183 Sarkis Antikajian — A Lifetime of Painting

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On today's episode we sat down with Sarkis Antikajian. Born in 1933 in Amman, Jordan, Sarkis discovered French Impressionism and Van Gogh as a teenager — a spark that never left him. He immigrated to the United States at 25, spent 35 years as a pharmacist building the financial independence to paint full-time, and retired in 1994 at 62 to finally live his dream. He is now 93, and still paints every day. Deeply shaped by Van Gogh's persistence, Sarkis believes in loving the process over the outcome, staying curious at every stage of a career, and painting freely without chasing validation or market trends. He has worked across watercolor, acrylic, oil, figurative, landscape, and abstraction — always seeking new ways to see.His advice to artists: find another source of income so financial fear doesn't limit your creativity, paint often and on inexpensive materials, and stop waiting for anyone else's approval to make the work that's truly yours.

Sarkis' FASO site:

sarkisantikajianfineart.com/

Sarkis' PBS Oregon Art Beat Video:

https://www.pbs.org/video/oregon-art-beat-painter-sarkis-antikajian/

Transcript

Sarkis Antikajian: 0:00

And then I did that, and now I'm 93 years old. I still paint, and that's my life, like I always say, it's a way of life, you know. That's the way it is. Somebody says, an artist said it's like breathing, you have to, if you don't breathe, you'll be dead, and with me, if I didn't paint, I'd be very unhappy. I had other interests, like sculpt sculpting.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:36

Welcome to the Faso podcast, where we believe the Fortune favors of old brush. My name is Laura Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips, specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights. On today's episode, we sat down with Sarkis and Tocagian, born in 1933 in Amman, Jordan. Sarkis discovered French Impressionism and Van Gogh as a teenager, a spark that never left him. He immigrated to the United States at 25 spent 35 years as a pharmacist, building the financial independence to paint full time, and retired in 1994 at 62 to finally live his dream. He is now 93 and still paints to this day. Deeply shaped by Van Gogh's persistence, Sarkis believes in loving the process over the outcome, staying curious at every stage of a career, and painting freely without chasing validation or market trends. He has worked across watercolor, acrylic, oil, figurative landscape, and abstraction always seeking new ways to see. His advice to artists is this: find another source of income, so financial fear doesn't limit your creativity. Paint often and on inexpensive materials, and stop waiting for anyone else's approval to make the work that's truly yours. Welcome, Sarkis, to the Faso podcast. How are you today?

Sarkis Antikajian: 2:03

Good, thank you for inviting me, Laura.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:07

Of course, I am so happy, and I feel so privileged to have you on the podcast, because you are truly a lifelong painter, and I feel like you have experienced so, so, so much, and your work is so absolutely beautiful, so I'm excited to be able to sit down and talk to you about your life and your paintings, but before we dive into that, do you mind telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Sarkis Antikajian: 2:35

Well, I was born in 1933 in Amman, Jordan, and I came to the United States in I was 25 years old, and my idea at that time was to study pharmacy, so that I'll support myself eventually. and at some point become an artist. How did that come about? Is when I was 15 years old, discovered the French Impressionist, a French Impressionist book on and post-impressionist, and then next to it, there was a novel, Lust for Life, about Vincent Van Gogh, and I was just, just fascinated by the whole situation, and I couldn't figure out how there'll be such beautiful landscape, these people, you know, these artists painted, so at any rate I became a pharmacist. Eventually, I met my wife, Karen, at the University of New Mexico. And then, when we graduated, we got married, and we lived in New Mexico. We worked in New Mexico for about five years. Part of it is in Farmington, part of it in Gallup, but in Gallup I was sort of, or we both were sort of unhappy because of it wasn't the type of subject matter that I would love to paint. It had nothing to do with all that beautiful landscape that the artist, French Impressionist, painted, so I just, we decided that somehow we'll have to find a greener pasture, a greener state. So we found Oregon, and we moved to Oregon, and I thought I was in paradise. We got to about Eugene, around Eugene. We said, okay, somewhere here we're going to have, I mean, spend the rest of our lives, and that's where I'm going to become an artist or painter, and but. Then I ended up being a pharmacist for 35 years because I wanted to be independent somehow or another I want to find a way to be independent so that I could be an artist and and since that time, all through that time, I kept thinking of ways how to do it, and eventually I found ways to get independent, and I retired in 1994 I was 62 years old, early social security guy, and since then, after that I had this wonderful new world. Just I had to paint all day long. Sometimes I went crazy painting twice a day, two paintings a day, and at that time I was, we settled down, and just, you know, that that's what I wanted to do the rest of it, and then I did that, and now I'm 93 years old, I still paint, and that's my life, like I always say, it's a way of life, you know, that's the way it is. Somebody says an artist said it's like breathing, you have to, if you don't breathe, you'll be dead, and with me, if I didn't paint, I'll be very unhappy. I had other interests, like sculpt sculpting, and, and writing. I love to write. I'm not a writer. I don't send my whatever it is, poems. I just do it for my own enjoyment, but that is nothing, because I could take it or leave it. Painting is not that I talk about it, I think about it, I almost dream about it. See, and that's that's my life. Wow,

Laura Arango Baier: 7:18

it sounds like a very happy life to be able to paint,

Sarkis Antikajian: 7:23

actually, when you think about it, when I was young, I used to envision in my mind what type of painting I would be painting in my mind, and believe it or not, sometimes I think, okay, I reached that stage, that's what I wanted to do, and that's what I'm doing. So it's a circle just going around the circle, and I ended with this. So how many years I have, it doesn't matter. See, now I sketch every day just for my own enjoyment, just to be part of the painting establishment, I just, you know, I want to do something with art,

Laura Arango Baier: 8:09

yeah, yeah. And then, when you were, when you first saw the French Impressionists as a teenager, did you, did that inspire you to start drawing and painting then, or did you wait until later.

Sarkis Antikajian: 8:21

Well, when that happened, I started drawing. I, I had a pad, just with, you know, what called school, you know, just lines, just for writing, but I take that pad with a pencil, that's all we had, pencil, and, and this pad or paper, and I'll draw my sisters, I draw the dog we had, I draw these trees, just we had one or two bushes over there, or something, and I do that, if there were chickens, I'll draw those, so I mean, I just went crazy, just growing, that's all. I had no paint. We didn't have paint, actually. I've never seen a painter at that time, or heard of a painter, or I've never seen a painting in real life, or even a print of a painting. So I was just just going with what these French impressions did, and especially Van Gogh, you know, when I saw his self-portrait, I said, "My gosh, I know this guy. You know, it just hit me like I.. I'm familiar, I know him, and reading his letters was something, something else, actually, later on, many years later, I still have his three volumes of letters, and I read towards the whole thing twice. Sometimes I tell my friends, have you read Van Gogh's letters, the three volume, the. Act like what kind of crazy idea is this? Who cares about the Van Gogh? You see, I mean, anymore nowadays people, I mean, you would think they are insulting them to go back to, you know, as if so, but in reality it's amazing. I've never seen an artist, or heard of an artist that you know almost everything about him through his letters, his successes, his tribulations, his problems that he had, everything, and that's amazing, because you know, if you look at money, you think, my gosh, he's he had God-given talent, and all of a sudden he did all this fascinating stuff, just like that. You see, you don't really know, did he really become as a.. did he.. was he an amateur at one time? Was he a student? You don't know anything about any of them, but you see the great art that they do with him, not so he was drawing for years, trying to learn how to draw, whether it's a pencil, whether it's this charcoal, I mean, he was just doing his atmosphere, and that's what really inspired me, so I mean, what.. what else I could say, I guess.

