Atkins Labcast

Atkins Labcast Episode 40 - Paul and Kate chat

• Paul Atkins • Episode 40

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Another stroll in the park with Frank draws out conversation about Succession the TV show and making art.
Enjoy!

Kate Atkins:

Why do we have this thing?

Paul Atkins:

The German rave party outfit. No one's listening

Kate Atkins:

to this because we're going to cut all this out. But he's got his little collar on. He's got his little collar on.

Paul Atkins:

We're not cutting this part out.

Kate Atkins:

No. He's got his little collar on that shines him, lights him up like a freaking disco.

Paul Atkins:

And a UFO disco. It's

Kate Atkins:

pink and blue. which makes a fetching

Paul Atkins:

purple. Oh, because this is a podcast, they won't be able to see us.

Kate Atkins:

No, but it'll be on the theme. We'll do it as part of the advertising.

Paul Atkins:

Oh, okay. Yeah. And then,

Kate Atkins:

yeah. And so,

Paul Atkins:

come on. He's behind me. It's okay.

Kate Atkins:

And so, people can see him when we walk at night and he doesn't get hit by a car because, you know, the aforementioned idiot Mercedes drivers. Come on, Fatty!

Paul Atkins:

You've now alienated all our Mercedes driver listeners.

Kate Atkins:

You know what? There's no, there are, there's one or two photographers who are driving Mercedes.

Paul Atkins:

What about vintage Mercedes?

Kate Atkins:

No, have you seen the prices of a fucking vintage Mercedes? Any photographer who's driving a Mercedes is in the US and they're an influencer and they're not shooting jack, okay? Toilets. Toilets, yes. You need to go to the toilet? No, I don't want to fucking go. Listen. Well, it could be a last stop. You don't do public toilets, alright? It could be a last stop before... No, I don't do public toilets under any circumstance. Okay. Ooh, there's a big ass machine over

Paul Atkins:

there. Yeah, yeah, that's from doing the bitumising.

Kate Atkins:

Because

Paul Atkins:

they're bitumising the area.

Kate Atkins:

So

Paul Atkins:

we watched the final episode of Succession this week.

Kate Atkins:

And it's a bit like, should we be talking about it because everybody's talking about it?

Paul Atkins:

I don't

Kate Atkins:

know. So, for us, me and you, Paul

Paul Atkins:

and Kate,

Kate Atkins:

it was a bit more than for probably some people because

Paul Atkins:

it was the

Kate Atkins:

succession of the business which we've had our own

Paul Atkins:

Oh, a version of.

Kate Atkins:

That

Paul Atkins:

is not comparing my grandfather to Logan Roy. Or my father.

Kate Atkins:

Not your father, but maybe your grandfather.

Paul Atkins:

Okay, good point.

Kate Atkins:

Your grandfather

Paul Atkins:

was a right cunt. Because growing up in the 20s, 30s, don't say the C word. You already did. It's

Kate Atkins:

fucking Australia. I'm using the Australian accent to say Australia,

Paul Atkins:

okay? No, my point is that growing up in the, you know, a child of basically World War I. Straight ahead.

Kate Atkins:

He's always right under my bloody feet.

Paul Atkins:

Growing up as a child of World War I and dealing with the people that came home for it produce people like logan roy um who you know i don't know there wasn't any interest there wasn't any interest in kindness was there it was all about pushing because they

Kate Atkins:

were raised by the heavily traumatized um silent generation that were basically raised by like cave people before that

Paul Atkins:

1800s okay there was the beginning of photography

Kate Atkins:

yeah but 1800s was like we put boys in dresses and we ignore girls and we hope all of them shut the fuck up and some strange black lady breastfeeds them that's what the 1800s was

Paul Atkins:

Anyhow. And if

Kate Atkins:

you were anything other than that, you were a servant to all those people.

Paul Atkins:

Anyhow. Talking about the final episode. Well, not so much the final episode, but the whole series.

Kate Atkins:

The whole

Paul Atkins:

series.

Kate Atkins:

Because it is...

Paul Atkins:

What's your take, Kate?

Kate Atkins:

Okay.

