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 3
Join us as we wrap up our exploration of "Art and Fear," where we uncover the tumultuous yet exhilarating path artists navigate. We dive into the artist's struggle and the high cost of idealism, emphasizing the need for lifelong learning and self-education beyond the structured confines of art school. Uncover how embracing curiosity and self-education can prevent stagnation and nurture continuous artistic growth.
As artists, are we just chasing shadows, or is there more to be gleaned from completed artworks? We explore the dynamic between artists and critics, sparking a debate on the utility of viewing finished works. By drawing insights from figures like Jerry Saltz, we discuss the contrasting views where artists see art as an ever-evolving process while critics often view it as a fixed entity. Henry James's questions for evaluating art prompt us to reflect on the value and impact of artistic pursuits, urging artists to break free from traditional constraints and embrace the uncertainty that fuels true innovation and autonomy.
Finally, we delve into the divine spark that drives creativity, encouraging artists to trust their instincts and make bold conceptual leaps. This journey requires leaving behind comfort zones to pursue greater expression, as exemplified by historical movements that challenged norms. By integrating life experiences into art, authenticity and persistence become central themes.
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All right. So the great cricket caper continues, which which which, by the way, caper, underutilized word I mean. It brings me back to Hardy boys. Nancy drew like capers a phenomenon. I'm actually have to work that into the title of the piece at some point.
Speaker 2:Use the word caper tell me more about it, though, are we?
Speaker 1:is this going to be a cricket free episode or this is?
Speaker 2:a this, you're going to love this. This is a cricket free episode. And yeah, nathan and I jump on the phone every now and then, about an hour before we start and kind of just talk and I said, said you're gonna have to, I'm gonna have to call you back because I got to find this damn cricket that I thought I got rid of last or last time we recorded, but since it's cricket infestation here in Waco, I emptied my whole office to try and find this cricket that I could not find and the whole time it's chirping at me, cocky, abrasive, just letting me know you can't find me. And I think I found it in a little cooler bag on the floor that was laying open and I'm like it's got to be in there. It's coming from over there. So I threw it in the studio. Get set up. Next thing. I know cricket, I hear it. So I'm going through everything again. Lo and behold, it's literally hiding in plain sight on the little foot pad I have under my desk. That's black.
Speaker 2:So, it's blending. And I saw something move. That's where it was the entire time. So I gave him a little toss outside and the day begins. It's a new mantra for the studio.
Speaker 1:Cricket confidence.
Speaker 2:How's your day, man? Cricket capers part two All day yeah.
Speaker 1:So here we are, part three of Art and Fear, our third and final installation, breaking down this must-read book. You know it's funny. As I was highlighting different parts and preparing for our episode, I thought it was interesting. In thinking back to parts one and two, it was interesting to me how you and I have almost completely different things highlighted. Yeah, like I think maybe 20%, 30% overlap, but the rest is just different, which speaks to, I think, the power of the book itself and how many different just nuggets there are to be mined. So if we haven't made it clear so far, we'll just reiterate again Go get the book, spend time with it, read it. It's an absolute must read. There's a reason why it's a fundamental part of your mentorship program. So with that, let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to jump into part three here and we're going to kind of go through a few things quickly and a few things we're going to, of course, spend a lot of time on, which normally we do. But the first thing I really want to talk about is they jump in here in this third part, into the artist's struggle and just the price of idealism, and I want to read a little bit about idealism and its casualties and idealism as in I want to be an artist, I have this goal of what I really want to do and I'm going to do this and I'm going to be in museums like setting these really lofty aspirations for ourselves and for so many artists. You become casualties of that idealism. It takes so long to get there. You quit or give up or you stop making art or things are working exactly how you thought they were when you left school or those things, and then you slow down and you take steps back and you become a casualty to that ideal that you've set in front of you, and it can be.
Speaker 2:Those can be very, very dangerous at times, especially for us as artists, and I want to read this little quote here that he talks about in the book, on page 85, where they talk about student issues, and this quote says idealism has a high casualty rate. The chances are, statistically speaking, that if you're an artist, you're also a student. That says something very encouraging about the desire to learn art and something very ominous about the attrition rate of those who try. There is, after all, a deadly corollary Most people stop making art when they stop being students. And I wanted to read that because when you think of idealism, why do artists go to art school? Because they want to be an artist. That's the reason an artist goes to art school. It's like I want to do this, and so that thought of if you're reading this and you're an artist, you're probably also a student.
Speaker 2:It's showing that the higher population of artists are all in art school and then slowly that digresses and that percentage shrinks over time as artists get out of art school and they move on into real life because they weren't able to achieve or walk into a world they thought they could immediately enter and be successful in. And really, nathan and I talk about this a great deal Don't stop being a student, even if you didn't go to art school. Keep learning, keep growing, keep pushing your education as an artist in materials and books and history and all you can get your hands on and that's going to help you in that pursuit, for sure. And I definitely want to suggest that you go back and listen to our episode how to Be an Art Nerd, embrace Curiosity, self-educate and Continue to Grow as an Artist, where Nathan and I dive in for about an hour and a half into this subject. So I wanted to touch on that real quick.
Speaker 1:I love that. I have nothing to add your.
Speaker 2:Honor.
Speaker 2:Good, that's great, we'll keep moving on, but I just wanted to touch on that, because that's a really, really tough thing when you leave art school. Any of you that have been to art school understand like I did. The second you leave those doors you kind of go, oh shit, what next? And really the whole world comes flying at you. So don't stop being a student when you leave. All right, let's jump into page 93, conceptual works. I know this is going to be probably a pretty thick section here that we're going to go through, because there's some really, really fun stuff and I love this quote at the top.
Speaker 2:Nathan, I'm sorry, don't yell at me, but I got a couple before that. Oh, let's do it, jump into it. I'm not going to yell, I'll whisper.
Speaker 1:Okay, I meant that to be an off episode, little side note. But yeah leave it in, screw it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to keep it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think what was I going to talk about? Yeah, so, from page 90, it's just an interesting distinction that the authors make about the difference between the way that critics view art and the way that artists view art. So the quote, this distinction, has substantial footing in the real world. Substantial enough at least to support the provocative, if not entirely airtight proposition that nothing really useful can be learned from viewing finished art, at least nothing other artists can usefully apply in making their own art. The really critical decisions facing every artist, like, say, knowing when to stop, cannot be learned from viewing end results. For that matter. A finished piece gives precious few clues as to any questions the artist weighed while making the object.
Speaker 1:Now, we talk about this a lot. This is one of, you know, your things is the importance of viewing a lot of art. So I'm going to put this in a form of question to you. But I wanted to sort of clarify the preceding sentence that talks about, you know, embracing art as a process, artists as kindred spirits to the artist. Art is a verb to the critic, and we could extend, you know, just the viewer as a whole. Art is a noun, art is a thing to be viewed, whereas an artist. Art is a verb, a thing to be done. But I'm curious what your thoughts are on that preceding quote that I read.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a lot in there, and obviously the critic and the artist are two very, very, very different things. They've been friends through history and they've been enemies through history. And so the longer I read and the more I study, I tend to find critics who are connected to certain artists and artists who are connected to certain critics and those that hate each other and kind of cause warring factions between different artists at different times because of the critic and I just got to watch Jerry Saltz give a lecture at the Blanton Museum, and so it was really fun to hear a critic talk about art and about things, and obviously Jerry was an artist too, so he wasn't. There's a lot of critics that never made art, but then there are critics who have made art and figured I'm much better at talking about this and writing about it than I am actually making it. So it's always interesting to hear critics' point of views, because I don't agree with critics a lot of times when I see work. It's one of those things that they exist, and they don't usually exist in harmony most of the time. Does that make sense? It does, because we're both viewing things in different ways, right?
Speaker 2:The artist? Here are some things that Jerry said in his talk. He doesn't want to know anything about a painting when he goes and sees it. Nothing. I don't want a story, I want a philosophy. I don't want anything. Just let me go look at it. And he's going to go look at it. He will be moved, not moved, think there's things that he likes, things he dislikes, etc. Etc. And then he will write about that from a pragmatic point of view, looking at what he sees and what he feels.
Speaker 2:Then he had a quote where he said good art is when you look at a painting, and every time you go see it you feel something new and different. So every time you go and look at a piece, you get a different emotion, a different feeling, a different something. Each time. It's not the same thing every time. Right, that's coming from a critic. This is how I perceive this to be Now, as the artist. Yeah, that's a lofty, lofty goal for that to happen. Now, are we always thinking of that? I don't know. I mean, it's such a different conversation there. Yeah, was there? Were there any things that you had in your mind?
