speaker 1:And this happened to me a while back where there were things I was happy with but there were things that were just really frustrating, frustrating me in the studio and felt limiting. So I went back and I grabbed all the work from let's see 2012 to today that I felt were really strong pieces, even though the older work I felt was weak, I thought it was strong for that period in my career, and so I put them all on in a folder and then I went and I looked at them all and I went. Why did I abandon that? Why did I leave that idea? And it was like I only did that for like three paintings, but for some reason it felt like.
Speaker 2:Give me a specific example. What are you talking about exactly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean even the utilization of tape for just a little bit of deconstruction in a piece. We're just putting little lines of tape in while I'm painting over and doing layers, with transferring things and then removing the tape, and it's leaving the multiple things underneath that were transferred in that place, even something small like that. I did it for a series in 2019. I was using tape for texture and things and I went oh, there were some moments I really loved. Why did I completely abandon that Totally? There were some moments I really loved in that. Why did I completely abandon?
Speaker 1:that Totally, yeah, I still haven't explored the ends of that yet, and so I started bringing it into some pieces Right, and it did take me to some areas that maybe even that made me even think through things with my cardboard transfers that I could do to mimic that without even using tape. It took me to new things and so I kind of went why, why would I completely abandon some things that worked? The pieces aren't the same. The pieces are years. They've grown in years of wisdom and knowledge from that point. So therefore even that technique should grow the next time I use it years down the road grow.
Speaker 2:The next time I use it years down the road, and revisiting the old thing with who you are and how you work today is naturally going to produce a different result, because you've acquired everything you have since then. Yep, like back to the earlier quote we read before. You couldn't recreate that specifically, even if you wanted to Right, you wouldn't want to anyway.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't want to, but it would be really hard to. Yeah, it'd be really hard.
Speaker 2:So you're naturally going to open up new doors and have new veins to mine when we revisit old things with new information. I mean, as you're sharing that story, I was thinking about my relationship with wood and how I had done a body of work that was very clearly wood. That was when I was really first starting to use pallets and crates and such, and I'm proud of that work. There's a lot of work in that that I like. But in looking at it together, I'm like this is just obviously a lot of wood, and so I don't know where I got this idea.
Speaker 2:I honestly can't say whether or not it was a matter of me going where I was led or feeling like I needed to do something different for other external reasons, but I kind of abandoned anything. I still use wood as a structure, but not it wouldn't, wouldn't allow that to shine through, and so, anyway, recently I had a couple pieces where it just sort of started to re-emerge and I'm like, hey, there, hey, hey, buddy, hey, old friend, how are you? Yeah, good, good to see you, and let's see and and and some of the works I'm doing. I'm actually I'm really excited again to like let that sort of reemerge, but it's expressing itself in completely different and novel ways because of everything else that's transpired since then.
Speaker 1:Nathan, if you weren't, if you didn't have a value of volume which we're going to talk about here coming up, you might have missed those moments.
Speaker 2:He's a professional. Ladies and gentlemen, that's a segue, that's a segue.
Speaker 1:You're sustaining your process over a period of time and creating a volume of work. And they talk about this on page 61 when they say this is one of my favorite quotes in the book For most artists, making good art depends on making lots of art, and any device that carries the first brushstroke to the next blank canvas has tangible practical value. So, just thinking about that end, any device that carries the first brushstroke to the next blank canvas has tangible practical value, meaning you've moved on from the last canvases, the last things, you're moving on to a next one, which means you're making more work over time. And I love at the bottom and read the last paragraph to hold on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Does the cricket have anything that it wants to add? You know?
Speaker 1:if I could find Jiminy in my office, he would be set free outside Moxa. If you're listening, I would not kill him, I would scoop him up and I would put him outside Moxa, if you're listening. I would not kill him, I would scoop him up and I would put him outside.
Speaker 1:That is for one of our dear, dear friends, who is a prominent leader in the Buddhist community in Spain and all over the world. So, moxa, I love you and I've taken a lot of your things to heart. That cricket will be set free outside, so I don't know how often he's been like chirping in literally but I just started.
Speaker 2:I just started hearing recently. Obviously, since we talked about it before we started recording, I wanted to make sure and point it out well, he wanted to point out the value of volume, I think so.
Speaker 1:He let us know, thereby rubbing his legs together, that it was important uh, there's probably a good example there. I don't know exactly what crickets are communicating if I find them probably has something to do with. I'll ask him if I probably something to example there. I don't know exactly what crickets are communicating. If I find them, I'll be has something to do with.
Speaker 2:I'll ask him if I. Probably something to do with mating Right. So you know, let's get back to volume creating more work.
Speaker 1:Oh, all right, Jumping ahead to the bottom here. I love how they say on 61,. The hardest part of art making is living your life in such a way that your work gets done over and over, and that means, among other things, finding a host of practices that are just plain useful. A piece of art is the surface expression of a life lived within productive patterns. Over time, the life of a productive artist becomes filled with useful conventions and practical methods, so that a string of finished pieces continue to appear at the surface. It's just work, work, get it done, make more, make more. The more you make, the more time you spend, the more you start to realize things and gain wisdom in your practice to keep growing and keep developing.
