ArtStorming
Ever wonder what makes really creative people tick? Where do their ideas come from? What keeps them energized? What kinds of things get in their way? In each episode of ArtStorming, we’ll explore how new ideas come to life, and how the most creative among us stare down a blank canvas or reach into the void and create something new.
Host Lili Pierrepont takes us on a journey of discovery; inviting us to ponder what drives and sustains the creative spark within each individual.
With great appreciation for music written and performed by John Cruickshank.
ArtStorming
ArtStorming the City Different: Linda Durham
What drives a person to repeatedly reinvent themselves with no safety net? Linda Durham's extraordinary life journey offers a masterclass in creative risk-taking and the rewards that come from embracing uncertainty.
Music for ArtStorming the City Different was written and performed by John Cruikshank.
Ever wonder what makes really creative people tick? Where do their ideas come from? What keeps them energized? What kinds of things get in their way? Is their life really as much fun as it looks from the outside?
Speaker 1:Hello, I'm your host, lili Pierpont, and this is ArtStorming, a podcast about how new ideas come to life and become paintings, sculptures, plays or poems, performances or collections. Each episode, I'll chat with a guest from the arts community and explore how the most creative among us stare down a blank canvas or reach into the void and create something new. Today, I'll be artstorming with Linda Durham. Anyone who's traveled in the contemporary art circles in Santa Fe in the last 30 years knows the name. She helped shape the contemporary art scene here. When I first met her in 2016-17, she had already closed her gallery, but was still very influential in the lives of many artists. By that time, she was well into developing the Wonder Institute, which you'll hear more about in our conversation.
Speaker 1:I attended a few events hosted by Linda and then our trajectories just seemed to take us in different directions. But as I was thinking about bringing this season to a close with still so many people to talk to, I thought who can I add to this season, who would round it out and really give it some context. I thought who can I add to this season? Who would round it out and really give it some context? I still had a long list of people who absolutely belong in this season, but I only had a few episodes left.
Speaker 1:Minutes later I was scrolling through my social media and I got my answer. I can't remember if it was one of her posts or a comment that she made on one of my posts, but Linda's name sprang from the screen and I had one of those duh moments. I messaged her and, to my delight, she accepted right away and here is that conversation. We are here and I am with Linda Durham. I drove it's like driving back east to get here. It was just a long way away, but so such a beautiful drive and so worth the wait. And I was just about to say that this podcast would not be complete without you being part of it, because I think you have raised or represented or own artwork from almost every single person I've spoken to.
Speaker 2:I think that's great and I look forward to knowing you know. I don't know exactly who has been on your podcast and you know because I am remiss in my podcast listening.
Speaker 1:Oh well, that is not a problem at all, I'm going to change? No need, because one of the things we were talking about off mic is that you're in the midst of a new project and you're deep in a book that you're about to write. I am.
Speaker 2:I've been writing it for two years and I think by August it will be ready, or even sooner, to be read by some trusted readers before I volunteer. You do, I do. I pay people to read it because otherwise I think they don't read it.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Well, not, you know, a small sum? Yeah, because I would then ask you a few questions, of course, about what made sounds or what didn't. But yeah, I'm putting you on the list, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting that it makes sense that you're writing a book because you have had such an incredible life, and it might not be a memoir, but we're going to get into a little of the details of your backstory here. But what brought me here and the reason that I wanted to talk to you, is because you were a very major figure in the Santa Fe art world for quite some time.
Speaker 2:It's a great, great part of my life, from the beginning, of opening a gallery, when I knew nothing and had no business experience, no background in art. Just I think I'll start a gallery and you know I had some people who kind of supported the idea of me beginning a gallery, but it was.
Speaker 1:But something tells me and I actually know the answer to this a little bit. But this wasn't your first foray into doing something a little bit off the grid. No, I think.
Speaker 2:for me, the truth is I've lived my life a little off the grid and now I'm living literally off the grid, but I did that before. Yes, I'm drawn to adventure and risk and you know if it can be done, maybe I can figure out how to do it, but naivete has been my partner.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said, because I just actually did a solo podcast giving a little bit of the origin to why this podcast came to be. Podcast came to be and part of it was a lark and part of it was the learning curve and part of it was like the the benefit of not knowing what I was getting into. Ignorance is bliss.