Paul Atkins:

What's your take? Because I

Kate Atkins:

was talking to my sister and she was like, they're all monsters. And yeah, like, okay, sure. They're monsters, but... I just love them all so much. And I know everyone's like, why do you love these billionaires that are fucked in the head and treat people terribly? I know. It's complicated. Like, I think that's why it works for so many people who have really dysfunctional relationships with their families, like both you and I do, and like many of our listeners. All three of them.

Paul Atkins:

Well, we know Nathan Caso listens.

Kate Atkins:

Gorgeous, Nathan.

Paul Atkins:

Without even telling him, he listened. He said, I'm glad you've got the podcast going. Well,

Kate Atkins:

I'm glad. At least we've got Nathan.

Paul Atkins:

Shout out to Nathan.

Kate Atkins:

So, I don't know, actually, if Nathan's parents...

Paul Atkins:

Oh, and I think I made two people. I made Morgan, a cousin of mine listen, and Kim Vueling.

Kate Atkins:

One of them has shitty parents, right? One of the three listeners has shitty parents. And I think the thing about it is the thing with the shitty parents is that you have the, like... shitty right shut up no one wants to hear you and your fucking excuse making for your parents come on frank so the thing is you have the shitty parents they do shitty things but you still love them

Paul Atkins:

yes

Kate Atkins:

that's the complicated thing it's like the relationship is actually really complicated

Paul Atkins:

are we shitty parents

Kate Atkins:

well i don't think we're I don't think we're like Logan Roy shitty, but we're, you know, we fucked our kids up a fair dose. That's why we went to therapy. The difference is, Ryan, you go to fucking therapy.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah.

Kate Atkins:

If you don't go to therapy, then you just maintain your shittiness. So we went to therapy.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, so hang on. Let's get back on to succession. They were...

Kate Atkins:

This is my point about succession. Oh, okay. Okay, even if you don't think your parents are shitty, I know you love your parents and they were vastly better than Logan Roy or anyone compared to that, right? Yes. So I'm not saying that. I'm not saying, oh, your parents are monsters or any of that shit. What I'm saying is that you had a complicated relationship with them, right? Yes. They did things that hurt your feelings, yada, yada, I have a very complicated relationship

Paul Atkins:

with my parents. I didn't think I heard that, Phyllis. Okay.

Kate Atkins:

And look at you, grabbing that blame and shoving it so far onto you, you can't even think straight. So my point is, the point, the point. Are you?

Paul Atkins:

I am.

Kate Atkins:

Okay, you and the other three. The point is that it is complicated because you love these people that also hurt you. And that is what I think is so beautiful because whilst the kids all do that to their father, they do it to each other, and then we do it to them because we love them but they hurt us because they're revolting and they do terrible things like fucking shiv bloody common women out of protecting themselves in the workplace oh yeah with the sexual harassment stuff yeah like and fucking um like the decision to just let a nazi win the election

Paul Atkins:

yeah yeah

Kate Atkins:

you know like um

Paul Atkins:

this is all plot of the show is this god damn do we need to say

Kate Atkins:

all the warnings

Paul Atkins:

so we're talking about um the um the what we love about them is because they're all so broken and we love the brokenness

Kate Atkins:

that's what i loved about it

Paul Atkins:

okay so what i loved about it is it my turn

Kate Atkins:

yeah you're allowed

Paul Atkins:

to talk um What I loved about it was just the sheer quality of the storytelling and how, well, there was hints all along at what might be happening and you found out through the social media channels. I don't know whether they released that information as to where the Easter eggs are, but you kind of, you could see things coming

Kate Atkins:

together. Well, no, because the reason you're saying that is because we saw Easter.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, so it's just, you know, we afterwards, we've been talking about it for days. We actually, should we not tell the staff, we snuck away from work to watch it. Well,

Kate Atkins:

we're talking too late now, isn't it, Dickhead? None of them are listening, don't

Paul Atkins:

worry about it. The episode came out at about 11am our time, and so we went up and had lunch and then ended up watching, because it was a long episode. At any rate, the point is we've been talking about it for days afterwards. But

Kate Atkins:

we're seeing all the TikToks that have all the... Oh, leading up to it. Like showing you all the previous stuff. Well, that's just suggesting. Yeah. But did you see the ones where they've got the script? So they've got the bottom half of the screen is the actual script.