Speaker 2:The practicality of that, I think, is really worth commenting on. Yeah, you know the useful and practical methods that they write about. I mean right before what you just shared. They use the example of Hemingway, always mounding his typewriter at counter height and doing all his writing while standing up. Way ahead of that trend, by the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, way ahead.
Speaker 2:But the takeaway there for me is just pay attention to what works for you and commit to creating and developing and protecting the conditions that serve your process. Yeah, it's fantastic, right? I had a studio visit earlier this week from a friend of mine. Robert Najal is incredibly talented and gifted painter and and and writer. We actually met through clubhouse back when that was a thing, and we're in one of the art rooms and identified that we live like a mile and a half from each other. So we've had a chance to hang out a couple of times since then.
Speaker 2:But he was here on on um on Monday and we were. We were talking and looking at some complete work up front and getting him back and looking at different things and before I knew it, my ADD had taken over and all of a sudden I'm starting to putz a little bit and starting to work on it. As I'm talking and he's like hey, I've been here for a while. If you want to go ahead and work on that, go for it. And I was like hey, thanks. He's like are you sure I'm?
Speaker 1:actually probably better conversationally when.
Speaker 2:I'm focused on making something. So he's watching me. You know, do whatever I was doing and I, I've got my little, my, uh, my carts on wheels, each of which that has a a specific thing, right? So I've got my torch cart, my, my texture cart, my carving, anyway. But anyway, he just commented and just made me think of this. He commented, he goes you clearly have a system here that works for you. Yeah, he's like I like, I like watching.
Speaker 2:I mean, we all as artists, we all nerd out and love watching each other work. That's why those, the art documentaries are so fun to watch. It's the little things that only artists would even pay attention to or would connect with them. But I think just that point of like it took me a long time and I'm still always, as we all are right refining our process, but just really paying attention to the conditions that lead to the work. You know the conditions. That's one of the only things that we can actually control, right, I can't control how the work's going to go, how I'm going to feel, what the result's going to be, but I can't control how the work's going to go, how I'm going to feel what the result's going to be, but I can absolutely, at the very least, influence, if not control entirely, the conditions of the studio, the material as I'm working, which will naturally increase the percentage of things actually working and leading somewhere where I want them to go.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's the quote by Robert Farrar Capone that says no artist can simply work for results. They must also like the work of getting them. I love making the work far more than I like seeing the piece finished on a wall Right Like the process, the thinking through, the diving in, the trying. This, this is working. This isn't the problem solving, the figuring out, discovering new answers to questions I haven't even asked yet. Like for me. That's what I'm working for. I'm not just working for the result of the piece. I'm also loving the fact that everything that's going into making it is making me even better.
Speaker 2:And in a game like this, if you don't love the process, good luck. Yeah, good luck, I mean, if the only acceptable, whatever positive feedback is the finished piece that you are proud of and that you love is what's fueling you. I don't know. I mean, I can't speak for everyone else's experience and maybe there are some people for whom that works, but I cannot imagine a world where that would be enough to actually do all of the work and make all of the mistakes needed to get to those finished pieces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we have to be engaging the unknown and all that Like we don't know what's going to happen from the moment we start to the moment we finish. We really don't. We may see it in our head. We talked about it last week. The vision is always ahead of execution. I love the Brancuse quote that says on page 65, to see far is one thing, but going there is another thing. That's the whole vision ahead of execution, again, just said in a different way. And they say to the artist all problems of art appear uniquely personal. Well, that's understandable enough, given that not many other activities call one's basic self-worth into question.
Speaker 1:But those really personal problems all relate to the making of art. Once the art has been made, an entirely new set of problems arise, problems that require the artist to engage the outside world. Call them ordinary problems. I just love that, but there is a necessity that we have to have with engaging the unknown in order to push our artistic boundaries. We have to that whole just being in the studio and spending as much time that you have currently, because I know we have moms and dads and full-time employees and people that all listen to this podcast because we've heard their stories from them. I don't have enough time. I don't have, I only have this. It's doing what you can in that time to create as much work as you can in those moments. I'm not saying finish work, that could be just playing on six canvases or playing with six piles of clay and doing things and embracing the unknown. I don't know what's coming, but I sure am glad I get to try today and find something in the work, sure.
Speaker 2:I'm glad I get to try today and find something in the work, that part of that quote that just it makes me. It makes me laugh. Not many other activities routinely call one's basic self-worth into question.
Speaker 2:Um, but it's so, it's so, so true, I mean I, I, I go back to you know, I spent a good good part of my professional life before art, you know in in sales and in coaching and teaching people how to sell, and one of the self-talk mantras that was incredibly helpful in dealing with rejection is they're not saying no to you, they're just saying no to what you're selling. They're not rejecting you personally, they just happen to not be interested in what you're selling. And that was true in that context.
