All right, ty, we're back with part two of how to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz.

If you haven't listened to part one yet, go check it out or don't.

It's your life, you know.

Do what you want.

You can listen to these in whatever order you want.

It's really up to you.

But we're going to jump in with step two.

The book is divided into six steps.

Part one was all about step one.

Step two is titled how to Actually Begin an instruction manual for the studio, and I think, ty, we're going to jump into section.

I've got something on point 14.

Okay, and the title of that section is make your mark.

It's a great section.

The one part that I really wanted to drill into with you is Jerry writes carry a sketchbook with you at all times.

Take pictures on your phone, if that helps you remember things.

When your thoughts start racing, don't be passive.

Get them down on paper, and this goes back to the Louise quote tell your own story.

I think for me and I've talked about this a lot but the practice of just capturing ideas, capturing thoughts you know, I mentioned David Lynch in the previous episode and there's our David Lynch episode as well, but we but he talks so much about you gotta, you gotta capture these.

We're trying to catch the big fish.

We're trying to catch the big ideas and much like our art itself, it takes a lot of.

Here I'll show my.

I got into the practice of, I've got these laboratory notebooks and I'm just going to stack these up over time and someday the book that will not be written about me will be taken from these journal notes.

Uh, I've got a separate journal.

That's more.

You know, whatever, just personal thoughts and whatever they.

The two tend to bleed into one another.

But this is my studio journal, you know, and I think that there's just, there's so much value in capturing things.

I don't know about you, but for me I don't.

I oftentimes don't really I'm not completely connected to what I'm thinking or feeling until I see what I've just written down.

There's some there's something magical about, and it's the tactile experience of pen or pencil.

You know on paper that you're like, oh, that's what's there.

It pen or pencil.

You know on paper that you're like, oh, that's what's there.

It's a lot like the creative practice overall.

Writing, of course is is a creative act, but it's that it just it flows out and when, when I'm not censoring myself when I'm not trying to like write something that's good or cool or whatever, when it's just flowing.

I have a lot of those moments where it's like, oh huh, that's what's going on here.

It also applies to the work.

You know this is the journal that I sit with when I'm listening to.

You know the work and trying to all out no bad ideas and then sit with it some more, decide.

You know which ones to take action on and which ones to set aside for the moment.

But just that whole idea of just making sure that we're capturing those things, remembering those things.

Phones are great.

You know we've got a I use actually I don't know if I've talked about this much I use the uh, the voice, voice memo app on my phone and that's something that's become kind of a uh, almost every night drive home.

It's a way for me to decompress and be able to kind of reset for you know whatever's next in that night, to be present with the people that I may be spending time with my family or whomever, and also just like putting the day of the studio to, to, to rest a little bit, but it's capturing.

I mean, I've got probably hours at this point.

Some of them I revisit, some of them I don't, but it's just capturing those things right.

It's getting into the practice of capturing those thoughts, those ideas, the imagination, on paper or on audio to be able to, if nothing else, just purge it.

Or on audio to be able to, if nothing else, just purge it, but also to potentially mine those things back after some time has passed, for you know where the gold might be.

Yeah, I have a journal with me 90% of the time.

So whether it's a little pocket one that just fits in my back pocket, or it's my bigger journal that you know is in my backpack or my bag when I'm going places to read or whatever.

But I also use my phone to do audio recordings.

But I record more audible sound than I do me speaking, so I will.

If I'm at a coffee shop writing and journaling, I'll just hit record just to record the audible sound that's going on around me, and so I love that.

You know, in the, in the audio notes on an iPhone, it gives you the date and the time and the place where you are right, where you, where you're listening, so it kind of labels it all that way.

What do you do with that?

then what do you do with that?

Later I will go, I will write to it at times.

So I'll put it on and I'll write poetry to it and it's kind of a place in time and I can remember the thoughts I was having in that moment.

So it could easily be me working on a piece and I was writing poetry about, let's say, a memory of my father and I when I was younger and I was writing a poem about that.

I can play that audio and it almost takes me right back to that memory that I was writing about in that moment, in that time.

So it's just another little mental light bulb.

I love that Electric trigger that can trigger things and moments for me.

But I think that's what we're, that's what we're talking about, right, it's like gather, gather, gather all these things, collect these things and then use them to make your mark.

And I love on page 28, he says as you work, pay attention to everything you're experiencing.

Don't think good or bad, think useful, pleasurable, strange or lucky.

So I gather everything and I, honestly, when I go to galleries and museums, I have my notebook and I'm not sketching, I'm writing about what I'm feeling.

I'm writing about what if the work stops me, I sit and I write about it because I know when I get back to the studio, all those things that I wrote are going to be in my head, stored in my subconscious, and those feelings, those emotions have the potential of coming out of my work.

So, skipping ahead a few to 16 on page 34.

We've talked about this a lot in our steal and copy episode as well.

Like, imitation is a key to learning, and so I just want to reinforce that.

I'm not going to go into it deeply, but we're all going to start as copycats, like he says that right here, trying on other people's forms and styles for size.

It's fine, but don't stop there.

You want your work to progress past that at some point.

Listen, we are all starting to create from things that we liked.

You can be the artist in the MFA program that says I'm not looking at any art and I'm only going to make my own original work.

No, you're not, sorry.

Your subconscious is too powerful and too strong for that to happen.

Anything you have seen in your years previous is going to come through in your work.

So even if you stop looking at any art or anything, you're still going to have all that and imitation is going to come out.

It's okay.

The best artists imitate, the best artists steal and then become themselves over time.

You have to practice, you have to try.

You have to try things that you like, that speak to you, that influence you.

