Episode 6: How To Be An Artist (With Christopher's Mom)

Christopher's mom joins the boys to discuss how to be an artist in this wackadoo world. 

Transcript

unknown 0:00

Oh, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 0:19

Welcome, welcome. And welcome to uh yeah, welcome to Mark Christopher's Guide to the World and Everything Within. So, no. But really close. And all within? All within it. And all within it.

SPEAKER_05 0:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

We have a very special guest today. You might know her as Sophia McCrocklin, but I know her as my mom. You want to say hi, mom?

SPEAKER_06 0:46

Hi.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Thank you for so much for being here.

SPEAKER_06 0:51

I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 0:53

And meeting Mark for the first time.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

Yeah. Yeah. You guys are already off to a kind of rocky start, but I think we're gonna we're gonna solve the relationship. We're gonna save it.

SPEAKER_06 1:02

I bought him some coffee, but unfortunately it was behaving very poorly. Yeah, the coffee spilled on my shirt and I lost my mind. See, and what I need to do, the first thing I met Mark, I should have told him how upset I was about the ice hockey situation.

SPEAKER_05 1:18

That Canada lost?

SPEAKER_06 1:19

Yes. Yeah. I was very, very upset about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:22

You wanted Canada to win? I absolutely did. Why is that? Yeah, because it's our sport?

SPEAKER_06 1:25

Because it's your sport. Yeah. And I and I thought you all should have won under every circumstance this year.

SPEAKER_05 1:33

Oh, what does that mean? Oh, I see what you're saying. Given the state of the country. Exactly. America. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

My mom's a huge Trump supporter, but she just thinks you guys should get the hockey win.

SPEAKER_05 1:45

And her face is saying otherwise.

SPEAKER_06 1:50

But anyway, yeah, I love ice hockey.

SPEAKER_05 1:52

Yeah. And um I really love can. Okay, we're gonna clip that and have you say, I love ice. We're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_06 2:01

That would be a misuse of my voice.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

I love ice. Go to Canada.

SPEAKER_05 2:10

Um you love ice hockey. That's interesting. That's not true. You live in DC.

SPEAKER_06 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:16

Not a lot of hockey down there.

SPEAKER_06 2:18

Well no, we have they have a really good team. I I actually have never been to a professional team. I don't know why you're talking about it. In high school, I used to watch all the time.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

Really? Who what teams did you watch?

SPEAKER_06 2:29

My high school played. Oh, okay, gotcha. And I just loved it. It was so funny.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Oh.

SPEAKER_06 2:36

I went to high school in western Massachusetts. I knew that. Oh, you know so much. I'm really impressed. Mark did his research. He's a smart guy.

SPEAKER_05 2:46

Yeah, I knew where she went to high school. So are you a fan of Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals?

SPEAKER_06 2:54

Um, you know, as much as I am for the Capitals, yes, but I don't really I don't really follow them. I just really like the game in general. It's fast going, it's it it it grabs your attention. Um I don't know. I just I like the game, but I don't follow it professionally. But I just really do like I mean I watched I watched the a little bit of the Olympics, especially that last year.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

Yeah, Olympics is always good.

SPEAKER_06 3:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

Do you know Josh from my mom's high school team that she grew up with? She's a really big fan of Josh.

SPEAKER_05 3:27

Josh is your Alexander Ovechkin. Yeah, exactly. Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_06 3:30

Oh, yes, okay, yes.

SPEAKER_05 3:32

The grade eight, as we call Alexander Ovechkin. I knew from your face that you don't follow the Washington Capitals club because I think he's the most famous player ever to play in Washington.

SPEAKER_06 3:41

Oh, that's probably true.

SPEAKER_05 3:42

Yes. He's now old. He's an old man now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

I mean by hockey standard.

SPEAKER_06 3:47

Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

But by by looking standard, he's young as a ripe peach. Does he still have his teeth? Oh, he certainly does not.

SPEAKER_05 3:55

Yeah, they definitely got falsies. Yeah. Yeah, those teeth are gone. Yeah. Um, well. There's no segue.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

We can just get into the question.

SPEAKER_05 4:07

We we're excited to have you on the podcast today. Yes. Sophia. And and and we wanted to plumb the depths of your experience and and we landed on how to be an artist.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_05 4:20

Because you're an artist.

SPEAKER_06 4:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 4:22

So why don't you describe your art for us?

SPEAKER_06 4:24

Oh my gosh, it's a little complicated.

SPEAKER_05 4:26

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_06 4:28

Oh no about that. Um I like whimsy. Um I also really, really wanted to try to do something to raise awareness of the environment.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 4:46

And so those have been lifelong threats. And in the past, I guess a little bit over a decade, I um had been working with um fiber sculptures. So I take dacron and I make a sculpture using that fabric.

SPEAKER_04 5:12

Dachron, is that the sail club? Yeah, it's a recycled sail.

SPEAKER_06 5:15

Recycled sailboat sales is the fabric I use. Cool. And then I sew it into a sculpture, which is it has been uh various botanic, so I'll make like a a fern, but it'll be the size of a door. And it's supported on the inside, I sew in wire support, copper wire support.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Cool.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

And then I I paint them because it's why the sailboat sails are white. The background becomes white. Um and then I but they're they look exactly like they would if you could at scale, if you were to walk into a fern that was blown up to be the size of a door, you would see it as you would in a microscope at that size. So you see like some of the the venation of it, you might see some of the cell structure. Um so it's it's kind of fantastical, you know. So you walk into it, and so same with the leaf. You might have a large maple leaf, for example. Okay, Canada. I know all about that. Red maple leaf, really beautiful piece. And again, you walk into this, and and as you get closer to it, you see more and more detail. And the purpose of that was to um support uh well to make awareness of of a park where I live, which is Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC.

SPEAKER_05 6:45

And in America, all the park signs have maple leaves. Is that accurate? Or just in New York?

SPEAKER_06 6:50

Maybe that might be the the leaf of New York State. I don't know. Yeah, that's in New York.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

I guess.

SPEAKER_06 6:57

So every state has like a a bird or a tree or something. So it could be that that's um the symbol of the state. Like in Washington, DC, the wood thrush is the bird of our our Washington, D.C. Which is not a state, but uh our district. Um so that might be the the the tree. Like in Kentucky, um tulip tree is the tree.

SPEAKER_05 7:25

Tulip tree. Yeah. Tulips grow on this tree?

SPEAKER_06 7:28

It's uh it's a type of tree that has a that flowers in and has this beautiful flower that kind of looks like a tulip.

SPEAKER_05 7:35

Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes more sense. It's a tulip-like.

SPEAKER_06 7:38

Tulip-like flower.

SPEAKER_05 7:40

Yeah, they should call it a tulip-like tree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:42

Tulip like tree, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:44

Yeah, sort of tulip. Yeah, tulip ish.

SPEAKER_06 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

Um trees. So you make cool art. Big ferns.

SPEAKER_06 7:51

In short, or leaves or seed pods or you know, maple trees, they have those little whirly birds that the seed pods that they spin when you go down.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Uh maple seeds they have like helicopters. Yeah, little helicopters. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:07

I made one of those. Uh take a door and turn it sideways. That's the width of what everything you do is door-sized. Well, yeah, it is kind of door-sized, unless you talk to the guy that frames it to me. He said, you know, when I make the frames, they kind of look like coffins.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

Whoa. I guess a coffin is door-sized. They're pretty big. This is a real glass door.

SPEAKER_04 8:29

Yeah, the last door you'll ever open. Well said. The helicopter one's good because when she's done with her business meetings, she's able to just go out the window and ride it down.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

Like a flying carpet. Ride it down. Yep. One direction. Like a flying carpet that only goes down.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

Yeah, exactly. And and it does it, it should spin, but it doesn't. But she's just a really good lander. Yeah. Nimble. She lands like a superhero.

SPEAKER_05 8:54

Like one knee down, one knee up, fists to the ground. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

Shockwave built broken into the concrete.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

Cool. Yeah. Um, cool. Okay, so Christopher, you've seen this big ass art.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

I know.

SPEAKER_05 9:08

Well, no, that was an invitation to talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Yeah. No. Yeah, I know. I know I've seen it. Uh no, I love it. I mean, uh, weirdly enough, the thing that I love the most that she's made is she made a small version of one of the ferns that's like maybe the size of like my hand. But I just love that there's a miniature version of it. Yeah. Because I know I don't think I would love it if I didn't if the big one didn't exist as well. But I love the miniature one. Big and small. Yeah. But you walk into her studio and it's just a giant a bunch of giant printouts of these leaves, and she spends like four months pulling all her hair out, and when you ask what she's doing, she has, I'm making a leaf. Cool. But it's really intricate. It's like you she draws on all the veins and she uses like um you just understand color theory in a way that I don't, where it's like you're using like a silver colored pencil to like help get the outlines of different like yeah, veins, I guess, and lines and wrinkles. And um she will like on some of them at the bottom, it's like the fern has been ripped out of the ground, so she t put has to put all this like fake dirt and shit at the bottom of it. Yeah. Um, which is really good. Cool.