Speaker 2:That was true, it is the exact opposite.
Speaker 1:It's not true anymore.
Speaker 2:Like if someone doesn't like your art, if we give that voice too much weight, or even just how we feel while we're making it about the work like our basic self-worth into question. No, if you don't like my work, you don't like me. Yeah, you are rejecting me. It is intensely personal. Um, that's not the truth, but it's certainly a lie that is easy to believe I swallow a heart.
Speaker 1:I've swallowed that hard for years, man, man Like I've. I don't know what. My favorite pieces are always the most disliked. Yeah, my favorite pieces that I make are not the ones that the dealer selects. The gallery chooses that. My friends like that, my wife like my favorite pieces. I don't know why they seem to be the most disliked out of the bunch. And, man, forever, it would just demolish me Because I'd do a piece and I'd go oh my gosh, I can't believe I just did that.
Speaker 1:That's where I wanted to go, that's where I was trying to get to, that's the thing, that's the one. And then put it in the group of work for a solo show and the curator selects 12, and that one and I go and I would go. How in the world? I don't get it. It's far and above those 12. Totally, it has nothing to do with me. It has to do with, right, that's that whole new set of problems that they're talking about. Now the outside world is involved. Yeah, now it has nothing to do with you. Now it has to do with that curator's taste. That gallerist like what they know their audience will purchase or buy over other ones. Right, there's a whole new set of problems that pop up. But man, for years I would just swallow that hard. And then I went well, hey, at least I get to keep my favorite pieces.
Speaker 2:That's the benefit I told somebody. It's funny. I had this conversation recently. I told somebody that I know a piece is done that the age old. How do you know, when I know a piece is done, when I'd be excited if it never leaves the studio or if at some point it ends up in my house?
Speaker 1:you know what I mean. Like that's keep it.
Speaker 2:I'm, I'm, I like, I like be, I like it being around me, I like looking at it. So you know it's okay. I wanted to actually jump back, if it's okay, ty, to the end of page 62. I just there was the last sentence I think is worth commenting on. Once you have found the work you are meant to do, the particulars of any single piece don't matter all that much, yeah, which really just reinforces that whole idea of volume and not identifying too much with any one piece. Yeah, you know, make, just make more art, make more work.
Speaker 2:It's so, so easy to fall in that trap of really trying to derive way more self-worth than any one piece could give us, even if it was successful, let alone the fact that if all we're doing is pulling one lottery ticket, one scratch off, is, is this the one?
Speaker 2:Well, the fewer you have, the lower the chances of it being one of the ones, one of the precious few that are really, are really going to sing. So I think, um, of course that's a goal for for all of us is like trying to find the work that we're meant to do, but just keeping in mind that that is part of the reward for doing that is that we then get to a place where the particulars of any single piece don't matter all that much. Right? Then we get to operate from a place of abundance rather than scarcity, and that's a beautiful place to be, no matter what we're talking about, right? Like, hey, if it's not this one, it'll be one of the other ones that I'm about to work on or that I'm working on right now. The particulars of this single piece just don't matter that much, it's huge.
Speaker 1:Well and over time you change. All these hard lessons I've learned, I've changed. Those things don't bother me anymore. And I think it goes in as well to just courage that you have to have in the unknown and having hope in the future. Knowing that if you're constantly making work and growing and making and making and making, having this hope that by creating a lot of work you're going to create some really good work that gets out into the art world and where you want it to go. And I love this quote.
Speaker 1:This is a little section from a great book by Austin Kleon called Keep Going. It's the third in a trilogy. Steal like an artist, show your work and then keep going. And he says art is the highest form of hope, said painter Gerhard Richter. But hope is not about knowing how things will turn out. It's moving forward in the face of uncertainty. It's a way of dealing with uncertainty.
Speaker 1:Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, writes Rebecca Solnit. To have hope, you must acknowledge that you don't know everything and you don't know what's going to happen. That's the only way to keep going and the only way to keep making art, to be open to the possibility and allow yourself to be changed. I don't know where my work's going to go. I don't know if somebody's going to like it or not. I don't know if a curator is going to choose it for a show. I don't know if somebody's going to sell it. I don't know. So I know there's so many uncertain things around my work once it gets to the outside world, but the one place I can control is myself and my work in the studio and in my time when I'm making it.
Speaker 2:Well, and Richter would be a phenomenal use case for the example that we talked about before in terms of creating the conditions. You know I mean if you know his work and know his process, if you've watched the documentary or watched, you know there's so many things he's definitely leaning into uncertainty. There's so many things he's definitely leaning into uncertainty, but he has very, very, very specifically cultivated, is excited to make. Yeah, even if leaning into that uncertainty, even when you know it doesn't, which certainly happens for him like anybody else. I love that quote, though. Art is the highest form of hope.
