Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
I Love Your Stories is a soulful conversation series hosted by artist and creative guide Hava Gurevich, where art meets authenticity. Each episode invites you into an intimate dialogue with artists, makers, and visionaries who are courageously crafting lives rooted in creativity, purpose, and self-expression.
From painters and poets to healers and community builders, these are the stories behind the work—the moments of doubt, discovery, grief, joy, and transformation. Through honest, heart-centred conversations, Hava explores how creativity can be both a healing force and a path to personal truth.
If you’re an artist, a dreamer, or someone drawn to a more intuitive and intentional way of living, this podcast will remind you that your story matters—and that the act of creating is a sacred, revolutionary act.
[MUSIC]
Why do we make art?
And how do we truly
define success as artists?
Welcome to this
episode of I Love Your Story.
I'm your host, Hava Gurvij.
Today, we're stripping away some of the
pressures around art making
and embracing the joy
of the process itself.
My guest is the
talented Jacqueline Gordian.
She's a brilliant artist whose work is
deeply rooted in nature.
Jacqueline is also a big
believer in a creative community
and just started her own
artist residency program.
Get ready for a truly inspiring
conversation about art making,
the importance of play and risk taking,
how mistakes are an
integral part of the process,
and the freedom that comes from not
getting too attached to the outcome.
Welcome to the show, Jacqueline.
Now, a quick word from our sponsor,
and then we'll get
right back to the show.
When I started selling my
art, I had absolutely no idea
how to actually turn it into a business,
a professional business.
And then I came across art storefronts,
and that was a game changer.
I've been a customer now for years,
and they've been instrumental in every
way, every step of the way
of helping me succeed.
I have a gorgeous,
powerful commerce website.
I have marketing tools and
a membership to a community
that is very supportive and teaches me
how to succeed as an artist.
Check them out, artstorefronts.com, and
tell them how I sent you.
I am so excited to
have this chat with you,
but more importantly, I'm excited to have
a chat with you recorded
because every time we have a
conversation, I think to myself,
"Man, we should have been
recording this. This is so good."
And I think it's just
in part a combination,
kind of like an alchemy
between our personalities.
So for this...
Actually, okay, just to start.
So we're talking with Jacqueline.
Can you pronounce your
last name? Because I have...
Yeah, Gordian.
Gordian. Okay, Jacqueline Gordian.
And I'm so happy to have you here.
Tell us a little bit
about you, your work.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I am a multidisciplinary artist,
focusing, I would say,
mostly on sculpture and painting, but I
bridge into other things.
And my work revolves around materials.
I use a lot of organic
materials in my work.
I do a lot of foraging in my work.
And I think the crux of
what I am after in my work
is this sort of this
connection that we have to nature,
this sort of ancestral bond
of where we came from, right?
And just everything you can...
We as a species and creative learn and be
reconnected with in that space.
And I develop bodies of work that speak
to different aspects
of our experience as humans and using
nature as a way to sort of express that
and bring it to the forefront.
And I want to add that at least the work
that I've seen so far,
when you say connected to nature, you
mean quite literally, like nature.
You bring nature directly into your
studio and into your art.
I've seen canvases with bark and moss.
And sometimes like a
third of a limb of a branch.
Yeah.
And one of the things I
find really fascinating,
just as two artists that on the surface,
our work looks really different.
Looks really different.
But when we start
talking about what inspires us,
and even when we start talking about some
of our methodology for getting inspired,
for coming to a creative
space, it's very similar.
And that's just really fascinating to me
that we can be looking and
thinking about very similar ideas.
And then they sort of manifest visually
in such different ways for us.
For me personally, it opens up
possibilities, seeing
where you take that.
Tell me, what do you do to get inspired?
Oh man, yeah, that's a great question.
How do we all get inspired, Hava?
I usually, I mean, there's a bunch of
ways that they all kind of are different
parts of the process.
But usually starts with journaling, sort
of figuring out what is on my mind,
like what's happening for me.