SPEAKER_05 10:24

That's the fun part. Yeah. Roots, probably too, some oils.

SPEAKER_06 10:27

Oh, yeah. Dangly roots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're the best.

SPEAKER_05 10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:30

That's the the funniest.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Cool. I keep on asking her to put on some googly eyes, but she says that it would invite, quote, too much human connection. Oh, yeah. She doesn't want people to empathize.

SPEAKER_06 10:43

Oh, I do want people to empathize.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Yeah. So then we should we should do these googly eyes.

SPEAKER_05 10:48

Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_06 10:48

Or maybe we'll do one for Halloween.

SPEAKER_05 10:50

Oh, yeah. Do googly eyes and then give it arms and legs, and then instead of like leaf qualities, give it a body. Yeah. Yeah. You should start sculpting guys.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Yeah. And make them orange you prefer and make them hate Mondays. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:04

So yeah, make it a cat.

SPEAKER_04 11:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:08

Yeah, make it a cat. Sculpt Garfield over and over.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Yeah. Yeah. Let's make it. Mom, we gotta get you to make it in furry suits. Yeah. Yeah, that's real whimsy. That would be cool. Yeah. Have you ever seen those people, Mom? People in fur suits.

SPEAKER_05 11:23

Okay. Your mom's a furry. Yep, mom's a furry. Confirmed. Um, all right. So this is about how to be an artist. So literally, it doesn't matter what kind of art you make. That's so irrelevant, Sophia. You actually wasted our time. But no, it's uh so I I want to hear more about your process. Uh, but first I want to hear about how you got into this world and and how you did you study art and and what was your first foray into the business side of it? How did you how do you sell? How do you display? How do you show? I'm trying to find the terms.

SPEAKER_06 12:02

You want me to talk about that?

SPEAKER_05 12:03

Yeah, I would love that.

SPEAKER_06 12:04

Okay, so where do you want me to start? How did I get into it?

SPEAKER_05 12:06

Let's start, let's start uh um uh let's well let's start with how when did you start making art?

SPEAKER_06 12:15

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_05 12:17

And why? Oh and why am I probably like a piece of art you've ever made kindergarten. Kindergarten, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:24

I mean, I just loved making things.

SPEAKER_05 12:27

But you never stopped. You just kept going?

SPEAKER_06 12:29

I just always loved making things. Yeah. Yeah, it drove my mom nuts. I like making too many things. Little pieces of paper all over the house, little projects all the time. Oh, yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, lots and lots and lots. And I think the the first competition I was in was um let's see, Earth Day, 1970. The first earth day. I made a poster for school.

SPEAKER_05 13:00

I've really seen this as a launching point for all of your interests. Art, the environment. Yeah. The list ends there. Day. Yeah. Earth Day.

SPEAKER_06 13:08

Yeah, so it was the first Earth Day. And um I made uh I made a poster for our school. And I came in second. Who came in first? Who came in first? I know. No idea.

SPEAKER_05 13:21

What did they make? Probably probably Josh. Probably a nuke. A nuke. Made a missile. Yeah, some guy worked for the IDF. Yeah. What's that company that makes all them missiles and stuff? What's the big men weapons manufacturer?

SPEAKER_04 13:36

Uh there's Halburton and there's uh the other one.

SPEAKER_05 13:38

Um let's say Halliburton. Yeah. Let's say that this. So here what was this uh art show sponsored by Halliburton? First rule of comedy. Rewind. Timing. Rewind. First rule of comedy, ask everyone to forget when you asked them for the information you needed to make your joke. Um, okay, so you're making, you're doing this competition, you're coming in second. Now that's a motivating thing, right? Because maybe if you'd come in first, you would have been satisfied. Yeah. But you stayed hungry.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Failure is the mother of success. And Sophia's the mother of Christopher. So, in a way, success is the mother of the success.

SPEAKER_06 14:22

Yeah, so um, yeah, I always like making things. Yeah, I do. Always like making things. So not necessarily painting, but just making things.

SPEAKER_05 14:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:32

And um, let's see. In high school I learned to weave. And in college, oh, I always like clay. I like ceramics. Oh, yeah. And I like to throw pots and stuff. And I was an apprentice for uh a little while for a friend of ours.

SPEAKER_05 14:48

The Potter's Apprentice.

SPEAKER_06 14:49

A Potter's The Potter's Apprentice.

SPEAKER_05 14:51

Oh, steamy romance novel. You do a spell to make the kiln to make all the pot to make all the ceramics fire themselves in the kiln, but then it gets out of control. Sorcerer's apprentice.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:06

Or Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Real quick to rewind. The greatest thing you can do as a comedian. Uh, you have a moment where that you told me in elementary school where an art teacher told you not to draw the sky the way that you did.

SPEAKER_06 15:22

Oh no. I drew a purple sky. Oh my god. And the teacher called my mother in and said that there was something wrong with that.

SPEAKER_05 15:30

I had a similar experience. Your mom? Wait, what did your mom say? Your child is too creative.

SPEAKER_06 15:38

They're like, all the other children in the room, they all had blue skies, but your daughter wanted to have a purple sky and insisted on it.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

What if she's seen beautiful sunsets?

SPEAKER_05 15:49

It's so crazy the degree to which your teacher was like a teacher in, because this is the 70s, a teacher in a movie from the 70s. Like a Pink Floyd, like the wall, where the teacher's like, play by the rules, stay in this box. And you lived that.

SPEAKER_06 16:08

Oh yeah. And I was also left-handed, and they made me right-handed.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

Devil reading left-handed in the 70s. That's like being gay in the 70s.

SPEAKER_06 16:17

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Yeah, yeah. That's a one-for-one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

Left-handed.

SPEAKER_06 16:27

Oh my god. It's crazy. The conformity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:32

Um, um, okay, so I I want to say I have a similar story when I was, because I used to be into art in high school. Then he was fuck up. Then I grew up. Yeah, I grew out of it and grew into comedy. An adult's idea of a job. I I uh I painted a nun in hell.

SPEAKER_06 16:54

Fallen angel.

SPEAKER_05 16:56

No, no. Lucifer. She was burning up.

SPEAKER_06 16:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 16:59

She was being punished.

SPEAKER_06 17:00

Uh-oh. You had a bad teacher? You went to Catholic school?

SPEAKER_05 17:04

No, I didn't. There's no reason for me to paint a nun in hell except that I had general anger at the world. Um, and uh and for years I thought that my teacher brought my parents in to tell them how creative I was, but I only recently found out that she was worried about me. Because I was exhibiting school shooter qualities, I would say. I would say. So I also had a teacher who was worried about me, but maybe for better reason.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

And Mark still exerts some of those qualities. He often tells me to not come into school tomorrow.

SPEAKER_05 17:34

Yeah. Yeah, and you say, I don't go to school and I go, keep it that way. At least at this school. Um, okay, so you you got in trouble from your teacher. Did you start painting skies blue after that?

SPEAKER_06 17:49

Why would I do that?

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Okay, I don't know. Maybe because you have no backbone. Yeah, Mark. Lay off my mom.

SPEAKER_06 17:59

Yeah, no, I just probably just thought that the teacher was crazy. What did mom say? Did you guys talk about it? She probably thought it was ridiculous. Do you want to see? Actually, my mother, my mother, I think, took me out of that school the next year. That was the last year I spent there.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

We're taking you to Purple Sky School. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:15

We're going to Purple Sky School. Um, so my nephew, I wish I had one of his drawings, but he's like an amazing artist in a way that. So he drew this. And what's on the back? What's the thing?

SPEAKER_06 18:31

He's a minimalist, I would say.

SPEAKER_05 18:33

He is, although he's getting more maximal. Um he drew that one. He draws stuff where I'll grab it.

SPEAKER_06 18:39

He'll draw how old is your nephew?

SPEAKER_05 18:42

So now he's um six, but he drew that when he was three or four. And my mom and him make art together, because my mom makes art too, um, but not professionally. And he and my he'll name things like the wind returns. And then he'll and then my he'll draw something, and then my mom will color it for him. That's awesome. But his drawings are always like these chaotic things. But he started drawing characters, and I that's why I wish I could find one. Maybe I'll go on a hunt because um they're so interesting, and I'm so nervous about giving him a single note, either positive or negative.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:19

Because I'm just like, don't change.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:22

And I don't, and I don't think most kids are good artists. Like, I'm not one of those guys who's like, oh, oh, kids, the purity of the vision. You're like, my nephew sucks at some things. He's just really good at this thing. I've got another nephew who's not so good at it. But this nephew is like got a voice.

SPEAKER_06 19:37

Well, why are you afraid to say, hey, that's really fabulous?

SPEAKER_05 19:39

Well, I guess I do say that, but I don't want to point out what I find. I just want him to not I want him to be like a wolf boy raised in the wild.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:47

Just keep the purity of it. Yeah. But I also think he's confident enough in his voice that I just gotta show you this. Alright. You guys keep talking.