Speaker 1:There's a great book that's titled Artists the Highest Form of Hope, and it's just all quotes from artists. It's a great, great book. Okay, speaking of uncertainty? Hey, okay, speaking of uncertainty, hey, we have no idea how people will react to our work and we have to find ways to reject traditional validation of our work, because our head creates all the things we need validation for. We need validation for that are some perceived things that we have in our head from wherever we heard it, read it, listened to it. That has seeped into our heads, and I'm going to touch on this real quickly and then move on a little bit.
Speaker 1:But if you're a self-taught artist out there, you don't need an MFA or an institutional validation to create meaningful art. There's, for some reason, reason, a myth that exists in self-taught artist heads that, well, I'm never going to make it because I didn't go to art school. I'm never going to make it because I don't have an MFA. Do MFAs help? Sure, of course MFAs can help, but they haven't helped every artist that's gotten an MFA A lot of artists with really big debts who are not making art right now. Aside from that, you can learn anything you need to learn practically by being in the studio and becoming a student of art. Right, you're a great example, nathan right. No, mfa, you didn't go to art school.
Speaker 1:No, you're a self-taught artist. You've taught yourself how to do your craft. Now I went to art school and I learned a lot of things, classical things. I grew up in art. I don't have an MFA, so do I have a little bit of a head start, maybe on some practical things, maybe on some certain things composition or things I didn't have to learn at an older age. But, trust me, plenty of friends out there who are doing wonderful things in the art world that have no institutional backing for their art, and that's okay, that's fine. So don't let that get you down. If you're an artist, that is, should I go get an MFA? Should I go to art school? It's an option, it's definitely an option, but you don't have to have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, I do sometimes think about or wonder how much different my work would be or how much longer it would take me to get to where I ultimately want to go, if I was thinking about how to do it right. I mean, I've discovered some things that I'm excited about by doing it wrong or just by doing things that aren't even in the book to begin with. So there are benefits to both, absolutely.
Speaker 1:To both camps yeah, there are major benefits on each side. Absolutely okay, just real. Quickly, I want to tap on just the pressures of social media and how they serve as symbols of acceptance or comparison traps, and I want to read this little section on competition on page 71 in the book. Good artists thrive on exhibit and publication deadlines, on working 20 hours straight to see the pots are glazed and fired just so, or making the next work better than their last. The urge to compete provides a source of raw energy and for that purpose alone, it can be exceptionally useful In a healthy artistic environment that energy is directed inward to fulfill one's potential. In a healthy artistic environment, that energy is directed inward to fulfill one's potential. In a healthy artistic environment, artists are not in competition with each other. Unfortunately, healthy artistic environments are about as common as unicorns.
Speaker 1:We live in a society that encourages competition at demonstrably vicious levels and sets a hard and a cannibal yardstick for judging who wins man. I think we all know that really, really well. We think that all the artists we're looking at that seem like they have all their shit together on Instagram are so much better and so further along than us, and their life is perfect and their work is amazing and I'm never going to achieve what they're doing. I will tell you because I know a lot of artists on Instagram that put up beautiful posts and everything looks perfect and nothing is perfect. Nothing is perfect. They are struggling like everybody else. They've lost galleries, haven't sold work, things aren't moving. They're struggling, struggling, struggling to do anything. Now the perception is God, they must be selling a ton of work. I'll bet that lady or that dude's a millionaire. He looks like he's selling so much work. Or gosh, that studio's massive. Well, he's a king at using a wide angle and it's not as big as you think. Or they're showing in a gallery this week and you don't know that that gallery is their studio. It's not an actual gallery, it's another I mean perception. There's a great, great fake it on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Feel and look for a lot of artists that do a really good job at creating really beautiful things and their looks and feels, but it's not exactly how it is. But yet we continue to compare and then we go back and we get down and then all the voices and the noise turns up and we're not able to be focused on what we should be making today because we're so influenced by all these feelings that we have, that it's taking away from our focus in the studio. So another, it's just another beware. It's great to use comparison to drive you where you go and I do do it. I go. Oh my gosh, look where she is. Wow, she's crushed. I got to get in the studio more Right, it's like Helen Frankenthaler and Grace.
Speaker 1:Hartigan Right when Grace came into the studio and went are you effing kidding me? And then sprinted to her studio and made Massacre Right One of her most famous pieces.
Speaker 2:I love what I just saw. You know it and I know it and I'm going to go back to my studio and knock your eyes out yes, and I'm going to title it.
Speaker 2:Massacre because I just killed you, but that I mean, look, it's so funny, here I've actually got this 9th Street Women example. I actually had that written down. I wanted to talk about that and you brought you, beat me to it, it's. It's a perfect example, I think, of listen.
Speaker 2:There is, there is a version of healthy competition that is very useful If you are wired a certain way. There is a way, I believe, to leverage whatever competitive nature that you might have in you in a way that does produce a healthy energy as opposed to an unhealthy. You know comparison I think about. I forget who said the quote comparison is a thief of joy. I want to say Teddy Roosevelt, but I could be wrong about that, but it's a, it's a great, it's such. A comparison is the thief of joy. The moment I'm experiencing joy, the moment I'm having a good time on my little you know fishing boat and little fishing boat and the yacht rolls by and I'm like, well shit, my life sucks because I'm on this little thing and not Meanwhile you're on the water, baby, you're having a day. You know what I mean. So comparison, I think, is very dangerous. But I think competition in a healthy sense, which I do believe exists is useful.
