and we're back. We haven't done this for a while, ty, it's been a minute. We have it. Yeah, it's been a minute. I was looking the last time we both recorded a new episode. I think was was about, uh, two months ago, was it two months ago, was?
Speaker 2:it two months ago. Yeah, yeah, it was like late, late January, yeah, that's right. Yeah, wow. But I think we've had some good. I think we've had some good solo episodes, though At least I'm I'm a little biased I think we've had some good. I really enjoyed your interviews in Germany. I thought those were absolutely fantastic and I know we had a lot of a lot of our artist friends out there and listeners to the podcast really seemed to enjoy those greatly, so those were really fun.
Speaker 1:That was a good time. It's good to be back on our regular flow with the two of us. We've got some fun quotes to dissect. I'm going to tease this, but we've got some things to catch up in the Ty Nathan Clark universe as well. But our first quote today. Let's just jump right in. The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. The great art critic, robert Hughes, said that that's a good one, that's a meaty one. We got plenty of supporting quotes we'll dive into as well. But before we do that, though, yeah, bring us into your world. You're in a new spot. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm in my garage I have the ultimate professional podcast setup going on right now. If you're watching us on video, you can see that there's a lot. I built a little wall to hide some things behind me. I'm physically sore. I'm feeling my age more than I ever have after a really long move. So my wife and I bought a new house and we moved and in that I'm building a studio in the backyard.
Speaker 2:So if you follow me on Instagram, you see me sharing my excited stories about the, the framing and things going up in my studio, and so I had to move out of my space, which was I highly underestimated the amount of stuff I had in my studio, the amount of time it was going to take me to move and the amount of 25-foot U-Hauls it was going to take to fill Right. So luckily I had one of my best buddies come down, jeremy Combs, and help me clean out studio, after I already moved two 20-foot U-Hauls worth of paintings into storage, and so I'm not having storage in my studio anymore. So this is going to be really fun to just have a space that is dedicated purely to making and not making and storing. So I have all my work in climate-controlled storage and new spaces going up, and I think they're probably a month away from completing it, so I'll be working in the garage and creating in the garage up until that point. So, like in your previous space, remind me I was in my last studio for three years, okay.
Speaker 1:So, and what percent of the stuff did you end up throwing away versus carrying over? I'm curious. There was probably a dumpster full. There was probably a dumpster full.
Speaker 2:There might've been a dumpster full of stuff. I mean, I just where did all this come from? There's just a moment where I went where did all this? Stuff come from. I don't even get it Basically, Nathan, it was a massive job. My back hurts. I hurt my hip. You know, I'm that old artist now that's probably going to have a cane in a few years simply from moving a massive studio into a much smaller space.
Speaker 1:But I'm excited it's going to be really fun. So I've been thinking about this, ty. I think the goal should be that, as our physical ability to do the work completely solo declines, our ability from a career trajectory standpoint to acquire help in the form of assistant or assistance hopefully will increase.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I my fingers are like crossed that there's a time and a moment when I can hire a studio assistant. I told my nephew today, when we were driving back from north dallas to to waco and then he was going to head to austin. I told him man, I wish I had the ability to hire you to be my assistant, because you could build all my frames, stretch all my canvases, move all my heavy stuff, pick up my saw, do all the things. I don't have to bend over anymore, I can just paint on the wall, I can stay straight up and then I'm fine. No aches, no pains, I'm good. As I'm saying that, I'm thinking of my dear friend Frances Beattie, who is an incredible sculptor, installation artist and artist who, at her age, is more physically in shape and adept than I am. She is a definite inspiration to me to always be moving and always be active, because she's a champ.
Speaker 1:I love her. She's amazing and does a lot of physical work too. It's not.
Speaker 2:Very physical work, it's not. Yeah, she's not just painting, right? She's folding, she's moving, she's hanging, she's up on ladders, doing all kinds of stuff. I love her, love you, frances. You're a badass.
Speaker 1:All right. So we've got some other exciting news that I'd love for you to share as well, with something you've got coming up in May here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think I think this really falls great into our quote by Robert Hughes. There I'm going to read it one more time. He says the greater the artist, the greater the doubt, and I think we always have. And this just isn't talking about the work. Let's talk about a whole lot of things. Doubt is involved in as an artist and I've been applying to a specific invitational. I'd probably apply, I don't know years, I don't know. I lose track sometimes because there's certain things that I get the email it's a residency, it's an invitational, it's something and I apply every year just like clockwork. It's apply, apply, apply, apply. And this year I got accepted into the Marfa invitational, which is something that I have really personally put on a pedestal. Thank you Appreciate that. It's been a I think I found out two weeks ago about two weeks ago and I've been celebrating inside and outside ever since.
Speaker 2:So it would have been very easy for me to never apply again. Right For us as artists, to like you apply, you apply, you apply, you apply and you always get the letter. Sorry, due to the number of applicants this year, you know we went in another direction. Please apply again, and it's easy to get those and just go. Man, I'm never going to get in, ever, never, never going to get in. So I'm just going to stop in, ever, never, never going to get in, so I'm just going to stop applying.
Speaker 2:But that's, you know, that's part of the great challenge for us as artists is have that confidence where we absolutely believe in ourselves. To you know what? I know how much better I am now than I was five years ago. That I was four years ago, I was three or two years ago, because I'm working my ass off and I'm growing and I'm trying and I'm building. I'm doing all these things. I'm going to apply until I get in, and I've told some people about specific things, and Marfa was one of those. I don't care if I'm 80 years old and I finally get in, because I've been applying for the next 30 plus years and I finally get in at 80, it will all be worth it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and I think I love the. The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Yeah, and even I mean that I'll end up right. You just had a big show in Germany and all of a sudden you come back home and there's these thoughts in your head of like, oh, did I do good enough? Was I this? Did I live up to what I thought or what they hoped? Doubt starts right after you got something. So that quote is so, so, real and true, right, and it's just, oh yeah. And I have a quote I want to read by Charles Bukowski that I love because I think he's so pungently funny at times and we're already off script Already off script right, this is how we do it.
