The Hero’s Journey/ Trés & Helene Taylor

Trés Taylor https://www.trestaylor.com/ was a biochemist with a passion for writing. He was at a turning point in his life when a paintbrush fell from the sky and landed in his hand. The universe unfolded a path for him towards being an artist serendipitously at the time he met Helene. She "caught him" as he stepped into this new life, and together, they built a career as folk artists on a spiritual journey. This is the first part of a two-episode conversation that will inspire you to follow your own hero's journey through "rediscovering joy."  In the preamble discussion, Douglas and Will discuss the Tuscon Gem Show, getting back to the glass studio, and jury bait.

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 an independent professional artist.


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Transcript

0:00
[Music] foreign
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artist podcast sponsored by the National Association of Independent Artists also
0:18
sponsored by zapplication I'm will Armstrong and I'm a mixed media artist I'm Douglas sigworth glassblower join
0:25
our conversations with professional working artists
0:31
alright welcome back to the podcast everyone for another episode of let's torture our guests with technology
0:39
yeah I feel like that's uh it's it's the Benchmark it's like the Barbara Walters
0:45
thing it's like if we can make the guest cry but this is not making the guest cry
0:51
because of our our hard-hitting questions it's it's making them uh struggle through the technological
0:56
difficulties I think any of our guests who have been on will attest to the
1:02
challenges of can you hear me now can you hear me check check can you hear me can you hear me you and I do it every
1:08
week as well we just went through our own a little bout of that but yeah I'm I'm feeling good we're recording a
1:14
little bit later we got a completely unexpected snowstorm here in Santa Fe so oh you did yeah how often do you get
1:21
snow in Santa Fe uh it's not infrequent what happens a lot of times is like
1:26
it'll come in you know we're up in the mountains we're pretty high up up here 65 500 feet I guess altitude is pretty
1:33
high up here but we get these Mountain snow storms that aren't expected and all of a sudden it's like it's white out and
1:40
you can't really see and there's a quarter of an inches of snow and ice on the road which is not anything that you
1:45
guys are unaccustomed to but but do you guys have the like equipment the salt
1:50
trucks the cows that kind of thing what they do is it's not really even salt I think they're just just digging up red
1:57
sand and just dumping red sand everywhere because looks like there's there's so much sand in the desert so
2:03
they just put that everywhere I don't know if it's actual salt but yeah well you're back from a big trip here so you
2:09
just came back from the gem show with Susan right yeah the Tucson gym show man what a crazy experience to be a
2:16
purchaser as opposed to to flip the tables than to walk into these booths and okay be the one with uh coin in my
2:23
pocket and and money to spend and looking for certain things too that was pretty fascinating I loved being on that
2:31
side of it did you did you like playing the other side of the coin on that kicking the tires and totally we were
2:36
there was this one German stone cutter who you know they they are famous for
2:43
being able to to have the technology and the patients to cut stones in Germany you know and apologies to the Jewelers
2:52
out there I don't really know what I'm talking about right I'm plus wanting this event I'm Mr 2D
2:59
you know and you're interpreting what you have gathered from what Susan says I
3:05
am bound to say some things that are incorrect but this is the way that I saw it but she was talking about you know
3:11
Germany being famous for stone cutting and we walked into this one and we have
3:16
this this specific she has the specific client she's been looking for a stone and there sits the most spectacular
3:25
piece of Tourmaline that weighty um well obviously I've never I haven't seen that
3:31
much of it but it's just this thing and so it's back and forth and it might be a bigger Stone so we had to take pictures
3:37
of it put it on the back of her hand you know rotated the videos catching the light of this thing like really talking
3:43
like how it's faceted and stuff yeah and okay but we we were be backs like oh
3:49
there's the amazing Stone leave talk to the client come back see if we can get
3:55
it on I don't know what is what it's even called it was like get it on I don't even know what the word that she
4:00
used basically it means a lot of these gem dealers will have clients these
4:06
Jeweler clients that they will just send a package of gems to and they make their
4:11
selections and ship back what they don't want yeah they didn't know us from Adam so you know we weren't yeah they're not
4:18
going to take the risk on that yeah plus I didn't realize this whole thing with customs and I'm sure our good friends
4:24
you know are that have to go back and forth to Canada all of the time right would know this kind of thing whether
4:31
it's marginal and vanderheart or George Robb but uh they're going back and forth to Canada they have to have these
4:37
inventory lists so the Germans are not if they haven't sold that gem they can't
4:43
leave it behind and or maybe that's [ __ ] you know we've talked about sales all the time maybe they're just
4:49
trying to get us to buy it but um anyway we were back and forth for three or four different times tried to get it to just
4:56
ship to the client to see if she liked it then we're back and then she's like okay now what would you do with this gym and then this was a really cool
5:02
experience too like okay getting to play jewelry amateur jewelry designer and and
5:08
going out and sketching and having a having a coffee and sketching in the thing and like like back and forth on
5:14
the back of a program you know like here's what we do and all this stuff so she ended up buying it and after but
5:21
this is after like the fourth time but to see that from the other side the fourth time we're back and we might as
5:28
well just been like holding our credit card out you know straight out and walking and being led by this thing like
5:34
it's a you know finder like we've got them they're doing it but yeah and they were psyched and we were psyched too
5:40
like you know the way that works you know we're not really yeah not really
5:46
asking for a deal or anything because you passed the price on to your client to be honest right at that point that's
5:51
like the raw materials yeah I mean I can't negotiate less for my my glass or
5:57
whatever it's it's the raw materials that go into the piece exactly and then that's what we talked about like that
6:02
whole week while we were there about there three or four days but talking about the fact that like some of the
6:08
gems she was buying it was like you know building a house you know and so you're buying Lumber some of the stuff that
6:14
she's buying is like oh wow I think we're gonna splurge on the Peller windows and the Wolf stove you know some
6:21
of some of those things but she she ended up bringing home some really nice as ethical as as sourced as they could
6:29
be gems uh just some really cool really cool things to to inspire throughout the
6:35
next few years well Jewelers I've talked to who experienced that I've never talked to Susan about this but it's like
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I know on the one hand the gems are such a huge expense for the work and so it's
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almost like you show up and you've gotta like you have have the funds and and to
6:53
to buy all of your inventory for however long you're going to be working on so there's a bit of risk but then there's
7:00
also that exuberance of getting inspired by what you see and what you can turn that stuff into absolutely plus there's
7:06
the stress all right the anxiety she is a very talented gem Setter but the
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Jewelers out there will will attest to this it's like it doesn't matter how talented you are of you
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do something slightly wrong you can crack you can break uh really expensive
7:25
gym very easily and uh you know like I was talking about with like ethically sourced stuff she really enjoys working
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with some gyms sometimes that have inclusions and and those inclusions will make a stone weaker at a certain point
7:40
that you didn't expect and oh um man that's kind of a surprise in the in the
7:45
structure of it yeah and thinking about like um our friend Betty Yeager who's been on the show uh because she works
7:52
with monster gems just these huge honking just you know statement pieces
7:58
so the the stress in dealing with those things so I don't know hats off to our Jeweler friends out there listening cool
8:04
well that sounds like a kind of fun experience yeah on the other side of all that yeah I loved it also dude it is the
8:12
most sexist industry you've ever seen like serious oh my God I was like she's
8:18
the one right and I'm like I'm I'm the six two white 50 year old guy walking
8:25
around in the black coat and holding her for her I'm carrying the bags dude like that is
8:32
I am 100 just beast of burden on this trip just yeah whatever she needs need a
8:38
coffee need a whiskey to to calm your nerves after you just bought those sapphires I mean it's just crazy though
8:45
because I'll be standing kind of behind her yeah and the gym dealers only want to talk to me they're like oh how are
8:51
you sir how are you I'm like okay um did you throw the uh I'm the eye
8:57
candy this is the artist over here did you use the Phil crawl line I did say that to this woman who was uh
