The Independent Artist Podcast

A Vessel for Meaning/ Benjamin Frey

December 19, 2022 Douglas Sigwarth/ Will Armstrong/Benjamin Frey Season 2 Episode 24
The Independent Artist Podcast
A Vessel for Meaning/ Benjamin Frey
Show Notes Transcript

"As artists, we have a story we tell ourselves. We have something we want to express and if we're lucky, what we've created is a vessel for meaning..............each person who comes up to the object, the image we create, they are going to bring their own image, their own background to it. And that's as true as any story we tell."  Benjamin Frey

Benjamin Frey https://www.benjaminfrey.com/ grew up in a family of creatives. When he met Roderick Slayer, Ben discovered the impact mentorship would have on his artistic journey. He joined an art commune that the group called The Academy.  Wanderlust has sent Ben on various life adventures including a time in Paris and selling his work on the streets of New York. The constant in his life has been pursuing his artistic vision with relentless passion. After years of chasing his own career, Ben was invited to join the board of the National Association of Independent Artists (NAIA), which he currently serves as the Board Chair. He is inspired to be part of an organization that vigorously works to support and mentor artists similar to how he made his start. Tune in for his fascinating stories. 

Visual artists Douglas Sigwarth https://www.sigwarthglass.com/ and Will Armstrong http://www.willarmstrongart.com/ co-host and discuss topics affecting working artists. Each episode is a deep dive into a conversation with a guest artist who shares their unique experiences as a professional independent artist.


PLEASE RATE US AND REVIEW US.......... and SUBSCRIBE to the pod on your favorite streaming app.

SUPPORT THE SHOW
VENMO/ username @independentartistpodcast or through PAYPAL.ME by clicking on this link https://paypal.me/independentartistpod?locale.x=en_US

Email us at independentartistpodcast@gmail.com with conversation topics, your feedback, or sponsorship inquiries.

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/independentartistpodcast
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/independentartistpodcast/
Website https://www.sigwarthglass.com/independentartistpodcast.html
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHxquKvRx9sI_DuXRLy-tyA
Mailing List  http://eepurl.com/hwQn7b


Sponsors
The National Association of Independent Artists (NAIA). http://www.naiaartists.org/membership-account/membership-levels/
ZAPPlication https://www.zapplication.org


Music  "Walking" by Oliver Lear
Business inquiries at theoliverlear@gmail.com
https://soundcloud.com/oliverlear
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5yAPYzkmK4ZmdbWFLUhRNo?si=i6Y8Uc36QZWIDKIQfT3XFg
 