Speaker 1:This is how we roll. It should be just go off script. This is exactly how we do it.
Speaker 2:I'm down for whatever Bukowski had to say.
Speaker 1:Please go.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's the quote from the wonderful Bukowski. He says the problem with the world is that all of the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence. I love that because he's really highlighting the fact that intelligence and self-awareness bring uncertainty to us. And this is something that is definitely true of great artists and we've talked about a lot of them in our podcasts who they're extremely intelligent, but they have such self-awareness and that at times, brings this uncertainty of am I really doing this right? Am I really doing the right? Am I growing enough, am I trying enough things? But that it's that intelligence of really thinking about those things that causes you to have some doubts, that make you go further, that make you try harder For sure, right, and I think it's really easy. Well, I know artists I'm not going to name names, although sometimes I really want to who is just like there's just this pompous arrogance about them, and I've never seen their work grow in the last five years ears.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll use a name that would. That, to me, would for sure be like the, the um, the poster child for for that. I talked about this, actually, in the solo episode. I did a few episodes back where I talked about notes from the woodshed by Jack Whitten, but I used uh, sean Scully, as a sort of emphasis of of that.
Speaker 1:And you know what? He'll never hear this. Even if he did, he'd be like, yeah, fuck, yeah, that's me, so it's always, it's all, but just that extreme, like no, I'm making the best work you've ever seen. And here it is, and if you don't get it, then I can't help you. You know what I mean. I'm paraphrasing here, obviously, but, yes, you know, mutually exclusive. But I think that the, the great artist, who is also just supremely confident, is the, the unicorn right, the, the absolute exception to the rule, if we can call it that. That we're talking about, you know today for sure, and I think that I'm going to throw another quote in that also was not on the uh, as we continue to devolve from the uh playbook that we had laid out.
Speaker 3:Anton Chekhov we're evolving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just getting better as we go. Perfect, let's go with that. The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them. Anton Chekhov said that the role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
Speaker 1:Yep, and I think that's a good for me. Certainly I know that I'm making my best work when I'm asking questions and I feel like successful work for me is work that encourages the viewer to ask questions of themselves. And just consider you know things maybe from a different perspective or in a different way than they would have previously. But greater artist, greater doubt. I can only speak for one of those two things. I know that I'm full of doubt as far as how great of an artist. That's not for us to decide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was talking about that with my artists. I can't believe I can't remember if it was this last Saturday or the Saturday before Talking about that with my artists. I can't believe I can't remember if it was this last Saturday or the Saturday before. But we were talking about that because in Art and Fear, you know, one of the things they talk about, that we also talked about in the Art and Fear episode, was that our life as artists isn't frustrating because the passage is slow. It's because we want it to happen fast.
Speaker 2:Say that again the artist's life is frustrating not because the passage is slow, not because it takes us time to get there. It's because we imagine it to be really fast. Yeah, right, right, we think we should be able to get there tomorrow, but it actually is going to take you a couple of years, right? Or we think, oh, yeah, yeah, I just kind of nailed this here in my work. Yeah, so, oh, yeah, I'm about to do this. And then you're like I'm not. Why can't I do it? I'm not there. We're imagining these things to be really quick, you know, and I think that's when the artist truly understands those things. That's where doubt is going to be, one of those things. That's where the great doubt is going to come from, because can I get there? I don't know. I'm going to keep trying, but can I?
Speaker 1:not. Well, I can't get there. So let's just keep doing this pattern for the next 10 years, right? Yeah, well, that's the death trap, right, and that's the. That's the easier, softer way, for sure, that's. That's there's. There's more comfort in just doing a slightly different iteration, you know, of what we know to be, quote-unquote, successful or or work. But, yeah, we've. We've discussed the downside of that many times in previous episodes. We don't need to go too too far down that path today. But I'm going to throw another quote in here, that's francis bacon said the job of the artist is to always deepen the mystery. The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. Let me ask you, what do you think that means? When you read that, when you hear that deepen the mystery, what does that mean to you? Ty Nathan Clark?
Speaker 2:Well, and you know that's an artist who was full of a lot of doubt, right, francis Bacon. I just bought his journals a while back and I started reading them slowly, and he's full of a lot of doubt with his work and I think that's what pushed him so hard. And I think, you know, thinking about mystery exists in what we don't know, right, it's, it's this existence of something that we don't know, but yet we're trying to find it, we're trying to find an answer for it, but we can't. But we know something exists, we know that there's something there and wrapped up around that, um, and I think that when we're able to embrace what doesn't truly exist, but we know is there or not exist, when we're trying to really embrace what we hope taking me but I know that I have that idea, right that that our uncle, rick Rubin, would always say you can't just throw away those little ideas there's something, it's that it could be that divine spark, right.
Speaker 2:That little teeny thing that lights a huge fire, right. That just takes you on this course of something that could be really, really big. And I think by doing that you're making room, you're creating more and more and more room in that mystery to bring something out of it. But if we're not deepening in that, we're not diving into the mystery and we're just kind of checking things off and going through the motions, and I don't really want to spend the time that it's going to take to get there. Well, you're shrinking that, all that shrinking and shrinking and shrieking, and you're taking your room from this massive mysterious space into this little controlled substance.
