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
Leonardo Drew. Art as Physical Transformation. Part 2
Leonardo Drew invites us into the physical, philosophical, and sometimes painful world of material transformation. Unlike artists who work with found objects carrying built-in histories, Drew deliberately purchases new materials that he must personally weather and transform. "I need to become the weather," he explains, describing a process where he subjects materials to rigorous physical manipulation that often results in literal bloodshed.
This physical commitment reflects Drew's deeper philosophy about creation. He describes himself as "the crack addict of art," chasing the highs of creative breakthrough through persistent experimentation and a willingness to fail. His practice demands patience—it took seven years from his initial decision to create what would become his signature style before producing what he considered his first successful piece (which he numbered "8," acknowledging the previous attempts).
Drew conceptualizes artists as antennas receiving creative energy from the universe. He purposefully travels to "cradles of civilization" like China and Machu Picchu, absorbing experiences that later emerge organically in his work. "You don't have to say I'm making work about this specifically," he notes, "because that would cage and imprison the whole idea." This philosophy requires "getting out of the way" of one's own creative process—removing ego and preconceptions to allow authentic creation to happen.
By refusing to title his monumental works beyond simple numbering, Drew extends his transformation-based practice to the viewing experience itself. Each piece continues to transform through viewers' unique interpretations, creating an endless cycle of meaning-making that transcends the artist's original intent. As Drew profoundly states, "As I'm moving closer and closer to answering questions, at the same time I'm moving further away from the answers."
Want to experience this transformative approach in your own creative practice? Keep your channels open by constantly introducing new ideas and techniques. When feeling stuck, switch things up dramatically—if you're a painter, try sculpture; if you work abstractly, attempt representation. The discomfort of new approaches often leads to the most significant breakthroughs.
Sources:
Leonardo Drew in "Investigation" - Season 7 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21
An Interview with Leonardo Drew | Wadsworth Antheneum
Woodcuts: Leonardo Drew | useum of Arts and Design (MAD)
Artist Talk: Leonardo Drew | Amon Carter Museum of American Art Fort Worth
Carrie Scott, SEEN Podcast | Leonardo Drew
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Hi there, Welcome to part two of Leonardo Drew Art as Physical Transformation. If you haven't listened to it yet, make sure to go back and listen to part one. You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 2:You know, all I know is that I don't take the shortcuts, meaning found objects. I don't like. I have friends who work with things, like you know, found objects like Neri. Neri Ward works with that. He's a close friend of mine and it makes powerful work. But's a close friend of mine and it makes powerful work. But I need to become the weather in order to sort of make these things become what they become. So this is store-bought material that has to be transformed. So I have to align myself with how things are made naturally and understanding, even cosmically, how things where we are. In all this, it becomes a philosophy. Once you've sort of once you've sort of how would I say, committed to this journey, and it can be, you know, a lot of bloodletting in this journey. I mean it's like there's pain now, literally, and like, and it's like, wow, it's like you know, it's like you know I could have had a V8.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of bloodletting in this process. Yes, that's a fact. I mean you talked, you spoke before about the, the, the wear and tear that he's put on his body. He's he's spoken about that a lot in different interviews as well. But you don't get those types of results without some bloodletting, without some pain and a lot of process. These transformations do not happen quickly or easily.
Speaker 1:Well, and he's. You know I love the term that I've heard a lot of interviewers use, or critics that he's an artist who's weather Right, so everything's weathered, but he is the weather. He is planning these things. Obviously there's weather involved, but he's not just grabbing something by chance. He's purposely putting in the sun, purposely baking it purposely. And look at his. I just want to read off some of his materials, and I don't have this in the notes, but I do have it wood, scrap metal, cotton, paper, mud, rust, oxidation, non-organic rust, cast paper, things that will behave like paper, glass used with the crushed paper, sand, porcelain, aluminum, buffalo, fur, torn comics like things like he's. There's so many things ingrained too, and that's something too. Until you stand in front of the work, you may not even realize that there's this many things in some of those pieces too, and I mean, I don't know, the more and more I dig, the more and more I'm just like astounded by so many things wrapped up within his work.
Speaker 3:As somebody who has been experimenting with, with rusting and aging metal over the last year, year and a half here, I can tell you it's it's not a simple or or easy process. Involves a lot of materials that may or may not shorten your lifespan if you, if you don't do it.
