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155 Plays4 years ago
Aunia Kahn was the 2nd guest ever on the SRTN podcast and I am so pleased Aunia is back with this lovely conversation that delves into art and its ability to heal and help us persevere.
Aunia Kahn is a multi-faceted creative entrepreneur and a globally awarded, collected, and exhibited figurative artist/photographer, published author, instructor, and inspirational speaker. She is also the owner of Rise Visible a full service creative digital marketing agency and Create for Healing.
Her work has been in over 300+ exhibitions in over 10 countries; at places such as San Diego Art Institute, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, iMOCA, St. Louis Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Mitchell Museum, and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. She has also been a guest on podcasts like Entrepreneur on Fire, with 70 million downloads & 1 million monthly listens.
Aunia has curated several internationally recognized books and projects, including Silver Era Tarot, Inspirations for Survivors, Obvious Remote Chaos, Minding the Sea: Inviting the Muses Over for Tea, Avalanche of White Reason, XIII: The Art of Aunia Kahn, Witch’s Oracle and the Witch’s Oracle 2nd Edition, Moon Goddess (Modern Eden Gallery) exhibit, Tarot Under Oath (Last Rites Gallery), Lowbrow Tarot Project (La Luz De Jesus Gallery), etc.
Her forthcoming projects include; An Epidemic of Retrospective, Disintegrating Stars, and the Ethereal Realms Tarot.
She loves Animals, Prussian blue, Psychology, Design, Miracles, Hummingbirds & Life.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Delante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Reunion with Anya Khan
00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And I'm actually really excited to be able to talk to Anya Khan again. We spoke, if you're a listener of the podcast, on episode two. And the podcast is now up over 110 episodes. And I wanted to say a few words about Anya. Back
00:00:43
Speaker
I encountered art a few years ago and Anya, you and the first artist, I kind of reached out and just like started to chat about art as my interest rose. And I live out here in Oregon and you ended up being in Oregon. It's been nice to be able to connect with you on the show, but also to just state it really clearly, to be able to connect with you
00:01:12
Speaker
on art, healing, using art to figure out this world. And you are very helpful in my path on that. Anya, so pleased to have you on the show again after you are the second episode. Welcome back to something rather than nothing.
00:01:36
Speaker
Thank you. Number two is my lucky number. So yeah, that's great to be returning again. Really appreciate the opportunity to touch back and come back full circle. Yeah.
Impact of Global Changes
00:01:52
Speaker
Well, there's been a pandemic in between and there's been disruption to the economy and art world, social unrest, the exhibit of racial injustice, chaos, political chaos, coups at the Washington. Okay, Anya, so things have happened between now and then. And I know even your art has
00:02:16
Speaker
move the long change. So I don't want you to help us understand the last couple years, unless you have some insight. But tell us what's going on with your art practice and what you've discovered.
Artistic Medium Shift
00:02:35
Speaker
Sure. Well, what's going on in the world is definitely, I have clearly no idea. I'll have to say that. I still sit here
00:02:45
Speaker
And I'm just like, I'm not sure what's going on. You know, the whole entire world just seems like it's on fire. It's a very bizarre, bizarre time. But during that time, things have really shifted since our last conversation two years ago. We talked a lot about digital presence and meaning me as a digital artist, not so much like a digital presence in the web world, but being a digital artist and how
00:03:14
Speaker
That was a challenging thing to start in 2005. And at that point, we really discussed a little bit more about the tactile need to want to touch mediums. And the fact that if listeners didn't hear the previous podcast, I talk a lot about being allergic to everything. I'm allergic to various mediums.
00:03:36
Speaker
So basically, I was pushed into doing digital art because even touching a colored pencil could put me in the hospital. Graphite was one of the only things that I could use from time to time. But over the last, what, 15 plus years, 16 years, it's been really just primarily digital. And when I started out in digital, it was like really negative.
00:04:01
Speaker
Galleries didn't want to show it. You did not get support for being digital. Now we go 15 years later. We have so many digital artists. We have so many tools. Excuse me. We have so many tools now, like Procreate, that almost anybody could get in and learn that medium, which is exciting. And guess what I decided to do? I decided to flip the coin. Now I'm going the other direction.
Identity and Artistic Exploration
00:04:27
Speaker
So when we talked last time, I said that I had recently been diagnosed a year prior to that and had got on some pharmaceuticals that actually helped me be able to move into a better part of my life.
00:04:43
Speaker
But the cool thing is it actually got me to a point after we talked almost a, what was it? November, so it would have been November last year when I actually picked up, no, sorry, May 2020, I picked up my first colored pencil. And November 2020, I picked up watercolor. And I have not had adverse reactions to have any hospital situations, which is so awesome.
00:05:13
Speaker
But it brings a whole other thing into play though. I don't know who I am. So when you change mediums completely, like you go into this whole identity crisis. And I wasn't expecting that because I was just elated.
00:05:30
Speaker
to do it, right? Like, oh, great. I can actually touch a paintbrush. I can actually buy Daniel Smith paint. And now I'm like obsessed buying paint. I'm like, which one of the 300 colors do I not have, you know? But before I didn't have that option. And so now I'm like, oh, I understand why people collect hundreds of paint tubes. Like I get it now. I get it. I've been welcomed into that club.
00:05:55
Speaker
But I have gone through quite the identity crisis because I don't want the work to look like the old work, the digital work.
00:06:05
Speaker
But of course, the narratives and the stories and the person I am remains the same and ever changing. So just really trying to get my foot into who am I as a painter, you know, as a person that works in a mixed media kind of situation. And I was very, very, very honored to
00:06:26
Speaker
have modern Eden, and curator Mike Cuff of Warholian offered to invite me to the recent exhibition called The Art of Art, where over 100 artists interpreted, I always have a hard time with that word, interpreted the idea of what art is from the artist's perspective.
00:06:50
Speaker
And so it was like my debut of the work that I had been doing since last May. And it was really exciting.
Market Challenges and Artistic Integrity
00:07:01
Speaker
And they also I had a nice little write up on White Hot magazine, which was really beautiful. Like they featured five of the hundred artists and there was a little, you know, information about that like debut. So it was
00:07:16
Speaker
The reason I mentioned that is just like it felt so affirming and no matter if I'm really proud of the work or I feel like I'm where I need to be with the work because I don't feel that way, I just feel like somebody took a risk and took an opportunity to showcase that work and write a little bit about my process in opening that door to like, hey, this is me, this is,
00:07:41
Speaker
This is new. I'm stepping into the world looking different. Which doesn't, I'm sure you know this, and I'm going to age myself here. People don't like change. If you're an artist, they want you to do the same thing over and over and over again. You change your medium, you change your style, you change your subject matter. There's often this kickback. And the example I'll give you is Metallica.
