Unexpected Wins and Hard Lessons: Ty and Nathan Recap the Last 2 Years of Their Art.

For folks that don't maybe know us personally , share kind of what we've been up to , that don't maybe know us personally , share kind of what we've been up to , it's worth noting that season one was recorded two years ago over two years ago , yeah , so we decided to do this , recorded like 12 episodes , put them in the can , got busy and then finally circled back

. We're like , well , should we do something with these and actually get serious about this ? And then finally released them over the past few months . So here we are uh , recording closer to real time . This episode will air in um , whatever a week or two , so we can do a little bit of background . I don't know where , uh , where should we start ?

That's , that's the backstory . But where do you want to dive in , mr ?

This is what we're doing , and we talk so much about other artists in the studio and their trials and their challenges and what they're overcoming , and we try to kind of pair it to how we're doing in the studio and the things that we're working on in our life . But there's so much desert in the artist studio .

There's just so much dry spells and dry things for us that things move very slow for us as artists . And so I thought , hey , why don't we just talk about what we've been up to ? Because we need to celebrate the really exciting moments as much as we talk about the really down and low moments too .

So we're going to kind of go back and forth over the last two years and talk about things that have happened or frustrations .

We've had cool things that have happened to us that we didn't expect to happen , that did that kind of blew us out of the water , and then things are like I don't even know how I got here and this was really hard to even get to this moment . So I guess let's start with how in the world do you and I know each other .

So , if you're're here , if you've been listening to previous episodes , for the talk about actual I was about to say actual artists , but sure historically significant artists this will be very different if you're mildly curious about us or what we've been up to or lessons learned , I think we'll have a few takeaways and things that we've learned from our experiences

over the last couple years . Then , uh , you know , hang around and see if it might be of interest to you .

We'll close out today's episode with some positive affirmations that you , too , can use while you're in the studio and just fumbling your way through life like us . So Ty and I know each other from your mentorship program . Ty's got a fantastic mentorship program that I participated in in the summer of 2021 . Wow , does that sound right ?

Got this studio space with a crazy harebrained idea to just make stuff for a living , not even sure what that was even going to look like or what I was going to be making . Drove to Michael's one day , said I haven't painted for 20 years , let me see what I can do .

So bought some cheap canvases and cheap acrylics and the very first day , the moment I put a brush to canvas , I was brought back to the last time I had painted , which was college you know , high school and I was like this is this , is it ? This is all I want to do the rest of my life .

And so found you , I think , on Instagram , participated in your mentorship program , learned a ton . We became friends , stayed in touch and that's kind of how this , all this all came to be .

So that's our , our backstory , and we have a lot of things you in common outside of uh , of art as well , that we discuss , you know off off camera , like y'all don't need to know our thoughts on the . You know nba western conference . You know playoff picture who cares ?

I grew up in a family where my uncle was a world-renowned sculptor and raccoon artist and potter , and he taught in the university system in California , so I was around it all the time , and so I've always had this dream in the back of my head to make art , always make art , and my grandfather would teach me about art and I always had my eyes on art and

my parents supported me in it . Parents always supported me in everything , but they always had art supplies , and so I always made art and so I went to art school but also played sports on a scholarship during art school . So it was that weird , I don't know .

A lot of guys called me the MTV basketball player because I was an art guy and at that time real world was starting . So there was this crossover of life and art and sports , but my goal was art my whole life , and so , like you , I worked in the job circuit , worked in retail , worked in fashion , I worked in video and film .

I've done all these different things to get to the point where someday I could actually make art full time , and I took that step , I think nine , 10 years ago , I don't know and then just been slugging along trying to figure this out . And then just been slugging along trying to figure this out .

But all that time previous grade school , high school , college after I was making art Anytime I had the opportunity I was making art in a bedroom , in a back porch , in a garage , all those things with the dream of someday having a studio and being able to do this .

So here we are today and I'm working with artists , I'm showing art , I've got these friendships from art that are just incredible , and we have a podcast where we get to talk about the things we love about art .

And for me , you and I said in the beginning , if there's five people or 50 people or just our moms that listen to us , we're talking about art on the phone regularly anyways , so let's just go ahead and record it . So we're going to talk about some things that we've done in the past two years .

While the podcast has been live , We'll kind of just jump back and forth and talk about some things we've learned and what we're doing and where we're going and please , as we say at the end of every episode , send us messages , send us Instagram messages and ask us I don't know , tips , hints , talk about things that you're learning .

We'd love to hear , and we are going to do a Q&A episode at some point , where we just take questions from all over the world and we just answer them on air At least one . We might make that a regular thing , even if it's just our moms that ask the questions . I'm sure they'll be great .