SPEAKER_06 19:55

Kids are really great. Kids are great.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

This podcast for the kids.

SPEAKER_06 20:01

Thank God for the kids. They keep us all, you know, in our truth.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

Mark has left us alone. Yeah, but what can we find here? Exactly. This is not a good brand. But the recording remains. Should we talk to um Wawa, the BOA constructors? That thing is gonna grow up to be how many feet, Mark? Eight? How many feet is the boa constructor gonna be, Mark?

SPEAKER_05 20:27

How many feet?

SPEAKER_04 20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:30

I don't know. So long. Six, five, six, five feet.

SPEAKER_06 20:33

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 20:34

Five feet.

SPEAKER_06 20:34

Okay, I'm really glad I came over to see you now, because in a couple years I don't know if I will come into this apartment.

SPEAKER_05 20:40

I know. I can't find the drawing. It's unfortunate. It's not here. It's somewhere. Anyway, he's a great artist. Shout out.

SPEAKER_06 20:49

That's good for him. That's very cool. Yeah. It gives you something to talk to him about a little bit. Not and like you said, carefully, but he gives you something to look forward to seeing.

SPEAKER_05 20:58

Yeah. And he has never he my par my uh his parents, my sister and and brother-in-law, have never told him to take a piano lesson, but he exhibited an interest in piano. So they started because they're very kind of like new agey parents, like modern new age. So they're very like, they don't want to force him to do anything. He started doing these piano lessons just because he really wanted to, but the teacher would just, it was not about learning how to play pieces of music. It was at the first thing was composition.

unknown 21:28

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

So they would just like jam out together. And then he started wanting to learn more official pieces. So then, so all of it has been just like self-guided.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Oh, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_05 21:38

Yeah, my sister and my brother in law, they're just they're just like, okay, you you are you sure you want to? Okay, cool. I had a piano teacher growing up and he hated me.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Mm-hmm. What did he say what did he say to you?

SPEAKER_06 21:49

He said, Oh, you gotta watch it when this kid grows up, you're in for a lot of trouble. That's that's the same as like you can't paint the sky, you know, whatever color you want.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

I definitely was just getting bored and probably causing a this making this guy's world a nightmare, though I will say.

SPEAKER_06 22:05

Well you didn't it wasn't a good fit for you.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:08

Yeah, you're not a piano boy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:10

Well you could have been, maybe we're not a good one. I'm an ideas guy.

SPEAKER_05 22:13

Yeah. Yeah, they should you should have been going to ideas lessons. Yeah. I had a cello teacher who hated me.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

Grew to hate me because I'm Oh, so he really knew you and he hated you for who you were.

SPEAKER_05 22:30

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't practice enough. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:33

Cello's a great instrument. My brother played the cello.

SPEAKER_05 22:35

Why'd you choose the cello? Because I was a kid and my parents asked if I wanted to play the guitar or the cello, and and I just never heard of the cello. And I was at that age where you want to do things that you like. I was like, oh my friends have never heard of this. It's so exotic. And man, I wish I'd chosen the guitar. Holy hell. It's harder to rock out on the cello. Damn near impossible. Anytime someone tries to, it's annoying. Like when you see like cellos in rock bands, it sucks.

SPEAKER_04 23:04

I haven't seen it. Is the cello the one that you play like a violin or the or you pluck it? You pluck it guitar.

SPEAKER_06 23:10

You can do both, actually. Yeah, whoa. But mostly you play it like a violin. Yeah. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

But I can't really listen to it because it people always make the strings squeak. And I think most people don't mind that sound, but it really nails out a chalkboard for me.

SPEAKER_04 23:23

What's the difference between a cello and an upright bass? Like a jazz bass.

SPEAKER_06 23:28

The bass is the biggest. Then the next so bass goes like above your head. Yeah. And the cello is like right at your little like at the top of your head or right around your ear.

SPEAKER_05 23:40

Yeah, okay. And generally you stand up to play the stand-up bass. Sit down to play the damn cello. Sit down cello. Yeah, and the the bass is the one that usually you're plucking it. Gotcha. You can play it with a bow sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

But usually people be plucking it. People be plucking. And then you got viola and then violin. Wow. All in the same family. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. Um, okay, so here's where we're at. You're in high school or you're in school, you're painting the sky purple, you're living your life, the teachers are losing their minds. They're going, she can't be contained. She's sh we gotta put this one down. Yeah. The teachers are trying to give you a lethal injection every day. They're forcing you into the chair room. Hey, Sophia, mind if we get you vaccinated?

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_05 24:35

This one will prevent life. Um so uh did you go to did you go to post-secondary education for school, or did you just start doing it? Or sorry, for art, or did you just start doing it?

SPEAKER_06 24:49

Oh, I've always been doing it.

SPEAKER_05 24:51

Yeah, but did you go to college for art?

SPEAKER_06 24:53

Oh, did I go to c oh, oh, oh, Mark. Oh I had a long journey before I was at the school. Yeah, tell us about the journey. Yeah, so um when I grew was thinking about colleges, I really wanted to go to art school.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Yeah, but everything was a bit complicated because she had any when she was 15.

unknown 25:12

I did not.

SPEAKER_06 25:15

Anyway, it was a that was a journey too. But yeah. Um pushing out this one?

SPEAKER_05 25:21

Yeah, buddy. Um like a watermelon.

SPEAKER_06 25:25

You know, yeah, that was Yeah. Anyway, um, so uh where was I here? So um I went to I went to c when I went to before I went to college, I wanted to apply to art school.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:39

And my parents would have nothing to do with that. They did not want me to become an artist.

SPEAKER_05 25:46

It was the late 70s, early 80s, late 70s.

SPEAKER_06 25:48

Late 70s, yeah. And they didn't want that. No, sir.

SPEAKER_05 25:52

Because it's not like uh not like a uh responsible career, not well, especially not financially. Yeah, financially, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 26:01

Yeah, yeah. So they were they were like great hobby, do not do this. We're not gonna pay for art school. Yeah. Yeah, so that was heartbreaking. So um I I got into college, I went to Smith College in a lovely area, which is um where the University of Massachusetts is, and Amherst College and Mount Holyoke, and um yeah, this uh uh yeah. Um and uh all women's college. All women's it's a it was a very good school.

SPEAKER_05 26:37

And a couple of guys who snuck in wearing bras that were stuffed and wigs and going, oh yeah, a few white chicks type scenario.

SPEAKER_06 26:47

Yeah. It was it was a great area. Uh Hampshire College was also located there. Um loved it. There are about 30,000 kids in that area all going to college. It was fabulous. College town. Yeah, college area. Yeah. College area. Yeah, it was fabulous. Get it right. Um, I mean, they had a bus that went around to all these different colleges, and you could take classes in any of those colleges, which was pretty neat. Yeah. Um so that was super appealing. I I had a lovely experience there.

SPEAKER_04 27:15

That's good. And uh did you make any art when you were in college?

SPEAKER_06 27:18

I did. I I uh I wanted to double major. I ended up majoring in economics because i the economy was starting to go south, and uh I needed to make sure I could get a job, but I also their studio art department is fabulous. Oh so I almost double majored. Yeah. And uh did you minor? I did, I minored in studio art.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 27:44

Oh nice. And I uh and then also my favorite art teacher, uh Lee Burns, I had a heart-to-heart discussion with him. I was like, oh, I really, really would like to, you know, do you think I could get like a master's in art? And he was saying, well, he had been a physicist. He had gone to the University of Utah and got and gotten like a degree in physics. Well and then he switched to art, which is kind of interesting. Really fabulous guy. Anyway, um he said, you know, don't I beg to differ.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

Lee Burns, nah, no goozer. This is the guy that you gave a sack of marbles to in case he ever lost his, right?

SPEAKER_06 28:22

Yes, in case he lost his marbles.

SPEAKER_05 28:23

Oh, cute. Yeah. Lee Burns, if you're watching this or listening to this, we're calling you out. Yeah, we're calling you out.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Your days are numbered, yeah. Old man.

SPEAKER_05 28:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:33

You're uh he's an amazing sculptor.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Yeah, well, I beg to differ once again.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

You're a amazing sculptor. You're actually doing great. And we love your work.

SPEAKER_06 28:44

We had a heart to heart, and he's like, you know, it's really hard to make a living being an artist.

SPEAKER_05 28:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:49

And so, you know, I heard that again.

SPEAKER_05 28:51

And then he pulled off a mask and he was your dad.

SPEAKER_06 28:55

Oh, I mean, he was he, you know, it was a tough time in the economy, and he was right. So um I I I I graduated from college. Um, I really, really wanted to get into the arts. I wanted to create things, and uh I worked on a farm for the summer on a tobacco farm. Okay. Yeah, you know, trying to get you know any work I could get, right? Back in Kentucky. Back in Kentucky.

