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
Why I Make Art. Ursula Von Rydingsvard
A single question can power a lifetime of work: Why do I make art? Ty and Nathan sit with Ursula Von Rydingsvard’s stark and generous answers—woven from anxiety, labor, faith in process, and the stubborn hope that making can heal—and use it as a mirror for our own practices. From the first splinter to the last pass of the saw, we look at how big work invites big stakes, why the best days feel like discovery, and how the studio becomes a container strong enough to hold whatever we bring into it.
We dig into the creative toggle between object and process: when materials feel right but the method frays, and when the method sings but the object won’t land. That friction is feedback, not failure. Ursula’s line about having confidence in the possibility of seeing the work through reframes ambition without guarantees—an artist’s version of resilience. We also talk about self-doubt as a companion rather than an enemy, and how studying our heroes deeply—films, books, museum visits—feeds our own artistic DNA without imitation.
There’s a human infrastructure behind monumental art. Ursula’s assistants form another kind of family, proof that leadership in the studio is its own craft. We reflect on daily rhythm, showing up without perfect conditions, and making pieces that may outlive us—which is how work reaches into the future. The conversation edges into generational pain and the unanswerable questions art dares to hold. Answers are rare; presence is everything. If you’ve ever needed permission to trust the process and keep going, consider this your sign.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a creative nudge, and leave a quick review—tell us your “why” so we can feature it in a future Q&A.
Make sure to check out "Art from the Outside" and the amazing interview they had with Ursula: Spotify Apple
Send us a message - we would love to hear from you!
Make sure to follow us on Instagram here:
@justmakeartpodcast @tynathanclark @nathanterborg
Watch the Video Episode on Youtube or Spotify,
If I can start with something I call why do I make art? And this is for everybody, for artists, for non-artists. And I'm hoping that there's some clarity to that why, but it doesn't answer that question really, because it's impossible.
SPEAKER_06:That was the amazing Ursula Vaughn Writings Guard, one of Nathan's and my. I mean, we have a lot of favorite artists, Nathan, but she's definitely one that we both absolutely love. I came across Ursula, I don't remember how many years ago, and I don't remember what museum, but I remember seeing this piece that was monstrous sculpture made out of wood, and blew me away. Looked at the name and instantly jumped on my phone and looked her up and was sold instantly on her work. And I've come across her work, gosh, I I mean, I don't think there's a museum in the US that I've been in that I haven't seen an Ursula Van Ridensgar piece. And so she, I'm not gonna give a ton of backstory on her because if you do not know her, jump online and research her and start looking at her work. You've probably seen a piece. If you haven't, you're gonna be blown away because the physicality of them is incredible. The craftsmanship of them is just wonderful. Looking back at her story as a uh Polish woman growing up in Nazi Germany as a child, we won't get into that too much, but just so many things intertwined and interwoven from her lifetime into this piece now, into her work in these pieces is just incredible. And so Nathan and I thought we would grab some incredible moments from a podcast that she did uh a while back on Why Do I Make Art by Ursula Vaughn Writing Scar. And at the in the beginning of this podcast, which we will put in the notes for the show as well, so you can listen to the whole thing. Before things even start, she asks the host, hey, I want to read something. And so that's what that very first moment was that we played as her reading. And so now we're gonna kind of unpack Ursula's why do I make art? And I can't wait to jump into this, Nathan.
SPEAKER_03:There's so many gems in here, and I'm I'm really excited to talk about this as well. We should we should uh share that we were planning on and still are planning on doing an episode, like we've got a running list of artists we plan on on doing episodes on in the future, and Ursula's been on it for quite some time. And so we started to get into the art 21s. There's three or four fantastic um art 21s, the documentary. And then when we came across this, I was like, hey, Ty, this is an entire episode right here. So this is we're just gonna focus on this sort of essay that she wrote quite some time ago, and it's available online if you just if you just look up Ursula Bon Writings Guard, why do I make art? Yeah, it's very easy to find, and you can find her reading it in more than one place as well. We're gonna be using the audio from the uh Art from the Outside podcast to uh to share it in her own words. But yeah, so I think you know, with this tie, I think w one of the reasons why I was so drawn to this and and why I wanted why we wanted to make this a standalone episode is because we talk about this a lot in in other episodes as well. But the the we talk about intention, we talk about purpose, but just this this personal sort of you know code uh from her of this is why I do what I do. Yeah. And as we get into it, you know, there's there's just as many questions as there are answers, which is is beautiful in its own way. But I think just before we even dive in, just acknowledging the the wisdom and and the importance of being clear on why am I doing this?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:What is the purpose of what I'm doing? Because when we start with intention, whether it be with a body of work, a p a piece, you know, individually, or holistically our practice as a whole, which is what she's referring to here, I think that has tremendous power to inform you know what comes next and the work that follows. So we're gonna kind of break this down. We may not touch on each and every one of these. It's probably three minutes or so, you know, when she when she reads it. But we're gonna kind of break these down one by one because they are they are dense and and super um, yeah, just just really meaty little nuggets for us to uh get into.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Interestingly enough, I I can't remember if it was the last episode or the second to last episode we did. We we talked about the exercise that I do with uh the mentees in my program for kind of writing your why, you know, writing yourself a personal statement for why you make your art. And so I think it's just serendipitous that this idea for us to do this podcast dropped in our heads over the last week and a half or so with Ursula because this is what she did. And I think she did it 20 years ago from the time of the podcast. Is that what she said?
SPEAKER_03:Whenever the podcast was recorded, I think it was a few years back, four years ago, maybe. Yeah, and I think she said she'd written it six or seven years before that. Six or seven at least a decade or more. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and think about that though. She's an older artist in age, so she wrote that far into her art career.
SPEAKER_03:That's a great point. Yeah, not in the beginning. Yeah. 30, 40 years in, probably. Yeah. I would guess, and I can only speculate on this, but I would I would guess this is these are probably things she's had been thinking about for running now. Decided to finally organize them and put them on place to be shared with others.
SPEAKER_06:But one more thing, Nathan, before we jump in. Sorry, I know that you're excited to get rolling on this, but we do we would love to do a QA episode coming up pretty soon. So we get random questions that are just fantastic all the time, but they're random and they're spread out. And we do our best to answer them on Instagram or YouTube or Spotify wherever you send your questions. But if you have any questions that you'd love for us to talk about, discuss, maybe even our experience with certain things, send them to us via Instagram, YouTube, Spotify. Instagram would be the easiest because we can collect them pretty easily there, or you can email us as well. But send us your questions and then we'll go through. And if you send a question, please put your name. And if you want us to share your Instagram profile or your website, we would happily do that from the podcast. So, you know, if you are Nathan Turborg from Minnesota and you send in your question, put at Nathan Terborg is your Instagram, or if you have a website, we're happily. All right, let's do this. Let's jump in and share your information. We'd love to do that. Then others can check out your work as well. Turborg. I'm definitely gonna put a Muppets chef scene in there.