Paul Atkins:

Oh, yeah, yeah. And so that's showing how much they improvised.

Kate Atkins:

Yeah, it's so

Paul Atkins:

interesting. That was excellent. I love them. But back to what I was saying, it's just great art. And it was that, like, I think when art is at its very best... You can see it all different levels. You don't need to decode it. But if you can get into the decoding, whether it be by speaking to the artist or seeing the meta information, like the director's commentary in a movie or sitting at an artist's talk, that's another layer. You can enjoy it at that level as well. But great art is just straight out. You stand in front of it and you go, oh, my God. But

Kate Atkins:

it's also something that argues. I think great art is not a thing that everybody universally goes, the best. I mean, I know we've done that. We've butchered a lot of great art into doing that. Everything that Van Gogh ever touched was the best. And I am a Van Gogh super fan, but there are some pieces better than others, right? No one's perfect. And so I think really interesting art does actually create a moment where everybody goes, well, I think this, but maybe it means this. Well, maybe it means that. Like, there's more than one thing. No, I agree with you. Like, is Mona Lisa a girl who looked kind of weird? Yeah. Or is it his lover? Yeah. I vote lover. You know, like, all of that is really interesting.

Paul Atkins:

It's always about the muse, isn't

Kate Atkins:

it? I suppose. But no, I think... No, it's not always about the muse. It's about... The point is that it's about things that are... Not controversial, but that it can be about more than one thing.

Paul Atkins:

And that was

Kate Atkins:

the whole point in the beginning of the conversation, was that it was about more than one thing.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, yeah.

Kate Atkins:

Come on, Frankie! So, you know, I think that's

Paul Atkins:

good. Yeah, but I agree with you. Multiple level thing and different understandings is one thing because some artists are just not interested in saying why they did it. And so people can look at it and go, I'll read it in any way they want, which is fine.

Kate Atkins:

Yeah, but I think that means that you do. If David Lynch came out and went, let me tell you what it all means, it'd ruin it. Well, it might do. Yeah, but the point is that he doesn't do that. So then you look at it and you go, is it this? Is it that? Is it the other? And that's what makes it interesting. I think when you just know what it all is, then it's like... You know, Henri and I were talking about this this morning, about Yellow Jackets, and he was saying that the problem with Season 2 of Yellow Jackets is that they've forgotten that the whole point of horror is to pretend that everybody's like, that it's like an allegory for trauma. So like you go, oh, It's not really about the monster. The monster is the trauma, right? But what they're doing with the second season of Yellow Jackets is they're like, they're yelling at us. They're traumatized. Because horrifying things happen. And it's like, no, now you've ruined it. Because the whole point is to do the horrifying things and we understand that that is a representation of

Paul Atkins:

the trauma. Well, I found myself in season two just like going, well, how common was cannibalism? And is it that big a bad thing? You know, whereas the whole premise of season one is this panic about how, you know, like how cannibalism is the worst thing in the world and just hinting at it. And because, you know, in the Bible it says thou shalt not eat each other or something like that. I don't know, some sort of a taboo. The Bible says a lot of dodged things, babes. I'm not

Kate Atkins:

sure that's what you want

Paul Atkins:

to base it on. No, but I'm saying some sort of taboo about eating each other in a, like, yum, yum, I'm hungry

Kate Atkins:

way. Yeah, well, because it really does fuck your system up.

Paul Atkins:

Does it?

Kate Atkins:

Yeah, well, the dudes that got lost down where the ice is.

Paul Atkins:

Those dudes. What, Ice Arena? Mount Ferberton down

Kate Atkins:

there? The dudes that got lost where the ice is. They ate the humans, and they ate, what did they eat? They ate too much liver, and they got vitamin A poisoning. Oh, don't. They got vitamin A poisoning. Well, sure. And, like, I'm sure that there's, like... mad cow vibes in there too. Like, you know, we fed cows cows and then they got all fucked up and made mad cows and then we

Paul Atkins:

ate the mad cows and that fucked everything up. I'm not saying that it just becomes a restaurant where you go and eat people who are happy to be eaten. I'm saying that when the chips are down and there's no food, let's eat someone rather than feel like the worst thing in the world is we ate our mate.