Speaker 2:When, back to the book, that energy is directed inward. If I'm trying to beat you, well, that's probably leaning towards the unhealthy range. But back to that whole. Like judging who wins. Whole, like judging who wins. Well, when winning is defined as competing with myself to do the best that I can do and using you as an example of what's possible. Well, that's, that's useful. Yeah, that that is healthy. It's not all bad. Yeah, competition is not all bad. It's not, but it has to be. We have to, we have to be. We have to get clear about what our relationship with it is and what we do with the feelings that competition can arise in some of us. Yeah, that's the key.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's gosh, it's so easy because you sit there, and years ago, when I fell in love with Easter Gates work, I was just blown away and I was going oh my gosh, these paintings are phenomenal, these sculptures are incredible. Oh my gosh, these paintings are phenomenal. These sculptures are incredible. Oh my gosh, these found object pieces are insane. And it's like whoa hold on Installations too. These installations are how in the world? You know they go oh, what's now ceramics? Now he's doing these huge, insane pots and he's using tar. How in the world is he doing all these things? Wait, he just built a. He just built a house that is for sound, for record records and people just to come listen to records, and then it's across from a studio. But and I'm going how do I get there?
Speaker 1:How do I get? It'd be really easy to go. I'm never going to get there, never, yeah, never, and I'm probably not going to, but it doesn't mean I can't go. I want to get there.
Speaker 2:We all have artists that do that for us and to us. Yeah, absolutely To us. We were at the Art Institute of Chicago a couple of months ago and I've seen about four of El Anatsui's pieces in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One or maybe two at the Broad in LA Most recently. Like I said, they are Institute of Chicago, but we came around the corner. I was there with my daughter, we came around the corner and I'm just like what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, mind blown yeah.
Speaker 2:And we talked about this in the last episode too, about how that can move us in either direction and sometimes both. I mean, sometimes you just have that feeling of like what the fucking point? Like why am I, why am I even bothering? Like well, okay this is.
Speaker 2:They are playing a different game and I am unqualified to even lace them up and and and get on the field.
Speaker 2:But again, like it's that and and we've talked about this before too like leaving a museum, leaving a show and just being like, well, it was a good run, could have been a good art career, but just figuring out how to sort of process that and use that as an example of what's possible, of what could be, I think is incredibly empowering and incredibly powerful, and I just it's just important to not get stuck on the, on the one side of the coin, without finding a way to flip it and be like, well, listen, they didn't get there overnight. They everyone, every artist that we would use to fill in the blank. And if you're listening to us right now, you can think of your Mount Rushmore of artists where, when you see their work, you're just like, why am I even bothering? Every one of them was where you're at right now was where we're at right now, which is striving to get, to get there, you know, but yeah, it's, it's a it's.
Speaker 2:It's funny to think about those moments and just realizing that I don't know You're walking out of a museum, you're just like, sometimes, walking out of a show, whatever. Sometimes you're just like, all right, I don't feel. Sometimes I feel super energized and stoked, and how quickly can I get back to the studio? Other times it is that Just well, it's time to hang them up and quit. But just acknowledging like this is just something that happens when I see phenomenal work. Just acknowledging back to what we talked about a lot in the previous episode, in part one, about how this is just part of it.
Speaker 2:One of our family stories that we love to share is there was our oldest daughter, was like four years old, and it was the first snow of the winter and I just wasn't ready. It was too. It was like like late October, early November is too early, you know. And I, you know, come down the stairs and you just see, you're just overwhelmed by just the, the, the brightness of the, of the, of the white, and I just said something like, oh man, not, not a, no, I just know. And and then he goes, dad, it's snow. It happens every winter. I'm like you know what sweetie? You're exactly right, it does happen every single winter.
Speaker 2:Point being, I shouldn't be surprised that that snow came again. In other words, back to the art example. We shouldn't be surprised that that snow came again. In other words, back to the art example. We shouldn't be surprised when we have the feelings and the responses that we're having, because it's a natural response to something that happens consistently, over and over again, which means that identifying and acknowledging that it's happened before, it's going to happen again, and then realizing it's going to be okay, spring is going to come. So, one foot in front of the other, just keep swimming.
Speaker 1:You're just going to have to figure out ways, artists, to deal with these pressures in the way that works for you best, whatever that may be. Like me leaving my phone in the room in the morning, hiding the likes on my work on Instagram, not spending as much time constantly scrolling like using it with a purpose that has an aim, not an aimless purpose, right? I use Instagram as that visual journal for my artwork. For those in the art world that may be watching me that I don't know are watching me, that may be. So. I put up work. When I feel like it's strong to me, I put it up. I put up a video here and there to do this. I'm using it as that visual diary of the work and where I may be going. For those that might be watching me.