Laura Arango Baier: 11:33

Yeah, I mean, I think it's.. it's.. it's a really good point that we, when we see an artist's work, especially from the past, we only see their best work. We don't see the work that they burned or that they threw away because it wasn't good enough. We just see them as these perfect people who made these incredible pieces. So, I think having that insight about Van Gogh is really important, because it goes to show that it takes work, and it takes time, and it takes years to reach a point where maybe you're satisfied with your work, because I feel like no artist is fully, totally satisfied with their work,

Sarkis Antikajian: 12:13

and yeah, and most of us, at least I know I am, or everybody, maybe all others, we are insecure. We are always trying to evaluate what other people's perception is about our art, whatever it is we do today. I mean, even if we say, "Well, we don't care, that's not true. Every one of us wonders, what do people think now with this Van Gogh business? Now he didn't really care. He painted grass, just clumps of grass, not once, 345, times. Now, who would want to do that, see, and who would want to buy it? He didn't really care. The idea is he wanted to paint that, paint the grass, and they're wonderful. And so, what that means, his heart was in painting, and that should be the way with all of us see in art, in other words, forget about all the selling part. Yes, we want to sell. We want people to love our paintings. I mean, there's no doubt about that. We just want somebody to give us praise of some sort, you know, tell us how good we are doing, but basically if a person is an artist, like the last thing we need to do really is worry about that, like one guy said, once you do that, you are defeating yourself. Once you start thinking, when are you going to make money, when are you going to get rich? Forget it. Or, in many cases, if you think you, what you are doing is such hot, such good stuff that's going to last for 200 years, forget it. It's maybe, maybe not, but almost most of the time it might not be, because there are 1000s of people doing the same thing, are artists, 1000s of people try it, and you are one of them. So, the best thing you can do, love what you are doing, I mean, love not what you're doing, love the process. That's where the thing, it's not the outcome, it's the process, and that's what I enjoy, the process. That's why I paint now. I don't need to paint, really. I should sit over there, watch TV, but I paint because I love the process. Says I love I paint, I am an oil painter now, or I was for years, but what I do now is watercolor. So, why do I do that? Because it's fascinating. You put two colors next to each other and they mix in the most, just like a miracle, colors come about, there's no other medium does that, now most of the watercolors that I see, they're all glazes and this and that and that, by the time they finish with that, it's a great painting, they try to emulate other medium, see, that's not the idea, as far as I'm concerned. If you stick with what the medium is, but all painting, I was both.. I started the watercolor, actually, then I did acrylic until I met this artist, Russian artist Sergey Bongard. How did I meet him? I saw his 19 eight four. I saw his magazine, I say magazine, I think Southwest maybe, or one of those magazines, and they had these paintings at that time. I said, my gosh, that's the type of painting that I love, so what attracted me about them is they were they were representation paintings, but they were not super realistic paintings. You look at the apple, well, it doesn't have beginning or end, but nevertheless it's a delicious apple, what he painted, but it just, and that's I said, okay, that's what I love to do, and that really had had some kind of it inspired me to say, okay, that's good, you could do that with anything or any other subject matter, so when I went, when I came to Oregon. Actually, the first thing I did is join art associations and art centers, and I'd go paint twice, once a week, one day a week, paint, and Fridays. On Fridays, I grew from the nude, and I did that for many, many, many years. Same place I had the key of the play of the art association. They depended on me. I've never missed any of it, and I did that. How did I do that? You see, the trouble is, at that time I was doing these figures, figurative work. That's what this open studio was, figure, and we sort of chose these people, the models. What I wanted the models to be just like what they are. What do they wear? Not a costume, just what they wear. What do they wear normally? How do they have? How does their hair look like? Don't plaster it with, you know, just make it look good. Forget it. How, if I see you in the street, how would I see you? If it's torn jeans, go for it, if it's oversized boots, shoes, go for it. See if you want purple hair. Why not? So this is the type of people I love to paint. Not sometimes I see these artists who are just beautiful, beautiful people, whether it's men or women, most of them were women. I started thinking, where are these people? I can see them, I don't see them in the grocery store, I don't see them walking in the street. Who are they? I'm not interested in that type of painting, so I can't wait, we were painting these people, and then there was no, you know, we didn't have a, let's say what's called light on them, special, you know, effect, or this or that, we just stood about five, six guy people, men and women, and we paint, so what's good for one, it's not good for another, and that was that, wherever you are, and that's it. You just do the best you can, and we have three hours, and I learned how to paint as quickly as possible. You see this painting behind me, just three hours, actually it's two and a half hours, because the guy takes 15 minutes break twice, whatever, and that's it. All my paintings, and actually, this is a small.. I mean, this is 24 by 30. Now, I used to paint 30 by 40, same three hours, but doing that, I was. Part of it was almost like watercolor, it was oil, except that, like watercolor splashes of paint, or loose, you know, just like watercolor, and then when it comes to areas like the face or something like that, then I get it, little bit more opaque, you know, and more and more and more until I get it done in three hours, and I never touch these paintings again. That's it. Works, they work fine, they don't work, it's good enough. And I learned how to paint fast, whether it's landscape or still life, same with the still life of all everything I painted from life, and I painted in my studio. Now, from life, the idea, as far as I'm concerned, everybody's crazy about plein air painting, which is wonderful. Now, some of us want to be outside, regardless, like fishermen. They could fish, they could buy the fish cheaper than spending all this money and standing outside waiting to catch a fish. So, with clean air, some people do that, but the idea, I think, behind it is to learn how to see how to see nuances in color, which you really don't see in a picture, in the