All right.

So we are live in, not Waco, texas, this is what do you call this?

Waco?

It's Woodway, but Waco Listen, no one's got to be selling and I'm just full of location in Texas.

We are live in Dallas, texas, yes, right.

So I had a reason to come meet in the area and we decided why not?

Let's hang out?

Let's go Just for two, if you want.

So it was fun, we can use it in person.

Yeah, we're going to a snow town when we get there, yep, and it's always fun to have studio visits, absolutely Always.

Is it's absolutely always?

I'm still going to be a little distracted by looking at a lot of the work we are talking about.

Yeah, it's.

So we just figured, since we're going to be in the same place, let's talk about just kind of what's complemented for us, what do we think about in the studio, what different ideas we're bringing to the work, and just kind of some more present and current ideas that we've been, yeah, sitting with him and kind of looking through.

So we both kind of have a little list going.

We definitely will not get to all of them.

No, there's probably a list of them sitting this way, maybe 10.

That's the problem.

Hey, let's put together some notes on things we should talk about.

And then we both get a little very eager and all of a sudden there's like four pages of ideas.

But I guess that's good.

I mean mean, we'll get you something, yeah, maybe or not, you know.

So, um, why don't you kick us out?

Sorry, we're gonna kind of go pink almost all back and forth, but what's the first thing that you wanted to kind of get into today and what are you thinking about, buddy?

Yeah, I was, as we were preparing, uh, I was really going through everything that's been in my head right for the last, I guess, since the end of last year, looking at new ideas and trying to figure out new exploration and discovering new things, and where I felt, not the work currently, but where the future work, rather than just telling me to go chase and go after.

So, as I've been working since the end of last year on ideas and really keeping them pretty close to the chest, other than sharing with a few select people in my network of artists, I've really kept it to me.

So then I I kept having this idea, as I'm always reading and studying other artists.

When do you know you have a breakthrough.

Like, when is breakthrough an actual breakthrough?

Because I've had multiple times over the last year where I thought I was turning that page and and then all of a sudden, I would text you and go I just took 10 steps back, right, I'm fighting.

I didn't talk about it last week, but I told you I was fighting.

Well, this is constantly.

Over the last year, it's been this process of I think I'm turning the page, but then all of a sudden I go no, no, no, that's why did I think to go that way?

Okay, now let's revert back right and, as we were looking through 30 pieces last night and then work and I will, you know that was the end.

That was the starting point.

Yeah, right here.

And then what it led me to is so far away, yeah, from this.

Yeah, but I had to start this in order to get to there and I feel like I just had the breakthrough.

I really am confident that a breakthrough is starting.

Well, I think that's one of the things that we should probably discuss.

You, you referenced it briefly but, like you know very more than any breakthroughs happen without some breakdowns.

Yeah, at least for now, you know.

So talk more about.

Like, what were the how did you?

How did you?

What do you do in general?

How do you talk to yourself?

What do you remind yourself of?

Yeah, when we feel like it's just breakdown, yeah, I'm gonna be vague a bit too, because I haven't put the work out which we'll talk about later.

Today too, I'm still holding the work back from really showing that, other than most things here and there.

But the challenge is when you're on the long journey, when you're on that course, just staying really patient and get free time which we've talked about in the past because you think something's gonna happen and you feel it going, but you're still in a process of learning.

You have not learned yet.

You are currently learning.

Right in learning, you realize, either I didn't understand I fully thought I understand it at one point or these things aren't working the way my mind thought they would work tangibly, material, wise, right.

They're not doing what my mind thought they will do.

I have to work through all that and screw it up and mess it up and paying over to figure out how those relationships will start to take shape and work together.

Yep, and I think that's taken me since last october.

Yeah, really, so we're coming pretty close to a full year of that, yeah, and not showing any of it to anybody, which is also scary, yeah, and fear, and it's a lot of waiting.

That I'm you know, but does that answer the question at all?

Yeah, kind of.

I mean, I think where I was going with that is it is.

You know, I think it's important for me, it's great for anybody to get somebody who's been doing this long.

You have those, you know you've got a quite a big success in part space that every time you work through an idea that you are thinking about, that you're developing a body of work, that you go through a version of this Every time.

Yeah, and I mean, there's been some that ask that the idea after a year's worth of work was completely scrapped and then takes a total new turn to something completely different that looks nothing like it did, yeah, that entire class year.

You said something interesting.

I'd like to even talk more about the this idea.

It has to.

It started here and I see where it's evolved too.

Um, and other people will you know soon enough, but where?

Um, I guess just about that, but a little bit more you know.

So you know, do you do you wrestle with?

Like, how do you, how do you keep from getting sort of anchored to the original idea or trying to sort of on the original idea, versus letting it develop the way that it decides and wants to evolve?

Well, I think that's going to be different for every artist.

I'm asking you, right?

Yeah, so for me, because my work is so story based, yeah, the idea isn't in the actual work, so to speak.

It's that idea of the story behind the work, right?

So I'm doing everything I can to stay as true to the idea of the story I want to tell through the work, yeah, which, as you can see, has taken many different turns, but I'm keeping, as much as I can, that essence of my purpose for that body of work wrapped up within each piece, right, which I think also gives me the freedom for that work to change drastically within a body, mm-hmm, for piece one to be so different than piece 38, I'm on now or 40, in that body work, right, they're drastically different, yeah, but I think, as we were talking last and you're asking me some questions about, like, oh, but the line's still there, I'm like, yeah, they're here, just paint it over, and yeah, but trying to keep that original essence of that nostalgic moment.