Over time, though, the more work you put in, it will become your gestures, your marks, your shading, your figures, your ideas.

Your identity will start to come out on that.

So imitate and then separate.

That last sentence, think of yourself as landing in a huge coliseum filled with ideas, avenues, ways means electromagnetic pulses, materials and internal game theories.

Make these things yours.

This is your house now, yep.

It's funny.

What do you do in your house, Nathan?

Well, that's what just actually jumped out.

None of your business is what I do in my house, first of all.

No, but I'm thinking about mostly.

Sleep is the answer.

This is your house now.

But you think about?

You move into a house.

It's decorated I mean assuming that whatever it's empty, but it's decorated a certain way.

The walls are colored a certain way, there's things about it that it's livable.

Right, you can just live in the house that you move into and just say this is mine now.

But to really make a home yours for the most part, you're going to at least make some changes to it.

You're going to change some fixtures.

You may be going to, you know, renovate an entire section, blah, blah, blah.

You're probably at least going to paint the walls.

You know you're certainly going to move your stuff in, which changes a space fundamentally right off the bat, right.

But you're making it yours and over time it becomes more and more yours.

And I don't know about you.

But you move into a new place and for a while it feels like you're living in, like I guess this is mine now, but it doesn't really feel like home until you've spent time there and until you've made it yours and that's really, I think, what Jerry's talking about in terms of our practice is you know, we're absorbing, we're collecting, we're you know, we're picking up all of these different things from all of these different places.

But this is your house, now, right?

So it's our responsibility to make it ours, to make ourselves at home and to find a unique place that is ours and ours alone, yep, and that place your studio, your place to work, that place where you're making things.

Section 17 is your sanctum.

Your segue guy.

Today I'm going to call you segue guy Segway.

Yeah, two wheels and a really long handlebar, and I'm just moving us on.

I'm leaning forward.

Go ahead, Editor Ty.

Go ahead and drop in the chimpanzees right on a segway clip perfect oh, I forgot about that one.

That was a good one.

It's a good classic video you could sing that song, now that I planted that secret it's in my head and it won't leave all right off, we go, off, we go our 17, usually right, it's our laboratory

yeah, it's our place for inventing things.

It's the mechanics garage, the seance chamber, fortress of solitude, whatever you want to call it, I say I always call it my playground and my place of worship.

Yeah, because it's a very spiritual place for me, but it's a place where I am so free from any restrictions or anything that it's like I'm in second grade again and the bell went off and I'm running out to that place that I've been staring at through the window for hours trying to get back to.

And you know that once you get out there you're free.

I can do whatever.

I can run around, I can do whatever I want, hang out with whoever I want to.

There's nothing.

So that's kind of how I view my studio.

You know it's that place to go into and I love that.

He says in the studio this is great, get in, get into your body.

I love that.

Like, really get into yourself in this moment, breathe, pace, do whatever it takes to prepare yourself, have a little ritual, have a little something you do.

You know our buddy Kyle Steed does breath work, right and kind of.

When he goes into the studio he sets up, does some breath work, he meditates in the middle for a while he gets into himself before he starts to work.

Whatever that is and I love the very last sentence here the studio should be a place of no shame.

No shame, nothing.

Where you're open to surprise and humiliation, when you're never afraid of silence, where you sit, sometimes for hours, just looking at what you made, not knowing, letting your mind drift.

Tomorrow you come back and work some more and I tell artists that I work with all the time.

It is a place of no shame.

Yeah, you can be as humiliated as you want to.

You can make crappy, shitty stuff all day long and it doesn't matter.

There's no shame in it because nobody knows.

Unless you're doing a live feed every day for 24 hours and you're your own reality show.

Nobody's going to see what you're doing, not one person.

So why would you not just go for the freaking fences and try anything possible and fail and fail, and fail and fail until you nail it, until you find it?

It's funny.

He talks about writing for sorry sitting for hours and sometimes if I post a whatever a process video, I'll get a comment or more of oh I just wish I could just watch you work for watch you.

Watch you work for a day, yeah, and my, my response is often some version of I assure you, it's far less interesting in real time it's far less interesting than the 10 seconds you just saw, like this is the.

This is the the most interesting whatever, seven seconds.

If you want to watch me walking around staring for hours and doing this, yeah, Is this, is this, yeah, a lot of, a lot of, yeah, a lot, a lot, a lot of this.

Mostly it's me sitting in my, my studio chair, with my creative director, right, buddy, yeah, with leo, and just trying to figure shit out and and figure out you know what might be next, but without feeling this is this is a challenge for me, without resisting the urge to jump up and just do.

Acting for me is not, taking action for me is not the challenge.

For me, it's sometimes waiting just another beat, another moment, another, whatever 10, 15 minutes an hour before acting.

It is the sitting for acting, it is the sitting, it is just the being in the space and sitting with the work that is really important to determine what that next right action might be.

The first sentence of this section.

I want to read this because it's just so perfect the studio is your sanctum, an inventor's laboratory, teenager's bedroom, mechanic's garage, seance chamber, fortress of solitude, prison cell, ecstasy machine, wormhole and launch pad.

I mean I I really liked Jerry's writing style in general because it's it's all of those things and more right, but it's, it's, it's whatever you want or need it to be in in that moment and it's it's ours and ours alone.

You know I told I was telling my wife.

On Monday I had one planned studio visit with with my friend that I mentioned before and two impromptu ones, and her response, just knowing me, she's like oh, how'd those go?

I think that was my response too Right.

That's right.

That's right Because it's like you know you're in it and you know when I'm, when I'm working outside, some people uh, new neighbors moving in, walk by and and uh, and, and her son was.