photo, you have to look at it and see it, but I think personally, I think if you have experience knowing how things affect each other, one item, one thing, one tree next to another tree, different color, they sort of affect each other. Every one of them depends, the color depends on something else next to it. If you understand that, see, most of us, we don't see that, we look at it like lectures. Okay, we see the whole thing, and that's it. But if you, if we study it, and that's the idea behind plein air, is to how to learn, how to do, how to see that. Now, some people, they go out, but they do what they know, it's not what they are really experiencing, whether they are not really focusing on what what they are seeing, because every minute is different, and and they are not trying to learn from that. In my mind, I think if you learn plein air, and you learn what it means when you put one color next to another color, or let's say one vase, red vase next to a green vase. What happens now if you understand that you could be sitting in your own studio and painting paintings that people would think you painted them out outside. It all depends what kind of experience did you have painting outdoors to do that, but nevertheless it's wonderful to be outdoors painting at any time, assuming then you can put up with whether it's cold or rainy or whatever, and I did that when it was freezing, when it was raining, so it was a great experience, and I still do it, and our home over here, we, I made it more like, like an oasis amidst, you know, just fields of gray of rye grass, and I had such beautiful areas to paint flowers and trees. All I planted all of the stuff just for the idea that I would paint. I don't have to run all over the country, all over the world, actually looking for the perfect subject matter, and talking about that. It's people say everything is paintable, yes, but how do you paint it? That's where the point is, that we go back to Van Gogh, because the clumps of grass. How do you paint the clumps of grass? And that's what he did. It didn't do once, twice, five times, and that's the idea. I think it's looking for the perfect model or the perfect scenery. It has to have a building in there, it has to have little water, it has to have some trees. It's a perfect thing. All you need to do, just get your oil paints and. To go ahead and paint them well. How do you paint something over and over and over? The place around our place, I mean, the landscape around our home, just around in our air, in our place. We live on a six acre property, but most of it is just close to our house, around our house, and I painted year after year, and under different conditions, climate conditions, and I was never getting bored, because I look at it differently every time. I look at part of it, not all of it. I look at sections, bits and pieces. One minute here, one minute there, I could see things I've never seen before. I pass by something, I say, my gosh, I really didn't see that before. Now I see it, and I've been living here for, I know, I think 6870 years, or whatever, the same place, but I see things that I've never seen before, and I keep painting them. I paint them in different media, I paint them under different times of the day, so I mean, you could be a painter, and you don't have to really run all over the country or all over the world, you know, to find looking for some, yeah, that's great to really find new things, it's wonderful, but basically all you need to do, look around you, and if you are really crazy about the process of painting, it doesn't make a big difference what you are painting. Just get excited about doing it, and see how you could be enthusiastic about you. Get enthusiastic about doing it, if you do the same thing, like you know how to do it over and over and over and over, you are bound to get bored, and in my mind, boredom is a killer for the artist, and as long as you just keep, I keep thinking, really, what kept me going all these years, loving painting is the newness, something new, looking for something new all the time. So I am in an experimental mode all the time, I am in a learning mode all the time I'm always learning in one of these questions you had. See, in reality, you are learning all through your life as an artist. You can never say, 'Hey, I know how to do this. Why I'm not, I shouldn't be worried about it. I know how to do it, but in reality, that's not true. If you are an artist, everything is new, everything is a problem to solve. It's a solving problem, solving all the time. Every time you put a brush on the on the canvas, you change the whole thing for good or for worse, one or the other. All it takes is just one brushstroke, and one brushstroke leads to another before you know it. We repainted the painting. What was in the landscape might count up to be something else, you see, because you start from one end, you end up somewhere else. So I think it's it's learning process, if a person really thinks about it as a learning process, that you are a student all your life, and even now I'm a student, imagine I really cannot say I really know how to paint, I don't, because everything is, is I'm looking for something new, something that I haven't been doing I all my life, that I could repeat it. If I'm able to repeat it, it means it's I'm done. That's the point. That's the time I need to quit. You see, because that's the time you either get bored or you say, so what's your use, you know, why do I, why I'm doing this, but if you are always in this learning situation and always looking at something, a new way of doing things, then there's no end to it, you could do it forever and ever and ever, and you're happy talking about happy. If I don't paint, I'm unhappy. Now, if I don't sculpt, I don't care. If I don't write, it doesn't matter, bother me, because I'm not - I don't call myself a writer, but paint. Painting, yes. If I don't paint, unless something happens, if you know, but if I don't paint, I'm unhappy, and that's something I always try to avoid. I want to be satisfied in my life, and the only way I do that is painting. painting or doing something in painting or thinking or sketching, sketching, you know, you start thinking, what makes a good painting, what makes a memorable painting. It just amazes me how we look at these wonderful drawings, just fabulous, but then you see one line from, let's say, Picasso, or somebody, he draws a dave in one line, one end to the other, it's a line, personally I see it, I still remember it after many years. You see, why is that? What makes me remember that? See, it's just a line from one end to the other. He just made a dave, so that's what I think the art is. What, which painting that you look at, like I go to a museum, believe me. After I finish, I remember one painting or two paintings, that's it. All the rest of it is gone now. Those two paintings must be what sort of luck do something for me, and I remember them year after year, after year, after year. I may not remember the museum, but I remember the paintings, so I think I'm talking too much.

