Mark Garro: Art, Imagination, Music & the Inner Universe

Visionary art, illustration, jazz improvisation, spirituality, and creative imagination take center stage in this fascinating episode of Full STEAM Ahead. Gary and Judy Siegel welcome acclaimed artist, illustrator, musician, and painter Mark Garro for a conversation exploring creativity, philosophy, music, and the inner universe.

Mark’s remarkable career spans more than four decades. After earning a full scholarship to Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, he created over 100 book covers for major publishers, including Are You Afraid of the Dark?, R.L. Stine’s Ghosts of Fear Street, Conan the Barbarian, and many other iconic titles.

Over the past 20+ years, Mark has become internationally recognized for his deeply philosophical paintings exploring spirituality, evolution, duality, time, and the cosmos. His work has been exhibited internationally and featured in galleries including the renowned Copro Gallery in Santa Monica.

An accomplished saxophonist and musician, Mark also shares how jazz, improvisation, and experimental music continue to shape his artistic vision and creative process.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation about art, imagination, music, consciousness, and the limitless possibilities of creativity.


Learn More & Get Involved:
https://www.markgarro.com/
https://steamfund.org
https://steamfund.org/#education
https://steamfund.org/#mogaat
https://steamfund.org/#new


#FullSTEAMAhead #VisionaryArt #CreativeCommunity #Illustration #JazzMusic #SpiritualArt #ContemporaryArt #SupportTheArts #PodcastEpisode

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to Full Steam Ahead. I'm your co-host Gary Siegel and together with my wife Judy Siegel, we represent the Essence Steam Fund, the Siegel Trust Enriching Arts and Music. Our mission is to support musicians, artists, and the venues where they share their gifts. The Catskills and Hudson Valley have always attracted creative people with big ideas, and today's guest is helping channel that creativity into something truly unique for their community. Today, we're thrilled to welcome artist, illustrator, musician, and visionary painter Mark Garrow. Mark has built an extraordinary creative career spanning more than four decades. After earning a full scholarship at Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts, he went on to create over 100 book covers for major publishers, including work for Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark, R. L. Stein's Ghosts of Fear Street, and many other iconic titles. Over the last 20 years, over the last 20 plus years, Mark has become internationally recognized for his deeply philosophical and technically masterful paintings exploring spirituality, evolution, time, duality, and the cosmos. His work has been exhibited internationally and featured in galleries, including the renowned CoPro Gallery in Santa Monica. Mark is also an accomplished musician and saxophonist whose love of jazz improvisation and experimental music continues to influence his creative process. So before we dive in, we'd love for you to join our community. To learn more about Steam Fund, please visit Steamfund.org, like our social media pages, follow us on Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, and share these episodes with your friends. It's the best way to keep the arts and the conversations moving full steam ahead. So without further ado, welcome Mark Garrett. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

So we want to dive right into this. Your work is kind of a creative genius, I think. I that's amazing. And it's not just technically, but in the way you see the world. When we talked before, we had a pre-podcast meeting and we talked before it today. You mentioned as a little kid drawing dinosaur dioramas, flip pad animations, and constantly drawing as a kid. Looking back, did creativity always feel like a core part of who you were as a human being?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Oh there's no doubt about that. I would say my my uh grandfather started it. I'm a third generation artist.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

No kidding. Uh visual art.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah, but um he was unable to pursue it because of the um depression. He was in school in 1932. And I was like, you know, ground zero for that p time point in time. Uh my great grandfather had forced him out to uh work. Okay. Uh and then my father, um he was a lithographer. Yep. And um I would come down in in the mornings and sometimes see like his newest drawing, and he would dr copy the cover of the TV guide and uh do characters and so I was always surrounded by it. Some form of art, uh uh almost always. And he would always be playing his clarinet.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

And I would come down and he would be playing clarinet to sax music. Because he always Okay I think he wanted to play the sax. But he inherited a clarinet.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Work with what you got.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Exactly. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

And saxophone was a much newer instrument at the time, too.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, and it wasn't it yeah, I mean it had less options. Right. Uh unless you were gonna go be in go into jazz, which is really being forged by Charlie Parker and I think.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, obviously Beethoven and Mozart didn't write for saxophone in their illustration. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Late 1800s, right? Was it Sachs? Uh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Adolph. Adolf Sachs. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

So you're you were surrounded by art. Like is that what he did for a living? Is that is was that his dad was a lithographer. He was a printer.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

So um he couldn't make a living as drawing. As an artist, yeah. But he was o he was always surrounded by um creativity. Very cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

And and you and your house was there music always in your house too? Is that part of that energy?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah. Like he like I said, I would go into the basement, he'd throw on some kind of Stangetch record or some kind of sack player and play along with his clarinet.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

So you mentioned that you grew up as as the oldest child in your family, right? And uh you know, spent a lot of time creating on your own. Um how much uh did solitude, you know, shape your imagination?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

A huge part of it. It's to this day, it's something that I come strive to accomplish all the time. It's distractions are the enemy.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Hence you live in the woods, right? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Um I moved into the middle of nowhere from I was in Westchester and then um Greenwich, Connecticut, and uh we moved up here for space, so I could have the space and the solitude and less of a social life. But now I know too many people up here, so I might have to move up.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

You might have to move again.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Up here, meaning Sullivan County.