Speaker 1:Right, or wear a good mask. Yeah, and this is something with you as well that I really love. This correspondedness between the two of you is he's using new materials and making them look old, and so a lot of people ask, like, why are you using new materials? Why aren't you just using things that are already old? Right, and this is something that is a little bit of a difference between you two as well, which I love about artists who are using things that are found or supposed to look found. His reason is he wants to go through the rigor of touch and manipulating and creating the history of each piece. Now, right, rather than going, oh, these pieces had history and so now I want to put them in my work because of the story they they're being told and being discarded. For me, there's that's such a great analogy of the difference, but beauty wrapped up in similar ideas within art, like that's just. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I had to bring that up because to me, it's just so freaking cool there's a there's I was, I was talking to a friend that we have in freaking cool. There's a there's I was, I was talking to a friend that we have in common about this, but there's a. There's a continuum of process and material on on the one end, you have found objects that completely honors and displays what it once was, and then you have and drew, would be on this end of the spectrum, taking almost everything from its raw, you know original state and doing everything you know himself. And there's, there's there's space in between, but I was thinking about this, like, while I do have a lot of found, you know, most of what I'm using has been sourced from industrial sources.
Speaker 3:It definitely looks like the thing that it was before of years ago, where I would use something that I found to be absolutely perfect and beautiful in its own right, but I just I can't resist. It's a compulsion. I feel like I have to do something to it, to change it in a, in a material way, to get down to its its essence, and I want to honor what it was before, but I don't want it to be at all obvious what it was before and that's uh, but it's, it's just interesting. There's no, there's no right or wrong way, but it is a challenge when you, when you, when one finds something that is that could literally go from the stream or the dumpster and ran onto a piece, I'm not capable of just having it be that found object, but it's a fascinating thing to consider. I'm going to stop babbling and share another quote that actually relates to this, better than I could communicate it anyway Shut up, no matter what materials you're going to be working with it still has to go through this channel.
Speaker 2:This you're going to be working with it still has to go through this channel, this channel of you and you're. You are stamping it. Once you find your voice, that's it. So the material is of no, of no consequence, absolutely no consequence.
Speaker 3:I just got done babbling for a while before that, so you go ahead and take first pass at this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's talking about the search. Yeah, right, he's talking about the hunt. He's talking about us being explorers and being discoverers and going out and doing everything we can in this channel where we're feeling led Right and you think of a channel. It's something you kind of fall into and it takes you somewhere right in a lane. So you're, you're doing all these things, you're stamping it, you're trying, you're playing, you're experimenting we talk about this all the time and then once you find your voice, that's it. I found it. Now I'm running, right now I'm going, and he's like now the material doesn't mean anything because you're just able to go.
Speaker 1:And there's great quotes about you know, if you're, if you're always working, you're leaving room for genius to enter in the back door. Right, I think that's from Art and Fear. I think that's Ted Orlin and David Bayless that say that. I can't remember, I'm pretty sure, but it really is. It's like you're going, you're going, you're going, no matter what materials you have, no matter what you have in your studio, what you can afford, what you can buy, you're doing everything you can with it, and then you're going to get into this channel where you're trying, trying, experimenting, playing, then you hit it your voice and then you're just going to run with it.
Speaker 3:It just occurred to me there's a very direct through line between what he's saying here and what Amy Sillman talks about when she describes the vocabulary that we're all looking for from our Amy Sillman episode yes, maybe you know the date of, I do not, but she talks about and this is one of those things that has stuck with me since I heard it but it's that we're developing vocabulary and the commonality here between what he's saying and how she describes that is. When we think about verbal communication. We're not thinking about is this, is this a noun, is this a verb, is this an ad? We're just, we have the language available and it just flows because we know what the words mean and for people like you and us, sometimes, occasionally we string them together in an okay, coherent manner, but you're not occasionally, once in a while, but you're. We're not thinking about the a while, but you're.
Speaker 3:We're not thinking about the back to leonard drew. We're not thinking about the material. We're not thinking it just becomes all a part of our vocabulary and much like language, much like speaking, the way that I think about material and clearly the way that he thinks about material and one of the great lessons that I've that I've learned from, from listening to him speak, is that the more vocabulary ie material that we can gather, the better we're going to be able to communicate right, the more words we're going to have at our disposal to properly communicate whatever it is that's flowing through us. I just love that.