Laura Arango Baier: 31:58

No, not at all. I think you've, you've made a lot of really excellent points, I think, particularly the importance of approaching any subject with curiosity, like you're saying, like, how would I paint this, or how could I express this, kind of like how Van Gogh was painting grass and a bunch of different ways, trying to understand what he's painting, and I think that's, yeah, that's a good point about the importance of not, like you said earlier, obsessing over the outcome, and just enjoying the actual process, allowing yourself to sit with all the fun little parts, and I've experienced when I make a painting, I get to one point and I'm bored, and I always wondered why, and I feel that what you're mentioning, it makes a lot of sense. It's like, oh, I've done this before, of course I'm bored.

Sarkis Antikajian: 32:56

Yeah, you know, I tell really people to see the thing is love artists, or you know, in the beginning, let's say, trying to learn how to art. I tell them, just do love paintings, love many, many paintings, and do the same thing again, again. It doesn't mean I'm not saying when I say that I'm not saying do it. Do the same thing over the same way. You could change the medium, you could change the color, you could put it under this, you could put it outside, you could put it inside. Just change the thing, but do the same one, and you do it over and over and over. You don't have to go all the time scratching your head, figure out what I, what you're going to paint. You see, it doesn't matter what it is, it could be just a cup or anything, you know. It doesn't make much difference, but you see that the thing is, many, many, unfortunately, many people who paint are worrying about how to do the perfect painting. Well, there is no such thing, and if you do that, like the guy says, you are defeating yourself. It's not, it's not such a, such a idea to think that you are going to have a make a masterpiece again. Forget about that. You see, you paint and see exactly what you are doing, and, and where you are going, if you keep trying to change things the way you want it. Again, there's another thing, painting, you see, for me to be able to do something like. Something exactly doesn't appeal to me. I don't know if you are a technician. Yeah, love people love technicians. They love to paintings that they look like just humans. I mean, just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Well, for me, I don't know. I as respect these people, I admire them for their technical ability, but if it doesn't do, if I forget about it after I leave the room, then it doesn't do any good. It doesn't do me any good now? Sometimes even a kid is just a child does something. It appeals to me more than a painting in the museum. Why something about it? There's that freedom. They do it because they are doing it. They're not worried about somebody else looking at it. They don't care. They are just doing it because they want their love to do it, and they do it their own way. So, in other words, a painting that really a person just keeps at it, keeps at it until it comes completely beautifully polished. Well, it doesn't appeal to me now. Maybe that's my weakness, maybe, but it doesn't appeal to me. I love a painting that it doesn't make much difference. I mean, technically speaking, maybe it's not such a good painting, maybe it has all kinds of defects. It doesn't matter to me. How do I see the whole thing? What does it look like? Does it give the impression of the person or the thing? Does it give the essence of the thing rather than surface polished wonderful thing, that well, okay, maybe everybody likes that because they, you know, they admire the technical ability, but well, again, it just, you know, maybe that's maybe I, maybe I do that as a watch card, because see, I painted all my life quickly, maybe I just want to justify that, maybe I'm making, making a point out of that. Well, in reality, that's what I like to do, you see, it's not matter of whether because it, I cannot, it would bore me if I did it, if I worked on something day in day out, I just cannot do it, but again, maybe that has to do with personality, maybe, or maybe because I wanted to paint a lot and I want to learn a lot, and that's the only way you could learn by painting a lot, just simply sitting over there with a small brush and dabbing at the painting forever and ever and ever. I'm not so sure how you could learn from that. The idea is there's another thing, love people, love practical students, they go buy these expensive linen, expensive stuff. Well, I tell you, if I was going to paint on something that's going to cost me $100 I wouldn't want to do that, because I want to paint on something that I could paint it, if I don't like it, throw it away. See, period, that's it. Now, if I end up doing a masterpiece, which is very unlikely, but suppose I did. Suppose by miracle, see, I did. If somebody really loves to loves it, and they think it's valuable painting a bit. You did protect it. Latrec, I'm sure you know who Le Creek is. Well, he painted on cardboard. You think he cared? He worried about the longevity of his paintings. No, I love his work, and he just did it on cardboard. He didn't do it on fancy material, he just did it. Most of it is just pencil, chalk, whatever it is, no, whatever he could find. So, in our , why waste, why put some kind of constraint over what you are doing? Why not just do something that it's not precious? Now it might get to be precious for you, because maybe you could stumble on something. Hey, all my life I wanted to do this and. The a it was one brush, I managed to do it. Maybe you cannot repeat it, but that's okay. Try it again. You see, chances are you won't be able to. You see, there's always something by accident, like one guy says everybody, what this guy says. Everybody does a masterpiece, you see, once in a lifetime or something like that, you know. But the idea is, how to be able to do paintings that you, that make you feel good. Maybe it doesn't make somebody else happy, or maybe somebody else won't appreciate it, but that doesn't matter. It's once you do it, you feel good about it, and you go to the next thing you want to do, or get yourself excited about doing, and, like I said, you know, boredom, if you, if you are good at it, technically speaking, and you can repeat it over and over, like I always say, you know, like making a pair of shoes. If you can make one pair of shoes, you can make 1000, but not so with painting. You cannot, even if you repeat yourself, you cannot. You try to do the same thing again, you cannot do that. See, but if you have a process of doing the same thing without trying to learn, you might end up getting bored after a while, and some people manage to do that. That's okay. Another thing, you know, like this branding thing, I'm against, you know, everybody says, well, you need to be branded, don't jump from one thing to another, stay with one thing, if you are portrait, just stay with that, if you are all painter, just stay with that. I am against that personally, I'm against that, the reason I say that, because one thing teaches you do something else, you just can't learn from one to the other. Now, when I was painting watercolor, and then painting acrylics, when I took this Sergey Bongards workshop in Rexford, Idaho, for two weeks, I thought I was just wonderful, great thing that would happen to me. Well, he had about 60 students in this workshop, and I was just a beginner, and I thought, because his brochure, whatever it is, said, "Oh, you could, you could paint in any other, any medium, supposedly. Okay, so I took my watercolor, because that's what I was painting, and he, and on my, on our lunch hour, I'll sit over there, and, and they had, you know, his helpers had still life setups all around a barn like buildings for students to paint, so I'll sit over there on my lunch hours, eat my sandwich, and paint watercolors, a watercolor blotch from one of these still lives setups. One day I looked around, you know. This was maybe second, third day, fourth day. I felt like somebody was standing behind me. There was nobody. Everybody went somewhere else, you see. They offered them to eat their lunch or do whatever. Lo and behold, it was, it was Sergey Bongard standing there. So he looked at it, he says, "Good. He says,"Then he looked at me. He says,"You want to become an artist? I said, "Yeah, sure. He says, "Well, tomorrow go get some oil paints, buy this kind of the size, 20 by 2416 by 20, whatever. Actually, 20 by 2424 by 30. Buy these brushes, buy this paint, and paint oil paintings for the rest of the workshop. And he says, if he's told me, if you learn how to paint oil well, you could paint any other medium if you, if you want any other medium, but learn how to paint in oils. So that's when I started painting in oils, and I did that for the rest of it, and I painted even his workshop, painted figures, people with all, with, although I haven't really used oil, see, I was doing watercolors, so I mean, it was, so I mean, really, it's just a marvel of what leads to. One thing leads to something else, and inspiration comes probably from nowhere. If I didn't see this guy's painting, you know, images of his paintings, this magazine, I wouldn't have known who he is. I just happened by luck to see that now, what he did is you ask about inspiration. He inspired me, but not the way one would think. It's not the way he didn't teach me how to paint. His demonstrations where he painted a still life from life in he had some kind of setup, but the figures, if he painted the figure from a pencil sketch, figure pencil sketch of another artist, Russian artist, but he turned that pencil sketch into this beautiful figure, colorful, lovely, some Russian peasant of some sort. Then, for the landscape, he had his pencil drawing of some kind of a rainy something, some kind of something with pencil. It's just a drawing. He stuck it over there on the easel, and he painted this wonderful moody landscape. So, in other words, we didn't really learn from that. When I was giving workshops, I gave off workshops, and I'll do a painting from beginning to end. Not only that, I left these participants to ask me anytime, stop me anytime, and I kept talking what I'm doing now with Sergey Bongard, you can't even breathe, let alone talk, you see, you can't ask any question, nothing until he takes a break, then he turns around, he says, okay, well, by that time you better ask an important question, not this crazy question. Otherwise, you, you get reprimanded on that. For some, you know, I mean, you better know what it is that you are going to ask, but he won't allow anybody to, you know, ask. But nevertheless, what did he teach me? Really, he taught me what it takes to become an artist, that's what he said, that's what he nowadays. You just don't become an artist without working at it, without really having that way of life that you really chose. It's not something that you know, you say, "Okay, I'll take it or leave it. I'll do this and find out if somebody would like it. Somebody might not like it. It's not that way. It's a.. it's a battle throughout, and you do it because you know you want to do it. You have to do it,

Laura Arango Baier: 48:22

I. that's beautiful. If you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to ask our guests live questions, then you might want to join our monthly webinar, The Faso Show, where our guest artists discuss marketing tips, share inspiring stories, and answer your burning questions in real time. Whether you're a seasoned painter or just starting your creative journey. This is your chance to connect, learn, and spark new ideas. And whether you're stuck on a canvas or building your creative business, this is where breakthroughs happen. Don't miss out. Ignite your passion and transform your art practice by joining us. Our next Faso show webinar is coming up on the 18th of June with our special guest, Timothy Tyler. You can find the signup link in the show notes, and that's I love that you really emphasize how it's so important to allow yourself to be as free as a child in that sense, right? To, oh, I just want to paint this flower, why? Because, yes, you know, there really doesn't have to be a deeper reason, and I think when we become adults, we're so focused on having to do things in a certain way, and oh, well, I should only do this one subject matter forever, because I know I'm good at it, even though I kind of want to paint ducks, for example, like I feel like a lot of artists put themselves in this little cage of, okay, I have to fit in here, and then they wonder why maybe they're not happy, or they, they have like desires to paint something else, but they feel like, oh, I can't, because my gallery maybe doesn't like that. That's, you know, that's

