To identify and osmosis the past and present around you and go naturally, creatively free head, heart and wrists to be in control enough not to be in control at all, to have a dialogue with the work and let yourself go in relation to it. Paintings don't lie. They have their beautiful working order, just as nature itself has working order, just as nature itself has.
Speaker 2:So, Ty, that was possibly one of the most distinctive voices, For anybody who just started listening to this without seeing the title probably knows, if they know art, that that was, of course, the voice of Helen Frankenthaler, of whom we will be discussing today. We don't always have audio of these quotes, but today we have once again upped our production value and we're going to include actual audio when available for some of the quotes that we're going to discuss about Helen today.
Speaker 2:We could have jumped off at a number of different points, but we chose this one because I mean, heck, we could spend the next hour talking about this one quote alone. So I'll give you first crack at this. How does this first quote of Helen's that we're going to dissect today, how does this sit with you? What strikes you?
Speaker 3:the most. I mean let's let her rip right, as Helen used to say, probably one of her most famous things that she would say right, we're all kind of known for some little something we might say at times to people in our own personal dialogue that we use. And Let Her Rip was one of her more famous sayings that she would constantly say when talking about work and being a ridiculous Helen Frankenthaler fanboy in major, major ways. Gosh, I mean I've read so much about her, I've listened to so much about her, I've watched so much about her, I've seen work everywhere of hers that is just groundbreaking in so many ways. We're going to talk about all that, but I mean I love the work that she uses to identify an osmosis, right, because that is part of how she worked as well with osmosis, you know, taking liquids and solvents and molecules and thinning them out to create certain things, and so there's this whole concentration on osmosis within her work.
Speaker 3:And talk about creatively free. I mean, somebody that defines being creatively free is Helen, and obviously in this quote she's saying this a lot further into her journey, which is six decades of making art, of showing art for six decades and exhibiting. I mean that's are you kidding? Are you kidding me? Six decades, wow. But thinking about that naturally and creatively free and connecting everything that she's doing from head, heart and wrist, used her whole body to paint. She didn't just use one little thing. You're going to say something, you're jumping in.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I'm jumping in. There's two things about this quote that really jump out and I'm curious, and that was one of them for me the naturally and creatively free. So I wanted to jump in and just ask you to unpack that further. When you read that, when you hear her say that, what does naturally and creatively free mean to you? How does that sit?
Speaker 3:I mean it's literally having dialogue with the work, like letting the work speak to you, in a way that you're not controlling every little aspect of it, that you're allowing for uncontrolled moments to happen within your work. Not planning, not sketching it all out. I'm not saying any things are wrong. This is discussing the quote and that's how she worked too. Things weren't sketched out, things weren't planned. It was all this natural motion of creativity that's allowing this natural dialogue to happen between her and the work. This is moving this way. Well, let's let it go, let's not stop it here and push it back, and it's just like this constant dance, which we'll talk about later, how she's kind of inspired to do these things. It's kind of like this constant dance with the work, free, with no edges, no borders, nothing defining where things stop, but always being open to go, go, go, go, go and let it go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think you know when I read that naturally and creatively free, my first thought is that that involves getting out of the head, at least for me personally getting out of the head.
Speaker 2:And so then I think about, like finding that mystical place, that space between control and having no control at all. Right, which sounds, you know, paradoxical. But the more I was thinking about that, the more it reminded me of what we would today call flow. Yeah, I think that's probably that term, at least not in that context. Probably wasn't around back then, but it's kind of that whole idea of this sort of special place that we only get to visit for brief periods of time.
Speaker 2:But I don't know if you ever read a book called the Rise of Superman. It's an excellent book. It was written maybe about 10 years ago or so by. The author's name is Stephen Coulter. I actually went back and I pulled a quote from it. So the whole book is about flow and he runs it through. So the subtitle is Decoding the Science of Human Performance. Most of the data that he references is through the lens of extreme athletes. But this quote I love and I'm going to tie them together when I get done reading it.
Speaker 2:But it says since flow is a fluid action state, making better decisions is enough. We also have to act on those decisions. The problem is fear, which stands between us and all actions. Yet our fears are grounded in self, time and space. Our fears are grounded in self, time and space. Our fears are grounded in self, time and space. With our sense of self out of the way, we are liberated from doubt and insecurity. With time gone, there is no yesterday to regret or tomorrow to worry about. All right.
Speaker 2:So now I go back to my initial takeaway of all right to be naturally and creatively free. We've got to get out of our heads, or at least that's how I read. I got to get out of my head. Well, not so much out of my head, but out of the self. That's really what I take. So, if you think about the moments when you've been in that flow state, the self really isn't there. There is no time, and I think that's what I take away from what Helen's talking about is the fact that you've got to have dialogue with the work, let yourself go in relation to it, time doesn't exist, the self doesn't exist.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a great addition, Nathan. Because we're so constrained by time in our everyday lives outside of the studio. We should not be constrained by time when we're in the studio. We don't need that undue pressure of time or all these things. It's so hard. And I'm not saying deadlines, I'm not saying things like that. I'm just talking about the essence of time in itself the minutes, the hours, the day. We're so constrained by time and everywhere else in our life need to be here, got to be here, have to show up for work, have to leave work at this time, get home what's my commute? If I'm in LA, my commute's two hours to leave work, to get home, and then I want to go to the studio, maybe my studio. So there's all these constraints. But in the studio, if we can walk in naturally and creatively free, with, as Stephen Coulter says, with our sense of self out of the way, with time gone, we're able to just literally let go of everything and just make art and let it take us, I think beautiful things happen in those moments.
Speaker 2:And that's what real dialogue is. That's a real conversation is if you and I are talking and I have my idea of what I want to tell you and what I want to communicate to you, then it's really more of a monologue. It's hey, sit still and listen, yeah, and preferably nod your head in agreement as we go. Well, that's not a dialogue. A real dialogue is two entities, in the case of the artist and the work, two beings in communication with one another, which means that it is just as much, if not more so, about what the work is telling us than what we may have thought we had to say initially.
Speaker 2:And I'm curious if this is true for you, because you're further down this path than I am, I think for me, initially, it was a whole lot of. This is what I got to say with this one, and here I am going to inflict my will upon the canvas or whatever surface I happen to have been working on at the time. And as things have progressed, it has become for me much more of a listening and a dialogue and, I think, less and less of what I take into starting a piece and much more about how the piece itself evolves. But that all requires us, as the artist, to be in a position to be able to hear and to get out of our own damn way right To have the dialogue we have to let ourselves go to have that communication, that order, and you think of, like nature, right, the symbiotic flow we're talking about.
Speaker 3:Flow again of nature, the way things work, the way an ecosystem works, right, the way that the sun gives life to plants, plants give life to air, air gives life to us. Like this order, right. When those things start to become interrupted, problems start to happen. And I like how she kind of brings in the working order of nature to an artist in the studio, creating that constant flow of things going through you to the work and the work back to you and you back to the work. But anytime you start to have complete control and you're not open to let the work talk to you. That's when we get the questions about finishing paintings.