Speaker 1:Well, it was just interesting because you know the the, specifically that part where you know nothing really useful can be learned from viewing finished art, at least nothing other artists can usefully apply in making their own art. There aren't a lot of portions of the book that I disagree with or that I sort of pause and question, but this is one of them. Do you think they're talking more about?
Speaker 2:process, probably For the artists themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that probably is where they're coming from. But unless they're just getting lost in hyperbole, nothing is italicized. Nothing really useful can be learned from viewing finished art, at least nothing, I mean. Yeah, I suppose that is true. Yeah, nothing, at least nothing that can usefully apply. I mean, I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with that. Honestly, it was just something that kind of struck me and I know that it's something that you feel strongly about, because you've encouraged myself and our listeners many times to go look at art as much as possible. So I guess I'd love to hear you reiterate that through the lens of this specific quote. Like I'll ask a better question what utility is there in looking at a lot of art? Yes, so this?
Speaker 2:is what I would put into that place in that paragraph, and I think they are right where there's nothing useful that you can get from looking at a finished piece of art that could teach you how to have a harder work ethic in the studio or to spend more time on something or to fight resistance or to push the audience outside of yourself, like studio, studio, practical ideals you can't really get from a finished piece of art. You can't go in. You can't go in and look at a piece of art, like they say and go. I know exactly when Picasso said this is done and I'm ready to let it go. Yeah, yeah, right, you can't go back to your studio and go oh, okay, this is probably what you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But I think practically you can definitely learn about depth and texture and composition and paint and you know, you can see those things. You can gain emotion, what you know, oh gosh, why is this affecting me this way? Is it just because of the way the artist blended? Is it because of the texture of the artist had? Is it the depth? Like what are those things? Taking those things back to your studio can obviously inform you about your own work, but I think nothing you see in a finished piece you can take back and go. Well, this is what I need to do in my studio practice to get to where they were.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Does that make?
Speaker 1:sense. There's an interesting. It totally does. Yeah, there's an interesting quote on the following page, page 91. There's an ancient quote on the following page, page 91. They paraphrase a quote from Ezra Pound.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they just wrote that the one thing he learned from viewing a good piece of art was that the other artist had done his job well and thus he was free to explore another direction, and this is something we've talked about on previous episodes as well, but I think it's worth noting that that's a really I, just I like the, I like the, what that brings to mind for me, just in terms of like imagery, like I picture the path that we are all on and the, the course that we are all attempting to chart for ourselves in pursuing our own, you know, authentic voice, and to to pick up where they left off and then continue forward.
Speaker 1:That actually would be a case for looking at a lot of art, to know which paths have already been, what paths already exist, right To pick up from there, as opposed to feeling like we got to start from scratch. One of my favorite things I love the outdoors camping, hiking, all the rest of it. I know you do as well. I'm a big fan of when hiking all the rest of it, I know you do as well. I'm a big fan of when hiking, going off the trail and exploring the little areas that maybe you're not supposed to go, or get a little closer to the edge than the path would suggest for the average hiker. But you don't do that in the parking lot, you don't? You don't chart your own course, right, right.
Speaker 1:You go as far as the path goes and then you you know whatever deviate in your own direction. Then you get, get curious and get creative and find your own path. You know from there. But just I think that that to me would be just another reinforcement of what you're saying, which is, until we know what else is being done and has been done, there's really no way for us to effectively begin from there or use that as a starting point to push that conversation forward. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think that moves great into the quote by Thomas Kuhn. The answers you get depend on the questions you ask, because if we're not going and we're not looking and we're not spending time and we're not studying and doing those things, we're going to have very few questions about where to go and what to do or what has come or what hasn't come yet and those things. And I think I want to read a little bit here. So bear with me on page 93, kind of goes into this conceptual leaps and things. And work with me. On page 93, kind of goes into this conceptual leaps and things in work, they say.
Speaker 2:Writer Henry James once proposed three questions you could productively put to an artist's work. The first two are disarmingly straightforward what was the artist trying to achieve? Did he or she succeed? The third's a zinger Was it worth doing? Those first two questions alone are worth the price of admission. They address art at a level that can be tested directly against real-world values and experience. They commit you to accepting the perspective of the maker into your own understanding of the work. In short, they ask you to respond to the work itself without first pushing it through some aesthetic filter labeled behaviorism, feminism, postmodernism or whateverism. But the third question was it worth doing? It truly opens the universe. What is worth doing? Are some artistic problems inherently more interesting than others, more relevant, more meaningful, more difficult or more provocative? Every contemporary artist dances with questions as these. I love that. That's a great question to ask ourselves in the studio. Was this piece worth making? Was this direction worth going towards? Were these ideas worth taking any further? Or did they lead me to something else?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm inclined to rephrase that as is this worth continuing? Because asking if it was worth doing is kind of irrelevant, because it's already been done. Right, we did it. The real question, I think embedded in that, for me, as far as the takeaway is concerned, is just all right, is this worth continuing? Is this a question that, um, is worth continuing to explore and mine and see where it leads? Or is this a back to our sort of maze metaphor from the previous episode? Is this a dead end, and is it time to turn, turn back around and find a new way towards the ultimate goal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's ultimate reflection. It's that self-inquiry, asking yourself, talking, asking the questions, reflecting on what you're working on or what you've made. Is it ready to move forward? And I love on page 95, they say, second paragraph artists who need ongoing reinsurance that they're on the right track routinely seek out challenges that offer the clear goals and measurable feedback, which is to say technical challenges. The underlying problem with this is not that the pursuit of technical excellence is wrong exactly, but simply that making it the primary goal puts the cart before the horse. We do not long remember those artists who followed the rules more diligently than anyone else. We remember those who made the art from which the rules inevitably follow. I have exclamation points all over that page. I mean that's a pretty Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, same. And I think that speaks to one of the underlying themes of the book, which is the importance of embracing uncertainty, right, yeah, you know, when we're talking about like. So they use an example earlier in that section about how whatever Olympic diving or things like that have objective standards where perfection is possible. They get into that later on in the same section when we talk about craft. But when there is a, it is more comforting to have a some type of a. Whatever rules, rule stick. Is that, is that a thing? Guidebook rule.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure thing. Whatever Rule stick.
Speaker 1:Some measurable to say, yep, you hit the, you hit the mark. This, this, this meets the standards of, you know, whatever the thing is, whereas what we are being encouraged to consider in this section is, if we want to have the lofty goal of being an artist who is long remembered, following the rules is not the path to get there.
Speaker 2:Right, when you look at the history of, really, the artists who challenged the norms, and that's what they did. They were breaking the rules that were set before them, and so then the art world in turn at some point ended up following where they went. And you look at the impressionists like they did that at the time during the salon in Paris, and they went outside what everybody was doing and they were very I've said this before they were as punk rock as punk rock could get, you know, and they were doing things that were not supposed to be done and they continued to do them and they changed the history of art. Then you have the Cubist, cubism shattered the norms of art, like completely shattered it. And then you have surrealism. You have the Dadaist, right, I mean, think about it. You've got a urinal in the middle of a gallery floor. What Duchamp did change the history of art from that point forward? He was challenging the norms and broke through and doing something that. Did he even touch it? Was it even something that he touched? Right, but it's like that whole idea of not following the established rules.
Speaker 2:And I always tell my artists all the time art has no rules, don't think it has rules. I have artists all the time that come to me and go well, I really want to sculpt, but I feel like I really need to paint to be in a gallery, and it's like, no, you don't sculpt, you don't have to be a painter to be in it. I'd say don't be a painter, you have more opportunity, everybody's a painter. So it's like, but then you have, well, I should do this, should I? It should be the size, or it should in order to get there, in order to.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not real art because, well, that's not, that's no, there are no rules in art. Do what you want. The history of art has a bunch of people, men and women, who did not play by the rules and are now in museums today. So great Nietzsche quote no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning oneself. No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. You're making your work your way, the way you want to make it.
Speaker 1:And as I read that the way you want to make it and as I read that it is important to note that there is a price to be paid. Yeah, yes, always Of course, but that's an important thing to realize too in terms of, back to the whole, not getting stuck in this idealistic view of how things are supposed to be or supposed to go. There is a price to be paid for owning yourself. It's just worth acknowledging like, yeah, if that's the goal, if that's what we're after and hopefully it is it's going to hurt a little bit, there's going to be some bumps, there's going to be some bruises, and that's okay.