Three pounds when we got him I haven't slept much . So let's just say it's been , you know , a few months of not a lot of sleep , and we're artists so we have a hard time sleeping anyways . So you just impact that with a puppy who I love dearly and is by my side every second , but who will eventually be my studio director , 100% . Heck .

Yeah , that's the best . Where do you want to jump in ? Yeah , let's jump into maybe our highlight of the last two years , something monumental that's really exciting for us , something that's just been wonderful to work through and put time into .

So for you , you had your first solo exhibition and your second solo exhibition within the recording of the podcast over the last two years .

Spoke to Taylor at another gallery and saw the space , realized it was going to be a great fit , and so it quickly went from this sort of surreal sense of oh this is really happening to holy crap , I've got seven weeks to make a whole bunch of work .

one . The way they really forced me to get specific and focused around working in sets . That's one of the that's one of the biggest things I had to learn fairly quickly is like all right . Previously I had done , and still do , a lot of experimentation .

For anybody that doesn't see my process videos or follow me on Instagram , I use a lot of repurposed material . I do a lot of burning and carving and breaking down a material , building it back up A lot of steps .

I can't knock out pieces quickly , so I can make a lot of work in a short amount of time , but they all involve a lot of steps and require a lot of space .

So for me , that first show was really it forced me to get real focused on working through three to five pieces at a time in sets to continue to move work forward , and I actually am thankful now for my experience with spreadsheets before , because I had you and I have never talked about this , but I have now developed a quote-unquote system where I've got each

piece in process , the next steps that need to happen , how that corresponds to the journaling that I've done about just listening and figuring out what's next . So it really forced me to figure a lot of things out in a short amount of time .

I made 24 more in that in that period of time , um , two months just under , and then we ended up . So , of those 28 , we ended up hanging , I think 20 ended up hanging , I think 20 or 21 and that so and I yeah , go ahead , go ahead well , I drove . I drove the workout , so I live in minneapolis .

I drove the workout to denver , yeah so there wasn't a cost in shipping and in sending work that wasn't going to hang anyway .

You know steps along the way , but seeing everything hang in a gallery setting curated by somebody other than me who understands you know the , the , the work and put it together in a way that that tells a story that we're looking to tell so important , I mean I never figured that first night that we got done hanging everything and just walking through and being

like wow , I mean just blown away Like surreal that's the best word for it .

And this is for all you artists out there , and some of you are either having group shows and solo shows , and some of you are just hoping for the moment that you get into a group show or you maybe have a solo show at some point , and there is such a difference than when you're creating work with nothing on the horizon and when you're actually creating work

for a show and then you finish the show and that work is curated down from what you may have created , and then it goes in the space and you stand there and you get to look at it in the space . Totally , I mean , that's just such a different thing .

But when you move it to a different , maybe you take it home and you see what it looks like during golden hour , during sunset , or you put it in a different , you know , artificial light , whatever it might be . But that's a really interesting way to get to know the work while it's in process but also appreciate it , you know , once it's done .

I actually have a sign on about you . I have a similar experience when I edit photos of of work as well . It's weird , but , like I have , I it it . It sort of deepens the relationship in a way with with the work because you're looking at it , you know , so closely under a , you know , almost a literal microscope .

At that point in your in your art career , you were posting things on Instagram studio process , going through work , and you had some small little pockets of artists community online and in different areas where you would discuss your work and others' work and things .

But you went from just people seeing your work on Instagram and getting just those comments that are all a photo of the work or video of the work to actually being able to witness people talk about your work in a room in front of it . How amazing was that feeling .

Yeah , exactly , but I think , especially because of the nature of how textured my work is , that first show , most of the pieces , almost all of them , had a pretty large differential in depth between the outer layer and the inner layer If people care , go look at my Instagram , whatever .

But there was , because of that difference in depth , the angle made a big difference in terms of what was visible on that inner layer versus the outer layer . The texture , the , the , you know , intensity and angle of the light makes a huge difference as far as how that texture sort of presents itself .

And so , um , yeah , just , you know watching , you know during the opening , you know the , the rare moments when you get to take a breath and kind of take a step back and just look at people looking at your work the same way they do when you're looking at other people's work , right , and when you're in a museum or when you're in a gallery .

That was a really fulfilling moment and it's something that I won't forget . I mean , I remember telling my wife , like , as we were leaving that night from the opening , just looking back from the street , yeah , that was a really cool moment . I'll share this story .

So we were leaving , said goodbye to , you know , to everybody Last ones to leave , took some , some photos with the family . My wife and daughters came out for the , for the opening and stuff like that and and so we're .