SPEAKER_04 29:19

My mom was doing Zinn before Zinn.

SPEAKER_06 29:22

And then I worked for a friend of mine who was a potter as an apprentice, but I really, really wanted to get into the craft. So um I uh decided to um well at the same time I was also wanting to do strip mining work against strip mining to get rid of strip mining. And then bring it back. Um I helped to produce uh a movie on strip mining that was uh on um public television. Anyway, it helped to try to stop strip mining in Kentucky. It was a documentary with the guy narrated from the guy that was a main narrator for NPR at the time. Bob Edwards. Yeah. I'm trying to I'll make this short, I promise.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

No, no, no, no, no. We're taking our time, we're enjoying it. Yeah, I have a question. How much longer is this gonna take? No, there's no hurry. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. No hurry, but we gotta wrap this up in like maybe two, three minutes. Um the tobacco farm.

SPEAKER_06 30:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

You worked there for a summer. Were you ri ripping off the tobacco leaves yourself, or what were you doing?

SPEAKER_06 30:24

Oh, that would be harvest time. Uh I helped um to set the tobacco. By the way, it this would at that time everybody in the families would help do this. It was like you didn't really hire people. It was like friends you knew or family. They would stop their work and they would work on tobacco.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

Now it's mostly of course harvest tobacco.

SPEAKER_06 30:47

So what they would do is they would do the seedlings, and then you would pull this it would they would plant the seedlings in the early spring. And when I got there in the summer, they would we would pull the seedlings out and put put them on like a big sheet and fold them up, and we'd sit on a setter. And you take each plant and you'd put them in the center, as a setter, which set the seedling into the ground. It was like a wheel. And you would plant it as the wheel went around. There were two of us, one on each side of this wheel, and we would put the plant in this wheel and it would set it into the ground.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

Did you use any of the tobacco at this time? Were you like a little bit for me? Didn't even need to bring it to any of your friends or no. No?

SPEAKER_06 31:31

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 31:32

You get caught? Or it's just not worth it?

SPEAKER_06 31:34

No, no, no. It's just like this is an inch and a half.

SPEAKER_05 31:38

Yeah, it's a little bit more.

SPEAKER_06 31:39

And then by the yeah, and then by the time it grows up, if you were to it you have to hang it and you have to cut it and hang it and dry it. It's like a year-long process.

SPEAKER_05 31:51

They didn't have any year. Sorry. Oh, sorry, I was just gonna say, but then you get to smoke, presumably, a couple cigarettes.

SPEAKER_06 31:58

No, I it never did that.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

They didn't have any tobacco from like the year before. Like, hey Sophia, thanks for working. Okay, they didn't hook you up. Wow, these are selfish.

SPEAKER_06 32:06

Well, and they were also a special type of seeds. The leaves this is burly tobacco, which is Burley, which is a special type of tobacco.

SPEAKER_05 32:16

Strong. Yeah, what do they use it for? Is it still I presumably for smoking still, right?

SPEAKER_06 32:20

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:21

Burly tobacco. I ain't never heard of this.

SPEAKER_06 32:23

It's a special type of tobacco.

SPEAKER_05 32:25

Brother, I ain't never heard.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

I ain't never heard of this one. Burley tobacco!

SPEAKER_06 32:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:31

Burly early.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

So it sounds like you know, the hair on the guy's chest, you know, burly. Burley being scared.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

Rip rhyme on if your nose is bleeding in front of my mom. Uh that's cool when it's just you and me, but the guys we were working with were really burly.

SPEAKER_06 32:53

They go out and start drinking, you know, it before noon.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

They're picking that tobacco by hand. Before noon. Did you ever join them?

SPEAKER_06 33:00

I had to set the tobacco. I don't think I think I'd probably fall off. I'd probably fall off the tractor if I didn't.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

You never you never hung out with these guys? Not even once? Uh drinking beer? Yeah. Or just in beer with me. Not even once.

SPEAKER_06 33:13

Oh, yeah, yeah. I hung out with them, but I just have a few beers.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

What were they like?

SPEAKER_06 33:16

Just, you know, good working people, you know? Salty beers.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

They drink like a case. Yeah, yeah. And that that for you, that's light work. That's a lunch.

SPEAKER_06 33:28

Yeah, that's yeah, it was their lunch for sure.

SPEAKER_04 33:32

Liquid lunch.

SPEAKER_06 33:33

Liquid lunch. Liquid lunch, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:35

Yeah, my mom likes to call that a quick trip to the gas station.

SPEAKER_06 33:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

Drinking a whole case of beer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:42

Except for there were no gas stations, so it was called the woods. Whoa, no gas stations.

SPEAKER_05 33:48

You got your uh gas from the woods? Yeah, where'd you get your gas?

SPEAKER_06 33:52

It's a different type of gas, yeah. Oh, okay. All right.

SPEAKER_05 33:55

What kind? Tooting. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 34:01

Like, where where's the ladies' room? Like haven't had enough beer. I need to go find the gas station to find you know the facilities.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

No, but we're asking you you what where would you closest gas station? Yeah, how would you get gas?

SPEAKER_06 34:14

Oh, oh, well, a lot of farms they have they you have your own gas pumps.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:21

Or you know, you'd have to drive like 15 minutes or 15 miles to go to a gas station. I mean, it's a rural rural area.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

What did your parents think about you working on a tobacco farm? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:31

It was their farm.

SPEAKER_04 34:32

Whoa, your parents owned a tobacco farm? I grandson.

SPEAKER_06 34:35

It's like 150 fucking twist and a half six.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

What is this?

SPEAKER_05 34:41

I didn't know this. What is this weed tobacco? Because you've been burying it.

SPEAKER_06 34:47

It's a small little farm. It's 150 acres. It's tiny.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

And what's it where happened to it? Do we still have it?

SPEAKER_06 34:53

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 34:54

Christopher, you didn't know you came from big tobacco mines?

SPEAKER_04 34:57

No, I'm not. 50 acres. I'm not. The only thing she ever talks about is the fucking strip mine document. She doesn't talk about how she first desecrated the earth with a tobacco farm.

SPEAKER_05 35:05

Wow, you were setting tobacco for your mom and your dad. That's what they wanted you to go to school for. Yeah, literally. Yeah, major in tobacco.

unknown 35:14

Oh well.

SPEAKER_04 35:15

Minor in Sentenant.

SPEAKER_06 35:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:17

Wait, so were they on they were on the farm watching you set it?

SPEAKER_06 35:20

No, no, no. They lived like 25 miles away.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Gotcha. So they own the farm, but they didn't operate it. They probably hired people to operate it.

SPEAKER_06 35:27

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:28

They hired big boys and their daughter.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

Yeah. That's a recipe for disaster. Yeah. Your parents really trust these guys.

SPEAKER_06 35:37

Oh yeah. They're farmers. They, you know, we had a little bit of cattle and we had some soybeans and we had tobacco.

SPEAKER_05 35:45

Oh, soybeans.

unknown 35:46

Yeah. Cool. No.

SPEAKER_05 35:48

That's Spanish for I am beans. We began, Mark.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

Yeah, toot toot indeed. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 35:56

Okay, so so now let's fast forward to somehow you're gonna make a career in art. Now, have you been working in the field of business economics at all?

SPEAKER_06 36:10

No. So I had also been I'd been living at home at that time when I was working on the farm. And then I moved into Louisville. So we lived about an hour or so, 50 miles or so outside of Louisville. Moved into Louisville. I worked with a friend as uh an apprentice for my potter friend. And I was also working on this documentary film out in eastern Kentucky, strip mining. So back and forth, I'm thinking, ha I want to help do this documentary, but I'm also noticing there's a lot of unemployment.

SPEAKER_05 36:46

Christopher is really getting the kick out of hearing the documentary story again.

SPEAKER_06 36:51

And and but on these rides back and forth, it was several hours to get from Louisville to to Whitesburg, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_05 36:58

Okay. And that's when you're making the strip mining document.

SPEAKER_06 37:00

Yes. And and I really want to like start my own art business. Yeah. And so I'm sitting there trying to figure out how do I do this.

SPEAKER_05 37:08

And you're in your early 20s.

SPEAKER_06 37:09

This is uh this is I'm like 22, 23, something like that. How am I gonna do this? And I'm looking at my friend who's a potter, and she's um uh a really well-regarded potter in the state, and um she was a member of the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen, which is uh a market, you know, they like they have uh an uh an annual craft show that's they still are ongoing today, and it's a it's a great network of artists. Yeah, and um so I thought, well, I can sew. I was a really good seamstress. I learned how to sew from my mom when I was eight, and I used to sew almost all my clothes. So I'm like, I think I could make a line of clothes. So I I started out with sewing. And I and I designed on a this is really irresponsible, but I would design clothing when I was driving out to Weitzburg. Oh, this is the on the steering wheel.

SPEAKER_04 38:06

Yeah, they would draw it while you were driving.