SPEAKER_04 5:13

Sullivan County, which is right, and outside of Livingston Manor, and then you meet people, and then you have to play golf with them, and then you gotta play music with them, and then come to play. Yeah, that that'll do it every time. So you so you had this creative energy and sort of grew up with with music and art, and then you're in college and or maybe it was high school and you joined ROTC. Like that must have reined in some of that creative energy and sort of m focused you more, yes?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Discipline.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

Discipline.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

It taught me discipline. Because I think when we talked before about campus life, I didn't want to leave that place. And the scholarship is very it keeps you on the straight and narrow. You have to keep your GPA up, otherwise you lose lose the scholarship. And in the beginning it dipped below what it was supposed to, and they put me on probation, and I was like, I'm not leaving here because if I'd lost the scholarship, I would have had to leave. And uh so I got I battened down the hatches and uh really dedicated myself to to the work.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Aaron Powell So you went to class? I went to class.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

I went to class, I never skipped class. Yeah, and you could easily skip class as long as you had the work done. Right. Right. You didn't have to do that. Right. Yeah. But sometimes you wanted to interact with your teacher, and I I always did. And I had good teachers.

SPEAKER_04 6:32

So I would always go to class and um that must have been part of your DNA too, though, because st I I would think I don't I don't know a whole lot of artists, but if you you think back in time, like every artist doesn't have that discipline um that they're taught, right? So that that gave you a different kind of edge, I I would think, and would allow you to make a living ultimately and not be a starving artist, but in fact an artist that could use the creative energy. And I think we talked the other day that, you know, one of the things about Gary is that he is a musician and a teacher. And that is a nice balance because it gives you the structure, you you do have the ability to to um put yourself in a little bit of a box and say this has to get done by this time. And at the same time, there's this inner part of you that just could explore everything and and be who you are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Sticking sticking to the deadlines.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, many goal-oriented tasks too, and and not deviating but but but keeping your eye on the target of the thing. I think the goal.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

I think when they threw you to the wolves in the in that curriculum, it was all about deadlines. Because I was in the illustration program. I wasn't in the fine art program. So uh it was all about deadlines. And I think that's really where they where you knew where you stood. If you showed up with your finished piece, because if the piece was unfinished, then you can't even really critique it.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

So you're out of even the critique. You would hang your piece up and they would go through the piece, you know, every one by one. And our teacher had a habit of picking his favorite piece first and going down the order to what he didn't like.

unknown 8:08

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

And I only was last once. And I was never last again. I did not like that.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

It's like being picked last for the team. You know, you're exactly what it was like. You weren't the prime.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

It brought back a lot of bad memories for being picked last in the basketball team. But uh, um, it taught discipline. And uh perfect case in point with not everybody being like that was my roommate. Because we were both in the art program, and he was a guitar player, and he was really good. He was a great uh acoustic guitar player. He could play Bach, he could play everything, and that's all he did. And he didn't show up to class with any of his pieces done. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

And I said to him, it through school, huh?

SPEAKER_00 8:53

He did, but not well.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah. I had many friends that were on the five and six and seven year plan when I went to college.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah. Um I said, why didn't you why didn't you go for music? Because he was amazing. Right. He said, because then it would have been more like work for me. And I was like, but that's what you love. Right. Why is might as well do what you love working. Not something you hate working.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And that's the way you look at music, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah. Yeah. In a lot of ways. Yeah. But um that temperament, the the temperament of an illustrator is is um it's unique. It's not everybody doesn't have it. Uh it's a hard lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

So you also talked about uh uh seeing Salvador Dolly's work and and actually you told a fantastic I would love it if you could tell the story about who you met at the Salvador Dolly Museum.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yes. Uh I sh went there with my grandmother and my great uncle in uh St. Petersburg, Florida, and it was spring break. And we drove there from where my grandmother lived. And be when we first walked in, my my great uncle ran up to me and said, Henry Kissinger's here. You know who Henry Kissinger is? I said, Yeah, I know I know who he is. He said, He's here, he's here. And I saw the Secret Service walk in with him, and uh Secret Service came up to me right away because I was carrying a bag. Gotta check your bag, sir. And I didn't want to. And that made me suspicious, so they followed me the whole time. And then as I'm looking, going through the museum at this mecca of ill surrealism, I realized the true surrealistic moment was me standing with Henry Kissinger looking at these paintings.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

So I was the surrealism in the museum suddenly. I I thought it was the most ironic and sh and interesting experience at up to that time in my life.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

I I did you paint it?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

No, no, no. But talking but but interacting with them about the paintings was fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

You actually got him.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

I stood right next to him and we agreed. Oh my god. And I he was like, Well, what do you think this is trying to, you know, and we would talk a little bit and I was like, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

And you didn't mention you didn't negotiate a peace agreement. But no, but he was like in the prime of that time.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

You know, it was very strange.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

So Dolly obviously impacted on you. Talk about Dolly a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Walking into that museum opened my eyes. It was nineteen it was I was twenty and uh still going through school and still determining what direction I wanted to go as far as mediums. I mean I I was painting, but not full time. I was doing other mediums, drawing, pen and ink, uh, scratchboard, pastels, everything. As an illustrator, it's only to your advantage to learn as many techniques as possible. But when I walked in there, I knew that at that moment on I was gonna be a painter. And uh dedicated myself full time 100% to painting from that point on. But seeing his pieces in person blew my mind. Because in a book it's not the same thing. It's just not. You're seeing a piece eight by ten instead. Some of his pieces are are twelve by eight feet.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

And and he would work huge, and in Spain especially, a lot of his pieces were in uh porticos and uh domes.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

And what else is different about about when you see a color as opposed to color.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Because when you're looking at a f piece reproduced, it's the four color inks black, magenta, cyan, yellow. And and it's not even close. It's four little ink colors reproducing something that has infinite uh hues, infinite intensity.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

And do you incorporate that now still into most of your work?