Speaker 1:The, uh, the aperture narrows yeah real quickly. I just pulled up the definition of mystery. Yeah, something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain. That's, according to Oxford, something that is difficult or you know it's there you know, it's there. There's a sense of presence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's. You know that it's there, but it's like, ah, you know, and that's part of that, like, that's part of that Imag imagining something to happen fast. You're just trying to get it, you're taking these steps to get there. You know it's there, I know I can make this painting, I know I can create this sculpture, build this installation out. I know I can get there. But when you don't have the tools to get there yet and you've never done it yet, the mystery is that idea that you can. Yeah, like, why would you even be thinking about it? Why would it even be present?
Speaker 1:Now comes the time. It's the journey of the, it's the pursuit of finding an answer. That's interesting anyway, right, yeah, the other definition, of course a novel, play or movie dealing with a puzzling crime, especially a murder, right? What's interesting about a mystery as a genre of you know, literature or murder? Right, what's interesting about a mystery as a genre of literature or film? Right, it's. Oh, what happened here? I want to get there, I want to find out. And it's all of the path, the little detours along the way, all the dead ends that are interesting in and of themselves, that make for an interesting story, that makes the ending, if there is one in the context of a narrative way, more interesting. Right, because we went on a journey to get there. It wasn't just, hey, just Joe Friday here's the facts, professor Plum, with the candlestick in the library. Well, that's a pretty short story. It's not that interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, and I love the next quote you have in here by the physicist Brian Green, where he says exploring the unknown requires tolerating uncertainty. Right, and that's just what we're saying there. It's like I'm about to embark on some brand new ideas in my work, like I'm trying to take things that have existed for a long time within my work, yeah, and I want to make them bigger, I want to make them more prevalent and more present, because there's some really deep meaning in these little moments that have held deep meaning in my work for years and I feel like they're telling me they need more space, they need to come out in a larger way, a more prevalent way. So now I'm in that unknown, yeah, right, and I have no idea. I'm so uncertain on how to get there, and I started playing before I moved studios and I'm about to start playing it again, this plane, again this week with those ideas. But I'm in full exploration mode here. Yeah, I have to be completely. I was just talking to one of my artists about this Saturday.
Speaker 2:We have to be completely willing to explore the unknown and all of its facets and tolerate the uncertainty. And why do we tolerate? Because we've been really good at something else up until this point. Yeah, we've gotten into shows with this work. We've gotten into invitationals with this work, residencies, whatever that is with the work we just did. We're certain about that. Yeah, you have to tolerate that uncertainty. That means you have to live with it. You have to move with it every day. You got to go in the studio, come out of the studio, go into the studio, come out of the studio day in, day out, and tolerate the fact that you don't know how it's going to look, how you're going to get there and how long it might take. That's the exploration.
Speaker 1:That word tolerate, you know, to me I interpret that as as acceptance of this, as part of the path. Right, there's, you know, when you think about the, the tall, how much can I tolerate this discomfort? Well, part of it comes from accepting that discomfort, that uncertainty, is just part of the journey, right, as opposed to. You know what's something else uncomfortable? Well, here it's 95 degrees. Where you are in Texas, it's 45 degrees where I am here in Minnesota, right now, if either of us goes outside in the clothes we're wearing right now, we're going to be probably a little bit uncomfortable, right? So there's, there's things that we can influence, right, we can change, in my case, how much I bundle up. In your case, you know how much you, you, you layer down, right, I mean, there's things that we can, that we can influence to help the environment that we are choosing to put ourselves in, to be less brutal or affect us less. But it has to begin from a place of accepting this is the temperature of the environment that we're choosing to be in. So what do we, what do we do with that, as opposed to trying to change, you know, the the, the reality of that situation, right, those are very different perspectives as opposed to. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of I think about it a lot as, as a map, I think we are trying to continuously expand the territory that we're exploring. You know, in our work, and the good news to me is that everything starts from. I mean, every, every exploration starts from the, the last known place on the map. Right, like we don't, we don't just jump out of a, out of an airplane, parachute into land completely unknown. Right we're, we're starting from a place that that is known and we're pushing the boundaries of the territory that that we're exploring.
Speaker 1:So, like, with what you're describing, you know and we've talked about this offline as well like you're beginning from the threads that you've already started to cultivate in previous work and deciding no, I want to really lean into this more. Right, so it is, it is on, it is uncertain, but it's not completely unknown. Right, there is a, a there's a, there's a seed of all. Right, I know there's something here. I'm just going to go farther down this path and see where, whatever the see, where the coast is, or see where I fall off the, you know, fall off the edge, right, well, I love that, uh, I love that analogy and I use it a lot in the program too and for myself.
Speaker 2:just explorers and map makers and the ancient discoverers and and I I used I've studied for a long time when I was kind of in that outdoor adventure world and going and hiking around the world and backpacking and things and studying the old climbers, the charted everest and the mallories and the royal robins and a lot of the swedes and the finnish climbers from northern europe, and then moving into like more contemporary climbers, from doug tompkins that started north face and yvonne chinard that started patagonian, how they charted all these climbs that nobody'd ever done before but also kind of invented modern climbing technology while they were doing it, you know, getting local people to, you know blacksmith things for them and creating carabiners and different ways to climb and chart these things, and that's our.