Really can I bring my son in?

He's really interested in art, and so it was.

It was lovely, it was delightful, but I don't.

I enjoyed those, let me just say that.

But because that is my, my like, I don't unlock my front door unless I know, unless I know you know, someone's coming.

I wear, you know, when I'm outside, headphones, sometimes just to just to help with whatever noise I might be making, but also to send a very clear message like, yep, I'll take these off, but I'm keeping my hands on them because they're going back on.

I'm not looking to.

You know, hang out and have social time.

But that's probably just the my introverted nature, I suppose.

But this is one I wanted to throw at you.

I'm surprised that you didn't talk about this dress in your own abracadabra garments.

Yep, my man ties got some some abracadabra garments and so I you talk about this.

I mean, I just dressed like a, like a, like a working person.

I mean that was one of the things in our Leonardo Drew episode that I loved about seeing him work in the studio like that.

Yeah, leonardo's dressed for real work back, brace, gloves, boots but you've got a little bit more pizzazz in your abracadabra studio style.

Let me put that in form of question.

Sorry, what about thatra studio style?

Well, what did you?

Let me put that in form of question, sorry, what about that?

Talk about the ritual of that for you, right, you put your studio coat on, you got your shoes, you got your like.

Talk about that.

Yeah, that became early on for me when I went full time.

Um, I had, you know, certain outfits I would wear to paint and not for anything more than just getting paint on old clothes.

But then it just kind of became something of helping me embrace the fact that I'm wanting to do this.

I am an artist, I'm not an entrepreneur.

I'm not a PR director, I'm not an art director.

My past life things no, I'm an artist, I am going for this and it was kind of my way of, you know, transforming myself from Clark Kent into Superman, right, or transforming myself into Wonder Woman.

You know what I mean.

It was like it was that it was spinning, it was walking into the studio and putting the face of absolute seriousness on of.

I'm here to work, I'm here to do this, and so I kind of you know my favorite thing in art history is seeing artists in their studio clothes.

That's my favorite thing.

Seeing Helen in her apron, seeing Pollock in his paint cover boots, seeing John Michelle in his wooden shoes and the clothes he would wear.

Like those things, him barefoot, with ripped jeans and no shirt on and paint all over in this Mary Boone studio.

Like, those things are like what drove and it's like I need to live like the artist.

But I also took that the other step later on and went well, I'm going to dress, I'm going to wear that anywhere I go.

So you'll see me at the coffee shop and I'll have my studio clothes on, I'll have my, you know.

And it's a way for me also to be educator, because somebody will always ask me hey, what I like your pants, are you an artist?

Like yeah, oh, what do you do?

And now it's time for me to educate somebody.

Well, this is what an artist does.

I'm just here studying today, but I'm usually in my studio and so.

But for me, that really was a mindset shift that, I feel like, took me from playing the game to getting in the game.

Yeah, yeah, I love that Section 18, again, get the book, read the book.

It's really really.

We're just touching on some of the highlights that really stick out to us that we wanted to discuss today, but one of the really cool things about this section in particular is that Jerry adds a number of exercises that are recommended and really, really interesting.

The one from this section really stuck out to me and it's one, ty, that you talk about a lot in your program, but the exercise is study the composition style of each of these artists or genres.

Don't read, just look and identify loosely as heaven or hell.

That's a reference to something earlier in the section.

But one of the things that you talk about in your program, a lot is just sitting with, and this is true whether we're just observing art however we can access it on our devices or when we get to look at it and experience it in person.

But it's really considering okay, what does this make me think?

What does this make me feel?

What do I like about this?

And one of the things I learned from you was when you look at or spend time with work that you don't like, why don't I like this?

What don't I like about this.

What don't I like about how this makes me feel there's a lot of value in identifying both of the above.

Yep, yeah, and that was something that I think Jerry talks about in identifying both of the above.

Yeah, yeah, and that was something that I think Jerry talks about a little later on the book, I think.

If it was here, I'm not sure if it was a lecture.

But he says don't just look at work you like.

Also, go look at work you hate and then talk to yourself about why.

And I think that really does help with our own criticism.

When we get criticism from other people like at least we're not just because we're going to get shitty criticism, especially if we have our work on social media.

It's an open door for trolls.

It's an open door for MFA students or people who are really struggling as artists to take their angst out on somebody who may have success or maybe doing something they don't like and we'll talk about that later.

But when you're able to look at work you don't like and talk about to yourself why you don't like it, when you get criticism from somebody doesn't like your work, now you're able to kind of look at both sides.

You're not just taking it in as hurt and pain and F you, how do you not like my piece?

You're going oh, what did they not like about it?

What are they saying?

Is there some truth to it?

No, there isn't.

Or, yes, there is, and I, jerry, really taught me that and I think that that's really helped me when I've received either no criticism, because it's easy when we have none to go.

Well, everybody hates it.

That's why nobody's saying anything, whatever.

So but it's helped me to kind of put things on a level playing field.

When it used to be more hurtful and more painful to take that negative criticism on, it's really helped make it more level for me.

I love this next section.

Yes, yes, 19 embed thought in material.

What does this mean?

An artwork should express thought and emotion.

I contend the two can't be separated.

We couldn't unpack that for days.

Yeah, your goal as an artist is to use physical materials to make these thoughts and emotions, however simple or complex, accessible to the viewer.

Materials have the potential to take a previously empty space and suffuse it with new meanings, meanings that will continue to transform over time.

Eric Fischel has said that he wanted to paint what couldn't be said.

All artists are trying, on some level, to do the same.