Kate Atkins:

I find it so interesting that what you got out of Yellow Jackets is that cannibalism isn't that bad. Yeah,

Paul Atkins:

no, no, no. How am I the weird one? You're missing the point. I didn't say that. I'm saying that they made, the show was hyped up so boogie boogie because cannibalism is the worst thing that can ever happen. And I'm saying, well, you know, look at the Kokoda Trail. There's a thousand things worse than cannibalism. The Australian forces ate the Japanese at times. There's a billion things

Kate Atkins:

that are worse than cannibalism.

Paul Atkins:

Correct. It is not the biggest. Elon

Kate Atkins:

Musk is worse than cannibalism.

Paul Atkins:

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kate Atkins:

Oh, I'm going to have the Elon boys come get angry with me now.

Paul Atkins:

The brew boys? Or two of them.

Kate Atkins:

I don't know if there's any of them listening, though, from the listening list.

Paul Atkins:

They won't be listening.

Kate Atkins:

They won't be listening.

Paul Atkins:

I'm pretty convinced that there's no one listening to this, and those that are listening do see, like, they wouldn't be listening to you go on for all these episodes. Really? If it wasn't.

Kate Atkins:

Really? Okay, so I don't know whether this is an insult or not. They're not getting angry. Hang on, are you saying that...

Paul Atkins:

Hey, are they going to AI our voices and then be able to... We'll be making phone calls to people... AI is

Kate Atkins:

here.

Paul Atkins:

We'll be taking money off of people our fake voices will be.

Kate Atkins:

Yeah, yeah. That's already happened.

Paul Atkins:

Paul and Kate. It's all

Kate Atkins:

done. We're ready for the AI. So it's

Paul Atkins:

okay, is it, having our voices out in the world? In the robot world. What do

Kate Atkins:

you mean? It's too fucking late. How many episodes of bloody podcasts have you done before

Paul Atkins:

this? 38. Yeah,

Kate Atkins:

and if you've gone to America, they've already taken a photo of your face and you've got your fingerprints and everything. It's all... We're

Paul Atkins:

all fucked now. This is probably the 39th. Now, are we going to cut across the grass here to...

Kate Atkins:

Yeah, we can give it a go.

Paul Atkins:

The grassy, grassy knoll?

Kate Atkins:

Anyway, so... Succession.

Paul Atkins:

Where it's

Kate Atkins:

depressing and sad and

Paul Atkins:

amazing. Well, that scene of Tom and Shiv in the back of the car was very sad. Oh,

Kate Atkins:

my

Paul Atkins:

God. But, you know, she's a survivor and she's gone where the power is. She's, you know, staying with her Tom. She voted against... Well, this is so many spoilers. She voted against her brothers. I

Kate Atkins:

think we've gone past that at this

Paul Atkins:

point. I know, but anyway.

Kate Atkins:

But I...

Paul Atkins:

I've got to say, nothing has stuck in my head like that show and I don't know what it is. The opening music... Because

Kate Atkins:

it's complicated. Because we know the feelings. We know what it means to love something that hurts you. It's hard. And I think that's why it's, like, amazing.

Paul Atkins:

And those boys really weren't up to running that company. It's like I

Kate Atkins:

love foiling, and yet it hurts me because it's taking the rest of my fucking life to be able to introduce it at the lab, and everyone's going to go, cool beans, you now can do the thing that everybody else has been doing all these years, and that's going to piss me off because...

Paul Atkins:

Much along the lines of what you were talking about with foiling, we had a... I had a similar... kind of a thing, because I'm getting reasonably good at consistency with Tim type. I kind of know what makes it work and all that sort of

Kate Atkins:

thing. Tim

Paul Atkins:

type. Tim type? Tim type. Tim Tim. Tim Tams. You know what she said yesterday at our, you know what we said yesterday? Tim

Kate Atkins:

Tim, can we get sponsorship? Because do you know how much money I spend on Tim Tams?