Speaker 1:What I love, nathan, about Leonardo, is this constant exploration of materials. That fits into his voice right, so he spent all this time like leading himself down this channel of I know where my voice is and where this fits and where this is going, and he's always willing to add something new to that, which means he is that artist who is perceptive and open and constantly gathering and listening to what may be coming his way, and I think there's a really great moment with him explaining this to somebody.
Speaker 2:I think that you realize life, life not just through your eyes but through your pores also. I mean, your body takes in things. So all the things that I've gathered over the years that I've been on this planet. You know, like if you're a receiver of information, you know if you imagine yourself as an antenna, you know it's like all this stuff has traveled through me, goes through me and it has to come out.
Speaker 1:When I heard that I was thinking okay, either he has spent a lot of time with Rick Rubin, or Rick Rubin has spent a lot of time with Leonardo Drew, or they both have spent a lot of time listening to each other over the years. Right, because this isn't a brand new thought either. So they could not even know each other. And it's a pretty. It's a pretty. Through time this idea has been kind of pushed around through through the creative industries. But I want to read a little bit from Rick Rubin's creative way on that, and he says we're all antenna for creative thought.
Speaker 1:Some transmissions come on strong and others are more faint. If your antenna isn't sensitively tuned, you're likely to lose the data and the noise. If your antenna isn't sensitively tuned, you're likely to lose the data and the noise, particularly since the signals coming through are often more subtle than the content we collect through our sensory awareness. They're energetic more than tactile, intuitively perceived more than recorded. Most of the time, we're gathering data from the world through our five senses. With the information that's being transmitted on higher frequencies. We're channeling this material that can't be physically grasped.
Speaker 1:It defies logic. In the same way, an electron can be in two places at one time. This energy is of great worth, though so few people are open enough to hold it. So how do we pick up on a signal that can neither be heard nor defined? The answer is not to look for it, nor do we attempt to predict or analyze it or analyze our way into it. Instead, we create an open space that allows it, a space so free of the normal overpacked condition of our minds that it functions as a vacuum, drawing down the idea that the universe is making available.
Speaker 1:And he says at the end of this artists who are able to create great works through their lives manage to preserve this childlike quality. Practicing a way of being that allows you to see the world through uncorrupted, innocent eyes can free you to act in concert with the universe's timetable. And I really do think that's what Leonardo is doing. He has just created a space that is so open to idea and so open to not worrying about failing and making mistakes and messing something up as a kid. You don't care, you're just going for it. You're receptive to everything that's happening around you. You're not forcing it. I think that's the key.
Speaker 3:The key line from that that I wrote down as you're reading, that intuitively received rather than recorded, yes, intuitively received rather than recorded yes. And so I think about the amount of the degree to which one's channel has to be open to receive this information. And we our our doubt episode that you referenced before. I talked about this a lot in the Jack Whitten episode notes from the woodshed. He writes about this a lot in the Jack Whitten episode Notes from the Woodshed. He writes about this a tremendous amount in that incredible book. But how? The more if we start from a place of knowing, if we start from a place of okay, here's everything, here's all the things I know, right, all that is doing is clogging up our antenna. If you think back to the days when there were, you know, satellite antennas and dishes, if there was a storm or if there was whatever leaves that got built up on the receiver, it wouldn't receive the information, you would not get a signal, and we are very similar in that regard. So when I hear Leonardo talk about that, that to me just reinforces that truth of you know. When he talks about not knowing and not needing to know, that to me is a necessary component to being an elite receiver and thinking about it like I don't know Morse code, for example. But if, for some reason, there was a message coming through in Morse code, the information's in there, right, and so the process would be well. I suppose I could look it up and figure out what it says fairly easily.
Speaker 3:But if we're talking about this in terms of ideas and inspiration and the things that flow through us, the process is is the, the decoding. That's where the decoding happens. It happens by tactically right, touching things and moving things around and being in motion, um and and and sitting with the work and listening as well. It's funny. This clip, um, started open with Leonardo sitting in his studio chair and just sitting with the work, doing the thing that we all do, right, the, you know, the cock of the head, trying to orient ourselves, trying to see things from a slightly different perspective. But that's what it is. It's receiving, it's listening and it is working in service of what we're receiving and working that out, you know, through the work in front of us, when he even takes that to a whole nother length by travel, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:That's part of his antenna that he figured out at a very young age when I think somebody said, you got to go to Europe. And he's like how the heck do I get to Europe? I don't have any money. I think he might've been 18 years old and he went to Europe for his first trip and had no money, stayed in hostels, you know, and really didn't eat much. But he was seeing all this art and just all these things are just coming in, right, his antenna was up and so all these things he's just they're just flying in all over. And so he took that as oh man, this needs to be a part of my practice, you know. So for him, like traveling and putting himself in these cradles of civilization that are just full of memory and full of story China, manchu Pichu, gorilla Island like he really believes that all of these things will naturally manifest in his art. And I can say from seeing it, yes, let's hear him describe that in his words.