GhSVtlrOuYQGS8yllqXm

Support the show


0:11
welcome to the independent artist podcast sponsored by the National Association of Independent Artists also
0:19
sponsored by zapplication I'm will Armstrong and I'm a mixed media artist I'm Douglas sigworth glassblower join
0:26
our conversations with professional working artists Roadshow Warriors welcome to the podcast
0:33
we got a kind of a special show this week we'll do I'll tell everyone about it it's like a it's a Christmas party here Douglas I don't have any eggnog but
0:40
I've got my coffee and to be honest I feel like my coffee this morning is more like uh penicillin to Stave off the
0:46
herpes of the day it's it's less than that it's not as sellable got a little disease going through your house do you
0:53
no no no disease just uh the day is more like the disease the morning I see this
0:59
the sunrise is the disease well why I say it's special today is because we
1:05
wanted to kind of bookend the year we started the year off talking to our good friend Benjamin fry from the did you
1:11
just say some information I called him Benjamin I'm being very formal here Benjamin anything
1:17
all right but he's going to be with us for the Preamble and we're just going to roll the whole episode we're going to talk about some current stuff and then
1:24
we're going to talk to Ben about himself in about about his career and all about what's new with him can we talk about why he's just so damn sexy can we talk
1:31
about that we'll leave that for you welcome to the show Ben thank you
1:38
honestly thank you for having me guys I mean I I love what you've done with the podcast and it'll be fun to hang out
1:46
with you and chat for the next uh whatever amount of time we've got it's our holiday party
1:53
I should have gotten a drink it's too early in the day for me to start drinking wait till you're back in France that's what I tell myself what we said
2:00
earlier in the year why would he talked to you about the survey we're like we want to have you back on and um it's
2:06
only taken us 24 episodes to make that happen so no rush I'm here I'm easy to find well
2:13
let's jump into something like current stuff that's going on on the road and everything so how have your shows been
2:18
going what have you been up to these days well I mean late in the year I haven't been doing a lot on the road I
2:25
haven't done a show since the middle of October but uh the shows I did this fall
2:31
have been pretty great I mean I quite honored I took an award at the last show I did in stockway gardens fancy yeah I
2:39
mean it's it's a different industry maybe this year than it has been in the
2:44
past I feel like things are different but I'm still actually having good success the shows are pretty strong how
2:52
so different what do you mean I feel like there's a lot more
2:59
contemplation on the part of collectors it takes a lot more time I mean in the chat briefly before starting our
3:06
official conversation here I'd mention I just got an email from somebody who had
3:12
last contacted me in July and they're looking for an enormous piece for a February birthday and they dropped the
3:18
ball and in the email they briefly mentioned well the Year got complicated uh I feel like I've been getting a lot
3:26
of big commissions or bigger sales from collectors but the conversations take a
3:31
lot longer a lot more foreplay yeah for sure there's more details that need to get worked out with the space
3:38
and it's more of like sometimes at the show we're forming these connections that then play out over the year at some
3:44
point it almost seems like a um when I talk to my my gallery owners the gallery owners have a different I don't know
3:50
they have a different speed in in buying and people stop by once a week and they
3:55
they spend some time with the piece and they start to kind of think about it uh it almost sounds like you're describing
4:00
that but the art show used to have that kind of urgency if you will and are you saying
4:07
the urgency for you is not necessarily there yeah well and it's weird I mean obviously some shows have a different
4:13
customer base than other shows yeah sure you know Norfolk Virginia is not the same as our monk New York I mean we had
4:19
a hurricane hit us in in our Monk and I had a blockbuster weekend with a bunch of pieces just walking off the turf
4:25
awesome that's always delivery Sunday night and stuff like that so there's still in places at times when people are
4:32
like really thinking I'm going to a show I'm going to buy art you still get that immediacy take home the the work kind of
4:40
feel but then a lot of the other shows where it's more the I feel like it's you know
4:46
the neighborhood crowd or people like yeah let's let's go check out the show this weekend I feel like those people
4:52
are it are taking a lot longer to think about it I'm not getting for at least me
4:58
personally I'm not getting as many of the spontaneous conversions you know on site the old yeah wander around and
5:04
think about it come back and and you know let's talk that line isn't really generating uh four o'clock on a Sunday
5:12
walk back through and take home the piece thank you sure more it's more like
5:17
six weeks later I get an email remember that piece that you had over there do
5:22
you think that the market is changing a bit that that more of the big scale folks who shop are shopping for
5:30
themselves and coming to these shows where before it might have been strictly through galleries in a general sense I I don't know like I
5:37
don't know how it is at Cherry Creek I haven't done that show in quite a few years or like the the places where you get it didn't work out with your
5:43
schedule exactly I didn't I I didn't want to make the drive this year
5:50
let's hope I want to make the drive this year but uh no I don't I don't really know
5:57
because I haven't actually some of the things like the Texas shows I hadn't applied to a lot in the past and some of the bigger shows so I don't really have
6:03
a good data point from the coveted years or post-covered year to talk about that
6:10
across the country but in my experience what I've been saying is the only people with money are people with money you
6:17
know like that's what I've been finding is it's a lot harder to to swing an 800
6:22
piece for a family that's looking for an 800 piece and they yeah I'm you know people still do that people still get
6:29
800 pieces or fifteen hundred dollar pieces that is a much bigger conversation for that family than than
6:37
the people who if you're looking for a five thousand dollar piece you know probably not hurting financially sure
6:45
you're old but you're only offering ham like Ray Alfonso there you go you know it's like right I don't I don't offer a
6:51
lot of appetizers and bread rolls I'm I'm only serving ham these days so those 500 I feel like the middle class goes
6:58
along with a middle-sized paintings and the small like you've got the the people with less money for the small pieces the
7:04
middle and the little the large but it's like I feel like I'm only selling to the large these days like the one percent so
7:11
um if they've got the money they're they're not necessarily as cautious well you guys work in I believe you Ben you
7:17
do reproductions at some shows if they allow one no I I have never done any Productions I do okay serieses uh and
7:25
actually I like I have a whole kind of body of work that is I call it my
7:31
Rosenberg inspired series it's uh basically I take a stencil of of one of
7:37
my drawings and I use that in a mixed media context either you know whether you want to use Warhol or Rothenberg as
7:43
a reference but the kind of like layered stenciling with paint and drawing and
7:49
stuff like that I use that partly because the idea of reproductions bores me uh partly because I don't want to
7:55
deal with Framing and sizes and all of that and partly because I you know feel like it may undercut my attempt to
8:03
capture the people looking for a pure original piece I do like that theory on it that's that's what I argue with when
8:09
I start bagging up my reproductions that I do offer but uh I do find that that is
8:16
you know for me that's the the takeaway I'm working a little bit slower and I'm kind of like certain parts of my work
8:23
feel like work for reproductions but I feel like for your body of work it just doesn't really work out it's like you
8:28
are having the same conversation with somebody yeah well and the thing for me about reproductions is like I know that
8:36
there's money to be made how many artists do we know who who do it you know there's a way to make that a
8:42
successful business model but it's I started my career you know trying little
8:48
one-day events or leaning my paintings on the sidewalk in New York and stuff like that and I started with a kind of
8:54
all original at every price point doing tiny little
9:00
5x7 original matted pieces of collage and selling them for you know 20 25
9:06
bucks and yeah they were they were abstract they were process oriented so I
9:13
would combine things in interesting ways but each piece became like a very
9:21
spontaneous expression you can't sell something for 20 bucks if it's going to take you a month but actually that exhausted me so much that when I started
9:28
doing bigger more image reproducible subject matter that is a ferris wheel oh
9:33
it's the the oldest Ferris wheel still standing in the world it's in Vienna Austria it's easy in concept to just
9:39
reproduce it I made this image I'm gonna sell 500 copies with a paint in exactly
9:45
the same place and color and everything and it comes out of a printer except I was so burnt out by doing those
9:52
like shrink wraps and shrink bags and like Miniatures and stuff the idea just
9:57
it exhausts me thinking about doing reproductions in different sizes and
10:02
stuff like that so I just have never done so I've been thinking about this time with this break that I've had with
10:08
recovering from my surgery I'm starting to realize how important kind of a step
10:14
away from the making of the work plays to our mental enthusiasm towards the
10:19
work so it sounds like any aspect that is monotonous that is not inspiring can
10:25
really suck the joy out of the heart of our business which is the creative and so if working with truly Originals is
10:33
what motivates your ideas and New pieces then that's the way you have to go that's a great point I I love the uh so
10:41
Ben and I have been friends for a long time and and I remember he knew the previous body of work that I used to do
10:46
and and there was a lot of repetition in that and when I started this body of work I
10:51
remember sitting down to dinner and and making this bold Proclamation that I was never going to duplicate okay do you
10:58
remember this conversation I'm like I'm never gonna duplicate us the same um I'm never even gonna revisit the same
11:05
story I'm never gonna do a painting that's the same thing I'm never gonna do that and so I was making new work and I
11:11
had all these ideas and I was just firing on all these cylinders and you were like I don't know if you remember
11:17
saying this but like you're gonna burn out really quick like more power to you but I was like what the you been
11:23
I'm not I'm not gonna burn I'm like making original stuff every day and but yeah I burned out real quick
11:29
yeah for I mean every artist discovers this I think but the thing is the amount
11:36
of time it takes to push the brush the pencil the to spin the the glass blowing
11:42
through whatever it is the amount of time it takes to do that is nothing compared to the amount of
11:48
time it takes to come up with the idea of how you want to compose it how you want to put it together and what you
11:54
want the final color shape design size scale everything to be
11:59
and so if you are constantly every single image creating something that's
12:05
never been created before right you you better be selling in you know gagosian
12:11
right well you know when I found that to be you know I I now what I do when I'm
12:17
I'm super creative mode and I start to get burned out then I find myself able
12:22
to lean back into the familiarity of a past composition that I've done uh where
12:28
I'm like okay now let me just kind of clear my brain I know how to make this piece I know how to do this and I'll I'm
12:33
always working in New details and things like that but it kind of resets my brain and it's the Comfort level it's like
12:39
okay I'm spazzing out I'm making all of this new work I'm working on this new body
12:44
I'm really happy with this but I don't know there's always this kind of inner monologue this inner dread where I'm
12:51
wondering is this going to sell is this new piece going to sell and it's like well let me just do the thing that I