Speaker 3:And how do I know it's finished? How do I keep overworking things? Am I trying too hard? Do I need to do this or this or that? It takes time, like you said, for you to figure out how that naturally occurs in your process and in your discipline in the studio and being open and free to what may come. You talked about earlier how it's taken you a while to kind of figure out that natural order of the way things work, in that flow right, in that dialogue between you and the work, and not having and you're using things that you have no idea what's going to happen with them, what they're going to do when you put them on there, how they're going to react to X, y and Z. Is the resin going to react to this? Is the glue going to react this way? Is it going to look like the way I found it when I discovered it, when I start putting these things on there? So you have to be open and free to let the work do its thing, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, and I think it all comes back to considering our role in the creative process what it is and, more importantly, what it isn't. There's a couple of things that come to mind. Right, so, to be in control enough to not have control at all, you think about people. You think about the people that have really the most wisdom, the most influence, are rarely the loudest voices in the room. In fact, they're often the ones who are quietly observing, listening, absorbing and waiting to come in. You and I both spent some time in the business world just waiting for the person who really has enough control to have no control at all during the process and then come in at the end and say hey, gang, here's what I'm seeing, and this is right. That takes control, that takes discipline to not be always, always chirping.
Speaker 2:The other thing that comes to mind when you talk about flow is, of course, the most obvious example in nature is something that flows, right. So think about water, and I think about the difference between viewing oneself as the source of the stream, so to speak, which I think is a dangerous game. I'm certainly not qualified to think of myself as where the stuff comes from or where the art comes from. But I think a lot about being downstream from that flow and my role as being one of influencing in some small but yet still significant ways how the flow gets altered to its final destination.
Speaker 2:So I spend a lot of time in this drainage ditch just up the way from my studio that I call a stream, where I collect a lot of my art materials. But sitting in I think about if I put a rock, if I move one rock on one part of the stream to another, that changes. That alters the flow. It doesn't alter the source. The source is still coming from where it comes from. But it does say okay, here's where the let's just say I had intentionality around where I wanted to redirect the stream. I could do that by simply placing things in. So just the perspective that comes from altering our view in the entire process I think is really liberating.
Speaker 3:I work in ways that I can take the control from myself, just as you're saying. I like to have no control, no control, that's almost what we're saying. You do have control because you're the artist, but I like to find ways that take that control out of my hands so that there is surprise. I like using longer brushes. I've taken that from other artists that I love because I'm further away from the canvas and I have less control with how I use a brush because I'm further away, I'm not right up close.
Speaker 3:I also use cardboard to do monoprinting with.
Speaker 3:So I paint on the cardboard my shapes or my marks or my gestures, and then I press them down, walk on it, and so all of these actions with the cardboard right, it's taking control out of my hands because I may have more weight on one spot and not enough weight on the other, so less paint gets on one area and then the other. Then when I pull that cardboard off, I don't know what it's going to look like. I think I know, but I'm also allowing the material to have it its own control on how it goes and moves, but then I have to react to that as well. So there's this relationship of action and reaction that is constantly going. I use my hands because I like the parts that come off the edge of a hand, that I'm not purposely trying to get there, or using the edge of the brush. I want action and reaction to be constantly be going from me and the material, myself and the tools in a constant process, so that they have a beautiful working order, just as nature itself has.
Speaker 2:So our next quote here it is it's our next quote.
Speaker 1:Here it is. There is a dialogue between the artist and what he she is making. That is yours, you're in control of it, but you also have to be ready to hear I'm finished, don't add another, drop, stop. It's tricky and I think very often one misses the moment I recently made a beautiful work on paper. I came back to it later that night sort of tired and I thought now it needs a little green right here and I wrecked it.
Speaker 3:I loathe even the thought of missing that moment. You know I've spent a lot of time in my life figuring out the ways to listen and for me that's in a very spiritual sense. I've really spent a lot of time trying to really really listen Silence, breathe and listen. And I think I've really worked even harder to adapt that spiritual practice into my art making and my work in the studio by spending a lot of time really really listening so that I can hear the work tell me I'm done, I'm finished, don't add another drop. And, like she said, it is tricky. It's so tricky because, good Lord almighty, have I ruined pieces that I absolutely loved and felt so strongly about because I added more.
Speaker 2:So you and I have talked about this a lot. That was a great opening to discussing this quote. We are both recovering perfectionists, and I think that you identify that way right, oh, absolutely. And I think that you identify that way right, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I'm not putting words in your mouth, okay, all right. So when I first read this, I had a very similar reaction, which was so. My first thought was this Initially, what I wanted to say was I disagree with the idea of ruining a piece. I'm just going to set that aside as even something that's on the menu or possible. But then I sat with it and I realized that I'm actually deathly afraid of it. I'm deathly afraid of it just as you described it so specifically. I'm most afraid of even more than ruining one piece. I'm even more afraid of what the fear of ruining a piece does to me in my process, if that makes sense, sure.
Speaker 2:Ruining a piece does to me and my process, if that makes sense, sure. And so I didn't realize this until much later on, as I was kind of reflecting on how my process has evolved. But I realized that I've built my entire process around and materials around, avoiding that moment of crap. I went too far, yeah, I mean, I remember distinctly and this may have actually been around the time that I was in the mentorship program, when I started to use this build-up texture and sand things down. I only did this once, on one piece. This was actually the moment I decided, all right, canvas is not for me anymore, because I was sanding something down to get a certain effect and you can't sand canvas much yeah, you put a hole in it and I did and I was like, ah, I don't ever want that, that feeling of ruining a piece again.
Speaker 2:So then I moved on to panels and wooden blah, blah, blah. But the point is, it all came from a place of having that dialogue with the work and with myself to realize, okay, what am I and how can I, how can we, as artists, identify what might be holding us back and then create a world for ourselves where that fear doesn't get any oxygen. That makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean, listen, you're going to ruin paint, you're going to ruin work, bottom line, we're all going to ruin work, we're all going to make work that we overwork and looks like crap and it's horrible. We're not happy with it, we move on to the next thing. Right, and I think for me that fear of like ruining pieces came twofold because in the beginning my, when I would ruin it it was a cost thing that that hurt me more than it did the actual work. It was. I just wasted money because I put a lot into that canvas. I bought the canvas, bought the paints. That paint's gone, can't do anything with it. It was a cost thing. It was like I can't do this, I can't afford to keep ruining paintings.
Speaker 3:And I was young, you know, and it's like, at the end of the day, you don't realize when you're young you're going to ruin paintings your whole life. And it's like, at the end of the day, you don't realize when you're young that you're going to ruin paintings your whole life. That's just the process to get to where you want to go. But then, when I had the ability to have enough medium and things that not that I'm wasting it, but I didn't going to ruin work. But how am I learning from what I ruined?
Speaker 3:And I think for you, if you hadn't ripped that canvas, maybe you would have worked on canvas for another six, eight, 10 months or a year. If you hadn't ruined it physically, it might not have taken you that next step to go. I need to find a different medium. I need to find a different base. I need wood, metal, I need something that can hold all this that I'm doing on it. So everything we're doing we talk about this all the time, artists everything that we do is a constant act of discovery and learning. And you're going to miss moments. You're going to miss moments, just like she said. But I think and I know you think this too, nathan the more that we spend having that dialogue between our work, allowing that natural order to come through and spending time really looking at our work, which I think we say every episode. Spend time really looking at your work.
Speaker 2:You're going to hear it say I'm finished more often than not so let's turn this into a uh a version of a tactical takeaway, because this actually relates to something from one of our q a episodes maybe the one that's posted, maybe the one that's that's coming up in the future, but it of the how do you know when you're done, right, how do you, how do you know when you're finished and we discussed this as sort of a tangible takeaway.
Speaker 2:Let's relate it back to helen's work, because you know she talked a lot about the immediacy of the moment and, even when work wasn't completed all in one session, her desire to make it appear as though it had. So let's talk about, maybe for a moment in terms of just giving people options on a menu, because everyone's process, of course, is going to be different. Everyone's relationship with their work is going to be different. Everyone's relationship with their work is going to be different. I think when you and I talk about, or think about, spending time with the work from anyway, it's coming back with those fresh eyes. I'm always, I'm all about those fresh eyes.