00:08:11
Speaker
Again, I'm aging myself here. But they have long hair. And then they cut it off. And they changed their sound. And people were like, fuck you. You suck. And for me, I never felt like that. Because as an artist, I'm so elated for people to completely change themselves and metamorphose into something new. I don't want you to do the same thing all the time.
00:08:36
Speaker
That bores me. And maybe I won't like your new sound. That's fine too. But I respect you for not continuing to do the thing that the masses want you to produce over and over and over again. I just don't have any interest in that. I don't have a lot of respect for that.
00:08:54
Speaker
Meaning, that I'm totally supportive of that's what you want to do, but I also don't feel like you need to do that. You know what I mean? You don't have to be that person. You don't have to be a one-trick pony. If that's how you make your living and that's what you want to do, that's fine. I support that, but I don't have a lot of respect for people who do that and don't
00:09:18
Speaker
Explore themselves or or or lie to themselves of who they are Meaning they know that they don't want to do that. They know that they have something more inside They know that they have another voice and yet they're not willing to explore that voice
00:09:35
Speaker
because they're scared, you know? And I wanna say real quick, when I say I don't respect that, I wanna be clear, I don't respect us disrespecting ourselves. I don't mean that I disrespect those people. I'm saying like, I don't respect people disrespecting themselves. We should not disrespect ourselves based on fear.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, I wanted to go in right on that point, because here's the dynamic that I've observed in talking to a lot of artists. And as you know, I've followed your art for some time, and you are an artist that evolves. And I see that as a trait with a lot of artists, particularly over time.
00:10:22
Speaker
that I've been astounded in meeting artists and in developing my own art in how many different ways it manifests itself. And then I take that idea, right? So whether you're doing film, I know you've done music and you're doing, you know, digital art and you've done a whole host of things. And I see artists operate or their brains operate in that way. And then we have
00:10:49
Speaker
this whole economic system or this whole media, which seems to attach to an artist and saying, you are the person who wrote that great bubblegum song in the 70s. That's the only thing you'll ever be. Or Anya, you did these wild, subversive, early digital art, and that's who you are, like dark. And so I find it really deeply fascinating
00:11:19
Speaker
the mind of the artist, an artist all different, but the mind of the creative artist with this, I don't know, trend or desire of the market to say, this is who you are. This is what you look like. Let's duplicate it a million times. How does, how does, how do, if you're going to change an artist as an artist, like you have,
00:11:43
Speaker
How do you do all that? How do you say, I'm an artist. I deserve to do this. The market says this, but I say this. How do you keep up your resolve and integrity in that process?
Social Media's Influence on Art
00:11:57
Speaker
It's really hard. It truly is, because it doesn't matter what you are and what you're doing. I mean, as a person who does web and graphic design and marketing and branding, when you're branding a company, you're branding them
00:12:13
Speaker
like their look, their feel, their colors, and the same with like an artist. When you're marketing yourself as an artist, there's this look, there's this brand, there's this voice that you have as an artist that then becomes marketable. And when you're working with galleries, for example, I mean, in contracts, they will say, if you are going to deviate from what we know, you have to tell us.
00:12:38
Speaker
because we have collectors that are interested in you. And the reason why we're inviting you to the show is because we expect X kind of work.
00:12:49
Speaker
which is totally understandable when we deal with it from a marketing business standpoint. And that's totally fine. But when you're trying to just be yourself, you get to a point, I think this is what happens. I think you get to a point as an artist where you do, when you're professional and you're showing in galleries, that you do.
00:13:15
Speaker
do the work that you're known for. And you continually send that in. You continually create that. You continually share that on Facebook. And then you get to a point where you start realizing that I'm not growing anymore. And yes, you can grow within what you're doing.
00:13:34
Speaker
But what I've noticed with growth with artists, it's not so much, oh, I'm going to try a different color palette. Maybe I'll change my subject matter just a slight bit. Really, what I notice for artists to grow and people that are creative in general is when you shake it up,
00:13:52
Speaker
intensely. And it doesn't matter if you're doing this privately or not. I mean, you can do it on the private back end of things, or you can be a public person being open to that, and you're probably going to get rejected for it. Truly, that's just the way it goes. If you have a Facebook following, like I do of like over 380,000, when I do something completely off the wall, people don't know what to do with it. They're like, um, yeah, that's not what we expected.
00:14:17
Speaker
Okay, and you have to be willing to have that rejection. But when you're thinking about being yourself and exploring who you are, I've noticed some of the greatest artists that do art, they will write. They will create a film.
00:14:34
Speaker
They will do poetry. They will do something else that helps elevate what they're doing and challenge their thought. Or if they're a figurative artist, they might do abstract. Or if they're abstract, they might do figurative. And in the blue chip world, that's OK. That's what's interesting. In the blue chip world, they want you to change and grow and do this explorative and shock the public. They want that.
00:15:03
Speaker
But if you're looking at mid-level art, they don't want that. They want the same thing. And so you either have to find a way to do it secretively and do that so that your work can expand in other ways, or you have to publicly just do it and be like, it is what it is. And that's kind of where I came to last May and really into November. I was like, you know what? The work sucks. It's not good.
00:15:29
Speaker
I haven't picked up a paintbrush. I mean, what do you want? I'm a digital painter. It's completely different than dealing with watercolor and a water medium. It's not great. It's not what I want it to be. But as Ira Glass says, there's this amazing video on YouTube of Ira Glass.
00:15:50
Speaker
And he talks about the fact that you have good taste, but you might not be able to reach that just yet. But you know you have good taste. You know what you want to produce, and yet what you're producing isn't what you know is as good as it can be. And so that's where practice comes in and where you keep doing it. And that's kind of where I'm at. I'm in that fold of like, I know it's not where I want it to be,
00:16:18
Speaker
And I know I have good taste, and I'm hoping those two things will meld together. But I think artists themselves have to be really open to the fact of being rejected. Social media has made it almost impossible for us to
00:16:36
Speaker
deal with rejection in a constructive manner because it hurts really bad when you put something out there and it's not getting supported. And the question comes to mind is why? And that's psychologically damaging.
00:16:51
Speaker
One of the things that psychologically damages people is inconsistency. That's why casinos work. It's the inconsistent. You win a little, you don't win a little. You win a little, you don't win a little. And you get caught in that dopamine rush of wanting to see if you can get that little bit again. And artists are stuck on that wheel with social media as well of that dopamine rush of
00:17:17
Speaker
Okay, no one liked it. Is it because of the algorithm? Is it because it sucked? Is it because I'm ugly? You know, like people, there's no rhyme or reason to why something isn't occurring. So it makes it almost impossible for somebody to want to take the risk, to try something completely new, to shake up what they know is already working in a marketable way, to do something that is ultimately going to cause rejection.