Speaker 2:That is a great example, I think. And I think there's going to be points in your career as an artist where somebody is going to tell you whether it be peer, whether it be gallerist, whether it be front, who knows is going to tell you, ah, yeah, you probably shouldn't do that, you should go back to doing this or just giving advice. That is from their taste perspective. But they kind of come with a little bit of authority maybe, and there's a choice to be made in that moment.
Speaker 2:We have a really good friend that that happened to her in her studio, with a studio made at one point said yeah, what you're doing is really more decorative, it's not really art. You should probably think outside the box. And us other peers of hers said no, are you kidding me? That's incredible. You need to keep pushing those ideas, keep pushing those boundaries. And now she's done some things sculpturally that really fall into beautiful and incredible places. She's did an incredible sculptural residency this last month. She's doing incredible work. But it would have been really easy for her to listen to that peer and gone. Yeah, maybe it isn't really art, because she might know and I'll just kind of stick with something else I was doing in the past, and then maybe she still would have reached where she is now, but it might've taken a little bit longer. But instead she stuck to her guns and kept going and her work is exploding. So, and because there are no, rules.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't rely on just one opinion. No, never. If we were objectively measuring something, all it would take is one person with the whatever, whatever the measuring stick might be, to say yes, no, whatever, read the readout on the meter and say this is what it is. This is a completely subjective space that we're in, obviously, so it's important to diversify our influences and be selective about who we seek out for advice, input, feedback, and then, once the feedback's been delivered, determine what, if anything, is worth taking into consideration to actually execute on.
Speaker 2:And let's just thank you kindly for your two cents and off I go and make you Let all your influences and all the things you love combine into what you feel strongly about making. Don't just copy the other, right? And there's this great quote on page 96 where they go into technique and says but while mastering technique is difficult and time consuming, it's still inherently easier to reach an already defined goal, a right answer, than to give form to a new idea. It's easier to paint in the angel's feet to another's masterwork than to discover where the angels live within yourself. The last line in that paragraph says simply put, art that deals with ideas is more interesting than art that deals with technique.
Speaker 2:And in the Joe Miro biography there's this great quote where he is complaining to a friend of his, and he's talking about Picasso and all everybody else in Paris at the time who's exploding in the art world. And he says he has this quote where, while everybody else is painting wallpaper, we're bleeding to create the things we want to create. Wallpaper. We're bleeding to create the things we want to create. And he's talking about how everybody in Paris is basically copying Picasso and they're basically painting wallpaper. Right, it's something that anybody can buy, everybody can make, and it goes up in every home. Yep, and he's recognizing that. Yeah, that's the easy way, but I'm going to bleed to push past all of those.
Speaker 1:There's that originality and self-discovery within the art is what he really wanted and we could certainly list off a number of artists whose work gets perpetually, whatever copied, sometimes just straight up stolen, and it always rings hollow.
Speaker 2:Always.
Speaker 1:There's no soul to it, right? You're just copying the At best. The best outcome of that is we've copied somebody else's masterpiece, yeah, but without discovering where the angels live within ourselves. And that rings true. Authentic work vibrates with the core experience of the maker, intention aside, but you can just feel it.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's art right, yeah, and listen, your art is probably going to look like somebody else's. Sure, there's probably going to be something in your work that you're going to be scrolling on Instagram and you're going to go oh what? And it may be somebody you've never seen, that's never followed you, but you have the same influences and you like the same type of work, and so there's going to be similarities. And there are going to be times when there's going to be people that may follow you on Instagram and like your work, and so they're copying and stealing ideas from you. Because that's what we all do we steal, copy, try and find ways to make our favorite artists work into our work, and that's part of history of art. But then I don't even care, I'm just going to be.
Speaker 2:There's so much crap that I see regularly on Instagram that looks the same, yeah, and I don't get why some of those artists aren't diving deeper to figure out how to not look like all these other artists. And I think what's happened is there's this trap with selling work to be successful yourself, and so you hop on a trend where everybody's buying one certain look right now, so you're trying to do that trend to jump on it. This is a trap. I'm not saying everybody does it.
Speaker 2:Saying this is that trap for owning yourself, owning your own identity as an artist, does it? Saying this is that trap for owning yourself, owning your own identity as an artist? And then, all of a sudden and honestly, some of those artists don't, they don't care about making art, they're just making something to sell it and make a living, and that's fine, that's great. It makes me mad, though, as an artist, because I want to see artists grow and develop and experiment. I want to see that next person create something nobody's created yet, or that new movement somewhere, and I feel like that's getting a little more difficult today. I don't know, this is me just Venny. This is me, venny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think the commercial consideration is certainly valid and probably accurate. I go to I don't know how to put it, but sometimes I, you know, sometimes I mean a lot of the examples that you're referencing, or the what are the ones that come to mind for me that that fall in the category that you're describing? I think I don't know how much work they're actually selling. I don't know. I don't either. I don't. I don't know if it is a commercial consideration or if it is more a seeking of validation of, hey, the work that I am copying, influenced by doing my version of something that's been done many, many times before and is being done by many, many other artists are getting likes, are getting whatever, a version of hey, this is art, this is good. I think that might be part of it. I think part of it too, if I had to guess, would also be just not spending enough time considering what their own unique voice could be.
Speaker 2:Sure, Well, this isn't a new thing. This has existed since art has existed. We just have the ability to see more of it at a more rapid rate today and I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just trying to. I'm an artist, so I've got strong opinions. That's what we do as artists. We have strong opinions on things and I want to see people grow, and I know there's a lot of artists that are just starting out, and so they're doing things that they're seeing right for the first time and they're trying those in the studio and coming out.
Speaker 2:The problem is is that we have the ability to show it to an audience right away, rather than wait over time to show it to an audience when it's strong enough or good enough or fits in a niche or something niche. You know, today we can just make the piece put on Instagram, get a bunch of likes and go oh yeah, I'm on my way. Then you stick with it and stick with it, and stick with it. It's just hard, that's all I'm saying. It's hard, it's frustrating, because I want to see artists grow and want to see them figure out those ways to develop beyond what got them excited to do something and not just do what got them excited in the first place. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It does. Yeah, and we've talked about this in a number of episodes before. I'm excited for you to read this Nick Cave quote that you dropped the door out one. You want me to read it? That was just me. That was just me.
Speaker 2:Let's, let's, let's, move it along yeah, um yes, no, let's no, let's, because this quote I mean, of course, you and I love this quote and I'll read it. There really is a trap, though, of trying to replicate others work instead of finding your own unique voice. So this is me just saying really dive into your unique voice. Find ways to figure what that is. Doesn't have to be powerful, doesn't have to be anything philosophical or whatever, but give yourself room to grow, and here's a good way to do it. Do you want to read the Nick Cave quote, nathan? I do, I'm ready.
Speaker 1:I do have I'm quoting here I do have a strong commitment to the primary impulse, the initial signaling of an idea, what we could call the divine spark. I trust in it, I believe in it, I run with it. There is a sense of discovery about it, things unfold, the place of discomfort and uncertainty, and adventure is where an honest, good faith conversation can happen. It's all the same thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have chills, massive, just chills, running down everywhere right now.
Speaker 1:What about this quote strikes you so deeply?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to kind of break it down a little bit here, because there's a time in the studio when you have that primary impulse it's the very beginning of that new idea. It pops in out of nowhere, you don't know where it came from. While you're working on something, boom, it kind of hits you in the moment. And I love how he names that, the divine spark. I love how he names that the divine spark and in the paragraph above that he actually goes through some of his religious beliefs and he kind of talks about Jesus and some different things in there to kind of push towards that divine idea. And I love that he says, where you just highlighted, as I'm looking at our document here, I trust in it, I believe it, I run with it.
Speaker 2:And if you're a Nick K fan, you may be, you may not be you will know through his music it jumps, it moves, it pushes a needle forward. It all of a sudden becomes something so different it's unrecognizable from what came before it. He trusts in it, he believes it and he runs with it. And I love that's discovery. Yeah, that's the sense of discovery that he says right there. And then he says then things unfold and what's always going to happen in the beginning of the new idea discomfort and uncertainty. Then adventure, and then the honest, good faith conversation can happen. Wow, oh my gosh, have you all thought about that? Out there, whoever's listening or watching us right now, you have to push through the discomfort and the uncertainty in this adventure to have that real conversation with your work. What do you guys do, or you women do, when that first divine spark or that first idea just jumps at you out of nowhere? Do you just ignore it or do you actually jump into it? What do you do, nathan?