Speaker 3:Next, morning right.
Speaker 2:Next day maybe. Sometimes it's weeks or months that we sit with pieces, but there's also moments, especially when you think about the way that Helen worked with. You know the poors and with like there are decisions that need to be made.
Speaker 3:You know in the moment.
Speaker 2:So we're just going to make you know one little one mark a day.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:But it's not right. We're just gonna make little micro marks along the way and seven years later we've got our first completed piece. So I guess, what are your thoughts on the, on how we can, you know, alter or just consider our relationship with the time domain in that dialogue, in the sort of question and answer relationship that we might have with the work?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a deep one. It's hard to answer because we're all different in our time, right, as we're saying, don't let time affect you at all in the studio. That's very relative, because some of us have eight hours a day, some of us have an hour a week, right, and so I think it's really what we do in that space. Let's change time to space, let's get the word time out of our heads and say in that space that you have to go make art. It's really going to be how you are able to use that space to really create, and that's really difficult, the less space you have in your life to make art, because you almost feel forced to make something and finish something in those moments, because you don't have a lot of moments to do it. And so what would you do?
Speaker 2:Here's. I think of it this way. So there's a balance, right? Sure the moment if we're saying that there's only one which I disagree with that. There's only one moment, just like there only being one soulmate. Right, there's a window. Let's just say right. So on one extreme is we don't push the work far enough. Right, there's a risk on the other side, there's a risk in like oh, I don't want to do anything else because I don't want to ruin it, which is a fair concern right, that's the risk on the one side of the equation.
Speaker 2:On the other side of the equation, it's the risk of oh, what Helen describes. I went too far, I messed it up, I ruined it. In fact, the rest of this quote and we'll link this in the in the show notes, but the rest of this quote, she says something to the effect of she gives an example of a recent time in the studio where she wanted to add one more thing and I wrecked it.
Speaker 2:She says I wrecked it, you know. So I guess, if we have to choose between erring on, you know, one side or the other I guess I don't even know if there's a question in this, but it is a consideration to think about Do I want to err on the side of not pushing it far enough or pushing it too far? I made a decision early on where I'm always going to orient towards B. I'd rather risk wrecking the piece that I'm working on right now in service of where it may lead me down the road, at the peril of whatever piece I might be working on at the time. But I don't know if that's just my personal experience or if that's something that I would frame in the context of advice for somebody.
Speaker 3:Well, this is all kind of career-based too, Because in the beginning of your career you need to be ruining a lot of shit. You need to be just going as far as you can go right With your medium, with your materials, because you're experimenting, you're trying to find you, you're trying to figure it out, which we're going to talk about in a minute with Helen figuring Helen out, you know, after something really inspired her. So it's in the beginning. Yeah, I ruined a ton of stuff. Was it cost effective? No, but was it growth effective? Yes, Because if I was just trying to control and in that moment or in that space, make these things that looked good right, the relative term good, they look decorative that maybe I could sell, it was really going to hold me back from advancing career-wise years down the road, that time that it takes on that art timeline of make, make, make, make, make, make, make, discover, make, make, make, experiment, discover more and then grow into something that will fit or that will be discovered.
Speaker 3:So I think in the beginning, yeah, we need to be ruining, ruining, ruining, to get to the point where we're able to really discover ourselves and figure out what we're doing and how we understand our materials and that dialogue with our work can have dialogue with our work until we start getting there.
Speaker 2:But that didn't. That's not like. That stop Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You're still pushing your way, yeah, but I think I have years, though, of creating and making where I understand me, I understand how the work is going to take me somewhere in the process, and I watch and I look and I let it go Right.
Speaker 3:And I've also learned that it's okay to paint on the back of a canvas, it's okay to turn it around and paint on the other side and then sell that or put it in a gallery. You know, I've got so many of my paintings have paintings on the other sides or that I painted over multiple times. You know not throwing stuff out and wasting, I'm using it, I'll cut it up, fold it, put it in another canvas, use it for a sculpture, all those things, so you're able to continue to move through the things that may be ruined or you go too far with. But I think it becomes gradually less over time. I guess that's the good way to put it. The ruining paintings is always going to happen, happen, but it becomes less and less and less of an issue the longer you're in the game making art or you can just build up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I do that constantly. Yes, um, but I think what went into all that was getting permission from other artists to do things I didn't think I could do. Right, seeing a Picasso painting in the Budapest National Museum of Art on a pedestal that had a painting behind it and going, oh, I've never thought about just turning the canvas over and painting on the other side Right over and painting on the other side Right I mean those things just. And then seeing the layers that they do digitally of some of the masters paintings and they are discovering three, four, five paintings underneath it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Of Da Vinci's work or Michelangelo's work or other. You know, masters work and going oh my gosh, there are these layers, archeological layers of paintings underneath. They paint it over. Oh, archaeological layers of paintings underneath, they paint it over. Oh well, just keep painting on top, why not? But sometimes you just kind of need to hear or see that happen in order to go oh, I could do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that actually parlays well into our next quote, which is we don't have audio for, so you have to settle for my voice. But that actually leads us well into our next quote. We don't have audio from Helen on this one, so you'll have to settle for my voice, ty. But she said you have to know how to use the accident, how to recognize it, how to control it and ways to eliminate it, so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once. Referred to later in terms of what seems to be one of Helen's sort of governing principles or goals, with at least this period of work wanting everything to feel born all at once, which at one time, especially early on, you know in the 50s, was one of the criticisms of her work.
Speaker 2:I mean, she pushed back against the idea that every piece had to be this. You know epic struggle that took place over you know a long period of time. But I think this just plays well with the first couple of quotes that we shared, in that the word control appears in all of them along with the idea of controlling an accident. I mean, it's paradoxical, the whole idea of I'm going to control an accident. You know, if you cause an accident, it's called an on purpose, it's not called an accident anymore. And so just thinking about this whole idea of the relationship and the work between the accident and I like that whole idea and I'll toss it to you.
Speaker 2:But the whole idea of how to recognize it and I think what she meant, how I read that is how to recognize it as something worth pursuing as something worth spending more time and then learning over time how to control it, maybe in that moment or maybe just logging it in the library, that we're all building up the sort of master database that we're all sort of collecting over time. Oh, I remember that when I did this over here, you know whatever four years ago. We're all collecting, you know different data points to then execute on you know later. But that's kind of how I read. That is, recognizing like, oh, this is, it's always an accident the first time over. Again. Now we've got the ability to with experimentation, with failing gloriously multiple times, the ability to then control how that accident expresses itself in future work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and that's something that I do in my work constantly. Those little accidents that happen, like, let's say, I'm painting on cardboard and I paint my gesture and then paint kind of drips off the edge of the brush or my hand and it gets on a wrinkle in the cardboard. So then I press it down, I put my weight on it, I pull a dance on it, whatever I'm going to do, I pull the cardboard up and then I notice something, whoa, that wasn't supposed to be there because it doesn't fit into the gesture I was putting, but because of the torn and wrinkled cardboard right there, it created that. So now I tear and wrinkle pieces of cardboard in my big sheets of cardboard so that I get those moments over and over again. Because I found beauty in that moment and early on in my work.
Speaker 3:If I had a mistake where the pencil would hit somewhere, I'd smudge something, I would circle it and I'd put a little arrow and I'd write oops or mistake or accident and I would highlight them. And it was a way for me to have fun with the fact that I dropped paint there, or maybe it had an edge of a shoe mark or something and I'd put an arrow and go from my shoe and I'd make these little things. But I started to embrace those things and I kind of stole a quote. I believe it was Leonard Bernstein that said this. I'm not positive, but all art is cosmos in the chaos.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I've kind of put that in. I want my art to be cosmos in the chaos. I am making cosmos in the chaos. I want the accident, that chaos, to be in the beauty of the cosmos and everything that I make. One of my goals while I'm working is to discover those moments and make them leap off the canvas or, as Helen put it, make that surface look felt and born at the same time.