00:17:47
Speaker
that's going to harm them. So social media has been a, I think, there's great aspects of it, of course, but I think there's some detrimental aspects of it to the creative form because people are also then trying to cater to the last thing that was liked. Just because the last thing you created got X amount of likes,
00:18:12
Speaker
then artists and creative people are going, oh, yeah, well, let me produce that formula again. What was so special about that when really it could have been an algorithm thing, you could have just hit the thing the right way, and there was nothing more special than the piece that got no support. So we're psychologically being manipulated into believing that we are less than
00:18:36
Speaker
And that if we're going to do something different, we're going to be rejected. Because the algorithm from a marketing standpoint wants to see the same thing. What they talk about is consistency in content. We want to see consistency. We want it to be interesting. We want it to be engaging. And if you can't engage your people, we will penalize you.
00:19:00
Speaker
And it's like, I'm just, I'm over it. Like I just, I'm over it. Like I'm like, it's, I just don't want to pander to that and people don't like it. And it's been hard and I want to be clear. It's been hard to say that. Like I'm saying it, it sounds very nonchalant, but I want to be, you know, vulnerable and transparent and say that it's, it's been a tough road to accept that. It's not like I was like, ah, fuck it. It's fine.
00:19:21
Speaker
Because I'm human. I don't want to be rejected. But I also want to do what I want to do without people's input impacting my creative process, because that's never where I came from in creativity to begin with.
Art and Trauma Healing Workshops
00:19:36
Speaker
I never created to get attention. I created for therapeutic approaches. And then it slowly got attention.
00:19:44
Speaker
I started to obviously feed into that attention and appreciate that attention. And now I'm back again to the full circle of it's therapeutic the end. People don't like it. I don't care. You know, that's all I have to say. I don't care. I really don't care. Well, and the, I wanted to, I wanted to talk about the, the, the therapeutic aspect of it and to tell you something, um, there's something to, to connect so you know exactly
00:20:15
Speaker
about what you provide in the trauma and workshop. So I was really looking forward to your course and I took and I want to tell you specifically and exactly why. I got an email from you about healing
00:20:34
Speaker
healing through trauma through art and big topic and it's become more popular recently and it's one I keep bumping into every single step I go on the podcast or an art and where I'm looking are people trying to heal
00:20:51
Speaker
or recover or not recover, it's in what happened. They're trying to process through that. I got your email and it was so important to me Anya because it just happened like way life was going like right then and what was going on. It was also prior to me going into the woods for four days and being away from the world we understand. So I had deliberately set up that workshop
00:21:20
Speaker
enjoying that workshop with you and then disappearing in nature. It was so remarkably helpful for me and I felt by preceding my trip into nature, I felt more creative, more open, breathing a little bit better. So it had real effects for me. And thank you. And I say that because
00:21:48
Speaker
I think culturally we're doing a lot of good things on mindfulness and people trying to walk. But as I'm sure you see this as well, it becomes quite popular and people are pointing to, oh, I did my mindfulness. It's good to be in that place, but it's difficult to find the authenticity in the experience. And I just want to convey to you, I had an authentic experience of going through that
00:22:16
Speaker
And I wanted, you talked about you going full cycle and saying, okay, we're talking art now and we're talking healing. You got that workshop and could you just tell me and the listeners what you're thinking is behind that of offering a workshop for somebody to creatively work through bad shit that's still bugging up. The nonsense of life. Yeah.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So it's interesting because kind of like you said, everything came full circle. So in the beginning of what I was doing from the early stages of creativity and really expressing myself as a creative, I was dealing with trauma automatically.
00:23:05
Speaker
like that was the whole reason I was doing art was I was dealing with health problems, I was dealing with trauma, and then that kind of shifted. But I had had a lot of little things peppered in between like being a part of a panel at the Washington University School of Medicine,
00:23:26
Speaker
I'm lecturing at McKendree, lecturing at Southwestern, they've changed their name now. So it used to be SWIC, Southwestern Illinois College, but I think they're now Southwestern Illinois University. I don't know, but they changed their name. Point being is there was a lot of that going on. I had curated numerous art shows in regards to mental illness,
00:23:50
Speaker
in regards to being touched by violence, which was numerous years ago. So there was always this overlap that had been underlaying me. There's always been this need
00:24:08
Speaker
in the under part of everything I'm doing that has always stemmed from the need to help people psychologically and physically process challenging things. And I wanted to be a therapist.
00:24:25
Speaker
For years, that was my goal. I wanted to be a therapist. The whole idea of being a therapist was I wanted to figure everybody out. What is wrong with you? And it's very common for those that go into therapy to have actual legitimate reasons why they go into therapy. That's why.
00:24:44
Speaker
And I knew that I couldn't do that with my rare disease, no matter how many times I revisit that. And I revisited again recently and was like, maybe I should. And it's like, no, I don't have the type of years. I don't know with my disease how long I'm going to live. So I don't have that time.
00:25:07
Speaker
So not being able to become a therapist, like I had mentioned, and trying to figure out alternative ways, it just came to this place again where I had this aha moment a couple months ago. And I was like,
00:25:21
Speaker
Why not do this? Why not mix the things that I know the best? I mean, if you look back at my resume, the exhibitions that I've been a part of, the panels I've been a part of, the published projects that I have created, like the Inspirations for Survivors Oracle Deck, it's all there. That is my root system. That is where the root of my creativity comes from.
00:25:47
Speaker
my creativity isn't really there to go out and make a political statement. My art isn't there because I want to be in exhibitions. My art is there. My practice is there as a lifeline.
Health and Healing Initiatives
00:26:03
Speaker
And to me, that's the most important part of my practice. And it's like, how do I resolve that for other people? How can I give that gift of,
00:26:14
Speaker
years and years of studying trauma that I've been doing since, geez, since I was 14 years old behind my parents back trying to figure out what's going on. How do I deliver that? And the cool thing is, and I don't know if you know this and maybe you do, is two years ago when we talked, I got my first diagnosis. And two months ago from where we're at right now, I got my secondary diagnosis.
00:26:44
Speaker
And this is 20 years in. And this is the root root of the other problem. Like the other problem is like secondary, but the main problem has finally been figured out. So 20 years.