12:56
know you know dance with the one that brought me for a minute and just reset my brain and and go back into this
13:03
Comfort level where I know I can sell this piece at every show and just make this piece that I know is going to move well I think we underestimate because we
13:11
make a body of work that might seem like you know reproducing a theme or
13:16
reproducing an idea but it's not an exact replication but we we
13:22
underestimate the fact that the body of the work as a whole is not seen is not
13:28
out there that everybody walks by and says oh I've seen that this place or that place and so but because we the
13:35
artist creates every single one of their own pieces they start to feel like like you've done it 100 times and so that's
13:41
really the challenge is to be that unique body of work that you don't see
13:46
out there that you're not like replicating what another artist is doing or whatever or especially at shows where
13:52
you've been there um you know like I take the Chicago show that I just finished up I've been at that show 20
13:58
times seriously I've been doing that show well you know with this body of work this is my 10th year I think with
14:05
this body of work I think so yeah yeah and I'm sitting there and I'm like okay well I need to shake things up a little
14:11
bit and have an impact piece at the back of the wall that's different so they're not just like oh there's that guy I've
14:16
seen him before you know they're coming it's pretty much the same audience they bring in new crowds but it's like same
14:21
audience walk past I don't want to be okay there's the guy that does that all right
14:27
let's go see this let me go look at okay I I always want to have something a little fresh especially at those shows
14:32
that you've hit again and again and again it's like you need new bait for the fishing hole because that one image could be the thing that makes them stop
14:39
looking at the new stuff you know what I mean if that showcase piece is the same then they just gloss over the rest so
14:46
you need to capture it yeah right well this gets into something we just talked about I think just before we started the
14:53
the three of us but the idea of getting into a rut I mean I feel like I revisit my own themes and subject matter
14:59
frequently but if you do it too frequently you get stuck in a rut right
15:05
like you're my for me you know artwork is a it's a communication it can be a conversation
15:11
with a collector you're trying to say something and when you show up somewhere you may have done a theme 10 times 20
15:19
times but the person walking into your booth has never seen that theme and so for them it's the first time they
15:25
encounter this idea with this this whatever you're conveying
15:31
and in that sense it can be new to each person who sees it for the first time but if you go back to the same show 10
15:38
times then you've got a whole body of people who walk past your booth who've
15:44
seen the same dialogue of course again and again and you've got to you've got to shake them up there's a fine line as
15:50
an artist between being in a rut and being in a Groove you know it's like you're creating your best work and you
15:56
feel like you're clicking along or you just fall back into that rut and you're like I don't know uh here's this again
16:02
you know yeah what about the whole idea of that the covid bubble that people have talked
16:09
about it's like you know we came back out of the gate and things were rocking and we hear both sides currently from
16:15
people saying well that boost we got from covet is over um or we hear uh no things are still
16:21
rolling and happening for me what are your thoughts on any of that personally there was a an enormous
16:29
bubble I guess I would call it uh right after the lockdowns uh opened up and
16:35
people were able to go to shows but I think more than anything it was just that after two years of not being able to see
16:42
artwork in person there were just extra attendance there were people shopping who had been thinking about it new
16:48
houses I mean our industry follows the housing market there was an enormous housing bubble and so people are
16:54
redecorating Market all that kind of stuff happened the cranes in downtown like that's how we've always judged the
17:01
economy it's like okay well look where are they building the condos they're building condos they need to be filled with art so but I did feel like that too
17:07
like the the Year back it almost seemed like okay well there's last year and this year at the same time you know
17:15
exactly yeah I'm not sure I would yeah that's why I'm I'm hesitant to really call it a true bubble because I don't I
17:21
think what it was is it just kind of compressed a timeline into four months
17:27
or five months and then they got it out of their system and this year feels and as I was saying earlier
17:35
when you have that reset it's it goes back to being
17:40
a new normal almost like you every time we've had you know Bubbles and then downturns and and you know the shows are
17:48
great uh the shows are not so good right now whenever it comes back to being good it's never the same model that it was
17:55
before I think that anything that has continued on for people after that initial injection really is it's hard to
18:02
know you know we all come back to this Market with having more experience
18:08
Having learned from previous years and I think that that can't help but make us
18:14
better at producing better work or being better business people or adapting to
18:20
technology and learning how to use those kinds of sales models in our work yeah
18:25
you know we all get these young artists who come through the booth and like oh how do you you know how do you do what
18:30
you do whatever and I I find myself often saying like they they ask the question you know God is it hard to sell
18:38
out are you selling do you have to like make for the market or what whatever and what I end up saying frequently is look
18:44
you can make whatever you want to make in the studio like never never sacrifice what you want to express in the studio
18:49
but in the end if you're going to do anything other than stick it in the closet you should consider you know who
18:55
is going to put it on the wall on what wall how how does it how is it going to fit into that world otherwise you might
19:03
as well just stick all the artwork in the closet yeah that's a great Point too there's a there's a book actually I sent
19:09
it to you Douglas I don't know if you've picked it I've read that I was thinking that same thing about David David yeah
19:14
he writes about music and he's talking about he's talking about creating for a venue and he's talking about how his his
19:20
early music that he that they created for CBGB this little dirty Club in
19:26
Manhattan was so much different than when they were selling out theaters and then stadiums too it's like they're
19:32
creating music for you know you look at the stones in their early music too and it's like they're creating for a tiny
19:37
little Rock Club which is now they're creating for stating idioms and and some of that can also be like unconscious
19:44
like there's definitely a point of where we're intentionally let's say making a
19:50
piece with scale for a specific space like you're talking about with the musicians in the venue but sometimes
19:56
it's not it's unconscious it's just we we kind of just get in a Groove and we that exterior force is affecting what we
20:05
create yeah and I'm trying all the time to to like separate my work a little bit give it a little bit of breathing room
20:11
and and show when I show these big pieces that I I'm like kind of trying to
20:16
give them a little bit of space around it so that they can imagine it in their homes or take it away from the venue you
20:23
know it's like well this looks great hanging on the street but I mean every single time I've brought a painting into
20:29
somebody's home they're like oh my God I love it in here it's like well you can imagine it in there but yeah your
20:35
hardwood floors and your oriental rug look a damn site better than the asphalt and the uh the gum on the ground in my
20:42
booth you know that's been my challenge to not pack everything so full and have every wall full of something or every
20:49
pedestal or whatever because people then have a really hard time visualizing it in their space so it's almost like
20:55
pulling a third out of what I would be more comfortable with showing yeah that's a constant struggle for me I I
21:01
over packed the booth and it helped that the low ends you know the the more
21:07
easily collectible pieces I'll call it uh aren't selling because then I am just
21:12
not tempted to put a wall of them out there which means you know now I'm doing a bunch of double boobs and I often I
21:18
basically give myself a whole tent for three paintings and then next to it I'll do a variety of work I want people to
21:25
know look I I have a 250 original it you know it'll fit on that little wall that you never thought you could put anything
21:31
on uh but like yeah it's there but I don't want to fill the wall with that
21:36
because it's it's just it's distracting and then you can sell nine two hundred dollar pieces or you could sell one five
21:43
thousand dollar piece you know it's kind of a no-brainer on the exactly where to focus but at the same time you do want
21:49
to chip away at the stone of your goal uh you know it's it's hard you know it's like well I a lot of people don't like
21:56
sitting around doing nothing too you know you sit around and do not if you've got five thousand dollar only then it's
22:02
like so much nothing it's like you have to have the patience to just sit there
22:07
and wait for the big thing and keep your energy up for when that dot big dog walks in right I mean because you can
22:12
kill it by feeling defeated like it's not happening and feeling when the one when someone comes in and it is gonna
22:19
happen you can just kill that opportunity from just being in the dold rooms yeah you can sit there and look
22:24
real I mean we've all walked the the show you know you head to the restroom or whatever and you walk past somebody's Booth that's completely empty and
22:31
they're just you know completely moping and they're like you know it's like I don't want to go in
22:36
there talk to that loser he's yeah exactly who's all right checking out their Facebook uh posts the
22:45
small pieces give us energy I mean like not just not just like chipping off the you know the end goal financially for
22:51
the show but just like how many times is it have you had like somebody walking in the booth like I was going to say a
22:57
second ago some of my best conversations have been with people looking for 200 pieces where they just like they see
23:03
this big enormous wall-sized piece they're like I love it I can't afford it but when they start talking about the
23:10
work they look I might have two or three little 11 by 14 originals and they're looking and deciding between them and
23:17
the things they say about my work I'm like these people really dig it they get it they and and I can talk for 30
23:24
minutes and firstly it makes me feel good because somebody likes what I'm saying secondly in the middle of that
23:30
conversation the couple who doesn't really have the courage to jump in and say anything they're listening to all
23:36
the things I have to say about these smaller pieces and they're staring at the five thousand dollar right you know
23:42
wall size piece and then they've already gotten a starter an introduction into
23:49
what I'm trying to say with the work and that makes their conversation easier with me so in the end I'll keep the
23:55
small stuff and that's where just because it makes the whole thing we've talked about theater before in Douglas's
24:00
background in theater and it's like that's the theater of you know you've got your little 10 by 10 or 10 by 20 or
24:06
whatever you have your booth space is and that's your the your stage you know and and I I've talked about using kids
24:13
that way and you're you're performing you know you're on you're on the stage and you're performing for this person
24:18
it's like well this is at least I'm performing and bringing people in and you have that energy and you're trying
24:24
to create that that's that way you can kind of create that Feeding Frenzy that will rarely but sometimes happen in your
24:30
booth where multiple people at one time are interested and you're kind of talking you know talking to the little
24:36
girl it was interesting I'm an artist it's like you know get out of here what
24:41
sure you are honey and there's so many Saltines that always bums me out when my neighbor does that to some kids
24:47