SPEAKER_06 38:09

Yeah, there are no other cars around.

SPEAKER_05 38:10

You know, it's it's what they say don't drink and drive, don't text and drive, don't design clothes and drive.

SPEAKER_06 38:16

Yeah, and one time I remember I was drawing and I had the pad on the steering wheel, and there's no cars around. And all of a sudden I see this flashing light, and the state trooper pulls me over and says, Woo! Ma'am, what are you doing? I'm like, Oh, I was just thinking. And he said, I don't think it's good for you to drive and think with a pencil in your hand. Yeah. So yeah, I had to be really careful after that.

SPEAKER_05 38:43

Yeah, he goes, ma'am, what are you making uh what are you designing there? Okay, that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

That's cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_05 38:50

I have an interest in that. Ma'am, come with me.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Can I show you some designs?

SPEAKER_05 38:54

Come with me to uh cafe. I want to run some ideas by you.

SPEAKER_04 38:58

By the way, that's how my mom invented the 5XL t-shirt.

SPEAKER_05 39:01

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:02

First person to ever draw a t-shirt so big. Yeah. And it it coincided with one of the accidents she got in. Yeah. And the angles were very obtuse. Cool.

SPEAKER_05 39:12

And of course, your maiden name is Janko. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:16

Creator of Jenko jeans. Do you know Janko jeans, Mom? I do now. Big big jeans. Really big jeans from the 90s. Like Ravers would wear them. Honestly, you could picture Christopher in them. Yeah, I got some like baggy jeans.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Why after they come on you?

SPEAKER_04 39:29

Well, they don't. The Janko jeans don't go too big.

SPEAKER_05 39:32

Christopher's jeans come up over his head and he pokes his face through the fly. Yeah. And he goes, Call me the pants man.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

Yeah. And I have a little straw, it helps me breathe.

SPEAKER_05 39:42

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He wears it zipped up mostly. Okay, so so you're designing clothes. Do you end up selling these clothes?

SPEAKER_06 39:49

Yeah, so then I make a whole portfolio.

SPEAKER_05 39:51

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 39:52

And what style of clothing are you making?

SPEAKER_06 39:56

So at that time, I was kind of in I thought it'd be kind of interesting to have a line of clothing that would be for the Kentucky woman. So I was thinking, well, something that would be nice enough to wear to a party, but you could get on a horse with it.

SPEAKER_05 40:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 40:17

Just what everybody thinks about it.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

If you want to do a Kentucky goodbye. Yeah. My mom kept saying that the automobile was a fad.

SPEAKER_06 40:28

So horse country, you know, tobacco and horse country, right? Sure, yeah. So um I uh it was very feminine. I made like, you know, shirts that had a lot of lace and some skirts that were very wide and full. And anyway, so I made this whole line of clothing. Yeah. And um I got into the Kentucky Guild first crack, which was really awesome. Sorry? And then and then uh I also applied for this uh state wholesale show. And stores like type of sale? Kentucky State Department of the Arts had a wholesale market.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

I just like the sound of that. Why wholesale? Wholesale. Oh, your hole is for sale? Oh, ew. Ew, ew, ew.

SPEAKER_06 41:18

So this is where like trying to market my clothes came in through an asshole, apparently. So stores like Bloomingdale's would come down to this wholesale market. Okay. They would have pottery and you know, uh leather, and they would have clothing.

SPEAKER_05 41:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:37

And um so anyway, I sold wholesale for a while.

SPEAKER_05 41:41

That's cool.

SPEAKER_06 41:42

I employed three people for a while. Did you really?

SPEAKER_05 41:45

Your mom, your dad, and one of the funders.

SPEAKER_06 41:49

Well, the wholesale market made it possible for me to get some big orders.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

Who did you employ at the time?

SPEAKER_06 41:56

So this is very Kentucky. I at one point was very active in my church, and I hired um some ladies from my church to sew for the channel. Whoa, some church ladies. Some church ladies.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Were they around your age or were these much older than you?

SPEAKER_06 42:11

No, they were much older than I was. And I was really grateful for them. They were did a really good job.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

You said, These orders are not coming fast enough. Work harder. Yeah. Quit praying. But it's always time talking to God. Use those hands to sew. Unclass. Put the rosary beads down.

SPEAKER_05 42:30

Put them down. Um, all right, so you're making clothes. Eventually.

SPEAKER_06 42:40

I was making clothes too. Oh, okay. But you're running a sweat job for church ladies. Well, the idea was eventually to have like this go to eastern Kentucky.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:50

Because people out there needed work, but I needed to just sort of get the business running first and then go teach people. That was my thought. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_05 42:58

But then how did you end up getting into art?

SPEAKER_06 43:01

Well, so I consider sewing fiber and and an art. So just but it did slowly sort of evolve.

SPEAKER_05 43:12

That's what you said to my mother, swine. But I guess I'm I guess what I mean is these shh clothing, this clothing you were making was more for use.

SPEAKER_06 43:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 43:21

As opposed to for hanging in a gallery or something.

SPEAKER_06 43:23

So this evolved.

SPEAKER_05 43:24

Good point, swine.

SPEAKER_06 43:25

This this shot. How does swine become art? So how does how does something practical become art?

unknown 43:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

Or how did you when did you start getting into art to make art versus art to sell to people, I guess? Or quote unquote that art art for selling art versus art for selling clothing.

SPEAKER_06 43:49

So a couple things happened at the same time. Um as I continued in my art endeavor with the clothing I was selling. Having this clothing line. My parents are like, You're gonna go to graduate school, right? You're gonna go to graduate school. Like, how about medical school? How about law school? And I'm like, how about art school? And then I'm like, I kinda really want to try to do this, but they were also helping me. I see. So while I did well enough to like get these wonderful orders and I needed to have help with people sewing them, they made money, I didn't make so much because everything went into paying for the whole company to start. And with startups, that's often true. You know, you pay into the experience for a while to get the company going. And uh so I wasn't really the people work for me got paid full time, but I didn't. Then I was working like 80 hours a week.

SPEAKER_05 44:59

They were taking advantage of you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:01

Fully. Yeah. Fully. Um and and my parents are like, you need to apply to law school. And so I applied, and the problem is I eventually got in.

SPEAKER_05 45:12

That is a problem.

SPEAKER_06 45:13

And it was a big problem. That's what they say.

SPEAKER_05 45:15

The worst thing it happens.

SPEAKER_06 45:18

It happened. And then my parents said, I'm not gonna pay anymore to help you. We're not gonna help you anymore. You have a choice. You can go to law school or you can do something else to make money.

SPEAKER_05 45:32

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 45:34

So I decided I was going to go to law school thinking that I would have my summers off to do art, but apparently I really didn't read the memo about that.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:47

I know, it was heartbreaking. So I did the really irresponsible thing as a lawyer, as a law student. I um I I I went to Penlin School of Crafts in the summer and then also clerked for um uh a nonprofit environmental organization in the other part of the summer. Wow. Instead of doing the right thing as a as a law student, which was trying to work and get a job at a law firm, right? I was a bad girl. Sure. The sky was still purple to me.

SPEAKER_05 46:23

Yeah, yeah, you were still dreaming. And you were going to Penland Art School.

SPEAKER_06 46:28

Penland, yes, the school for crafts. It's a really famous place.

SPEAKER_05 46:32

I mean, it's called Penland. Guys, I mean, that's that's an art place for sure.

SPEAKER_06 46:37

And the school was had definitely had purple sky.

SPEAKER_05 46:41

Yeah, also what's next? Uh paint country? Come on. Come on. Come on. Okay, so you're doing you're doing that, you're clerking, what are you taking? What are you focusing on at Penland?

SPEAKER_06 46:53

Penland.

SPEAKER_05 46:54

Penland.

SPEAKER_06 46:54

Uh I was learning how to dye fabrics. So then I went is I so when I was in law school, I didn't have a line of clothing to sell, but I would go and I would demonstrate silk painting. There's a Japanese type of silk painting you can do, and it's really beautiful. You stretch it like a hammock so that this fabric is stretched like from a tree to another tree. Yeah, yeah. And then you can paint this huge expanse. Cool. Beautiful colors.

SPEAKER_04 47:24

Yeah, my mom loves textiles, which as an adult, you're like, that sounds really cool. Let's look at some textiles. But when you're six and you are her son and she keeps saying, Let's go look at some textiles, it's like you you're trying to figure out how to kill yourself.

SPEAKER_05 47:41

Well, fortunately, a lot of nooses are made out of textiles.

SPEAKER_04 47:47

What a beautifully embroidered noose. Yeah. All the colors of the rainbow.

SPEAKER_06 47:55

Some are even psychedelic.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

Yeah, black light. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 48:00

So that's when the impractical part started to come in.

SPEAKER_05 48:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 48:04

Yeah, so it was like I I could make um caftans and you know, yardage of things that I could make, like things you put over your head.

SPEAKER_04 48:15

What was the first series that you did as an adult that was um non-clothing art?