Speaker 1:It used to be I want to get a bunch of followers. I want to get a bunch of likes. I want to get approval. I want to get that gives me validation. If I have more, the art world doesn't care about the validation you're getting on Instagram. They're looking at the work. They want to see the work. If they're following you which the way the art world works is they follow you without hitting follow most of the time. Figure out the things that are really drawing you away from your focus, that is, outside pressure, and figure out ways to cut them off. What, however, you?
Speaker 1:can so you can be more focused, you know, and when you're cutting off those distractions and just having a focus with what you're doing. I mean this is something, nathan, that you and I, I mean I've talked about in my program. I try and push artists to know you need to be honing in on your feed really well, because you don't know who's following you. There are people in the art world that will follow artists for a year, two years, six months, forever. Never follow them, never like a post. They're paying attention to where you're going. They're paying attention to where your work is going and you have a great example of that. Oh yeah, I mean so very going and you have a great example of that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean so. Very recently I had a gallery from from munich that reached out and and anybody on instagram any artists on instagram knows that the overwhelming majority of dms and messages you get are complete. You know bs and a waste of time, but you never know. So it was, it was worse. Uh, it's always worth the conversation. I went on their page and looked on their website and I was like, oh, this is real. There's artists on their roster that I recognize and got really excited.
Speaker 2:So we had that conversation and get on a video call and that's one of the first things that he said. It's a gallery called Benjamin Eck in Munich where I'm going to be showing this coming January. He gets on and he says so, we've been following you for a while. That was one of the first things he said. I immediately actually thought of you, because that's something that you have said a lot, and it was just a good reminder of like, yep, we're already to the.
Speaker 2:I got ready to get on that call and be ready to tell my story and blah, blah, blah and whatever. Put a pitch together about you know, hey, why? And but the work had already been done, like they had already made it, you know, and and I realized that after we, after we hung up like oh, that decision had already been made. They just wanted to know if I was interested in working with them. They had, because they had been following me for a while and had seen. You know what I'm up to and presumably you know where I'm, where I'm headed. The intel had already been delivered and received in a way that advanced the conversation significantly I shouldn't say advanced created the conversation in the first place.
Speaker 1:Well and I'm not saying abandon it, I'm not telling artists abandon Instagram, because it is such a fantastic tool for you to use with a very hyper-focused aim of putting your best foot forward, telling your story, showing how you make work so that somebody that may take notice will pay attention and follow you. Where you get into trouble is when you're constantly scrolling and constantly worrying about how many likes you have, how many followers you lost this week, how many people didn't see it or might see it, and your focus is different. That's what I tell all the artists that come in my program. It's like listen, this is a tool. I have gotten so many opportunities for my art because of this tool.
Speaker 1:In the positive light. You're showing your work, you're showing your story, you're showing how you make your work for those that may be watching now or might be watching in the future, that are going to take a chance on you, because they've followed your dedication, your process, what you've been doing, how you talk about your work, and they want to invest in you. So just know I'm not making this up. This has happened to me. This has happened to Nathan.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many artists I know that this has happened to. So when I say take a break from it, I mean take a break from scrolling for four hours a day and just looking at stuff and comparing yourself and saying I'll never be this or I might not be this person. Instead, forget about all that crap and just put your best foot forward on there and think when you're in the studio, there may be a gallery watching me in Munich. There may be somebody watching me in London. Who knows? There might be, there, could be there, probably is. If not, you might be inspiring some young artists out there who want to be like you.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's back to that whole idea of create before you consume. Yeah, that would apply to Instagram as well. Whatever your time allotment would be, in your ideal time blocking version of how much time you would spend on Instagram in a day, I would say that if all you did was not spend more time on Instagram, but change the ratio of time that you spend from creating or from just mindlessly consuming to thinking about, you know what you're going to, whatever create or or share, that would be. That'd be a worthwhile thing to consider. I mean, when you talk about tools, I'm just reiterating what you already said.
Speaker 2:But every Tools have a specific purpose for a specific use case, and they have merit to be used for what they were designed to be, and that is a portal to the world, an opportunity for us to get our work in front of the world. But it's when we start to misuse tools for things that they're not intended for, where you know, bad things happen. When you start to accidentally itch your thumb with a scalpel, you know what you're going to end up with a multicolored, you know bandage and some little bit, a little bit of blood loss, you know. So just using the tool for its purpose, acknowledging the power of it and determining how and when you're going to put it into practice.
Speaker 1:And everything takes time. Everything takes time and focus and allowing time to work within your practice and not rushing, not trying to get somewhere quicker than you actually can get. And I think there's a great quote by Rilke, one of my favorite poets and writers. We've referenced his book Letters to a Young Poet many, many, many times and he says there is no measuring with time, no year matters and 10 years are nothing.