Wow, yeah, that's my best time impression.

Wow, wow.

I want to say something about that.

I want you to say something about that but I kind of just need to sit with it.

Yeah, I know, I love it.

I know, I know, I know I've got stars and arrows everywhere on this.

This is the.

This is the challenge, right, nathan?

This is the challenge for an artist.

It is our goal to use physical materials to make thoughts and emotions accessible to the viewer.

Yeah, that is the biggest, the greatest single challenge for the artist.

Because we have to.

We're creating us, we're creating our story, we're creating what we want to say.

We're creating us.

The challenge is how does us become accessible to the viewer once it's on a wall or in the middle of the floor or filling a space?

Yeah, right, you're taking what didn't used to have anything and you're now creating something that's going there.

How do we make that accessible to the viewer?

Through thoughts and emotion.

And I love how he says here at the bottom, after he talks about what artists work with and materials.

My materials are words and emotion.

And I love how he says here at the bottom, after he talks about what artists work with the materials.

My materials are words and sentences, similes and conjectures.

They are all embedded with the way I think and feel.

If you are able to do this with the materials you choose, even if viewers misinterpret your work, it will strike them as distinctly yours and this will give your materials agency and energy.

Distinctly yours, yours, italicized distinctly yours.

That's what we're after, I mean in bed.

Yeah, that's why you talked about if you were going to come and watch me in the studio for an entire day.

It's going to be a lot less interesting than the 10 seconds I shared on an Instagram reel, right, because I know you're spending an enormous amount of time figuring out how to embed thought into the material, and that takes listening, looking, sitting, thinking, and I spend a lot of time doing that.

I've talked about this for years.

I had a.

I had a show that was very personal in the work, and as I was working on it, I was thinking, man, if I can't really tell the story and talk about it, how are people going to to see these emotions and the story and the feelings that are coming out in the work?

And so I took probably a couple of weeks and just started journaling about this idea how does my work speak when I'm not in the room?

Right, and I really came to the conclusion of well, I need to put more thought and time into my materials, into my technique, into things, in the hopes that it will speak when it's on the wall.

Yeah, and so time went in, not only to the work but the titles that didn't give away information, but the entire, the entire, uh, body work read like a book.

That actually read like a, a monologue or a dialogue from each title throughout the work, from work number one to like work 28.

And I had a few pieces in an exhibition in Austin and I came in I think it was the second morning of the exhibition and there were two women by the work, by a couple of pieces, and they said, hey, we have a question for you.

And I was like, yeah, they said, hey, this feels like it reads like a story, like a really personal story, and we're both theater majors from UT, university of Texas at Austin, and we were in here looking at it and we ended up going through and reading this as a dialogue with each other and we were just in tears and I was like that's it, that's what my hopes were.

You know what I mean.

And I think if I hadn't spent as much time really thinking through and just making without spending the time, it may not have been as accessible to the viewer when they saw it and were able to translate that.

So that's something that I'm constantly thinking about and processing when I'm in the studio with my work.

The material is just material until we do something with it.

Yep, and as someone who is working with an ever-expanding range of found and discarded, you know, mostly industrial waste I it takes time to figure out what the material itself is saying on its own and to then I mean and so it's a two-part process for me, probably more than that, but to simplify it, what is the material able to physically do?

How can it be transformed?

You know, I was joking with somebody the other day.

I was telling them, showing them some work that had the coroplast on it, and I said this may or may not be true, but I'm fairly certain that there's no one else on the planet who knows as much as I do about how this material behaves when it's exposed to heat and cold and water and acid.

And for me it's.

It's for me and you it's that process of really like boiling it down to its essence, seeing what the material has, the what, what vocabulary does the material itself inherently have to be able to communicate?

And then the second part of that process is okay, great, now I know how to manipulate it, how to, how to, to transform it.

What do I want to say with it?

What, what, what do I want the material to say without me in the room?

Right, yeah, and that's that's really where I think the, the, the.

The magic happens is, you know, if, if the goal is to have viewers interpret, misinterpret, whatever the work itself, but to strike them as distinctly yours, this will give your materials agency and energy.

I love that, yeah, and he says on the next page, just over, at the end of the paragraph a work of art cannot depend on explanation.

The meaning has got to be there in the work.

As Frank Stella said, there are no good ideas for paintings, there are only good paintings.

The painting becomes the idea.

I think that's something that Jack Whitten was constantly wrestling with, constantly wrestling with.

He wanted his work to exist, not be defined, you know what I mean.

And so he's constantly trying to find the way that the work, when it's up, it exists and it lives without a definition.

You know what I mean.

To have this life within it where he felt like other artists just were creating something.

They were defined by the genre that they were creating in and just fitting into it.

He did not want to be that.

He wanted his paintings to exist on their own.

He wanted the painting, like Frank Stella said, become the idea.

Yes, well, we talked about this in our.

Our Leonardo drew episodes as well.

He talks about that, right, how he uses letters and numbers.

He just, you know, I don't want to give you any additional information.

You know, I don't want to give you any additional information.

You know, clifford, still same thing.

Just this is what it is and do with it what you will, but I'm not going to give you any clues, I'm not going to inform your experience with it.

So, in thinking back to Louise Bourgeois, you know, when she said if this doesn't touch you, I have failed.

Yep, it's got to touch you, not by by interpretation or by explanation, or how did Stella say?

It depend on the work, cannot depend on explanation, right?

Yeah, we've talked about this a lot in previous episodes, but it's something, obviously, that we both feel, feel strongly about.

The painting becomes the idea, and he closes the section with the Jay-Z quote you make materials do more work than they normally do to make them work on more than one level.