00:27:01
Speaker
I finally diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos disorder, which is a disorder of connective tissue, which basically makes me gumpy. I can do the things, but really it's not just being
00:27:17
Speaker
I want to be clear, it's not just being flexible. A lot of people think, oh, I'm flexible. It's not. People are very flexible and it's healthy. My ligaments and tendons overstretch and it causes heart problems, digestive issues. It causes allergic reactions. It causes the back of my brain stem to be almost smashed because my head has a hard time holding it up. It's super complicated.
00:27:40
Speaker
But the reason I bring this up is because it seemed like, again, everything came full circle. I have the root answer. I have the root answer. And now I have the root to my creativity. And I started thinking, oh, man, I really want to help people heal through their medical trauma, through their child abuse, through addiction. This is my goal. All right, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do this workshop. I'm just going to throw it out there to our local community.
00:28:09
Speaker
went ahead and ran the workshop called harness your creativity to heal through trauma. And we talked a lot about our childhood and how that affects us and how we can use creativity. And there's science behind it that shows that creativity actually is healing. This is not just a thought. This is not just like, oh,
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, maybe perhaps that can happen. This isn't like fluff. It's like scientifically proven that there are improvements in our health and autonomic systems, autonomic nervous systems and everything else based on doing things that are creative. And then I decided to start a whole school.
00:28:51
Speaker
And it's called Healing Trauma Creatively. And I put out my first course last full moon. And I'm going to be launching my next course in two days, which is called Rewriting Your Trauma, which is something we did a little bit into that workshop that you attended. But I've expanded that more extensively.
00:29:13
Speaker
And that's kind of where I'm at. And I'm looking for more teachers. I'm looking for more blog people that are blog people. I'm pretty sure that's not proper. That's a cool name. I like blog people. Let's stick with that one. Don't lose that one. I'm looking for the blog people.
00:29:32
Speaker
other people to showcase their writing. And so it's going to be a collaborative thing. It's not just it's run by me, because as a community, we really like when we do things independently, it's great. But when we as a community come together and work together at a similar goal in life, then we're able to get a lot more done.
00:29:55
Speaker
So I've, you know, involved trying to involve other people into teaching courses and writing articles and sharing their knowledge because right now we need this. And that's the other thing I'll say. Again, it's full circle. Now the whole world is experiencing trauma, the whole entire world.
00:30:14
Speaker
You know, when I started these studies and started having an interest, we weren't collectively going through a crisis like this. And now we're collectively going through a crisis. And in the last two years, only now, I think, are people understanding. I think in the first year, a lot of people were in survival mode. And it does not matter, Ken, if you believe in the coronavirus is going to kill you, or if you think it's a hoax, it doesn't matter because you're still being affected.
00:30:43
Speaker
It doesn't matter what side of the fence you're on. The whole world has changed. The way we grocery shop, the way we go to school, the way we go to work, the way we communicate, it doesn't matter what your beliefs are. You are experiencing a global shift that's affecting you in a very traumatic and visceral way. And so it feels right now that it's of utmost importance
00:31:07
Speaker
to provide something like this, because I feel like I'm at a stable place. It's like, OK, got all my diagnoses. Know the roots of what I want to do. I feel completely solid and grounded. This is my launch pad. How do I help others? Because you got to heal yourself first, right? You have to have a solid ground before you can heal other people or reach out to other people to provide that service without injuring yourself along the way.
00:31:36
Speaker
Well, and I see and I appreciate you saying that and but I also see a lot of in the elements that you built up towards where you look at collaborative or collective or a process, you know, rather than you saying, all right, here's the magic key, you know, for trauma, it's
Art in Education and Development
00:31:54
Speaker
a group, it's like, I've always been partial to group therapy for me, because like part of my
00:32:00
Speaker
like addiction with alcohol and loneliness is a fundamental deep sense of loneliness. So it's psychological loneliness that we all feel. And I find that when I'm trying to heal, yeah, I feel that within a group, I feel like because a group in general, a group's going to accept you, right? You have a similar ailment and you're able to talk about that crap without talking about it to others. So I've been helped by that. And I think the component of the collective for you is
00:32:29
Speaker
Let's work on this together. We're suffering human beings.
00:32:35
Speaker
Exactly. And the thing is, is no one's a master. And that's the funny thing. People will come in and offer, I'm a master of this, and I'm a guru of that. And it's like, that's where you've lost it. Because some of the great people that we would call masters who would not call themselves masters or great teachers would never call themselves that. They would call themselves students that they're still learning.
00:33:02
Speaker
And that's the place that we need to be in, where we are all students together learning. No one's a master. That might be somebody who has a lot of information. But one thing I've always noticed, which I think often escapes people, is if you put a really intellectual person in a room that knows a lot about something, and then you put somebody in a room who doesn't know a lot about something, and you give them a topic to talk about,
00:33:29
Speaker
you're going to get just as much information from the person who doesn't know the topic because the person who knows the topic
00:33:36
Speaker
knows the topic. They know it backwards and frontwards, and they have a solid idea of what that is. But then you have a fresh mind who doesn't understand the topic, who has questions, who can form new ideas, who can offer new opportunities. And people often think like, oh, it's the expert. It's like, no, sometimes it's the person that doesn't know a lot that actually can offer a lot more because their mind is more open.
00:34:06
Speaker
It's, it's less impacted by, by things that it already knows it's more open to options because it's, it's free to do so. You know, it's not constricted. So we're all students. Yeah. I mean, even on the, even on the podcast, uh, itself, I mean, there's an approach as far as collaboration I could do.
00:34:30
Speaker
And it can always be more philosophy from philosophers, but I actually don't interview philosophers. I've spent years around philosophers and I love them. But the philosophical questions, a lot of times I'm trying to ask are be like, what happens when like creators and the rest of us who are interested in these questions or what happens when you ask a question of that to a kid, ask what is art to a kid and record because you're going to get,
00:34:57
Speaker
You're going to get a lot, you know, and and so I think there's a big I think there's a piece there of like allowing access, whether it's to the questions or through the process and not necessarily having to be I'm going to cure you. Right. Because I'm sure as hell you don't want to be in that position. Right. Like I'm going to cure you. I'm going to help you go along the path. No, I'm no one's guru.
00:35:25
Speaker
I'm not hearing anybody. I want to say something else on you. I had to be, I want to tell you is,
00:35:34
Speaker
Hearing you as an artist and talking about some of your uncertainty You know, I think when artists talk about uncertainty with your with your new work I also want to tell you because you wouldn't know unless I told you my Impression of what you've done recently. I've seen for me. So I'm an audience. I appreciate your art I'm partial to your art, but I didn't see for me experiencing it. I didn't see any break any difference any question of quality any question of
00:36:05
Speaker
where you were. So when you mentioned that, which I understand being in a new form and being an artist being sensitive, I was like, Oh, okay, you're experiencing that. I didn't see any of it. I didn't see any of it. So like, as an observer of what you're doing, I didn't say, well, aren't you starting new on this type of thing? And here's where she is in proficiency. For me, it was just like another
00:36:25
Speaker
Jim, so the experience of what you're doing and you're saying, oh, everybody knows I'm a novice, everybody knows I'm new to this composition. For me, I saw your art and I saw you in it and there was no distinction. So just as far as an experience that I had. Fascinating. That's interesting. I like hearing that.