SPEAKER_03:That's how I always remember. We've only been known each other for you know five years now. All right. Uh let's play the first one.
SPEAKER_00:Why do I make art? Mostly to survive, to ease my high anxiety, to numb myself with the labor and the focus of building my work.
SPEAKER_03:Ty, this is I mean the the we're gonna go by these kind of kind of one by one. This this first one just the moment I heard this in the podcast, I was like, this is what we're doing. Yeah. It was you, 100%. Well, I uh what I love about it is just the the idea of the the work is the prize itself. There's a a quote from uh from Teddy Roosevelt. He said, far and away, the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. We're artists, we can agree that art has value and is worth and is worth doing, but I think that just you know, the the the idea of the work being enough, the work being enough, the work is in and of itself also the reward. You know, any results, any prize, you know, that that may come is really just a bonus. And I think that when you watch videos of Ursula working, when you talk about or when you when you when you hear her talking about it, it's clear she has fallen in love with the work because it would be impossible to make work at the scale, the labor-intensive nature of what she does if she hadn't fallen fully in love with the process and with the work.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, if she didn't after the 400th splinter in her fingers, she's done. I'm tired of pulling these things out of my fingers.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like you're trying to bait me into talking about process, which we agreed we were gonna say. Yeah, we're not gonna do it. The next episode. Right. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna take the bait.
SPEAKER_06:But I I mean, I get it though. You know, I'm not a I don't have a lot of anxiety in my life. I'm not a very anxious person. Uh, but chalk up any type of characteristic that you have in your personality. Mine is more of like a dry, an internal drive, and more of a fear of not getting to where I want to go with that drive. And so that's where the studio comes in for myself, where she's trying to numb this anxiety she has, which I'm sure it goes back a whole lot of years, probably to the time that she grew up in uh in in Germany as a Polish somebody in a refugee camp. So it's like there's probably an anxiety that was built in at an early age that has existed all the way through her adulthood. And so I know those things for me, the studio becomes that spot to just numb or escape from and just focus to where nothing else matters and just disappears. And I love that she kind of had that in the beginning because everything else follows.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Objects or the process by which I concretize my ideas feel so good.
SPEAKER_06:Objects or the process. That's interesting. That's materials or the making.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_06:Feels so good. Sometimes they both work really good together, but a lot of times that really good never kind of fulfills itself in the end. I'm in that right now where I'm like, ooh, these materials just feel incredible to work with right now. But oh, this process is driving me freaking crazy. Or, man, this process feels amazing right now, and I'm just in a zone, but there's something missing material-wise, and I just can't find it. I know I really have a duality with that, a massive duality. I was I was on uh a video call this morning with our dear friend uh Moxanon Perkins in Spain and Francis Beattie in Philadelphia and Gianna Tessone, currently in New York, but bound to be in Scandinavia somewhere again soon. And I was talking about that. It's like I set out with all these things and these fibers, and I'm having a blast, but I can't figure out the process with them. And then the second the process started to feel good, now I'm searching for more of the object. And it's like there's just this bounce back and forth, and now I finally a year later feel like those two things are joining each other, and I'm really feeling good about both of them. So they are being concretized at this moment.
SPEAKER_03:I I like that you I like that that stuck out to you. I like that you highlighted that the objects or the process. It's not an and, it's an or. It can be either one. The the part of that quote that I really zeroed in on was feels so good. And you know, you think about that, you know, when an idea comes together, whether it be the object or the process itself, when we have those oh moments that we we talk about all the time, that feeling is so good. Yep. That feeling is so good. And I was thinking back to our Leonardo Drew episode when he talks about being the crack addict of art, you know, and being being addicted to uh, you know, I think in his case, just completely consumed with with the work and engulfed by it, you know, in in his studio. But when I hear that, I think about chasing that feeling and accepting that it's not gonna come every single day. It's not you know predictable, it's not something that you can you know set your watch to by any means, but it does come at some point. Yeah, and when it does, that's what keeps us coming back. That's what keeps me coming back. Yep. Sorry, I had something else on that one. I didn't I didn't say that. Yeah, don't miss your notes. They're right here in front of me, in fact. No, I was just thinking about you know the the addictive nature of of art when you're about this life and when you're completely hooked on that feeling. I was just thinking about the last few weeks here as we've been building a sauna in our backyard that's taken up a lot of a lot of my studio time, and I'm uh having a fun, uh having a really, really good time, you know, in that process. Thankfully, I've got some fully qualified, you know, contractor friend who's who's doing most of the uh the thinking as far as laying things out and all that. But oddly enough, I've actually been cutting a lot of cedar uh for the for the sauna with the circular saw. And as we've been pr preparing it for this episode, thinking a lot about about Ursul's process. But you know, I I just realized this. I was just been really feeling really crabby lately. I've just been kind of blah. And then I realized, oh yeah, I haven't been getting my studio, I haven't been getting my fix. So it would make sense that I'd be a little uh little itchy, a little twitchy, a little a little crabby.
SPEAKER_06:There, I don't think there's an artist that exists that wouldn't say, when I'm not making art, I'm a really terrible person sometimes. Whether that's as a friend, as a partner, as a spouse, uh, as a sibling, if you're an artist and you go a long time without making art, and usually when it's kind of not your decision, it's just life forces you into that pattern, you start to realize that you're kind of an ass in some ways. I know that's my experience, and I know that because my wife has told me to my face you need to get in the studio and make art like now. I would like to grow personally to a point where I can still navigate that without short breaks are fine. Short breaks are fine, get away to come back, but yeah, when you're forced into not being able to make, it's it's tough.
SPEAKER_03:It's hard. The uh my friend who's who's doing the build with me, he caught me with the saw making some completely unnecessary cuts. And he's like, What what are you what are you doing? I said, I'm just trying to get to the day, Rob. Just trying to get through the day.
SPEAKER_00:Because I invariably, especially with my most monstrous pieces, run into intense anxiety moments from which I have to unravel myself.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So this one, I'm sure you've heard it. I'm sure most working artists have heard a version of this. But you know, when when non-artists say something like, oh, it must be just awesome. It must be so fun to just make art all day. Right? Yeah. Which broadly speaking, of course it is. Absolutely. But it's just it's encouraging, you know, that yet another another reminder from one of our heroes that those intense anxiety moments are just part of the deal, especially when you're making big things. And I've talked about this a little bit, but as I'm scaling up with more sculptural work and realizing we'll talk about this in a little bit when we get to the part where she talks about her assistance being a family. But you know, there are there are physical limitations to just being just being one person, you know? And the logistics of how is this going to exist in space? How is this going to stand up? How is element A going to interact with element B and hold up element C? It's it's a fun thing. But it's just again, just another reminder, like, yep, this is this is just part of it. And when we hear a legend like Ursula say that, it's like, oh, okay, cool. It's not just me.