That usually starts to develop some sort
of focus and figure out,
oh, this is something
that's reoccurring, right?
It's happening again and again.
And whether through journaling or talking
with other artist friends like this and
sort of understanding,
where is this going?
It just opens up the conversation a
little bit more, so it sort of allows me
to see more possibility.
And then once that's happening, then I'm
usually starting to
create and play with materials,
experiment with new things that I haven't
done before, because that's a big part of
my practice as well.
Because I mean, how on earth could I ever
have used every nature type there is?
There's always something new that I want
to be getting my fingers in.
And I think between that and other base
materials that I have,
just from an artistic perspective, how do
these things play together?
But starting usually starts sort of with
the inner thoughts and then moves into
creation and playing.
And then that could totally take me in
another direction, right?
Inspired by whatever that discovery is.
That happened to me recently when I was
at a residency in Newfoundland,
where I thought I was
going to go there to do...
I don't know what I
thought I was going to go there.
I was staying open to the possibility.
But while there, just dove into...
I had this thought one day of, "What
happens if I bring
ocean water into the work?
What happens when that happens?"
And just took me on this whole new
discovery of what happens
with salt water and salt
and playing with that
and everything in my work.
So it was just a
different way to work with nature.
And I feel like what I love about it is a
lot of unexpected things can happen,
because I don't know how nature is going
to respond to what I'm doing,
or how it might decay
or anything like that.
That always is really
interesting to look at my work too.
I really respect the physicality of your
work and also the
physicality of your process.
You actually bringing
nature indoors and the colors.
Your art has a lot of earth tones.
Yeah.
It's somewhat abstract.
There's a lot of abstract color fields.
I'm looking at the one
behind you specifically.
But then there's also real elements and
painted elements that are
your interpretation of
nature, but also nature itself.
Yeah.
This is why I think it's so
fun to talk to the writers,
because they see things about your work
and how you work it.
You're just like, "Wow, I wouldn't have
thought of talking about
the physicality of it before,
but that makes a lot of sense."
And I think the color between our work is
obviously very different.
That's one of the things that...
Nature can have these
really bright, bright colors.
But for me, those are
small moments in my work.
But for you, that is a
big factor in your work,
along with the patterning and pulling
through those things
that you see consistently.
And I find that part...
I think that's probably the biggest
spectrum difference
between our work too, right?
Okay.
So I always...
I love to think in terms of
analogies, and it's like...
If there was this membrane across nature,
and your work exists on one side where it
reflects the way nature
comes into our world
and enriches our lives,
and we feel it, we
see it, we can smell it.
Your work feels like you can touch it,
and there's a physicality,
there's a real physicality.
And then I feel like mine
would be what's on the other side.
Sort of like the inner world.
I love using a lot of color, but I don't
usually adhere to the
palette of what's in nature.
Sometimes I do, but sometimes not.
I'm kind of really always curious about
that spectrum of color that we don't see,
and how that affects the field.
And so I feel like we're
describing the same thing.
We're describing the same thing, and the
best way to put it is our
reverence for nature and
our relationship to nature.
And feeling connected
to it, I know that you...
Especially where you live, but you spend
a lot of time outdoors,
spend a lot of time
being inspired directly.
Yeah, I find it...
Yeah, there's... Yes, I lived in Chicago
for about 10 years,
and just after a while
was like, "Why am I fighting this? Why am
I fighting these instincts?"
Just for more trees and grass was just
how I kept saying it to myself.
I was like, "I just need more
trees and grass in my life."
So I moved out to the
woods of Michigan, if you will,
and found all of the trees
and grass I could ever desire.
But I think to get back to what you're
talking about with the color,
I haven't really thought about it in full
detail, but as you were talking about it,
it made me realize that, to me, the earth
tones have this calming effect on me.
I feel really, really at peace when I'm
in a very earthy space.
And to me, that is reflective in my work.
There's moments of color, there's moments
of these things, but they're highlights,
but they're not driving the peace for me.