Sarkis Antikajian: 50:01

right, that's right. They are afraid, they're afraid the gallery won't like it. They're afraid they think they are going downhill. You see, if all of a sudden they are doing something little different, they think, oh boy, this person is just, you know, he's not making it. You see, in reality, that person may be going in, has a different trajectory, a different way, he's trying, or he or she trying to do something different, maybe, but somebody else might think they are going downhill, that's not true, and really, this branding thing, I think, puts a, you know, it's you just can't get out of it after a while, you're stuck with it, you just can't get out of it, because you feel like if you got out of it, failure, so you end up doing the same thing over and over and over, and maybe you can make a living that way, maybe because everybody expects the same thing, expects you know, lucky, if you are, if you play it the same way all the time. Well, maybe people expect that maybe they don't know that all your paintings are like that. If you paint something in a gray, just all gray, gray, gray, okay? Maybe you like it. Lot of people like that. See, talking about that, though. You see, the thing is talking about color. If it wasn't for color, I'd never be a painter. I love color. Now, personally, I think of myself about an old-fashioned person, but when it comes to color, I'm not. And, but the thing is, lot of people don't like color, they want to have something which fits their homes, if they want to buy it. In my mind, it should be a painting, more like an accent, like a vase in the corner, completely different. Everything else is gray, and this vase is an accent, so is a painting. The painting should be, should be an accent, some something over there. You look at it, my gosh, it's just wonderful. But if you make that gray, also like the couch, or whatever it is, then it just defeats the purpose. So, I mean, it's just, again, I don't really know, I don't know what I'm talking about, it maybe is, maybe that's not, I shouldn't be talking like that, but I keep thinking, really, the idea is, do just go with what you are, what you want to do and forget about what other people want you to do and and that is very difficult because you see of the insecurities we have and let's face it we want people to love us we want people to love whatever it is we're doing, you see, the paintings we're doing, because after all, you know, I mean, you start thinking, my gosh, you know, like sometimes people ask me, what do you do, I'm a painter, they think I'm a house painter, sudden I turned around and say, well, no, it's art painting, you see. Oh, okay. You know, oh, it loves to sit over there. They tell me, sit out and look out the window, you know, there, and just play over there with some pencil or whatever it is. Okay, I just don't say anything. If that's the case, that's alright. Do it if you want, do it if you want to have fun. Go ahead and do it. They really don't know what a painter goes through, and it's not a bad thing, but it's the reason I'm saying it. Go, he goes through, or she goes through, because it's a battle in our, it's a learning process, you don't, you know, there's no way you could say, "Hey, I know how to do this, and I could repeat it as many times as I want. It's an impossibility. Every brush stroke could really ruin the painting, could change everything. When I'm painting in like these figures, I'm all over the place. I never in one place, even in a minute, see, I'm just doing all over because I know darn well something would lead to something else. Sometimes people would tell me, why did you put this. Thing over there, you see, what did what made you do that? I really don't know. Something just told me do it, and that's it. That's why I did it. You see, sometimes it ruins the whole thing, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes makes it that's what you want ends up the type of painting you want,

Laura Arango Baier: 55:26

yeah, but then how can someone overcome that pressure of oh, I should be painting this, how can someone just allow themselves to be free from the pressure,

Sarkis Antikajian: 55:42

you know, when I started painting for three four years, I never showed it to anybody, not even to my wife or kids, nobody. I didn't show it to anybody, and in reality, the idea is to overcome that, I is not to, in a way, not not to look for. There are a lot of people, for example. It just amazes me. I have even friends. If you look at their painting before you know it, they give you a whole speech about the painting. Well, as far as I'm concerned, it is what it is. That's it. This is that's what you see. You like it good, you don't like it good. Now, the idea is, I think, is to paint with the idea that you are not really doing a perfect painting, never, because you have to be in a sketching in an experimental mood mode all the time. If you are not in an experimental mode, you are doing what you know all the time, and if you are doing what you know, you are not going anywhere, and it doesn't matter. Maybe that's time, maybe people pat you on the back, you see, because once you switch anything, chances are people would look at it like yesterday, before, or a few days ago, or yesterday, actually, or some. We had, we were in a gallery, they had my paintings, one of my paintings, and on the bottom there was some, which I had some red, something red, reddish, so this person tells me, "Oh, of course, they haven't seen that many of my paintings. That's trouble again, if you don't see many of somebody's paintings, and if you see something, you think, well, this person is doing something different when reality is not so. So I can't wait. When he saw this red star, so he says, "You know, well, that's why did you do that? You see, well, this was in a grassy area. It's just very grassy area, and it's a low, low, what you call it, low land. There's water and there's brambles, you know, just blackberries. Well, these were blackberries at the time. At certain time, the leaves were reddish, and that's what I saw, and that's what I was trying to emphasize, the impression of the place, and because, see, normally they see my maybe my figure paintings and they are wonderful, how come you painted this like that? Well, because that's what it is. See, I can't do something else if that's what it, that's what I'm painting, and it just amazed me. I said, okay, you know that that's all right, and the person is mind you, as a painter, also, you know, who said that. Well, okay, you know, but normally you don't really take a painting start wondering, why does a person, what did the person do that, what did he put, why did he or she put this color in there, for what reason, chances are intuitively the artist did that because the feeling is to do that is to put that in there, and chances are it works, but the thing is about, about how to, how to avoid getting in this insecurity situation, I think if you, if you are, let's say, worried about something about the painting, just leave it alone, you don't need to even to show it to anybody or. Are if you want to show it to PC, and normally let's say my wife, I don't show her a painting unless I'm unhappy with it, she might look at it and she says, well, I think something bothered me about here, she doesn't know what it is, but something's bothering me. Okay, that's a good thing to hear. You see, and then I start looking at it. Sure enough, I might, because she's looking at it from different point of view, she's not looking at it from my side of it, and chances are with brush stroke I could fix whatever it is that was bothering her, maybe, or maybe I just forget about it, but again, I think the idea is if you don't want people to be critical, all this critique stuff, lot of people get in the critique stuff, is you know where they join group of people and they critique each other's. I don't really go for that, because I don't want to critique anybody's painting, and I don't want anybody else to critique my painting, because really I'm doing it. I'm the one who's doing it, good or bad, because somebody is.. I mean, it's a subjective thing. What's good for me might not be good for you or for somebody else. And you see, we could never see it's not a type of business that chances are many would like it. It's not when I say something. Well, I mean it's not such a job where it's a profitable job where you could do a lot of people and people would love to have it. It's not people have to love it, people come over here to the gallery, my gallery, out of the blue, you see. I don't know, David, they find me, maybe from my website, Faso website, maybe, or maybe from the newsletter I used to send for 15 years. I used to send newsletter, and and they come, and if they buy a painting for $3,000 Let's say I started thinking now, why would a person do that? You see, mind you, I almost tried to talk them out of it. Sometimes I do believe it, and I tell them, I tell my God, you need a, you need a painting like you need a hole in your head. You see, just forget about it, see, I mean, they think I'm crazy, see, but, but in a way, the reason I price it like that, because galleries price it like that, so I can't do anything else. As far as I'm concerned, that's another thing I tell friends, never give anybody a painting unless they tell you we cannot live without it, if they say I cannot live without it, I'd love to have this, then give it to them, but don't gift anybody a painting, give, give them a vase that way they could break it, they don't like, and say the dog broke it, you see, and get away, but if they, if you give them a painting, they are stuck with it, and if they don't like it, who knows what's going to happen to it eventually, probably goodwill or sometime place, you know, and get rid of it. Don't do that, I tell them, just, just don't give anybody a gift, a painting, because, see, you don't really know, they might tell you they okay, yeah, thank you, but they might hate it, and they are stuck with it, with the painting, it's not something they could get rid of, they hide it, they cannot hide it, they have to put it on the wall, they have to put it someplace, because you are their friend. I mean, you are really causing love, anguish the other side for them. So, but love people do that, I guess. They give you know, you know, they think they're doing somebody a favor. You see, they give paintings, you know, as a gift, you yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:04:23