9:05
working and she flirted with me so hard after that she's like you are the I can
9:10
oh and I was like oh that didn't I let's it didn't quite land the way I thought
9:16
it would anyway way um this yeah we ended up using it okay I
9:22
mean you can't you're not gonna correct the industry for being sexist like that so A lot of times I stood behind her and
9:29
just kind of whisper in her ears okay and she would then talk to them and you know they don't know what I'm most of
9:36
the time I'm whispering earlier like I don't know I get a coffee right now
9:44
right my leg hurts uh but she goes through and makes all of the deal and
9:50
and it's all done and she's used her her Delta Amex and gotten all the points you
9:57
know brought out the metal card definitely done all of the stuff she's made the transaction then they look at
10:02
me and like thank you very much sir and I'm like ah you blew it dude that just makes it gross doesn't it yeah but it's
10:10
um I don't know there were so many cool things Douglas it was like there's a upstairs
10:15
high-end wholesale jewelry show which is actual booths and finished product Oh
10:22
and then they're downstairs there's this huge Convention Center area where people
10:28
are there are all these different gem booths the high-end jewelry show like we were downstairs looking and we walked
10:34
through the high-end jewelry show there were a couple of artists that we knew oh okay like in our realm like in this the
10:39
art fair circuit or more of those Santa Fe Jewelers around they don't really do
10:44
show shows but so as we're walking around the show one of the Jewelers that I had seen upstairs came downstairs to
10:52
price a giant diamond oh for one of her clients I see okay and like I mean and
10:57
how cool is that you've got like a at your disposal a basement where you can go price out yeah you know right like
11:04
how handy right I'm like it was like well here how about okay can I take this upstairs and and oh yeah of course here
11:10
take it upstairs so she takes it upstairs and shows her client like four of the best diamonds that they're
11:15
possible oh can you hang on like how many of us have walked to the truck to go get that piece of artwork to show
11:21
their clients instead they're going to the basement to go pick out a four carat diamond right I'm guessing obviously the
11:27
the person selling the gems and the Jeweler have this relationship because like we've talked about many other
11:33
Jewelers talk about that you can't turn your back for a second because stuff walks away I'm sure there's security
11:39
issues and all that kind of stuff going on at the show oh there were cops that every I mean this is this is crazy like
11:46
there there were police at every aisle every exit they all had walkie-talkies
11:52
there are cameras everywhere this was interesting too you know it's a big time show didn't think about this and I've
11:59
never really run across this in in our industry and seeing uh devout Jewish
12:04
artists or gem dealers there were a lot of devout Jewish dealers who on Friday
12:11
evening as the sun is starting to go down there goes the sign oh goes up we're closed until Sunday so okay can
12:18
you even imagine like missing out on a on a huge day like that but right that
12:24
that is it's it's important it's important to them and and their belief and so I mean it makes sense but yeah to
12:31
me that would be very strange to commit to a venue like that and only be open
12:37
for part of the time right but yeah just never seen it before just kind of interesting it's like wow that I mean
12:44
that's a commitment right yeah totally well Douglas we were timing out our uh
12:51
recording again and and I realized we're we're timing this thing out so that you can actually do something uh that I
12:58
hadn't heard you tell me you had to do in a long time I want to want to tell the folks what what you've been up to
13:04
this week I I was able to walk on my own two feet back into the glass blowing Studio this week that was a quite an
13:11
exciting moment that's awesome man congratulations we're all we're all we've all been rooting for you and
13:18
that's fantastic news how'd it go it's it's an interesting week on the one hand it is
13:24
extremely frustrating and difficult and yet all exhilarating all at the same
13:29
time because it's been months of chilling months of waiting and I get so
13:37
much of my sense of purpose and being by doing stuff and so right being in the
13:42
studio the timing is off the physicality is off but it feels really good to be like
13:48
working my way back so that is the that's the the silver lining in it all
13:53
yeah so I've had to kind of redefine what a day is for me I mean we all have
14:00
this kind of idea of what we want to accomplish during the day for us it was we wanted to fill our annealing oven
14:07
with pieces so we would schedule time around how much time it was going to take to fill that well I have to be a
14:15
little kinder to myself as this expression you use a lot is I just have to accept where my physical limitations
14:22
are and say you know what I don't have to be back where I was six months ago or even a year ago for that matter even if
14:29
you had not had this surgery on your on your foot yeah if you would just sat on your butt for three months you know just
14:36
watching Netflix and and eating bon bons like if you hadn't had the surgery you just decided to take three month break
14:41
that part is out of shape the type of work we do specific
14:46
typically there's so much muscle memory and timing going on I'll kind of go back to the conversation
14:52
that I had with Amber Marshall in our first season that so much of glass blowing as those drills and skills kind
14:58
of thing like an athlete would do where let's say you throw the ball up with one hand and then you just know if you're
15:04
going to grab it with the other hand just by sticking out without necessarily looking or timing or planning because
15:10
you just have that flow and that rhythm going with glassblowing and so all of that is having to be relearned again so
15:17
that's interesting it's good um it's like uh yeah it's it's spring training for everyone
15:23
yeah you're doing doing some drills playing a little fun go but I I'm
15:29
bringing the afternoon nap back huh that's been a nice night good yeah I I've been trying to uh you
15:37
know slowly work my way back into the studio just from from resting stuff so I'm feeling your pain and empathy just
15:44
there just trying to kick start kick my kick my butt into gear I got a lot of custom work and how do you handle your I
15:52
was going to ask you this like when you guys have custom pieces do you like try
15:58
to clear all of the custom work before you get to work on stock for your upcoming show season how do you guys do
16:06
it yeah it's interesting that you said that because I I did post on social media that the exciting news that we're
16:12
starting back in the studio I should have thought about what I was doing because it did it it brought out all of
16:18
the people who've been waiting for us to make them some stuff and right I've had
16:24
to kind of be like well we're still trying to you know we got a full show line up ahead and on the one hand people wanting
16:33
stuff now is money in the hand you know what I mean so you got to jump at that but on the other hand of course I kind
16:39
of need to get the whole Rhythm back so it is it is a little tricky um kind of holding them off a bit and saying just a
16:45
little bit longer till we get into the flow and we kind of want to start working on let's say a particular
16:54
thing we made and then we want to move on to the next thing we made and kind of get proficient in every area instead of
17:01
just having everything we do be up for grabs for they want to place an order or something like that so that's just been
17:08
a little bit of what surprised me this week with people getting excited uh to come knocking back on the door again
17:14
that's that's absolutely that happens with my wife all of the time where she'll she'll post something that she's excited about you know like even posting
17:21
at the gym show that she's gone and showed some pictures on Instagram she's got this huge number of followers and
17:27
when you see those something and it's immediately like I'm like oh my God I'm
17:32
you know it's so Soul enriching to get these new gems and like and so what
17:37
about my ring like a media it's like right about my ring I want my ring that's the ring that you said you'd make
17:44
it's like yeah thanks for stealing my joy I typically will do one for you one
17:50
for me that's how I handle interesting like I just finished a huge commission it's it was one of these pieces had a
17:56
lot of custom elements to it and stuff that was out a little out of my wheelhouse that I was you know it took
18:03
me a lot longer than a than a typical painting would would take me okay so now I'm in the studio and I'm going to start
18:09
something first okay like just do something for me for stock I've still got four other custom pieces that are
18:15
kind of breathing down my neck a little bit I I gave them an early promise date on it because I I let's be honest I've
18:21
paid the rent for the year like I said last week if I had to pay the rent for all those all the booth fees all the
18:27
applications all the boots yeah right yeah it's like let's take the brokest month an artist has and make them pay
18:33
for a month yeah that's a pet it's a pet pee but you know what are we going to do it's just the way they're trying to plan
18:39
their shows out so I can't blame them it's just pain in the ass that's why that's why we have credit cards right yeah I guess I guess so there was one
18:46
other topic I wanted to bring up with you that I kind of had on my notes I've been kind of kicking down the line since
18:51