Speaker 3:We got a great, great quote for that.
Speaker 2:You know if you're going to be a receiver or like an antenna receiving information, right, it's not a bad idea to place yourself in these places so that you can benefit from. You know from ground up what's coming into you. And then you get to the studio and these things they're going to come out. But you don't have to call it, you don't have to say I'm making work about this specifically, because that would cage and imprison the whole idea of how these things have to come out naturally. So you just get out of the way and it's like I guess it could be three years, many years later.
Speaker 3:Get out of the way. Get out of the way, get out of the way.
Speaker 1:That's probably one of my favorite thing. I tell a lot of my artists that have gone through a mentorship program maybe you just need to put a note up outside your studio. The door it says get out of the way, get out of my way. You know what I mean, cause that that's probably one of the most difficult things for us as artists is to stay out of our own way in the studio.
Speaker 3:That reminds me of um, a Philip Guston quote that we've got on our ever-growing list of episodes. We will, we will be doing a Guston episode, but he talks about when you're I'm going to paraphrase here, obviously but the you know when, when you start, you're in the room and the galleries and the curators and the dealers are in the room, and then after a while they leave, and when it's really working, you leave too, right? Yep, I think about that a lot. How can, how can, how many ego deaths do I need to die in order to really, you know, transcend to that point of not of truly getting out of the way? That will, of course, be a lifelong, a lifelong pursuit. But when a genius like drew this is just a little tip for the kids when a genius says it's not a bad idea, listen right. People with wisdom, people with true wisdom and knowledge generally, don't say here's exactly what you need to do, it's not a bad idea is a great precursor to put your antenna all the way up.
Speaker 3:When someone like that says it's not a bad idea, it means it's a really good fucking idea and you should probably pay really close attention to whatever comes next. Yeah, they're going to come out.
Speaker 1:He's an alchemist. Yeah, I mean, really, I think that's something that's so beautiful. Is he's able to kind of get out of the way and let the process happen? Yes, being an alchemist, right. So he's taking these competing elements and combining elements and letting the actual elements start to create this process within everything that ends up driving him to put it together after it's done its work.
Speaker 3:You don't have to call on it, you don't have to say I'm making work about this specifically, because that would cage and imprison the whole idea. These things have to come out naturally, so you get out of the way. And that just goes back to what you're saying before about whether it be travel, whether it be you know, you're, you're so great at reminding us to just go look at more art, go talk to more artists, Right? But the more we fill ourselves up, the more we'll be there to be called upon when it's, when it's ready to come out. And it'll come out However it's, however it's supposed to, as opposed to no, this is the idea that I manufactured, that I've engineered in advance. No thanks, that's not, that's not, that's not for me. Yep, All right, I gotta, I've got to include this one and you'll. You'll know pretty, pretty quickly why. What were you making it for?
Speaker 2:I'm an addict. What a question. I mean you look around, I mean you can see it's a serious addiction, it's like crack. So I am definitely the crack addict of ours.
Speaker 3:So that was a CBS this Morning piece and, ty, you can include that the follow-up question, which had nothing to do with what he just said. The interviewer was like I don't know what to do with that. Yeah, next question listen, this is a three-minute piece. This is we don't have time to unpack what you just threw at me. He's uh, you know, drew says that in in multiple talks. Uh describes himself as the crack addict of art. It's interesting.
Speaker 3:As a, as an addict in recovery in the, in the traditional definition of the word, I can tell you that what I discovered in art is there are a lot of similarities. Art's a lot like crack, as a matter of fact. Specifically, there are some brief highs with a lot of struggle, with a lot of pain, and I think I mentioned this before. I didn't really tie it back to the addiction piece, but I don't know. But I'd be curious to hear your experience with this as well. We're chasing those highs. We're chasing those, yes, moments where the clouds part and it's just better than what we could have imagined, because that's, you know, when, those moments when something comes together, just so. That's what we're chasing and it is a chase. I mean, that's what addicts do. We chase the next high and we'll do pretty much anything to to get that next high.