Speaker 1:How that strikes me is beginning from a place of you know. Whatever your beliefs may or may not be, I think that it does come from a place of acknowledging that these things come from somewhere else. Yeah, in other words, we're not sitting here just manufacturing inspiration or you know, or creating ideas. They come to us. And what strikes me about this quote is how Nick Cave and the artists that we aspire be be inspired by are ones who have, over time, developed that. That word trust just just jumps off the page to me. I trust in it, I believe, yeah, I I run with it. And you know, again, referencing to, you know, his music, there's a lot of bit that doesn't, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't, it doesn, it doesn't fit. You know, within a mode. There's moments in a lot of his new album included that I'm really unpacking and enjoying. A lot of moments are like well, how do we did it? You know, at first listen, you're like did it skip tracks? You know? But it is those surprises that makes it unique, that is what makes it interesting. We want to be surprised, we, we are most interested in work.
Speaker 1:Back to that jerry saltz uh, quote that you referenced earlier from, from the talk about work that continues to reveal itself over time. I mean, I'm just thinking about music, right. So like, especially the work that the music that he's making now it is. You're not gonna hear it on the radio, you're not gonna hear it on Top 40, you know, anytime soon. It's sort of the anti-pop, let's call it right.
Speaker 1:Like, what is? Why is pop music popular? Because it's easily digestible. It's something that you can hear over the speakers at Target and just kind of like yep, that's music that sounds like something in the background other than just ambient noise of shopping. It's quick, right, it's accessible, right, it doesn't take a lot to get it right, which is fine. But it also means that it's it's quick, right, it's accessible, right, it doesn't, it doesn't take a lot to to get it right, which is fine.
Speaker 1:But it also means that it's not that interesting, right, like there's yeah, there's most of what you hear on whatever top 40 radio is very similar to what's popular at at the moment. It sounds a lot like the track that came before it and probably the one that's going to come next, you know, and that's fine, there's a place for that, but it's disposable. Very, very little of that. Some, some, some popular music absolutely stands the test of time and goes on to, you know, be be absolutely legendary as those artists evolve and, you know, find a more unique voice. But most of it is is disposable, right? I mean, I bet if we look back at the most popular songs from whatever 10 or 20 years ago, we'd probably remember most of them, right, yeah, but probably aren't listening to them anymore.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what really strikes me about this quote. Run through the lens of how he treats his work and his music, it's that trust. Run through the lens of how he treats his work and his music, it's that trust, it's trusting that, even though it probably these impulses, these initial signalings, they're probably not going to make sense right away, they're probably not. These ideas don't come fully evolved. They certainly don't for me, I don't think they do for most people. They're just little, they're just little bits, they're just little. There's little sparks of something that could become a fire, but it's just a little spark it needs. That's actually a really good, a really good enough, like it takes something to fit were you just giving yourself credit.
Speaker 1:We're just giving yourself credit for that analogy well, I'm editing myself in real time because I am such a hey I'm all for self-credit, I'm all for self-credit well, I gave myself. I I discredited one of my previous examples as as not really uh working that well, so I was like uh, this is how I process information and try to you know form love it here an idea tie, all right, but it is like that.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, yes, it's for a spark to become a fire. It it takes oxygen, it takes a fuel source right Some kindling some wood, some whatever to actually become something else. So that idea has to be fostered, it has to be nurtured into something, and so that running with it is an absolutely critical step of the process. The spark's not enough. We got to do something with it, we got to believe that it's going to become something and we have to run with it to turn it into something, and oftentimes that's not going to happen right away, or even relatively soon.
Speaker 1:It's just trust that it will at some point become something that is absolutely worth chasing the conversation worth having, worth chasing the conversation worth having.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and following these impulses are what can lead to conceptual leaps in your work. Yeah, because we're all looking for that conceptual leap from work to work, from body of work to the thing that really takes one idea that you had and then sparks again using your term again because I love it sparks into something, even to an even bigger fire. That's a big conceptual leap. I try so hard. And I was talking with my friend Jane Dameron and her husband Caleb on our way back from the Jerry Salts talk the other day and we were just talking about life and where we are and how things are going, since today is the last day in my forties. There's been a lot of discussions of what were the forties like? Are you ready for the fifties and those things. And I said one thing I've really tried to do in my work is to have very big conceptual leaps, to not do the same exact thing over and over and over again. And Jane, who knows my work very well and has curated a number of my shows as well, she was like, yeah, I think you've done a really good job of that. And I said I look at myself sometimes and go, because I'm an artist critically, I go man, I'm not changing, my Things aren't evolving enough or they're not changing here. But yet I have followed the lead of some of these impulses and had conceptual leaps but then completely left that for something new because it drew me to something new. So you can look back at years of my work and know that's totally different than what he did that year and the next year is completely different. And then, whoa, he totally abandoned this idea completely and went on to something new.
Speaker 2:And I think that's me trusting in that impulse when it hits that divine spark and being willing to even ignore everything that came before that moment to follow that impulse. Even if and this has happened even if out of 50 paintings in that year they don't do anything, it's the next year. If I didn't follow that divine spark, that whole year of that work, not moving or not selling or not doing anything, pushed me to the following year Because I was willing to listen to that spark, break out of and move towards something new. Risky it's risky, as anything, yeah, and it's hard mentally personally at times because you're like, oh, I showed that work and nothing sold. Well, but it got into a show. But it also pushed me to what I did the next year, which to me felt like a really big conceptual jump. The following year, the following year.
Speaker 1:I was smiling when you said that, because I had actually written something down and you spoke to it as I was writing down To nurture a spark, we have to leave the existing fire. And then you just talked about that. Right, and that takes a tremendous amount of courage. You've got fires that are burning, and they're burning nice, they are providing heat, they're doing what fires are supposed to do. But in your pursuit of the next thing, of where your work could take you, you've got to take that risk. We have to take that risk and acknowledge that. I mean, you can't do both, right, you can't keep all these fires burning in other places while continuing to chase down different sparks. It's just not possible, you know, right. And so the courage to leave what's already working fine in the pursuit of something great, takes a lot of courage, a lot of courage.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and we're going to jump into all that now, that conceptual leap between those things. And on page 98, there's a little sentence here at the top and he says and on page 98, there's a little sentence here at the top and he says in essence, art lies embedded in the conceptual leap between pieces, not the pieces themselves. And, simply put, there's a greater conceptual jump from one work of art to the next than from one work of craft to the next. The net result is that art is less polished but more innovative than craft. And that's a whole conversation where they go in describing the differences between craft and art. And that's a little bit of something that I voiced earlier about my frustration with some artists, creators, that are doing the same thing, same thing, same thing, same thing, and not innovating and not evolving, maybe a little bit more craft than actual art. And I want to jump to page 99, the second paragraph, and then we'll jump into all this At any point along the path.
Speaker 2:Your job as an artist is to push crap to its limits without being trapped by it. The trap is perfection. Unless your work continually generates new and unresolved issues, there's no reason for your next work to be any different than the last. The difference between art and craft lies not in the tools you hold in your hands, but in the mental set that guides them. For the artisan, craft is an end in itself. For you, the artist, craft is the vehicle for expressing your vision. Craft is the visible edge of art In routine artistic growth. New work doesn't make the old work false. It makes it more artificial, more of an artifice, because new work is supposed to replace old work. If it does so by making the old work inadequate, insufficient and incomplete, well, that's life. So conceptual leaps between pieces, not just in the piece themselves, does that make sense to you?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely yeah, and that just speaks to the importance of making a lot of work. Yeah, you know, you don't just drop the spark on one little micro piece of kindling and expect that to become like there's a lot there. There's a lot there to receive the spark. So it takes a lot of pieces, it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of experiments and a lot of trying and a lot of time with these ideas for them to develop, for them to become something. I had the very next couple sentences underlined as well.
Speaker 1:Older work is oftentimes an embarrassment to the artist because it feels like it was made by a younger, more naive person, because it was One who was ignorant of the pretension and striving in the work. Earlier work often feels, curiously, both too labored and too simple. Both too labored and too simple. That particular line specifically struck me. I was thinking about I recently hung an older piece in the house because we have an embarrassing amount of open wall space in our house. But I took a piece home and I hung it and it was funny because I've now spent more time looking at that piece than anything else that I've made, because it's just in my space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's in the house, it's in the kitchen, it's in the house.