You make materials do more work than they normally do to make them work on more than one level.

Yep, I got nothing out of that.

I just want to read it, I guess.

No, I think the only addition to that is on section 20, the last sentence there, on page 45,.

He says art is like a burning bush it puts out more energy than went into its making.

This is what is meant by ours longer, but think about, that's everything that we just talked about there.

The art, once it's up, once it's away from the studio, puts out more energy than went into its making.

Now, I don't think that that should be a flat statement of all work does this?

You know what I mean, because I definitely have seen a lot of work that I just go meh okay, next, and we move.

We all have.

We've all been in museums where it's supposed to be the greatest artists on the walls and you walk by a work and go doesn't do it for me.

Moving on.

But then there's a work you've never seen and you just your breath's taken away and you can't breathe and you're like what's going on with me right now?

Holy crap, this piece of art.

That is when the work is putting out more energy than when it to its making and it lasts forever.

I want to break this whole section down because I've got nothing but arrows and notes and things underlined.

Art, section 20, art is a flatworm.

Like a flatworm, art possesses the astounding ability of regeneration.

Split your work in any way, lengthwise, widthwise, into irregular pieces, using just one idea or element from the whole, and it can grow into an entirely new organism.

I don't know why this came to mind when I was reading this, but it's like kombucha or sourdough bread I don't know what that's called.

I've never made either one, but I know there's a, a mother sort of what's it called?

Do you know the word for it?

So at least one listener's screaming it right now.

But what I know?

and my neighbor would be ticked at me cause he's a, he makes sourdough and leaves me bread on the fence all the time.

Yeah, I love it.

So yeah, I mean, but that's the point, right, it's like using just one idea or element from the whole, it grows into an entirely new organism.

Every part of this new entity in turn will have the ability to engender another new form, which may itself grow into a self-sufficient organism that retains the memories of the original.

Yep, it's the sourdough starter.

It's a living culture.

So all it takes is a seed, all it takes is a starter.

Right, we pull the thread, we see where it leads, we start on the trail like we were talking about in part one, and we wander off course into the unknown.

But it's still going to have, it's still going to have the memory of the original, there's still going to be a through line from where it started.

But where it takes us is that.

That's the great unknown.

You know he writes vivisect yourself.

Any material gesture, color, surface, idea can grow again into a new branch of your work.

It will have the potential to develop an unforeseen ways to accrete and conjoin into new structures.

That will almost inevitably mean more than you've intended.

You know, and I think all of this as we think about how to apply this idea to our own art making process, a lot of it.

It just requires that willingness to continue to delve into the unknown.

You know you shared your bundle of yarn.

Yeah, I don't know where this is going, but it's.

But I feel like I have to do something.

Thank you, yes, but I feel like I have to do something with it, and so it's.

So it's chasing that as opposed to you, know what would be the safe route, the easy route which, as opposed to you, know what would be the safe route, the easy route which is oh, this is.

This is a little bit off, this is a bit left, this is a bit of off field, this is a little bit further away from where I'm comfortable or where I'm familiar.

Let me, let me get.

Let me get back in my, let me get back in my lane.

Yeah, no, no, no, it's continue to veer out of your lane, knowing that you can always go back and to the point of this section, because it originated from.

You know where it started, and maybe it's just you, maybe it's just you alone that can see the through line or connect the dots, you know, from here to there, who knows where there is going to be willing to embrace and lean into these whispers, these voices, the pull to just see where that goes and see what it could regenerate on its own.

Well, and that's what I'm doing, listening to those wild voices in my head, section 21.

Follow up to the flat forms.

Right, it's just the flatworms.

It's just what you're saying, like I'm listening and I love how he says I have my own sort of school of Athens in my head the team of rivals, friends, famous people, influences, dead and alive, and they're all looking over my shoulder when I work.

They're giving me observations and suggestions.

None of them are mean.

I love that.

He's like.

I have all these things that are constantly going in my head.

Whitman pushes me to merge my work with anything, melville gets grand oise, and Prowse drives me to extend my sentences till they break up and my editors cut them down.

Think about the voices in your private psyche.

Get to know them.

They'll always be there when things get tough.

Man, I hammer this into the artist in my program's head constantly Read, study, study, read, look, read.

If there's an artist that you love, there's a reason why.

If you love their work, what their work says, all those things, maybe you share the same thought process as them.

Maybe you share some type of connection with them, creatively, artistically, the way you imagine things that you're drawn to that person.

Study the hell out of them.

They're a peer, they're a mentor, they're a teacher, they're a coach, they're spiritual guide, whatever.

So I'm always when, when I'm I'm like, ah, what would Louise Bourgeois say about this?

When I'm working on something and I'm like I really want the emotion of this story to come out from my past.

How would she deal with this?

Well, I sew, she sews.

I love fiber, she loves fiber.

Is there a way for me to bring some of those elements in?

I'm thinking about artists who work with negative space very well, like Joan Mitchell, cy Twombly, anthony Tappas, and I'm thinking about what they would say about composition.

When I'm working on work, those voices are always in my head and that helps me.

When I get stuck and I'm frustrated, I can't figure things out, I have these coaches, these mentors I can fall back on.

A really important point to highlight here, and this line just jumps off the page None of them are mean.

So what you're talking about, what Jerry's writing about, is the way I interpret it curating the voices that you allow to speak.

Yeah, absolutely, curating who it is that you are being influenced by and listening to and making sure that they are not mean.

I don't know about you.

Actually, I can say this with a fair amount of certainty for you as well.