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, I think so. And and I always try to encourage people to see my originals. I think one of the more depressing things that happened was with technology is when people started saying, Oh, if you have your work online, and they would start find trying to look at it on a a phone, three by four inches or two by four inches. Yeah, it's not true. And I'm like that I and I would discourage people. I would say, no, no, don't look at it. And then realizing this is the new reality. People are gonna be looking at your work like this.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Right. They're they're either going to look at that or never see your work. Exactly. This is your opportunity to get it.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

And some certain artists they paint loosely and when they shrink it down, it looks fantastic. And then when you see the original, you're kind of a little disappointed.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

Kind of like Mona Lisa.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

I never saw the Mona Lisa.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Me either. But they say people are always like, but it was this big. It's like this big. A little bigger. So like it's still very small. There's nothing dramatic.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Unfinished.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

So there are other artists like John Singer Sargent, Frederick Church. Maxwell Parrish. So when I looked up Maxwell Parrish, because I didn't know who he was, I thought, oh, that's Mark Arrow. Like that was a I I saw that and and there was an instant connection for that. How did they how did they influence you and how do you incorporate what they did into what you do?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Well, my quest in the beginning as a painter was to uh accumulate as many technical abilities as possible. Technique was was my obsession. I just wanted to be technically proficient and not have that stand in the way of my ideas.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

So right. So let me just stop you there. So because that that seems like a dichotomy. Technically proficient and still not lose your artistic creativity. So that that I would think is unique to someone like you, because I would imagine, am I correct here, that most artists are artists, illustrators are illustrators, but the balance of the two makes you unique.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

It's blurred more than ever now. But back then it was a big discussion. Because I took painting classes too, so I was in that world of my that specific class had painters. And they were very you know, they were very arrogant. And the illustrators had a more pr um practical approach to art because they wanted to make a living commercial art.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

So that's why I went in that direction because you can eat. Exactly. I wanted to make money. And and back then music was more limiting, I thought. Either you're gonna go on the road or teach. And I didn't have the same confidence in music that I did with art. So pursuing technique uh kept me full time.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

Are there are there times that you channel one or the other of those artists, or do you feel at this point in your life you've sort of blended them all into your own um creative energy?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

I think it's blended now. It's taken this long though. I mean it's taken decades for it to finally and it actually split. There was a schizophrenic schizophrenic break where Gar al was here and then this other character emerged. Because when I assimilated assimilated all these techniques, I had this specific look. But it put me in another predicament where because it's time consuming.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

How time consuming?

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Um to do one of my 19 by 12 inch pieces, it can take a month. And um I have my ideas were outpacing my tech my prolificness.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

So before we get into that, I think uh talk about the illustration years, you know. Uh many people, you know, saw your work through Goosebumps, uh, you know, Fear Street, Nickelodeon, um the book covers. Um talk a little bit about that and how you made a living.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

And how you made a living, yeah. I was it was very serendipitous. Uh I had a really bad job in the city. It was the worst job I ever had. It was soul crushing and awful. And I met I met the most important person in my career there. Uh and he taught me the ropes.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

And who was that?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Uh he doesn't like me to say his name.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Okay, that's okay. Anonymous.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Anonymous, but he was a very successful fantasy illustrator. Um and his technique was otherworldly. Acrylic painter. Um that's another point, too, that we have to talk about as far as technique, uh, acrylic versus oils. Um but meeting him gave me the taught me the ropes of book cover, the craft of doing book covers. Because I I worked with him under him first I just started preparing boards, you know, gestilling boards, white, making the board white. But he knew I had an ability. And he took me under his wing because he wanted to nurture it, and I didn't think I was gonna be able to even keep pace with him. Um but I I worked with him for three years pr pretty much full-time. And living with him at times. We were roommates basically. And um I think uh learning the ropes of the book cover industry with him was even more informative than all my years in college.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

I mean, our kids grew up with the goosebumps in that era.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

Yeah. It must be amazing to think that you know, you walk down the street or you s you go into somebody's house and they have a kid and there's there's your book cover. Like that must be such a high.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

It was a mind-blowing thing at m at my peak doing the covers because I would walk into um Barnes and Noble. What was the other main uh book cover bookstore? I think it was Barnes and Noble.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Barnes Noble's the one that we know.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

At the peak of doing the covers, uh there would be a shelf with like twelve of my covers.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

Like, that's me. A lot.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Like a whole section. And then one time I walked in and the kid was a kid was looking at them. And I was I was like, you know, I'm the artist. Did you sign it? Yeah, he was he was like, he goes, You're you're Mark Garrett? I was like, Yeah. So that blew my mind too. But uh little things like that made me feel like, you know, it was worth all the sacrifice. But uh I think working with was uh a key oh I said his name. We didn't hear that. We didn't hear that. Uh uh really uh gave me the confidence to pursue it on my own because I didn't stay with him for that long.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

How long were you in illustration?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Uh good 12 years, good solid 12 years, from eighty-eight to n 2000 was was the the the main core of my illustration career, and I would say I worked a hundred hours a week straight through those years without a day off.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And was that almost made me insane.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

And without a day off, and it was work or without a day off, and it was exhausting because it was creative energy, but you loved it? Like what was that like?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Well it was b all all the above, because it's like this is what I wanted to do. These are because um it's rarefied air. I was the only kid in my class to able to break into that industry. Um So I felt so lucky to do it. So I didn't think about it, and I was young.

unknown 20:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

I could pull four all-nighters a week. I don't do that anymore. I can't stay up all night anymore.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

You st you do a pretty good job.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Um I stay up late, but I still sleep seven hours.