they're just a little kid you know like I don't care how much how big the line is just smile
24:58
and like I do it all the time it's just you I'm using kids but I'm using the I'm
25:03
talking really engage the kid and all of a sudden the parents are like well this guy's not a jerk um he's actually engaging with my
25:09
daughter and talking about art and talking and talking to them like they're an actual human because they are well
25:15
then we shouldn't dismiss the fact that the parents won't buy work for their kid that their kid connects to
25:21
too so when they see that it's not all about sales I mean it is forming that connection with the little kid is
25:28
Meaningful to them but then sometimes the parents will black wig we bought this for their room because they really
25:33
love this image or something no I mean kids kids are going to live with the art too I want them to enjoy and become
25:41
collectors and in the end I mean yeah it's you say things in a booth as you
25:46
all know and it becomes a line but it's sincere I mean I'll tell people look you know like they'll say oh I'm really
25:52
sorry I can't collect or I'm not collecting or or or whatever and whether it's you know a kid or an adult I'm like
25:58
yeah well thankfully there's a lot of people who do collect my work so I can have the luxury of just enjoying the
26:04
fact that you like what I do and then 15 minutes later someone comes and buys the big piece great it all
26:10
works out hang tight we'll be right back this episode of The Independent artist
26:16
podcast is brought to you by zap the digital application service where artists and art festivals connect well
26:22
I've been getting notices from shows this week that I need to jump on and pay for my booth but I'm not at home at my
26:27
desk so I really enjoy that I'm able just to flip open my phone I flip open
26:33
your phone do you have a flip phone dog yes it does zap work on your flip phone because that's impressive and I turn on
26:40
my phone I log into zap and I'm able to buy my booth right there on the spot and
26:45
I can make sure I get that double Booth or that corner Booth I'm looking for and I don't get stuck somewhere I don't want
26:51
to be quit talking about double booths because if those shits are sold out by the time I come to get to them I'm gonna
26:57
be mad well I sure do appreciate that with zap
27:02
we're able to keep up on our business with the shows on the road using our mobile device
27:07
but let's jump back to what you were talking about earlier you said you've been selling your work in different venues for years you said selling in New
27:16
York on the streets leading your stuff against buildings and stuff tell us about that whole experience
27:21
yeah so my you know art business bio started actually before New York I met a
27:31
mentor in Maine where I grew up and actually a group of artists all kind of
27:36
connected to this one professional artist who was living in this very small town in Maine and uh his name is Rod
27:43
Slater and actually a bunch of Art Festival artists ended up being influenced by him and becoming full-time
27:50
professional artists in in their career but basically you know I was you know in high school and interested in our my
27:57
parents are both very artistic my grandfather painted and and so I kind of
28:04
grew up always liking art wanting to do art if the only thing I ever wanted to do at 10 I was going to be a cartoonist
28:11
that's awesome but you fell in with kind of like it almost sounds like a collective but this guy your Mentor tell
28:17
us his name again uh Rod Slater Roderick Slater most people called him
28:22
um so yeah I mean we used to call it the academy basically a group of kids 10 years older than my set of friends
28:30
actually met him hanging out in a pizza shop uh he would sit there doing the crossword puzzle and he's a character I
28:36
mean he's come to a couple of shows he used to do art shows in the 70s there's that generation right that knows him and
28:43
then there's you know our generation who who've encountered him he would
28:48
sometimes come to a show with me he's a was an amazing person um but basically he sat there in this
28:55
pizza shop doing crossword puzzles and interrogating the drivers who when they
29:00
had nothing to deliver in this Tiny Town in Maine and eventually the question came up you know what did you want to do
29:05
with your life and uh one of them confessed you know I kind of wanted to be an artist or the only thing I ever
29:11
liked to do was Art and Rod basically said well why don't you do that and as
29:16
everybody says well because nobody makes their living off of art right that's the preconceived notion of why we we don't
29:22
just jump in full force unless somebody kind of gives us that push or that that that sense of you can do this there is a
29:30
way for you to do this out here yeah I've always felt like your story and I've heard your story before but it's
29:35
always got this Dickens yes kind of thing it's like you've got this Rod it's
29:40
like this Fagan character and he's collecting these ragamuffin artists to go sell on the street and and uh it's
29:46
it's amazing I mean if if anybody is ever able to write the story of who Rod
29:53
is firstly it wouldn't be one story because everybody who ever met him has a different version of who Rod is but it
30:00
would be an amazing Story I mean I'm not a writer and I'm I don't play one on TV uh but he really was unusual he he
30:10
literally he was one of the most generous people I've ever met he sat there for hours basically encouraging
30:16
these kids to to make more art and eventually like you know to try to bring it to a local Art
30:24
Festival in the town in Maine where we all grew up and then do other shows in
30:29
New England and talked about you know the ultimate shows of you know the big
30:35
prize money shows Gasparilla Winter Park stuff like that and trying to encourage these artists to try that and so this
30:42
group a generation you know 10 years older than my closest friends
30:48
a couple of them got together rented a space because it's a Mill Town Without A Mill and they got a space for
30:53
practically nothing and got together and basically started living together and making art and Along Came my group of
30:59
friends and we were all you know the the Art Theater kids in high school with nothing to do and so it became kind of a
31:06
hangout the the you know between the coffee shop and this Collective commune we all called The Academy it was the
31:13
most interesting place to be in this town that had nothing to do for someone of our age and so hanging out there with
31:19
an interest in art my friends and I would sit there and talk all day all
31:24
night long to to the artists to Rod specifically and he would constantly encourage us to attempt to do a career
31:32
so was this kind of a formalized thing where he like put out a shingle as a teacher or was it just as people would
31:37
kind of find him and you just kind of drift into this this kind of learning or
31:42
this mentoring no it was literally basically an Art Collective an art commune where people
31:49
were up until four in the morning you know smoking and making paintings and
31:54
and there was always the door was always open Rod didn't even live there he lived down the street but he was always there
31:59
hanging out in the kitchen with a half burnt cigarette in his hand and a cup of coffee that had been on the the burner
32:07
for 16 hours and he would talk until the last person fell asleep and
32:13
sometimes he would still be there talking when one of the people who went to bed early got up or some kid came you
32:19
know having some frustration in their life came in at 10 o'clock in the morning and Rod's still there talking to
32:26
the person who hadn't gone to bed and Rod would just keep talking he he was a social addict in the sense
32:31
that he never wanted to stop communicating he loved people in general and so that just meant that there was
32:39
this constant flow of people and when you sat down and talked to him you were the most important person in the
32:44
universe he was one of those teachers where it's best to do as I say not as I
32:49
do he had a million ideas of how to make an art career and yet like Willie Lowman
32:56
he never actually got in the car to make the sales pitch and he didn't care partly mostly because he just didn't
33:02
care about the business side of it beyond the idea he wanted to come up with the idea how to make a great pitch
33:09
to a gallery how to make a perfect series to bring to an art festival
33:15
and he'd start and then leave the half finished piece in the side and have coffee with
33:22
somebody for 16 hours and just never get in the car to go to the gallery that's kind of like the Romance of the artist
33:27
you know what I mean the the classic not business side person artist it's like
33:33
the true Artisan or something you know what I mean yeah yeah I mean I met him one time a couple of different times you
33:40
had brought him to different shows brought him to Alexandria and I mean just kind of the the Tweed coat and the
33:45
hole in the pocket and the hat that has a cigarette burn in it and I mean he was an amazing guy but definitely I don't
33:52
know the idea guy you start talking to him and he's he would say something to me that I disagreed with and you know he
33:58
kind of like with a wink in his eye like I'm gonna I'm gonna with this guy and see what he says and just you know
34:03
your ideas start to kind of roll and then all of a sudden you're into this major conversation with him he was he was an amazing guy exactly well as you
34:10
as you said Douglas he was on one level the cliche artist he had he had all these ideas and he never did any of them
34:16
on another level he was this very hardcore logical hierarchically oriented
34:22
thinker who broke everything down into is it rational and can it be defended in
34:30
in the hierarchy of knowledge and ideas that I've built up over 80 something
34:36
years of my life and so that's the opposite of you know Van Gogh with the cliche ear and all of that so he had
34:43
this odd dichotomy honestly but uh it did turn out that basically you know he loved making the paintings and he loved
34:50
talking about business but he didn't really focus on making the painting for business after a certain point in his
34:55
life I mean he was really successful he's he sold with Faye gold in Atlanta you know one of the top galleries in the
35:02
South um he sold in really good galleries in DC he had a really good career I don't
35:09
want to portray him as a cartoon but he basically you're not here after a point
35:15
he cared more about talking than about business how do you get the academy from Maine and Rod's Studio there onto the
35:22
streets of New York how do you guys get there so basically again it was you know I'm following in the footsteps of others
35:28
one of the artists from that group Andrew Weber who is Susie Scarborough's partner uh we all know Susie from the
35:35
shows he um so he's from my hometown and he was one of the people who got that
35:40
group going he ended up on a trip to New York whether it was Gallery related or what I don't really know he ended up
35:46
meeting artists on the sidewalk on West Broadway selling their paintings and was very excited
35:54
about that and then saw these artists selling at the Met some of them I think I forget the story he could tell it to
35:59
anybody who stopped in and asked him but he ended up you know coming back down I think and selling at
36:06
the met with some of his artwork and then he went back to Maine and he
36:11
brought this story Into the group of artists living there and so some of my friends from my own
36:19
group ended up moving to New York and starting to test this model of you know
36:25
leaning the paintings against trees you get a fold-out table and you put the paintings on the table and and it worked
36:30
and so me personally my story is I dropped out of college to move to France because I wanted to learn French and my
36:37
best friend from high school was an artist in this group he called me one time or I called him when I was in
36:42
France and he said oh you got to move to New York we're selling our paintings it's amazing we've got this apartment and I had had plans to stay in France
36:50
for the rest of my life I never wanted to come back um whether I had logical plans of how I
36:56
could do that is another question but I thought well I could use a little bit of money I'll go to New York for a couple
37:03
of months make some money and go back to France my goal was to apply to the art school in Paris and I had I knew a
37:10
professor there who I had taken some cultural anthropology classes with and
37:15
he'd encourage me to apply but it's a December January application so I had all this time and I thought well go to