that's very wise. It's definitely a burden on the other person if they receive something that they don't really like, because then it's like, oh, oh no, yeah, it's a very, it's very good advice. And as for, you know, removing the pressure, I think. Yeah, you're totally not showing it to anybody is great, because I think you're right. A lot of the, especially today with the internet and everything, I think a lot of artists are, and me included, because, of course, I'm part of this age where we have this feeling of, oh, if I make something, I have to show it to someone. Or I feel this pressure of I need, like you said, maybe it's like the validation that, oh, you did a great job, pat on the back, or oh, this isn't so good, and then I feel bad, right? So I think, yeah, removing that pressure of being observed, I think

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:05:18

that's unfortunately this Facebook and places like that, if you put your painting, chances are somebody might remark, which is not a good remark. Let's say, and if you have thick skin, or whatever, you just don't have that, then you're unhappy hearing something like that, so I don't know that such a good thing, you know, to do that. I like the newsletter I used to send for 15 years. I quit doing that just about a year ago, I think, or maybe months ago. I would put paintings in it that I have done that month. Let's say I sent the newsletter on the first of each month, but I'll put in it images of the paintings that I did the month before, and I will talk about paintings, I'll talk about art. It wasn't a selling point. I wasn't trying to sell anybody anything, but nevertheless, I did sell people from that, you see. But in reality, the purpose of its purpose wasn't a selling point. It was to show them what it is and show them why I did that, and, and why I'm doing this, and write about art in general, maybe just put my ideas about this or that, but again, in, you know, just stay in the same area, you see, not just go completely different subject, completely crazy, and I had really good response. For I had sent it for about, I know, 300 over 300 people, and I had really good response. But then, at the time, at this time, about, I don't know, six, seven months, eight months ago, I said, "That's it, you see enough of that, because you know you have to worry about it, you have to think about it, you have to. So I quit doing that. It was great, I mean, for 15 years, every month, every month I sent one of those newsletters. I know La Faso sends recommends maybe just few, just for sale, sell, selling, you see, number two or three paintings, these are for sale, and prices, and whatever it is, but that's not, wasn't the purpose of mine, it was more like, I don't know, that the blog, I don't even know what a blog is, it was something like that, but it had my painting images of my paintings in it, and people, I guess, appreciated, and some of them were surprised that I would quit. They were unhappy that I quit, but I had to, you know,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:08:20

so

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:08:20

I don't know, really. Dealing, the idea is it's a lonely type of a profession. If you call it profession, you do it because you want to do it, you see, not because, not for the purpose of having praise from anybody, because if that was, that's the case, you have, you'll be neurotic by the end, you finish, by the end of your life, you've had it, you see, it just doesn't work out like that, you do it because you just want to do it, and you can't do without doing it, and that's what makes you happy, and that's the case, because you know if you are lucky, you'll make money out of it, some money, which is great, you get, you know, and I, I get out of the blue, people buy my paintings, they come over here to the studio, which is this, which is a mistake to do that, but nevertheless they do. You know why? Because they have too many choices, and that's about the worst thing you could do, is have too many choices. I want this, no, I want that, no, I want this, I want that. They turned around, you know, and finally they decide on something you see, but it's in a way, it's they get so confused in the museums, that's why they put one painting and they don't put another painting right next to it, they put it four or five feet away from it, you see, so that you won't get, you know. Sidetracked, you know, just looking at both of them, same time, you just look at one at a time, but it's good. I, I, the studio over here, I have all these paintings, I have my wife made books just for us, I mean, for sure, not to sell, and these books have all these paintings numbered, everything else. So, in other words, if you look, people come and look through these books. If they want to see one, we pull it out for them. There are some paintings on the wall, which they could see, but those are maybe figurative words talking about figures, hardly anybody buys figure paintings. I have many of them. The only people who bought my paintings are other artists, believe it or not, not not the public. Why would a person put a figure, you know, like some somebody like that. People would ask him,"Who's this relative? Who's that? Why are you having this painting? You see, when it comes to figure, unless it's a commission, and I don't take any commissions, but but people don't want to have figures on their walls, somebody they don't know doesn't make much difference, even if they love the painting, they don't do that, because everybody's going to ask them, Who is this person, and, and that's about the worst thing to explain to them. Well, that's it's a painting, you know. So, I mean, but I, I love to do portraits, if you call that portrait. I love to do that. It's the most, you know, why? Because you could never repeat yourself. These, like this guy over here, I painted him maybe 20 times. Every time is different, every time it's different, and I, I somehow or not, with all the stuff, I managed to have fairly good likeness, not perfect likeness, because I'm not a portrait painter, I don't claim to be, and I would never want to. You know, you talk about Sargent Sargent's paintings, believe it or not, all these commissions. If I'm right, I read about him that he hated doing that, but that's what gave him money. You know what he enjoyed doing painting his friends sketch like painting both colors, and that's what he enjoyed. All these fabulous ladies, you know, huge. You see them in, in, in museums. He hated doing that, you know. If you look at it, I think that's what I read someplace, and that's what what he didn't like, that he didn't enjoy that, he enjoyed the sketches he did of his friends, old paintings, and I, and those I love. Otherwise, I mean, these, yeah, okay, that's great, they're wonderful, but for me, they don't mean anything, like one person, I guess, told this bong guard, the guy I'm talking about, this Russian guy. Oh, she told him, "You made my ring small over here. He told her,"Well, why didn't you tell me that? I would really make it as big or as, as whatever it is, as you want, you know. Just tell me what you want, and we'll do it. I mean, people, people love their, you know, to have their painting, their figure, their face painted, but, but these, like I said, these people I really love to paint are the people who you see in the streets the way they are, and I tell them, just come the way you are every day, don't come all dressed up with fixed hair and all this stuff, don't do that, you just come the way you usually, because that's what I love to do with it. Just pick these people, and that's the most enjoyable thing to do, is paint these people just the way they are, and because if it was something somebody very beautiful, and this and that, I don't think I could improve on that. I could, I don't know how I could paint, paint it like that, because most of them are so polished, you know. Technically speaking, they're wonderful. Now, mind you, I appreciate what they do. I, you know, they're just wonderful. Technically speaking, they're just wonderful. These artists, I mean, they do fabulous stuff. It, but this painting, as far as I'm concerned, bores me. It's boring. Okay, I see it. Okay, just a few minutes later, I forget about it. Yeah, the idea is, how to get these paintings that stay with you. You could always remember them, and that's the trick, I think. If a person manages to do that, which some of sometime you can, sometimes you can't, most of the time you can't.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:15:36

Yeah, and I guess the only way to maybe achieve that is by painting a lot.