SPEAKER_04 20:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Then I was staying twenty-four hours staying up through the next day.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Right. You still do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

And then do it again two days later.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

That is just all you're doing, and sometimes you eat in between and sometimes you eat. And maybe not, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Toast rice and corned beef hash, that was my diet when I was in college, and then out of school, a lot of rice.

SPEAKER_04 20:30

And then a lot of rice. Well, that's because you didn't have money to eat.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Pasta and rice, yeah. I live near my grandmother.

SPEAKER_04 20:37

Ah, so eat. Come on over.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yes. Come on over.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Your paintings, there are all sorts of different themes. There's spirituality, there's evolution, there's duality of time, there's the over-under, there's uh what are the big questions that you keep returning to? This is deep as an artist. What what are you what's the exploration about?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Well, I'm obsessed with the passage of time.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

But I think moving forward or backwards?

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Both. Uh especially forwards, though. Uh because it moves so quickly, and as we age, it it we're pr we perceive it even faster as we age.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

We get older faster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

And that's uh it's a physical thing. It's it's it's based in physics too. The Doppler effect, the compression of sound waves, compression of light waves, it's compression of time. They're all affected by the Doppler effect. Um what was the question?

SPEAKER_04 21:35

The question. So talk uh really it's talking about those themes though, the the the evolution, the duality of time, you know. What what what drives you in that regard? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

I think the human figure star starts me off.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

Do do all you think in in my mind when I'm thinking about what I see in your paintings, there's always there's always people. There's uh there's always figures, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

It evolved into that. I wasn't Always doing that because I wasn't good at it yet until I worked with my mentor. And he taught me that the the craft of photo shoots, too. Getting a model, hiring a model, setting up the lights, not unlike all this, and doing the shoot, you know, and interacting with the model so they feel comfortable. And back then it was really easy to get models because I could take roles and roles of film, and they had no fear of it showing up somewhere on the internet forever. Now, now I it's so hard to get models. It's so hard to get models. People are paranoid. But I have a reputation now, so I say call my old models, talk to them, uh, and I have a good record with that.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

So the detail in your art fascinates me. And I wonder as a creative person, so on on the one hand, I would think that it would be constraining to have to work like we I looked at a a piece you had with symbols, and the colors and the lines and the blending are just so intricate. And I would think that there must be a it's a funny balance, I would think, between the constraint of the details and also the art time and the artistic energy.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

You know, that's that is also artistic, but still. Physical energy.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Yeah. It's a lot. People don't realize how physically demanding painting can be.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Is it like explain that physical demand?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Aaron Ross Powell Uh Well, you have to sit still.

SPEAKER_04 23:29

Well, that I'm done. Which is the same thing. I'm never in an artist.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

But you're exerting it as a lot of people bow out at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's it's it's a meditation where you have to sit still and and pursue and you're gonna go through really awkward points where you hate it and you think it's a failure.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Do you ever just stop and just say that I'm I'm done with the bigger thing? If I ever completely abandon the painting? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Maybe twice. Wow. In all these years, maybe twice. Because I always feel like there's it's solvable. It's the ultimate crossword uh jigsaw puzzle. Right. Painting is the ultimate jigsaw puzzle. Because there's every color in the universe, there's every idea, every size, technique, and putting that all together to solve your concept, it's uh it's a it's a real challenge, and it's the most satisfying thing when you do it. So I always feel that there's a solution to every painting. And back when I was in school, see there's a lot of little incidences that give you these notions that and confidence. I was working on a project that I was not I was having a hard time with in college in school. And uh it was I was using layers. I at first I did it on board, and then I used an overlay of plastic and painted on that like a like animation cell. Uh and it started to finally work, and one of my friends came up behind me and said, Well, you're just gonna make it work, aren't you? And I said, Okay. Yeah. I said, Wow, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Uh and so now I just pursue. And do you I know there's a solution.

SPEAKER_04 25:17

Over that weeks or month or however long, do you like live, eat, sleep, and breathe the painting in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 25:23

That's when I know I'm c things are clicking. Yeah, I think I I say to my wife that things are crackling. Things are crackling.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

She leaves you alone, leaves me alone. There'll be no discussing finances this week because he's on it.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Isolation and and conceptual isolation. Yeah, I do. I will wake up. And when when that and that happens, I know that I'm I'm rolling.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

So one of the things that really stands out in your work is this above and below imagery. Can you uh talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 25:51

It's all about what lies just beneath the surface of things in every aspect of our lives and uh as above, not so below. I mean things are often not as they seem. Almost always. So that's what I try to get across in the paintings in a more you know literal way.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

But life and water or is it Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Well, it's both. It's been both. I started out with water, but then I started doing above and below with gr you know earth. And it took me a long time to get to that motif naturally, because I always wanted to. And I those little flip cartoons I did as a kid, there's ev there's evidence of that in those.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

Did you create it? No, over under thing?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

That's from National Geographic Scientific Illustrations uh would often depict that because it's the most comprehensive way to show an environment. Uh because a prairie dog above the ground, you don't know what's going below, or an ant. You know, it's a complex system of tunnels and it's uh an ant huff uh farm or an ant hill. It's fascinating in that way. So I you know I incorporate that into the work.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

So and in terms of incorporating, you've talked a little bit about and written about how technology may have disconnected people from their souls and from their inner hearts and souls. Um probably pretty relevant today. Can you see that tension in your art? Do you are do you feel like you express that deeply in what you're creating?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

That's the goal.

SPEAKER_04 27:27

That's the goal.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

That's the goal. And I have to hear other people's reflections of my work for to really know if I'm successful doing it. Because that's I mean, I'm trying to communicate to people. Right. And I like the painting.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

All right. And is there always a story to the painting?