we talked to Ben fry a while ago and as I'm work was working on the talk with Trey and Helene
18:59
I it kind of came back up again and it was that whole idea of making work
19:04
for an outcome she talks about in this episode this week how when you go
19:10
through schooling you make your work for the critique or as art show artists we make work for the collector who's going
19:17
to buy from us well I'm thinking back to what Ben was talking about is making work for the jury so we're making work
19:25
to get into a show because we want to ultimately have a place to sell our work
19:31
but then there's that other aspect of what if that stuff that is revered by
19:37
the jury isn't so much revered by the buying public you know what if they want something different yeah
19:43
that's a great great topic I feel like um there are artists out there that that do jury bank and I I talked to it's it's
19:51
not my quote but it's like it's like oh this is gonna get me in and uh this is
19:57
an interesting thing I just saw on one of the major shows and I don't know what to do with this information because I
20:03
don't want to be a narc okay it's like one or two right there on there is a booth full of stuff that he's not
20:09
actually going to show really oh yeah it's really egregious and his his Booth
20:14
is not going to look anything like that when they show up I've seen him do that at several of the major shows and it's
20:20
like you know we all pulled our best foot forward but where does where do you draw the line when it's not even work
20:26
you're going to show yeah it's not even stuff you're gonna gonna show up with and it doesn't look anything like it and
20:33
this smoke son of a [ __ ] is is trying to gain the jury and uh I don't really know what to do I don't want to be a narc but at the same time yeah I'm
20:40
really I'm really ticked off right that's a maybe a different thing no but
20:45
no I think that it does fall into that idea of some people will feel like they
20:51
have to submit applications that isn't congruent with what they're going to show they get in and I think that's
20:58
totally wrong because the show is trying to maintain a sense of quality and then
21:03
that's extra work for the show on the ground to have to police that stuff and say hey
21:08
one percent of your booth is what you juried in with and the other 95 or whatever I said for quoting that
21:14
percentages that's not it right right right so I mean I guess what I'm saying
21:20
too I mean I don't have I feel phenomenally lucky that uh I I jury in with the stuff that I'm
21:27
gonna show yep so you don't even have to think about that but you know it's like what we're all making new work at all
21:33
times and there are times when I'm making a new piece that doesn't necessarily look exactly like what I
21:39
juried with but you can recognize my style and it's never changing in style absolutely I mean that can be such a
21:45
super a hard thing to navigate around between you know creating the same old
21:51
stuff that you submit for your jury and then you show up with that exact stuff or are you showing up with an extension
21:59
of what you show in the jury that is still your style still your flavor it is
22:04
congruent with the whole body of work it's it's I think it's the the thing that drives a lot of us artists nuts
22:10
really yeah I totally agree with you it makes me insane it's a hot topic for me I guess but I think we all do it to some
22:17
extent you know you're like okay I want to get into this great show right here
22:22
are my four best things the four best things I make right exactly doesn't mean that the stuff that is a little more
22:27
cash and carry let's say is it quality produced but it isn't the thing you
22:34
might want to show the the jury you know let's say the things that are in a price point that is more like desirable to the
22:41
masses you know sure yeah you're not going to post a picture of your 100 you know whatever I've got these little
22:48
sketches that I'll do sometimes that I'll sell it doesn't happen very often because I don't like putting them together but I think that and the
22:54
self-loathing aspect like it's not good enough you know and I go through that whole [ __ ] or but
23:00
I've got a bunch of these little sketches that I'll bag up sometimes and and sell at Originals only show where uh
23:06
they don't allow reproductions yeah for anyone but digital or photography
23:12
just say it just say it I didn't say anything bad that's just the rules for sure right so anyway that that's
23:19
something that as I was listening to Trey and Helene's talk that that kind of
23:24
jumped out at me but man there's just so much great stuff you guys talked about
23:29
that we're actually going to turn it into two episodes I kind of lose my sense of time when I talk to Charlene
23:34
and everything you know that it's kind of felt like one of those dinners where the time goes away and the server starts
23:41
tapping their foot and going kind of bring anything else um but we really did get into a lot of
23:46
topics and I will say when that uh when that talk clocked in at two hours and 25 minutes well I was thinking is this
23:53
really a one episode or is this two what if I got myself into here yeah you know
23:59
there was and there were so many things that I left on the table too that I really wanted to talk about I wanted to kind of like he barely touched on his uh
24:06
talking about the prankster Monk and and there is a prankster in all all modern
24:13
religions except for Christianity I want to approach that subject with him I didn't get a chance to I wanted to talk
24:18
to him about going down into Mexico with with Gena and uh Daryl and we didn't get
24:24
into that so there are so many more stories that I feel like it could have been a whole it could have been a whole
24:29
series but but uh I'm generous for all the time that they gave but what we got was gold so we'll have to talk to him
24:36
about that another time because these these topics about spirituality and about finding joy and I mean it really
24:44
recharged my batteries and I really am looking forward to everybody hearing what he has to say so here we go let's
24:51
do it yeah let's jump right into it and talk to Trey and Helene Taylor from Selma Alabama
24:56
this episode of The Independent artist podcast is brought to you by zap the digital application service where
25:02
artists and art festivals connect so will it's that time of year again when we all need to start getting stuff ready
25:08
for taxes thanks for that Douglas I appreciate that we all do quite literally I did get an email recently
25:15
from Zapp uh they were talking about uh doing line items and keeping everything together in one place yeah that's right
25:20
I tried it out for myself so when I was logged into zap I went to my profile and
25:26
one of the options further down the page is to download your transaction history amazing that's after you've proven to
25:33
them that you're not a robot by uh correctly identify the tractor before you play that lovely game so once you've
25:39
identified that you're an actual human it's super easy just to select your date range and then it will create a report
25:47
of all your purchases so you can hand off those booth fees and application fees directly to your accountant
25:52
come on will you're you're a movie star you got that that handsome movie star I
25:58
don't know about that it's a waning man it's so good we've tried this for so
26:04
long and it's so nice to hear your voices and and see your faces I didn't think it was ever gonna happen I didn't
26:09
think so either one challenge after another I had uh bronchitis then covid
26:15
then bronchitis again and now a sinus infection and then the tornado and it's
26:21
just man we are gonna get down into all of that but I just I mean yeah it really
26:26
has been a comedy Bears I feel like I've been your kiss of death as soon as I announced on the show that I was gonna
26:32
have oh we got Trey and Helene Taylor coming up and then you guys just started falling apart I know it's like you
26:39
cursed as well actually I feel bad I'm feeling like job of the black belt with
26:45
all of these challenges man I tell you it's uh well it's good to finally have you guys on the podcast you've been on
26:51
my my radar to talk to you for a long time and you have an interesting story and let's just uh let's get right down
26:58
into it I kind of wanted to start with a little bit of History I talk again like all the time to you guys at shows and
27:05
I've seen you for years but let's kind of talk just briefly about how you guys
27:10
got together just kind of a little bit of your background here that's right let me do the one minute story and then you
27:17
do the long one yeah it's a one minute story is I met Trey soon after he quit
27:23
his job as a biochemist to become a full-time artist oh wow he was calling
27:29
himself a folk artist then and I was a big collector of folk art and coming out
27:35
of a marriage and uh knew his brother okay and I said to his brother I'm
27:41
falling in love with you don't you have a brother and he goes well actually I have this one I call him Picasso and he
27:47
lives in the woods and I was like that's the one that's the one you want yeah the
27:53
day that I met Trey which I kind of we kind of had to trick him to come meet me uh you know he didn't really want to
28:00
meet the divorcee I don't know why everybody knows the divorces are hot to
28:05
trot I mean we learned that from if we learned that from happy days
28:14
but his car his car was full of wet paintings and that was really really
28:21
attractive to me so the one minute story is he quit his job took a whole leap of
28:27
faith to follow this life as a as an artist and I caught him that's amazing and I was really kind of the perfect
28:34
partner at that point I have a degree in our a minor in photography and I loved
28:40