Speaker 2:Yes exactly, and I think I knew that because when I met you, when we last really had any time to talk, time to Talk you were fairly new in town with big ideas, and I've watched from afar how you have taken ideas and manifested them Poof, like magic, or that's how it always seems to people who are watching from afar.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm so flattered that you've been watching from afar and, as some people who have listened to my podcast know, that urban art tripping, which was my original big idea, which had a lot of potential, but then COVID happened and poof, as you said, and so it's really great that I've figured out. For me, it's really great to have figured out how to take some of that energy and kind of pivot and take it into a new direction, but I still get to talk to all my same friends and people. Exactly, you know, I've kind of been able to weave it into a new tapestry.
Speaker 2:See, I have a million questions for you too, for when I start my podcast. Oh good, not that I. You know I'm not going to start a podcast. I was going to do something like that and I found I don't have the assistance that I need. You know, I love ideas and talking and creating, but I'm not good at nuts and bolts.
Speaker 1:Well, you might be able to find people through the community that we have that could assist you with that, because one of the things I wanted to sort of a lost thread speaking of that was what happened with the Wonder Institute, exactly what?
Speaker 2:happened with the Wonder Institute.
Speaker 1:I wonder what happened with the Wonder Institute.
Speaker 2:You know when I use this phrase when the gallery failed, but people say, oh know, I use this phrase when the gallery failed but people say, oh no, the gallery didn't fail. But when it closed after 33 years, I was so sad and I was so alone and I was so broke and so at loose ends and sew at loose ends. And I remember the last day of the gallery in my last location on 2nd Street. Some people helped, I gave all the art back and I gave a lot of things away. I did not owe any money to any artists or business people in town like framers or shippers, but I owed credit cards almost $100,000. And so I came home, home. I put all the leftovers you know everything that I removed from the gallery in my garage and somebody helped me ship it all to my house.
Speaker 2:When they left, I sat on the floor of the garage and I wept. In fact you know I could weep now. Such a moment for me. I didn't know like what? What? What next? Who am I if I'm not Linda Durham girl art dealer? Like what?
Speaker 1:But you had reinvented yourself before.
Speaker 2:I know. So I thought, okay, okay, what do I have? What do I still have aside from debt? I have this big old house and I have my abiding sense of wonder, which I always have. And my house was kind of like an institute, you know. It was big, it had some grand rooms, and so I thought, well, I could start the Wonder Institute, and that's all. I had two words wonder and institute. And so then from there, well, if you had a Wonder Institute, what would go in it? And as very little time went on, I found all these ideas, you know. So I had the Worldwide Women of Wonder, I had the Wonder Postcard Project, I started the Museum of events and poetry readings, and it was great.
Speaker 2:But I had no money and my house was in danger of going into foreclosure, into foreclosure, and so I had to wonder about how do you save your life, how do you keep bankruptcy away from your door? But not in a practical way like how do you get a job or what, Because right away I thought I can now do something I've always wanted to do. I had a dream from my early youth that you could go all the way around the world. I mean, you could start from your door and head left or right or something, and keep going and end up back at your door, and it just was part of it's, part of me.
Speaker 2:You know the circles and the Mobius strip notion, and so I even when I was still in debt and just starting to have the Wonder Institute I got this idea. I went way up into the mountains and thought and meditated and prayed and tore my hair and then I thought, okay, I'm going to do this. And how do you get things happening? I always had this little formula If you have an idea, then you have to declare that idea aloud and then you have to proceed. You know, you envision, it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm going around the world. How will I do that in depth? I had a lot of great collectors who liked me and whom I liked, and I wrote a very careful letter to 15 people who bought from me, who had, as far as I could tell, lots of money, and I said I wanted to go around the world and I had a project in mind and if they would write me a check for $1,000, I would give them something from my collection worth $2,000 or $3,000. So 12 people sent me checks and then I did like a couple of public talks.
Speaker 1:Is that where you used the words that we were talking about? No, that was even earlier.
Speaker 2:And I had a project in mind that I made these seeds, these little disks embedded with wildflower seeds, and the little discs had an image of the earth on one side and a woman actually helped me make those, and I had people write prayers for peace on the back side and my idea was I would take them around the world and plant them, and I did so. I planted seeds of peace around the world and I had enough money. I bought an around-the-world ticket and then I went around the world and when I came back you know I've always kept journals, you know I kept notes Then, like magic happens. I don't know, do you believe in magic? I don't know if you do.