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah, and it evolves. Sometimes it starts with a title. Sometimes it starts with just um a figure pose that I like. Like I want to paint that that figure, that pose, and then this whole idea evolves around it. But sometimes it just comes from a little sentence I'll scribble down.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Uh and is it um is the expectation that when you create based on that story that you this may be kind of rhetorical, but that you would want everybody that sees it to get that story, to see that story, or or is or it doesn't matter to you. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

It doesn't matter to me. Because it's impossible for what you just said to happen. Nobody sees the same thing twice. Right. And instead of two people don't see the same thing the same way. Um Deep thinkers. But the stuff I think.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

Would you like sit with some uh have you ever would you ever sit with a painting and say, like, this is where this came from. What do you all think? Is that something an artist loves to do?

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Or is that like you don't want to influence how they think it's it's such an uh a mirror into people's souls when I don't influence and I know what they're thinking by what they say. Whatever they say is is I can get right into your psyche. I know exactly what you what you're about. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

It's like when you talk to a therapist, but differently scary, right? Like you you know who at their core that person is based on what they're feeling and seeing, because you know you created it. And I get that.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Aaron Ross Powell It's the things they're saying and it's the things they're not saying. Because sometimes they'll they'll not say anything. And I know that that person is really not here. Or they're thinking here. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Or they're thinking, they're processing, right? That's a possibility. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

If they say something eventually.

SPEAKER_04 29:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

If otherwise it doesn't it's no help to me if you don't say anything. Right. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Even if it's a a criticism. I'd rather hear a criticism than nothing. Trevor Burrus, Right.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

That's funny to me that somebody would actually, though, criticize art like that. That's crazy to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Aaron Powell happens all the time. Yeah. Especially when I was doing portraiture, because that's a rough thing. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

I don't look good enough, right? Like that's a that's a vanity thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

And then you would change the way they look a little bit, and if somebody that knows those people sees the painting and they go, well, you didn't act it, it doesn't look like that. But they made me change it.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

I know what they look like. They didn't think they looked like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah. And that was before my commercial uh career. I was doing a lot of portrait.

SPEAKER_04 30:17

Yeah, I would think that doing portraits is a scary thing to do because it's no people don't really see themselves often. That's so true. Nobody does.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah. Yeah. So self-portraits are fun that in that way.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Trevor Burrus, Jr. So let's go back to your music uh shift a little bit. And I know we we talked a little bit about this, but uh you know clearly music is a major creative outlet for you. Um tell us about your connection to the saxophone and how music became part of your life.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Uh early on, I took up the saxophen I was eight years old. I started um drawing was first memories as far as being creative. Then the horn. And I'll never forget the first time I opened the case. Because at first you rent one, right? Right. You rent some piece of crap. Of course. And I started taking private lessons because a friend of mine started taking lessons. And I was like, he got better, he was better than me. And I was like, oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Well, he already had lessons.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah. Yeah. And my mother said, Do you want lessons? And and I was like, I don't I don't know. Do I?

SPEAKER_04 31:17

You have to practice? Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

And I didn't like taking lessons. But I'm so glad I did, because I had a great teacher and he's a really fine person and a good friend. He became a really good friend.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Is he anonymous too?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

No, Bruce Heyer. Love you, man. He's long gone. But uh, I love the guy. Uh very interesting character. Trombone player. Really good trombone player. Played in the city, session musician. But uh Sachs, when I first opened that case, I think the first thing I said was, It's beautiful. With this big smile, and my mother was like, Oh wow. That's great. But um that taught me discipline too, because I didn't want to take the lessons once a week. He would come over the house and I didn't practice, and he was very patient with me. And that was my practice. My private lesson was my practice. But I became a very proficient sight reader, which I think in the long run was uh a disadvantage because I bypass a lot of theory. I didn't understand really anything.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Well, you talked about the circle of fists, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Yeah, and I didn't know about that until recently. Wow. Like three years ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

So it's been around for many, many years. Well, Bach wrote it.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Bach came up with it. Like that's what I mean. Why didn't my teacher tell me? Why didn't you just show me the c the circle of fifths chart?

SPEAKER_04 32:40

So most people, I mean you didn't know till three years ago. Most people don't know what the circle of fifths is. Can you guys tell me?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

You want to do it? You can do it better than me. Oh wow. I I've haven't explained this in a long time, but basically it starts with the keys and you go in fifths from like if you're a C, you would go a fifth from that to the G, which goes to the D and then the A. Right. And it makes sense. And it goes all the way around in a circle and comes back to C. So you have different keys, and each one adds a flat or it adds a sharp in the time. One sharp at a time. Exactly. So so it does help you to understand uh the harmonic structure and the theory of music, um, whether it's whether it's Bach in classical time or Jimi Hendrix. Whether it's uh yeah, uh jazz or or rock and roll, Jimi Hendrix or um, you know, Duke Ellington, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

And how does that influence how you are a musician?

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Uh just made me understand, oh, this key, it's in this key, and then the next key over, a fifth away, is just one more sharp, or if you go the other one more flat. And the fascinating thing too about the Circle of Fifths chart is it's twelve keys, like a clock. Twelve months of the year, twelve hours in the day, twelve keys in the mu I mean, that's profound to me. It all lines up.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

They overlap. That's right. D flattering sharper the same. Right, right. We're getting into a very above my head.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

It's almost over my head, so I'm barely hanging in there.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

So you recently performed uh musical morphine with the Fogman. That's right. This is your duo. And uh you know what drew you to the band and those unique sounds, and then uh also was watching you play two saxophones at once is is pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Did it sound okay? Oh yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

It was even in tune. Good. Good. That's important.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

We talked about that. It's important to be in tune. Uh Morphine, yeah. Uh Boston. I was nurturing a long-term relationship with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife of 30 years.