We're walking out to the car and just looking back and seeing you know my name , the name of the show on the gallery wall , looking in and seeing some of the bigger feature pieces that we had put on the wall that faces the street , and thinking back to all the times that I had walked past galleries , especially when you're in a downtown area .

We've had a chance to travel a fair amount . You walk past galleries and if they're not open or whatever , I anyway just you know , peek in the windows and you know , look at , like so to , to , to have that experience and have the art on the wall be mine and the the , the name on the you know , by the door be mine , was surreal .

My favorite thing is when they're sending me photos from their first show or even their second show or whatever , just being able to .

I was in a conversation with an artist in Santa Barbara just last night who has a solo show coming up in April and I have family in Santa Barbara , so we had talked about the next time I go visit we can hang out and he's got a solo show coming up and I can't be there because I'm out of the country .

But just the fact that we get to talk about that and celebrate it and I cannot wait to see his photos of his show because I know how difficult it is as the artist . You're in your studio or in your garage , wherever you're working , just slaving away at trying to create something that jumps for somebody else to take a chance on you with .

For some of us that takes a long time , for some people it's a short time , but for all of us , the time and amount spent making the work is far , far larger than the time that takes . When you get a show , it lasts like that . It's gone and then you're back in the studio for six months , four months a year , whatever .

Then you get another show and it's over in a month or a week , or if you're starting out , it's over that night . You hang it Friday and it's down Saturday . I've done hundreds of those . They are a beating , but you're showing work and that's the key , yeah .

But those , you know , 10 , 15 hour days , which from my previous life I am sort of conditioned for . But boy , it's a different thing .

Knowing that the deadline is you putting pieces of yourself into a wall , into a space , and knowing that it's going to be seen and judged , critiqued , taken in by other people , that was a different type of stress than I had experienced before .

And so , thankfully for you know this , this , this second show , I was at least prepared for , knowing that those moments were going to come , which they inevitably did , of course .

You know , hearing myself , whatever the inner critics say , there's no way this is going to be ready , you're not , it's not going to be done , it's not any good , blah , blah , blah , and just realizing like this is just , this is part of it , this is , this is part of the process and , um , everything is it , it's it , it will be exactly what it's , what it's

supposed to be . You know , when it's when it's all said and done , that was , that was , uh , was very , very helpful . So for the second show , yeah , it was definitely more prepared for everything that was going to go along with it . We've talked about this off whatever , off camera , but I think it's worth hearing your input on this .

I'd like to hear how many shows you've been

a part of . Now is my first question . The follow-up question that I'm super interested in is are you ever totally ready two weeks beforehand , or is it always on your way out the door , those last few weeks being 80-hour weeks ?

But when you're first starting out , you don't really know what to expect each time , and so you just need to do the best you can then . Otherwise you're going to stress yourself and have expectations that you're not going to be able to meet .

You do the best you can for that exhibition , for that show , and when you go view it , when it's up now , you take notes . Now you figure out what I need to do different next time . Do I need to prepare more time , which we all need to do getting ready for the show ?

But you kind of look at those things and this comes in play , and it doesn't matter if you're showing in a museum or showing in a gallery or showing in a cafe or a restaurant take mental notes of how to improve each time . And so I mean it's a good segue into one of my recent shows this year , because I led into what do I do .

I'm finishing things right up to the deadline and maybe I hit a stride which I did in the last two weeks of new ideas that I wanted to put in the show . I had my first small museum show this last year . That was a two-person exhibition with one of my closest friends in the world , vino , a Vietnamese-American artist from Austin , texas .

We're basically brother-sister twin to the hip . I love her more than anything and we were asked to do a two-person exhibition together and the space is massive . There's one , two , three , four gallery spaces within the museum , a big hall , two side spaces and then a massive backspace .

So we had I can't remember when we learned about the show it might've been at the end of 2022 . And then we had maybe six months to create work for the show .

I think is about what it was maybe six months and so we were going to kind of pair new and old work with the exhibition and V , who is a physician she's a doctor at a hospital in pediatrics in Austin , has a lot less time than me and she also has two kids To create that much new work for her . That's a tough challenge .

I mean talk about a powerful superwoman . V is it as an artist , as a mother , as a physician . I don't understand it , I couldn't do it . She is a champion , so that's just to celebrate her as well for that . But I decided I'm going to create all new work . I'm going to do some things I haven't done before with sculpture , and I wanted I've been one .

We've talked about this . I've been wanting to do a large scale sculpture for a number of years , but I've been number one , afraid to start and and so therefore , I haven't done it for years . I've just sketched and thought of ideas .