Yeah, that's spurred on the end yet as far as, yeah, honoring the original story, then, through my will, we go hard together.

Yeah, I think I know we're going to talk about this two of you but we used the word alchemy last.

Last week you talked about it, and there is alchemy in that too.

Yeah, because you're taking that idea of something and you're trying to manipulate it right, right into something.

What can these things do?

Right, the alchemist, oh what.

We put these two things together.

Well, this dude, can we refine this more, can we?

Yeah, so that divine spark, that first little thing, the idea, oh what if we still keeping the initial thing, but then it could take hundreds or thousands of different variations?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a question for you with that too, because I know there's a lot of new things and I'm sure we're both going to be pretty vague.

It's big right now because we're working out a lot of ideas, and so we, we want to wait until we're fully confident before we really really throw them out there too.

But we're all, uh, into the audience you must be holding thousand.

We're just going to go for mostly, okay, mostly.

If I can get some, mostly confident we'll talk about it later too.

But thinking about breakthroughs and thinking about just that full idea, how is that represented in your head as you're moving through material, the new material and new ways to manipulate those materials?

And you know, I've seen you have breakthroughs from original ideas to where you are now.

I've seen major breakthroughs and it's been really fun to watch.

Like, how does that play in your head?

Especially thinking about exploration and discovery and all that yeah, I think that's something I've been thinking about a lot lately is just the benefits of having a methodical approach.

So I think about, early on, it was all just sort of, you know, unbridled experimentation without any real plane or some system around how I was approaching it.

That's exactly what I needed to be doing during that time.

And I think, as I've begun to mature, you know, as an artist, it's really, you know, I spend a lot more time thinking about that idea of like, all right, when is the time to explore and when is the time to exploit?

And it's an idea I've been reading about in this book that I've referenced a couple times in previous podcasts.

But this book called the Explorer's Chain, I have a thought to the same and he talks about this whole.

Let me make sure you're ready.

The explorer, exploit dilemma.

So he defines it as so exploration, variation, risk-taking, experimentation, play, flexibility, discovery, innovation.

This book isn't meant for artists, but it could be.

Yeah, okay, exploitation encompasses refinement, choice, production, efficiency, selection, implementation and execution.

He goes on to write you can exploit the knowledge and resources you already have, or you can explore in search of a moment that is uncertain but might turn out to be better.

And so I like to read, you know, obviously mostly in the arts space now, but I'm always, as we do as artists, kind of making these connections between what I'm absorbing and how it's going to play out in work.

So this idea of you know what I've been working towards is I'm exploring the unknown while exploiting the known.

Yeah, which is what we're doing, 100% yeah, and the way that I've been approaching that is much more systematic than before in terms of just like.

I believe that, like SOEs, you know, just a standard operator here is how I approach this.

That equals to me, me accelerated intention groups, because in the absence of a system to sort of collect these ideas, I have and I don't know about it.

I think I can safely say you've almost came up as well, like if all I did was execute on the ideas that I have in journals, in my head, in different documents.

It would take me 10 or 11 times yeah, and that's assuming nothing new right, which it does the first you know day, what time, yeah.

So that's kind of the people think about it.

But I think for me it's like if I can have a system in place, if I can create and follow these sort of rules basically, and then iterate, right.

So one of the things I've been much more intentional about is how do I sort of gather the ideas that you know flow through the antenna, and one of the things I've started doing recently instead of I still do it all as well, but I'm such an external processor in how I sort of like just work through information I started using voice and gas, you know, and that became a really good way for me to also emotionally decompress.

When driving from the studio, your commute is about six steps Again, about a 13-minute drive from the studio back to the house, and so just hitting voice, hitting record, and as I listened back to some of those, a lot of them were just, you know me, pump my head.

Good day.

Here's what we got.

You know what I mean.

Just like trying to feel good about having accomplished something, but also doing like studio walkthroughs of, like all my babies that are you know all the seven or whatever 17 or 27 crying babies that are all just straight out of the house and just kind of like like, okay, this could go with, that, this could and just walking and talking and then from there taking those brain dumps and turning them into, categorizing them into okay, is this specifically referencing work in progress?

Is this just a new idea or a new thing?

Yeah, is this a new process or experiment?

And try, is this a task, process or experiment?

I need to try.

Is this a task, a new to-do list?

But it's sort of like making sense of the mess that lies in my mind and then converting it into a digital document that will either go into my master, new body and work document and then the tasks and interviews get transferred into sheets.

This is just when I said, yeah, this is not okay, do this, but it's just what works for me.

And so with, like, the master document, especially with this new body of work, I've got declarations, decisions, decisions I've made descriptions, process experiments, tests needed.

You know new skills that I require.

I'm taking a welding course right now because I need to learn how to weld to do what I, what I'm young with sculpture and then figure out you know what tools do I need to buy and how much we're doing to still be able to do that.

In my estimate on this entire thing, you know new setup, but it's it's all based around that idea of like, all right, I want to exploit what I know.

Back to that definition of I'll refine and choose, produce, be efficient, select, implement and execute based on the known, while still searching variation, risk and experimentation play, like both of those things.

Right, you know?

And I found that if I'm too rigid with hey, this is the plan to your filming about like this is the original idea.

I just want to.

I found that if I'm too rigid with hey, this is the plan to your point about like this is the original idea.

I just want to see this through.

If I'm too rigid with that, then I'm not leaving space, you know, to follow the beautiful overtributaries of rigor and see where they might lead.

If I'm too flexible, then I completely can lose.