SPEAKER_04 34:56

Oh. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

But I would drive to Boston at least twice a month. You can mention her name. Audrey Garrow.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

Yes, and just as an aside, we love Audrey. She's she's a good age. We love Audrey. She's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yeah. So it was worth pursuing.

unknown 35:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

For sure. And driving all those miles on my car and breaking my schedule because I don't like that. I don't like things that I don't have to do with painting. Even if it's a good woman, I don't like to be interrupted in my painting. It's love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um at that point in time, it was the late 80s, early 90s. The alternate rock scene in Boston was golden, golden age of alternate music. You could go see five great bands any night of the week. And one night they said, We're gonna go out and see a band that you might like as a sax player. Like they'll do anything to get me to because I would just stay home. I would even paint an Audrey's apartment. I'd bring my stuff.

SPEAKER_04 35:50

And her friends must have said, What are you doing? Yeah, exactly. And you're not gonna make any money.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

What are you doing? He's just as bad as a musician, you're not gonna make any money. But they like musicians too, so they were into that world. And the first we went to see Morphine one particular night, and I walked in while they were playing, they had already started, and a wall of sound just hit me. It had a good sound system that night, and the sax player was playing a baritone, and I was an alto sax player, so the difference is massive. Sure. And I just it just hit me like these guys they figured it out.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Well the baritone sax for for you who may not know is is the larger saxophone, whereas the alto sax is is much more and I think I was always meant to play the baritone.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

But that's many years later. Uh I just was so blown away by them and couldn't figure out why they weren't signed. Because at that time you could make a living as a musician and get signed. It was normal.

unknown 36:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

If you were good and playing out, you'd be seen and there was no internet then. Don't can I mention that? There was no internet. Had nothing to do with social media or anything. You showed up and you listened to people. Um I I within two months of that gig, they were signed by DreamWorks. They were the first music act signed by DreamWorks.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

So you met the saxophone player, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Uh I didn't meet them that night. No. But I ironically, we all showed up, me, my future wife, and a friend of ours who had just shown up a few weeks before from England learning the area and hanging out with us, really took a liking to the sax player that night. And they've been married 30 years. So we got married at the same time, too.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

So you you're friendly with them?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Is that your uh my well I was living in New York, so Audrey became friendly with them and they started touring the world, so they were out of the picture at that point, uh not long after that. Um and they toured for like eight, ten years to '99. And uh I was struggling with the sacks. I was because I was playing in the city uh on stoops and getting water thrown on my head with my buddies that were playing.

SPEAKER_04 38:07

And uh Did you consider that as a career path?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

No. No, because I didn't think I was as good as I was as a painter, a painter. I just had the I just had supreme confidence as a painter, and I had the the teach the teachings. You know, I had the mentors, I had every step of the way. And as much as I love my music teacher, it was it was gonna always gonna be art, I think.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

Aaron Ross Powell And and is Mr.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Sorry to interrupt, but I did end up befriending the Sax player not that long ago, maybe f five to ten years ago. I told him the story. I said, you know, if we went to see Cliffs of Dunine that night, you your life would be very different. I said, Do you remember Clipsa Dunin? And he goes, Yeah. And he asked his wife, Do you remember Audrey? And she's like, very well. And he's like, Yeah, yeah, she remembers. And so he And then he ended up um I went to see him a few times live in Woodstock, and he ended up co-signing a limited edition print of one of their of a painting I did that incorporated the lyrics of their songs in cymbals and imagery. So he co-signed the print with me. So that's so it's full circle, you know, the music, the art, knowing them. Like the circle of fists. Yeah. Not exactly. Circle of marks.

SPEAKER_04 39:20

Circle of marks. Do you get more pleasure out of like is is one easier for you and and a different, better kind of release?

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yeah, we talked about a little bit about the we touched on this. Um music is joy and fun for me. Right. Art and painting just makes me feel normal. Uh-huh. Okay. It doesn't really make me feel happy. It makes me feel normal.

SPEAKER_04 39:45

It's your structure, it's your being.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

And I always I never regretted making that decision to become a full-time painter, because every time I try to solve a painting and it gets solved, I'm like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

Aaron Ross Powell And if somebody were were young and listening and they thought, I I feel what you f have felt as a young person and I want to go and be an artist in 2026. Is that is is that passion that you feel that makes you feel whole something that you would say, yeah, that's a this is a great path.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Only if you feel that way, because it's not an easy path and it's harder than ever. Uh art is taking a big hit with technology. It took a big hit in the mid-90s with technology when everything became digitized, and I stood the course and stayed painting, which forced me into the world. I always thought fine art was a pipe dream. I always wanted to do that, and I had the ideas and the technique to make that transition, but it was scary. And technology sped up that and forced me into that world, and I don't regret that because um everything's about timing. Where right place, right time in in history, and in long term, short term. Uh showing up, they say ninety ninety percent of success is showing up. Uh now I'm not that guy. Uh I just want to stay in the studio and paint. But I have the momentum of my career and everything, so it's not as much of an issue. But I would I would have a hard time encouraging people to do it, unless it's your calling.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