folk art understood folk art understood the passion of making stuff out of anything and needing to make art and so
28:47
I was a instant good partner for that I promoted him and
28:53
you know believed in him and supported him physically and uh financially until until he literally made it so yeah well
29:01
you've got that that supportive that great supportive uh type personality that is uh kind of integral a lot of
29:09
times in this in this industry too you they have that that other person that that picks up the the slack and kind of
29:15
supports the other person it's it's an amazing thing to kind of see the way you guys react and interact with each other
29:21
we are a hundred percent team with Trey's career for sure I mean that was the way when I first asked you guys I
29:29
think I came up to you in Cherry Creek and asked if you wanted to do the show and he was like not without her we're
29:34
doing it together if we're doing it at all you know but yeah you give me the uh less Reader's Digest version Trey
29:42
well I'll I'll pick up on the part uh the hot to trot divorces and tell you I
29:49
was tricked into coming down to help my brother and she walked in and she was
29:54
looking really good but I looked at that and I said that's dangerous stay away from that but then uh she asked to see
30:03
my art and I gave her this little book just this little little tiny little
30:09
portfolio that I made and I gave it to her and I watched her studying them and didn't say a word
30:17
and so that raised my first eyebrow and then yeah I thought God that's so
30:22
curious I mean I was not even just a comment nothing and then she offered to my brother to
30:32
help us and she went to Lowe's and loaded up her van with all the materials
30:38
that we were needing and the entire time that she was gone my brother and I were studying the wall talking about how we
30:46
needed to hammer this that and the other and she comes back unloads and starts
30:51
hammering away and that got the other eyebrow open and
30:57
then it was just sort of yeah from there that's uh that that sounds it sounds you
31:02
know when you meet the person you meet the right people I feel like whether it's a friend or yeah a romantic
31:08
interest and it tends to be more like a recognition than it is like an attraction I feel like that's what I'm
31:14
hearing from you guys if that makes sense well then afterwards it was I mean I was smitten I would send her little
31:21
poems wrapped up all you know like she'd have to unfold them and take you 30
31:28
minutes to open these people he was a very good corner right and is that the same town like is that do you guys uh
31:34
what what town are we talking about is this now this isn't a place called Mentone Alabama okay it's an old home
31:41
that a summer home that my family owned and we spent our summers there it's up
31:48
in the mountains northeast corner of Alabama and so I was up there I had just come back from Japan I actually got
31:55
kicked out of Japan but that's a whole nother story and uh when I and I like
32:01
stories today I want to hear some stories
32:13
so you had just gotten kicked out of Japan yeah I gotten kicked out of Japan I came back to this place our summer
32:21
home and I was making art I just I was just consumed with this passion this
32:27
newly found passion I I I'd only been painting for about a year and a half now wow and it was already a
32:35
crazy crazy adventure of going to Japan for I think I had three shows there I mean it
32:42
was just crazy but when I met Helene the first time we
32:49
actually had a date she came up went out in the back and I gathered all these found objects and we sat down and she
32:57
was going through a lot of pain at the time because of this recent divorce and
33:04
so we just sat down and I threw all these materials onto the floor of the
33:10
porch and the two of us made this piece of art together didn't say a word amazing and at the end of it after we'd
33:18
finished we looked at it we named it pulling off all the old masks just to
33:24
see the flowers bloom again and it's hanging in our
33:29
where is that piece honey yeah it sounds incredible I was gonna
33:35
say you have to hang on to that one yeah that's an important piece that's about oh yeah yeah it's important so you guys
33:42
you mentioned Trey you started out your career as a you know something totally different you were a biochemist and you
33:48
started that out were you always interested in art as far as that goes were you always I I was interested kind
33:55
of inspired to make art or what happened I was interested in writing that was my
34:01
passion I was a English major university uh the first time I went off to Japan I
34:07
packed a little Portable typewriter jumped on a container ship went to
34:13
Australia traveled all through there got up to Japan where I uh lived for three years and while I was there I was trying
34:19
to become the next Great Southern writer uh but my my stories were awful terrible
34:27
I was surrounded by artists all my life my mother my brother my sister they were
34:34
all artists I dated artists and I used to kind of look at their talent and I
34:40
actually was a little you know in obvious and and always thought you know I wish I could draw a rabbit like just a
34:47
rabbit you know and and they can just execute so easily I mean I could see hints of this stuff coming through me
34:54
the first time was when I was on the container ship this German container ship I was told to go down into the hall
35:01
and paint and you have to wear this little you know this Miner's light and I went
35:07
down there and just painted these very crude nudes and just kind of like I was in a cave and and I thought the next
35:15
workaway is going to go down there and it will just become this history of all
35:20
these artists or non-artists down there doing graffiti basically so Trey you
35:26
threw little Snippets of stories here you were talking about Japan but then you were also talking about learning how
35:32
to paint and going down into the bowels of a of a German ship I I we gotta maybe
35:37
start this over a little bit but tell me were you were you in the military is that what you were talking about you were dealing with an 80 deep Storyteller
35:46
so no so there's so much backstory but I'm Gonna Keep it really short so after
35:53
sure I think this was in 87. I was heading to Japan to work as an English
36:01
teacher and I I was really interested you know in traveling I wanted to travel
36:07
the whole world and at that time I was interested in writing so as I was mentioning I had this little Portable
36:13
typewriter in my backpack and I had met someone who told me you
36:19
can work your way to Australia on a German container ship for free
36:25
and that really got my interest because at the time I was afraid of flying so
36:32
you know never mind going out on the ship for two weeks and hitting these 40
36:39
50 foot waves no that's not a problem it's just the idea of flying yeah so I
36:45
traveled around in Australia for three months hitchhiking and just I mean wild
36:52
wild experiences but the idea was to go all the way to the tip of Queensland which is known as Thursday Island and
36:59
then I was gonna canoe bus uh Rickshaw whatever it took all the way
37:07
up through southeast Asia and up to uh to Japan but I ran out of money in
37:13
Australia after three months so I managed to get back to Sydney Australia
37:19
had like four quarters in my pocket I said I got to find the first job that is
37:24
just like you know I can pick up the phone and call and they'll hire me and it was washing cars so I got that yeah
37:32
and then I called the youth hostel I said I don't have any money but I'll pay you by the end of the week and so they
37:38
gave me a place to stay but I I had a deadline I was running out of time and I
37:43
was going to have to be in Japan on a certain day what was the deadline for that for your your teaching job yeah
37:49
yeah and so you know when you're working at washing cars and trying to get an
37:55
airline ticket you this is going to take months but the interesting thing
38:01
happened was this English Language School had put it out a notice that
38:08
there a lot of their staff had come down with some kind of illness and it was an
38:13
emergency that they get some substitutes to come in wow so come in early and so I
38:19
got I I was able to get this just short-term job uh go in and teach for I
38:26
don't know I guess it was two weeks and I got enough money for my airline ticket now I've got to get on a plane which I'm
38:33
just you know extremely terrified of at this point so I drank I
38:39
think at the airport in the duty-free I just went ahead and drank like I don't know a half a bottle of scotch
38:46
or something and I get on the airplane and uh it hasn't hit yet but I'm feeling
38:54
really good and it was a plane filled with Japanese high school students who
39:00
had come on a school trip to Australia to try and use their English there must
39:06
have been a hundred of them in the back where I was I remember turning around as we're all trying to settle in and I got
39:13
up and I started I was going to do my first English lesson and I got all the
39:19
students to sing hi ho hi ho it's off to Japan we go and then the next thing I
39:26
know I'm waking up in Tokyo and I had been I had passed out
39:31
on a a student's shoulder apparently this is an eight-hour flight and I'm
39:37
waking up as we're coming in they had put a blanket over me you know oh it's
39:43
just wow take care of teachers right then uh you you find all these kids around your class right as soon as you
39:49
get back up yeah exactly we know you how we met our teachers the story began
39:56
with how did you become an artist were you an artist all along and you were
40:01
talking about the first painting you did was in the belly of that ship on the way to Australia and so that's where that
40:08