SPEAKER_06:I the the unraveling of myself, I understand to a T. I remember a few years back, I was I don't stretch any of my work until it shows or it's going out the door, and then I stretch it for storage reasons. But a few years ago, I did a triptych, and I think it was 25 feet by 10 feet tall. And but I I need to photograph it, right? And so I in my old studio I had the wall space to photograph it on one wall if I wanted to, but I decided, okay, this would be really this would be easier to put one piece up on the wall, photograph it, then put the second piece up, and then put it together and Photoshop as the triptych. And so I put piece up with gorilla tape because it's not stretched and it's on a cement wall. And so I was trying to find something. So I had gorilla tape along the back, pushed it up while I was on a table, and then put the edges up, and I've got this piece up on the wall, perfect. Get my lighting, set my camera up, get ready to take the photo, and what happens falls down, right? That took multiple times to get it, and now there's three pieces I need to do because it's a triptych. And so that unraveling in that moment was insane mentally. And then when V and I had our show at Art Center Museum in Waco for our two-person show, I did an installation and it was about eight feet tall uh and it's chicken wire. And uh oh my gosh, why can I not think of the material that I used? Plaster.
SPEAKER_03:Plaster.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And so I rented a U-Haul that was tall enough to fit it in, eight feet tall to get it to the exhibition opening or install. And I'm rolling it up. I have a furniture dolly. So I'm rolling it up. Well, if inside is eight feet, the U-Haul has a door which sits a few inches below. So now I have to angle it on the cart while I'm on the ramp to get it in. And then when I stand it up, sometimes when we measure as artists, we don't completely measure correctly. So that eight feet was about eight feet one inch. So once it's sat up, it bent the top of the piece. So that unraveling is, yeah, we all know that feeling when uh we're working with big work, even small work. There's just times things just don't happen and we just kind of unravel in that moment.
SPEAKER_03:It's funny, it's funny you mentioned measuring. I was just, I told my friend Rob as we're doing this build, you know, when you're building something properly, you it's important, very useful that it remains in square and that those measurements are correct, especially when you're framing it out and and uh and laying the foundation. And I remember thinking at one point he was measuring, remeasuring, remeasuring where we poured, you know, the foundational cement pylons. And I was just like, okay, this is how you actually do it. This is the right way to make something. And how just I just realized how I had fallen sort of in the in the the lazy trap of I'll just figure this out, you know, at the end. Oh, yeah. Which I always do, but that's a lot of extra steps. And you know, uh, bless bless Dean's heart, my my frame frame making wizard who's like, all right, what do you want me to do with this? I'm like, well, I'd like it to be square if we can still start with that. But it's funny you're talking about that triptych, not to get into personal story mode too much here, but I I or one one upsmanship, but I was just thinking about the the triptych that I uh sent to you sent to Munich unfinished with probably more steps than I anticipated to finish it there. Once you got there, yeah. Benjamin at the gallery was super gracious and let me do that. But then, you know, wandering around a uh strange city where I didn't recognize any of the brands or speak the language to try and find the materials I needed to finish it. Just a lot of anxiety moments. Yeah, let's just let's just put it that way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I have a saying that goes with measuring that I think you might be able to use, and it's uh measure 50 times, cut 10.
SPEAKER_02:Do that sound about right to everybody out there. That sounds that sounds about right.
SPEAKER_06:That's usually what happens to me.
SPEAKER_03:Measure twice and cut 30 times. I literally have to remind myself it's way easier to remove more material than it is to add it back. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:We've all tried to sometimes be added back, yeah, but usually no. That's not a fun day.
SPEAKER_00:Because I endure a hefty load of self-doubt.
SPEAKER_06:This this is a really good one, Nathan, because there are some of us out there that say that we don't struggle with self-doubt. And just saying that is kind of struggling with self-doubt sometimes. That's how I view myself. Because the other day I was literally because I'm a four on the Enneagram. If any of you know the Enneagram, then you'll understand this. If you don't, you can look it up. Not going to go into the background of the Enneagram or anything, but but I'm an extroverted Enneagram, and that's rare. Because most fours on the Enneagram scale are introverted. And so I'm extroverted, and I was kind of looking at you know the different wings associated, like an eight-wing and a three-wing, and these different things. And it's like, gosh, I feel like I'm a very confident person, and I feel like I don't really need to have anybody lift me up or push me up, and you know, those things. And I was like, but gosh, I think that really does play into my psyche.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I think there is a self-doubt, and it's not a self-doubt about who I am right now, it's a self-doubt of getting to who I really hope I'm going to be at some point as an artist. So, not like as me as a person, as a husband, as a friend, as you know, somebody's just what it's there's the self-doubt of am I going to get to the point with my work where it's going to be where I really dream and hope it will be. Right. And so that's where I think that is, that's a hefty load to endure because everything I'm doing in the studio is the hope and the dreams of getting to that point.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:So that's just a big, big load that I carry in the studio. And so when I was listening to this and thinking about it, at first I went, I don't think I really struggle with that. And then I was like, well, let me dive into my psyche. Let me dive into my personality traits and things. Let me look at Enneagram for an extrovert and the different types of wings that are associated with it. So then I kind of dove into it on my own and went, no, I think I do on a level that is self-doubt, overarching, but in a smaller way that has a heavy, heavy load of impact with me when I'm working.
SPEAKER_03:Do you have a five-wing or a three-wing? That's where I'm not too sure yet. Interesting. Yeah. I'm just going to say you have a three, because I'm a three with a four-wing. So I can definitely relate to a lot of what you're talking about. I mean, yeah. So I uh we actually probably could do an Indiegram. I don't know. Maybe a lot of the audience wouldn't be that interested in it, but it might be an interesting conversation anyway. I I I know, I am certain that I that I have plenty of self-doubt. And as a three, uh, that's a that's the achiever, you know. So I'm I'm uh I'm I'm walking through life just trying to get the next gold star to get the next right piece of evidence that I'm actually okay, you know, and so I do have questions and I do ask questions about not just my work, but how I'm showing up, you know, broadly just as a human being. I was thinking about, you know, it's funny you mention when people say that they don't have any self-doubt. When people say that to me, and obviously, as based on what I just shared, I'm I'm I'm receiving that information through a certain lens. Yeah, right. But I put people immediately into one of two buckets just based on my read. I'm not always right. But most of the time when people say that, my first response is okay. I think you're saying that. I don't say this out loud usually, but I'm thinking that sounds like something that one would say to convince themselves of that, because that's a convenient thing to believe for them. Which is so so narcissism. Maybe. I mean, we're all telling ourselves the story that suits us, and and that's that's part of the human experience. But you know, occasionally I actually believe people, you know, or observe, like, oh, that that that's actually real. I've got a couple of close friends, one in particular, who I don't think really does have much of any, you know, self-doubt, and it serves them very, very well. I was thinking back to the the Jack Witten episode that I did where I was, you know, really kind of unpacking that element of uncertainty. There's one quote. So Jack said, There's so much doubt associated with painting. I'm forever questioning myself, doubting my performance. And this actually bleeds really well into the next part of what Ursula shares. Let's just actually play it right now. Yeah, play it.