We can completely lose sight of the original, you know, plan or idea and and the loose side of the essence of its origin symbol.

I think for me it's been just kind of really fighting the battles between those two things.

I wonder, and I think I I started really thinking about this because of old books that I'm reading about artists who are nasty and the break, those breakthrough balance.

So you know, they go from something that they've been doing for years and all of a sudden it's like that aha moment.

Yeah, you know reading about ellsworth kelly having his moments like that.

We about san francis, the joe mitchell, all these artists like that were having those moments.

I've tried to make that be in my foreconscious way, more that idea of what.

I think it's just that expectation, having an expectation that breakthrough will come with time.

Yeah, rather than years ago, I just make work and really get frustrated when things aren't working the way I want them to and things aren't turning out the way I would like and being embarrassed or you know about what this looks like Shit.

Where am I going?

Instead, I'm going this is leading to a breakthrough.

All the shitty work, yeah, all the stuff that gets covered up, all the stuff that never needs a studio, all the stuff that didn't sell.

That's leading into the breakthrough, right?

If I didn't make it, yeah, then I'm really far away, yeah, from the possibility of a major breakthrough.

Yeah, what does that look like?

I don't know, I don't know.

I think I've had little snippets of it, like little mini breakthroughs.

But I just wonder because, you know, I look at some of my favorite artists out there today and creating art and I'm looking at their work and I'm going.

10 years ago that work was really weak, yeah, it wasn't strong when you were young, you know.

And then all of a sudden, there's this moment where you're like, how in the world did I literally go from that to that?

How in the world to rashid johnson, go from there to there, right, and as for some people, it's place and network right and and they get a moment that happens.

For others, it's head down, just work, work, work, work, work, and then they're just massive.

They have this breakthrough and things happen.

I'm confusing two points.

I shouldn't have gone there with network and stuff, because that's more career breakthrough than the work breakthrough.

But, yeah, so for me, I'm trying to make it in my head to be thinking about more, because that also makes me work a little bit longer.

Sometimes, yeah, and put a little bit more.

Or we all do this, I know you all probably do it out there too, you start to get low on materials and we want to conserve a little bit.

Or you're like, oh, if I ruin this canvas right now, I'm not gonna be able to buy canvas for a little while longer.

Yeah, so because I'm not really pushing my work right now, I'm not selling work right now because I'm in this holding.

So for me it's like I don't really want to go spend more money on more material.

So let's make sure these canvases work out.

But if I have break like breakthroughs, keep just ruining it, just push through it, just paint over it.

Like and it's what I'm hearing is the belief that the breakthroughs will come.

Yes, that keeps you from falling in the track of just sort of reverting by playing it safe.

Playing it safe, I don't want to play it safe.

Yeah, that's really been one of my.

I want to play it safe and take these risks.

I want to explore.

And if you're exploring, you're not playing safe.

Well, it's funny you say that I don't know when I sort of made this decision, but, but I made a very distinct choice at one point, that that I've stuck with, which is I'm always going to prioritize, prioritize, pushing the work forward over potentially ruining what's in front of me.

Yes, and realizing that ruining what's in front of me may be a full circle there to actually push the work forward.

You know, yeah, and that goes back to the whole idea of you know, nothing is precious.

I mean, a lot of things are very, the process is precious, the practice is precious.

I mean, a lot of things are very, the process is precious, the practice is precious.

But what?

This piece in front of me, if I treat it like, oh, I don't want to ruin it, the, the fear and the reservation, and that that just causes me to pull back, absolutely place it and place it and your best work's not going to come out.

So jacqueline avoids that.

So she has a quote that says take risks, experiment and always stay out of your comfort zone.

It will take you places.

Yeah, I think that taking places is a combo of taking places with your work.

It will take you places in the art world.

Yeah, the artists who are willing to be risky and stay out of that comfort zone and screw a whole lot of stuff up, and they're on the bookshelf.

They have had major breakthroughs, yeah, because they're not playing their trend.

They're not playing to what just came before last year, what they're like.

I mean rasheed's, johnson, rasheed shell, the guggenheim that's not a traditional art.

Show you, there's a lot of different risky things happening in all of the work, from paintings, sculptures to natural plant life elements and things.

Right, that's not playing it safe.

Right, still to do with plants, like that's not playing it safe.

It took him places in his work because I can guarantee going with all and I remember his first, uh, natural, like plant installations and things they were smaller, they were square, almost like little room type things and stuff that led him to now these major you know major installations and it's like it took him places in his work that affected the paintings, that affected the sculptures, that affected every little thing he has hands on, took him places in the work.

And then it took him places in the art world.

Right, not plain and safe, yeah, but it started to work, started to work, yeah, yeah, I mean I've been so far out of my comfort zone, yeah, with things that I'm doing, trying to play the fibers and doing all these different things, right, and that it's so far right.

It feels really weird, yeah, it feels really really awkward, yeah, and I keep going, keep going, keep calling myself, just keep going.

That's the.

That, to me, is the benefit of making decisions from from a place of intention and then sticking with those choices.

For example, you know, I made a choice, um, and really I was wrestling with it, we were talking about it, you know, when we were together in montana.

How long was that?

A month and a half ago, yeah, and um, playing rides are are important for this one.

Always, I have a rule I do not watch movies on the plane and parties are full because there's something about my idea.

Like I'm just like boom, like I just get there.

There's nowhere for me to go, there's very low for me to be distracted by, and so, you know, I wrote, after some journaling that I've done on the tree and I just said I'm I'm all in on sculpture.