And I think it's because
it makes me feel very calm.
My work has this... I think in order to
connect in a deep way,
you have to be in a calm space.
So I'm just getting after a
thing that makes me feel calm.
Whereas you might feel very different
about what that evokes in you
when you're using color and what you're
trying to pull forward.
But it was a very unconscious
decision to be in that place.
It just felt true to me.
So when that happened, I just kept
following that thread.
When I started painting, and I didn't
really quite understand...
I didn't have a good
relationship with color yet.
I knew certain colors lit up my brain,
but I didn't really know how to bring
them into the painting.
And so my first paintings were all in
these kind of neutrals, earth tones.
I'd love to see them.
Okay, sorry.
It wasn't because it was calming.
It was because I felt...
Well, there was a comfort.
There was a comfort there.
It was a good starting point.
But I knew all along that
it wasn't where I was headed.
Let me shift gears a little bit.
Your work's too punk rock for that.
I'm sorry?
I said your work's
too punk rock for that.
Yours has so much energy in it.
I could hardly imagine
yours in the neutral space.
I'm a child of the 80s and New Wave.
But at the same time
that I started painting,
I also really got into
early electronica music.
It sounds very lush and
organic, but it's also synthetic.
My relationship to painting, I had from
the very beginning the
fact that I'm dealing with
now working in acrylics, plastic colors.
The canvas has the
physicality of the materials.
They were not organic to me, but I was
creating something organic.
So I think that combination of wanting to
explore the lush
organic nature of existence,
but also being really,
really attracted to techno.
Techno.
Rave scene and psychedelic influences.
I really think that's
where it was coming from.
In your case, if you had to say in one or
two sentences what your work is about,
what would you say?
I think the world that we live in is very
disconnected from us a lot of times.
I think I feel the most whole maybe when
I'm in a natural space.
Once I figured that out, it started to
influence my work more and more.
So I started creating
work back in the late 90s.
At that point, it was all very graphite,
realistic, portraiture,
rendering type objects.
Very much latching on to the world in
front of us in that way.
Eventually, I started to go on this
sojourn to find my medium,
whether it was did ceramics
for a while, tried weaving, went to
photography, went back to
drawing, just did the cycle of
things.
Then finally, when I moved out here and I
had a moment where I
incorporated nature into
my canvas.
I know you've heard this story before,
but for everyone else, it
was this electric moment
of going, "Oh, I can bring together the
things that I've been
trying to bring together in
my life through my work."
I think there's just something in me that
really wants to, from
outwardly, yes, each
body work has a different story that it's
telling, but holistically, there is just
this moment that I want to help people to
pause with, to be
like, "I want you to notice
things differently.
I want you to see those
shadows that are happening.
I want you to look at how that thing is
arcing over that driveway."
Little moments that you can have to just
feel very grounded,
because that's what keeps me
day-to-day in a grounded space.
I want my work to be, even if it's just
the materials that you
notice and the whole meaning
behind the work is not
something that connects with you.
Just looking at something on canvas a
little differently and
going, "Oh, I didn't really
realize how deep the grooves are on bark
before on different trees."
Or, "I didn't understand how those
grasses really are
showing you the wind in a lot of
ways."
All those little things
that, if you're in a...
Go ahead.
That's a really...
I just thought of that because I always
think of your work as
bringing nature and responding
to nature, but it also...
It bridges.
It acts as a bridge because through your
work, I can
understand nature more deeply.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the hope.
That's all I can ask for, honestly.
I have people that I know that have sent
me texts over the
years of, "This reminds me
of your work," or, "I saw this today and
I never would have seen it had I not been
thinking about your work."
I'm like, "Excuse me while I go cry in
the corner for a second because, wow."
I'm going to switch gears a little bit
and ask you, what are you
most passionate about right now?
Right now.
I've just started over the last, maybe a
couple of months, an
artist residency here on the
property.
We had our first artist who you met,
became the Open Studio,
which was fabulous and more
to come.
But the idea behind that started...