Speaker 1:It's the place where I live. Yeah, but because I've spent more time looking at it, I'm going to take it down. I'm going to replace it with something newer, because now it just bothers me. The more I look at it, the more what are the words I use Naive, the more ignorant it appears. I still like it. I'm not embarrassed that I made it, but I'm choosing to not expose myself to it much, much more, because it just I just have that feeling of like ugh, that's just, that's just so far behind what I'm making now, which, of course, is what I'm most excited about. It's funny, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and I think that's not being trapped by the pursuit of perfection Like you can be really trapped, and I think this is one thing that de Kooning really fought with, and I think de Kooning might've even been a better artist if he wasn't so trapped by this is my own opinion. This is my opinion If he wasn't so trapped by doing everything he could to perfect a piece. Now some people on the other side that would disagree with me say well, that's what made his pieces what they are, that pursuit of perfection which he painted over his women's series, I don't know hundreds of times, hundreds of times in the series that really, really broke him out post-excavation. But to me I feel like if he would have felt a little more freedom in his creating, rather than being so forced into this perfection of each piece, that there might have been some beautiful surprises that, if left alone, would have flourished. This is my own opinion.
Speaker 2:I know there's going to be people out there art history nerds that we this would be a really fun Cedar Tavern meeting back in the 50s in New York to have this argument over perfection, which maybe I do that in my head when I finish reading and I'm sitting there with Franz Kline and Elaine de Kooning and Krasner and everybody and having this argument. But I think we can easily get trapped in that pursuit of I want this piece to be absolutely perfect. It's probably not going to be, it can't be, you're not as good as you're going to be yet. So fighting over it for so long and trying to perfect everything in it, I don't know. In my view, I move past those pieces and on to the next ones. When I keep fighting and fighting with them, I don't know if I can get them to where I want to be, but I know that if I keep working on others, it will take me down that road.
Speaker 1:And there's a quote by Ted Orland in another book of his. That is fabulous. Hold that thought road. And there's a quote by Ted Orland in another book of his. That is fabulous. Yeah, this goes back to how much time does it make sense to If we're just thinking pragmatically about the available time that we have to make art, whatever, that is for each of us, the return on investment in terms of, purely in terms of time and energy, to continue to try and resolve something or find I'm going to use the P word perfection, setting perfection aside, but I just I think there is for sure a point of diminishing returns on any one piece when that amount of time and energy, when focused on the next piece, the next pieces, is much, much higher. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's part of my opinion with Ducounian is, I feel like if he would have, in the moments where he was so frustrated with the piece, if he would have let it breathe and moved on to something new and came back to it what's under there, what could have been under there that was passed up or missed or I don't know. But I think I would rather make this is myself. I would rather make 10,000 paintings in my lifetime than 100. Because I think the more I make, the closer I'm going to get to really creating what I think I can create in my lifetime.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, how many albums does Nick Cave have?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and going back to Nick Cave as well, as we talked about the Jerry quote of being moved by something each time you listen to it, or learning something new. That's ghosting for me. Every time I have ghosting on, I'm going someplace different and something new is I'm still. That's ghosting for me. Every time I have ghosting on, I'm going someplace different and something new is happening to me every time I listen to that album. So to me, that makes a absolutely incredible work of art to me, because I cannot be moved to a new place every time I listen to it. Every emotion has been uncovered for me when I listened to that album, from highs to lows, to memories, to everything. Each time I put it on something new, I feel something new. Anyways, same.
Speaker 1:Same. You know, when you think about technical skill as well, his voice is not that great. He doesn't have a great voice, he's got a distinctive voice. Yeah, he's got a voice that communicates emotion. I mean we're fans, right? So there's there's, there's that there are people who say no thanks, and that's fine. I would say that, and maybe I don't know if this is unique to to me or to. I mean, I know you and I share quite a few musical tastes definitely not all, but some, and a lot of the artists that I really love, I mean the ones whose music I spend the most time with, don't have particularly traditionally Classical voices, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah into the visual space. I think that I guess that just reinforces what we had talked about earlier in terms of you know, the technical skill you know is fine, but the closer it is to the objective definition of what something is supposed to look like, the less unique and authentic it's going to be. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about creativity, Sorry go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me. Let me jump into this quote by Ted Orland from his book View from the Studio Door, because it kind of jumps into what we all just said before we move in to the next part. He says one of the truly wonderful things about art making is that it gives you permission, at any given moment, in any given art piece, to access anything you need, from any source you find, to express any idea you wish, in any form your heart desires. You cannot ask for more freedom than that. Please, everybody out there, take that quote to heart. Please take that quote to heart that is telling you you don't need permission from anybody to do what you want to do.
Speaker 2:With anything you want to do, the work gives you permission. If that divine spark hits you and you want to make stuff out of cement and ash and wood and whatever and you've been just painting in oils on an easel and a canvas, you just got permission from the work to use cement and ash and wood in a whole different way than you've been doing your whole life. That is absolute freedom. Think about that. There's no more freedom that we can live in in our lifetime than within our artwork. There is control on the outside of our studio. That takes away our freedom. Anywhere we are, anywhere we live, anywhere we go, your work and what you do with your work is the most freedom you will experience in life. So go for it. Go for it, and that's why we're doing this right.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's yeah absolutely that's what we're here for. I mean, I can't imagine many artists not sharing a version of that perspective of yeah, there are no rules. That's the whole point. That's why I love, that's why the space where we create and the creative process is so sacred is because it's one of the few, if only, environments in life where we are completely and absolutely free to do whatever comes to mind, Whatever we want. Let her rip, Let her rip.
Speaker 2:Thank you, helen Well. And Jerry Saltz, in his talk the other day, said artists need to follow every idea to its illogical end. Don't do one single thing, please don't do one single thing. He owes his advice to artists Follow every idea to its illogical end, not to the logical end, to the illogical end. And he said don't do one single thing, don't just stick to one thing your whole career. Please don't do that, you will do nothing is what he said. You will do nothing. So I just love that. He just Pulitzer Prize winning art critic just gave you, gave you permission again to do whatever the hell you want to do and to have variations of the things that you do.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a a lot of artists. I have a lot of artists come through my program. Well, I love to do abstract art but I love to do figurative art. Do them all, do them all, do it all, or do one for a year, do the next one for the next year. Yeah, them all, do them all, do it all, or do one for a year, do the next one for the next year. Figure out a way to merge it all, I don't know. Figure out ways to all those things that you love, that you want to do, do them all, do them all and be really good at doing them. Spend time developing and growing. Do they merge? Do they not merge? Can I do a body of work this way, body work that way? How can they integrate? Can just do it, follow it till it's illogical end.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's where, back to that whole idea in you know, just believing in in the process, trusting, you know, having having the courage to continue to move things forward. I think one of the big things that resonates with me about that is just having the having the, the, the belief that the things that are meant to integrate with one another will do so when and how they are supposed to. But with each vein of work, with each pursuit of that undeniable idea or spark or inspiration, we're expanding our vocabulary, we're giving ourselves more to work with, we're putting more on the table to draw from later. I mean, some of these things are going to have their natural conclusion or their illogical end. That's fine, but others are going to represent themselves, maybe I mean who knows when, down the line. But they're available to us, it's in our vocabulary, it's in our language to work with, because we chased it in the first place, because we spent time with it initially, and only after time will those answers present themselves again, by asking the right questions and by continuing to, you know, do what comes to mind and not censor ourselves. And in the meantime, all right, let's talk about habits.
Speaker 1:I'm reading from page 100 here, last paragraph. Habits are the peripheral vision of the mind, turning away just below the level of conscious decision-making. They scan the situation with a conceptual eye to disregarding most of it. The theory is simple enough Respond automatically to the familiar and you're then free to respond selectively to the unfamiliar they go on to write about. I'm skipping a few sentences here, but it's all a matter of balance, and making art helps achieve that balance. For the artist, a sketchpad or a notebook is a license to explore. It becomes entirely acceptable to stand there for minutes on end staring at a tree stump. Sometimes you need to scan the forest, sometimes you need to touch a single tree. If you can't apprehend both, you'll never entirely comprehend either. To see things is to enhance your sense of wonder, both for the singular pattern of your own experience and for the meta patterns that shape all experience. All this suggests a useful working approach to making art Notice the objects you notice, or, put another way, make objects that talk and listen to them.
Speaker 1:Yep, so I really want to zero in on that. Notice the objects you notice, like paying attention to the things that catch our attention. It just makes a lot of sense. Yeah, the more we are naturally drawn to something, the more natural it's going to be to spend time exploring that idea. They use the example I skipped over the section, but they use the example of how certain psychotropic drugs cause one to become mes.