Speaker 3:Nathan, I want to jump into Helen's art making because I just think it's so important knowing that she came out of the abstract expressionist movement and moved into the color field movement as one of the foundations of color field and being the person to do something first. I mean think about that idea being the person to do something first that inspires generations of artists to come. It's just absolutely beautiful. And I want to read this story because it might be my favorite story in the history of art. I have a lot, but this might be. And we're going all the way back to New York, to a young Helen Frankenthaler. And right at the time when Pollock created his first drip paintings, the New York art critic, clement Greenberg, who was very close friends with Helen Frankenthaler, got Pollock a show at the Betty Parsons Gallery with this new work and before the show opened, he brought Helen to Betty Parsons Gallery and said OK, now you're on your own. I want you to walk in and see what this does to you. And Clement Greenberg is the one who championed abstract expression. This does to you, and Clement Greenberg is the one who championed abstract expression. He's the one that penned that term and he also identified color field painting, which we're going to talk about in a little bit here, which is what Helen is one of the foundational members of.
Speaker 3:And so she walks into the Betty Parsons gallery and she says she felt as if she had been blinded, just like he had put her in the middle of Madison Square Garden on a full night of a crowd, with the lights on her. It was so new and appealing and so puzzling, powerful, real, beautiful and bewildering. She said there were only a few people that had actually seen these works yet and she felt like she was surrounded by a dance, like Pollock was actually creating them while they were in the room. And she says I was overwhelmed. The work resonated with me, it captured my eye and my whole psychic metabolism At a crucial moment in my life. I was ready for what his paintings gave me. So she was 21 years old at this time and she was really searching for a way to express all these things. She had been learning with all these artists around her conversations with Clement Greenberg, all these things, and she believed she was capable of something very and utterly original, something like Pollock. But she wasn't really sure what that was going to be or do yet. And she says Pollock opened the way for me to be freed and to make my own mark. I mean, I wanted to live in this land and I had to live there. I just didn't know the language yet. Part of revelation and part provocation. This is from Ninth Street Women.
Speaker 3:Helen called her initial encounter with Jackson's work a beautiful trauma. The beautiful like it punched her in the face so hard. And he taught me, he says, when to stop, when to labor, when to be puzzled, when to be satisfied, when to recognize beautiful, strange, ugly or clumsy, and to be free with what you were making and letting it come out of you. And within a few years, all of a sudden, there was this bridge between what she had seen and what had really, really pushed her. So she got this sense of absolute freedom that she already possessed.
Speaker 3:That she saw in somebody else's work, that helped her realize it in her work, and so that moved her into this moment and she founded an invitation Pollock's work, as she would say to let it rip, to let it be free and run with it and go fool around. And so she takes a trip to Nova Scotia around this time, comes back home, goes into her studio and because she had also spent time with Pollock in his studio watching him paint these paintings after she had seen them on the wall, that inspired her to lay canvas on the floor, and Pollock was working in raw canvas. So she started to work in raw canvas and so I want to let's listen to a quote of her before we really get into that first painting that she made that is such a monumental piece in the work of art and in color field painting. Let's listen to this quote. I want to hear her say this before we jump into it.
Speaker 1:Challenge yourself. And if you think I have something in mind, but I think it's nuts, you know this might be crazy, do it anyway. It's not destructive. The worst is it looks awful. But it might look wonderful and surprise you.
Speaker 3:What do you hear in that quote? When you hear that story about her seeing Paul and all those things that happened inside her, and then you hear that quote what does that say inside you? Or how do you kind of hear that?
Speaker 2:So I think that that interview was from, I want to say 1984, I want to say so. Let's just say it's certainly much, much later on, so 20, 30 plus years after she had that experience in 1951.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I think it's important to run that to the lens of perspective and the fact that she had a lot of time to reflect on what that experience did for her and also continue to do that over time. This is where I might actually push back a little bit to what you said in terms of not push back but add to God forbid, I disagree with you, but add to the idea of, sure, as a beginner earlier on, you're going to experiment and ruin more things than you will later on. But she kept doing that, like she. When I hear her say that, I hear somebody who is completely comfortable with the risk that is required for growth. Right, so we risk the awful in pursuit of just the chance of wonderful. Yeah, right, that's the risk we're at. Right, we're risking awful and it's so cool that we get to hear her say that because it's what's the worst that could happen, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:No one's getting hurt yeah.
Speaker 2:And of course, she had the benefit of not probably having to ever, you know, worry too much about the cost of, of, of materials. But you know she clearly was prioritizing growth over comfort, right, yep, and that's one of the most tremendous examples I think that she sets for all of us is that she was willing to risk the awful for, for, for the wonderful right, with that understanding of like hey, worst case it, it doesn't work, and that kind of speaks to her taking what she saw, you know, from Pollock, from the access that that she had to, not just seeing the one being one of the first people right To see the work, but to also see and have a relationship or know the person who made it and see what it looks like to make it.
Speaker 3:Wow, I mean yeah, I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine that she did exactly what she said. It would have been really easy for her back then 1952, to see that work, be completely mesmerized by it but also be paralyzed by it, and not do anything with those thoughts inside of her, not go back to the studio, right, I mean, it wasn't right after she thought this through, she, that it sat with her, it was ingrained in her. All these ideas started to just flow, as we said earlier, through her entire being. What if I? Oh my gosh, if I could. How about what if? And then it would have been easy to go ah, but nobody's really doing anything like that right now, because nobody was, nobody was. So she could have easily gone back to the studio and said you know, I'm just going to keep going with what I'm doing, I'm just going to keep working on these things and try and work this stuff I've been working on out. But she had this dangerous like inner fire to say I think I could do something absolutely original.
Speaker 2:That's a very bold thing to say as an artist that's the word that keeps coming up over and over again Just just the boldness that she had. I mean, let's keep in mind that at this point she's 23, 24 years old. Yeah Right, she's like a year or two removed from art school. Yep, you know, this is not somebody who's a decade or two decades down the path and has that sort of self-confidence to know that I can try new things and come back to what was already working. She didn't have, like there was no, like no baseline of established body of work or being known, et cetera, before she went ahead and did that Right.
Speaker 3:Obviously it's coming through the birth of abstract expressionism. So everybody that she's around their minds are churning in a dangerous way, in a way that wasn't accepted. That was very punk rock of them, but they had champions like the Clement Greenbergs and the Leo Castelli's and these people of the art world who were embracing what they were doing and supporting it and Betty Parsons giving them chances, because MoMA wasn't, moma wouldn't show their work. A lot of those artists work at that time and so they're doing something very punk rock, but it's energizing. Right, punk rock is energizing. There's this peer influence to thrive amongst each other and be competitive and outdo and race past and all these things. So she runs home back from Nova Scotia and starts putting all of her paints and oil cans like Jackson did you know in these cans and coffee cans. He's putting her and she's watering them down and making these different things and then she starts pouring them onto the rock canvas.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But also think about where she just was in Nova Scotia, looking at the water, watching the water move, being influenced by the way. You know, water moves across the land and these things, things that she loved looking at on a regular basis in life itself but that influence, oh how can I create these ideas and these moments? And then she watches them spread and soak into the unprimed canvas.
Speaker 2:This all keeps coming back to water. It all keeps coming back to flow Her poor techniques, right the flow.