It was during the pandemic.
We had some friends
come and stay with us.
They were of the creative world.
There was just this energy that was
existing because they were on our
property with us and
just day to day were around.
We did make art, but it wasn't what
focused we're talking
about here with the residency.
Something about that just lit a fire in
me that I was like, "This is it.
This is how A, we're meant to live is in
small groups that are
have that connectedness."
Something about the creative energy, I
just felt like we were
living on a different plane
in that space.
The kind of conversations we could have,
the kind of feedback you can get,
just the things you can build together.
It was incredible.
The seed got planted
then, had that idea brewing.
Last year, I went on a
residency for a full month.
The full experience that you get on a
residency, especially if
it's one that is that long.
It was in Newfoundland, which is an
entirely different landscape for me.
The best way I can describe a residency
is that it is a really
spiritual experience.
I know that sounds
crazy, woo woo, and whatever.
However you want to read that sentiment,
but there is just a deep
connectedness that you feel.
Your soul feels very, very connected.
I was like, "Okay, this has to happen.
This has to happen."
This year, I reached out to a couple of
good friends and was
like, "Hey, I'm going to start
this thing."
Intending to ask them if they knew anyone
who was interested, and
they immediately were like,
"I want to come."
I was like, "Okay."
I was raising her hand.
I suddenly was like, "Oh, this is a thing
that people do actually want.
It's not just me saying,
"I want to do this thing."
We had our first go at it.
It went incredibly well, even more than I
thought it was going to be.
Having been at a
residency, I knew what that's like.
I was hoping for maybe a tenth of that on
the other half, being
the host of the residency.
Turns out it's equally as cool on the
other side hosting,
because you're having these
conversations.
You're walking down to my studio that
they are in and working in, and you see
things in a different
way.
It was just incredible.
I'm really passionate about building that
out right now, and
starting to look at 2026
and what that situation is going to look
like, and putting it on
paper what this thing actually
is versus doing the fly by the seat of
your pants beginnings of everything.
Yeah, that would say that's probably the
thing that I'm most
passionate about right now.
Do you find that it changed your work as
well, having Jana there?
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes, we definitely should give Jana
Tassone a shout out here.
Check her out.
She's fabulous.
Yes, I think it did.
Just through conversation.
We're talking about her work and the way
that she's thinking about
things, and then I would
have her come look at my work, the things
that I was working on, and
have those conversations.
There are definitely influences.
She's very color-based.
She's also very body-based in how she
works through her biology
and physiology, I think,
how the things are
connected and how they work.
Not just the actual things, but how they
actually work together.
Yeah.
How you and I, we
have the nature overlap.
Her and I have the human side of thing
overlap, where I'm looking
at groups of people and how
those groups of people operate and how we
build these weird
made-up worlds together,
whereas she's on the individual level.
So even finding that kind of connected
tissue, we end up
having really interesting
philosophical conversations where it's
like, "Well, I know why
that individual is doing that
thing, but why, as a
group, are we doing this thing?"
So it goes beyond art, but it also
infuses back into it somehow.
I wonder if also subliminally, you're
walking into your studio and you're
seeing someone else's
art, someone else's art supplies, a
process that isn't yours, but is like,
"Oh, that's interesting."
A thousand percent.
Yeah.
One of the things that I consciously
remember making note of was
when she's working on a new
piece, she'll turn
her other pieces around.
Or if she's in the studio and needs to
take a break from a piece,
she'll just flip it around
and then work on something else.
I was like, "That is a great idea.
That's a great idea."
Because you're not going to see it new
every time that way if you have it
constantly looking at you.
But her and I have a similar process
where we listen to the
work quite a bit where,
well, if you have done, you've made some
moves the day before,
basically your whole next morning is just
sitting with the work,
figuring out what it needs.
Like, what's happening here?
How is this evolving versus trying...
We don't have a plan necessarily going
into the work right away.
It sort of evolves as
you're building the piece.
But yes, definitely
very influenced by that.