Speaker 1:Think that, you know, one of the things that I carry from forward from those experiences is the joy in being just obscenely fascinated by the mundane, you know, really just bathing in the novelty of things that we otherwise just completely ignore or don't spend any time considering. And so when we notice the things we notice, you know that requires some awareness, that requires some perspective, some introspection probably, of what do really? What am I drawn to Like, what are the things that you focus on when you're out in the world, and how can you take those things from your personal experience into your work? Last sentence on page 101. Last paragraph the need is to search among your own repeated reactions to the world, expose those that are not true or useful and change them. And so I think about journaling. This is again something that we talk about a lot, but journaling for me is discovering my inner experience as I see it written until I physically write something out.
Speaker 1:Experience as I see it written Until I physically write something out, I can't really grasp what I'm thinking or what I'm feeling. That happens all the time. Almost every day when I journal I'll write something out and then I'll look at it like huh, well, there it is. But it took that For me anyway. It took that step in the process. It took me sitting down and sort of at least funneling all the random shit that's bouncing around in my head and at least putting it in the form of some sentences that make sense, if only to me.
Speaker 1:But that is a way not the way, but it's a great way, I would argue to really notice the things that we're noticing, to really put a fine point on what we're experiencing. And until we do that, I would say it's much more difficult to convert our personal experiences into the work in an authentic way. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean that's poetry for me.
Speaker 1:I've written poetry since.
Speaker 2:I was in the fifth grade because my grandfather used to write and would read me poetry, and so I've always written poetry.
Speaker 2:That's been a place for me to do that.
Speaker 2:I'm writing about how I'm feeling, what I'm seeing, whether it's poems about nature or romance or art there's a lot of poems about art making and things and so over time I've built this massive catalog of poetry since I was in the fifth grade to today, over the years of buckets of journals that are just full of poems and dated, and for me, just a few years ago, I started going back through them all and then using them to create paintings through the poetry, through those observations, right, and those ideas and memories and things.
Speaker 2:And so, man, it was really fun for me to go back and read the really terrible poetry from sixth grade and seventh grade and eighth grade. It was just a young boy trying to write his emotions, but I was able to notice something about the things I was noticing when I was 12 years old, 13 years old, and those things and that for me was it was really powerful and then to go and create from some of those ideas and from some of those things that I've noticed. Go and create from some of those ideas and from some of those things that I've noticed. But I've also been able to go wow, even at 15, I was noticing the same things that I'm noticing at 49 years old and paying attention to the same things.
Speaker 2:So for me, I love that little section. Because of that, too, I can actually go okay, yeah, ted, yeah, david, I've followed your advice. Before I even knew it, that's part of my makeup, but I think that's truly helped me in my art making as well, to have that sense and to read other poets, because I've written, I've done pieces based on other poets and I'm noticing what they're noticing and that's making me spend more time observing those types of things in the natural world as well. Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:So this idea of art habits, that's one of them for me, from page 103. Once developed, art habits are deep seated, reliable, helpful and convenient. Moreover, habits are stylistically important. In a sense, habits are style. The unconsidered gesture, the repeated phrasing, the automatic selection, the characteristic reaction to subject matter and materials. These are the very things we refer to as style. So I wanted to ask you, I'm curious, what are your art habits? I'll go first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you go first, since I had time to think about this, I'm introducing this in the conversation today. But you know a few of my art habits, just random things that came to mind as I was preparing for today. But one is collecting material, you know, because I am so, so inspired I've talked about this before with the whole idea of Wabi Sabi being something that is deeply inspiring to me. It works out well because it's everywhere, and so, whether it be collecting materials or just taking pictures of the things that I see while out on walks or while out in the world, just collecting ideas or physically picking up what I encounter, is one of my art habits. Expanding my arsenal of tools, of different ways that I can make marks, expanding my arsenal of processes that, of course, have a great impact on the work itself. And then the third one that I wrote down just again, just things that came to mind.
Speaker 1:For me, one of my biggest and, I would maybe argue, most important art habits is working, no matter how I feel. That's a habit, right, and that's one again that we've talked about a lot in previous episodes. We don't need to unpack today, but those are just a few things that came to mind for me in terms of habits that I consistently do that always lead towards the next thing, towards making more work and hopefully, better work, more authentic work. What are your TNC art habits?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm having to think of them while we're talking. But I mean, I work on the ground, so I work on floor and wall, so I'm constantly moving back and forth from floor to wall. I don't have like a specific you know location where I just set up and paint it's and I'm sliding canvas around to put a new canvas in a place where another one was, and I'm constantly kind of rotating and moving through work. So I'm not usually working on one piece at a time. It might.
Speaker 2:Habitually I'm working on multiple pieces and I'm sliding through them and moving through them and uh, and I I like to use, try and find non-traditional things to work within the art as well, which I know is something that you do almost completely, and that's something that I always want to try and put something that's non-traditional in there some way, somehow figure it in. And I paint over a lot of work. So I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's a habit, but I do paint over a lot of work. It becomes different things or flip work over and paint on the other side, so I don't like what's on that side.
Speaker 2:That's very. I'm trying to think if it's pretty rare that I just have a piece that I've just done and I kind of work through that. That's not really habitual though, that's just more in the practice, but those are probably the main habitual things I do when I work, because I think, because I'm always trying to evolve, maybe that's habitual and I'm trying to make things not look like the last things completely all the time. Yeah, but that's something for me to definitely think about a little more. But those are the things that came to mind.
Speaker 1:It is a big question, but it is one, I think, that is just worth considering for all of us. What are the things that I habitually and routinely do? We've all got really good habits and we all have really bad habits. So again, it just comes back to considering what are the good habits that lead to me producing consistently, how being? You know whatever, however you want to define. You know success in your practice, but what are the things that that that you do consistently or that maybe you need to do? I mean, habits are something that can be developed. They happen, you know, naturally, or there are things that we can cultivate, you know, intentionally as well. But I just thought that was an interesting question or an interesting idea. Is you know, thinking about? You know what our art habits are, and maybe we'll come back to that in a future episode, after you've had some time.
Speaker 1:Something else, ty, from page 109 that really struck me. The authors write making art depends on noticing things, things about yourself. Making art depends on noticing things, things about yourself, your methods, your subject matter, and this is really just circling back to something that we talked about earlier. But for me, what really resonated was just how. This is one of the areas, one of the biggest examples that I would submit that you know, add is an absolute superpower.
Speaker 1:A lot of the things that really hampered me, crippled me in some cases professionally, I think are absolute superpowers in the artistic space. Right, art is hyperfixating. You know, like that's art. I pull up a definition of hyperfixation. I like this one the best ADHD hyperfix fixate to notice things and to just I mean I'll just share a silly example. But the amount of time that I spend literally dissecting, you know, different materials that I that I find out in the world and seeing how they respond to different parts of my, of my process, process, it's pretty laughable. I mean, most of the things in my studio I don't film or take pictures of or share, and that's definitely one of them. But that hyper fixation, that noticing and absolutely shutting off the world and everything else, that's it, man, I mean I just absolutely love that.
Speaker 1:So I guess my point in bringing that up was this is an area I mean there's a reason why most of us ended up here, and I would say that one of the things that most artists have in common is a desire to not operate within a space where there are those defined rules where there are defined expectations of how long something is supposed to take. Follow the spark baby, see where it leads, put a little oxygen on it, give it a little fuel and just see where it goes, because that could very well be the next thing. And so, rather than and this is one of my things right, but where a characteristic or a trait that we may have that would otherwise be seen as a limitation can absolutely be a superpower, can absolutely be something that, because we have that thing, can enable us to do something that we wouldn't otherwise, it's pretty cool wouldn't otherwise.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool. Well, I also think what you're, what you're saying there too, is that's also time and maturity. So the more time spent, the longer that time exists, the more mature you come in that practice or whatever you're doing in that focus. And I love the. We didn't read this, but I want to read anyway. It's the zen teaching that comes before that section.
Speaker 2:You read yeah, and it says when you start on a long journey, trees are trees, water is water and mountains are mountains. After you've gone some distance, trees are no longer trees, water no longer water, mountains no longer mountain. But after you've traveled a great distance, trees are once again trees, water is once again water and mountains are once again. And so it's kind of showing, just kind of that, that life lifeline of you start out and you recognize everything. But then the longer you go, you're so kind of focused for a while that you kind of forget all those things are around you and you're just following that trail. But then all of a sudden, as you mature and you become wiser and you've learned from this journey now all those things pop up around you. You now notice them as well.