Speaker 2:She was a part of the and this actually speaks to her being part of the second wave right of abstract expressionists, where she was, you know, 10, 15, 20 years younger than that first wave right. Think about the, you know, irascibles and everybody sort of in that first, whatever generation, that first wave of abstract expressionists, she was able to take what had already been done and not just sort of join in the wave but become completely her own thing.
Speaker 3:Well, and she was in that wave right, because she's hanging out with all of them at Cedar Tavern and listening to the conversation. She's in the studio. She's very influenced by Lee Krasner with her marks and lines. And then Gorky, ashara. Gorky was somebody that was with them all the time and they were in each other's studio seeing these things, right. That's why she was able to be in Pollock's studio and watching him work and people.
Speaker 3:And that second wave of abstract expressionism was really the birth of Colorfield, right. So it was those artists that were in that abstract expressionist school of art that kind of moved their direction to kind of be anti, that complete emotional, you know, hardcore abex thing. That kind of moved into a more spiritual and more broader sense with things. And you have right, rothko we talked about Barnett, newman and Clifford Still they're the most known, but they use brushes and they were easel or wall painters, right. So then you look at what they would call the purest forms of color field emerged from Helen. And this is something that I did not know, that I learned recently that that year, in 1952, clement Greenberg invited Morris Lewis and Kenneth Nolan to Helen's studio to witness her technique of staining raw canvas.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:So you think about. Those names are thrown in there right With Helen for those color field painters, the purest form of it Sam Gilliam, alma, thomas they're all kind of in that realm. But the fact that Clement, who brought Helen into Pollock's show, that jumped her to that next level. He then brought Kenneth Nolan and Morris Lewis into her studio to see what she was doing. And what did they do? They ran out and started staining canvas and taking those ideas to their new way, and this is where they both saw this absolutely groundbreaking painting, historical painting Mountains and Sea, painting Mountains and Sea.
Speaker 3:This was Helen's first piece, with her experimenting with all these ideas of raw canvas and pouring and things onto the ground to create the piece. And the piece is Mountains and Sea. And what I love about this piece is this was that first one in 1952, and you can see the influence of her as well. You can see Kandinsky and Asher Gorky and some Joan Miro and these things, these other people that she admired, with Helen starting to come out and over time obviously this totally evolved. I loved it.
Speaker 3:Let's look at it, nathan. We take a peek at Mountains and Sea and like, look at this, I've never seen this in person Someday? I hope so. And this is oil and charcoal on unprimed canvas. And so Ra put out on the floor. She started pouring and dripping and you can really really feel that witness of Pollock's dance, because she's walking into the canvas and she's pouring and moving things around and you can feel the motion, right, you can feel this movement and she still has some of that early ab, that abex mark making. Right, that's in there, those lines, those gorky lines or Kandinsky shapes and things mixed within what. What do you feel when you look at this piece? What jumps at you?
Speaker 2:I think. I mean, it's really difficult to answer that question without what you already referenced, which is just the historical context of nothing like this had been made before. So let's just set that aside for the moment. Yeah, we were seeing this for the first time today. It would absolutely hold up as a tremendous piece of art yeah right now. Let's bring it back, yeah, on on its on, on its own, without the historical context. It's extraordinary. So let me just speak to that Right Like.
Speaker 2:I love the this is.
Speaker 2:This is a great example of the sort of you know, titles of hers that would reference, you know, certain figurative things that, apart from like, in this case, you know, maybe some of the charcoal marks you know referencing you know, the mountains, certainly there's plenty of blue that would represent the sea.
Speaker 2:But beyond that, you know, without that title, you know, if this was, you know, untitled 1952, it's not as though you and I would stand in front of it and say, oh, that's, yeah, that's for sure, some mountains and some seas, right, Yep, and so that's one of the things this is a great example of, just a lot of her work, which was definitely influenced by landscapes, by the natural world, but, yeah, just the diversity of marks and just the fact that people that were seeing this for the first time had never seen paint make these types of marks on canvas because it had never been laid flat, at least not this way.
Speaker 2:So she borrowed Pollock's technique but obviously executed it in a very, very different way. You wouldn't set this piece next to the work that Pollock's most known for and the work that he was doing when she sort of borrowed this technique and say one was influenced by the other, but the fact that she borrowed that method versus the style, I think, is just another sort of takeaway or a case to be made for the benefits of diversifying our influences, which is something that we've discussed on people's podcasts.
Speaker 3:Well, I think this is what I love about studying art so much. This is what I love about digging into books and seeing a piece and then seeing something else and going hold on a second what date was that? Because for somebody that doesn't really study art or research or look at it, you're going to see one, you're going to see the other and you'd go two totally different paintings. But then if you're really ingrained in studying and learning and wanting to know about art history which I'm a total nerd about I would look at this piece and I'd go 1952 and interesting, she's got some drips, she's got some movement, that's what Pollock was doing just prior. I wonder if Helen was influenced by Pollock at all because of these things, because nobody else was doing that yet. And so that's where I love drawing that art timeline and going. Okay, they're both in New York, they're both in the same area, they both hang out around the same. I know how they all operated, those Abaxers, those Ninth Street women, those, all the men around them were competing and looking. They're in studios constantly, always in each other's studios, going why don't you try this? You should try this. Or, as we found listening to a lot of Helen interviews or going.
Speaker 3:Grace did that. I got to go beat her. I got to go do something bigger than what Grace just did. I've got to compete, I've got to show my stuff and it was healthy. It was a healthy competition.
Speaker 3:So I think for me, and I'm sure for other of those who just love art history and dive into it, you can start drawing lines and going well, how in the world did somebody in Spain do that at the same time that somebody in North Carolina at Black Mountain College did that? And then you can draw the lines and go well, this artist wouldn't have been old enough to really be traveling in Spain, but Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg were teaching him at that time and they just did a show in Spain with Antony Tapas. They probably took pictures and brought the ideas back to Black Mountain College, showed a young Cy Twombly and he started creating some marks and things that looked just like things the Spanish informalists were doing at that time. So it's that for me, that's where I nerd out and I'm able to go this and that and this and that, and I'm derailing our conversation here because that's what I do when I talk about history.
Speaker 2:No, it's great. You brought up something actually really, really interesting too, which is the Grace Hartigan piece I think it was called the Massacre that she had made just a few months before this piece, which was almost identical in dimensions, right. Right, he talks about that in Fierce Poise, which I did get all the way through before today's episode.
Speaker 2:Such a good book for Nathan, your fantastic book highly recommend. Um, but uh, just that sort of like frenemy relationship that we had, that that the two of them had, and again, like you look at the massacre, you know there's, there's. That's a very different, you know type of of of work and we can throw that up for the, for the folks that are watching on YouTube here which, by the way, if you're just listening, we put this on YouTube and there's visuals for all of it, apart from just our yapping mugs. But again, just that competitive nature of, oh, anything you can do, I can do better. Oh, you're going to work at this scale, so am I right? It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:It's pretty cool. Well, something that I love about that piece, not just because historically historically, I think it's an absolutely beautiful piece but I love that she was really trying to find expression and spontaneous and rigorous encounters with the canvas, because this is something she had to learn as well. Right, because she wasn't taught to pour, she wasn't taught to move the water and the liquid around and let it sit. And how do things blend and how do I get a line, how do I get shape? So this is all learned. But because that accident, right, you pour green and then you pour blue, and then the blue doesn't stop and it goes over the green, but you wanted it to stop. You know, like all those things she's learning, but there's that spontaneity in it that I love.