And I think, which makes me extra excited
to have other artists out too,
because I feel like we all have really
interesting tips and tricks that we've
developed to kind of keep our process
alive along the way.
One of the things I really, really miss
about grad school was the grad studios
and having this one big warehouse where
all the grad students
had their little studios.
Most of us were there
24-7, different out.
It doesn't matter when you
go in, somebody was there.
Sometimes I just walk around to see what
other people are doing.
And there was a space in the middle for
an exhibition space, not a nice...
Just for critiques.
It was a space where you could put all
your stuff out and have an
opportunity to just see it all.
And sometimes I'd walk in and I'd see
that for someone else.
And it just was...
I don't think I can quantify how much
that influenced what I was doing.
Yeah, okay.
There was a big impact.
And she definitely
rearranged my entire studio.
And I was like, "I'm here for this."
I didn't realize how much of a nature
hoarder I had become
until I was preparing for her to come.
And then the first day she was
like, "Can I rearrange stuff?"
And I was like, "Go for it. Do it."
And it was, "I'm keeping it this way."
And tell me the next artist come in and
they rearrange it again.
It does give me a fresh point of view on
the space and maybe even the work too.
Oh, something else that I noticed.
I was working very much in right angles
when it came to how my studio was set up.
And she took everything and
tilted it to a 35 degree angle.
And I was like, "Oh, I like... It makes
me a little uncomfortable,
but I think I like that."
Yeah, it energizes the space.
Yeah.
So I had this other question and you're
still talking about the idea of...
About artist residencies and just working
with other artists in a shared space
or in a shared community situation.
There's this other flip side of it for
me, at least, where my work...
It goes through phases where I don't know
what it's doing yet.
I love that. I always
love it in retrospect.
At this point, I know that when there's
something that's really, really failing,
and I can tell that it's failing because
it becomes reductive, obvious.
Like I do the obvious things because I'm
just trying to work things out.
And it's a process that I need to go
through, but I'm also very vulnerable
during that process.
Yes.
Not a time when I want people to see it
because I don't want judgment.
Because sometimes you have to go through
the obvious things and
the trite things before,
because they need to come out.
Like they all need to come out and then
you clear the field and
something new will occur.
And I'm just curious how
that kind of dynamic...
How it works itself out in a situation
where you're there for...
You're sharing a studio and especially if
your studio partner is on a roll
and got something really amazing and
happening and they're in flow and
everything's coming together and you're
over here like, "Huck."
And we're spraying this podcast?
Okay, great.
It's my podcast.
I'll follow your lead. Yes, yes. I know
exactly what you're talking about.
And I think there's a couple of things
that come to mind as you were saying,
that sort of like the ugly phases.
I think...
I'm not gonna remember the artist's name
for this quote, which is unfortunate, but
she talks about getting into trouble.
So you get to a place where you're like,
"I really don't know what
to do with this thing next."
And sometimes I'm just in like a fuck it.
And I just do something
that is risky and whatever.
And then suddenly
you're like, "There it is."
And I think for me, it's when I get to
the place that you're talking about,
I realize I've stopped taking risks.
In order to get over
that, I have to take a risk.
Yes, and take risks.
Right, right.
And then I think the benefit in my mind
of having other people around in that...
Sorry, in other people, other
artists to be very specific.
Other people are not helpful. Other
artists are helpful.
Sometimes watching what they're doing or
even just having a
conversation about what are you doing
will unlock potential for something.
Absolutely.
I'm more curious about...
Because I went through that.
My studio is in our kitchen and my
boyfriend lives here now.
So he sees it every day.
Oh, sure. Yeah.
And sometimes it's something that he'll
come by and he's like, "Ooh."
I'm like, "This is gonna get covered up."
But he just said, "Ooh, and
now I don't wanna cover it up."
I'm like, "Maybe there's
something there I'm not seeing."
He's just reacting.
And he's never gonna come
and say, "What is this mess?"
So sometimes he'll come and
look and not say anything.