story started add Storyteller that's good man we're gonna put Douglas's
40:14
editing skills to the test see if we can chop this up and make a narrative out of
40:19
it yeah well I'll I'll tighten them up we got this so you're in Japan and
40:26
you're teaching I kind of wanted to get just a little bit of groundwork as far as how you started your art career
40:31
really and and sounds like you were always inspired by Art you're always surrounded by Art and then you wanted to
40:38
create is that does that make kind of it does I wanted to write I didn't know I was a visual Storyteller that's what I
40:45
ended up discovering and it was in Japan that uh I was there for three years and
40:51
I met a lady who she was very creative and she introduced me kind of to to Art
40:59
again but we made this thing called it was a sculpture out of garbage and we
41:05
came up with this idea we would film it the making of it and then we would take it out onto the street in Japan all the
41:13
on a certain day everybody brings their garbage and leaves it on a certain place
41:18
in the street and then you hear the the truck coming by playing fleur-de-lis you
41:25
know to and everybody's well it's just so strange but so we set up the
41:31
sculpture there and then hid behind uh like a snow blind
41:36
and recorded people coming up to drop their garbage off and see this sculpture
41:41
you know the Japanese there's an expression the nail that sticks up gets
41:47
hammered down so when you have half the population of America living on the
41:52
equivalent of the East Coast of the US you've got to have a lot of
41:58
cooperation and and so right a lot of a lot of structure and so we were
42:04
uh we were being a little bit of verrasco and kind of like testing that you know to see how they would yeah
42:10
respond what was the sculpture like what was the uh what did you guys there was a a mannequin that bill get was her name
42:17
she found this mannequin so we started with the mannequin and then we put this sheet behind it and and then we just
42:24
started taking paint and throwing paint at it and took a giant daikon radish and
42:30
printed like the a sun in red to where it looks like uh you know this the Land
42:36
of the Rising Sun that's their symbol yeah but this thing was Dripping a little bit
42:43
you know it's the kind of things you don't do in a Northern in a place as conservative as this place that I was in
42:50
right it's like that you proud you could barely get away with it this was the Alabama of Japan that I
42:57
ended up in and but I actually we felt that and I actually still have that video it's
43:03
pretty oh that's incredible yeah I'd love to see that so then but you got I mean that's that kind of kicks you
43:09
started you start to make visual work there yeah and she taught me this thing called Blind Contour drawing which I'd
43:16
never heard of and she says I'm just gonna lay here on the sofa and I want you
43:21
without looking at your paper and everything just draw just draw what you
43:27
what you see and so I did and when I turned around I was shocked I was like oh my God it was just a a very stylistic
43:37
image of her and I thought it was going to be a mess but that really really
43:43
sparked my interest in in painting but I still haven't got it yet you know sure
43:49
and then my daughter she came to visit and lived with me for a year while I was over there and I put her in school and
43:56
so to keep her entertained and and to enjoy our time together I took brown
44:03
paper and wrapped the entire apartment that I was living in in brown paper and
44:08
we we would just just draw you know together yeah on the walls how old was she at the time she was nine nine that's
44:15
perfect so you know and in some ways she was a teacher right for me by showing me
44:21
how to get back to that part of of me that as children
44:27
we're all painting right I mean we're all drawing and painting and then at some place somewhere something happens
44:35
and some of those get through it and still keep doing and others get you know squashed right it's interesting to see
44:42
I've got a 14 year old and a 12 year old and to see my 14 year old is his she got
44:48
squashed uh at some point I'm trying to figure out how to open that back up but she and her little sister who is not
44:54
squashed and she's always had this innate Talent um that is a little bit different it's a little more
45:00
um she's been wide open she was the kid that was always told that she's the artist of the family and so the 14 year
45:07
old who I think makes Incredible artwork and I've always tried to keep her open to it but it somehow kind of got shut
45:13
along well I I suck I'm terrible I'm not good at this and and I try to keep that open but it's it's wild to see that
45:21
um in person shut at one in one human where it's still open and the other and
45:27
how to keep those doors open but you're right and like how to access that you look at our my artwork versus your
45:33
artwork and I'm I'm incredibly uptight you know and I'm I'm I'm trying to be you know I want it to look as much like
45:40
the photograph as I can which I wish I could let that go and I can't access that that childhood freedom in my mind
45:48
like I'd like to but you seem to have had that kind of all has that always
45:54
been open for you so the the way that you paint
46:00
will was what intimidated me my brother is is very much like he Paints in in the
46:07
style of you know it's got to be a certain way and so there's a lot of expectation and as a result there are
46:14
these just wonderfully beautifully executed drawings I was intimidated by
46:21
that so I never I just didn't think I could ever do that right but I didn't
46:26
realize that actually my visual language was not to paint like that until much
46:34
later right in this journey of discovering myself as an artist that
46:40
really didn't happen until years later uh 1998 so the story in Japan is
46:51
happening from 87 to 90. and I had those those couple little experiences there
46:56
where you start to kind of open it back up is your brother burdened by that kind of style do you feel like
47:03
yes yes uh especially so my brother and my sister are really really talented
47:09
artist and the way they are burdened with that style reminds me of the way I
47:18
was burdened when I was trying to write like I literally looked like Jack Nicholson just writing the same sentence
47:25
you know yeah that's what I I the reason I ask is because I feel that way I
47:30
definitely feel burdened by style I know Trey's going to talk next about his influence with Southern folk artists and
47:37
I think there's a real Freedom when you are an untrained artist that you have
47:43
not gone through schooling you know you make a piece of art and then you're
47:49
critiqued and there is pretty much no way uh to
47:55
avoid that type of schooling if you're you know getting an art degree and you perform for the critique that's
48:02
what you do you really do you know it has I've always said when people say you know my daughter's thinking about going
48:08
to art school I'm like don't don't go to Art School it will steal your creativity and the work I do outside of working for
48:17
Trey is I facilitate art experiences in the hospital and so it's just to relieve
48:24
people's anxiety and stress and get their mind off things and so I have to
48:30
go in with the idea that most of the people that are going to make art with me today do not have an art background
48:36
and they have that story of I'm not an artist my brother is the artist or I
48:42
can't draw I'm not creative and that is not true every single person on the
48:47
planet is creative and so I create a project so that it's not intimidating so they can be creative
48:54
45 minutes of creative activity reduces your stress level so anyway my point is
49:01
there are so many people that come to my tables that talk about an art teacher
49:06
that gave them an F or whatever and I was like well that was a bad art teacher because you cannot fail oh yeah
49:12
unless you don't go to class or don't do an assignment you can't fail I mean
49:18
there's there really are no mistakes in art Trey was fortunate enough to
49:24
to Fashion his art from the get-go out of Southern folk artist who make art out
49:31
of anything and the circles that we stayed in in the very beginning of his career you know there was the masking
49:37
tape guy and there's the guy that makes things out of bottle caps and there's the guy that makes things out of you
49:43
know plastic jugs and Trey became the artist that makes art on tar paper and
49:50
there's just a whole lot of freedom when you're an untrained artist that there's no mistakes and everything
49:57
is much more available and he doesn't have to draw a rabbit you know he doesn't have to draw
50:04
something that is realistic in fact he's his style now is very recognizable and
50:10
people really love that childlike drawing but he too struggles I hear the
50:17
struggles at the kitchen table about not being able to access that childlike
50:23
imagination yeah and as Festival artists just like being students and you're in
50:29
front of a critique there's that same element of being Festival artists I mean we're not really getting critiqued but
50:35
we're getting picked to purchase yeah there is there is a freedom in in
50:40
that that southern folk art I remember being next to somebody at the I was in Atlanta called the Virginia Highland
50:46
show and I was set up next to this this woman and you know I I be the first one
50:52
to admit but my first reaction to this was like what is this [ __ ] you know
50:57
and I'm seeing her she literally finished a Coke and stapled it to a
51:02
board she had at her feet painted some wings on it and called it
51:07
the Coke can angel and it was like in like less than 10 seconds and I was like who where does
51:14
you know and I've gone to art school and I'm like I'm like you know Mr illustration degree and all this and I'm