That's, this is all I'm doing, you know, for this period of time.

And boy, I mean the number of logistical challenges around.

Okay, well, working three-dimensional, how am I going to figure out how to?

I mean just basic things that I, even even just a month late, like I now I have to add it in.

But as I was just getting started, like, how do I hold this up and figure out how this won't interact with, with the elements, you know, and going through different iterations of okay, is it wood, is it screw, is it glue, is it resin?

Elements you know, and going through different iterations of okay, is it wood, is it screw, is it glue, is it resin, is it?

You know, how do I even just get these to stand up right so that they can, you know, interact with one another?

But it's all of those things that are required, and if I hadn't made that decision on the front end, I'm fairly certain that I would have probably defaulted to what I was more comfortable with, because, okay, right, and all this exists on a wall, this is, this is in my world.

I was something open, what to do, yeah, but you're talking about alchemy earlier and that's another, another thing.

This is kind of a process when you did, but I was just really going and thinking about like one of the things from our Leonardo Drew conversation where he talked about cannibalizing, you know, from existing elements.

I've really been reflecting on the whole idea of you know the work, sort of you know, feeding on itself and off of itself, and so, as I've been thinking about different things, especially from a three-dimensional perspective, this idea of cyclical counterbalance initiative, so this would be just my version of applied alchemy.

So one thing I realized this is one of those just odd moments I was like, okay, anything can become, I can cast anything within 2-0.

Not actual alchemy, I'm not turning something, but you know.

And so really diving my process was in understanding how to use petrol, sand, right for sand casting, but realizing, okay, I can turn metal into metal, I can turn resin into metal, I can turn wood into metal, I can turn core plastic, all of it.

And then really diving in my process for that, the other part that I did, and all the devil works about lately, is deep cast resin.

It's a, it's called ice, it looks like ice, that's the end product, so it's called waste.

Um, but anything didn't come, nice, you know.

So that's more figuring out.

Right, how do I make silicone?

You know, how do I, how do I make these molds?

But realizing that I can then ten elements and repurpose them, rarely in their exact form, but portions of it, you know, but that was just such a a big, a big, just lightning bolt moment for me, which is pretty obvious when I say that I think about it.

But then taking it from the idea to the tactical logic, how do I do this?

Okay, what do I need to do in terms of myself?

What spaces do I need to be able to do those things?

Yeah, so, with a major commitment to shifting.

We're both kind of in this moment, currently in different ways as you're making this shift to currently just focusing on sculpture, learning, exploring, taking all your materials, all the different things that you just talked about, from your ice to your, uh, petra bond, petra bond, yes, to all the different things you're playing with, turning into combining, forming, casting, not casting, right, what is your mind?

Sex, we kind of shared mine already.

Well, how has your mindset been?

As far as like, when will I know I'm ready?

When will I know I have something?

Wait while I get to the point where I'm like now I really know where to go.

Yeah, has there been fear there?

Oh, yeah, yeah, talk, talk about that.

I mean, you know I just started.

I completed my first couple sculptures we talked last episode about.

You know I stopped in those deadlines.

I have one, maybe, whatever episode two ago and I sat there before I came down here.

I have three down.

I got two or three, you know, complete.

But even just yesterday, you know, before I hopped on a plane, yesterday was my photo day.

I take photos and take some videos of these and it's a very, it's a very bold feeling even for me to send to you and then have you reply to that text and just imagine that you think they're shit.

Yeah, but you know, I mean that's a.

So there's a vulnerability there, you know, and I think it comes down to confidence in do I like this?

Do I I mean, at the end of the day, we're all making a work for ourselves, first and foremost, right, I meanas podcast, and she said, you know, ultimately I'm paraphrasing, of course but, um, ultimately, you know, as artists, we're making work for ourselves and we don't know what's going to see one day on the board, if anyone else is on it or, if you want, they're going to say about it, and so just kind of using that as a governing principle for myself, because it is very emotional.

It's very emotional to you know, wander life.

Is this the page like I want?

Am I on?

I'm on something on something like is this a breakthrough or is this just a necessary step to get to a point where am I close?

Am I, you know, where am I out of the map?

You know is a very real, you know, just question that, that that comes to my mind.

So it comes back to just that, that belief of all right.

So for these first couple meetings I was like I like this, I like having them around, yeah, you know, yeah, they say to me what I was trying to say to you and that's that's enough from, yeah, whether anything happens with them.

You know, and it's taking me a while to get to that place.

You know, I know earlier on for me a while to get to that place.

You know, I know earlier on, for me for sure, I was almost completely dependent on external, you know, validation and validation.

You say like oh yeah, that's good, okay, cool, this is good.

Yeah, that points from all over.

We have other people, other opinions.

Oh, okay, all right, good Now.

No, it art good now.

No, it's good, it's good, but I like, I like, I like where it's going.

And also just back to your idea of just the belief of like this is just a step.

There's, there's, there's more coming.

You know this is just a necessary step to get to.

You know that's coming in and I am I'm so fired up about what's going on.

I want every artist that's listening right now to just go write this down when you get home or if you stop, pull the car over If you're driving, if you're in the studio.

Just write this down the work is taking me somewhere.

I want you all to be so confident that even in the work that you're hating right now is taking you somewhere.

Just know that.

I know we all are doubting so many things in the studio that we're doing every day, every day.

And for the younger artists out there younger, not an age, but an artwork that don't have a gallery or you're not workers, just don't worry about that stuff.

Just keep working on the work and know the work is taking you somewhere.

If you're dedicated and you're working and you're creating, the work is going to get somewhere.