SPEAKER_00:Because I have confidence in the possibility of seeing this work through.
SPEAKER_03:So that that relationship between doubt and confidence, I think, is really important. And it's something that I spent a lot of time on that episode really thinking about and kind of unpacking. But especially uh ding the bell. This is our obligatory Jack Witten reference for this for this episode. But, you know, obviously also somebody who had a tremendous amount of self-confidence. I don't think that there's you could probably find, you know, some artists that don't have that, but not many, right? We have to have an element of like, in, in, in this, in spite of the doubt and in Jack's words, the questioning ourselves, doubting our performance that we may be experiencing, you know, it's that comp it's that combination of confidence and doubt. It's just a recurring theme, and a lot of artists that we've discussed, you know, sort of so on the on the micro, you know, what's right in front of us level, I don't know where this is going. That's doubt. Now, it could be reframed as uncertainty. I know you certainly experience uncertainty, you know, when you're doing what you're doing now and and and pulling new threads, figuratively and and literally. Literally. But there's also the the the a kind that's combined with a confidence of I believe it's going somewhere great, right? On on the macro. Yeah. And that I think is sort of that, you know, delicate dance that we all play internally around, okay, I'm gonna experience, and this is just what I've accepted. This is not something I'm trying to change about myself because I think it's part of just how I'm wired, you know. I'm going to experience that. And I do think that there's an element of that that really serves me, um, artistically for sure. Um, but it really has to be combined with that overarching belief of it's going somewhere great. It's going somewhere, right? Like you said a couple of episodes ago, the work is taking you somewhere.
SPEAKER_06:Well, I think that what she says here, she has confidence in the possibility of seeing the work through. I think that's a very wise uh statement built on years of knowledge, just building into wisdom where I'm sure when she was younger, she might have had the confidence of seeing the work through, and then realized over time, no, I have confidence in the possibility of seeing this work through because when you're young, everything you do, you think is good. Sure. And I I know there's plenty I I was that way. Every piece I did, I was like, yep, this is the one. And now I look back and I go, that was definitely not the one. That was off. You know what I mean? That just that was very immature. It was an immature work. So as you age in years making art, you learn that some work is not going to be seen through. It's gonna be a roadmap to take you to the next body of work that may be seen through or maybe not seen through. I mean, I've I've shared pretty openly on the podcast bodies of work that I did that I just it was a year of nothing. Like nothing happened to it, it didn't move, nothing did it, but I stuck with it because I knew it was gonna take me somewhere else.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:So there's that confidence and the possibility of seeing the work through. So that body of work you're working on now, or that painting or that sculpture you're working on currently, may not be the thing, but the possibility of the thing coming at some point, that's where our confidence needs to completely lie. So, you know, it's that that duality of that non-confidence and confidence. Like I have no confidence with what I'm making right now. I just don't. It's new stuff, there's new things. I don't know, but I'm confident of the possibility of it getting there.
SPEAKER_03:I like that you highlighted that. That did not stick out to me when I first heard it or read it. But where my mind is going now is where she's at, where she was at already, you know, when she wrote this. I mean, it could by by any observer, could certainly be argued she's already seen the work through. Yeah. Even if she stopped, you know, the day after she wrote this, which obviously she did not, but thankfully, and still actively making work. But you know, that that to me, it kind of underscores a common theme amongst people that have what I would call real, you know, wisdom. So dear listener, think of whatever great you know, writers or th or thinkers read. Resonate with you, I think that's kind of a recurring theme, a common denominator amongst people that have a version of wisdom, however you choose to define that. But it is sort of that like, you know, it's a possibility, right? In other words, the the the the more the more we learn, the more we grow, the less we think we actually know, right?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Well, and I think that's the magic for us of of Witten's book, right? Of Notes from the Woodshed, is we get to we get to literally follow that journey of all of that. And here's such a wise, I mean, wise man, even in his younger years, he was wiser than I would, I would probably say 90% of the artists that I have read. His wisdom at a young age was just insane. Brilliant, brilliant man. But you watch that just carry over into years and the patience, the frustrations, the non-confidence, but a full confidence in the possibilities. And that's one person out of all the artists I've read, which is a lot, he was putting all of his energy into the possibilities.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And not the work at hand.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:He was constantly going, get me to it. Hey, piece I'm working on, get me to the next piece. Hey, get me to the there's possibilities that are existing. And he kept scrapping. Ah, this isn't it. Gotta go to the next thing. Screw these. I don't want to do what anybody else is doing. I'm getting caught up in what they're all doing in New York here. I don't want to be them. I want to be me. I want to be Jack Witten. I don't want to be Roshenberg. I'm not going to be Jasper Johns. I'm not going to be, you know, and he would name those. Everybody's doing that. I'm not going to do that. Is this going to hurt me? I think it is, but I don't care. Here we go. You know, and I think that's what's given me even more confidence is his voice now constantly in my head.
SPEAKER_03:And and a way to reconcile that ambition with what it looks like to possibly approach that. You know, as we not this has become a witten episode again, but we could have a year's worth of Witten episodes, maybe two. We could. We've got at least one more coming. We're going to have a special, a special guest on to uh to dig into the book and witten as well. But yeah, I think just you know that that's you know when you think about his writings to your point from a very young age, like all of them, you know, with that with that self-doubt, with that, you know, um that fear of what if I don't get there, but a tremendous level of ambition, both with the work and where he saw himself going overall as an artist. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because life is full of marvels, close to miracles. Because I still don't know who I am, because I'll never get to know who I am.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so this one's high super. Lot to unpack there.