SPEAKER_06 48:25

So after I started when I moved to Washington to get a job as a lawyer.

SPEAKER_05 48:33

Whoa, you did go for it.

SPEAKER_06 48:34

Well, I could I wanted to, if I was gonna do law, I was gonna do environmental law. And um there was I couldn't really find a job in Kentucky that um worked for nonprofit environmental law at that time.

SPEAKER_05 48:51

Yeah, not really. It's not uh by reputation, it doesn't seem like a Kentucky thing. They need it though.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

Sure, yeah. Yeah. But anyway, Mark doesn't seem to think so.

SPEAKER_05 49:01

But you're Well, with all that damn strip mining and tobacco farming, all those burly boys doing their nasty in the woods. We gotta get an environmental lawyer in here. At least to put up some signs that says do say do your nasty over there.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

Your parents send you to law school and then you come back to their tobacco farm and start citing violations.

SPEAKER_05 49:26

I'm suing you on behalf of the burley brother.

SPEAKER_06 49:29

The Burley brothers. Oh my god. Um Yeah, so then I of course I always have to be making something, so I decided, well, I'm gonna do some quilts. So I started to do some quilts, and I had a small apartment, like a studio apartment, and I just started doing it on the wall in my apartment.

SPEAKER_04 49:48

Whoa, cool. What was the first one you made?

SPEAKER_06 49:52

The one that hangs in in our living room. A dining room.

SPEAKER_04 49:54

The one of the we have one of the Temple Poseidon in Greece. That's the one, right? Oh, very cool.

SPEAKER_05 49:59

What about the one of all the um aborted fetuses that says blood is on your hands?

SPEAKER_04 50:06

Oh, no, that one's just one that I have. That's just that's just the one that hangs above my bed. That's my mom didn't make that. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, that's just the one that I picked up. That's from India or something, right?

SPEAKER_06 50:15

I mean, that's a textile from India.

SPEAKER_04 50:17

That's a real textile I have in my room. Mark's just mean Mark.

SPEAKER_05 50:22

Well, Chris's got a lot of textiles in his room. You got that one quilt that's uh a bunch of immigrant-looking people.

SPEAKER_04 50:28

Immigrant-looking people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:30

All the colors to the people look like Mark. Yeah, and and and then it's got text that says, if you're legal, you won't have problems.

SPEAKER_04 50:40

Yeah, it's got what it says at the one that says, if you look like this, get out of my face. Um a bunch of British people and Canadian people say, learn English.

SPEAKER_05 50:52

Yeah. We speak it different. Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_06 50:56

We do speak it different. Sometimes we need a translator.

SPEAKER_05 50:58

I know. Yeah, and and but you speak it different too. Uh, and I what the centucky really came out when you said Louisville. Oh, yeah. Louisville.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Yeah. I was go down to Georgia.

SPEAKER_05 51:09

Georgia, yeah, yeah. I've heard them talk down there.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Um did you know this, Mom? So you know uh in America when all the kids go to the soda fountain and they press a little bit of soda in each one. Do you know what we call that?

SPEAKER_06 51:22

Pressing soda?

SPEAKER_04 51:24

You know what I'm talking about, right? We put a little soda in every single soda. Oh, different types of soda, okay.

SPEAKER_06 51:29

Like orange cruage seven, uh, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 51:31

Do you know we call that a suicide? But in Canada they call it swamp water. So really, that's the one difference I've found between.

SPEAKER_06 51:40

Do you all have Mountain Dew up there?

SPEAKER_04 51:42

Yeah, we do. Throws fresh on the mountain. Yeah, and code red is just the same thing. From a military base nearby. From a communist military base.

SPEAKER_05 51:57

Yeah. Um, so we're making a quilt on the wall. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Like uh And that one is in our our house still. Yeah. And you did did you meet did you do that right when you met Dad or right before?

SPEAKER_06 52:11

I started doing that before I met your father by about six months.

SPEAKER_04 52:16

Six months. And when did you finish?

SPEAKER_06 52:18

Quilts take a long time to make when you can only do it like every couple weeks.

SPEAKER_04 52:22

Especially when you got a rude boy distracting you. Yeah, a sexy boy doing his dance. Yeah. Another lawyer. You met him through Law World.

SPEAKER_06 52:30

No, I didn't actually.

SPEAKER_04 52:32

You married a lawyer, Mom. That is boring.

SPEAKER_06 52:34

I know, I know, but he's the greatest guy. He's a great guy. And when I met him, he you know, he had a ponytail. And we went to hear rock and roll concerts all the time. We see a lot of music.

SPEAKER_05 52:45

You come in from horse country. Seeing a ponytail must have been very familiar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:49

And it was braided too.

SPEAKER_04 52:51

Oh, nice. Yeah, this guy, the fact that this guy's head looks like the ass of a horse. Yeah. I like that.

SPEAKER_05 52:58

I made clothes for women who ride that. Whoa! You said he was going to a he was had a ponytail, he was a rock and roll boy?

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:10

He was going to concerts? He was a cool lawyer. He turned the he called the judge. Uh he called the judge by his first name. Yeah, yeah. He said, yo judge. Yeah. You go, yo, Chris. Yo, Dave. Yo honor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:23

Yo honor. Yeah, I did that. Yeah. Yo honor.

SPEAKER_05 53:27

Objection, Your Honor. I'm bored.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Yeah, mind if we kick things up a notch? I got a quick rap for the jury. Um what is it?

SPEAKER_05 53:41

What does it mean that he was a cool guy? What was he doing? Who's going to concerts?

SPEAKER_06 53:45

Yeah, he went to concerts. He um he loved music. Rock and roll. You gotta love people that love music.

SPEAKER_05 53:53

I'm picturing like a CCR kind of fella. What's CCR? Credence Clearwater Revival. Oh, um Oh, you mean Kakur? Yeah, Kakur. I'm sorry, I forgot how it's pronounced down here.

SPEAKER_06 54:06

I don't know. He liked Tom Waits.

SPEAKER_05 54:09

Oh, like my dad.

SPEAKER_06 54:11

Could be. Yeah. Probably about the same age, maybe.

SPEAKER_05 54:15

Um you've seen one dad, you've seen them all. Yep. They're older.

SPEAKER_06 54:19

He likes uh Lou Reed.

SPEAKER_05 54:21

Yeah. Yeah. My dad is not as big on Lou Reed. I don't think he minds them. My dad loves Bob Mold. Oh, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 54:28

Bob mold, Pearl Jam.

SPEAKER_05 54:31

Oh, your dad is is cool. Yeah. Dad's like youngish cool. Yeah. Got youngish tastes. I mean, I say youngish, like it's like that's still people in their 50s now. And 40s.

SPEAKER_06 54:42

And Christopher's gonna go see Tede Tadechi Trucks. Tadechi Trucks with him next time.

SPEAKER_04 54:47

Yeah, the Tadechi Trucks band, if you know that. The hell's that? That's a band my dad likes. Okay, so that's all right. Derek Trucks.

SPEAKER_06 54:54

Derek Trucks was in Almond Brothers, right? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 54:58

But um my dad also he the thing the hardest thing that my dad ever experienced in life was the cancellation of Ryan Adams. If you know him. Yeah. My dad loved Ryan Adams. Wow. Ryan Adams. But my dad is also one of these kooky liberals. Who cares about when people get hurt?

SPEAKER_05 55:17

Yeah. So your dad got empathy. I know, it's fucked up. Death sentence for a lawyer. Death sentence. Yeah. Achilles heel. So he likes who's creo. Does he like the replacements? Do you ever talk about the replacements?

SPEAKER_04 55:32

He's never mentioned them to meme.

SPEAKER_06 55:33

The revivals.

SPEAKER_04 55:34

You mean that other family he's trying to get in the picture?

SPEAKER_02 55:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:37

Oh, he had an AI article that came out recently.

SPEAKER_04 55:41

Oh, like a article written by AI about him. My dad. Ew.

SPEAKER_06 55:47

Yeah, somebody he popped up just as like uh Google Art.

SPEAKER_04 55:51

Second family.

SPEAKER_06 55:52

Wow. Well, no, it didn't phrase it that way. It had his name, and that he was born in a different city, then he was truly born. And he had a wife who has a different name than me, and then a son and a daughter.

SPEAKER_05 56:07

Wow, AI is so stupid.

SPEAKER_06 56:09

And that he went to high school in in in in Washington, D.C.

SPEAKER_05 56:14

Yeah. And he had a different name and a different career. It seemed like it was an article about someone else.

SPEAKER_06 56:19

And then that he he he was um responsible for this specific big case, antitrust case. And then somebody comes in for an interview about two weeks ago and says, Oh, I thought it was so impressive. You were working on this case. And and Bill's like, uh? You read that AI article. Yeah. Crazy. Weird. So weird.