It will get there.

And this is, let me ask something yeah, yeah, don't take our word for it.

Go to the source.

Yeah, go to every.

I mean it does get an amazing collection of biographies, autobiographies.

Go to the source, I mean, go to the greatest and, just like you, will not find a single.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I don't think you've read the same story I haven't read it yet when there's at least one, if one, if not multiple, examples of those.

What am I doing?

You know?

Moments or those, those genesis pieces that maybe are or are not what we think that would be that ultimately become, you know what they are ultimately known for?

Yeah, yeah, it just, it takes time and I know it here's.

I'm gonna.

I want to pose this as a question.

Uh, let me see if I'm gonna read this quote first and then pose the question.

Yeah, I want to read this quote first because it talks about everything you just said.

This is from the artist Tali Lennox Don't rush to get your workout.

It takes time to achieve quality and find your truth.

Welcome in patience and perseverance over the seduction of the media graphic.

Yeah, and my question that I want to ask and I'm asking myself this currently right now, as the art world is changing, which it's always going to change it's a never-evolving amoeba and with so much more online accessibility, acceptance, the way that Instagram has exploded as an artist platform, where we know there's a brand new generation of art lovers and collectors that see instagram as their gallery, as their go-to guide to find new artists and curators.

The art world is doing the same thing on Instagram.

So I've been asking this question lately, like releasing work.

Today, with Instagram and social media, pressure looks totally different than it did 10 years ago.

How long should we wait to release our work?

Should we just share it in the process, you know, or should we hold back and wait until we're fully confident and ready?

Now, years ago, I don't have an answer, I'm just.

I think this is a great conversation.

Years ago, the artists would wait, build up, release the work to their galleries, to their curators, to their dealers, to go here's 25 paintings from this funny work, maybe it's a show, maybe they're whatever's selling that body work.

And it was like here it all is.

It wasn't like here's one painting, here's a second painting, but two months later it was like here's all Mm-hmm.

The pressure for us today is I need the algorithm to keep finding me, because that's where I'm finding my audience outside of who already follows me curators, gallerists may discover me.

So should I share?

But if you're not fully confident in your work, yeah, shouldn't really share it, because that immediate gratification could stall what's coming down the road.

Yeah, if somebody, if you get or lack thereof, lack thereof Right Will make you feel like you're not on the right track.

So I've really just been kind of talking to myself about it.

Things have changed, yeah, things are changing and evolving.

So there are going to be things that are going to be different and more accepted, and fine, yeah, whatever, things are changing and evolving, so there are going to be things that are going to be different and more accepted, and fine, yeah, whatever, I still think.

For me, I don't want to really really show until I'm absolutely confident in the work, in the idea.

Now, I know all of my work I'm not going to be happy with.

That doesn't mean I didn't fully execute the idea in it, right.

Right, because I have pieces I love that nobody looks like.

I have pieces that I don't like as much that people absolutely love, right.

But if I really feel like I found my truth in that work and it's really true to the idea, yeah, if there were some weaker elements in it that I didn't really like, but yet it got the right court of approval.

You know from my artist peers, from my artist network, that I might be missing something, but it's in the right.

Well, I think what you're talking I mean the timing is everything so you're discussing is you know the pieces that you're talking about and you know that you're confident in enough that it's true to you and work, but that you don't love as much as you know these over here, let's you're still putting that you're still because who are you?

We talk all the time right once you're, once it's out the world, it's not ours, you know, and who are you to rob somebody?

You know the experience of really enjoying something, um, that that you maybe don't love as much.

I mean, it's not the first thing that you had.

Yeah, hopefully that we'll open the mansion when we're home, but I think the timing, really that's really what it comes down to.

I don't know if I'm asking a different question originally than anyone, but it's like I think it's worth noting that, as far as whatever posting things or sharing things publicly is concerned, that when we appear to be most productive, it's actually in my face, in years as well, it's it's months.

It's a long time after the audience was actually made, you know.

And so to your question, like I think a lot about.

I've just made peace with, I mean, my presence, you know, online, or how visible I'm going to be with what sharon are doing is just it's going to be.

With what she and I are doing is just it's going to be sick of and just being okay with that, right like I'm.

There was a time when I was playing that game of posting every day, and I think that that was mostly unhealthy.

The one utility of that for me was that it definitely kept me productive.

Yeah, so that that again, that was a season for me.

That has since passed and I'm not going to longer feel like I worked for fucking instant.

Yeah, I mean, like, if I have something that I'm excited to share, as we're sharing rocking, yeah, and until it's ready, it's not ready.

The other thing, I mean not to make this an instagram conversation, but the other part, I want to a little bit, though.

Okay, because I know that's.

I know foreign artists listening yeah, that's a big thing.

That's all of our heads.

So here's a little shit.

I mean and I think this is true for you as well I mean the work that I'm confident in I'm going to post that.

You know, two, three, two, three, four times.

It's going to cost them a year, right, yeah, realizing that, especially with the way the algorithm is not really seeing it, there's a really good chance that only a small percent of people who would actually enjoy seeing it see it, actually see it.

Right, and so it's always.

There's no better test.

I mean, we've actually done this with reposting the episode that we're going a couple years ago and people that we know well, yeah, who listen to you know and get most, or if not every episode, you're like, hey, that new episode was great.

More like, I think, actually every artist, yeah, which may not say enough for us, the redundancy of our time, but we're only excited, you know.

So, just, I mean, I think that's that's part of it.

I mean, if there's because that you know what's happening, I'm, you know.