So talk about your exhibits um in the past and and maybe uh where where uh people can find your work um and maybe even what's in store for Mark Arrow in the future.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Uh when I saw the death knell of the illustration world happening, it was probably around 2002 when I moved up here. Uh I was getting a lot less calls. Uh so I just started to focus and it's a big chance because you're not getting an income. Um as an illustrator, I saved up enough money to buy a house. And made that transition and so I became unemployed for a while. Uh it's it's you're not unemployed because you're painting. Right. You're just not getting paid. You're just not getting paid. It's so hard to explain to people. I work a hundred hours a week.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

I might get it.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Either for nothing or I might not always get paid for.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so what was the where were we going with that? Well, basically your exhibits are maybe in the past and I had to make that leap of just creating a new body of work. 'Cause my illustration work didn't reflect my fine artwork and my my inner voice, my voice. So what you have to do is create a large body of work that people can relate to and see, oh, that's that's Mark. That's Mark's work. Oh, that's Garrow. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

I want to have a Garrow.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah, yeah. So um like a daily there was this whole movement happening out west called the visionary and pop surreal movement. And a friend of mine who uh named Travis Lewis, who uh uh also worked for my mentor, he actually took my place after I transitioned away from him. He took my place and worked with him. He started to see the scene out there and um hooked up with a few galleries and started to show. And they would do group shows. So they would h um invite uh artist friends that they knew into these shows, and he invited me to a West Coast show. So I did this piece specifically for that show and had a I think the the theme was monster with a question mark. Like monster? So uh I did a specific piece of a girl on a um sh the shore of a of a lake um and the flower's coming out of the lake. It's actually a butterfly, but it's attached to a like a filament, and you're like where but when you go below the surface it's a it's a monster like trying to charm her. So that was the first piece I did. When I when I did that piece they the um gallery liked it so much that and it sold that they gave me a solo show within a year. They said, how long will it take you to do to eight eight piece eight new pieces? And I said about a year.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

Because I didn't want to stress, you don't want to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

I wanted to make sure I had good pieces and and not be and kill myself. Um So I had a successful first show and then invited me and I've had eight solo shows since then. And where where is that? This is a copro gallery in Santa Monica, California.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Did I pronounce that wrong at the beginning? I think I probably did. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

I think you said copra.

unknown 44:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

But uh Yeah, they're they're like the pillar of pop surrealism and and um visionary art at the time and still are. But it's it w ebbs and wanes and uh getting back to that other thing, it's I wouldn't have to have a hard time telling a young person to to pursue it.

SPEAKER_04 44:56

It's not for the faint of heart. You have it really has to be your passion. And if you're lucky, it's a strongly.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

The hard part is uh you gotta live out of step with society. And the the the downside is you're living out of step with society.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Well, it's funny to me though. So it's funny because so our son is a sound engineer and Gary's been a musician, and you know, those are the weekend holiday kind of of lives.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

There's no more of that.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

Right. You don't you you do that by choice, though. You you're out of step with society because you you may it might not be a choice internally, but you do have the freedom to say, no, I'm gonna go away.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Well, that's a good that's a good point. And when we get back that rounds back to technique. My technique is very time consuming. I have friends that can do a painting three, four days, and it's them. Right. And people know them and they sell work. Right. It takes me so long. I have to be ruthless about my time.

SPEAKER_04 45:55

And focused.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

And a weekend means nothing. A holiday means nothing. Right. Family events mean nothing. And that can wear on you. In the beginning, it's fantastic because you're you're succeeding. Um, but then as you get older, it's like, is it worth it? It's a it's a real give and take as far as that goes. And and um but I have the body of work now. When I look back just preparing for this today, I was I was a little overwhelmed by what I should show you, what we should we talk about, because we could talk for hours about different things that I've uh tried to do. And the body of work's there, and I'm proud of it. So you have a lot to be proud of. Thank you. I don't regret it. I don't regret it.

SPEAKER_04 46:34

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And so where do you think you? You're you're not 20 anymore, you're not 30 anymore. Where where's this going?

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Where where do you see this as I see myself on a golf course in Florida with Brackery? My uh killer instinct has waned a little. Uh I still get the same joy out of painting and satisfaction out of make uh doing a painting, but this particular year has been the least prolific I've ever been. And I have a property that I gotta take care of, and uh I gotta keep take care of myself and my wife, and um and I like activity, I like golf, I like tennis, I like you know it could wane. You're entitled to a I've never really had a break. I haven't had a vacation in 30 years, you know. And neither have my friends that are artists. It's like a common thing.

SPEAKER_04 47:25

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Yeah. Uh so when we see people posting their vacation that are artists, it's like How'd they do that?

SPEAKER_04 47:32

Yeah, how'd they do that? And why aren't you painting? Why aren't you painting about your vacation?

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Yeah, yeah. Well, they they they might do that. And I've taken some inspiration from uh some three-day weekends.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

I could see the over-under on the golf course in Florida. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

The alligator You could do you could do this. In the ball underwater. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. At least in the summertime. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But the whole technique thing, too, uh, it's so time consuming. Once I acc once I uh assimilated all these techniques into my technique, I was left with a conundrum because it's very time consuming. But I I wanted to paint more things and not sp uh necessarily conceptual things. Right. Like I love landscape. I love John Singer Sargent. I see things like a scene, I want to paint that. So I can't spend three weeks on pieces like that. So all so what happened was this new alter ego, Shiloh Banks. Because he can do a painting in like a few days.

SPEAKER_04 48:41

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

He I speak of him as a third person.

SPEAKER_04 48:44

He slash you, Shiloh Banks, your alter ego, can go on vacation.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Well, he goes to Civil War reenactments.

SPEAKER_04 48:51

There you go. And yeah, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

We didn't get into your Civil War. No, no. I'm a big Civil War buff. And uh going to those. Have you ever gone to uh one nearby at Walnut Martin?