There's plenty of mean voices that pop up from time to time as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

Maybe we got to call the bouncer over and say this this person is, uh, is not contributing to the vibe, but you know it's, it's, but it's being intentional about.

You know who we're listening to and and really listening with intention of.

Is this a mean voice?

Cause if it's a mean voice, it probably doesn't belong.

Yes, yep, speaking of voices, see, I'm trying.

I'm trying to uh 22,.

Find your voice, then exaggerate it.

If someone says your work looks like someone else's and you should stop making it, I say don't stop, not yet, do it again, do it a hundred or a thousand times.

Then ask an artist friend, someone you trust highlight those words an artist friend, someone you trust, whether your work still looks too much like the other person's art.

If your friend says yes, try another path.

And then he uses the example of Philip Guston, which is perfect, and this is again another reason to get the book, because he shows two perfect examples of what Gustin was doing in his, you know, abex phase, in the, in the or whatever period in the fifties, and then what it became, uh, uh, this piece is from 1969, when he started to do the work that he's, you know now probably best known for, but it's it's, it's a wild transformation, you know, okay.

So then Jerry goes on to write about Gustin.

His story is also an example of how artists can't always control or even predict the results their machine, their machine creates.

And so I think about this tie like to get here.

We have to let go of the compulsion to control, to direct, to predict, to influence.

We have to get in the passenger seat, you know, or the, or the backseat, or the freaking trunk you know what I mean.

Like the, the motion someone else's driving is, is is kind of the point, the machine in Jerry's example here, the machine of our practice, the machine of our um art making.

Process is what's going to take it wherever it's going to go.

Process is what's going to take it wherever it's going to go, and for me, the less I feel like I am driving, the better off I am.

You know, I'm thinking about and we're going to do a, we're we're preparing for a, a Philip Guston episode as well.

But I'm thinking about from the doc I'm going to paraphrase here.

But he's, he's speaking to somebody in the studio and he says you know, when you start, there's all these different people in the room.

You know there's there's dealers, there's critics, there's curators, there's there's collectors, there's museums, and he goes and after a while, you know they all leave and then hopefully you leave as well.

I just, I love that.

We'll talk all about that in our Gus and episode, but that's that's.

I think you know what Jerry's talking about here.

But I think to get there we have to get to a place where we can let go.

Let go of the wheel, let go of control.

Resist that compulsion to direct exactly where we're going.

Yeah, and man, I had this conversation with one of my current mentees a while back and actually quite a few artists that have been through my program, because they'll have other artists that say, oh, your work looks too much like so-and-so, your work looks too much like this, your work looks just like this, do something else.

And I always say no, you're not even anywhere yet, anywhere.

Yet.

You know it's like now.

If you're starting to get into galleries and your work's starting to move and your work still looks just like Frankenthaler's or looks just like a Cy Twombly piece or looks just like a Mark Bradford piece, well it's time to start changing a little bit.

You know what I mean.

It's time to start evolving.

But in the beginning, when you're starting out and you're not even anywhere yet, you need to practice.

Keep making more work that looks just like Joan Mitchell's work, keep making more work that looks just like so-and-so's work.

Just keep making it, because eventually you're going to find you in it.

And I'm not saying take a painting and copy it Sometimes.

Yes, do that in your studio, but don't put that work out the door.

If you're really working on gestures and marks and you're trying to copy some side twombly things and what he's doing.

I've done this in the past.

Every artist does, and if they say they don't, they're lying.

They're just scared to admit that they were copying somebody to get to where they are.

This is part of it.

Every artist in history has done this.

You're going to practice.

That doesn't mean that that piece that ends up it's an exact replica of a side twombly goes out the door.

Let's practice.

You're going to find yourself in those things.

That's how we learn.

That's how you practice when you go to art school.

You're trying, you're practicing.

You're doing things.

The teacher's telling you how to do them.

You're learning all these things, Not telling you how to do them.

You're learning all these things.

Not everybody has the ability to go to art school, so you need to practice in your studio.

You need to teach yourself.

What's the best way to teach yourself?

Copy what others are doing.

Was every great musician in the world done.

They've learned certain songs first from other musicians and then created their own music out of their subconscious and the way things go, the best writers are influenced by other great writers.

The best filmmakers are copying other filmmakers and they're making better films than that filmmaker did, or worse.

It just depends.

Look no further than any of the above Writers, musicians, artists, I mean.

The early work is almost always, almost invariably, a copy-ish, imitation-ish version of something else that was better known.

That was their starting off point when Jerry talked about Mary Shelley.

How many Frankenstein films have been made?

How many books have been written with the same idea?

Doctor person creates something new that becomes a monster.

Right, it's like so many monster stories come from the same idea.

It's just been redone Some terribly, some better but it's taking a general idea and it's working off of it.

That's okay, people.

That's all right.

Don't be discouraged.

Find yourself in it, though.

Don't stay in the one formula.

Deviate into other formulas from that formula that you love.

That's where you find you.

Yes, 23, clear the studio.

Agnes Martin, this is just.

I mean, this is just when you're stuck, muddled or you feel you can't move on.

Try clearing your studio or cleaning it picking up, sweeping, moving things around, making new piles of old clutter.

My wife is a world champion of this last technique, which helps her write perfect text.

You can do this every day.

It's a way of being physical, breathing into the work, creeping up on a task at hand.

Maybe you'll find something in a pile that sparks a new idea, mushrooms into fresh growth and you'll be making space for what goes requested on his deathbed More light, more light.

I mean, this is a, this is a 10 out of 10 tip.

I mean it's, it's super.

You know, uh, tech, tactical and and and practical right, but it's, it's man.