SPEAKER_04 56:41

Disinformation doesn't even have a purpose anymore. Or he got outed for having a second family, and he's like, This is AI. This is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

I didn't work on that case, and I don't know that lady.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

I don't know those kids either. That lady in the tight red dress better get away from me. Yeah. That kid, Christopher II.

SPEAKER_05 57:04

I don't know him. I don't like him. He's a bad boy, I assume, or guess. I wouldn't know.

SPEAKER_04 57:13

I'm only guessing because I don't know what this is. I don't know. I'm not even estimating. I'm not even ballpark estimating.

SPEAKER_05 57:20

I'm guessing. Okay, okay, okay. Back on the rails. Back on the we're being here. So you're you're in Washington, D.C. You're doing the Lord's work, lawyering.

SPEAKER_04 57:32

You meet Taking care of a grown man.

SPEAKER_05 57:34

You meet a funky lawyer, a cool lawyer with a ponytail. The kind of lawyer walks into the courtroom, and the lawyer of the other team says, Oh, we're gonna win this. And they don't.

SPEAKER_06 57:47

Because he's good at it. He's really good at it, yeah. He's a really good lawyer?

SPEAKER_04 57:50

Yeah, my dad like won like all these national debate tournaments as a child. And it's just like the thing that he loved happened to be just like a very good career as well.

SPEAKER_05 58:00

Oh, yeah. He got lucky.

SPEAKER_04 58:02

He's really annoying to have arguments with.

SPEAKER_05 58:04

Sure. Um, okay. Uh so so you're doing that, you're quilting on the wall.

SPEAKER_06 58:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 58:12

Do you end up doing a show of quilts?

SPEAKER_06 58:15

So at that time I was just here and there. And I was working at EPA, Environmental Protection Agency. I heard of it. As a as a lawyer. Okay. And um one thing I liked about that is that I got a day off every other week.

SPEAKER_04 58:30

I'm so sorry, I have to interrupt real quick. You did a case at the EPA about I think it was at the EPA or one of these law firms, uh, about against ATVs.

SPEAKER_06 58:39

Oh, that was when I was uh before I was EP at EPA.

SPEAKER_04 58:43

And you were these kids were dying on ATVs.

SPEAKER_06 58:46

Well, it was a you know yeah. And uh we were representing the makers of the all-terrain vehicles. I'm not gonna say the coroner reports and watching all these pictures that the coroner had taken of the kids that had died. Lucky it was pretty awful.

SPEAKER_04 59:05

I'm not gonna say who, but one of the hosts of Mark and Christopher's Guide to the World and Everything Within It loves ATV.

SPEAKER_02 59:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 59:14

I know that guy you're talking about. And I can say with certainty that he thinks it's the best.

SPEAKER_04 59:23

And I'm curious if you have if you could tell if you could speak to somebody who loves ATV, what would you in modern day, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_06 59:31

Um They're really dangerous. They're really uh sad, but I mean they're they're um designed in a very unstable way. They flip.

SPEAKER_05 59:46

They flip? Well, counterpoint. Not to be not to be all your dad about it, Christopher. Yeah. Not to be all your husband about it, Sophia. Uh-uh. But have you considered that it actually rocks and is fun?

SPEAKER_06 59:58

Oh, I'm sure it's fun. There are a lot of things that are fun that'll kill you.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:03

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a really good point, mom.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:07

That's why people do it. You know, it's because it's fun.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:10

Yeah, that's why I did it. Oh, I mean, I listen, I've only done it once. Yeah. I did it in the dunes of Morocco.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:16

Oh, I bet it was a blast.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:18

Oh, it was so good. Yeah, yeah. And I was so much better at it than everyone else on my group.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:22

I was the best in my group. Whoa. King of the class of swine.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:26

I was ripping around. I was making sand fly.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

Whoa. Where were these kids messing up on? Were they doing it in sand or were they doing it other weather places?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:34

Probably doing it in the woods. The corn corner reports, I'm not sure. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:39

Dang.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:39

You gotta get it. Let's pull them up for him.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Yeah, let's get them in here. Have them tab the corner. You got the coroner's number. Can he text it to you?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:46

Can he WhatsApp you?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:48

I want to read these. Okay, okay, so so uh before Christopher so rudely interrupted. I was swine. I was swine. Swine behavior. Um, you were saying about quilts and your first show.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:03

Oh, yeah. So um I would show periodically. Okay. But because I um was working so hard, I didn't really have a chance to create like a body of work. And then after I got married, we well, right around the time we got married, I moved we moved into a house. Yeah. And the house had a basement. So I actually had a studio space that wasn't just the wall in my living space.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:37

It was four big walls and some floor.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:40

Yes, yes, it had a little bit of floor for it. And so that that made it possible. And then um I became pregnant, and uh at the time, ironically, EPA was a sick building.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:57

Sick building? What does that mean? Sick building. Yeah, cool, cool as hell.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:02

So the building that EPA was housed in in that time was a building that had originally been an office building.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:10

And the air exchange for an office, excuse me, originally designed as an apartment building.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:15

And the air exchange for a um a place where you live and have an apartment is different than an office building.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:24

So you have so many more people for an office.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:28

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:28

And you have all these people that are breathing, but they're not you're not getting the fresh air into the building. Mark's like that, he breathes with his mouth. A lot of people would get sick in this building. And it was there were all these studies done on sick buildings throughout the country, and one of the buildings they studied was the EPA building. That's kind of ironic. Oh my god, don't even get me started.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:52

I mean I I dare say that's a little bit ironic.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:55

A little bit of history there. So uh my doctor said you should not finish your your you know pregnancy and work in this building.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:07

Whoa.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:08

I know, right? I was not prepared for that. Yeah. I didn't hear I did not see that coming. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:13

So doctor inciting incident over here.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:16

He's like, you know, and I had already been sick quite a bit. Yes. So the doctor said you should, you know, take a pause. So I take a praise? Idiot.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:30

Pocket swine.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:32

Idiot. Misspoke checkmate.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:39

Well, I uh I took a pause and uh during that time I applied, I I got a whole bunch of work together. I thought, okay, this is my chance. I've got the space, I have three months, I'm gonna do what I can to get uh uh 20 pieces together and just apply for different places. So um I applied to get a stud to become a member of a place called the Torpedo Factory, which is a place in Old Town Alexandria. Okay, about 20 minutes from our home.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:11

Now I'm alive and I remember what's happening.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:14

So I uh I I juried in there, yeah. And and this time it was for something that looked like quilts. At that time I decided I couldn't do quilts that fast because they have quilts have three layers of fabric and they have to all be bound together. So it that I was making fiber collages at that time.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:34

And what what does juried mean?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:36

That means you take your your um so artists are often they have a jury for competitions. That means it's it's like uh um a rehearsal or uh uh an interview or something like that. So they judge your work.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:49

Yeah, like an audition.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:50

An audition, yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:51

Thank you for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:52

That was the word I was searching for, but it just wouldn't come to my night.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:55

I'm here.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:56

Good, good.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:57

I got friends. Save her mark. I don't know about you. Save her swine.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:01

He's saving. Um thanks for you know giving me the lifeline there.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:06

Swine's a really good guy. Can't say enough about swine.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:14

And then so I I I was there for quite a while until 9-11, and then after 9-11, I What happened then?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:22

My mom flew a plane into a baby.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:25

I was going to I was going to the studio one day and I noticed uh this big explosion, and so I didn't cross the bridge to j to Virginia because I didn't know I could get back home.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:37

And it was I was like looking in the area of towards the Pentagon and I'm like, yeah, I don't know, but they haven't said over the radio what just exploded, but I heard the World Trade Center exploded, so I'm not cross-crossing that river right now. Yeah. Anyway, so I at that point I decided, um, you know, I'll find something a little closer to home. So I I had a student. I was part of a 9-11 hum. Yeah, 9-11. You know, this it's sort of like a 7-Eleven, but a little different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:10

I like that riff on the code.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:17

There we go. Yeah. This is good. So 9-11 is like 7-Eleven how?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:24

Don't don't entertain him. If each questions your wrists, you don't have to let him grow you. Okay? He's gonna try and make you look stupid. You're not stupid. 9-11's exactly like 7-11. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:40

Look at this.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:41

Quiet swine. Quiet swine.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:45

Oh my god. Double dose of quiet swine.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:49

Okay, so now you're doing shots now?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:52

Is he doing shots? Double dose? Oh yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:55

Yeah. So now you're a professional artist. Yes. You're making your art. You're uh it it every time you show in a gallery, do you have to go through a jury?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:05

So I became I joined uh a co-op, an artist co-op. It was a gallery in Georgetown. So when I was 40, I had my first solo show. And I was very excited. Cool. So it's really good to try to do these things a little earlier in life, if you can. If you don't have God bless my parents, I know they were trying to do the right thing. But if you don't have to go to law school before you be had before you have the opportunity to do something creative, it's really better.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:36

They're your best interest, and I will say your parents, especially your mom, was very interested in the arts, but she was not an artist. But she loved she was a big fan of the arts.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:46