And so V and I got together , walked the space and then decided let's come up with a title for the show and what we want the show to encompass , and then we'll make work . And so we spent some time uploading songs to Spotify to create , to find some lyrics , because music is a love language between us .

So we made probably a playlist of about 40 to it might've . Music is a love language between us , so we made probably a playlist of about 40 to .

It might've been about a hundred songs that we were going through lyrics , and we both landed on the lyrics from the David Bowie song changes , where he says I watched the ripples change their size , but never leave the stream of warm impermanence . And so the days float through my eyes , but the days are still the same permanence .

And so the days float through my eyes , but the days are still the same Changes .

And so we went with of warm impermanence , for the style of everything is always changing and we both have had things in our lives , from trauma to healing , to her being the daughter of refugee parents from Vietnam and her life growing up in an all white community in Pennsylvania as a Vietnamese female , and so my going through trauma and youth and all these

different things we kind of created how we're constantly changing in life and developing and creating newness out of things . And so we went to work on the show .

Maybe if you could speak just a little bit more to what it's like to put together a show of that scale and type with another artist in keeping . So I guess , just carry that through . So how did you then take the title , those lyrics , and just make sure that aesthetically , without the backstory , just walking in ?

And I know that it was , in my opinion , very successful because it definitely looked as though it was supposed to be the way that it was . But how did you achieve that ?

So for about 10 years V and I have been showing together , looking at each other's work , talking to each other about our work , seeing each other develop , done things . So there was a massive trust component . I knew her work was going to be strong . She had faith and trust in my work .

We didn't see any of each other's work up until we brought it up to curate the show and it flowed so beautifully and so magic . I mean it was almost supernatural when we started throwing all of the work around for our friend Dr Jane Dameron and Morgan Earing to curate the work .

We kind of stood around and we're going oh my gosh , how did this work so beautifully ? And I think it is an absolute trust component , nathan .

Yeah , I'm going to speak to that and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this , but I find it to be very helpful in sharpening the scalpel of editing what stays , what doesn't . One of my mantras in the studio is show your work .

I want for the dirty , messy marks , the bits that are gritty , to still show , and I know you do that as well and so the timeline of knowing , hey , there's a deadline for this I don't have the luxury of sitting with it for days , weeks at a time and figuring out what the next little step might be Again , while stressful , is also very helpful in moving the

work forward , and some of those little moments that at the time actually felt kind of rushed , where I was like I don't know , end up in some cases being some of the most interesting and , I think , successful pieces that I personally made .

I wish I had more deadlines , even though I get really stressed out , you know that , just that , let's say , more anxious than stressed , where I'm just really kind of shaking a little bit like , oh my gosh , can I get this done ? But it almost pushes me to create things I might not have come up with if I didn't have the deadline .

I mean , I guess I could be curious if that's something that you advise your mentees about and I feel like I've heard you talk about this before conditioning yourself to be able to , when it's time to really go for an intentional purpose , to whatever , just get used to setting a deadline and sticking to it , even though it's just one that you've made for yourself

In that .

Think through what a body of work would look like in a space and create with the goal of it going in a space on its own at some point in your career . For me , when I started doing that , that's when ideas really started to flow . That's when things really started to jump off the canvas .

For me , when I started to create as if I had a show coming , if that makes sense .

But I did 38 total works for that show and we curated that down to 26 . Total works for that show and we curated that down to 26 . And so , moving from that show into a show six months later in the museum , I was going to show a mix of work but I thought what better to grow than to force myself to do all new work for the museum show ?

So I ended up creating 26 total pieces with five sculptures , 21 paintings that range from 10 feet to four feet , with an eight foot by 16 foot sculpture installation as well on that . But all of the solo show work is what really pushed me into ideas for that show in the exhibition .

You know , you just got to jump in and put yourself out there and create a situation Again even if you've got to create it for yourself where you have to sort of , you know , put yourself on the line and just see and learn .

You had a new learning experience for your art career , which was an article in LA Weekly , and whether you've done articles for other things in the past in your career stuff like being able , with a reporter , a journalist , to talk about your art and talk about what you're doing and talk about all these're doing and talk about all these things that we talk about

all the time , but to condense that down right into an article that flows enough , that's exciting enough to explain your work , explain who you are , why you're making your work and about the upcoming show . That was a learning experience for you as well and I want to celebrate because that's exciting . I'm excited that you got to do that .

And , having been a , you know , a guest on podcast telling my story , you've got the space right .

But in an article where obviously they've got a limited amount of real estate , that that the this , this feature is going to take up limited amount of words to work with is a little a little nerve wracking and curious , like how's this going to turn out and what , what is the finished product , you know , actually going to be ?