Speaker 1:Being an artist means not reckoning and counting, but ripening like a tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come, but it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly, still and wide. I learn it daily. I learn it with pain, to which I am grateful. Patience is everything. Yeah, and that's I'm saying that same thing like with with you. If you had not have been just patient and built out your process and built out your work, shared the work that you felt was strong on Instagram and told your story, and you were patient with it and continued on, did not abandon the things you were doing. Somebody took notice and followed you. It works in many ways for artists. Don't give up on things. Keep moving, keep moving, knowing that in art, 10 years are nothing. There's this Well.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry to interrupt, but it really is such a nuanced conversation because if somebody took that advice or that mindset to the extreme, one could land on. Well, I'm not going to share anything until I've arrived at my best work, which I would say probably isn't the best approach either. Right, there is a balance there. You know, we talk about this just having this beautifully curated, you know, uh, what's the, what's the thing for the, the page, the profile? Uh, you know, that's great, you know, but it's not unlike art itself, where there is, there is, um, there's benefit in sharing what you happen to be doing, you know, right now, cause that's what you're doing right now. So, anyway, there's benefit in sharing what you happen to be doing right now, because that's what you're doing right now. So, anyway, there's a balance there, for sure.
Speaker 1:We all know when something's working. We all know in the studio at this point, when something's working and something's going right, we're on the right track with our work and things are kind of oh yeah, I'm moving in a direction. Oh, I really like how this looks. Now, that's all perceived by us. You know, when I don't know, do we, though? Do you not look at it? Do you not have a work that you finish?
Speaker 2:I do now, yeah, but I think I mean, but think back to like for sure, but think back to think back to earlier in your, in your journey. Was that always true?
Speaker 1:for you, it wasn't for me In the moment I would make a piece and go, oh, that's really strong, I like that. I think that's. And I think we have to have an air of confidence in ourselves too, because you and I have had these conversations even early on in your art making and you're like, yeah, I think I like where this is going, and I'd go I don't know what about these things. Let's think about these things, right. So I think we need to have confidence in where we are today as an artist, because we're only as strong as we are today and so, but then I would go to the museum or I go to a gallery and then I'd go, oh, I got a long way to go, yeah, ouch. But me saying, oh, I kind of like where this is going is feeding me to keep going in that area too. Yeah, and I think, yeah, they say here on page 73 they actually kind of talk about that a little bit. I'm going to read that before we get to our closing arguments.
Speaker 2:He says when things go, really, well, it might have been the most argumentative we were going to get this entire no, we got to find some moments.
Speaker 1:I challenge you, we, though.
Speaker 2:I challenge you I was I, you, it's dewy, though I challenge you. That was aggressive, very confrontational, sorry. Sorry, jax, when things go really well in your art making.
Speaker 1:All the pieces you make have life to them, regardless of how they stack up as your personal favorites. After all, they're all your babies. It can even be argued that you have an obligation to explore the possible variations, giving that a single artistic question can yield many right answers.
Speaker 2:You talked about that earlier today towards the beginning I did yeah, you and I were talking about revisiting old things and revisiting old ideas, and so it's like that and you talked about.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe there's a lot of variations in that idea. Why give up on it so fast for those little moments? And so that's what they're kind of saying here is we have an obligation to explore the possible variations, giving that a single artistic question can yield many right answers. Not just one, but many right answers could come out of that.
Speaker 2:Boom yeah, Babies plural.
Speaker 1:Yes, Babies plural.
Speaker 2:Yeah, crickets Babies like crickets Babies plural yes, babies plural yeah, crickets, Babies like babies, like like crickets. Yeah, babies like insects reproduce not the way that that human beings do, because, I mean, this is where it goes back to like the work broadly, our babies plural are are precious, yeah, but no one individual work is precious and if it's ever going to be, it's not going to be till much later on the road, probably. Anyway, yeah, you know what I mean. So, so, not putting back to what we talked about earlier, not putting too much weight on on anyone, right, like I got two kids, you put everything you can into the human children that you have, into those babies, regardless of the many times when they probably don't deserve it.
Speaker 2:But art is different in that regard. Each piece is its own thing. And, to the example that I did share earlier, a lot of those were just set aside to sit and wait. I didn't need to feed them and care for them, they on, they just sat and waited for their, for their time. And art on an individual scale is, is, is patient, you know it. It will wait for its time, and I think that, um, I forget the, the source of this quote, but but I'll paraphrase my recollection of. It is something to the effect of like people dramatically overestimate what they can do in the short term and dramatically underestimate what they can do in the long term, yeah right, like I was talking about elan at suey, he's 80 years old.
Speaker 2:you know today and as I was pulling up images here as I got lost a little bit of rabbit hole you know most of the I mean the work that he's best known for his bottle top installations. He didn't start doing until the early 2000s when he was my math is right whatever at least 60, to say what I mean. I don't know what he did before that. I'm sure it was probably pretty good, but it's not what I think of. It's not when I turn a corner and I know immediately right, that's the thing. So anyway, the point is there's so much to be said for patience in the process and to what you said before just enjoying the moment, enjoying where we're at right now, finding the little wins, finding enough of the positive feedback of the conversation that I'm having with this work is complete and it's enough to lead to the next thing, well, and something just as a kind of an ending idea, something that will help you with all these things as having artist friends, having an artist network.