00:36:49
Speaker
So definitely feels odd and uncomfortable. So it's nice to hear different people's experience. So in your artist's mind, you'd be like, the idea of conception of I have my art in my head, everybody owns that. Everybody shares that. Right.
00:37:04
Speaker
It's just not true all the time. So thank you for your comments about the workshop and your intent. One of the things I wanted to mention as far as thematically that I've seen come about in the show, over 100 plus episodes since we talked formally on the show, is that
00:37:31
Speaker
is about kids, right? So we're talking about the element of like,
00:37:37
Speaker
trauma and healing, and humans have adverse experience, and they have glorious experience, and they have all this happen. And so we as adults, and as you mentioned, we could take your workshop, kind of work through that stuff, see how we can use our art to help us. And then there's this piece of where I've been talking to folks in early childhood artists. An example would be episode 100 with Raven Juarez.
00:38:03
Speaker
which is really a touchstone for me to have somebody whose expertise, you know, she's a practicing artist, but she's also involved in early education. And she's also involved in it from a unique perspective, as an indigenous woman. And then in that history, and it was just so remarkable to come in contact with a practicing artist who was
00:38:28
Speaker
working with young artists of ages three, four, five, six, seven, and talking about what it is that kids need from art developmentally, right? And so it was a remarkable discussion and some good ideas to say, because me, I work in K-12 education as a union rep, which is a very particular position.
00:38:54
Speaker
But I'm concerned about kids. And so I said, what do we do societally to get kids with their art, to get them working with their art younger? So your workshop when you're older, life doesn't go perfect. That's fine. But what are we doing with these young, budding, budding artists? So
00:39:18
Speaker
I was wondering if from your perspective in thinking about this issue, are there basic things you think could be in place for young kids in a system, in the school or societally, where we can say, go ahead, get that out, draw it out, express yourself. What you're going to write or draw isn't wrong. There's no wrong. Get it out.
00:39:45
Speaker
Do you have any thoughts or ideas what we can do to inculcate and help kids be the artist that they are? Boy, that's a good question.
00:39:59
Speaker
Oh, kids, they're amazing. When people ask me, who are my favorite artists, I always say kids. Because they're just not influenced yet. They just do the thing. They're not trying to impress. I mean, of course, they might try to impress their parents. But they're not trying to get their art into a gallery, or they're not trying to make a political statement. They're just coming from it in a visceral place, which is exciting.
00:40:26
Speaker
And I think in schools, it's nice that we have arts programs and music programs, which obviously are limited to certain types of schools that can afford it, unfortunately. But I think there is a lot of things that are missing in early education in general. And I talk about this a lot with the psychological aspects of the development of children. We don't teach kids. We teach kids algebra.
00:40:57
Speaker
but we don't teach kids communication. We teach kids geography, but we don't teach them how to deal with grief and loss because grandma died, my parents divorced, I lost my dog. This is left to the system of the parents
00:41:16
Speaker
to be able to do that. Now, I know as an educator myself and talking to other educators, a lot of educators do not want the responsibility of children, right? They're not their kids. They're going there for an education. There's that pushback, like, I'm not responsible for your kids. However, I do think in education, we should be offering a lot more opportunities for life skills.
00:41:42
Speaker
rather than offering opportunities to understand algebra. Algebra is great. Geography is great. Psychology is great. You know, all of these things are wonderful.
00:41:57
Speaker
But it still would be of most importance for our kids to be better educated in how to take care of themselves. How do you take care of yourself as a little person? How do you figure out who your safe people are? How do you figure out how you can communicate your needs? How do you express yourself when you're frustrated?
00:42:22
Speaker
If you think about all the bullying that happens, which is something I often talk about through different courses that I do and workshops, bullying is often a child that's being abused at home. Almost always a bully is going to come from a bully.
00:42:38
Speaker
Not saying that there isn't other alternatives and other ways that bullies show up. Sometimes their parents are amazing and they just become an asshole. You know, it is what it is. But there's something going on that is causing these behaviors. So we're dealing with bullying. And I know that people say, oh, well, bullying is a part of life and, you know, let kids toughen up and, you know, they'll be OK. Well, great. Yes, I understand you can't like protect your kid from everything.
00:43:07
Speaker
You're not going to be able to do that. People have to experience life. There's going to be bullies in life. There's going to be assholes in life. However, I was bullied growing up quite heavily, really heavily. And I almost took my life.
00:43:24
Speaker
from being bullied because I had adverse childhood issues at home. And then I would go to school. And I was being bullied at school. And I was being physically bullied. I was being beat up. I had been spit on. A lot of wonderful, lovely experiences that shaped who I am today to obviously become more empathetic. And then later, in high school, I had enough. And I ended up slamming somebody who was like twice my size. And everybody's like, oh, OK, we're good.
00:43:54
Speaker
I got my groove in there and I never used it negatively. But the point is, is no one teaches kids how to effectively deal with bullies, deal with communicating, deal with expressing themselves. I mean, I understand that kids brains aren't developed.
00:44:14
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, psychologically speaking, kids go through developmental processes through their life and you see these changes.
00:44:25
Speaker
of how they can like, first they're just really selfish and then slowly they start getting a sense of self. And there's this, you know, I'm not, I'm not, you know, deep into child psychology, but I have this understanding. So how can we look at kids and look at their developmental stages and implement things that can help them like expressive arts?
00:44:46
Speaker
So what? Go to school and draw a sphere? Great. What am I learning from that? That's wonderful. Doing something that they can do that's creative, that can help them to be well-adjusted. It's a wonder why. People are just not well-adjusted. Generally speaking, when kids get out of school and they go into college,
00:45:13
Speaker
everything that they're learning unless they have amazing parents, which most parents aren't super amazing because they're not well adjusted either because they didn't get any good education to help them do these things unless they sought it out on their own and generationally, that's also a thing.
00:45:30
Speaker
Generationally now, kids are more apt to be self-aware. I'm 42 years old. I wasn't very self-aware when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. I was like, where's the woods? I want to play. Now you have 10-year-olds out there, I don't know, petitioning for things and fighting for animal rights.