Speaker 2:And Ted Orland in another book has this quote where he says and this goes right into this what you're saying One of the less advertised truths about art making is that it's more important to be productive than to be creative. If you're productive, your creativity will take care of itself. If you are not productive, well, if you're not productive, then how exactly is it you intend to be creative? So it's almost kind of taking that Zen teaching and then making it a very simple form of you need to be productive and everything else will kind of fall into place. You'll start to notice and they'll start to come in and they'll start to weed their way into what you're doing.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful. It's such a beautiful idea. I mean just the idea that we actually can, you know, recapture that childlike wonder and engage with it. A tree is a tree again.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Well, and in that whole process, nathan, work changes, in that whole process of everything we just talked about. And on that journey there's going to be conceptual jumps in your work, growth in your work. The old work, as we said, is going to become in the distance, ignored, simple, boring old because it's old and you're moving on to new work. But that also brings these new challenges. And on page 110, he says viewed over a span of years, changes in one's art can often reveal a curious pattern, swinging irregularly between long periods of quiet refinement and occasional leaps of runaway change. But I want to jump that to 111 here, the second paragraph.
Speaker 2:For the artist, such lightning shifts are a central mechanism of change. They generate the purest form of metaphor. Connections are made between unlike things. Meanings from one enrich the meanings of the other, and the unlike things become inseparable. Before the leap there was light and shadow. Afterwards objects float in space where light and shadow are indistinguishable from the object that they define. And they're just talking about how all of these lightning shifts in our work, these conceptual jumps, they're central for our change. They'll start out looking rough, they'll start out looking like it's not something, but over time they will definitely all come together and become something they will definitely all come together and become something.
Speaker 1:I did not have that part underlined, but I do now. That is as you're reading that it occurred to me. That is one of my favorite things in life, that is one of my favorite things about being alive and the human experience is making connections between unlike things. Yeah, same. I don't really understand why I love that so much or what about it. I love and I don't need to. It's okay that we don't understand it. I just know that I am so energized and it gives me such joy to find a connection between seemingly disparate ideas or or things and to be able to make that connection in a unique and novel way that when successful, if successful, I can communicate that through the work and hopefully shine a light on hey, this is also like that. These things actually go together and you never would have, without that, put them together yourself.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful thing. It's actually one of the things I really love about stand-up comedy. The surprise I'm a big fan of standup and and and you know, I know you are as well that's one of my, my favorite things about. You know, watching, watching comedy, listening to comedy, is that's really what it is, right, I mean it's. It's connecting different dots that we wouldn't otherwise mean like oh, this thing is like that thing, and isn't that funny. You know what I mean? It's making those connections and sharing what we find with others. That's that beautiful communication, the work, and then, by extension, whatever the work has to say something different or, you know, cause a different reaction or feeling each time. That's that's the jam, right, I mean that's it.
Speaker 2:Talk about vulnerable, talk about putting your material out into the world and having a real world test in an instant. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, one of the challenges that comes with these conceptual leaps in our work and these jumps in our work that are risky we've talked about, got a new idea. We're following that spark, that divine spark, we're jumping on it, we're going, and one of those risks is the audience right, which we're ignoring for the most part. But we do have fans, we do have collectors Some of us. We do have people that follow us. We do have fans. We do have collectors Some of us we do have.
Speaker 2:And so here's another one of those moments in your art career where you may step into a new arena, a new feeling, new resistance, new things. And I love how, of course, this is another Nick Cave quote about new work, because we're talking the reason Nick Cave is in this because he's an artist who is willing to follow the divine spark and the conceptual leaps and not listen to the audience and not listen to the critics, and really do what he feels strongly to do. So here's a great quote by Nick Cave that says A genuinely new idea can feel strange and unsettling. It's upsetting in a way, but an integral part of the creative journey. You lose some fans, but you draw on others. The alternative is much worse.
Speaker 2:If you stick to the safe idea, it soon becomes overly familiar and the audience will grow bored and ultimately resentful. Put brutally, the audience should never dictate the direction an artist takes. I say that with all the love in the world, but an artist does not exist to serve his or her audience. Put brutally, the audience should never dictate the direction an artist takes. I say that with all the love in the world, but an artist does not exist to serve his or her audience. The artist exists to serve the idea. The idea is the light that leads the audience and the artist to a better place. It requires a certain amount of nerve to rip it all up and start again with something that feels new and therefore dangerous. For a start, your brain does not want to go there and it's telling you that it's challenged you to write or paint or sculpt away from the known and the familiar. What I'm saying is that you can't get to that truly creative place unless you find the dangerous idea.
Speaker 1:Damn that is. Well, that's an episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be. It will be an episode.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it's going to be. It will be an episode, yes, but I want you to talk about. I'm curious how you'd answer this.
Speaker 2:Why is the new idea upsetting? Why is because he rephrases that three different ways in this one paragraph. Why does the brain not want to go there? So sometimes it's because you almost have to start over, yeah, sometimes. So that new idea comes and you've just learned, you've just done, you've just invested, you've just pushed out, you've sold. I mean there's so many things that come with what was before.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden, the new idea, the dangerous idea, is very different than the last successful idea. That's why it's dangerous. You just had success, you just sold your record, or you just sold paintings, you had a solo show. I've literally been in this. And then that new idea is taking me somewhere so freaking, foreign and new to the last thing, scared to death, death, like your brain is saying no, you idiot, right, that's where the brain and the heart are like fighting. The heart's like let's go. And the brain's like you're a moron, another year worth that. And that's the trap. Let's get another year worth out of this, let's get. You just sold this many paintings. Yeah, your dealers were selling them, like you're, and then all of a, it's so foreign and so different that everybody backs away from it.
Speaker 1:So in that process, the brain is screaming at the heart saying don't you remember how long it took us just to get here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's why it's dangerous.
Speaker 1:We spent all this time and energy just to get the last strange and unsettling thing settled.
Speaker 2:I mean look.
Speaker 1:You're telling me you want to start with yet another. Yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 2:Another great musical example right, Bob Dylan plugged in.
Speaker 1:It's so funny you mentioned that. I thought about it earlier. I was going to bring it up.
Speaker 2:The entire world of Dylanites that built his career, gave him the finger, threw food at him, spit at him on stage, booed him. It was such a knock on everything that he was and had done. But it was the new idea. It was the new change. He had to go there. It would have been really easy for Bob Dylan to go well that I totally choked, unplugged, back to who I was. Then what happens? The potential of that audience resenting him for never changing and never growing could have ruined his whole career. The band he kept the electric guitar and pushed forward and created, even years after that, some of his best work. Time Out of Mind is my favorite. Bob Dylan Allen is a Dylanite, very bluesy electric guitar full band. But would he have ever gotten there? Maybe not, Maybe, but maybe it took him 30 years and then the whole audience passed him by. I don't know, but it's very dangerous to move in that way. What was your thought?
Speaker 1:I think I shared it, but just just acknowledging that, that the genuinely new idea I mean again just this, just back to that whole like this is part of it. This is part of the process. Not being surprised at our natural response to the spark, to the new, to the new dangerous idea, just realizing like, oh yeah, when these come, when they've come before and hopefully will continue to come again, it's going to be unsettling, it's going to be a little upsetting and doggone it. I'm going to chase it down to its illogical conclusion anyway. So jumping ahead to page 115, ty anyway. So jumping ahead to page 115, Ty, your job is to draw a line from your life to your art that is straight and clear. I'll read that again your job is to draw a line from your life to your art that is straight and clear. This is one of the few things that we both had underlined. So you know, what does that? What does that mean? What does it? What does it take to draw a line from our life to our art here? I'll just say this, like I I I leave this in or don't, but like I, I'll just say this to you and maybe everybody, depending upon how you decide to edit this, but I don't know what to do with that, like I know. I know how reading that makes me feel and what it kind of makes me, how I respond to that. I don't know what to say about it or how to like unpack it. I mean, to me it goes to like having our own experience be integrated. You know you talked about something before you know, in terms of maturity.
Speaker 1:I remember having this thought. I can't remember when it was Maybe in my mid-20s, I want to say I remember hanging out with my parents at some holiday event, what it was like when I was living under their roof and how you kind of have at least I did different identities right. You had who you were around this one group of friends and who you were around your parents and who you were around. You know, fill in the blank. And I remember having this thought when I was back there, you know, maybe 10 years or so after I had left the house, 10 years or so after I had left the house, and remembering like, oh, I'm much more integrated now, I'm much closer to the same person in every environment than I was when I was sort of in that whatever developmental chameleon phase. We're trying on different outfits to see what's going to match, and we're more concerned with fitting in, probably, than we are with being authentic.