Speaker 3:And my experience with actual drugs that that gets pretty ugly for me very quickly. But when you put it in the context of an artist in the studio, it is. It's that constant striving and I think about it as a belief and just a knowledge. That's the hope that keeps me going. In those down times when things aren't working and I haven't had a hit for a while, yeah, I'm like it's coming. It's coming the next, the next. Just just keep working, just keep doing. The next thing. The next right thing will lead to that next. Yes, aha, moment, moment. And then every time we get one of those, however frequent or infrequent they may be at different periods of our process, that's the fuel that keeps me going.
Speaker 1:But how does that resonate with you as a non-advent? Yeah, the drive isn't to have the same high you had before. Yeah, the drive is the next big high, the one that's better than the last one, right and so that's better than the last one, right, and so that's the push. It's like, how do I get there? How do I get there? You know and so, but I think what drew has nailed, and so many great artists like his mentor, jack Whitten, who was one of his professors at Cooper union, that became a father figure and a mentor and also he shared studios with for a long time as well in the beginning, that's something that Witten had too, and I'm sure that Witten completely passed that down to Leonardo. In that relationship of if your channel is really small, then that high or that feeling is going to be very small and you're not going to achieve what you're really wanting. But if that channel is really wide and open and you're receptive to trying anything and everything and taking ideas from here and there and gathering all these things and being willing to absolutely fail miserably at it to get there, you're going to get there. You're probably going to get there Now.
Speaker 1:Time is of essence in that patient, slow, slow, unbridled, frustrating time is all a part of that and I can guarantee you cause we've read what, so we know exactly what Jack would say is because we've read him like over a year's period of time in notes from the woodshed nothing's working, I can't do it, what's wrong, something I can't find it, blah, blah, blah. And then he says I scrapped it all and went this way. And then a few months later, what is? I did it, I found it, I discovered it. You know what I mean and so you know that's that's hard, that's a hard realization and it has taken. I mean, leonardo drew is in his, uh, young 60s and I think 63, 62, yeah, I would say. He would say I'm still discovering it, yeah, yeah, and I would be empty without the feeling of still discovering it.
Speaker 3:Seven years, right Seven years from him making that decision that it took him to make what he decided was a finished successful piece. Number eight was the title of that first piece and he jokes about that in one of the talks. Obviously, obviously, if the first one that I did was number eight, obviously there were seven at least seven before that came before it and they're all in there. It's that absolute commitment to the work and to the chase, with the hope and the belief that there will be something on the other side.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite things about Drew I don't think really get into this, so I hope that you guys really dig into it when you listen to any of these interviews and more interviews from Leonardo is he doesn't title his work. He leaves that up to the viewer. And now I'm not that artist, I'm totally different. I want I believe I want my work to have context in the title. So oftentimes my titles are paragraphs long, or really, or four or five sentences in your title.
Speaker 1:He's all the words Um. And I think that's for me also as a poet, and a lot of my work is based on poetry and different things that I've written in memories. I would do want some context in there. Now, it's the viewer's choice if they want to read the title card first or look at the work first. That's up to them. Yeah, but for leonardo he numbers his pieces like just like still just like clifford he says right no, the work is what you make of it, not what I make of it.
Speaker 1:But if you were wrapped up within the work, what I have in it somewhere will be baked in. But you're also now baking more into it than I could have ever created, and I love that. He even calls out critics and curators as lazy for trying to put into it what they really think in articles and in things that cause the audience to already have a view of what the work may be without really seeing it. And he calls that lazy on their part a lot of times. But that's the thing that I love about his work too it's not small, so you're not walking up to a tiny little piece. Now I've seen some Drew pieces.
Speaker 1:I actually was at Ruby City in San Antonio, which is the collection of the artist Linda Pace and her museum of her collection in San Antonio. It's a wonderful collection, and I walked around the corner and I saw this two-dimensional with some three-dimensional objects, square piece on a wall, I think 74 by 74 inches, and I went this looks really familiar, something about this piece, and so I got up really close to it and I was like, is this a Witten was? The first thing I thought is this a Jack Witten piece and it was a Leonardo drew piece from 1997 and it's glass and paint and wood, but I could see in it where he's going. Yeah, so you think of that whole journey through, and I think it's titled. It's number 59, all of his work numbered, numbered, so that's number 59.