Paul Atkins:

Did you know what you said yesterday at the doctor's? You said, my golden north is, and I could not stop thinking about giant twins after that.

Kate Atkins:

Oh, Golden North giant twins. Yeah. Babes, all the two people that live interstate listening, they don't know what a giant, they don't

Paul Atkins:

know what Golden North is. If they let us know, I will send them each a giant twin.

Kate Atkins:

Tintype.

Paul Atkins:

Let's

Kate Atkins:

talk about tintype.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, I've been working with one of South Australia's great living artists, Mark Kimber, who's been wanting to do a project with a different, interesting medium, and I've got a bit of skills with tintype, and having the skills to produce the odd plate or two really nice is one thing,

Kate Atkins:

but

Paul Atkins:

making like 20 plates of a consistent quality

Kate Atkins:

is

Paul Atkins:

very impossible. But I

Kate Atkins:

don't want to talk about technical bullshit photography stuff.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah.

Kate Atkins:

Because

Paul Atkins:

it's boring. What do you want to talk

Kate Atkins:

about? Because nobody wants to, like, hear about how you mixed the fucking yellow bit and the blue bit and then it made a white bit, right?

Paul Atkins:

Well, what do you want

Kate Atkins:

to hear? Well, I think what's more interesting is why are you interested in this, in tintype? A, why are you interested in tintype as a thing? And then B, what do you get out of working with an artist?

Paul Atkins:

Oh, okay. Big

Kate Atkins:

picture, baby. Big picture. I don't care about the nitty gritty. I don't care about, oh, well, the silver was a little bit too silver and the fucking

Paul Atkins:

bleach wasn't bleachy enough. That's not interesting. The point of that point was something that you really love that frustrates the hell out of you. Oh, it

Kate Atkins:

frustrated you because some of the chemistry was fucked.

Paul Atkins:

Well, I don't even know yet because I haven't got down to the bottom of what it was. But no, okay, so you had two questions. Why am I mucking around with the beginnings of photography? What does

Kate Atkins:

it mean to Paul Atkins to do that? Because there's a whole bunch of dudes who can do that shit why are you doing it

Paul Atkins:

well like okay so it's kind of cool having a magic trick you can do right

Kate Atkins:

yeah

Paul Atkins:

and it really is a magic trick

Kate Atkins:

yeah

Paul Atkins:

it's it's a pretty simple magic trick which is kind of cool and it makes something it's very beautiful

Kate Atkins:

yeah

Paul Atkins:

um but i think i think the real reason is We spent our entire, well, my entire life chasing all the variables and quality. And when we moved to digital from film in the sort of 90s, 2000s, all this quality chasing and all this fine adjustments, getting like back in the day. So now

Kate Atkins:

you've thrown it all out the window.

Paul Atkins:

Well, no. You know, you've got all this control and all this technology and all these people piled up that helped to make a great print that we get now. But... But back in the day, you had yourself and a chemistry set and a camera. Chemistry boy. No, no, no, no. It's just elemental. It's just the building blocks of... Dear

Kate Atkins:

Watson?

Paul Atkins:

Yes. It's just the elemental building blocks of everything that we're sort of doing in the lab where it started back into the 1840s, 50s, 60s. So I think it's an anti-technology thing is one

Kate Atkins:

aspect.

Paul Atkins:

So your second part of the question was about...

Kate Atkins:

What does it mean to work with an artist?

Paul Atkins:

What does it mean to work? Okay. so i'm someone who likes to be around people would you agree with that what's the silence all about

Kate Atkins:

i'm someone who likes to be around people he says

Paul Atkins:

yeah

Kate Atkins:

yeah no like as introverted as i am in that the pandemic was the greatest time of my life because i didn't have to see anybody you were like you were like the energizer bunny when the freaking batteries run out you go and there's no more Paul. Oh, no, they're with me. I did stuff. You did stuff, but you were suffering.

Paul Atkins:

Well, sure, sure. So the concept of collaboration... Thank you.

Kate Atkins:

Why do you like to work with artists?