Speaker 1:So I share that, just because that's kind of where I go with this in terms of our lives are our art, our art is our lives. I mean, we are living, eating, breathing this, and so to me, I just I go to that idea of integration. To me, drawing a line from our life to our art that is straight and clear means that I am taking my experience, I'm not segmenting things, I'm not turning off what's happening in my life, my internal experience with the external world. I'm engaging with it, I'm taking it into the work, because that is the only thing that any of us are really experts on. If that is our own experience, Sure, what do you take from?
Speaker 2:that.
Speaker 1:I guess I did have something to say.
Speaker 2:Our work should be a bit of a true reflections of our experiences and values and where we stand and what we love and how we operate.
Speaker 2:Because, at the end of the day, the art that lasts speaks to the time that it was made in. The strongest art throughout history speaks to the time it was made in. You walk into a museum and you walk through rooms and you look at paintings. It is speaking to the time it existed in. For the most part, and even in abstract expressionism and even in cubism and other things, it's still speaking to the time it was created in, not just because of the, because of its form, but also for, maybe, what it's saying or how it was portrayed and those things. So I don't have a true answer to what they're saying there, because I think I try to draw a direct line between myself and the art, because that's where I paint from, from memory and experience, and then it's really at the end of the day it's up to the audience and how they decipher or feel about the painting or feel if it even says anything to them or not. I hope that it does, because that's my pursuit is to do things to the audience when they see it.
Speaker 1:But I don't know, Of course and that's my pursuit is to do things to the audience when they see it. But of course, I don't know. Biggest question, right, like yeah, you're not trying, I mean in in, you know unpacking and spending time with you know poetry that you wrote, you know whatever 20, 30 years ago. You're not trying to speak for you Tell, don't think you're trying to. You know, communicate your experience as a younger person. Right, that's that's what you took into the work. Yeah, because that was, because that is true and authentic to your experience. There's going to be truth and authenticity in the work that is going to be completely open to interpretation and may, and hopefully does bring up something completely different than than your own experience.
Speaker 2:That's the whole point is that it is open to interpretation right, yeah, absolutely A hundred percent. I don't. I don't want to force feed anything to anybody. I want the audience to come to a conclusion. I don't art that force feed. Force feeds things to people to me doesn't do much for me emotionally. I don't want to walk into a room and go okay, got what you're saying. Bye. No, I want to go. What are you trying to tell me here? This could have been a pamphlet, Right, yeah, this could have been a. There's plenty of work that is a pamphlet and that's fine. That's that artist's decision and what they want to do.
Speaker 2:But I want to be moved by work and I want to walk into a room that I know nothing about and I want to dive into the paintings. Whether I like them or don't like them, I still want to spend time with them and go. What caused me to ask some questions that I've never asked myself before? I need to go, sit and reflect and I need to write about this. Why did this artist cause me to ask questions I've never asked myself before? That's what I want, and I think that's what they're really trying to say. There is to be able to do. That is going to be pretty powerful, rather than trying to fake something else that's from outside of you. I don't know. I could ramble about it and not have a clear answer.
Speaker 1:No, for sure. I mean to be clear. I'm all for the pamphlet as long as the work pulls me in first. Absolutely For sure, yeah, yep, yeah, absolutely. I got something on page 117. Yep, go, absolutely. I got something on page 117. Yep, go.
Speaker 1:Your art does not arrive miraculously from the darkness, but is made uneventfully in the light. Your art does not arrive miraculously from the darkness, but is made uneventfully in the light. I really like that. I mean, this is, as they're, sort of wrapping up the book and closing things, you know, but this is something that I think is so important to keep in mind. It's something that I had to remind myself of yesterday.
Speaker 1:It was just one of those blah days where nothing was really wasn't feeling it, nothing was clicking, and it was just another uneventful day in the light. It did nothing. Nothing miraculous happened. At least it didn't feel like it while it was happening. And I came back today and looked back at what happened yesterday and I'm not going to say there are any miracles, but things happened, things were moved forward. Again, just back to that whole idea of how we feel. We don't need need to feel good, it doesn't need to feel miraculous in the moment for art to come from it, for good work to come from it, and just acknowledging like this is another day where we're putting one foot in front of the other yeah, in an unglamorous, messy, unsettling way, with the belief, with the trust that it's going to ultimately lead somewhere. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in 10 years, but at some point these uneventful days are going to, when compiled and stacked upon one another, lead somewhere worth going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the very last paragraph of the book. In the end, it all comes down to this you, you have a choice between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. Your best shot, and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty and, curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice. Man, they leave you hanging in a pretty deep paragraph there talking about how this is very, very difficult.
Speaker 2:This journey of an artist is not easy. It needs self-motivation regularly. It needs persistence. It needs a willingness to put yourself out there, which a lot of us as artists don't have. That innate characteristic to go, I'm going to throw myself into every single room with everybody and talk about my art and get myself out there, right, that's a very extroverted thing to go. I'm going to throw myself into every single room with everybody and talk about my art and get myself out there, right, that's a very extroverted thing to do, which some of us are extroverted, a lot of us are very introverted. But you think about all of that, that, with the self-motivation, the persistence, that's all in the studio by yourself. That's the supposed to be the easier part, which it's not, but then you still have to take everything that you're doing and get yourself, your body, physically out and build a network and get out there and put your work out there as well. So it's just this just to illustrate that point of if you really want it, then you really have to go after it yourself first. Yeah, you have to. If you're not getting your stuff out there and going out and doing things, things will not happen. Things will not happen.
Speaker 2:I watched a little video the other day in a network I'm in, visionary Projects out of New York, and they did an interview with a gallerist and he said they asked how do you find your artists in the gallery? And he said Instagram. Find all my artists on Instagram. And I said that's it. And he said well, and then artists who are already on the roster they're friends, sure. So go to shows, meet other artists, go network, find people, because the hard part is the persistence and the self-motivation on the inside. Then part number two, that's really hard, is getting out there and getting your work out there and being seen and being known, and then those two things. Hopefully there'll be things that happen from that.
Speaker 1:Not easy. Yeah, it all comes down to just taking the next right action and understanding that there are very rarely obvious choices around like this is. You know, there's the neon arrow of do this next is rarely there. I mean, you actually skipped over one, the part in parentheses, and I've got to find my spot again. More accurately, a rolling tangle of choices. Yeah, yes, it's not like option A versus option B. It's an infinite number of variations of possible things that we could do with any given day or moment, and it's just making the best choice we have available and taking some action right. Yeah, an imperfect plan executed today is better than the perfect plan executed tomorrow. I don't know who said that first it wasn't me, but it's just like doing something. You know. Taking the next right action that's going to move things forward is ultimately the idea and understanding that uncertainty is part of the deal. We're going to be afraid, we're going to be unsettled, we're not going to every moment. That's okay, that's part of it. One foot in front of the other, just make art baby?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I hope for those of you that have listened to these three parts or have the book and have read the book, just really take some time to reflect on your own artistic journey and what this book talks about Maybe some of the conversations that Nathan and I have had and just see what can I apply. And that's what Nathan and I are doing on a regular basis. We read a book, we share it with each other. Listen to a book? Oh, check this out. We're both trying to find how can I apply these things to our journey.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've never thought about that. I've never thought about the habitual things. I've never thought about these. You know, exploring something to its illogical end. Well then, sit down and what does that mean? How do I do? Don't just take something and then just throw it away or run with it. Think about it, spend time processing.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's what we're doing by going through this book in three different parts. Is that's what we're doing with ourselves? And we've learned even more in our conversations with this book than we even knew before. We even read the book for the umpteenth time that we've read it and underlined it and share with us. I mean, we'd love to hear from you I mean we. I think you know by now those of you that either are friends with Nathan and I on Instagram or follow us that we talk with you and we'll answer direct messages and have conversations. So we'd love to hear your experiences with idealism, creativity, growing in your work, your art habits. Send them to us, share it with us and, I don't know, maybe it'll end up being a whole podcast episode. That's our hopes.
Speaker 1:That's probably a good place to end is really just thanking people for what they've done. I mean all the comments, all the shares, all the reviews, like thank you guys, so much, like we. We just started doing this and it's actually become becoming something. You know, I wasn't emotional. I was a frog in my throat.
Speaker 2:No, I actually.
Speaker 1:you can be emotional, I get emotional but but no, it's actually becoming something and it's been super fulfilling for both of us to hear you know people's experience with it, reactions, that kind of thing. So thank you for uh, for the shares, for the reviews, like all those things actually really, really really do help. So with that we'll wrap up today's episode and we'll see you next time here on Just Make Art.
Speaker 2:No more crickets.