Speaker 3:You don't know what's going to happen. Will this work the way I really think it's going to work? No, I just need to let it naturally occur and take place. And I think for her in the same way. The ocean moves and hits the land. You never know where it's going to touch, when the tide comes in or comes back, how the different things under the water, like the sand and the rocks, may mix and cause those colors to change as the water moves out. I mean I get all of those feelings right when I look at this piece and I'm looking at those things and the shapes and the movement and for me it's absolutely breathtaking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, as I spent more time with this while you've been talking, the dashes of bold color, the very concentrated portions of pigment in that upper left-hand corner, just that little dash of red which reoccurs in the lower left-hand corner, which comes again in probably the most where my eye is drawn initially, in that little dash in the middle of that sort of you know dirty ochre color, it's just magnificent. So in the midst of these sort of soft, amorphous, you know color field shapes, you've got these little dashes of bold, concentrated, you know pigment that just bring a whole nother, you know part of the whole nother language you know, to the, to the conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, as we talked about, right Pollock gave her permission to really open up these things inside that she'd been thinking about or processing her ideas, and so it was like that permission when I say I've never thought about that before, that type of permission, right, it's given you this new confidence to move past what you put in your head as limitations self-imposed limitations and opening it up to do whatever you want to do in whatever way possible.
Speaker 3:And I think that's so important for us as artists and that's why I always encourage go look at work, go study artists. In my mentorship program I do an artist research paper for all the artists that are in it and I take the artists that they love or are inspired by. I look at their work and I create often a 5, 10, 15 page document that has artists that are similar to those they love or that inspired them, or artists who have similarities to their work, so they can dive in and realize you can do whatever you want to, but let's still take ideas from these other artists because they feed into the permission they're giving us to explore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, and I think that's so exciting. And for myself, helen is one of those artists because I paint mostly on the floor. I don't really do pouring techniques, but every now and then I do. But there is this I love the way she uses negative space, and so that's something that has given me permission to really explore how negative space works within the context of color and form. And then artists like Oscar Murillo and Cy Twombly, ada Temescu, martha Youngworth these artists have all done things that I've seen and gone.
Speaker 3:Why didn't I think of that? That fits into the natural order of my work and my evolution. I got to go try it. Thank you so much, ada, for giving me permission. Martha, oscar, all these artists that have given me permission to let dirt exist on my canvas. Like Oscar Murillo, it's okay if the canvas gets dirty. It doesn't have to be pristine and clean. I don't want it pristine and clean anyways, but his work selling at White Cube and Zwirner and Gagosian and everywhere else in the world where his work is, it's dirty as hell, right? So does my work have to be pristine and clean? No, so I don't know who has inspired you. Do you have artists that have really opened that whole gamut up for you of. Thank you for giving me permission to do that.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a moment in particular that jumps to mind, not so much his work, but just a moment of seeing his work. There's a de Kooning piece at the Chicago Art Institute, chicago Institute of Art, and I remember really getting my nose into it. It's part of their permanent collection. I think it's up all the time. You can really see, as with most of his work, the chunks, the bits from other that was stuck on the brush, right yeah, the brush hair, all of those little things. And up until the brush, right yeah, the, the, the brush hair, you know, all of those little things. And up until that point I had really been very again, when I was still engaging more with the perfectionist in me, I was very, you know, anal about like, oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want that to show, or oh, that, that, that color is not from this piece, let me, let me, you know, remove that or cover it up. And I was like, no, that's what's, that's what's beautiful about it, that's, that's, that's what made, that's the human touch.
Speaker 3:Yes, the humanity within it, yeah.
Speaker 2:As we continue to get further into the world of, of, of AI, I think that's going to be even more important. More valuable to us is that tangible human touch, you know. And so that was one of the things for me and that became a mantra that I that I still hold onto, which is show your work, don't be shy about the marks that weren't perfect or the things that weren't even supposed to be there. Because, again back to Helen, you know when she said I'd rather risk an ugly surprise than rely on things I know I can do, right, yep, I go to Mark Bradford. You know, that was one of the things when, when I, when I saw uh, you know his quote of you know, if Home Depot doesn't have it, mark Bradford doesn't need it, and I was stuck in that mode at that time of I've got to use traditional materials, they've got to be, you know, archival. I need to go to the art store and make sure that right. And I think when I saw that, I was like, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And, by the way and this is something too, that Helen spent a lot of time in her later work, experimenting with different things like rakes and sponges, yeah, just different, diversifying ways of making marks and applying paint. You know, I always that's one thing I got from Bradford right, it's just like down every aisle of Home Depot there's something that was made for everything back there in my studio, yeah, With very few exceptions was made for something else. And so just by virtue of the fact that I'm misusing the tools not misusing, but using it for certainly not its intended purpose or the material it's going to produce something different. I think a lot about when you bring that up, alberto Burri, one of my absolute Love him.
Speaker 2:So just like, yeah, you can Plastic, absolutely, it's an art material, you know what I mean. But yeah, the, the, the, the list goes on and on. But that permission is is huge. And I think that you know, for the, for the listener, if you're waiting for that thing, that little idea, that little seed of what if I tried this, that's that that you have. If you're hearing my voice right now, that you have in your head that continues to kind of whisper, listen to it, try it, do it. We don't need permission. But if you were waiting for it, consider this the moment where you're being given permission to go ahead, and not that you need it for me or anybody else, but just like, do it, yeah, try it. You never risk the ugly surprise, rather than continuing to rely on things you know you can do. Back to that Helen quote.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got a quote for you that I just want to share that popped in my head, from Julian Schnabel, and he says one thing gets born out of another. I work with things left over from other things.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:And that I mean and thinking about, and that's for all of you out there, with what Nathan just said one thing gets born out of another. So, you know, explore those mediums, explore those new tools, explore those things, Cause something else will be born out of what you think you're going to do with what you're doing, what?
Speaker 2:pops to mind when I hear that is I've never. I've never tried this, but I've got friends that make their own kombucha. Yeah, Same. Are you familiar with that process Like the, the, the mother spore or something like?
Speaker 3:that.
Speaker 2:It's not that exactly, but it's something that is required from previous batches. To like whatever birth or start yeah.
Speaker 3:Like sourdough, like sourdough bread as well, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, like bread. Yeah, same, same same idea. That's interesting. The thing that produced the things before is the seed, or at least the starting point, for what's going to come next.
Speaker 3:I love that If we're considering the audience all the time, then we're going to completely put a wall up for all those things we want to experiment with and all those things we want to try that are new, because we're so worried about what others are going to think about our work and I think that's something that was very special for Helen is she didn't give a shit as she got older, especially what people thought about her work. I mean, I'm sure she did.
Speaker 3:I'm sure that she did, because we're all humans, so we get the bad review or whatever. We're going to go home and think about it, but it never, ever stopped her from exploring and continuing to kind of push the boundaries she had around her and keep creating what she wanted to create, and I think we have a great quote about that, right.
Speaker 2:You're a great. You're a great speaker. I love your voice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd rather listen to Helen anyways.
Speaker 2:Let's default to Helen.
Speaker 1:Too much of a sense of audience is very dangerous for an artist. I often feel when I'm sending a painting out of the studio nobody's going to like this, they're going to love that, but they're not going to like this. They're going to love that, but they're not going to like this. Sometimes I'm surprised, but I always feel I can't help it if they don't like it, because I'll stand by it, because I think it's good. It's who and what I'm about.