Speaker 1:Well, how can one not just even listening to the story if I wasn't a believer before which I am Right, you know, but that's the kind of thing I just want to interject that it was magic before you even started. It was magic getting from the. I wonder how I'm going to do this to the whatever inspired and came through you to do that. That's where the magic starts, so wonderful.
Speaker 2:And that's how the gallery started. You know, I worked for Forrest Fenn for one year and that's its own long story and at the end of the year because I had promised him I would stay a year and I was his director of research and at the end of the year I was making $4.50 an hour. And at the end of the year I wrote a letter for the.
Speaker 1:We have some very talkative words. We do, we do. You can close that? No, no, it's fine.
Speaker 2:For the better utilization of my time and talent and I asked for $6 an hour. This was in the late 70s and his director, forrest, was out of town and his director laughed when I said I wanted $6 an hour. So I didn't say this, but I thought, well, fuck you. And I resigned that day. And then I thought what will I do? And a friend whom I met, a really good art dealer from New York, said well, you could start your own gallery. And I well, how would I do that? I don't have any money, my marriage is falling apart, I have two kids. I have two kids and I don't really warm to Remington's and Russell's and the Taoist founders, my friends, I have friends who are artists. That's the work I like and they don't have proper representation. So I have that. There's a formula, yes, right, the success of the no-nothing formula. And even when I worked for Forrest I thought you know why couldn't he take these shows to other places? He didn't like the idea of you know like trying to take a show to New York or Chicago. This was before the art fairs, and so I thought that's what I'll do. And I thought where could I take a show of New Mexico, art by people no one ever heard of. And I thought Toronto. I thought a bit, toronto would be a great idea because it would be international, and I love the idea of international. You know, I don't have to worry about how do you get across an ocean. And so I bought a ticket to Toronto.
Speaker 2:I didn't know anyone, but I knew somebody who knew someone, and I assembled a notebook I wish I still had it, it would be so much fun. I assembled a notebook I wish I still had it, it would be so much fun Of slides Remember, pages of slides, oh yeah. And miscellaneous little gallery invitations of my friends' art. It just so happened that my friends were Paul Sarkissian, paul Pletka, alan Graham, larry Bell Well, larry Bell, I didn't know Ken Price at the time, but he was part of the show Dick Mason. I had a friend who had an O'Keefe. Two people gave me O'Keeffe's for my show Luis Jimenez and I went to Toronto and Ford Ruthling, who's a long ago artist in town, knew somebody, a designer in Toronto, and he gave me that name.
Speaker 2:So first thing I did was go and visit John Schofield, who turned out to be very cheeky, great designer, and he told me I I'm looking for a venue. You know, just a naive take and sometimes take you places. And he said well, you know, they're building a big complex in a nice part of Toronto and William Louis Dreyfus is building it. I had never heard of him but I know now. I mean he's like an amazing collector. His daughter is Julia Louis Dreyfus. So I went to meet with him. I took this notebook I can't imagine how he must have laughed as he turned these pages but he said I have a 5,000 square foot space in this building I'm building, you know, as a great shopping center. You can use that and great.
Speaker 2:So I came back, I went to the bank and back then, you know, I said I have an idea whose time has come. And I talked and talked to this really nice banker and he said well, you convinced me and they loaned me $25,000. I did have a house at the time, but you know it was a simple loan. And so I started putting everything together and did that show, except this show. I did an invitation. I got a mailing list of Toronto collectors and people and I mailed 2,000 invitations hand-addressed. Carol Mothner and a few other people helped me address them. They were really ugly invitations. But let's skip over that. I didn't know it at the time. Skip over that. I didn't know it at the time and I stamped them and mailed them on the day of the great Canadian postal strike, oh God. And they never got there. In fact, they might still be in some big mail box in you know Alberta or somewhere I don't know. So no one came.
Speaker 1:A couple of my friends you didn't- know it at the time that you had picked an illustrious day for the mailing. Well, how could I it?
Speaker 2:just happened. It just happened. I didn't know, you know that it was pending or anything, I didn't know. And then bang.