SPEAKER_06:No, you go first, but lot to unpack.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I was just thinking about the the uh the Socrates, I think it's Socrates, we can fact check that. Socrates. Uh Socrates to find yourself, think for yourself. And you know, I was just thinking about how you know making art affords us all the luxury of thinking for ourselves in kind of the the purest possible form. We don't have a boss, there's nobody telling us what to do, there's no right or wrong answer objectively. Like we we get to spend so much more time than the average person, probably in thinking for ourselves. So uh if that's true, then the act of making art gets us closer to knowing ourselves. I think I've said this before, but you know, art has introduced me to myself in a way that that nothing else could. I've learned things about myself, who I am, how I really, how I really operate, and how what I'm what I'm really thinking about, and specifically what I'm trying to express, you know, with the work than than anything else. And I think that actually was the the Louise episode, you know, when she said art is a way of recognizing oneself. You know, we we make the work not always knowing what it's about, and then the work tells us what it's about and by extension helps us better understand what what we're about.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, we've talked about this before, it was a while ago. It was probably the Louise episode. Um so I'm glad you brought her up. But the the British psychoanalyst Donald Wincott, I think Donald Wincott, who really is the one who is credited for the true self-false-self narrative. And, you know, listening to Ursula say this, you know, in her soothing voice and tone after talking about all the other things up top, and then getting to because I still don't get who I am, because I will never get who I am. There's part of me that disagrees with that statement, and then there's part of me that understands that statement. So I wouldn't say I fully agree with it, because I really think that's what that whole statement is, is kind of living in the false self moment and still in a search for the true self. But to me, I was also a little kind of sad when I heard her say that like that struggle of trying to figure out who she really is. And I'm like, Ursula, you're being who you truly are. Because what you have done to me, not just as an artist, but a human being, when I see her work at a museum, I go to the DMA in Dallas regularly and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston regularly, and they both have an Ursula piece. And it's one of her pieces small at the bottom, really big at the top, and it just kind of grows up 15, 20 feet in size. I've walked around those things 306 degrees for I can't tell you how many hours when I've been there and have taken video of it. I sit in front of it, I sit on the ground and look at it up, I get up close and I look down, I'm looking at every angle possible. But what that work does to me emotionally in a moment, like, oh, I mean, I can't even explain that awe and that love and that spiritual energy that just like makes me at times cry, at times laugh, at times just go, how are you this good? You know, that moment in my head. And so I'm kind of like when she's saying I still don't get who I am. To me, personally, there was like the sadness of like, are you she's still wanting? Is she still like what is that emptiness that she's got there? And then piggybacking that with because I will never get who I am, was almost this feeling of well, she not gonna keep trying to find out who she really is. So it's it's really an existential search in a way that that's there. But for me, I'm going now, I yeah, I fully stoned and get who I am yet, but I feel like I'm closer than I've ever been to getting who I really am.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I I I hear that as a level of acceptance that is really beautiful. And I I I understand where you're coming from there. That that does make sense. I think ultimately that is a question that only one can answer for oneself, obviously, right? It's not up to you or me or anybody else to say, no, you you totally get you. Right. But the fact that that we have the experience with her work that we do just speaks to the power of art, you know. Um the the Walker here in Minneapolis has uh at least one um piece of hers in the permanent collection and had this experience maybe about a year and a half ago, the exhibition that was that was up at the time didn't exactly you know move me. But the as soon as I I looked around into the permanent collection and thought they had that out, I was like, it's gonna be a good day. It's still gonna be a good day. So anytime you can look at art, it's a it's a good day. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. But you know, just to your point, just you know, walking around and every single square inch has has something in it that resonates, you know. So even if she's in a place where she believes or accepts that she may never fully know you know who she is, the power of the work speaks to each individual in its own unique way, which is it's what we're doing, it's what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_06:Well, and I that this is where I I want to have an intimate moment drinking coffee with Ursula on the couch outside, you know, just sitting and talking. And I want to know, like I want to dig into that because that's just me. That's what I do. And so it's like I want to dig into that, you know. And I think having listened to and watched a few things with her in it, uh, I I kind of wonder too, if part of that mentality is, you know, growing up as a child in a Nazi slave labor camp and post-war refugee camps. I feel like in that situation, moving forward in life, you feel like there's always a moment where everything that you have can be taken away from you. You know, that's traumatic no matter how old you are. Whether she was two, three, four, I don't know what age she was when she moved, was able to move out of that part of life. But that's where her parents, probably most of her parents' friends, were in those that situation, uh, extended family. You know what? So I feel like there's no way that trauma doesn't add another layer of could this be taken away from me at any time? I have to live life with such a gratitude in the moment because tomorrow that could change. And I know there's a lot of people that are going through that right now in a domestic scale here in our own country and overseas. And I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine uh who's a US, first U.S. citizen in her family from Mexico. And we had a conversation at my friend V's art opening the other night about this fear that could this be taken away from me. I've worked my I've worked so long to get to this point, and I have a fear that this could disappear. Right. So everything I'm doing is with a different level, right? Of feeding into those possibilities. So I just wonder if that's still a part of her internal makeup, whether it's subconscious or for conscious that exists. But I mean, that's where my mind goes in these things because I love I love story and I want to know like what's the root of that in your head? Why does that is that part of your art? Is that what goes into it? And yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Small thought. You want to you want to ask the annoying questions that we don't like to answer ourselves.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, but I'd rather not do it on a podcast. I want to do it under a tree, by a lake, by a river, you know what I mean, with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Like I want to do it in that moment.
SPEAKER_00:Because my deepest admiration goes to those who have made art that has interested me.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, that's a good one. It's a great one. I mean, you're you're you're talking about the deep admiration that you have for her and how much you would love to just spend time, right? Like I was thinking about, you know, you've interacted whatever, with some some famous people in different in different you know, spaces. I know when you did the documentary, you know, there are certainly especially NBA fans who would have who would love to talk to you about just what it was like to be in a room with Steph Curry or or you know Kevin Durant. There now we've done our little obligatory art breakfast for the episode. If you're not a sports fan, these these guys are are big deals if you're you know, whatever, follow, follow the NBA. But I was just thinking about there aren't very many people that I would stalk through an airport if I saw them going the other direction just to get a chance to maybe say hello and ask them a question like that. But they're they're all artists for sure, for me, or musicians, maybe, you know, but just like that, that though those are the types of people that I think we're really drawn to because there are so many, you know, just questions and and just curiosities around hey, what what about this or what about that? You know, the types of to your point, the types of questions that don't typically get discussed during an artist talk or in a in a typical interview, you know.
SPEAKER_06:Now I'm getting mad at myself. You're gonna know why when I bring it up. You're talking about stalking people through the airport. So my my art sister, my dear friend V, who you hear me talk about all the time, V No, and Sam Levi Jones were went to Chicago last week for uh Theaster Gates lecture and opening, and they got to spend time with him, who's one of my absolute heroes uh in the art world and in life, like not just as an artist, but as a human being hero. And uh Mandy said, You should go, you should piggyback. And I thought, I don't want to do that. And then everything in me was like, I should just tell V, hey, I'm gonna go, and I'll hang out with other friends while you guys do your stuff. But I and then they got to spend time with with Yester and with Nick Cave, the artist as well, and some other people that I just admire. And now I'm beating myself up for not chasing down the airport and going, Hey, hey, hey, hey, do you have a few minutes for you?
SPEAKER_03:For you up when you told me that story. You didn't. It was so out of character for you because you are by nature pretty bold when it comes to that kind of thing. But I used to listen to this episode and she's gonna be like, Yeah, you totally could have gone.
SPEAKER_05:Do I want to say this right now?