SPEAKER_04 49:04

Yeah, Walnut Mountain has um I'm a Civil War person, so I uh you know I've done Did you go? I've been to Walnut Mountain and then Gettysburg, which is like Judy's brother was in the big he was part of the 143rd New York in acting group. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Oh so yeah, interesting thing. The ones the Walnut Mountain ones are really cool, specifically because they'll they're there all weekend and they camp out and they stay in character. So it's Walnut Mountain, right? Liberty, New York. They have them.

SPEAKER_04 49:32

What time when is it typically?

SPEAKER_00 49:34

End of August or beginning of August.

SPEAKER_04 49:36

Beginning of August, right. And uh go ahead. I just want to make sure people know where it is because they could join. They could be a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

No, it was just a it's a real um uh happening. It's a real event, and and you could go there at night, which is really campfires.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

I've never done that before.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

And they never they don't ever break character. So the women are sewing and darning and taking care of the period dress and doing the hands. And kids with swaddle diapers, you know, the old school and while the men go off to the battle, the I would stay back behind certain times. Because I would I have uh like lots of footage of and uh reference of battles, and the one time I stayed behind and watched what the women were doing. And I got this great shot shot of excuse me, of a woman uh in period dress uh long, flowing, beautiful dress, and and the baby was crying. So she picked up the baby and she was holding it and she was walking around with it. And there was a line of tents going down and other women walking up and down. I took a couple of shots, and I was like, that is a painting right there. And Shiloh can do that painting in a few days instead of instead of six weeks.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

And Shiloh will allow you to play golf. Yes. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 50:51

So that could be where this is where where Mark Mark Arrow just sort of shifts and pivots to uh Shiloh.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

And um and more incredible detail, but smaller.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Uh not necessarily smaller, but it looks detailed, shrunk down like this, but compared to my other work, you can see the brush strokes and it's painterly and bold. Um button. And less emotional. I don't think so because uh it's genre scene. There's scenes of like the jazz musicians. Um of them are less emotional, but i I mean it depends on the person that looks at the painting. Because I also I meant for you.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

Is it less emotional to create?

SPEAKER_00 51:36

No. Okay. No, for me it's it's even more fun because it happens faster. I can load up the brush with paint and really paint like a real painter instead of just like you know, crossing.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Immediate gratification.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

Yeah, it's a lot faster. Instant gratification. Yeah. Um and yeah, the musician stuff, uh the full circle with the jazz musicians and the Civil War. And uh Shiloh opened up a lot of doors for me creatively. And now I'm finding that Shiloh's starting to merge back with Garrow, and it's like becoming a whole third, third guy. But I don't know what the name of them. I might be. That'll be fun.

SPEAKER_04 52:18

So it's kind of a stay tuned for where this takes Mark Garrow, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

I also focus on a lot of the uh local flavor as far as buildings that are falling apart. And they're fascinating to me. The the derelict buildings around here, they're so they have so much character.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

The above and below could really go somewhere. I never thought of that. Shiloh above and below. I've never done that.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Wow. You want to be my assistant? I could use an assistant.

SPEAKER_04 52:50

See, he says he's not deep, but he's got this depth to hang that uh you know is on top.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Just once in a while. Yeah, yeah. So this has been fascinating. Awesome. And really great to to hear uh just your influences, your your stories. Um it's it's just just fantastic. Where can someone find your artwork?

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Uh music or music or you can find it um on my websites, markgarrow.com. Yep. And with Mark with a K. Uh ShilohBanks.com. It's S-H-I-L-O, no H after Shiloh. Because the Battle of Shiloh had an H at the end. S-H-I-L-O-B-A-N-K-S, that's the Shiloh stuff. Uh I don't post my music. Mainly because it's not my music. It's on your Facebook page. Yeah, I post clips and stuff, but it's Morphine's music. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 53:46

It's really good. So if anybody's in the Hudson Valley in the Livingston Manor region, um it it's Livingston Manor, New York. If you happen to be in the area and want to look up where you might be playing, we we had a great time listening to you guys play. And it was you were so glad you were talented. It was fun. And you're so talented. Is it all right?

SPEAKER_01 54:06

I really don't have the confidence in my music. I told you I told you when you have the two saxophones and you're playing them at the same time, you've got to learn to sing so you have a a three-part chord. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

And when I do sing when I'm not playing at the same time, it's hard because it compresses the vocal cords. Yeah, sure. Well, that's a different Because when I'm singing in the studio by myself and nobody and I'm not playing, I go, I have a good voice. That sounds really good.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

And then when I stop playing and sing, it's like, yeah, but I can't relax my vocal cords.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

But uh no.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

It's because you overhydrate sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

And I've I've compensated the other way now. Um I think I'm back to normal. Oh good. Yeah. Yeah. I can have bad repercussions. Yeah. I think I'm all right now.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Well, Mark Garrow, thank you so much for the Aaron. Thank you for having me. It was fun. I can't believe how fast they were. Awesome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

We could talk for hours. It's great. You're you're fascinating. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

So uh once again for our listeners, first of all, we encourage you to check out Markgarrow.com. That's M-A-R-K, G-A-R-R-O.com. Um, and you can find uh many of uh Mark's works there in his uh creative uh exploration.

SPEAKER_04 55:23

Uh or Shiloh Banks.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

Or Shiloh Banks, exactly. So to learn more about Steam Fund, please visit Steamfund.org, like our social media pages, follow us on Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube page, and share these episodes with your friends. It's the best way to keep the arts and the conversations moving full steam ahead. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on full steam ahead.