And I'm thinking he's not saying anything
because it's a mess.
I'm getting into his head.
And I'm at that stage when I don't want
to be influenced
intentionally or unintentionally.
I'm just throwing it out there because
that is something that I struggle with is
allowing my giving my art that
opportunity or that space to just exist
in its troubled state.
Yeah.
The influence factor of outside voices is
a really hard one to balance, right?
Because you want to have
conversation about your work,
but you wanna have conversation about it
when you're ready or
when it's maybe ready.
I think the influence part of that, both
the disruption, but
the potential for like,
"Ooh, I like this."
And you're like, "Ooh, I
don't actually like that part."
So I was planning to
just rip it off, right?
I really sort of took it
to heart in terms of like,
there are times when you allow yourself
time to just play and
experiment and not put
any expectations on the work.
And to just say like,
"I'm not making art.
I'm not making art right now."
Art might occur.
I'd happen.
I'm an artist, so everything I do is art.
I don't know.
But I'm not putting
expectations on this at all.
This may or may not survive.
It may get cut up and
collaged into new works.
It may get painted over.
Or it might evolve.
Sometimes it's also just fun to
intentionally create chaos in a mess just
so that you can fix it.
Yes.
That's the trouble.
Get into trouble.
Make it chaos.
Break free of something.
I think something about that feeling that
you're describing, like play, right?
Like this is play.
And I think good art can come from strong
art can come from play.
Because, well, this piece behind me,
actually, I was
saying to them, it's like,
I feel like I've gotten to this place
with this piece where I feel
as though I need to make it
into something.
And one of them said, "What do you mean
make it into something?"
And I was like, "Oh, okay."
Well, that just made me realize that I'm
putting a definition
between art and play right now.
And I don't need, like I need to just
open my mindset back into play versus,
I could tell I was like tightening down.
That's sort of like the triteness you're
talking about where you're like,
you're locking into something and you're
not letting it express
what it needs to express.
So when you have those realizations that
you do have a
distinction between play and art,
or that there is like this certain
something that has to happen to the
canvas before it's like a
thing, actually a thing.
Right.
You're like, when does a thing go from
not a thing to a thing?
Is the thing that I was struggling with
in that conversation.
Do you have that thing with a white
canvas, just brand new canvas?
I find that exciting.
I'm always excited by that because
there's no wrong moves.
There's no wrong moves in
those first moves, ever.
I always feel like I need
to put something on there,
either some big color wash, which that's
usually when my boyfriend will be like,
"Ooh."
I'm like, "No, that's not my work."
Well, your work has like, you're talking
about the physicality of mine,
but I think your work has
so much structure to it.
You're showing these intensely structured
inner workings that I
could see how in your
head you want to fast
forward to that part.
I want to visualize that.
Yeah.
I think for me, my
freeze up usually comes later.
This piece here probably has like seven
to 15 layers on it of
just moments that I've
been doing things.
Now it's like, "Okay, I
have so many layers now.
What is this?
What's happening here?"
I think in that moment, as I'm saying
this out loud, I'm
realizing that I'm talking
more than I'm listening to the work and
listening is what needs to happen.
Because in my head, I'm like, "Well, I
need to march towards
something tangible that
can be something."
And I realize that's not
the mindset to the end.
Then you're just clamping
down what we talked about.
But that entire process, all of it, the
play, the intentional trouble,
the realization of what's happening, the
walking it back, the walking it forward,
and all of it, that whole process, in the
end, it's all embedded in the work.
Yeah.
In all the layers, I was thinking about
that the other day
because a lot of times,
I'll paint over entire sections.
Other times, I will cut out a canvas and
I want to collage
them onto another canvas.
But then sometimes, I'll go and paint
over them afterwards and change them.
I think about that as layers of reality.
The initial underpainting is still there.
The canvas, whatever I collaged, that
image is still there, plus the paint
that's on top of it,
and plus whatever is on top of that.
It's all still there.