00:45:54
Speaker
You know, I was talking to my partner the other day and he said, made some comment. We were watching somebody goes, these kids, they just pretend like they're self aware. It was like some, some like, um, it was, it wasn't like real, a real thing we were watching. It was like, you know, a video, um, you know, a story and these kids were like self aware. And I said, you know, the shocking thing is, is that they actually are, you know,
00:46:17
Speaker
these younger generations are more aware and maybe they're the type of people who are going to come in and change the education system because it needs to be changed. It's awful. It's awful the amount of suicides. It's awful the amount of, you know, I mean, think about a kid going to school, getting abused and then going home and being abused. It's like, why would you want to live? You know, why would you want to live?
00:46:44
Speaker
There's zero reason to live because also children is the other thing about kids. They don't understand their mortality.
00:46:52
Speaker
I mean, I wanted to kill myself when I was 14 years old. I was like, everybody will miss me. No one's gonna miss me. But I was 14 years old. Actually, I was probably a little younger than that, probably like 12. But no one's gonna miss me. I don't know that because I don't have an adult perspective to understand my mortality. And if we're not helping kids to not take their lives,
00:47:16
Speaker
We're not doing our job. So that's a very long answer, because apparently that's just how I roll. But it's a big problem that I think we need to do, because it's so sad to see the state of the world and how the education system has not changed for hundreds of years, it feels, to me, personally. I'm not in the system, but everything that I've seen, there really hasn't been a great shift in how children and young adults are treated.
00:47:45
Speaker
And then there's this other thing I was gonna throw this out here I did a I I met up with a group that was talking about education for kids and Because I do education through Lane Arts Council here I do mentorship and stuff and there was this Workshop that I went to and it was talking about how over the years kids had no autonomy that it was like adults adults adults adults adults adults and
00:48:08
Speaker
And so trying to teach kids in education that they have autonomy. They can say no, they can say this, they can say what they like, what they don't like, rather than there's this rulership. Because that doesn't help anybody having teachers that just rule over you. They're supposed to be there to be mentors and help you gain life. And so much of these, a lot of educators, not all of them, there's plenty of
00:48:35
Speaker
beautiful amazing amazing educators like I've experienced even you know years years ago that were there to like really assist me to become a better person but there's a lot of people that are in education that are there they're like Do this do this do this. I mean when I mentor I give my kids choices and I only started doing that in the last two years and
00:48:59
Speaker
And I kid you not, I will ask the students this, would you prefer to make a choice or would you prefer for me to tell you what I want you to do? And all of them will say, I prefer for you just to give us direction because that's what they've been taught to do. And I try to encourage them that that's not the way it should be. So anyway, I'd love to say it on that.
00:49:21
Speaker
Oh, no.
Artistic Identity and Expression
00:49:22
Speaker
And it's something that I've seen, and thank you, because it's such a, I know it's a monstrous question, but it's one, it's one that I keep bumping into. And it's, it has to do with, you know, I asked the question, I've asked it in different ways, but I asked the question now is like, were you an artist when you were born, right?
00:49:42
Speaker
my implicit answer, you know, I don't always express it. I always understand that there's an artistic component to human beings when they're born. I don't know the extent of it or what it is. And if that is the case, then what do we do to cultivate healing, talents, expression, communication, those type of things. And I appreciate your thoughts on that. I have a very different, um,
00:50:09
Speaker
question and it's unique and it's not I don't think it's terribly challenging and it isn't terribly conceptual but I'm telling questions I'm just gonna say that cuz that's exactly what I said in the last podcast I remember that I remember that um
00:50:27
Speaker
So Anya, listeners don't get to peek into the beautiful art and the beautiful plants and flowers and creativity I've seen when you share your space in creative space. It's beyond lovely, beyond energetic. My question's a simple one. I find that as I've done more art and
00:50:54
Speaker
try to set up things and put up paintings in my art area and things like that. I was wondering if you had some simple tips of using your space and where you are to encourage creativity, because I see you do that a lot. Like what little, you leave stuff out in place, just for people who are saying I'm not an artist but I do bump around my place, what are your thoughts on that?
00:51:24
Speaker
That's really funny that you say that. So my environment's definitely eccentric and really crazy. I even have a place on my website under about where it says garden and studio because I kind of consider where I live to be like a performance art piece. Like I'm living in it. And so I think really, um,
00:51:47
Speaker
for people who are creative, whether or not they're artists or not, or they believe they are, but I believe everybody is an artist. I truly do. I believe every human being is artistic. They just don't know it or they've lost it. Is to really surround yourself with things that make you feel creative and often artists have a hard time with their own work, meaning
00:52:11
Speaker
They like to do it, but they have a hard time seeing it, but yet they keep it out anyway because that's their work and that's their station. And what I've learned, because I don't like looking at my work personally, and I think we talked about this in the last episode where I'm like, I'm done with it when I'm done with it. I'm good, I'm good. I don't need to see it anymore. Goodbye.
00:52:33
Speaker
is to, unless you do like your work and you like to see it, and that's great too, but that can also influence you. So I feel like it's really great to put your stuff away and to really surround yourself with other artists that you like, other things that you like, such as plants. Like I have, you know, one to probably like 25 plants in my studio, which is kind of crazy.
00:52:56
Speaker
But to me, the feeling of being in a jungle, the idea of working at a desk and being with paper feels less natural to me. I mean, it's natural, but it's got this more solid feel. So having natural elements really engages my ability to feel almost like in a meditative state. I'm almost creating out in the woods, or I'm creating out in my yard, which is something nice.
00:53:25
Speaker
And then really taking the supplies that you do have, and it doesn't matter if you have little supplies or not, and setting them up like, like they're a thing, you know, like you care about them, you care about your brushes, you care about your paints, you care about your pens, your pencils.
00:53:42
Speaker
Have it so it's somewhat organized. Make a freaking mess out of it when you're doing it. Don't get me wrong. I have pencils on the floor, shavings on my lap, shavings in my hair. One of my lap, the course that I'm filming right now, I filmed a whole video and I have pencil shavings in my hair and I just laughed at it. I was like, it is what it is. What am I going to do? But having those supplies and also the idea of doing something every day.
00:54:08
Speaker
Creativity will not find you. Motivation will not find you. It will not. You have to find it.
00:54:16
Speaker
And one of my practices is every day getting up, coming to the studio, and I don't care if it's doing a scribble, a Zentango, or however that word is, I don't even know. That thing that people do. Or it's a painting, or it's a poem, or it's something. I force myself, and yes, I'm using the word force, because sometimes I don't want to do it. Sometimes I just want to get up and I want to go to work, or I want to get up and I want to go exercise, or I don't feel that.