51:20
all uptight and I'm like where does she get off being able to do this but I I look at it now and it's really just a
51:27
jealousy you know and it's not super high brow but it's there's a freedom in it and it doesn't have to be super web
51:33
brow it's just it just is what it is and I'm sure you know the woman um I wish I could remember her name
51:39
she's passed away in the last four or five years but she ended up winning Best in Show at Virginia Highland uh and and
51:46
just total freedom just stuff leaned up against um the polls and Stacks and stacks of uh
51:54
artwork and and I came to be able to admire that and get over my own Hang-Ups
52:00
but it it did take a while and it's still taking a while I guess yeah how do you uh you say you didn't really find
52:07
your style you didn't find your your way until say about 96. where does that take you like what what happens in 90 okay so
52:15
96 I actually been working in in Biochemistry I went got a master's in
52:20
Biochemistry and now in 96 this is at the University of Alabama in Birmingham
52:25
and we move I move with my boss actually he was my mentor at the time to San
52:32
Diego and while I was in San Diego obviously for four years working in his lab I've
52:41
lived all over the world but the only place I re I experienced culture shock was in San Diego because
52:48
there were so many people there but it was very hard to make
52:53
connections with people that they were always you know people were always so
52:58
busy out going out doing things yeah that was a very outdoor activity
53:04
oriented town yeah and I was involved in relationship before I left Birmingham like a lot of
53:12
long distance relationships are either gonna resolve that or it's gonna you know fall
53:18
apart and so of course this relationship came to an end and so I was unhappy with
53:24
my work I was just in a very depressed place in my life at that time and so a
53:30
friend of mine this is a 98 friend of mine called me said Come Home for Christmas and let's go visit all the
53:37
folk artists and so I I came home and there was I guess about 12 of these guys
53:44
uh the jewels you know they're all gone now but Moe's Tolliver Jimmy Lee suddath
53:50
uh Howard Fenster um Lonnie Holly Charlie Lucas so we met
53:56
them all and uh this friend of mine was collecting art and I bought a little bit
54:02
I was too poor though at the time did that experience of walking into these
54:08
self-taught artists and seeing their world just blew me open just blew me
54:15
open I remember just walking around in awe and just thinking where in the hell
54:21
am I and so the last like another world their Studios I know it so the last one
54:28
I met his name was R.A Miller and he lived in a tar paper Shack of all things
54:34
and he built whirly gigs and his so magical all around his house with just
54:41
all these whirly gigs and then he had this once one character called Blow
54:46
Oscar and the reason he called him blow Oscar is because his cousin would drive by
54:53
every day and blow his horn and his name was Oscar so he
54:58
you know and of course that's incredible when you're in the presence of people
55:03
like this who are living such a creative and joyful and and just and
55:08
not I mean they're poor very poor yeah I want what they have you know
55:14
um they're poor but they're happy I'm poor and unhappy and so all right Miller
55:22
he and I were just having this really great exchange I was taking this picture and I told him I said you know I wish I
55:28
could paint like you do and he had this southern accent he's chewing tobacco and
55:34
he spits it out you know and and uh he says well you can you're a folk artist
55:39
too and so I think and I I tell people this I think he kind of spiritually
55:44
without me knowing it handed me like a a spiritual baton paintbrush you know yeah
55:52
and and so a month later I'm buying so I went home and a month later I was I was
55:58
riding around in San Diego I had a bicycle at the time that's how I got around I didn't have a car and it was a
56:03
Sunday afternoon I think and I was riding around in the park it was a beautiful day and I come up to this
56:09
Museum and I saw all this wood stacked up in front and I thought I'm going to go home and
56:15
make a painting and so I put one of the boards on the back went home had some
56:21
house paint down in the basement came upstairs and I made a painting of a just
56:28
very crude but kind of in the same style as in in the Hall of the ship of a man
56:34
and a woman sort of flying apart in opposite directions with a heart between the two and that experience was so
56:43
cathartic it was like falling into I I tell people you know it's I fell into
56:49
the now I fell into that present moment and I was creating and I wasn't consumed
56:55
with all of the things that I was constantly finding myself consumed by and
57:02
and so that was just such an incredible experience that I thought
57:08
okay let's do another one and so basically what I ended up doing was a
57:14
year and a half of therapy and my house was filled with therapy with this art
57:21
that I was just making simply you know to to try and heal myself he told me he
57:27
had to crawl out the window because there were so many wet paintings all over his apartment
57:33
so you know and I said at the very beginning the first thing that made me fall in love with him was his car full
57:40
of wet paintings yeah he classifies now as a crazy folk artist which is just you know so
57:47
attractive anyway so you had to climb out the windows that's incredible and the guy really did kind of hand you the
57:53
Baton didn't he I mean it was almost like permission too I mean it's almost permission to just let it out let the
58:00
creativity kind of flow yeah but just like we were saying before you know you had this someone said to you between you
58:08
know birth and 14 that you're not an artist and Instead This Is Right elderly
58:13
man who lived below the level of poverty is what you know we have here in in the
58:20
Southeast and of course lots of places America but here's this really really poor person full of joy and he's saying
58:28
to Trey you are an artist so it's kind of the affirmation that he just needed that permission right you
58:34
know it's you know yeah it's it's the hero's journey it really is the Joseph Campbell if you know that all the stages
58:40
of course and so he was kind of in that I forget all the parts of it but um he's
58:47
the the calling he's basically you know or the mentor and saying you know go do
58:53
this this is how go put a t on the I tell people go put a t on the end of your pain you know and paint your way
59:00
out of it and nice you know and I I really had never any intentions of
59:08
making a career out of it uh it was just that I was rediscovering Joy
59:13
and the way I ended up sort of Shifting to
59:20
becoming a career and leaving biochemistry is there was a a lady who
59:25
owned a hair salon slash folk art gallery and so you she would put all of
59:31
the paintings on the walls and she'd have this captured audience and so she
59:36
heard I had this folk art collection from Alabama and she wanted to come and
59:41
see it and so I invited her into my home and we were looking at the most Olivers
59:49
and the Howard fencers and and she could see him at the door in my bedroom where
59:54
a lot of these paintings were lying on the floor she could see them
59:59
and she said well who did those and I I tried to discourage her and said oh
1:00:05
that's that's a little artist you've never heard of nobody's ever heard of this guy yeah she
1:00:14
was really interested she said no no I'm really interested who did these I said well that's my heart and so she right
1:00:21
there offered to uh she said can I try to sell it and I said sure
1:00:26
I don't know how well you're going to do with that but uh so she took some of the paintings to her gallery and she called
1:00:33
the lady in Beverly Hills to tell her about this new artist that she had found oh wow yeah that week a lady in Beverly
1:00:42
Hills paid a paid her 500 for a painting that I had made and I was just I I you
1:00:49
know when she told me that ah it's that first one isn't it isn't it always
1:00:56
on you it's like wait a minute what I could not believe it yeah I think it took me two weeks to make that when I
1:01:02
was in Biochemistry right I I talked to Ben Frye about that one
1:01:09
time I've gotten discouraged with artwork over the years sometimes I'm like sometimes like I'm like man I'm
1:01:15
just gonna I'm gonna go bartend for a while and just uh kind of get my head straight or something and he kind of if
1:01:21
you've talked to Ben at all he's got that wink and he he winks and he's like what's the most money ever made
1:01:27
bartending in one night exactly and I'm like God damn it you know and it's like well you know you ever he's like what's
1:01:34
the what's the worst art show you've ever had so Daryl has a way of bringing me back
1:01:40
to reality in the same way he's always Daryl has definitely has that way he doesn't have the age on him to be the
1:01:47
art show Yoda but he definitely is uh but then you know back to the Joseph Campbell you know I mean that fits right
1:01:55
in it's like uh George Lucas got all of that from the The Legend exactly right the hero's journey right
1:02:02
all right so uh there is a topic that I'm very interested in broaching with you I we spoke a while back and uh you
1:02:11
had started to talk about this kind of experience with uh dealing with uh a
1:02:17
shaman and Ayahuasca ceremonies and Peru and I I
1:02:23
wanted to talk to you a little about I've read the Michael Pollan book how to change your mind and it's just a topic
1:02:29
that I'm really interested in as far as that goes and I don't know how to how to jump right into it and I apologize to
1:02:35
the listeners too but I was born in Richmond Virginia and my father
1:02:41