Speaker 1:You know you read the news, so nothing ever got so it probably didn't occur to you that nothing got delivered until nobody showed up well, no, I mean, then it's very, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2:You know, if you have a postal strike, if we did no mails going anywhere? No, I knew, but I didn't know before I mailed them. And what could I have done anyway? And I did an ad for Art in America, no, for Art News. That would embarrass both of us today. It was a Demis Culver painting of a stylized New Mexico landscape, but fanciful, not real with the Toronto CN Tower coming out of the middle of it, and the show was called New Mexico in Toronto.
Speaker 1:Straightforward yeah.
Speaker 2:So virtually no one came. I did everything, you know, I got the lights, it looked good. I had really good art. John Fincher was in that show, carl Johansson, richard Thompson, anyway. Well, william Louis Dreyfus bought the big Ellen Gramps and became a friend and so that it didn't get me out of debt I mean the show did not I lost money. But when I got back all the artists put that show on their resume and Larry Bell was connected with this impressive group from California who wanted to come to Santa Fe and I didn't have a gallery. That was the other part. I said the show was part, you know, sponsored by or presented by Linda Durham Gallery back then and a few people. I'm sorry this is such a long story.
Speaker 1:No, it's fantastic If people could see my face. My jaw is like in my lap.
Speaker 2:A few people did like wander from down below where there were all these fancy shops, got off on the wrong floor of the elevator and wandered in. And I remember one person saying oh, we've been to your gallery, we love your gallery, we love Santa Fe. And I didn't tell them there was no gallery. And then another beautiful couple came in and said where exactly is your gallery? We're going to be in Santa Fe in July and I gave them my home address. Well, that's thinking on your feet. I turned my when I got back. Well, I, the house we had I was still married was the De La Pena house. It's a magnificent house. It's been ruined now by, if I may say, jerry Pevers and subsequent people who took an authentic New Mexico treasure and de-treasurized it, or anyway, I don't know. So I turned a couple of rooms of the house into a gallery and the collectors that Larry Bell told me about were from SICA, the Society for the Advancement, no, the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art. And those people came to my house and the art was there. And one of the people said would you think of doing a show like you did in Toronto, in the Bay Area? So that was my second show and one of the big companies in the Bay Area paid for that show, so it broke even.
Speaker 2:And then these people from the Scottish Arts Council wandered through. They were on a holiday across America, wandering through New Mexico, and they liked New Mexico and they thought where could we see art? And they asked somebody at their hotel, a concierge, and she said, well, linda Durham has a gallery. And they came to my house we had just then I was buying the house on 400 Canyon Road and I was just opening that and so we're condensing the timeline a little bit, otherwise he'll be here until August.
Speaker 2:And so they came and we talked and we had a conversation about how New Mexico and Scotland the art scenes had something in common, because they drew really talented people, they were a magnet for creative individuals, but a little too far from the knowledge centers, but a little too far from the knowledge centers. And so one of the two people was the head of the Scottish Arts Council and we planned a show I can show you a catalog and they paid for everything and this show was called New New Mexico and I had Luis Jimenez Larry Bell was in that Susan Rollin, who's not around anymore. I still have two Georgia O'Keeffe's. Who else was in that show?
Speaker 1:it was a condensed show but it was elegant and they paid for everything and it coincided with the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and then the show went to another venue in Scotland and it just unfolded and well, I just want to interject for a second, because you know the the purpose of this podcast was to, you know, give people a sense of you know how do you access the creative field, how do you bring something through you, and every story that you're telling is a beautiful illustration of that. So we can keep going until August, because that's the whole idea here, right.
Speaker 2:And then you can think tomorrow and say let's just talk about one little thing. I don't know what you want to do, but you know like I'm thrilled with my life, and we mentioned this a little earlier. You know, you embrace a project or a style or an idea and you run with it, you gallop with it, you fall on your face with it and it may end, but it's worthy of staying alive. And you know, I wrote a little bit about it in my last memoir, and you know, and then you realize you think that story, I think those 33 years were as big as the world. But then, as you look, as time goes by, as other things happen, as you read, live and continue, read, live and continue. It was my world, but it's only tiny.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and it can disappear.
Speaker 1:That's why it'd be nice to be preserved forever in a podcast, assuming the technology doesn't go the way of Betamax, you know, or something like that. Right right set out on this project was how wonderful would it be to have a collection of today, of new new mexico artist voices and I didn't keep it limited to painting, so I've done dancers and writers and musicians, and. But it's just sometime in a time capsule somewhere there will be this tiny little bubble of what was happening in this slice of time.