00:54:43
Speaker
But it's like a muscle. Creativity is just like playing the guitar. If you do not play that guitar every day,
00:54:52
Speaker
you're going to lose your ability to be able to access your creative mind. And if you're able to pick up that guitar and play a five minute song every day, you're going to create muscle memory where then your body actually starts to crave the need to be creative rather than going on this pendulum back and forth where you're like, I'm being creative. I'm really creative.
00:55:17
Speaker
And then, oh, I'm not creative. I'm not creative. Oh, I'm creative. Where it really does create this emotional instability in creatives. Because it's like, I feel creative. I don't feel creative. I feel creative. I don't feel creative. Or if I'm not creative, there's something wrong with me. I'm feeling like I'm having block. It's like, no, you're not having block. You're just not doing it. Pull the paper out and don't have expectations.
00:55:45
Speaker
pull out the pencil or the computer where you're writing your story and don't have expectations, zero expectations, you just do.
Experiencing Art: Personal and Spiritual
00:55:54
Speaker
If you decide you're gonna put blotches of watercolor all over the paper and you just mashed around with your hands, you fold the paper up and crumple it and then you open it and I'm like, okay, that's great, that is fine.
00:56:07
Speaker
That is the thing. And so taking your environment, using it as an extension of yourself and the things that inspire you, and then making sure that you try your very hardest to respect your creativity. Respect yourself as a creative person. Look at that as a part of you that your soul needs to speak. Your soul needs, that wants to do that. And it doesn't matter how ridiculous it is,
00:56:36
Speaker
just do it. Stop having pressure. I think that's the biggest thing I see with artists I've coached or when I ran the gallery. It's just there's so much pressure to perform and your studio is not a performance. Your studio is a process.
00:56:52
Speaker
Your studio is a place of peace. It is a place of learning, of experimentation, of being you without judgment of any other fucking person. And the minute someone else's judgment comes creeping into your studio, fuck that shit right there. Done.
00:57:09
Speaker
No one gets that. Unless you're a professional artist and you need to worry about all that. That's fine. Your studio space isn't for that. It's for no one else but yourself. Don't invite your kids in. Don't invite your spouse in. Unless you feel comfortable doing so. Make that space completely sacred.
00:57:27
Speaker
to you and you will learn that that space will welcome you and you'll start having a Symbiotic relationship with it where it doesn't feel like pressure where you look at a blank piece of paper and you're like fucking rad all right, I think like
00:57:46
Speaker
Somehow, I think in the last few sentences, you crystallize certain things in their very essence, in certain important rules about autonomy, about creativity, and about the space that you need.
00:58:08
Speaker
One, I had a final interesting question I want you to convey at the end about your workshops and where to find all your art that you created over time. But there was a comment I think I heard, and I was talking to you now or back before, and I've heard it a couple times.
00:58:29
Speaker
in the podcast and it's super surprising and given our conversation here I wanted to ask you what you thought about it. During one interview I was startled or a couple interviews I was startled to hear how when somebody expresses something artistically maybe it's a raw expression or maybe it's maybe it's part of your description some of your early pieces where it's like that's out there and that's revealed
00:58:57
Speaker
Is there, you're talking about creative and freedom in putting out what you need to put out. The piece I've been really interested on since I've heard those comments is when we reveal ourselves in, let's say a painting. Let's say I painted a painting. And we show something that's there.
00:59:20
Speaker
There are artists out there who can see a lot, and from you, I would say, psychologically what's going on in there, and there's like what somebody's showing. Whereas the person who's putting it together doesn't see those revelations or expressions themselves. When an artist who's attuned to seeing where somebody is in that painting,
00:59:51
Speaker
What are they identifying? What are they seeing? Do you see emotions? Do you see the person in there? How do you feel them in that painting if that occurs? That is an interesting question. I think when I look at people's work that I first often feel myself.
01:00:17
Speaker
I first often see the work through the lens of my own experience and feel it for what it has meaning to me. And I think a lot of people stop at that.
01:00:29
Speaker
right, they stop there. And then, you know, as an artist myself, I can further then look a little bit more into perhaps what they were trying to say, or what they were conveying, or if I know the artists and I know the types of bodies of work that they do create, kind of where they are in their process. Of course, this is just subjective and it's my own thoughts and feelings about where I think they are.
01:00:55
Speaker
But I don't think a lot of people really go there. I don't think a lot of people delve into the mind of what the artist was thinking. I think that's like a whole other level. I think when we experience music, when we experience art, when we experience writing, we experience it for ourselves.
01:01:14
Speaker
What does it mean to me? What can I get from this? What is the value that I can attain from what I'm seeing? Or how can I enjoy this play that I'm watching? Rather than really delving into the mind of those who have put the play together and why they decided to do this play or why the painter decided to paint this subject matter.
01:01:37
Speaker
And sometimes it's hard to dig into that because sometimes we have zero idea. As you know, when you look at art, sometimes it's very obvious the meanings behind the things. And then there's other times, like, for instance, Rothko. OK, I'm not a huge fan. Like, I get it.
01:01:55
Speaker
And if people don't know much about Rothko's work, it doesn't have a lot to it. You're talking like lying across a canvas. But when people actually go to that museum and they see Rothko's in person, people will actually cry and they will feel what is being sent across.
01:02:18
Speaker
So it's really about this ability to be open and receptive to what's there. Because if you're not willing to really look into it, you can look at abstract art and be like, well, OK, it's abstract art, whatever. But if you are more of a person that's really in touch with
01:02:35
Speaker
yourself and being willing to open yourself up to artist work and interpret it in a way that or feel their possible interpretation because we can never actually know unless an artist has written a statement about a specific work and its meaning.
01:02:53
Speaker
then, you know, people are going to miss a lot of it. And I think a lot of artists get missed because perhaps they aren't as forthright in their expressions. And so forthright in us knowing like what they're trying to say. That's kind of what I think. Yeah, but yeah, Rothko, not a fan, but I get it.
01:03:17
Speaker
I think a lot of people get it. Sad, sad person, person who took his life, a person that was living a very depressed, awful life. And if you go in, you can feel the essence on that work. It's hard not to in person feel the essence of that artist experience. And that's the other thing, seeing work in person versus seeing things digitally is very different.
01:03:45
Speaker
different experience. Thank God we can see it this way. Thank goodness we have the ability to visit museums and do these kinds of things. But really, an in-person experience of a piece is a completely different experience. Yeah, I was able to get to the Portland Art Museum and
01:04:15
Speaker
I've had this very strange experience where I know the museum and I know the pieces and I've been a member.