So just, I mean, I think that's that's part of it.

I mean, if there's because that you know it's happening, I'm, you know you already feel weird about it and it's just something to what a steady stomach is, you know.

But if I've been again, like I said, it's, it's all what, who you move.

You know what are we looking for?

You know, it's a tool, it's a use, it's a very useful one to leverage properly, but I mean for me, if I'm thinking about the work through the lens of how's this going to perform or you know, whatever I've already already lost.

Well and for, for all you artists out there, your instagram page unless you're exploding in ring galleries and like it should be a germ.

Yeah, it should be a visual germ should be your approach.

The delphian gallery book is has fantastic advice on that, and I would say make it a visual germ.

Yeah, you don't.

Oh, and I write.

I'm not showing finished pieces right now, but I'm giving hints.

Yeah, like I'm updating whoever's watching, which I know there are art world people watching.

Yeah, may not be following me, but I know they're watching because I did make comments or I've seen them like something, yeah, and so I want to make sure that I'm still keeping them updated on progress.

So it may be close to little shots of the yarn fiber on things.

It may be, you know, a wide shot at me in the studio, but I'm you need to be showing that you're working and that your work is moving, it's growing, it's you're creating constantly.

I'm not seeing posts every day.

You can't.

If you want, yeah, but that's, it's exhausting.

You know I've been ig exhausted, you know.

You know it.

Honestly, I fear too, because I know people are going to instagram and I know I don't want posts like I used to.

I don't want to spend the time anymore, so I'm kind of tired of it, yeah, and, but it is my visual joe.

I need to be updating.

I've made great friends from instagram and mentees and artists that I work with and network with around the globe.

So I would say don't put all your stock into it, as you need to be spending a ton of time, but keep it updated regularly, talk about your work and your progress and things that you're doing and trying, and if you don't want to show your work, just show glimpses of you in the studio working, yeah, and then, when the work is, when you're confident, now put that painting, now put that sculpture up, or that drawing or that piece up, and then go back to the visual journal and then put a piece up.

I've been using this really isn't like tactical or probably even smart, but I've just been using stories as my sort of ongoing journal.

Yes, almost like a new story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, if you can't have that, um, there's just one little, but it's not this, this, you know, whatever, and I do actually enjoy doing that to start to finish.

You know, that's something that I enjoy.

Um, and and and those actually do tend to, you know, and it's actually I find it to be healthy for me as well.

I did this on the plane, um, just looking back through, you know, all the random clips that I've collected, like, oh yeah, it actually for me it is, it is fulfilling, it's a good reminder.

Like you know, I have a tendency to be very, very hard on myself and to, and that's another benefit with this sort of like you know brain, you know I have a tendency to be very hard on myself and to, and that's another benefit with this sort of like you know brain, you know I had hard dunk, you know that I do, you know, on the drop home.

So, oh, actually, as I kind of just go through like the mental list of, okay, we'll do this, we'll do that, we'll do that.

And I said, because I'm sitting in the creative directorate of the organization, yeah, oh, senior creative director in the years, yeah, oh, yeah, you know part of you know everything, and I can count, following my various personalities, that I've taken in the studio as well.

But it's just nice to be able to say, just look back through the photos and say, well, yeah, I forgot about those two days that I totally got, you know, detoured, you know in my mind, right, and that's that's why I get stuck.

Actually, this is, it's good that I'm thinking this now.

That's why I get stuck is so I, this is the will be the downside of having a plus two side.

I get two.

Well, no, I get two, for this is what I'm trying to be a competition in this right.

So after that, explore, exploit, like, okay, I'm going to exploit whatever I'm going to execute, let's say, in sports kind of word of work, I'm going to execute on these ideas and on this plan with intention.

And then something sparks and I'm like, all right, I gotta, I gotta do it, I gotta do it right now, while it's fresh, yeah, and so the day ends.

I look back my my plan.

Going into the day I did one of the seven things that I had on my list.

But when I go back to those photos and videos just little, little things about most things captured for myself, just a log I'm like, oh, okay, cool, yeah, I did push these pieces forward that I was hoping to get down by next day.

Yeah, but that's valuable, that's a valuable detour that will pay down, as in the future.

And I think for me, one thing that's really reinforced that belief that the Bracer is coming is by going back and seeing like, oh wait, this is.

I used an element in the sculpture recently and I could do whatever and go into details of my crossface.

But I make a lot of different.

Just call them elements or artifacts, sometimes with an intention that's what they're going of the Microsoft.

But I make a lot of different just call them elements or artifacts, sometimes with the attention of what they're gonna be used for.

But I'll usually make whatever seven versions of something that I'm gonna use one on for this particular piece and the rest just gets stored in the ever growing library of potential players that can get a role in the future, play right.

And so for me to circle back was oh, this is something that's been waiting for us, this is a, this is the great actor who's been waiting for the chance to really shine, and I now have a perfect part for them in this plane.

That wasn't even written, yeah, right, when we were first.

Today, I think I just came up with the definition for you as an artist.

Great, I'm ready.

I think you're an abstract archaeologist.

I like that Because you're working in abstracts, but I do really see you as an archaeologist, an alchemist archaeologist like nix.

Right, because you're constantly uncovering and basically digging up things.

Yeah, right, so like creating your artifacts, but then I'll see you have them all on the table the way an archaeologist would literally sift through the sand and pull all the pieces out to create the skeleton for the dinosaur buildings they found or whatever, it is right.

And then you're thinking through how to piece all that together, to take what was buried, discarded or whatever, and then piece it together into something that goes into a space, I think.