comes from High Point North Carolina and my mother grew up in Cartersville Georgia and when I talked to a good
1:02:48
Southerner you start hearing that South and my mouth come back out I can hear it in my headphones and I'm
1:02:55
like it's really I I come by it honest but you're going to hear a little bit more of that on in this week's episode
1:03:01
and and I do think it's funny to I'm like man I can hear myself doing it well we're just pulling you over to the dark
1:03:08
side that's what you're doing Jim Morrison got it wrong when he said the West is
1:03:16
the best it's the south is the best but it's pretty right you gotta you gotta
1:03:21
Wade through a bunch of crazy stuff here yeah you do but I I do
1:03:26
miss it man and I love hearing y'all y'all talk to you so anyway but how do you how do we jump into that okay like
1:03:33
how did uh how is that something that that you were you became interested in and well it's actually tell me some of
1:03:38
your experience it is it's all actually ties in very much with the art because you know I've always been on a sort of a
1:03:46
a spiritual journey to kind of find out what's on that other side and
1:03:51
so that's that explains my interest in the monk as a character in my art
1:03:57
I've studied a lot of Buddhism and Sufism and Christian Mystics I just read
1:04:03
a lot of that and it's just very interesting to me I mean it was already there
1:04:10
before I ended up going to Peru but the way I got to Peru was when I was a
1:04:16
biochemist I had convinced my mentor he had a an organic chemist in
1:04:21
the lab and they were spending months trying to design one little compound to
1:04:27
to test and then and it just was a lot of lot of work and I was always
1:04:33
interested in this anthropology called ethnobotany which has to do with the
1:04:38
study of medicinal plants and I actually that's how I ended up in biochemistries
1:04:43
because I wanted to study with the Godfather of them all his name was Richard Evan schulte's oh wow and I
1:04:51
actually wrote to him and we had a correspondence and this this while I was in Japan he was actually willing to take
1:04:57
me on as you know like this English major and but oh really yeah but you
1:05:03
know I said well you probably should get a take a course in gymnastics and you know he was like you know and all these
1:05:09
other people were going dude you gotta have a biology degree to come to these graduate programs which I did so I went
1:05:17
in you know and then then I ended up in Biochemistry and but I designed my
1:05:22
thesis which was to go to the Amazon and collect plants and to develop a drug
1:05:28
screening program in this case looking for drugs novel compounds I don't want
1:05:34
to get too technical so I'm trying to keep it sure no it's it's really interesting though I mean you're you're
1:05:40
studying that for your Masters as far as as healing is that so all right I'll go
1:05:46
just a little technical so what I was looking at were these these things called glycosaminoglycans and just think of
1:05:52
them as the velcro that holds cells together they're also Landing platforms
1:05:58
for Signal proteins to come in and land and and viruses and bacteria and so so
1:06:04
what my mentor was interested in is finding an inhibitor that might be able to Short Circuit the cells from making
1:06:12
these platforms these Landing platforms that viruses and things like that but
1:06:17
it's you you know that's the simplest answer there so yeah that's a that's a great description and so I told him Jeff
1:06:26
who is my boss Mentor I said you know the Amazon is the Treasure Trove for
1:06:33
chemicals I said you should let me go down there and research uh and collect
1:06:40
plants and design this program or this my thesis around this and he was he let
1:06:45
me do it nice so it's incredible so I went to the Amazon spent three months
1:06:51
working with a Peruvian botanist and while I was there you know I knew about Ayahuasca and I
1:06:58
was very interested in in Ayahuasca because it's a culture that
1:07:04
sees the illness as related to the spirit world and that's not unlike what our psych modern psychologists think you
1:07:11
know it's just in they don't call it spirits but they we have different names for you know manic depression and all of
1:07:19
this well they just see it as they just see these things as brought on
1:07:24
by by the spirits and so this is just almost like a sickness a serious sickness of spirit yeah and to our
1:07:31
listeners who are uh you know maybe new to us we don't we don't want to send everybody to the Google machine in the
1:07:37
middle of the podcast but uh Ayahuasca uh tell us a little bit about Iowa like what is that Ayahuasca is the catch one
1:07:44
term for I mean I'll just be a little technical here is the the genus species is banisteriopsis copied and it's a Vine
1:07:52
uh and it's actually in the the Peruvian culture particularly in the Ketchum
1:07:58
culture it's uh it is considered the The Little Death I guess the vine so what
1:08:05
the corinderos and the shamans use this and it's actually a a mixture of another
1:08:11
plant and they make a t out of it and so
1:08:17
what these kuranderos I worked with the conundaro I didn't work with uh you know
1:08:22
the the difference between a Coronado and a shaman is they're they're doing the same thing as
1:08:28
Shaman really has to do more with the indigenous kind of pure cultures you know that but
1:08:34
the coroneros are doing the same thing they're using Ayahuasca as a way to heal
1:08:39
uh so the tea has boiled and then uh let's see I've lost my train of thought
1:08:45
so that yeah sorry about that I just wanted to give a little bit more technical on what it was basically it's
1:08:51
a hallucinogen yes serious hallucinogen that helps you get
1:08:57
into that dream world that spirit world that we you know we're talking about
1:09:03
opening your mind so the corinderos they actually have these songs they're called ikaros and
1:09:10
the acaros are to to call the spirits in and then there's another thing called
1:09:16
the procession of the plants and these they they actually visualize the plants
1:09:22
coming through it like in A procession and they are the healing plants I mean
1:09:27
there's a lot of interesting stuff here I could go on and on and on but yeah please so so what they do is they they
1:09:35
also can control the Visions based on the zicaros the
1:09:42
shamans because they're like guides they're God
1:09:47
right yeah psycho pumps I guess is another way that we can call it but and so in my own experience uh I I met this
1:09:56
correndero and I was this is 91. he invited me to a session it was actually
1:10:03
just he and I and another Peruvian who owned this which it was an
1:10:09
ethnobotanical Garden uh he was growing medicinal plants there
1:10:15
out in the the forest it was called Sacha Mama which is in reference to the
1:10:20
Anaconda that's in that area so uh in my own experience I partook of
1:10:27
this tea it's a Pneumatic so you find yourself having to you have to leave this circle
1:10:34
and you have to go and take care of business and then come back and at the
1:10:40
time so I had a little flashlight and I would leave the circle and shine out and see
1:10:47
where I was where I was and but after a while it turns out that your eyes become
1:10:53
so dilated it's like night goggles you you can see everything and and it's
1:10:58
incredible so at this point now I don't know it was probably the third or fourth time and I
1:11:04
left the circle you you lose your balance it's very very hard to walk
1:11:10
and I couldn't make it back to the circle there was this this rain kind of
1:11:15
falling down and uh it was a light drizzle and I just I remember sort of
1:11:20
being just enough but still not quite in in the circle and feeling safe yeah
1:11:27
and while I was out there I started having these terrible kind of hallucinations of snakes and this just
1:11:36
whirling disc of something very evil looking coming and whirling and you know
1:11:41
just and so I'm out there and snakes are all just around and and uh I have a terrible
1:11:49
fear of poisonous snakes I guess we all do in some form sure so I'm lying there
1:11:55
and eventually I make it back to the circle and now at
1:12:00
this point the ritual has sort of ended and I I go to my it was a little cabin
1:12:06
with a mosquito net and and so I went to sleep finally managed to get to sleep
1:12:11
but the next morning uh I'm sure you're familiar with Leonard Cohen's new skin
1:12:16
for an old ceremony album do you know that yeah definitely that's what I felt
1:12:21
like I felt like I had been reborn like every just oh wow it was such an
1:12:27
incredible sense of like I had to go through the fire to be purified yeah
1:12:33
through hell yeah and it was hell and this is we've been accused Douglas and I
1:12:38
have it on our show here of having um I like our pre-talk is somebody who
1:12:43
didn't like the show so I I can't handle any more of your nauseating banter and so uh feel free if if you're walking out
1:12:51
into the woods and and you're [ __ ] yourself and you're you know you're flopping down in the mud and you feel
1:12:57
free to say say however you describe it however not to be vulgar right but however you need to say it is is how you
1:13:04
need to say it but this is a pretty raw experience I mean you're in a circle with like how many how many people are
1:13:11
there's just myself in the corindero and the owner of the uh there was three of
1:13:16
us gotcha and are they experiencing this oh yeah yes yes okay so that was uh that
1:13:24
was the first time and as I said I came out of there just feeling incredibly
1:13:29
cleansed that was not what I had expected you know I I was actually hoping to go to
1:13:36
Paradisio and not to The Inferno right yeah so but I mean how what do you think
1:13:43