This, this, this never doesn't work for me.

It never fails to do that.

It's like, oh, you know, and literally I mean just by virtue of, like, touching things and moving them around and, and you know, having piles and piles of different material and things in different like, oh, this actually might work with you know, oh, but it's, it's.

It's that, it's that tactile experience of touching things, of just clearing space to be able to even move things around when I'm stuck.

This is first on the list of ways to get stuck.

It's the anti-Francis Bacon.

Yeah, correct, that's the two opposite forms of thought.

You have the Agnes Martin.

She needed the clean space because she needed a meditative space to work in, and if there was ever any clutter or something out of order for her, it distracted from that focus and that solitude that she wanted her space to be.

And then you have the Francis Bacon's of the world that are like no, I need the mess, I need the clutter, I need the shit storm everywhere around me.

But I'm more on the side of any time I'm really struggling.

If I straighten up, it gets me back, gets me back on path.

When I straighten up and clean some things.

I had an artist friend in my studio once and and uh, and they said this is weird, how organized your space is, because everything's, everything's labeled.

You know, I've got a wide variety of of of tools and materials, some of which are being actively used and many of which are just, you know, there for for whenever I might need them.

But, uh.

But I said, listen, that's that is for me, that is the only thing, that that is the sort of antidote to a very disorganized mind.

Yeah, like I think you know so, someone like bacon or somebody who's able to operate in that, in that, in that chaos of space, I, I, I cannot imagine that it's.

I mean, ultimately, whatever, whatever you know works for you, but I need to know that when something pops to mind, I know where the thing, that the thing or things that I'm going to need to execute are, and I can get to them and pull them out and have them in my hands and be getting after it right away, as opposed to.

Well, I think it was over here in one of these piles.

Let me waste the next hour trying to find it, dust it off and by the time it's finally in hand.

The moment's gone so clear the studio, kids 24, no wasted days.

So good, your artist's mind is always working, even when you think it's idling in the studio.

Even doing nothing can be a form of working.

This is also true when you're out walking, traveling, worrying, staying awake all night, whatever.

All these things will be a part of your work.

Even when you seem to be going nowhere, things are happening.

You are your method, your life is a part of your work.

A bad day is a good day, the painter Stanley Whitney said, because a bad day is when you're trying to take it to a different level.

This is a mantra that is to be memorized, ty, and repeated as many times as needed for it to really sink in.

I have to remind myself of this all the freaking time.

I'm an achiever, I want to get things done, I want to have this.

I'm chasing this feeling of accomplishment.

You know, all the time just going around trying to gobble up little, little gold stars.

You know, throughout the day to try to make myself feel like I'm okay.

But you know that mantra of there's no wasted days.

You know, and I, I had this, I had this realization a while back.

I'm curious if you've had anything, anything similar happened with to you, but I have.

I had this realization that, especially the days that when it feels like nothing happens, when I'm closing up the studio and I'm walking away, I'm just like, well, shit, that was just an absolute.

I might as well have not even done anything today, almost invariably the next day things just flow.

So this is one of those like reinforcing beliefs that may or may not be true, but I try to lock that in when I'm like nope, tomorrow's going to be great.

No wasted days.

I've never had two bad days in a row, because it always is what sets up.

What's next?

Maybe it's the next day, maybe it's not, but the point is no day is wasted, no effort is wasted.

No time when the machine is running, when we're taking action, when we're in our space, when we're when we're taking action, when we're in our space, when we're doing the thing, is truly wasted.

I think this is just a mental landscape for me that I have, I think, grown into to where I'm now, at that point in my life with my desires and my dreams for where I want my art to go to be able, at the end of a bad day, to take a deep breath and go.

I'm so glad I went through that Because I know, like Jerry says, at the end the artist says like because that's a day that's taken me further than a day where things were going right.

Because in history, struggle gets you somewhere, a lot, where you end up stronger, more developed, with more wisdom and more knowledge through struggle than through ease.

And so the friends that I have who have been through enormous struggle have, who have been through enormous struggle, friends of mine who are first generation immigrants who have gone through enormous struggle.

There's just something about their character, their personality, their fight, their openness that just dominates people who haven't been through the struggle.

Now, I'm not saying there aren't people at the same level who haven't been through the struggle.

Now I'm not saying there aren't people at the same level who haven't been through struggle, but they may have gotten there in a lot longer time or a lot different scenarios, but struggle creates greatness.

I truly, truly believe that and, as an artist, if you're willing to struggle and be okay with it, the things that will come out of that will shock the hell out of you, because I see artists all the time.

The next page leans into this 25, know what you hate?

It's probably you.

Let me speak to that.

I just want to finish this, though, just because that next page I hate, and I don't like hate that's such a strong word I really dislike.

When I see art that I can tell has not gone through a struggle, when I see art that is void of emotion or character, that seems very untruthful and I can see that the whoever it was in the studio, because of Instagram these days that they're just kind of going through the motions, and so for me, I don't want to be that artist.

So I recognize things that I dislike and I pay attention to them to remind myself to not be that, and I think part of that is the struggle.

I don't agree with that.

I don't agree with that.

Maybe we just have different perspectives.

We really need to spend time when we don't agree because it doesn't happen very often.

Well, the part where I mean what you're saying to me and maybe I'm just misunderstanding you, I'm not that bright it's entirely possible, but to me what you're saying presumes that you know what struggle looks like for them and their practice, which I would argue is impossible.

Well, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, and without trying to sound like I'm overconfident.

I love snobby tie.

No, you know what I'm going to be snobby tie.

I'm just going to be snobby tie.