Speaker 2:That's what we're doing, like we're going to a spot that has been laid out through history but all of a sudden we're about to go onto a new trail, maybe have to make something that's never existed before in land, that's never been walked on before right, and all of a sudden you're starting to chip away into a new direction yeah and you're laying out that map.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's what the ancient explorers did is the last people made it to here, but our goal is to make it even further. So we got to where they went, and now I've got to go further. I got to where Cy Twombly and Anthony Tappas went. I got to where Martha Youngworth went, and now Ty Nathan Clark's going to take it a step further. How do I do that? Where am I going? Well, it's all brand new. I'm totally uncertain. How far will I be able to get to go? And then you start charting and going and moving and it's completely uncertain. You don't know what's on that other side. You only know what's been there before. Yeah, but it's really easy. There's a lot of explorers that turned around and went Ooh gosh, these cliffs are too tough, I can't go further. I can't do it.
Speaker 1:There there is a measure of confidence and self-assuredness that is required 100%, you know right. I mean, if we take our jumping off quote, you know too far, we would say the more doubt we have, the greater the artist we could become. There is a point at which we need to muster up the courage to take those steps forward into the unknown, to explore where we've not been before. It's perfect. It's almost like we planned this. We actually didn't, but I love that you're talking about actual exploration. So this next quote I'm actually going to call an audible here. I'm actually going to play an audio from a podcast I was listening to, actually earlier today. This is by an author named Alex Hutchinson and I'm going to play an audio from. I heard, I learned about him from a recent episode. He was a guest on the Rich Roll podcast, which is one of my favorite favorite podcasts, super insightful, and he has a lot, of, a lot of really educated guests.
Speaker 3:I'm going to play this audio and then we'll uh, we'll talk about it we really are wired to explore in some amorphous way, that that, this feeling that something might be interesting over the hill, that is a human feeling, that is something you should respect in yourself and and recognize and pursue, and that, moreover, it's a useful feeling to follow.
Speaker 3:It's one that leads to good things, both in a you're going to get better restaurant meals eventually if you explore because you're, you know, in a tangible way but also, maybe more importantly, in a way that leads to feeling like you're doing something meaningful, that exploration is about accepting uncertainty and risk and that by doing that on a regular basis, we end up doing difficult things, overcoming our doubts and feeling like our pursuits have meaning.
Speaker 3:And so why does this matter? In our current world, there are a whole bunch of structural forces that are making our lives easier and more predictable, that are eliminating uncertainty and also eliminating even the need to make decisions, that we're being fed entertainment options, we're being told what to do in a way that takes away the active part of following our own interests. There's a bunch of different reasons that that is not going to be satisfying in the long-term and may even be bad for us in a sort of very tangible neuroscience way, but certainly is a less satisfying way to live. So the sort of takeaway message is um, listen to that inner voice telling you to try something, uh, and be willing to take take risks in pursuit of something, because you never know what you might find. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I love that. I would encourage people to go check out that podcast episode because it's really good. He just wrote a new book that I've already pre-ordered and I'm not sure that the title that I think it is Wired to Explore. I can fact check myself and we can put it in the show notes. But just that whole idea of the curiosity, you know, something we've talked about countless times before and I'm sure we'll revisit going forward as well, but just that curiosity of like something might be interesting over that hill. We don't know what it is, it might not be where we end up, it might not be where we want to stay, but it might be interesting. And just hearing him talk about that being a useful feeling is really, really interesting to me.
Speaker 1:One of the things that is, I guess, another layer to that, or something that I hear in that too, is that you know he talks about the continuously exposing ourselves to the uncertainty will, over time, make more comfortable with that discomfort.
Speaker 1:It will expand our range of tolerance right For for uncertainty and just accepting, like I think about if there's, if there's anything fundamentally different about the way that I think about the process of making art now versus even you know, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1:It's probably that I would say that I'm I am much more, and I'm curious your thoughts on this as well, because you've been doing this longer than I have but I'm much more conditioned for just being okay with sitting in like this. This might not work. I may very well end up, you know, throwing away or, in my case, just you know stashing away, until I have to move my studio Right, throwing something in a pile and being like, hey, not today, maybe not ever, but definitely not today. Right, yeah, and accepting that the value in that exploration may not necessarily be for the completion of that particular piece, it may not even contribute anything useful for that particular body of work, but it's still expanding the territory of my understanding of what I am trying to do and giving me more tools with which to do it.
Speaker 2:You know, moving my studio was such an eye-opener to me because there was so much old work that I was uncovering, right. It's like you're going back on the trail on your way out and you're going oh gosh, I remember we turned left and we shouldn't at that point, you know. And so we went back and charted this way and I mean there are some pieces that I pulled out and was like, oh, I remember that, what a horrible piece, what an absolutely terrible thing. And then I went. But I do remember if I hadn't have done that and stuck with it and kept moving through it and stuck with it and kept moving through it, I would not have figured out X. Right, I had to make that absolutely atrocious, shitty thing to get to X. Mm-hmm, you know, and I love oh gosh, it's A Smooth Sea Never Made a Skilled Sailor by Franklin D Roosevelt. Say that again A Smooth Sea Never Made a Skilled Sailor, right. If the ocean is A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor Right. If the ocean is perfectly smooth and you're out there sailing, you're just going to go straight and you're going to get to your point, right. But if something comes up that's hard to get through, that sailor is not going to be able to make it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think us as artists, like we're constantly hitting storms out on the water Like it's a constant storm. It's like all of a sudden, we feel like the clouds cleared, the sky is blue and we're able to just lay back on that sailboat and just relax and the next thing you know the second, you, you know the second you kick your shoes off and you grab that glass of wine. The clouds are back and the storms hit again, and there you are again on a rough sea. I mean, that's, you know, that's the artist's life. It's every one of you that's listening is going right now. Yeah, absolutely, and maybe some of the listeners, I've never had the blue sky. I'm still waiting for it. Sure, nathan, when does that blue sky come? It does come if you're patient and you realize this is slow and it's going to take some time. And I think you know Miles.