SPEAKER_06:If V and I weren't as dear and close as friends as we are, I wanted her to have that really good time, her and Sam, away in Chicago and not have any other factor interrupting just a great time that they were gonna spend together. So you would have dominated that conversation for sure. Yeah, that's that's a fact. So yeah, exactly. I know. Sam would have been yeah, let's leave Ty home for this one. Yeah, love it. Love it. Just the admiration goes to those of who have made art that has interested me. Just a reminder, which Nathan and I talk to you about this on a regular basis. If there's an artist that interests you and just grabs you, go research the heck out of them. I don't I always hear artists all the time that say, Oh, yeah, I don't really read too much about art. Oh, I don't really research that much. I really don't. It's like, no, no, no. If somebody interests you in a major way, get the books, go see them in a museum, watch a documentary on dive, dive, dive in. Because if there's something that grabbed you, maybe you have something in common and their D their art DNA can feed your art DNA. Yeah. We all need food to live.
SPEAKER_03:Period. That's a great physical. I mean, you so you need to talk all the time about spending time with your I'm sorry, I cut you off. No, it's good. Cut me off, go. Well, we talk all the time about spending time. You you you this is one of my favorite Thaiisms is you know, spending time with my my dead heroes, right? Isn't that how you or your how do you say it? My ghosts. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so whether the artists that would check those boxes for you are living or dead, we may you may or may never not ever interact with them, you know, directly. But there is so much, especially for you know artists that have you know made a dent and made an impact, there's a lot out there, even the ones who existed long before these fantastic podcasts and whatever YouTube videos that we have access to now. But there's so much out if you just literally put the artist's name into good old Google or you know the YouTube search engine, you're probably gonna get some really interesting results. Yeah. And get a chance to kind of you know spend time with them and get in their head. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. The greatest artists in history did that on a regular basis. So why would you void yourself of that wisdom?
SPEAKER_00:Because I want attention from those who make good art.
SPEAKER_06:Yes, I do too, Ursula. I do too.
SPEAKER_03:I when when I heard her say that, I was like, I I I felt a sense of relief. This could go into the whole Enneagram discussion at some point, but it was just it was comforting to me that it's okay to want this, that it's okay to want, you know, attention from the people that I admire who make the art that I enjoy the most and and and respect the most. That's all I had to say about that. It was comforting to know that it's okay to desire attention from those people.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I do. I reach out to them, I say hi, whether they never respond back, I send emails, I show up at their studios. I I mean, I showed up at Christopher Wool's studio in Marfa a few months ago during MARF Invitational. He wasn't there, but I definitely checked. Uh so it's like I feel like I'm the type of artist that I will sit down, I will have coffee with you, I will talk to you, I will hang out. Now, I also know that artists who are a lot further along than me don't have the time, right? I have time, I don't have tons of time because I invest in a lot of artists that have been through my program and artist friends and things. Uh so I know and respect that if they don't get back to me, it maybe they just don't have time to give me the time. And I'm okay with that because I know there are people I have to say, I'm sorry, I just don't have time. And then there are others where I'm like, Yeah, I do have time. Let's go grab coffee. I'll meet you on your way through Dallas and Houston. Let's hang out, you know, and give that time. But reach out to artists that you admire, and who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and you'll be able to just show up and do a studio pop by one day and bring them a cup of coffee and get some knowledge you didn't think you'd you'd have tomorrow.
SPEAKER_03:And while we are fully aware that Ty and I are probably not that artist for you, we are going to do a QA episode coming up soon. So, you know, they may be less accessible or not alive anymore, but we as an will happily answer, you know, whatever whatever questions you have.
SPEAKER_06:Uh I mean you could and honestly ask questions. Like I know, I know a lot of younger artists too are like, oh, I'm too afraid to ask this. I don't want to, you know, it's like, no, no, no. Trust me, Nathan and I have asked a lot of questions, and I've asked a lot of stupid freaking questions that honestly aren't really stupid. It's the fact that we're artists and we really just don't know how too many things work. And so we're constantly learning it on our own. Uh, but I've always been one that's not afraid to ask. So I have gotten a lot of answers, and I have friends that have answers that I don't have. So if you ask a question that we don't understand, we will happily reach out and ask somebody else uh to find an answer. And honestly, in art, sometimes there aren't really answers. Sometimes it's just ideas of things that have worked for other people. May or may not work for you, but it may have worked for somebody else.
SPEAKER_03:Curiosity is a superpower. Yes, absolutely. And having the question to begin with is a great start, but asking it, I forget who said somebody smarter than me said the only dumb question is the one that doesn't get asked, right? Yeah. Boldness is an act of genius. Be willing to be a little feel a little silly in the moment in order to possibly learn something, not from us necessarily, but from others, you know, who might have an answer and might unlock something for you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because I like working with a group of assistants who become another kind of family.
SPEAKER_03:I was just thinking, and this this comes from watching a lot of those videos as well and seeing the staff that is required to make the type of work that she's making, but she seems like such a great boss. Yeah. Wouldn't you like I I would I would love to go and work for free for her for uh uh as long as as long as that was needed. I mean, just you know, the the nature of her work, of course, requires multiple people, but that that in of itself seems to be a skill, you know, orchestrating multiple people while still remaining in the work and in flow to make all of the countless decisions that need to be made. You know, you see some of the videos of her, you know, sketching out or writing, you know, uh drawing right on the wood where she wants her cutters, you know, to go to work and do what they do with the with the circular saw on the cedar. But it's uh it seems to be a skill. It's definitely a skill that I do not yet possess myself. I I have had, I don't have any full-time assistants by any stretch, but I definitely have uh a couple of people that will come by for periods of time. I got my my shout out to Jake, uh my oldest daughter's boyfriend, who's um been helping me out, you know, just for a few hours a week here and there. I kind of make my list of things that I just need another human being to um to move things around and and do things for. But I I really struggle with, you know, I just I kind of set aside those days as like I'm just doing the the logistics, the literally the heavy lifting of what needs to be done to get to the days where I can, you know, be in flow and actually make the work, you know. But I she seems to have mastered that skill of being a great boss of the studio assistants. I yeah, I I may never get there. I I don't I do not know how people are able to, how artists are able to do that, manage people. Um personality, I don't want to do that work though.
SPEAKER_06:I have zero I I do not want to do that. Now, that doesn't mean I don't want somebody to maybe stretch my work someday or you know, put my stretcher bars together and do the little things that you know take time that you just kind of I don't want to do it, I want to keep painting, you know. So someday maybe I'll I'll hire an assistant to do that stuff. But everything else, to me, it's like, no, I just want myself here. I am the extroverted four who just wants myself in the studio.
SPEAKER_05:Right. And I'm the introverted three who's like give me a few people to help with all this stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Someone's who's here who's who who I who I need their help, right? Who I'm paying to help me. As long as your brain says it's acceptable, you're fine. Right. They like they show up and and I'm just like, oh fuck, now I gotta figure something out for them to do today. Well, no, the list is already established in most cases, but it's just that not being able to be in my own, you know, little little world that really disrupts my short circuits my my ability to do what I love doing.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's because I like the daily rhythm of going to my studio, because it's a place to put my pain, my sadness. Because there's a constant hope inside of me that this process will heal me, my family, and the world.