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:15:40

That's just about it.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:15:43

Yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask you if you have any final advice for someone who wants to pursue becoming an artist as a profession.

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:15:57

That is a tricky situation. The reason I say that I think they should have some confident income other than painting, unless they inherit something some people do, we see, or they have their parents support them, or somebody supports them, because if you don't have another income, you are, you have, you are in a bind, you worry about what you're doing, you worry about the waste, you worry every time you buy a tube of paint, it costs you $30 ends up in the trash, and you know whatever it is you're doing for nothing, and that should not be your worry. You should have some kind of an income, so that you'll be able to experiment. If you do not experiment, you are not in the student mode as a student all your life. I personally don't think you should be an artist, you see. If you think it's something, well, okay, in 10 years I'll be an artist. Believe it or not, I didn't even call myself an artist for many, many years. Never did I call myself painter because I didn't really know what artist means, really. What is it? It sounds like a like something I don't even understand. Artist, what is that? And calling myself an artist, it wasn't something I was able to do or to say, so I mean the idea is have something, some kind of income, and paint a lot, and don't paint on if you can't afford it, paint on something in a paint on canvas, cheaper canvas. There's all kinds of canvas. Don't worry about it, because if you make it by chance, miracle, a masterpiece, somebody is bound to maybe mount it on a board. Then you have a wonderful. it doesn't need to be linen, it would last as long as the board lasts, but if your paintings are not good, they're gonna go in the trash eventually, sooner or later. I mean, lot of people, believe it or not, buy paintings, then their kids don't like the painting, they might end up in, you know, somewhere else. Who knows where? Because they don't like the painting, they change their mind. They like something else, maybe pop art, or some.. I don't know what you see. So, but they inherited these paintings, and they don't know how to get rid of them, you know, maybe they give him goodwill, they sell them, who knows what they do with them, so that's that's the point, is that if you want to be an artist, the idea is paint a lot and open with open mind, and don't worry what medium are doing. Pick and choose what you like, but which medium fits you? Now, certain, maybe certain kind, maybe oil painting, maybe doesn't, doesn't work for you, for the artist. Okay, just go for it, but try it, try something different. If you don't get bored, boredom, like I say, is your enemy, and just keep at it, and sooner or later you do it now. Someday, maybe, just like me, I ended up as a pharmacist. I don't say I was, I did very well as a pharmacist, money, because I have never been out of a job, never, but people thought my heart was in pharmacy, and it wasn't. See, because I was dependent, I did a good job with it, but in my heart I was, I want to be a painter, I want to be an art, I want to be a painter, so I stuck with it for so many years until I decided just that's it, I'm done with it. I went to the person I worked for. I said, that's it. This is my last day, buddy. He said, see that I'm done. I'm an artist now. I'm a painter, and that was the end of it. I was never happier, because I could do it without any worries. Where am I going? How am I going? Am I selling what I'm doing over here, wasting my money with my family? You know, I mean, really, look at your family, they start looking at you. What the heck are you doing? You see now, thankfully, my family support the idea of me being a painter, but some might not. You see, some say, well, gosh, here we are. We can't find money for this, for that, for that, and you're just wasting all this money. So then chances are you cannot experiment. You're afraid to waste, you're afraid to throw anything in the trash can. Somebody will see it, your relative would see, your wife would see it, your husband would see it. You don't want that. You say, "What the heck are you doing if you don't know what to do? Why are you doing it? Why is it in the trash can? They don't know that it's something you have to go through. It's your life you have to go through that, you cannot make something perfect. It will never happen. It can never happen. It might be, get to be to your liking. Yes, to your liking. For a while, chances are you just move on into something else, and something else would be to your liking. So, I mean, that's, that's, I mean, to give advice to an artist, I think. I don't know, unless they have some sort of money, you know? I mean, sort of somebody gave them some money or something, but otherwise, I think, find some way, somehow, to have another income just to support your business, your whatever it is you're doing. It's craziness. I keep calling it, it's crazy. You know, sometimes I wonder whether we are really normal people, this, you know, these artists, I mean, you start thinking now, who is in the right mind will stand in front of a canvas day in, day out, or paper, or something like that. Why, for what reason? Not people are not standing in line to buy it. You don't know that we will ever sell it. You don't. I have so many paintings over here in my studio. I mean, love figurative work. Now, how could I sell those? And I don't care. I really don't. I don't care what happens to them. It doesn't matter to me, they are done, you know. People admire them, but they wouldn't buy them, because I said, "Who would want to have a figure, somebody's portrait on a wall? You don't know who he is, and chances are the paintings I do are not polished so well that somebody would admire my, you know, dexterity, or somebody we call it, you know, I mean, hey, it's a painting, it has blemishes, it has this, it has that, and I like that, I personally like that, and I stopped there. I could next day mess around with it, and, and get it looking nicer and more finished, but, but I don't. It is what it is. That's it, because if I do change it, it changes the whole thing. Personally, I think, how to get the person's personality, you know? You know, you have to just tell somehow another, you have to manage to get the person's actually in prayer. Question, you know, I think in one of your questions, how would, about you know, about painting that you would like? I think, what would you like to see in your painting, or something like that? I forgot what was I would love, if I were at all possible, to have an impression of something rather than a rendering of something, if I'm able to, that's why I personally admire some of these caricature guys, people who do caricature, and I tried it over the years, off and on, I was never able to do it. They are talented people. They are. That's what they can do. Something I could never do. And believe it, if I could take that, if I'm able to borrow some of that and put it in my painting, I'll be the happiest person. But I can't, you see. Yes, I do love exaggeration. Some people don't like that. I exaggerate in color and form to a certain extent, because I love to do that. I love to push it a little bit, simply because something appeals to me on the person, like I said, it's not, it's not a person who wants me to really love them. They just sit there because they need the money, they are most likely their students or something or another. They love it, so most of them enjoy, they look at it, they love it. Believe now, some of them bought my painting, you know, some of these people, they're all and on time to also, you know, just pay a little bit at a time. I guess they just like that, because it is what they are. That's what they are, you see. It's not something which made them completely different, lovely, something lovely, and that it's not. It's a personality, that's what they are. They just block what I did. If you have tattoos, put the tattoos in it. If there's something, turn up trousers or whatever it is, or shirt that's what it is, or something doesn't match something else. Okay, that's good, that's what they are, and they love it, you know. I enjoy what they do, you know, the freedom some of these young people nowadays, freedom, they, they have. I appreciate that, because I could never do that, you know, because they just, they come sometimes. I will sit in a restaurant, you know, and we see these students come by, teenagers, my class, no two people are alike, none of them, every one of us different, hairstyle this and that, and bad depends, and I know what set-letting, or at least they are free to do whatever it is they want to do, all the power to them, so

Laura Arango Baier: 1:28:05

beautiful. Yes, yeah. Oh, man. Oh, being an artist is a tough, tough thing, huh?