Speaker 1:Davis is one of my favorite musicians in history. I've got a number of miles for a second you gave me. You reminded me of something interesting I don't think I've mentioned in the podcast before. We can fact check this later.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I have heard that the biggest difference between the way that cattle and bison respond to a storm I think I'm pretty sure this is true, let's just go with it, let's go with it Is that when cattle livestock, when they encounter bad or inclement weather, they go the opposite direction. They try to outrun the storm, which, of course, is impossible, which means they actually end up going the same direction as the storm and they spend more time in it. Bison buffalo do the opposite when they encounter bad weather. They're just their natural instincts tell them we go, we go into the storm, we move towards the storm, which means they naturally spend less time in that inclement weather. And so, assuming that's true, it makes a lot of sense, it makes for a good story regardless. But it's really interesting in that like, okay, well, if you haven't experienced that blue sky or if we haven't experienced it recently, just remembering that leaning into the discomfort is likely the best way to go right, because let's bring it back to art. What's the alternative? What's the equivalent of, you know, being a big dumb cow in the art space? Well, it would be. Oh, let me just retreat back to what I know and just kind of do more of that, because I think that that's at least there's some there's, there's the promise of the false hope.
Speaker 1:I would argue, we would argue of comfort there, which is only going to delay actually getting through. You know the shit to get to the, the, the goal to get to earn, you know, the, the earn the summit, right, like, I haven't done a lot of, I've done a lot of hiking. I've not done a lot of like proper climbing, you know, but even if you just think about like a, a good hike where you're going to go get to a peak, I mean there's plenty parts of of most especially a long hike where it's just kind of drudgery, it's not all beautiful scenery, you know, along the way some of it's pretty, you know nasty, and you're just like all right, I just, I believe I've not been to this peak before, but I'm following a trail that exists, or following my compass. I can see it, I know it's up there. So just continue to push through um with the belief that there is something better on the other side of that hill.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, in that moment I mean I did this hiking in Patagonia years ago, backpacking and, man, we were beat up on the trail. I mean it was a good. We were five and a half hours in a switchbacks with, you know, 50 pound packs on our backs and just like I mean physically crying, some of us like it was a beating. I remember my buddy, chris and I look at each other and going, dude, I'm hurting. And then out of the clouds comes fitzroy just one of the most majestic peaks in the entire world. Coming through the trail it was kind of cloudy, you can't see and everything disappears. In that moment you don't feel a pain, you forget you have a pack, you don't know what's going on, the tears are gone and you're just in awe and you're just staring at that thing and you're just going, wow, what? Oh, my goodness, you know what I mean and so, oh, I mean that's what this is about. This is why we spend so much time in the drudgery and in the moments of like I can't figure this out and continuing that battle and that battle like the bison, going straight through the storm, knowing that the storm is going to pass you yes, it's going to go right past and you're going to be right back into the green fields feasting all day on the tall grass.
Speaker 2:You know, in South Dakota, wherever you know, they're roaming, and I knew I loved bison for a reason. That's why and I think as I was jumping into Miles Davis, one of my favorite musicians in history as a big jazz person he has a quote where he says don't fear mistakes. There are none. I mean, this is somebody who was doing things with the trumpet that people weren't doing and didn't do. He was taking playing a trumpet to an entire new level. And then he took playing a trumpet to an entire new level by adding other bandmates in that were all competing and doing different things and creating art out of it. And doing different things and creating art out of it.
Speaker 2:And I think that the beauty in that is if you can recognize that there's always discomfort and failure, no matter what. It's going to be uncomfortable, there's going to be discomfort, but that is the very thing that leads to breakthroughs. Yeah, yeah, it's the very thing. You and I both have had so many moments in the studio where we can not figure out what's in our head. Yep, and we're trying, we're trying. Well, that material didn't work with that material. Well, that didn't. Well, that definitely didn't say what I'm trying to say. That doesn't. And through all the failure, one tiny little thing because you stuck through it gives you the answer yes, everything we're doing should be full of questions.
Speaker 1:It's worth acknowledging, too, that like it. Sorry to cut you off. Um, no, it's fine, I'm not that sorry, I just felt like I should say it Um it's really not fine, but go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, it it. It doesn't make it hurt any less, but it does give the hurt. It does give the discomfort purpose. Right, it's purposeful discomfort, it's discomfort with meaning, you know, and that's, I think, probably where keeping a vision of what we are working towards, even if it is just a general sense of what we hope it feels like. Or to your example just now, holding on to those aha moments as little, little data points, little parts on the map that we can hold on to and say, all right, I have, I have hurt this way before and ultimately, at some point maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point it has taken me to a place worth getting to right. It gives the suffering, the discomfort, it gives it purpose and that makes it much more bearable, you know, to endure while it's happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that's a good, that's a really good segue into our Kurt Vonnegut quote that we have here at one of my favorite authors and I think, maybe top 10 wittiest people to ever grace the planet like just wit and wisdom combination.
Speaker 2:I don't know if anybody holds a candle to Kurt Vonnegut the guy is just brilliant. But he says we have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. I mean that's pretty cool. I mean that saying itself like growth does not come from playing it safe. Right, I'm sorry it doesn't. I push this in my program constantly. You will not grow if you're not experimenting and you're not taking massive risks, even into areas you don't understand yet, like this is where evolution comes from. This is where the growth in your evolution comes from. This is where the growth in your it it takes those risks that feel uncomfortable to grow. It really does.