But I was very happy with , with , with how it turned out and that was a , it was cool , it was just a really neat experience for sure .

This is one sort of lesson learned for me and an interesting takeaway that was really important for me to really wrap my head around , which is that what feels extremely experimental and different to you , to the individual artist who's creating it , still looks like your work . It's not as different to every other set of eyeballs looking at it as it is to you .

That was a really helpful takeaway for me to really arrive at , which is like okay , this feels like I'm way over my skis and trying something completely different , and then I would share it with you or somebody else and say does this even fit ? Does this flow with everything else that's going to be in the show ?

And they're like , yeah , totally , I can absolutely tell that that's your work . So to you , like , when you talk about the experimental stuff that you worked into , you know the , the , the different shows . Has that been your experience ?

Right , and we talk about how don't listen to the audience , make your work period , but we do need to put it out to the audience and see how the audience responds . Now that doesn't mean that you listen to the audience when they respond . Right , because the audience says no , well , they just may not be ready for it yet and so keep working on it .

And then , on the other hand , if everybody loves it , well , is that the right audience that loves it ? Is it the NART audience or your Instagram followers ? Is it your mom or is it an actual art critic , those things ?

So the audience is always a difficult one , but I got to the point where I said I've got to try these things because they're in my head and I worked them out to where I felt comfortable enough with showing them , because there's plenty of them I was not comfortable enough with showing , so I didn't show them and they're still in my studio or I've ripped them

apart and started new stuff on them . So , at the end of the day , you want to be comfortable enough with showing it and not taking a risk . Of this really looks bad . I'm just going to go ahead and try it anyways .

But just that idea of , like the , that , the , the idea , the inspiration , the thing is coming to you for for a reason and it's our responsibility to do something with it , doesn't mean that the thing that we do with it is going to be the next thing that's on the feature wall when you walk into the next show .

But it does mean and this is one thing that I found as well in preparing for these last couple of shows is that I've got a whole . I've got stacks and stacks of , you know , failed experiments . Well , I guess we'll call them studies . They weren't necessarily meant to be meant to be , but they are all little clues and little um , what's the word ?

Where you bury something ? I'm trying to remember excavation . You know what I mean ? No , no , no , where you like , uh , a little time capsule .

And something else cool that's happened in the last couple years and this this actually is a lifelong dream that came through . It came true , rather , is that I had an artist reach out uh , musical artists reach out and ask if they could use my art for the cover of an album yeah , and that was incredible .

So I'll share that story and then bring me back to how I got yeah to the . So actually I've got it . I've got one of them , one of them right here . So this is , I've got a frame one as well , but this is a .

This is a piece that I did a couple years ago , but , like they did a really good job with the album art , this is a shout out to chaos log out of Berlin . This is like hard melt your face techno . But what they did with um , with the album art , and it's a , it's a two , it's a two album set . You can see different images , they , they .

They did some really cool stuff with the , with the photographs and with the images and a little , a little book as well .

This could be a whole side tangent , but I'm curious what was one of the most impactful pieces of album art that you remember seeing early on , where you're like , oh , music isn't just about what you hear and it kind of is now because of how we're consuming it .

But it was more the performance aspect of the , the booklet inside of them in costume and running around in hills and doing things , and the way that the music married that book within the vinyl to me as a kid was just phenomenal . I mean that's a big one for me , for sure .

So for you young kids that have only streamed music before , there was a time we needed to go physically buy albums and either records or CDs , in this case , that you know you pull out the and you'd read those lyrics and you'd look at . But I'll never forget the experience , um , of looking at that album art .

So , anyway , so , so when this opportunity came up , I was like yeah , absolutely , yes , please . And so I've got a couple copies of this record that they were kind enough to send me , one of them's framed and the other one I just kind of sit around , but that was that was really neat .

My point wow , bringing myself back , look at that is that this piece that I did , I think maybe late 21 , yeah , let's say maybe , I don't know maybe early 2022 , but it was one of the very first experiments that I made . I look at my studio director saying what's up ?

That piece I like how it turned out , but that was definitely in a , I'll say , a season for me where I was just trying . Every single piece was a brand new .

You know adventure that in many cases had very little to do with the one that had come before it , and so this is a great example of like I had that thing , a physical reminder of what I had looked back at , and actually , when this opportunity came up , I was like man . That tarp is Because I pulled out the piece that was just sitting and hadn't sold .

I had it just whatever stored away . But I was like man , this tarp's a great material . Let me revisit that . And that then became a couple years later what made up .