Speaker 2:In the voice of the people who were carrying it yeah, yeah, yeah, trudgingly, or however, yeah, no, because I believe this very deeply. New Mexico is a magnet for the creative individual and maybe it's northern New Mexico, it's beyond this area, and they don't have it in other states. I could name, okay, nebraska, you know it's not there, it's not in any of the other states. The way it is in New Mexico it's in the dirt and the people are drawn to the dirt, or the mountains, or the clouds, or the sky, or the multicultural personality in a manageable size. Yeah, new York is way multicultural and it's its own thing. New Mexico is. You know it's an amazing place and in my experience, you look around, you see who made a home here, who made a painting here, who created a fashion world here. You know it's an amazing place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is the origin of a lot of creativity, for sure. And what drew you to Santa Fe originally?
Speaker 2:Because I happen to know that you. I was happy in New York and I met my second husband. I had like a starter marriage at 19 that didn't last very long.
Speaker 2:And then I met this amazing man, bart Durham amazing man, bart Durham, and he had done his undergraduate work and some graduate work in New Mexico, although he was from Manhasset and we fell in love and his dream was to move to New Mexico, whereas my dream was to become famous I didn't know how, you know, like a famous what, linda, you know? An actor, a politician, you know what?
Speaker 1:But love really overtook me in an adventure, the sense that, yeah, like maybe there's theater in new mexico, I don't that other very interesting chapter of your life involving bunny ears. Let's just say that.
Speaker 2:Well, I moved to New Mexico in 1966. I moved to New York in 1962. And that was when the bunny years, the bunny years.
Speaker 1:And did you think that maybe your path to fame would be through the bunny years?
Speaker 2:Well, when I moved, there I thought, you know, I'll just try out for something. They'll realize my talent and you know, broadway will say at last she's here. So yeah, it didn't happen like that. I actually moved to New York. I was 19 during the great newspaper strike.
Speaker 2:Strikes and you have something I just realized that those were two games, yeah, and what was strike three, we'll get there. And what was strike three, we'll get there. And so I was trying to. I was naive but I thought, you know, I need to audition for a part. And you know, I had great accolades from my college years in the theater and I worked in the professional theater from the time I was 13, all through high school. So I thought, you know, but there was a newspaper strike.
Speaker 2:So I went around to employment agencies, employment agencies, and I said, you know, I'm an actor, I'm looking for a theater job, a gig. And this one guy said you know, they're hiring people at the Playboy Club. But I had never heard of the Playboy Club and but he said you know they're hiring, and he gave me an address where they were. And so I I went and I filled out this elaborate application and then I got. Then they said, okay, they were having these mass calls. You had to show up in a leotard or a bathing suit and your appointment is at 1.20 on Thursday.
Speaker 2:So I showed up in a leotard and a million and a million young girls, young women, and I had my interview and it wasn't Hugh Hefner, but it was one of the big Playboy executives, tony Roma. Later, I think he had a you know a series of Italian restaurants I'm not sure, but he was Tony Roma and I had this leotard on with three buttons on it because I had used it when I was in high school where I was voted most talented and Tony Roma said I like your buttons. Of course I also had a beautiful figure. So I got the call back and I got a job. So out of the 15,000 women they picked 80 and I was one of them, and then I became the head of the training department.
Speaker 1:So magic has followed you Everywhere, and all I can think of is all the world's a stage and you just keep taking on new parts. Yeah, that's it. And then you play them to the hilt yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and if it's not real, make it up Right, improvise.
Speaker 1:Make it real, yeah, yeah. So how much of the chutzpah or whatever you would call it confidence that you developed to start a gallery, to leave the gallery business, to start writing your memoir, etc. Do you think that the genesis of that was in being a bunny, or was it earlier than that? Or was it earlier than that?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure I know what you mean, but starting the gallery was. You know it seemed like an idea too big to handle, but I knew some of the beginning things. I knew artists and I had worked for Forrest. And working for Forrest I learned a lot about what not to do and what to do. And I started it, as you know, in my house in those early shows. And then that building on Canyon Road came on the market and in an instant I thought that would be a great location for a gallery. By then we were selling our house to Jerry Peters. It was a very bad deal. We were also Bart and I were getting divorced. We split everything. I got $25,000, my second $25,000. And I made that a down payment. And there was somebody else also bidding for that place. It was $200,000. And Forrest Fenn knew the previous owners and I went to him and I said I really want this. And he talked to the people and they accepted my offer. Wow, this.