Speaker 1:It's almost impossible to know, in many cases, flat out impossible to know what the what the solution will be until we're clear about what the problem is. We're trying to solve for is in the first place, right, you know. So if the alternative is sitting on the cliff and trying to design, you know the perfect wings. I mean maybe, but most likely we're going to be much more qualified, we'll have much more information to work with as we go right, once we better understand what the challenges or obstacles even are, right, in other words, there's really no. Even if we were to try to solve for every potential eventuality in advance. I mean good luck, right, especially in this, this crazy, you know, art game that we're playing here. There's, there's no such thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I've had so many questions with artists who in my program and not in the program, just artists that I know and meet, who, let's say, somebody has been painting acrylic their whole life and they want to try oils. But yet they said they wanted to try oils four years ago and they still haven't tried oils. Right, it's like because you're making something with something that you're comfortable with, you're good at, you know you can knock out these paintings whatever, and now you're going to completely change into a new medium. Now you have to learn again. I think that's the fear a lot of times is well, I don't want to feel like a beginner again. I don't want my work to look immature again.
Speaker 2:If I've already been mature in this area with you know what I'm painting here. And it's like, well, well, you're never going to get to maybe what's really in your head If you don't really follow that thing. Jump off the cliff and go. Oh, this is what the wind feels like at this level. Oh, this is what happens when I put my arms out here. This is okay. Now I know what I need to do with wings.
Speaker 1:Now I know how to add these things. I'm sure it's a combination of the two, but do you, in the scenario you just described, do you think it's more a fear of um the work not looking as mature as what that person has done previously, or do you think it's more a fear of the feeling of not knowing what they're doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the fear of it's uncertainty, it's the fear of jumping into something you don't know how to do yet.
Speaker 1:Right, but do you think? For most people it's, it's the fear of the, the, the result, or fear of the feeling in the process, the feeling in the process, the feeling in the process.
Speaker 2:You already know how hard it is. Yeah, we already know that. We already know how difficult is to make what we're good at, right to use the materials that we've mastered. Let's put it that way. We already know how long it's taken, how hard it was. So it's like adding and I think I've really tried to get into.
Speaker 2:I told I was telling one of my artists recently. I said it took me a while to get here and she's had some success, like some really great success, um, in Mexico city and in Miami and at fairs selling work and her work does really well. But she wants to grow. Yeah, like she's. Like I know I want to get to the next level and that next level for her is museums. That's the next level for her. She's had success in the gallery world. She's done these things. She's got a great collector base, great dealers and galleries. The next level is the museums. She wants to be recognized. I get it Heck, yeah, and I think she should be. But then she knows she also has to grow in her works.
Speaker 2:Got to take this other step, this extra step, and we talked about this just last week how difficult it is to accept failing and continuing and living amongst the failure of the experiments to get to the other side. Yeah, because even when she'd go into trying, you know, we, I, we go back and forth. She's like, oh, I hated it, it didn't work, uh, you know. And it's like, yeah, you need to accept that and go.
Speaker 2:Man, I'm so lucky and blessed that I get to fail every day in the studio. Right, that's, that's my. I've had to shift my mindset from ultimate drive of success to go no to ultimate. I'm blessed to be able to screw around and fail in order to get to where I really want to go in my work. So the days that are horrible, I'm just going. Man, I'm so lucky and so blessed that I actually get to do this and then come back and have that same mentality the next day. Now, I'm not saying that happens all the times. There's definite days where I'm like this sucks, screw this, I don't want to do this anymore. This is driving me crazy, but you get.
Speaker 1:You get what I'm saying. I do. I mean, I think, as you're talking, I'm thinking you know there's there's so much value in just acknowledging that we do get to define and and continuously redefine what our definition of success is. I'm using air quotes here for those of you who are just listening. You know, uh, and what you just described was you making a conscious choice to move your own goalposts and say, all right, I had previously been living over here where I was viewing the feeling of success as a and I'm now recalibrating my thought process to find success, to find a feeling of let's use a better word fulfillment and purpose from this thing over here that you've identified as being the thing that's going to take you where you ultimately want to go, which is somewhere you've not yet been.
Speaker 2:Yep, I mean, I had to do that for my own personality, my own character, right, I'm a four. You know I'm a feeler, you know. So, on the Enneagram scale, I'm a four and it's like I like sad things. I can easily, you know, get sucked into my own sadness. Right, I could sit there and have Jeff Buckley or Elliot Smith or you know the Smiths or the cure on all day long and just, you know, be happy, soaking in that, right, like that's just me. That's how I'm made up. I mean, I'm a very joyful person but I'm a very emotional person. So I know what I have to do, because I know what my resistance is. I have 100% know what my resistance is, and that will, that'll, shut me down easily.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry I'm laughing. You just reminded me I love you laughing at my sadness.
Speaker 2:Your sadness is hilarious and I don't say that as like I'm a sad person, I say I love dark movies, I love depressing film, I love sadness, those things I just I can bask in them and I love them, but in the studio they can be dangerous for an artist.
Speaker 1:One of my great joys as a father has been sharing my love of sad music with Ella, with our youngest, who's now 16. So I sent her this meme. You can throw it on the video. It's a meme of a dog holding a guitar and it says head in the nineties I'm sad. Parentheses guitar solo radio. Head in the aughts I'm sad. Beep, beep, boop, boop in front of a keyboard. It's visual, whatever, it's funny. So this is. This is. We've talked about radio before. Since we're both massive fans, they've announced, or there's there.
Speaker 2:There's rumors that they're going to be going on tour, right?