Speaker 1:I think he's at like 920 or something at this point, or 960, I don't know what he's at. Yeah, but you can see this journey now, when I stand in front of these pieces and I'm going, you're it, you're literally in it, like you can't not be in it. So that causes you, like one of Louise Bourgeois rooms, to have to go inside this artist and inside this artist's thoughts and mind. But now you're having to decipher what it's doing to you, being surrounded by it, and who this artist is, what they may be, I don't know. It's just as a title person, I love that his work is not titled.
Speaker 3:Well, it's an experience, right? I mean, you mentioned Clifford Still. I'm going to be back in Denver in a couple of weeks, so I'll be taking another fourth or fifth visit through the Clifford Still Museum, which I'm super excited for, but his work of course as well is incredibly large. It's an experience. It's to be taken in, and so the lack of information about what it may or may not be about is perfect. It's exactly the way that it's supposed to be and the way the artist intended it. I want to share a quote where he talks about what do you say to people who ask what the work's about? Yeah, and this is his response.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is what I'm saying. Do not do this. Oh, this is what I'm saying, do not do this. That's me pushing a bale of cotton To Jack Whitten's studio. Jack was my teacher at Cooper Union and he had a studio on Lisbon Art, which is here. I was pushing 30 blocks from 26th Street, so that's Canal Street Will be the next block. I'm already here on Broadway, headed towards Canal, and so Jack was on Lisbon Art, which is right after Canal. So I would push these bales of cotton.
Speaker 2:This guy was smart enough, because this is a political statement right there, you know. But this guy took that photo. If I was smart enough I would have set it up, but I did not set that up. But he saw that I was doing this every other day, pushing his bale of cotton. You guys saw the cotton piece in there earlier. That's how it got done. That very piece is that one. And but let's get to that studio shot. That's it Ridiculous, ridiculous. It's like come on, you thinking. I mean like, about what I mean. It's like you know what a question that's, that's the self-explanatory, you know. It's like okay, this has to go. That's behind you, also needing attention, and you're like, oh God, what's next? But that's the truth.
Speaker 3:That's the photo, that's the truth Thinking. So the question was what are you thinking about when you're making his work? And then, for context, here it shows some photos of him in the studio, just completely immersed and surrounded by materials and any number of the seven crying babies that he talks about. But it's just. His response is so, it's so incredible. Like what a question. It's self-explanatory. It's like, okay, this has to go here and do you need attention? You know it's, it's attending to those, each of those, each of those babies. But I just, I love that response. We're close here, which is a couple more quotes that speak to the way that Drew thinks about the work and just kind of his philosophy around the creative process. This is from that Art 21 video that we mentioned before.
Speaker 2:We're all reaching. I mean I'm not talking just about artists, but I mean we all are reaching. As I'm creating, I know that I have the opportunity, whatever I feel or know I make into material. We're all reaching.
Speaker 3:Ty, not just with art. We're all reaching. We're all reaching Ty, not just with art, we're all reaching.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I agree with that wholeheartedly and I think you know that's human nature. I think we were all born to reach and strive for something and reach for something, whatever you think that might be. That's part of what this journey is and I think that's something that I had completely taken to my art. Practice is that I want to reflect that same reach and that same strive and push towards something you know, whether that is existence or supernatural or spiritual that you may think Like, I do think we're innately created for that and that's something that I 100% take into my practice, and I really do think that Leonardo does as well.
Speaker 1:And I think, when you have that side in you of that constant reaching and searching for something, that should be reflected in your work, which means your work should not stop growing, it should not stop changing and it should not stop evolving. It should be in this constant transformation, right this catalyst of the story of a cocoon, right the caterpillar blooming into a butterfly. I talked about this with my artist this last Saturday and you have something that can't do very much in the beginning the caterpillar on a branch doesn't go very far, can't do too much, can't move very fast, not going to see very many things. Then through this process, it now transforms into something over a period of time. It's not overnight. It takes some time for that cocoon to build and for it to change and metamorphosize inside it. That's Leonardo's seven years right. And then all of a sudden that cocoon opens and he's able to go and do whatever he wants anywhere, and I just think that's a beautiful thing. That's how we should be in our studios.
Speaker 3:I have a thought on that, but I'm going to share one more quote, and then we'll share our final thoughts.