Speaker 2:And he talked to the people and they accepted my offer and so I just moved in and then people came along. I had met people. I hired somebody to be a director Magic, now I can't think of you know. Somebody said well, if you had to put the $25,000 down, how did you do that? I don't know Right, I don't remember the money things. I have never had any money for more than you know 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:Well, it seems like you've got this kind of mechanism where it just flows through you. It's part of the whole magic. Gone to New York City and walked into a very unique position of being a bunny as easily as you walked into being a gallerist, and you know each step along the way. You wore the buttons, you got the 25 grand. I mean, it sort of sounds like that's just Linda Durham's special sauce. I really think that.
Speaker 2:I don't think that. That's just the way Linda Durham made it through. I think you can tap into magic. And what is it? What enables you to tap into magic? You know Willing to risk. You know Imagination. You know imagination. You know imagination, just envision it and walk towards it and it sounds naive. And yes, that's part of it. You know the naivete doesn't tell you well, you can't do that. You don't actually have the credentials. Yeah, it takes. You need much more money. You don't know the art.
Speaker 1:You don't know anything.
Speaker 2:You don't know anything. When I was doing the very first show and I knew some artists and I said you know I'm going to do a show and will you be in it? And they said yes. And then Paul Sarkissian said well, are you going to have Ken Price in your show? And I said well, who's Ken Price? And he said you don't know who Ken Price is. No, but I'm going to find out. I got his phone number and I called him and I said Mr Price, this is Linda Durham. I'm curating an exhibition of contemporary New Mexico artists in Toronto and Paul Sarkissian gave me your name and I would like to come and talk to you about it. So he invited me. I got there. You know he had all his. It was when he was putting together Happy I can't remember the name of the show. It's the LA Museum, an LA Museum, happy's Curio Theme.
Speaker 2:And I looked around at this weird work. I had never seen his work before. I didn't get it, I didn't understand it and he said you know, all of this is going to the show, but in California. But you can take this. And he pointed in a plinth with a covering of a plexiglass box. There was this little stand like a purple velvet stand, and in it was something like a giant peanut resting on the ceramic peanut. And I said, because you know, I just learned it's Ken Price I said, oh, that would be perfect, I would love to take that. And so I had this consignment things with like and we with duplicate paper.
Speaker 2:What do you call that? Yeah, so he filled everything out. I said this would be great and I said you know, and how much is this? And he said you can sell it for nine. And I said that would be great and I wrote down 900.
Speaker 2:So he signed it and I took it and we arranged, I picked it up, but well, I didn't pick it up. Then I went home and I went to a tea party. Rosalind Constable was a friend of mine and she was an old woman not as old as I am now, but you know she was old and she had been the avant-garde arts reporter for Time Life and she was friends with all kinds of great people. And I told her that I had just spoken to Ken Price and he had given me a piece and she said, oh, that's wonderful, she's from England.
Speaker 2:You know, I saw Ken Price not long ago, a little teacup and I was going to buy it but it was nine thousand dollars, and well, I didn't buy it and I, you know to buy it, but it was $9,000, and well, I didn't buy it. And you know I thought she said $9,000, $9,000., you didn't pardon this conversation. So that afternoon I called Ken back and I said you know, excuse me, I'm just looking over my consignment forms, me, I'm just looking over my consignment forms. Did I inadvertently leave a zero off your consignment thing? He said, let me look. He said, yeah, you did. And I said well, just please address that. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:What a good recovery, Holy cow. Anyway, you know, it's just Again magic. I'm going to have to keep saying it because it just keeps showing up.
Speaker 2:Everywhere, and sometimes just in the nick of time, usually just in the nick of time, and everything leads to everything, and until it doesn't, until it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Well, what's?