And it's not all visible in the finished
work, but it's visible in the process.
It's visible in the becoming the work.
The more I think about that, the more it
helps me feel good
about all of the trials,
all of the mistakes, all of the things
that I paint under and over and cut up
because it's all there.
I had this thought, a thought experiment,
because I don't know
what it's going to be
before I start painting.
And I suspect that's the same for you.
You don't have a vision in your head of
what the art's going to look like.
If you could, if you could close your
eyes and have fully visualized a complete
work of art of yours,
and then just snap your fingers and have
it appear all fully
assembled, would you still be doing it?
Am I allowed to play with
it after it's in front of me?
What are the rules here, Hava?
Hava.
Well, I think no.
In this particular
question, in this question.
No, I mean, no, no, because that's not,
to me, that's not making art.
That's looking at it.
Exactly.
That's like going to a gallery.
Yeah, it's looking like, for an artist,
as an artist, for me,
it's all about the process.
And if I could just think up some
fantastic, colorful imagery,
and have it appear, like, yeah, first,
maybe, like the first
couple of times, it's like, ooh.
But after a while, that, you know, after
a very short while,
it's like, that's not,
I'm not an artist.
I don't want to be an
artist if that's all I'm doing.
Like, if you take away, if you take away
the process, because
that's where all the,
that's where everything happens.
But yeah, that's, that's, that's the
place where you get to
sort of think about the ideas.
And feel, feel the excitement of
something coming, becoming.
Well, I think the discovery and the, the
process of resolving a piece is like,
so satisfying and
frustrating at the same time.
And I feel like if we were robbed of that
as artists, like, I don't
know if we would be artists,
we'd find something else
to satisfy and frustrate us.
Like, I think that's like the greatest
itch that we're trying to scratch.
Yeah.
Is like, how do I get closer to that?
And I think the, I had to separate a
couple of thoughts that you
were saying, because for me,
like, if you were to ask
me, is it the process for you?
And I think I probably would say no, but
if I think about it at the heart of it,
it's me being in the studio, making the
work is the thing that
keeps me here in a lot of ways.
But my vision for what I want my work to
feel like, you know,
is always going to be
ahead of what I can do today.
So I'm always kind of pushing more and
more towards that vision.
I love that. Wait, say that again.
Well, I can't take credit for it because
I think I got it from my mentor Ty, but
my vision for what I want my work to be
is always going to be
ahead of what I can do today.
And I have, you have to be okay with
that, generally going into the studio.
I love that. That is so freeing.
Yeah.
It's freeing and it's
also like very motivating.
Yeah.
Folling.
Yeah. Yeah. And so I think like the, it
is, it is. And I think
it just helps you realize
you're not a failure today because you
can't do the thing that
you ideally want to do.
And that vision is going to change this
the whole time that
you're creating, right?
Like everything you discover is always
changing that vision.
And something you had
said earlier reminded me of,
you were talking about the, like when
you, you're working
on, this is just play,
right? And we were talking about sort of
that mentality of everything.
It reminded me of a, something I told
myself really early on
when I started to sort of like
start to share my work, because I could
sense that I was starting to like feel
a certain pressure to do a certain thing
with my work. I just
kept telling myself like,
this is all an underpainting. Literally
everything. And like, and
then suddenly I was like,
isn't that how I should
be approaching life also?
Yeah. Shouldn't I also be approaching life as
though this today is the
underpainting for tomorrow
and it's just going to keep evolving,
right? Like I was like,
oh, damn, that's actually,
that's helpful. I actually have it
tattooed on me now because
it's stuck with me for so much
for so long. But it just, it just helps.
It's like things like
that that are so helpful to
keep in mind as you create work, have
successes, right? Cause
you're going to have failures that
go along with it and you just have to
like put them on equal playing fields.
Sorry. Like this, this one and the other
going to both happen.
So that actually segues nicely to my
final question, which is
like for you personally,
what do you, how do you
define success as an artist?