She was.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:47

And I'm very curious with making that distinction between your mom who loved arts or just people who love arts and you being an artist, going back to our original question of how do you be an artist, what makes an artist?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:08

Well it's having it's like a lot of things. You have an idea and then you have to follow it through. It's a lot of follow-through.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:20

So Hitler was an artist? Quiet swine. Quiet swine. Oh my god. Here's my question. It's better than Christopher's question, I think. So I noticed that you got you and your husband are really letting Christopher sort of live his dreams out here. He seems to be someone who has been encouraged to pursue his passions. Is this a result of your parents not necessarily encouraging you to do that?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:52

Um, I think in life you have to I think not everybody, but some people have passions that they were born with. I know I was one of those people. I really like to make things.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:11

And in my case, I wanted to do something artistic and I wanted to do something that helped the environment. Which eventually took me years and years to have come to reality, come to fruition. But if if you can start thinking about if you have a passion, you know, try if you can to do it, because it'll always be with you. Try it, see if it works. You can always do something later. But if if you can do it I mean you all are comedians. That's a wonderful skill. It's a wonderful profession. It's really hard. Being an art it's an art.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:57

It's really, really hard. Thank you. And it brings joy to people, and you will have a wonderful opportunity to make to help it to help people see things different. Because it is a little hack. Which is what art is all about. It's helping people see things differently.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:15

See a fern but big. Sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:18

You know, just like look at something differently.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:21

You know, honestly, don't get me wrong. I want to see this art. Yeah. One of my favorite art pieces that I ever saw was a face but big. Do you know this artist, Evan Penny? Does that a name? I don't know how popular he is, but he's a Toronto artist and he had like he made huge faces that and all the features were stretched out, and it made me feel like I had Vertigo looking at it.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:42

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:43

Yeah, so I like things that got big.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:45

Oh yeah. Yeah, well, it's just a different way. Like you're not used to seeing a face, say, for example, so big. So like what attracted you to because it was like slightly stretched, made you how did that make you feel?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:01

It it just tripped me out. It was like cool. It was definitely like my first instinct, my first like response was this is cool. I like looking at this. And then my second impulse was like, Whoa, I feel weird. Why is this like tripping me out? And it was just because literally I was not used to seeing something like that with those proportions. And it was like so realistic but massive.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:25

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:26

It's crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:28

It flips your your idea about what's big, what's small, you where you are in the relationship to that. I mean, like, how big would that person be if that face was really that big?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:38

Huge. Biggest person on earth.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:42

Bigger than anyone. That's awesome. Yeah. It's cool to think about someone that big. He'd be great on the tobacco farm.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:50

It's the biggest boy we could find.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:53

Strong boy.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:54

Strong boy. Well, yeah, I guess we as comedians we do try to. What do we do we flip perception? Yeah, I guess that's the goal. Yeah. Is to take something and and and make you look at it a different way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:05

That's why it makes things funny or yeah, it's so important. Um and so yeah, I think art is is crucial to our culture and and our survival. It's just what is life without art? I mean, there's so many important things in life, but unfortunately in our culture, the arts are sort of underfunded and underappreciated, but yet without them, we lose our soul.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:35

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't fully understand that. A lot of people, I think, operate as if the arts are expendable, but I think they don't realize how much they consume and want art.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:48

Oh, it's it's the air we breathe. It's so important. And so, yeah, so I really my uh Bill and I really felt that you know, give it a shot. See what you got. And I mean life is life is long, you can do many things, you know, and hopefully, you know, the journey will take you to exploring all sorts of areas.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:14

Christopher always tells me that you guys really encourage him to do comedy, but you won't let him go to law school. Now sad about.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:24

Yeah, I always beg, I'm tired of these open mics, mom.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:27

We're not paying for any of those law books.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:29

Yeah. You can go to comedy school, Christopher.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:34

Yeah. How are you gonna pay the book, the bills of the law degree? Get on the circuit. Christopher's gonna buy a bodega.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:45

Oh, yeah, he is.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:46

Do you know about this? Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:47

Are you gonna be in on that?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:49

No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:50

But why not?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:52

What do you think of that idea?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:53

I don't know. I have to talk to him about it. We haven't really spoken too much.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:56

We've spoken, but she's being very coy, but she doesn't want to get into it. We can we can pass it. Okay, we can pass it.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:02

I just don't want it to conflict with your you know, comedy.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:05

Yeah, she doesn't want you to become a slave to the bodega.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:08

Well, ideally it would be a comedy club bodega.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:12

There you go. Would it would it be like the magic store where there's a bodega and then there's a back door like the refrigerator would move or the gum rack would move, and then there'd be a back room that would be like the cool you know, the the comedy room?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:27

I don't want to do that because I don't want it to be so like Instagram-y. I want it to be Instagram-y. That could be kind of cool. The magic room is if we have two there's like there's a spot near where I currently live that's like a restaurant that has two big spaces that are connected by a hallway. Would it be really nice just to have uh two bodegas that are connected by a hallway and we shut down one of them to do shows in? And um, but I still want it to just be and look exactly like a bodega. I don't I never want it to be like a movie set of a bodega. I want it to be a real bodega.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:02

So how many people would show up at this bodega first?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:05

As many as we can fucking shove in the body.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:07

Well, how many does that make? Like 30, 15, 60, like what? And there are ideals.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:13

I mean, like the last bodega we were doing, we were able to get in like 45 people. Is that good? What's the sweet spot? As many as you can fit in. Like you want to. I mean, what do you used to mark? It's about yeah, it's about just filling it in and making people I think you want people to be a little bit stuck stuffed in together. Yeah, a little bit. But not but you don't want too much space.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:39

Do you have a favorite audience size?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:41

Oh, I love seven.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:45

Anybody in the bids will tell you seven is untouchable.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:48

It's a mini bar, it's uh you know, mini bodega comedy.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:51

Tape told me that. She recorded her special, the one about cancer with just seven people in the audience. It was perfect. She tripled the laughs. Conan told me the same thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:59

Yeah. He said, I only ever tape my shows with seven people in the audience. But those seven people laugh big. I like I like a small, I like a medium-sized audience. I like a 40 to 60 seat audience. Yeah. I any uh once you get into the hundreds, or certainly the thousands, then you start getting this like feeling of like uh the intimacy gets a little diluted and you kind of feel like it's like I once heard this, there was this band that started playing stadiums, and they realized they had to leave more space in their songs. They couldn't do like wall-to-wall sounds because it kind of would just bleed, and by the time it reached the bat, it was like all these acoustic concessions they had to make. But it when they did really like spaced-out rifts, then it like kind of worked in that space. So anyway, I have noticed because I did just for last once, and I did there's like 3,000 people in this theater, but you really had to take quite long pauses in your jokes because their laughter would literally go back.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:56

Was this when you were in LA?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:58

This is when I was in uh Canada. Oh Mark's passed at the garden, but he refuses to go.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:03

Madison Square? Yeah, he says it's too big.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:05

Yeah. I'm passed at the garden. Yeah, they said, okay, you're through. Um no, I I mean I've only played a coup done a couple of shows like that, but I did notice it and I didn't I was like, I could see how this would be addictive because the number of laughs you're getting is like a rush.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:20

Yeah, yeah, but but also scary.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:23

Yeah, it's not the way I want to perform.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:24

How does it feel that like we could do a a joke and it doesn't work in that environment? Well, I've done that too. Yeah, how does that feel? Like, is that does that kill me?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:31

I walked off stage and I walked around Montreal for the entire night, just sort of contemplating everything that I had chosen to lead up to that point and what I was gonna do next.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:40

What do you think it was? Why do you think you ate ate shit?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:42

I just wasn't prepared, and I had jokes that I knew weren't quite ready, and it would take like a really good set to make them hit, and they didn't hit.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:50

Yeah, you were ready for the seven.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:52

And this joke is for audience number seven. Audience number six. Yeah, I was ready for that. Um okay, we gotta wrap this up.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:00

45 to 60 people.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:01

Yeah, I love a 45 to 60. Okay, Christopher, do you have any final questions for your mom about how to be an artist or anything at all?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:08

No questions, but I just want to express my gratitude because I have the best mom in the world, and she's so generous to do this podcast and share all her knowledge of being an artist. And so, yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:18

Well, you all keep it up too. We need we need really awesome comedians. We need podcasts.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:23

We need another podcast with two white guys in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:26

Well, and here's my question: when's your next show and where?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:30

Oh, um, it will be in Washington, DC in a few years at the Writers Center. And I'll be doing it in um hopefully sponsored by Rock Creek Conservancy, which is part of the Rock Creek Park.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:44

Yep. And um But she does a mic at the Chuckle Hud on Thursdays.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:48

Oh, sick.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:49

Wait, do an art show at the Writers Center? What's next? Book at the Met Nice wall space and wonderful people there. Swine Never LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:59

Thanks so much. This has been a real honor.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:01

Well, thank you, and feel free to listen to this song now.