37:22
New York for six months from July to December and then I'll go back to Paris and as commonly happens you start a new
37:29
Direction in life and I just dropped the idea of applying to school in Paris and
37:35
whatever and I just kept on in New York I love that image of you guys setting up your paintings on the sidewalk it it
37:42
starts to sound like Carol Swayze and Duke Lawson and how the beginning of the art show industry was I mean there
37:49
really aren't that many I mean there's our monk there I mean there are art festivals in New York but it's more of a
37:54
gallery scene and it's more of like a sidewalk scene I think of Europe I think
38:00
of my travels through Italy uh Venice and there'd be the artists sitting right there in the squares attracting tourists
38:06
and you know doing their little paintings I mean that kind of has a little bit of a European feel to it was
38:12
that in Paris did was any of that there so yeah I mean the the thing is there is
38:18
actually there's a big Art Market of Independent Artists that happens I think
38:23
it's monthly and maybe every two weeks in Paris in front of the monpanas Tower
38:28
and there's a couple of those Street Markets I mean a lot of a lot of towns even the tiny little town where Camille
38:35
and I spend a lot of time near where her family is from in the south of France they have these Artisans or creatives
38:43
markets that happen during the summer once a month or whatever so that kind of
38:48
venue of like oh I made something I'm gonna bring it down you know on on three
38:54
days a week There's cucumbers and and tomatoes and once a month there's
38:59
somebody who made something out of wood or somebody who does sketches or whatever showing up but that particular
39:05
model has always stayed very accessible in Europe but very small scale so they
39:11
don't have what we have these big art festivals but actually the New York art
39:17
sidewalk Arts Market really did start with an inspiration from Europe the
39:22
Washington Square art festival if you look back and they have a thing on their website but they they describe how in
39:29
the very early days a few painters came back you know with inspiration from Europe started leaning their paintings
39:35
on the Stoops in Washington Square and then basically I think it might have
39:40
been I think his name is Alfred Barr from the who you know started the Museum of Modern Art he saw these artists he
39:46
had a gallery I forget exactly who it was not not an art historian but um a
39:53
couple of people from the gallery World got together and decided to formalize this selling on the sidewalk and it's a
39:59
super interesting history in fact there's there's a woman who wrote a book about the history of art festivals and how that was inspired by those European
40:05
markets and for my generation in New York and you know the people who came
40:11
before me basically what happened is the art just kind of intermingled with the
40:17
people selling you know buttons and trotskies and and you know cutouts of calendars inside frames as though they
40:24
were photographs and stuff like that and original artists just would bring their stuff down to the sidewalk and you know
40:31
mingle with the whole crowd of people selling fake Rolexes and everything and sell paintings and that's what I did
40:38
that's what my my friends did basically show up and find collectors and New York
40:44
is such a big city with so many people walking the sidewalk that you have
40:49
people walking past you into the store to buy six hundred dollar Tootsie popo and boots and whatever and they don't
40:55
even notice you exist and then one of them comes out and says yeah I'll buy this 800 painting sure you know like
41:01
it's it's a really odd environment first coming from the Art Festival world it's
41:06
a completely different experience than what we do in this industry on a on a
41:12
weekend but it's it is the old the old model it's kind of how it's done right very like Douglas said very European
41:18
kind of model and so you guys are you're there and Rod has already planted the seeds with you as far as uh prize money
41:24
shows and some of these Florida shows you're on that 95 Corridor you can ZIP down to Florida pretty easily uh through
41:32
DC in Virginia and all this stuff but you had started out as a strictly
41:38
collage artist under Rod's mentorship and I wanted to kind of talk to you
41:44
about changing your stream you know changing your pace I know I remember
41:50
very clearly when you posted that first elephant drawing on social media and and
41:55
that thing blew up I mean talk about the light bulb that went on when when that drawing came out
42:01
so as I mentioned briefly you know at 10 years old I was certain I was going to
42:06
be a cartoonist I I love always loved drawing as an actor so kind of like like will and you have that in common a
42:12
little bit of the illustration start it's true definitely yeah I love graphic
42:18
arts I love illustration and like I remember watching my father paint and me sketching and one day he gave me some
42:25
some paint and a canvas and I basically Drew with the paints and it's like that that's always been my thing even when in
42:31
high school I did some Arts Magnet programs in the school not talking about the my influences from Rod but I've
42:38
always been interested in imagery and the drawing aspect of imagery even my my
42:44
acrylic paintings from that time were very drawing oriented so when I started making art
42:51
professionally I was in the mood as you said I was inspired by Rod and collage and the capacity of collage to convey
42:58
really complex narratives almost a visual poetry but as we said before you can kind of
43:05
get in a rut and what happened was I started losing my inspiration for the
43:10
narrative for the for the story itself of the layered collage and I started wanting to do something
43:16
else I started wanting to make an image again like an an image not using an image here and an image there I wanted
43:23
to just make make a picture you know like this is this is an illustration of
43:28
this concept or this this thing I was inspired by something I saw Lenny Bruno
43:35
who's Chris Bruno's mother working with in her own work which was using a lithographer's pencil in a really
43:41
creative way it's similar to The Jasper John's kind of Drawn Lines that look
43:47
almost like charcoal and basically on a whim while I had a studio full of
43:52
abstract collages I literally took a lithographer's pencil and stuck a piece of paper on a wall and
44:00
I drew what ended up being this elephant that I posted to Facebook uh that you were talking about will yeah and it had
44:07
a quality that was ambiguous it was both joyful and maybe a little bit
44:12
reminiscent of of Carnival or circus or something like that but also a little bit quiet subdued maybe even sad and
44:20
people responded really positively to it in my close friends group who saw it in
44:26
person and then on social media and it's like as you said a light bulb went off like this is something I love
44:33
to do I love to make and it wasn't long I basically went radically turned left
44:41
and went in 90 degrees from what I was doing and instead of doing abstract paper collage I went into
44:49
graphic illustrative drawing as a primary medium nice and switched within
44:56
not even not even six months I was I was literally showing up at art festivals with my new body of work that's really
45:02
cool it's funny you and I have been close for a long time and I remember showing you a piece that I had done
45:07
separately I was like hey come on out to the truck because you had your collages at Boston Mills and I had metal quilt
45:13
and I was like come on out to the truck I want to show you this piece that I've been working on and I showed you this this piece and it was like you're like
45:20
oh my God that's wow that's really cool that's uh really similar to what I've
45:25
been doing or you know and it's so funny like you and I I have so many different people like I remember feeling bad at
45:32
the beginning I'm thinking like God I feel like I'm you know I don't want him to think I'm copying him you know and
45:38
it's we just have kind of traveled the same path to the point where like it starts out at the beginning when we talk
45:44
about this on the podcast too where we are not alone and we are not our competitors I love that thing uh what
45:50
was the quote I don't know if you can pull it right out of your head Douglas but you posted a great question it's a long one but the gist of it is we're not
45:57
like athletes where we're competing against each other that art is not a sport it's not a competitive nature
46:02
there's room for everybody and and that goes in line with so many of the different threads that people have
46:08
talked about whether it's signing or Chris dolquist we all kind of Rise as
46:13
one and I I think about that you know how many different times I have hung a piece in a home that one of Benjamin's
46:20
pieces has been hanging there too I'm like it's my boy you know exactly
46:26
yeah and it's like if you like a lot of of times if you like me you like him and it's but it's not a competition it's
46:31
like our work does have a similar thread to it too I can't tell you how many different people have come into my booth
46:37
and be like oh do you do the Ferris wheels I'm like no but here's his contact exactly no and that's the thing I mean
46:43
I've said it before to you but you know I'll say it again I I feel like
46:48
even though we had a similar graphic quality right when we started our new
46:53
bodies of work at a similar time to me personally that's that's just
46:59
showing that we share a passion for similar Aesthetics and similar materials I wanted to be Thomas Nast or Frank
47:05
Miller you know that's who those were my heroes and I'm still trying to figure out who I want to be
47:11
no but the thing is like how many times have I been to a show and and I hear like oh you're also doing that and it
47:20
turns out they're talking about collage material behind images right or graphic
47:25
lines on paper or simply the fact that two drawings are heavily black and white
47:30
with some sort of color behind them and it might be you it might be Aaron heckenberg you may be Banksy how many
47:36
times have I been told that my artwork looks like Banksy I'm not spray painting anything I'm not doing you know girls
47:41
with balloons I love Banksy but my work actually doesn't really look like it like it's there's a high black and white
47:48
contrast and a graphic quality and those two elements are really similar but I
47:54
have more material and technique inspiration from someone like Jasper Johns even though my Aesthetics are very
48:00
different than I have from some of the public they really are able to identify similar let's say technique or style or
48:08
like for in my case they'll think all glass blowers work looks alike because it's glass but you know what I mean it's
48:14
like if you are a collector of glass and someone who knows what they're looking at no you look at the 20 or 15
48:21
exhibitors in the show and it's completely different bodies of work same
48:26
thing with what you're talking about absolutely and that's what people can kind of hang their hat on and that's fine you can't take it as an artist you
48:32
can't take it as an insult because that ends the conversation if you're oh you're offended or you hate what they
48:39
said they're really again you know you're the hot person in the bar that they're trying to to be like hey you
48:45
come around here often you're like oh what a stale stupid line you're like you just said that the person was you want
48:50
what I'm selling you know really they're just like that's their intro that's your foot in the door exactly and you might
48:55
think it's dumb but that's their foot in the door so you can't really judge it yeah well and to speak to what you're
49:01
saying before about this industry where we all you know we're a community we're friends we're acquaintances we're we're
49:08
you know all setting up trying to sell to a similar body of collectors we are
49:14
aware of the fact that some of us are really working hard to communicate a certain idea aesthetic body of work in
49:22
that way and you know I get like you said it about the you know the ferris wheel or the elephant or whatever but
49:28
like I get that sometimes people will talk about oh you know this kind of 1950s rockabilly music aesthetic and I'm
49:35
like let me let me give you his card exactly you know like I I'm not personally it's not my vocabulary I'll
49:41
tell them honestly I you know it's a cool subject but it's not the thing I'm trying to express with my work and will
49:47