Speaker 2:As I'm moving closer and closer to answering questions, at the same time I'm moving further away from the answers. So all I have to do at this point is continue to sort of place my body in the act of attempting to know.
Speaker 3:I think that's a great quote for us to end on. Absolutely so. You know we like to try and at times give people a whatever tangible takeaway. I think for me it would be. Are you asking those questions? No, are you spending time? You are, dear listener, not you, ty Nathan Clark, but you too, ty TNC. Okay, listener, not you, ty Nathan Clark, but you too, ty TNC.
Speaker 3:Are you seeking, are you reaching, are you receiving? You know, ask that question in the first part Am I seeking, am I reaching, am I receiving? You know spending time? You know you and I are both pretty dedicated journalers and writers and processing our experience in some attempt, you know, to make sense of things. But that's a really good introspective question to bring into that practice, whatever that looks like for you. But it's a. It's a big challenge, you know, like we talked about before, am I too comfortable, you know, and when I'm feeling uncomfortable, while that doesn't change the, the discomfort and that that is not an enjoyable feeling, oftentimes embracing that discomfort as part of the journey to get from where we're at to where we're meant to be your thoughts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think if you are starting to feel really uncomfortable and stuck, switch it up. Do something different for a while.
Speaker 3:Tie your hands behind your back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tie your hands behind your back, do something totally random. Go make some found object pieces. If you're a painter, if you're an abstract painter, do a still life, set up a still life in your studio and go back to the basics. Just do something different for a little bit. Sometimes we do need to just switch it up and do something different, and I think that's not leaving the road you're on, that's just assisting yourself with getting some, uh, some breaths of fresh air to bring into your space and your studio. And I think Leonardo is a great example that he mastered something. It was very good at it, it could have been very successful in it, and he went oh, no, no, I want to go, I want to do this. No, no, no, I want to go this way. I don't want to have my hands tied anymore, I want to just keep rolling and rolling and rolling. And so you know, I would say hey, you just got to enter new ideas and things regularly. Regularly, not just once a year, not just twice a year. While you're working on what you're working on, be messing around with something else in the studio, because I had just. That quote is just so great, as I'm moving closer and closer to answering questions, which he's throwing out a lot of questions regularly. You'll hear that when you listen to him. At the same time, I'm moving further and further away from the answers because he's so receptive to new ideas and new thoughts and new things. They're always coming in. So each time stuff starts to get solved, he gets further away from solving it because he's constantly entering in new things. And I would say, if you can take anything from this episode, take that into your studio practice. That way those walls stay open and they don't get closer and closer and closer and start closing you in.
Speaker 1:So if you have the opportunity to go to a museum because you live in a city where there are museums get online. Go to their archive, see what's in their collection, search for Leonardo Drew, see if they have a piece. If you're traveling to another city that has museums, do a little search. Who has Leonardo Drew's? I'm telling you. You're traveling to another city that has museums, do a little search. Who has leonardo drews? I'm telling you here you're going to be blown away. Even if you don't, even if you're like I don't even like installation art, I don't you're going to be blown away. I don't care, you need to go see his work. Somehow, if not, just get online, do some searches, you're, you're gonna yeah you're gonna lose it.
Speaker 3:He's incredible look at more art, listen to more artists. You know, don't take our word for it. I mean what, you know, what, what?
Speaker 1:what are we?
Speaker 3:you know. But but honestly, I mean all of the you know. So we'll, we'll just share. We'll share all of all of the, the, all of our sources in the show notes here. But the art 21 video is phenomenal. A lot of our quotes were taken from that. The Carrie Scott episode on her podcast scene is phenomenal, and there's a lot of other great ones out there as well, many of which we referenced. But just again, one of the reoccurring themes of the podcast is just listen like discover, you know, try to really understand, and just get a that of that excitement, that energy, that juice that comes from really understanding how, not just art itself, but how artists think about their art, how they approach you know, their, their practice. I mean I'm I'll be able to float a good couple months just on, just on all the research that we've done from this and having this, having this, having this conversation as well, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's incredible.
Speaker 3:So with that we'll wrap up. Thank you so much for uh for listening. Thanks for hanging out. Check us out on the uh on youtube if you want to see. Ty does an amazing job of the edit. So if you're not going to do your own homework, ty will include some uh, some great clips of different, uh, different pieces of leonardo working, as well as a lot of his incredible finish work as well. So with that, join us next time for another episode of Just Make Art Bye.