Speaker 1:And so they filed a new LLC last week. It's happening. So, ellen, I have a planned, a trip plan to New York. She's really into theater and um and and Broadway and that kind of thing, and so we're going to do a dad auto trip to to New York this upcoming summer and we're already looking at what shows we're going to go to, where we're going to stay. And so she came to me the other day she goes, dad, what if, instead of New York, we go see radio ed? And I'm like, sweetie, I want to go where you want to go, but you just melted my heart. I will fly you, I will fly us wherever we need to go to see what could very well be their, uh, their, their last tour. But anyway, you talking about, so she didn't want to go see, uh, she didn't want to go. Listen to your sad dad rock bandline.
Speaker 2:She, she loves, she loves the national as well. Yeah, that was one of my favorite comments she made to you, though which one? The sad dad rock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, she called it yeah, that's one of their things, but, yeah, it's uh, no, I'm with you there and I think that you know there's something to be said for for music and you know, really identifying what type yeah, let's talk about it what type of music really energizes and inspires us in different ways when we're in these different sort of places and phases. Right, I mean, I think we're naturally inclined to want to listen to music that either matches the mood or the energy that we're in, or try to find something that's going to get us into a place, you know, that's more consistent with where we'd like to be, you know, in that moment. But, but being in tune to the types of inputs, whether it's music or other things that we are allowing to influence us, is, um, is really, really important. Like you know, for me, if I'm trying to make bold, you know, quick moves without just boom, boom, boom, you know the type of music that I listened to is is very different, right, like that's what I'm going to listen to. I'm going to, you know, more hard techno or hip hop or something that's that's a bit more, whatever energetic or or taps into something primal in me that listened to, you know, whatever, the national, for example uh, you know, might not, but there's a purpose for all of it, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Bringing us back around. We did. We're not doing a great job of just going finding these tangents that are just so far off in the in the universe. I love it. We are doing a great job. Let's just do it. I think we're doing a really good job and we got to talk about her. Some of our favorite music in the mix of it, which is something we do normally.
Speaker 3:Hey have you heard of these guys? Have you heard her yet? Listen to her album um.
Speaker 2:So which I'm so addicted to Fontaine's DC right now, it's absolutely insane. That's just a drop for for Fontaine's Um. Okay, next quote here. I do like this, cause we kind of we were about to get there and then we jumped into some other stuff. But just talking about this is a great quote by Edward Albee and he says if you're willing to fail interestingly, says if you're willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed Interestingly. Yep, I like that, I love that. I'd never. I'd never seen that quote before, but I really liked that.
Speaker 2:And I think as artists I mean, it's a lot easier for us to fill that gap than anyone outside of the arts. But I love like don't just settle. If it feels odd, if it feels weird or crazy or like what in the world, just try it, go for it, go do it. If something feels so out of the ordinary for you, go ahead and put it down on canvas, put it into clay, put it, just go for it. And I think that's really kind of what he's saying is it's easy for us to just fail, normal Cause sometimes we get that, we get that idea right, we get that seed. That just seems really way off base. Yeah, it's something that's like so new Maybe it's so different that it just kind of admit yeah, I don't really want to even go there. I'm not sure why. I would say, go try it, because you may fail in that thing, but it might really lead to something that comes out of it that takes you in a whole new direction. And I was telling, I think it was. I think it was.
Speaker 3:Gianna.
Speaker 2:Is it Gianna? The other day, our friend Gianna Tassone, we were talking just about work and moments of being stale and doing things. And I think it was Gianna and I said go do something totally different. Just go do something so different that you're not normally doing. I don't know what that is. Go paint landscapes for a week, go sketch things, go do something, go sculpt, do something that's outside of what you've been painting, that's so different Because it may lead you to a completely new territory within your work.
Speaker 2:And I heard Jerry Salt say that years ago. He said when was the last time, abstract artists, that you sat in your studio and just sketched your studio? When's the last time you sketched? When's the last time you did a still life? And so after I don't know if it was a podcast, I heard him say it in or whatever. So then I did it that day. I got out pastels, got out some color pencils and I sketched my whole studio and I set up a still life and I did it. It felt amazing. It was like it was clearing space in me because I was so focused on X, so into it, so that it completely separated my mind, my artist mind, in a way that just needed to be whitewashed a little bit, and it kind of just brought me back.
Speaker 1:So that would be a great example of, I think you know, pushing the territory in a completely different direction, maybe a completely opposite direction or just different than the direction that we think we're supposed to be going. But that information, when reapplied to whatever the thing is, will be useful, right? I mean I think about, if the you said fail normal, I was going to say fail boring, boringly, Interestingly, how would you say that? Whatever boringly, let's go with that word.
Speaker 1:But what is what? Would failing in a boring way, in a normal way, you know, look like right, it would be failing doing the thing that we've already been doing right. That's not an interesting failure, that's just a normal, you know, a normal one. But you know, when we pursue those interesting failures, we are absolutely expanding the territory and and we are acquiring new information that, when applied to the other things, will will give us a fresh perspective. You know, I'm a good example would be I'm I'm carving wood again for the first time in a couple of years.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean, I did a whole body of work that was almost primarily that and almost almost exclusively set it aside, you know, for for quite a while. And I just I did a whole body of work that was almost primarily that and almost exclusively set it aside for quite a while, and I've had this urge, this pull, to just do it again. Yeah, and wouldn't, you know it? Everything that I've done since then, in the time that I've completely set it aside, is absolutely informing the way that I'm approaching it now. And that's all territory. Those are all tools that I wouldn't have access to, not actual tools, although I've acquired some of those as well, but ways of thinking about the work, ways of approaching it that I wouldn't have if I had just continued down. You know that path, without taking all of the different, you know interesting detours and many interesting failures, you know along the way.