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:28:16

But it's a wonderful thing. I mean, I wouldn't want to be anything else truthfully. If you asked me, what would you, if you had come back in mother life, I would want to be a parent, or I wouldn't want to be anything else. There's nothing I would want, would have wanted to be, or crave to be, or let's say aspire to be. It's just that's what it is, that's what I want to be. I don't know, some people, maybe it's a crazy idea, maybe it's a crazy way of thinking about it, but I honestly think I wouldn't have chosen anything else if I come in a different life. Let's say a different person, I would would want to be the same to the same, maybe in a different way, but still be a painter, because there's nothing like it, and the change you change with it, and you have to change, actually you have to move on all the time, change, because if you don't, again you'll be bored,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:29:38

very well said, beautiful. And then I wanted to ask you, if someone wants to see your paintings, where can they see them?

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:29:49

It's for one thing, I have the only gallery gallery I have now is the rental sales gallery of the poor. Lund Art Museum, that's where I have my paintings, but then I have my studio, I mean my gallery over here, and people ask me, we would love to come at an all right, all you need to do is call me, we can a day and they do come, they come and they buy something, sometimes even they are painters, they say would love to come, but I'm sure come by and they come and look, they got upstairs is where I paint, if I'm painting indoors, see, I have my easels and stuff, and paint, and all that stuff. So, they want to see what kind of brushes I use, what kind of paint I use, and it's never the same. Sometimes I have some paint, I don't even know why I got them, you know. They are sitting there, brand new, doesn't use them, but so my, and then from my website, people see my website, and then they want to see if any of these paintings are available, maybe, or they want to come, that would lead them to my gallery, to my studio. Another thing, my book, they see my book, the coffee table book, and and they see the, they say, yeah, I would like to have that some epics painting, or that, if it's available, they get it, and the other thing, otherwise the newsletter that I sent, that was good, and what else I might have my paintings here and there, but mostly this is it, you know, really, I didn't have them in other galleries, I had I had retro, I believe, or not, as retrospectives, and those were great, because a lot of people, you know, so on all the stuff that I did, because I do drawing, I do all kinds of things, believe it or not, within last few years, I even did abstracts and I believe really, like one guy said, under every painting there's an abstraction, which is true. I learned that after a while, and abstract, I really never was interested in it when I was painting years back, I was more opinionated in a way, but within the last few years, I started thinking, you know, really, there's something to it. It's the same requirement, you need a reasonable color harmony, you need a reasonable design, you know. Shapes certain shapes go together, so it's not that easy. It's much easier to sit over there and paint from something you see rather than from a blank piece of paper or canvas and show me what you can do and come out with some kind of an abstraction, abstract painting that appeals to you, and again, even that, believe it or not, it's your personality shows through, even in that, even if you're a representational painter, your personality would show in abstract if you did it, but you don't do one, you do many, see, a lot of people jump from one thing to another to another, they do one. If you want to emulate somebody, do many, do 100. Then you decide what part of it you want to use, because mind you, we all learn from somebody else, whether we like it or not. Looking at somebody else's painting, you might gain something without knowing it, you know. Subconsciously, you'll gain something from it. You see, that would help you in your painting. We all learn from somebody else. There's nobody you know, just completely. You're not in a, in a cocoon, whatever it is, you know. You're not just completely isolated from everything else. You are impressed by something, either somebody, somebody's painting some something, something you know changes you every time you look at something, you'll change and. You know, like abstract paintings, I mean, I do. Better than that, I started even selling them these abstracts. I mean, I can believe it, you know? I mean, I say, okay, you know, but it's not something, mind you, I'm not an abstract painter. Now, my paintings are called them representational painting, but not necessarily realistic. That's the way I call my paintings representational, but not necessarily realistic. But with abstraction, it's different, and I don't think it's easy to do. People think,"Oh my god, the monkey would do it. Well, that's not true. Try it. A lot of people, they say they see what I did. They say, 'Oh, you know what? We tried it. Oh my god, I give up. You say I'm not going to do it again. Yeah, sure, because not easy. You have a blank piece of, they have canvas blank, and you have to make something, and you have to have some design, something that you, you like. How do you do that? Brushstroke at a time, at a time, change, change, change, change, until you got it. See, you don't even know how you end up with this. You end up with this because something told you that's it. This is what you got quit, because if you do some more, you're changing it again. You're starting back from beginning. So, I mean, it's not, it's not easy, and it's wonderful to try. I personally recommend it for anybody to give it a try. See, just, just for the heck of it, you know, do something small or something. I do these big, actually 36 by 36 you know, abstraction. I have a bunch of them, and this is what I'm saying. If you want to try something else, do many, don't do one, do many, because you do one, it's not going to do any good. Even if you succeed, it's not going to do any good if you do 2345, then you can decide, can I use some of this in my own painting, or forget about it, that's it. Dave, it chances are you might gain something from it, you know, and that you could use, even if you're represents your patron, you could, you get again something from it. So, I mean, it doesn't hurt to try something else. It's not going to tear up your, you see, that's again branding, you know. Well, okay, don't show it to anybody. If you don't show it to anybody, that's fine. If you are in galleries and you're afraid, because who's to say, you know, gallery, then manage, or whatever, you don't know what they like, you know, they really don't, you really don't know, you're lucky if the manager, owner, or manager loves your paintings. I did have some like that, and they sold a lot of my work, simply because they loved them. They bought paintings from me, so they loved what I did. Now, how do you find somebody like that? You know, but if you are lucky, you can get somebody like that. Otherwise, most of these managers, they want to, they want to see what people like, and if they like it, you are good. If they don't like it, you're out. See, they tell you,"Well, your type of art is not working here, you know.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:38:41

Yeah, yeah, those are all very, very good points, and once again, I love that you emphasize the importance of always learning and always being curious and always experimenting, because it goes to show that no matter how old you are and how long your career has been, you're always always learning,

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:39:03

you have to be young, you have to stay young, and I stay young. I don't know, I, you know, you really have to be in a young, young, you have to have young feelings, see that you could really, and I still believe it or not, I still love, like to learn, I like to learn, if I can, you know, but sometimes you can, sometimes you can, sometimes you can't even talk.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:39:34

Oh man, yeah. Well, thank you so much, Sarkis, for all your incredible advice and wisdom, I think I really needed to hear this as well, because I need to let myself be free and stop showing stuff to people if I don't want to. Well, thank you so much again for being a guest on the show.

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:39:57

Thank you very much for for. The invite, and doing this, I don't know, I'm.. I haven't.. I haven't done this, actually. I don't know, maybe twice with the art beat, I guess. I did that, which was different, actually. Art beat.. well, I appreciate it. I wish you all the luck as a painter.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:40:23

Thank you so

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:40:24

much.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:40:26

Oh, thank you. You too.

Sarkis Antikajian: 1:40:28

Thanks.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:40:30

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