I mean there's a version of different types of tarps , landscaping , billboard , you know other materials that makes up , and there's at least a shred of it in probably 70 , 80% of my , of my current show . So , point being , when the idea comes , try it .

Set it aside Doesn't mean you need to like dedicate the next nine months of your , of your , you know , making time to it . Um , but just know that if it's supposed to like a boomerang , if it's supposed to that , if it's supposed to come back , it will . But I think the important thing is doing something with it when it comes .

I'm not somebody who's going to write an idea down because I don't know about you . But when the idea comes , it's just a hey , try this . It's not a fully formed thing that I could just write out and say , hey , revisit this down the road , I need to do something with it , and then have that for later , love it . But what about you ?

I know you've had some really cool things happen over the last couple of years we haven't talked about yet as well .

I'm prepping for the museum exhibition and I was just really kind of like frustrated with where things were going and I was working with plaster and wire and all these things on canvas and it wasn't working . And , honestly , you know how you feel in those moments . You almost want to throw the towel in and go . Why in the world am I doing this ?

And I get an Instagram message from another artist overseas that says hey , they talked about you on my favorite podcast yesterday . Did you hear it ? But he never sent the link and I went well , what podcast is it ? Where is this ? Who's talking about me ? I want to know .

So he sent me the link and it's a podcast from the UK that is with the comedians Joe Wilkinson and David Earl and it's called Chattabix and I had not heard of it yet and I'm now addicted to it and I laugh so hard . And these guys have been in films with Ricky Gervais and they've had indie films that have been very successful .

They're two brilliant , brilliant comedians and actors and writers and lo and behold , on this podcast they had one of my favorite people on the planet , russell Tovey from the Talk Art podcast this day , and they talked about my work and it was one of those things that when I listened to it , I was in tears .

I was on the floor , I just needed a lift and I know that they probably don't know this , but it lifted me so much to just go okay , I'm doing this for a purpose and I'm doing the right things , yeah .

So you're getting messages in there that you aren't privy to , but he's trying to tell you something , but he doesn't really want you to know because he's crossing them out , and that's you know . With the crossing them out , and that's you know , within artwork , you can code so many things that you're unaware .

You know there's so many artists that have made work like Keith Haring , for example , or an artist called David Wanya Rose .

These are those moments where the days that suck and are horrible and you throw the workout and you just don't want to do it because you don't feel like anybody's ever going to recognize it . Nobody's going to see your work , nobody wants to buy it . I have this big show coming up and the work's going to look like shit .

These are those moments that just hit you right in the heart and you go . Thank you for giving me that sign and that notice that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing , and they're rare , they're very rare for artists . So for me , that was one of those moments where I just I fell on the floor of my studio .

I was stretching work the days and I was just like what just happened yeah , yeah .

So , to what I , what I hear , knowing you , knowing your work and the experience of of you and it , what I hear is I'm , I want to know why I love it , but the most important thing is that I love it , right , like in the context of this conversation , having listened to the whole podcast , you know he was asking somebody who was as or more experienced you

know , and knowledgeable about , about art in general . Uh , why do I , you know ? Why do I love this , which the subtext is , why do you love it , right ? So when the response was , was in kind , that was really , really cool and I think that to be seen .

I'm going to go out on a limb here you can tell me if I'm , if I'm correct or not , but I believe that one of the things that made it so impactful , I'm guessing , is that you felt seen as well , absolutely , when they talked about the coding .

You know him trying to tell you something but not , you know , telling you explicitly right , like that is what a big part of what you're doing , right , yeah , absolutely .

that are more full . So for somebody to actually kind of get that as well , right , you're like , oh yes , somebody is actually getting it , and that as well , right , you're like , oh yes , somebody is actually getting it . And that is huge for us as artists to get that feedback . Get my rein , my emotions , back in here , nathan .

I mean , yeah , I mean , I'm an emotional guy , I'm an artist , I'm a four on the Enneagram , so , but you had a really fun podcast in this time as well that you got to do as an interviewee on a podcast with Mike Henley . It's called Drawing Inspiration with Mike Henley .

Talk about that experience . How did that happen , how did it come about , and tell us that story .

I became aware of him , his work and his podcast and became a fan of the podcast . So to be asked to be a guest was really cool and that was . I've been on a couple of others as well , but that was definitely the one where I feel like , yeah , I just felt the best about kind of how I told my backstory and kind of how I got to be here .

So if anyone is curious , we'll link to that as well . But I went pretty deep on the work . What happened in the 20 years between last making art . That has now given me the space to tell those stories and to communicate and process what the twists and turns that life took for me . But that was really neat .