I think what archaeologists would consider together and take it to the Smithsonian or Natural Science Museum or whatever.

So I don't know.

It just popped in my head.

I like that a lot.

I think about exclamating yeah, it's funny discovering things.

I think that's a very hard statement.

Exclamating it is yeah, but you know it's funny.

It is a lot like that where it's like okay, we've got this femur bone chamber bung and the moment when I've whatever, the bung that every day again, yeah, it's like when I find the you know I can look at, because I do.

I absolutely do that.

Actually, I don't really share a lot of studio shots, but right now the studio is take nothing a lot of tables and tables and all my little.

It's actually back to my systematic approach.

I finally this this is where I've got a set of days, sometimes weeks, since I'm like, alright, I've got all of these things laying around, how do I sort them out, sort the categories?

Then I've got a bunch of different slides in the shell.

I pull a slide I bet that would and send them next week.

I'm going to discuss the other one or two.

But the excitement, the charge that I get when two completely disparate elements just work together like they were made for each other.

We talk about the addictive nature of this process.

That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I had an addictive moment the other day and then I just went crazy on multiple pieces with that moment.

Yeah, right, and I was like I don't care if these don't work in any of these.

Yeah, it worked in these two, so I need to keep rolling.

It's the outfits.

And then I'm like, no, no, that's not working at all.

It worked for those.

That's not working.

There's something to be said for that.

It was the whole like, like you know, when all you have is an hour, everything looks like a nail yeah, and if it works 10% of the time, yeah, then it works good good times.

There's a quote by the most people know, signing the curry, the auctioneer, and if you're in the art world or around there, you've seen that in every art documentary in the last 30 years I don't know 40.

But he says Instagram will have the same impact on the art market as YouTube have on the music industry.

The online market is here to stay.

I'm assuming that was probably 10 years ago ago, and that's.

I keep reading quotes like that from art world people.

So that makes me always ask myself, though, because we want to be ahead of things as artists, so we don't want to get behind things as hard, so we want to stay on top of, and kind of a hand up, where things are going, especially for us, that aren't in new york, aren't in la berlin, major art cities around the world.

If you're not in that city around everything, we're all kind of still.

We're all kind of playing catch-up or trying to get to.

So I think it was kenny schachter that said always read, that's how I stay on top and ahead of things.

I'm always always reading.

I think he said I'm reading seven books at a time, constantly.

And then he said, uh, read art journalcom, because the second update, but that's how he stays ahead and stays on.

Oh, instagram, okay, we need to know here.

But I did that years ago.

I was like this is right.

When instagram started right, I talked about on the podcast.

Before I watched, watched Heather Day explode from Instagram, I was like I'm copying everything she's doing with what she's doing on her platform.

Yeah, this I got to go.

So it's like reading, studying, staying ahead, so you kind of can go.

Oh, I don't have to put ketchup.

Yeah, so it's like when you read, they are an auctioneer saying Instagram will be what YouTube did for the music industry, which is taking an independent musician in their room with a guitar and turning them into an international superstar.

He's saying it is giving the artist the ability to have a major platform, to have a major platform.

20 years ago there was no major platform if you weren't in New York or LA or Chicago or Miami as an artist and in the scene getting your work in front of people.

Right, it was.

You're moving to one of those places or kind of staying.

So it's giving that ability yeah, if you do it well, yeah, and you learn and you do it, you can have an impact that could get you somewhere.

Well, it's removing we've removed the middleman, yeah, yep, which is great.

If you're doing the work yourself, yeah, right, I mean, if you're not, so the the point is, if you're not putting it out there, then then you are still dependent upon the, you know, antiquated model of just hoping that's something magical.

It's a piece of, yeah, exactly, but it's a great piece.

Your, your youtube, uh, that youtube reference.

It's interesting, I don't know why this just popped in mind.

Um, uh, that, okay, go video.

Yep, right from this, probably 15 years ago, absolutely that.

But where they did it's incredibly creative, with the among treadmills, yes, yeah, and they did all themselves, yeah, just diy.

And it was not just about the music but the presentation of what they were doing.

Yeah, it was so unique and so fresh that they became undeniable and got out of their whole, you know, whatever that's the word, but I'm sure we got a lot more opportunity, way more visibility, because, you know, they put it out first.

Yeah, you know, I mean, we're just, you know, a couple of people in the studio with the camera, the microphone, yeah, putting it up there and see what happens.

Yeah, exactly, we haven't gotten anybody to have discovered us and taken us into a radio station and given us, you know, a 90 minutes log.

No, we're just doing it.

Well, it's the Steve Martin quote.

Yeah, be so good that the crowd can't bore you.

Right, be so good that the crowd can't bore you.

Be so good that they find you.

So we have that ability today, which didn't exist for history, of an audience finding you rather than you always having to go to an audience.

And that's magic.

It really is an incredible thing, but it takes time and it takes effort, and that's the hard really is an incredible thing, but it takes time, you know, and it takes effort, and that's the hard part.

And there's, we can line up my gary.

This won't get us to tell, yes, but I mean what's wrong?

Yeah, it's on the screen, but but there is a, you know there's.

There's a I don't say learning curve, there's a comfort curve and I call it to just being.

We were talking to man, your wife, you know, last time about, about, you know, with her business and social media and yeah, right, and it's like, okay, well, you know, is there utility to this, you know, for you?

And while you're trying to push and if there is all right, well, get on wherever you're at do your artist room on the comfortability curve was putting things out?

There?

There is, I mean.