Speaker 2:your next magic trick? Mine, you know well, rediscovering. You know who I am if I don't have all that you know. And what is powerful, significant, exciting when you're 82? I'm 82 and a half, 82 and a half, 82 and a half, and I'm discovering that you know. I hope you're as lucky as I am and you get here and beyond, because it's remarkable and I can begin to look at things differently and rediscover so much about myself, about what did and didn't happen, what happens next, because I'm really interested. I want to stay healthy, healthy, healthy because I want to know what happens next.
Speaker 2:But all during those years, my under life was a life of investigating the world and the people in the world. So you've been driven by wonder from the beginning. I made a promise to myself when I was really quite young that every year I would go somewhere foreign and exotic and I would never say that I didn't have the time or the money, because I knew that would always be true, because I knew that would always be true, that you know. But so almost everywhere I've ever gone. Well, that's not true, because as time went on, you know not that many years ago I took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok and my love, who came into my life also in the nick of time, 12 years ago, sponsored me for that trip.
Speaker 2:And for that trip I thought I'm going to meet people, I'm going to be gone for six weeks I think five weeks and I'm going to want to have a gift or something to give them and I'm only taking one small suitcase. So on Facebook and you might know about this I said I'm doing this trip. Would any of my artist friends be willing to give me a small original work of art, a watercolor, a drawing no bigger than a postcard, that I could take to give to people I meet on my trip? You know, I thought if I get like 10 things, you know, that would be great. I got over 100. And so I did the catalog. I'll give you one, oh.
Speaker 2:God, I would love that, of that experience, pictures of a lot of the art that people gave me and pictures of people in Russia holding a piece.
Speaker 1:And this is well after the Seed Project. Oh yeah, this was right before.
Speaker 2:COVID oh wow, yeah, oh wow, yeah. And here's a quote that I love and it's deeply attributed to Goethe. Some couplet Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Well, I should have that tattooed across my chest. I'm not sure there would be any room.
Speaker 1:well, I should have that tattoo across my chest.
Speaker 2:But I already have Not sure there would be any room. So, yeah, so that is my life, one magic experience after another. And within the big magic thing are all the little ones, the ones that happen every day, are all the little ones, the ones that happen every day. And so maybe, if I were starting over and rewriting my life, I would just say you know the magic within the magic, that's it, and the wonder that is just everywhere. And you know, in the beginning you don't wonder about this and then later on you do. You know, I never wondered about the planets and the galaxies, but I live with an astronomer, among other things, and it's very hard to live here and not look up in the dark, off-grid and not wonder and not listen to the stories about distances, things that like, no matter how creative you are and imaginative, you can't imagine that it's that far and that this represent, this tiny speck, represents something so big you can't imagine. And I also think something that you would see in a microscope would be.
Speaker 1:Has a universe inside it. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, that's an aside.
Speaker 1:Well, it's an aside, but you know it leaves me totally speechless. I mean, I feel like we could be here till August just to pick up on you know a thread of everything that you've said. But we started with what happened to the Wonder Institute. Now I know it's, you've just embodied it you are the Wonder Institute.
Speaker 2:I will. You know if I had a dream or another dream, because I am redoing my small website. My Wonder Institute website is not available right now. It exists somewhere. I want to find it and it shouldn't die. You know it shouldn't be something like. That was then. This is now Because there's so much more to it. And you know, we did essay contests.
Speaker 2:I have all the postcards from the postcard project and it would make you weep to see when. You know, I gave these postcards out and I put stamps on them because that helps you get them back, you know, and had my the Wonder Institute address and on the other side it just said you know, I wonder, and it was all blank. You could fill in some of them. The first batch said I wonder about. But afterwards, I wonder, and the things people wrote and I haven't, you know, stacked that high and some of them make you cry, you know, and some of them are funny and some of them say, yes, me too. I wonder about this. Will they ever have a? I wonder if they'll ever have a cure for cancer. You know one that I remember so clearly. I wonder whatever happened to Jenny? I miss you, jenny, love Mom. I'm a sensitive person.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it's so deeply touching and I think we're all so starved for wonder and awe, and somebody just sent that to me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, not to me, to the Wonder Institute. And people drew. You know I could make a book of those scars, but Well, you have to stick around for quite a few more years because you've got a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1:I do. I've got a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know I built a chapel. That was a project to just like what. We'll go out and see it later.
Speaker 1:Well, I saw the progress as I followed you on social media and it'll be a privilege to see it, but really, I thought when you were coming here, what are we going to talk about?