Speaker 1:We talked about it in quite a few episodes the importance of having that friendship or that inbuilt critique. As John Baldessari once said, that artists need friendships with inbuilt critique. As john baldessari once said that artists need friendships with inbuilt critique as a context for the development of their work. If you look at the history of art, all of the renaissance artists knew their contemporaries. So did the impressionists. There was a moment in their lives where they were all friends or acquaintances. The cubists were not simply individual geniuses. Their greatest works happened in conjunction.
Speaker 1:Who was Van Gogh's best friend? Gauguin? So just think about there's all these things, these pressures and this time and this slowness and this development and things. What makes anything better in life A cohort, a great friend alongside you, a support system. Some of us have. It's completely absent in our outside lives, even where we don't have that support system, where we grew up, where we didn't have supportive parents or supportive friends and things, and there's something missing in that. You need that, we all need that. We all live for community. Human beings are created to be in a tribe. They're created to have community and to feed off of each other. And so by having an artist friend and having others that have that inbuilt critique and that ability to discuss and send pictures of your work and what you're thinking and books you're reading, and all those things, I can't tell you the importance of, even if I don't respond sometimes, knowing that that artist or that artist friend or you, when I don't respond, sends the video of the work, of really really working through this today.
Speaker 2:You know and I will say hold on. I will say so I can apologize in public.
Speaker 1:The way right. A professional athlete or an idiot musician would apologize in public. Although I'm apologizing to you right now for not responding to your video that you sent me two days ago about the work, the piece that you were kind of fighting through, that little section that you had outside but I have been off my phone as much as possible. I've been getting in trouble from friends this week for not responding to Instagram messages and text messages and things. It's because I'm literally not on my phone. I'm keeping it in a room, I'm keeping it hidden from me and then at the end of the night I may check something before I. I try not to check my phone before bed because I read before bed, but I check it in the evening to see if there's anything I need to respond to. That's the way to do it, but so sorry to everybody.
Speaker 2:I actually wasn't looking for feedback. The preceding text from you was hey, just going for a walk, it's 73 degrees out. I thought we were just sharing stuff.
Speaker 1:So I was just like oh, here's what I'm doing On my walk. I thought about it.
Speaker 2:What I'm hearing is you were blown away.
Speaker 1:I could, yeah speechless.
Speaker 2:I mean you were so overwhelmed with the power of that word Speechless, I didn't know what to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not true, that's all right. No, it's good. I mean, it's funny. You were talking about just sharing even just a funny little example that came to mind. When you're talking about sharing documentaries and different, that to me is an example of healthy competition. When Eric sent the documentary he just got done watching and said, hey guys, check this out. To me I'm like all right. I mean, in my mind Eric's not, he's not watching the game, he's not watching some trash, he's not binging whatever the show, he's doing nothing but watching art documentaries. Now, that's probably not true, but in my mind that is a useful belief for me to just think like, all right, how much, what more could I In the rare moments when I am actually just on the couch watching something with nobody else, which doesn't happen very often but why would I be doing anything other than watching an art documentary that probably nobody else in my house wants to watch with me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:So there is a competitive element.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:All right. Even when I'm relaxing, I'm still absorbing new ideas and new inspiration. Yeah, it's healthy. I'm not trying to like, we're not keeping score about how many books did you read this year, this month, whatever. But even just those little touches back to your point of you know, being in communication and in whatever, having community with you, know, other artists there is benefit to-.
Speaker 1:Fires you up when somebody shares something like totally 100%. And uh, francis Beatty's got a show coming up and Moxa's got a show coming up and I'm going oh, I got to get to work.
Speaker 1:I need to, okay. Okay, they've all got shows. Oh man, gianna looks like she's in the studio every day throwing sling and paint. I got to get in the studio and start throwing some more paint around, and it's kind of just bouncing around. Oh my gosh, what are they doing? Okay, I got to do some more. I got to catch up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's healthy.
Speaker 2:It's good, absolutely All right. It just feels like you know, sometimes I don't know about you feel the pressure to like close on just some like grand, you know, piece of wisdom. Let's just acknowledge like we're done for the day. Acknowledge like we're done for the day. This has been a long ass episode already.
Speaker 2:So you know, hey, join us next time for uh, the third and final part of art, and fear that we even cite the book today by David Bales and Ted Orland. Part one is already available. Part three will be our next episode. Go get the book and read it and highlight it, and reread it and re-highlight it again. Make your notes. It's a, it's an absolute must, must read, follow us on the places and check us out on youtube, if you're not already, if you want to see, you know what we look like when we say these words. That may or may not be useful. That makes sense. That's helpful too, and ty does a great job with the edit, sharing uh, clips and b-roll and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 1:So, all right, that's a long ass that was bye here, all right, see you next time. Bye.