expresses it so well give him a call and I'm sure he'd do something same thing with me with like um somebody came into
49:53
my booth and they started talking this this talk about a custom piece and they were like have you ever done anything with more like splashes of color with
50:00
like mid-century modern and all the stuff and I had you know I I've got the work and I'm like man you're not you
50:07
know who could do this and you'll be really happy with like the gross Jeff finkos around the corner I'm like
50:14
they've got mid-century modern and and like somehow current modern meets this
50:20
like go talk to them and that collector actually bought from me at the following Cherry Creek and we had a relationship
50:27
because he was so happy with the painting that he bought from the Christian finkos All Ships arises one
50:32
yeah right so um you had that major that kind of that shift when you introduced new materials and it kind of lit a fire
50:40
under you in a direction under you when I look at your work I feel there's like
50:45
a romance to it there's motion how do you describe how you feel about your
50:50
work or what are the words that you put to your work that kind of describes your style or what you'd like to make I like
50:57
to say that my work is Unified uh in the themes of motion and perspective and
51:04
energy as you said interestingly when I started the body of work you know the first image I kind of made in this
51:11
direction was that elephant piece and so I started thinking what other work fits
51:17
in that and I did a whole body of work I did some Gallery shows with this kind of circus and carnival theme and then I
51:23
brought it obviously art festivals a lot of people kind of associate me with the circus in carnival imagery and every
51:30
weekend if I have a ferris wheel or something like that I've stopped doing so many of the kind of animal pieces for
51:37
many reasons but one is that the circus is a complicated subject but also because it wasn't really the the core
51:44
focus of why I was doing it but someone will see for instance a ferris wheel and
51:49
they'll say oh did you you know did you grow up in the circus do you work in the circus and I find myself I use this line
51:54
a lot but it's like well no but I put up a tent every weekend but um and you do a lot of those promoter
52:01
shows which I've heard you refer to one of the major promoters down south is PT Barnum of Arts festivals I'm not trying
52:07
to burn any Bridges but I love that line especially the fact that it's selling that imagery as well well so it's funny
52:13
because actually what what really drew me in the end to all of that imagery
52:18
Carnival circus animals and everything wasn't ever the circus it was that
52:25
energy the movement there's this you know that first elephant piece I had done you know an elephant encountering a
52:31
child and it turns out you know that that makes people think of the circus the moment is actually from an African
52:39
Sanctuary you know the original Source image came out of a a sanctuary image where a child is meeting an elephant and
52:45
it's a baby elephant so it's these kind of two young minds meeting and to me that moment of meeting is interesting
52:51
there's that that emotion with that and then with all the other kind of circus and Carnival imagery it's motion focused
52:58
I did a whole body of work with flying machines with like old Zeppelins and seven layer biplanes or you know
53:05
septoplanes or whatever that never actually flew because it's a movement that energetic spatial representation
53:12
that I like like a sense of enthusiasm that that I mean I know carnivals do in
53:18
Circus do give off a feeling a feeling of right happiness and youthfulness and
53:23
and wonder and that all gets captured from that absolutely and I play on that
53:28
I like that I mean I don't it's not like I dislike the fact that people associate my work with the circus or the carnival
53:35
for most people that's a really amazing experience I mean the Advent of the circus regardless of what you know
53:42
ethics are involved with circuses as a concept the Advent of the circus when the circus came to town and you know the
53:48
middle of nowhere America it was the first time most people in those towns had ever
53:54
encountered anything beyond Main Street of their town so it was a it was a way
54:00
for the world to open up in in a way that Generations later television
54:05
changed people's perceptions of the outside world it was really an encounter
54:10
with things that they never could have dreamed of This Is The Stuff of Mythology except it's in front of them a
54:15
man fighting a lion that goes back to Hercules and yet here you are there's a guy with a bullwhip and a lion in front
54:21
of him I mean it's it's so people have these really strong associations and I
54:26
like that that it's this positive sense of wonder the potential for for Humanity
54:32
to surpass itself to do things that we didn't think were possible yeah I love that I love that feeling too of you know
54:37
we come out of our of our houses and we meet with communities and it's like all of these feelings are are generated from
54:45
an image you're creating it's that that feeling of connection that feeling of being uplifted and being exposed to new
54:52
people who you've never seen before but then also like enjoying it with your family or enjoying it with new people
54:57
around you it's it encapsulates such a huge sense of an experience Beyond just
55:03
the image itself and I love that about thinking about Rod again going back to rod and him kind of
55:10
saying what's the perfect series to show at an Arts Festival and and the venue I
55:16
have seen your career as you've edged toward what you are creating and it's like okay well here are the elephants
55:21
and you're like okay well I might have to cut the elephants and okay I'm trying to go for a feel of optimism and romance
55:27
and childhood innocence as well as this feeling of nostalgia that kind of comes
55:34
in and it's interesting to see you kind of edge towards finding your groove you know and then you can kind of sit in
55:40
that Groove and create and I'm always it's true I mean that's a that's actually a pretty clear description of
55:47
of what I'm aiming at and the trick is in these artistic Journeys you never know what it's going to look like when
55:52
you get there I mean like my newest kind of experiments have been these flowers that I've been working with because
55:59
they're you know they're very expressive as a subject matter and I tinker I try
56:04
something and then I go back to the studio and six months later I try something new and you know I sell
56:09
collectors will contact me oh I really love this one I saw on Instagram and my already my flower Series has diverged
56:15
from what I was doing six months ago a year ago whatever and occasionally I'll bring one to an art festival to see you
56:22
know get the response of people on the street but it is that sense of like optimism uh sense of maybe maybe a
56:30
little bit of a sense of wonder or childhood as you say and as you were talking I actually thought of something one of the unifying themes of my work
56:38
from the perspective of collectors is family which is really hard way to to
56:44
think about it but what I get from collectors again and again and again is whether it is the
56:51
architecture the fire escapes of the you know Williamsburg Brooklyn windows or
56:57
whether it's the circus or the carnival or a Paris scene with a ferris wheel or
57:04
something like that a huge percentage of my collectors have a personal family connection to that image that is I I
57:11
just did a commission for a woman in Norfolk whose father took her to an amusement park with a roller coaster and
57:17
a ferris wheel that is now gone it no longer exists but her memory of doing
57:23
this with her father is so important she ended up after a couple of years she ended up contacting me and saying yes I
57:28
really want a custom piece to commemorate this experience with my father I've done pieces for roller coaster
57:34
enthusiasts who've been on every roller coaster in America and who have favorites she wanted a roller coaster not because she loves roller coasters
57:42
but because it reminds her of her father and the same thing with the the urban pieces the fire escapes and the the
57:47
windows and everything people come and they say oh my God you know my dad grew up on a house on a street that did look
57:53
just like this I do now I'm doing custom pieces where someone like tells me the address of their childhood home and if
57:59
they're lucky they've got a picture and if not I have to go on Google Images and try to find the structure of the
58:05
building and what the windows look like to recreate that street where their parents grew up in the Bronx or in
58:11
Brooklyn or whatever and so it's odd but it's it's like all of these things in a certain sense come
58:17
back to that connection of childhood family sometimes our audiences tell us what our work is about before we even
58:22
know what it is yeah you know totally feel like there's a dishonesty if you sit there in your studio like uh what a
58:28
family's like you know you're not seeing you grasp but like you know the day out at the Ballpark this or that it's just
58:34
like okay you can't come at it from that intention of like I'm gonna make what people want you make what connects and
58:42
then other people meet you there and I feel like this year we've had several
58:48
conversations with the idea and the theme of nostalgia how artists will focus on what is Meaningful to them in
58:56
history or memories and other people join them in that search and they they
59:01
resonate with that yeah well then I this ties directly into a piece of writing
59:07
that I worked on more than a decade ago I ended up presenting to a small group of people but I called it the viewer is
59:14
a creative force and to me it I I'm not sure I ever expressed
59:19
it perfectly but to me the artist doesn't get the right to dictate meaning
59:25
we as artists we have a story We Tell ourselves we have something that we want
59:30
to express and if we're lucky what we've created is a vessel for meaning and we
59:36
show that to the world and then the viewer the the person who comes in and
59:41
experiences it they create meaning themselves we don't get to say oh no that's not how you can interpret it the
59:48
best we can do as artists is make a vessel that can hold meaning and then each person who comes up to the object
59:54
the image we create they're going to bring their own story their own background to it and they're going to
1:00:00
fill it with their own meaning and that's as true as whatever Story We Tell I mean how many musicians don't
1:00:06
want to tell the back story behind what their song is about because they want people to connect on their own personal
1:00:13
experience exactly and one of the last one of the worst interviews I've ever heard is the the interpretation of
1:00:19
Stairway to Heaven it's like
1:00:25
I didn't want to hear that I know well that's the same thing when you hear the the real story behind Like You Can't
1:00:31
Always Get What You Want by the Stones it's like well Keith really wanted a cherry soda and the drugstore was out of
1:00:36
it we're like well we thought it was blood cherry red and the devil and we're like no he really wanted a Cherry Coke
1:00:43
just a Cherry Coke that's it and he was he was he's out of luck but that's interesting I love that like music is a
1:00:49
big theme in my work and and I love that um Douglas and I I mentioned it earlier
1:00:54
on in the show but David Byrne wrote this book how music works and it ties right in line with so there's your your
1:01:01
reading material for the independent artist podcast I'm enjoying it yeah and you can pick up little passages
1:01:09
and um it's it's almost like an interactive book for me I've written in the margins and things that uh that
1:01:15
translate to my own work but I love that kind of thing and how music and art definitely has its own similarities and
1:01:23
and hand in hand even going to a a town setting up performing your art breaking
1:01:29
back down moving on down the road it's all these songs that the artists write from Jackson browne's turn no wait what
1:01:36
is it stay a little longer and turn the page senior in the drive-by trucker I can't man uh all of those songs about
1:01:43
the road how many the opening act by the drive-by truckers how many times when you when I've had a bad show have I
1:01:50
driven away being like it ain't my time it ain't my town yeah you know it's just it's sometimes you're
1:01:57
the opening act for somebody else's great show well Ben earlier you mentioned being in Paris before you came
1:02:03