Paul Atkins:

Right. Because

Kate Atkins:

you love people.

Paul Atkins:

No, I love stories, and I like people trying to tell their stories. And I was sort of talking about it with Succession where it is the most... Of current time, it's popular art, sure, it's easy to watch and it's interesting, but it's great art in that you can see it all these different levels, to the point with the decision to have the dialogue fumbly. You know, these people aren't particularly intelligent, high... you know, high-performing students. Well,

Kate Atkins:

it's not that. It's that they made it real, right?

Paul Atkins:

See what I said, cunning

Kate Atkins:

linguists?

Paul Atkins:

Yeah.

Kate Atkins:

But, like, they made it real because nobody talks like that. You know, like West Wing. I don't know if there's, like, one person that understands this reference. Aaron Sorkin. Yeah, but nobody speaks like him. Nobody's all, like, walking down busy hallways and doing... And there's not

Paul Atkins:

an... There was perfect dialogue, yeah.

Kate Atkins:

Any of that. Like, it's the ums and the ahs that makes that

Paul Atkins:

show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my point is, you're close to, and the guy I'm working with, Mark Kimber, is one of South Australia's greatest living artists. And he was senior lecturer at University of South Australia in photography. And he's been doing it for, I don't know, 30, 40 years. And he's retired. And he wants to do something different and interesting. and he said to me that this has been one of the most exciting things he's done is working in this really I suppose retrograde process of you know not ancient but really old process with old chemistry and to have those skills to be able to do make it a little easier for him so that he can just work with the camera work with his subject and then we together make stuff it's kind of cool I mean I think in some ways I'd like to be that kind of an artist and a bit less of the, you know, technician. I'd like the technical stuff not to bother me so much perhaps. I may be railing against that.

Kate Atkins:

You do your own stuff.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, but I kind of throw, I throw light at a plate with something and then I just walk away from it. I don't drive.

Kate Atkins:

That's not true. Come on. I know, I don't think, I mean, yeah, you're not like a practicing artist in that you're like every day striving to, you know, find the truth of a particular blah blah. Like I don't I don't think you're doing that, but you go into exhibitions.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, I

Kate Atkins:

go to them all the time. You get invited into them. Yeah. No one's inviting me to shit.

Paul Atkins:

Well, you know, only because I'm putting myself out with that stuff. I want to be a part of it when I do it.

Kate Atkins:

But I think that's all ballad.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, anyway, that's the thing. And now he's got a show and I'm going to be a part of it to some extent. He's keen on, you know, on crediting me for it, which is fine. But I, you know, I... I was happy to be the darkroom technician and just do the work and it was great. But it was very frustrating because we got some weird results and I'm not skilled enough to know. Yeah,

Kate Atkins:

but the weird results are fucking cool.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, the trouble is everyone loves a weird result and I don't know whether I'm going to be able to reproduce them.

Kate Atkins:

Turn around.

Paul Atkins:

Yeah, I think we can go back there.

Kate Atkins:

Go on, Frankie.

Paul Atkins:

So, there you go. That's what I've been up to this week. And then

Kate Atkins:

we did a TikTok.

Paul Atkins:

Oh, is that actually going to be a TikTok?

Kate Atkins:

What do you mean?

Paul Atkins:

I thought it was a Reels that we've been making. Oh,

Kate Atkins:

fuck Reels.

Paul Atkins:

Well, it's going to be a Reels. It's going to turn on Reels as well, isn't it?

Kate Atkins:

Yeah, we'll put it on Reels, but TikTok's where it's at, man. For little short

Paul Atkins:

videos. So, was it just one TikTok we're making?

Kate Atkins:

No, we will have a TikTok account.

Paul Atkins:

Okay.

Kate Atkins:

And we will put cute TikTok videos up there. And all the people listening, all three of them, who are like, TikTok's trash. I don't want to hear it. I'm not interested.

Paul Atkins:

No one thinks TikTok's trash.

Kate Atkins:

I've had tons of people. Every day I go on there, another photographer you may know pops up in my you may know

Paul Atkins:

feed. Everyone's trying.