So suggestions for the artists out there do live Instagrams with other artists that you know , because if you're not at the point where you're going to have a podcast reaching out to you and saying , hey , would you come on for an interview ? Do your own things right . It's the same thing with showing your work .

If you're not in the gallery world yet , find ways to show your work at coffee shops , at cafes , at restaurants . Ask somebody if you can borrow a room in their building and do a show and invite people . It's the same thing with the experience of talking about our work .

We want to be able to express our work in a way that is short , not too long-winded , so that when we do have a show and we're asked to give an artist talk at the gallery , we've practiced and we feel comfortable and a lot of us may not like speaking in public .

So if you can practice with an artist friend on an Instagram live , where you know people are watching you but they're not in the room with you , it's great practice for you to learn how to talk about and express what you're trying to do with your work for the moment .

Someday that you get asked to do an artist talk or be on a podcast or be interviewed by somebody , practice , practice , practice is massive . It's so good to have those experiences , huge .

All that experience counts and it adds up and it prepares us for whatever might be coming next . So we can wait until the opportunities present themselves or we can create situations where we get to at least get closer to being ready for whatever might come when it does .

I think that what you just shared probably a good place for us to to sort of begin to , to wind down as we talk about just just the work , you know , tangible takeaways from our studio practice . I mean , I think that a huge part you know for me anyway , and I suspect for most artists is just figuring out like how do I go about doing this ?

You know like , what's the best , you know what's the optimal way . There's no right or wrong way . That's why we love art . There's no , you know , black and white answer . But how do we do it in a way , how do we continue to evolve our practice in a way that pushes the work forward and helps us to , I guess , evolve and grow as quickly as possible ?

Because that , for me , is of the things that I think about around my artistic practice , one of the biggest is how can I accelerate my progression ? And I asked you that during the mentorship program . You're like , how can I ?

And that's just how I'm wired Three on the Enneagram with the four wing for those of you that know about all that but I just thought , how can I get better as fast as ? But really just thinking about how can I accelerate my progression , how can I push the work forward , what can I do ?

And I think that for me , it's a matter of just paying attention to what works for you and what doesn't . I'll give an example .

One of the biggest things that I learned between my first and second show , and really lean into these last couple months preparing for this current one , is how affected I am by the space that I'm in , and that's probably true for all of us . We're visual animals , right ?

So for me , I realized I had this moment in the studio where I had a dozen different works in progress , all sort of sitting out on the wall , which looks cool when you take a studio shot , and I still have moments where that actually is a practical thing for me to do .

But I found that if it's out and visible , I can't look at something that's in process without immediately , whether consciously or subconsciously , going to work , trying to solve whatever problem is hanging out there or trying to resolve how to apply whatever idea comes to mind , which is great if I'm going to be , it's draining the battery .

We all have a finite amount of mental and emotional resources physical during the day to work with . So for me , I realized , if I'm not intending to possibly work on a piece , I put it out of my line of sight . So that also applies to material . For me , my palette is not colors , my palette is material , some of which I've worked and some which I haven't .

So for me to have all of my entire palette of materials visible , to have the hay bale netting , the packing plastic , the rusted metal , the copper wire , all of the random stuff that I might be applying to a particular piece , is really important for me to have that organized and labeled , because I mean , I'm a pretty simple , simple creature , like when I have ,

when I see messes , when I see disorganization in my visual space , I can't like , I'm just not . I've had a um artist visit my studio a little while back and he's like man , you are super organized . And I said the only a little while back and he's like man , you are super organized .

And I said by necessity , because I'm so disorganized up here , I have to have , and I get yellow duct tape and I use a black Sharpie , those are my labels and it's not , it's whatever Version of call it what you want .

But that is for me one of the things I've learned , again just by paying attention , so that what I'm talking about specifically may or may not apply to you , but I think that if there's a takeaway for this , for people listening , it's just pay attention to what works and try new things , not just with your artwork but around your artistic practice , because the

process is what leads to write the outcome , the results that we're excited about . So just thinking about how can I optimize my space . How can I optimize my time ? How can I optimize my practice to be able to create the most authentic work ? That is true to who you are and what you're trying to say .

And I'm going to give two examples as well . But number one make , make , make , make , make , right . We talk about that all the time . That's why the podcast is called just make art Cause , at the end of the day , if you're not doing that , nothing else is going to follow . So just make . We didn't think through a lot , but we did think through our title .

Yeah , you should get some too , hopefully . And number three don't be afraid to put your work out there . Don't be afraid to get out there . So a couple of things with that . I go to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston all the time because I'm a member there . Just to key up that story where do you want to be with your art someday ? Get involved there .