back to New York and kind of started that but you have a longer history with Paris than just that that little
1:02:09
snapshot right well my my history caught back up to me yeah so actually
1:02:15
okay by the time this airs everybody's gonna know but Camille and I went and eloped at City Hall on Monday
1:02:22
congratulations that's fantastic congratulations we've
1:02:28
been contacting our family and friends and stuff but we haven't we haven't put it out there but anyway it'll be it'll be out there so I don't even know how to
1:02:35
introduce the subject but that really gets rid of like I was going to call her your lover and I was like that's I don't
1:02:41
want to do that that's just it makes it really simple doesn't it yeah I'm not gonna love her in Paris just goes right
1:02:47
in line with my Charles Dickens naughty storytelling but uh that's just the image I've created for for you but your
1:02:53
wife Camille sorry let's let's move on exactly so yeah so although Camille and
1:02:59
I just got married this month we met six years ago and she's French and I mean
1:03:06
very soon we knew that we were interested in being together for the for
1:03:12
the long term and so over the last six years she and I have gone back and forth
1:03:17
to France she's doing her PhD as a lot of you know here uh at UPenn and so you
1:03:25
know we we spend our time on both sides of the Atlantic but yeah Paris has always been kind of a a point of
1:03:32
inspiration for me France in general interestingly I always wanted to learn French since I was a child in an odd way
1:03:39
it's specifically because of my mother for some reason she always wanted to
1:03:44
learn French and when I was a kid we had some audio cassettes learning French I failed to
1:03:50
sign up for French class in high school and then when I went to college the
1:03:55
school I went to did two years of ancient Greek and two years of French but all my friends a couple years ahead
1:04:00
of me told me look you can translate rabile after this but you won't even be able to order a coffee in Paris it's
1:04:05
totally useless as a spoken language education and after my second year of college I dropped out and moved to
1:04:12
France because I really desperately wanted to learn French and I'm glad I did and those states were planted from
1:04:17
your mom they literally come from my mother who always wanted to learn French who's now she's on 850 days of Duolingo
1:04:24
because of course when we told her that when we told her that we were eventually going to probably get married and she
1:04:31
really wanted to come to France and meet Camille's parents which she did this Summer She's Got You know an extra fire
1:04:39
under her ass so to speak to learn French so she's doing great in fact she just did a class a distance learning
1:04:46
class in French in Maine where she where she lives and she's super motivated to
1:04:52
be conversational and fluent in French and now it's me who's inspiring her where is so what would Freud say about
1:04:59
the fact that we asked you about your your experience in France and Camille and then you immediately just started
1:05:05
talking about your mother as any good academic will tell you Freud
1:05:13
not necessarily the only way to interpret things so you went off to Paris without knowing
1:05:19
the language at all you just dropped yourself into France and we're like I'll just assimilate I'll figure it out yeah
1:05:25
so basically I mean there's no other way to put it I got a hair across my ass and I really wanted to go there and learn
1:05:32
French and I all of my attempts to study French in you know high school and
1:05:38
college seem to be frustrated by by circumstances and an opportunity fell in
1:05:45
my lap I had I had considered teaching English but because I didn't have a bachelor's degree I couldn't sign up for
1:05:51
teaching at an Institute and so I would have to do private lessons and I considered various other ways of doing
1:05:57
it and a family in Annapolis who were French had an association with my
1:06:02
college and I mentioned casually to them that I wanted to be an au pair okay and they happened to know somebody in France
1:06:08
looking for an au pair and six months later I was on a plane going to France with my little
1:06:15
you know pocket-sized French dictionary learning to count to 10 and asking you know
1:06:23
really important questions so you have that experience being in Paris and then
1:06:28
coming back to the US and you were kind of on the ground floor of being on the show market and your your Mentor kind of
1:06:36
pushed you down the road of doing these Road shows what happened was and so my mentor Rod was a huge influence on my
1:06:43
life on many levels but interestingly for both the decision to sell on the sidewalk in New York and the decision to
1:06:49
eventually bring my artwork out to art festivals that actually came from
1:06:55
Friends of my own generation or or a little bit ahead of me who were kind of breaking ground in New York basically it
1:07:03
didn't work for me to sell my paintings on the sidewalk I had friends who had who made their entire career that way
1:07:08
personally I was scrambling to pay for a very inexpensive room in New York City
1:07:15
like I had an insane deal and I still barely was able to make ends meet and so
1:07:21
I ended up getting other jobs I apprenticed for an amazing book finder in New York who influenced me both
1:07:26
artistically and you know life-wise and I ended up working security at a
1:07:33
Broadway Theater you know the kind of random stuff I worked as a as a server in a restaurant and eventually those
1:07:39
types of secondary jobs just burnt me out I couldn't do it and I
1:07:45
wanted to go back into making artwork and I knew that selling on the sidewalk in New York wasn't going to cut it and
1:07:51
so I started testing you know the small New England art festivals New Jersey a
1:07:56
little bit further trying Virginia and I had more and more success reinvesting yourself into how do I make a living at
1:08:05
this doing the artwork which is the thing I love realizing that the other Market wasn't working for you what other
1:08:11
kinds of choices do you have exactly so basically you know working my restaurant job I made good money working just a few
1:08:19
days a week I was able to do some artwork I saved up a nest egg and I just quit and kind of went cold turkey on
1:08:26
work and that gave me some time to make paintings except when I went into the studio I started making collages because
1:08:33
that was my influence from Rod and as I as I started looking at you know how to
1:08:39
bring these into the market the art festivals were just so much more successful than leaning my collages on
1:08:46
the sidewalk in New York that I started looking at how to make that more full-time you know you buy the van this
1:08:52
is the story all of us have done you get the van you get the professional tent you buy a set of walls that sucks you
1:08:58
buy a set of walls that doesn't suck and we've all had a set of walls that suck
1:09:04
exactly and like you know I remember I did my first two-day show ever in my
1:09:09
whole life that I made like two thousand dollars and I was like oh my God it's gonna be amazing how much money am I
1:09:15
gonna make when I go to Coconut Grove that windfall and then I didn't make yeah I didn't make the scale of increase
1:09:22
and so then you start the long slog of like okay how do I turn this into a business where I'm doing just chose to
1:09:30
get by chose to make this work and basically that was in the early 2000s and by you know the mid mid 2000s I'd
1:09:38
kind of gotten on a roll with that body of work where where it it you know made sense I had a system I kind of knew what
1:09:45
shows to do and all of that as you're finding your career you know and the market and how to kind of navigate and
1:09:51
make a living what motivated you then to kind of give back and to be on the board
1:09:57
for the National Association of Independent Artists and then kind of take on a leadership role in that way I
1:10:02
gotta be really blunt here so when I first when I first my first big National Art Festival was
1:10:10
Coconut Grove basically 20 years ago it might have been 19 I don't know and there was the the morning meeting of
1:10:17
Naya in the parking lot by the building that's now been blown up and turned into a garage there was you know a little
1:10:22
meeting with artists talking about Naya and I went and I was like not giving a break what are we doing here I don't
1:10:29
even know what the what the organization does and it's boring me and I left and you know over the years I would read the
1:10:36
the independent artist it was my favorite thing was the newspaper other than that I had no idea what Naya did
1:10:42
well before we did the podcast for those people who don't know the history there was a newsletter that Naya would put out
1:10:50
kind of talking about current issues and advocacies and all that kind of stuff and that's what you're talking about
1:10:55
you'd read that paper about what's going on out there yeah exactly and a lot of the artists we all see I chose still I
1:11:02
mean they wrote really interesting articles about current issues topics problems and so it's entertaining and
1:11:09
there's a little bit of social stuff but other than that I had no interest in the association I'm not much of a board
1:11:16
member person I mean like like most of us I probably couldn't hold down a real job if someone tried to pay me to do it
1:11:22
so I ignored it but at one point I got to be more involved in some of the
1:11:29
things that were being organized this application was doing conferences and they were doing sessions on different
1:11:35
topics and at one point I was asked to be a panelist on one of the conferences
1:11:42
because of my role as an administrator of the group Greg Turco started art fair review on Facebook they'd asked me to
1:11:50
come to the panel on the zap conference and talk about the next generation of artists and how to get young collectors
1:11:58
and Young Artists more invested and successful at art festivals and I did the panel and 30 seconds after
1:12:06
the panel was done a bunch of people Terry from the NAIA came to me and said
1:12:13
we want you to be on the board and there were some former board members who were who were leaving at the time who were
1:12:19
also there at the conference and they basically cornered me in the hallway outside uh this session and said it's
1:12:26
exactly you know your energy and everything that we need I think they had lots of plans and dreams for me I'm not
1:12:32
sure whether I actually succeeded in them but I literally I had this kind of moment where I thought you know what I
1:12:39
can criticize the NAIA or say oh they don't do anything as I'd done for a
1:12:45
decade or more or I could say sure I'll join the board and I'll see what I can
1:12:50
do and see if if my skills are useful and if I have the patience for board meetings which is exactly what I did
1:12:56
once I got into the group I you know I enjoyed the dynamic and everybody on the
1:13:02
board of that generation and also of our current board of directors is really passionate about making things work for
1:13:08
art festivals and that basically is is what keeps me on the board of directors
1:13:15
is that I I want to be involved in a group who is trying to help when an issue
1:13:20
arises or when there's a new topic such as online exhibitions and things like
1:13:26
that I'd like for there to be an organization that represents artists to be able to express something and and
1:13:32
take a stand so the organization was founded to kind of advocate for this
1:13:39
market and it's evolved a lot over the years we've we've seen it at a starting
1:13:45
point and Midway point and then you know it's kind of got visions and goals for where it's going can you talk a little
1:13:51
bit about that whole trajectory of what NAIA is sure I mean I know a lot of people or
1:13:59
several people who were involved at the beginning of the original meetings when the NAIA group got together in Chicago
1:14:07
and then in Ann Arbor and there were a few other events uh over one summer in
1:14:12
the 90s where artists started talking about a union for some sort of group
1:14:18
that would regulate shows the original idea probably every person present had a
1:14:24
different vision of what they wanted but the original idea was some sort of artists Union and over time informing
1:14:30
the group I know that the idea of a union or some sort of like rule-setting
1:14:36
organization if evolved because that's not exactly how our industry works we as
1:14:43
artists are actually consumers we pay for a service a booth fee we're not employees of art festivals and so unions
1:14:51
typically work when Ford Motor Company is the single paycheck for 1000 of Auto