Kate Atkins:

And I'm not following any of them because then they'll follow me and they'll be like, why does Kate only comment on videos about childhood trauma and autism and sourdough baking? Because I've got my sourdoughs back up. And I've found this amazing woman on TikTok who's French-Canadian and she's doing all this wild stuff like... like near professional level stuff with the sourdough. So now I'm like, I'm buying flour from a specific place. And anyway, that's my current hard fixation. When I'm not doing my oil painting.

Paul Atkins:

Why are you oil painting? What's the story there? What's the, I mean, you've always been a watercolorist and you like doing a bit of painting, but you've never really sat down and go, I'm going to pick up a brand new genre.

Kate Atkins:

I am oil painting because all so much of the art that I love is oil painting and I've never really done it I've always kind of just I started with watercolor and I've just always been really good at it and it's very fast and immediate and easy for me and so that's what I've done and now I'm old and so now I want to try a very different thing right like oils it's not just that they don't mix it's just like the process is a absolute opposite so oils is really slow and can be and watercolor is very fast like because it dries in a second and oils are just fucking wet forever come on baby so um I'm really like loving it but I had like a fucking meltdown at the last class because the school decided to have an open day without telling anybody I mean none of the students and so I'm there hating my piece and like creatives will understand this you know when you're like publicly being you know you're having your work looked at publicly but it's not finished and you have this awful moment of like People going, oh, it looks really good. And you know that it doesn't look good. You know that it looks

Paul Atkins:

like trash. But they're trying to do compliments.

Kate Atkins:

But they're doing compliments because to them maybe it does look good, but you know it looks like shit. And there's just this, I don't know, there's something about that that just makes me not fucking

Paul Atkins:

cry. Well, I think it was the people just looking over your shoulder, regardless of who they were. They were

Kate Atkins:

literally looking over my

Paul Atkins:

shoulder.

Kate Atkins:

And like coming, what are you doing?

Paul Atkins:

I'm like...

Kate Atkins:

What am I doing? What are you doing? Why are you talking to a fucking stranger? Piss off. And they would just walk straight into the classroom. And I was sitting at the door. And so they were all talking to me first. And I am not the chatty patty for this shit. Like, fuck off. And so no. No. No. That was bad. But then they all fucked off. I hope that I... You know, didn't smile politely all that often.

Paul Atkins:

So you gave him your resting bitch face?

Kate Atkins:

I gave him my resting bitch face. I just fucking ignored them all. And then it came good. Like the teacher helped me out a bit because I was, it's bloody hard, the oils. It's so hard. And I think because I've always been really good at art and anything, I'm really good with my hands. So then like most things I pick up pretty quickly. And so when it's hard, I'm like, what's this bullshit? It's never hard. Why is it hard?

Paul Atkins:

You know? Well, you do tend to get things pretty quickly. Like, you know, you're frustrating in that you say, I'm going to try this and then you try it and you do it and you do really well. Josephine suffers from the same thing. So then when

Kate Atkins:

it's hard, you're like, well,

Paul Atkins:

I'm not doing this. You take your bat and ball and you go home. No,

Kate Atkins:

I'm like deliberately not doing that so that I can actually... learn something and learn to be frustrated and

Paul Atkins:

sit sit within the discomfort

Kate Atkins:

shut up now i don't want to do it because you're saying that you're making it like oh you're learning something you're triggering me

Paul Atkins:

hang on what is that hey just explain what that means

Kate Atkins:

none of my autism is a thing they called pda which

Paul Atkins:

it's basically not wanting there's a few

Kate Atkins:

different meanings behind the acronym but essentially what it is is that we are stubborn as shit we like if you Can't

Paul Atkins:

we just call you stubborn?

Kate Atkins:

Nope, if you tell us to do something it can really upset us and not like upset us like you're annoying like it physically can dysregulate us and we feel like we want to punch you in the nose so like I do it with the kids where I don't go good job Joey for cleaning your room I will just be in another room with my sister knowing that joe can hear me and be like yeah joe's been doing great with her room and i think she's like tiny listen to this and know that you're playing she's gonna listen to us as if our children want to listen to us yak for half an hour they get enough of that on a tuesday they do not need to listen to this podcast