Speaker 3:What do you think about that? I'm going to let you go first, I'm ready to go first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is really interesting. This is, again, for me, part of the value of spending time with the biographies, the autobiographies, whatever we can dig up and find about the artist, because I go to this. There's a difference between, from a distance, if all we had was Helen's work, her legacy, and the sort of top 20 quotes in a bubble, we would think that she was declaring absolute truth and descending from the mountaintop to distribute it to everybody else. Mountaintop to distribute it to everybody else, okay, as opposed to reminding herself every time she says it of something that she needs to be reminded of, right, and so I think about something like Marcus Aurelius meditations, okay. So all the wisdom in that it's now a book it was just meant to be his personal journal was him reminding himself of things that he needed to be reminded of. Hey, dummy, the bed is warm. You're going to want to stay in it in the morning. Get up anyway, just as an example. So this is an interesting exercise.
Speaker 2:I'm going to reread that quote that she just said, as this absolute truth statement, too much of a sense of the audience, is very dangerous for an audience. I can't help if the audience doesn't like it, because I'll stand by it, because I think it's good. It's who and what I'm about. That's very declarative. That's just here it is. You're welcome. I'm going to reread it in its full context, which is what we just listened to, or actually better yet. Let's just replay it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's listen to it again.
Speaker 1:Much of a sense of audience is very dangerous for an artist. I often feel when I'm sending a painting out of the studio nobody's going to like this, they're going to love that, but they're not gonna like this. Sometimes I'm surprised, but I always feel I can't help it if they don't like it, because I'll stand by it, because I think it's good. It's who and what I'm about so.
Speaker 2:So here's, here's why I here's what I here's I take from that and why I wanted to kind of dissect that I get down right. So if we take that middle section out where she acknowledges, I often feel no one's going to like this right. I'm surprised If we cut that part out. It would read as that. So my point is this everyone is unsure, everyone has self-doubt, everyone has fear.
Speaker 2:What's amazing and inspirational that Helen exemplifies so beautifully is that bold force of will that propelled her to take action in spite of her neuroticism, self-doubt, fears, etc. So again, just to the value of like getting into the stories of art history, getting into the, the biographies of the people that made the work, especially as artists, if you're just appreciating art, I don't know that that's quite as as as helpful or or critical, but I think for us artists it's absolutely critical to realize that, look, they're just people too. Yeah, they're having the same or whatever they or whatever they had or are having their same version of, or their personal version of the same doubts, fears, all the things that you're experiencing, that I'm experiencing, that you're experiencing today. But they focused on the truth, not the lies, right, that may have been chirping in their mind. And so again, just the value of acknowledging like hey, they were just people too, they're just people too, when I look at it like how can I just go ahead?
Speaker 2:and how can I, in spite of what I'm feeling, in spite of what I'm thinking, in spite of the lies that I might be whispering in my ear, how can I focus on the truth and take action in spite of what I'm feeling?
Speaker 3:And I look at it as really the same way. I look at my work in the studio and that is, if I'm letting it out the door, I'm 100 standing by that piece because it's who I am and what I'm about. This is, I put everything into this piece. I put me, this is me, and so I look at it as when I send that painting out the studio, I have no idea if the audience is going to like it, and I do. I honestly do look go. I think the. I think that's going to be accepted.
Speaker 3:Not sure if this is. Maybe it's a new idea and something I haven't done yet, so it's going to look very different. Or maybe my work evolved so much from the last body of work I had hanging on walls that it's totally new. So it's new to the eyes out there. So they may or may not accept it yet, but if I'm letting it out there, I'm absolutely confident in it. It's who I am, it's what I'm about and I think it's good. I think it's strong enough to go out the door and I look at this as her saying. But if I'm thinking about the audience so much now, my confidence in what I let out the door is going to be lesser and I'm going to be more worried about how they're viewing it rather than if I'm really confident in that work of art. And that is what pushes the artist further that confidence right and ignoring the audience, but the confidence in your work, which is something that her painting stood apart from her quest for recognition and sales.
Speaker 2:Well, and there's something baked into what you just said, and Helen's quote as well, which is you're going to have a sense of the audience at some point. Sure, it's not a matter of if that's going to cross your mind, it's when you allow yourself to spend time with it. Yes, so for her it was when I'm sending a painting out of the studio, right? Yeah, you just said something very similar. Once I'm done with it, once I'm confident enough to put it out into the world, then maybe we think, oh, I not sure, or we'll see, or I think they're going to like this one or they're not going to. But while we're making, it certainly is not the time to consider what are people going to like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and we started this whole conversation off with her quote about being naturally and creatively free when she's working, and she mentions in a quote about the audience. She actually says that when the artist reveals their concern for the audience, then that creative process is no longer pure. You are losing the freedom. Yeah, there's something to read it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some. When an artist reveals his concern for the audience, she said later there is something wrong, something cynical, and the creative process is no longer pure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's something else controlling the direction of your work other than yourself at that point, right, and that's dangerous. That's a very dangerous place to be in no-transcript, like the story of Rothko and still meeting on the street right, and Clifford still calling Rothko out and saying you're a sellout, you're no longer exploring, you're no longer who I know, you've become somebody different. You're no longer free and exploring and doing all the things we sat at the table and talked about in our youth. You've sold out for the billboards and for the fame and the money, and so it's like there are two worlds there. There are two worlds there and it's really your choice on where you exist, and I'm not saying either is wrong, because we need to make money as artists, we need to survive. So it's just something to really really think about. Do you want the audience to control your work and have that much of voice or not? I choose not.
Speaker 2:I do as well, but it's also important for us to acknowledge that back to, I think, one of our previous yeah, I guess this will have been our last episode on the Q&A side. It depends For each individual, for every person, to decide, like what are your goals? Yes, what's your purpose? What are you trying to do? Right, but this actually leads really well into our next quote. It's almost like we planned it. It's almost like we planned it. It's almost like we did. Art has a will of its own. This is a Helen quote. Art has a will of its own. It has nothing to do with the taste of the moment or what's expected of you. That's a formula for dead art or fashionable art. There are no rules. That is how art is born. How breakthroughs happen Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is how art is born. How breakthroughs happen Go against the rules or ignore the rules.
Speaker 3:That is what invention is all about. That's probably her most famous quote, right? I think that's the one that is in art books, that's in quote books that you see on Instagram, with the picture of Helen behind her and the quote on top Right. And I will tell you, art absolutely has a will of its own. It truly does, and I think, like this, this is such a great quote and I think it's even more important today, in the Instagram art world of today, that art has nothing to do with the taste of the moment.
Speaker 3:Well, some of us have figured out that the audience should not be telling us what we do. The hot Instagram trend, all those things that are the audience. They shouldn't be pushing us in our work and doing what we want to do. But our artist friends and our artist network should be a healthy competition of outdoing, outcreating, finding new things, finding new moments, pushing each other, driving each other to test, to try to push things out. And I love this quote from Fierce Poise, where Alexander Nemiroff writes but in every other respect, her painting is a riposte to her friends, as she put it years later.
Speaker 3:Back then, an artist could see another artist's work and say I love what I just saw in your studio. You know it and I know it. I'm going back to mine now and I'm going to knock your eyes out. Love that, she says. You know that, I love it, and I know that I love it. And now I'm going to go back and I'm going to kick your ass. I'm going to outdo what I just went.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's so amazing. I have to run back to my studio to outdo you like that. That's a healthy sense of drive and competition that I think we really lack today as artists, because we don't have that ability, as they did, to be in each other's studios so often that they are inspiring and pushing each other in a way that's making them sprint, right? I think today we have the ability to see more art than we've ever seen in history on a regular basis because of the internet, because of technology. But to be in front of art? Obviously of technology, but to be in front of art, obviously, right, nathan, we know how much different it is to experience your work in person or my work in person, being in the studio and looking at it.
Speaker 2:I got a couple thoughts on that. Yes, one is let me let me just say what I'm imagining. Hold on, let me let me listen into the future to what some of our listeners might be thinking right now. Let me see if I can pick up on that frequency. Yeah, I think I got it. But Ty, I'm not a competitive person. I didn't, I didn't get into art to be competitive. I don't like being competitive.