1:14:56
Workers and those thousands of Auto Workers can say we're not going to show up at the factory if you don't do this for us
1:15:04
that's not at all how our industry Works we're an industry of scabs if anything oh you're not applying to Cherry Creek
1:15:09
great more more chance for me for the original gig workers basically exactly and so it's not that model doesn't work
1:15:17
and despite the fact that some artists wish it did the NAIA evolved away from
1:15:22
that and became a kind of guidance industry uh organization attempting to
1:15:28
maybe set standards before they became an issue many of us remember the slides
1:15:35
there was this chaos where you would pay hundreds or depending on how many applications thousands of dollars a year
1:15:41
to have slides printed and every single Festival at one point had a different rule of how
1:15:48
to write the name on the slide and what was up and all of that and the group the orientation of how they get loaded
1:15:54
exactly and the classic NAIA decision was to standardize that Marketing System
1:15:59
including a red dot on the slide and that became kind of the symbol of something the NAA was good at most art
1:16:06
festivals in the country adopted that standard for paper slides and then when digital applications started the NAA was
1:16:12
really heavily involved in making sure that there was one single Digital Image
1:16:17
standard I love hearing the history of how it got started when I think NAIA works the best it is as an advocacy
1:16:25
group as a voice for artists and some of our concerns and and helps to to voice
1:16:31
the collective thinking if you can even do that what are some of the ways that that Nia is working right now if you can
1:16:38
kind of talk to that I I feel like the group of volunteer board members works
1:16:45
best at ads taking ideas and problems and opinions from the
1:16:52
entire Art Festival industry and kind of consolidating them into a recommendation or a bit of counsel or suggestion some
1:17:00
of the things we work on is helping promote the industry as a whole actually there's a there's an initiative by a
1:17:08
couple of the board members to come up with some video that can be used by
1:17:13
shows that don't have a budget to make a video to promote the concept of art festivals to their Community as well as
1:17:19
to promote the specific Festival just before it happens so that there'll be something maybe on social media for all
1:17:25
the small shows who never do any kind of PR release like an integration of
1:17:31
something that's kind of standardized and National but then also they can put their own personalized flavor for their
1:17:37
event in their merge together to use yeah we're looking to create something that's a in a toolkit for shows that
1:17:43
lack the resources to generate this kind of material for themselves is this digital generate interest in the show
1:17:49
for the community or intro to get sponsorship what's the what's the goal
1:17:55
of the video the goal of the video and you know I'm not taking the lead on this particular project but I'm involved in
1:18:01
the conversations the goal of the video is essentially to create interest among
1:18:06
citizens you know local local residents to make the show have a little bit more
1:18:12
energy among That Base to get people more people out on the street to get
1:18:18
people more involved in the festival create a kind of a whole new Vibe too volunteer sponsorship exactly just
1:18:25
raising the Public's awareness what these festivals are about and oh maybe this is a desirable place to go to buy
1:18:32
artwork to live with artwork to to experience a show that sort of thing yes and I think we I don't think Nia could
1:18:38
have a better person kind of heading up that than Evan reinheimer he's the one that's putting that video together and
1:18:44
his terrific series that's on YouTube about art shows that if you enjoy this podcast definitely suggest checking out
1:18:51
his YouTube channel as well yeah his YouTube channel is great well one of the changes that I'm kind of excited about
1:18:57
too with the organization is for years we've tried to operate as that kind of that artist Union that that idea of
1:19:04
being a membership group where somebody will pay a fee to get benefits bestowed
1:19:11
upon them to advocate for them and we're moving we're reincorporating into what's
1:19:17
the type of non-profit that they're incorporating briefly the NAIA was created as a 501c6 which is a which is
1:19:25
an industry membership group that can make political advocacies to change laws
1:19:30
and things like that and can have other aspects of member benefits what we're
1:19:36
transitioning to is something basically that embodies what we've done all along which is a 501c3 non-profit that
1:19:46
attempts to create a public good that is we are attempting to make art festivals
1:19:51
in general more successful for artists more accessible to the public serve as
1:19:57
resources for shows exactly to give them data and feedback on what makes a good
1:20:03
Festival an event for artists which then improves the market all around so yeah
1:20:08
really we're there to help the industry as a whole right because the difference essentially is if we were behaving as a
1:20:15
true membership organization when somebody has a problem we would check the membership roster and tell people to
1:20:20
go stuff it if they hadn't Paid Dues for the last year or two whereas what actually happens what's happened for
1:20:26
decades is when an industry problem arises something like an issue with applications at a show or spaces at a
1:20:33
show the NAIA gets together the board of directors sits down and talks about is this something that's big enough or
1:20:40
seems awkward enough that some sort of collective voice should come together and express an opinion and then we we go
1:20:49
out and we talk to the show we talk to board members of the show we talk to people artists who've experienced
1:20:56
problems and we say okay well it looks like this whole thing is happening and in general this is not good for the
1:21:03
artists it's not good for the show as a reputation that the show has which is
1:21:09
completely not taking into account whether or not any of the people involved are members of our organization
1:21:15
so we've never really operated as a membership organization we've operated as a as an organization that advocates
1:21:23
for artists to try to make shows better for all of us if listeners out there find that they
1:21:30
want to help promote this advocacy the in the market that they can they can donate to NAIA to to help fund the
1:21:38
initiatives that are needed how can they do that we have a really simple donate link on the website and in the end we
1:21:46
are a very lean organization we have very few expenses but things like the software of the website and stuff like
1:21:52
that and and various aspects of of running any non-profit take a little bit
1:21:58
of money and so the donations are always useful and as we try bigger projects like the video project that takes a
1:22:05
little more resources so any donations are gratefully accepted this is a completely volunteer organization it's
1:22:12
just artists like you and I who are trying to help out and and to raise the
1:22:18
the level of art shows and and people are just trying to help it's not like you know the the union name gets bandied
1:22:24
about and artists have a tendency to disagree especially this time of year when we don't have shows
1:22:30
this time of year gets particularly testy online uh among artists and people
1:22:36
start getting feisty but it is just a group that's trying to get out there and
1:22:41
help help each other help art festivals as well if something's not working and
1:22:47
maybe you know not everybody always likes advice but at the same time a lot of shows will reach out to Naya and ask
1:22:54
and it's a it's a great advocacy group for for all of us it's true so show directors will will often Reach Out
1:22:59
they'll email or call knowing that one of us is on the board and say look we've got this debate in our own board of
1:23:05
directors about what to do for next year's show regarding a new layout regarding what to do with the porta
1:23:12
johns whatever it is and working on like the next generation of artists I mean that's been a big thing right there
1:23:18
another big advocacy we're working on is shows have reached out on how can they implement or how can they work with
1:23:25
other shows to learn about emerging artist programs and what is actually effective and what is just like giving a
1:23:32
newbie a space and having them show up and figure it out for themselves so that there's actually more of a mentoring
1:23:37
process going on so that's also something we've been working on in in AIA yeah and my my personal Vision I
1:23:44
mean I was I was the only person who voted against myself as chair of the board when I was voted onto the chair
1:23:50
my personal leadership philosophy is full democracy I want consensus I want
1:23:55
the group to work together as a whole and honestly there's been so many years
1:24:00
of the NAIA asking for membership fees asking for money from artists personally
1:24:06
what I want to do as a group is I want to create something that is of such benefit to the entire
1:24:12
community that people are excited to just say oh yeah I'm going to give them five bucks there's you know such a
1:24:17
helpful organization there or I'm just excited by the fact that there's a group
1:24:22
of people out there giving their time to try to make the industry better I I don't like the idea of an organization
1:24:29
that's constantly begging for money I want to show people what we do of value and then people will will help us do it
1:24:36
by donations by giving their time you know that's at the core of what Naya is Ben and we do appreciate the work that
1:24:43
the organization does which is why we kind of adopted them as a sponsorship really as far as the podcast goes we are
1:24:50
the newsletter you know we're the newsletter exactly the new direction that Naya is going trying to take it kind of into the future but and even
1:24:57
more than just like policies just through these talks we find out what's important to us as a professional artist
1:25:03
and we talk to people who work in different mediums so we get this broad perspective on what isn't important in
1:25:10
the industry so I think these conversations are really good to get things moving forward yeah absolutely I
1:25:16
feel like the best thing we can do is community building we attempt to bridge
1:25:21
the the distance between shows and artists and among artists and among shows and the podcast is a perfect
1:25:28
example it's not a function of the NAIA it's your project YouTube but what we
1:25:34
can do is help you know lend it a little bit of voice whatever publicity we can
1:25:39
give it and then you turn it into something amazing well we're all holding hands together it's Kumbaya that's the
1:25:45
Time of the Season right it's a good way to end this season right the end of the year we're going to take a little time
1:25:50
off and enjoy family time and recreating and and kind of come back to 2023 with a
1:25:57
fresh perspective on hitting the road again and and making a living out there getting right back on that that uh wheel
1:26:03
chasing that cheese Gentlemen let's do it exactly well Ben congratulations on
1:26:09
on your wedding on your marriage and we're really happy and happy holidays yeah congratulations Ben it's been
1:26:15
wonderful talking to you and it's a great way to kind of wrap up the year and yeah happy happy times and are you
1:26:22
spending uh you're gonna spend the holidays in in Paris or or Virginia we're sending them here and Camille's
1:26:28
family is going to come over around the holidays uh to spend time with us so we're hanging out here in Virginia this
1:26:35
is a year were they pissed that you eloped well eloping is is a good
1:26:41
description of it Although our family is actually new in advance nice good good plan yeah well thank you guys I'll see
1:26:48
you uh next time and thank you again for this this talk it's been really enlightening and fun and cool and
1:26:54
honestly thank you guys for having me all right it was fun see you guys later this podcast is brought to you by the
1:26:59
National Association of Independent Artists the website is naiaartists.org also sponsored by
1:27:06
zapplication that's zapplication.org org and while you're at it check out Will's
1:27:12
website at willarmstrongart.com and my website at cigarithglass.com be sure to subscribe
1:27:19
to this podcast and be notified when we release new episodes [Music]
1:27:33
[Music]



English (auto-generated)




All
Podcasts
Listenable
Related
Recently uploaded