01:04:23
Speaker
they switched the painting. And in my head, I'm like, wait a second. That wasn't approved by me. So I'm really attached to the space. But I had the experience of two or three spots where I expected certain paintings. And somehow, each painting that they had not only surprised you, but it was just gorgeous color, huge thing. So I had this reaction to these separate spaces of just, I expect to walk by, just, hey, I'm going through the museum.
01:04:53
Speaker
And it was so fun. And the reaction I have to museums is something that I've traced and talked to people over time. And it's always in the sense of a spiritual experience or talking to artists like that's their church. Like it feels, for better or worse, formal, that there's energy, that there's feeling, that you almost want to have a revival there.
01:05:25
Speaker
So in person, truly wonderful. No, it's funny that you say that because that is something that my partner just said to me yesterday. He was like, I was talking to somebody about my process. And they said to me, it's kind of like a church. And he's like, yes, it's kind of like a church. It's spiritual.
01:05:49
Speaker
If somebody hasn't been there, it's hard to explain what that's like. But everybody has their own church. It just depends on what that is. And obviously not, when I say church, religious meaning church, but just a place that we go, we feel whole, we feel re-energized. We are able to process and feel like we're loved and we're whole. That may be alone and it may be with others.
01:06:18
Speaker
I think my thinking on this and I said it, I might've said it once before on the similarities of the experiences. I think sometimes if people are of faith and they believe in that realm, they have an experience of the sublime, something that's bigger than them, something that's ineffable, something that you can't quite understand. That could be God. And I think it could be, right? So whatever.
01:06:44
Speaker
But then you get to the art museum and you get to anybody with whatever belief system that they have. And I believe that when you have the emotional reaction or rather stand in front of the altar or you see a piece that is so deeply moving, you're experiencing the ineffable like you're experiencing the sublime.
01:07:04
Speaker
you experience what it's difficult to express with words and so I think a lot for me I've seen that like that's the analogy for the experience that I've had and when you talk to churchgoers and you talk to people love art to go to a museum there's some pretty big words they're using to try to describe their experience of like whatever that was
01:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That is that is very, very true. It's an experience like if you can really feel art and you are like really open to
01:07:38
Speaker
an experience of it rather than just being with it. Because there's that too, right? People can look at art and just kind of look at art. And then there's an experience of it. And just to be honest, I don't have formal training. I didn't grow up in a place where I had arts education as in I went to museums or I didn't. And other people in my life have.
01:08:04
Speaker
And it took me a while in my life to actually learn how to experience art rather than just being with it and looking at it, but actually experiencing it in a way that goes through you, into your gut, through your heart, basically just pierces through your body in a way that
01:08:28
Speaker
It blows your mind. And almost anybody who experiences art can tell you, I have X piece or this piece or whatever that is spoken to me. And they can remember the pieces that have really spoken to them, their truth. Because that's often what we're experiencing is our truth and the truth of others without any words, which is, like you said, ineffable. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
01:08:57
Speaker
Well, thank you. I'm excited to...
01:09:00
Speaker
as safe as possible to always head in to see physical art. Like I said, unfortunately, there's sometimes where the listeners, I get to indulge more than the listeners, because I get to look at Anya Khan's art as I'm
Conclusion and Gratitude
01:09:15
Speaker
talking. Sorry listeners, you can find it. Actually, that's a good segue, Anya. Where do they find you in your art, since I'm indulging myself in chatting with you and looking at your art? For the listeners again,
01:09:30
Speaker
What about the workshops? Where do they look for certain type of stuff that you have out there? Sure. So you can find my art.
01:09:38
Speaker
at oniacon.com. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram. I'm really active over there. I do an Art Share Friday that gets some good follows, meaning like anybody who shares their art gets a lot of support too. It's not like people supporting my art, it's a community thing that we do on my page. And then the workshops and the art and trauma related healing courses
01:10:04
Speaker
are on healingtraumacreatively.com. We also have a new Facebook page and Instagram. Most of the stuff you'll be able to find on our website. That's where you can find me. I have some stuff on YouTube. You just Google me, you'll find me. I'm around. I hang out in a lot of places.
01:10:26
Speaker
No, and I wanted to say, you know, thank you again for your time. I mean, I think I've tried to express, you know, I've appreciated your commitment to art in the community and to healing and to helping folks find their way. It's kind of why I asked a couple indulgent questions about how to live in an artful or an artist way, you know, for folks.
01:10:52
Speaker
As as we go along, so I just really as you know already. I really appreciate you In your art and even your new art. I didn't make any distinction so you can put that in your back pocket. Whatsoever qualities But really thanks for popping on the show again, and it's also you know shows been around for you know a couple years, and you know we have the ability to and
01:11:18
Speaker
you know, have the conversation that we had before and say, what was going on in the world then? And now what's going on in the world now? So yeah, we'll have to do another revisit in a few years. I, you know, I hope, yeah, I mean, what's the pace of change in the world? You might have to be a core art correspondent every two weeks. I'm not going to obligate you, but we might need it. So.
01:11:43
Speaker
Too funny. Yeah, I don't know. We may be living on Mars by the next time we do this. So I don't know. The pace of change is quite interesting. But I'm so thankful. What? I think the rich are all showing us where they're going. And I think it's another planet.
01:12:05
Speaker
Well, hey, I'll draw a painting to process my class hatred and anger towards people who are polluting the earth and then just going to leave it to go to another planet leaving us behind. I'll create a painting. I'll process all those deep emotions I have. That's right. You do that. You share it with me. I'll share it with you. The ship we wish we took.
01:12:31
Speaker
Thank you so much. I just want to let you know, like I really appreciate, this is the first time I'll say this, the first time I've revisited a podcast and got invited back for a second time. So that was exciting to listen to the previous podcast and then come back and talk about how things had shifted. And I love to see like where your podcast is gone and you should be really proud about all the episodes that you've created and the fact that you've kept this going through a pandemic and you've provided
01:13:02
Speaker
really great quality and content for people to be able to listen to and feel connected to. So you're really needed as well in this world. And it's really appreciated. I'm sure a lot of other people who listen to this appreciate you too. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for thank you for saying that I've been trying to pull through the pandemic and
01:13:27
Speaker
kind of link arms or link arms six feet apart or three feet apart. And I appreciate your words because I've, like I said, this is a public, a public healthy obsession for me to have these conversations and to
01:13:52
Speaker
allow people to think and create and to listen to your great work. Sometimes it isn't creating peace. Sometimes it's that experience of seeing that piece up on the wall that gives you some answers. So whether it's you doing it or me doing it or somebody else doing it, I really appreciate your kind words. And it is always an absolute pleasure to chat with you as well. You always go. Thank you, Ken. Appreciate it. Have a good day. Enjoy the great state of Oregon. That's right.
01:14:26
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.