I've been around art so long and I've looked at a lot of art, I've spent a lot of time in a lot of artists studios uh, in my 50 years here on this earth, and I spent a lot of time with artists period, and I study art like crazy and I think it's it's easy for me to separate those who are really struggling to grow in their work and those who are just making the work.

Now, do whatever you want, that's okay.

I mean, this is my, my opinion.

This isn't based on fact.

This is my opinion.

I really feel like I can see work that's powerful and work that isn't, and the separation is those who are really struggling through growing and experimenting and doing things and those who are just kind of following a trend, and so that separation of what I feel is a trend that is a whole new element into what you're saying.

Okay, an artist.

I mean an artist who follows a trend.

It just looks like everything else and it's a void of something, but artists who are kind of bucking the trend and really struggling and working through things.

Something's happening, there's something, there's a pole, there's truth within that work and that pulls me in and separates the other.

For me, that's really what I'm trying to say.

Copy Understood All right, let's close out part two with the last section in what these called again lessons.

No, they're not steps.

Okay, let's close out part two of this podcast series on how to be an artist by Jerry Saltz, by finishing step two, which is number 26.

Finish, the damn thing.

Everyone thinks their work might be better.

If only they had a little more time with it.

Isn't that true?

Yes, skipping down your work will never be perfect.

Perfect doesn't exist.

Nothing is ever really just right.

There's always more you can do.

Too bad.

It's as good as it can be right now, and that's probably more than good enough.

You'll make the next one better or different or more like yourself.

Do not get hung up working on one super project forever.

For now, make something, learn something and move on, or you'll be buried waist deep in the big muddy of perfectionism.

Yep.

I mean, we kind of could have done this a lot of time.

We could have just read this and been like yep and then called it the next section.

But it's so true, I mean it's, it's, it's just so, so true, right.

Like I have not had a, I mean every, every, every show has culminated in me finishing work with the flurry.

You know, pulling more more all nighters than I had since trying to cram for exams.

You know, in in in college, just frenzied, you know, uh, flourishes of what I just has to get done and, um, you know, delaying shipping, delaying, you know, flights, all of those things until the last, last possible moment.

And one of the things that I've learned about that is that, like, looking back at some of the work where I was like, well, I think this is done, it has to be right, when there actually are, you know, in our regular practice, there aren't a lot, of, a lot of a lot of firm.

You know deadlines, and what I'm referring to is like those that last.

You know whatever, two or three pieces of many others that have been done for quite some time, but it's still like I could, I, just because I this is a reminder that I try to repeat to myself Just because I can do more doesn't mean that I should.

Just because you can doesn't mean that you should.

I mean it's kind of a good thing to keep in mind, broadly speaking, in life as well.

Usually for me, I'm working towards a show, so I'm pulling those all-nighters and I'm doing a ton of stuff.

And then I get to the last few pieces I'm working on and then I hit a stride, yeah.

And then I go, oh, shoot, I should make six more or eight more, right?

And then I will.

All of a sudden, I make six more.

I'm like, oh, these are going where they're supposed to go.

And then I'm going, ooh, these are going where they're supposed to go.

And then I'm going well, then do I disregard the first six?

I did, and now I'll move on with these.

And I usually kind of go, no, no, no, I did the work.

It's telling me where it's going.

This body work's done, new body work begins.

Now let's run with this.

But that's every time.

There's never a time where I'm like, yep, did it, got it?

No, it's always like, oh, if I just oh.

And then, when it's all up on the wall and you walk into the show and then you go, oh, I should have done this with those and this, and so I've had to also adjust that emotional landscape and that thinking over time, and go no, I did the best I could do in that moment, with a celebration behind me.

It's telling me how good I did.

I just had the uh, the Apple emojis go off on my phone there behind me, but I got to that point, but you've had this experience, though.

Then someone pulls you over and says this is my favorite piece.

Yes, oh yeah, all the time.

Then time passes and you look back on it and you're like, oh, that, actually, you know what I mean.

So it's trusting ourselves in the moment, but also being willing to be surprised.

Yeah, do the just understand you're doing the best you can do today, right With that work, and know that each time you do it, you're going to look at it and go, how can I improve it tomorrow, how can I improve it the next time?

And just keep growing.

But you have to finish that idea to move on to the next one.

You know, if you're setting out and you have that idea in your head of I want to, I'm going to start working with fiber.

Like me, I work with fiber.

I've worked with fiber for a long time, but I'm increasing that output of fiber.

Yes, and so it's like but if I don't start it, then I don't get moving on it and if I don't finish the ideas I'm working on, it's not going to take me to the next ones.

I'm just going to keep experimenting forever.

I never have anything that's really finished to show for it.

It's back to that idea of thinking about the time that we have available, which, of course, is unknown to us.

But whether we have you know, you and I, if this is our last day in the studio, or whether we get, you know, 60 more years, whatever the case is, there's a finite amount of time and energy that we have to put into, you know, more work.

So it's like, okay, could I make this piece 3% better by investing 10 more hours?

I mean sure, but how much further could I get, how much more could the work progress by taking that time and that's what Jerry's saying into subsequent work?

Right, that's the key.

Absolutely.

And then the next step in all of this is how to think like an artist.

All right.

So, ty, that's a good place to wrap up for today.

We're going to land the plane on step two.

We will not share, dear listeners, the part that we just cut out, but join us next time on our next episode of Just Make Art, for part three, on this phenomenal book that we both love how to Be an Artist by Mr Jerry Seltz.

Anything else to add?

Nope, bye by Mr Jerry Sultz.

Anything else to add?

Nope, bye, perfect Bye.