The best way I can probably articulate it
is to keep showing up
to the studio and making
work and knowing that not all the work's
going to be strong, not
all the work's going to see
the light of day for others, but
successes to keep working, to keep
making, to keep evolving.
So showing up to the studio and keep
making work, I think is the only way to
be a successful artist,
however you want to determine it. But for
me, that's it. Like
the days that I show up,
I feel like a success. I love that. I
love that. I love that it's so based on
you and your journey, dedication to the
craft rather than any end
product and certainly any
kind of like monetary compensation for
that end product. Yeah,
totally. And I don't want to like,
you know, if art is a part of like who we
are and like how we sort
of like base our identity,
like as an artist, like why would I give
somebody else the power to
say if that identity is valid
or not? It should be only my, I should
get to say that. So, you know, having
goals is interesting
and one thing, but it's not going to be a
success metric for me. Right, absolutely.
That is, I think you can take that
statement and expand it to life. Yeah.
Yeah. Don't you feel like so lucky and
privileged to have art as a
way to like work out life?
I don't know how
anyone's does it. I don't know.
You know, and what's really
sad about it is that it's like,
it's not something that is just for the
few and the privileged,
like anybody can do that.
If you apply those principles that like
to be a successful artist,
all you got to do is show up and
make art. And that when you do, it will
like help you like in every
other aspect of your life.
Yes. Period. Yes. Period. And I think in
different ways too, right? So if it's a
process, right? Like
you're in flow and it helps your mind be
at ease and you're present
in that space. And then have a
conversation about that, right? With
other people, like
that's incredibly powerful.
It's unfortunate that it gets narrowed
into this career path.
Yeah. And if you don't like, you're not
doing that, like you're
not selling your work or if
you're not showing your work or if it's
not, like if it doesn't
have that quality of what is
considered art right now, then why are
you doing that? I mean, it is
a part of it. And it's really
wonderful to be able to sell your work
and possibly make a
living doing that. But it's
so much more than that. And it's so much
more primal than that.
Yeah. It took me a few years
after I finally figured out my medium, if
you will, right? With
organic to actually call myself an
artist. I never really felt confident in
my wandering years.
Yeah. I can relate to people
feeling that way. And if you feel like
you can't articulate what you do in a
deep meaningful way,
you're like, I'm not an artist. And it's
like, it doesn't matter if
you can or can't. It's just,
are you doing it? Are you creating work?
You'll get there. Yeah.
But call yourself another
along the way and you'll feel better.
Right. Generally, I think.
As an artist and a creative,
it's a holistic, it's life. It's my life.
And there's different
aspects of it. And sometimes
you learn about yourself when you have a
conversation with
someone that's going through
something similar. Sometimes you learn
about yourself when
you're talking to someone with
a diametrically opposed view. Well, then
you're actually having a
discussion, right? If you have
different points of view versus just
agreements. Yeah. And there's nothing to
say that you have to
take what somebody else does wholesale.
There can be little things
that you're like, okay, well,
most of that did not work, but this one
thing right here really
did for me. Yeah. And I think
as humans, we want to look for
commonalities. Yeah. There's
psychological safety in that,
right? Yeah. Because we work alone in our
thoughts and maybe we
have well-meaning family
and loved ones who try to offer support
in some way that they know
how, but it's not necessarily
what actually registers as support, but
speaking to another artist, it's like
we're speaking words
and somebody can listen and understand
the words, but another
artist can hear the deeper meaning
behind that and relate to it on that
level and be like, yeah,
I've had those experiences too.
And it's so reassuring to know that it's
normal. It's part of being
an artist. Yeah. Every time
that happens, which is every time you're
struggling with something,
another artist is like, yes,
absolutely. It's like, to me, it's like
somebody whispering, keep
going. That's fine. Yeah.
It's a really good place to end even
though we could keep going.
Thank you. This was so great.
I love the fact that it wasn't like, I
didn't have questions ahead
of time. I knew that I didn't
have to prepare for this conversation.
No, not for us. No way.