about that experience as far as like how does that make you feel awakened if that's I mean if it's such a Negative
1:13:50
experience how how do you think that that makes you feel on the other side well it's a it's a it's a great question
1:13:56
I I I believe that we Are Spiritual Beings having a physical experience here
1:14:03
that's not my quote that's uh uh tahar Chardon quote but I I believe that and
1:14:11
so it's not just this material world and and we get consumed by the material
1:14:18
world but I think there is something we're here for some purpose you know yeah and I think that purpose is to
1:14:25
discover that was I just happen to be someone who's just curious about just about
1:14:31
anything that crosses my path what squirrel look
1:14:37
and you think that that is that's everybody's purpose or do you feel like that's your own
1:14:42
no I think we're all here you know I like that's certainly my position and my
1:14:49
my uh my place I Define the purpose of my life is to to search
1:14:56
for the truth really and I think the truth can be found Inward and you know
1:15:02
I'm I'm the kind of guy like I I would love to be able to meditate and I I've
1:15:08
tried it for years and sometimes I get on the meditation wagon but then I'll
1:15:13
fall off and yeah because the physical world keeps me very stimulated but I
1:15:19
also try very hard to get back to the place that I consider to be
1:15:25
what all of this is about right and I personally am on that journey to
1:15:31
discover that inner journey and and that so to tie it back to the art
1:15:36
you know my art is about this monk his name is William Guadalupe he's a rascal
1:15:42
Monk he snakes out the monastery to dance with the Cuban shot girls but his
1:15:48
journey in life is to bring joy into the world and to help people find their
1:15:53
inner Joy just like I did when I was discovering painting yeah it's kind of a
1:15:59
a I take a I guess it's a light-hearted approach to
1:16:04
the spiritual journey I don't think it should be so in my own personal life I think it's you
1:16:14
know sometimes it can be taken too seriously and and people lose sense of humor you know yeah
1:16:21
and so I think I think you I think I mean if there's this whatever this
1:16:27
Creator thing is out there it's got a great sense of humor I mean it made this
1:16:32
thing called a kangaroo for God's sakes you know yeah I totally agree with you on that
1:16:38
and I feel like that's I I that's what I've always appreciated about you is is a certain uh spirituality but the
1:16:45
irreverence that lives within that um is what I respond to when I when I talk to you and and kind of uh enjoy
1:16:53
that um I don't know the humor to me is is it can be my biggest self-defense
1:17:00
mechanism and it can make my wife crazy when we're trying to have a serious conversation and and I'm like you know
1:17:08
but you're I'll wreck it I'll wreck it yeah but you're really good at it will
1:17:14
you're human thank you man I I don't know so I you know we we do go through
1:17:19
this life and you can take things real seriously or you can you can open it up and and go the other way with it and I
1:17:26
appreciate that about you thank you will so Helene gets turned on by a car full of wet paintings huh that's pretty
1:17:33
interesting I love it and I love it it's like going
1:17:39
into a theater for the first time and smelling tempera paint and people working on sets I still get kind of kind
1:17:46
of charged up by that that smell of old pain yeah so I I know what she means and
1:17:51
they're such a cool couple totally and uh I loved hearing the courtship story too about how she's falling in love with
1:17:57
his brother and then she's like I'm falling in love with you don't you have a brother and he's like well I actually
1:18:02
do and everything he described about him was everything that that was the lid for her pot so it was perfect perfect match
1:18:10
yeah those you know he's always the both of those guys just just bring kind of a
1:18:16
um just a positive energy and a positive uh a light kind of to the to the area wherever they are in a show I always
1:18:23
look forward to seeing yeah and when he brought up at the end when he said that we Are Spiritual Beings having a
1:18:30
physical existence or a physical experience I thought oh my God he's like totally speaking my language that gave
1:18:35
me goosebumps it's true that's all I think about that in every aspect of like for example what I've been going through
1:18:42
with my my foot and everything I keep bringing up to my wife I'm so grateful to everything you do I'm so
1:18:48
grateful for everything you're getting me through this period and she says look it this situation isn't just about you
1:18:55
this situation is something I'm going through too spiritually and and on a higher plane and there are things we're
1:19:01
learning our physical lessons through this so to have a partner like that for me to have that partnership with her
1:19:07
it's an amazing thing and that was something that I I found with listening
1:19:13
to to Trey and Helene that they have that similar kind of thing too yeah we're uh we're getting we're all getting
1:19:19
older right I mean we're starting to enter the in sickness and health
1:19:26
uh promise that we made each other right for sure so yeah we're all we're all lucky to have that for sure and and it's
1:19:33
it's amazing what Renee's been able to to do for you and and bring you through to this next step but you're working in
1:19:40
the studio finally kind of trying to get your chops back to use a musician term
1:19:45
Uh Wood shedding it a little bit and trying to get back up there and get your muscle memory I'm trying to figure out
1:19:52
how to create more space so back to the independent artist book club I've been
1:19:58
reading that Rick Rubin book oh cool I was wondering about that yeah yeah and it's it's really it's a it's the kind of
1:20:04
book honestly that you can pick up and put down and read you know 20 pages
1:20:10
of it in a Flash and then it even has a little section in the back with with some lined paper notes
1:20:18
oh yeah I I and I'm such an anal retentive as far as books go I don't like to even to bend a corner or a doggy
1:20:25
or a corner but I'm tempted to just write this one up and and cover it in highlighter and sketches I mean there's
1:20:31
some really basic um spirituality uh practice stuff that
1:20:38
all has to do with the Arts and it's a really bottom shelf kind of uh super
1:20:44
reachable attainable information that that it just didn't done in tiny little Snippets that you you can you can take
1:20:52
or leave but it's it's helping me and there's another book I'm reading too where like I've come across two
1:20:57
different passages where I was talking about creating space in my work I've run across two other musicians it's like Bob
1:21:04
Dylan and Wynton Marsalis are talking about the The Muse music and the melody existing in the in the space between the
1:21:10
notes so it's I don't know it's it's the universe talking to me and trying to trying to tell me to open it up a little
1:21:16
bit I've been I'm on the same boat with you on that one uh I've been watching his uh four or five part documentary two
1:21:24
that was on Showtime called Shangri-La talks about his um recording yeah Rick rubin's yeah and
1:21:30
so I haven't had a chance to pick up the book yet but watching that and I'm
1:21:36
really also going back into the studio with a new kind of clearing the the Slate clearing the distractions out uh
1:21:43
my phone is staying in the house when I go outside I you know I find myself peeking at it and then when I had a
1:21:49
little moment while Renee is doing her thing and you know what it just pulls you out of the process I'm trying to stay really connected and present so
1:21:55
I've got enough distractions just trying to like just get from point A to point B but I think it's going to be a bigger a
1:22:02
bigger thing to to Really step away from that yeah that's great good luck with that and I'm sure that you're probably
1:22:08
even more addicted to your phone after having spent so much time it's true you know using it as kind of a crutch
1:22:13
getting through this whole period so yeah um speaking of uh distractions you're talking to one right now let's hang up
1:22:20
on my dumb ass and get that right so uh just to kind of uh sum up here this week we got to hear about Trey and his
1:22:27
Ayahuasca experience going to The Inferno like Dante did so we're gonna pick up next week with his second
1:22:32
experience where he goes into the parody also we get to talk to Helene they're living in Selma Alabama during the
1:22:39
George Floyd crisis that this country went through and kind of is continuing to go through and and the black lives
1:22:46
matter they were hit with a kind of a what can we do as as artists and to hear
1:22:52
what they did and are doing in Selma Alabama is incredibly inspiring uh what
1:22:57
we can do as activists and and activists I love that whole idea we've we've broached it a few times over the couple
1:23:03
of Seasons here about using artist activism and not just as as Commerce or
1:23:09
something we want to express and something we want to solve and make a living that you take it to that next level of connecting communities I mean
1:23:15
that's awesome I love that part of the talk it is so stay tuned for next week it's a it's another another exciting
1:23:22
episode of The Independent artist podcast but for now we need to get our asses back in the studio and get some
1:23:28
stuff made so take care everyone and we'll see you down the road good luck sir see you everybody this podcast is
1:23:34
brought to you by the National Association of Independent Artists the website is
1:23:40
naiaartists.org also sponsored by zapplication that's application.org and while you're at it
1:23:46
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1:24:05
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