SPEAKER_06:I like the daily rhythm of going to my studio. Like there is a rhythm. Yeah, there is a natural rhythm for me at this point in my career where it's like I I don't even think twice. I do my my daily morning routine where I have coffee and I sit on my couch outside and I read, and then I get to a point where I just kind of put my book down. I usually leave it on the couch because there's multiple times in the day. I'll go outside and sit on the couch and just read for a little bit and let the vitamin D hit my face. And so, but there's this rhythm, and then I'm in the studio and I'm doing things and I'm moving, and there's just this natural rhythm. And I would say for me, it's not really because it's a place to put my pain and sadness anymore. You know, I think there was a period of time in my life where that was what what the studio was for me. Now it's just the the I was talking to um my buddy, uh Moxananda, our buddy, today. He's in Valencia, and we were both just talking about the gratitude we have for being able to make art every day, that we do not take it lightly at all. Yeah, it's no longer a place where I'm having to like overcome things like trauma, healing, those things. No, it's just a natural thing of gratefulness and a passion for doing what I do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that in the in the the last episode, I think, where it's a place where everything has a place. You know, it's it's whatever is going on. It's not necessarily different times, yeah. Different phases, different, different periods for for different people, but you know, there's there's a place for that, you know, to to go back and sort of excavate, you know, maybe some things, you know, from before. But I just love, you know, just that that sacred space where everything has a place. There's a purpose for everything. And that's something that I had to learn and really just mature a little bit as a human being, but also as an artist, in terms of, you know, not requiring all the conditions to be right, to be feeling good. Right. And then that we talked about that a lot in the last episode, but just to be in a good, you know, for have all the conditions to be in place. Okay, now I'm ready. You know, it's like, no, it's it's whatever is happening, whatever I'm wherever I'm at is where I'm at, and it's time to get to work. You know, you know, that's another myth.
SPEAKER_06:That's another artist myth that I think when you're younger as an artist, not in age, but in years making art, you're you kind of have that, well, when I get to, when I get the space that that's like a myth that once you get into the next space, you're gonna really feel comfortable and hit what you're supposed to do.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_06:No, you're gonna get into the next space and you're gonna still be going, oh, if I only had more room, oh, if I only had more height, if I only had more concrete, like that's just a non-stop. I mean, you could be Gerhardt Richter in a 40,000 square foot uh space, and he's probably going, I wish I had 50,000 square feet. Right. And that's just so it's make where you are and make what you make. Don't be thinking about the next thing, just be thinking about the work that you're making.
SPEAKER_03:I had that, and it's a little embarrassing for either of us to say this because we we we both do have you know pretty incredible spaces to work in. But when I watched uh Ansome and saw just like, you know, it's always it's always what's next. And that's part of just the ambitious, I think, nature of things, um, you know, in in a certain in a certain way. But I was thinking, why why don't I need a bike to get around? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I can just walk from place to place. I need a space that's so big I need wheels to get around. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because it helps fight inertia.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Insane. Yeah, the best, you know, stogie.
SPEAKER_05:Riding his bike from piece to piece and pointing at things.
SPEAKER_02:Just yep, yep.
SPEAKER_05:Keep up with me, camera guys. Keep up with me, camera team.
SPEAKER_00:Because I can reach into the future with my work.
SPEAKER_03:So I I love this one, Ty, just because it's just the the idea that, and I I I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what she meant by that, but my interpretation of that is that the work will exist much longer than than we do. I'm thinking about that. There's one of the, I think it's an art 21 video, but where they they follow the process of her making the bronze piece that sits in front of Barclays Center. Yes. And I remember saying something like, you know, they they tell me this will last at least 2,000 years. Um, which at this point we can probably all agree we'll, you know, we'll see the end of the world at the rate we're at. But yeah, the just the idea of, you know, uh making something that will outlive us, you know, is a way to reach into the future. And just just the idea, whether it comes to pass or not, but just the idea that we can make something today that somebody at some point down the road, long after we're gone, will experience in some way is pretty magical.
SPEAKER_06:Pretty pretty amazing. I think about this quite a bit. Um, not that not that I just have a fascination with death and dark things, but I think about it a lot into the future. Like when I'm gone, like will my work last six or seven generations of family and still be in a home?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Right? With family I will never know, right? That's like my niece and nephew's kids, or you know what I mean, whatever down the road. Well, will somebody have one of my pieces in their house, or will it all be gone and disappeared and nobody will have it? You know, because honestly, you sell the work to a collector, they die, their kids either want the work of art or it goes in the estate sale. Depending on the kid, you know, it's there's just different things to think about as an artist, and I do it all the time because those are just things that I like to think about. My friend Jane is gonna be thinking about this like she's gonna love it. We love talking about these dark things at times. Um, we brood over them and then we go watch really sad movies.
SPEAKER_03:It is one of the things that has drawn me to metal, honestly. You know, I mean you think about some of the most durable materials that exist. The sort of pessimistic side of me sometimes thinks, well, this'll be really hard to destroy when World War III comes.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I mean, even if it ends up in a landfill, who knows? Yeah, it could still last. Somebody will uncover it when they're dusting in their uh disease suits two hundred two thousand years from now when somebody leaves the silo and uh makes their way out and finds Nathan's piece. What is this?
SPEAKER_03:The hazmat.
SPEAKER_06:Is that do you pronounce that terborg or terborg?
SPEAKER_03:They'll they'll have to know me for half a decade to uh to be able to figure it out. Probably have to be reminded. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because I constantly need to try to better understand the immense suffering and pain of my family that I never seem to really understand.
SPEAKER_06:I don't have much for that, but if you want to talk about it, feel free.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I do. I mean, this actually goes back to when we were trying to speculate. As to what she meant by never being able to understand or get who she is. Um I was thinking about that Bukowski quote when he said, an intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way, an artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Such a beautiful quote. Perfect. Yeah. Chills. Perfect. And you know, so just uh the the attempt that we all make in one way or another to understand and reconcile pain, suffering, especially generational pain, you know, that that she's you know referring to. Yeah, it's um it's hard. You know, it's it's a it's a hard thing. And when you look at the work back to us describing our experience of of sitting with with her work in person, it doesn't need to be explained, it doesn't need to be you know explicitly stated what this is about because she may or may not know, right? It's it's it's baked into all of it or not. Yeah. But it's just that the the beauty of that process of of attempting to say a hard thing in a simple way, in really a completely different language. Yeah. Right? Like if you asked her to write an essay about what that process has been like for her, uh, it might be great, but it probably wouldn't resonate or connect in the universal language of art, the way that her work does. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Well, and I think I mean there's a weight to her work physically and emotionally. You you can't escape it when you're standing next to one of them. Um, and there's so many physical attributes that can take your mind in in multiple, multiple ways. And to me, I feel like her work is wrapped up in not knowing a lot of it as well. And she even talks about, and we're I don't we're not supposed to talk about process because that's another episode, but she goes into it with an idea, but no sketches, right? She's very intuitive, and so a lot of that process is you know trying to better understand these things that she doesn't know. And I think that's what also plays into the time it takes to develop each piece.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:The the time, the physical uh attributes that go into making each piece. Like if you see one of her pieces, you go, how? And then when you watch the process and you're like, what? Because seeing both, which is the magic of art, if you get to see the process, then you get to see the final piece. There's magic in between. And then you get to sit in front of it and just go, holy shit, wow. That one feels, even though it's extremely heavy and physical in nature, there's something that feels really movingly light about this and joyful. And then the next piece you can go to and go, that just freaking crushed me emotionally. Why did this piece? I feel like it's all bearing down on me. I don't feel like it's lifting away from me. And so I think that power is in that time in the studio that it's taking for her to do each piece, and that she really is mentally wrapped up and trying to understand things. It's a process, it's processing. She's processing through creating, and it's coming through.