Is it in the gallery scene ? Go to shows . Go to every show . What gallery do you want to be in ? Go to every single one of their shows If you want to be in the museum world . Find ways to get into the museum world . I go to the Museum of Fine Arts regularly and I do little reels when I'm there about the work and I talk about it .

I got a random email one day from the PR director of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston . Would you like to come to all of our director's previews , with the curators , with the artist , with a small group of people 20 to 30 people and so now I get to go do that because I was showing up and doing reels and giving them love and talking about the work .

I got an invitation to do that giving them love and talking about the work . I got an invitation to do that . I never thought I'd be able to do that with the director of the museum and the curators and people like Philip Guston's daughter and the curators of his show those types of things .

It's exciting for me and I get to rub elbows with journalists and writers and things , and it's part of the game . We have to rub elbows and network putting your work out there , find ways to get your work seen by others , even if you're doubting yourself sometimes .

I'm in a group with the amazing art critic , patty Johnson , who I've followed since her days with Art Fag City years ago the blog . That was one of my favorites and in this network we had the ability to share our work in a slideshow with the director , miles McInerney , of the Miles McInerney Gallery in New York .

He's got four galleries there and there's 280 people putting work in this slide and he was going to choose a handful of those to discuss for a minute each artist and he was only going to choose , I think , 25 or 30 artists .

And I got onto the slideshow and I went to put my work in and I started looking at everybody's work and I went I don't have a chance for him to even see mine . My work is so below everybody here . I mean , I was blown away by the sculptors , the visual artists , the painters that were putting work in this slideshow .

That's a part of this network with Patty and I thought no way he will ever see my work . Well , I went ahead and put two paintings in . A couple of weeks later , when they did the online review of work , I would . My work was one of the artists selected in there and I couldn't believe it .

So it's like and not that my work was better than anybody else's in there , cause I still feel like I wasn't even close to anybody in that , in those slides , but for some reason his eyes and what he liked I stuck out to him . If I had not put my work out there , he wouldn't have had the chance to maybe see it .

The beautiful thing about art is somebody likes your work . Somebody likes your work . There is somebody out there that will love what you do and love what you create and love what you're making , so never be shy about putting your work out there and you're never going to know who . You'll never know who .

I've had plenty of those moments . You don't know who's watching , so you need to be acting like people are watching you .

That's how that social media um takeover came to be was putting my work out there . Having visited the museum , you know multiple times tagging them on posts , right , so just whatever edifying and and reinforcing you know what you're sharing before , like that's how that stuff happens .

So they reached out and asked if I'd like to be the featured artist for March to do their social media takeover , and that's kind of how that all came about . But I think it's important to maybe land our plane with just Actually , you had something in mind . I cut you off just now .

But I think what do you have coming up for the rest of the year Yourself , Nathan ? Do you have anything on the horizon ? Is there anything you're looking forward to that's coming up for the rest of 2024 ?

I think that that's again back to what you said before just make art and make a lot of it . That's one of the tremendous advantages of making , as I have , the last couple shows , way more work than I needed or let me rephrase , starting , way more work than I needed is that I'm coming back . I came back , you know , to a studio full of another .

I mean , I've got , I don't know , probably 15 , 18 pieces that just didn't quite push themselves across the finish line or , you know , raise their hand quite as urgently or excitedly as as the others that made it , but that I'm really excited to dive back into now , with a little bit more space between , with some new ideas , some new tools in my , in my , in

my toolkit , to really , to really get after . So that's that's what I'm most excited about is is , um , getting back to work on the things that are already down the line and just kind of seeing where they go . Love it .

That is , through my dealer in Houston , monart and Jennifer Monteleone , curating a wonderful show at All Saints Gallery that will be running the month of April while I am gone because I have a month long residency in Newfoundland at the Pooch Cove residency that is run by the James Beard Gallery with some of our really good friends , which is going to be really

exciting . So for a month there will be eight of us at the Pooch Cove Residency and we have an exhibition at the end through the James Beard Gallery . So excited about that . To just get out in the furthest northeast region of North America on the cliffs with the saltwater and snow blowing and icebergs floating , by making art with a group of dear friends .

And , yeah , there's a few other things coming up that I'm excited about Affordable Art Fair Austin in May . So I've got kind of a little sprint for the next few months . So I've been stretching work constantly , shipping work , getting ready for the art carrier to come Friday and then hopping a plane to Canada .

So I've got a lot going on and I'm excited for it .

Actually , Russell Tovey talked about Keith Haring in the podcast a little interview about me there for a minute and Nathan and I have been discussing a really fun Keith Haring episode sometime this season that will be coming and I'm a huge Keith fan .