It took me a long time and I'm generally like kind of okay with that and, generally speaking, especially when it came to early work, where I was like, oh, this might suck, you know, and who knows, you know, maybe Jeremy's going to, you know, include you in a post and yeah, of course, and it should have been shared there we go, but it does speak to just, you know, getting more comfortable and in my mind, that only really comes from just doing it in repetition.

Yeah, you know you're not going to stink your way into, you know, consistent action.

It's making a part of your routine, which is what I did in the beginning, where I would just set up my tripod with my phone in the corner back of the studio, hit record and just let it run, and then, of course, thursdays I'd forget, and then I'd be like, no, I just missed the whole two days I forgot I'd set my phone up but I didn't hit record because I got into it.

But then over time it became so much part of the routine that I'd just walk in, set it up record, didn't even think about it.

And then it became part of the routine.

I was like, ooh, I'm going to produce this a little bit more, rather than just the one white shot.

So then every layer I would move my tripod to a different location in the studio to capture different angles of layers.

And then that became routine, without even thinking I'd go to grab a tripod, go to grab, you know, and I would spend quite a bit of time editing things.

But then all of a sudden that became quick.

Now all those things I can just edit real quick.

And then technology increased over the years.

Before you could do it all on your phone and edit it.

And now I can go to my computer and know, use premiere pro, pro things.

Now I can just do it all on my phone.

And then I really wanted shorter content so it made it easier.

So, but you can build that into your routine because you you have to do your marketing, you have to advertise for yourself, especially before someone's doing it for you yes, you have to clean those things and even after someone's doing it for you, because they're never going to care about you as much as you.

Yeah, that's another great quote.

I forget who said it Laurie Anderson, no, it was Julian Schaum.

You need to control every aspect of your work in the studio and as it goes, not once it's out.

As it goes, because you're the only person that knows your work.

Nobody knows it better than you.

So you have that ability to do that with your social media at least.

So bake those things into your routine so you can control that narrative before it's just the.

That ability to do that with your social media at least.

So bake those things into your routine so you can control that narrative before it's just the audience of this show.

You know where it's going in the gallery, how it should be lit, how it should be with the other pieces.

You can work through those things with the curator.

Don't just throw it out to the wolves.

It gonna be whatever you want with it.

No, needs to be lit this way.

It needs to be.

You know these are the things that need to happen to show you're working its best life, but control it now so you really understand when you have that conversation with somebody later.

I hope that was engaging for everybody, because I know I'm engaged.

It was fun for us.

It was fun for us.

It was fun for us.

I actually had a new idea while we were talking.

You said something and I'm looking at my work while you were talking and I went oh, and so I made a note of okay, this, this, this and these things, and so that I mean that's always great, I think I don't know.

Go hang out with artists this week, find an artist friend, go spend some time, like we've been doing since we got here last night, just talking about work and things.

Do you want to share your address?

Yeah, so come on.

No, I will.

My lady, jack, is coming over.

Jack Bauer is coming over next week to hang out and look at work.

A local artist here in Waco just got a great show at the Washington Gallery, robbie Austin, another artist friend from Louisiana.

So it'll be fun next week Having a studio visit.

I will come back to that.

I will say this.

Obviously, it just won't be long after I'm gone anyway from here, but I will say I love the studio visits, visits.

I've been having more of those like, yeah, if you live in the neapolis area or if you happen to be passing by, my studio is eight minutes from here, or come on, I'm always excited to hang out with with people that will look at our talk.

Whatever studio visits are great for a number of reasons.

You're getting to one, you get your workout and you kind of put it out for somebody to come look at.

So you're you're getting to one.

You get your work out and you kind of put it out for somebody to come look at.

So you're seeing your work all together that you haven't really done that with in a while.

You're getting to watch somebody look at your work, which, if you have a show in a gallery, you're going to be watching a lot of people look at your work and you have no idea what they're thinking.

So for those of you who are very introverted, it's a great confidence builder.

Yeah, even if persons like your work, you're used to somebody looking at it, with you standing there next to them, which for some people is not a fun experience, right?

But if you want your work in the art world, you need to be ready for those experiences.

So how do you say I'm saying this, it's not just me, people already love you and what you're doing, yeah, it's maybe, oh, a lot of people what I'm out.

And what great advice here that I learned from another artist early on ask somebody that's in your studio to ask her a question.

Yeah, that force you to talk about things with a hard question, maybe Because you're not going to have a lot of wonderful questions.

It shows that, yeah, I've literally had people ask horrible things.

Yeah, where I'm like did you really just fucking ask me that?

I want to say that, yeah, yeah, right, but I can't.

Yeah, right, but so just, it's just a great experience and those are low, they reps, absolutely.

It's very different than at an opening or a show, where you're already nervous and you're already kind of out of your comfort zone and then somebody the MFA student walks in and wants to show what their teachers have been teaching them, not what they know, and then boom, you know, unfortunately, I love to play games with, with those people uh, but anyways, invite somebody over.

Yeah, have, do a studio visit, invite a couple people over.

Exchange studio visits.

Hey, do, yeah, if you want to set up the camera and just do a zoom visit with somebody on instagram that you became friends with in portugal and you're in michigan, using jack verrez examples and do a virtual studio visit, hang out and talk about that's it.

That's fun.

Don't make some more.

Don't make some more.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of just make our podcast.

If you want to see, if you're just listening, if you want to see thais amazing studio and what, what the two of us look like, or whoever has this conversation, thanks on YouTube, and join us for the next episode, which we may get a chance to record.

Yeah, see, ya, bye.