SPEAKER_03:I was gonna save this for our process episode, but since you broke the rule first.
SPEAKER_05:No, you did. Well, you re-broke it just now. I did. I started it, you continued it, and then I broke it again.
SPEAKER_03:We'll talk about this in that. You're falling too, I'm sure, but yeah, I'll tell I'll own it. It's all, it's all it's all it's all us, buddy. But uh yeah, no, just the the uh I remember her saying, I'm paraphrasing here, but her saying, you know, I never sketch out even my large scale pieces. They they just so they just evolve. Which which is surprising I mean, you know, you you look at, I mean, especially if you've if you've seen even just photos, but certainly in person, you look at the scale of some of these pieces and and just to know those just evolved and grew uh as a product of the organic process, you know. Yeah, one one layer by layer, you know. I I think it's um it looks like she's using mostly four by four inch, roughly, you know, cedar pieces, some some smaller, but uh yeah, just literally layer by layer. And those the the the the large scale ones probably have who knows, a couple hundred probably layers, maybe more, you know, where yeah, each layer was just an another decision on where does this go and how does it grow and where how does it evolve from here? It's it's amazing to think about.
SPEAKER_06:Well, and Ursula, how are you trying to do that even more?
SPEAKER_00:And also because I want to get answers to questions for which there are no answers.
SPEAKER_06:There are moments where her voice is very soothing, right? It's almost it's almost like your grandmother sitting next to you and telling you a story. Like it's soothing, it's very she's very personable. I'm sure uh wrapped up in that is a very heavy demand, right? With her assistance to timelines, deadlines. No, it needs to be this way. I don't think it's as Louise as Louise, but I think there's some of that in there because you're you can't get to where she is with her work with not having that. You just can't you can't just be that, oh, you made a mistake, let's move on. But I also sense like a sadness, and I'm sure it goes back to her, how she grew up in a way. And I wonder too, because there's these existential questions that she's constantly coming to of I'll never find the answer, I'll never really know who I am, I'll never and is that because there was family loss that had the stories? Is that because you know, of moments that she's seen horror and things that nobody should ever see or think about it? Is it because I want to get answers to questions for which I know there are no answers?
SPEAKER_03:This one got me. Go ahead, sorry. No, go, go. This part got me thinking about that James Baldwin quote that you're probably familiar with. The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.
SPEAKER_06:Which is a whole nother that's a whole nother podcast episode because that's that has right, it's James Baldwin, who's one of the most brilliant human beings to ever walk this planet. Um, and one of the best orators, speakers, poets, writers that's ever existed. So how have we not done a James Baldwin episode yet?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it looks like we're gonna have to because I'm in producer mode. Let's add that to the list. But yeah, I mean, it's just the the that idea of I'm just just to read what she's I want to get answers to questions for which I know there are no answers. So it's just that that pursuit. It's the I I want something that I know is not possible, but the awareness that that isn't possible does not prevent me, does not prevent her from continuing to search right away.
SPEAKER_06:Well, and the difference with that in the Baldwin quote is the Baldwin quote is really speaking about the difference between truth and fiction. Right. Right. And especially on a political landscape where there have been answers that have been put into our heads that are not answers, they're fiction. Right. But then they've been then over time they've become truth when they never were truth to begin with. Right. And so he's like, what is the purpose of art? To put those questions out there that make us ask, is this really true? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think for me, I I don't see that being Ursula's drive in that possibly. I don't know her enough, maybe not as deeply. I think hers has a lot more spiritual, um, personal effects in there. But I also haven't read her, so I haven't read enough and watched enough to also be able to do that. That's from this episode. That was from this episode only.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I would, you know, I think just if you the the idea of once a question has been answered, it kind of closes the loop. There, there's it's like, hey, nothing to see here. Yeah. But if we're trying to answer, if the types of questions that we're attempting to answer are to Ursula's point, unanswerable, then there is not a way to close that loop. There is not a that they are they are indefinite, you know, the and the number of answers and potential perspectives to look at some of these things from. And we're speaking broadly here, yeah, is infinite, you know, and that's part of the beautiful thing. That's part of why, you know, when I when you mentioned before about, you know, kind of a sadness there, and and I interpreted that as more of an acceptance. I think there's a lot of there's a lot of beauty and and wisdom just in that perspective of I'm I may never get to any version of an answer, but I'm going to keep asking those questions and I'm going to continue to try and answer them, make my best attempt, you know, piece by piece, work by work, to get closer. Yeah. And it feels like a good place to land the plane.
SPEAKER_06:Just dive into Ursula people. She is amazing, like absolutely amazing. I I hope there's a day I get to meet her and say hello. Uh, next time in New York, I may just have to grab a figure out what she likes to drink and just show up at the door and knock. Um, if I hear Saws running, I'm just gonna knock until like they somebody finally answers the door because then I know she's there.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, there are multiple people who could answer the door, you know.
SPEAKER_06:That's what I'm that's what I'm hedging my bets on. Somebody's gonna open the door. Brought coffees for everybody. Five minute break.
SPEAKER_03:That's funny.
SPEAKER_06:Yep. Uh don't forget to send us your questions for QA. Uh, we really do, we really would love to have a conversation uh where we just are laughing and spitballing and talking about the questions you're bringing us. Um, funny questions, serious questions, art questions, questions about what we're doing with our work or where we're going, um, or anything. Yeah. Send them to us.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks for listening or watching or watching this episode of Just Make Art. And join us next time for whatever we talk about in the next episode. Yeah, we'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_01:Bye. Awesome. Joy pump it up, pump it up, and paint. Keep it going, keep it going, sunshine.
SPEAKER_06:And rain, raw bass, and you go back to little bit before my time.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. I had the tape.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
Talk Art
Russell Tovey and Robert Diament
Chatabix
Keep It Light Media / Big Oval Plate
Makers & Mystics
Stephen Roach
The Week in Art
The Art Newspaper
The Art Angle
Artnet News