Speaker 2:I mean I would say in that a little bit with the new work that I'm about to do, because I've worked with fibers for a long time. I've done a lot of different things with fibers. I've been sewing since I was a child, when my mom taught me to sew when I was a kid and I loved sewing and doing things. So I've always had little bits of sewing and thread and things in my work. But right now, taking them to the next level, how do I do that? What do I do? How do I do it? Well, I'm going to get really damn interesting and I'm going to fail. I mean, I am failing Interestingly. I mean some of these things I'm doing, I'm just like what the heck is that it's? I got to learn, I got to relearn some things. Right, I've got to teach myself some new things and I'm trying to do some of those things backwards. Yeah, I'm trying to do it in a way that it's not supposed to be done, because I like the way it's. That. That's the quote here it is. This is the the quote.
Speaker 2:If you're willing to fail, interestingly, you tend to succeed. Interestingly, I'm trying to do something the opposite way. It's actually supposed to be done physically and I feel like it's coming out more interesting doing it that way than it is doing it the regular way. Sure, right, right, and it's, but it's looks like shit right now and it's like, but there's these moments that I'm on oh, it's coming, it's going to come. I've done this enough. I've experimented enough to be confident that something will come of all the time spent.
Speaker 1:And because you've changed your definition of what success is, you have manufactured for yourself a positive feedback loop, yeah, to where the things that don't look the way that you want them to, or look good now, are still like. You're still getting that positive feedback of like no, this is taking me somewhere, right, because it has before and will again. Yep, yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 2:And that's what this, this, that's what this about, this is all about, and this, this is what we want to encourage all of you artists out there that are listening is, you know, we've had some artists send us some pretty fun messages over the last few months that, uh, your, your talks in in Germany really gave confidence to some artists who were really kind of struggling with trying things and doing things and and just their excitement to go.
Speaker 2:Man, you really gave me that confidence to try these new things in the studio and to be able to fail to get to where I want to go and you know, that's why we're talking about these things is we're in it with you, you're in it with us and, man, if there's more of us willing to fail, interestingly, I just think there's going to be some incredible work that starts to explode out there.
Speaker 2:If we keep exploring and tolerating uncertainty, the growth in those of you that are doing that is going to be so fun to watch, and we have artists that, because of the podcast, we've gotten to know and we watch and we follow in our own accounts on Instagram and it's fun to see the breakthroughs. Yeah, you can see them. Oh, yeah, if you, if you follow art enough and you watch artists closely, you can see the breakthroughs. Yes, and that is so fun to see during your contempt, during our contemporary culture artists, that we're doing things with an artist that we're working with and watching and seeing them come to those moments of they did it. Yeah, wow, yeah. They found that breakthrough and, man, that work looks amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're making me, you're, you're, you're reminding me of the, the, the utility of, you know, failing recklessly in the pursuit of, of going places. That, and we don't need to say I've never, never been explored before. But certainly in terms of, if the goal is to set yourself apart, that's a, that's a way to go, you know for sure. You know, like you and I both have very ambitious, you know long-term goals that we wouldn't necessarily share on the podcast here, but we've, we've both got some some pretty ambitious and and audacious.
Speaker 1:You know long-term goals, and so I know, for both of us, uh, what we're trying to accomplish certainly falls in line with yeah, how, how far can this be pushed and how much new territory can we not just explore but over time, successfully, you know, communicate in the finished work? That's kind of the ultimate goal, right? Because, again, if the alternative, if the alternative is is a just boring, you know regular failures, you're, you're probably on a path that that, um, many, many, many others were and still are on, which, again, there's nothing wrong with that, but it is more difficult, right, to really distinguish yourself If you're playing the same game as so many others are. Did I say that right? I can rephrase that for me in a way that's not quite so judgy.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it's judgy. I mean, you know me, I'm pretty damn judgy, I mean we're artists, we're we're judging people as artists.
Speaker 2:So I think it's be you, yeah, don't be somebody else, right, like, I think that's. I think that's how we get to those ambitious goals by really, really spending time finding us in the work and being us completely, because the second we start being somebody else, it's going to slow that timeline down and we're going to have to wrap up here, because they're now working on the gate right outside of our garage door and so that's going to get really loud. They're coming for you. Sorry, everybody.
Speaker 1:I think it's a good wrapping up. It's not that we have been going an hour yeah we did it again. This will be a quick little 30 minute episode. Here we are an hour in, I've got.
Speaker 2:I've got cash barking at me in the door to the left going. You've been gone for a week. Why are you not inside playing with me? And now I've got the gate crew out working outside.
Speaker 1:So we got three quotes to choose from Ty. You decide which is going to be our closer, just because I feel compelled to, like you know you know, I really liked that Van Gogh quote a lot Yep, um.
Speaker 2:And if you have not watched at eternity's gate, with uh William Defoe playing Van Gogh, uh, directed by Julian Schnabel, I highly suggest you watch it tomorrow, tonight when you listen to this. But the quote says I am always doing what I cannot do yet in order to learn how to do it, and I think that really just sums up everything we've talked about today. So I love that quote Always be working on what you can't do yet in order to learn how to do it. Just be bold. Boldness is an act of genius. It's one of my favorite quotes. I forget what book that's from, but I love that quote Boldness is an act of genius.
Speaker 1:I said one more. We're going to do one more, one more, just because it pairs so well with that Maya Angelou quote do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better. I love that, just the elegant simplicity and wisdom in that. Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better. Yeah Right, do the best we can with what we have in front of us, and that will lead us to knowing better and, ultimately, doing better.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Love it. Go, make some art everybody.
Speaker 1:Go make some art. Thanks for joining us. We'll be back next week or in a couple of weeks with another episode of Just Make art.
Speaker 2:Bye.