Speaker 3:Are you wanting me to answer that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. My answer then is sorry. Hey, just just for future, when I pick up my glass and I go no, I know that's for sure your turn. I was being a smart ass.
Speaker 3:I was being a smart ass there. Do you want me to be the jerk? And say this out loud? I'm sorry. You better have a sense of competition. If you're going to go into the art world, you're going to get eaten alive. And when I mean competition, I don't mean I'm going to win. I mean competition is in a healthy confidence that I'm as good at, or better than, those artists on the wall. And so you, mr Gallerist, mrs Gallerist, should be takinga chance on my work, that that sense of competition, not the I want first place, or I'm talking. I want to make work so strong that I have a confidence to go in and go. My work should be on your walls because it is as strong as the work on these walls, or stronger, and be confident enough in yourself to say it out loud that leads to the boldness that we've talked about all throughout the episode, that Helen displayed in so many different ways throughout her career and her life.
Speaker 2:I wonder about this, ty, I wonder about I just had this thought as you were talking but I wonder if healthy competition is maybe not dependent on, but certainly aided by, proximity.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:It's easier for you and I to have, let's just say, a healthy competition when we're in regular communication with one another, because we know it comes from a place of wanting not just to one up the other person but to see the other continue to do better as well. Yep, right, like we, we both all, whatever uh tides raise all ships. However, that's saying yeah, but you know, we all get better together because we are pushing. You know one another and you and I both happen to come from you know so different degrees of athletic backgrounds and having been on teams and you know but, but art's very much a um, an individual, you know sport, um, but that it's.
Speaker 2:It's that, that overall awareness of what's possible. I mean, I think that's what it is for me. It's not. I am better than you, I'm going to do better than you. It's, it's. It's very different. It's oh, I'm, I'm in a pool of how would I put this? I'm surrounding myself with influences that are going to cause me to raise my own bar, because this is an oversimplification. But there's competition with others and there's competition with oneself, and I think that everyone has an element of one or the other or both, but let's just say that somebody didn't have any interest in being competitive with others, but they just wanted to. Then, to tack on to your point, it's helpful if you are interested, of course, in competing with your previous self and continuing to progress and grow into the best version that you can be today. And I think, whichever category a person falls into, predominantly we are going to benefit from being aware of what other people are doing and having that hey, if you, then why not me? Sort of mentality.
Speaker 3:Well, proximity is the word, Nathan. That's why you look at, the major art cities in the world that have always flourished with the arts are very large cities, right. They're metropolises that have a melting pot of cultures and community and everybody's really close to each other in proximity. So you have that competition of right, new York why is the light bulb in the head of every artist in the United States? I got to get to New York right, it's proximity. There's more art, there's more artists, there's more things. So there's that. You know what I mean. It's you get there and just diving right in. But there's plenty of artists that get there and get overwhelmed and leave. But the ones who get there and dive right in it does something.
Speaker 3:That proximity to older artists uh, older, you know, younger artists, arc, all those things kind of combined really do add to that competition and we'll say that innate drive to really push, push, push further than you think you even could. And that's hard, being in a small town. I have artist friends here in Waco, but most of my artist friends who are in the art world are other places internationally, other places in the US, and so I don't have that proximity to see work in person, like. I would like to have my friend Vino and Austin seen her work in person. Like does something to me and it was totally different than seeing it on Instagram or, you know, doing a FaceTime to look at each other's work in our studios, which we've done in the past but being in proximity and seeing the work in person, man, that pushes me to get back in the studio as fast as I can and seeing the work in person, man, that pushes me to get back in the studio as fast as I can.
Speaker 2:Totally. And I will add to, I think, as a point of encouragement, like what you just said you know about Schnabel, new York, right, like that's less true now than it was in the whatever early 80s when he made that move, right, so it's because of the advent of social. Again to your point, there's no replacement for seeing work and interacting with the person who made it live and in person. I had that experience when I was with Eric whatever a few weeks ago down in Texas and we had dialogued, like we were whatever Instagram friends before that and I actually talked on the phone a couple of times. But seeing especially his metal work and some of this, like just seeing it in person, just a different experience.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That being said, even if you are in small town, you know podunk, wherever it's, you're not going to bump into those people at at coffee or at dinner or at you know whatever, the, the, the, the concert or the or the opening, but you can put yourself in conversation with anybody anywhere in the world and we couldn't do that, you know, even whatever 20 years ago or whatever Right, like that's a, that's a recent, that's a recent thing. And so, in the absence of the ability to physically rub elbows, you know, uh, with people on a regular basis, we do have the ability to reach out. I mean, I've got a bunch of artists that I'm in various degrees of dialogue, you know with just Instagram because they reached out and asked and I am, I am both the person answering.
Speaker 2:you know those, those questions and the and the one asking, right, like I do that all the time just cold DM somebody whose work I really, I really dig, and sometimes it starts a cool dialogue and sometimes they don't, whatever you know. Back to Helen's point from before of like what's the worst that could happen? They could not respond, you know.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Anyway, the point is like the more that we can extend our web and and deepen the pool, raise the caliber of our influences, the more it's going to push us forward.
Speaker 3:Love it and I man, go see some Helen work If you have the opportunity to look. I know we've said this in other podcasts, but what's the closest museum to you where you live? Go into the archive or the registry and see what work they have on display and see if they have a Helen Frankenthaler piece. If you haven't seen one in person, I suggest go find a museum that has one. Take a day trip. Grab a couple artists, friends. Take a road trip If you need to drive a couple hours. I mean, I live in Texas so everywhere's a couple hours, but I do it regularly. I don't mind getting in a car and driving four hours to go to a museum. I don't mind at all. Go by yourself, take your notebook. I mean that also leads to that healthy competition. You see your heroes on the wall and you want to go back in the studio and make art.
Speaker 2:You want to try and outdo them. I know I do. Let me. Let me throw this out as we close. Again, I'm going to play, break the rules of time and space and read the minds of at least a couple of our listeners. But, Ty, you're telling me to go look at as much art as possible, but you're also telling me to ignore the trends that I see when I go look at a lot of art.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I'm not really speaking too much about those things because we need ideas. Ideas are the backbone of what we create. A trend would be something that you see every time you flip your freaking Instagram scroll and it's the same painting, it's the same idea, over and over and over again. Now I'm saying, yeah, if something at the museum hits you and you just go, oh my gosh, those ideas are incredible. I want to go back and practice those ideas. That's fine, but let those ideas evolve into your wrist and your body and your soul, into the way that you make your art. Keep adding ideas, add ideas. Maybe there is something in the trend that's an idea, but don't just copy and recycle. I guess is what I'm saying more than anything.
Speaker 2:That makes complete sense. Yeah, I would add to that the more we diversify our influences, the more unique our voices are going to be.
Speaker 2:So maybe there is a trend or something that you see that you like Great. Look at a whole bunch of other work in the process, study how it's made, study the artists that are making it, and then you're naturally going to just like Helen did when she borrowed some techniques and ideas from Pollock you will produce something that, over time, will be completely and uniquely your own, and that is a beautiful thing, and I think that's what we're all chasing right and that's what I think that most of us are after anyway.
Speaker 3:Love it. Well, let's do this. Let's have Helen close us out. Let's let Helen's words close out the episode and give all of the artists that are listening some food for thought. Take this back to the studio and think about it.
Speaker 1:One cliche I use on myself all the time is the one rule is no rules, and if you have a real sense of limits, then you're free to break out of them. The end, thank you.