Speaker 2:I thought we would be talking about the magnificent artists who trusted me to display their work and by their work, through their work, I had like uncountable wonders and experiences of being with their work, seeing people respond to it, taking it to Chicago and Miami and LA and New York and Spain and Germany. And you know, in Germany, I mean no, in Spain, at the big Arco Fair. At the big Arco Fair, the king of Spain walked through my booth and saw the art, you know, and other people and wondrous people, you know. That's the same thing Like how did I know to show this work and that work, a whole lot, you know. Going back to the beginning days, I didn't know anything but I had a real sense of who did and I listened to them and mainly the people who knew something, something that could help me choose and do Artists everything. The most important information I ever got about living a life during those years, information came from artists how to look, how to see, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, that's exactly. The purpose of this project is to bring that into living rooms across the world, because those insights are so valuable.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at that Erica Wanamaker. It was David Anderson, another artist, who said you ought to look at Erica Wanamaker's work, and it was Alan Graham who said you should look at Richard Hogan's work. And it was Richard Hogan who said you should look at Lucy Mackey's work. And it went like that. It was Gene Newman who said you know, do you know, john Connell? It unfolded like that and eventually I could see, not what they saw necessarily, but what I could see. I could see, and I don't know how it happened, but for me there came a time when I could look at something and say there's something in here that's much bigger than my opinion. But it ends up seeming like my opinion if I hang it on the wall of my opinion. But it ends up seeming like my opinion if I hang it on the wall of my gallery. But there's something here, I want to be around it, I want to.
Speaker 1:Well, when you're an open vessel for the energy that is being expressed, the vehicle might be an artist over there, but they're tapping into that field and all you're doing is being sort of a radio station tuning it in. What is that?
Speaker 2:field, you know, and thank you, Thank you for letting me play in the field, yeah, really. And then you know, once you're looking at magnificent work, once you're talking with the person who manifested it, you know it just fills you. You know I am filled not, I would say, on one day, filled to overflowing, but the flow goes on. It, you know it will never be empty. Certain things change, certain things. Now I like, for a different reason, I collect. I still collect work when I can Not necessarily work.
Speaker 2:Oh, this would have been perfect in my gallery. Or oh, yeah, this is just what the gallery would have shown, but something in it. And sometimes it's like I know how sincere this artist is. I know this, you know, came from a really thoughtful, deep, spiritual, intellectual, also, you know, extremely smart place and I want to support it. If I had money, you know, I would still be buying a whole lot, collecting, giving away. You know, because it's still out there, it's harder to find. For me it's still out there, it's harder to find. For me it's a little harder to find now, partly because, well, there's so, there's so much out there now and there are so many people who have done either decided to be an artist or open a gallery or begin to collect and you know, and not all of it, I think it's wonderful to decide to be an artist.
Speaker 1:Well, if I may say one of the things that you know, you have matured and developed such a sophisticated attunement to authentic work that for somebody to connect with you they have to be deeply in their practice.
Speaker 2:And that term authentic, you know, and so we all have it, I think. I mean we don't all display it or notice it or realize that we have it, you know, but that's just it. You know, the great artists, in my opinion, are doing their authentic work, and so you get these little feelers that go out. Yeah, maybe I don't like it, but it's authentic, right, right.
Speaker 1:And I think that once we attune to authenticity, we can see it not just in the art world. We see it in a doctor, in a gardener, in a you know name. Insert profession here or non-profession In the poem.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think that that's the wonder and the mystery and the pondering is that you know what is our authentic life? If that was the question that is sort of at the heart of what you have lived your life. What I'm trying to do is, you know, how do we find that expression of our authentic selves?
Speaker 2:And you've certainly given us lots of places and you go through all different things and you wander here and you open this door and you read that book and you go here and you talk to whomever and it all matters, it all adds to it If, in fact, you are open to asking yourself that question, the basic question. You know like what more am I? You know, who am I? It sounds so trite, but figuring it out, gives us the whole journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's perfect. I'm going to end it there. Well, thanks for joining us today. Please like and follow us on artstormingorg, where you'll find a list of our shows, a transcript of this episode with links to the guest page, as well as our other projects. Artstorming is brought to you and supported by Artbridge and listeners like you. Look for us on your favorite podcast platforms.
